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A new report finds that Africa isn’t really a poor continent, as is so often believed in mainstream culture, but rather, countries around the world actually steal $41.3 billion each year from Africa, with most citizens of African nations never seeing a dime.
The report, spearheaded by Global Justice Now, found that African countries received $161.6 billion in 2015 from loans, personal remittances and grants, but $203 billion was then taken back out of Africa, mainly by corporations (illegally), or by climate change costs imposed by the rest of the world. That resulted in Africa being a net creditor to the rest of the world to the tune of $41.3 billion in 2015, according to the report.
Specifically, the report noted the following:
• While Africans receive $31 billion in personal remittances from overseas, multinational companies operating on the continent repatriate a similar amount ($32 billion) in profits to their home countries each year.
• African governments received $32.8 billion in loans in 2015 but paid $18 billion in debt interest and principal payments, with the overall level of debt rising rapidly.
• An estimated $29 billion a year is being stolen from Africa in illegal logging, fishing and the trade in wildlife/plants.
The report points out that Africa is actually a very rich continent, and even booming financially in some sectors, with the largest 500 African companies recording a combined profit of $698 billion in 2014. And in 2015, African countries exported $232 billion worth of minerals and oil to the rest of the world. But the value of untapped mineral reserves deep below the African surface is even larger, estimated to be a whopping $24 trillion in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, and $2.5 trillion in South Africa.
In short, the rest of the world is profiting illegally and immorally from Africa’s wealth, while the vast majority of people who live in Africa are left in extreme poverty. As the report notes, the world is being extremely mislead on the state of Africa’s potential: “Rich country governments simply tell their publics that their aid programmes are helping Africa. This is a distraction, and misleading.” |
When learning about civil engineering it is imperative to know how to become a civil engineerUsually the path to becoming a civil engineer begins before entering college. There are classes that you will take while still in high school that will better equip you for a career in engineering. The way you problem-solve in everyday situations also has an impact on your success as a civil engineer. Becoming a civil engineer starts with a propensity for mathematics, science and design. This particular part of engineering is a science that relies heavily on mathematics such as Algebra, Trigonometry, Chemistry and Physics. It will also require computer science and drawing skills. Formal training through a university can range from an Associate’s degree to a Master’s degree in civil engineering. There are steps that need to be taken in order to become a civil engineer.
how to be a civil engineer
civil engineer
Steps You Need To Follow To Become a Civil Engineer
There are so many students who want to be a civil engineer but don’t know the exact procedure how or what they need to do. So the step by step process that one need to follow to be a civil engineer is given below.
Step 1 – High School Diploma
Since engineering requires high education in the form of college degrees, a high school diploma is essential. Generally, colleges and universities that offer engineering programs will look more favorably upon applicants who have a college preparatory diploma. They will also look more closely at applicants who have a basic high school diploma over those who have a GED. Students with a GED will more than likely have to start at a community college and then transfer to an engineering school after obtaining an Associate’s degree.
Step 2 – Choosing a School of Engineering
Several students will opt to obtain an Associate’s degree in Civil Engineering Technology and then move up into a four year college or university that offers a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. An Associate’s degree in Civil Engineering Technology is a two-year degree program. Those with this degree will work as an assistant to the project lead. People who have only an Associate’s degree will not be a project leader, no matter how much experience they have.
A Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering is a four-year degree. A person with this degree will generally have a specialty within one of the civil engineering disciplines. By having this degree, a person can be chosen as a project lead, if they also hold the correct certifications. Students can choose to by-pass an Associate’s degree and enter directly into a four-year program. They will have to apply for entrance directly out of high school and must have the discipline to study and succeed within a more intense curriculum.
Step 3 – Post Graduate Studies
A Master’s degree in Civil Engineering is a degree that allows them to teach at university level and also as a developer in new engineering technologies as this is a field that is constantly evolving. Those who wish to reach the top of their field or to possibly teach at an engineering college will be required to have a post graduate degree. Once the Master’s degree is obtained, a person can then earn a Doctoral degree in engineering.
Step 4 – Obtain Appropriate Certifications
An engineer that desires to become a project lead or manager must first go through a certification process. States within the United States will require that an engineer obtain a Professional Engineering License. This will require that a person enter into an internship program to gain on-the-job experience. After the internship has ended, then the engineer can apply for certification by taking the Practice of Engineering or PE exam.
Once all these steps are taken, a civil engineer must still continue their education throughout their career. Codes and regulations are constantly changing and it is the responsibility of the engineer to stay on top of them. This ensures that the structures that are being built are safe and up to code. |
Bagishu Culture
The Bagisu people or locally known as the Bamasaba live in the western and southern slopes of Mount Elgon also known as Mount Masaba. The mountain slopes in hand fingers like structure to the west marked by narrow and steep valleys. The land is further broken consisting of jumble of hills piled against a raised escarpment sort of a crumbled cloth. The escarpment gradually fades away as it slows down to the Teso land. The Bagisu speak the Lugisu a dialect of the Lumasaba which is mutually intelligible to other dialects including the Bukusu. The Bagisu are popularly known for their Imbalu circumcision which is held after every two years in August.
