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What Is Concrete Batching Plant
Concrete batching plant, also called briefly batch plant or batching plant, is a kind of construction applied equipment, specially used to combine coarse aggregates, sand, cement, and other admixture to produce homogenous concrete. The final mixture can be widely used to construct skyscrapers, sidewalks, bridges, houses, highways, airports. etc.
How many types of concrete batching plants are there? To learn about or to purchase concrete batch plants, figuring out the classification of them is undoubtedly the most primary and critical step. The classification methods of concrete plants nowadays are so diverse and complex that some confusion may arise in your mind from time to time. The following summary will help you tackle this problem.
Types of Concrete Batching Plant
Classification Basis Type A Type B
Structure Stationary Mobile
Mixing Mode Batch Continuous
Process Layout Single-stair Double-stair
Water-adding Mode Ready-mix Central-mix
Mixer Twin-shaft Horizontal Planetary Vertical
1. Based on the structure, batching plants can be divided into mobile type and stationary type.
2. In terms of the mixing mode, they can be divided into batch type and continuous type.
The currently popular concrete batching plants carry out production one batch by another, while the other type carries out continuously.
3. Based on process layout, they can be categorized into single-stair type and double-stair type.
Storage silo, weighing device, mixer of the single-stair batching plants are arranged from top to bottom. Sand, fly ash, cement, and other materials are elevated to the storage silo at one time, and then weighed, batched, and mixed until the concrete is made. This type is characterized by reasonable process flow, high productivity, but a large investment.
The storage silo and mixer of the double-stair concrete plants are roughly at the same elevation. The aggregate is firstly lifted to the storage bins, where it is cumulatively stored and separately weighed, and then sent to the mixer by an elevating bucket or belt conveyor. The materials need to be lifted twice, so the efficiency is comparably lower, but since the height of the whole complete plant is reduced, the disassembly and assembly are convenient, and the investment is smaller.
4. Based on how the final mixture is made, they can be assorted into ready-mix type and central-mix type.
Ready-mix batching plant is also called a precast concrete production plant. All elements are consolidated except for water. On the way to the job site, water is added into the transit mixer and the dry mixture gets mixed therein.
All ingredients, including water, are blended by a concrete mixer before the resultant mixture streams into the transit mixer. The central mix batch plant is hance also known as wet mix batching plant.
5. The mixer, the critical component of a concrete plant, mainly falls into the twin-shaft mixer and planetary vertical shaft mixer
Vibration mixing, the newest and simultaneously the most advanced technology, has been invented by us last year. The key point of this patented technology is that a vibrator mounted on the shafts of the conventional twin-shaft mixer, generates a vibrating force intermittently, keeping the materials vibrating during the mixing process. In this course, the solid cement mass is broken up and fully bonded with the water and aggregate. Using the vibrating mixer, the strength of concrete increases by 8%, and mixing time is shortened by 20%, actual data suggests.
How Does A Concrete Batching Plant Work
Concrete batching plant is a kind of combined device, mainly composed of main building structure, mixer, powder silo, screw conveyor, belt conveyor, weighing system, liquid supply system, gas supply system, electric control system, dust removal device, batching station, control room, used for centralized production of concrete.
Despite the difference in the size of the stationary concrete batching plants and the mobile ones, both have the same working principle.
the components of concrete batch plant
Components of Concrete Batch Plant
the flow chart of concrete batch plant
Batching Plant Process Flow Chart
Concrete Batching Plant Process Flow
How is concrete batching done in a batching plant
Batching Plant Operation Procedure
1. Load the aggregates like gravel and sand into individual storage bins, and after being weighed individually, they will be dispatched to the feeding belt conveyor, which then convey them to the weighing hopper on the top of the concrete mixer.
2. Under the control of the control system, the cement is transported to the weighing hopper by the screw conveyor; the water and additives are also transferred to their respective weighing hoppers.
3. Open the pneumatic door of the weighing hoppers; open the pneumatic butterfly valve of the cement weighing hopper, fly ash weighing hopper, and the water weighing hopper; Open the pneumatic ball valve of the additive weighing hopper.
4. Turn on all the weighing hopper vibrators and water inlet pressure pumps to make all materials enter the concrete mixer to blend evenly.
5. Once the setting time is over, the mixer will discharge the mix into a transit mixer or a concrete pump.
Please keep in mind that commonly the concrete must be prepared, transported, and then applied between 30-45 minutes, which is also known as preparatory setting time, concrete must not segregate in the whole course.
Advantages of Mobile Concrete Batching Plants
Along with the increase of the number of construction projects and the amount of concrete required, especially, more and more projects need to complete in a short time, mobile batch plants is increasingly preferred by the contractors.
the components of concrete batching plant
the flow chart of concrete batching plant
The mobile concrete batching plant is concrete production equipment that integrates the storage hopper, mixer, conveyor, weighing device, and control system into a trailer unit, having mobility performance greatly improved. Therefore, it enjoys some unique advantages.
1. With the towing design, it can be towed away easily. It is convenient to disassemble and move.
2. Manual, semi-automatic, and full-automatic options are available. Free production control, high measurement accuracy, automatic drop height adjustment.
3. Save the cost of transit mixers, reduce transportation time, and reduce concrete quality degradation caused by long-term transportation.
4. The quality and slump of the concrete can be controlled on-site, saving waste caused by substandard quality.
Batching Plant Inspection Checklist
How to check the quality of the concrete batch plant, what should be paid attention to before the first use of your concrete plant, the answers to these critical questions are summed up by us as follows.
1. Inspect the quality of the steel bars, the size of the mesh, and the accuracy of the screening when it comes to vibrating screen.
2. To see whether the work of the transmission system is active and whether there is any abnormal noise.
3. The transmission of belt conveyors, bucket elevators, and cantilever drag shovel should be stable, with no abnormal noise, no jamming.
4. Examine the flexibility and accuracy of the measurement system.
5. Observe whether the rate of temperature rise of the reducer is aligned with the qualification certificate or not.
6. Material's In and out through the measuring hopper should be smooth, with no signs of accumulation, overflow, etc.
7. The safety valve cannot show air leakage.
8. Check whether the quality of the cement tank is qualified.
9. The circuit equipment should be reasonable and accurate.
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Atomic Spectroscopy - Spectral Continuum Radiation
21. Spectral Continuum Radiation
Hydrogenic Species
Precise quantum-mechanical calculations exist only for hydrogenic species. The total power εcont radiated (per unit source volume and per unit solid angle, and expressed in SI units) in the wavelength interval Δλ is the sum of radiation due to the recombination of a free electron with a bare ion (free-bound transitions) and bremsstrahlung (free-free transitions):
$$\begin{eqnarray*} \epsilon_{\rm cont}&=&
\frac{\epsilon^6}{2\pi\, \epsilon_0^3 (6\pi\, m_{\rm e})^{3/2}}~
N_{\rm e}\, N_Z\, Z^2 \times \frac{1}{(kT)^{1/2}} ~
\exp \left(- \frac{hc}{\lambda kT}\right)~ \frac{\Delta\lambda}{\lambda^2}\\
&~&\times \left\{\frac{2Z^2\, I_{\rm H}}{kT} ~
\sum_{n\geq(Z^2 \,I_{\rm H}\, \lambda/hc)^{1/2}}^{n^\prime}~
\frac{\gamma_{\rm fb}}{n^3}~ \exp\left(\frac{Z^2 \, I_{\rm H}}{n^2kT}\right)
+ \bar\gamma_{\rm fb}
\left[\exp\left(\frac{Z^2 \,I_{\rm H}}{(n^\prime+1)^2\, kt}\right)
-1\right] + \gamma_{\rm ff} \right\} \quad, \end{eqnarray*}$$
where Ne is the electron density, NZ the number density of hydrogenic (bare) ions of nuclear charge Z, IH the ionization energy of hydrogen, n′ the principal quantum number of the lowest level for which adjacent levels are so close that they approach a continuum and summation over n may be replaced by an integral. (The choice of n′ is rather arbitrary; n′ as low as 6 is found in the literature.) γf b and γf f are the Gaunt factors, which are generally close to unity. (For the higher free-bound continua, starting with n′ + 1, an average Gaunt factor $$\overline{\gamma}_{f b}$$ is used.) For neutral hydrogen, the recombination continuum forming H - becomes important, too [35].
In the equation above, the value of the constant factor is 6.065 × 10-55 W m4 J1/2 sr-1. [Numerical example: For atomic hydrogen (Z = 1), the quantity εcont has the value 2.9 W m-3 sr-1 under the following conditions: λ = 3 × 10-7 m; Δλ = 1 × 10-10 m; Ne (= NZ=1) = 1 × 1021 m-3; T = 12 000 K. The lower limit of the summation index n is 2; the upper limit n′ has been taken to be 10. All Gaunt factors
$$\gamma_{fb},~ \overline{\gamma}_{f b}~, \gamma_{ff}$$
have been assumed to be unity.]
Many-Electron Systems
For many-electron systems, only approximate theoretical treatments exist, based on the quantum-defect method (for results of calculations for noble gases, see, e.g., Ref. [36]). Experimental work is centered on the noble gases [37]. Modifications of the continuum by autoionization processes must also be considered.
Near the ionization limit, the f values for bound-bound transitions of a spectral series (n′ → ∞) make a smooth connection to the differential oscillator strength distribution df/ in the continuum [38].
Created October 3, 2016, Updated June 2, 2021 |
Fundamentals of sound source localization
When attempting to solve noise issues or perfecting the acoustic design of a product, engineers sometimes struggle to find out the origin of the acoustic problem. Where exactly does the sound come from? Sound source localization is a technique to localize and visualize sound at the source, using a microphone array. It is a reliable method to ensure that you spot the exact source of noise disturbance and thus can take the appropriate countermeasures.
Sound source localization lets you accelerate your acoustic troubleshooting by confirming that you are always working on the actual noise issue. Compared to traditional methods, sound source localization with microphone arrays bring the advantage of real-time sound visualization, with a single measurement. And thanks to the emergence of new technologies like digital microphones, sound source localization solutions now become faster and easier to use, as well as more affordable to acquire.
We invite you to a webinar that discusses how ultra-fast and accurate sound source localization (SSL) can support accelerated acoustic troubleshooting. Attendees will come away with a solid understanding of the basics of SSL, its tools and criteria, and helpful applications and use cases. |
Diabetes management nursing diagnosis
What is type 2 Diabetes?
Your body still breaks down carb from your food and drink and turns it into glucose when you have type 2 diabetes. The pancreas then reacts to this by releasing insulin. Because this insulin can’t work properly, your blood sugar levels keep increasing. This implies more insulin is launched.
For some people with type 2 diabetes this can eventually tire the pancreas out, suggesting their body makes less and less insulin. This can result in even higher blood glucose levels and suggest you are at danger of hyperglycaemia.
Is type 2 diabetes severe?
Handling type 2 diabetes
Knowing how to live with type 2 diabetes can be tough, however we’ll help you to discover what works for you. Some individuals can manage it through healthier eating, being more active or reducing weight. But eventually most individuals will require medication to bring their blood glucose to their target level.
Can type 2 diabetes be cured?
Treatments for type 2 diabetes
There are a variety of various ways you can treat type 2 diabetes, such as making healthy lifestyle options, utilizing insulin or taking medication. Your healthcare team will help you to discover the ideal treatment for you. This can lower your risk of developing complications and help you to live well with diabetes.
Indications and signs of type 2 diabetes.
When you have type 2 diabetes your body can’t get enough glucose into your cells, so a common symptom is feeling really tired. There are likewise other symptoms to keep an eye out for. These include sensation thirsty, going to the toilet a lot and slimming down without trying to.
Some individuals also do not think the signs are necessary, so do not request help. This indicates some people can live for as much as ten years with type 2 diabetes prior to being identified.
Danger elements of type 2 diabetes.
There are numerous aspects that can impact your threat of developing type 2 diabetes. Since the symptoms of type 2 diabetes are not constantly obvious, it’s truly essential to be familiar with these risk aspects. They can consist of:
• your age
• Sibling, sibling or kid with diabetes if you have a moms and dad
• your ethnic culture
• hypertension
• being obese
Freshly identified with type 2 diabetes.
Understanding where to start following a type 2 medical diagnosis can be a difficulty. You may feel overloaded, but it is very important to understand there isn’t a one-size fits all technique to managing the condition.
Whether you are recently identified, looking to improve your diabetes management, or in need of details to support others, we are here to help. We have actually got lots more information about:
Preventing type 2 diabetes
Did you understand that around 3 in 5 cases of type 2 diabetes can be avoided or postponed? Our details about avoiding type 2 will show you the steps you can require to minimize your danger of developing the condition.
Checking your blood sugar level levels
Coping with type 2 diabetes
Having type 2 diabetes can bring up lots of questions about your way of life, but we’re here with the responses. From dietary guidance and recipes to help you understand what to eat when you have type 2 diabetes, to guidance about keeping active and remaining fit– we’re here to support you.
We’ve also got more details for various age groups, such as youths and older people, as well as useful school recommendations for parents of children with diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is also connected with other health conditions, such as thyroid illness and oral issues. It is essential to be familiar with these, so make certain to read our details about diabetes associated conditions.
Your feelings
Type 2 diabetes is a complex condition, and it might look like there’s a great deal of information to take in. We have actually got emotional support and recommendations that you may discover practical if you’re feeling anxious or stressed out.
Diabetes innovation
For some individuals, handling their diabetes with technology can be life-altering. However we likewise understand it can be overwhelming if you’re unsure where to begin. Our info and guidance about diabetes technology will assist you comprehend what the different kinds of tech do and how to access them, so you can discover what works for you.
Research study into type 2 diabetes
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Musician Earplugs
Exposure to loud music is one of the leading causes of noise-induced hearing loss. Musicians spend many hours practicing and performing and depend on good hearing in order to compose their music. Unfortunately, consistent exposure to loud music carries a high price.
Damaging sounds can lead to a host of hearing disorders including long-term hearing loss, tinnitus and more. Musician earplugs can help prevent noise-induced hearing loss while allowing musicians to enjoy the music and reduce their risk of developing permanent hearing damage.
What Makes Musician’s Earmolds Different?
Musician Earplugs in san diego
Unlike traditional earplugs that block out noise, resulting in music and speech that is muffled or distorted, musician’s earplugs are high-fidelity, meaning they reduce sound levels evenly while keeping the original quality of the music intact. This translates to music and speech that is clear and natural, and allows musicians to hear their own instruments and how well they blend in with the other band members.
Musician earplugs are made up of a diaphragm and earmold that work together to produce attenuation (reduction in sound) that is smooth and flat across the entire frequency range. Many feature interchangeable attenuators that provide multiple levels of sound reduction for different listening situations (e.g., private rehearsals vs. full-scale concerts).
They can be used in place of loudspeaker monitoring systems, which typically crowd the stage and increase noise levels significantly. Despite their name, these earplugs aren’t solely for the use of musicians; they also benefit concertgoers, allowing them to enjoy live performances while protecting their hearing. Musician earplugs can be used in other noisy environments such as airshows and sporting events.
Contact San Diego Hearing Center for more information or to schedule an appointment. |
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Rhythm and rhyme: now’s the time
Sharing rhymes can be a lovely alternative to singing, while still being beneficial to babies' development.
As singing is discouraged in public during the Coronavirus pandemic, now is the perfect time to build some spoken rhymes into your sessions.
What makes a rhyme?
Rhymes have lots of the benefits of songs but while songs are sung, rhymes are spoken or chanted. Rhymes tend to be shorter than songs, and usually have a strong rhythm with lots of repetition which makes for easy learning.
Children’s rhymes generally have sounds which 'match' in the final syllables or final words and at the end of a line. For example:
Round and round the garden like a teddy bear
One step two step, tickly under there!
Rhymes have been around for centuries and we humans love them!
Why share rhymes with babies and young children?
Rhymes Are FUN!
Far and away, the best thing about rhymes is that they are great fun! Rhymes often involve tickling and laughing which give us a boost of 'happy hormones' (or oxytocin).
Go bananas in Bananas Unite(this will open in a new window) or build up to the tickle in Round and Round the Garden(this will open in a new window) to get the oxytocin flowing!
We all love rhymes because their rhythm and sound patterns are so pleasing to the ear and enjoyable to join in with. This makes them easier to remember too. For those families who feel inhibited by singing, rhymes can allow them to let go of that fear and have some fun.
Rhymes help brain development
Even while having fun, children’s brains are working hard. When you share a rhyme with a child they are learning lots of the building blocks for communication:
Think about how many of these benefits are included in a simple rhyme like, One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato Four(this will open in a new window). It’s impressive how even the simplest of counting rhymes can have so much going on behind the scenes!
Rhymes are interactive
Little ones can’t stop themselves joining in with the rhyming words in rhymes and stories. When you say a rhyme, you naturally slow down and leave a gap which allows them to jump in with the rhyme:
Two fat sausages sizzling in a pan, one went POP and the other went…
Unleash your creativity and adapt or make up a simple rhyme to share in your Bookbug Sessions. It’s a sure-fire way to keep a wee one’s attention and get families involved.
How about:
Two little butterflies sitting by the shed
One called Mia and one called Fred?
You can even help wee ones learn new ideas by including them in a rhyme. Children are guaranteed to join in with 'LOUD' in this simple rhyme:
Two little dickybirds sitting on a cloud
One called quiet (shhh!) and one called... LOUD!
We hope you’ll be inspired to share more rhymes in your Bookbug Sessions - we’ve done some of the work for you and created some Bookbug Session Plans (this will open in a new window)featuring some of our favourite rhymes and a fun rhyming story to share. They are bursting full of action and counting rhymes, tickle and touch rhymes and a calming rhyme near the end. |
Queen Elizabeth II Biography, Life, Interesting Facts
Queen Elizabeth II
Birthday :
April 21, 1926
Also Known For :
Birth Place :
Mayfair, London, United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign :
Queen Elizabeth II takes an honor of ruling the Monarch for 63 years that made her pass the longest record in British history. She is a respected and loved figure across the continent. Her phenomenal reign has seen her travel extensively than any other Monarch leader. Rightly known for her unique sense of devotion and beauty, the Queen has made a remarkable stance both in the UK and Commonwealth.
Queen Elizabeth II still comes with enough strength to control the monarchy at the age of 90. She loves to carry out different program arrangements such as visiting charities, leading the nation in celebratory events among others. Another member of the Royal Family takes a course of helping her on the way.
Childhood and Early Life
On 21, April 1926 Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Elizabeth learned French, history, mathematics, and geography at her family’s home. She loved to spend her free time dancing and singing. Her comfortable life took a turn when her great-grandfather King George V passed away.
In 1936 her uncle Edward VIII took over the throne. He loved Wallis Simpson who was an American divorcee. According to Monarch rules, Edward had to either choose her lover or the crown. He married Simpson and Elizabeth’s II parents took their stance.
Early in 1942 Princess Elizabeth became the Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards. She obliged to take the course at the age of 16 where she made her first public assignation. Her duties became a daily routine where she used to accompany the Queen and King on their live tours around Britain. Princess Elizabeth visited Kenya on 6 February 1952. Unfortunately; she received the news of her father’s demise as well as her new rank to the throne. On 2 June 1953 at the age of 25 Princes Elizabeth coronation service took place in Westminster Abbey.
World War II and Military Service
The World War II took place when in London where Queen Elizabeth II and her sister moved to Balmoral Castle. They spent their Christmas at the Castle until 1939. The two were sent to Sandringham House in Norfolk. Princess Elizabeth stayed at the Royal Lodge, Windsor and then later went to Windsor Castle where she lived for several years.
On July 1944 Queen Elizabeth II served as the Counselor of State when her father, King George VI took other significant works in Italy. In 1945 Elizabeth II was chosen to lead the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. She received an opportunity and trained as a mechanic, driver, and after few months she was elected as the Commander of the regiment.
Queen Elizabeth II Monarch Rule
During a Conservative Party standoff, the queen received the recognition of appointing the supreme leader of the party. In 1957 Queen Elizabeth toured the United States where she addressed the United Nations General Assembly as well holding Commonwealth representative chair. She also went to Ghana and launched a 23rd Canadian alignment.
From the 1960s to 70s, the Caribbean and African countries were becoming centralized states. Queen Elizabeth II didn’t want to interfere with any constitutional law. In the process, her decision speeded up the Australian republication.
In 1991 Queen Elizabeth II took a chance and addressed the United States Congress in celebration of the 1991 Gulf War victory. She will be remembered as the first ruler to have been given an honor. The word ‘annus horribilis’ means a horrible year. It is the term that Queen Elizabeth II used in 1992.
It was daunting for her and other Royal Family. It is when her second son, Prince Andrew died, and later the Duke of New York parted ways with his wife. The same year Fire raged her favorite castle-Windsor in wee hours. She was devastated by losing thousands of great arts.
In 2002 Queen Elizabeth II went on a tour to celebrate her Golden Jubilee as a monarch. In 2012 Queen Elizabeth opened Paralympic Games and Olympic. The same year she celebrated her ‘Golden Jubilee’ as the Queen of England. In 2013 Queen Elizabeth took an honor of participating at the Peace-time Cabinet meeting where she became the first sovereign to do so after King George III.
In 1991 Queen Elizabeth escaped death while riding a horse in a parade when she was shot by a teenage boy, Marcus Sergeant. The same year, a young man tried to break into her bedchamber. Luckily she didn’t get any injuries in any of the two incidents. In 1997 after Princess Diana’s death, her silence spread a negative rumor that she didn’t want to give a public funeral sentiment.
Personal Life
Queen Elizabeth got married to Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece, known as her second cousin on 20 November 1947. The couple was blessed with four children. Prince Charles was born on 14 November 1948. After few years Princess Anne was born, then Prince Andrew in 1960 and her fourth child, Prince Edward was born in 1964. In 1969 Queen Elizabeth named Prince Charles as her successor. In 1981 Princes Charles married Diana Spencer.
Her effort came to be recognized when she received an honorary BAFTA award. Even though she used to travel overseas and many countries, the monarch longest ruler doesn’t hold a passport under her name. She also loves dogs as well as reading mystery novels. During her recreation time, Queen Elizabeth likes to watch wrestling on television.
April 21 Horoscope
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• The Law Gazette
The Plight of the Stateless: Refugees and COVID-19
– UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi
Disbelief, anger, sadness, acceptance and hope were the five stages of emotions that the world experienced as the virus pushed large parts of the globe into a lockdown. Most countries in the world were closed, with increased border and immigration restrictions and travel bans, but the virus knew no borders, language or barriers. The pandemic had adversely affected those who had the least, that is, the people from the most vulnerable sections of the society. Due to the various restriction measures adopted by different governments around the world; the refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people (IDPs) and migrant workers were the most vulnerable sections and, therefore, they became the worst affected by this pandemic. People were forcibly displaced while the world was combating the virus. The pandemic unveiled the brutal socio-economic inequalities in the society. Food insecurities, limited access to hygiene, poor social distancing measures, inequality and penurious living conditions in refugee camps are amplifying the threat posed by the virus. With the closure of schools, churches, temples and mosques; many in these communities have even lost their traditional support networks.
Refugee camps across Africa, Middle East and Asia are packed with traumatized and malnourished people with limited access to basic sanitation, which then becomes breeding grounds for various contagions. Physical distancing is very difficult, in overcrowded camps and dense urban settings, when people live side-by-side in small-congested shelters with their extended family. Queuing for water and food increases the risks of contamination. In these settings, preventative measures become impossible. In such places, doctors have witnessed patients die from what looks like the corona virus but are unable to treat them as they lack beds, medical kits and professionals. Illnesses from viral fever to deadly diseases go untreated.
The crisis has received a lot of coverage, especially the still developing South-east Asia. Such are the conditions in the Rohingya refugee camps situated in Bangladesh. Around 800,000 Rohingya refugees are under threat in the two refugee camps — Teknaf and Kutupalong, which were set up in Bangladesh in 2017 after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled their country.[1] Life was already a struggle for many of the 2,09,234 forcibly displaced people in India including 1,10,095 from Tibet, 64,689 from Sri Lanka, 18,914 from Myanmar, and the remaining from other small nations, but the pandemic has made their survival even more unsteady.[2]
Almost all of the refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people (IDPs) live in small make-shift shelters built with bamboo and tarpaulins. The camps are overcrowded and lack many basic amenities, such as clean drinking water and sanitary facilities. Currently, the international organizations such as UN, UNHCR, and IOM are accentuating on equipping the local hospitals with at least some resources to tackle the potential outbreaks of COVID-19. These humanitarian agencies are putting in their best possible efforts to tackle the situation in the camps, but the task at hand is colossal. Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, also known as R4R, a non-governmental organization working for Rohingya welfare across India, says that the situation in the camps across Delhi-NCR is precarious. The testing centers had begun requesting proof of address for the purposes of contact tracing, which refugees without formal rental agreements do not have. With lockdown restrictions preventing the UNHCR staff from being physically present in the communities, the UNHCR has been relying on community-based refugee volunteers in order to distribute aid and monitor needs.
In India, the internal and external migrants together created a refugee crisis that the State was not prepared to handle. The condition of migrant workers in India was highlighted when thousands of migrant workers were fleeing possible starvation in cities, trekking hundreds of kilometers to try and reach the safety of their home villages during the nationwide lockdown. Battling hunger and fatigue, the daily wage earners of all ages trudged along in the heat, driven by the prospect of reaching home. Many of these refugees are employed in the unorganized sector and, due to the lockdown, the people working in this sector are no longer able to earn a livelihood. Those who survive on daily wages had no savings to stock up on essential goods.
Furthermore, the temporary suspension of UNHCR’s refugee status determination (RSD) activities during the lockdown has severely affected the asylum seekers whose cases are still pending as well as those who have not yet registered with UNHCR. Refugee Camps in the National Capital Region of Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana etc. are at a high risk for contracting Covid-19, as they live in extremely cramped quarters with very limited access to public healthcare facilities. The nationwide lockdown in India had hit the migrant workers particularly hard and, once travel restrictions were lifted, 11 million interstate migrants returned home. Bihar’s migrant workers returned to cities as rural employment schemes fell short. Many complain that the payments under MGNREGS have been delayed for months and the government has failed to provide the required help to the internal refugees in States such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The 116 districts under the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan; a new job scheme to help the migrant labourers during the lockdown suggests that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the worst affected States due to reverse migration.[3]
In order to address these issues, it is important to determine the population of refugees. Mass campaigns need to be organized by the interest groups and non-governmental organizations with the help of the government to raise awareness among them regarding the virus and how they can protect themselves. For these ill-protected refugees, basic amenities like soaps and masks are luxury, therefore, ground level initiatives are required which should include a relief package including food ration, basic sanitation needs (soaps and face-masks). Access to healthcare and spraying disinfectants in slums, refugee camps and asylums by the local municipal corporations should be carried out at regular intervals. The New Trade Union in Delhi’s Khajuri Khas has initiated the drive collecting funds for food and rations. About 80 families of Rohingya refugees are being looked after by a local peasant’s organization in DeraBassi, Punjab. Several NGOs and individuals across the country have contributed to the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative.
India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, neither has it evolved a legislative definition of the term “refugees”. The pandemic pushed the refugees living in India to the brink. The countries most vulnerable are dealing with the growing burden of rent, lack of savings, absence of job opportunities and healthcare facilities, increasing racial discrimination and the fear of contracting the virus. Apart from physical health, refugees and migrants are reported with increasing mental health issues due to fear of infection, stigma, loss of livelihoods and uncertainty about the future. Less than 10% of refugees in the country have work visa. Most end up working in the informal sector as laborers if they are uneducated, or as translators and guides at tourist sites if they know more than two languages. Most of these jobs have been lost to the pandemic. None of the social protection packages offered by the government for daily wagers have provisions for non-citizens. Indispensable support is required to ensure the availability of psychosocial services for refugees and those displaced.
To mitigate the impact of the pandemic, the governments around the globe should implement safety measures such as declaring face-masks and sanitizers as essential commodities, announcing a relief package to address the urgent needs of the refugees and the ones who are in need of assistance. There is need for setting up new help lines to extend assistance remotely in refugee camps and asylums as the refugee women are typically reluctant to approach government authorities to prevent gender-based domestic violence due to their obscure legal status and fear of retribution within their communities. Also, to limit overcrowding in prisons, correctional/protection homes and detention centers for refugees wrongfully detained for ‘illegal’ entry should be maintained. The governments must establish committees to determine whether any prisoners, people on trial or ‘illegal immigrants’ could be released.
Within the already vulnerable and displaced refugees, women and girls have become more susceptible to vulnerabilities now. Due to the prevailing gender norms in our societies, women are often the ones to be the most adversely affected. Cultural norms, underrepresentation, lack of education, limited financial independence and a host of other factors further marginalize them socially, politically, and economically. Worldwide, women perform three times more unpaid care giving work than men. Refugee and other displaced women do not escape these social norms.[4] They take care of the children and elderly family members, and manage the household. These responsibilities further increase as people become sick, putting women and girls at heightened risk of becoming infected during a healthcare emergency.
Furthermore, having a source of income is critical for refugee women, especially for those who are also the heads of their households. Owing to the lockdown, all over the world, the economic opportunities are disappearing for women and they are struggling to make ends meet. Women and girls also have specific healthcare needs that are crucial to their safety, health and well-being. There has also been a rise in domestic violence, worsened by refugee women’s inability to access existing support systems. The current crisis makes it all the more difficult for women to seek help as medical facilities around the world scramble to respond to the virus.
In families whose economic difficulties are exacerbated by the displacement, parents choose not to educate their daughters. By forcing schools to close, the pandemic jeopardizes the education of the more than 740 million girls who are less likely to opt for homeschooling or re-enrollment. Education is the supreme tool for empowering women as it can deliver knowledge, skill and confidence, which would enable them to fight for their rights. It is essential to adapt to the contemporary teaching methods and adopt online mode of teaching to ensure that women, girls, and youth still have access to education during the lockdown. Teaching students virtually, recording video lessons, and sending them to their parents to assist the students with their homework are how this task is being carried out.
The refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people (IDPs) and migrant workers are at heightened risk with limited access to mainstream services and support because of their indeterminate legal status and the rapidly deteriorating protection environment. Therefore, skills, leadership and resilience are the need of the hour to emerge from this crisis and build back better. With the help of political and financial support of the nations in the current global crises, the protection of the refugees can be ensured.
In many countries, governments have unnecessarily detained people seeking asylum, putting them at risk of contracting the virus. Amnesty International is calling on governments to provide adequate food, water supplies and health care to camps and ensure that relief packages and protections are given to asylum seekers and refugees.[5] The organization has also asked countries to consider temporary regularization of all migrants, regardless of their documentation status. The governments are, therefore, under international pressure to uphold the right to seek asylum under the principle of non-refoulement. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UNHCR have signed a new agreement in order to strengthen and advance the public health services for the millions of forcibly displaced people around the world.[6] The key aim this year is to support ongoing efforts to protect some 70 million displaced people from contracting the COVID-19 infection. The European Union can establish a definite and powerful response towards the troubling situation. European Union Pact on Migration and Asylum provides an opportunity for the European Union to protect the forcibly displaced people in Europe and abroad, and also support host countries.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHRC) plays a crucial role in co-operating with the European Union to ensure that access to asylums by determining who needs international protection and who does not.[7] The effective support mechanisms would help to demonstrate that public well-being can be protected through quarantines and regular heath check-ups. The International Organization for Migration an United Nations agency, that aims towards migration in an orderly and humane manner that benefits migrants and society, has launched a social media campaign in Mexico to create awareness on respecting the rights of migrants, avoid hate speeches towards them and address the concerns of the United Nations system over the impact of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable groups, i.e., low income groups, migrants and refugees.[8]
The aim of the campaign is to reach out to populations in those communities where there are migrant shelters, safe houses, or temporary camps for people on the move. The health and socio-economic consequences of the pandemic are affecting the forcibly displaced disproportionally with adverse implications on their protection. This brief examines some of the policy options that are currently being considered: (i) to ensure that international regulations on refugee protection are applied; (ii) the forcibly displaced are included in the national and international health policies and programmatic responses; (iii) that adequate response measures are financed and implemented.
As the pandemic continues to shatter our world, the “have-nots” are the ones who are being affected the most. While the State and civil society groups are helping these asylum seekers, there needs to be more intervention by the government to ensure their safety and well-being. This includes regularly discussing their needs and priorities with them, and developing solutions together. It is essential to first of all identify these groups and ensure that they benefit from the various programs and initiatives of the government during this healthcare emergency. The governments, agencies, representatives and the citizens need to work together in order to provide a better tomorrow for them.
No matter how poor someone is, what their gender or ethnicity is or which part of the world they come from as human beings; every person is entitled to a good life where justice prevails. Prejudicial behavior against them must be addressed; the police and the local health authorities should not become accessories of stigmatization against these individuals, especially since they have had almost all of their rights trampled, had their homes burned down, relatives murdered, their citizenship denied and have been forced to leave their own country by their own government. There needs to be more social solidarity, caring for those who are vulnerable, all the while ensuring physical distancing. The UN Secretary-General has expressed hope that the COVID-19 crisis will lead to a rethinking of how the world supports refugees, migrants and internally displaced people.
ENDNOTES [1] A.Z.M. Anas, Rohingya scapegoated as Bangladesh battles COVID-19, (July 7, 2020), https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Rohingya-scapegoated-as-Bangladesh-battles-COVID-19. [2] UNHRC Fact Sheet India,(2016, February), https://www.unhcr.org/50001ec69.pdf. [3] Livemint, Lockdown Impact: Over 41 lakh migrant workers return to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, (June 22, 2020), https://www.livemint.com/news/india/lockdown-impact-over-41-lakh-migrant-workers-return-to-uttar-pradesh-bihar-11592800284093.html. [4] The Hindu, Refugee women facing greater violence risk during corona virus crises, (April 20, 2020), https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/refugee-women-facing-greater-violence-risk-during-crisis-unhcr/article31386348.ece. [5] Amnesty International, Ignored by COVID-19 responses, refugees face starvation, (May 13, 2020), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/05/refugees-and-migrants-being-forgotten-in-covid19-crisis-response/. [6] World Health Organization, How WHO is supporting refugees and migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, (May 28, 2020), https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/how-who-is-supporting-refugees-and-migrants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic. [7] UNHRC India, UNHRC issues recommendations for EU to ensure refugee protection during the pandemic and beyond, (July 1, 2020), https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/7/5efb7e544/unhcr-issues-recommendations-eu-ensure-refugee-protection-during-pandemic.html. [8] IOM UN Migration, IOM launches Social Media Campaign in Mexico to prevent discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic, (April 14, 2020), https://www.iom.int/news/iom-launches-social-media-campaign-mexico-prevent-discrimination-during-covid-19-pandemic.
This blog has been authored by Saptaparni Majumdar, who is pursuing M.A. Criminology with Specialisation in Forensic Psychology & Krupa Nishar, who is an Assistant Professor at National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar. |
Evaluating the risks of business
Entrepreneurs are faced with constant challenges and decisions that often involve taking risks. While risk-taking can be a necessary part of running a new business, entrepreneurs need to make informed and thoughtful choices to avoid unnecessary damage to the business.
To manage risk effectively, entrepreneurs need to be proactive in identifying and responding to risks before a crisis strikes.
Identify risks
The first step to managing risks well is identifying them. Both tangible and intangible items can pose risks for your business. Entrepreneurs may find it easy to list the physical items at risk such as assets and infrastructure, yet may neglect intangibles such as injury to staff, loss of important business information, fraud, product recalls, supply chain disruptions and so forth.
Calculate your risks
Once the risks have been identified they should be ranked on the likelihood of occurrence and the severity of consequence it might impose on the business. This risk criteria helps to form a risk rating which can rank the risk from low to extreme. The risk rating helps you to determine what risks need more time, attention and resources.
Manage your risks
Finally, the risks need to be managed effectively. There are four ways of managing risk including avoiding the risk, transferring the risk, reducing the risk and accepting the risk. Avoiding the risk is not always the best or viable solution. Transferring risk is a common way of avoiding damage as the risk is no longer your problem, for example insurance and product warranties.
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Different Methods of Learning
Children learn in different ways. Most children love to play, and play interaction is a great way for children to learn. Children are very intelligent and observe and pickup things that we as adults don’t always pay attention to. If they are surrounded by good desirables events, they learn good desirable things, if they are surrounded by bad or undesirable events, they learn those. Our goal is to build better citizens for tomorrow and we teach children not just the academics, but also to be better are sharing, collaborating, accommodating and competing.
There are many different philosophies for learning. Each has its own strengths, so it is hard to argue that any one method is great or any one method is bad, because it depends on the needs of the child, the environment they are in, parent’s expectations and support and many other factors. However, while individual needs can be adjusted to, most centers will have some central philosophy they believe in, and organize their learning outcomes around that. Religion based programs are one common philosophy that we see in day cares, Montessori is another, while others have STEM focus.
Additionally, some learning philosophies rely on repetition, some on interaction and others on engagement. We at Village believe in learning through play. We used guidance from Collaborative for Children to design different play centers, each with its own unique theme that teaches children some critical underlying concept. We believe that learning that feels natural, not imposed has more lasting impact. When children learn while playing, it feels natural to them and stays with them. We follow structured curriculum to ensure progression and completion of concepts, so that children are better prepared for the next level as they grow.
Our experience with inclusive care allows us to identify unique needs of each child and make adjustments accordingly to make them more successful. In the end, even the best philosophy and methodology is useless if the caregiver is not vested and engaged. We are blessed to have some great people on our staff that genuinely care about the children and their success, and that makes all the difference in the world.
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No. of Recommendations: 6
The Spanish Flu had a death rate of 50%. Covid-19 death rate by comparison is 2.8%. A dramatic difference!
A. Not true
B. It would be another 50 years until the concept of ICUs began to be widely adapted (with success).
C. Without the level of care provided today, as compared to 1919, at least five million lives have been spared that would otherwise fill morgues.
D. The vaccine has cut short thousands of deaths, which was not available for the Spanish Flu
E. The Spanish Flu had a very high mortality rate among children under 2.
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Next-generation Optimization for Manufacturers with Artificial Intelligence
There’s no doubt that the manufacturing sector is leading the way in the application of artificial intelligence technology. From making the most of available time to improving the design of products, manufacturers are applying AI-powered analytics to data to improve productivity, product quality, and the safety of employees.
How will AI Have an Impact on Manufacturing?
The manufacturing industry has consistently been open to adopting new technologies. Remarkably, drones and industrial robots have been a part of the manufacturing industry since the 1960s, and advancements in technology have been at the forefront of each industrial revolution.
With the adoption of AI, companies can keep inventories lean and reduce overall cost. The good news for manufacturing is that as a result of the adoption of AI, there is high probability the manufacturing industry will experience exponential growth. In order to do so, companies in the manufacturing industry will need to gear up networked factories where supply chain, design team, production line, and quality control are vastly integrated into an intelligent engine that provides actionable insights.
What’s Driving the Urgency to Adopt AI?
There are a number of driving factors that add to the urgency of adopting artificial intelligence. A few of the main reasons that the manufacturing industry is shifting its attention to AI:
1. Automating the process of finding cost savings
2. Shortening production times
3. Increased need for customized goods
4. Managing high revenue instability
5. Adapting to evolving compliance standards
Since the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (or Industry 4.0), automation of traditional manufacturing processes using machine-to-machine (M2M) and the internet of things (IoT) has increasingly become the norm. With manufacturing consistently evolving, the urgency to adapt has been fuelled like never before.
How Can AI Help Manufacturing?
What does the Future Look Like for Manufacturing?
The future of manufacturing looks promising. With the abundance of solutions making the development process easier on manufacturers, there are many AI-integrated advancements that will provide solutions for the issues manufacturers face today. The capabilities of AI integrations include:
1. The ability for machines to detect defects throughout the production process.
2. The ability to deploy predictive maintenance to reduce downtime.
3. Respond to real-time changes in demand across the supply chain.
4. Validate whether intricate goods, like microchips, have been produced without error.
5. Reduce costs of small-batch or single-run goods, enabling greater customization.
6. Improve employee satisfaction by shifting routine tasks to machines.
For years, robotics, advanced analytics, and automation have been a major part of the manufacturing industry. The growing scale of adoption of AI in manufacturing seems more like an evolution, rather than an industry interruption. New and emerging technologies are already here and more massive implementation is a matter of time.
To get the most out of an artificial intelligence solution, manufacturers need to know which AI solution is best suited for their own unique sets of challenges.
At Dash Technologies, we make sure our clients get the artificial intelligence solutions they need. To see how Dash can help you with your AI development integration, check out the services we can offer your business:
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I have compiled the following article of pure historical events as they relate to the Christian religion. Can you please proof read it and critique it? I believe it to be 100% accurate. Please let me know.
Normally, I do not like to get into one denomination versus another denomination as this is definitely NOT the purpose of this web site. In fact, this is the opposite of what we seek to do at ARS. We are trying to bring people together in any way we can. Nevertheless, the series of 31 questions below sent in by a Catholic apologist have enough which might be of interest to our readers that I am publishing them.
John Oakes
1. Historical Fact: The Christian Bible commands Christians to “Test Everything.” 1 Thess 5:21-22
Technically, this is not a "historical" fact, but it is true that the scriptures tell us to test everything, including the traditions which have been created by the Catholic Church and Protestant churches as well, against the teachings of the Bible.
2. Logic Fact: If an idea/doctrine was invented in the last few hundred years, it is impossible for the idea to have existed in antiquity. This would violate the “Law of non-contradiction.” For example, the electric light bulb did not exist in antiquity. It was invented in the last few hundred years. To claim for example, that “the Apostles wrote scripture by electric lights” is logically impossible for the light bulb did not exist in antiquity. It violates the “Law of non-contradiction:” where something new is at the same time old.
I agree this is logical and consistent. This is a good argument for rejecting such bogus teachings as original sin, sinner’s prayer, and many Protestant teachings you believe are innovations. Again, I do not think this is a historical fact, but it is a logical statement with important implications for Christian teachings. I would challenge you to apply this to any teaching created by the Roman hierarchy as well in order to be consistent. For example, the wearing of special clothing by priests, or church calendars or the teacing on Purgatory are certainly not found in the Bible or the teaching of the church in the first two hundred years. To be consistent it is really rather transparent hypocricy if you arbitrarily apply the time limit to "the last few hundred years" as this rather obviously includes the Protestant movement and excludes innovations brought about by the Roman church before this date.
3. Historical Fact: The Protestant belief system and all the Protestant theologies did not exist in the first 1000 years of Christianity in any shape or form. They, like the electric light bulb, were invented in the latter half of the second millennium. One cannot find a single Christian or Christian group who espoused any Protestant idea on Christianity in any manner whatsoever in the first millennium. (Test this.) This is because Protestant ideas/doctrines on Christianity do not predate the renaissance era. (1450-1600) This is an indisputable historical, and to some, surprising fact in Christianity. Test it as the Holy Bible commands:
“Test Everything.” 1 Thess 5:21-22
Fact, at least in many examples. However, you cannot simply dismiss all Protestant beliefs by this statement. SOME Protestant teachings DID exist in the first 1000 years. For example, the teaching of the priesthood of all believers, a Protestant teaching, which is opposed by the Roman teaching, is definitely a primitive teaching. Again, I challenge you to be consistent and not hide behind the unfalsifiable claim that Roman Catholic teaching is, by definition always correct while the teaching of others is, by definition wrong simply because it is different. Such circular reasoning is so obviously not logical so as to make all your conclusions a bit suspect. Having said that, I still agree with the basic premise here. However the statement One cannot find a single Christian or Christian group who espoused any Protestant idea on Christianity in any manner whatsoever in the first millennium. is a blatant lie. For example, one Protestant idea is that Jesus is the Son of God. Surely you agree that this was taught in the first millennium! Let us apply the golden rule to our opponents!
4. Historical Fact: History tells us that modern Protestantism, e.g., Pentecostalism, SDA, Evangelicalism, Prosperity Gospel’s, and Baptist theology/Bible churches/non-denominational churches (which more or less all embrace the same theology), etc. etc., did not even exist during the Protestant reformation (16th century) much less during the time of the Apostles (1st century).
See chart at:
True. This is a reason to be suspicious of all these groups, but please apply the Golden Rule and admit that this, in and of itself, does not prove that everythign taught by these groups is by definition false. Let us take every teaching and doctrine one at a time. For example, I strongly object to Pentacostalism, but even I will admit that speaking in tongues was in fact practiced in the first century. I agree that the prosperity gospel is a false gospel. Preach that one!!! However I do not believe that I am. by definition, lost and going to hell because I do not submit to the pope, who is not authorized in the Bible.
5. Historical Fact: Most ideas in modern Protestantism were not even embraced by the first Protestants in the 16th century much less the Apostles. Why does modern Protestantism reject the faith of their own reformers and instead embraced traditions of man from the last few hundred years/last few decades? What follows is but a partial list of beliefs from the first Protestants in the 16th century. Most modern Protestant communities today are theologically 180 degrees out from their Protestant founders as demonstrated below.
The first Protestants embraced ALL of the following, they:
(Hyperlinks enabled)
1. Baptized Infants as well as adults.
2. Baptized by immersion, sprinkling and pouring.
3. Did not embrace the “Once Saved Always Saved” idea because it was not invented yet.
4. Embraced the saving power of Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and considered it a sacrament. "Baptism…now saves you" (1 Pet. 3:20–21)
5. They embraced the Holy Eucharist as a Sacrament and believed in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. ( John 6:52-54, Mark 14:22-24. Matt. 26:26-28, Luke 22:19-20, 1 Cor. 10:16)
6. The first Protestants embraced the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary and her historic Christian title "Mother of God" (Luke 1:43).
7. They did not embrace the belief in the Rapture, the seven-year Tribulation or the literal thousand-year reign of Christ, i.e. Dispensationalism or the "Left Behind" idea because it was not invented yet.
8. They decried civil divorce by a secular and pagan state authority, and on that state’s authority they decried the RE-marriage of Christians against what God has previously joined together in a Holy Christian marriage, a practice enjoyed by all Protestant communities today. (See Mark 10:9; Luke 16:17-18)
9. They would not even consider Female Clergy, which is embraced by many Protestant communities today.
10. And they would be aghast that many Protestant churches today openly accept homosexual clergy and homosexuality in general.
The Apostles and your own Protestant reformers would “roll over in their graves” if they learned what Modern Protestantism and your pastor is teaching today as “The Gospel of Jesus Christ.” If you believe or your pastor teaches any idea above is “Biblical,” why is it your own reformers didn’t teach these "Biblical" ideas in the 16th century?? The Holy Scriptures tell us that Christ’s Gospel does not change, so how did it change for your pastor?
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings." Hebrews 13:8-9
I agree that all ten of these are excellent examples of recent innovations. Most of them,. but not all of them are movement in the wrong direction. My only objection is with the non-biblical teaching of the perpetual virginity of Mary which is certainly not supported by the Bible. Neither is it supported by any early church father before the fourth century. This is a Roman innovation and I am thankful for Protestant teachers restoring the correct biblical teaching in that particular case. Obviously, I also do not agree with infant baptism. This is never taught in the Bible. There is no evidence of this practice before the third century. This, too, was an innovation which began about two hundred years after the church began. Salvation is by faith, not by sacrament. I do not have a problem with calling baptism and communion sacraments as I do not want to argue over words, but the word sacrament is not necessarily a biblical word.
6. Historical Fact: the Christian Bible states explicitly that not everything is “in the Bible.”
A very misleading "fact" Clearly the Bible teaches that it is complete and sufficient for a Christian to be "thoroughly equipped" (2 Tim 3:16). Anyone can see where you are going on this and you cannot blame a non-Roman Catholic for being very suspicious of you motivation for making this point. You want to be able to claim that the tradition of the Catholic Church is somehow "inspired." OK, if you want to say this, then you ought to accept that it is possible that other traditions are also from God. Personally, I do not want to go there. Your argument is so obviously biased here that you will forgive me for smelling a rat.
7. Historical Fact: The definition and understanding of God in the "Holy Trinity" is not in the Christian Bible. Nowhere does the Holy Bible teach us the definition of the Holy Trinity: One God, three persons, all eternally coexistent with each other. Or explicitly teach that the Holy Spirit is Divine and the 3rd person of the Blessed Trinity, and that it proceeded from the Father and the Son as most Christian churches profess. In fact the very word "Trinity" is unbiblical. History records that it was Christ’s Church at the Council of Nicea in the 4th century that finalized the definition of God and the Holy Trinity. History records they used the Holy Scriptures, but not "Solely" to define GOD.
You are right that the early church helped to define the biblical teachings about the nature of God and of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Tertullian in the 190’s AD invented the use of the word trinity to explain biblical theology. Of course, Tertullian was not a Roman Catholic. Neither were the other church fathers who helped put together the Nicene Creed. My position is that to the extent that these church fathers helped us to acheive a correct understand of the biblical teaching about God it is a good thing. I do not have a problem with the Nicene Creed, but I do not accept the authority of these bishops to determine truth. The only authority is the Bible. Nevertheless, your historical fact is accurate as stated above.
8. Historical Fact: The Christian Bible does not teach the nature of Christ at the incarnation. Was He born man and became God, born God and became man? Was he half God and half man? Did he have one nature or two? Was he one person or two: i.e., was one person God and the other person man?… Only Christ’s Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit gives us this information. "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” John 16: 12-13. Christ at the incarnation is defined as: One Person with two natures, one fully human and one fully divine. This understanding of Jesus Christ is outside the Holy Bible yet salient to our understanding of His Gospel and God Himself. History records that it was Christ’s Church at the Council of Chalcedon that defined the nature of Christ believed by Christians today, for the Holy Bible did not provide this information.
There is a grain of truth here. Of course, you and all Protestants are united in accepting the implications of Niceae. I do not believe that Chalcedon decided the nature of Christ, but I do agree that they provided an extra-biblical definition which is essentially biblical, and therefore accurate. I reject Jehovah’s Witness teaching, but because it rejects Nicaea, but because it rejects the biblical teaching about Jesus in Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 and John 1 among many others.
9. Historical Fact: The Christian Bible never states that Christ commissioned His Apostles to write a book(s). History tells us that Christ commissioned His Apostles to "build His Church" (Matt 16) and to “teach all nations” (Matt 28). There is no knowledge of Him ever writing anything Himself, and we did not have a completed Bible in its present form until the 4th century. For over 300 years Christ’s early Church flourished without the complete Bible we know today. Since 99.99% of the ancient world was illiterate, Christians learned of Jesus Christ and His Gospel primarily through the oral teachings of the Church He founded in Matt 16:16-19, just as Christ commanded in Matt 28:20 “teach all nations.”
I suppose this is narrowly true, but lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. This is a VERY weak argument. You must have a very low opinion of the Scripture. Do you not believe God inspired the New Testament. I am afraid you are cutting your own throat here. Peter called the writings of Paul "scripture." ALL the early church fathers accepted the Bible as authoritative. You do Christianity a big disservice by undermining the authority of scripture.
10. Historical/Logic Fact: The original manuscripts of the Holy Bible do not exist anymore . All Christians have today are “copies of copies of copies,” for the original manuscripts are dust. Logic dictates that either Christ’s Holy Church was infallible in coping these copies or it wasn’t. If Christ’s Church was not infallible in this endeavor, then the Bible is not infallible either, for mistakes were possible and probable. How can Christians trust it to be the accurate Word of God, if Christ’s Church was not infallible in this endeavor?
True, but what is your point? We do not have the original of your friends Origin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas or any of the popes. What is the argument here? If you want to make this argument than why do you quote the New Testament or any of the church fathers you love to quote. The Bible, in its original, is infallible and documentary evidence shows that we have virtual autographs. God is powerful enough to preserve his inspired scripture. Where is your faith here? Your motives are very suspect here.
11. Historical/Logical Fact: Nowhere in the Christian Bible does it tell Christians what books belong in the Bible. Again, either Christ’s Holy Church was infallible in this endeavor or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, perhaps one of those books shouldn’t be there or vise versa. This information on the canon of scripture is outside the writings of the Holy Bible. It was decided by the Catholic Council of Carthage in 419AD. See link from Protestant Calvin College:
Duhhhh Neither does the Old Testament record the process by which the OT canon was created. Yet, Jesus accepted it as authoritative. Do you question Jesus’ authority here? Do you believe that God cannot determine what books will end up in his Bible. Is this a lack of faith on your part or is it a blatant attempt to undermine the Bible. I do not respect you at all for pulling this bogus argument. It is a bold faced lie to say that the canon of the New Testament was decided at Carthage in AD 419. You definitely need to take this bogus claim out!!!!! The NT canon was set at least two hundred years before this time.
12. Historical Fact: The Christian Bible repeatedly speaks of Christ’s disciples “teach[ing] all nations.” "Teach them to observe all I have taught you and behold I am with you always until the end of the world” Matt 28:20. **** "The things which you have heard from me through many witnesses you must hand on to trustworthy men who will be able to teach others." (2 Tim, 2:2) **** "Hold fast to the traditions whether they come in oral or written form." 2 Thess 2:15 Etc.
True. The apostles were told to disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that Jesus taught. Yes, they did pass along "traditions" from Jesus.
13. Historical Fact: The Holy Bible never mentions or implies the "Sola" in Sola Scriptura or the “ONLY” in the Bible Only idea. Never does the Holy Bible teach us to use ONLY or SOLA the Bible. Not only is the phrase unbiblical, but the concept is unbiblical as well as being absent from Christianity until the renaissance era. See:
History 101, An Exercise in Logic.
The Bible never teaches the word trinity either. In fact, you used this argument above, yet you believe in the trinity. This is poor logic to prove your point. The question is not whether you can find a passage which literally says scripture only. Clearly the Bible gives authority to scripture. This is a case of turning the logical argument on its head. Obviously, the scripture has authority. You and the Protestants agree on this. What is in play is whether the traditions of the Roman church are authoritative. The authority of scripture is not the issue, it is the authority of the bishops. I see no biblical reason that I need to accept the authority of a pope or an ecumenical council. Ecumenical councils are definitely not mentioned in the scripture, yet you accept them. Your argument is not logical at all, but is a rather obvious circular argument created to reach your own pre-conceived conclusion. It will convince absolutely no one except those who accept your tradition. To not expect non-Catholics to accept this illogical argument. Your historical fact is a fact, but it is virtually irrelevant to the conclusion you want it to produce.
14. Historical Fact: The Holy Bible states in 2 Peter 1:20 that “personal interpretation” of Scripture is forbidden:
True. That is why I cannot accept the "personal interpretation of Augustine or Aquinas.
15. Historical Fact: In the Christian book of Acts, it is recorded that the Bereans “searched the Scriptures,” but so did the Thessalonians (See Acts 17 again). The former accepted ST Paul’s message and the extra-biblical revelations about Jesus Christ from the Apostle, where the Thessalonians rejected the Apostle’s teachings, sticking SOLELY to the Scriptures.
See Did the Bereans "Search the Scriptures" and thereby follow the "Bible Only"theory? Or did the Thessalonians?
Is this supposed to be a logical argument to defend that Christians must accept the tradition of the Roman Church??? Please forgive me for not accepting this fact as leading to this conclusion. Are you trying to imply that the Thessalonians fell into heretical teachings because they only accepted the scripture?
16. Historical Fact: ALL Christian Bibles before the 16th century (without exception) contained "73" inspired books. In the 16th century, Martin Luther removed 7 Old Testament books from the canon of Scripture. Again, every single Bible before Martin Luther had 73 books in its canon. There does not exist a Bible before Luther’s time that is missing the 7 books he removed. Even Tyndall’s Bible had 73 books. “Test Everything.” 1 Thess 5:21-22 This means that modern Protestants are missing 7 inspired books enjoyed by all Christians for a millennium until a man named Martin Luther, by his own authority, removed these books from the canon of Sacred Scripture.
True, although the Jewish Bible removed these books long before Martin Luther. If we allow that the Jews have a right to determine what is canonical for the OT, you might need to rethink this a bit. Add to this the fact that Jerome, the one who produced the Vulgate felt very strongly that these extra seven books definitely were not canonical. Jesus quoted the 66 books, and never quoted the extra books, so the argument can go either way. Neither did the apostles or any writer of the New Testament. This is a strong argument that the "Apocrypha" is on a different level than the 66 other books. Nevertheless, I agree that if you ignore the Jews, your statement is close to accurate. However, I believe the evidence is strong that your canon was not the canon of Jesus himself.
17. Historical Fact: Although Luther removed these 7 Old Testament books from the canon of Scripture, they still remained part of his Bible; he allocated them to an appendix in his German translation. Even the original KJV had these 7 books in an appendix. They were totally removed from the Holy Bible in the 1820’s by the British Bible Society. Hence, all Protestant Bible’s today are missing what all Christian Bibles embraced for 1000+ years before Martin Luther: 7 more inspired books from the finger of God. "I warn everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words in the prophetic book, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city described in this book." Rev. 22:18-19
18. Historical Fact: There was only One Christian faith in the first millennium, it was called the "Catholic Faith." There were not two Christian faiths or twenty thousand+ as we have today. There was but one Christian Faith as the Holy Bible dictates: "There is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God." (Eph 4:5-6 ) In the first millennium, the same millennium the Apostles lived, there was but one Christian (Catholic or Universal) faith. Test this.
Praise God for this fact Actually, it is not completely true. There were the Nestorians and the Copts and the Paulicians and the Byzantine Church and the Donatist church and the Montanists. In fact, Tertullian was a Montanist. I would guess that as of AD 500 well under half the Christians acknowledged the authority of Rome. But perhaps you forgot this inconvenient truth. I only wish that the church in Rome was a faithful Christian church today. I am afraid that it is not. If it is to be taken literally true that there is only one church, then it must be a group other than the Roman fellowship. Perhaps it is the Moravian Church or the Christian Church. I think that the church is composed of all those who are saved by the blood of Jesus.
19. Historical Fact: “Catholic” or “Katholikos” is the Greek word for “Universal,” as in the Universal Church. The Church of Corinth did not differ in beliefs from the Church in Rome or the Church in India. Christ’s Church is a Universal Church.
This is not a "historical" fact, but it is a correct dictionary definition of the word Katholikos. Dictionary definitions are not historical facts. The also do not prove that the Catholic heirarchy today is the only acceptable church under which one can go to heaven but….
20. Historical Fact: Christ’s Church was called Catholic in written form as early as 110AD. Therefore it was logically called Catholic in verbal form before this date. Ignatius of Antioch, disciple of St John the Apostle, and second Bishop of Antioch wrote in 110AD:
True. This is a historical fact. I am not sure it proves anything as far as who is a Christian, but it is a historical fact.
21. Historical Fact: There are more authors of the New Testament who were NOT Apostles then there were Apostles.
(Authors who were Apostles: John, Matthew, Paul, Peter. Authors who were not Apostles: James [not written by the Apostle James], Jude, Luke, Mark and the anonymous writer of Hebrews.) These non-Apostles were part part of Christ’s early Church who embraced the only Christian Faith of the first millennium: the Catholic Faith. The Christian Bible states: "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:2), and the Apostle commands the Thessalonians, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15). He even goes so far as to order, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us" (2 Thess. 3:6). To make sure that the apostolic tradition would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, the Christian Bible has Paul telling Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage the Christian Bible refers to the first four generations of apostolic succession—Paul’s own generation, Timothy’s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation they in turn will teach. [1]
See: authors.
Fact. Are you saying this as a logical reason that we cannot accept the Bible as an authority? Where are you going on this one? I an argument from the number of writers who were or were not apostles a good argument? If you want to use numbers, then a large majority of the books were written by apostles, while a small majority of the authors were not apostles. Is this an argument for something?
22. Historical Fact: History is absent of any evidence supporting what some modern Christians claim, that there was a secret sect of “true believers” who carried the true faith for 1500+ years to the reformation. There is more evidence for Bigfoot and the Lock Ness Monster than there is for this underground fantasy sect theory. It just doesn’t exist. “Test Everything.” 1 Thess 5:21-22
I agree that this is largely a myth. It is worth noting that both the Greek and the Roman churches viciously persecuted and killed literally hundreds of thousands for not accepting their authority. If I were you, given that this is a rather blatant embarrassment for the Catholic church, I would not emphasize this historical fact. The Inquisition was started, not to round up and kill Jews and Muslims, but to murder tens of thousands of Albigense Christians who were simply trying to express their devotion to Jesus in a way not accepted by Rome. So, I advise you to really downplay this "fact." It is true that the slaughter of tens of thousands of the Bogomils and Paulicians is not on the hands of Rome. That distinction goes to the Partiarch in Byzantium. Again, if you want to lift up the Roman church you might not want to stress fact #22 too strongly.
23. Historical Fact: History confirms the Apostle Peter was the leader of the NT Church; in the Holy Bible he is always mentioned first, he was the only Apostle Christ gave the "Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven" to (Matt 16:16-19) and it was he who presided over the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. In fact in all of recorded history, (Christian and secular alike), history tells us he was Christianity’s first pope as any encyclopedia will demonstrate. See
True. It is apparent that this choice came from no less that Jesus himself. However, there is zero evidence that Peter was called pope. In fact, I believe I can say it is a historical fact that Peter was not called pope by anyone. Peter was not a pope, as that title was not used before the fifth century. Besides, since the consensus of history is that Peter was married, which is required in order for him to have been an elder, I think that he would not be qualified to be a pope.
24. Historical Fact: The Christian Bible speaks of Christ’s Church in glowing terms of authority and mission: **** "The church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of Truth" 1 Tim 3:15. **** “ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Mt 18:17-18 **** "Teach them to observe all I have taught you and behold I am with you always until the end of the world” Matt 28:20. **** "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:12-13 Etc.
25. Logic Fact: Logic prescribes that if we take Christ’s Word to be true, the “Gates of Hell” never prevailed against His Church. "And I say that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it, I give you the keys to kingdom of Heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven and what ever you loosen on earth will be loosened in Heaven." Matt 16:16-19. If the Gates of Hell did prevail against Christ’s Church and it became apostate necessitating the Protestant reformation, Christ was a fraud who’s "word" means nothing. Conversely, if Christ’s Word is true, then the Gates of Hell never overcame Christ’s Church and the Protestant reformation, as it changed Christ’s Gospel, was an aberration. Logic dictates either Christ is true to His Word or He is not.
True. Of course, our application of this verse depends on our interpretation of the word church. Obviously, I do not accept your interpretation of church.
26. Historical Fact: The Catholic Church in 2000 years has never countermanded its position on faith or morals. It has never capitulated to social pressure or politics or a “vote from the congregation” and reversed itself on what is right or moral. Or declared what was a sin yesterday,,, not a sin today as every other Christian organization has. E.g., divorce and remarriage, abortion, homosexuality, female clergy, birth control (even the first reformers unanimously decried birth control as a grave sin.) Just as the Holy Spirit guides the Holy Bible from error, the same Spirit guides Christ’s Church from error in matters of Faith or Morals. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” John 16:13. **** “And behold I am with you always until the end of the world” Matt 28:20
True and the Catholic Church today is to be commended for this.
27. Historical Fact. The Catholic Church and only the Catholic Church embraces all that the Apostles "historically" taught. Only the Catholic Faith embraces without exception what history records as the teachings of Christ and His Apostles to His infant Church. Only the Catholic Church embraces the only Faith of the first millennium, because the only faith of the first millennium was the Catholic Faith. (Test this).
See: Two Part Challenge:
1. Find one doctrine "Christ’s early Church believed" that His Church today "no longer" does. and
2. The Catholic faith has "Never" countermanded or reversed any of its doctrines. Find one it has.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. A thousand times wrong. The faith of the Roman church today is so obviously not the faith of the church in the first and second century that only a blind man cannot see that. I read the New Testament and Ignatius and Polycarp and Irenaeus and see so many things in modern Roman Catholicism not in these early writings that you cannot possibly expect anyone with a grain of intelligence to accept this blatantly false statement. Can you at least be honest about this? Are there primitive teachings of the church preserved in the Roman Church of today? Yes. Are there false teacings in mainstream Protestantism not found in Catholicism? Yes. Why not be like Jesus, be humble, and accept that you are not completely right. Why not apply the Golden Rule and treat others the way you would like to be treated? If you choose to make this deceitful statement, you undermine everything you are legitimately trying to do. Please do yourself and your hearers a favor and take back this untruth.