The Bagisu have not tradition of migrating from somewhere else. They claim that their ancestors Mundu and Sera came out a hole in Mountain Elgon locally known as Masaba. The early life of the Bagisu seems to have been not all that social with the principle of survival for the fittest. The Bagisu’s history is less known although they are sought to have disintegrated from the Bukusu a sub group of Luhya in Western Kenya around the 19th Century. The Bagisu claim of living where they are since time memorial may not be accurate. The earliest immigrants into the land of Bagisu are believed to have arrived in the Mount Elgon Area from the Eastern plains in the 16th C. The first settlement for these people is noted to be Usian Gishu plateau of Kenya Thus, the Bagisu seem to have been the inter mixture of various cultures and origins but since their language is that of Bantu, it can be noted that their predecessors must have been Bantu too.
imbalu-dancers-cultural-tour-uganda2 mbale elgon
The political structure of the Bagisu was very loose based on clan. Each clan had an elder called Umwami we sikoka (Chief of the clan). These chiefs were chosen on the basis of wealth and age. The leaders would maintain law and order and ensure continuity and the unity of the clan not forgetting offering the sacrifices to the ancestral spirits. The stronger chiefs would extend their influence to other clans but none of the chiefs would succeed in subduing other clans into a single entity. The other notable individuals among the Bagisu included Sorceress and rainmakers.
The unique custom among the Bagisu is male circumcision. The origin of this practice is mysterious even to the Bagisu themselves. It is asserted it arouse from Kalenjin’s demand when Masaba the Bagisu heroic ancestor expressed to marry a Kalenjin girl. The other form of tradition asserts that that initial person to be circumcised had got a complication with his sexual organ and the circumcision was considered as surgical operation to save man’s life. The third tradition states that the initial person to be circumcised got it as a punishment for seducing other men’s wives but in turn increased his sexual power attracting several ladies to him and this prompted other men to under the same practice in order to remain in competition.
It should be noted that the Bagisu are superstitious people. Before the circumcision practice, a certain herb called ityanyi is administered to the candidate to arouse interest. The ityanyi is tied around the initiate’s big toe or it is put at that place where he would jump over it not knowing. It is stated that if any one who had taken the herb delayed or hindered to be circumcised, he might even circumcise himself as his mind is set to circumcision that nothing else can distract him. The Imbalu practice is conducted biannually during the leap years and every Mugisu male has to perform the ritual upon approaching puberty. Ne males who abscond are hunted and brought to the practice force fully. Before the event, the candidates are set and walk and dance throughout the village for 3 days. The heads of the candidates are sprinted with Cassava flour and the paint of Malwa –yeast paste. There is much singing and drumming as relatives dance with them. After circumcision, the boy becomes an adult and thus a true Mugisu and the person who is not yet circumcised is called a Musinde. The circumcision its self is very fast with the circumciser and his assistant moving around and performing the appropriate ritual and then the assistant circumciser gets hold of the penis foreskin pulling it & then the circumciser cuts it off. The circumciser them goes ahead to cut off the layer on the top of the penis that is believed to grow again into the sheath if left uncut. He then goes ahead and cuts off another muscle on the lower part of the penis and these three cuttings mark the end of the ritual.
Mount Elgon National Park hike
After circumcision, the initiate is wrapped in a piece of cloth and taken to the father’s house, moved around the house before he enters. The initiate is not allowed to eat with his hands for three days. He is always fed and even in this period, they say that he is not yet fully into manhood. Following the 3 days, the circumciser is called upon to perform the washing hands ritual and after this ritual, the initiate can star eating with own hands and on the same day, the initiate is declared a man. Following this custom, the initiate is allowed to marry and in this custom he is instructed on the demands and duties of manhood. He is taught the significance of agriculture and advised on how to behave like a man. It is noted that the healing of the wounds is determined by the number of goats slaughtered during the event.
Finally a ritual called Iremba is performed an all the new initiatives in the locality have to attend. This is an important function and the Authorities and other village people attend. At this function, the initiate was supposed to pick any girl and have sex with her and the girl was not supposed to refuse. It was believed that if the girl refuses, she would never have children once she gets married. This is challenging for the case of Christian females. Initially, the congregation would remain outside the enclosure and wait to hear from outside as the initiates and the circumciser were in the enclosure but of now all the things are made public with everyone seeing the whole process. The firmness and endurance of the initiate is considered as a sign of bravery. |
Gut Microbes
Hemera Technologies via Getty Images
How Microbes May Control Our Body's Inner Clock
Though the circadian rhythm is hard to control directly, researchers have learned it can be trained indirectly through diet. By switching the timing and content of meals, we can change that inner clock to better reflect the world outside. How exactly food can change our rest patterns happens has been difficult to figure out yet over the past few years, one particular culprit has been identified: our microbial population. |
Date: 30 Apr 97 03:19:10
From: "P. Wezeman" <>
Organization: The University of Iowa
References: 1 2
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On 15 Apr 1997, Malcolm Weir wrote:
> The change here, though, is predicated on the fact that contemporary
> aircraft are extremely efficient... BUT the realities of ground
> handling are beginning to take their toll.
> British Airways COO Dr. Alistair Cumming stated at a conference in LA
> that "BA is committed to the need for larger aircraft than the 747
> because of the approaching saturation point of airports and the
> infrastructure. Only one thing can help the industry grow in this
> context, and that is larger aeroplanes. The industry cries out for
> more efficient use of flights and slots by the provision of larger
> aircraft".
> It seems to me that the real unknown in the equation is whether the
> growth of hub by-pass and point-to-point routes was a result of market
> demand for such services, or a result of an inability to supply an
> effective hub-and-spoke operation within the constraints of capacity
> controller airports.
I think that hub and spoke route systems are themselves a cause of
airport congestion. They require that many flights converge on a single
airport in a short time. Hub-and-spoke operation is an example of how
the interests of airlines and passengers are not in complete alignment.
The passenger wants to fly from place to place, and the airline wants
to provide that service, but for a given profit margin, the airline can
equally well either fly more passengers, or fly the same number of
passengers a greater distance. An airline has no inherent objection to
flying from Boston to New York via Chicago is the passengers are willing
to pay for the seat miles involved.
A hub-and-spoke system is very good for connecting many points where
no origin-destination pair has enough traffic to justify a direct flight.
Hub-and-spoke operation is the keystone of Federal Express and its
competitors. But it is not for everyone. Take the hypothetical example
of Antarctica. Suppose we wanted to set up airline service between each
of the coastal research bases on that continent. Ignoring the difficulties
of servicing planes at one hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit (I have
read that sixty below zero at the coast can feel colder than one hundred
below at the south pole because the air is denser and more humid) we could
route each flight through the south pole station. Each day a jumbo jet
leaves each base and makes a round trip to the south pole, where
passengers change planes. Suppose there is no more than one half a
jumbo-load of traffic between any two bases. But suppose we have a plane
half the size of a jumbo, with 50 per cent higher costs per passenger
mile. For flights up to about halfway around the continent, the smaller
plane would be the same cost or less than the jumbo because of the shorter
distance resulting from a direct flight versus a dog-leg route, and
would also have the advantage of time savings.
Given that we have hub-and-spoke systems connecting all cities, the
efficient thing to do is to put in a direct flight with a suitably sized
plane for all city pairs with enough traffic. Naturally, we could also
add flights with one or more intermediate stops where this would also be
a net advantage over a flight through the hub. In marginal cases, individual
passengers would make choice between faster direct flights and cheaper hub
flights based on the comparative value of money and time to them.
Now that we have efficient regional jets that are accepted by the
public, we should see more direct and near-direct flights and less
reliance on hubs. This seems to be what is happening. The major hubs will
handle flights between low traffic city pairs and flights where the route
through the hub is reasonably direct. Also, a person leaving a given city
does not have an equal probability of wanting to go to any city in the
whole country. Rather, most travel is to cities no more than 600 miles
away. For this reason, we may see the development of regional hubs which
would handle most of the non direct route traffic.
To the extent that airport capacity is limiting long range traffic,
we should start to see older B747's being taken out of storage and
replacing the twin engine planes that do the bulk of the transatlantic
flights. The lower seat mile costs of the twins would be offset by the
greater total revenue from the bigger plane.
I agree that Airbus needs a 747 sized plane to be a full-line
competitor to Boeing, and it might as well be somewhat bigger. This is
separate from the question of whether the world needs it.
Peter Wezeman, anti-social Darwinist
"Carpe Cyprinidae" |
Your Diet to Reduce Works
Your Diet to Reduce Works : Forget all the dazzling displays product must be food. The only way to successfully lose weight by reducing calories.
Variations in body weight as a result of consumption of more energy than is used. Our system converts excess food into fat and put on pounds. Your body is actually protected by storing food to prevent starvation if you do not get enough to eat. Works very well in the old days, when people are hungry, but there was often in those days, and the result is a nation suffering from obesity.
If you want to lose weight you need to consume more energy than it consumes. Sounds simple right? It's simple, how many calories per day, people have to be reduced in order to lose weight? Well, it depends on the individual to some extent. When you lose weight under medical supervision should seek medical advice.
If you try to do this alone, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that all adults have at least 1200 calories a day. If you try a little of this, your body may think you are hungry, in fact, slowing down your metabolism. This prevents you from losing excess weight.
Diets, ie those which would be limited to less than 1000 per day produced initially in rapid weight loss. But you will be miserable and hungry, and the results are neither sustainable nor healthy.
The more deficit between the amount of food you eat and the energy we consume can lead to more weight loss. But studies show that if you reduce your weight by 1-2 pounds per week, you are more likely to maintain a waist circumference of your new. So if you increase your activity level does not need to have to reduce calories is huge. It will also keep your muscles and helps to burn fat and increase your metabolism.
You can reduce just the way you eat and cook. Most of us rely too much on canned foods and fast food. They contain a lot of hidden fats and sugars. It's healthier and less expensive to cook from scratch at home. You can reduce the consumption of fat and low-fat milk in recipes instead of the full version. You probably will not notice the difference. With tomato sauce also helps eat pasta and brown rice compared to white versions.
Fruits and vegetables contain fewer calories and less fat. Increased consumption of juice over salads and juices. They are great for filling us and we, more than a little effort in the preparation of our meals are delicious to eat little and often to keep carbs for breakfast and lunch, not dinner.
So if you are serious about this new format, try calorie restriction diet for yourself.
1. Your Diet to Reduce Work is very important because the current appearance is important in the working world. to support the popularity of better performance. ZoToz thanks for the information very useful article
2. New Diet Taps into Revolutionary Plan to Help Dieters LOSE 23 Pounds within Just 21 Days!
3. With bistroMD you know that you will not only get tasty entrees, but that every meal and every day in bistroMD's weight loss program will be balanced to bistroMD's custom nutritional platform to help promote an healthy diet.
STEP 2 - Review your menu in advance and pick the meals you want for each day and week.
STEP 3 - Order your weight loss program online.
STEP 4 - Your meals are delivered to your home.
ORDER NOW - delivered to your home. |
History of Computers
The first considerable computer was the gigantic ENIAC equipment by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the College of Pennsylvania. ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator) utilized a word of 10 decimal digits instead of binary ones like previous automated calculators/computers. ENIAC was likewise the first machine to make use of more than 2,000 vacuum tubes, using almost 18,000 vacuum tubes. Storage of all those vacuum tubes and the machinery required to remain the cool used up over 167 square meters (1800 square feet) of floor space. Nonetheless, it had punched-card input and output and arithmetically had 1 multiplier, 1 divider-square rooter, and 20 adders utilizing decimal “ring counters,” which worked as adders as well as as quick-access (0.0002 seconds) read-write register storage.