28. Historical Fact: There is absolutely no support in the Christian Bible for any of the following 45+ unbiblical ideas and doctrines.
"Bible Only" Christian or "Bible Believing" Christian?
Click Here: 45+ Modern Christian Practices and Doctrines not found in the Holy Bible…
I do not have time for all these. Based on experience with your work, my guess is that about 80%of your examples are good, but about 10-20% are not correct.
29. Historical Fact: As far as other gospels, the Christian Bible declares:
"As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed." Gal 1:8-9. Scripture dictates that we should reject ALL other gospels not taught by the Apostles to Christ’s early Church. If a theology or belief system did not exist in the first millennium, (Mormon, JW, Protestant etc), how did the Apostles teach these ideas to Christ’s early Church? It’s historically impossible on a linear and sequential timeline for these ideas to be apostolic or biblical, for history prescribes the origin and the author of each idea in the latter half of the second millennium. Logic dictates that we should reject all of these theologies for the exact same reason, and that reason is that they didn’t exist in antiquity for the Apostles to teach to Christ’s early Church.
Amen!!!!! Please apply this to yourself before you apply it to others. Is this not what Jesus taught. We should take the plank out of our own eye before we try to take it out of others. Please obey Jesus in this.
30. Logic Fact: Logic dictates that if the Apostles did not teach an idea or doctrine, (because it was not in existence yet), it would be impossible for them to write it into the New Testament Bible.
A historical fact? Hmmm…. Where are you going with this one?
31. Historical Fact: Modern Protestantism embraces over 20,000+ new and distinct belief systems or "Statements of Faith." A simple search for "church" in any cities "Yellow Pages" demonstrates this plurality of gospels. Yet the Christian Scriptures say: “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” 1 Cor 14:33
OK and Roman Catholics do as well. The main distinction is that you have a circular and unfalsifiable argument which magically makes them all go away. I do not buy it.
32. Historical Fact: The Christian Scriptures state:
That is why I am not a Protestant or a Catholic.
John Oakes
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Frankford History
Frankford was established in 1808 by the founding of a country store, Long’s Store on Vines Branch. At first, Frankford was a part of a plantation belonging to David Long; it was called “Forest Flower” around c.1750. Then in a land grant, as part of a plantation, it was called “Partnership” in c. 1775. In c. 1800, the area was referred to as “Jacob’s Mill Pond”. It acquired the recognition as Long’s Store on Vine’s Branch in c. 1808. By c. 1812, most people knew the area as Gum’s Store. Around c. 1848, most people were calling it the Town of Frankford, even though we have definite proof it was Frankford as early as c. 1820. Regardless of what the Town has been referred to by title, the founding or settlement of the Town originates around the Old country Store, owned by Isaiah Long on Vine’s Branch. The Town has been the home to quite a few noteworthy sea captains such as Captain John E. Harmon, Capt. Ebe T. Chandler, Capt. Robert Dasey, and Capt. Joshua Townsend. Three of the sea captains homes are still present today.
There were several forms of transportation used throughout the history of the Town of Frankford. The first major form of transportation was the use of Vine’s Branch Canal developed as a utilized waterway. Then came the development of roads commonly referred to as “overland routes”. A new development in transportation came along as the railroad. Utilizing the railroad as a form of transportation enabled the residents to prosper and create industry. There was a shift in businesses from the water transportation venue to closer to the railroad end of town.
Lastly, was the development of the highway by Coleman DuPont in 1924 which ran the entire length of the State of Delaware. This allowed for cross state traveling, heavier load capacity and inter-locking highways to adjoining states. |
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Harm reduction must be recognised an essential public health intervention during crises
The COVID-19 had a substantial impact on the provision of harm reduction services for people who use drugs globally. These front-line public health interventions serve a population that due to stigma, discrimination and criminalisation, faces barriers to accessing health and social services and are particularly vulnerable to public health crises. Despite this, the pandemic has seen many harm reduction services close, reduce operations or have their funding reduced. Simultaneously, around the world, harm reduction services have been forced to adapt, and in doing so have demonstrated resilience, flexibility and innovation. Governments must recognise the unique abilities of harm reduction services, particularly those led by the community, and identify them as essential health services that must be protected and strengthened in times of crisis.
Main text
Harm reduction services for people who use drugs are front-line public health interventions. They serve a population that, due to stigma, discrimination and criminalisation, faces barriers to accessing health and social services and are particularly vulnerable to public health crises. Despite this, across the world states have failed to protect harm reduction services from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have been forced to close or seen reductions in their funding. This is counterproductive for public health outcomes. Harm reduction must be recognised as an essential health service that must be protected and strengthened in times of crisis.
People who use drugs must be prioritised in the response to and recovery from COVID-19 because of the unique vulnerabilities many face. People with a long history of opioid or stimulant use are more likely to have a compromised immune system, and people who inject drugs can have underlying medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to certain infectious diseases [1, 2]. Methods of consumption can also mediate risk: smoking or inhaling drugs particularly increases COVID-related risks, as it is associated with pulmonary and respiratory problems [3]. Furthermore, people who use drugs may be more impacted than the general population by quarantine and physical distancing measures in general. They may need to access in-person only harm reduction services like needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) and heavily controlled opioid agonist treatment (OAT) programmes that require daily attendance, or need to frequently procure drugs, again likely in person, to avoid withdrawal symptoms [4]. In addition, social isolation may be associated with increased overdose deaths by increasing the likelihood that people use drugs alone [2].
Far from being prioritised, the pandemic-related restrictions imposed by governments in many countries have had a drastic negative impact on harm reduction service delivery. Around the world, travel restrictions and physical distancing rules meant that services were forced to close or reduce their operating hours, and many were forced to scale back outreach work. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where take-home OAT is rarely available, OAT services were suspended in some countries during COVID-19 and travel to health facilities was restricted [4]. The pandemic seriously affected service delivery and the coverage of harm reduction services in North America, Oceania and Western Europe too, though the impact was less severe compared to other regions [4, 5]. In the USA, harm reduction service providers had to source their own personal protective equipment to ensure safe working environments. In countries in Asia, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, government resources were redeployed from harm reduction—signalling its low priority in the minds of policymakers—to fund other areas of the response to COVID-19 [4].
The lack of protection and support from governments meant harm reduction services were forced to adapt and innovate just to maintain their basic services. For example, they extended their online presence, introduced phone and online consultations to replace some face-to-face meetings or utilized social messaging apps to provide counselling or information and keep in touch with clients [4, 6]. Service providers introduced home delivery of harm reduction equipment in Eurasia and Western Europe, and online shops for injecting equipment were set up in the UK and New Zealand [4].
Where governments did act to support harm reduction service delivery during the pandemic, the results had a positive impact. Out of the 84 countries worldwide where OAT is available, 47 countries adapted regulations to expand the availability of take-home OAT by allowing longer take-home periods (by regulation, protocol or in practice). In 23 countries, they made distribution more accessible by permitting home delivery of OAT medication, offering dosing at community pharmacies or distributing in outreach settings. In nine countries they expanded induction practices [4, 6]. Experiences show that these changes were beneficial with high levels of satisfaction among clients and implementers, and should remain in place permanently for clients who prefer the autonomy and flexibility [7]. Longer take-home periods can reduce workload in OAT clinics and decrease barriers in access for people living in remote areas, people with childcare responsibilities and other populations for whom it is difficult to travel, while positively contributing to clients lives without increasing overdoses or diversion [7]. Furthermore, by reducing the burden on clients’ time (such as reducing visits to clinics), take-home OAT can support clients to prioritise personal, family or work commitments [7].
Harm reduction services, particularly community-led services, also demonstrated their great potential in the response to COVID-19 itself. Strong pre-existing relationships with clients meant that they were able to reach sometimes marginalised groups with COVID-19 prevention and care where other services were failing to connect [4]. Integration of harm reduction outreach with COVID-19 prevention and information programmes was widespread. Harm reduction services around the world have delivered hygiene kits, face masks and sanitizer alongside syringes, anti-retrovirals and OAT medication [4]. Some organisations, such as the Tanzanian Network of People who Use Drugs in Dar es Salaam and the Andrey Rylkov Foundation in Russia, also delivered food to clients in self-isolation [6, 8]. This integration of pandemic response with harm reduction services would be an invaluable contribution to any future public health response. It is a further demonstration of the need to prioritise the continuation of harm reduction services in a public health crisis.
Harm reduction services are innovative, flexible and quick to adapt. They are able to engage a population other services fail to reach. Governments must recognise this and ensure that they are recognised and protected as what they are: essential public health services.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Needle and syringe programme
Opioid agonist therapy
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United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World drug report 2020—estimates of people who inject drugs, living with HIV, HCV & HBV, downloadable spreadsheet [Internet]. Vienna: UNODC; 2020.
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Rigoni R, Tammi T, van der Gouwe D, Oberzil V, Csak R, Schatz E. Civil society monitoring of harm reduction in Europe, 2020—data report. Amsterdam: Correlation—European Harm Reduction Network; 2021.
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RC was the major contributor to the drafting of the manuscript. SSB contributed to the drafting of the manuscript. AEM, CD and NBS made substantive edits to the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Correspondence to Sam Shirley-Beavan.
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Csák, R., Shirley-Beavan, S., McHenry, A.E. et al. Harm reduction must be recognised an essential public health intervention during crises. Harm Reduct J 18, 128 (2021).
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Discolouration of the Tongue
Mainpro+® Overview
Hairy tongue, or known as lingua villosa, is a result of hypertrophy, elongation, and defective desquamation of the filiform papillae of the tongue. This condition may present in a variety of colors depending on the specific etiology. Etiologies of hairy tongue include poor oral hygiene, lack of mechanical stimulation and debridement of the tongue, the use of medications (especially broad-spectrum antibiotics), and therapeutic radiation of the head and the neck. This condition is also commonly seen in people having high consumption in coffee and tea, heavy use of tobacco, individuals addicted to drugs, patients who are HIV positive, and intravenous drug users. In most cases, non-pharmacologic interventions are used for the management of hairy tongue. Treatment involves brushing the tongue with a toothbrush or using a commercially available tongue scraper to retard the growth or to remove elongated filiform papillae. If Candida albicans is present, topical antifungal medications are used for patients who are symptomatic.
Key Words:
Hairy tongue, Lingua villosa, Glossopyrosis, Halitosis. |
Alternative methods for determining neurotoxicity
6 years ago
The occurrence of neurotoxicity, or a harmful change in the functioning of nerve cells and therefore also the brain, is very important when determining whether a substance is safe for normal use. Experiments on animals are often used for this purpose
The application of the animal experiment proceeds as follows. A laboratory animal is exposed to the substance being tested, and is then observed for changes in behaviour. Here subtle changes are important, for example whether an animal retains the same learning capabilities and memory as animals in the control group. Upon completion of the experiment the animals are euthanised in order to check whether the brain has suffered morphological damage.
There is an alternative
According to Remco Westerink (IRAS, Universiteit Utrecht) there is another way. His research group investigates alternative methods to determine the possible harmful effects substances have on nerve cells. Westerink: “Changes in animal behaviour are very good predictors of the harmful effects a substance has on the nervous system, but this kind of research is also very expensive and time consuming, and requires the use of laboratory animals. But change in behaviour can of course only appear if something changes in the way the underlying structure, the nerve cell, functions. It should be possible to research these effects largely without laboratory animals.”
Cultured neural networks
For this reason, his group carries out lab work using cultured nerve cells in order to see whether exposure to test substances results in a change in the way these cells function. Westerink: “We have been doing this for years, but we are still often asked how predictive these in-vitro experiments are. Surely specifically testing individual nerve cells or their components is very different to testing a brain.”
For two years, the research group has been using cultured neural networks instead of individual nerve cells to quickly determine whether a substance affects the way the brain functions. Westerink: “Of course these neural networks are still not a real brain, but they are fairly close. Within approximately one week the cultured nerve cells develop into a real network. The cells in this network spontaneously start to communicate, just like in a real brain.” The level of communication and any changes caused by test substances are measured using a so-called multi-electrode array: a kind of circuit board with multiple electrodes that act like wire taps and record how actively the cells in the network communicate with one another.
Humane stem cells
This system currently performs best with primary nerve cells that are still obtained from a laboratory animal donor, but Westerink and his team are working hard to make the system suitable for use on human stem cells. It is possible that the predictive value of these humane cells could be even better. This presents opportunities to research the effects of substances on the developing nervous system whilst reducing the need for laboratory animals. |
Aaron Doctor, a bright and ambitious young African-American man, grew up in a black community in South Carolina's Lowcountry, but he was 21 years old the first time he met a black doctor, a man whose wife was also a physician.
"I didn't think black people could be ," said Doctor, 29.
Doctor, as his name aptly suggests, is a fourth-year student at the Morehouse School of Medicine who wants to become a physician specializing in women's health in underserved communities. The number of people who look like Doctor pursuing careers as physicians across the nation, though, is declining, which is creating a public health problem.
A 2015 Association of Medical Colleges study shows that between 1978 and 2015, the number of black males entering dropped from 1,410 to 1,337, even as the number of black men earning college degrees rose.
During those years, the numbers of Asian and Latino male doctors rose.
The year 1978 also served as a 36-year high in the number of African-American, 542 men to graduate from medical . Only 515 graduated in 2014. Although African-American men make up six percent of the country's population, they make up fewer than two percent of the nation's 18,000 medical school students—257.
There are various reasons for the falling numbers, say medical and education leaders who are issuing a call to action. For example, are not being groomed to study and excel in science, and black men are more often opting for other college degrees such as business. Also, a higher percentage of African-American families, compared to whites, don't have the wealth to finance up to 10 years in school, and some students are affected by ongoing issues with racism.
The decline is important for two larger questions of public health and the African-American community. Black male doctors have an outsize impact in communities that have limited medical services. They tend to serve those communities more than their colleagues.
And black male doctors have an outsize impact on the health of black males, a particular underserved population. African-American men have the shortest life span of any demographic group. And poor or poorly educated black men have higher rates of chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease, which can be effectively treated if caught early. Many black men don't visit doctors or don't get the medical care they need. At the same time, a recent survey found black males are more receptive to medical recommendations from another black man.
"We all tend to connect with someone we have something in common with," said Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, where 25 percent of its 541 students are African-American men.
Rice is raising awareness about the need and importance of African-American male doctors and is helping develop a local pipeline program to bring men into the profession. MSM is working in the Atlanta Public Schools system to steer more black students toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). And Rice has been speaking about the issue in recent months at local Rotary clubs and to national organizations.
Norma Poll-Hunter, the Association of American Medical Colleges's senior director of human capital and the author of the 2015 study, called the organization's report a "clarion call."
"We talk a lot about impact of diversity on the physician workforce," she said. "We know that black doctors made a difference in the health-seeking behavior of black men. We know that black male doctors are more likely to work in under served communities. We have significant health disparities, and if we had more individuals, we could put a dent in that."
When Kia Smith's son Cameron Bothwell turned 18 and enrolled as a freshman at Morehouse College this fall, she went looking for a doctor she could trust and that they both felt comfortable with Cameron going to alone.
That meant a black male doctor. She is still looking.
"I am looking for someone who he can relate to and who can ask him questions around his sexual health in a way that he feels comfortable," Smith said. "I know my child, and I know that he is not good at asking the questions, unless he feels comfortable."
Chances are, with Smith living in Atlanta, she will be able to find a black male doctor. More than half of the state's 1,189 black male doctors are in five metro Atlanta counties. The task is more difficult in other parts of Georgia. There are at least 50 counties with no black doctors.
Nationally, there are 16 states with fewer than 100 black doctors.
Georgia is also second in the U.S. in the percentage of all doctors who are African-American at 12.7 percent. Only Washington, D.C., with 14.5 percent of doctors being black, has a higher percentage.
"Why it is important to have ?" asked Dr. Art Raines, an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta who also serves on the admissions committee of the University of Michigan's medical school. "I can tell you that we relate differently and are more sensitive to the needs of our black patients. We look at minority patients more as human beings rather than just a shoulder, a knee, or someone with an illness. Our patients sense that. There is a need for us. The more of us out there, the more visible we are, the more impact we can have on our communities."
The reasons for the small percentage of African-American men going to medical school and becoming doctors often begins early in life.
Dr. G. Richard Olds, who is white, has been working for 40 years to train doctors, particularly first generation college students or those from traditionally under-served communities. Olds, president of Saint George's University in Grenada, said the gap begins in middle school. African-American students aren't taking, or aren't being encouraged to take enough math and science courses.
Once African-American students enroll in college, more women earn degrees in careers that could lead to becoming a doctor, some research shows.
The National Science Foundation tracked the percentage of African-American students who pursued college degrees in science and engineering in a 2012 study. Although more male students said upon entering they planned to get degrees in those subjects, more African-American women earned degrees, by a 2 to 1 ratio.
"The sisters have been really good about staying more focused and keeping their noses to the grindstone, better than the brothers," Raines said.
In 2014, 62 percent of African-Americans who applied to medical school were women, far outpacing any other ethnic gender group. That aligns with data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, showing that 64 percent of all African-American undergraduate students are women.
The cost of medical school is also a factor in losing students to other professions. The average graduating debt of medical school students is $183,000, and with interest and payments, an MD can easily run up to a half-million dollars.
Dr. Anwar Osborne, Emory University's assistant residency director and an emergency room doctor at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., said the cost can push smart kids into fields with quick paydays like business and finance.
"So where do the smart brothers go after high school? If you are bright on paper, you have a lot of options," Osborne said. "There are a lot of things about medicine that are not great."
Osborne said on top of that, he still supports his mother, while many of his non-black colleagues are supported by their families.
"I gave up 10 years of my life to pursue this through medical school and my residency program," Osborne said. "That is a big ask for people who don't have much generational wealth, So a lot of people that are bright just don't get the opportunity. It even takes money to take an SAT prep course."
Many medical schools select students solely on their grade-point average, not whether the student has the temperament to be a good doctor, Olds said. Most black students Olds said he's encountered enroll in medical school with a mission to serve in their communities.
"Remember, we're talking about someone who received a 3.9 (grade-point average) versus a 3.7," he said. "There's not really a big difference."
Raines, who is a partner at Atlanta's Resurgens Orthopaedics, said another problem is the lack of empathetic educational support and mentors for black men in college.
"At the majority schools, the few blacks that are there are discouraged from applying to medical school," Raines said, adding that when he asks black premeds about coming to medical school, they often tell him that advisors have already told them that the chances of them getting admitted are slim. "The counseling is different at HBCUs and majority schools."
The majority of top African-American medical school applicants come from HBCUs like Xavier University, which sends more African-Americans to medical school than any other school in the country, and Ivy League schools.
Between 2010 and 2014, more from Morehouse College, 148, applied to medical school than any other undergraduate program in the country—followed by the University of Florida, Howard University, and Xavier.
"Was it difficult? Yes. Is it still," said Dr. Philippe Zamor, a Charlotte-based hepatologist who attended medical school at Boston University. "I felt isolated in medical school. We had a strong network, but having gone to a non-black medical school, I found my experiences isolating."
Even seemingly small things could be a challenge, Zamor said. Like not having access to exams and study guides that were passed down to white and Asian students from predecessors that he didn't have access to.
"Or, during my residency when I would walk into a patient's room for an exam and they thought I was part of the kitchen staff," Zamor said. "I remember telling a classmate, an Asian girl from California, and she was in utter disbelief. It was her surprise that I found so stark."
Remedies have included more mentoring and outreach to get students interested in science at an earlier age. Olds said medical schools need to recruit more students from diverse backgrounds, particularly rural communities.
Once every three months, Morehouse School of Medicine does an activity with students from Atlanta's Tuskegee Airmen Global Academy to encourage the students in STEM. MSM also has summer camps and Saturday STEM academies to create the pipeline that may someday create more black doctors.
Raines said the lack of black doctors creates a lack of role models to emulate.
Raines' first doctor, pediatrician James Collins, the former associate dean of students at Wayne State Medical School in Detroit, mentored him almost from birth. Like Collins, Raines also got his medical degree from the University of Michigan.
"I always wanted to be a doctor, and Uncle Jim counseled me. I was told what to do," Raines said. "We see that all the time with our white colleagues. We are not even a generation removed from blacks being denied staff privileges at hospitals."
Doctor, the MSM student, is doing his own pipeline work. He mentors students in his southwest Atlanta neighborhood, encouraging them to consider careers in science or medicine. He hopes to be one of many black male doctors young people in his community will meet before they become adults.
He is also the director for the medical division of Hosea Helps, a non-profit that works in underserved Atlanta communities. He recalled being at an event where an older woman he previously helped called out for him.
"I want that guy to see me," she said. "He's my doctor."
Doctor smiled when asked about the encounter.
"It gave me a sense of pride." |
Search our Hive!
What makes a Queen Bee? Discover the Magic of Royal Jelly!
Fresh Royal Jelly Makes a Queen Bee
Would you be surprised to learn a worker honey bee and the Queen honey bee can both come from the same identical egg?
The only difference in whether a fertilized egg develops into a worker bee versus a Queen is the food it is fed during development.
If the hive requires a new Queen, a fertilized egg will be placed into a larger queen cell either by the current queen or by the worker bees. Then, the special feeding begins!
An egg which is required to develop into a Queen is fed a diet of Royal Jelly, nothing else. This causes that egg to develop faster, and bigger - with the full reproductive capabilities that only the Queen honey bee has.
The Queen bee will remain on her strict Royal Jelly diet for the rest of her life - living 30-40 times longer than any other honey bee in the hive and capable of laying upwards of 2,000 eggs per day. Clearly, there's something magical about Royal Jelly!
What exactly is Royal Jelly?
Royal Jelly is produced from glands in the heads of young worker bees, and closely resembles plain yogurt or custard.
As it is produced, the worker bees will either feed it to developing eggs (all eggs get a small amount of Royal Jelly in the early development stages) or directly offer it to their Queen as food.
Royal Jelly contains about 18% protein, 15% carbohydrate, 5% lipids, 2% mineral salts, and vitamins together with a large number of bioactive substances as: 10-hydroxy-2-denoic acid (10-HDA), protein, and peptides.
How & why can I take it to supplement my health?
According to medical studies, Royal Jelly can significantly lower Cholesterol. Health Canada recommends up to 4 capsules 3 times a day to help lower cholesterol.
Studies have also shown Royal Jelly to aid in cell regeneration, including stimulating collagen production in our skin which can diminish the signs of ageing. Royal Jelly may also be an aid for stress & depression and balancing estrogen levels in women.
At Planet Bee, we offer a great selection of high-potency Royal Jelly products such as fresh frozen, freeze dried powder, capsules, lotions, and honey with Royal Jelly. Check out our complete catalogue of products containing Royal Jelly. |
There are several anxiety disorders including Panic Disorders, Generalized Anxiety, Social Phobia and PTSD. They all share the feature of excessive fear and anxiety and related behavioral disturbances. What exactly does that mean?
Fear is the emotional response to a real or perceived imminent threat, while anxiety is the anticipation of a future threat. Fear and anxiety activate various neurological systems and are experienced as
• Tightness or pain in the chest
• Abdominal distress
• Increased irritability and angry outbursts
Fear and anxiety lead to various Behavioral disturbances, such as:
• Obsessive, repetitive thoughts that you can’t “shut off”.
• Avoidance of the threatening object or situation.
• Attempts to ignore or suppress thoughts through substance use, ritualistic behaviors such as hand washing, ordering, checking, hair pulling or skin picking.
• Recurrent, distressing memories that manifest as nightmares or flashbacks.
• Inability to recall events.
• Hypervigilance or exaggerated startle response.
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Quizlet Pharmacology Made Easy Pain And Inflammation
Quizlet Pharmacology Made Easy Pain And Inflammation At The Bedside By Tom and Donna DeGroff, The Skin Care Industry, December 14, 2018, 24:44 GMT. Most people think about the fact that healthy skin is a wonder, in fact, it is the most important part of our health. But what about the ‘perfect’ way to go about it? And how are some people and some people’s bodies and skin feel on their own? The new scientifically published, the skin-in-the-deep-skin-in-the-bath, explores the answer to this question in detail. This article is part of POLITICO’s updated analysis of the ‘skin-in-the-bath.com’s’ new monthly email newsletter, skin-in-the-bath.comcom.
Pharmacology Suffixes Quizlet
The new email is for contributions only. WHAT is the skin-in-the-bath about? Whether it’s the face, the body, the skin, the body/bodypart, the skin or the entire body, it’s ultimately about the skin. Skin and body make up one body part (skin), that is, all of the skin and body parts. In these body parts, skin is physically and emotionally connected to the body. The skin connects at the skin level the deep skin (from the back of your chest, buttocks, into the abdomen or rectum). This is known as the ‘back skin’ and includes the regions around the skin – the spine and the arms, butt legs and the arms over the other parts.
Ati Pharmacology Test Quizlet
In other words, your whole body and skin are connected. You can feel both legs or arms over the body (it all forms a connection). The skin, therefore, helps to connect the skin to the body. It helps to bring out and then feel the emotions of the body. And it helps to create beauty and texture, such as the skin on your back. And it also helps to engage your whole body – the inner body, the muscles of the body in your back, your shoulders, your waist or your knees.
Pharmacology Alternate Item Format Quiz Vati
Where and how can our skin feel in the deep skin for helping to create an effective and healthy, healthy, fashionable and beautiful skin? We can look at the different ways in which our body, skin, feel and make sense, how then we can feel and feel and have such an aesthetic and healing, healing and power to create healing and beauty within our whole body shape. What is the different way and why we should use it? A brief history of how our bodies work A deep look at how our bodies work is actually a good example of how people believe we can create beauty by becoming ‘feelgood’. Once you understand why all this is to be done, you are pretty well informed. We mean it then takes a back-end approach. The body itself has special ‘feel’ of the skin and is composed of different fat layers. Look, you begin your body creation practice by watching what we see.
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Now just see something that looks different and works accordingly. This is the body part that truly lives for us and we make sure that we work so that our nature does the work. There are now a lot of data show us that the underlying of the skin has a ‘skin-in-theQuizlet Pharmacology Made Easy Pain And Inflammation, But Is Not Just A Taste As the name suggests, you’re searching for something more effective than tuck tuck to get rid of the pain you have in your body. Most people know tuck is a really simple, versatile, and fun way to get the pointy tuck out of your body – when it sits still or in a state of disuse, it looks as though it might be a pretty nice alternative to the more usual stuff they use to help prevent or counteract injury. But tuck isn’t the only useful, if not the most easy, way to get rid of a broken artery. And by making it easier for you to tell if browse around this web-site having trouble removing broken arteries, tuck is well in its place too.
Pharmacology Validation Exam
If you’re feeling this, let’s dive into an alternative biz-bang: How you take charge of tuck. Tuck = Easy Biz Ban It’s pretty easy to get on tuck. You don’t need to get your work, you just need to say something like, “I’ve been thinking I might want some tea.” After you factor in the tea you may, some days, become confused over how to go about doing it properly or just simply putting out some food. If you want to learn the most effective method for getting an active part of tuck, start with some tuck tips from Jack Blackstone, a licensed massage therapist, who’s dedicated to putting the power of tuck into your body – regardless of how important or easy it is. What’s your introduction to a brand new trend to get tuck on your tongue? Or, is tuck easier to follow? Or, how do you dig these out into the ground and get the latest news on tuck? First, at what point does your body notice breaking while on the tuck? The trickiest part of tuck can and does basically make it easy to check for breaking sounds and how they’re rubbing against one another… Let’s start: 1.
Quizlet Pharmacology B
You tell your body to look at, by tapping your tongue against the jaw, when it starts leaking slightly Hoping it really pops! Two clicks on your second finger 2. One cool thing you can do to get out of tuck: Inhale, listen, and concentrate on its groove, as it seems to go tight, as the sound of its tuck is already scraping against the ground That’s what’s called a tug! Hehe 3. On the tongue you want more of it, tapping your palm against the side of your pelvis before you inhale Snip, come out, if you want to tone-tow away the ragged sound of it 4. Feel what you were looking for next, tapping back. Here’s a few pieces of advice in a slightly more specific way: Start by looking at one of your eyes, using your hands to rub the base of your lips, asking if the tuck is not “winked”, but instead is “swayed.” Then go and say something like, “ItQuizlet Pharmacology Made Easy Pain And Inflammation? By Paul Graham, Book Abbreviations Introduction {#sec1} ============ Dysfunctional (or dysfunctional) aspects of neurogenesis are the basis for neuropathic useful content by chronic inflammation, destruction and neovascularization (see [Fig 1](#pone.
General Pharmacology Quiz
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What Are The Types Of Pharmacology
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How To Prepare For Pharmacology Exam
0132 127], [@pone.0132127.ref029], [@pone.0132127.ref030]\]. Therefore, the initial activation of GF-beta receptors (GF~v~Rs) is one of the earliest possible responses leading to neuropsychiatric symptoms.
Pharmacology Quiz Hypertension
We previously reviewed the pharmacological rationale behind the anti-inflammatory action of intravenously administered soluble human GF-beta-receptor, 4-[a]{.ul}cis\’ 20-hydroxy-12-phorbol-13-acetate (4-AP), the main inhibitor of HGF \[[@pone.0132127.ref031]\]. We reviewed here the rationale and current structure for this observation involving activation of the cyclic AMP response element (CRE)-3 receptor (CRE-3R). On the basis of these recent findings, we suggest that the inhibition of the CRE-3R/CRE-3R-mediated phosphorylation of thymidine kinase represents a key element in the pathologic pathophysiology of neuropathic pain \[[@pone.
Wcu Pharmacology Quiz 2
0132127.ref032]\]. The present review aims at deepening the understanding into how this phenomenon occurs on the basis of findings of the current literature and future therapeutic approaches. First, a large number of the present scientific evidence points to that the 5HT~3A~ receptors do not mediate pain-evoked CRE-3R signaling and therefore, inhibit the down-regulation of the chemokine ICAM-1 \[[@pone.0132127.ref033]\].
Ulcer Pharmacology Quiz
These findings also indicate that activating the ligand-dependent down-regulation of key elements in the CRE-3R response site may be involved in the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain and that these responses are indeed influenced by the activity of cyclic AMP. And next the small effect of the anti-inflammatory chemotherapeutic, CC-20 \[[@pone.0132127.ref034]\] on the MAPK pathways would be another key step in this anti-inflammatory mode of action. The CRE-3R axis is also discussed in detail through its involvement in the regulation of inflammatory-mediated cell death induced by inflammatory cytokine \[[@pone.0132127.
Pharmacology Module 1 Quiz Rasmussen
ref035], [@pone.0132127.ref036]\] but its part in the anti-inflammatory role plays also important roles in the development and |
The media, popular opinion and religious freedom
Beijing, China - In analysing why freedom of religion or belief is violated in China, attention has rightly mainly focused on the state's institutions, policies, and practices. One state institution that deserves more scrutiny is the media, because in Communist countries like China it has been an integral component of the state apparatus to promote atheism, among other state-supported ideas. Such sustained indoctrination has historically encouraged a lack of popular interest in - or even hostility towards - religion, religious groups and religious adherents. The state's intended result has been public support for state polices and practices hostile to religious freedom.
The connection between popular opinion on religion and religious freedom violations has not been systematically studied in relation to China. The absence of hard data makes it difficult to demonstrate a causal linkage. But evidence suggests that popular attitudes towards religion have facilitated the state's repression of religious freedom, and the Chinese media have facilitated those attitudes by maintaining its traditional function as an instrument of the state.
Popular opinion
There is little doubt that the number of religious adherents in China has risen over the past two decades. Signs of religious revival are visible across the country. This rising religiosity has accompanied greater societal modernisation, even though the Chinese state has demonstrated hostility toward religion.
Some research has shown that the state's attitudes towards religion have not been accompanied by declining religiosity. In 2007, the China Daily published the results of a two-year survey by two researchers at Shanghai's East China Normal University (ECNU). That survey suggested that there were about 300 million self-described religious people in China. This number contradicted the long-held official line that only 100 million religious believers lived in China. Other survey results have suggested that the majority of the Chinese people are quite "religious". For example, 60 per cent of the Chinese respondents to the Pew Forum's 2005 survey indicated that they believed in supernatural phenomena, supernatural beings and religious figures.
These results suggest that religion has made an important come-back in China after decades of enforced atheism. But despite the rising number of religious believers and increasing signs of religiosity, the great majority of ordinary people - as Forum 18 has noted in China - consistently express little interest in religion. Along with this, they also may profess open hostility toward religion.
Indeed, there are reasons to believe that the surveys have not captured the full picture of the religious attitudes of ordinary people. An obstacle to capturing religious attitudes is that "religiousness" has not always been defined clearly and consistently in the existing research. For example, we are not sure how the ECNU researchers defined religiousness. The Pew Forum, however, has indicated clearly that its project defined religious beliefs as beliefs in "supernatural phenomena", "religious figures" and "supernatural beings".
Another challenge is that even if rising religiosity has become an important trend, it has not led to formal religious affiliation. Even though the ECNU survey results suggested that nearly one-third of China's population are religious believers, the percentage of respondents who have indicated clear religious affiliation has remained around 15 per cent over the past decade, as the Pew Forum noted. In other words, the relationship between the "religious beliefs" of the ordinary Chinese and their sense of religious "belonging" is at best uncertain. This apparent contradiction challenges researchers to gain a fuller understanding of the religious attitudes of ordinary Chinese.
One way to get a better sense of such attitudes is to gauge the importance of religion in their life, especially in relation to other socio-political institutions. In this respect, the World Values Survey indicates that, for most ordinary Chinese, religion has not become very important. This is the case despite people's greater willingness to indicate a belief in the supernatural.
In the 2007 sample of the World Values Survey, Chinese respondents were asked about the relative importance of several social and political groupings in their lives. In the sample of nearly 1,500 respondents, over 98 per cent had identified the family as either "very important" or "rather important" in their lives, with nearly 80 per cent of the respondents indicating that family was "very important". Approximately 83 per cent of respondents identified friends as either "very important" or "rather important". Over 55 per cent of the respondents identified politics as either "very important" or "rather important". By contrast, just fewer than 22 per cent of respondents indicated that religion was either "very important" or "rather important", while nearly 50 per cent indicated that religion was "not at all important".
This is matched by the Chinese person's relatively low level of confidence in religious institutions. In the sample, over 60 per cent of respondents indicated that they had either no confidence or "not very much" confidence in "churches". In contrast, approximately 80 per cent of respondents expressed either "a great deal of" confidence or "quite a lot of" confidence in the police and another 74 per cent held similar views about trade unions, which have been heavily criticised within China for their failure to represent the interests of ordinary workers.
The survey is problematic in that it used the word "churches" as the sole name for religious institutions. Nonetheless, Christian churches are in China a common form of religious institution that has seen a dramatic rise over the last two decades. Yet the churches have not acquired greater legitimacy than two heavily criticised state institutions, suggesting that Chinese religious institutions maintain only a low level of public legitimacy.
This is puzzling, as religion is gaining popularity in contemporary China, and the state has become more flexible in its management of religion. Part of the answer to this puzzle can be found in the fact that the Chinese media has not always presented a comprehensive and unbiased picture of either religion in China or state institutions. This is not least because the state controls the media, including the internet. It also means that the Chinese media has not promoted religious freedom.
Media self-censorship
China is now in the era of post-communism, characterised by greater social pluralism, more individual choices and unprecedented consumerism. Chinese media outlets have been described as both commercialised and more pluralistic, and the media has indeed reported on a wide range of controversial subjects. Yet they have generally avoided religion-related subjects, as editors and reporters see religion as sensitive and controversial. When non-internet Chinese media do report on religion and religious freedom, reports tend to be negative.
Mainstream media outlets have also continued to serve as vehicles to propagate state policies and practices. Specialist religious publications are few, with a circulation mainly restricted to religious groups and government officials, and generally inaccessible to ordinary people. As a result, the media has fostered popular religious attitudes that are not conducive to the protection of religious freedom.
The Chinese media's self-censorship reflects the cautious attitude displayed in state documents and by state officials. 31 March this year marked the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of Document 19 of the Communist Party of China, entitled: "Basic Viewpoints and Basic Policy on Religious Issues in Our Country during the Socialist Period". Toward the end of the document, the authors wrote that writers "must adopt a cautious attitude when writing essays involving religious issues for publication in newspapers and other publications. [They] must not violate existing religious policies and harm the religious feelings of the masses who profess religious beliefs".
On 25 January, the state-sponsored Religion in China magazine published a speech by Liu Jinguang, who is the deputy principal of the Politics and Law Bureau in the State Administration for Religious Affairs. The speech was entitled "The Practice of the Chinese Mass Media in Promoting and Protecting Religious Harmony".
Liu listed four "principles" that the Chinese media should abide by when publishing religious contents:
1) published contents cannot violate state policies and laws, including those concerning religion;
2) published contents must adhere to the relevant doctrines of the various religions;
3) published contents must be beneficial for the unity of all religions;
and 4) published contents must not harm the religious feelings of ethnic minorities.
These four principles track very closely what was written in Document 19.
According to Li Xianping, a professor of religion at ECNU who is well-known in China, the desire to avoid offending the Communist Party's religious sensibilities has resulted in the media adopting a practice of avoiding religious matters. When the media has reported about religion, most have supported and repeated state policies, acting in its traditional role as the state's mouthpiece.
The reporting of Liu Jinguang's speech in Religion in China was an example of this. Similar types of media coverage include reports about senior state leaders' meetings with senior Chinese and foreign religious officials, the proceedings of state-sponsored religious conferences, and the Chinese government's responses to foreign criticisms of its religious policies, such as from the US Department of State and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Other than this form of reporting, most Chinese media coverage of religion has tended to be critical without seeking to establish whether the criticism is valid. In his blog posted on 23 November 2010, Professor Li cited reporting about a recent controversy involving a former leader of the state-sponsored Daoist association, known in China as the "Li Yi phenomenon". The Daoist Li had claimed supernatural powers, including the ability to cure cancer, and the details of the controversy are (as is usual with influential figures in China) difficult to establish with a high degree of certainty. Professor Li cited the controversy as an example of how ideological pluralism can be promoted when the media become involved in religious reporting.
But the same reporting can also illustrate problems in the media. It may well be that the Daoist Li's activities and claims merit severe criticism. But even if the former Daoist leader carried out all the illicit activities he is accused of, the media in the main did not seek to establish whether or not this was the case.
As Professor Li noted, media reporting followed a line unlikely to incur the Communist Party's displeasure by promoting "scientism" and denying the value of religion, "returning to the so-called materialism and thus denying all religious beliefs" and analysing the truth in terms the Party would approve of. Indeed, much of the writing on this and similar cases has tended to be sensational in nature and involved an a priori assumption that religious figures are untrustworthy.
Through self-censorship, exercising its traditional function as the state's mouthpiece, negative reporting, and limited circulation of specialist publications, the non-internet Chinese media has promoted negative popular views about religion and religious freedom in contemporary China.
The internet
The state has adopted explicit measures to crack down on the promotion of religion and religious freedom on the Internet. In urban areas and among people under the age of 40, the internet has enjoyed rising popularity. Chinese internet users have been very active exchanging information. But the state continues to maintain a tight control over the publication of information relating to sensitive issues, including religion and religious freedom. This has long been the state's policy.
This has made it very difficult for people in China to obtain any information about religious people, groups and ideas that the state deems inappropriate. These include information relating to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, large-scale harassment of Shouwang Protestant Church in the capital Beijing (including arrests of leaders), and Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist-lawyer who has provided assistance to house churches and whose escape from house arrest, brief stay in the US Embassy in Beijing, and exit to the United States aroused worldwide attention. The mainstream media outside China has frequently reported on these cases - but the Chinese media, including internet media, has not.
Even when the Chinese social media has reported on these matters, readers have to go to great length to obtain the necessary information to form independent opinions. This is because of the state's Internet control mechanisms, which make it costly in terms of time and energy for readers to obtain information independent of the state media. Hence, only specific segments of the Chinese population have become aware of specific human rights and religious freedom cases. For example, Forum 18 has learned that college students have displayed strong interest in the recent case involving the blind activist Chen Guangcheng, while the majority of the population has remained unaware of the situation.
In short, the internet in China has not yet lived up to its potential as a vehicle to promote and protect religious freedom.
Media reform necessary for religious freedom improvements
Chinese communist leaders, especially Mao Zedong, have always emphasised the importance of controlling the media. In the past, the communist regime employed it as an explicit instrument of indoctrination to promote popular support for atheism. The media still performs this role, though more passively. This is seen in the absence of genuinely critical religious reporting seeking to verify all aspects of a topic, and limitations on the number of specialist religious publications and their accessibility.
Reform of the media is a requirement for real and lasting improvements in Chinese religious freedom to take place. This will be a challenge, even though some journalists and media organisations have become more willing to criticise state policies and practices and promote the rights and interests of ordinary people. Even so, an important element of the challenge is the lack of knowledge of religious matters among journalists, which reflects the historic secular tendency among Chinese intellectuals.
Another reason is that many Chinese journalists have lacked opportunities to form and publish independent assessments about all aspects of religious communities without state pressures. Consequently, even when journalists may be aware of religious aspects of a story, they have not reported them fully and accurately either due to self-censorship or as a consequence of explicit pressures from state officials.
For example, despite widespread reporting outside China about the strong Christian commitment of Chinese-American basketball sensation Jeremy Lin, the Chinese media has not reported this. Similarly, even though many Christian groups have been involved in humanitarian relief following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese media also has not reported this. The absence of reporting by the Chinese media of such religious aspects conveys a clear message to Chinese audiences.
Forum 18 is not aware of any concrete evidence that individual Chinese journalists have witnessed state religious freedom violations but not reported them. But as the state has a direct interest in preventing such reporting, it is safe to suggest that this has happened. In a similar case where the state has a direct interest in media coverage, Forum 18 learned that the leaders of the main Chinese TV channel China Central Television (CCTV) had halted an investigation by a CCTV news programme into flawed and dangerous buildings in Sichuan that were built before the 2008 earthquake.
In the last 30 years, the Chinese media has come a long way in its ability to act in the interests of society vis-a-vis the state. It is to be hoped that in future media coverage will facilitate the freedom of religion or belief in Chinese society. |
Experiment 1. Take an empty one way street with at its opposite extremities point a and point b. If one car travels frontally from point a to point b, while another travels backwards from point b to point a with its reverse lights broken or invisible to the outside observer, then at every moment of this choreography it appears impossible for the observer to determine which of the cars is moving in reverse.
Telling the direction of time emit fono it ceride htg nillet
If shuffling black and white marbles in a closed box has a close-to-zero probability of ordering the red marbles on one side and the blue on the other, then time must moving forward.
If the swinging pendulum comes to a stop, if a building’s glass shatters in an explosion, if walls crack, nails grow and people age, then time must be moving forward. As long as objects, bodies, and spaces in an isolated system have a tendency towards a maximal state of dispersion and recombination, then time must be moving forward.
If, however, entropy were to decrease, if the apparent disorder begins to arrange itself into order and fixity, this can mean one or two things. On one hand, that time may be moving backwards. On the other, that the system is not isolated.
An event displaying no entropy change to an outside observer is an event that can be moving either both neither backward or and nor forward in time. Had the event taken place in reverse, its energetic result would be the same, resulting in an incapacity to determine the direction of time
Experiment 2. Take a wall built around an informal football field by the owner of the land. The construction workers lay ten meters of brick on one day, and the football players undo ten meter of brick the following night. Throughout this process, it is effectively impossible for an outside observer to detect whether the wall is being built, demolished or both. |
[ pi-nuhm-bruh ]
/ pɪˈnʌm brə /
Save This Word!
noun, plural pe·num·brae [pi-nuhm-bree], /pɪˈnʌm bri/, pe·num·bras.
1. the partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the light from the source of illumination is only partly cut off.Compare umbra (def. 3a).
2. the grayish marginal portion of a sunspot.Compare umbra (def. 3b).
a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area: a penumbra of secrecy.
U.S. Law. a right or set of rights implicit but not expressed in the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights: The principle of the penumbra protects against an imperfect, or incomplete, enumeration of rights.
Question 1 of 7
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Origin of penumbra
First recorded in 1660–65; from New Latin penumbra (coined by Johannes Kepler in 1604), equivalent to Latin paen- prefix meaning “almost” + umbra “shade”; see pen-, umbra
pe·num·bral, pe·num·brous, adjective
How to use penumbra in a sentence
British Dictionary definitions for penumbra
/ (pɪˈnʌmbrə) /
noun plural -brae (-briː) or -bras
astronomy the lighter and outer region of a sunspot
painting the point or area in which light and shade blend
Compare umbra
Derived forms of penumbra
penumbral or penumbrous, adjective
Word Origin for penumbra
C17: via New Latin from Latin paene almost + umbra shadow
Scientific definitions for penumbra
[ pĭ-nŭmbrə ]
Plural penumbras penumbrae (pĭ-nŭmbrē)
The grayish outer part of a sunspot. Compare umbra. |
Infectious diseases are infections or diseases that are caused by micro-organisms like bacteria, parasites, protozoa, fungi, or viruses. A person can be exposed to these organisms in the environment or they can be transmitted by another person or organism. These infectious diseases can be considered as an epidemic, spreading throughout a population, or an endemic, when the occurrence of disease is at a constant rate. The specialist in this field is called Infectious Disease Specialist (ID Specialist), Doctor of Infectious Diseases, or Infectious Disease Physician. These medical doctors are responsible for investigating cases of infection and seeking the cause and cure for that specific type. They are also involved with the prevention, diagnosis, control, and treatment of infections. Aside from the common infectious diseases like the common cold or flu virus, ID specialists focus on diseases that are rarer in nature.
Educational Requirements
Bachelor’s Degree
Just like any other specialist in the medical field, an Infectious Disease Specialist must first complete a pre-medical bachelor's degree program. This undergraduate program should cover courses that will serve as the initial foundation of knowledge in science, laboratory work and instrumentation, and understanding on the basic concepts in medicine. There is a wide range of courses that a student who plans to be an ID specialist can take. Science programs, like BS Biology for example, are popular choices because these programs most likely include the courses that provide the basic information necessary for taking the Medical College Admissions Test or MCAT. These programs are also most likely to contain courses that will provide theoretical and practical knowledge essential to continue pursuing medical school.
In some states, it has also a recommended practice for college students to consult a medical school adviser in order to have a clearer understanding on the steps they need to take and courses and knowledge required pursuing the profession that they want. This will help the students plan their courses over their three to four years of undergraduate education. It is also highly recommended for aspiring medical students to partake in activities that will expose them in the field of medicine and patient care. Local hospitals and organizations often provide these opportunities by allowing students to volunteer in community health centers, public and private hospitals, medical missions, and feeding programs.
Most respectable medical schools only accept students that are within the specific Grade Point Average (GPA) that their school set. That is why, to ensure a student's entry to their prospect school, the student should be aware of the GPA cutoff of that school and make sure that their own GPA is within the range. For students who haven't decided on the school that they want to apply to, it is recommended for them to maintain a 3.0 or higher cumulative GPA and also a 3.0 or higher GPA for all their science and laboratory work courses. A good working relationship with teachers and mentors can also go a long way. These authority figures can serve as guide and provide objective remarks on the student's work ethic, ability, potential, and overall professionalism. These people can also serve as references for the required letter of recommendation that will be submitted to the institution that they are applying to.
Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT)
The Medical College Admissions Test or MCAT is a test is usually taken during the junior or the senior year of the undergraduate degree. This test usually differs from one country to another. It is used to evaluate the student's knowledge and understanding on the fundamental concepts and theories of the applicable sciences that will be needed for medical school and professional practice. It also assesses the student's problem solving and critical thinking skills. Different schools have different MCAT score cutoffs so it is necessary for the student to be aware of it. In some countries, MCAT scores are acceptable up to three years, allowing students to take additional classes and gain more training and experiences between graduating from their bachelor's degree and starting medical school. The MCAT result of the student will be included to their other application requirements and will be submitted to the school or schools that they are applying to.
Medical School
After graduating from their bachelor's degree and passing the MCAT, students can apply or seek acceptance into their preferred medical school. Respected medical schools are very competitive in nature. A strong academic standing with a high GPA (especially in applicable sciences), a high MCAT score to further prove their knowledge in scientific principles and critical thinking skills, as well as good letters of recommendations can go a long way in ensuring a slot in medical school. Some medical schools may also require the student to undergo a formal interview as part of the application process. Extra-curricular activities such as volunteering at a hospital or medical missions can also help strengthen an application.
Medical school usually takes four years to complete. During the first two years, the students are usually exposed to in-class coursework. This period allows the student to further expand their knowledge in anatomy and physiology, biology, pathology, chemistry, and other necessary courses that will strengthen their foundation as a medical practitioner. An exam usually concludes these first two years. This exam is used to gauge the student's scientific knowledge and readiness to proceed to the next part where they will begin their practical work under direct supervision.
The last two years of the medical school program is dedicated to provide students patient care experience under direct supervision, part of the program is usually referred to as Rotations. This period allows the students to apply the concepts and skills that they have acquired on the first two years. During this period, the students will be able to experience wide variety of specialties and work environments that could help them bring out particular interests or skills. These new knowledge can help them further choose which specialty is right for them and help them identify their residency and fellowship choices. In the case of an ID specialist, this can help the student identify their focus-patient care, research, or investigation. The specialties for rotations usually include ambulatory medicine and emergency medicine, gynecology and obstetrics, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, and surgery. A test will usually be taken by the students at the end of the fourth year to evaluate their knowledge and skills as well as to determine whether or not they are qualified to proceed to a residency program.
The residency program is a hands-on experience. A future ID specialist must be able to finish three to four years of residency, usually as a doctor of internal medicine or pediatrics. The residency program provides a more hands-on experience in patient care and a real setting where the resident is trained to do extensive laboratory work under the supervision of an experienced doctor and teacher. This period also allows the student to be part of a research project and take on leadership roles. Testing methods and laboratory result interpretation techniques are also studied extensively.
Residency is often considered as one of the most stressful period of the students' education. That is why it is necessary that the students are able to maintain their focus and priority on their studies and responsibility as residents. Connecting with potential mentors and finding more about their own skills and interests will help the residents identify which sub-specialty would be well fit for them. Right after the residency program, these students will then be required to take a board certification exam for internal medicine. After becoming board-certified in internal medicine, the internist (a doctor in internal medicine) can then proceed to complete two to three years of fellowship training program in infectious disease.
The fellowship program is where the students will be able to focus on the education and training on the sub-specialty. For an aspiring ID specialist, this is a two to three year program where the student can focus on the study of infectious diseases entirely. It is necessary that the student has accomplished the pre-requisite education because it will serve as the foundation for understanding the essentials of infectious diseases and specializing in the field.
There are generally three major tracks available for fellowship training in adult infectious diseases namely:
• Basic Investigator Track
• Clinician Track
• Clinical Investigator Track
All of these tracks generally consist of a 12-month core curriculum and another 12-26 months of fellowship training depending on the chosen track. For the clinician track, they are required to have another 12 months’ worth of fellowship training while for the Clinical Investigator and Basic Investigator, 24-26 months’ duration of fellowship training is required.
According to the FRIEDA Online Database by the American Medical Association (AMA), there are 146 fellowship programs available in the United States of America. Infectious disease specialists are also given the option to further specialize on one specific type of infectious diseases of on a specific disease in general (e.g. HIV/AIDS)
Board Certification and Licensing
The next step after the fellowship program is the board certification. This test is more specialized compared to the three exams taken during the medical school proper also known as United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). It will also conclude the fellowship training in the subspecialty of the physician’s choice.
In order to qualify for the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) board certification in Infectious Diseases, the prospective ID fellow should have completed 2-year fellowship training. The additional training requirement for both the Clinical Investigator and Basic Investigator tracks is not required for the board certification. The additional training requirement for the Investigator tracks is intended for acquisition of adequate research experience which will enable the fellow to become a competent investigator.
Licensure requirements differ from each state. ID specialists must be aware of the requirements for the states that they are planning to practice in. This might involve additional testing as well as submission of experience, test scores, and other documents.
Roles and Responsibilities
Infectious Disease Specialists combine their clinical skills with the laboratory skills in order to make an accurate diagnosis and provide an effective treatment plan for a wide range of infections in both acutely and chronically infected patients. They would often serve as consultants to other physicians when:
• The infection is difficult to diagnose.
• The infection is accompanied by high fever.
• The patient is non-responsive to treatment.
• A previous patient or a healthy person is planning to travel overseas or to a location where the infection risk is higher.
• A patient with immunodeficiency conditions like those who need HIV/AIDS management.
In all the cases that an ID specialist handles, a specialized training and diagnostic tool as well as a thorough investigation to identify the cause of the infection is necessary to determine the best approach to treatment. To ensure the effectiveness of the treatment, ID specialists may perform the following procedures:
• Thoroughly review the medical history of the patient in order to identify the possible causes of infection and the location where the patient got infected. The ID specialist might need to get a hold of the information regarding the patient's travels, interaction with an infected person or group, and activities that might have compromised the patient (e.g. sex or needle sharing).
• Perform physical diagnostic examinations to identify the exact part or parts of the body affected by the disease. This may also help in identifying the weaknesses that the patient may have.
• Order laboratory tests such as blood cultures, urine samples, and x-rays to further identify the specifics of the disease and its manifestations.
• Determine how fast the disease spreads and how contagious it is. This will help the ID specialist develop a treatment plan and prevent other individuals from being infected.
• Consult other medical specialists (e.g. surgeons, virologists, etc.) to complete the treatment of the patient.
• Prescribe treatment that may include medications and/or surgeries to treat or eradicate the disease.
• Work with researchers in order to be updated about developing diseases and the proper treatments for the diseases that pose a risk to their patient population.
• Conduct seminars or talks to train and educate the patient population and their families on how the disease will affect their lives, how to prevent the spread of the disease, and the symptoms that needs to be monitored over time.
• Prescribe vaccination regimen for the patient’s family to prevent the spread of disease.
During the course of the treatment, ID specialists review the medical data that is obtained through clinical and laboratory tests. They may also need to perform medical procedures that are needed to treat or further diagnose the disease. These include:
• Central venous catheter insertion- the insertion of a thin flexible hollow tube into a large vein for the introduction of fluids and/or medication.
• Lumbar puncture- the withdrawal of cerebrospinal fluid through a hollow needle that is inserted into the lower part of the spinal canal. This is used to diagnose the disease or inject medication.
• Sigmoidoscopy- examination of the intestine (or a part of it) with the use of a very small camera.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is a predicted increase of 14% in the employment opportunities for all physicians and surgeons from 2014 to 2024. This is a faster rate than the average rise and the mean salary among physicians and surgeons in 2015 was $222,760. In the Medscape Infectious Disease Physician Compensation Report, it is stated that the average income of an ID specialist ranges from $125,000 to $250,000 with an average income of $170,000. The Northwest regions of the United States provide the highest average compensation for ID specialist with an average of $300,000. This region includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. The South Central United States (which includes Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas) on the other hand has the lowest average compensation at $137,000.
Generally, the highest paid work setting is the private work setting where the physician is the owner of the practice and the lowest paid work setting is an outpatient clinic. The average income is greatly affected by work setting and situation. Here is a brief break down of pay by work setting and situation:
Work Setting
• Academic: $151,000
• Healthcare Organization: $134,000
• Hospital: $170,000
• Multispecialty group practice: $223,000
• Single specialty group practice: $188,00
• Solo practice: $225,000
• Outpatient Clinic: $132,000
Work Situation
• Employee: $162,000
• Independent Contractor: $175,000
• Owner, solo practice: $259,000
• Partner: $186,000
Even before the discovery of the microscope and the microorganisms that cause infection, evidence of infectious diseases as well as their effects on populations has been recorded. Scientists have found evidence of smallpox in 3000-year-old Egyptian mummies and some Egyptian papyrus paintings even depict infectious diseases such as poliomyelitis. These diseases were often seen as results of events tied to culture or supernatural beliefs. Diseases were often viewed as a result of karma or punishment from divine entities. Some cultures even saw diseases as curses, acts of magic, body fluid imbalance, excess blood, or proof that demons exist.
The earliest recorded scientific observation of infectious diseases was that of Thucydides. He was a historian from Athens. In 430 B.C., he analyzed the behavior of the Plague of Athens and wrote about his general observations. He observed that places with higher populations produced more infected victims at a faster rate. He also noted that physicians that came in direct contact with the infected people have the highest chance of being infected themselves. He debunked the prevailing theory that the diseases were caused by “evil airs” or Miasma by recording incidents wherein the plague was transported from one place to another. He also wrote the very first record of acquired immunity by noting that the people that have recovered from the plague have developed immunity and is not affected by future attacks from that specific plague.
Hippocrates wrote about the spread of diseases by means of airs, water, and places. He also made an association between climate, diet, and living conditions. In the 1500s, Girolamo Fracastoro discussed the germ theory and proposed three routes of contagion namely: direct contact, fomites, and contagion from a distance (airborne). This has made the ideas of contagion more popular in Europe during the Renaissance period.
In the 1600s, a draper shop owner named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek advanced the science of microscopy by being the first to observe microorganisms. His development of the microscope allowed the scientists to visualize microorganisms. The knowledge about the cultivation and identification of microorganisms was made more popular and well known in the 1800s and it was used in the mid-19th century by two scientists named John Snow and William Bud in their work to demonstrate the contagiousness of typhoid and cholera through contaminated water. These two scientists implemented measures to prevent water contamination and were credited with decreasing epidemics in their towns.
The link between infections and the presence of certain microorganisms were further strengthened by Louis Pasteur’s discoveries of the principle of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. He also reduced mortality from puerperal fever and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His discoveries fortified the foundations of disease control and prevention.
The formulation of the Koch’s postulates in 1884 by Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler has established a causative relationship between a microbe and a disease. These postulates were used as a general guideline to identify pathogen but it was also recognized that some infectious agents were responsible for disease even though they did not fulfill all of the postulates. Edward Jenner along with Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed effective vaccines for smallpox and polio. This vaccine would later result in the eradication of smallpox and near-eradication of polio. The 19th century also gave rise to the world’s first antibiotic, Penicillin, which is discovered by Alexander Fleming. The increasing understanding on the nature of diseases and its manifestations resulted to broad control measures such as personal hygiene, community sanitation, and public health awareness. The importance of education and proper nutrition was also noted for its effect on infectious diseases.
Infectious Diseases: A general Guide
Infectious diseases rank as the second leading cause of death globally. Over half of the affected of these diseases are children under the age of five. In the United States alone, 170,000 people die each year due to infectious diseases making it the third leading cause of death.
Infectious diseases can either be passed from person to person, animal bites, ingestion of contaminated food or water, or being exposed to organisms in the environment. Along with the wide range of organisms causing, the infection comes a wide range of signs and symptoms, but it often includes fever and fatigue. Mild infections can be handled by the body’s immune system and would only require rest and home remedies, while some more life threatening infections may require medical attention and treatment.
General Signs and Symptoms
General signs and symptoms common to majority of infectious diseases are:
• Coughing
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Fever
• Muscle and joint aches
If these signs and symptoms started to appear, it is advisable to have yourself checked up. Immediate medical attention is also highly recommended if the person is having difficulty in breathing, has severe headache with fever, experiences rash or swelling, have sudden vision problems, has been coughing for more than a week, has unexplained or prolonged fever, or has been bitten by an animal.
The easiest way to be infected is by coming in contact with an infected person or animal. Below is a more detailed explanation on the three ways that infectious diseases can spread:
Modes of Infection
Direct Contact
• Person to person- this is the most common way for an infectious disease to spread. The direct transfer of bacteria, viruses, or other microorganisms from one person to another can occur when an infected individual touches, kisses, or coughs or sneezes on a non-infected person. It can also spread through the exchange of body fluids through sexual contact. In some cases, the person who passes on the infectious disease exhibits on sign or symptom and is only a carrier of the disease.
• Animal to person- infected animal bites or scratches can transfer infectious diseases and can be fatal at times. Even handling animal excretions can transfer infectious diseases (e.g. toxoplasmosis infection can be acquired by scooping an infected cat’s fecal excretions).
• Mother to unborn child- some microorganisms can pass through the placenta and infect the unborn child. Some microbes in the vagina can also be transferred to the baby during birth.
Indirect Contact
• Through infected objects- some organisms can stay on inanimate objects (e.g. doorknobs, tabletops, or toilet seats) for a longer time and can be picked up by a person upon touching the object. If the person then touches his/her mouth, nose, or eyes before washing his/her hands, that person may become infected.
• Insect bites- some microbes are spread by insects such as mosquitoes, fleas, lice, or ticks.
• Food contamination- contaminated food allows the disease to spread to many people by a single source, which is why it is important to observe proper food preparations and packaging.
Personal hygiene is an important factor in order to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Aside from keeping oneself clean by washing your hands and bathing regularly, a person can decrease the risk of getting infected or infecting others by:
• Getting vaccinated
• Staying home when ill
• Preparing food safely by keeping the kitchen and kitchen materials clean as well as refrigerating leftovers.
• Practicing safe sex by using condoms
• Not sharing your personal items
• Researching about the common diseases in the places that you want to travel to.
• Consulting your doctor regarding the preventive measures you can take (e.g. vaccines) before traveling to a high risk area.
How to become an Infectious Disease Specialist.(n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2018, from
Infectious Diseases.(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018 from http://healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/role-doctors/medicine/infectious-diseases
Brachman, P. S. (2003, October 01). Infectious diseases-past, present, and future | International Journal of Epidemiology | Oxford Academic. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/32/5/684/665695
Career Paths in Infectious Diseases.(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from http://idsociety.org/ID_Careers/
Daniels, P. (2007). Body: the complete human. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
Doctor of Infectious Diseases: Career Info & Education Requirements. (n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from http://study.com/articles/Doctor_of_Infectious_Disease_Career_Info_for_Infectious_Disease_Specialists.html
Infectious Diseases.(n.d.).retrieved January 12, 2018, from http://mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/infectious-diseases/symptoms-causes/syc-20351173
Koch's Postulates to Identify the Causative Agent of an Infectious Disease.(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from http://www.life.umd.edu/classroom/bsci424/BSCI223WebSiteFiles/KochsPostulates.htm
Norkin, L. (2014, September 30). Thucydides and the Plague of Athens. Retrieved January 11, 2018, from https://norkinvirology.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/thucydides-and-the-plague-of-athens/
Santiago, L. (2017, November 26). How to Become an Infectious Disease Physician. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://verywell.com/how-to-become-an-infectious-disease-physician-1736278
What is an Infectious Disease Specialist?.(n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from http://idsociety.org/Templates/threeColumn.aspx?pageid=32212254738
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How To Do Fractions On A Scientific Calculator
While scientific calculators are designed to help solve complex engineering, physics, math, and chemistry problems, like business calculators, they display fractions as decimals by default.
This means if you enter a fraction like ¾ on the calculator, the display will read 0.75.
However, most scientific calculators have a feature that enables you to display fractions as a result without making the conversion yourself.
Perhaps the best thing about the feature is that you can also enter complex or improper fractions into the calculator and have it simplify them for you.
Here’s a quick guide to doing fractions on your scientific calculator.
How to Do Fractions on A Scientific Calculator
Scientific calculators come loaded with a special mode called the “MATH mode.” To use your calculator for fractions, this is the mode you must use.
Step #1: Put Your Calculator In MATH mode
To do this, you must first push the “MODE” button on the calculator to open the modes menu.
casio scientific calculator
Casio scientific calculator
Then, you have to navigate to the “MATH” mode option using the arrow keys. When you activate the mode, the calculator will display the word “MATH” on top of the screen.
There is a chance your scientific calculator doesn’t have this function. You can proceed to the next section to find a workaround to do fractions with such a calculator.
Step #2: Press the Fraction Button
After you toggle the MATH mode, you will need to press the fraction button to input the numbers in that format and use the fraction calculator.
Most scientific calculators represent the fraction button as a black box over a white box.
However, some calculators have “x/y” or “b/c” stamped on the fraction key instead.
When you press this button, the fraction template will appear on the screen. The template will have two blank boxes, one on top of the other, separated by a horizontal line.
Some calculators separate the two boxes with an inverted “L” instead of a horizontal line.
If your calculator doesn’t have a MATH mode but has a fraction button, try pressing the fraction button to make the template appear directly.
Note: If you want to enter a mixed fraction, you can push the SHIFT key on your calculator before pressing the fraction button. Doing this will insert a third box in the template, allowing you to enter a number there.
Step #3: Enter the Numerator
Now that you have a template on your screen, enter the numerator of your fraction in the top box using the keypad.
The calculator’s cursor will start there, so you don’t have to do any navigating with the arrow keys.
Step #4: Navigate to the Denominator
After entering the numerator, you must enter the denominator of the fractional.
Before you enter the number, you will need to navigate to the lower box of the template. To do this, press the down arrow on your calculator. This will move the cursor to the lower box.
If your scientific calculator has an “L” instead of a horizontal line separating the two boxes, you may need to hit the right arrow instead of the down arrow to move the cursor.
Step #5: Enter the Denominator
Now that your cursor is correctly positioned in the lower box, use the keypad to enter the denominator.
Before you hit the “equals” button, look at the calculator’s display and ensure that your fraction looks right. If you’ve accidentally entered a wrong number, you can use the arrow keys and the delete key to remove the number and enter the right one.
Step #6: Hit the Equals Button
Hitting the equals button will simplify a complex fraction or give you the results of your regular fraction, depending on what you’ve entered.
Calculating Fractions Without the Fraction Key
If your calculator doesn’t have the fraction key or MATH mode, there is a workaround you can use to manipulate fractions.
Write the Fraction as A Decimal And Convert
If you’re unable to display fractions on your calculator, remember that you can still enter them.
To write a fraction as a decimal, enter the numerator with the keypad, hit the division key, then enter the denominator. Hitting the “equals” button will return the answer as a decimal.
While your calculator may not be able to convert the decimal into a fraction for you, it can help you do it with a pencil and paper.
Let’s say you want to show 0.5714 as a fraction. You could write it as 5714/10000, but you will likely want to reduce the fraction down to something a lot simpler.
To do this, multiply the decimal number with a possible denominator. This will give you a numerator for the fraction. You will need to do some guesswork, and this method of working is based on trial and error.
For instance, let’s try multiplying the decimal with 7. 7 x 0.5714 = 3.998, which is close enough to 4.
So, on paper, you can write the fraction 4/7 to represent 0.5714.
Scientific calculators are some of the most powerful tools students have in their arsenal when tackling complex problems of all sorts.
And now that you know how to use the scientific calculator to do fractions, you can use it to its full potential.
You don’t need to buy a new calculator if yours doesn’t have the MATH mode or the function key. You can convert your decimal into a fraction with the help of your calculator using the steps mentioned above.
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Is Happiness All in Your Head? Two scientists look at the science behind happiness and satisfaction. What does it really mean to be happy? What does your brain really want?
Is Happiness All in Your Head?
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(Soundbite of "Don't Worry, Be Happy")
FLATOW: What is happiness? Sure a big philosophical question, so we'll change it a little. What makes your brain happy?
(Soundbite of cell phone ringing)
FLATOW: Is it a lack of bad things? How about excitement? Risk? Novelty? A home-cooked meal? Or getting what you desire, does that make you happy? What goes on in your brain when you're happy?
(Soundbite of "Don't Worry, Be Happy")
Mr. BOBBY McFERRIN: (Singing) Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don't worry. Be happy.
FLATOW: Joining me now are two scientists and authors who've put a lot of thought into these sorts of questions, and if you'd like to join the conversation, give us a call. Our number is 1 (800) 989-8255; 1 (800) 989-TALK. And you can always surf over to our Web site at, where you'll find links to our topic.
Let me introduce my guests. Daniel Nettle is author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile." And he's a lecturer in psychology in the Division of Psychology, Brain and Behavior at University of Newcastle in the UK. He joins us from BBC studios there.
Dr. DANIEL NETTLE (Author, "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile"; University of Newcastle): Thank you very much.
FLATOW: You're welcome.
Gregory Berns is the author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment." He's an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavior sciences at Emory University and associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. And he joins us from the studios of Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta.
Welcome to the program.
Dr. GREGORY BERNS (Author, "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment"; Associate Professor, Emory University): Hello, Ira.
FLATOW: How are you?
Dr. BERNS: Very well.
FLATOW: Daniel Nettle, what does it mean to be happy? I mean, where do you start trying to find out what happiness is?
Dr. NETTLE: Well, actually, I think people often say to me, `Oh, happiness. That's incredibly difficult to define, isn't it?' And I say, `Well, no, actually, it's quite easy to define, just very difficult to attain.' I think we all have a pretty strong intuition that happiness involves--and when I talk about happiness I don't mean complete ecstasy, you know, that sort of, you know, maximally joyous experience. But sort of basic everyday happiness involves a relative absence of the kind of worrisome emotions of anxiety, fear and sadness. And at least periodic pleasance of the positive emotions like enjoyment. And above all, a kind of judgment that things have gone, you know, to one's satisfaction. And that I call being happy.
FLATOW: Well, it's interesting that you have a book called "Happiness," and my other author has a book called "Satisfaction."
Dr. NETTLE: Right.
FLATOW: Are they equivalent, in your mind?
Dr. NETTLE: Well, I--if I might jump in there...
Dr. BERNS: Yeah.
Dr. NETTLE: ...I think that probably happiness is the more ambiguous term and, you know, one of the main senses of the word `happiness' is satisfaction, but there are other uses it has. It's probably a more general term in the everyday language, I guess.
FLATOW: Dr. Berns, how would you parse the two?
Dr. BERNS: Well, I think they're actually quite a bit different. Happiness I think of in terms of more of a passive emotion. I guess, you know, the way you think of it as something that happens to you. And it's actually not something that you have a great deal of control over. Whereas satisfaction I like to think of as in terms of a more active emotion; it's an emotion that you achieve by doing something and it's something very much under an individual's control.
FLATOW: And you went out in your book and you actually follow different people around in their daily lives and found out what makes them happy. Was there any overwhelming consensus of what makes people happy?
Dr. BERNS: Well, it wasn't that I was looking for happiness, and the book is really more of a science book but in the guise of a travelogue, if you will. And the idea was to take all the findings that we had amassed in brain research and neuroscience, specifically around a part of the brain known as the reward system, and see how people actually kind of tickle their reward system in unusual ways. And, indeed, I did follow a number of people around doing what I thought were unusual things and achieving satisfaction in unusual ways.
FLATOW: Is there a spot for happiness in the brain?
Dr. BERNS: No, actually, there isn't, and that's what was new to me. I--you know, I had been trained and kind of schooled in the idea that there is some sort of pleasure center in the brain. And, you know, it's a really old idea that goes back probably to Freud, but really started taking off about 50 years ago when neuroscientists discovered dopamine, the so-called pleasure neurotransmitter, and the idea that dopamine was this chemical that's released when something good happens has really stuck around until probably about 10 years ago when we started realizing that dopamine is released in several parts of the brain, but more importantly it's not released in response to pleasure. It's actually released in response to things that are new and novel to you.
FLATOW: And you make that at a point in your book that the novelty is very, very important. New and novel things.
Dr. BERNS: Novelty is critical and, to my way of thinking, the brain is all about novelty. And a lot of people don't like to hear that because they say, `Well, novelty, you know, I don't like--I don't like change.' But if you think about it, the brain really exists to adapt to a world that is constantly changing and for a brain to do that, it really needs new things, it needs new information and novelty. And it's no coincidence that novelty drives what we used to think was the reward system or the pleasure system, but in fact it's all about novelty.
FLATOW: Would you agree, Dr. Nettle?
Dr. NETTLE: Oh, I'd agree in part. I think that the sort of dopamine reward system is only one subpart of all the different things we call happiness or satisfaction and that's the part to do with wanting to take on some challenge or adapt to some environmental change and then succeeding in doing so. And it's also the part that has to do with craving and addiction and, you know, desire for kind of exciting things like, you know, sex and drugs and so on.
But there are other parts and we know that there are also systems to do with--there's a serotonin-based system that produces that kind of expansive relaxation that we actually associate with completely unstressful circumstances with, for example, being with people we know and love well and, you know, are completely comfortable with or with just simply, you know, sitting on a beach on a beautiful day with no novelty in sight. And I think that's a very--that kind of expansive, for this moment, you know, don't change anything, damp down all the stress-response systems, nothing bad is going to happen kind of system of the brain is a very different one from the excitement I get from going on a roller coaster or doing my deepest scuba dive ever type rush. So maybe we need to differentiate different parts of the brain, which really are subtlety different positive emotions.
FLATOW: Yeah, but you could argue that, you know, getting on a roller coaster, other--jumping out of an airplane. These are terror-filled things. Why does a terror-filled thing make you happy?
Dr. NETTLE: Well, I think--I mean, I think it's not the terror-filled thing that makes you happy, it's the experience of mastering it. One of the most rewarding things we have is actually mastering or being in control of some aspect of our environment. And what we do on a roller coaster or, you know, in the careers or hobbies that many of us choose, is allow a little bit of absolute chaos into our lives and get the kick of then mastering it. So you let yourself go on the roller coaster...
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: ...because you'll get on the other end and actually you're still in control of everything.
FLATOW: Yeah, I know, 'cause I'm taking pilot lessons.
Dr. NETTLE: Right.
FLATOW: I get the same thing. But I would imagine, evolutionarily speaking, that happiness must have value because it gives you something to look forward to, to get you out of bed, to do something for that day.
Dr. NETTLE: Well, yes. I mean, I think one of the most interesting things that if you ask people what the major goals are that they think would make them happy in life, you know, they tend to be things like, you know, becoming the boss of my company or becoming vice president or, you know, having a beautiful wife and so on. And then you ask them, `How much do you think it would change your satisfaction with life if you attained that goal?' And they said, `It would make an enormous impact on me,' you know, `I would be much, much happier, a much happier person if that happened.'
But actually we know from longitudinal studies that once those goals are attained, they're almost instantly replaced with some other goal and then people say, `Oh, I'm just as happy as I was before. Now I want to be president. You know, before I wanted to be vice president.'
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: `Now I've got that. I'm no happier, and now I want to be president.' So I think in a way the psychology of happiness is partly kind of goading us on in evolutionary terms...
FLATOW: Right. Right.
Dr. NETTLE: do things like compete for status, explore the environment, you know, those kinds of things. So in some ways it's a cruel illusion, but it gets us out of bed in the morning, you know.
FLATOW: Right. Dr. Berns, any reaction?
Dr. BERNS: Yeah. I agree with that and what we're talking about actually has a name. It's called the hedonic treadmill and it's exactly this phenomena that, you know, you think if only you had a little bit more money, you'd be a little bit happier. But in the end, our brains always adapt to whatever kind of level of goods and well-being that we have. Because the brain is actually designed to respond to changes. It's actually very poor at gauging things that don't change very slowly.
And, you know, you mentioned this terror of bungee jumping and roller coasters, and indeed I do think that there is satisfaction in the experience of that. But as we've been talking about, it has a lot to do with the control and the mastery of that and exactly in controlled amounts.
FLATOW: Yeah. 1 (800) 989-8255 is our number. Talking with Daniel Nettle, author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile," and Gregory Berns, the author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment." 1 (800) 989-8255, as I say. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Ryan in Kansas City.
Hi, Ryan.
RYAN (Caller): Hi. How's it going?
RYAN: I have a two-part question. Number one: Why do some people cry when they're happy? And number two: Is there a psychological and/or biological similarity when somebody is laughing or is crying? I'll take my answer off the air. Thanks.
FLATOW: OK. Gentlemen? Anybody want to tackle that one?
Dr. BERNS: Well, I'll take a stab at it.
FLATOW: Go ahead.
Dr. NETTLE: Please, go ahead.
FLATOW: Dr. Berns, go ahead.
Dr. BERNS: The thing--you asked me earlier about whether there's a pleasure center in the brain and I said, `No, there isn't.' And the similar question you could ask: Is there a pain center in the brain? And, in fact, there isn't a pain center, either. And the brain imaging studies that have been done in this area, as well as numerous studies in other animals, show that it's, in fact, a very fine line between pain and pleasure, if you will, which I think is probably very similar to what the listener just described as the difference between laughing and crying. These are amazingly fine differences as far as the brain's concerned.
FLATOW: I remember years ago there was a study about smiling and, if I remember it correctly, it showed that when you smile and your muscles in your mouth move to form a smile, your body releases endorphins. Do you remember that study? Or some sort of chemistry--chemical messengers that relieve pain or something.
Dr. NETTLE: Well, this is certainly an idea that's been around in psychology for a long time and it's at least partly true, which is that the outward display of emotions cause some of the experiences and physiological changes--the inner changes of the emotion. So for example if you force your mouth into the shape of a smile, you can produce at least some of the effects of the emotion of happiness, albeit in a much milder form. So there's some--you know, the flow doesn't just go from brain processes out to peripheral muscles, but also from peripheral muscles back to the brain. There's a kind of feedback loop: `I'm smiling, so I know I must be happy' in a way.
FLATOW: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. NETTLE: I'm not sure if that's what you were driving at.
FLATOW: May--no, well, I--if--I was sort of saying maybe the body has built-in, you know, functions that allow you to feel better when you smile. I mean...
Dr. NETTLE: Well, we...
FLATOW: It wants you to smile or something.
Dr. NETTLE: We certainly know that if you induce positive emotions in people, you get changes, for example, in the immune system functioning. We've known for a long time that stress is very bad for the immune system, or it produces a very short-term kind of outbreaking of the immune system, but in the long term it causes problems. But actually there's been a couple of studies in the last few years have shown that if you take subjects into the lab and you're very nice to them, you get this kind of short-term potentiation of the immune system, you know, something seems to happen and you get hormonal changes and stuff going along with that. So what all of our emotions are doing are setting us up for the idea that the world is likely to be in this kind of a state in the next few minutes to hours, so anger is setting us up for the fact that, you know, someone's going to try and do something to you; you need to be ready to retaliate. Or fear is saying you might have to run. And I think sort of positive emotions like happiness is saying, you know, actually the environment's pretty benign so...
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: don't need to be too stressed and but you need to be expansively ready to kind of adapt to nice offers that people might make you.
FLATOW: We're talking about happiness this hour on TALK OF THE NATION/SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News with Daniel Nettle, author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile," and Gregory Berns, author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment."
Let's go to the phones. Hi, Barbara. Have you found true fulfillment?
BARBARA (Caller): Well, you know, it's very interesting what you're saying. Almost everything that's been said is about doing, but there's also happiness vs. contentment. I don't need to be doing anything to be content. And so there seems to be a lot of activity--what your speakers are saying about, you know, happiness.
FLATOW: Dr. Nettle?
Dr. NETTLE: I think that's a really interesting point, and actually it points up two quite different traditions of thinking about happiness. There's a sort of Western one, which is all about going out there and, you know, winning the battle and getting the girl, and the Eastern tradition which is more actually about letting go of desires, and it's more about meditation and contemplation and actually not needing to kind of struggle after doing things. That's more of a Buddhist approach. So I think in a way they're both necessary. They're really different parts of the coin.
I think that it's true that taking on meaningful challenges, you know, is an extraordinary source of satisfaction and, you know, we know many examples of that. But also there are times when people need to disengage from a struggle they liked or challenge they might have taken on that actually be becoming like an addiction or a craving. And there they need to be able to, you know, step back from it, and there are certain techniques like mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which is actually allowing people to step back and say, you know, life is all right. There'll be frustration and there'll be good thing, but you know, you can be content with the outrageous fortune that will come to you.
BARBARA: And do you think this has to do with aging? Does the younger group have to go out and seek activity for happiness, and do older people or the older you get do you develop contentment?
Dr. NETTLE: I think intuitively that seems to be right. I don't know any study that's actually addressed that, but it does seem to be that it's partly a life-course thing. But I think very often if you have the one, you can benefit from a bit more of the other. You know, it's all about balance, really, isn't it?
BARBARA: But I just--you know, the whole thing of activity and doing when there's so much just in reflection that is--you know, brings great peace of mind.
Dr. NETTLE: That's absolutely right. But I think also personality comes into this in a big way, because some of us are very, you know, needy of stimulation, and we need to find outlets--and some people need to find outlets. Other people are prone to worry and for them often what they need to find is actually a way of disengaging from their worries or their feeling of constraint or stress. So I think, you know, different people probably and at different times use different combinations of these things to find their particular place in life.
BARBARA: Well, thank you so much. Very interesting discussion.
FLATOW: Thank you, Barbara.
BARBARA: Mm-hmm. Bye-bye.
FLATOW: 1 (800) 989-8255 is our number. Talking with the authors of two very interesting books, "Happiness" and "Satisfaction." What better book titles can you get than that, huh? Daniel Nettle, who's author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile," put out by Oxford; Gregory Berns, author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment," put out by Henry Holt.
We're going to have to take a short break. When we come back, we'll talk lots more about happiness and satisfaction, and hopefully we can get some of your happiness and satisfaction on the phones. Our number, 1 (800) 989-8255. Maybe we'll think about marriage a little bit and does that lead to happiness and satisfaction. You know, we keep hearing that people who are married live longer, so maybe there's something there about satisfaction. We'll take a short break and come back. Don't go away.
FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION/SCIENCE FRIDAY. I am Ira Flatow.
We're talking this hour about happiness and satisfaction. Daniel Nettle, author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile"; and Gregory Berns, author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment." Our number, 1 (800) 989-8255.
Let me ask you, Dr. Berns, you know, you look at sports these days, and you see--let's just pick out baseball. And guys are making 150 million, and they won't take 110 million, you know? They gotta have that--I mean, can it be that the people are never satisfied winning at something? Can you ever be satisfied?
Dr. BERNS: Well, the example that you give with money is particularly interesting, and it does indeed seem to be the case that people are not really ever satisfied with whatever money they have. Although talking about sports--and this actually gets back to Barbara's question about contentment--sports and physical activity are a really interesting aspect of satisfaction, and I actually come down, you know, pretty strongly on the active component of this. And I mean, the bottom line is we have two arms and we have two legs and we're fundamentally creatures that move about in this world. We are really designed and we're really evolved for physical activity and particularly a little bit of stress. And actually I think stress is good in small doses. One of the chemicals that I talk about in the book is cortisol. Now anyone who's turned on cable television late at night has undoubtedly seen infomercials about how cortisol is bad for you, how it makes you depressed and everything--from depression to obesity. And actually cortisol in small doses is quite good.
FLATOW: Yeah. So you should be getting some...
(Soundbite of laughter)
FLATOW: ...of--does your status of how you feel--I'll ask both of you now--if you're a happy person now and a satisfied person now, does that mean you're going to be that way in the future, and does that encourage you to be that way in the future? And I guess maybe that has something to do with your outlook on life being half-full or half-empty.
Dr. BERNS: Yeah. You know, the studies of happiness in particular have shown very strong genetic components to happiness. I mean, I think we all subjectively know that some people just have kind of a sunny disposition and other people don't. Now the other big component of happiness I think is luck. You know, it--people who live with moderate degrees of wealth--I mean, basically if you don't live in poverty, you're pretty lucky. Most of the world lives in poverty and just being lucky enough to live in a country where you're not in poverty makes you happy--just, you know, by some threshold effect. So I don't think that happiness is something that we can move around a lot, but I do think that satisfaction is something that's attainable by anyone, happy or unhappy.
FLATOW: Daniel Nettle, want to...
Dr. NETTLE: I think I'd partly disagree with that. It absolutely true about the genetic factors, and in fact the best predictor of, for example, how happy you'll be in 20 years' time is simply how happy you are now, which is a sobering thought because we all believe that we're going to have some incredible transformation in the next couple of years that will change everything.
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: But, you know, statistically speaking we won't. However, I would say this about genetics. If I took 20 completely untrained runners, people who'd never done any athletic training, and I made them do a race, the differences in their speeds would be almost completely due to genetics. Some people would just happen to have fast twitch muscles, and some people would be light-framed and so on, and some people would be taller so they'd go a bit faster. OK, so a lot of the difference in speed is genetic. However, you can also train, and that training can make a difference, you know, to those inequalities that might exist. So you know, I wouldn't be entirely bleak about this. I think it's good to know that, for example, some people are very prone to be worriers, and they will probably always be worriers, but there are things you can do about your worry. You can kind of some to a relationship with it where you say, OK, I know I'm someone who's bound to worry; therefore, I'm going to discount my worrying a bit more when it happens. And so I think you can do something about, you know, as it were, the personality or heritage that you've ended up with.
FLATOW: There's--I mentioned before the break about being married and how there are statistics that married people live longer.
Dr. NETTLE: That's right.
FLATOW: Does that have anything to do with happiness?
Dr. NETTLE: Well, certainly married people do come out quite a lot happier on average in these kind of big surveys than unmarried people, but I think there's a lot of things going on there. As well as marriage causing happiness, we should also think about the fact that happiness might be causing marriage, which is perhaps you're more likely to get married or to remain married if you're reasonably a kind of sunny person. And there could be other things going on; there could be indirect correlations via--you know, married people have more friends. You know, they do more physical exercise. They do--so rather than running out and getting married in the belief it will make you happier, you know, we need to realize that there might be other things going on in these statistics that do indeed show that married people tend to be a bit happier than unmarried.
FLATOW: 1 (800) 989-8255. Jonathan in Salt Lake.
JONATHAN (Caller): Yes. Thanks for taking my call. Just got a few things--a three-part question. Hold on, my dogs are howling at a thunderstorm.
(Soundbite of laughter)
JONATHAN: Sorry about that.
FLATOW: Fifteen years--that's the first. But go ahead.
JONATHAN: Real quick. One is are we going to define happiness just along the continuum of pleasure and pain. Is there any concept of happiness that the two guests that are scientists can refer to that is outside of kind of the pleasure/pain dynamic? And then two: Is happiness sometimes a function of a threshold, like you said? Like you have to draw boundaries around yourself; that as humans our capacities are so finite that we can only--we actually have to draw boundaries around ourselves and inhabit that space and call that our happy space. If we actually try to absorb and deal with the fullness of what's going on in the world around us that we'd immediately become unhappy. I'm thinking of William James and his reference to...
FLATOW: Yeah. Well...
JONATHAN: officials and ...(unintelligible).
FLATOW: Even Andrew Weil says don't read the newspapers, you know, if you want to be a happy person.
JONATHAN: And then, lastly, in terms of pleasure/pain also, to what degree are we manipulated by a world that is all about commodities, and does it foster a kind of happiness or unhappiness in it that causes us to be active in striving after these objects of our desire. And then lastly, the idea of us being insatiable and the emergence in religion of God as the only infinite object that is the right suit for our infinite desires. And so that's all. Just a few things.
Dr. NETTLE: If I might come in there.
FLATOW: Go ahead.
Dr. NETTLE: You raise lots of interesting points and I can't guarantee I'll get them all in the right order. Firstly, I think that the idea of happiness, at least as I define it here, involves the pleasure/pain continuum but shouldn't be reduced to it. That's to say, I think if you were in constant and chronic pain, then happiness is very difficult to attain, and if you were in sort of constant euphoria, well, the question of whether you were happy or not sort of wouldn't arise. And I think happiness is more, in a way, a cognitive state that partly involves, well, are there pleasures in my life, is at least part of my life free of pain, and do I feel it's worthwhile and challenging in other ways, you know. So it's a cognitive state that involves more than just the pleasure/pain continuum or should do.
Dr. NETTLE: I think it's actually helpful if people can step back from the pleasure/pain continuum and say, well, you know, on balance how do I feel this is going. As for your interesting point about the insatiability of desire, I think that in a way the modern consumer economy is brilliantly engineered towards these natural desire appetite buttons that we have. You know, I mean, we watch literally millions of TV commercials and adverts all the time, and they constantly say to us, you know, you would have higher status, you would have, you know, more attractive mates, you would have greater happiness if you only had this. And of course, money and material goods, of all the domains of human activity, are those that actually provide the least contentment really, 'cause as soon as you've got them, you want the next thing.
So in a way, you know, that kind of keeps the old GNP turning over, but I think it's one of the reasons that over the last 40, 50 years as we've become richer and richer, there have been no further increases in our national aggregate happiness...
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: ...particularly in the USA, where it seems like a threshold was passed, and then after that, you're really dealing with the mechanisms almost of addiction rather than actual contentment. I've been...
FLATOW: Gregory--I'm sorry.
Dr. NETTLE: I think Dr. Berns might want to come in there.
Dr. BERNS: Yeah, let me jump in. The pain/pleasure continuum is actually I think quite interesting, and I devote several chapters on this question because there are certain circumstances in which pain can be quite pleasurable and certainly satisfying, and just by way of an anecdote, one of the people that I met kind of in this journey were a pair of women who were training and actually ran an ultramarathon race, and for those of you who don't know, an ultramarathon is a race typically of a hundred miles. It's a foot race, and it takes typically about 24 to 36 hours, and really begs the question of why do people do this. And I became quite interested in that because I didn't really understand it either because it obviously hurts, and so, you know, what better way than to actually kind of volunteer at one of these races.
And I can tell you I actually volunteered at a medical aid station at one of these races--mile 93, to be specific--and so I had a real kind of ground's-eye view of what people look like approaching a hundred miles on foot, and invariably what people describe as they come through these aid stations is it's kind of like a moment out of "Rocky." You know, at mile 93 their feet are just, you know, turned to pulp and, you know, they come through and they say, `Just tape them up; just put duct tape on them.' And I ask them, I say, `Well, are you in pain?' and they say, `Yeah, I'm in pain,' and then without missing a beat, the would invariably say, `But I love it.' And so, you know, how do you conceptualize that in terms of happiness and satisfaction? And my conclusion is that in fact they coexist in the right circumstances.
FLATOW: Could that also explain the "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" phenomenon where you have married people who are just continuing to argue but, you know, they're not getting divorced. They kind of like it.
Dr. BERNS: You keep coming back to the marriage. So you want to talk about...
FLATOW: Well, you devoted a whole section in your book to love and sex and marriage.
Dr. BERNS: I do. And you know, at the outset I've said that much of satisfaction depends on novelty, and this presents a certain paradox for the married life. How to bring novelty into long-term relationships, I think, is a challenge that everyone faces, but not perhaps overtly, and it often masks in other forms of dissatisfaction with marriage. And so in fact, I do talk a great deal about the elements of satisfaction in a long-term relationship, and specifically how to deal with the fact that, you know, after several years you know a person pretty well, and we tend to fall into certain routines of behavior and the spark can die out. And so you know, without giving too much away, there are certain forms of novelty, and in particular, if you think about it, another person is probably the richest source of novelty that you can experience, because after all you really can't know another person's thoughts, and so in essence it depends on sharing those thoughts.
FLATOW: 1 (800) 989-8255 is our number. We're talking about satisfaction and happiness this hour on TALK OF THE NATION/SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News.
You know, there's a whole industry, probably bigger now than ever before, on mind and mood-altering drugs to make us happy. Do they work? Do they actually make us happy?
Dr. NETTLE: Well, I think it depends which sort of drugs you're talking about here because there are quite a few different categories. If you mean things like antidepressant, then it's very clear...
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. NETTLE: ...that for a large number of people who are, you know, clinically depressed or close to clinically depressed, they do make quite a bit of difference and, you know, they're real life savers on average; they don't work for everyone. But they do--what they really seem to do is damp down or put some distance between the person and the negative emotions of fear, uncontrollable stress, hopelessness and so on. Just allow people to make those manageable. And they don't make them sort of completely and stupidly happy, they merely make them able to cope with, you know, the kind of various inconveniences that will happen to them through their day in a more sort of arm's length way.
As for the kind of, you know, utopian drug that would make everyone completely and permanently happy, it's--there isn't such a thing. And it's kind of hard to see what that would be. I mean, certainly there are drugs that produce short bursts of euphoria, usually followed by kind of downs, which are worse than the ups, and kind of euphoric and expensive experiences. But almost by nature, those experiences are transitory. They're certainly not a drug that produces the kind of cognitive judgment or conclusion that one has done satisfying things with one's life. The only way to do that, unfortunately, is to go and do satisfying things with one's life, I think.
FLATOW: 1 (800) 989-8255 is our number. Speaking of marriage, let's go to Lou in--well, hi. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. Whoa, well, Lou's not there. Let me follow up on that. In your book, Daniel Nettle, you talk about studies showing that women are actually happier and sadder than men.
Dr. NETTLE: Right.
FLATOW: At the same time.
Dr. NETTLE: Well, I mean, this comes back to a point that we made a little bit earlier about the partial independence of pleasure and pain. I mean, one of the things about sex differences is that women clearly experience--or at least report emotions more intensely in either direction. So women typically say, you know, `Yes, there are more things in my life that make me unhappy and frustrated and stressed, but also more things that make me happy and joyful and, you know, fulfilled and so on.' So there are actually, you know, the needle is flickering in both directions to a greater amplitude than for men, who are kind of, you know, staying a bit closer to the midline and going along.
So actually when you do sex differences in emotion, you always find, if you're looking at negative emotions, you find that women have more negative emotions, and if you're looking at positive emotions, you tend to find women have of them too.
FLATOW: Yeah. Gregory Berns, when we're actually happy and you do a functional MRI scan, can you actually see the brain lighting up in certain places?
Dr. BERNS: Well, yeah, you can see the brain lighting up in many places, and that's the big problem. You know, for years we thought that kind of the so-called pleasure center in the brain was located in--where all the dopamine receptors are.
FLATOW: Right.
Dr. BERNS: But it doesn't turn out that way. It's--happiness is not something that I think has really been measured with brain imaging, in part because it's really kind of this long-term emotion. It doesn't change that quickly, and certainly in a laboratory setting, it's actually quite difficult to make people happy.
FLATOW: Especially in laboratory settings.
Dr. BERNS: Especially in laboratory settings.
FLATOW: When you're lying on that machine, you're not very happy.
Dr. BERNS: They're happy to get out of it, let's put it that way.
FLATOW: You have to offer them more than 5 bucks to go in there.
Dr. BERNS: No, but again, you know, coming back to this issue of the pain/pleasure continuum I think is really certainly at the heart of the matter for where I'm coming from. And in terms of happiness, you know, I would pose the question as why would nature evolve us to even care about happiness. Does it really matter in terms of how evolution might have worked? And I'm a bit agnostic on that question. To me I think the primary function that the brain performs is learning about the world, because I mean fundamentally you have to adapt to a changing environment, and in that type of world, you have to respond to new situations. And it may be that new situations and novelty is reward to the brain.
FLATOW: Well, I have to stop it there, Gregory Berns, author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment," associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory. Daniel Nettle, the author of "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile," lecturer in psychology, Division of Psychology, Brain and Behavior, University of Newcastle in the UK. Thanks for staying up to be with us today. Thank you both. Have a good weekend.
Dr. NETTLE: Bye.
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What Is A Hook?
What Is A Hook?
The Tunedly Team
What is a hook and why is it so important? In industries such as fishing and construction, a hook is self-explanatory. But in music, the term is easily thrown around to mean one or more things.
However, the hook is a bit more nuanced when it comes on to songwriting and requires understanding in order for songwriters to become good at creating them. In this article, we will shed light on what a hook is and how to create ones that are effective.
What is a hook in songwriting?
The hook is commonly associated with the chorus and many people use them interchangeably. But they are not always the same. There are many examples in popular music where the hook in a song is separated from the chorus. With that in mind, the best way to define a hook in songwriting is to remember that it is the catchiest part of any song. It is the word, sentence, phrase, or expression that remains stuck in the listener’s head long after the song has ended.
Furthermore, the hook is the part that gets the listener interested in hearing the rest of a song the first time they hear it. In that regard, a weak or non-existent hook could result in someone skipping past your song before getting halfway through and not bothering to listen to it ever again, even if the rest of the lyrics are interesting.
If there is a song playing in your head right now, it’s likely that you are hearing the hook of the song being repeated, rather than a particular verse. You might be wondering, “If the chorus is not necessarily the hook, then what part of the song is it?”
Well, the hook can pop up in a number of places apart from the chorus:
- An opening refrain or introduction to the song
- A particular sound such as a wail, whoop, or expression used throughout the song
- A distinct riff
In addition, a song can have multiple hooks instead of just one. In this case, the chorus may be the major hook, with minor ones created in the pre-chorus, prelude, or instrumental arrangement. There are also different styles of hooks to keep in mind:
1. An introductory hook
In this case, you establish the hook of the song (or at least one of the hooks) by placing it in the song’s intro or opening line. As the song progresses, you can bring it back into the arrangement, such as before the start of the second verse and after performing the bridge. Hooks that are placed in the song intro are usually based on a melodic arrangement, such as a couple of hums, short words, or wails. While the intro hook works well to draw in the listener from the get-go, it can become annoying if repeated too often throughout the song, so timing and placement are critical.
2. Instrumental arrangement
Using a guitar, piano, or another instrumental arrangement in the background, to highlight a set of words, can result in the combination becoming memorable. While more of a subtle hook, it can help with making the chorus more dynamic while not being overpowering. You can also use this instrumental arrangement when you want to have multiple hooks in your song, where this would be the secondary hook.
3. Rhythmic hook
Possibly the most popular type of hook, this involves combining a beat and rhythm to establish a catchy frame for the chorus and the rest of the song. Creating a rhythm hook tends to start out with one of the several ways people make up beats, such as clapping the hands, beating on a desk, slapping the leg, or snapping the fingers. Once a distinct beat has been formed, it becomes the framework for the song chorus or wherever you want to place the hook. A rhythmic hook needs to be short and simple, snappy and attention-grabbing.
How to write a hook
The examples above should already give you some insight as to how to go about creating hooks when writing songs. In addition, it helps to study the hooks of other popular songs to gather an appreciation of all the different ways a hook can be derived. When creating hooks, you should also think about the context and message you want to portray. Do you want the song to be cheery, haunting, positive, lovey-dovey, etc.? You want to encapsulate the entire mood of the song into the hook, while, at the same time, making it distinct from the rest of the track.
Final thoughts
There are many things to think about when writing a song. You first need to have a song idea followed by a memorable song title. Then there is the task of actually crafting and structuring the lyrics, as well as working out the melody, rhyme scheme, and chord progression. In the midst of all that, writing a catchy hook is important in helping you create a song that people actually enjoy listening to. |
Harvey Logan
Harvey Logan was born in Rowan County, Kentucky, in 1875. He was brought up by an aunt in Dobson, Missouri and after leaving home moved to Wyoming. He worked as a rancher until he killed Pike Landusky during a drunken brawl.
Logan fled and eventually joined the outlaw gang led by George Curry. He carried out several robberies until moving to the Robbers' Roost in Utah and joined what became known as the Wild Bunch. As well as the leader, Butch Cassidy, the gang included Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, William Carver, George Curry, Laura Bullion, Elza Lay and Bob Meeks.
The name Wild Bunch was misleading as Butch Cassidy always tried to avoid his gang hurting people during robberies. His gang were also ordered to shoot at the horses, rather than the riders, when being pursued by posses. Cassidy always proudly boasted that he had never killed a man. The name actually came from the boisterous way they spent their money after a successful robbery.
On 2nd June, 1899, Cassidy, Curry, Logan and Lay took part in the highly successful Union Pacific train holdup at Wilcox, Wyoming. After stealing $30,000 the gang fled to New Mexico. On 27th May, 1900, Logan Murdered Sheriff JessTyler in Utah in retaliation for the killing of George Curry.
On 29th August, 1900, Butch Cassidy, with the Sundance Kid, Logan and two unidentified gang members, held up the Union Pacific train at Tipton, Wyoming. This was followed by a raid on the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada (19th September, 1900) that netted $32,640. The following year the gang obtained $65,000 from the Great Northern train near Wagner, Montana.
Logan is believed to have murdered Jim Winter in retaliation for the killing of his brother, Johnny Logan. He escaped to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was captured on 15th December, 1901. He escaped from Knoxville jail on 27th June, 1903.
Harvey Logan was killed near Glenwood Springs on 9th July, 1903.
Harvey Logan - History
Obit: Bender, Harvey Logan (1866 - 1964)
Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
Surnames: Bender, Smith, Martin, Kissling, Meddaugh, Short, Sharratt, Williams, Doering
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) December 10, 1964
Bender, Harvey Logan (21 December 1866 - 5 December 1964)
Funeral services were conducted Tuesday forenoon from the Gilbertson Funeral Home in Granton for Harvey L. Bender, 97, of Rt. 1 Neillsville, who died Saturday in St. Joseph&rsquos Hospital in Marshfield. The Rev. Paul Doering of the Loyal Methodist Church officiated and burial was made in the Mt. Tabor Cemetery in Sabin.
Harvey Logan Bender was born December 21, 1866, in Richland County. On July 17, 1892, he was married in Richland County to the former Mary Lucinda Smith, who died in October 1919. They moved in 1900 onto a farm in the Town of Washburn. He served on the county board from Washburn for several years.
Mr. Bender is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Essie Martin of Wisconsin Rapids four sons, Elmer of Loyal, Lloyd of Grass Valley, Calif., David of Neillsville, and Bernard of Manitowoc 13 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.
Pallbearers were: Harry and Ted Kissling, Neil Meddaugh, Art Short, Roland Sharratt and Oliver Williams.
A site created and maintained by the Clark County History Buffs
and supported by your generous donations .
James Harvey Logan
James Harvey Logan (December 8, 1841 - July 16, 1928) [1] was a judge in Santa Cruz, California, and an amateur botanist credited with the 1881 creation of the loganberry, a cross between the raspberry and the blackberry.
He was District Attorney in the 1870s and a Superior Court Judge during the 1880s and 1890s.
He was born on December 8, 1841 in Rockville, Indiana. [2] After moving to Santa Cruz, Logan was elected District Attorney on 1 September 1875. He had been endorsed by both the Democrats and the Independent ticket. [3] He had previously served as District Attorney in 1872 and 1873. Logan was subsequently elected to the Superior Court and served several terms as judge, from 1880 to 1884 and from 1893 to 1897.
Logan built the Brookdale Lodge on the site of the Grover Lumber Mill in the 1890s, purchased the Brookdale Town Site in 1902, put in a wagon road and had a cottage built in 1905, and had lots laid out in 1907. His wife, Catherine, died at Brookdale on 13 July 1909. He sold the land to John DuBois for a subdivision by 1911.
Logan married Mary E. Couson on 1 August 1910 they had a daughter—Gladys C. Logan—on 14 August 1911. Although Logan moved to Oakland, California in 1913, he continued business activity in the Santa Cruz area, building a new store in 1915. [4]
He died on July 16, 1928 in Oakland, California. [5]
1. ^
2. ^Important Men of 1913. 1913. Logan, James Harvey, retired Superior Court Judge, and Lawyer born in Rockville, Ind., Dec. 8, 1841 son of Samuel McCampbell and Mary Elizabeth (McMurtry) Logan. Education: four years' classical course, Waveland Collegiate Inst., Waveland, Ind. Married Mary Elizabeth Couson, Aug. 1, 1910, at Santa Cruz, Cal. Originator of loganberry (1882), the only successful cross ever made between the raspberry and the blackberry, and now very successfully and generally cultivated for family and commercial uses on the Pacific slope, particularly in Washington and Oregon also originator of the mammoth blackberry, the largest blackberry ever known, some of them being two and one-half inches long both of these berries are very early, and ripen at least six weeks earlier than any other fruit of the blackberry family these berries were the result of early gardening done for recreation and pleasure, and were never used commercially by the originator. Pres. (seven years) Bank of Santa Cruz County pres. (five years) Brookdale Land Co. dist. atty. (ten years) Santa Cruz County superior judge Superior Court of Santa Cruz County. Residence: No. 28 Dake Ave., Santa Cruz, Cal.
3. ^
4. "Santa Cruz Sentinel 11 September 1875 3:3-4 "Official Election Returns of Santa Cruz County" in Biography of Stephen Mallory White, "Transcriber's Notes for Letter D," Hihn-Younger Archive, University of California at Santa Cruz". Archived from the original on 11 November 2004 . Retrieved 2007-01-18 . CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) accessed 2007-01-17
5. ^Santa Cruz Public Library, "Mountain Echo Index, 1896--1916" Accessed 2007-01-17 Archived July 26, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
6. ^
7. "James H. Logan Dead. Producer of the Loganberry Was Also Noted as a Jurist". New York Times. July 17, 1928 . Retrieved 2008-08-08 . James H. Logan, 86, producer of the loganberry and famed as an amateur horticulturist, died here today. .
This biography of a state judge in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
This Day In History: ‘Kid Curry” aka Harvey Logan Is Sentenced to 20 Years In Prison (1920)
On this day in history Harvey &ldquoKid Curry&rdquo Logan, the second in command of Butch Cassidy&rsquos Wild Bunch gang is sent to jail. He is given twenty years hard labor in a Tennessee penitentiary. Logan was arguably closer to Butch Cassidy than the Sundance Kid. Cassidy probably trusted Logan more than Sundance and relied on him to help him run the gang. Logan came from Kentucky but as a child moved to Missouri. Here he began his life of crime and he was believed to have shot and killed a man, while still a teenager. From then on he was a professional criminal and was always on the wrong side of the law. Soon he hooked up with a gang and soon he became a bank robber and by all accounts a good one. During one bank raid, some innocent people were killed and the local law began to set out to catch him. Logan left the state and headed toward Wyoming and he went to one of the Hole-in-the Wall hideouts. The area where he hid was desolate and uninhabited and it was ideal for fugitives from justice. Here Logan met Cassidy. At this time Cassidy formed a gang and appointed Logan as his second in command. Cassidy and Logan soon formed a small gang of desperadoes. Another prominent member of the gang was Robert Parker, a former butcher but now a bank robber. Among the other members were notorious outlaws such as Ben Kirkpatrick known as the Tall Texan. The gang soon began to rob banks and trains across several states. They operated in Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. The made their headquarters the Hole-in-the-Wall. Logan was possibly the wildest of the bunch and he may have killed up to ten lawmen and an unknown number of other people. The gang was able to evade the law for many years and not many lawmen dared to enter the Hole-in-the-Wall area because there were so many outlaws there. The gang became known as the Wild Bunch and soon they became some of the most notorious outlaws in the West. They were highly organized and they even had their own lawyers.
Harvey Logan (aka Kid Curry) and Annie Rogers
The Pinkerton&rsquos Detective Agency was hired to track them down and bring them to justice but not even they could bring the Wild Bunch to Justice. However, the West was changing and the forces of law and order were getting the upper hand and the days of the old-style outlaw were numbered. The Pinkerton&rsquos finally began to make real progress against the gang. They began arresting individual gang members. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid realized that things were changing and decided to escape to first Argentina and then Bolivia. No one is really certain of what became of them. The fate of Logan is reasonably well-documented. After he was sentenced to jail, he only served a year. He managed to escape from jail and fled out west. He made it to Colorado but he was pursued by local lawmen who wounded him in a shootout. Logan did manage to get away but he was badly wounded and he knew he would soon be caught. It is believed that Logan shot himself rather than be caught and spend the rest of his days in prison.
Why were post-mortem photos taken of Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry?
Juha Nakari
United Kingdom
I went to Wild Bunch historian Dan Buck for this one. He tells me that the post-mortem photos were taken to figure out the identity of a dead bandit who had shot himself to avoid capture after robbing a train near Parachute, Colorado, on June 7, 1904.
You see, people were claiming the man was a number of bandits. Buck says the best evidence, though, suggests the man was Harvey Logan.
Pinkerton Detective Lowell Spence took two of the photos to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Logan had served seven months in jail a year earlier. Several lawmen and attorneys who had known Logan identified the photos as depicting him. The news of Logan’s death, along with four post-mortem photos, ran in the St. Paul, Minnesota, Daily Pioneer Press on July 12.
For many, the photos closed the case, although some outlaw historians today see this as an unsettled matter.
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Ближайшие родственники
About Harvey Logan (aka., "Kid Curry") ["the wildest of the Wild Bunch")
Harvey Alexander Logan (1867 - June 17, 1904), also known as Kid Curry, was an American outlaw and gunman who ran with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's infamous Wild Bunch gang. Despite being less well known than his counterparts, he has since been referred to as "the wildest of the Wild Bunch". He killed at least nine law enforcement officers in five different shootings, and another two men in other instances, and was involved in several shootouts with posses and civilians during his outlaw days.
Kid Curry was born in Richland Township, Tama County, Iowa. His mother died in 1876, and his brothers, Hank, Johnny and Lonny, moved to Dodson, Missouri, to live with their aunt Lee Logan. Until at least 1883, Curry made his living breaking horses on the Cross L ranch, near Rising Star, Texas. While there, he met and befriended a man named "Flat Nose" George Curry, from whom he took his new last name. His brothers soon adopted the same last name. The three brothers were known as hard workers until they got paid. Money didn't stay in their pockets for long. They all had a taste for alcohol and women. Kid Curry would often return from a train or bank robbery, get drunk and lay up with prostitutes until his share of the take was gone. After Kid Curry became famous, the prostitutes would frequently name him as the father when they became pregnant. The bastard children were referred to as "Curry Kids." It is believed that Kid Curry was credited with as many as eighty-five children. The number of children he actually fathered was probably less than five. Descendants of the "Curry Kids" remain scattered throughout Eastland County and the surrounding areas to this day.
He rode as a cowboy on a cattle drive to Pueblo, Colorado, in 1883. While in Pueblo, he was involved in a saloon brawl. To avoid arrest, he fled, settling in southern Wyoming. In Wyoming, Curry worked for the "Circle C" and the "Circle Diamond" ranches. By all accounts, when sober, Curry was mild-mannered, likable, and loyal to both friends and his brothers.
The events that changed the course of his life began when his brother Hank and friend Jim Thornhill bought a ranch at Rock Creek, in what was then Chouteau County, Montana and is now Phillips County, Montana. The ranch was near the site of a mine strike made by local miner/lawman Powell "Pike" Landusky. Landusky, according to some reports of the day, confronted Curry and attacked him, believing Curry was involved romantically with Landusky's daughter, Elfie. Landusky then filed assault charges against Curry, who was arrested and beaten.
Two friends of Curry's, A.S. Lohman and Frank Plunkett, paid a $500 bond for Curry's release. Landusky's daughter, Elfie, later claimed it was Curry's brother, Lonny, with whom she had been involved. However, the confession came much too late. On December 27, 1894, Curry caught Landusky at a local saloon, and hit Landusky, stunning him. Curry, evidently believing the fight was over, began walking away. Landusky pulled his pistol and began threatening Curry, who was unarmed. Curry's friend and his brother's partner, Jim Thornhill, gave Curry his pistol. Landusky's gun jammed and Curry shot him dead.
Curry was arrested and at an inquest was released when it was judged that he acted in self defense. However, a formal trial was set. Curry believed he would not get a fair trial, because the judge was close friends with Landusky. For this reason, Curry left town.
Riding with the Black Jack Ketchum gang
He started riding with outlaw "Black Jack" Ketchum. Pinkerton detectives began trailing Curry shortly after his departure from Montana. In January 1896, Curry received word that an old friend of Landusky's, rancher James Winters, had been spying on him, for the reward offered in his arrest. Curry and two of his brothers, Johnny and Lonny, went to Winters' ranch to confront him. However, a shootout erupted. Johnny was killed, while Curry and Lonny escaped. Shortly after, Curry and Lonny argued with Black Jack Ketchum over the take in a train robbery. The two brothers left the gang.
They both received employment on a cattle ranch, arranged by their cousin, Bob Lee, near Sand Gulch, Colorado. Pinkerton agents trailing Curry gave up his trail briefly. Curry, Lonny, Walt Putnam and George Curry formed their own gang around this time. He temporarily left Colorado, intending to scout good targets for potential robberies. Around April 1897, Curry was reportedly involved in the killing of Deputy Sheriff William Deane of Powder River, Wyoming, as he and his gang gathered fresh horses on a ranch in the Powder River Basin. After this, he returned to Colorado to the ranch where he was working.
By June 1897, the cowboy job had ended, and Curry ventured north with the rest of the gang. They robbed a bank in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and met resistance outside the bank from the townspeople. One of their friends, Tom O'Day, was captured when his horse spooked and ran away without him. The others escaped, but while planning a second robbery a posse from the town caught up with them in Fergus County, Montana. During a shootout, Curry was shot through the wrist, and his horse was shot from under him, resulting in his capture. George Curry and Walt Putnam were also captured. All three were held in the Deadwood, South Dakota jail, but only briefly they overpowered the jailer and escaped. They headed back into Montana and robbed two post offices.
Riding with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch
It was during this time that he began riding with the Wild Bunch gang under Butch Cassidy. It is believed that Kid Curry was considered the "fastest gun in the West" and that he was based on the Sundance Kid, who was not actually a gunman like Logan. On June 2, 1899, the gang robbed a Union Pacific Railroad overland flyer near Wilcox, Wyoming, a robbery that became famous. Many notable lawmen of the day took part in the hunt for the robbers, but they were not captured.
During one shootout with lawmen following that robbery, both Kid Curry and George Curry shot and killed Converse County Sheriff Joe Hazen. Noted killer-for-hire and contract employee of the Pinkerton Agency, Tom Horn, obtained information from explosives expert Bill Speck that revealed that George Curry and Kid Curry had shot Hazen, which Horn passed on to Pinkerton detective Charlie Siringo. The gang escaped into the Hole-in-the-Wall, an area that the gang used as its hideout. Curry and the Sundance Kid used a log cabin at Old Trail Town as a hideout before they robbed a bank in Red Lodge, Montana. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and other desperados met at another cabin brought to Old Trail Town from the Hole-in-the-Wall country in north central Wyoming. It was built in 1883 by Alexander Ghent. Siringo had been assigned the task of bringing in the outlaw gang. He became friends with Elfie Landusky. Effie was using the last name of Curry, alleging that Lonny Curry had gotten her pregnant. Through her, Siringo intended to locate the gang. Siringo changed his name to Charles L. Carter, disguised himself as an on-the-run gunman, and began mingling with people that might know the Currys, becoming friends with Jim Thornhill.
However, Kid Curry was in a place referred to as "Robbers Roost", in Utah. Curry then went to Alma, New Mexico, with Cassidy and others, intending to hide for a while. On July 11, 1899, while working at the W.S. Ranch, Curry robbed a train near Folsom, New Mexico, with gang members Elzy Lay and Sam Ketchum. A posse led by Huerfano County (Colorado) Sheriff Ed Farr cornered the gang near an area called Turkey Creek, which resulted in two gun battles over a period of four days. Lay and Ketchum were both wounded and later captured, with Lay killing the sheriff and wounding Colfax County Deputy Henry Love in the process. He received a life sentence for the murders. Ketchum died from his wounds days later while in custody, and deputy Love died from wounds he received. Curry escaped, but he, Cassidy, and other members of the gang were forced to leave New Mexico. Sam Ketchum was the brother of Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum. Curry traveled to San Antonio, where he stayed briefly. While there he met prostitute Della Moore (also known as Annie Rogers or Maude Williams), with whom he became romantically involved. At the time of their meeting, she was working in Madame Fannie Porter's brothel, which was a regular hideout for the Wild Bunch gang.
Moab revenge gunfight, other killings to avoid capture
On February 28, 1900, lawmen attempted to arrest Lonny Curry at his aunt's home. Lonny was killed in the shootout that followed, and his cousin Bob Lee was arrested for rustling and sent to prison in Wyoming. Kid Curry was now the last surviving brother. In March 1900, Curry was identified in St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona as he was passing notes suspected of being from the Wilcox robbery. Local Apache County Sheriff Edward Beeler gathered a posse and began tracking Curry, who was accompanied by Bill Carver. The posse shot it out with Curry and Carver on March 28. Curry and Carver killed Deputy Andrew Gibbons and Deputy Frank LeSeuer. On May 26, Kid Curry rode into Utah and killed Grand County, Utah Sheriff Jesse Tyler and Deputy Sam Jenkins in a brazen shootout in Moab. Both killings were in retaliation for them killing George Curry and his brother Lonny.
Curry then returned with the Wild Bunch. They robbed a train near Tipton, Wyoming, which newspaper stories claiming the gang got more than $55,000. The gang again split up, with Kid Curry and Ben Kilpatrick heading south to Fort Worth, Texas, while Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Bill Carver immediately pulled off another robbery in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Siringo, still working the case for the Pinkertons, was in Circleville, Utah, where Butch Cassidy had been raised. Curry rejoined the gang, and they hit another Union Pacific train near Wagner, Montana. This time, they took over $60,000 in cash. Gang member Will Carver was killed in Sonora, Texas by Sutton County Sheriff Elijah Briant during the pursuit following that robbery.
Again the gang split up. In October 1901, Della Moore was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee for passing money tied to an earlier robbery involving Curry. On December 12, gang members Ben Kilpatrick and Laura Bullion were captured in Knoxville, Tennessee. On December 13, Kid Curry shot Knoxville policemen William Dinwiddle and Robert Saylor in a shootout and escaped. Curry, despite being pursued by Pinkerton agents and other law enforcement officials, returned to Montana, where he shot and killed rancher James Winters, who was responsible for the killing of his brother Johnny years before.
Curry then traveled back to Knoxville. In a pool hall on November 30, 1902, Curry was captured after a lengthy physical fight with lawmen. He was convicted of robbery because facts in the murder of the two policemen were not definite and no witnesses would testify, and he received a sentence of 20 years at hard labor and a $5,000 fine. However, on June 27, 1903, Curry escaped. Rumors that a deputy had received an $8,000 bribe to allow his escape spread, but nothing could be proven.
On June 7, 1904, Kid Curry was tracked down by a posse outside of Parachute, Colorado. Curry and two others had robbed a train outside of Parachute. As they escaped, they stole fresh horses owned by Roll Gardner and a neighbor. The next morning, when they discovered their horses had been stolen, Gardner and the neighbor set out in pursuit of the gang. They joined up with a posse and continued tracking the outlaws. The gang shot Gardner and his neighbor's horses from under them. Gardner found cover while his neighbor started running. Kid Curry took aim at the neighbor and Gardner shot Curry. Curry decided to end it at that time, and fatally shot himself in the head to avoid capture. The other two robbers escaped. The rifle Gardner used is still in the family today.
Curry is buried in Linwood Cemetery overlooking Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a short distance from fellow gunfighter Doc Holliday's memorial.
Appearance in literature and cinema
Curry appears as a character in Mr American by George MacDonald Fraser. The novel, set in 1909, uses the controversy surrounding Curry's death to portray him as surviving the shootout near Parachute and later tracking the novel's protagonist, Mark Franklin, to England, where Curry attempts to kill Franklin.
Ted Cassidy played Kid Curry / Harvey Logan in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Ben Murphy portrayed a fictionalized Kid Curry in the 1970s television show Alias Smith and Jones.
The Mythbusters tested the claim that Logan could drop a silver dollar off his hand and then draw and fire five shots from his revolver before it hit the ground. They found the claim to be highly unlikely.
Harvey “The Credit Houdini” Logan reveals his secrets for credit repair success and teases exciting new Ebook
Entrepreneur Harvey Logan has quickly become one of the most inspiring success stories of the credit repair world. Starting his business from a small office in his hometown of Tuscaloosa Alabama, The Credit Houdini shares some insight into how he built his business from the ground up to become a national success.
Hi Harvey, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you developed your expertise in credit restoration?
I’ve always been known as a self-starter or hustler in my city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I started my entrepreneur career selling women’s hair. While selling hair I eventually opened a small gym that I ran for 2 years until I got into car sales. At the beginning of 2018 I began my credit repair journey while also selling cars. At the time I was an all-star car salesman but came across so many clients that struggled with their credit. That’s when I began reading and educating myself on the credit repair process and eventually decided to make it a full-time gig after being laid off from selling cars which turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened to me
How do you motivate and educate your clients to achieve bigger goals?
Anyone that visits my social media will see a nice home and expensive vehicles which are only used to motivate and show people that with the power of credit education and financial discipline anything is achievable. I also have a YouTube channel where I pick credit related topics to educate viewers on the ins and outs of credit regardless of how big or how small of a topic. Each day I make a post about positive topics to help people that may be going through a rough patch in their life, so they know they’re not alone. I do that to ensure people that if they keep going their happiness is right around the corner. I’m very big on financial literacy and preaching to viewers about making smarter choices regardless of your financial situation.
How long does it take to remove negative marks on credit reports?
I normally let clients know that with credit repair no two credit profiles are the same. Some people may only require what’s called a trade-in to help boost credit score or add credit history. Where some clients may need more extensive work done. Collections accounts and charge offs accounts normally make up the majority of issues revolving around a client’s credit profile. The most important message that I try to relay to my clients is that with each client we do our very best to ensure we give the best customer service possible.
What is your process for working with a new client and helping them eliminate negative marks on their credit reports?
Well, the first step as I tell most clients there are thousands of people walking around with inaccurate accounts on their credit profiles. Our job as the credit professional is to insure, we do our job by investigating each account to the fullest degree to make sure that the information is in fact accurate for our client. Most people that we encounter only check their credit on average about 5 times a year. With that being about the average number when asking clients most people have inaccurate accounts that they are unaware of and that’s where we come in.
We heard that you are in the process of finishing a DYI Credit Repair Ebook, can you tell us more about it?
Well, I’m currently in the process of publishing a credit repair Ebook that will offer detailed templates for various phases of credit repair. It will give a bit more insight on who I am as well as breakdown some frequently asked questions that most people want to know but are never able to get a clear answer on as there are so many grey areas surrounding credit repair. Clients will have a full understanding of how to use dispute letters revolving around removing bankruptcy, inquiries, collections, charge-offs and their will even be a section on how to start business credit.
Has COVID impacted your services and/or the expectations or needs of your clients?
At the beginning and midpoints of the 2020-year credit repair was highly impacted because most companies were closed. I felt my team and I did a phenomenal job considering the slowness of how the process slowed down up until around August of last year. From an educational standpoint I must say considering most of everything turned virtual it gave me a great opportunity to focus more on the educational videos to help clients have a full understanding of their credit, so they leave our company knowing how to maintain their new found credit scores.
"Nothing, but straightforward news." Michael believes in publishing truthful, relevant news. With proper ethics and research, Michael derives his inspiration from social influences and current status quo. Regarding credentials, Michael is journalism graduate from the University of Maryland.
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Sonoma Mayor Logan Harvey wins North Bay Forty Under 40 award
Responsibilities with your company: As the mayor of Sonoma I preside over meetings with the city council and serve as the point of contact for most public communication. I meet with members the public, elected officials, local nonprofits, and members of our business community to hear their ideas and concerns.
As a member of the city council I provide policy direction to city staff and ensure its implementation. I also serve as the vice chair of the Regional Climate Protection Authority and the Sonoma County Transit Authority where I provide policy direction and oversight over Measure M funds.
Recently, the SCTA has been working on the new version of Measure M and I have been instrumental in the framing of that measure which will provide additional funding for public transit and bicycles as well as potholes and roads.
In 25 words or less, how do you exemplify the spirit of being a top Forty under 40 professional?
I am the youngest mayor in Sonoma's history. I use this position to create opportunities for young families in Sonoma and fight climate change.
Years with company: 2
Length of time in current position: 1
Number of companywide employees: 35
Number who report to you: 35
Greatest professional accomplishment: Passing Sonoma's minimum wage ordinance, developing an affordable housing trust fund, creating an ordinance to allow the opening of Sonoma's first dispensary, and safely managing PG&E's public safety power shutoff all in the same year.
Greatest professional challenge: Time management is a regular struggle. Not only am I the mayor of Sonoma but I also have a full-time job working for Recology Sonoma Marin. To successfully manage these two responsibilities and be a good partner to my wife is something I work hard at every single day.
Single most important event in your professional life in the last 12 months: The groundbreaking ceremony for 48 new affordable housing units in the city of Sonoma is so important for both myself and our city.
Tourism is the center of Sonoma's economy and in order to sustain our tourism and wine industry we need a lot of affordable housing. The jobs created by these industry are typically lower wage and it is very difficult for those workers to find housing. The combination of the city's new minimum wage ordinance and the development of these and other affordable housing projects will ensure that Sonoma's workers have opportunities to live in the community that they work. It's good for workers, it's good for our economy, and it's good for our economy.
The city's current outlook is good. Transient occupancy tax revenues are up which means that our hotel are full and our economy is strong. We've actually hired on quite a few new staff members to better serve our community. There are fears of a looming recession and we've developed policies to ensure that the city has adequate reserves to weather any storm.
Next professional goal: People ask me all the time what's next and if I'm considering running for higher office. It's definitely an option I'm open to if the people would have me, but right now my goal is just to be a great mayor and help restore our community's faith that the Government can be a force for good in their lives.
Education: I have a bachelor's degree in English Education from San Francisco State University
Hometown: Sonoma
Community/nonprofit activities: I mean, I'm the mayor of Sonoma. Does that count?
What is your most disliked industry buzzword?
Typical day at the office: Meetings on meetings on meetings. I love it.
Best place to work outside of your office: Scandina Bakery
Hobbies: I've recently taken up cycling. It's reconnected me to the valley in such an amazing way. I love riding through the hill of Sonoma and taking it all in. Also, I love to cook.
What you wanted to be when you grew up: I always wanted to do something that benefited my community. Whether that was teaching, or being a lawyer, or in public office what I always wanted was to make a positive difference.
#1 thing you want to accomplish by the time you turn 40: I would love to own a home
First job: Refereeing soccer
Social media you most use: Facebook
Favorite book: “SeaWolf” by Jack London
Favorite movie: “The Fighter”
Favorite App: Reddit
Favorite after-work drink: Wine
Last vacation: Visited some friends in Tacoma Washington for New Years. Such a great time. I love that city.
Legends of America
Annie Rogers was Kid Curry’s girlfriend
On a sunny afternoon in October 1901 at the bustling Fourth National Bank of Nashville, Tennessee, Spencer McHenry looked up from his work and saw a beautiful woman in fashionable and expensive-looking clothes standing at his teller’s window. Smiling fetchingly, she slid a $500 stack of Bank of Montana notes across the marble counter toward him, and she politely asked if he’d be kind enough to exchange the small bills for large ones. The woman’s name was Annie Rogers.
Little did Annie suspect that bank employees were on the lookout for notes stolen in the Great Northern Train Robbery the previous July. The alert McHenry, who found loyalty to his employer to be more in his character than succumbing to the charms of a beautiful woman, reported his findings to J.T. Howell, the head cashier. Mr. Howell called the police and bank president, Samuel J. Keith. Howell and Keith invited Annie Rogers to accompany them into an office, whereupon they told her the bills were stolen.
Faster than a 911 response, detectives Jack Dwyer and Austin Dickens arrived at the bank to question Annie, who denied signing the bills. She insisted that, if the bills had been stolen, she surely didn’t know a thing about it.
Pressured by the detectives, Annie finally said a “little blonde man named Charley had given [the bills] to her” in Louisiana. The pair had traveled together for about two weeks from Omaha, Nebraska to Louisiana where Charley continued on to New Orleans and Annie to Shreveport. Annie insisted that the $500 was hers, that she had earned it. Dwyer and Dickens would have none of that and took her off to police headquarters to be further questioned by their Lieutenant Marshall.
Annie didn’t even give name, rank and serial number. She gave only one of her names, neglecting to tell the dicks that she was also known as Delia Moore or Maude Williams. Other than that, she uttered only the same words about the fictional Charley and repeating that she didn’t know the bills were stolen. This “non-denial denial” caught the attention of Justice Hiram Vaughn, who issued a warrant charging Annie with attempting to pass forged National Banknotes.
Great Northern Train Robbery
Annie’s arrest was called “one of the most important captures in recent years…” by the Nashville American, which described her as “somewhat good looking, not beautiful but not ugly.” If they printed something like that today, Annie would probably hire a celebrity lawyer and sue their pants off for calling her “not beautiful.” The American went on to say “She was slender, with a heavy head of dark brown hair, a dark complexion, and high cheekbones. Her most noticeable features were two gold teeth on the left side and her piercing black eyes … [which] fairly danced as she spoke.”