The executable directions making up a program were embodied in the separate systems of ENIAC, which were plugged together to form a route through the machine for the flow of computations. These connections needed to be redone for each various trouble, together with presetting function tables and switches. This “wire-your-own” direction strategy was bothersome, and just with some license could ENIAC be thought about programmable; it was, nonetheless, effective in managing the particular programs for which it had been designed. ENIAC is generally acknowledged to be the very first successful high-speed electronic digital computer (EDC) and was productively used from 1946 to 1955. A controversy established in 1971, nevertheless, over the patentability of ENIAC’s standard digital principles, the claim being made that another U.S. physicist, John V. Atanasoff, had actually currently used the very same concepts in an easier vacuum-tube gadget he built in the 1930s while at Iowa State College. In 1973, the court found in favor of the business making use of Atanasoff claim and Atanasoff received the recognition he rightly should have.
In the 1950’s two devices would be created that would enhance the computer system field and set in motion the beginning of the computer revolution. The very first of these two gadgets was the transistor. Invented in 1947 by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain of Bell Labs, the transistor was fated to oust the days of vacuum tubes in computers, radios, and other electronics.
The vacuum tube, consumed to this time in almost all the computer systems and calculating devices, had actually been created by American physicist Lee De Forest in 1906. The vacuum tube, which is about the size of a human thumb, worked by using huge amounts of electrical energy to warm a filament inside the tube up until it was cherry red. One outcome of heating this filament up was the release of electrons into the tube, which could be managed by other aspects within television. De Forest’s original gadget was a triode, which could control the flow of electrons to a favorably charged plate inside television. A no can then be represented by the absence of an electron present to the plate; the presence of a little however detectable current to the plate represented a one.
Vacuum tubes were extremely inept, needed a great deal of area, and had to be replaced frequently. Computers of the 1940s and 50s had 18,000 tubes in them and housing all these tubes and cooling the rooms from the heat produced by 18,000 tubes was not low-cost. The transistor promised to fix all of these problems and it doinged this. Transistors, nevertheless, had their troubles too. The major trouble was that transistors, like other electronic parts, had to be soldered together. As a result, the more complex the circuits ended up being, the more challenging and many the connections in between the individual transistors and the probability of malfunctioning electrical wiring enhanced.
In 1958, this issue too was resolved by Jack St. Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments. He made the first built-ined circuit or chip. A chip is actually a collection of small transistors which are connected together when the transistor is manufactured. Hence, the need for soldering together multitudes of transistors was practically nullified; now just connections were needed to other electronic parts. In addition to conserving space, the speed of the device was now increased given that there was a reduced distance that the electrons needed to follow.
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Table top plasma gets wind of solar turbulence
Turbulent magnetic field dynamics that explain astrophysical phenomena like the evolution of stars could thus far be obtained only through observations via telescopes and satellites. Now a team of scientists from India and from Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal have recreated such magnetic turbulence on a table top in the lab, using a high intensity ultrashort laser pulse to excite a hot, dense plasma on a solid surface and followed the extremely fast evolution of the giant magnetic field generated by the plasma dynamics. This ground-breaking study has been published in Nature Communications.
Turbulence is everywhere – from tea cups to tokamaks and from water jets to weather systems, it is something we all see and experience. Yet, even after centuries of serious scientific study, fluid turbulence is still not properly understood and remains Interesting. Vexing. Longstanding. Unsolved [1].
While it is difficult to define turbulence simply, it has many recognizable features, the most common being the fluctuations in parameters like velocity and pressure, indicating randomization of the flow [2]. By the way, turbulence is not all bad and destructive as you might feel when tossed around on a flight during bad weather. One good feature is that it enables much faster mixing than possible only with normal, slow diffusion.
For instance, the sugar you added in your cup of tea this morning would have taken hours and days to disperse but for your stirring, which caused your tea to become turbulent. As you have surely noticed, you stirred the tea in a large circle, but the swirling spread to smaller and smaller lengths and eventually, the mixing occurred at the molecular level. The end result? Even the smallest drop of tea is as sweet as a large gulp! Turbulence also helps in mixing fuel and oxygen for efficient combustion in engines.
Further, these lab observations have an uncanny resemblance to the satellite data on the magnetic field spectra measured for turbulent astrophysical plasmas in the solar wind, solar photosphere and Earth's magnetosheath. Although in the laser experiment the electrons in the plasma get energised initially, the ion dominant response that kicks in at later times shows spectral features similar to those in the astro systems.
Now that we have got wind of solar turbulence on a table top, can we use lab experiments to turn the tables on the intractable problem of turbulence? Well, that may still be a long way off but it is a tantalising prospect that reliable measurements in the lab might make us better and better at peeking into turbulent stellar scenarios. And that should set off stars in our eyes!
1. L.P. Kadanoff, 'A model of turbulence', Physics Today 48(9), 11 (1995)
2. K.R. Sreenivasan, McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology, 10th Edn., Vol. 18, 725.
3. G. Chatterjee et al., 'Magnetic turbulence in a table-top laser-plasma relevant to astrophysical scenarios', ' Nature Communications, 10.1038/NCOMMS15970 (2017)
(Image credits: ESA/NASA - SOHO/LASCO/EIT) |
Bob Arnebeck's web page on
During our first visits to Wellesley Island in the 1970s Leslie and I spent most of our time on the water -- like everybody else. Then one day we ventured into the wilderness beyond the golf course. We negotiated the thickets and on the other side of the ridge we saw a huge animal sleeping in a tree that reminded us of pictures we'd seen of great sloths. We were so excited we asked the director of the Nature Center on the Island, Bob Wakefield, to identify the animal. Though he probably knew exactly what we saw, he was so impressed with our excitement and Leslie's drawing of the "sloth" that he hiked out to the tree with us and did allow that it was one of the biggest porcupines he had ever seen.
Over the years I've seen countless porcupines up in the trees, and I wish I could say that I know a great deal more about them than I did back in1970, but I really don't. Porcupines are god-like and there is a great deal about them that seems unknowable and ineffable. I simply take on faith that when a porcupine climbs up a leafless tree in the teeth of brisk wind on a below zero day that it knows what it is doing. Let me hasten to add that many who study porcupines don't have so many doubts. Porcupines are slow animals and evidently once you hone your technique and invest in thick gloves, you can grab its tail, cage it, give it a shot, strap on a radio collar, and do proper scientific studies on it. I've never had that urge. Seeing a porcupine generally stops me in my tracks. If it's on the ground it generally ambles away. If it's in a tree, I might be able to watch it munch for a while, then it establishes eye contact and what hopes I had of making unobstrusive scientific observations fall as the porcupine's quills rise.
The best time to watch porcupines is in the winter, after a snowfall. They slow down so much that you can often stand near them and try to absorb the reality of their life:
their many hours in a rock den
along their long trails in the snow,
and as they climb trees
where they eat the bark for food.
Porcupines are able to live this slow paced, almost dull existence, because of some rather sharp attributes. Their sharp claws
make climbing trees easy. Their sharp quills
afford protection. And I cannot fathom what they see with their sharp eyes
Since they move about so often during the night, I suspect they rely a great deal on their sharp sense of smell.
However, let's not get carried away with sharp. Their teeth are rather dull.
though certainly get the job done.
Porcupines have strong jaws
Well, there is nothing like a photo of a skull to put an end to a rambling review and prompt an author to get down to some facts and true stories.
When writing about many mammals, I don't like using the singular. I usually see otters in a group and have observed as many as seven of them lying more or less on each other on top of a lodge. Beavers do go off alone but never for long. They rotate through the various work stations around the pond and when work is done as many as eight might huddle into one lodge. When I see two porcupines together they are often in the midst of a screaming row, contesting a tree or a rock den. One soon walks away. So I am comfortable writing about a porcupine.
A porcupine is a gentle mammal between the size of a cat and medium sized dog, arrayed with a fearsome coat of sharp quills which deters meat eating predators while it harvests vegetation in a range that generally doesn't extend beyond a few acres. It often goes further afield to find water.
And not only for a drink. In the spring especially I'll see porcupines pulling grasses out of the ponds and river and eating them.
While content with a relatively small range, it shifts its den frequently, not as much as otters, but it's seldom as sedentary as a colony of beavers.
It finds dens principally in tree trunks and among rocks. In the winter if the route of your daily hikes takes you by a porcupine's den, there's a good chance you'll find it there, maybe even sniffing the air.
A porcupine seems to seek shelter for reasons all its own. I've seen too many of them half in and half out on cold and wet winter days.
The rock dens they favor always seem to be in the shade, facing north, often the last areas to be thawed out. Predators sniff for warm bodies so perhaps denning on the cold side of a gully affords some protection, but few animals advertise where its den is as boldly as a porcupine. Usually there is a trail of poop, one tightly wound ball of thoroughly digested plant matter dropped every foot or do, with an accompanying line of pee, often almost red, lining the way to the den.
Its rock dens are often hard to get to,
and a porcupine generally picks one with plenty of room to back into. So if you wished a porcupine ill, just getting to its den in the rocks would still leave you with a good deal of effort.
However, porcupines who den in the holes at the bottom of trees, often lets loose a welcome mat of their poop.
One winter the porcupine staying in that den died, but every year since, a porcupine has moved in to spend part of the winter.
Another curiosity about porcupines and their dens is that sometimes a porcupines doesn't den. It spends the night, or several nights up in a tree. One winter I discovered that a porcupine can fashion of a thermometer of sorts. During a 48 hour cold snap, as far as I could tell since there were no new tracks in the snow, a porcupine stayed in one small maple tree, and seemed to say put because very little bark was eaten. When the cold snap ended, the porcupine left the tree but not before eating much of its bark.
I would like to report that porcupines always leave enough of a tree's bark uneaten so that the tree stays alive, but porcupines are rather thorough and can eat almost all the bark from the roots to the crown.
Porcupines also eat the buds of trees, and the leaves. They generally can't get to all of that fruits of the trees, but they can nip so many twigs and branches off a tree, especially hemlocks that it decrowns the tree.
Trees get their revenge in a fashion, as falling out of them is a major cause of porcupine deaths. In a sense that tastiest part of a tree, the bud at the end of fresh green shoot, lures the porcupine to a perilous position where one slip can be fatal. Twice I've seen porcupines that looked like they died while still in the tree. I saw them flat and lifeless on a limb with two claws dangling down. The porcupine in the left hand photo was facing the ridge I was walking on and I stood five feet from it asking if it was OK.
Both were taking a nap in the late afternoon and when it got dark were back gnawing away.
The renowned predator of the porcupine is the fisher, a carnivore over twice the size of a mink, and pound for pound not that much bigger than a porcupine, if you don't count its magnificent tail.
They are said to have the knack of attacking the porcupine's belly, the only place on its body where there are no quills. Only once have I followed a fisher's tracks that led to a dead porcupine
But I've also followed fisher tracks that seem to make a point of avoiding areas where there are porcupine dens.