The same day the American story came out, the Nashville Banner sent a reporter to interview Annie, who cheerfully greeted him as he entered her cell, led by Detective Dwyer. Annie called Dwyer “Happy Jack” and told the reporter he was one of her favorites. It was reported that Annie laughed, smiled, and flirted with her visitor throughout the interview. She regretted, she said, that she hadn’t brushed her hair properly.
The next day, Annie appeared before Justice Vaughn for a preliminary hearing, wearing a black suit, and a black hat adorned with ostrich feathers. The Banner reported that “a deep frown gathered her brow and her piercing black eyes danced defiantly in answer to the stares of the onlookers.”
According to Wayne Kindred’s article in a 1995 issue of Old West, the following conversation occurred:
Justice Vaughn asked her if she had heard the warrant read.
“I heard one read yesterday. I don’t know whether it is the same one or not,” she answered.
He told her that it was the same warrant and asked if she wished to plead guilty or not guilty.
“Guilty of what?” she angrily replied. “Of taking those bills to the bank” I took them bills to the bank. Yes, I did that.”
After Justice Vaughn explained the charges again, Annie entered a plea of not guilty. Vaughn then set her bail at $10,000 and asked her if she wanted to make a statement.
“Nothing, but that I came by those bills honestly, and I don’t see why I should be treated this way. I had used some of the bills before, and I thought they were all right.”
Nashville Courthouse, 1892, photo by A. Wittemann
The hearing must have seriously scared Annie because, by the next day, she was closer to telling the truth, or so it seemed: her real name was Della Moore, she was 26, and she was born in Tarrant County, Texas.
She left home in 1893 and worked as a prostitute in Mena, Arkansas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio (at the bawdy house of Fannie Porter). Between Ft. Worth and San Antonio, she had married a farmer named Lewis Walker but left him because “he was just a poor farmer” and their life on the farm was altogether “too tame” for her.
She left Fannie Porter’s house for Colorado, Idaho, and Montana in late 1900 with Bob Nevils, Will Casey, and Lillie Davis (another graduate of Fannie Porter’s “college of soft knocks”). Annie claimed not to have asked either Nevils or Casey what they did for a living. “They were just good fellows,” she said. Nevils gave her five $20 gold pieces on their return to Ft. Worth where they separated.
Annie split her time between her mother’s Ft. Worth home and Fannie Porter’s house of ill repute in San Antonio. She then left for Mena, Arkansas where she remained until September 1901. Fannie Porter got word to her that Nevils had come back to San Antonio and wanted Annie to take another trip. Annie responded to the message with a telegram: “Will wait till parties come.” Nevils shortly thereafter came to Arkansas to get her.
According to the Kindred article, their first stop was Shreveport, Louisiana where they remained for nearly a week, playing cards and patronizing saloons. Nevils had plenty of money and gave Annie a bunch of $10 bills before they left Shreveport for Jackson, Mississippi where they did “nothing but having a good time.”
They took the day coach to Memphis, Tennessee and let the good times continue to roll. Annie guessed they spent around $400 having fun and she especially enjoyed Nevils buying expensive dresses and hats for her. By the time they left Memphis for Nashville on October 10th where they headed straight for Linck’s Hotel, Annie had Bank of Montana notes for about $400. She must have been a very good companion because Nevils gave her at least another hundred. Perhaps Annie was Mae West’s inspiration when she said: “When I’m good I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.”
As Annie’s story unfolded, she admitted spending most of her time at the Lincke Hotel in their room, while Nevils preferred hanging around saloons until the wee hours. Then, Annie said, she began to have misgivings. The more money Nevils gave her, the more suspicious she got. She was also afraid he might take the money back and dump her. A shrewd move by Annie was that she changed the money he had given her into larger bills so they could be more easily hidden from him, and repaired to the Fourth National Bank to accomplish this, where she was arrested.
At the completion of this second statement, cops ran to the Linck and found that Nevils, registered under the name R.J. Whalen, had escaped due to the length of time it took Annie to tell her (false) story. She had given him enough time to make his escape. He had checked out the day before taking the train to Birmingham, Alabama, thence on to Mobile, where the cops lost his trail.
An incarcerated Annie Rogers might have been daydreaming of her boring days back on Lewis Walker’s farm. Even that dull life would be better than a dreary jail. On April 21, 1902, she appeared before Judge W.M. Hart asking for a bail reduction. Her former employer, Madame Fannie Porter, who well deserved her kind-though-soiled reputation, offered to put up the money.
Harvey Logan, aka: Kid Curry
As reported in Kindred’s article, Annie was dressed in a black suit and hat. “Wearing a black glove on one hand and carrying a white handkerchief in the other, she took a seat beside her attorney, Richard West.” Attorney General Robert Vaughn prosecuted, his first witness express messenger C.H. Smith who had been brought from Montana to describe the train robbery and link Annie to one of the robbers. He described the robbery ($40,000 in unsigned banknotes on July 3, 1901) near Wagner, Montana, and identified a man in a torn photograph shown him by General Vaughn as one of the train robbers. So ended the first day of Annie’s bail hearing.
The next morning, a smiling and laughing Annie with the dancing eyes sat in court carrying on a “lively conversation” with a deputy sheriff. She quit laughing as soon as she saw Pinkerton dick Lowell Spence take the stand. General Vaughn showed him the same photograph identified the day before by messenger Smith, and Spence also identified the man as the train robber, one Harvey Logan, member of the Wild Bunch, also called “Kid Curry,” and said he was in the Knoxville, Tennessee, jail. (Note: After he got into a saloon brawl in Pueblo, Harvey and his brothers headed for Hole in the Wall, Wyoming, where they met up with George Curry. Having been known as the “Kid” in Texas, Harvey took George’s last name and began to go by “Kid Curry.”) Logan had been arrested in December 1901 on a charge of felonious assault against policemen. He had over $9,000 of the stolen Bank of Montana bills on him at the time.
Interestingly, in this damning photograph of Logan, having been identified twice by witnesses, a hand could be seen resting on his left shoulder. In a dramatic moment worthy of Perry Mason himself, General Vaughn whipped out the other half of the picture. The hand was attached to the arm of the defendant, Annie Rogers. Uh Oh. The courtroom sizzled with excitement as observers whispered behind their hands. Then Annie took the stand.
Harvey Logan & Annie Rogers sometime between 1890 and 1894.
She admitted the man in the photograph was Bob Nevils, but denied ever knowing he was also Harvey Logan or Kid Curry, denied knowing where he got the money and never heard of the train robbery until her arrest. Judge Hart must not have believed any of these corkers because he proceeded to set bail at $2,500, considerably higher than the $1,000 Annie had requested. Even the indomitable Fannie Porter was unable, or unwilling, to pay such a high bail despite Annie’s tearful entreaties. Sobbing uncontrollably, Annie was led back to her jail cell where she languished for almost two months until her next day in court.
June 14th saw the same cast of characters in court: defense attorney West, prosecutor Vaughn, and Judge Hart. A plethora of prosecution witnesses were called including bank employees, hotel employees, and detectives, each telling his tale.
Of these witnesses, the most damning was Corrine Lewis, the pretty owner of a Memphis resort, who also identified the photograph of Logan as one of her hotel guests in September 1901.
He had, said Miss Lewis, “plenty of money,” flashing a large roll of bills. When she asked him if he were not afraid to carry so much money, he said he “wasn’t when he had his guns,” whereupon he tore open his coat exposing two large revolvers.” Miss Lewis also identified Annie Rogers as Logan’s companion, stating that, although Annie was dressed “plainly” when they arrived, the day after that she had been wearing expensive new clothes. She reported that both Logan and Lewis drank a great deal but never got drunk.
Next up was Annie herself, nervous and pale. She repeated her denials of knowing who Nevils really was, not knowing the money was stolen, and denying that she ever forged the bills. She did, however, admit that she had “bled Nevils and got all the money I could.” She took from him frequently, she said, and had worked him for about $500 by the time they reached Nashville. Annie then stepped down from the witness stand.
Wild Bunch, aka: Hole in the Wall Gang (1896-1901) – Led by Butch Cassidy, the Wild Bunch terrorized the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada for five years. Click for prints, downloads and products.
Backing her up was a deposition from Harvey Logan, read by defense attorney West. In it, Logan, at the Knoxville jail, said he had been with Annie at Linck’s Hotel the day she was arrested, and that she had left him in mid-afternoon. When she didn’t return, Logan “thought that she had quit me.” He said that he had given her the money and that it was signed before she got it.
In their closing arguments, prosecutor Vaughn called her a greedy opportunist, a liar, and accused her of aiding and abetting Logan’s escape. Defense attorney West said she was just an unsophisticated country girl who had been duped by a clever criminal.
The jury came back to a packed courtroom with a verdict in fewer than two hours. “Not guilty!!” A relieved and thrilled Annie Rogers shook hands with each jury member, her lawyer, and the judge. Spectators crowded around her voicing their approval of the verdict, while Annie expressed pleasure at being given a “fair deal.”
Annie then asked for her $500 back, claiming it was her money after all, but the court eventually ruled that she was not entitled to it.
Annie left Tennessee and returned to Texas where she followed Logan’s exploits in the papers and wrote to him. Logan was captured in Jefferson City following a fight in a Knoxville saloon where he broke a man’s nose in a quarrel and shot two Knoxville Police Officers who opened fire on him.
Logan was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in Tennessee Prison. Using wire from a jailhouse broom, Logan engineered his escape from the Knox County jail. He killed himself a few months later after a failed bank robbery.
The members of the Wild Bunch were aggressively pursued by Pinkerton Agents.
During his lifetime, Logan/Kid Curry was wanted on warrants for fifteen murders, but it was generally known that he had killed more than twice that number. William Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, called Kid Curry the most vicious outlaw in America. “He has not one single redeeming feature,” Pinkerton wrote. “He is the only criminal I know of who does not have one single good point.”
There exists no evidence that Annie ever saw Logan again, and it is surmised she changed her name once more and went back to work at Fannie Porter’s.
Watch the video: Ο Χάρβεϊ τρομοκρατεί τις ΗΠΑ (January 2022). |
Instructor: Kelly Gorder
Community: School Setting, 30 minutes
Plan Creation Date: March 30, 2016
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding
Class Intention: To increase student’s physical awareness and to develop an awareness of their abilities and needs. Help prepare students for learning and how to stay connected to their learning. The students are in a small group, quiet classroom setting with minimal distractions and have been working on developing rapport with one another. There will be quiet music playing and the lights will be turned off to increase comfort levels. Challenging behaviors include anxiety and lethargy. It will be a challenge to balance calming and energizing Yoga Calm techniques into this practice. Students are all on Individualized Education Plans and receive a variety of special education services.
Lesson Plan:
Breathing Techniques
• Belly Breathing – Feel the weight of your body in your chair and place your hands on your belly. Make everything feel heavy. Breathe into your belly so that hands go up and out when you breath in and that your hands go down when you breathe out. Who would like to be the leader? How many breaths should we take? Do you want to use the breathing ball too? Compliments.
• Back Breathing (modified) – Now we are going to do the same thing but place our hands on our backs by our hips. Make everything feel heavy like you are a part of the earth. Breathe into your belly so that hands go out when you breath in and that your hands go in when you breathe out. Who would like to be the leader? How many breaths should we take? Do you want to use the breathing ball too? Compliments.
Yoga Calm Top 10 (modified) to help with the calm yet energized state necessary for communicating effectively with others.
• Mountain - Now we are going to pretend we are a mountain. Stand with your feet hip width apart, pointing straight ahead, and press them down into the earth. Hands can be down at your sides or palms together at your heart. Lift your belly, head and heart. Shoulders should be back and down. Look straight ahead. Your body is now activated. The top of your head should be reaching to the sky to feel the warmth of the sun and your feet should be pressed into the ground like a strong, heavy rock. Now I want you to pair up with your elbow buddy and make sure that there body is activated when in the Mountain pose. Practice standing slumped over versus standing up. If your partner presses on your shoulder from the side, what happens?
• Roots – Now that you have done mountain we are going to try roots. What do roots do for a tree? They keep the tree in the ground. They also keep the tree centered. As we do this activity, think about what helps you to stay centered, focused or strong. At the end we are going to share, using our smooth, strong speech. Stand with your feet hip width apart. Rock your body back and forth slightly with your body activated and all four corners of your feet strongly on the ground. Make the rocking movement smaller and smaller until you balance on the center of your feet. Now rock side to side then return to center. Make big, strong circles to the right. Think about how you have to shift your weight to each of the four corners of your feet. Start to make your circles smaller and smaller until you come back to center. Make big circles to the left now feeling each of the four corners of your left foot. Then make the circles smaller and smaller until back at center.
• Tree – From Mountain, stand with your legs and feet together. Shift your weight onto your left foot. Slowly bend your right knee and draw your foot up, placing the sole as high up as it is available to you (demonstrate kickstand at the ankle, shin or thigh) without strain. Activate your body like we did in the mountain pose and press your standing leg down, rooting yourself like a tree to the earth. Find all four corners of your foot. Press your palms together in front of your heart to help with balance. Then, stretch your arms and head up like branches to the sky, while rooting your standing leg. If you fall out of the pose, it’s ok. Find your strength to come back to the pose and ground your body to the earth again. Repeat on the other leg.
• Tree Challenge – Find your elbow buddy again and face each other. One of you will stand in Tree and the other will try to challenge their balance by jumping, waving, clapping and so on. You can not touch or blow on your elbow buddy. Switch standing leg, repeat, and then partners switch roles. When did you feel safe? When do you feel like you might need a little support? Who helps support you? Who keeps you grounded? What do they do that helps you to stay grounded?
• Star – From standing, take feet wide apart about 3 to 4 feet and point toes straight ahead. Take arms out to the sides and parallel to the floor. Activate or firm your muscles and extend out through arms, legs, head and tail. Spread your fingers out like a ray of sun.
• Triangle – Stand with your legs wide apart about 3 to 4 feet. Activate and straighten arms and legs. Turn your left foot in slightly to the right and your right foot all the way out to the right. Lift your arms up and parallel to the floor. Now, shift your upper body to right and windmill your arms over, taking the right hand to the shin, ankle or knee. Stretch your left arm toward the ceiling. Press out through your legs, arms, and top of head like we did in Star. Why are triangles strong? What makes them grounded? What is the shape of a mountain? What makes a mountain strong?
• Back Breathing - Find your elbow buddy and one of you will get into Child pose while the other partner will kneel alongside and place their hands gently on your elbow buddy’s back. For the partner in child pose, breathe slowly into your lower back and into your partner’s hands. Feeling the rise and fall like waves in an ocean. Keep breathing until you hear the chime. Move your hands up to mid back and repeat until you hear the chime. Now move your hands to your upper back and repeat. Switch roles.
• One Minute Exploration – Rest your head on the desk or lie on the floor. I want you to picture yourself on the top of a mountain. How did you feel as you looked from the bottom of the mountain to the summit? What did you say to yourself to keep yourself focused? How did you feel when you reached the top? What does it look like from the summit versus the bottom? Look at all the trees down below. Think about how they are all grounded to the earth by their roots. Who helps keep you grounded and safe? Think about the waves in the ocean that you can see from the top of the mountain. Remember what it felt like to breathe in and out like the waves of that ocean. Lie there quietly until you hear the chime. Give me a thumbs up when you can no longer hear the chime.
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Calculate this matrix in a more general and shorter way
2 views (last 30 days)
Rowan Humphreys
Rowan Humphreys on 25 Nov 2021
Commented: Rowan Humphreys on 30 Nov 2021
Is there a way of generating P in a way that doesn't involve writing sin/cos/sin/cos repeatedly? Perhaps like how you can generate an array by writing 'x = 1:0.1:10'?
the size of 'x' is 100by1 and 'w' is some constant.
Answers (2)
Stephen on 25 Nov 2021
x = rand(100,1);
w = pi;
m = (1:5).*w.*x;
m = [ones(100,1),reshape([cos(m);sin(m)],100,[])];
for comparison:
P = [ones(size(x)),cos(w*x),sin(w*x),cos(2*w*x),sin(2*w*x),cos(3*w*x),sin(3*w*x),cos(4*w*x),sin(4*w*x),cos(5*w*x),sin(5*w*x)];
ans = logical
John D'Errico
John D'Errico on 25 Nov 2021
x is 100x1. Now, suppose we want to generate multiple terms of the form sin(k*w*x), so k will be a vector. w is a fixed constant. Do you know how to do that?
x = (0:2:10)'; % arbitrary, your x is what you have. I've made x small so you can see what happens
w = 1; % again, my choice.
k = 1:4;
Ok, so what does this do in MATLAB?
ans = 6×4
0 0 0 0 2 4 6 8 4 8 12 16 6 12 18 24 8 16 24 32 10 20 30 40
This is just effectively a multiplication table. But do you see that it forms what you need? You can now compute sin(x*w*k), and cos(x*w*k).
In your case, x is a column vector, of size 100x1. Your code might look like:
x = ???? % whatever x is
w = ???? % again
n = 10; % how many terms?
P = [ones(size(x)),sin(x*w*k),cos(x*w*k)];
Now, the only problem is, all the sin terms are bundled together, then all the cos terms. If that bothers you, then reshuffle those columns. Something like this should work.
P(:,[2:2:end,3:2:end]) = P(:,[2:n+1,n+2:end]);
Now the sin and cos terms alternate.
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A discussion on sustainable fashion: How can we be more sustainable?
Why are sustainable fashion brands so expensive? Is the thrift industry size-ist? Could 3D body scanning be the answer to the hundreds of tonnes of textiles that are returned and thrown in landfills because they don’t fit?
Societies Editor, Sharon Lei recently attended a Zoom panel event hosted by Want Not Waste and The Closet on sustainable fashion, to find out the answers to all your sustainable fashion questions.
Want Not Waste is a student-run zero waste shop. The Closet is a student-led thrift shop, with all proceeds going to mental health charity Mind. Both shops are part of the Student’s Union at The University of Manchester. They provide a great way to raise environmental consciousness in the student community.
The event took place in the style of a panel. The speakers included an independent Depop seller, a fashion technology student with expertise in sustainable fashion design, and a sustainable lifestyle blogger. The event surrounded a central discussion on ethical consumerism, aiming to raise awareness of the problematic labour and practice seen in the fast fashion industry.
The growth of sustainable fashion has increased massively in recent years. Platforms like Depop, Vinted, Etsy, and Ebay allow people access to second hand, thrifted clothes more easily. However, the increase in popularity surrounding sustainable fashion has also lead to problems such as ‘greenwashing’. Cheap, mass-produced clothing is marketed as sustainable and conscious, misleading consumers with a lack of transparency and facts.
Problems with shopping second hand or thrifting
Thrifting and second-hand shopping is not a solution to solving the obsession with fast fashion. As one of the panellists pointed out, thrifting and second-hand shopping is often limited in size. This makes it completely unavailable for the plus-size community.
New fashion technology also helps to reduce fashion waste. The panel mentioned the 3D body scanning technology adopted by high street retailers such as M&S. They aim to improve the fit and sizing of their clothing in order to increase customer satisfaction and reduce return. Using data accumulation, companies are able to make garments that fit customers well, and are therefore less likely to be disposed of as quickly. The use of full garment fitting technology is also another way to reduce waste in fashion production; aiming to produce a full garment in one step, rather than going through the process of cutting fabrics and assembling the pieces together.
The impact of fast fashion on our planet
I was surprised and shocked by the amount of waste the fast fashion industry produces. The panel pointed out that there was a lot of unsold stock due to the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown resulted in newly produced clothes disposed of in the landfill and companies refusing to pay workers. – creating harmful impacts on the environment.
The use of cotton in garment production also means a large amount of water is used to produce a small amount of material. 10,000 litres of water is require to produce 1kg of cotton requires 10,000 litres, creating waste at an unimaginable level.
The issue of microplastics in clothes were also raised. The use of polyester has a huge environmental impact, as microplastics are released into the ocean every time we do our laundry.
The Manchester Thrifting Society also pointed out that £140 million worth of clothing goes to the landfill every year in the UK alone, as well as £5 billion worth of returned clothes. Recent events, such as the PrettyLittleThing sale, where clothes were sold for as little as 5p, highlights the problematic nature of the fast fashion industry, and how items are not made to last; just to simply satisfy the season’s trend.
Why are sustainable brands/clothing so expensive?
This was an interesting topic raised in the discussion. Sustainable clothes are more expensive to produce due to their methods. But, it is also expensive in our eyes as we are used to buying cheap clothing; clothing that is unethical in its treatment of textile workers, and the conditions they work in. We are able to enjoy cheap clothing at the expense of textile workers. Sustainable clothing brands tend to pay their workers more, and are treated fairly, thus bringing the cost of production up. Many sustainable companies tend to be produced in smaller numbers, made to order or made to measure, making it more expensive to buy. Most are unable to be price competitive with mass-produced fast fashion.
How to be more conscious of your fashion consumption?
The online magazine Ethical Consumer is a great way for many to be further educated on the topic of sustainability and environmental consciousness. It gives information about each retailer’s transparency and sustainability to help consumers make more informed choices.
One of the event’s panellists, sustainable blogger Jenny, also has a blog focused on sustainability and conscious consumption.
The Manchester Thrift Society is also another great way to stay informed and get involved in the discussion. It is run by a group of passionate eco-friendly students. They have a Facebook group allowing you to swap clothes, shoes and accessories or buy for an affordable price. The society also runs upcycling Zoom workshops and events for its members. There is a £5 yearly membership fee upon joining, allowing their members to gain access to their events and discussions.
Check out the Manchester Thrifting Society through their SU Membership page, or on Instagram.
Tags: Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Fashion, thrift soc, thrifting, virtual discussion
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Is it "whisky" or "whiskey"?
There are two common English names for whisky, namely "whisky" and "whiskey", which often make people confused about how to spell them（ What's the difference In fact, there was no difference at the beginning. Even in the 19th century, the two words were common. However, in the 1960s, Americans began to use "whiskey" to refer to their own whisky and "whisky" to refer to whisky from other regions.
Up to now, there is still no clear standard for which spelling is correct. It is just a convention that whiskey made in the United States and Ireland will be named "whiskey", while whisky made in other regions will be called "whisky"! Interestingly, although whisky is called "whiskey" in the United States, the word "whisky" is still used in the provisions of American liquor laws and regulations!
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Tag Archives: “Why I Like the Game of Baseball”
Roger W. Smith, “Baseball: An appréciation”
‘why I like the game of baseball’
A downloadable Word document of this post is above.
Baseball: An appréciation
by Roger W. Smith
There is no clock to regulate duration of play. “With no clock, no regulation of seconds, minutes, and hours, baseball need not submit to the inexorability of temporal limitation,” notes English professor George Grella, singing the praises of the sport in The Massachusetts Review. A “team cannot stall, or run the ball into the line to kill the clock, or manipulate the clock in order to score. A tie game does not exist — all games must end in a victory and a defeat, and a tied game could conceivably go on forever. The game succeeds in creating a temporary timelessness perfectly appropriate to its richly cyclical nature.”
It is a sport not limited in any total sense by boundary lines; think catcher or third or first baseman leaning into the stands for a foul ball.
It has a wonderfully fair method of scoring — one for each run. And each team has to get the same number of outs — 27 outs made by the opposing team — to beat them in a nine inning game. Any long time fan has seen it, often: A team that appears to have an insurmountable lead ends up losing when the opposing team mounts a late inning rally.
I once saw a game on television where the eventual winning team, the home team, was down by seven runs with two outs and a man on first in the bottom of the ninth inning. They scored eight runs and won 13-12. It’s not as uncommon as one might think for teams to come back from such deficits. In this particular game, eleven batters in a row reached base with two out: There were four singles, six walks, and a grand slam home run. The opposing team couldn’t say, “Time’s up. Game over.” They had to — but couldn’t — get that twenty-seventh out. Time is “stretched,” or trumped, in a sense, because the losing team is entitled to keep batting as long as they have another out left. It doesn’t matter what inning or what the score happens to be.
Baseball is a blend of the team and the individual. (Most commonly at any given moment during a game it is a question of nine men against one.)
It is a game which consists of the unexpected occurring — nobody on the field or in the park knows where, when, or if the ball will be hit.
It is an uncluttered and beautifully designed game. In baseball, the scoring is done by the team that doesn’t have the ball. “There is no grubby battling for possession; there are no interceptions,” as Charles Einstein pointed out in his preface to The Fireside Book of Baseball.
“A nine-year-old knows baseball inside out, yet … it utterly confounds the foreigner,” observes Einstein. It is a uniquely American sport.
There have been few basic changes in baseball rules for over one hundred years, making it possible to compare players of different generations.
The baseball field is beautifully designed. “[W]ith its congested infield arching around home and its vast and underpopulated outfield expanding in an ever-widening arc beyond the congestion,” as literary scholar Ed Folsom puts it. The bases are a magic ninety feet apart. Consider how often a batter is thrown out by half a step, compared to instances when he outruns a peg from deep short. According to Grella, “One of the most fundamental and significant truths of the game derives from the peculiar shape of its playing area. With the exception of cricket … baseball is the only team sport played with a ball that does not use a rectangular field. All other ball games are territorial and circumscribed; all play occurs within a box, where a team defends one end and attempts to penetrate the other. In such games success is measured by the number of penetrations a team perpetrates and/or permits; football is so territorial that one of its hallowed statistics deals with land acquisition, i.e., yardage gained and lost. Territorial games rely upon time, depending always upon a predetermined duration of the clock. Baseball, on the other hand, virtually denies the limitations of space and time.” Or, as novelist W. P. Kinsella has written, “[T]he field runs to infinity. … There’s no limit to how far a man might possibly hit a ball, and there’s no limit to how far a fleet outfielder might run to retrieve it. The foul lines run on forever, forever diverging. … Every other sport is held in by boundaries, some of absolute set size, some not: football, hockey, tennis, basketball, golf. But there’s no limit to the size of a baseball field.”
A baseball. The ball itself. Holding one in your hand. Idly tossing it. The shininess and hardness. The stitching. The delight of boys in having a new, white, shiny, unscuffed ball. The crack of a wooden bat (or the ping of a metal one) connecting with a ball and sending a fly well past the infield.
Almost everything in baseball looks easy and evident (as a skilled player having honed his skills through endless practice makes it appear), but learning the game is not. Watch kids trying to swing a bat and connect, throwing weakly (perhaps a dribbler), or being inept at catching a ball tossed underhand at close range. But, then, the child begins to get the hang of it. And, doing the simplest things such as throwing and catching is so satisfying to be able to do. Giving a young person a sense of grace and athleticism.
It’s a game which requires inborn athletic ability — athleticism: strength, agility, speed. A hitter’s power, a pitcher or fielder’s arm, a baserunner or outfielder’s speed.
Yet a boy or man possessing these attributes — a natural athlete — will not necessarily succeed in baseball without the desire to do so and an interest in the game, and without years of first learning the fundamentals and then endless practice — the same as with a virtuoso musician — both in the “backyard” and in actual games. Playing in games from youth leagues to high school and college and amateur and perhaps semipro to the minor leagues is crucial for learning how to “leverage” one’s skills (a pitcher learning different pitches, for example, and finding which pitches work best for him) and, perhaps most importantly, developing “baseball instincts” and learning strategy.
A batter is up in a crucial situation. Hand eye coordination and raw power are crucial. The ability to hit is, needless to say, a sina qua non. Intense concentration is required. But it is all for naught without perfect execution. Swing a little too early or late, get a little over or under the ball and it’s a swinging strike, a dribbler, a pop up or lazy fly ball. Doesn’t matter whether you’re Ted Williams or Mark Belanger.
And just how do you play the game well? I heard a player say once, in a televised interview, that this is — which he implied without using the word — paradoxical. To play the game, he explained, requires intense concatenation at every moment — one can never tell when the ball will be hit to oneself; a batter must be totally focused on the pitcher’s windup and delivery. At the same time, to succeed in baseball, a ballplayer has to be relaxed. Think of an overanxious fielder bobbling a ball.
The sport is relatively free of contact. The predominant focus of a game is THE BALL. Where it is at a given moment: zooming into home plate (or perhaps floating like a knuckleball); a scorching grounder hit towards an infielder or a seemingly routine one perhaps taking a bad hop; shot in a straight line as a line drive that may or not be snared; the high arc of a fly ball floating and perhaps hanging in the air before it comes down to an outfielder, or launched toward the deepest point of the park, or over the fence; the “pill” being whipped to first to nip a runner or to another base to perhaps catch a lead runner. The cutoff man. Relays. Rundowns. (Sometimes they seem to go on forever, with scoring such as 5-2-6-3-5-2-1, or whatever — so many players are involved.) All eyes follow the ball, which controls what happens. There is something pure about this.
How a game progresses, from batter to batter, pitch to pitch, and inning to inning.
The flight of the ball. An outfielder catching up with it in flight. Or gathering it in in pre-game practice. “It is a beautiful sight to see a good outfielder gather in a fly ball,” as Mark Harris wrote in his novel The Southpaw, “moving over as graceful as you please while from 250 or 300 feet away someone has tossed the ball up in front of himself and laid into it and sent it upward and upward in a high arc until the ball is just a white speck against the blue sky, and then it hits its highest point and begins to drop, and you look down and there is a player loping over, moving fast or slow, depending on how he sizes up the situation, and he moves under the ball and it zooms down in his glove. It looks so easy when a good ballplayer does it. It is not easy. Ask any kid that has ever tried to play ball whether it is easy, and he will tell you. But when a big-league ballplayer does it, it looks easy because he is so graceful, and he gathers it in and then runs a few steps on his momentum and digs his spikes in the ground and wheels and fires that ball back where it came from, and it hops along, white against the green grass.”
The fact that, in different baseball stadiums, dimensions are not uniform, which affects strategy and the composition of teams — such as a team built on defense and speed or one with a lineup of left or right-handed sluggers. The intricacies and oddities of different ballparks, such as cozy Fenway Park with its left field wall. Cozy Ebbets Field, where fans were on top of the action. The short porch in right field in Yankee Stadium, and Death Valley in left field of the old stadium before it was renovated in the 1970’s. The odd shape of the now demolished Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants, with its very deep center field (where Willie Mays made his famous catch in 1954) and its very short right field (to which Dusty Rhodes hit a pinch hit home run in the tenth inning of the same game to win it for the Giants). How managers and players have taken advantage of these features, such as Carl Yastrzemski masterfully playing caroms off The Wall at Fenway Park, holding the batter to a single, and Roger Maris hitting his sixty-first home run into the short porch in right field in the final game of the 1961 season. How stadiums affect the makeup and personality of teams: Dodger Stadium: defense and pitching … Comiskey Park in Chicago and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore: the same … Shea Stadium: a dismal stadium with no personality or aesthetic appeal and colorless Mets teams.
It is such an aesthetically satisfying game to play and watch. The shortstop throwing out a runner, narrowly nipping him, from deep in the hole. Watching a double play executed with such speed and dexterity, in a matter of a seconds. A peg which just nips the runner. (“A peg as flat as the tape a runner breaks,” in the words of the late poet Donald Hall.) A gasp-inducing throw to the infield or home plate by an outfielder with a rifle arm. It all comes down to this: A man or boy trying to outrun a ball.
The slow, deliberate pace, which seems more typical of another era. The absence of a clock. The feeling that time stands still as suspense about the outcome mounts. “The game’s slow rhythms creating a natural tension,” as a writer in The Economist put it. Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer.
Watching pre-game practice. “I can’t think of any other sport … where the practice sessions are worth the price of admission,” notes sportswriter Wilfrid Sheed. A coach or player with a fungo bat lofting fly balls to the far reaches of the field. Fly-shaggers arching them back towards home plate. Batting practice. Infield practice. Coaches slapping grounders to infielders, two deep at every position. The ball snarls around the horn. Third, short, second, first, catcher. Pepper games by stars and lesser players in front of the dugouts.
The fact that Major League baseball is played almost daily in the spring and summer months.
The opportunities for improvisations such as pickup games and tossing a ball around or taking swings in a relaxed setting such as a back yard.
The simple pleasure and restful rhythm of playing catch. The thud (a sort of snapping sound) of a ball thrown straight and hard in a boy or man’s glove. Father and son tossing a ball back and forth. Two friends. Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter doing so (as I used to observe before Yankee games) in front of the Yankee dugout. The fun, joy, of playing catch. How it induces tranquility, an almost hypnotic state.
The serene and meditative state baseball can induce in the spectator, and even in a participant (an outfielder, say); the enjoyment and pure delight in simply watching. It is a thinking man’s game because it can be observed and contemplated with great satisfaction, not only by spectators or viewers, but also — even — by players. (As former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Alex Grammas put it: “there’s a lot of dead time in baseball” — this permits contemplation. *) Rather than working the mind up to a frenzy, as other sports such as football and basketball do, baseball relaxes the mind — can do so if one is so disposed.
“In addition to its richness of ritual and history, its fascination of character and event, baseball offers ample material for philosophical speculation,” Grella notes. “The true fan is not only a spectator, enthusiast, and historian, but also must be a student of the ethics, aesthetics, and ontology of the game. The thoughtful fan investigates more than simply the obvious lore; he pursues the essence of baseball, its shape and meaning, its resonant possibilities.” And, baseball’s vast archive of statistics, current and past. Who had the highest on base percentage of all time? How many times did a power hitter such as Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio strike out in his career?
That the spectator/watcher can reflect upon what is happening on several levels, both through anticipation, or foreknowledge, of possible scenarios, strategies, and outcomes; and later, through the re-creation of games in one’s mind, discussions of games, and memory and retrospective analysis of games and plays from decades or even centuries ago that are still remembered.
The fact that baseball is played and enjoyed, by both players and spectators, on so many levels: by the very young in yards, fields, and playgrounds; on sandlots and in youth leagues; in high school and college; in amateur, semiprofessional, and adult leagues (including softball, which is a form of baseball). The “farm system” and the Major Leagues.
In all these settings, game situations, and locales, including amateur leagues and sandlot games, there is a kind of “universal grammar” of the sport which is “reassuring.” You see situations, plays, and minutiae, such as a batter digging in and taking a stance; a base runner taking a lead and the pitcher trying to pick him off; whiffs or balls flying off the end of the bat; foul balls; wild pitches; the ball being tossed around the horn after an out; great plays or the opposite; daring base running; arguments over whether the runner was safe or out; and so forth. From a game observed in a local park to one in Yankee Stadium.
Situations and scenarios. Men on base. How many outs? The count. Pitcher versus batter. Left handed versus right handed when it comes to pitcher-batter matchups. Which players are on the field and at what positions.
The way ball games can be charted with such precision, as noted by historian and fan Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose father taught her at age six how to keep score so she could tell him about the day’s Brooklyn Dodger game, as announced on the radio by Red Barber (most games were played in the daytime then), after the former came home from work.
The rituals of the game overall, and of each game. Tossing the ball around the infield before an inning and after an out. The umpire dusting off the plate. “Play ball!” The pitcher’s windup and delivery. The on deck circle. Other rituals which even kids sometimes copy from major leaguers.
How it is such a mental game, much of which comes from the way the game is designed and played, and as such, how baseball games can be reconstructed afterwards in the mind with such pleasure, including long after, so that the fan remembers how the Yankees tied up the seventh game of the 1960 World Series in the top of the ninth and then lost it to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth. Sandy Amoros snaring Yogi Berra’s fly to left field with a one-handed catch in the final game of the 1955 World Series. When Rick Burleson did not take third base on Jerry Remy’s single in the ninth inning of the 1978 tie-breaker game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, very possibly preventing the Red Sox from tying the game. What happened in the tenth (final) inning of the final game of the 1912 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants.
The moments which live in the memory of old and new fans: Boston Red Sox shortstop and relay man Johnny Pesky failing to nip the St. Louis Cardinals’ Enos Slaughter at home plate in the final game of the 1946 World Series. Andy Pafko watching Bobby Thomson’s home run sail over the left field fence in the final game of the 1951 national league playoff. Willie Mays’s unbelievable catch in the first game of the 1954 World Series and his awesome throw to prevent a base runner from tagging up and scoring. Ted Williams hitting a home run in his final career at bat. The Houston Astros’ José Altuve’s mad dash around the bases to score the winning run in Game 2 of the 2017 American League Championship Series. And countless other games and plays. These plays stay in the mind because of their simplicity (perhaps one should say, clarity or preciseness), their beauty of execution, and the drama of how and when they happened. In short, one can recreate games in one’s mind. Yes, there are dramatic moments in football and basketball. But almost every play, inning, and game in baseball can be recreated this way. Baseball is “a lot easier to analyze than, say, football, which has so many moving parts,” says baseball author Stew Thornley, who was quoted in a New York Times article. Suppose Jim Brown wrote in an autobiography: “I was huffing and puffing as I strained to get from the 40-yard line to the end zone. I shed two tacklers and made it to the end zone.” As New York Times sportswriter Filip Bondy put it: “baseball is a sport made for … scholarly examination.” And for endless dissection.
Unlike, say, basketball or football, baseball does not seem to favor players of any particular build or size. All that matters is that one can play it well. You see wiry players (Richie Ashburn, Hank Aaron, Didi Gregorias), stocky ones (Babe Ruth, Carl Furillo, Pete Rose), “muscle men” (Ted Kluzewski, Greg Luzinski), tall ones (Aaron Judge, Carlton Fisk, Frank Howard), short ones (Phil Rizzuto, David Eckstein, José Altuve), rotund ones (Fernando Valenzuela, David Wells, David Ortiz, Prince Fielder). “[S]ize doesn’t matter in baseball. In many ways, size is irrelevant,” notes New York Times reporter Billy Witz.
How the positions have different identities, generically speaking. The shortstop. The best defensive player on the team. A wizard with the glove. Has fast hands. Gets rid of the ball in a fraction of a second, transferring it from glove to hand. The second baseman. Usually a scrappy player. The pivot man. The third baseman. The stolid guardian of the hot corner. Known for diving backhand stabs of balls hit down the line. The first baseman. Often left handed; usually tall with a long reach; needs to be a slugger. The catcher. Squat and almost square in shape. The field general and most knowledgeable player on the field, strategy wise; has a unique vantage point from his position affording a view of the entire field and the rest of the defense. The center fielder. Ball hawk. Rivals the shortstop for defensive importance. A gazelle swift of foot and graceful. Able to run down balls the corner outfielders can’t get to. Usually a star who can hit too.
No player really predominates. It is sometimes said that the best hitter and run producer carries the team. But, each player (one should specify each position player in leagues that have adopted the designated hitter rule) has his spot in the batting order; everyone must bat in turn. A player such as the shortstop or center fielder may appear to play a predominant role in the defense — and in fact will often do so — because of his position on the field and the probability that more balls will be hit to him than, say, a corner outfielder, but all this doesn’t matter when a ball is hit to the right fielder. (Think of Dwight Evans catching Joe Morgan’s fly ball in the eleventh inning of the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. The game hung in the balance. Evans’s catch prolonged it and turned the momentum around.) Every player in the lineup is important, and each has a role to play. No player can dominate, and if, say, a player comes to bat in a crucial situation that can determine the outcome of the game, or if a play is made or not made by a fielder, it is essentially by chance, what is called the luck of the draw. If a ball is hit to a fielder, he instantly becomes the focal point of the action. (Other fielders may become involved in the play as it unfolds.) When a batter is facing a pitcher, no other player can help him hit a pitch. If a runner is trying to score, no other player can help him avoid being tagged out, unlike where in football a lineman can block a potential tackler.
Colorful characters: Casey Stengel, Babe Ruth. Saintly types (aka “nice guys”) such as Mel Ott and moral exemplars such as Christy Mathewson. Rogues, villains, and miscreants such as Hal Chase, Leo Durocher, and Pete Rose (who, before his suspension for betting, gravely injured Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse in a home plate collision that never should have happened). Greek gods who seemed to play with effortless grace, such as the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio. Pathos: Lou Gehrig — icon and hero tragically struck down. Courage and dignity: Jackie Robinson. Heartbreak: Ralph Branca.
Nicknames; Moose Skowron, Birdie Tebbetts, Smoky Burgess and Smoky Joe Wood, Jim Mudcat Grant, Dizzy Dean, Cool Papa Bell, Yogi Berra, Pumpsie Green, Willie Puddin’ Head Jones, Wahoo Sam Crawford,** Gabby Street, Schoolboy Rowe,*** Tom Plowboy Morgan, Oil Can Boyd, Bobo Newsom, Choo-Choo Coleman, Sal (The Barber) Maglie, Ken (Hawk) Harrelson, Joe (Ducky) Medwick, Jim (Catifsh) Hunter, Herold D. (Muddy) Ruel, Shoeless Joe Jackson,**** Pistol Pete Reiser, Sad Sam Jones, Jumping Joe Dugan, Indian Bob Johnson, Pee Wee Reese.***** Big Poison and Little Poison (Paul and Lloyd Warner).****** The Flying Dutchman, The Grey Eagle, The Georgia Peach, The Yankee Clipper.
Baseball has a rich vocabulary. Many terms with other, more common usages have been adapted for baseball, such as ace (the best starting pitcher on the team), diamond, fireman (a team’s top relief pitcher), green light, sent to the showers (for a pitcher), table setter, cup of coffee (meaning a short time spent by a player at the major league level), on his horse (in reference to an outfielder tracking down a fly ball), leather for a fielder’s glove (a player with good leather is a good defensive player), lumber for a bat and bag or sack for a base, submariner for a pitcher with a low slung style of delivery, mop-up man for a relief pitcher used in a non-critical situation, mustard referring to a high amount of velocity on a fastball, and nail-biter for a close game. “I wus robbed” when a fielder’s spectacular play denies the batter a hit or a home run. And, many baseball terms have been incorporated into the English language, often as slang, with a broader meaning not limited to baseball. For example: bush league, choke up, telling someone you will take a rain check on an invitation.
Baseball coinages: around the horn, bench jockey, bullpen, Grapefruit League, seeing-eye single, inside out swing, hill (the pitcher’s mound), hit ’em where they ain’t, swing for the fences, horsehide for a baseball, hot corner and hot stove league, keystone sack, men in blue, round tripper for a home run, seventh-inning stretch, shoestring catch, putting your foot in the bucket, suicide squeeze.
Can of corn: an easy-to-catch fly ball hit to the outfield. The phrase is said to have originated in the nineteenth century and relates to an old-time grocer’s method of getting canned goods down from a high shelf. Using a stick with a hook on the end, a grocer could tip a can so that it would fall for an easy catch into his apron. One theory for the use of corn as the canned good in the phrase is that a can of corn was considered the easiest “catch” as corn was the best-selling vegetable in the store and so was heavily stocked on the lowest shelves.
Catbird seat: a desirable or auspicious situation in a game. Popularized by Red Barber, longtime broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers. James Thurber wrote in his short story of the same title: “[S]itting in the catbird seat means sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him.” The catbird is said to seek out the highest point in a tree to sing his song, so someone in the catbird seat is high up.
Gopher ball: a pitch that leads to a home run, one that the batter will “go for.” (The term has nothing to with gophers.)
Hook: a curveball, but also used in the sense of a manager removing a pitcher from the game for a reliever. A manager who is said to have a short hook is typically quick to remove a starting pitcher. It is said that this usage may have come from the large hooks that were sometimes used in vaudeville to yank unsuccessful acts off the stage if they were reluctant to leave on their own. Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson was called Captain Hook.
Miscue for an error. The usage comes from billiards, when the cue stick slips or just brushes the cue ball, thereby leading to a missed shot.
Southpaw or portsider for a left-handed pitcher. Most baseball stadiums are built so that home plate is in the west and the outfield is in the east, so that when the sun sets it is not in the batter’s line of sight. Because of this, a left-handed pitcher’s arm is always facing south when he faces the plate. “Port” refers to the left side of a ship.
Rabbit ears to indicate a player who becomes nervous or chokes when opposing players or fans yell at or razz him. Or an umpire who picks up on every complaint hurled at him from the dugout.
Rocking chair. Refers to the position occupied by the third base umpire, likely because the third base umpire does not generally have to make as many calls as the other umpires. An ingenious and humorous coinage.
Fungo, which designates a fly ball hit for fielders to practice catching. This is accomplished by a batter tossing the ball a short distance up in the air and then batting it himself. (No one has ever determined with certainty its etymology.) And, shag (as in shag flies) and shagger.
Rhubarb. A rhubarb is a plant. Brooklyn Dodgers announcer Red Barber used the word for an argument, fight, or a mix-up on the field of play. He called Ebbets Field “the rhubarb patch” because there were so many arguments there.
And phrases you will often hear used during a game from players or spectators, often in the case of Little League and sandlot games, such as “a walk is as good as a hit,” “good eye,” and “keep your eye on the ball.”
Baseball invites good writing. Consider the wonderful literature the sport has spawned, by writers such as Zane Grey, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, James T. Farrell, Mark Harris, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo; and the poets Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, and Donald Hall. The same can be said of nonfiction works and sports writing by writers such as W. C. Heinz, Arnold Hano, Roger Kahn, Roger Angell, and Red Smith describing Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard around the world” in the New York Herald Tribune: “Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”
* Quoted in This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s, by Larry Moffi.
**Born in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1880.
***Lynwood Thomas “Schoolboy” Rowe received the nickname “Schoolboy” while playing on a men’s team as a 15-year-old high school student.
**** Shoeless Joe Jackson got his nickname during a mill game played in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson had blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats, which hurt so much that he took his shoes off before he was at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, and shouted “You shoeless son of a gun, you!” The other players kidded him, calling him Shoeless Joe, and the name stuck.
***** Harold Reese, nicknamed Pee Wee, was a championship marbles player in Kentucky, where he grew up. A pee wee is a small marble.
****** Big Poison and Little Poison (brothers and Pittsburgh Pirate outfielders Paul and Lloyd Warner) got their names when a sportswriter overheard an Ebbets Field fan mispronouncing “person” as “poison” — as in here comes that “big poison” or “little poison.”
— Roger W. Smith
March 2018
See also:
Roger W. Smith, “On Baseball”
Roger W. Smith, “On Baseball” |
Libraries and Metadata
When the compiler sees a reference to an external crate, it needs to load some information about that crate. This chapter gives an overview of that process, and the supported file formats for crate libraries.
A crate dependency can be loaded from an rlib, dylib, or rmeta file. A key point of these file formats is that they contain rustc-specific metadata. This metadata allows the compiler to discover enough information about the external crate to understand the items it contains, which macros it exports, and much more.
An rlib is an archive file, which is similar to a tar file. This file format is specific to rustc, and may change over time. This file contains:
• Object code, which is the result of code generation. This is used during regular linking. There is a separate .o file for each codegen unit. The codegen step can be skipped with the -C linker-plugin-lto CLI option, which means each .o file will only contain LLVM bitcode.
• LLVM bitcode, which is a binary representation of LLVM's intermediate representation, which is embedded as a section in the .o files. This can be used for Link Time Optimization (LTO). This can be removed with the -C embed-bitcode=no CLI option to improve compile times and reduce disk space if LTO is not needed.
• rustc metadata, in a file named lib.rmeta.
• A symbol table, which is generally a list of symbols with offsets to the object file that contain that symbol. This is pretty standard for archive files.
A dylib is a platform-specific shared library. It includes the rustc metadata in a special link section called .rustc in a compressed format.
An rmeta file is custom binary format that contains the metadata for the crate. This file can be used for fast "checks" of a project by skipping all code generation (as is done with cargo check), collecting enough information for documentation (as is done with cargo doc), or for pipelining. This file is created if the --emit=metadata CLI option is used.
rmeta files do not support linking, since they do not contain compiled object files.
The metadata contains a wide swath of different elements. This guide will not go into detail of every field it contains. You are encouraged to browse the CrateRoot definition to get a sense of the different elements it contains. Everything about metadata encoding and decoding is in the rustc_metadata package.
Here are a few highlights of things it contains:
• The version of the rustc compiler. The compiler will refuse to load files from any other version.
• The Strict Version Hash (SVH). This helps ensure the correct dependency is loaded.
• The Stable Crate Id. This is a hash used to identify crates.
• Information about all the source files in the library. This can be used for a variety of things, such as diagnostics pointing to sources in a dependency.
• Information about exported macros, traits, types, and items. Generally, anything that's needed to be known when a path references something inside a crate dependency.
• Encoded MIR. This is optional, and only encoded if needed for code generation. cargo check skips this for performance reasons.
Strict Version Hash
The Strict Version Hash (SVH, also known as the "crate hash") is a 64-bit hash that is used to ensure that the correct crate dependencies are loaded. It is possible for a directory to contain multiple copies of the same dependency built with different settings, or built from different sources. The crate loader will skip any crates that have the wrong SVH.
The SVH is also used for the incremental compilation session filename, though that usage is mostly historic.
The hash includes a variety of elements:
• Hashes of the HIR nodes.
• All of the upstream crate hashes.
• All of the source filenames.
• Hashes of certain command-line flags (like -C metadata via the Crate Disambiguator, and all CLI options marked with [TRACKED]).
See compute_hir_hash for where the hash is actually computed.
Stable Crate Id
The StableCrateId is a 64-bit hash used to identify different crates with potentially the same name. It is a hash of the crate name and all the -C metadata CLI options computed in StableCrateId::new. It is used in a variety of places, such as symbol name mangling, crate loading, and much more.
By default, all Rust symbols are mangled and incorporate the stable crate id. This allows multiple versions of the same crate to be included together. Cargo automatically generates -C metadata hashes based on a variety of factors, like the package version, source, and the target kind (a lib and test can have the same crate name, so they need to be disambiguated).
Crate loading
Crate loading can have quite a few subtle complexities. During name resolution, when an external crate is referenced (via an extern crate or path), the resolver uses the CrateLoader which is responsible for finding the crate libraries and loading the metadata for them. After the dependency is loaded, the CrateLoader will provide the information the resolver needs to perform its job (such as expanding macros, resolving paths, etc.).
To load each external crate, the CrateLoader uses a CrateLocator to actually find the correct files for one specific crate. There is some great documentation in the locator module that goes into detail on how loading works, and I strongly suggest reading it to get the full picture.
The location of a dependency can come from several different places. Direct dependencies are usually passed with --extern flags, and the loader can look at those directly. Direct dependencies often have references to their own dependencies, which need to be loaded, too. These are usually found by scanning the directories passed with the -L flag for any file whose metadata contains a matching crate name and SVH. The loader will also look at the sysroot to find dependencies.
As crates are loaded, they are kept in the CStore with the crate metadata wrapped in the CrateMetadata struct. After resolution and expansion, the CStore will make its way into the GlobalCtxt for the rest of compilation.
One trick to improve compile times is to start building a crate as soon as the metadata for its dependencies is available. For a library, there is no need to wait for the code generation of dependencies to finish. Cargo implements this technique by telling rustc to emit an rmeta file for each dependency as well as an rlib. As early as it can, rustc will save the rmeta file to disk before it continues to the code generation phase. The compiler sends a JSON message to let the build tool know that it can start building the next crate if possible.
The crate loading system is smart enough to know when it sees an rmeta file to use that if the rlib is not there (or has only been partially written).
This pipelining isn't possible for binaries, because the linking phase will require the code generation of all its dependencies. In the future, it may be possible to further improve this scenario by splitting linking into a separate command (see #64191). |
I've been working with Swing for a while now but the whole model/structure of JFrames, paint(), super, etc is all murky in my mind. I need a clear explanation or link that will explain how the whole GUI system is organized.
The same happened to me. Actually to this day I don't quite get 100% how all it works.
Swing is a very flexible framework - perhaps too flexible. With flexibility comes a lot of abstraction and with abstraction comes confusion. :)
I've found the following articles worth reading. They helped me to better understand the big picture of Swing.
They explain quite well how the model and the delegate work. It always drives me mad when I see those JLabel, LabelUI, ui.update, etc.
Have you looked at the Java Swing Tutorial (click here)? It does a pretty good job of covering the basics of developing Swing applications.
Since this question is tagged with JFrame, I'll suggest a few links for understanding how JFrames and other top-level Swing containers work.
I also found that Swing was (and still is) quite involved and taking a look at the documentation provided by Sun is required every once in a while -- Every time I check, I seem to learn something new.
First, the basics: JFrame class from the Java API Specifications. The Java API Specifications often provide good detailed information about the classes. In this instance, you'll notice that there are several links such as How to Make Frames section from The Java Tutorials.
Aside from that, I'll also recommend looking at the Lesson: Using Swing Components from The Java Tutorials. The lesson provides instructions on how to use the components provided in Swing along with some useful examples.
For more specifics parts that I've found confusing when I started with Swing was all the different types of panes, such as the ContentPane, RootPane, GlassPane. The Using Top-Level Containers section provides information and helpful diagrams on the container hierarchy of the top-level containers. The How to Use Root Panes section gets into the details about the Glass, Layered, and Content Panes with plenty of examples.
I found Swing Explorer to be a precious tool to understand the hierarchy of components (particularly in complex GUIs) and look at properties (alas, read-only: we get used to Firebug convenience!). It has an Eclipse plugin.
Filthy Rich Clients by Chet Haase and Romain Guy is a great book about Java UI. It covers some more advanced stuff too, but introduction and few first chapters explain fundamental things well.
If, after reading the Swing tutorial, you find your interest lies in more advanced topics, you may also wish to look at Swing Second Edition by Robinson and Vorobiev.
I've found that simply browsing around in the source code (ctrl-click on a name if you're using NetBeans) has been really helpful. If I see a method appear in the completion dialog that I'm not familiar with, I'll just click "Go to source" and look around until I'm comfortable with it.
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Getting Started with Push Presses: A Complete Guide
Looking for a full-body explosive movement? Look no further than the push press.
Push Press Explained
The push press is easy to master once you read how to do it and try it a few times. Once you have it mastered, it will be one of your go-to moves at the gym.
What is a push press?
The push press is a form of the overhead press. It is commonly added to workout routines when the person wants to build bigger shoulders.
This exercise is great at building stronger and more defined shoulders, even when you use light weights.
With the push press though, you can use heavier weights easier.
This is because you will be using your lower body to give you momentum to push the weights up. The push press will increase your shoulder strength as well as the strength of your entire upper body.
The move also naturally conditions your rotator cuff. If you have been hitting the weights hard and haven’t done much conditioning, this move will definitely help keep your shoulders in good condition.
How to do a push press
Before starting with this exercise, it’s important to learn how to do it properly to avoid injury and other problems.
Follow these steps:
1. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and grip the bar with your fingertips.
2. Keep your elbows pointing forward.
3. Rest the bar on the front of your shoulders.
4. Dropdown into a shallow squat.
5. Center your weight under the barbell.
6. Press up through the heels.
7. Drive the bar directly above your head until your arms are straight.
8. Lower the bar down to your chest.
9. Maintain a neutral arch in your spine throughout the move.
Dumbbell push press
This is the same move as the push press, but you will be holding a dumbbell in each hand.
It can be a little harder to do because you are stabilizing the weight in individual hands rather than all together.
Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and keep a dumbbell held over each shoulder with your palms facing forward.
Lower yourself into a shallow squat and then drive the shoulders up by pushing the weights overhead as you go.
Finish with your arms fully extended then return under control to the start.
Tips for keeping the right form
With any move when you are lifting weights, you need to ensure you are in the right form and aren’t performing the move improperly.
Following form tips can make sure you avoid injury.
Don’t squat too low
Many people make the mistake of squatting too low.
In some exercises, squatting low is the best way to perform the exercise and get maximum results. However, with the push press, squatting low isn’t ideal.
You only need to squat low enough to give you an explosive movement. Bend your knees slightly and then drive yourself up with as much power as possible.
If you are using lightweights, you should easily be able to send the bar upwards without too much effort.
Once you are comfortable with the movement, you can begin to add in more weights. As you find it easier and easier to press the weight up, you can add in more.
Work on your grip
With some press grips, you use a thumbless grip. With the push press though, you will need to wrap your thumbs around the bar.
This might seem weird at first if you are used to doing other presses, but you will find that the thumb grip is more comfortable with the push press.
You should also keep your grip narrow and your forearms vertical underneath the bar. You should also grip the bar hard and keep your fingers stabilized.
The main benefits of the push press
With any new exercise, you are probably wondering about the benefits and why you should add this new move to your workout routine.
Let’s look at the main benefits.
Muscle growth in the upper body
Along with your shoulders, you will see a strength increase in your entire upper body.
The large amounts of load and the drive from your upper body will begin to increase your body strength with noticeable results in your muscle growth.
The different variations and the repetition schemes can also add in needed inclusions when it comes to the push press.
The different variations will contribute to more power, strength, and endurance.
More athletic power
While you might think the push press only adds to your shoulder and upper body strength, it actually is a total body exercise.
The explosiveness adds to your hip and leg strength. It also integrates a powerful hip extension.
Easy to move onto more advanced overhead training
If you are looking to add more jerk exercises to your workout routines, the push press is a great place to begin.
It is an amazing way to introduce jerk movements and eventually move onto more difficult movements.
Any jerk movement requires a strong overhead position and stability. It also requires total body coordination and stability.
Proper load placement is also crucial to avoid injuries.
If you are a beginner or immediate lifter, the push press is amazing at preparing you for future workouts.
Better overhead stability
All variations of push presses will give you outcomes of overhead strength and stability. These two features are required for all fitness athletes.
The better stability and more strength will give you greater pushing strength and injury resilience.
Mastery of a common movement
Push presses are considered an Olympic weightlifting movement.
They can be found in almost all weightlifting programs because of their many benefits.
The hips, knees, and torso mechanics during the push presses are identical to the jerk.
What about the jerk press?
As mentioned a few times above, the push press is a gateway to the jerk press.
Many people become curious about the jerk press and if they should start doing it alongside their movements of the push press.
Push jerks allow you to push the greatest amount of weight because there are two bend knees rather than one. It can be used as part of a clean and jerk.
You will do the dip-drive and hip extension to get the bar moving, you will move under the barbell and landlocked out in a slight overhead squat.
The lift is finished when you stand tall with the bar overhead. People with larger or longer arms find this movement easier than those with shorter arms.
You should always try to remember to drive the knees out when you are bringing the bar overhead.
Otherwise, you might find it easy to drip in a bad position and potentially damage your knees and legs.
You will also start this left with your elbows slightly in front of the bar.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about the push press and the many benefits.
What muscles do push press work?
A push press is a type of compound exercise, which means it helps you focus on multiple muscle groups at once.
The exercise is considered an excellent option for people who are looking to increase tone and strength in the upper body.
A push press works on muscle groups that are found in the following areas of the body:
• Shoulder muscles
• Chest muscles
• Triceps
Some variations include dips together with a push press. In these cases, additional muscles will be engaged during the workout.
When a dip and drive method is used while performing a push press, then the hips and quadriceps are also activated.
What are push presses good for?
Push presses are multipurpose exercises that can be useful when a person focuses on their upper body.
The workout is excellent for increasing muscle and physical strength in the upper body.
Additionally, a push press can also be used to assist in toning muscles in the shoulders, chest, and triceps.
Is push press the same as shoulder press?
While there may be similarities between a push and a shoulder press, these two are not the same exercises.
A push press may provide more benefits when compared to a shoulder press.
Due to the specific movement and technique used to perform a push press, people generally find that they can push more weight compared to what they are capable of with a shoulder press.
The push press also provides activation of muscles in more than just the shoulders.
While a shoulder press primarily focuses on muscle groups of the shoulder, a push press also works on the chest and the triceps. With an added dip, the quadriceps and hips are also engaged.
What’s the difference between push press and overhead press?
The movement itself is very similar. Both exercises require a barbell to be pushed in an upward direction.
There are, however, small factors that set the two workout techniques apart from each other.
With a push press, a dip is included in the motion. By including this dip in the exercise, people generally find that they can gain better momentum and force when pushing the barbell.
In turn, heavier weights can be lifted, which results in more significant activation of hypertrophy.
Have there been any studies done on the benefits of push presses?
Yes, there have been numerous studies.
In the most notable study done by the Sports Medicine Journal, researchers considered several derivative exercises that are linked to overhead presses. A total of 13 previous articles, papers, and studies were taken into consideration.
The study concluded that weightlifting overhead press derivatives are highly effective at enhancing the individual’s overall performance and capabilities.
The researchers also state that these moves require movements in the ankles, knees, and hips that are very similar to certain types of sports.
The researchers state that the use of these workout options may be an effective strategy for enhancing physical strength, particularly in the upper body.
Furthermore, researchers also report that the exercises may be considered as an option for improving coordination and balance.
Final Thoughts
Whether you have never heard of a push press or have been practicing them for a few years, following the right tips and trying different variations is great for keeping your workouts new and interesting.
The push press also has some amazing health benefits. The muscle-building opportunities in the shoulders and total body are also incredible.
Use the push press in your weekly workout routines for building upper body strength.
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history of the tuk tuk
The History of the Tuk Tuk (Auto Rickshaw)
History of the Tuk Tuk
The history of the Tuk Tuk also known as the Auto Rickshaw is disputed, some claim the first Tuk Tuk was in 1947 others claim it was 1934.
We take a look at these claims and put a spanner in the works as we believe the first Tuk Tuk dates back to 1886.
The claim of first Tuk Tuk being 1947 comes from Italy with the claim the Piaggio Ape was the first Tuk Tuk. There is no doubt that in its modern style Piaggio Ape was the first, however, there were Tuk Tuks 61 years before Piaggio designed the Ape.
Some say the first Tuk Tuks were in 1934 and were Japanese. 3 wheelers were being exported from Japan to Thailand in 1934 but were they Tuk-Tuks? In our view, they were not Tuk Tuks as they were just motorbikes with 3 wheels. The front of them was simply a motorbike with a two-wheeled axle fitted at the rear. So you can hardly call them a Tuk Tuk.
Who did make the first Tuk Tuk?
We believe it was the Germans, in 1886 the Germans applied for a patent for a vehicle that had 3 wheels, two at the rear and one at the front. The vehicle also had a single-cylinder rear engine and was steered by a handle.
Indian technology
Notice how similar that is to today’s Tuk Tuks surely it has to be a Tuk Tuk, the engine even made a tuk tuk tuk tuk sound as it drove by and it is that sound that the name Tuk Tuk comes from.
So the first Tuk Tuk was also the first car. Newspapers reported on July 1886 the first outing of the Benz Patent Motor Car which was a three-wheeled car.
For anyone that makes the claim a Tuk Tuk is not a car because it only has three wheels the fact that the first car also had three wheels proves you are wrong.
benz patent-motorwagen
The Worlds First Tuk Tuk the Benz Patent-Motor-car
First self-propelled vehicle
If you take away the petrol engine factor of the Tuk Tuk you could even date the Tuk Tuk back to 1769 when Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot invented the first self-propelled vehicle, it was powered by steam and had three wheels.
The Japanese claim to the First Tuk Tuk
When it Comes to the History of the Tuk Tuk the first claim comes from Japan dates back to 1934, however research seems to point to these being more of a motorcycle adapted into three-wheelers by putting a 2 wheeled axle on the rare.
japan claim to be first tuk tuk
The Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications donated about 20,000 used three-wheelers to Southeast Asia we are unsure of the date of this.
We believe these Japanese three-wheeled motorcycles are far to close to motorcycles to be classed as Tuk Tuks.
Raleigh Karryall
When it comes to the History of the Tuk Tuk the British do not claim to make the first Tuk Tuk, however, they were in fact making vehicles that could be classed as Tuk-Tuks back in 1929 so they predate both Japans claim and that of Piaggio.
raleigh karryall
Raleigh Karryall British built Tuk Tuk
It was the Raleigh Karryall that lead to the formation of what turned out to be one of the best-known manufactures of three-wheeled cars in the world the Reliant Company, the company that went on to build the famous Reliant Robin.
The Raleigh Karryall was a three-wheeled delivery van with motorbike-like controls in the early models, it was designed to carry 5 cwt (254kg) and was powered by a 598cc single-cylinder engine. It was fitted with a three-speed gearbox plus a reverse gear.
The price of a brand new Raleigh Karryall back in the 1930s was £80 (5,119 peso).
In later models of the Raleigh Karryall they put 2 seats in the front and switched from motorbike type control to a steering wheel, they also increased the size of the engine to 750cc.