I've never seen porcupines mate and I'm not sure if I've ever seen them mating. That can be a noisy affair with two porcupines screaming at each other in a tree. But they are supposed to mate in the fall, and I've heard them screaming in the spring and summer too. A porcupine mother only has one baby at a time, and, in my experience seeing them together is a rare thing. I saw a mother and her offspring on a tree in mid-June
The mother hurried up the tree leaving the little ball of quills far behind. Leslie bumped into a mother and a baby on hte ground. The mother hurried off leaving the baby to fend for itself. Not surprisingly I often see little porcupines on their own and they can be very engaging
and fearless. Not that I think their not getting out of my way is that fearless. What am I going to do with such a ball of sharp quills? Fearless is climbing out on a snow covered tree limb that hangs over the cold water of the St; Lawrence river. Some of the balancing acts they do when they get up in a tree can take your breath away
Bob Arnebeck
I also write about porcupines in my nature blog. And in my in my beaver blog
See my other web sites on otters, beavers, minks, Blanding's turtles and muskrats. Click the thumbnail: |
How To Plan A Pretty And Productive Vegetable Garden
With a little planning, your backyard plot can be as nice to look at as it is to eat from...
By Jack Staub, Rodale’s Basic Organiclife
When I began my initial foray into the world of vegetables, I was a weekend gardener with limited time and no garden education. My only knowledge of vegetable gardening was definitely of the big-rectangle-plot-of-dirt, row-each-of-tomatoes-beans-lettuces school. That was how I thought all vegetable gardens looked: Big. Plain. Rectangular. Aggressively functional.
Related: Why You Should Build A Living Fence By Planting Hedgerows
The older, far more pleasing, approach, which reigned in backyards across the globe as long ago as the pleasure gardens of Babylon and right up through the 18th century, was based on smaller, more intimate plots, often divided into garden "rooms," incorporating a scheme of multiple raised beds planted with a diverse mixture of herbs, vegetables, fruit trees, and flowers. (And while you're planting, keep in mind these 26 plants you should always grow side-by-side.)
Start by brainstorming design
Do you want to create a garden that's as beautiful to look at as it is productive? Then embrace the idea of growing vegetables in a decorative, multiple-part planting within a fenced or walled space. The first step on this journey is to think outside the simple rectanlge and let your mind wander freely over all the other geometric possibilities. Picture an octagonal garden. Or a square one with high trellises or semicircular island beds, or one further divided into pie-wedged beds, or even a quartet of rooms. How about a bunch of smaller plots linked by fruit trees trained into arbor form, chaining across a lawn or encircling a central water feature? (Here's more on which trees are good for your organic garden.)
Raise your beds
Related: How To Build A Simple Raised Bed
Plant a tapestry
Once you have multiple raised beds around you, you can plant just as you would a decorative flower border. You can select from literally thousands of kinds of vegetables, born in all corners of the globe: some nearly as old as time, others introduced yesterday, in every shape and coloration and savor imaginable. Think about height and texture and leaf form and foliage color. Think of contrast and juxtaposition and vegetables that will reward you with flowers, as well.
I suggest you begin by planting a layer of perennial softscape: a quartet of box balls or a border of boxleaf honeysuckle (Lonicera nitida) to ensure evergreen interest. Then add the "upholstered" plants: the handsome brutes you can rely on all season to fill their space. Corn and tomatoes. Peppers, eggplants, and leeks. Artichokes and cardoons. Celeries and chards. Then the handsome, early-season "furniture": carrots, beets, lettuces. Kales, cabbages, and greens. And the later-season accessories, like beans, okra, squashes, and melons. Then on to the fall crops: more lettuces and brassicas and leafy greens. There is no right answer or right mix, and every year is a new opportunity to trial some winning new cultivar or combination.
Louise Morgan/getty
Think about trellises
Finally, many vegetables need your support, which presents yet another chance to elevate your kitchen garden beyond the merely functional. Pole beans, cucumbers, and winter squashes climb tuteurs. Tomatoes grow best with trellising or caging. (Here's how to build a vertical garden with helpful trellises.)
[post_ads]Height is one of the great aesthetic opportunities of the potager, and all of these forms, from a classic bamboo tepee to an imposing central gazebo, can be visual delights while they enhance your yields by adding vertical growing space and help minimize ugly diseases. In almost every instance, you can see that if you approach essential tasks with an eye on invention and creativity, the results will be as lovely as they are practical.
Related: Grow These 50 Pollen-Rich Plants To Help Your Local Honeybees
5 simple changes to try
Try any of these easy alterations to your vegetable garden, and you'll add to its visual appeal. Apply them all, and your plot will be one of the highlights of next summer's garden club tour.
1. Think outside the rectangle: Rebuild your plots into circles, triangles, or octagons.
2. Frame it finely: Just as the right frame enhances a painting, attractive materials beautify your raised beds. Naturally rot-resistant cedar weathers nicely. Or consider stone or brick to enclose your planting areas.
3. Mix + match: Combine vegetables with flowers, herbs, and shrubs, as well as birdbaths, sundials, or your favorite decorations.
4. Embrace different shapes: Plant in patterns, and your beds become a quilt of colors, shapes, and textures.
5. Be creative with your trellis: You can build an eye-catching structure out of bamboo or look for unique uprights at estate sales and the like
Recommended by dearJulius.com
Lifestyle Magazine: How To Plan A Pretty And Productive Vegetable Garden
How To Plan A Pretty And Productive Vegetable Garden
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Anglo-Belgian Memorial
The Anglo-Belgian War Memorial is a monument in Brussels, Belgium, which was commissioned by the British Imperial War Graves Commission and designed by the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger (1885–1934). It is also known as the Brits Oorlogsmonument in Dutch and the Monument Britannique in French.