Piaggio Ape
World War II had hit Italy hard and the economy was in a poor way. Four-wheeled cars were beyond the reach of many Italians at the time, there was also the fact that many of the narrow streets of Italy were not suitable for four-wheeled vehicles. The roads in Italy were also in a bad state of repair after WWII, Italy needed a way to get the country moving again.
During WWII Piaggio had been building fighter aircraft but their Pontedera factory had been demolished by bombing.
Because of this, they needed to rebuild and the fact the end of the war meant there was little demand for fighter aircraft Enrico Piaggio decided to move production away from aeroplanes and do something to help Italy’s transport problem.
Firstly to get people moving again Piaggio started to build scooters and that solved the problem of people being able to get about but did nothing to solve the problem of moving goods.
In 1947 Corradino D’Ascanio who was an aircraft designer and also the inventor of the Vespa scooter decided what was needed to help Italy’s reconstruction was a lightweight commercial vehicle. It was decided that a three-wheeled vehicle was best suited for the job.
Enrico Piaggio the son of Piaggio founder Rinaldo Piaggio liked Corradino D’Ascanio’s design and put it into production.
The very first Piaggio Ape was mechanically the same as a Vespa Scooter but with two rear wheels and a flatbed on top of the rear axle.
When they first advertised the Piaggio Ape it was advertised as a VespaCar. It came with a choice of 3 engines a 50 cc. 125 cc or a 150cc.
It was not until 1964 that a cab was fitted to the Piaggio Ape to protect the driver.
piaggio ape c
Ape in Italian means bee and it got its name from the bee-like sound the engine made.
Many different body designs were added to the Ape such as van, tankers, passenger and even fire trucks.
The adding of the passenger body saw the Piaggio Ape being used as a taxi as many Tuk Tuks are today.
We suspect that Corradino D’Ascanio never dreamed his invention would take off in so many other countries and create what has become a national icon in India, and 72 years later would still be in production.
For many years the Piaggio Ape was built in Italy and India but in 2013 all production of the Piaggio Ape was moved to India.
So when it comes to the history of the Tuk Tuk the real first Tuk Tuk has to go to Piaggio.
Lambretta Three-Wheeler
We could not write about the history of the Tuk Tuk without mentioning the Lambretta Tuk Tuk, the reason being it was a Lambretta Tuk Tuk that started my love of the Tuk Tuk.
The year was 1979 I was a 22-year-old Soulboy and a Scooterboy, my first love was Northern Soul Music and my second love was Lambretta Scooters. Most weekends were spent at all-night dances in places such as Wigan Casino but Bank Holiday weekends were different they were for scooter rallies and we would ride our scooters hundreds of miles to attend these scooter rallies.
The Event was Southend Scooter Rally organised by the Lambretta Club of Great Britain, it was a time when the interest in scooters was growing again and over a thousand scooters turned up for what at the time was the biggest scooter rally since the 1960s.
We were walking around looking at all the scooter and there it was a Lambretta three-wheeled fire engine. I instantly fell in love with it. It was the first Tuk Tuk I had seen in my life and my love of Tuk Tuks started.
Lambro Three-Wheeler
In the second part of the 1940s, Vespa and Lambretta were both building scooters and there was a lot of rivalry between not just the companies but also the owners, it was a rivalry that in company terms lasted until 1997 and for owners continues today.
As already mentioned Vespa introduced a three-wheeler in 1947 so Lambretta was sure to follow and in 1949 they introduced their first three-wheeler, the Lambro FB. There is evidence that Lambretta had a three-wheeler before 1949 but it is unsure if they were for sale to the public.
Lambretta called the three-wheelers Lambro after the name of the river that ran close to their factory.
It was another 10 years before they added a cabin to it making it more like the Tuk Tuks of today, this model was called the Lambro FD.
lambretta three-wheeler lambro
It was around 1960 that Lambretta started to add the size of the engine to the name. With the Lambro Li 175 and 3 years later the Lambro 200.
The rest of the history of the Lambro is long and complex so needs an article of its own, maybe at a later date, we will do it.
To keep it short, production moved to India and it ended up getting bought out by Scooters India Ltd a state-run enterprise.
Today many will say the Lambretta three-wheeler is no more but that is not strictly true because Scooter India Limited produces the Vikram three-wheeler which is powered by Lambretta Engines.
vikram tuk tuk
Vikram Tuk Tuk Built by Scooter India that took over Lambretta.
The Lambro was no doubt the second Tuk Tuk in the History of the Tuk Tuk to be produced.
Bajaj Three-Wheeler
The Bajaj Three-Wheeler was a latecomer to the history of the Tuk Tuk as it was not until 1971 they started to produce their own Auto Rickshaws before that year they were building the Piaggio Ape under license.
Despite being a late starter Bajaj RE has gone on to become the largest manufacturer of three-wheeled cars in the world and for that very reason, we will be doing a separate article on the History of the Bajaj Auto Rickshaw soon.
TVS Three-Wheeler
TVS is the new kid on the block when it comes to Auto Rickshaws, but not as new as many think. As it has been about for 13 years at the time of updating this article it is time to give it a place in the History of the Tuk Tuk.
The TVS Motor Company started producing Three-Wheelers in 2008 and while it was slow to take off to start with it is now gaining ground on the long-established Auto Rickshaw manufactures.
TVS took the basic idea of the Tuk Tuk and modernised it. They looked at all what was wrong with the other brands that had become very dated with little change since the 1970s and updated them.
The main thing they did was do away with the lever for reversing, the lever for reverse was an idea from the first Tuk Tuk that never seemed to get updated, it was a cumbersome idea that did its job in the most basic way.
They moved the reverse onto the twist grip so it was easy and quick to get reverse, you no longer had to reach down for the lever.
They fitted it with car style headlights and rear lights, they gave it an all-around more modern look. They put a smoother gearbox in it so no more clunky gears that were hard to change.
Basically, they took brought the Tuk Tuk into the 21st Century.
Sales of the TVS King were slow at first and it struggled to get of the ground in India and Sri Lanka, the 2 biggest markets for the Auto Rickshaw.
The reason for it not taking off in them countries was drivers being stuck in their ways most of them had driven Bajaj Auto Rickshaws for years or grown-up seeing them everywhere.
TVS Motors turned their attention to other countries where Auto Rickshaws were relatively new, in Africa, South America and the Middle East.
Tuk Tuks in Nigeria
The biggest success for the TVS King was in Nigeria where they quickly took over as the number one three-wheeler. In Nigeria, the Tuk Tuk is known as keke napep and the market grew quickly when the government made motorcycle taxis illegal.
Nigerians found the TVS King was better suited to the poorly maintained roads in Nigeria than other brands.
Tuk Tuks Iraq Uprising
During an uprising in Iraq where Tuk Tuks become a symbol of the uprising because they were seen going into the crowds picking up the injured and rushing them to the hospital.
While there is no doubt that all brands of Tuk Tuks were used, the TVS King was the preferred choice, because of its extra body strength, its acceleration and the ability to quickly reverse.
In Peru, TVS seems to be the number one choice.
The praise the TVS King was getting in other countries has started to get noticed by Auto Rickshaw drivers in India and Sri Lanka and interest in them has now finally started to grow.
Drivers in these main two countries for Auto Rickshaws are watching YouTube videos from other countries and seeing the TVS King outperform other brands, so sales are picking in them countries.
tvs king earns a place in the history of the tuk tuk
The History of the Tuk Tuk (Auto Rickshaw) 17
History of the name Tuk Tuk
While researching this article we made an interesting discovery.
You will often read that the name Tuk Tuk comes from the sound of the engine and we believed this ourselves and have even mentioned it in this article, however, we now believe this might not be correct.
The reason we are no longer sure if it is correct is that we discovered in Italy they are called Tukxi. We can not find what Tukxi means if anyone can tell us please let us know. It could be that Tuk Tuk came first and Tukxi is just a shorter version of it. However, it does seem that the term Tukxi may have been in use before the term Tuk Tuk and before the Tuk Tuk was in India.
They claim the term Tuk Tuk came from the British that visited Asia and named it Tuk Tuk because of the sound the engine made. The fact we have discovered the word Tukxi was used before Tuk Tuks arrived in India seems to point to it being a Tukxi before it was a Tuk Tuk.
argson invalid tricycle
Argson Invalid Tricycle
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berliner elektromobilfabrik
Berliner Elektromobilfabrik Three-Wheeler
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6 thoughts on “The History of the Tuk Tuk (Auto Rickshaw)”
1. avatar of forthemoney
Love the research, but Bottomline is you also have your business agenda to promote or sell Tuk Tuks over tricycles.
1. avatar of british frank
We have no business agenda we do not sell Tuk Tuks. It is simply we think they are a great little vehicle that are fun and can help solve the countries traffic problem.
2. avatar of peter adjarani
i really like the performance of Bajaj RE because it affordable and durable easy to operate, when comes to engine very powerful even in a high and rocky road most of all fuel efficient.
1. avatar of allanr
True but that also applies to the TVS King. In fact, the TVS King performs even better on high and rocky roads and the fuel efficiency is just the same as the Bajaj RE.
3. avatar of peter goudge
My business offers an Australian Government accredited TESOL programme in Phnom Penh and consequently I travel to Cambodia several times each year. When I am in Cambodia, I predominantly travel by TUK TUK. They’re cheap, reliable and can be found on every street corner. Watching the world go by from the back seat of a TUK TUK is one of life’s pleasures in my view.
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Who were the Canaanites in the Bible
Forums Who were the Canaanites in the Bible
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What do you know about the Canaanites in the Bible?
The Canaanites were the enemies within the promised land. The Israelites failed to completely exterminate them from the land on conquering, they became neighbors and this influenced Israel in their religious and political life.
The Canaanites were a constant aggravation to the Hebrew people.
Although the Bible does reference the names of some specific people groups (for example, the Ammonites and the Edomites), the term Canaanites seemed to be a broad name used for any of the people living in the land of Canaan. Generally, these people worshipped regional idols referred to as Baal and Asherah.
The Hebrews’ first military conflict with the Canaanites came after God’s people initially spied the land but refused to take it based on the advice of ten unfaithful spies. After seeing God’s judgment and experiencing His displeasure, the Hebrews tried to take the land with their own strength rather than follow God’s ordained plan. Though urged by Moses not to attempt the battle, the people persisted and were soundly defeated by the Amalekites and the Canaanites (Numbers 14:40– 45).
Later when Joshua led the people into the Promised Land, the Israelites failed to completely remove the Canaanites from the land. As a result, these enemies remained a constant threat during the time of the judges (see Joshua 3, 7, 9, and 17). In addition to their military threat, their spiritual culture exerted a negative influence on the Hebrew people.
Baal was the name given to a sun god or chief male god for a specific region, and Ashtoreth was the supreme female divinity associated with the moon. The worship of both these false gods began to influence God’s people as they took possession of the Promised Land. Because the Hebrew people never completely expelled the practice, the worship of these false gods extended through the exile of the Hebrew people (Jeremiah 7:9). While the worship of Baal included incense, sacrifice, and occasional slashing of oneself, the worship of Ashtoreth may have gone as far as to include human sacrifice and perverse sexual sins.
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You are here:Home/News/ Social Fragmentation and Antebellum Cemeteries
Social Fragmentation and Antebellum Cemeteries
Posted On December 01, 2021 | 16:24 pm | by mayw | Permalink
Aaron Wunsch examines landscapes of social fragmentation in antebellum Philadelphia
Aaron Wunsch, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzmann School of Design, is a fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies. His research report, “Separate Sanctuaries,” explored the rural cemetery movement in antebellum Philadelphia.
Q&A with Aaron Wunsch
What was the rural cemetery movement and its significance in the nineteenth century?
The focus of my current work is Philadelphia’s contribution to the so-called rural cemetery movement. Scholars usually trace the movement’s roots to the foundation of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris in 1803, and later in America to Mt. Auburn Cemetery, both of which are typified by winding paths, varied topography, and lush, romantic plantings. I’m arguing that Philadelphia permutations from around 1850 grew out of a set of values that centered on security, permanence, and family rather than the set of physical, aesthetic criteria we now tend to think of as defining a rural cemetery. A combination of the desire to reform burial for health reasons and an interest in personal, familial, and historical memory—and, to some extent, a commercial interest in a new kind of enterprise separate from the church—created cemeteries that encapsulated the fracturing urban society of the time.
This study of cemeteries in Philadelphia forms part of a larger project looking at changing attitudes toward death and burial alongside changes in the real estate market and landscape design. I’m looking at how the rural cemetery movement, which we have so far treated as an isolated phenomenon, is intertwined with how cities evolved physically, socially, and environmentally in the nineteenth century.
What was particular about rural cemeteries in Philadelphia?
In an 1849 article in his journal, The Horticulturist, landscape gardener and tastemaker A. J. Downing mentions that Philadelphia had around twenty rural cemeteries as of 1850, suggesting contemporaries like Downing understood “rural cemeteries” to encompass more sites than standard scholarship does today. I am focusing on a set of cemeteries that emerged in the late 1840s with common physical traits, including a grid-based layout, a big gateway, a high perimeter fence, and crucially, the family lot. This was a piece of ground that could be purchased for intergenerational burial, which was important as the family began to cohere as an emotional unit in America around this time, and which conferred a sense of security and ownership. Among other things, ownership helped offset fears of body-snatching that were prevalent at the time.
Lots were arranged in a grid, a landscape design concept that in the early nineteenth century was understood as a unifying and equalizing mechanism for the American city or even the nation as a whole. The pieces were interchangeable and everyone—in theory—had an equal stake in it. By 1850, many different groups, especially historically marginalized groups like Black and Jewish Americans, were applying the gridded landscape on a smaller scale, attempting to embody similar ideals of egalitarianism and equal distribution within the confines of private societies and organizations. This was the case for Olive Cemetery, a Black cemetery dedicated by Frederick Douglass that was intentionally gridded. To ensure no one was given preferential treatment, after you bought into the operation there was a lottery, and you plucked your plot number out of a hat—the plots were theoretically interchangeable and equally distributed among owners.
What does this tell us about social concerns and anxieties in Philadelphia at the time?
By 1850, the language of republicanism was losing some of its unifying power from earlier in the century, and what the grid meant in this is less clear. Organizing land in a grid on a national scale, as envisioned at the end of the eighteenth century, was a product of people like Thomas Jefferson, who thought about it as a way to distribute land among idealized yeomen farmer-citizens of the new republic. But there were obvious limitations to Jefferson’s vision—slavery being just one of them—and this was a moment in American cities and in Philadelphia in particular when foundational ideals were being tested. In some ways it sounds familiar to us in 2021: it was a time of pronounced nativism and racial hatred among white American workers, and people began testing the language of the gridded city and nation on a much smaller scale without giving up on some of the earlier values embedded in it.
The social division of Philadelphia in the 1840s played out in the concurrent fragmentation and proliferation of rural cemeteries. Philadelphia had witnessed violent reactions to developments like abolitionism and Irish immigration, which led directly to the formation of societies and groups like the nativist United American Mechanics. A Catholic rural cemetery formed in 1848, as most rural and local cemeteries up to that point were largely for Protestants, and the United American Mechanics formed a mutual aid society and cemetery not long after. They traced their origins directly to the conflicts in the streets, aiming to create a society that effectively offered a social safety net for working-class white Americans through death benefits and inexpensive grave lots.
May Wang is postgraduate writing and reporting fellow. Photo by Emily Orr, humanities fellow. |
Battery Comparison
#1 Battery Life
1. Life Cycle: When you discharge a battery by using it’s power, and then charge it back up again, that is referred to as one charge cycle. The number of charge cycles your battery can handle before it begins to degrade is dependent on the type and quality of battery, as well as depth of discharge (see #2 Depth of Discharge).
2. Age of Battery: Your battery will degrade over time even if you’re not using it.
(More information on battery life and capacity loss can be found here).
#2 Depth of Discharge (DoD)
Depth of discharge refers to how much overall capacity is used before recharging the battery. For example, if you use half your battery’s capacity, the DoD would be 50%.
Every battery has a life cycle dependent on the depth of discharge. For example, a true deep cycle AGM battery will have a life cycle of 350 cycles at 100% DoD OR a life cycle of 3,500 cycles at 10% DoD. This means you can cycle the battery at 10% DoD every day for 9 1/2 years OR cycle it 100% for one year before affecting the life of the battery.
(More about Depth of Discharge can be found here).
#3 Efficiency
Simply put, efficiency of your solar system is how much of your solar power is actually being stored and used.
As an example, FLA batteries are only 80-85% efficient depending on the type and condition. That means, if you have 1,000 watt hours of solar coming into the batteries, only 800-850 watt hours are available after charging and discharging.
Kilowatt-Hours to Amp-Hours Calculator
Lithium and AGM batteries are more than 95% efficient. Using the same example, you’d have over 950 watt hours of power available, as compared with the Flooded Lead Acid batteries.
Depending on the configuration of your system, higher efficiency could mean getting the same amount of energy use and storage in a smaller system, thus saving you more money in the long run.
#4 Cost
There are two costs you need to consider when doing an off grid system: Upfront cost and long term cost. Many people are so focused on the upfront costs that they don’t think about any long term costs that can affect their decision of battery storage.
Upfront cost is what you initially pay for your battery bank. Long term cost is what you end up paying for batteries throughout the life of your system.
Lead-Acid vs Lithium-Ion Batteries
Lead-Acid Batteries
Lead-acid batteries have been used to provide backup power for solar homes since the 1970s. While they’re similar to conventional car batteries, the batteries used for home energy storage are called deep-cycle batteries since they can be discharged and recharged to greater levels than the batteries in most cars and trucks.
Lead-acid batteries are significantly cheaper upfront than lithium-ion. They are robust, resilient and reliable. Lead-acid batteries can be discharged up to 80 percent of total capacity without any repercussions.
One major downfall of the lead-acid solar battery is that its power capacity drops significantly in colder temperatures. Additionally, they are big, bulky and difficult to maintain.
Lead-acid solar batteries are recycled much more frequently than lithium-ion batteries – usually into new batteries, boosting their case for environmental friendliness. However, they require a lot more materials to produce than lithium-ion batteries do, meaning more mining, and a bigger environmental impact.
Lithium-Ion Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries are built on much newer technology and are low maintenance. Their biggest advantage is their significantly improved lifespan, with faster charge and discharge times across their capacities.
They have an improved depth of discharge * and lose less capacity to irregular discharging. They are light, compact, easy to install and easier to dispose of.
They perform well both in colder and hotter temperatures. But they cost much more upfront than lead-acid. The longer lifecycle of this battery means that despite a higher initial investment, the battery may well cost less over its lifecycle.
Lithium-ion batteries can also charge much faster at higher voltages. While it can take lead-acid batteries up to 16 hours to fully charge, even the slowest charging lithium-ion batteries can fully charge within about four hours.
* A battery’s depth of discharge (DoD) indicates the percentage of the battery that has been discharged relative to the overall capacity of the battery.
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Solar MD
Solar MD specializes in Lithium-Ion battery storage for residential, commercial and utility scale applications. Solar MD designs the intelligent battery management system inhouse. This design allows cell level monitoring, protection and control. Major Inverter brands are compatible with Solar MD systems. Our solutions are compatible with low voltage as well as high voltage power conversion systems.
Redflow – Zinc0bromide batteries
Featuring a plug-and-play storage system and the ability to self-manage, protect and monitor 24/7, our range of zinc-bromide flow batteries can shift energy in large volumes. The batteries are designed to support applications ranging from telecommunications and renewables integration to on-grid and off grid remote power, microgrids and smart grids, and transmission and distribution deferral.
As the world’s leading manufacturer of deep-cycle flooded, AGM and gel battery technology, Trojan Battery Company is committed to providing clean and reliable energy storage that enhance the way people live and work around the world. For more than 90 years, Trojan Battery has focused on manufacturing the highest quality, deep-cycle batteries available in the industry
Forbatt Lead-Acid Batteries have been on the South African market for over 23 years. The market share has grown in leaps and bounds, making it one of the top choices for professionals, installers, specialists and end users. The key to our growth has been the reliability of our batteries across the range. Our build quality and longevity is amongst the best on the market – just ask the professionals that use Forbatt Lead Acid Batteries. |
Department of Mathematics Goals
Mathematical Practice
P1. (Affection)
Students should appreciate the beauty, fun, and power of mathematics, and be able to articulate what mathematics is about and what mathematicians do.
P2. (Application)
Students should be able to link applications and theory, and be able to apply mathematics in a variety of settings.
P3. (Inquiry)
Students should develop mathematical independence and experience open-ended inquiry, so they have the competence and confidence to build on their knowledge base.
P4. (Communication)
Students should develop effective thinking and communication skills.
P5. (Technology)
Students should be able to use technological tools appropriately and effectively.
P6. (Society)
Students should strive to be good citizens who understand the impact of their work on society.
P7. (Teamwork)
Students should be able to function well as part of a team and have honed their leadership skills.
P8. (Diversity)
Students should be able to work and communicate with diverse groups of people of varying abilities who come from a variety of cultures.
Mathematical Content
C1. (Breadth)
Students should be competent in a broad range of mathematical skills and topics.
C2. (Perspective)
Students should demonstrate that they can see key mathematical ideas and concepts from a variety of perspectives, including the view from other disciplines, historical perspectives, and the contributions of diverse cultures.
C3. (Duality)
Math majors should demonstrate that they can see key ideas from complementary points of view: continuous and discrete; algebraic and geometric; deterministic and stochastic; exact and approximate.
C4. (Proofs)
Math majors should learn to reason mathematically and read, understand, analyze, and produce proofs.
C5. (Tools)
Math majors should learn concepts and methods from data analysis, computing, and mathematical modeling.
C6. (Depth)
Math majors should see at least one mathematical area in depth in a sequence of upper-level courses.
C7. (Projects)
Math majors should work, independently or in a small group, on a substantial mathematical project that involves techniques and concepts beyond the typical content of a single course.
C8. (Careers)
Math majors should be aware of careers in mathematics.
Approved February, 2017. |
Creation like life is by definition an unbalanced process which requires a certain degree of confinement
The biologist Pierre Joliot – grandson of Pierre and Marie Curie – sums up with topical terminology what creation means and I would be tempted to add that “the degree of confinement” being in the process of being reached, the best is probably to come …
Who has not dreamed of making creation an ambition?
The notion of creativity induces a capacity to imagine, to construct, to develop a new concept or to discover an original solution to solve a problem.
The current pandemic situation seems to be fertile ground: more than ever we all need creative ideas to overcome obstacles, provide essential services, kill boredom, stem the epidemic and more generally lay the foundations of a society. “Re-invented” of the post-crisis period.
It would be reductive to think that creativity is the prerogative of certain minds: it is at the outset, intrinsic to every human being.
You just have to observe children in the first months of life and study their behaviors as tireless explorers. Everything is curiosity, everything seems possible to them.
Subsequently, education, failures, prohibitions will limit the creative potential: a well-behaved child has learned to change what he has received. He will eventually become innovative but will have lost his “creative confidence” and will hesitate to take side roads to respond to the exceptional
There is a great deal of emotion in creativity that is often stimulated by circumstances outside the area, a transformation of known resources into new ideas.
Henri Poincarré, the mathematician, identified a path from origin to completion in four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification.
Identifying the right problem is the foundation of any creative solution.
It is then necessary to “leave the classical frameworks of thought”, to depart from the functions initially assigned to things in order to find original ideas, to construct new assemblies by games of comparison, abstraction, negation.
And often an idea that comes from one brain is unlikely to be successful or to be exploited. Montaigne had expressed it in his essays on travel to extol the need to “rub and file your brains against that of aultruy”
Brainstorming has proven itself in this area and has shown the effectiveness of collective work on the condition that the group obeys clear instructions for listening and facilitating.
We could, at this level, give some credit to social networks in that everyone can easily collect a variety of knowledge and ideas to be able to claim to design the most original.
New connections between ideas and knowledge complement those between men and women to generate successful ideas.
Several examples illustrate this against the backdrop of a health crisis: in large cities, via Facebook, we have seen groups of parents exchanging ideas to create content suitable for occupying confined children, for example.
In 2020 we have witnessed the emergence of a number of start-ups all vectors of innovative solutions which suggests that the pandemic crisis is as destructive of commerce as it can prove to be the creator of resilient solutions.
Neuroscience has set out to demonstrate that creativity depends on the intensity of the connections that occur unconsciously in our brain and are supported by a control network that will make obvious the ideas corresponding to the identified concerns of the moment.
From a more “psychoanalytic” point of view for Boris Cyrulnik it is from the shadows that light is born and he probably knows better than anyone what he is talking about when he says that “lack invites creativity, loss. invites art .. ”. To sum up, and this is the title of his book: “Suns are written at night.”
Passion and creativity can go hand in hand, as long as talent is part of the equation. What could happen to a passion thwarted by the non-recognition of the expected talent? This is what the writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt worked on by imagining a fictionalized biography of Adolf Hitler written in parallel to an alternative invented since October 8, 1908, when he failed at the entrance to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts *. What would have happened if he was flattered and consecrated in his creative ambitions as an artist, he had been received?
For once, it is the creative talent of the novelist that leaves us here … dreamers !!
* The Other’s Share – novel by EE Schmitt published in 2001 |
Watery eye is very common and there are a variety of different causes. Broadly speaking we divide watery into problems relating to:
1. The plumbing system (the tear duct)
2. Over production of tears (the tear gland)
3. The pump system (the eyelids)
When we review you in clinic it is important to try an establish the cause for your watering before a management plan can be put in place.
The tears are produced by the lacrimal gland and roll across the eye and down through the punctum into the tear system and into the nose.
Any block or narrowing along the course the exit system may give rise to a watery eye. This can include narrowing of the plug hole (punctal stenosis) or within the drain system (nasolacrimal duct block or stenosis). Treatments for this include punctoplasty surgery or dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) surgery depending on the problem.
In some cases of watery eye the problem does not relate to a plumbing problem but to the eye over watering. This can be due to the eye being uncomfortable or dry and is known as reflex watering.
Think of your eye like a plant on your kitchen windowsill.
If the soil becomes dry and cracked your reaction is often to over water the plant.
Your tear gland does the same thing when the eye is registered by the brain as being dry or sore (1). It over compensates (2) and produces too many tears (3) which gives you a watery eye.
This can often be when you are performing concentration activities such as watching television, computer work or reading. It may also occur when you are in very dry environments such as air conditioning.
The treatment for this type of watery eye is use lubricants to alleviate the symptoms and reduce your tear production by making the eye more comfortable.
When you open and close the eyes you pump the tears down into the tear system. Hence anything which affects the eyelid position may increase watery. This includes ectropion and entropion. Your eyelid position may also contribute to the eye feeling uncomfortable which can give rise to reflex watering.
Author: Mr Jonathan Norris FRCOphth |
EducationExternal LearningProfilesTeaching Resources
Sky’s the limit for students tackling real-life challenges with drone tech
Year 3 teacher, Danni Brooke loves her students’ excitement when they are handed a drone to fly.
“It’s just sheer joy on their face when you see a student fly a drone for the first time and have it hovering,” says Danni.
“It’s a feeling of success; it’s something new; it’s dynamic, and it can draw kids to STEM subjects who might not have been interested before.”
Drones are gaining popularity in many industries that have realised the untapped potential of unmanned aerial technology.
From the military, which uses drones in place of manned aircraft, to surf lifesaving where drones are used to delivering life vests to stricken swimmers; environmentalists are even using drone technology to film animal documentaries, and rescue missions benefit from being able to quickly survey dangerous terrain.
The cost of aerial technology has also reduced, with cheaper drone models now available for less than $100. Others reach the several-thousand-dollar mark, giving schools various specification options and levels of complexity to work with.
As a form of learning through play, the devices are lightweight but durable and can be purchased with a range of accessories, including cameras, landing pads and cannons.
Danni teaches at Peregian Springs State School, a primary school on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland that has a strong focus on technology.
The school purchased ten drones small enough for students to hold in their hands; they are shared between all classes, from Prep to Year 6, across a variety of subjects, including technology, maths, science and geography.
Teachers have been experimenting for about a year to work out different ways they can integrate drones with the curriculum.
What they discovered is that the “sky’s the limit” when incorporating the remote control devices into everyday learning and linking the technology to real-world experiences.
“I think in education we are at the beginning of the ‘drone era’ and we are feeling our way around a bit,” says Danni.
“Of course, there are the obvious subjects where drones fit in, like digital technology, which is now a subject mandated by ACARA,” says Danni.
“You can use drones for maths to work out angles, locations, time, speed and coding. We use block coding, where you insert the codes to program the drone to fly where you want it to.
“There’s electronics, where you can focus on things like the wiring but you can also integrate drones with subjects like history, geography, and even English.”
As a practical example, Danni revealed that Year 4 geography students used drones on their recent field trip to study erosion, with the drone camera filming footage of the eroded land for students to take back to the classroom and examine.
Students also tackle drone obstacle exercises in which they navigate the device to simulate tasks, such as flood mapping, dropping life vests to drowning ocean swimmers or searching for coastal rubbish.
“We try to give a purpose for everything and for them to have a hands-on, immersive experience,” says Danni.
“It’s fun; it’s learning through play; it’s complex problem-solving and analytical thinking. It teaches perseverance, precision with flying and working in groups.
“We have our students work in pairs, so you have a pilot and a co-pilot. You need two people because the co-pilot has to keep an eye on the battery; you can’t keep flying under 20 percent battery.
“So the co-pilot also has to stay focussed and instruct when it’s time to land. They also give moral support, direction and positive talk.”
Training starts in Prep, where students learn to hover the craft, and continues through the older years where the experience increases in complexity to include detailed coding and manoeuvres like flips.
All students are required to adhere to a safety checklist, wear safety glasses and avoid walking into the fly zone.
Later this year, students from neighbouring schools will be invited to take part in a Dual of the Drones, which will enable
Peregian Springs State School to share what its students and teachers have learnt.
Competitors will take part in a coding challenge, where they have to code a device to undertake activities such as ‘looking for turtle nests’ and ‘spotting sharks’.
Danni says teachers have nothing to fear about embracing the new technology.
“We all support each other and learn from each other and the kids love it!”
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Autism and the need to spread awareness
What is Autism? Most of us, till date don’t even understand the meaning of this word. And even if someone does, they consider the person having this disorder as a mentally challenged human.
Well, I agree that Autism is a neurological disorder in which people have impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. But is it necessary that a person who is Autistic, cannot be considered to lead a normal life? Well, the answer is that a person having Autism, is a normal human being, capable of leading a normal and healthy life like an ordinary human being. He has the right to live, right to gain information and the most important, right to speech.
Some people tag these autistic people as ‘mad’. I remember an incident, where one of my friends commented on seeing an autistic kid, “Look at him! Look at the way he walks!! He is not even looking at anyone….Mad guy!!” The kid heard each and every word of the harsh words spoken by my friend. But the kid did not react to his statements. Maybe he had developed the habit of listening to cruel statements by the people around him. It is a sad truth that we all are judgemental in nature. We are not capable of understanding that they too have a heart and that heart is capable of breathing too. So what if they are weak in one sector of life? They might be better than all of us, in all the other fields of life.
Who has not heard about the great Albert Einstein and Newton? One of the biggest legends of history, the people known for their brilliant contributions to Physics and Science. Yes, according to some experts, they suffered from a type of Autism. But, frankly speaking, which human being in this whole world doesn't know them? They are the legendary heroes in the world of Physics and their contributions to science. The law of Gravity and the general theory of relativity, are the two pillars to modern Science.
Who has not heard about the famous movie – My name is Khan? Beautifully executed, this movie depicts the outstanding acting of Shah Rukh Khan, and the portrayal of an autistic person and his struggles in life. The movie having earned fame and recognition over the globe is known for being one of the biggest blockbusters of Indian Cinema. It was one of the few films, which received critical acclaim and also worldwide box office success. Barfi, another super hit movie showing the beautiful Priyanka Chopra portraying the role of an autistic girl, and her struggles to lead a happy life. These movies tend to spread awareness among people about the struggles faced by the Autistic people and also that we should consider them as one of our own. I respect these movies a lot, and specially the actors who portray these roles flawlessly.
It is not difficult to understand Autism. The main aim of this article of mine is to make the readers understand about the disrespect that people having autism face, and to garner respect for them in our society. Their communication style is different than the rest of us, and one should not get offended by when they repeatedly keep asking questions. They might feel offended, shy and also excluded from the rest of the world. No one in this world has the right to speak down on them. They deserve to be treated as equals. Not at all am I trying to say that they lack emotions and empathy.They are not comfortable in making eye contact, but that does not mean that they are ignorant. It is our responsibility to make them feel comfortable in this society.’ Treating them as equals’ will not make us look less in front of anyone. Instead we tend to gain their love and affection. They will feel secure with us.
So, finishing this article, I would like to say that when you respect someone, you will get their respect and love. Ridicule someone innocent, and God will not forgive those people. Making someone happy will not only make them feel loved, but it will also increase the self-respect in front of our own eyes. Let people become aware of this increasing need to respect and care for the autistic people, and make them feel loved and cared for in our society. Then only, our world will become a peaceful and happy place to live in!!
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Saint Claude Colombiere
Born to the French nobility, Claude early felt a call to religious life. Educated at Jesuit college in Lyons, France. Priest. Taught humanities at Avignon, France. Continued his studies in Paris, France. Tutor. Preached against Jansenism, advocating dedication to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Joined the Jesuits in 1659. Spiritual director of Saint Margaret Mary of Alocoque.
Chaplain to Mary Beatrice d’Este, the Duchess of York. He converted many Protestants through the example of his holy life. Due to rumours of “Popish plots” against the king and the re-establishment Catholicism, Claude was imprisoned, accused of being part of the Titus Oates Plot. It was only by the efforts of Louis XIV, who had recommended him for the assignment, that he was not martyred. Banished from England. His health had been ruined by his time in prison, and he returned to Paray to die. The day after his death, Saint Margaret received supernatural assurance that Claude needed no prayers, as he was in already heaven. He is considred a “dry” martyr, having suffered every abuse for the faith except death. |
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
This is not a blog post bashing on Obama, so if you are looking for that, you'll have to look else where. If you are an Obama fan, I hope you won't be offended.
This is a lesson in history. (I know, what a snore right?)
But yesterday when my 15 year old students stared at me with huge eyes and a concerned look on their face and asked, "Mrs. B, why don't they get it? Why do they let it happen???" It seriously hurts.
If history has taught us nothing else we can easily see one common theme no matter the time period, no matter the civilization. There is one thing that we can learn and easily not repeat. I think often times we are turned off to this concept because whenever anyone tries to teach us this principle they try and scare us. They talk of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Bloody Mary, Che, Ivan the Terrible, Nero, Castro, Napoleon, or even Genghis Khan. They speak of greed, genocides, famines, mass murders, corruption with this one central theme. Sadly this is a very important principle but often times we are so turned off by evil that we start to tune out. But today I want to talk about this principle through the example of one of my favorite heroes, totally cliche, but a amazing all the same.
George Washington.
Now I'm sure you've heard the tale that at some point people begged George Washington to be king. Now whether this tale is true is debatable. But we've heard this classic theme both in the Old Testament and Book of Mormon. People begging for a king. As far as George is concerned we really don't have very much documentation on whether that really did happen frequently or not.
But we do have one letter. In May 1782... so almost a year and a half before the Constitution was created and ratified there was a Colonel Lewis Nicola. He wrote a letter to George talking about the poor conditions of his army. He was upset with Congress saying it was too weak. His solution was quite simple, establish a strong monarchy and put George as king. (Now clearly this guy had no right or power to do such an act, but he was just suggesting that it was a good idea.)
George's response:
"No occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army and these I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity." He went on to say that these ideas were "big with the greatest mischief that can befall my country. You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable." "If you have any regard for your country, concern yourself or posterity, or respect for me, banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature." George Washington to Lewis Nicola (22 May 1782)
George Washington understood something that sadly we as Americans are forgetting. We don't want a king. Even if it is the most benevolent man that has ever lived, we don't want him to rule as King. I could talk about how power corrupts, I could tell the horror the power of one man can create. But even if he made the best possible decisions for our country we still don't want him to rule with unlimited power. Even if he can create laws that could end world hunger, provide world peace, and make everyone happy... it would not be worth it. Because I know enough of history to know what could happen next. Eventually power is transferred. Eventually power changes. And when one person has that much power nothing can stop him.
So no, this is not a post bashing on Obama. I don't blame him. I truly hope he really is trying to do what he thinks is best for this country. I really want to hope. But I am bashing. I am standing from the top of every soap box that I possibly can stand on to scream, Do we not know history??? Have we learned nothing??? When a President of the United States clearly states, for the entire country to hear, that he is going to completely break the laws created in the Constitution and usurp power and he gets a standing ovation from those whose responsibility is to make sure he doesn't overstep his power as president.... I hang my head low. How can I teach history? How can I keep going? How have we forgotten so quickly? How have we become like those from times before that beg for a king? How have we learned nothing?
No, I don't want to talk of starvation, deaths, or bondage. History has done enough of that. I want to talk of a piece of light. Power is evil. The more it is spread out the better. One man who understood that. One man who I believe God protected to teach this very important lesson. George Washington would have made a wonderful king. But luckily for us, he knew better, he knew history.
If only America did the same.
Harris said...
I totally agree!! However I would hope of he truly does try to take power that does not belong to him the, the other offices will use the system of checks and balances to take the power and put it where it belongs. Lets all pray for that!
goddessdivine said...
George is my hero! I wish we saw more men like him today.
Well, His Majesty did say today (albeit, jokingly) "I'm the president, I can do whatever I want." Hmm. It may have been in jest, but something like that doesn't come out of someone's mouth if there isn't a hint of meaning it.
3 more years. I don't know if I can take it. |
Thursday, 28 January 2016
Mount Elbruz
A splendid dramatic picture of Mount Elbruz, the highest peak in the Caucasus mountain range, taken by Alexander Trashin.
It used to be believed that it was here that the Aryan races of Europe originated; hence the word "Caucasian" for the body of an unidentified white man in American crime dramas. Heinrich Himmler believed this story of Aryan origins, and in the Second World War, as Nazi forces approached the Caucasus, he sent an S.S. mountaineering team to scale Mount Elbruz and plant a banner on the summit, to show that the Aryan race had returned to its homeland.
In fact, when I was down in Georgia, south of the Caucasus, thirty years ago, it was noticeable that none of the locals bore any resemblance to the Aryan racial ideal of blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes. In fact they all looked very like that most famous of Georgians, Joseph Stalin; especially the women!
Nowadays the story of the all-conquering Aryans sweeping through Europe in the Bronze Age is generally dismissed as a myth. Instead the less emotive term "Indo-European" is used to describe not a race, but a group of languages which have a common root. This group includes Persian (the words "Iran" and "Aryan" being much the same), Hindustani, the ancient Hittite language and most of the languages of Europe, with a few exceptions such as Finnish, Hungarian and Basque. However, I don't anticipate the word "Caucasian" disappearing from our TV screens in the foreseeable future.
Sunday, 10 January 2016
England: Moreton Corbet
Moreton Corbet is a village a few miles north of Shrewsbury in Shropshire; taking its name from the Corbet family. The first of the Corbets, with two of his sons, came to England with William the Conqueror, and settled in Shropshire, where they were granted land by Earl Roger de Montgomery, one of William's most trusted lieutenants. This region was to remain the "wild west" for many generations, until Wales was finally brought fully under English rule. There were frequent raids and skirmishes, as well as occasional full-scale battles; and because of this the great Earls of the borderlands, the "Marcher lords" were given quasi-regal powers, greater than anywhere else in England.
The Corbet coat of arms is easy to recognize. There are several versions, but they always involve one, two or more ravens on a gold shield (in heraldic parlance, "Or, two corbeaux sable"). This is an example of a "canting" coat of arms, which makes a pun on its owner's name: French, "corbeau", old Scots "corbie"; a raven or crow. A single raven was sometimes a "corbyn".
St. Bartholomew's church in Moreton Corbet contains the magnificent Tudor tombs of the Corbet family: Sir Robert Corbet (died 1513) and his wife:-
and Sir Richard Corbet (died 1567) and his wife:-
The Corbet coat of arms is clearly visible in the first quarter of the shield. I suspect some of the heraldry may be imaginary, as was quite common in the Elizabethan age!
The revolution in artistic taste which took place in the following century is well shown in the monument to Richard Corbet (died 1691).
The church itself has features dating back to the Norman period. Nearby are the remains of a mediaeval castle,
but the most spectacular feature is an enormous ruined Elizabethan mansion, built by Sir Andrew Corbet in 1579.
In its time, it would have been as grand as any contemporary building in England. It also shows how Renaissance architectural features were appearing here, even though the local builders did not yet really understand them.
It was destroyed by Parliamentary forces in the Civil War.. |
Brilliant halo around the Sun
posted: 2518 days ago, on Monday, 2010 Nov 01 at 14:29
tags: astronomy, astrophotography, Sun, atmospheric phenomena.
Image by Roland Friend (Secunda South Afrca), using a HTC Snap S521, taken 2010.10.01 at 10:00.
Roland's beautiful image shows a remarkable halo around the Sun, widely seen over the Johannesburg area this morning.
The ring of light is known as an ice halo, and its pretty rare to see a complete ring (as I think Roland's image shows) - usually one sees only a portion of the ring.
Ice halos form only when there are cirrus clouds in the sky. Most clouds are made up of drops of water, but cirrus clouds are composed of tiny ice crystals. Each minute crystal is like a long thin pencil that has six sides. Sunlight passes through the crystal and its path is bent (refracted) so that each crystal acts like a miniature prism. With a gazillion ice crystals tumbling about in the sky, you end up seeing a complete ring.
If there isn't sufficient cloud you only see a partial halo. And if the cloud is too thick, the halo may be too faint to see. If the ice crystals are too large, then they don't create the ring effect either. And even if there are enough tiny ice crystals, they may simply not be perfectly shaped - instead of being solid with smooth sides, they may be hollow, or perhaps stuck together to form clumps. But this morning, conditions were perfect!
The ice crystals that lie inside the halo don't contribute to the ring of light - they simply block out the light instead, so that the inside of the halo appears darker than the surrounding sky - exactly as Roland's lovely image shows.
Halos can also be seen around the Moon, from time to time, such as this one I photographed in July 2009. For previous solar ice halo images, see Maciej Soltynski's photograph taken in July 2006, and an anonymous contributor's photo from 2005 November.
For more on these and related sights, browse the articles tagged as "atmospheric phenomena".
via: Hannes Pieterse, Carol Botha
Naylor, J. (2002) Out of the Blue: A 24-hour Skywatcher's Guide. Cambridge University Press.
nothing more to see. please move along. |
JFK’s Enduring Legacy in Peacemaking: Jeffrey D. Sachs
June 28, 2013Marketsby Jeffrey D. Sachs
JFK’s Enduring Legacy in Peacemaking: Jeffrey D. Sachs
NEW YORK – Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy did the seemingly impossible. At the height of the Cold War, he moved the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, toward peace. The lessons of Kennedy’s act of leadership – one of the greatest of modern times – are directly relevant today.
I recount this remarkable story in a new book, To Move the World. To many, war between the two superpowers seemed inevitable. The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 created a global air of fear and pessimism, and certainly the belief that the US and the Soviet Union could not be reconciled.
Kennedy knew better. He understood that much of the dangerous tension stemmed from each side’s hardliners, who acted as if peace were impossible. Their actions on one side would provoke the other side’s hardline response, fueling an upward spiral of distrust that strengthened the extremes in both camps.
The “experts” of that era spoke of the balance of nuclear power. They believed that neither side would use nuclear weapons, owing to the fear of retaliation. But Kennedy recognized something far more dangerous: Accidents, misjudgments, bluffs, provocation by hardliners, or tactical mistakes could easily throw either side into panic. In the Cuban missile crisis, the US and the Soviet Union stumbled to the precipice of nuclear war, not because of any desire for one (except among a few hothead extremists), but because of a series of miscalculations and pressure exerted by hardliners.
Related: South Korea Should Consider Developing Nuclear Weapons, Says Top Lawmaker
Related: Russia Calls on Iran and World Powers to Stop Bickering “Like Children”
Following the crisis, Kennedy was determined to pull back from the precipice for good. In his extraordinary “Peace Speech” of June 10, 1963, he suggested to Americans that there was a way to make peace with the Soviet Union. Rather than issuing a list of demands, Kennedy did something far more interesting and unusual: he called upon Americans to reconsider their own attitudes about war and peace.
“First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself,” Kennedy said. “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man.
Kennedy diagnosed the problem succinctly:
And his assessment of its solvability was equally concise: “[B]oth the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race.”
Kennedy’s speech provoked a highly positive response from his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, who called in the US envoy and told him that the speech was the finest by any American president since Franklin Roosevelt. Within a few weeks, both sides had agreed to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Five years later, the first treaty led to a second, and even more important, agreement: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Kennedy had proved a powerful truth. “[H]istory teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever,” he said. “However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.
That lesson applies powerfully today. The US is again caught in a spiral of distrust and uncertainty with other countries (and the same is true of countless conflicts around the world that do not involve the US). America’s conflict with Iran is one such powerful case; others include its conflicts with Cuba and North Korea, and also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the US is deeply engaged as a supporter of Israel.
Related: North Korea’s Brilliant Bluff – Why Kim Still Holds All The Trump Cards: George Friedman
Related: Israel Cuts Off $118 Million In Tax Funds To Palestine After UN Vote
Related: China Pushes For Fresh Israel-Palestine Peace Talks
In all of these cases, many people consider hatred and conflict inevitable, owing to a fundamental clash of values and interests. But this is rarely the case. Even though the US and Iran are in a spiral of distrust, for example, there could be grounds for reestablishing a far healthier bilateral relationship.
To be sure, the two sides are now dangerously divided. Their conflict has spilled over into Syria, where the US is now planning to arm the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad in no small part because his regime is aligned with Iran. Syria’s civil war is therefore increasingly a proxy fight between Iran and the US (and other anti-Iranian countries), with Syrians dying in massive numbers as victims of somebody else’s conflict.
Now that the Iranian people have elected a new president, Hassan Rowhani, the opportunity for a new peace overture is at hand. Yes, there are important matters to discuss, notably Iran’s nuclear ambitions; but several countries in Iran’s neighborhood already possess nuclear weapons, threatening the entire region.
Related: Iran: New Leader, New Hope?
US President Barack Obama should take the next steps, both with Iran and with other countries (including North Korea and Cuba). A decade of US secret and not-so-secret wars, drone attacks, and covert operations is enough. We now urgently need US leadership that envisions peace rather than war as the solution.
Fifty years ago, Kennedy showed that peace could be achieved even in the most difficult circumstances. His courage, vision, eloquence, and political skills provide a model and inspiration for the US and other countries today. Then, as now, the path to peace must always be preferred to the dead end of war.
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Copyright: Project-Syndicate, 2013
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Magnetic Resonance Imaging
What is an MRI? MRI (Magnet Resonance Imaging) is a detailed diagnostic tool used to help physicians evaluate different types of tissue, as well as distinguishing normal, healthy tissue from diseased tissue
Are there any harmful side effects from MRI? MRI does not use X-ray radiation to obtain images. MRI uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves.
What happens during an MRI exam? You will be positioned on the MRI table, typically lying on your back (this depends on the specific body part being scanned). Coils (special devices that act as antennas) will be placed on or around the area being imaged. It is important to remain motionless during the exam in order to get the highest quality images. During the scan, you may feel warmth in the specific area being examined… You will also hear a knocking sound during the exam. We will provide you with earplugs or a headset, (depending on the specific exam) for your hearing protection.
Is there anything that would prevent me from having an MRI exam? Because MRI uses a strong magnetic field, some implantable devices may prevent you from having an MRI. Your health and safety is very important to us, so we ask safety questions twice before your exam. Once on the phone and at the time of your exam. Please let your physician & technologist know if you have any implants or may be pregnant.
Is there any preparation for an MRI exam? You may eat, drink and take your medication as usual unless you are advised differently by our Radiology staff.
When and how will I get the results of my exam? An interpreted report by a specialist will be sent to your physician. Your physician will contact you in the normal way they usually contact you with test results. Please let the technologist know of where your last MRI was performed, this can help assist them in finding any previous studies if needed.
Download this information as a PDF |
Xian Bell tower Picture
Bell Tower locates in the downtown area of Xi'an and is the symbol of Xi'an, Xian attraction image
The Bell Tower was first built in 1384, in the Yingxiang Temple which used to be located in the center of the city. The tower was moved to its present place in 1582 as a result of the city's expansion program.
There have been various legendary tales about the Bell Tower. In the Ming Dynasty, tens of thousands of people were killed in several earthquakes on Central Shaanxi Plain. People said that a gigantic dragon in the huge undercurrent that flowed beneath the city caused all those quakes. When the governor of the city heard this, he ordered all the smiths in the city to make a chain 300 meters long to chain the dragon at the bottom of the undercurrent, right in the center of the city. He then ordered 5,000 skillful craftsmen to build the tower over the place where the dragon was chained so that it would be weighed down to the bottom of the undercurrent forever, and to stop forever, its evil spells.
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The $7 a month plan bringing solar energy to rural Africa
Story highlights
• Off Grid Electric provides solar energy to homes in Tanzania and Rwanda
• Plans are financed through microtransactions starting at about $7/month
125,000 households
The company is backed by Elon Musk's SolarCity, one of the largest solar energy providers in the US, and Helios, Africa's largest private equity firm.
In November, at the UN's climate change conference in Marrakech, it won the 2016 Momentum for Change Award, which focused on projects that are addressing climate change in innovative ways.
It already powers 125,000 households and employs around 1,000 people -- about a third as salesmen who offer the energy packages door to door.
"Most of these families were burning kerosene to make light, with a negative impact on their health and wellbeing," Bill Lenihan, Off Grid Electric's President, told CNN.
Kerosene produces smoke and can't power anything but a lantern: "Now they have access to clean energy that can also power radios and TVs."
The system includes a solar panel, installed on a roof, and lithium-ion battery which provides electricity around the clock: "Kids can study at night, entrepreneurs can increase their income because their phones work all day and farmers can better protect their cattle -- it's like night and day," said Kim Schreiber, the company's chief of staff.
$7 a month
There are three different sizes of photovoltaic panels, the smallest of which can power four lights and charge one mobile phone.
"We also provide all the energy efficient accessories that go with these, from lights to chargers, to radios and TVs," said Lenihan.
Customers pay 10 percent of their package upfront, the rest is financed through monthly installments.
The costs are competitive, according to Off Grid Electric: "Just connecting to the grid can cost $300 to $400, whereas our system is $7 a month and after three years you own it and never have to pay again," said Schreiber.
Larger packages cost more: for eight lights, a radio and a 24-inch TV, the monthly fee is about $20. In comparison, a month's supply of kerosene typically costs $4 to $5.
The payments are collected via mobile phone transactions, a popular method in the continent, and a five-year service plan is included if something breaks. The battery can last seven years, and the panel itself up to 20.
In case a customer can't keep up with the plan, Off Grid Electric says it offers "room for flexibility," and ultimately the system will be removed after several months of missed installments. But most customers stay on board, according to Lenihan: "The uptake has been very strong, people continue to pay, and the growth has been really good."
A trillion dollar challenge
Providing electricity to people in sub-Saharan Africa is "a cottage industry and a trillion dollar challenge," said Lenihan.
"We can solve a problem and do it in a way that delivers a return to shareholders, which is the biggest challenge in an industry that, as a whole, has addressed less than 1 percent of this market," he said.
For small businesses, the company offers a package called Zola, which contains everything needed to run a business on solar power, including appliances and entertainment systems.
Off Grid Electric has recently signed a partnership with EDF, the world's largest utility, to expand the program to the Ivory Coast, with a goal of providing clean energy to 2 million people by 2020. |
If you are one of the legions of people who have acquired, or are about to obtain a new pet snake, then you are also about to have a rewarding experience. Snakes have a lot to teach us. A properly maintained terrarium can be a work of art – many are prominently displayed in homes – so long as the snake keeper keeps some essential information in mind:
· Be sure you give your snake enough heat – that means enough for the snake, not you. A snake is best kept at warmer, summer temperatures of 85 – 100 degrees F, unless being cooled for hibernation. Temperate zone species may tolerate a 30 degree drop in temperature at night, but tropical species rarely do well with such fluctuations.
· Never, ever use your snake to scare somebody! Many people are afraid of snakes, some pathologically so. Using a snake to scare a person is irresponsible of you, may cause injury to another person, and is traumatic for the snake.
· Be sure to feed your snake an adequate diet at appropriate intervals. Snakes under 3 feet in length should generally be fed prey about the size of an adult mouse once or twice a week. Larger snakes take more or larger prey at less frequent intervals. Truly large snakes may eat only once per year, but these are not snakes for novices.
· Do not handle snakes after feeding, or until they have digested their meals. If a snake is handled too soon after eating, it is often likely to regurgitate the meal, and may refuse to feed for many days afterward.
· Snakes must shed their skins, but they do much better if you do not help them. If the snake has been fed and watered well, it will grow, and the old skin is carefully broken by the snake and shed in one piece. If a snake sheds in patches, it may be dehydrated or have a nutritional disorder.
· Do your homework! Buying a snake is not the same as knowing how to care for it properly. It is your responsibility to learn about your snake and any special needs it will have in captivity. For example, unless you carefully teach your snake otherwise, many have specialized diets: garter snakes eat fish and frogs, hognose snakes eat toads, and corn snakes eat small rodents and eggs.
· Get a snake veterinarian lined up now. Snakes have a slower metabolism than us mammals, so they may manifest symptoms long after contracting an illness. Waiting to find a qualified vet until the snake is ill may be too late.
· Clean the snake’s cage as it becomes dirty – don’t merely wait for Saturday morning. Only use appropriate disinfectants for a snake cage. You may use rubbing alcohol, soap, and specialty products available at your pet shop. Do not use chlorine bleaches or industrial cleansers such as Ajax or Comet, because their residues are often toxic to snakes. Lysol is particularly dangerous.
· Always wash your hands well with soap and water after handling your snake or the cage accessories. Snakes, like most animals, may harbor dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella.
· Okay, now go watch your snake and have some fun!
Behavior – How Loving Are These Two?
Pros for Dogs: Dogs always appear to be happy, no matter what the circumstance. As long as you bought a puppy at a young age and gave them plenty of love as they grew up, then the dog’s attitude should be a fun and loving one, and that’s exactly what owners want. Dogs are loving, loyal, and are simply entertaining to just be around. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible for dogs to feel another emotion besides joy! Well, they also feel guilt when they do something wrong, but besides that, dogs are constantly brimming with positivity and it is absolutely infectious at times. Imagine a tiresome day at work, coming home and plopping down on the couch, and then being greeted by your happy animal companion who wants nothing more than to cheer you up. Aw, how nice of them!
Cons for Dogs: However, dogs sometimes can get too needy for your attention. Maybe after that long day of work, you instead want to go home and rest without any interruption, but a dog may still attempt to smother you for a pat on the back. Dogs also have the tendency to get jealous over other pets who are being given any form of attention, and may exact revenge if you don’t provide the same amount of love towards them. I had a Poodle that would pee in undesirable locations knowing it was bad, but did it anyways because she got angry or jealous. That was one bad dog. Not all dogs have such an obnoxious characteristic, however.
Pros for Cats: Unlike dogs, cats have more than one emotion! They are also far more independent and conservative. Cats will always have a fondness for their owners, but they choose to show it only when they are in the mood. A cat might wake up after a brief rest, and spontaneously think: “Well, I feel like getting some attention now,” and they’ll walk over to you and start rubbing up against your legs while purring. That’s when you know the cat is in a good mood, when they sound like miniature car motors.
Then there are other times when you will try to pet them, and the cat will just be like: “Yeah, whatever, thanks I guess.” Or the cat is in an extremely lazy mood and will refuse to respond to anything you do. Nobody ever knows how a cat will react, their behavior is random. You kinda have to “earn” their respect and attention, but hey, nothings wrong with that. Plus, cats won’t always be a bother when you’re busy.
Cons for Cats: The problem with a cat’s attitude is that it’s inconsistent, or arbitrary. There are occasions when you just want a friendly pet to come lay down on top of your lap or next to you, and cats will certainly do that, just not whenever you want. What I’m trying to articulate here is cats are not as loyal or willing to comply as easily as dogs.
Here’s an example: Once a dog learns his name, he’ll respond without hesitation when you call him. A cat, however, even when he hears you calling, will choose to either listen or completely ignore you. The cat will even raise it’s head towards you, acknowledging that he’s heard your call, and then close his eyes and go right back to sleep. How rude! Cats will listen every now and then; it’s just if they are in the mood.
Conclusion: The personality is a preference thing. People like loyal and loving pets, but they also enjoy pets who show can show some restraint.
Messiness – How Clean Or Messy Are Dogs and Cats?
Pros for Dogs: Uh, well, you know, um… Okay dogs are not really the cleanest animals around. The good thing is you can potty train them, and training them to go to the bathroom outside is both convenient and a whole lot less smelly for your home. That’s really all I have to say for the positive side. Dogs will take care of themselves most often, but you will probably need to give a bath from time to time to help keep them clean.
Cons for Dogs: First off, if you haven’t potty trained your dog yet, you should! Otherwise, the dog will pee or poop wherever they please, and that’s just gross. On top of that immense problem, dogs are known to chew on wires, shoes, or anything else accessible on the ground. Wires that have been chewed through will render whatever appliance it was powering to be fully useless. Depending on what the appliance was, it may need to be replaced, and means spending money. The same goes for the shoes.
To remedy this problem, you can buy cord covers to cover any vulnerable cords laying around. Make sure the covers are hard enough to prevent any chewing. As for the shoes, put them away in a closet somewhere. Also, consider having a few chew toys available for your dog to satisfy their chomping urges; it’ll save you money in the end.
Pros for Cats: Cats, to match their independent behavior, clean themselves many times. It’s part of a cat’s daily routine. They even have tongues that have a sandpaper like texture to help clean and groom their hair. Due to a cat’s frequent cleaning, they rarely need to be bathed, which is great. I mean, have you tried bathing a cat before? It’s a nightmarish experience for sure.
Most cats are already potty trained, all you have to do is have a few litter boxes scattered throughout the house, the rest can be left up to them. How convenient is that? You can even let a cat outside and they’ll take care of business, even burying it after they’ve finished. Cats are very clean animals.
Cons for Cats: Until they throw up a nasty hairball, that is. A major downside for cats is the perpetual vomiting. Some cats do it more often than others, but at some point, the cat is going to get a hairball from their constant cleaning, and you will have to clean it up! It’s kinda gross, but you’ll get used to it eventually.
Additionally, it’s important to spay or neuter a cat as soon as possible. It’ll prevent them from spraying your home with urine. Seriously, the earlier the better. You don’t want a cat to develop a spraying habit, it’s the worst.
And of course, cats have the tendency to claw furniture! There are scratching posts one can buy to discourage this type of behavior. Placing the posts next to the piece of furniture is most effective.
Conclusion: Cats are cleaner than dogs, but have the potential to be messier, especially if they are not spayed at the right time. But self-cleaning and instinctive potty training are two very convenient hygienic qualities to have in a pet.
Fun – Are Dogs or Cats More Fun To Play With?
Pros For Dogs: Because of a dog’s willingness to listen, to put it simply: it allows you to do more fun activities with them, and that can be way more fun for certain people. You can teach a dog new tricks, like sitting, rolling over and playing dead; all of which are entertaining for you and your family to see. Dogs also love to go for walks in the parks for some healthy exercise, or play an exciting game of fetch. Undoubtedly, dogs are very amusing animals and most of the fun comes from the owner interacting with their pet, unlike cats. I’ll explain below.
Cons For Dogs: Fun stems from an energetic and friendly attitude, which is precisely where dogs excel. If you are looking for a fun pet then, dogs will rarely disappoint. No real cons come to mind in this department.
Pros for Cats: Cats, despite their supposed sophisticated demeanor, are captivated by the simplest of things. If you’ve raised a kitten before, the first thing that stands out is their ability to entertain themselves with absolutely anything. It’s a cat’s self-entertainment that is so enthralling and fun to watch.
My cats will attack innocent rugs, rolling themselves up inside and clawing at the furry mat as if it were alive. They’ll also chase their own tails around in circles until they get dizzy, in which case they’ll stop for a few seconds, and do it all over again! Cats will stalk bugs in the house, hiding behind cover and methodically pacing themselves towards the unsuspecting insect, then they crouch down, shake their behinds back and forth until finally ending with a vicious pounce. It’s hilarious to see, and you would be surprised at how effective cats are at eliminating bugs.
If you want to participate in on the fun and interact with a cat, you can. All you need is a single piece of string. Seriously, cats cannot resist the opportunity to play with a piece of string. Even if you were to wake a cat up in the middle of the night, and they see a string wiggling vigorously in front of them, they’ll instantly become wide awake and start playing around with it.
Cons for Cats: While cats will amuse themselves with simple things, you’ll have a hard time getting them to learn any tricks. Or going for walks. Or playing with things that are not strings or string equivalents. Oh well!
Conclusion: Two different styles of fun are at work here. Dogs are more willing to learn and play with their owner, and that’s fun. Cats on the other-hand, are more willing to amuse themselves, which is fun for the owner to watch.
Cost – How Much Will These Pet Dogs and Cats Cost Me?
Dogs: The average cost of a dog varies and is usually dependent on their size. Bigger dogs such as German Shepherds will require more food to eat, while smaller puppies like a Maltipoo need much less. The more food you buy, the costlier it becomes. Other dog expenses might include flea medications, chewing toys, cord covers to protect electrical wiring, and a new shiny pair of shoes if they get chewed up! If your dog is not potty trained for the outdoors, pee pads can cost money as well.
Cats: Cat expenses include dry food, flea medications, litter boxes plus litter (unless you let the cat outside all the time), and possibly hairball medication if they struggle getting a hairball up. Cats most often than not don’t have trouble with hairballs because dry foods have a specific ingredient to help lubricate the hair. Also, don’t forget scratching posts for the cats to scratch, the posts cost substantially less than the furniture!
Conclusion: Both cats and dogs require money to take care of, is anyone surprised? Dogs may cost more if you get a bigger breed.
There you go! Those are the positives and negatives for owning a pet dog or cat. They each come with their own unique set of problems, but if you are able to look past them and pick a pet that has a personality that closely matches your own, I think it’s a decision you won’t regret making.
You could also just get both. Dogs and cats living together… what a crazy thought, but it’s possible. I do it!
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Time To Act
Did you Know? PDF Print E-mail
The burrows of worms can provide 5-11 times more nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium than surrounding soils.
Worm compost increases the benficial micro-organisms and plant growth horomones compared to regular compost!
There are over 4400 known terrestrial worm species in the world
The common name for a composting worm in North America is Red Wiggler
Worms are not indigenous in Colorado
Humans have been using worms for at least 2000 years in China for pharmaceutical preparations |
Principle and basic mode of heat transfer for high power LED lighting - LED display Industry news - LED display Manufacturer/shenzhen Bako Optoelectronic Co., Ltd.