Unveiled in 1923 by the Prince of Wales, it commemorates the support given by the Belgian People to British Prisoners of War during the First World War . It is located in Place Poelaert / Poelaertplein in Brussels near the Belgian infantry memorial.
The monument depicts a British and a Belgian soldier carved from Brainvilliers stone. Around the sides are reliefs showing Belgian peasants assisting wounded British soldiers. Casts of the reliefs are held at the Imperial War Museum, London, and a plaster cast of the Belgian soldier is held in the Army Museum in Brussels .
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Most Ridiculous Wiki Edits Made By Congress
Wikipedia is the most recognized general reference work on the internet. It is among the top ten popular websites. The multilingual encyclopedia is open source, meaning anyone with an internet access can make changes to Wikipedia articles. However, there are cases of limited access where making changes to an existing article is restricted to prevent vandalism. Wikipedia users can contribute anonymously or with their real identities if they choose to.
Using Wikipedia to Build a Brand
The Internet and Social Media is an open battleground. Finding your way to success can prove challenging. One of the surest ways to succeed is to create a Wikipedia page about you, your business or your brand. Sadly, many people underestimate the power of a Wikipedia page.
A Wikipedia page for business, company or even a person will appear in the top ten results of almost all search terms. Having this in mind, creating a Wikipedia page about yourself or your company can make a great first impression on potential customers or the general public searching for your name or brand.
Hire Wikipedia Experts to Create a Page for you
Creating a good Wikipedia page is not that easy. Writing a Wikipedia article is not similar to the usual content creation. Most people who rely on their academic, advertising or journalistic writing skills often end up frustrated as Wikipedia writing entails much more than basic writing skills. The complex Wikipedia Writing guidelines make involving a professional experienced in writing and editing Wikipedia content vital.
Creating Wikipedia content requires thorough research, proper grammar, correct vocabulary and inclusion of pictures. This is the reason why most people opt for Wiki writers to do the work on their behalf. The strict guidelines by Wikipedia can deter business people, companies, and individuals from creating or editing Wikipedia articles about their company or selves.
So if you need a page created for your company, self, or brand, veteran Wikipedia writers can help. Wikipedia editors will create a page that is properly formatted, reliably source-referenced and written as per Wikipedia’s manual of style.
Most Ridiculous Wiki Edits Made By Congress
Congress is popular for being a house of some interesting characters. In May 2014, Ed Summers came up with a Twitter account, @congressedits. This Twitter account tracks all Wikipedia revisions made to Wikipedia pages from IP addresses that are within the range allocated to the United States Congress. These edits involve promotions or change in the status of members of Congress, and even more interesting ones like resume padders. A good example of resume padder, found in SF Gate, involves a Republican from Kansas, Timothy Alan Huelskamp. Someone anonymously added a section dubbing him a “National Conservative Leader.” Tim Huelskamp has alienated himself from party leaders of late, and the edit was made anonymously, so it is not clear what the editor’s true intentions were.
CongressEdits has resulted in the creation of similar accounts all around the globe in the hopes of improving transparency in government. |
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
How is your stomach?
Tom's Journal.http://tomschuckmanjournal.blogspot.com/tschuckman@aol.com
Total Knee Replacement: Photos
What is a "knee replacement"?
Sometimes also called "resurfacing", this operation involves the removal of the damaged, worn ends of the thigh (femur), and leg (tibia) bones that make up the knee joint, as well as the back of the kneecap (patella). The bone ends are precisely reshaped and recapped with metal surfaces, with special plastic liners added as a bearing surface that promotes low friction gliding between metal and plastic.
How is it done?
Basically, this resurfacing project is stepwise precision carpentry. After an incision is made, the surgeons remove the damaged portions and surfaces of the bones using guides or jigs, and oscillating saws. Precise amounts of bone are removed, usually between 2 and 12 mm. The ends of the bones are shaped to accommodate the prosthesis to be used. Trial, or test prosthetic components are then used to evaluate the fit, range of motion, stability, alignment, and balance of the soft tissues. When all is satisfactory, the final prosthetic components are cemented into place, and the surgical wound is closed.
Current trends: smaller incisions and computer-assisted, "navigated" knee replacement surgery...
How large is the incision?
The photos below show a somewhat larger than normal exposure, in order to show the component parts. In other words, the incision shown is longer than what is typically used. The smallest incision possible, yet practical, is ideal. The incision must be big enough for the surgeons to be able to see what they are doing. The current trends are for smaller incisions, to reduce scarring, stiffness, and weakness, and to allow a faster recovery.
How is a computer helpful?
When knee replacements were first done, bone cuts were made by eye. Next came guides and jigs, placed on or in the bones to more precisely define the cuts. Now, computers, or navigation systems are used to assists with the placement of the cutting guides, for even more precision. The computers rely on the input of landmark mapping data done with an electronic stylus to create a 3D program of the limb. The theory is that a more precise set of bone cuts may facilitate better replacement component alignment, and hopefully, enhance the longevity of the replacement. This theory is not yet proven, but is intuitive. This photo shows the computer camera system and video monitor used during the procedure.
Left knee incision during knee exposure and with knee extended (straight) shows wear behind patella (reflected backward on the right) and in trochlear femoral groove (in center of the photo).
Further exposure with knee flexed (bent) shows a very common wear pattern on the medial (inner) condyle (knuckle) of the femur with complete loss of surface cartilage adjacent to tip of retractor. The patella (right side, still flipped), has been prepared for placement of a plastic prosthesis (see below), as the worn cartilage has been resected, and anchor holes have been drilled.