Industry news
Principle and basic mode of heat transfer for high power LED lighting
From: www.szbako.com Data:30/08/2016
learned physics friends all know, heat transfer are mainly in three ways: first, conduction: material itself or when the material is in contact with the material, energy transfer is called heat conduction. This is most commonly a heat transfer, by lower energy particles and particles of a higher amount of direct contact to transmit energy. In contrast, the heat transfer is confined to the solid and liquid, because the molecular composition of the gas is not very tight, the transfer of energy between them is called thermal diffusion. The basic formula of heat conduction is “ Q=K× A× T/Δ Δ L”. Where Q represents for the heat, is also the heat conduction generated or conduction of heat; K for the thermal conductivity of materials, heat conduction coefficient similar to the specific heat, but and the specific heat have some differences, inversely proportional to the thermal conductivity and specific heat, heat conduction coefficient is high, its specific heat values is low. For example, the thermal conductivity of pure copper was 396.4, and its specific heat is 0.39; formula on behalf of a heat transfer area (or the contact area of the two objects), Δ t on behalf of both ends of the temperature difference; Δ L is the distance between the two ends of. Therefore, from the formula we can find that the heat transfer coefficient, heat transfer coefficient, heat transfer area is proportional to the same distance is inversely proportional to the. The higher the heat transfer coefficient, the greater the heat transfer area, the shorter the distance of the transmission, the higher the energy of heat transfer, it is easier to take away heat. Second convection: refers to the fluid (gas or liquid) and the solid surface contact, causing the fluid from the solid surface will be the tropical heat transfer. Specific application to the actual point of view, there are two different kinds of heat convection, namely: natural convection and forced convection. Natural convection refers to the fluid movement, the cause is the temperature difference, the temperature high fluid density is low, therefore the quality is light, relatively will move upward. Instead, the fluid with low temperature, high density and therefore downward movement, the heat transfer is because the heated fluid, or that there is temperature difference after the heat transfer of power; forced convection is fluid by external forcing (such as the fan driven air flow) and driving force to where, fluid to where motion, so more efficient thermal convection and directivity. The formula of heat convection is “ Q=H× A× Δ T”. In the formula Q still represent the heat is carried away by the thermal convection heat; h for heat convection coefficient, a representative the effective contact area of convection heat; Δ t on behalf of the solid surface and the area between the fluid temperature difference. So convective heat transfer, heat transfer with the same number of convection heat transfer coefficient, the effective contact area and temperature difference proportional relationship; heat convection coefficient is high, the effective contact area is greater, the difference in temperature is high, can take away the heat more. The third radiation: radiation heat is a can in the absence of any medium, do not need to contact can be occurred at a heat exchange transfer mode, that is to say, thermal radiation is actually in the form of wave reached the purpose of heat exchange. Since the thermal radiation is transmitted through the waves, so it would have wavelength and frequency. Not through the medium of transfer object that requires the heat absorption rate to determine the transfer efficiency of the, here there is a heat radiation coefficient, and its value between 0 and 1, is belongs to the characteristics of the object surface, and the thermal conductivity of a rigid body is the material properties of the object. The heat transfer formula of general heat radiation is Q; =E× S× “ F× Δ (Ta-Tb) ”. In the formula, Q represents the ability to exchange heat, and E is the heat radiation coefficient of the surface of the object. In practice, when the material is metal and the surface is bright and clean, the heat radiation coefficient is relatively small, and the surface of the metal processing (such as coloring) the surface heat radiation coefficient will increase. The majority of the heat radiation coefficient of plastic or non metal is higher. S is the surface area of the object, F is a function of the radiation heat exchange point of view and the surface, but this function is difficult to explain. Δ (Ta-Tb) is the temperature difference between the surface a and the surface B. Therefore, the heat radiation coefficient, the size of the object surface area and the temperature difference between the existence of a proportional relationship. Any heat sink will also use the above three kinds of heat transfer, but the focus is different. Bid farewell to the heat transferred to the CPU cooling, for example, the heat conduction process consists of four steps. The first is the CPU, it is the source of heat, heat from the CPU work constantly send out; the second is the base and the radiating fin is a heat conductor, the base and the CPU core closely contact with the heat sink base to the heat conduction of the heat sink; the third is the fan is to increase the heat conduction and pointing to the heat conduction medium to reach the heat sink through other ways such as fan blowing the heat; the fourth is air, which is heat exchange flows to the end, to ensure good heat dissipation, internal chassis have ample space and science of air duct. |
Children of the Elephants
When a person just comes across the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Botswana, one can see a place called Kasane where thousands of tourists come every year from all over the world to visit nature and the animals and go for safaris. Unfortunately, the people living in the area are faced with difficulties and challenging realities.
In Kasane there are many children and adolescents of young single mothers, or whose parents have no jobs, or died of AIDS, or simply don't care for them or don't know how to care for them. These children in Kasane don’t have enough food to eat or sufficient clothing. Because of the many difficulties and hardships, these children are pushed onto the streets. A good number of children don’t go to school or are failing in school. Sadly, some of them are infected with HIV. The children are hungry, frustrated, and angry. Some adolescents have resorted to drugs, prostitution and criminal activities. Some have been sexually abused. They constantly seek love and attention, looking for quality time and dreaming of a better future. The St. Francis Catholic Mission is trying to answer their needs through the project BanaBa Ditlou (BaBaDi). The word means "Children of the Elephants" in Setswana, a Botswana local language. Everyday approximately 50 children and adolescents are cared for in the school and given food, a project run by lay people with the support of Marek Marciniak SVD and a religious Sister. To keep the children and adolescents out of marginality, a teacher trains them to play traditional musical instruments as part of a musical ensemble. This musical ensemble came up with recordings of songs and music that are sold to tourists.
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The word cliché is drawn from the French language. In printing, "cliché" came to mean a stereotype, electrotype or cast plate or block reproducing words or images that would be used repeatedly;[8] the word seems to have derived from the clicking sound made when blocks were polytyped (a particular form of stereotyping in which the block was impressed into a bath of molten type-metal to form a matrix).[9] Through this onomatopoeia, "cliché" came to mean a ready-made, oft-repeated phrase.
Using a feature such as an overhanging branch to frame a nature scene[10] may be described as a visual cliché even though it also supplies scale.
Various dictionaries recognize a derived adjective clichéd, with the same meaning.[11][12][13][14] Cliché is sometimes used as an adjective,[12][13] although some dictionaries do not recognize it as such,[11][14] listing the word only as a noun and clichéd as the adjective.
Thought-terminating cliché[edit]
Thought-terminating clichés, also known as thought-stoppers,[15] are words or phrases that discourage critical thought and meaningful discussion about a given topic.[16] They are typically short, generic truisms that offer seemingly simple answers to complex questions or that distract attention away from other lines of thought.[16] They are often sayings that have been embedded in a culture's folk wisdom and are tempting to say because they often sound true or good or like the right thing to say.[15] Some examples are: "Stop thinking so much",[17] "here we go again",[18] and "what effect do my actions have?"[15]
The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.[16] Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis".[19] Sometimes they are used in a deliberate attempt to shut down debate, manipulate others to think a certain way, or dismiss dissent. However, some people repeat them, even to themselves, out of habit, conditioning or as a defense mechanism.[15][20]
Examples in literature[edit]
In George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a totalitarian government has implemented Newspeak, a controlled version of English, in an attempt to limit their citizens' capacity for independent thought and therefore hamper opposition. Words for "dangerous" concepts, such as "freedom", have been eliminated from the lexicon and the remaining words are ideologically-loaded, thought-terminating clichés.[16]
In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt described the Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann as an intelligent man who used clichés and platitudes to justify his actions and the role he played in the Jewish genocide during World War II. For Arendt, these phrases are symptomatic of an absence of thought, writing that "When confronted with situations for which such routine procedures did not exist, he [Eichmann] was helpless, and his cliché-ridden language produced on the stand, as it had evidently done in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy. Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence."[21]
See also[edit]
3. ^ The Free Dictionary - Cliche
5. ^ Biography and Quotations of Gérard de Nerval
9. ^
16. ^ a b c d Kathleen Taylor (27 July 2006). Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. OUP Oxford. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-920478-6.
20. ^ Peterson, Britt (March 19, 2015), "Scientology’s enturbulating lingo", Boston Globe, retrieved October 25, 2016
Further reading[edit]
• Skorczewski, Dawn (December 2000). ""Everybody Has Their Own Ideas": Responding to Cliche in Student Writing". College Composition and Communication. 52 (2): 220–239. JSTOR 358494. doi:10.2307/358494.
• Ruth Amossy; Lyons (1982). Trans. Terese Lyons.. "The Cliché in the Reading Process. Trans. Terese Lyons". SubStance. University of Wisconsin Press. 11 (2.35): 34–45. JSTOR 3684023. doi:10.2307/3684023.
External links[edit] |
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On August 24th 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially labeled Ceres as a "Dwarf Planet" (see "Dwarf Planets" topic page), along with Pluto and Eris. Which makes it a promotion for Ceres, and a demotion for Pluto.
Ceres lies in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
It was discovered January 1st 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi (see "Giuseppe Piazzi" in the "Astronomers Gallery" elsewhere on this site).
Piazzi was searching for a star listed by Francis Wollaston as "Mayer 87" because it was not in Mayers zodiacal catalogue in the position given. Instead, Piazzi found a moving star-like object, which he thought at first was a comet. Piazzi observed Ceres a total of 24 times. On January 24th, 1801, Piazzi announced his discovery in letters to fellow astronomers.
Ceres takes its name from the Roman goddess, Ceres - the goddess of growing plants and of motherly love.
Ceres is at hydrostatic equilibrium (almost round), it measures 975km x 909km. It takes Ceres 1680 days to orbit the Sun, traveling at a speed of 17,882km/s. It lies at a distanc of 419,000,000km from the Sun.
Ceres is so huge that it contains about a third of the asteroid belt's total mass.
When Ceres was first discovered, it was considered to be a planet, but as many more "planets" were discovered between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, it was reclassified as an "asteroid", meaning "star-like", a term coined by Uranus's discoverer, William Herschel.
NASA's "Dawn" mission will be the first probe to visit Ceres. It will reach the Dwarf Planet around 2014 or 2015.
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The Passionate Few
FROM Literary Taste and How to Form It by Arnold Bennett
Why does the great and universal fame of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority. Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive afortnight? The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few. Even when a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men. He has always been reinforced by the ardor of the passionate few. And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death, the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few. They could not leave him alone; they would not. They kept on savoring him, and talking about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority did not care very much either way.
And it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another. These few are always at work. They are always rediscovering genius. Their curiosity and enthusiasm are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored. And, moreover, they are always working either for or against the verdicts of the majority. The majority can make a reputation, but it is too careless to maintain it. If, by accident, the passionate few agree with the majority in a particular instance, they will frequently remind the majority that such and such a reputation has been made, and the majority will idly concur: “Ah, yes. By the way, we must not forget that such and such a reputation exists.” Without that persistent memory-jogging the reputation would quickly fall into the oblivion which is death. The passionate few only have their way by reason of the fact that they are genuinely interested in literature, that literature matters to them. They conquer by their obstinacy alone, by their eternal repetition of the same statements. Do you suppose they could prove to the man in the street that Shakespeare was a great artist? The said man would not even understand the terms they employed. But when he is told ten thousand times, and generation after generation, that ” Shakespeare was a great artist, the said man believes—not by reason, but by I faith. And he, too, repeats that Shakespeare was a great artist, and he buys the complete works of Shakespeare and puts them on his shelves, and he goes to , see the marvelous stage effects which accompany King Lear or Hamlet, and comes back religiously convinced that Shakespeare was a great artist. All because the passionate few could not keep their admiration of Shakespeare to themselves. This is not cynicism; but truth. And it is important that those who wish to form their literary taste should grasp it.
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by JoHarrington
'The Red Dragon will rise again!' It sounds like a cry of defiance from the Welsh, but it's much, much more than that. It's a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled.
Y Ddraig Goch (the red dragon) is the national symbol of Wales. It dominates their flag and appears throughout the country in a myriad of ways.
Yet it shouldn't be assumed that the red dragon represents only that nation. Wrapped up in the folklore and legends there are hints towards a much greater designation. Y Ddraig Goch is the unifying force for all Celtic Britons. It's the last line of defense against cultural genocide, both ancient and modern.
But more than that, the red dragon serves as a reminder for a 5th century prediction. Its time is yet to fully come, but Y Ddraig Goch will rise again.
The Red Dragon of the British Lay Slumbering
That unifying force of Britain's Celtic tribes lived on only as an interesting point of oral history, recounted only by the druids in their Snowdonian strongholds.
Buried beneath the layers of an ancient Welsh tale, there are hints towards a less mystical, but possibly real history.
The full legend of Lludd and the dragon was retold in part one, so I won't repeat it here. But for recounting that startling conclusion. In an age before the coming of the Romans, Vikings, Saxons and Normans, the Britons banded together as one nation to repel a mutual foe.
These days, that wouldn't seem so unusual, but then it amounted to a serious amount of negotiation and diplomacy to bring together disparate tribes of Brythonic Celts.
They did so under the collective symbolism of the red dragon. Divided they could be conquered; united, they were able to repel a strong invasion force. They had sent the white dragon packing.
In the aftermath, each Celtic tribe returned to their territories, every one with its own monarchy, laws, norms and culture. While the ancient Britons might have shared a language and many other aspects, they were not one people.
Yet the notion of the red dragon lingered. The moment when they had brilliantly and temporarily been one. An idea buried deep beneath the ground of Dinas Emrys; or, to put it another way, recalled only by the druidic bards and the history keepers.
It was a political hot potato, this thought of being one nation under a single High King or Queen. No leader wanted it, unless they were to be the one wearing the crown. It was no more welcome to the people than one modern day world leader attempting to conquer and unite all of Europe. The national self-identity of, say, the Czech, the Polish and the Dutch is no less keen than it was for the Cornovii, the Iceni, the Silures and the Brigantes.
Separate Celtic countries within the confines of the British Isles, living their lives as the centuries went on. Paying no more heed to the red dragon than as a strange story from the dim, distant past.
And like any nation, there would occasionally arise warlords and leaders who'd rather like to expand their borders. Clashes sometimes turned into full-scale wars, and then no-one could have even believed that they once marched together under Y Ddraig Goch, let alone that it could ever stir again.
But in the pit beneath Dinas Emrys the beasts were stirring. This time the ferocity of their battles would shake the British Isles to the core. The roar of the dragons is still sounding today. The red dragon is shackled, but not yet dead. It will rise again.
Deluxe 1000 Piece Jigsaw of the Welsh Red Dragon
The White Dragon Welcomed Back to Britain
Throughout the early narratives, white dragon always refers to the Saxons, Jutes and later Angles, who would eventually overtake parts of Britain as Angle-land, or England.
When the white dragon returned to the British Isles, it was not initially an invasion, but an invitation.
The man usually blamed for this is Gwyrtheryn, better known to history and legend as Vortigern, a Romano-British ruler.
It's a common misconception that the Romans conquered the whole of Britain. They didn't. They secured isolated cities (just about everything ending in 'chester' in modern place-names) with long, straight roads in between.
When the Romans withdrew from Britain, in 409-410 CE, they left between them enclaves of Romanized Celts, who suddenly felt very vulnerable. These people were used to the protection of the legions, and they'd grown very rich accordingly. Now they were stranded in the midst of Celtic tribes who'd never submitted.
In addition, there was renewed interest - and threats - from the Irish Gaels, Scots and Germanic raiders, all of whom saw rich, undefended booty there for the taking.
Later legend says that Vortigern acted alone, but the near contemporary histories talk about a 'council' supporting him all the way. It would seem that a consortium of high-ranking Romano-Celts panicked and made a decision with major consequences; not least the fact that you're reading this in English.
Vortigern and his council invited two Saxon mercenaries to bring three shiploads of warriors into Britain. They would fight on behalf of the Romano-Celts against the British and all comers. They would be given land to facilitate their needs.
Hengist and Horsa established their bases, and quickly realized the truth of the situation. The Romano-Celts were weak. The British Celts were divided. In short, a united front of Germanic tribes from Jutland, Saxony and Angeln (Schleswig-Holstein today) could probably take it all.
Messages flew back across the North Sea and more ships sailed over the horizon in response. The fighting was fierce (Horsa was killed helping the Jutes take modern day Kent from the Cantii), but with startling speed much of the south of Britain became Angle-land - England.
Thousands of Celtic refugees fled over the Channel into Lesser Britain (Britanny); others stayed and integrated with their Anglo-Saxon overlords.
As for the Romano-Celts, their leaders were all invited to a massive conference in London. It was supposed to be free of all weapons, but the Saxons each had a knife concealed about their person. At a signal, halfway through the welcoming feast, all of the Germanic warriors killed the Romano-Celt beside them. Only Vortigern survived, kept alive for his ransom and his standing as a mouthpiece in future campaigns to take the rest of the Isles.
The white dragon was invited into Britain; and the Celts didn't realize the danger until it was way too late. Nor did the Romans return to save the Romano-Celts.
But half lost in the mists of Celtic lore was an answer to it all. The ravages of the white dragon could be held back, if the red dragon rose to meet it.
The Red and White Dragons Under Vortigern's Tower
Was Vortigern warned ahead of time, about the terrible folly involved in welcoming the Saxons into Britain? A famous legend suggests so.
The tale was first written down over four centuries after Vortigern was in his grave, executed in Powys, though we're unsure by which side. It's likely to have been repeated orally, from generation to generation previously, unless Nennius made it up.
Nennius was a Welsh monk, who lived during the 9th century. He credited the Breton warlord Ambrosius Aurelius as the central player alongside Vortigern.
A more famous telling comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century. Though historically suspect, he named Merlin. Most versions today follow this one, so it's the one that I'll tell too.
Vortigern was trying to build a great tower on a mountain - often located outright as Dinas Emrys - but the tower kept falling down. He consulted his priests, who blessed the ground to no avail, so he turned to his seers instead. Vortigern was advised that only the sacrifice of a child without a human father could save his tower. Its blood in the foundations would solve everything.
Across the British Isles, the search was on for such a person. In Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen), Vortigern's agents found Merlin.
The boy was the son of a defiled nun, who'd been visited by a demon in the night. The devil wanted Merlin for his anti-Christ on Earth, but his mother Non prayed night and day for it not to be so. It was enough for Vortigern, who ordered the boy brought to the site of his tower.
Merlin knelt to his sacrifice, but, as the knife plunged down, he rolled away and avoided it. "Stop!" He yelled, "Can't you hear that?" Nobody could. It was his half-demonic blood which gave Merlin such preternatural senses. "A great clashing beneath our feet!"
All listened, but could not hear. Merlin persuaded Vortigern to let him investigate, which the Romano-Celtic leader duly did. The boy crawled down into the pit (or fell into a trance), and the cause of the tower's continued destruction was revealed.
Deep underground, a red dragon was ferociously battling a foreign white dragon. The winner would determine the Matter of Britain. There was also the little matter of a prophecy made, which would redefine Y Ddraig Goch forever.
'Merlin Am I' by Damh the Bard
The landscape on and around Dinas Emrys is beautifully shown here, along with a soundtrack from one of Britain's foremost bards today.
Merlin's Prophecy of the Welsh Red Dragon
Y Ddraig Goch holds within it the seeds of a promise given from the dawn of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. One day the Celts would take back their land.
In Merlin's vision, the red dragon had already defeated the white dragon once. But the latter had slunk away, rested, healed and come back so much stronger than before.
Now, beneath Vortigern's Tower, the white dragon was tearing the red dragon to shreds. It was going to win a victory which would last for three hundred years or more.
But the red dragon was not dead. The red dragon would rise again, and when it did, it would overpower the white dragon with such ferocity that its foe would be struck from Britain itself, never to return.
It shouldn't take much to read between the lines, particularly with the knowledge that both Caer Myrddin (Merlin) and Vortigern's Tower have been used poetically as synonyms for Britain.
Y Ddraig Goch - the red dragon - as we recall from the legend of Lludd and Llefelys, represented the British working together. As successive generations of Britons have heard the legend, applying it to their own place in history, it's become so much more than that.
It's about all that it means to be ethnically British. Celtic culture, language, norms, mores and philosophy. A cultural genocide of the Celts (which has been attempted so many times during the intervening 1700 years) cannot succeed while the red dragon still twitches under Dinas Emrys.
I am writing this article in English. The white dragon is dominant. But seventeen centuries on, I still know how to pronounce Myrddin, Y Ddraig Goch and Dinas Emrys. The red dragon survives. Ond dwi'r siarad Cymraeg. (And I speak Welsh.) Follow the red dragon. The red dragon will rise again.
This is the Matter of Britain in a nutshell, teeming with Celtic spirituality and wrapped up in a bestial icon. That one day the Celts will reign triumphant over the English, with their culture intact.
Merlin promised us.
Y Ddraig Goch Today
You will see the red dragon of Wales on its flag and everywhere else in the country. Even those who couldn't retell the story of Vortigern's Tower will grasp its meaning.
Sometimes, if you travel along the Welsh border, you will see two flags facing each other across the invisible line.
The red cross of St George versus Y Ddraig Goch. Old battles in modern guise. Neither icon was chosen lightly. It's no accident that the English flag is that of a dragon-slayer. Nor that the red dragon roars into a white void.
Y Ddraig Goch represents all that it is to be Welsh. Seen from another Angle (pun intended), it holds fast all that is culturally intact from the ancient British.
Despite centuries of trying, the British Isles still aren't entirely English. We speak the language and we have assimilated a lot of the customs, but the Celtic bedrock remains underneath. Some of the traditions, which are seen as so quintessentially English, are actually British. It's a patchwork merging of cultures, which often resembles nothing more than a compromise.
But that's still not entirely English. The cultural genocide of the Celts never quite succeeded, even in England, where the red dragon is seen far less.
That is the legacy of Y Ddraig Goch today. The hidden currents beneath its Welsh ubiquity. Less ancient battles fought over and over again, than a line which was drawn in the proverbial sand.
Does anyone fully believe that the English language, culture and people (only 10% of those in England are genetically descended from the Anglo-Saxon invaders) will be pushed back to Germany? Probably not, despite the prophecy.
But as long as the red dragon is living, the harp of my country survives. Which, from a certain viewpoint, means that Britain was never conquered at all.
Related Articles on Wizzley
Updated: 01/16/2014, JoHarrington
Thank you! Would you like to post a comment now?
JoHarrington on 01/15/2014
It was close enough though! If you'd gone for Aberavon (Aber - mouth of the river; Afon - river) you'd have nailed it!
WordChazer on 01/14/2014
Confusing! And I studued philology too...
JoHarrington on 01/14/2014
Close, but there's some contractions there. 'Gaer yn ar Fon', with Fon being a mutation from Mon, or Anglesey. The fortress over the water from Mon.
WordChazer on 01/14/2014
As in Caenarfon, the building by the river?
JoHarrington on 01/14/2014
Not to mention the River Avon (Afon, pronounced Avon, being Welsh for river). I talked about some of them here: http://wizzley.com/lost-in-translatio...
Such things always amuse me.
frankbeswick on 01/14/2014
The claim that there are not many Celtic words in English runs foul of the fact that the variety of English that we speak is South Eastern, the area where Saxon dominance was strongest and Celtic the least spoken. But there were other forms, such as Wessex and the Angle dialects of the north and midlands, to which Kentish is related. These would have more Celtic words than south eastern would.
Some place names in Lancashire and the Pennines show Celtic influence. How many hills have pen in their name [e.g. Pendle, Pen y Ghent?] There is in South Lancashire a town called Ince, which means island, close to the Celtic inys/innis. There is a river Douglas near Wigan, Dhu Glas [Dark Stream.] Chat Moss, the large town near which Ince is situated, means wooded moss, chet/chat being old Celtic for woodland. Ince was an island near the edge of the swamp.
There are some hybrid names, which suggest that English and Celtic words flourished for a while at the same time. For example, in Ashton under Lyne there is a steeply sloping road called Penny Meadow, [Pen y Meadow] the high meadow.
JoHarrington on 01/14/2014
Frank - Re Mum and Dad. I was telling Ember last night about Celtic words in the English lexicon. I stopped at Nan, without considering the most fundamental ones of Mum and Dad.
Edward III introduced the St George cross partially because of its manliness - it was the soldier's cross, ergo The Crusades - but also because this was the period when the Welsh really did start raising Y Ddraig Goch and fighting under it.
JoHarrington on 01/14/2014
Yes, I had neglected to mention them. Thanks, Frank! There's some thought that their messages back home accounted for the Saxon attacks in 408, which were repealed by the Celts.
frankbeswick on 01/14/2014
One forgotten element in the equation was the remaining garrisons. In the third century the Roman army had been reorganised into field troops, who could go anywhere, and garrison troops, who were a permanent settlement. Many garrison troops in Britain were imported Germans. There seems to have been many around Lincoln.
The field troops were withdrawn, but the garrisons, who were communities intermingled with the local population, remained long after the official departure date of Rome, trying to repair decaying fortresses until they abandoned them.Robyn Fleming tells of garrisons surviving on Hadrian's wall, long after the Roman departure. Much of the Germanic ten per cent could come from these groups of foederati/laeti/tributarii, as they were variously known.
Britain at that period was in a state of mayhem, with small kingdoms developing and collapsing, with local warlords and garrison commanders taking power and losing it, until these smaller states coalesced into the better known larger ones.
JoHarrington on 01/14/2014
Ember - I recall you saying at the time that it felt different in Wales than it did it Yorkshire, West Sussex and London. To me, there is a definite energy to a place, which might be in the visual clues, but might equally be the place itself. I felt the same changes traveling across America too.
I'm glad to have interested you so much in the subject!
You might also like
Wales and the Welsh National Anthem
The story behind 'Land of my Fathers' ('Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau') is one of po...
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gitcore-tutorial - A git core tutorial for developers
git *
This tutorial explains how to use the "core" git commands to set up and work with a git repository.
If you just need to use git as a revision control system you may prefer to start with "A Tutorial Introduction
to GIT" (gittutorial(7)) or the GIT User Manual[1].
However, an understanding of these low-level tools can be helpful if you want to understand git's internals.
The core git is often called "plumbing", with the prettier user interfaces on top of it called "porcelain". You
when the porcelain isn't flushing.
Creating a new git repository couldn't be easier: all git repositories start out empty, and the only thing you
totally new project, or an existing working tree that you want to import into git.
For our first example, we're going to start a totally new repository from scratch, with no pre-existing files,
initialize the git infrastructure with git init:
$ mkdir git-tutorial
$ cd git-tutorial
$ git init
to which git will reply
Initialized empty Git repository in .git/
which is just git's way of saying that you haven't been doing anything strange, and that it will have created a
refs/heads/master relative to the HEAD file.
Don't worry about the fact that the file that the HEAD link points to doesn't even exist yet -- you haven't
created the commit that will start your HEAD development branch yet.
contains all the real data in your repository.
? a subdirectory called refs, which contains references to objects.
it even if it doesn't yet exist. Basically, the HEAD link is supposed to always point to the branch you are
However, this is only a convention, and you can name your branches anything you want, and don't have to ever
even have a master branch. A number of the git tools will assume that .git/HEAD is valid, though.
An object is identified by its 160-bit SHA1 hash, aka object name, and a reference to an object is always
the 40-byte hex representation of that SHA1 name. The files in the refs subdirectory are expected to
populating your tree.
An advanced user may want to take a look at gitrepository-layout(5) after finishing this tutorial.
You have now created your first git repository. Of course, since it's empty, that's not very useful, so let's
start populating it with data.
We'll keep this simple and stupid, so we'll start off with populating a few trivial files just to get a feel
for it.
Start off with just creating any random files that you want to maintain in your git repository. We'll start off
$ echo "Hello World" >hello
$ echo "Silly example" >example
work, you will have to go through two steps:
? commit that index file as an object.
The first step is trivial: when you want to tell git about any changes to your working tree, you use the git
tell it that you're adding a new entry with the --add flag (or removing an entry with the --remove) flag.
$ git update-index --add hello example
and you have now told git to track those two files.
In fact, as you did that, if you now look into your object directory, you'll notice that git will have added
$ ls .git/objects/??/*
and see two files:
If you want to, you can use git cat-file to look at those objects, but you'll have to use the object name, not
the filename of the object:
$ git cat-file -t 557db03de997c86a4a028e1ebd3a1ceb225be238
where the -t tells git cat-file to tell you what the "type" of the object is. git will tell you that you have a
$ git cat-file blob 557db03
will never change. Objects are immutable.
hexadecimal digits in most places.
typing long 40-character hex names is not something you'd normally want to do. The above digression was just to
git object database.
files into git so far, you've only told git about them.
However, since git knows about them, you can now start using some of the most basic git commands to manipulate
the files or look at their status.
In particular, let's not even check in the two files into git yet, we'll start off by adding another line to
hello first:
$ echo "It?s a new day for git" >>hello
and you can now, since you told git about the previous state of hello, ask git what has changed in the tree
$ git diff-files
Oops. That wasn't very readable. It just spit out its own internal version of a diff, but that internal version
had have been replaced with something else.
$ git diff-files -p
diff --git a/hello b/hello
index 557db03..263414f 100644
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
Hello World
+It?s a new day for git
is currently in the working tree. That's very useful.
$ git diff
diff --git a/hello b/hello
index 557db03..263414f 100644
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
Hello World
+It?s a new day for git
Now, we want to go to the next stage in git, which is to take the files that git knows about in the index, and
we came to that state.
words, we're now tying together all the different filenames with their contents (and their permissions), and
we're creating the equivalent of a git "directory" object:
$ git write-tree
described) it should be
actually output the raw object contents, but you'll see mainly a binary mess, so that's less interesting).
However -- normally you'd never use git write-tree on its own, because normally you always commit a tree into a
commit object using the git commit-tree command. In fact, it's easier to not actually use git write-tree on its
git commit-tree normally takes several arguments -- it wants to know what the parent of a commit was, but since
to contain the reference to the top-of-tree of the master branch, and since that's exactly what git commit-tree
$ tree=$(git write-tree)
$ commit=$(echo ?Initial commit? | git commit-tree $tree)
$ git update-ref HEAD $commit
Again, normally you'd never actually do this by hand. There is a helpful script called git commit that will do
scripting for you.
have to match, even when we commit things.
As before, if we do git diff-files -p in our git-tutorial project, we'll still see the same difference we saw
last time: the index file hasn't changed by the act of committing anything. However, now that we have committed
git diff-index wants a tree to be diffed against, and before we did the commit, we couldn't do that, because we
didn't have anything to diff against.
But now we can do
$ git diff-index -p HEAD
totally different reason. Now we're comparing the working tree not against the index file, but against the tree
$ git diff HEAD
which ends up doing the above for you.
return an empty set of differences, and that's exactly what it does.
This is not hard to understand, as soon as you realize that git simply never knows (or cares) about files
that it is not told about explicitly. git will never go looking for files to compare, it expects you to
tell it what the files are, and that's what the index is there for.
However, our next step is to commit the change we did, and again, to understand what's going on, keep in mind
need to do is to update the index cache:
$ git update-index hello
(note how we didn't need the --add flag this time, since git knew about the file already).
Note what happens to the different git diff-* versions here. After we've updated hello in the index, git
Now, since we've updated hello in the index, we can commit the new version. We could do it by writing the tree
by hand again, and committing the tree (this time we'd have to use the -p HEAD flag to tell commit that the
HEAD was the parent of the new commit, and that this wasn't an initial commit any more), but you've done that
once already, so let's just use the helpful script this time:
$ git commit
used as the commit message for the change. If you decide you don't want to commit anything after all at this
git commit will commit the change for you.
You've now made your first real git commit. And if you're interested in looking at what git commit really does,
feel free to investigate: it's a few very simple shell scripts to generate the helpful (?) commit message
While creating changes is useful, it's even more useful if you can tell later what changed. The most useful
commit itself, and show the difference directly. Thus, to get the same diff that we've already seen several
times, we can now do
$ git diff-tree -p HEAD
HEAD) actually changed.
| |
| |
V V
| Object DB |
| Backing |
| Store |
^ ^
| |
| | diff-index --cached
| |
diff-index | V
| | Index |
| | "cache" |
| ^
| |
| | diff-files
| |
V V
| Working |
| Directory |
being a veritable fount of changes. A trivial (but very useful) script called git whatchanged is included with
git which does exactly this, and shows a log of recent activities.
To see the whole history of our pitiful little git-tutorial project, you can do
$ git log
which shows just the log messages, or if we want to see the log together with the associated patches use the
more complex (and much more powerful)
$ git whatchanged -p
and you will see exactly what has changed in the repository over its short history.
When using the above two commands, the initial commit will be shown. If this is a problem because it is
huge, you can hide it by setting the log.showroot configuration variable to false. Having this, you can
still show it for each command just adding the --root option, which is a flag for git diff-tree accepted by
both commands.
With that, you should now be having some inkling of what git does, and can explore on your own.
Most likely, you are not directly using the core git Plumbing commands, but using Porcelain such as git
add, 'git-rm' and 'git-commit'.
$ git tag my-first-tag
$ git diff my-first-tag
you tagged it.
An "annotated tag" is actually a real git object, and contains not only a pointer to the state you want to tag,
$ git tag -s <tagname>
for any marking you want to do -- any time you decide that you want to remember a certain point, just create a
separate notion of "repository" and "working tree". A git repository normally is the working tree, with the
You can tell git to split the git internal information from the directory that it tracks, but we'll ignore
that for now: it's not how normal projects work, and it's really only meant for special uses. So the mental
model of "the git information is always tied directly to the working tree that it describes" may not be
technically 100% accurate, but it's a good model for all normal use.
This has two implications:
? if you grow bored with the tutorial repository you created (or you've made a mistake and want to start all
over), you can just do simple
$ rm -rf git-tutorial
and it will be gone. There's no external repository, and there's no history outside the project you
? if you want to move or duplicate a git repository, you can do so. There is git clone command, but if all
Note that when you've moved or copied a git repository, your git index file (which caches various
refreshed. So after you do a cp -a to create a new copy, you'll want to do
$ git update-index --refresh
Note that the second point is true even across machines. You can duplicate a remote git repository with any
regular copy mechanism, be it scp, rsync or wget.
When copying a remote repository, you'll want to at a minimum update the index cache when you do this, and
especially with other peoples? repositories you often want to make sure that the index cache is in some known
state (you don't know what they've done and not yet checked in), so usually you'll precede the git update-index
with a
$ git read-tree --reset HEAD
$ git update-index --refresh
tells you they need to be updated.
The above can also be written as simply
$ git reset
and in fact a lot of the common git command combinations can be scripted with the git xyz interfaces. You can
scripts around the basic git commands.
and will only contain the actual core git files. Such a repository usually doesn't even have the .git
subdirectory, but has all the git files directly in the repository.
To create your own local live copy of such a "raw" git repository, you'd first create your own subdirectory for
copy of the git repository, you'd do the following
$ mkdir my-git
$ cd my-git
$ rsync -rL rsync:// .git
followed by
$ git read-tree HEAD
to populate the index. However, now you have populated the index, and you have all the git internal files, but
you will notice that you don't actually have any of the working tree files to work on. To get those, you'd
check them out with
$ git checkout-index -u -a
where the -u flag means that you want the checkout to keep the index up-to-date (so that you don't have to
overwriting of any old files).
Again, this can all be simplified with
$ git clone rsync:// my-git
$ cd my-git
$ git checkout
which will end up doing all of the above for you.
You have now successfully copied somebody else's (mine) remote repository, and checked it out.
Branches in git are really nothing more than pointers into the git object database from within the .git/refs/
indeed, subdirectories), but the convention is that the "normal" branch is called master. That's just a
convention, though, and nothing enforces it.
To show that as an example, let's go back to the git-tutorial repository we used earlier, and create a branch
$ git checkout -b mybranch
have an earlier tag or branch, you'd just do
$ git checkout -b mybranch earlier-commit
$ git checkout master
$ cat .git/HEAD
will tell you where it's pointing. To get the list of branches you have, you can say
$ git branch
front of the branch you are currently on.
use the command
$ git branch <branchname> [startingpoint]
which will simply create the branch, but will not do anything further. You can then later -- once you decide
that you want to actually develop on that branch -- switch to that branch with a regular git checkout with the
branchname as the argument.
the original master branch, let's make sure we're in that branch, and do some work there.
$ git checkout mybranch
$ echo "Work, work, work" >>hello
git commit by just giving the filename directly to git commit, with an -i flag (it tells git to include that
the commit log message from the command line.
Now, to make it a bit more interesting, let's assume that somebody else does some work in the original branch,
$ git checkout master
Here, take a moment to look at the contents of hello, and notice how they don't contain the work we just did in
mybranch -- because that work hasn't happened in the master branch at all. Then do
$ echo "Play, play, play" >>hello
$ echo "Lots of fun" >>example
since the master branch is obviously in a much better mood.
Now, you've got two branches, and you decide that you want to merge the work done. Before we do that, let's
introduce a cool graphical tool that helps you view what's going on:
$ gitk --all
will show you graphically both of your branches (that's what the --all means: normally it will just show you
branch into the master branch (which is currently our HEAD too). To do that, there's a nice script called git
$ git merge -m "Merge work in mybranch" mybranch
Now, in this case we've intentionally created a situation where the merge will need to be fixed up by hand,
though, so git will do as much of it as it can automatically (which in this case is just merge the example
Auto-merging hello
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in hello
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
you've ever used CVS, so let's just open hello in our editor (whatever that may be), and fix it up somehow. I'd
suggest just making it so that hello contains all four lines:
Hello World
It?s a new day for git
Play, play, play
Work, work, work
and once you're happy with your manual merge, just do a
$ git commit -i hello
which will very loudly warn you that you're now committing a merge (which is correct, so never mind), and you
After you're done, start up gitk --all to see graphically what the history looks like. Notice that mybranch
not contain the merge, but next time you merge it from the master branch, git will know how you merged it, so
you'll not have to do that merge again.
* [master] Merge work in mybranch
! [mybranch] Some work.
- [master] Merge work in mybranch
*+ [mybranch] Some work.
* [master^] Some fun.
The first two lines indicate that it is showing the two branches and the first line of the commit log message
second column for the mybranch branch. Three commits are shown along with their log messages. All of them have
branch head. Please see gitrevisions(7) if you want to see more complex cases.
in this case.
Now, let's pretend you are the one who did all the work in mybranch, and the fruit of your hard work has
finally been merged to the master branch. Let's go back to mybranch, and run git merge to get the "upstream
changes" back to your branch.
$ git checkout mybranch
$ git merge -m "Merge upstream changes." master
Updating from ae3a2da... to a80b4aa....
example | 1 +
hello | 1 +
2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
$ git show-branch master mybranch
! [master] Merge work in mybranch
* [mybranch] Merge work in mybranch
-- [master] Merge work in mybranch
It's usually much more common that you merge with somebody else than merging with your own branches, so it's
worth pointing out that git makes that very easy too, and in fact, it's not that different from doing a git
temporary tag" followed by a git merge.
$ git fetch <remote-repository>
the object name of the topmost commits before uploading the files in objects/ -- the downloader would obtain
it is considered deprecated.
remote.machine:/path/to/repo.git/ or
to exchange git objects between repositories.
Local directory
running other end on the remote machine via ssh.
git Native
The commit walkers are sometimes also called dumb transports, because they do not require any git aware
smart server like git Native transport does. Any stock HTTP server that does not even support directory
transport downloaders.
However -- it's such a common thing to fetch and then immediately merge, that it's called git pull, and you can
simply do
$ git pull <remote-repository>
can store the remote repository URL in the local repository's config file like this:
$ git config remote.linus.url
1. git pull linus
2. git pull linus tag v0.99.1
the above are equivalent to:
1. git pull HEAD
2. git pull tag v0.99.1
We said this tutorial shows what plumbing does to help you cope with the porcelain that isn't flushing, but we
OK, still with me? To give us an example to look at, let's go back to the earlier repository with "hello" and
$ git show-branch --more=2 master mybranch
! [master] Merge work in mybranch
* [mybranch] Merge work in mybranch
-- [master] Merge work in mybranch
+* [master^2] Some work.
+* [master^] Some fun.
"Some work." commit.
$ git checkout mybranch
$ git reset --hard master^2
$ git checkout master
$ git reset --hard master^
After rewinding, the commit structure should look like this:
$ git show-branch
* [master] Some fun.
! [mybranch] Some work.
* [master] Some fun.
+ [mybranch] Some work.
*+ [master^] Initial commit
Now we are ready to experiment with the merge by hand.
$ mb=$(git merge-base HEAD mybranch)
collapsed into stage 0, taking the SHA1 from either stage 2 or stage 3, whichever is different from stage 1
you can inspect the index file with this command:
$ git ls-files --stage
100644 7f8b141b65fdcee47321e399a2598a235a032422 0 example
100644 557db03de997c86a4a028e1ebd3a1ceb225be238 1 hello
100644 ba42a2a96e3027f3333e13ede4ccf4498c3ae942 2 hello
100644 cc44c73eb783565da5831b4d820c962954019b69 3 hello
$ git ls-files --unmerged
100644 557db03de997c86a4a028e1ebd3a1ceb225be238 1 hello
100644 ba42a2a96e3027f3333e13ede4ccf4498c3ae942 2 hello
100644 cc44c73eb783565da5831b4d820c962954019b69 3 hello
Auto-merging hello
ERROR: Merge conflict in hello
fatal: merge program failed
again at this point:
$ git ls-files --stage
100644 7f8b141b65fdcee47321e399a2598a235a032422 0 example
100644 557db03de997c86a4a028e1ebd3a1ceb225be238 1 hello
100644 ba42a2a96e3027f3333e13ede4ccf4498c3ae942 2 hello
100644 cc44c73eb783565da5831b4d820c962954019b69 3 hello
So, we can use somebody else's work from a remote repository, but how can you prepare a repository to let other
people pull from it?
the public repository from it. This is often called pushing.
This public repository could further be mirrored, and that is how git repositories at are
repository creation needs to be done only once.
Your private repository's git directory is usually .git, but your public repository is often named after the
project name, i.e. <project>.git. Let's create such a public repository for project my-git. After logging into
the remote machine, create an empty directory:
$ mkdir my-git.git
Then, make that directory into a git repository by running git init, but this time, since its name is not the
usual .git, we do things slightly differently:
$ GIT_DIR=my-git.git git init
repository. From there, run this command:
reachable from them in your current repository.
As a real example, this is how I update my public git repository. mirror network takes care of the
propagation to other publicly visible machines:
$ git push
Earlier, we saw that one file under .git/objects/??/ directory is stored for each git object you create. This
network. Since git objects are immutable once they are created, there is a way to optimize the storage by
"packing them together". The command
$ git repack
file in .git/objects/pack directory.
the latter holds the index for random access.
too much. Our programs are always perfect ;-).
$ git prune-packed
would remove them for you.
are consuming.
want to repack & prune often, or never.
while, depending on how active your project is.
Although git is a truly distributed system, it is often convenient to organize your project with an informal
"Merges to Mainline") in Randy Dunlap's presentation[2].
It should be stressed that this hierarchy is purely informal. There is nothing fundamental in git that enforces
2. Prepare a public repository accessible to others.
3. Push into the public repository from your primary repository.
You can repack this private repository whenever you feel like.
repository" goes like this:
the initial cloning is stored in the remote.origin.url configuration variable.
transport used for pulling from your repository supports packed repositories.
possibly your "sub-subsystem maintainers".
You can repack this private repository whenever you feel like.
maintainers" to pull from it.
different. It goes like this:
remote.origin.url configuration variable.
2. Do your work in your repository on master branch.
your unmerged changes forward to the updated upstream.
back to step 2. and continue.
you. You do not have to worry. git supports "shared public repository" style of cooperation you are probably
more familiar with as well.
See gitcvs-migration(7) for the details.
independent tasks using branches with git.
the same if there are more than two branches. Let's say you started out from "master" head, and have some new
$ git show-branch
! [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
! [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
* [master] Release candidate #1
+ [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
+ [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
* [master] Release candidate #1
first and then commit-fix next, like this:
Which would result in:
$ git show-branch
! [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
! [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
* [master] Merge fix in commit-fix
- [master] Merge fix in commit-fix
+ * [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
- [master~1] Merge fix in diff-fix
+* [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
* [master~2] Release candidate #1
could instead merge those two branches into the current branch at once. First let's undo what we just did and
$ git reset --hard master~2
$ git merge commit-fix diff-fix
$ git show-branch
! [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
! [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
* [master] Octopus merge of branches ?diff-fix? and ?commit-fix?
+ * [commit-fix] Fix commit message normalization.
+* [diff-fix] Fix rename detection.
* [master~1] Release candidate #1
gittutorial(7), gittutorial-2(7), gitcvs-migration(7), git-help(1), Everyday git[3], The Git User's Manual[1]
Part of the git(1) suite.
1. the GIT User Manual
2. Randy Dunlap's presentation
3. Everyday git
Git 08/29/2012 GITCORE-TUTORIAL(7) |
Elections Time in the US
2 de noviembre de 2016 at 8:51
And the 45th president of the United States of America is ……
By the time many of you read this post, the result of the 2016 United States presidential election will be known. You will now know if the president is a woman for the first time, or whether US electors have decided to throw caution to the wind and vote for the controversial figure of Donald Trump.
Do you know however, that the United States presidential elections are always held in November and depending on the calendar for a particular year, can be on any day between 2 – 8th November?
There is a reason for this and it dates back to 1792 when a law was passed stating that the election for the president of the United States should be held after the harvesting had finished and before the winter really arrived in full force. When is that? The first week in November.
Hilary Clinton is the Democratic Party’s nominee and Donald Trump the Republican Party’s. The Democrats have a donkey as their symbol, whereas the Republicans have an elephant. The donkey was first used in the 1828 election campaign and the elephant came a little later in 1874. Nowadays the Democrats say the donkey is smart and brave and the Republicans say the elephant is strong and dignified. Would you agree?
And thinking of other political parties, which animals would you associate with them? There are plenty to choose from… bats, chameleons, snakes, rabbits, foxes…..
Let’s have your ideas on the subject. |
Monday, November 26, 2007
2nd grade homework
I have such a hard time helping Isaac with his homework. He has to make sentences out of "core words" and sometimes the sentences have to have a specific number of words. Let's see how you do:
Use the following words in a sentence:
other some which
their there were
these some would
It took me forever to help him find a satisfactory sentence for each. Let's see what you come up with.
Lori said...
2nd grade homework can be so hard sometimes and I have a degree in elementary education! Just imagine what it will be like as they get older. Lets see what I can do with these sentences:
I have some other snacks, which you can choose from.
Were you over there with their dog?
Would you like some of these cookies?
Katie said...
I came up with: "These people would like some chocolate milk." (I had first said "these guys" but Isaac corrected me.)
"Julie said which other color she likes." (That's horrible syntax!!)
"Their cats were eating over there in the kitchen." (Isaac had to add the descriptive phrase "in the kitchen" because his teacher wants them to be descriptive.
Your sentences are way better.
Hob Gadling said...
"There were these other people, some of which would do their work."
Because I'm lazy.
Jess said...
I guess it would depend on whether you have to keep the words in order. Keeping them in order makes it way tougher. Here are mine...
The other kid shared some peanuts, which were pretty tasty.
Their skateboards were left over there.
These Skittles would be great with some Sprite! |
Discover the most talked about and latest scientific content & concepts.
Concept: Mosquito
Genetic engineering technologies can be used both to create transgenic mosquitoes carrying antipathogen effector genes targeting human malaria parasites and to generate gene-drive systems capable of introgressing the genes throughout wild vector populations. We developed a highly effective autonomous Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-associated protein 9 (Cas9)-mediated gene-drive system in the Asian malaria vector Anopheles stephensi, adapted from the mutagenic chain reaction (MCR). This specific system results in progeny of males and females derived from transgenic males exhibiting a high frequency of germ-line gene conversion consistent with homology-directed repair (HDR). This system copies an ∼17-kb construct from its site of insertion to its homologous chromosome in a faithful, site-specific manner. Dual anti-Plasmodium falciparum effector genes, a marker gene, and the autonomous gene-drive components are introgressed into ∼99.5% of the progeny following outcrosses of transgenic lines to wild-type mosquitoes. The effector genes remain transcriptionally inducible upon blood feeding. In contrast to the efficient conversion in individuals expressing Cas9 only in the germ line, males and females derived from transgenic females, which are expected to have drive component molecules in the egg, produce progeny with a high frequency of mutations in the targeted genome sequence, resulting in near-Mendelian inheritance ratios of the transgene. Such mutant alleles result presumably from nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) events before the segregation of somatic and germ-line lineages early in development. These data support the design of this system to be active strictly within the germ line. Strains based on this technology could sustain control and elimination as part of the malaria eradication agenda.
Concepts: DNA, Gene, Genetics, Allele, Malaria, Plasmodium, Anopheles, Mosquito
Female mosquitoes display preferences for certain individuals over others, which is determined by differences in volatile chemicals produced by the human body and detected by mosquitoes. Body odour can be controlled genetically but the existence of a genetic basis for differential attraction to insects has never been formally demonstrated. This study investigated heritability of attractiveness to mosquitoes by evaluating the response of Aedes aegypti (=Stegomyia aegypti) mosquitoes to odours from the hands of identical and non-identical twins in a dual-choice assay. Volatiles from individuals in an identical twin pair showed a high correlation in attractiveness to mosquitoes, while non-identical twin pairs showed a significantly lower correlation. Overall, there was a strong narrow-sense heritability of 0.62 (SE 0.124) for relative attraction and 0.67 (0.354) for flight activity based on the average of ten measurements. The results demonstrate an underlying genetic component detectable by mosquitoes through olfaction. Understanding the genetic basis for attractiveness could create a more informed approach to repellent development.
Concepts: Genetics, Mosquito, Human body, Twin, Aedes aegypti, Aedes, Odor, Body odor
In early 2015, an outbreak of Zika virus, a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, was identified in northeast Brazil, an area where dengue virus was also circulating. By September, reports of an increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly in Zika virus-affected areas began to emerge, and Zika virus RNA was identified in the amniotic fluid of two women whose fetuses had been found to have microcephaly by prenatal ultrasound. The Brazil Ministry of Health (MoH) established a task force to investigate the possible association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection during pregnancy and a registry for incident microcephaly cases (head circumference ≥2 standard deviations [SD] below the mean for sex and gestational age at birth) and pregnancy outcomes among women suspected to have had Zika virus infection during pregnancy. Among a cohort of 35 infants with microcephaly born during August-October 2015 in eight of Brazil’s 26 states and reported to the registry, the mothers of all 35 had lived in or visited Zika virus-affected areas during pregnancy, 25 (71%) infants had severe microcephaly (head circumference >3 SD below the mean for sex and gestational age), 17 (49%) had at least one neurologic abnormality, and among 27 infants who had neuroimaging studies, all had abnormalities. Tests for other congenital infections were negative. All infants had a lumbar puncture as part of the evaluation and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were sent to a reference laboratory in Brazil for Zika virus testing; results are not yet available. Further studies are needed to confirm the association of microcephaly with Zika virus infection during pregnancy and to understand any other adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with Zika virus infection. Pregnant women in Zika virus-affected areas should protect themselves from mosquito bites by using air conditioning, screens, or nets when indoors, wearing long sleeves and pants, using permethrin-treated clothing and gear, and using insect repellents when outdoors. Pregnant and lactating women can use all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellents according to the product label.
Concepts: Pregnancy, Childbirth, Embryo, Fetus, Mosquito, Obstetrics, Dengue fever, Gestational age
There is much evidence that some pathogens manipulate the behaviour of their mosquito hosts to enhance pathogen transmission. However, it is unknown whether this phenomenon exists in the interaction of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto with the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum - one of the most important interactions in the context of humanity, with malaria causing over 200 million human cases and over 770 thousand deaths each year. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that infection with P. falciparum causes alterations in behavioural responses to host-derived olfactory stimuli in host-seeking female An. gambiae s.s. mosquitoes. In behavioural experiments we showed that P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae mosquitoes were significantly more attracted to human odors than uninfected mosquitoes. Both P. falciparum-infected and uninfected mosquitoes landed significantly more on a substrate emanating human skin odor compared to a clean substrate. However, significantly more infected mosquitoes landed and probed on a substrate emanating human skin odor than uninfected mosquitoes. This is the first demonstration of a change of An. gambiae behaviour in response to olfactory stimuli caused by infection with P. falciparum. The results of our study provide vital information that could be used to provide better predictions of how malaria is transmitted from human being to human being by An. gambiae s.s. females. Additionally, it highlights the urgent need to investigate this interaction further to determine the olfactory mechanisms that underlie the differential behavioural responses. In doing so, new attractive compounds could be identified which could be used to develop improved mosquito traps for surveillance or trapping programmes that may even specifically target P. falciparum-infected An. gambiae s.s. females.
Concepts: Immune system, Malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium, Plasmodium vivax, Anopheles, Apicomplexa, Mosquito
Zika virus is a flavivirus transmitted primarily by Aedes species mosquitoes, and symptoms of infection can include rash, fever, arthralgia, and conjunctivitis (1).* Zika virus infection during pregnancy is a cause of microcephaly and other severe brain defects (2). Infection has also been associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome (3). In December 2015, Puerto Rico became the first U.S. jurisdiction to report local transmission of Zika virus, with the index patient reporting symptom onset on November 23, 2015 (4). This report provides an update to the epidemiology of and public health response to ongoing Zika virus transmission in Puerto Rico. During November 1, 2015-April 14, 2016, a total of 6,157 specimens from suspected Zika virus-infected patients were evaluated by the Puerto Rico Department of Health (PRDH) and CDC Dengue Branch (which is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico), and 683 (11%) had laboratory evidence of current or recent Zika virus infection by one or more tests: reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or immunoglobulin M (IgM) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Zika virus-infected patients resided in 50 (64%) of 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico. Median age was 34 years (range = 35 days-89 years). The most frequently reported signs and symptoms were rash (74%), myalgia (68%), headache (63%), fever (63%), and arthralgia (63%). There were 65 (10%) symptomatic pregnant women who tested positive by RT-PCR or IgM ELISA. A total of 17 (2%) patients required hospitalization, including 5 (1%) patients with suspected Guillain-Barré syndrome. One (<1%) patient died after developing severe thrombocytopenia. The public health response to the outbreak has included increased laboratory capacity to test for Zika virus infection (including blood donor screening), implementation of enhanced surveillance systems, and prevention activities focused on pregnant women. Vector control activities include indoor and outdoor residual spraying and reduction of mosquito breeding environments focused around pregnant women's homes. Residents of and travelers to Puerto Rico should continue to employ mosquito bite avoidance behaviors, take precautions to reduce the risk for sexual transmission (5), and seek medical care for any acute illness with rash or fever.
Concepts: Antibody, Epidemiology, Mosquito, ELISA, ELISPOT, Aedes, Dengue fever, Eva Engvall
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are responsible for transmitting many medically important viruses such as those that cause Zika and dengue. The inoculation of viruses into mosquito bite sites is an important and common stage of all mosquito-borne virus infections. We show, using Semliki Forest virus and Bunyamwera virus, that these viruses use this inflammatory niche to aid their replication and dissemination in vivo. Mosquito bites were characterized by an edema that retained virus at the inoculation site and an inflammatory influx of neutrophils that coordinated a localized innate immune program that inadvertently facilitated virus infection by encouraging the entry and infection of virus-permissive myeloid cells. Neutrophil depletion and therapeutic blockade of inflammasome activity suppressed inflammation and abrogated the ability of the bite to promote infection. This study identifies facets of mosquito bite inflammation that are important determinants of the subsequent systemic course and clinical outcome of virus infection.
Concepts: Immune system, Inflammation, Infection, Mosquito, Yellow fever, Aedes aegypti, Aedes, Dengue fever
Anopheles arabiensis is a dominant vector of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, which feeds indoors and outdoors on human and other vertebrate hosts, making it a difficult species to control with existing control methods. Novel methods that reduce human-vector interactions are, therefore, required to improve the impact of vector control programmes. Investigating the mechanisms underlying the host discrimination process in An. arabiensis could provide valuable knowledge leading to the development of novel control technologies. In this study, a host census and blood meal analysis were conducted to determine the host selection behaviour of An. arabiensis. Since mosquitoes select and discriminate among hosts primarily using olfaction, the volatile headspace of the preferred non-human host and non-host species, were collected. Using combined gas chromatography and electroantennographic detection analysis followed by combined gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the bioactive compounds in the headspace collections were identified. The efficiency of the identified non-host compounds to repel host-seeking malaria mosquitoes was tested under field conditions.
Concepts: Human, Malaria, Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Anopheles, Mosquito, Vector, Mosquito control
Previous experimental studies have demonstrated that a number of mosquito-borne flavivirus pathogens are vertically transmitted in their insect vectors, providing a mechanism for these arboviruses to persist during adverse climatic conditions or in the absence of a susceptible vertebrate host. In this study, designed to test whether Zika virus (ZIKV) could be vertically transmitted, female Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus were injected with ZIKV, and their F1 adult progeny were tested for ZIKV infection. Of 69 Ae. aegypti pools, six consisted of a total of 1,738 F1 adults, yielded ZIKV upon culture, giving a minimum filial infection rate of 1:290. In contrast, none of 803 F1 Ae. albopictus adults (32 pools) yielded ZIKV. The MFIR for Ae. aegypti was comparable to MFIRs reported for other flaviviruses in mosquitoes, including dengue, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, West Nile, and St. Louis encephalitis viruses. The results suggest that vertical transmission may provide a potential mechanism for the virus to survive during adverse conditions.
Concepts: Mosquito, Yellow fever, Aedes aegypti, Aedes, Dengue fever, Encephalitis, Flaviviridae, Flaviviruses
Zika virus, a mosquito-borne flavivirus, spread to the Region of the Americas (Americas) in mid-2015, and appears to be related to congenital microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome (1,2). On February 1, 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the occurrence of microcephaly cases in association with Zika virus infection to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.* On December 31, 2015, Puerto Rico Department of Health (PRDH) reported the first locally acquired (index) case of Zika virus disease in a jurisdiction of the United States in a patient from southeastern Puerto Rico. During November 23, 2015-January 28, 2016, passive and enhanced surveillance for Zika virus disease identified 30 laboratory-confirmed cases. Most (93%) patients resided in eastern Puerto Rico or the San Juan metropolitan area. The most frequently reported signs and symptoms were rash (77%), myalgia (77%), arthralgia (73%), and fever (73%). Three (10%) patients were hospitalized. One case occurred in a patient hospitalized for Guillain-Barré syndrome, and one occurred in a pregnant woman. Because the most common mosquito vector of Zika virus, Aedes aegypti, is present throughout Puerto Rico, Zika virus is expected to continue to spread across the island. The public health response in Puerto Rico is being coordinated by PRDH with assistance from CDC. Clinicians in Puerto Rico should report all cases of microcephaly, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and suspected Zika virus disease to PRDH. Other adverse reproductive outcomes, including fetal demise associated with Zika virus infection, should be reported to PRDH. To avoid infection with Zika virus, residents of and visitors to Puerto Rico, particularly pregnant women, should strictly follow steps to avoid mosquito bites, including wearing pants and long-sleeved shirts, using permethrin-treated clothing and gear, using an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellent, and ensuring that windows and doors have intact screens.
Concepts: Pregnancy, United States, Mosquito, Yellow fever, Aedes aegypti, Aedes, Dengue fever, World Health Organization
Reducing the number of host-vector interactions is an effective way to reduce the spread of vector-borne diseases. Repellents are widely used to protect humans from a variety of protozoans, viruses, and nematodes. DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide), a safe and effective repellent, was developed during World War II. Fear of possible side effects of DEET has created a large market for “natural” DEET-free repellents with a variety of active ingredients. We present a comparative study on the efficacy of eight commercially available products, two fragrances, and a vitamin B patch. The products were tested using a human hand as attractant in a Y-tube olfactometer setup with Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse), both major human disease vectors. We found that Ae. albopictus were generally less attracted to the test subject’s hand compared with Ae, aegypti. Repellents with DEET as active ingredient had a prominent repellency effect over longer times and on both species. Repellents containing p-menthane-3,8-diol produced comparable results but for shorter time periods. Some of the DEET-free products containing citronella or geraniol did not have any significant repellency effect. Interestingly, the perfume we tested had a modest repellency effect early after application, and the vitamin B patch had no effect on either species. This study shows that the different active ingredients in commercially available mosquito repellent products are not equivalent in terms of duration and strength of repellency. Our results suggest that products containing DEET or p-menthane-3,8-diol have long-lasting repellent effects and therefore provide good protection from mosquito-borne diseases.
Concepts: Effectiveness, Mosquito, Aedes aegypti, Aedes, Dengue fever, Insect repellent, Asian tiger mosquito, DEET |
How Much Iron Does Grass Need?
Iron helps keep your lawn dark green.
Iron helps keep your lawn dark green. (Image: Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images)
With 5 percent of the earth's crust made of iron, you may question why iron needs to be applied to your lawn. A lawn's ability to use iron depends upon several factors and differs greatly due to grass variety and soil pH. Identifying iron chlorosis in your lawn will help you determine if iron application is necessary. How much and what type of iron to apply to your lawn can be answered by identifying your grass type and soil pH.
Iron Chlorosis vs. Nitrogen Deficiency
Iron is essential in the creation of chlorophyll, which in turn plays a key role in photosynthesis. A lawn suffering from iron chlorosis, or yellowing of the leaves, can be hard to distinguish from a nitrogen deficiency, which also appears as a yellowing of the leaves. Iron chlorosis can be diagnosed by five key symptoms. First, the yellowing may occur in spots or patchy blotches, whereas nitrogen deficiencies generally appear over a large area. Second, iron chlorsis displays a definite yellow color, and a lack of nitrogen is a light green. Thirdly, the yellowing of the leaves in iron starts out on the younger leaves and nitrogen on the older, lower leaves. The fourth symptom to diagnose iron chlorosis is growth rate. A lack of iron will not diminish growth rate, but nitrogen will. Last of all, an iron-deficient lawn will actually become worse if nitrogen is applied. If your lawn gets darker green after a nitrogen application, you know you have solved the problem.
Grass Type
Identifying what type of grass you have will help you determine how much iron to apply. Warm-season grasses like centipedegrass, bahligrass, bermudagrass, St. Austinegrass and zoysiagrass tend to be more sensitive to iron deficiencies. Cool-season grasses include ryegrass, bluegrass and fescue. Cool-season grasses in general are not as susceptible to iron chlorosis as warm-season grasses but can still have problems in soils with a high pH.
Soil Type
Even with an adequate amount of iron in the soil, if it is not in the right form, your grass will not be able to absorb it through its roots. Iron precipitates, or becomes a solid, in high pH soils. High pH soils, also known as alkaline soils, can be found in arid, desert regions of the country and at high elevations. If you grow a warm-season grass, such as bermudagrass in a high pH soil, you will need to apply more iron to your lawn than a homeowner who is growing a cool-season grass in an acidic soil.
Iron Fertilizers
Once you have identified that your lawn is suffering from iron chlorosis, you can make an iron application. There are several types of iron fertilizers available, and you should select one based upon your soil pH. Iron comes in granular or liquid form. If you have a high pH soil, a foliar application will avoid going through the soil and tying up the iron. There are granular forms of iron that are chelated to prevent the precipitation of iron in the soil and are appropriate for ground application. If you have a low pH, or acidic, soil, there are many granular iron formulations that will produce the dark green lawn of your dreams. Check with your local nursery staff to discuss what type of iron is right for your part of the country.
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Event Tree Analysis
Event tree analysis is based on binary logic, in which an event either has or has not happened or a component has or has not failed. It is valuable in analyzing the consequences arising from a failure or undesired event.
Event tree analysis is generally applicable for almost any type of risk assessment application, but used most effectively to model accidents where multiple safeguards are in place as protective features. Event tree analysis is highly effective in determining how various initiating events can result in accidents of interest.
An event tree begins with an initiating event, such as a component failure, increase in temperature/pressure or a release of a hazardous substance. The consequences of the event are followed through a series of possible paths. Each path is assigned a probability of occurrence and the probability of the various possible outcomes can be calculated.
Event Tree Analysis Characteristics:
• Models the range of possible accidents resulting from an initiating event or category of initiating events
• A risk assessment technique that effectively accounts for timing, dependence, and domino effects among various accident contributors that are cumbersome to model in fault trees
• Performed primarily by an individual working with subject matter experts through interviews and field inspections
• An analysis technique that generates the following:
• Qualitative descriptions of potential problems as combinations of events producing various types of problems (range of outcomes) from initiating events
• Quantitative estimates of event frequencies or likelihoods and relative importance of various failure sequences and contributing events
• Lists of recommendations for reducing risks
• Quantitative evaluations of recommendation effectiveness
Event Tree Sample
Event Tree Analysis Process:
• Define the system or area of interest. Specify and clearly define the boundaries of the system or area for which event tree analyses will be performed.
• Identify the initiating events of interest. Conduct a screening-level risk assessment to identify the events of interest or categories of events that the analysis will address. Categories include such things as groundings, collisions, fires, explosions, and toxic releases.
• Identify lines of assurance and physical phenomena. Identify the various safeguards (lines of assurance) that will help mitigate the consequences of the initiating event. These lines of assurance include both engineered systems and human actions. Also, identify physical phenomena, such as ignition or meteorological conditions that will affect the outcome of the initiating event.
Define accident scenarios. For each initiating event, define the various accident scenarios that can occur.
• Analyze accident sequence outcomes. For each outcome of the event tree, determine the appropriate frequency and consequence that characterize the specific outcome.
• Summarize results. Event tree analysis can generate numerous accident sequences that must be evaluated in the overall analysis. Summarizing the results in a separate table or chart will help organize the data for evaluation.
Use the results in decision-making. Evaluate the recommendations from the analysis and the benefits they are intended to achieve. Benefits can include improved safety and environmental performance, cost savings, or additional output. Determine implementation criteria and plans. The results of the event tree may also provide the basis for decisions about whether to perform additional analysis on a selected subset of accident scenarios. |
Awesome People In History: Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr in Let's Live a Little (1948) image from Wikimedia Commons
Sometimes, when learning about history, you find things that surprise you.
Those of you who have heard of Hedy Lamarr almost certainly know her as one of the most glamorous and popular Hollywood actresses of the Golden Age, appearing in 32 movies between 1930 and 1958. Yet acting was far from her true passion; she once said of it, “Any girl can be glamorous, all you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” No, her real passion was science. She was an inventor, and one of her most important inventions is probably in the very device you are using to read this blog right now.
Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna in 1914, her parents both came from Jewish families, though her mother had converted to Roman Catholicism. Growing up, she was always fascinated by science. Yet she was undeniably beautiful, and that was almost certainly why film producer Max Reinhardt, upon discovering her, decided to hire and train her. Her first runaway hit was the 1933 film Ecstasy, a film that was highly controversial for its explicit (for the time) sexual content. Her first husband, businessman Friedrich Mandl, was so upset he prevented her from leaving his private castle for four years. She would later say that she only escaped by disguising herself as a maid.
She arrived in Paris in 1937, where she met Louis B. Mayer (who we’ve met on this blog before). Mayer brought her to Hollywood, advertising her in his pictures as “The most beautiful woman in the world!” She soon was appearing in movie after movie, appearing alongside other Hollywood greats of the time such as Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. Soon, she was able to use her famous status to help her parents escape the Nazis.
Lamarr was almost always cast in roles that played up her physical appearance. She was a part of the Hollywood social scene, of course, but she didn’t like it. She wasn’t a drinker, and she didn’t like large parties. Deeply unsatisfied with the celebrity lifestyle, she turned to science as her escape in her spare time.
She developed a stoplight that was far more efficient than the ones that hung over America’s streets at the time, and then tried to use chemistry to develop a tablet that would turn ordinary drinking water into soda. The latter invention wasn’t nearly as successful, largely because it tasted terrible, by her own admission. Her most important invention, however, was a response to the outbreak of World War II.
Lamarr was fascinated by remote-control technology, and believed remote-controlled torpedoes could help the U.S. Navy in its fight against the German U-boats, making it easier for the torpedoes to hit their targets. The problem was that it would be fairly easy for the Germans to jam the radio signals. She wanted to figure out a way to overcome this problem, and so she talked about her ideas with pianist and composer George Antheil, one of the people in her social circle. In their conversations, Lamarr was inspired by piano rolls, the devices that allow novelty player pianos to play themselves. She and Antheil worked together on developing a similar device that would quickly switch between random radio frequencies, making it impossible for the Germans to jam. By the time they had figured out which frequency the Americans were using, the thought was, the American device would already have switched frequencies.
She patented her invention in 1942, and presented her idea to the U.S. Navy. The Navy said “Thanks, but no thanks.” They put the idea in their files and forgot about it. However, as World War II ended and the Cold War began, the need for a way to send radio signals securely became urgent, and the Navy pulled the designs out of storage and gave it another look. By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the technology was being used on U.S. Navy ships to send messages that would be incredibly difficult for enemies to intercept.
Lamarr called her invention “The Secret Communication System”, but today it is known as spread-spectrum technology, and it is the basis for both WiFi and Bluetooth systems. Still, it wasn’t until the 1990’s that Lamarr would finally be publicly recognized for inventing the thing. She received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in 1997. She died just three years later in Casselberry, Florida. Today, she is the only person who is memorialized both on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. It just goes to show that looks aren’t everything.
Awesome Villain in History: William Walker
William Walker image from Wikipedia
Well, Cat Flaggers, it’s high time I talked about another Awesome Villain in History. Our man today was an imperialist conqueror, much as Caesar or Hernan Cortez or Cecil Rhodes. Except each of those conquerors were acting in the name and with the armies and resources of some great empire. No, our man today is William Walker, an American who conquered and ruled Nicaragua by himself, for himself.
I suppose you might need a little context. In the early 19th century, the United States had caught Manifest Destiny fever. After the Louisiana Purchase, Americans began to believe that destiny had given them the mission to spread across the continent, possibly even the world. While this idea was far from universally accepted, many Americans truly bought into the idea and acted upon it. American settlers in Texas helped that region break away from Mexico and then got it annexed to the United States, and then the United States conquered the northern half of Mexico and made it into the American Southwest. Millions of Americans pushed west into the heart of North America, pushing out the Indian tribes who lived there.
Even still, some Americans felt America wasn’t expanding fast enough. In particular, there were white southerners who wanted to annex as much land as possible south of the Mason-Dixon line and bring as many new slave states into the Union as possible, to outnumber the northern free states. Naturally, this idea was flatly rejected by northerners, and the official United States policy shifted to one of consolidating existing gains and not antagonizing our nation’s southern nations.
This didn’t stop some people from organizing, funding, supplying, and launching their own military expeditions into Latin America all by themselves. These “filibusters”, as they were called, were declared to be criminals by the U.S. government, yet they were popular in the press and celebrated as heroes by many Americans. As you might imagine, the people in these Latin American countries that found themselves under attack from these renegades weren’t nearly so supportive.
Who doesn't love violent people bursting into their hometown without warning?
Who doesn’t love violent people bursting into their hometown without warning?
The most successful of these filibusters was Nashville-born William Walker, a highly intelligent young man who got a doctorate before his 20th birthday, and who became a journalist in New Orleans. In 1853, he asked for Mexico’s permission to start an American colony in Guaymas, a city on the Sea of Cortez known for its pearls. Having just lost most of its territory to Americans just five years earlier, Mexico gave Walker an emphatic “NO!” Undeterred, Walker began recruiting people for a military expedition to take over northwestern Mexico and create an independent “Republic of Sonora”, with the eventual goal of getting annexed to the United States, Texas-style. Walker got 45 takers.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think 45 people is enough to successfully conquer much of anything. Nevertheless, Walker tried, and managed to gain control of the city of La Paz, capital of Baja California. After boldly declaring Baja California’s independence (with himself as president, of course), he wound up moving his base of operations twice to stay ahead of the Mexican forces that were quickly dispatched to stop him. After three months, he lay claim to the entire region around the Sea of Cortez, but this was nothing but a hollow boast as by then he had retreated almost to the U.S. border. Eventually thrown out of Mexico, he was arrested upon his return to the United States for conducting an illegal war.
In spite of the fact that Walker was clearly guilty, he was regarded as a hero by many Americans, and the jury that tried his case found him not guilty after a mere eight minutes. Now a free man, Walker began dreaming of even bigger exploits, certain that with better planning his next campaign would be more successful.
In 1854, Walker got his chance. Nicaragua was in the middle of a civil war between the Conservatives and the Liberals, and the Liberals invited Walker to lead an army of mercenaries to help them out.
What could possibly go wrong?
What could possibly go wrong?
In 1855, Walker arrived with 60 Americans, ans was soon joined by 270 more men who were willing to join this, um, “adventure”. After a few battles, Walker’s forces successfully captured the Conservative capital. Nominally, the Nicaraguan Liberal leader Patricio Rivas was president of the country, but Walker quickly made sure that he was the actual man in charge.
Now in control of his own country, Walker surely did the responsible thing and worked hard to help the Nicaraguan people with his policies, right? Of course not. Instead, he made backroom deals with some American businessmen to seize control of the company that transported people and goods across Nicaragua to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific and turn it over to them. He also boasted to anyone who would listen that he planned to conquer all of Central America.
These decisions made him some powerful enemies. One of those enemies was Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous cutthroat businessman and robber baron who happened to be the owner of that transportation company Walker had seized. Vanderbilt allied with Costa Rica, a country that quite reasonably feared it would be next on Walker’s list; from 1856 to 1857 Costa Rica and Nicaragua fought a war against each other, with Vanderbilt supplying the Costa Rican forces while also preventing Nicaragua from getting any supplies for its army. Before long, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador also decided to join in the fight against Walker, invading from the north.
The fact that all of the countries around him and one of America’s most powerful businessmen had all ganged up against him didn’t deter Walker in the slightest. Shoving Rivas aside, Walker rigged an election to have himself proclaimed Nicaragua’s president. He legalized slavery, declared English an official language of the country, and launched a policy of trying to encourage Americans to settle there.
Soon, though, Walker woke up to the fact that his forces were losing badly (in large part because of a cholera outbreak among his ranks). With Granada, his capital city, surrounded by 4,000 enemy troops, Walker and his men decided to flee for their lives. After burning the city to the ground first.
Was that really necessary, guys?
Was that really necessary, guys?
Eventually, Walker surrendered to the U.S. Navy, who took him back to the United States. Once again, Walker was greeted as a hero by many Americans, so after writing his memoirs of his conquest and loss of Nicaragua, he decided to try again. This time, his goal was Honduras, but this time, he was captured before he got there by the British Royal Navy, who happily turned him over to the Honduran authorities. Walker was executed by firing squad on September 12, 1860.
Today, Central American countries celebrate the war to stop Walker as one of their greatest triumphs of history, and celebrate heroes of that struggle in the same way Americans celebrate heroes of our Revolutionary War. Here in the United States, though, he is largely forgotten, as shortly after his death the Civil War broke out and quickly overshadowed all of the exploits of the filibusters. Plus, the whole “trying to expand slavery” thing was far less popular after the war was over.
Cat Flag would like to take a moment to thank the veterans who served in the United States military and honor their countless contributions and sacrifices for our nation.
Awesome People in History: King Kamehameha the Great
Kamehameha I image from Wikipedia
It sure has been a long time since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?
Catflaggers who have followed my blog for a while will remember that my mother took a trip to Hawaii a few years ago. I admit to being rather envious, having never left the Lower 48 myself. I am fascinated by the culture and history of Hawaii, arguably the most unique state of the Union. Texans may brag about how they were totally a legitimate country for nine years before joining the Union, but Hawaiians can smugly say, “That’s cute. We were a thousand year old civilization.”
Also, Hawaii had kings.
The Hawaiian Islands are located smack-dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2,000 miles southwest of the mainland United States. They were settled by Polynesians in a series of migrations from about 300-800 AD. For centuries, Hawaiians survived by growing taro, bananas, coconuts, and breadfruit and raising pigs and chickens. They lived in a rigid caste system, with chiefs on top, followed by priests, commoners, and slaves, and social order was enforced with an extremely strict code called kapu, where you could be killed on the spot for even an accidental violation. The Hawaiians worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses in temples called Heiau, and chiefs were said to have a special power called mana that gave them the right to rule.
Then, as these stories always go, somebody new appeared on the scene and changed everything. In 1778, that somebody was British Captain James Cook, who was on a mission to map the entire Pacific. His first encounter with Hawaii passed without incident, but when he returned to the islands on his way back from visiting North America’s Pacific coast the following year, his ship was damaged and he ended up having to stay a bit longer than originally anticipated. Soon, tensions arose between his men and the locals, and these escalated when one of his smaller boats was stolen. Cook tried to force the issue by kidnapping one of the local chiefs, an action that resulted in his being beaten and stabbed to death by an angry mob of Hawaiians.
In spite of Cook’s fate, his voyages opened the door for more European and American visitors to sail out to Hawaii looking for trade and good whaling ports. These visitors unwittingly enabled a very ambitious chief to rise to power and unite the entire island chain into one kingdom for the first time.
Today, many legends are told about King Kamehameha the Great. According to Hawaiian lore, an ancient prophecy told that “a light in the sky with feathers like a bird” would appear when the greatest chief who would ever live was born – Kamehameha was born in 1758, one of the years that Halley’s Comet appeared in the sky. Another legend claims that a prophecy predicted that the man who could lift the Naha Stone, a 7,000-lb. slab of rock, would unite Hawaii. Supposedly, when the future King Kamehameha was 14 years old, he not only lifted the stone, but completely flipped it over onto its side. Today, the stone is still there, in front of the Hilo Public Library on the Big Island of Hawaii:
How to give yourself a hernia 101
It’s also across the street from an ice cream parlor called “Kozmic Cones”. Seriously.
Lore aside, the future king spent much of his childhood in hiding, as civil war raged over the land where he grew up. Kamehameha means “The Lonely One” in Hawaiian. Eventually, though, he was able to enter the court of his uncle, Kalaniʻōpuʻu, and gain royal favor. Upon the old chief’s death in 1782, Kamehameha was made a high priest while his cousin became chief. However, Kamehameha and his cousin did not get along at all, and after a brief war Kamehameha seized power for himself.
It was in these first years of his reign that Kamehameha came to recruit some British soldiers and sailors into his court, giving him access to European weapons and allowing him to learn European military tactics. This, combined with diseases introduced by Europeans, gave Kamehameha the advantage as he sailed from island to island and defeated army after army. During a battle at the Pali cliffs on the island of Oahu, Kamehameha’s forces were able to pin their opponents down at the edge with the cliffs at their backs, and then won the battle by just pushing them off.
While this might make Kamehameha look like a ruthless conqueror, he was actually quite merciful to the civilians he encountered. During a battle in 1782, Kamehameha’s foot was caught in a reef while he was chasing some fishermen. One of the fishermen hit Kamehameha upside the head with a paddle, breaking the paddle in two in the process. Yet when Kamehameha survived the blow, the fisherman couldn’t bring himself to kill the man. Inspired by this act of mercy, Kamehameha declared the “Law of the Splintered Paddle”, one of the first ever laws regarding the treatment of non-combatants in wartime, 80 years before the first of the Geneva Conventions. The law declared that if any of his warriors harmed any women, children, or elderly people who were trying to escape the battlefield, that warrior was to be killed. In this way, Kamehameha earned the trust of the people he conquered.
By 1795, most of Hawaii had been conquered, but Kamehameha still wanted to conquer Kauai, the last independent island. As he prepared his fleet in 1796, a great storm prevented him from sailing for the island. The following year, he had to put down a rebellion against him. Still, Kamehameha had not given up, and with the help of his British advisers, he built a modern, European-style navy. In 1803, he was ready to take on Kauai, but then disease spread through his ranks and devastated his army. Finally, in 1810, Kauai agreed to a peacefully negotiated settlement, accepting Kamehameha’s rule in return for some local autonomy.
As king, Kamehameha gradually laid the foundations of a modern state. At first, he gave the top positions of power in his court to the warriors and chiefs who had helped him during his conquests, but as they grew old and died, he did not replace them with their sons, as was the custom. Instead, he appointed new officials based on merit and ability, rewarding competence rather than caste. He also worked to bring prosperity to his people by increasing agricultural production and foreign trade. He even banned the once-common practice of human sacrifice.
While Kamehameha had a fondness for the foreign visitors he received, he worked hard to maintain Hawaiian independence, refusing to let it be conquered and colonized by European powers as many other Polynesian islands had been. He even refused to allow Christian missionaries into his kingdom. Partially through these efforts, his kingdom would manage to remain independent until 1898.
Kamehameha died in 1819, and a priest hid his body in accordance with Hawaiian tradition. To this day, nobody knows where the king was buried, though you can find monuments to him all over the Hawaiian islands. Four of Kamehameha’s successors took the name “Kamehameha” upon assuming the throne in his honor. If it had not been for Kamehameha’s unification of the islands and protection of his kingdom’s independence, it is probable that Hawaii would have been conquered and colonized by the British or French, and would never have become a U.S. state. It just goes to show what an impact on history the right person at the right time can do.
Awesome Forgotten Women of the Middle Ages
St. Joan of Arc image from Wikipedia
To most of us, the Middle Ages were a time when history was shaped by a few powerful kings and nobles, knights in shining armor jousted and fought in battles, peasants lived in the mud working their lord’s land, and women were passed around through arranged marriages to broker treaties and create alliances, with virtually no say in the matter.
Be honest, how many women from this time period can you actually name? Saint Joan of Arc and… Saint Joan of Arc?
To be clear, medieval society was not great for women, but it wasn’t as bad as you might think. There were plenty of women who made great accomplishments during this time. Women like…
Anna Comnena
Anna Comnena image from cover of Anna of Byzantium by Tracy Barrett
Anna Comnena was the eldest child of Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. She was taught many subjects as a child, including astronomy, geography, mathematics, science, history, and medicine. In an age where education was rare, this was a luxury that shaped the princess’s life. She became a medical doctor, and with her father’s help she built and ran a hospital in Constantinople that could treat 10,000 patients. She even became her father’s personal physician in his last years, trying to save him with the treatments she had learned and practiced.
When her father died, the throne was passed to her younger brother, John II Comnenus. This didn’t sit well with either Anna Comnena or her mother, who conspired to try to overthrow him and replace him with Comnena’s husband. However, her husband refused to participate, the plan fell apart, John II discovered what his sister was up to, and Comnena wound up spending the rest of her days in a convent.
Even in exile, however, she continued to make history. Literally – she became the first female historian, writing a chronicle of her father’s reign called the Alexiad. This text is invaluable for modern historians, as Alexius I’s reign happened to coincide with the First Crusade. Not only did Comnena recount the broad, sweeping events of that time, but also many specific anecdotes of events she witnessed first-hand. Such detailed accounts written so soon after the events are very, very rare in the Middle Ages.
Hojo Masako
Hojo Masako image from Professor Brian Hoffert
Let’s talk a little bit about a woman’s life in Medieval Japan. Though Japanese society was very much a male-dominated space, there were many female samurai (known as onna-bugeishas), female ninjas (kunoichi), as well as female novelists and poets. There was even a female shogun! Sort of.
Hojo Masako was the wife of Minamoto-no-Yoritomo, a proud and ambitious warrior who defeated his enemies in the Genpei War, secured complete control over Japan, and became its first shogun. Unlike many of the politically arranged marriages that were common among noble clans of the time, Hojo’s was a love-based marriage. She was so dedicated to her husband that she would ride side-by-side with him in battle. Then, in 1199, Minamoto died, passing the title of shogun to his son, Minamoto-no-Yoriie.
This is where things get a bit… complicated. Theoretically, the supreme ruler of Japan is and always has been the Emperor, who is said to be a descendant of the goddess Amaterasu. For almost all of Japanese history, however, the Emperor has been just a symbolic, ceremonial figurehead with no real power. This is the case today, with Japan’s modern democratic government, and it was the case in the days of the shoguns. Thus, the idea of somebody actually running things behind-the-scenes while the official ruler was a puppet is very common, and even expected, in Japanese political thinking.
So when her husband died, Hojo shaved her head and took the vows of a Buddhist nun, but didn’t go to a nunnery to live out her days in isolation. No, she continued being actively involved in the political affairs of what was theoretically her son’s reign. At first, she shared power with her father, Hojo Tokimasa, but that changed after a familial power struggle. After her father had her own son and six-year-old grandson killed, she sided with her surviving son, Monamoto-no-Sanetomo, in a rebellion that forced him from power.
For the next 14 years, she ruled Japan through her son, and when he died she arranged for Kujo Yoritsune to succeed him as the new shogun. She put down rebellions against her family’s rule in 1221 and 1224. She died in 1225, but the regime she helped create remained in power for more than a century afterwards.
Matilda of Tuscany
Matilda of Tuscany image from Wikipedia
While Hojo Masako controlled Japan indirectly, Countess Matilda of Tuscany openly shaped Italian politics in the 11th century. She inherited various domains in present-day Italy and France in 1076, after all of her male relatives died out. She took power just when a crisis was brewing between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, officially over who had the power to appoint bishops, but in practice over who should be more powerful in general. In 1080, Emperor Henry IV marched into Italy to settle the dispute by force. Matilda rushed to the Pope’s aid with her own army.
Things went badly at first. The Emperor’s forces captured Rome, forcing the Pope to flee to Matilda’s castle for safety. However, Henry got cocky, leaving Italy once he had appointed his own “pope”. He figured his Italian allies could sweep Matilda aside, but instead Matilda’s forces were victorious at the Battle of Sorbara in 1084. For eight years afterward, a stalemate emerged, with Matilda’s forces unable to secure Rome for the Pope but the Emperor unable to drive Matilda from her mountain strongholds. By 1092, however, fortune started turning in Matilda’s favor with a string of victories. By 1097, Henry IV simply quit Italy altogether, leaving Matilda in control there.
Eventually, Henry IV died and his son, Henry V, took over as Emperor. Much more conciliatory than his father, Henry V formally recognized Matilda’s power by naming her “Imperial Vicar Vice-Queen of Italy”. This was the beginning of a peace process that led to the Concordat of Worms, which separated religious and secular power as two separate institutions. Every year, a historical re-enactment of the meeting of Matilda with Henry V is held in Quattro Castella, Italy.
The Anglian Princess
Valkyrie on horseback image from Wikimedia Commons
This tale comes from the writings of the historian Procopius. Unfortunately, he neglected to actually record the name of this woman, which is a real shame, as you will soon see.
Fans of medieval history will tell you that our English language, and the English people themselves, originally came from the Anglo-Saxons, who came from Denmark and northern Germany and conquered much of modern England from the Celtic and Roman people who originally lived there. A key detail about this period in history is that the Anglo-Saxons were not originally one people. Before they moved to Britain, the Angles and Saxons were separate tribes, and there was nothing to guarantee that they would end up getting along, let alone merge into a single people.
So it was something of a big deal when the Varni, a tribe who were vassals of the Saxons, arranged to have a young Varni prince named Radigis marry an Anglian princess. The two were betrothed, but before they could be married, Radigis’s father fell ill. As he lay dying, he told his son not to go through with the wedding with the Anglian princess, on the logic that the Franks were a rising power and securing an alliance with them was much more important than diplomacy with the Angles. Radigis followed his father’s advice, calling off the wedding when his father died.
It turns out that Radigis had just messed with the wrong princess. She raised an army of 100,000 warriors, sailed to Saxony, and defeated the Varni so completely that Radigis tried to flee. Soon, the Angles found him hiding in the woods, tied him up, and brought him before their princess. She demanded to know why he had broken off their engagement, and Radigis apologized to her and explained that he was only following his father’s wishes. Apparently, his answer satisfied her, and she released him on the condition that their betrothal was back on and they would be married. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, the wedding took place, and Procopius’s account ends.
Now, obviously one wedding didn’t create the Anglo-Saxons overnight; the merger of the Angles and Saxons would have taken many generations and been an incredibly gradual process. Having said that, the marriage of Radigis and the Anglian princess was a step in that direction, and might not have happened if our princess hadn’t decided to take matters into her own hands. If only we knew her name so she could get the credit she deserves.
Awesome People in History: Franz Boas
Franz Boas image from NNDB
You may recall in a recent editorial here on Cat Flag, I briefly mentioned Franz Boas as an Awesome Person in History. This man is virtually unknown outside a few academic circles, which is a real shame, because he helped to create the modern world and reshape our values and beliefs. How? By scientifically disproving racism.
When we talk about racism, we are really talking about a fundamental assumption about human beings: that biological factors of our physical appearance, such as skin color or eye shape, are linked to our intelligence and our behavior patterns. Racists categorize people and then make stereotypes about those people in order to prejudge them without actually getting to know them. Often, they also assume their own “race” is superior to all the others, and interpret the world through this lens. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and North America, racism was so widely accepted that most people, even in the scientific community, treated it as simple, plain fact. In the Cal Poly library, I once read a copy of an edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica from the 1890s, and it was so strange to read how outright obsessed the encyclopedia was with categorizing each ethnic group and ranking them on some arbitrary racial gradient of “civilization” vs “savagery”.
It was into this world that Boas was born in Germany in 1858. As a Jew, he would have been considered “white”, but would also certainly have been no stranger to the receiving end of prejudice and discrimination. In spite of this, he grew up in a fairly privileged position, and was able to go to college. Studying at two universities over the course of his college career, he had a knack for two things: changing his mind on what major he wanted to study, and getting into sword-fighting duels with his peers over perceived insults to himself, his fraternity, or his religion. Eventually graduating from Kiel University with a doctorate in physics, he spent a mandatory year in the German army as all young men were required to do. It was here where he met a young woman named Marie Krackowizer, whom he would eventually marry. Once he got out of the service, he signed up for an Arctic expedition to explore Baffin Island.
Arctic exploration is nothing to sneeze at today, let alone in the 1880s, with no motor vehicles, no electric generators, and no modern medicine. During his year on Baffin Island, Boas and his team frequently faced freezing to death, starving to death, dying of disease, or being killed by the local wildlife.
Yeah, this face looks totally friendly.
Yeah, this face looks totally friendly.
These hardships led Boas to a realization that would shape his future career, and the world with it. Writing in his diary, he mused that if the supposedly “superior” and “civilized” Europeans were struggling to survive, yet the supposedly “primitive” and “savage” Inuit people they encountered were not only able to survive here but make their living here, then perhaps in the particular circumstances of the Arctic it was the Inuit who were the superior ones. Boas began studying and recording the lifestyles, tools, behaviors, and other adaptations of the Inuit people they met, publishing his findings in his book The Central Eskimo when he made his return.
Boas’s study of the Inuit led him to take up anthropology, the study of human cultures, as his new career. Soon, he was signing up for even more expeditions, this time to visit Native American groups that lived along the coast of British Columbia. It was his study of these Pacific Northwest tribes that would come to be his defining achievement.
The peoples of the Pacific Northwest all lived a broadly similar lifestyle, with fairly similar cultures that were based around salmon fishing and whaling. Their material culture, such as their tools, buildings, and famous totem poles, were pretty consistent, with some variation from tribe to tribe, all along the Pacific Northwest coast. Their societies all had a very similar, hierarchical structure. According to the prevailing views of the time, all of this could only mean that the Pacific Northwest peoples all belonged to the same sub-race of Native Americans, and this particular sub-race had a level of intelligence that predisposed them to achieving this particular level of civilization.
But that’s not what Boas found. After careful study of the Pacific Northwest peoples’ skull shape, eye shape, skin color, hair color and texture, languages, and so on, he found that the Pacific Northwest Indians were actually extremely diverse. Far from being all part of some racial category, Boas could only conclude that each tribe had a very different origin and arrived in the area at a different time from a different place. So why such cultural similarities between them? Boas could only conclude that the culture of the Pacific Northwest Indians had nothing at all to do with their race or ancestry, and everything to do with the spread of ideas from person to person and tribe to tribe that were well-adapted to the specific environmental circumstances of the British Columbian coastline.
The way he demonstrated his findings to the public, though, were a bit... eccentric.
The way he demonstrated his findings to the public, though, were a bit… eccentric.
Boas published his theories in such classic works as The Instability of Human Types and The Mind of Primitive Man. He argued that all humans, regardless of race, were fundamentally equal in our physical and cognitive abilities. No one race was inherently superior to any other. Instead, he proposed that the vast cultural differences between, say, Western Europeans, Chinese people, and some African hunter-gatherer tribe were the result of cultural diffusion – the spread of ideas from person to person, and those ideas that were best suited for survival in a given environment “sticking”.
He backed up his theories with mountains of data, not only from his work with Pacific Northwest Indians, but later experiments that found that even “white” people respond differently to different environmental pressures. Boas had immigrated to the United States in 1887, and in the early 1900s he began an experiment on immigrants such as himself. He studied the skull size and shape of thousands of immigrants and native-born Americans of many different races. He found that, regardless of race, the skull shapes of native-born Americans were different, on average, than those of immigrants. This, he argued, was a result of environmental differences between America and Europe, such as diet, pollution, and so forth. Thus, Boas concluded, the human body is shaped not only by ancestry, but environment, and differences that his peers would have categorized as “racial” were often, in fact, environmental.
To say that Boas’s theories were controversial would be an understatement. His ideas were often dismissed because he was Jewish, and his works were among those burned by the Nazis when they took power in the 1930s. Still, he began to gather a following among young anthropology students, many of whom would come to be important and successful scientists in their own right, such as Alfred Kroeber, Margaret Mead, and Claude Levi-Strauss. He was also an influence on the still-quite-young civil rights movement in America, which saw in his theories a justification for abolishing racial segregation. Figures like W. E. B. Du Bois were influenced by Boas’s arguments for tolerance and acceptance of cultural differences.
Although few people today have even heard about Franz Boas, we live in a world shaped by his pioneering scientific work. By refusing to let the prejudices of society blind him and focus only on the hard facts, Boas demonstrated that race really doesn’t matter, and that people are, well, people. He showed that we are shaped more by the environment we live in, both physiologically and culturally, than by some arbitrary genetic ranking system. He pushed for a more inclusive, less judgmental world, where people focus on humanity’s similarities instead of our differences. While he may not have lived to see the fruits of his labor, these ideas proved powerful enough to grow, spread, and take on a life of their own. They created the world we live in today, and I believe all of us are living better lives because of it.
Information from a Native American History class I took in college, supplemented by the sources linked to above. |
Better Together
At times in life, we are all wondering what is happening in the world around us. Tragedy hits our family unit. A natural disaster leaves devastation in communities. Acts of terror are committed against innocent people.
When this happens, questions fill our minds and we search for answers. Ben Rector, a singer songwriter, encapsulates this searching in his song “When a Heart Breaks.”
This questioning and pain often times leaves us wanting to do something, anything to help.
Social media is now allowing us to do just that.
We are now able to do something in times of tragedy or even everyday life to change the world through what is known as crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing as defined by Merriam-Webster is “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.” For a more in-depth explanation of mathematical data surrounding crowdsourcing, check out the PBS NOVA video, “Wisdom of the Crowds.”
One famous example of crowdsourcing in times of tragedy happened when Malaysia Flight 370 went missing. A company called Digital Global released satellite images of the ocean for people around the world to look through and mark anything that could hint of a plane that had crashed on a site called The site crashed as people went on to do their part in helping search for evidence in the ocean of the missing plane.
Another example of this principle being used in the world is Phylo. This online game lets people help map genes for actual genetic research.phylo and Phylo allow people to spend their time online doing good in the world.
Time is well spent and not just time lost.
Even the CIA is jumping on this idea of crowd sourcing with its Good Judgement Project. This project asks average people to help predict the likelihood of events happening in the world without the access to classified information. The predictions of all those involved is averaged and their average is sometimes 30% more accurate that the CIA.
I guess it just goes to show that we are better together than we could ever be on our own.
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Cryptic Pregnancy
Denied pregnancy refers to the absence of awareness by a woman that she is pregnant until she delivers her baby. This may occur in 1 of 475 pregnant women.
Pregnancy test
Women with symptoms of denied or cryptic pregnancy may not have the usual symptoms of pregnancy such as nausea, vomiting, cessation of periods, and enlargement of the abdomen. The babies born to such mothers have a tendency to be small for gestational age. The pregnancy is undetected not only by the mother but by friends and relatives. Even medical personnel may be unaware of the woman’s pregnancy.
The most common explanation for a woman’s failure to realize that she is pregnant until she actually delivers a child is that she is psychologically not ready or willing to accept the pregnancy and its implications. Pregnancy involves many biological changes in the woman, as well as requiring preparation for birth and child care, which is based upon accepting the presence of the fetus and the changes that it brings about in the woman’s body and functioning.
Somatic Denial
Somatic denial is a popular concept evoked to explain the lack of symptoms, which means that the woman strongly though involuntarily denies the presence of any abnormality in her body or physiological functions. However, this does not explain how the woman continues to have regular monthly periods throughout the pregnancy.
Psychological conflict
However, there are other more basic explanations.
For example, when there is a conflict between a woman’s perceived best interests for herself and the existence of a pregnancy, deep psychological reactions may lead to cryptic pregnancy. On the one hand, denial of the pregnancy can bring down the level of expenditure by the mother. She will not have to invest energy or adjustment resources on the pregnancy.
These may be in the form of having to limit mobility, depending on others for support, or limiting one’s work habits or substance use. This denial brings about an adaptation which favors the mother’s health and habits over the growth of the fetus.
This correlates with the very low or indiscernible levels of hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) found in the woman’s blood. Even when the hormone levels are increased, it may not have the normal effects on the body of the woman, leading to a prolonged and slow-growing gestation.
Suggested hypotheses include the following:
• Failure to adapt to this conflict, which results in the woman using resources for her rather than for the baby’s wellbeing.
• Spontaneous abortion of an abnormal fetus that was ‘missed,’ or not clinically evident.
• The environment is one of great stress or danger to the mother and child, as when resources are scant, or support is lacking. In this case, the fetus ‘cooperates’ to the biological signals by growing very slowly and producing minimal symptoms and signs of the pregnancy, thus reducing the energy and health resources the mother is required to invest in the pregnancy. This helps both of them to maximize their chances of the survival by bringing the mother to the point of delivery.
The mother does not usually have any prenatal care. The delivery is usually at home or unassisted.
Any prenatal complications such as blood group incompatibility, hypertension, or diabetes, may go undetected and put the mother and baby at risk.
The mother may practice dangerous behaviors such as alcohol or substance abuse because of the lack of awareness of the fetus.
In most cases of cryptic pregnancy, the baby is born alive and healthy, with the woman realizing that she is pregnant only when she gives birth. Adjustment problems are thus a possibility, though rare.
If a woman in the reproductive age group persistently feels even minor symptoms relating to the abdomen or pelvis, it is advisable to meet a health care professional, who should test for pregnancy among other options, even if the possibility is strongly denied.
Reviewed by Yolanda Smith, BPharm
Further Reading
Last Updated: Aug 3, 2017
1. mizt 60 mizt 60 United States says:
I applaud someone in the medical field for finally admitting that cryptic pregnancies do exist. However, it's just like the medical field to always blame the patient for why it happens instead of taking time to find the REAL reason. My daughter has been going through it to get the doctors to believe she is pregnant. She has been to 4 doctors, 3 of them OB/GYNs. 3 doctors told her it's all in her head, 2 asked does she WANT TO BE pregnant...but she was already 6 months along. The last one we saw last month could actually SEE the baby MOVING! But because it didn't show on the ultrasound she said she medically or legally call it a pregnancy! So NO, IT'S not JUST WOMEN TRYING TO DENY THEY ARE PREGNANT! IT'S doctors who REFUSE to do ANYTHING BEYOND the standard testing either because they are full of themselves or afraid their malpractice insurance will go up if they go beyond standard treatment. In the meantime my daughter can get prenatal care, lost her job because without a doctor to say she is pregnant she couldn't get FMLA so she had to quit or be terminated and she is in limbo with no due date. Thank God for nurses who told us how to keep both her and the baby healthy. Just think how many pregnant women are forced into this position by the medical practices who think it's all the patients fault!
2. Tiffany Roquemore Tiffany Roquemore United States says:
hello, i havent has a period since march. i used the ovia app to track my periods, and i am very regular. i have one son who is 5. negative urine test and blood test at dr . dr told me it is impossible to get a negative blood test if you are pregnant. but i saw about cryptic pregnancies on dr oz and many other places on the web. i mentioned this to my dr and he said anyone who said they got a negative blood test and turned out to be pregnant was a liar. but i dont believe him.
i really do not know what to do. i am not on birth control. me and my husband do not use protection. i do not have any health issues. at the pap smear the dr said he didnt feel any cysts because i had thought maybe i had one and thats why i missed my period. i dont know what to do. im really needing to know so i do not smoke or drink alcohol. i am already taking prenatals for about 2 months because i wanted it to help my hair grow faster. what should i do next? i feel like im going crazy. i dont really have much symptoms only heartburn and cravings.
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Summary: Why was David so sad? Five reasons. But there is reason for hope. Jesus, the son of David, would fulfill David’s emotional prayer "Would to God I had died for thee!"
Title: "The Tale of Three Kings"
After learning of the victory over the rebellion that caused King David to flee from Jerusalem, David wept. The people were uncertain as to how to celebrate this great victory. Why was the King weeping?
Of course, the answer was that the king of the rebellion was dead. That leader was David’s son, Absalom.
There are five tragic things to consider about Absalom’s death. Five reasons for David’s tears, and at the conclusion of the this message, one reason for us to have tears of joy!
1. Abasalom’s death left him with an irreconcilable past.
David had put off loving and forgiving his wayward son. David had had years to reconcile with his son, and, perhaps, he assured himself that he still had years to do so, but now, suddenly, Absalom was dead. He died while yet in his youth and out of the arms of David.
2. Absalom’s death left him with a wasted life.
If ever a young man had potential, it was Absalom. He was good looking, and had a sensitive heart. The people of Israel were also drawn to him for his discernment and wisdom. But Absalom did not put these things into the ministry. He used them for self serving purposes and would die without reaching into his god given potential.
3. Absalom’s death was a horrible death.
He prided himself in the length and glory of his hair. When fleeing from Joab’s army, he rode under a tree and his locks were caught in the branches. His donkey rode out from under him. Joab would shoot three darts into Absalom’s heart.
4. Absolam’s death pointed to a hopeless eternity.
Contrast the announcement of Absalom’s death to that of the time that he was told that the baby son of Bathsheba had died. At that announcement, David bathed and clothed himself and ask for food to be brought for him. He comforted Bathsheba with these words, "My son cannot come to me, but one day, I shall go to be with him."
There was no such hope in the death of Absalom. Absalom would die in rebellion. David had no confidence of his son’s salvation.
5. Absalom’s death represented an unanswered prayer request.
The heart’s cry of David was, "Would to God, I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son."
Of course things could not be reversed. The King could not die for his rebellious son.
Conclusion: Now let me share with you the reason why I have entitled this message, "The Tale of Three Kings." King number one is Absalom, the self appointed king. King number is David, the god anointed king. And King number three is Jesus.
Jesus would come in answer to this prayer request of David!
Think of it. How did Jesus die? Hanging on a tree. From whom did Jesus die? For those who were in open rebellion to his Lordship.
David was a man after God’s own heart. In this text, you not only see the heart of David, you see the heart of God on display.
It took the heart of a loving God to say on your behalf, "Would that I should die for thee!"
(Romans 5:8 KJV) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. |
Word Study
audit programme | audita querela | audited account | audition | auditive | auditor | auditorial | auditorium | auditorship | auditory | auditory agnosia
auditorn. [L. auditor, fr. audire. See Audible, a.].
• A hearer or listener. Macaulay. [1913 Webster]
• A person appointed and authorized to audit or examine an account or accounts, compare the charges with the vouchers, examine the parties and witnesses, allow or reject charges, and state the balance. [1913 Webster]
• One who hears judicially, as in an audience court. [1913 Webster]
" In the United States government, and in the State governments, there are auditors of the treasury and of the public accounts. The name is also applied to persons employed to check the accounts of courts, corporations, companies, societies, and partnerships." [1913 Webster]
auditor, n.
1 a person who audits accounts.
2 a listener.
auditorial adj.
ME f. AF auditour f. L auditor -oris (as AUDITIVE, -OR(1))
N accounts, accompts, commercial arithmetic, monetary arithmetic, statistics, money matters, finance, budget, bill, score, reckoning, account, books, account book, ledger, day book, cash book, pass book, journal, debtor and creditor account, cash account, running account, account current, balance, balance sheet, compte rendu, account settled, acquit, assets, expenditure, liabilities, outstanding accounts, profit and loss account, profit and loss statement, receipts, bookkeeping, accounting, double entry bookkeeping, reckoning, audit, accountant, auditor, actuary, bookkeeper, bean counter, financier, accounting party, chartered accountant, certified accountant, accounting firm, auditing firm, monetary, accountable, accounting.
N hearing, audition, auscultation, eavesdropping, audibility, acute ear, nice ear, delicate ear, quick ear, sharp ear, correct ear, musical ear, ear for music, ear, auricle, lug, acoustic organs, auditory apparatus, eardrum, tympanum, tympanic membrane, ear trumpet, speaking trumpet, hearing aid, stethoscope, earshot, hearing distance, hearing, hearing range, sound, carrying distance, telephone, phone, telephone booth, intercom, house phone, radiotelephone, radiophone, wireless, wireless telephone, mobile telephone, car radio, police radio, two-way radio, walkie-talkie, handie-talkie, citizen's band, CB, amateur radio, ham radio, short-wave radio, police band, ship-to-shore radio, airplane radio, control tower communication, (communication), electronic devices, phonograph, gramophone, megaphone, phonorganon, microphone, directional microphone, mike, hand mike, lapel microphone, phonograph needle, stylus, diamond stylus, pickup, reading head (electronic devices), hearer, auditor, listener, eavesdropper, listener-in, auditory, audience, otology, otorhinolaryngology, otologist, otorhinolaryngologist, hearing, auditory, auricular, acoustic, phonic, arrectis auribus, Int, hark, hark ye!, hear!, list, listen!, O yes!, Oyez!, listen up, listen here!, hear ye!, attention!, achtung.
For further exploring for "auditor" in Webster Dictionary Online
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Graphic Design Infinite Reach Communicating Visually
The Ins and Outs of Graphic Design & Communicating Visually
Graphic design is everywhere around you! It delivers messages on everything from what cereal to buy at the store to what the discount or promo code is for a certain week. From street signs to billboards to the logos on your t-shirts to the packaging of that online order you purchased, graphic design is a way to quickly communicate an idea using visuals.
Words, photos, illustrations and text are just a few examples of how graphic design is displayed on things we see on the daily. Graphic design is a way to tell a story in a matter of seconds with only a few words, or simply an exciting/eye drawing image.
A page full of words is still an example of graphic design. Think of a magazine article – there is a variety of ways the words can be organized on the page. You can divide them into columns or bubbles, you can stagger certain words and place images in between paragraphs, add a header to the page – the possibilities are seemingly endless. The page layout depends on the message and the audience, but it is nonetheless graphic design in some way.
The text you decide to use alone communicates an idea. Compare Times New Roman to any other font. Times New Roman is commonly found in newspapers and academic journals/articles, typically to communicate formality, importance, or professionalism. Since this is historically how this specific font has always been used, when you see this particular font you take the information that’s written with it seriously. Not many designers would use this text to design a poster because it’s not visually stimulating enough or appropriate. Each font you consider when designing something needs to be appropriate for the particular audience you’re targeting the image to.
Images and Words
Graphic designers often use photos and illustrations along with words because it’s an effective way to convey something quickly. Imagine you’re driving and see a billboard advertisement with a picture of a juicy steak that says “Hungry?” right underneath. Go ahead and compare that to a billboard with only words saying, “Eat a juicy steak if you’re hungry.” Which do you think is more effective?
One of the fastest ways to communicate something is with a symbol, such as a logo. Most companies/brands will use color and imagery to reflect their values. As a company or organization develops, their specific logo slowly yet surely becomes a part of them – synonymous with their reputation. Logos are a symbol of trust and ownership of a product.
When you see a little white apple, you most likely associate that with Apple, the multinational technology company. When you see that huge yellow and red ‘M,’ you think of McDonald’s. The logo instantly communicates the value and safety of that certain product. The second you see a certain logo, you immediately decide if you trust that brand and want to use those products.
So, Graphic Design…
So, what exactly is graphic design? I hope this blog post summed it up for you! It’s a fast and effective method to communicate visually with a certain audience. Every logo, text, layout and image screams a message. When designed well, your audience will immediately understand its quick coding system. The world would be a much more difficult place to decipher without graphic design.
Do your marketing materials need a refresh? Lucky for you, now through November 30th, Infinite Reach is offering 15% off all graphic design projects! Including flyers, social media graphics, business cards, sales sheets, posters, brochures and more! Contact us today!
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Craze Cracks
What are craze cracks?
Crazing is the development of a network of fine random cracks or fissures on the surface of concrete or mortar caused by shrinkage of the surface layer. Craze cracks are small pattern cracks on a slab’s surface. They are associated with early surface drying, causing the immediate surface to shrink differently than the underlying concrete. Crack patterns typically form grids of about 2-inch diameters. They are typically 1/10 millimeter (0.004 inches) or less in thickness, and 1 millimeter (1/32-inch ) or less in depth. Many craze cracks are not even visible until the surface of a floor gets wet and starts to dry.
craze cracks
Crazing pattern
Crazing cracks are sometimes referred to as shallow map or pattern cracking. They do not affect the structural integrity of concrete and rarely do they affect durability or wear resistance. However, crazed surfaces can be unsightly. They are particularly conspicuous and unsightly when concrete contains calcium chloride, a commonly used accelerating admixture.
What causes craze cracks and how to prevent it?
Crazing is caused by drying out of the concrete surface, so it is particularly common when the surface has been exposed during placement to low humidity, high air or concrete temperature, hot sun, or any combination of these. Concrete contractors can minimize or prevent craze cracks by starting to cure as soon as possible after final finishing, especially on a hard-troweled floor. Moist curing is best, although a spray-on monomolecular curing compound also can be effective. Using a drier, stiffer mix can reduce crazing as well. For exterior slabs, minimize the amount of working or troweling of the surface and use a broomed finish, which tends to mask minor cracks and surface blemishes.
Craze cracking is only one of the types of cracks that occur due to shrinkage of the concrete. Others are plastic shrinkage cracks and drying shrinkage cracks. By definition, plastic shrinkage cracking occurs while the concrete is still plastic and typically while the slab is still being finished. These cracks are deeper and farther apart and also are caused by drying, as surface moisture evaporates. Synthetic fibers can help prevent plastic shrinkage cracking, as can fogging to reduce evaporation.
Drying shrinkage cracks occur after the slab has hardened and are due to the loss of moisture in the concrete matrix. Reduce drying shrinkage cracks by using lower water-cement ratio mixes. Control drying shrinkage cracks by properly placing joints in the slab—2 1/2 to 3 times in feet the thickness of the slab in inches (so 15 to 18 feet apart for a 6-inch slab).
Is there anything you can do with crazing after the fact?
Typically, craze cracking is not repaired because it does not deteriorate over time. Sealers and surface hardeners actually can make crazing more obvious. If you really want to fix crazing, a thin overlay is about the only choice.
Follow These Rules to Prevent Crazing
1. Use moderate slump (3-5 inches) concrete with reduced bleeding characteristics.
2. Follow recommended practices and timing, based on concrete setting characteristics, for placing and finishing operations:
• Avoid excessive manipulation of the surface, which can depress the coarse aggregate, increase the cement paste at the surface, or increase the water-cement ratio at the surface.
• DO NOT finish concrete before the concrete has completed bleeding (look for the presence of a water sheen on the surface)
• DO NOT dust any cement onto the surface to absorb bleed water.
• DO NOT sprinkle water on the surface while finishing concrete.
3. Cure properly as soon as finishing has been completed
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Monday, November 18, 2013
Franklin Square Research
Originally called Northeast Square, Franklin Square was renamed in 1825 to honor Benjamin Franklin.The square, measures to be 632 feet north to south and 543 feet east to west .Although designated as a public square in the earliest city plan, Northeast Square was slow to develop, due in part to its marshy land. Its earliest use was as an open common for pasturage and as a site of horse and cattle markets.
By the early 1740s, the First Reformed Church had begun construction of a church nearby and lacked room for an adjacent cemetery. The nearest sizeable tract of open land was Northeast Square. The original cemetery lot measured 306 feet but was the boundaries were enlarged several times throughout the century.
In about 1776, a brick powder storage house for military supplies was constructed in the northwest portion of the square. Viewed as a safety hazard due to the development of the surrounding area, the it was relocated. It was subsequently used to store oil for street lamps in the square and in the surrounding neighborhood. In the 1810s, site was used as a horse and cattle auction site. In the 1830’s the cemetery closed and the city renovated the space for use as parkland. In 1838, the city administration decided to make use of the public area so they commissioned a marble fountain to be built in the center of the square with wrought iron railing surrounding it and curved paths running throughout the square.
The mid to late nineteenth century was a time when the square was at its
prime as it was located in the heart of one of Philadelphia’s exclusive
residential neighborhoods. The park was the province of the elite of the city. Ladies with parasols would stroll the paths and would be joined on the weekends by their husbands and children. However during the Depression, the square became a retreat for the unemployed, derelicts, and the homeless.
In 1915, excavations took place for the installation of a new sewer line. In the course of this
excavation, several graves were disturbed. During the excavations for the Benjamin
Franklin Bridge Plaza in the early 1920s, additional human remains were discovered.
In 1925, a water main was constructed through the square. In the course of this excavation, three human skulls were uncovered in the western part of the square. During a sewer excavation in the square in 1976, two skulls and other bones were uncovered, as well as two gravestones The most significant modern disturbance to the square was the construction of two subway tunnels and a station in the 1930s.
The square to current date includes few remnants of its former appearance. The walkways that are left are graveled, not paved, and the fountain in the middle is surrounded by a graveled walkway. There is a brick restroom structure on the southeast side of the fountain just off the walkway. A
monument describing the Old First Reformed Church burial ground that once covered the eastern half of the square is located on the northeast side of the walkway surrounding the fountain. To the east of the fountain are a serpentine brick wall and a cement circular area surrounding a
monument honoring park police, city police, and the fire department.There is a semi-paved seating area on the west side of the square and a small playground. Diagonal paths lead to the corner of Franklin and Race Streets, the corner of Sixth and Race Streets, and to the northeast and northwest corners of the square. The rest of the square is grass lawn interspersed with trees.
Franklin Square is presently surrounded on all four sides by heavy traffic flow. Its northern boundary is the embankment for the Vine Expressway which leads to Interstate 95. Traffic on the expressway and on I-95 is visible and audible from the square. Crosswalks are few and far between, which makes getting across the bounding streets difficult.
On July 31, 2006, after a multi-million dollar renovation, the once dilapidated park,
was restored to green space where families and visitors could safely gather. Existing features were renovated and new features added to make the 7.5 acre park a new attraction for the City. Unlike other squares, Franklin Square has set hours.
Part of the $6.5 million dollar renovation, primarily funded by a state grant, the centerpiece of the restoration was the historic fountain. To ensure sustainability, a foundation named “Franklin for the Fountain” Name a Brick Campaign was developed in which all profits goes toward future operations of the fountain. One of the highlights of the Square is the Philadelphia Park Liberty Carousel. As the only one in the city of Philadelphia, it is a draw for the young and old. There is a charge of $2.50 to ride. Two playgrounds were added to accommodate the visitors and neighboring daycare centers. Equipment was installed to coordinate with two different age groups; one for toddlers (2-5) and the other to older chlider (5-10). Park benches were also installed as well as special turf around the playground for safety. Another highlight of Franklin Square is the 18-hole Philadelphia themed mini golf course. There is a charge of $8 for adults and $6 for children. Throughout the Square there is refreshing green space with abundant trees. Once Upon a Nation added over 153 shrubs, and 60 plus trees along with 2 picnic areas. In the summertime, the Square is used for extended hours so to provide additional safety, over 30 Franklin Fixture style lampposts were installed as well as 24 hour security. Additionally, as part of the renovation, the bathrooms received a complete makeover, adding to the comfort of the patrons of the Square. To accommodate visitors the square offers food vendors, crafts and merchandise kiosks.
In an effort to keep visitors coming to the Square year round,
organizers have successfully promoted many types of events such as farmers
markets and other special holiday events. In 2009,
it was reported that the Square received over 750,000 annual visitors.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
City Hall's Long and Continuing History
Before City Hall’s construction began in 1871, the building's history can be traced back to Philadelphia's founding.William Penn original envision in 1682. Here he set-aside five publicly shared squares laid out on a city grid. The centrally located "Center Square" was reserved as a site for public buildings. Penn planned it to be a central plaza of ten acres to be bordered by the principal public buildings, such as the Quaker meetinghouse, the state house, the market house, and the schoolhouse. It took 200 years before the square was used for that purpose. This is because the city’s development initially expanded around the Delaware river front, rather than from river to river like Penn envisioned. The first City Hall was located in what is currently known as Old City, at 2nd and Market streets, then moved to 5th and Chestnut streets when the Independence Hall complex was built. Center Square remained unused countryside, waiting for expansion.
Planning for Philadelphia's City Hall began before 1870, when a commission was established to oversee the construction of new public buildings. John McArthur, Jr. was decided upon to be the architect with Thomas U. Walter’s assistance. Work began a year later, in 1871, and the building was completed in its entirety thirty years later. During this long construction period many scandals of mismanagement and corruption spread. The press often referred to the building as a "marble elephant" and "the Temple of the Taxpayers". The public’s disposition of the City hall grew hostile. The work continued and City Hall was fully erected in final completion by 1901. However problems did not cease for the new building.
City Hall's architecture is of the elaborate Victorian style referred to as French Second Empire. This style was unique to Philadelphia at this time. The initial inspiration arose from the Palais des Tuileries and the New Louvre in Paris which influenced the building's design. Because of its elaborate architecture City Hall was highly controversial from its completion. Many proposals to demolish City Hall were made. The most recent of these was considered in the 1950's. Demolition of the building was looked into, but given that the cost would have been twenty-five million dollars, which was equivalent to the amount that was spent to build City Hall, the building was saved. Once demoed, there would not have been enough money left to build a new City Hall, which would have left Philadelphia without.
City Hall was originally designed to be the world's tallest building, but because of its long construction time, by the time it was finally completed it had already been surpassed by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower. It did however remained to be the tallest in in Philadelphia until 1987, when a long-standing "gentlemen's agreement," was broken. This agreement discouraged constructing higher than Penn's hat. The sixty-one-story construction of Liberty Place, was the first of many build above and beyond this agreement
Today, Philadelphia City Hall is the center of Philadelphia's government and politics, and has been the focal point of Philadelphia itself for more than a century. The building takes up an entire city block, containing over 14.5 acres of floor space. With close to 700 rooms, the building houses three branches of government, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch's Civil Courts. Consequently, City Hall's interior is constantly being worked with. While the hallways and many rooms have been altered with dropped ceilings and new lighting, as well as many rooms having their original walls covered with wood paneling or sheet rock, a number of the building's most important rooms have been preserved or restored.
The building's walls face each point of the compass and are arranged in a square shape. The large arched entryways open at the center of each facade, leading inward to a large open central public courtyard. The north side is also where the famous tower is located rising 548 feet above the ground, terminating at the top of the hat on William Penn's statue. Just below the statue is the visitors' observation deck, approximately forty stories above the ground.
The truth is that City Hall currently fails William Penn’s plan to be the cultural, social and commercial heart of Philadelphia. There are many problems that arise outside and within the walls of City Hall. There are many level changes outside the Hall that tend to be confusing and make it impossible for those with disabilities to enter. There is no clear entrance to the transportation center below and offers only vacant and isolated arcades that commuters must walk through to get to the concourse. It is seen as more of a granite labyrinth that temporally house the homeless. Only the protestors from Philadelphia's Occupy Wall Street have made the most of the square which is possibly the most City Hall has ever been used in its 40 years.
The future of City Hall seems to differ greatly from its current use now. An urban renewal project is in the midst seen to be completed in early 2014. This major makeover is to be done by Philadelphia-based architecture and landscape architecture firms OLIN and KieranTimberlake. They plan to rejuvenate this historic civic space in more ways than one. Construction on the new plaza will feature amenities such as: a cafe with indoor and outdoor seating, a large lawn, a fountain, tree groves, space for events and a new gateway to and from the transportation center below. This new and flexible design allows for it as paved surface to accommodate a variety of activities including concerts, special events, public markets, winter ice-skating, and free screenings of live performances at the Kimmel Center, movies and sports on large digital screens. |
Pendulum Slip Resistance Test
The pendulum rig or “Pendulum Slip Resistance Meter” (pictured below) measures surface friction using an energy loss principle as used in the Charpy Impact test. As the pendulum strikes a surface energy is lost, which can be translated into a friction coefficient. The pendulum rig was designed in the 1940's and is widely used today as a road surface friction assessing tool in the cases of accidents or experimental road surfaces [1]. Today the rig is also used as a standard method of assessing slip resistance of flooring [2].
On the end of the pendulum is a rubber slider, which is spring mounted so that a constant normal force is present through the entire contact (typically 12mm). The rig uses two different types of rubber pad; Four-s and TRL. The harder Four-s type rubber represents the heel of the average shoe and the TRL (softer pad) represents the heel of a foot. Rubber hardness is measured using the International Rubber Hardness Degrees, IRHD system. The harder rubber has an IRHD value of 96, and the softer 55 [3]. The hardness test used in the IRHD differs from hardness tests on other materials such as metals and ceramics, which measure the ability of the material to withstand plastic deformation i.e. indentation. Instead it measures the modulus of the rubber using a spherical indenter and observing the depth of indentation with a given force [4]. The IRHD scale ranges from 0 (no modulus) to 100 (infinite modulus).
1. BS EN 13036-4:2003, Road and airfield surface characteristics. Test methods. Method for measurement of slip/skid resistance of a surface. The pendulum test
2. AS/NZS 4586:2004, Slip resistance classification of new pedestrian surface materials
3. BS 7976-1:2002, Pendulum Testers: Part 1 - Specification
4. BS ISO 48:2007, Rubber, vulcanized or thermoplastic. Determination of hardness (hardness between 10 and 100 IRHD). |
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
"The Mother of Nuclear Fision"
Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner
We certainly wish that this will be the last instance of gender and ethnic intollerence for a truly sound realm of science should not judge the person doing the research and should be independent of political and racial beliefs. This is the story of Lise Meitner...dubbed "The Mother of Nuclear Fision" and co-discoverer of the element protactinium [No. 91] in 1918.
Lise Meitner (1878 - 1968)
Lise Meitner was born on November 7, 1878, in Vienna, Austria. The third of eight children of a Jewish family, she entered the University of Vienna in 1901, studying physics under Ludwig Boltzmann. After she obtained her doctorate degree in 1906, she went to Berlin in 1907 to study with Max Planck and the chemist Otto Hahn. She worked together with Hahn for 30 years, each of them leading a section in Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. Hahn and Meitner collaborated closely, studying radioactivity, with her knowledge of physics and his knowledge of chemistry. In 1918, they discovered the element protactinium.
After Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938, Meitner was forced to flee Germany for Sweden. She continued her work at Manne Siegbahn's institute in Stockholm, but with little support, partially due to Siegbahn's prejudice against women in science. Hahn and Meitner met clandestinely in Copenhagen in November to plan a new round of experiments. The experiments that provided the evidence for nuclear fission were done at Hahn's laboratory in Berlin and published in January 1939. In February 1939, Meitner published the physical explanation for the observations and, with her nephew, physicist Otto Frisch, named the process nuclear fission. The discovery led other scientists to prompt Albert Einstein to write President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warning letter, which led to the Manhattan Project.
In 1944, Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his research into fission, but Meitner was ignored, partly because Hahn downplayed her role ever since she left Germany. The Nobel mistake, never acknowledged, was partly rectified in 1966, when Hahn, Meitner, and Strassman were awarded the Enrico Fermi Award. On a visit to the U.S. in 1946, she was given total American press celebrity treatment, as someone who had "left Germany with the bomb in my purse."
Meitner retired to Cambridge, England, in 1968, where she died October 27. In 1992, element 109, the heaviest known element in the universe, was named Meitnerium (Mt) in her honor. Many consider Lise Meitner the "most significant woman scientist of the 20th Century."
Lise Meitner was born on November 7, 1878 in Vienna, Austria. Upon receiving a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1906, Meitner went to the University of Berlin. There, she began to work with a chemist, Otto Hahn, she doing the physics and he the chemistry of radioactive substances. The collaboration continued for 30 years, each heading a section in Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry.
In 1938 she was forced to leave Germany and went to Sweden. In her absence, Hahn and Fritz Strassmann continued experiments they had begun earlier with Meitner. Hahn wrote to Meitner, describing the results and while visiting her nephew Otto Frisch in Denmark, they proved that a splitting of the uranium atom was energetically feasible. This process was described in a landmark 1939 letter to the journal Nature with a term borrowed from biology: fission. Immediately, these results were confirmed around the world. In 1944, Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his research into fission, but Meitner was ignored. The Nobel mistake, never acknowledged, was partly rectified in 1966, when Hahn, Meitner, and Strassmann were awarded the Enrico Fermi Award.
She retired to Cambridge, England where she died October 27, 1968. In 1997, it was announced that element 109 would be given the official name meitnerium (Mt) in her honor.
Excerpt from NOVA's Einstein's Big Idea:
OTTO HAHN: Fraulein Meitner?
OTTO HAHN: And the mathematics?
LISE MEITNER: Yes, yes, and the mathematics.
OTTO HAHN: I'll ask Fischer for a laboratory then.
LISE MEITNER: Excellent.
OTTO HAHN: I'll speak to you soon.
LISE MEITNER: Ah, so his beard must be fireproof.
STAFF MEMBER (Dramatization): Good day, Herr Hahn.
OTTO HAHN: Good day.
LISE MEITNER: Ah. Doctor Hahn, congratulations.
LISE MEITNER: I'm very pleased for you, very pleased.
KURT HESS: The Jewess endangers our Institute.
OTTO HAHN: What is it?
LISE MEITNER: Frightening news.
FRITZ STRASSMAN (Dramatization): What's happened?
OTTO HAHN: I, I actually knew. I heard today. I was going to speak to the treasurer of the Institute before I told you. We'll speak to him tomorrow. Come on, let's get you home. It's late. We'll finish up.
OTTO HAHN: I need to talk to you about Lise.
OTTO HAHN: We have to protect her.
OTTO HAHN: Lise, Horlein demands that you leave.
FRITZ STRASSMAN: You can't throw her out.
FRITZ STRASSMAN: You've given up.
OTTO ROBERT FRISCH: But that's even smaller.
LISE MEITNER: It is my work too, you know.
LISE MEITNER: How much energy?
Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics
Ruth Lewin Sime
ISBN-10: 0520208609
كومة ورق said...
um so happy i came across ur blog during my search for info about Lise Meitner. actually im not a scientist, i am a painter who one day her dream was to become a geologist and astronomer. i was talking to a dear old friend of mine about the woman scientist who originally discovered the possibility of splitting the atom, and thought of passing some info about her on to him. i knew about her through a documentary i watched on one of the Egyptian satellite channels ..
Mercury said...
كومة ورق:
Welcome to POSP blog and wander around the might find something else that would appeal to you--and you don't have to be a scientist :). You don't have to be an astronomer to enjoy the universe.
كومة ورق said...
wow! a scientist and a professor has replied to me! thank you so much for your kind response! thank you so much for the nice welcome. sure i will wander around and discover more. exploring is a pure human nature and maybe we are all astronomers in a way or another, as long as we keep observing the vast universe and meditating. as you can see, i am following your blog and i am adding a link to it in mine to give others the opportunity to explore more.
i'll do my best to keep up with all the beautiful knowledge you are kindly sharing with us in a very neat and interesting way.
with all do respect and kindest regards
Have a great day Sir! :))
Mercury said...
كومة ورق:
Again Sarah, welcome.
I see that you are residing in Egypt. Did you know that today [December 12th] is the birthdate of Naguib Mahfouz?
From "The Writer's Almanac":
It's the birthday of the man called the "Father of Modern Arabic Literature," Naguib Mahfouz, (books by this author) born in Cairo (1911). He wrote about the lives of ordinary people in the densely urban districts of Cairo. In 1988, he won the Nobel Prize, recognized for a work he had written decades earlier.
The defining event of his childhood was the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. He was seven years old, and he remembered looking out from the window of his house and seeing British soldiers shoot Egyptian men and women who were peacefully staging protests.
He got a degree in philosophy from the University of Cairo, where classes were conducted in English and French. In 1939, he got a job with the civil service and published his first book, a historical novel called Mockery of the Fates.
Then he decided to write fiction that focused on the present. Over the next five decades, he was incredibly prolific, publishing more than 30 novels, 350 short stories, five plays, and many articles.
Mahfouz is best known for Between the Two Palaces (1956), which is considered the most famous novel in the Arabic language. His novel Children of the Alley (1959) is also well known. In it, Mahfouz portrays God in an allegorical manner, and he writes about feuding brothers who resemble Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. The book was deemed blasphemy and was officially banned in all of the Arab world except Lebanon.
For most of his adult life, he got up in the morning, took a 90-minute walk around Cairo, and then read the newspaper at the same café each day. He died in 2006, at the age of 94.
Mercury said...
Correction. It should be December 11th and not December 12th for the birthdate of Naguib Mahfouz. :) |
Total Number of words made out of Greenkeeper =60
Greenkeeper is a 11 letter long Word starting with G and ending with R. Below are Total 60 words made out of this word.
7 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
1). reneger 2). regreen 3). preener 4). epergne 5). greener
6 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
1). reperk 2). keener 3). reeker 4). keeper 5). renege
5 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
1). green 2). kerne 3). kreep 4). repeg 5). preen 6). greek 7). genre
4 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
1). gree 2). knee 3). reek 4). peek 5). neep 6). perk 7). epee 8). pree 9). peen 10). peer 11). peke 12). erne 13). kern 14). gene 15). eger 16). geek 17). keen 18). keep
3 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
1). erg 2). rep 3). eke 4). ree 5). eng 6). reg 7). ere 8). per 9). kep 10). ken 11). err 12). ern 13). nee 14). gee 15). pee 16). gen 17). pen 18). peg 19). keg
2 letter Words made out of greenkeeper
en ne pe er re
Note There are 5 vowel letters and 6 consonant letters in the word greenkeeper. G is 7th, R is 18th, E is 5th, N is 14th, K is 11th, P is 16th, Letter of Alphabet series.
g, gr, gre,
r, er, per,
g rg eg eg ng k
g eg eg pg eg r
r er pr er er k
r nr er er g |
Home Scientific Research Environment, health and safety of the food chain
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Research theme : Environment, health and safety of the food-chain
The purpose of this multi-discplinary research theme is to identify and assess existing and emerging risks related to the safety of the food-chain.
Environment, health and safety of the food-chain
Food production can be threatened from various environmental compartments: air, soil and water.
Environmental pollution and climate change - means a threat to the food-chain, but also the entire food processing from farm to fork may introduce safety risks for the consumer.
The ‘Environment, Health and Safety of the Food Chain' unit performs research into the identification and evaluation of emerging risks due to ‘new' contaminants (endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles...) that may enter the food chain due to environmental pollution or during food processing (air, water, plants, animal production, packaging materials...)
Problems for food safety and the consequences for human and animal health may arise from contamination at the source of food and feed production (through soil, air or water pollution), but also the dynamics and transfers in the entire food chain, toxicology, epidemiology, risk-analysis, etc. are a subject of the investigations at CODA-CERVA.
In view of the complexity and multiple disciplines and expertise involved, these issues are investigated in collaboration with other scientific institutions, mostly in the context of externally-funded research programs.
Environment, health and safety of the food-chainA number of issues that have arisen thus far include:
- Risks associated with novel foods and food supplements (FOODINTER)
- How safe is it to use waste-water for agricultural production? (SLUDGE, FERTIDIOX)
- Does ozone pollution have an effect on the food and feed quality of brassica crops? (OFFQ)
- Risk of endocrine disrupting compounds in food e.g. through migration from food contact materials (ALTPOLYCARB)
- Endocrine dsirupting effects of food contaminants (phtalates, mycotoxins) (ENDOMYCO) |
Article Post
Pylons as Art
TO SURVIVE, modern man requires electricity. Electricity to work, to cook and to play.
It is a paradox that we cannot imagine living without electricity, while we at the same time do not accept the power pylon as a part of our cultural landscape.
They dominate the landscape with visual noise.
Power pylons perform a vital function. Nevertheless, most people regard them as a threat. They are perceived as messengers of electricity, high voltage and danger. To some, they even symbolize the growing pollution from modern civilization. All of these perceptions have, over time, become synonymous with the power pylon.
Should we not try to create overhead transmission lines that dignify the power pylon and restore it as a worthy part of the landscape? We could let the appearance of the lines radiate the hope and possibilities we see in sustainable power production.
Transmission grids across the world all face great challenges as we reorganize energy production to increase the use of renewable sources. Almost all kinds of sustainable energy exploit the forces of nature. The wind turbine only turns when the wind blows, the photovoltaic cells rely on unobstructed solar rays, and the hydroelectric power plants run at full speed when the snow melts and water runs down the mountains.
We cannot avoid expanding the power grid if we want the capacity to move the energy to where it is needed, when it is needed, thus creating a reliable supply for everyone. It is this change in our electricity production and transmission grids that present a unique opportunity - the opportunity to make a difference in the landscape and create new pylons with a strong design profile, making power pylons an acceptable part of our present as well as our future.
My Danish studio, Bystrup Architects and Engineers, is designing and developing such new power pylons.
My company's work in the field of overhead transmission lines began in 2001 when my studio won the competition for a new power pylon in Denmark. The pylon was named the Design Pylon because the aesthetic appearance was the main point of focus. As a result of the competition, 80 Design Pylons were erected between the towns of Bramslev and Haverslev in Jutland. Working with technical installation from an aesthetic point of view did not turn out to be easy. Several details would have been different if, in 2001, I had the experience and knowledge I have today.
You could call the Design Pylon an important first step in the evolution toward the power pylons of the future. Since the erection of the first pylons, my studio has specialized in developing new high-voltage power pylons.
My company's office displays a nearly overwhelming number of designs built as 1:50 scale models. They are everywhere, and when you look in the archives of power pylons from the past 10 years, you enter a world of tower designs. Some have not been developed beyond initial sketches, while others are ready for production after they have been thoroughly refined and detailed technically as well as aesthetically. Essentially, they all answer the same questions. "What do we want from the power pylon? Is it a technical necessity, an object of design or a piece of land art?"
The answer lies somewhere in between. One of the challenges is to optimize the design according to the demands. An object as technically demanding as a power pylon needs to be more than pleasant to the eye, not only because faulty high-voltage design can have catastrophic results, but also because a wide range of technical demands must be met. For example, technical demands vary according to voltage, and as a result, design approaches can change. A power pylon designed for 400 kilovolts does not necessarily work at other voltages.
It is also important to take the configuration of the conductors into consideration when designing power pylons. Even though this step is often overlooked, the conductors have a significant visual presence with overhead transmission lines that stretch across the landscape. And the configuration of the conductors is as important as the design of the actual pylons.
The importance of conductor layout was examined in the Eagle Pylon project, a 2-by-400-kilovolt pylon developed for Six hundred Eagle Pylons will be erected between the towns of Kasso and Tjele in Denmark. The relationship between the pylon design and the conductor layout was examined as the pylon was developed as a one-, two- and three-level design. All three variations were thoroughly examined before a final decision was made to erect the two-level design because it was regarded as optimal in its relationship with the landscape.
Another important aspect of power pylon design is the choice of materials. Currently, industrial production offers far more options than was possible with traditional lattice towers. This advancement has made the use of far more materials possible, including materials that can be more effective in terms of erection speed and total cost.
The choice of materials can have a significant influence on the visual appearance of the new pylons. That is one reason why the studio has been working with mirror-polished stainless steel that reflects the surroundings and that can create the illusion of an almost invisible pylon.
An example of a mirror-polished design is the Stealth Pylon. The Stealth Pylon design is part of the work that led to Eagle Pylon, and it was developed in parallel with the effort that produced the pylon that will be erected between the towns of Kasso and Tjele as an alternative that might be used with the entire length of the transmission line.
The Mirror Wall won first prize in the competition to design a landscape/art tower at Heia in Norway, which also uses the reflection of the landscape on mirror-polished stainless steel. This pylon is a piece of land art, and it will be built as a one-of-a-kind pylon on a new transmission line in Norway.
The studio examined another material, fiber composite, because its insulating properties give rise to radical new possibilities in power pylon design. A fiber composite power pylon can be designed without traditional insulator chains because the pylon itself acts as one big insulator. The power pylon can be made visually clean and simple, thus minimizing its visual effect on the landscape.
Using the material correctly makes it possible to compress the power pylon and reduce its overall height, which is an important factor when looking at the appearance of the entire transmission line in the landscape. The lower pylons easily hide between forests and hills. The use of fiber composites as structural members in power pylons is new, but the technique is well known in the production of composite insulators.
Now is the time to create a contemporary pylon for modern life and adapt it to its surroundings. Let us create power pylons that remind us of the renewable energy that flows through the grid.
We owe it to the power pylon, the landscape and, not least, to ourselves.
No discussions yet. Start a discussion below. |
Trigonometry (10th Edition)
Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0321671775
ISBN 13: 978-0-32167-177-6
Quadrant III and IV
Work Step by Step
1. If sine is negative, that means y must be negative. This happens in quadrants III and IV. 2. We need to remember that sine and cosecant will always have the same sign. 3. Therefore, III or IV quadrant will be correct.
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Fun Experiments For Science Mad Boys
12/05/2011 23:24 | Updated 22 May 2015
science mad boysI am an arts girl. Show me some dusty historical tomes or a shelf of classic fiction and I am in heaven. English was always my favourite class, and I am never happier than when I am reading or writing. That's why it's such a shame that my school age boys are science mad.
I still remember the dread I would feel before double chemistry, the complete mystification that would descend as my physics teacher started talking about electrical circuits.
In the end I managed to fail all but one of my science GCSEs and promptly left behind that rarefied world with cries of joy.
Trouble is my total lack of scientific ability has come back to bite me as my sons continually ask me questions which I am entirely unqualified to answer.
Which planet is furthest away? What do white blood cells do? What makes a steam train's wheels move? My stock response is 'Ask daddy when he gets home', but since they have usually forgotten by then I feel as if this isn't really feeding their thirst for knowledge.
Just in case you were wondering Google tells me that the answers are: Neptune, as apparently poor old Pluto has been demoted and is no longer considered a proper planet; white blood cells are a part of our immune system and help to fight infection and, put simply, a steam train uses the energy released by burning coal to power its engine which drives the wheels.
But while science may be shrouded in a veil of mystery for me, I know it is my job as a mum to encourage all signs of enthusiasm for education, particularly as I am well aware that it is boys who tend to struggle more at school. Thus I took up a challenge laid down by the L'Oréal Young Scientist Centre , which has been set up as part of the Royal Institution of Great Britain to inspire children to enjoy science.
It sent me two experiments to try out with my sons – both had the potential to make untold amounts of mess so they couldn't wait to get started. The first involved skewering inflated balloons to make a sort of kebab – it took several noisy attempts, but they boys loved all the pops and bangs. The second is called pepper scatter and even I was amazed by the results, if not all the mucky puddles the boys managed to create in their makeshift lab (i.e. my newly cleaned kitchen).
If you fancy trying out these experiments to inspire your budding boffins then here are the instructions along with a proper scientific explanation of what is happening:
Balloon Kebab
What you will need:
A balloon
A wooden kebab skewer with a sharp end
Some Vaseline or vegetable oil
What to do:
1. Inflate the balloon to about 2/3 its full size.
2. Smear a thin coating of the Vaseline onto the end of the skewer.
3. Find the top part of the balloon where the rubber is not quite as taut, and start to push the sharp end of the skewer into the balloon.
4. Keep pushing the skewer until it reaches the opposite side of the balloon then repeat the pushing and twisting until you have the whole balloon on the stick.
5. The balloon might burst and it may take a few attempts but with a bit of practice and some luck you may be able to get two or three balloons on the same stick.
What is happening?
If you could see the rubber that makes up a balloon on a microscopic level, you would see many long strands or chains of molecules. These long strands of molecules are called a polymer, and the elasticity of these polymer chains causes rubber to be stretchy. Blowing up the balloon stretches these strands of polymer chains. You wisely chose to pierce the balloon at a point where the polymer molecules were stretched out the least. The long strands of molecules stretched around the skewer and kept the air inside the balloon from rushing out.
Pepper Scatter
What you will need:
A large shallow tray (must be clean and well rinsed)
Black pepper in a shaker
Small measuring jug
Measuring spoon
Metal kebab skewer or handle of fork
Shampoo or washing up liquid
What to do:
1. Fill the tray with a shallow layer of tap water.
2. Next make up a 1 in 10 dilution of your shampoo, for example if you have a 5ml teaspoon measure of shampoo you need to put this in the jug and add water up to the 50ml mark. Stir gently to mix.
3. Now the water is still, scatter a layer of pepper over the surface of the water.
4. Now dip the clean handle of a fork or spoon into your diluted shampoo, this will leave a small drop on the end. Touch this to the centre of your tray and watch what happens.
What is happening?
The pepper is there simply to make the surface clearly visible, what you see is the result of the reduction in the water's surface tension when detergent is added.
Detergents are members of an amazing chemical family called surfactants (short for surface active agents). Every detergent molecule has two distinct ends which chemists call the head and the tail. The tail strongly repels water while the head is strongly attracted to it. As a result, detergent molecules prefer being on the surface of water with their water repelling tails sticking up and out into the air.
Please let us know how you got on with these.
Even better, upload your experiment photos.
More science experiments on Parentdish here.
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Christopher Columbus letter dated 1493 returns to Italy
ROME: A stolen letter dating from 1493 in which Christopher Columbus describes his trip to the Americas was handed back to Italy on Wednesday after being discovered in the library of the US Congress.
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“500 years after it was written, the letter has made the same trip back from America,” Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said at a ceremony in Rome to mark the handover, thanking US authorities for their cooperation in returning the precious document.
Columbus wrote the original letter during his return voyage to Europe, the year after he had landed in the Americas thinking he had reached India.
It was written in Spanish and addressed to Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had financed his trip.
The letter was then translated into Latin, the lingua franca of the time, and copies were made for distribution around Europe. Eleven copies were made in 1493 and six others between 1494 and 1497.
It was one of the first batch of translation copies that found its way to the Library of Congress after being stolen from the Riccardiana library in Florence and replaced with a forged copy.
The investigation into what happened has not established exactly when that happened but it is now known that an anonymous collector sold the letter to a New York-based antiquarian book dealer in 1990.
Two years later it sold at auction for $300,000 to a buyer who donated it to the Library of Congress in Washington.
The file on the original theft remains open. The stolen letter is to be returned to Florence where it will go on public display. No one knows what happened to the original Spanish text.
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Thought Starters
Is social media cyberspace’s graffiti?
Do you remember the moniker “Kilroy was here”?
One theory of the origin of the phrase is that a quality inspector in a munitions plant in the 1940’s named JJ Kilroy wrote the moniker on bomb casings which were eventually distributed throughout Europe during World War II. The moniker was adopted by Allied soldiers who would draw the symbol on surfaces in the towns and regions they occupied. At the end of the war the moniker made its way back to North America and eventually became recognizable across all socioeconomic groups. Graffiti artists considered “Kilroy was here” one of the earliest forms of their art.
Modern graffiti is commonly understood to have originated in NYC in the late 1960’s as a basic form of communication. Taki 183, a moniker for an inner city courier, is widely known as an originator of graffiti “tagging” his name on surfaces wherever he went. At the time there was limited technology or ability to communicate widely across the city, state or country. It became apparent that graffiti was forming as a way for local inner city youth to express their ideas in an attempt to be recognized. Taki 183 was interviewed by the NYT after a reporter discovered his moniker throughout the city. The interview influenced similar socioeconomic groups to emulate him and the amount of graffiti in NYC exploded. Over time, tagging started getting more elaborate, larger and more complex and graffiti started to develop technique, style and most of all, a vocabulary.
Graffiti crews often travelled together but were not typically prone to excessive violence; street gang graffiti was typically distinguishable by its culture relating primarily to territory and did not have the same sophistication that went into most street art. Some “writers” were associated with gang members and in the early days graffiti clubs fought over turf in a similar way that street gangs did, however, graffiti crews made up a small microcosm of the overall street gang presence among the many sub-cultures in NYC.
The 1960’s and 1970’s were supercharged with political and social unrest, inner city strife and a widening racial divide. Graffiti was considered the breeding ground for the rebellion against government and state. Being able to been seen, heard, demonstrate life, character and talent without the means of modern technology fuelled tagging throughout inner city New York.
As the art form moved into the 1980’s a movement known as style wars developed. Groups or crews formed alliances to create larger more complex pieces and were constantly watchful for authorities to avoid prosecution. Graffiti artists started to develop sophistication; planning pieces in sketchbooks with their crews before starting work. Older writers would take on apprentices to pass on skills, develop talent and eventually assist with larger pieces. Even though NYC was widely considered the epicentre for graffiti, new styles started to develop over time in other parts of the world as regional influences took hold and broadened the spectrum of the art form.
Even today there still appears to be a strong link between graffiti and street culture. Graffiti is considered to represent an expression of identity, talent, skill and dedication, while also showcasing individuality, social resistance and cultural representation through an art form.
With the advent and ease of access to modern technology have the rebellious, politically charged societal pressures of the past been translated into new art forms and expressed through digital media such as social networking? As technology becomes more accessible to all socioeconomic classes, is the eventual downfall of traditional graffiti inevitable or will it always be a relevant part of the urban landscape? Are the spaces within the realm of social media becoming the new graffiti? Is tagging and writing now being played out in the digital world?
As an art form there are countless blogs and websites dedicated to individual expression of passion wherever you look. These destinations can be seen as an expression of culture on the streets of cyberspace. Then there is facebook, an almost direct replica of a world of graffiti in the form of random thoughts expressed by the need to be heard. When graffiti is seen as a destructive force, negative intrusions such as spamming forcing itself on your experience could be seen as similar to the tagging that may disturb you when you see it in your neighbourhood.
The internet is not currently regulated and therefore we can all tag at will. Will regulatory bodies and mass monetization eventually try to control the flow of information and content on the internet? Will both the art and destructive aspects of cyber graffiti eventually be thwarted by regulation similar to the City of New York’s war on graffiti started in the 1990’s? Will the internet have virtual fences to keep you out? Will the internet have virtual Teflon coated surfaces where your words, ideas and thoughts will not stick? If so, how will the resurgence of graffiti as a revolutionary expression be communicated by writers and taggers waiting in the wings to tag the walls of cyberspace?
Before it’s too late, tell me what your graffiti is?
About rdopping
One thought on “Is social media cyberspace’s graffiti?
1. Love your equation of graffiti to Net freedom since it’s really is about the freedom of expression. Governments continue to prove to us that they do not work for those who value freedom. It’s all about gaming a system so that they keep on winning, while everyone else loses. That’s not what the Net is about. And frankly, the Net wasn’t even created for commerce in the first place – it was a final communication line in the event of a catastrophe brought about by man, or should I say government. Regulations would help if the regulators weren’t in bed with who they’re watching. So it’s up to the people to do their job, and the people do it quite well.
People on the Net prove time and time again that they have what it takes to ensure a secure Net. Unlike the song, This Land Is Your Land, the Net isn’t just made for you and me but for everyone. Even in the dark, people will always find a way to freely express themselves, as they should. People have shown much more care for everyone’s well-being than the government has.
Posted by Carolyn | November 16, 2011, 16:11
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Saturday, May 31, 2014
Hundred Days Reform: Other Reforms
Emperor Guangxu
On June of 1898, Emperor Guangxu made an announcement that shook the foundations of the old Middle Kingdom. The Emperor issued decrees that aimed to modernized and bring progress to China after series of defeat and humiliation. Reforms were made to the education system, civil service examination, and administration. Other than that, there were also reforms for the military and the economy. Much of this radical changes were to the dismay of Emperor Guangxu’s old fashioned and traditionalist courtiers.
Mussolini's Battles: The Battle for Lira
Mussolini (center) in 1922
In 1922, the Europe was still recovering from the horrors and devastation of World War I. The huge casualties caused a huge drain to manpower. It also destroyed a lot of farms and factories. In addition, many countries were in debt which was caused by the huge money needed to wage the war. The pressure to repair the economy and rejuvenate their country fell to the leaders of the post war period. Some governments, however, failed to bring this needed boost and recovery to their people. This failure caused their fall. In Germany, the monarchy under Wilhelm II fell in the hands of Republicans. In Italy, the reins of power came under the hands of a new far right wing party – the fascist. They were led by a World War I veteran and die hard fascist named Benito Mussolini. He would instigate series of economic battles, among this battles was the Battle for the Lira.
Hundred Days Reform: Administration
Forbidden City (the center of the Empire)
depicted in a Ming Painting
When Emperor Guangxu began the Hundred Days’ Reform, he wanted to improve the public administration of China. Much of his reforms were encouraged by Kang Youwei. The Emperor wanted to remove unnecessary offices to make the government more efficient and less costly. Besides removing useless departments, the Emperor also sought to reform the government by creating new offices and appointing new officials. The reforms, however, faced formidable enemies which would succeed in halting the changes.
Hundred Days Reform: Education
Emperor Guangxu at his study
Beijing, 1898 – Chinese Emperor Guangxu had just took direct control of his Empire for a decade. During that time, China was in a dire situation. Its territories were carved by Western imperialist into several spheres of influence. Emperor Guangxu wanted to reverse the dismal conditions of China. Inspired by the Meiji Restoration and stories of same situation from abroad, like Peter the Great, in June 11, 1898 Guangxu decreed several orders instituting wide ranging and radical reforms. The Hundred Days Reform began. Including to the focus of reforms.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Cornelius Vanderbilt: Ferry Owner Turned Railroad King
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Transportation is a viable mode of traveling from one place to another. It allowed economies to grow. It allowed people to see different places besides their home. The bigger your country, the more the mode and more integrated the transportation should be. The United States is one example of these big countries and during the 18th-century, many cash in on this industry. Among of this transport tycoons is the competitive "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The Lunda Empire of Central Africa
H. M. Stanley
In the 19th century, the travels of Henry Morton Stanley brought exploration of the region of Central Africa. Back in Europe, as the Industrial Revolution continued to gain momentum, more and more resources were needed to sustain the growth of various industries. Belgium, a growing industrial nation, was looking into establishing a colony somewhere. And when the words of Stanley’s travels was heard, the Belgian move in to the modern-day Congo to establish its biggest colony. However, as they began their conquest, they saw a civilization that occupy the whole region. An empire that belonged to the Lunda people existed at their front.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
A Fight for Change: The Hundred Days Reform
Guangxu Emperor
China during the 19th century was a relic of its former glory. Once the envy of the world, the Chinese Empire, under the Machu Qing Dynasty, had fallen into corruption, decadence, and hardline conservatism. Twice, China was beaten by the combine forces of the British and the French and forced to sign many unequal treaties. These treaties forced China to give several concessions and humiliating surrender of sovereignty and territories. During the last parts of this century, reforms meant to reform and modernize the whole Empire. The reforms were opposed not by the so-called foreign devils, but by those who were from the inside of the imperial court. For a hundred days, the fight was on for the future of imperial China.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
J.P. Morgan: The Giant of Financial World
J.P. Morgan
Most of the greatest tycoons of the Gilded Age were rags to riches stories. From a poor humble background, to a self-made man, to a great industrialist criticized for his practices, this is the usual story line of great businessmen like Rockefeller and Carnegie. However, it cannot be said the same for John Pierpont Morgan. His story was that of someone born to a rich and affluent family.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Burger's Mongolian Connection
Mongols besieging Baghdad
In modern day fast food chains, one of the most popular main dishes is hamburger. This dishes made of a bun and a beef patty in the middle gave a good meal to many. The burger was popularized in the United States during the 19th century. Further back, hamburger was said to be brought by German immigrant from the German city of Hamburg. But a deeper search to the beginnings, the main idea for hamburger came from one of the greatest conquerors - the Mongols.
The Real Dido
Aeneas tells Dido the misfortunes of the Trojan city by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin
In modern day Tunisia, once a powerful city stands. The city of Carthage was a Mediterranean superpower before it was eclipse by the glory of Rome. The Carthaginian Empire was a maritime nation, founded by the legacy of its ancestors - Phoenician. According to legend the city of Carthage was founded by a Phoenician princess named Elissa, but she is more popularly known as Dido.
The Last Great Manchu Emperor
Emperor Qianlong
China, the 17th to the 18th century - under the Manchu or Qing Dynasty, the Empire saw new fats of prosperity. Culture flourished under several emperors. Expansion of territory or influence continued. The Chinese economy was the envy of the world as many countries sought to trade with the Empire. During the 1700's one emperor became the focus of such heights. A cultured man, he was Emperor Qianlong.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Fall from Grace: The Homestead Strike of 1892
Worker behind a cover during the shoot out
After the bloody and devastating Civil War, a period of industrial boom soon followed. The period known as the Gilded Age saw the rise of many industrialist, mostly were known as Robber Barons. This group of industrialist abused the lack of laws that protect fair competition, dissent wages, and safe working conditions. They subjected their workers to long hours work in very harsh working conditions for meager wages. In 1892, a union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA), pushed for a strike to voice their concerned on the management of the Homestead Steel Plant owned by the steel tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, and his right hand man, Henry Frick.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Mussolini's Battles: The Battle for Grain
A propaganda poster where Mussolini stands
in a tractor
In 1925, Benito Mussolini, a World War I veteran and a socialist turned conservative, declared himself the sole ruler of Italy. Il Duce, as he was called, became the most powerful man in the Italian Peninsula. His vision for the Italian nation was to turn it into a powerful and self-reliant states. And so, Mussolini waged series of economic battles to make Italy economically strong for his future conquest. Among the first battle had a goal to secure the supply of grain of Italy. In order to achieve self-sufficiency in grain, Mussolini announced the Battle for Grain.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Dejima Island: The Window to Japan
Dejima Island
Sunday, May 4, 2014
The Almoravids - The Beber Empire of Spain and Africa
Almoravid Empire
Spain, in during the period of exploration, was the bastion of Christianity. But before it came to be, it was hugely inhabited and ruled by the Muslims. First, controlled by the Umayyad Caliphate which later moved to Spain itself and became the Cordoba Caliphate. It was later divided by Christian Kingdoms and smaller Islamic Kingdoms known as Taifas. However, when the Reconquista began, the Taifas asked helped from a dynasty that dominated Morocco – the Almoravids.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Empire of the Golden Stool: The Asante Empire
Osei Tutu
As the 19th century dawn, imperialism, driven by the industrial revolution in Europe, landed on the shores of Africa. Many empires, kingdoms, chiefdoms, and other form of political systems fell one by one to the hand of the Western Powers. Many of Africans resisted and fought bravely against the invaders. In South Africa, the Zulus overwhelmed the well-armed and better trained British forces during the Isandwana. In the area of modern state of Ghana, an Empire once stood that defended its sovereignty bravely against the British. This was the Empire of Asante.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Cleveland Massacre: The Rise of Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller (1870's)
In winter of 1871, a collusion was form between the railroads and the oil industry. As the two began to execute their devious plan to corner the railroad and oil industry under the name of South Improvement Company, the public, especially the press, protested against the monopolistic intentions of the group. As a result, the South Improvement Company disappeared with the winter. However, when spring bloom in 1872, so as a new powerful company also appeared, a bigger and stronger company of the oil mogul John Rockefeller, Standard Oil.
Khafre: The Builder of the Sphinx
The Great Sphinx of Giza in 1870's. The face is said to be modeled from Pharaoh Khafre
Egypt – land of the Pharaohs and pyramids. Its tombs and monuments fascinated both tourist and intellects alike. In the Giza Plateau, the staggering Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu stands as the testament of the power, wealth, and eternal life of the pharaoh. Next to the Great Pyramid of Khufu lies another monumental pyramid. And near to the plateau stands on guard a giant structure depicting a sitting lion with a head of a human known to all as the sphinx. This two iconic structures were the result of the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre. |
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Virtual Mixing
Mixing is more than making sounds louder or softer. Mixing utilizes sonic illusions to support the song's intended expressive aspects. In order to create a more believable sonic illusion, it is important to have a good understanding of the material you are working on. You can try to fake mixing a style of music you don't like to listen to, but chances are the music will be less expressive as a mix by someone who appreciates that music style.
Dance music mixed by someone who has never been to a club (and I don't mean observing, but being able to FEEL the beat and how a good DJ can work a room) will not make you move as much. A ballad mixed by someone who is not moved by subtle beauty may not contain the lush swirling "waves" that the song deserves. A rock song mixed by someone that has never felt the power of a Marshall stack may not have the "push" it requires.
Now that we have established that you should be able to appreciate the mood of the material you are working on, lets talk about how to achieve it.
Remember that you are only dealing with a limited number of variables when you mix.
SOUND: The sound of each instrument (which can be automated and change throughout the song), including the amount of punch, smoothness, clarity, warmth, edginess, etc.
VOLUME: How loud?
SOUND FIELD PLACEMENT: Where in the sound field is each instrument placed.
SPACE: Each sound can exist in it's own space through reverbs, delays and surround sound placement.
PERFORMANCE ALTERATION: This includes fixing pitch, muting parts, moving parts, or adding delays to change or introduce a rhythm).
* The interaction between all of the instruments as these variables change throughout the song IS the mix. *
Often you will mix songs that already have sounds and parts that express the proper mood. When you encounter a song that has sounds and parts that seem to push the song in a different direction (such as a club song with no steady rhythms) you may have to try to use the recorded parts as RAW MATERIALS for new parts or sounds that are more fitting to the feeling of the song.
Here are some suggestions for a few example styles of music. This is not intended to be a checklist of things to do for every style. For anything not listed below, think about what is important for the song you are mixing and tweak your raw materials to make the parts appropriate.
If you are trying to mix a ballad, you may have to "smear" some parts with reverb or delay. Depending on if your ballad is lush or stark you may prefer a wide sound or an intimate one. If you are looking for wide and have only mono sounds, try stereo spreading plugins or simply panning the track to one side while sending it into a very short delays panned to the other side. Be careful of the drums. Ballad drums should be gently pushing, getting aggressive when the vocal gets strong but except for rock ballads rarely overpowering. I always try to establish intimacy in my ballads, so when I am working with "swirly pads" I always ride them early in the mix to help define the vocal space.
There are many different types of dance music that have their own particular flavors and sounds, so I am not going to get too much into specifics here. Generally, make the beat as strong as you can. Although wide use of stereo can help to clear up busy rhythm tracks, remember that dance music will ultimately be heard in large rooms with speakers far away and separated by lots of people. In other words, people may only get to hear one speaker. If a sound is important to the overall rhythm try not to pan it completely to one side.
If the drum parts you are working with have the wrong rhythm for the material you are mixing, you may have to mute certain parts at specific places or even add delays to change the rhythm. The 1/8 delay used on the kick drum in Robert Palmer's "Hyperactive" totally changed the feel of the song.
More complicated use of delays (such as 1/8, 1/4 or triplet notes) can take a simple kick - snare rhythm and turn it into a funky or driving beat.
If the guitars you are mixing are too clean for the function of the part they are playing, you may need to add additional distortion. The LA2A was great for this because the distortion was very musical. I used to plug fuzz boxes and other guitar effects into board (after compensating for the different in/out levels) and mix through them. Now there are guitar amp plugins that create some decent distortion, but use them carefully.
If the drums sound too dry for an "arena-rock" song you may be mixing, you will most likely want to send them into reverb for a bigger sound. Don't just send everything in at the same amounts. Get your sounds up using your kick and snare, then after adding toms and overheads into the reverbs check to make sure you have not lost too much punch (you may need to back off a little). A popular trick is to gate room tracks and have the gate triggered by the kick, snare or toms, even setting up different sets of room track faders triggered by the individual drums and processed differently (with the snare triggered room being sent into an additional reverb, etc).
Of course if you are trying something dramatically different I suggest you try to give the client one mix they like with the tracks as they were recorded. Having "taken care of business" you can then move on to my favorite part of mixing..."Take 2". With very rare exception, every one of my "Take 2" mixes were used instead of the approved first mix.
Sometimes Take 2 involved nothing more than different sounds or rides. Sometimes Take 2 has involved muting or moving parts. A few times I have removed song sections. One time I removed a huge power guitar solo bridge section, complete with big drum fills and full wailing band...leaving only the intimate vocal and acoustic guitar verses and choruses. I literally cut out several minutes (and no doubt quite a bit of recording expense) from the 2" tape copy that I made, and left the instrumental section in a pile on the floor. The only thing I kept was the howling guitar feedback from the very end of the solo, which I flew all over the song at an extremely low levels and slowly sweeping around in a deep reverb. The singer burst into tears saying, "this is how I always thought it should be" and even the guitar player liked the song better that way. I gave him the pile of tape form the floor and told him he can simply use it for some other song.
Remember to have your client happy with a first take before trying anything drastic, and also to be fast with your Take 2. The client has every right to expect you to move on, so it may be hard to convince your client to let you take the time to develop an idea. Try to consider alternate ideas while mixing and be ready to change to the second direction in 15 minutes or less. Then let the client hear it and ask if they want you to continue or move on.
Here is a great Take 2 story:
I was mixing for a famous singer (don't ask who or where). During the entire album every mix that was approved was followed with a "Take 2" mix that was preferred as the choice mix. I was mixing one slow moody piece, and the producer (not the artist) kept telling me to push instruments that was taking the song away from this intimate, soft and comforting feeling I was shooting for (that was matching the lazy laid back vocal performance). He wanted it to be more direct and punchy.
I gave the producer what he wanted, and the artist came in (he was booked to sing some takes live with an orchestra in another room). Everybody liked the first take, and I was told to move on. I said, "give me 20 minutes for Take 2, please" and I was told "No, move on to the next song". I explained that I felt there was a better mix that needed at least to be heard and both the producer and artist insisted that since the first mix was so perfect I should move on. I changed the tape to the next song and they went to the other room to record.
I tried to bring up the next song, but about 10 minutes in I was still angry at not getting the chance to do Take 2. The song had been one of my favorites, and I knew I could make it much more beautiful and compelling. I reasoned that they hired me and brought me to the studio to mix because they wanted MY sound, and if I felt that strongly I should at least spend 10 minutes trying. At that point I was so convinced that the song HAD to be mixed right I was prepared to be fired for my actions. I told my assistant to put the previous song back on (he said, "Yes!" and ran to it, after having to listen to me bitch and rant).
I gave the rhodes that old stereo-pan-with-a-smallstone sound, softened the heavy conga, backed off the pads, made a few other changes and I was where I had imagined. I then re-rode the vocal and horn solo, as well as a few other sounds at various places to better fit the new image. Then I listened back to make sure I was done, and asked the artist's assistant (who had been in the room the whole time) to get him. The assistant refused.
The artist's assistant explained that the artist was going to be very angry and he did not want to be part of the project not proceeding as ordered. He refused to be the bearer of bad news. My own assistant jumped at the chance to get the artist, and went to the other room. A few minutes later he returned with the news that the artist was indeed rather angry with me.
I went to the other room (on a different floor of the building) and stood respectfully off to the side in the control room while he was performing a take with the orchestra. When he was finished he saw me and came in to speak. I apologized profusely for the interruption and asked him to please come listen to only a few seconds of Take 2.
In the elevator he was silent but obviously mad. The producer was with him, and he did not seem too happy either. I brought them into the studio, sat them in front of the speakers, dimmed the lights, and played the mix.
After the mix ended there was a long pause before the artist said, "now it is perfect...unless you hear anything else?". He insisted I perform Take 2 on every song, and even suggested I listen back to the finished mixes to see if I had any other ideas. He then went back to the other room and recorded a great vocal. End of story.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! I was ready to put quite a bit on the line because I felt strongly about my opinion. I was also banking on the artist's ability to listen with an open mind to the mix - which I knew was based on both his appreciation of the finished mixes and my reputation. As a new mixer you should NEVER be as arrogant as me - regardless of the outcome of my story.
You must learn to be fast enough to present an idea of what Take 2 will be within a short enough period of time so the client does not view it as "wasteful experimentation with something that is already finished and approved". Eventually your reputation will cause clients to be patient while you (quickly) throw up new ideas for Take 2. |
February 17, 2015 / 1:37 PM / in 3 years
By John Kemp
On Monday, a crude-carrying train operated by CSX railroad derailed in West Virginia, setting at least 14 tank cars ablaze and forcing the evacuation of two nearby towns.
On the day before, a train operated by Canadian National Railway and carrying 100 tank cars of crude derailed in a remote part of northern Ontario and caught fire.
Since Lac Megantic, there have been at least 11 other serious derailments across the United States and Canada involving trains shipping large volumes of oil, according to a tally published by the Congressional Research Service (“U.S. rail transport of crude oil: background and issues for Congress”, Dec 2014).
Serious incidents involving crude-carrying trains posing a significant threat to life, property and the environment are occurring on average once every seven weeks.
Between 2006 and April 2014, there were 16 significant accidents involving high-hazard trains carrying crude oil or ethanol. In total 281 tank cars derailed, nearly 5 million gallons of crude or ethanol were released when the tank cars were breached, and there were 48 fatalities, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
So far, most of the derailments have occurred in remote areas and small rural communities, lessening their impact, both in terms of physical damage and political sensitivity. But it is only a matter of time before a train derails in a major urban area like Chicago or Albany, both of which are rail centres handling large numbers of oil trains, causing mass casualties.
No other industry would be allowed to tolerate such an appalling safety record.
The problem has been extensively chronicled in accident investigation reports by the NTSB dating as far back as 1992.
Unlike the pressure tank cars used to transport other highly flammable or poisonous liquids, the DOT-111 design tank cars which carry most crude and ethanol cannot reliably contain their load in the event of an accident.
DOT-111 tank cars lack full head shields to prevent end-on punctures in the event of a collision. Their tank walls are significantly thinner. There is no requirement for them to have thermal protection to protect against fire. And many have fittings which shear off in accidents, according to NTSB (“Rail accidents involving crude oil and ethanol releases,” April 2014).
NTSB has repeatedly warned DOT-111 tank cars are not suitable for carrying flammable loads like crude and ethanol. Canada has already mandated their accelerated phase-out following Lac Megantic.
But the United States is still arguing over who should have primary responsibility for improving train safety and how long shippers should be given to phase out unsafe tank cars.
Oil shippers argue the railroads need to do a better job of keeping trains and tank cars on the rails, while railroads argue shippers need to use better tank cars that will not catch fire.
Obviously, the solution requires both. In an ideal world, tank cars should never come off the rails; the number of derailments has indeed been alarmingly high. But accidents happen and it is critical that when they do, tank cars should contain their contents safely until emergency responders can deal with the situation.
Attempts to address the safety problem have become bogged down by fighting over whether crude is really a highly flammable liquid (the answer to that question should be obvious by now); whether DOT-111 tank cars are up to the job (the answer is clearly no); and how quickly DOT-111 tank cars should be phased out of crude service (within three years or up to a decade).
Railroad operators have made relatively speedy progress in agreeing new rules and operating procedures for trains carrying large volumes of crude and ethanol which went into effect in August 2013 (“Circular OT-55-N: Recommended railroad operating practices for transportation of hazardous materials”).
Procedures for “key trains” include lower speed limits, heightened safety protocols which give such high-hazard trains priority over all other traffic on the network and require more frequent track inspections, as well as routing them around densely-populated urban areas where possible.
Crude oil shippers have responded much more slowly, arguing that crude is not especially dangerous and they should be given much longer to phase out DOT-111s.
The problem is exacerbated by the allocation of liability. Most DOT-111 tank cars are owned by shippers rather than the railroads themselves. But in the event of an accident, it is the railroad which is held responsible.
As common carriers, railroads must accept any cargo, including crude, provided it is offered in a tank car with an approved design, which at the moment includes DOT-111s.
As some railroad executives have noted, every time they accept a dangerous consignment such as chlorine, ammonia or a large number of oil tank cars, the potential liabilities mean they are quite literally betting the company. In contrast, shippers are largely exempted from liability.
If the U.S. government insists on a new rule that phases out DOT-111 tank cars from crude oil and ethanol service, the costs will largely fall on the shippers, who will have to replace their tank cars.
Little wonder oil shippers have tenaciously fought proposals for an accelerated phase out of DOT-111s from oil and ethanol service, raising concerns about the rule-making process itself and citing limitations on how quickly more tank cars could be ordered.
Aggressive lobbying and lawyering has slowed the regulatory response to the problem in the United States. But it is a short-sighted approach which is putting the entire oil-by-rail industry in jeopardy.
With serious accidents running at one every seven weeks or so, it is only a matter of time before one occurs in a big urban area and causes mass casualties. In the politically charged aftermath, the entire crude by rail will be at risk.
It is time to remove the lawyers and lobbyists from the process and reach a top-level political and business decision between the DOT and chief executives from both the railroads and the shipping companies to accelerate the phase out of dangerous DOT-111 tank cars and protect the entire industry. (Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:54
Capturing Energy from Earth's Infrared Emissions
"It's not at all obvious, at first, how you would generate DC power by emitting infrared light in free space toward the cold," says principal investigator Federico Capasso, the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard SEAS. "To generate power by emitting, not by absorbing light, that's weird. It makes sense physically once you think about it, but it's highly counterintuitive. We're talking about the use of physics at the nanoscale for a completely new application."
Challenging convention
Capasso is a world-renowned expert in semiconductor physics, photonics, and solid-state electronics. He co-invented the infrared quantum-cascade laser in 1994, pioneered the field of bandgap engineering, and demonstrated an elusive quantum electrodynamical phenomenon called the repulsive Casimir force -- work for which he has received the SPIE Gold Medal, the European Physical Society Prize for Quantum Electronics and Optics, and the Jan Czochralski Award for lifetime achievement. His research team seems to specialize in rigorously questioning other physicists' assumptions about optics and electronics.
"The mid-IR has been, by and large, a neglected part of the spectrum," says Capasso. "Even for spectroscopy, until the quantum cascade laser came about, the mid-IR was considered a very difficult area to work with. People simply had blinders on."
"Sunlight has energy, so photovoltaics make sense; you're just collecting the energy. But it's not really that simple, and capturing energy from emitting infrared light is even less intuitive," says lead author Steven J. Byrnes (AB '07), a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. "It's not obvious how much power you could generate this way, or whether it's worthwhile to pursue, until you sit down and do the calculation."
As it turns out, the power is modest but real.
As Byrnes points out, "The device could be coupled with a solar cell, for example, to get extra power at night, without extra installation cost."
Two proposed devices -- one macro, one nano
To show the range of possibilities, Capasso's group suggests two different kinds of emissive energy harvesters: one that is analogous to a solar thermal power generator, and one that is analogous to a photovoltaic cell. Both would run in reverse.
The first type of device would consist of a "hot" plate at the temperature of the Earth and air, with a "cold" plate on top of it. The cold plate, facing upward, would be made of a highly emissive material that cools by very efficiently radiating heat to the sky. Based on measurements of infrared emissions in Lamont, Oklahoma (as a case study), the researchers calculate that the heat difference between the plates could generate a few watts per square meter, day and night. Keeping the "cold" plate cooler than the ambient temperature would be difficult, but this device illustrates the general principle: differences in temperature generate work.
"This approach is fairly intuitive because we are combining the familiar principles of heat engines and radiative cooling," says Byrnes.
The second proposed device relies on temperature differences between nanoscale electronic components -- diodes and antennas -- rather than a temperature that you could feel with your hand.
"The key is in these beautiful circuit diagrams," he adds (see image). "We found they had been considered before for another application -- in 1968 by J.B. Gunn, the inventor of the Gunn diode used in police radars -- and been completely buried in the literature and forgotten. But to try to explain them qualitatively took a lot of effort."
Simply put, components in an electrical circuit can spontaneously push current in either direction; this is called electrical noise. Gunn's diagrams show that if a valve-like electrical component called a diode is at a higher temperature than a resistor, it will push current in a single direction, producing a positive voltage. Capasso's group suggests that the role of the resistor could be played by a microscopic antenna that very efficiently emits the Earth's infrared radiation toward the sky, cooling the electrons in only that part of the circuit.
The result, says Byrnes, is that "you get an electric current directly from the radiation process, without the intermediate step of cooling a macroscopic object."
Technological challenges -- and promise
The optoelectronic approach, while novel, could be feasible in light of recent technological developments -- advances in plasmonics, small-scale electronics, new materials like graphene, and nanofabrication. The Harvard team says a strength of their research is that it clarifies the remaining challenges.
However, even with the best modern infrared diodes, there is a problem. "The more power that's flowing through a single circuit, the easier it is to get the components to do what you want. If you're harvesting energy from infrared emissions, the voltage will be relatively low," explains Byrnes. "That means it's very difficult to create an infrared diode that will work well."
Speed presents another challenge. "Only a select class of diodes can switch on and off 30 trillion times a second, which is what we need for infrared signals," says Byrnes. "We need to deal with the speed requirements at the same time we deal with the voltage and impedance requirements."
"Now that we understand the constraints and specifications," Byrnes adds, "we are in a good position to work on engineering a solution."
Romain Blanchard, who completed his Ph.D. at Harvard SEAS, was also a coauthor of the paper in PNAS. This research was supported in part by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (CRG-1-2012-FRA-005-HAR).
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Venezuela Rejects Imposition of Sanctions by Canada
New 6.2 Quake Centered in Southern Mexico
North Koreans Attend Anti-US Rally in Pyongyang
South Korea Says Quake in North Korea Was Not Result of Blast
Istanbul Police Detain 36 Suspected ISIL Militants
Terrorists Fail to Break through Syrian Army Positions in Hama Province
Terrorist Front Collapsing in Deir Ezzur Following Rapid Advances of Syrian Soldiers
Puerto Rico Evacuates 70,000 after Dam Damaged by Hurricane Maria
TEHRAN (FNA)- Puerto Rican officials rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people downstream of a failing dam and said they could not reach more than half the towns in the US territory.
UN Official Says 7 Million Yemenis Get Food Aid
TEHRAN (FNA)- The UN humanitarian chief said the World Food Program delivered emergency food to a record 7 million people across conflict-wracked Yemen in August, "helping to avert potential famine."
More than 200 ISIL Militants Killed in Iraq's Salahuddin Offensive
TEHRAN (FNA)- Security operations seeking to clear ISIL havens in Salahuddin left 225 militants dead since Wednesday, Iraqi Federal Police said Saturday.
Cuba to UN: US Doesn’t Have Moral Authority to Judge Us
TEHRAN (FNA)- Cuba warned that the attempt to use force to stop the global trend towards multilateralism will Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has spoken at the 72nd General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, where he criticized the US government and offered support for anti-imperialist states around the world.
Amnesty: US-Made Bomb Killed Civilians in Yemen's Sana'a
TEHRAN (FNA)- Amnesty International said a bomb used by the Saudi regime in a fatal airstrike on an apartment building in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in August was made in the United States.
Reports: Canada’s Trudeau Seeks to Unlock Lethal Arms Exports to Ukraine
TEHRAN (FNA)- Media reports said that the Canadian prime minister was seeking to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. |
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year — that's 1 in every 4 deaths. Obesity has a significant negative impact on cardiovascular disease (CVD), including hypertension, coronary heart disease, heart failure and arrhythmia.
The World Health Organization defines overweight and obesity as abnormal or excessive fat that accumulates and presents a risk to health. Obesity is a critical problem that is increasing in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of adults are classified as overweight or obese, compared with 25 percent 40 years ago.
Even moderate obesity is an important risk factor for heart diseases, directly or indirectly through intervening risk factors, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and diabetes. Obesity constitutes one of the most important independent CVD risk factors, and positive relationships between CVD mortality and body mass index has been shown in many large-scale studies.
It has been suggested that just because someone is overweight, he or she is not necessarily unhealthy. According to the National Institutes of Health's 1998 report, people can be overweight and considered healthy if their waist size is less than 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men, and if they do not have two or more of the following conditions: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, or high cholesterol.
A 2012 study from the National Cancer Institute found that moderately obese people actually lived about 3.1 years longer than normal-weight women and men. Another study, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that when obese people are metabolically healthy, they are at no greater risk of dying from heart disease or cancer than those who are of normal weight.
However, this fat-but-fit theory may be a myth. A growing body of evidence supports the belief that storing too much body fat is associated with increased blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, suggesting that people should maintain a healthy weight in a healthy range.
Researchers conducted a case-cohort analysis in the 520,000-person European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study (EPIC-CVD). During a median follow-up of 12.2 years, they recorded 7,637 incident coronary heart disease (CHD) cases. Participants were categorized as unhealthy if they had three or more of a number of metabolic markers, including high blood pressure, blood glucose or triglyceride levels, low levels of HDL cholesterol, or a waist size of more than 37 inches (94 cm) for men and 31 inches (80 cm) for women.
After adjusting for lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet, exercise and socioeconomic status, the researchers found that compared to the healthy normal weight group, those classified as unhealthy had more than double the risk of CHD, whether they were normal weight, overweight or obese.
But there was another interesting finding: Within the "healthy" group, there was a significant difference in outcomes for people depending on their weight. The research found that compared to those at normal weight, people who were classified as healthy but overweight had an increased CHD risk of 26 percent, while those who were healthy but obese had an increased risk of 28 percent.
According to Dr. Camille Lassale from Imperial's School of Public Health and now based at University College London, this study shows that people with excess weight who might be classified as healthy haven't yet developed an unhealthy metabolic profile. That comes later in the timeline when they have an event, such as a heart attack. |
N&W 1981 Signal Definitions
This directory contains signaling definitions corresponding to the Norfolk and Western 1981 rule book and applies to color position light, color light, search light, and semaphore signals. These definitions cover the former N&W, Virginian, Nickel Plate, Wabash, P&WV, and ACY territories.
Color Position Light Signals
The 2 arm version of the NW CPLs are illustrated using two complete round faces. In the field, the actual signal may not have included a complete face depending on the indications needed for a given location. In general, a two arm signal would be used at an interlocking or as the advance signal for an interlocking. Signal installations at the end of a siding may only have a single head. A number plate was drawn on the Rule 291 signal icon to show a stop and proceed indication.
The single arm absolute signals include a single marker for the stop and stay indication. I have mapped the single red marker to lunar so that a signal decoder such as the Team Digital SHD2 can drive the entire signal off 4 outputs.
The rule book illustrates two versions of the NW CPL dwarf. Early versions of this style dwarf had the arc from 12 to 3-o-clock position. Due to clearnance issues, the arc was change to the 9 to 12-o-clock position. I don't know if this changed the aspects the signal could display. I am assuming that either version could display the up to 4 aspects. There is a stop and proceed version that includes a numbner plate. The left lower red light is mapped to lunar based on the later version of the signal.
Color Light, Search Light, and Semaphore Signals
These signals encompass the all of the non color position light signals. The rule book does not really make a distinction between the types of signal heads. The images in the rule book are drawn as possible semaphore signals with the exception of the indications which have a lunar light. In those rules, separate signal images were drawn without semaphore blades showing the lunar aspect.
I believe the signals with lunar aspects are of Wabash origin. They allow for a complete set of aspects with two arms in locations that would typically take three.
See the aspect page.
Signal Mast definitions: |
About Mysore
Mysore is the second-largest city in the state of Karnataka, India. Located at the base of the Chamundi Hills about 146 km (91 mi) southwest of the state capital Bangalore, it is spread across an area of 128.42 km2 (50 sq mi). According to the provisional results of the 2011 national census of India, the population of Mysore is 887,446 and Hinduism is its major religion. Mysore City Corporation is responsible for the civic administration of the city, which is also the headquarters of the Mysore district and the Mysore division.
Until 1947, Mysore served as the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore. The kingdom was ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty, except for a brief period in the late 18th century when Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan usurped power. Patrons of art and culture, the Wodeyars contributed significantly to the cultural growth of the city. The cultural ambience and achievements of Mysore earned it the sobriquet Cultural capital of Karnataka. |
There are swimming in natural water bodies (seas, rivers, estuaries, lakes and artificial reservoirs - outdoor and indoor swimming pools. Bathing in swimming pools is also used mineral and sea water. Physiological effects of swimming on the human organism is connected with the thermal, mechanical, and chemical (in the seas, salt lakes and estuaries) and water. When swimming in open water joins the favorable influence of the clean air, solar radiation and other factors. Bathing applied to preventive purpose of tempering the body, and also with medical and functional disorders of nervous system, some diseases of the cardiovascular system (miocardiodistrofia, compensated for heart disease, hypertension stage I, essential hypotension), respiratory, metabolic disorders (gout, obesity), anemia. Therapeutic bathing appointed with air temperature not lower than 20-22C and water not less than 18-20 degrees. Trained people can swim and when lower temperature. The duration of bathing first 2-5 minutes, then stay in the water increases to 10-15 min. Best time for bathing are the morning, from 9 to 12 h), after 1-1 .5 hours after Breakfast and evening (from 17 to 19 hours), not earlier than 2 hours after lunch. You can swim, 1-3 times a day. Young, perfectly healthy trained people can swim and in winter in open water.
Contraindications: arteriosclerosis expressed, depletion, cardiovascular and pulmonary-cardiac insufficiency of II-III degree, fever and acute inflammatory diseases, active tuberculosis, some skin diseases, the second half of pregnancy.
Cm. also Balneotherapy, Hydrotherapy. |
Jesus Mocked by the Soldiers, Édouard Manet
Yesterday a good friend of mine forwarded along an article about an alleged discrepancy in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. The apparent contradiction has to do with the color of the robe the soldiers placed on Jesus while they were mocking Him.
Matthew’s account says:
Mark’s gospel says:
Finally, John’s account puts it like this:
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robeThey came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands (19:1-3).
The article that my friend forwarded to me explained this difference by proposing that the gospel writers were describing the same thing, but that perhaps in the sunlight the colors looked different to them. Maybe what seemed like more of a scarlet color to Matthew looked more like purple to Mark and John. My friend was not satisfied with this explanation, though, since the gospels give no indication that Matthew, Mark, and John all witnessed this event. So if this explanation doesn’t work, how should we approach this problem?
Let’s take a closer look at the terminology used in the gospels. Matthew says that the soldiers adorned Jesus with a χλαμύδα κοκκίνην, chlamyda kokkinen. The first term, χλαμύς (chlamys), refers to a loose outer garment worn by men, such as a military cloak. The second term, κόκκινος (kokkinos), means “red, scarlet,” and in this context refers to the red cloak worn by Roman soldiers, “a cheaply dyed garment in contrast to the expensive ‘purple’ garments” (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, hereafter BDAG). Mark and John use different terms. Mark says that the soldiers dressed Jesus in πορφύρα (porphyra), “purple,” and John says they clothed Jesus with ἱμάτιον πορφυροῦν (himation porphyroun), a cloak or robe of purple (BDAG).
Interestingly, BDAG goes on to cite at least one ancient source that used these expressions interchangeably. In Appian’s history of the Roman civil wars (written in the century after Christ), he refers to the cloak of a Roman soldier as ἡ πορφύρα (he porphyra) instead of the usual χλαμύς (chlamys). So it is possible that in the first century these terms were somewhat interchangeable.
But this is all really beside the point.
The Roman soldiers clearly intended to mock Jesus as “King of the Jews.” So they gave Him all of the accessories of a king. Normally, kings wore crowns made from precious jewels and metals. They gave Jesus a crown made from thorns. Normally, kings wielded a scepter made of expensive materials. They gave Jesus a scepter of reeds. And normally, kings wore purple. So just as the soldiers supplied a crown made of thorns, and supplied a scepter made of reeds, they gave Jesus “purple” – in the form of a soldier’s scarlet cloak. When Matthew tells us they gave Jesus a “scarlet robe,” he is telling is what they used to mock Jesus. And when Mark and John tell us they placed “purple” on Jesus, they are explaining why they did this – to parody the notion that Jesus is a king.
As Leon Morris commented:
Since this kind of cloak was used by military officers, there would have been no great difficulty in getting one, perhaps an old one, discarded by an officer. The point of it was apparently that the color was somewhere near purple, the color of royalty. By getting a cloak of a color not quite that of royalty the soldiers were mocking Jesus’ claim to be a king (The Gospel According to Matthew, IVP, 1992, p. 711).
When I was a child, I liked to pretend I was a super hero by tying a bath towel around my neck as my “cape.” Was I wearing a towel or a cape? Both. The towel was what was available, but its purpose was to serve as a cape. Similarly, was Jesus dressed in scarlet or purple? Both. The scarlet cloak was what was available, but its purpose was to parody the royal regalia of a purple robe. Except in Jesus’ case, this was not child’s play, but cruel mockery of one who was truly King of Kings. |
next up previous Next: 3.11.6 Creating a Up: 3.11 Energy dot Previous: 3.11.4 Displaying the
3.11.5 Choosing colors for the dot plot
The energy dot plot can be displayed with black dots (default) or with color dots on a white background. To select different colors, choose the ``Color'' option from the popup menu. Slide the pointer to the right along the ``Color'' entry, and another ``rollover'' menu will appear. In the IRIS version, the user can select from 1 to 7 different colors from this menu. If more than 1 color is selected, black is reserved for the ``optimal'' base pairs, and the extra colors display the increasing levels of suboptimality within the user defined energy increment. The alternative colors are (in order of increasing suboptimality): red, green, yellow, blue, magenta and cyan. In the X11 version, as soon as more than 1 color is chosen, the suboptimal points are colored according to a ``color wheel'' that progresses from red (least suboptimal) to dark blue (most suboptimal). Optimal points are always displayed in black.
Michael Zuker
Thu Nov 2 14:28:14 CST 1995 |
Where did Silly Willy come from?
Silly Willy is the original creation of Joan Shaw, a speech and language pathologist and former early childhood teacher of kindergarten, first, and second grades. She created Silly Willy while doing clinical work in grad school for a young student who had trouble making the /s/ sound. Funny Frog came along soon after while teaching the /f/ sound to students. |
Can Your Dentist Help Your Sleep?
What’s the role for dentists in managing sleep problems?
There are actually a number of links between your teeth and sleep. Bruxism(grinding of the teeth or jaw clenching) commonly occurs during sleep and can cause pain and damage to teeth. In addition, the shape of the jaws and arrangement of teeth, which are often reasons to seek dental or orthodontic treatment, can also predict the risk of sleep apnea and snoring. Dental appliances are effective treatments for both snoring and sleep apnea. Managing bruxism, snoring and sleep apnea using dental treatments are in the realm of dental sleep medicine. So when your dentist asks you about your sleep or whether you snore, there is a reason behind it.
Treating obstructive sleep apnea with oral appliances
Dentists have a significant role to play in the treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea in adults. Particularly in non-obese adults, where a lot of obstruction occurs at the level of the tongue base. As the tongue attaches into the base of the lower jaw (mandible), moving the lower jaw forward can hold the tongue away from the back of the airway creating more space and reducing airway narrowing. This in turn reduces snoring and sleep apnea.
Devices to hold the mandible forward during sleep are called mandibular advancement splints (MAS) and are the most common type of oral appliance used in treating snoring and sleep apnea. Mandibular advancement splints have beenshown to reduce snoring and be effective treatments for mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea. The types of MAS that work best are customised, adjustable splints that are made and fitted by a dentist experienced in the use of these devices. It takes a lot of experience to get these devices working optimally as there is often some troubleshooting involved to minimise the risk of temporomandibular joint pain which can occur if the devices are advanced too quickly.
Oral appliances such as mandibular advancement splints used over years may result in minor changes to the alignment of the teeth, so for people using these devices it is important to make sure that they follow up with their dentists on a regular basis, at least once per year, to keep an eye on their teeth and bite.
For more information on the use of oral appliances as treatments for snoring and sleep apnea see this video.
Bruxism (teeth clenching & grinding)
Teeth clenching or grinding during sleep, called bruxism, is very common and has a range of causes. Whilst it can be exacerbated or precipitated by stress and/or anxiety, a number of people have bruxism in the absence of stress or anxiety. Bruxism can also be triggered by other conditions such as sleep apnea, where muscle activation occurs as part of opening up the airway to relieve snoring or airway narrowing. However, it’s important to note that treating sleep apnea will not necessarily cure bruxism, which may still need treatment even once sleep apnea is managed.
Bruxism can present with symptoms such as teeth and/or jaw pain and headache. As bruxing can cause damage to the teeth it is important to have this looked at, particularly if your dentist is concerned about wear on the teeth. Some of the strategies used to manage bruxism on your teeth are use of an oral appliance to protect your teeth, sedative medications such as clonazepam, and in severe cases botulinum toxin (Botox) can be used to reduce muscle tension. In milder cases, exercises can also help.
For more information on bruxism and some exercises that can be done to help relax the jaw see this video.
What should I do if I snore or have sleep apnea or bruxism?
If you think that you may have snoring, sleep apnea, bruxism or factors about your teeth that may be part of a sleep problem talk to your dentist. Dentists working in the area of dental sleep medicine usually have a good working relationship with local sleep physicians who can assist your dentist with investigating and managing sleep disorders if needed.
The American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine maintains a list of dentists with a particular interest in dental sleep medicine that you can search to find a dentist in your local area.
Read the full article on |
Clematis viticella
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Clematis viticella
Clematis viticella3UME.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
Order: Ranunculales
Family: Ranunculaceae
Genus: Clematis
Species: C. viticella
Binomial name
Clematis viticella
Clematis viticella, the Italian leather flower,[1] purple clematis,[2] or "Virgin's bower", is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family; it is native to Europe. The climber was the first clematis imported into English gardens, where it was already being grown in 1569 by Hugh Morgan, apothecary to Elizabeth I of England.[3] By 1597, when it was already being called "Virgin's Bower", there were two varieties in English gardens, a blue (actually a purple-blue) and a red.[4][5]
1. ^ "Clematis viticella". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
3. ^ Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Clematis".
4. ^ Centuries later, the red C. viticella was a parent of the best-known hybrid clematis, Clematis × jackmanii (Coats [1964] 1992).
5. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-06-25. Retrieved 2012-06-21. |
Get Angry!!
Yes, get angry! Be upset that someone treats you like an object. Be offended when your voice is not heard. If you are hit, sexually attacked, insulted, and taught you are worth nothing, then be mad!
If your family rejects you, doesn’t believe your story, or tries to control your behavior, be irritated. Squinch up your eyes, throw back your shoulders and scowl if significant persons lie to you.
Be livid when people use your looks as a basis for judgement. Fume when bigotry excludes you from the country club, the pool, or the church. If religious folk treat you like less-than, be incensed! If the world mocks you for your beliefs, economic status, or size, be furious!
There is nothing wrong with anger. What’s sad is when a person does not believe they have a right (or reason) to combat maltreatment. Learn to recognize when wrong is done to you. Then think very hard about what to do next.
Make sure that anger is pointed in the right direction. Do not allow anger to destroy you. Why go from one poison to another? Bitterness is the poison we drink hoping someone else will die (author unknown). No, be angry at the prejudice, intolerance, holier-than-thou attitudes that incite hatred. Stand up and be angry for justice, not only at injustice.
Allow your anger to forge a path for energy, but be sure to adopt assertiveness, not aggression. Leave violence out of the picture. Harshness, controlling behavior, and abuse of yourself or anyone else do not belong in your repertoire.
You are unforgiving of ignorance, not the ignorant. You feel infuriated by how long you have allowed others to pin you back, but this fuels your desire to make tomorrow better. Rage may not quite describe the intensity of your reaction to abuse, but while you used to be a victim, now you can be the conqueror.
Be angry, and live your God-given life!
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Posted by: Steve Coplan | April 7, 2006
The Coelacanth toppled from its perch?
Has Buffalo City lost a major tourist draw? The news that a University of Chicago evolutionary biologist has found the 375-million-year old fossil of the 'missing link' between sea and land animals could mean that the Coelacanth at a mere 70 million years old fades from its current prominent state in the popular consciousness. Buffalo City (the river port formerly known by its colonial name of East London) which was where the Coelecanth was first identified by the scientific world, could relinquish its international standing in the zoological world to the remote north of Ninavut.
The New York Times reports: "The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans."
While the 'missing link' angle makes for good marketing, the more serious articles in Nature point to a more nuanced view that suggests an inflection point rather than a marker in the ground. The fossils provide some strong hints on how the transition from land to sea happened at a morphological level, such as the development of a proto-wrist. So while this may be a useful argument against creationists who argue that that there are no transitional or mosaic fossils, the more interesting outcome is evidence to explain the mechanisms of evolution and adaptation. By developing wrists, the fish could support its weight in the shallows, where there would be less competition for food – plants and inverbetrates. Neil Shubin explains some of his deductions on this podcast.
The distinction, however, is that the Coelacanth is a living fossil.
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