Left knee: making surface bone cuts with oscillating saw from above, removing damaged bone from the femur, using a cutting guide. The soft tissues are carefully protected with retractors.
Left knee: a cutting guide is prepared for removing damaged bone from the top of the tibia. The saw will be used through the slot near the top and front of the guide. The long guide with T-handle above goes down the length of the tibia to help establish satisfactory alignment for a precise cut.
Left knee in extension: the final prosthesis in place. The round white plastic disk is the back of the flipped patella, the silver component caps the lower end of the femur, and the white tray below the femur is the combined plastic-metal component on the upper end of the tibia. All components have been cemented with a very thin layer bone cement.
Left knee flexed: after complete resurfacing "total knee replacement". The wound is closed, and rehabilitation can begin.
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Playing With Electricity: Fun Experiments to do at Home
Submitted by: Sarah Jane Elliott
Everyone knows it's dangerous to play with electricity. If a strong enough electrical current runs through your body, it can overpower the electrical messages your body sends to your brain, or even stop your heart!
Fortunately, kids science has some easy elementary science experiments you can do that are safe to try at home.
Experiment 1: Dancing dots
1.Tear up a few pieces of paper (tissue paper works best) into little dots and spread them out in a pile. 2.Wet a plastic comb or brush and run it several times through your hair. 3.Bring the comb close to the paper dots. If you brushed your hair enough, the dots should dance!
What's Happening?
Everything in the world, including your hair, is made up of tiny particles called atoms. An atom is made up
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of a hard clump of positive (+) protons, surrounded by whizzing negative (-) electrons. There are usually the same number of protons and electrons in an atom, so they cancel each other out. When you run the comb through your hair, the comb starts grabbing electrons from the atoms in your hair. When there are more electrons than protons on the comb, you create a negative electrical charge.
The paper dots are attracted to the negative charge, and the paper is light enough that you can use the comb to pick them up.
Try touching the comb with a finger of your other hand. What happens? The dots all fall off! This is because the extra electrons in the comb move into your finger. If there's no negative charge on the comb anymore, there's nothing to hold the dots on, and they will fall.
Experiment 2: Water Wizard
1.Turn on a faucet until you have a very thin stream of water. The thinner the better. 2.Run a plastic comb through your hair several times. 3.Hold the comb near the water. The water should bend toward it! What's Happening? The neutral particles in the water are attracted to the negative charge you built up on the comb.
Experiment 3: Build a Battery
This experiment is a little more complicated, but the things you need should be available at a hardware store. You will need: citrus fruit (like oranges or lemons) or a potato something copper (like a nail or coin or metal strip) a piece of zinc (about the same size as your piece of copper) 2 wires with crocodile clamps a small LED light or a voltmeter
1.Press down on the fruit and roll it around on a hard surface to break open the juice inside. 2.Get an adult to help you make a small cut into the skin of the fruit and push the copper in. Leave the end of it sticking out. 3.Make a small cut into the other side of the fruit and push the zinc in. 4.Connect the end of your first wire to the copper, and the end of your second wire to the zinc. 5.Connect the other ends of both wires to the LED or voltmeter. You should see an electric charge!
What's Happening?
Combining metal with acid (like lemon juice) causes a chemical reaction that creates positive and negative particles around each piece of metal. The negative particles will move through the wires from one piece of metal to the other, which causes an electric current. If the reaction is strong enough, it can even power a light bulb!
Discover more kids science articles, look up amazing fun facts, do animated science quizzes with talking characters, meet friends in virtual worlds, play games and do fun science activities at Science Score – the world's most fun online elearning product for kids. Join the thousands of kids to play with Science Score and do well in Science. Visit
About the Author: Sarah Jane Elliott is a contributing author of curious science articles for an online kids science portal ( She holds a honors bachelor of Science degree from University of Toronto, specializing in zoology and behavior.
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Security Flaw In SD Cards Exposed
SD card
If you use a smartphone or digital camera, you’re probably familiar with SD cards. They’re the small cards that store data using flash memory. For most users, they only think about their SD card when they’re transferring contacts to a new phone or removing pictures from their camera. As Stephen Shankland reports for CNet, however, a new technique exposed by security researchers has demonstrated how vulnerable SD cards are to “man in the middle” attacks.
A man in the middle attacks is true to its name. When data is transferred from one location or device to another, a third party intercepts that data in order to monitor, modify or copy it. This allows a criminal to gain access to valuable data like credit card information, or encryption keys. They could also substitute malicious files for trusted files in order to infect users with malware.
The vulnerability in SD cards exists in the cards’ microcontrollers. These are like built-in computers that manage the data stored on the SD card. By reverse engineering an SD card, researchers were able to install and run new firmware on the microcontroller then installed an application that would intercept data being sent by the device.
The specific attack used in the researchers’ demonstration doesn’t work for any flash-memory device because of variations in the microcontrollers, but this example exposes vulnerabilities for all devices using flash memory. This means similar attacks could be used to steal data from solid-state drives or eMMC storage for smartphones.
This is yet another example of the vulnerability of mobile devices. With millions of users and a general lack of security in place, mobile devices are an inviting target for hackers and new threats are emerging all the time. While this particular attack will need a change to the make-up of SD cards to close the vulnerability, other threats need only smarter user behavior. Remember that your mobile device faces the same risks as your PC and protecting it requires vigilance.
If any of your devices have been infected with malware, bring it to Geek Rescue or give us a call at 918-369-4335.
December 31st, 2013 |
English_Master May 8, 2016 No Comments
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL The thick, broad-shouldered athlete breathes heavily and grunts with each step as he and his teammates push mightily against the opposition. His arms are locked over his teammates’ shoulders, all of their heads down. The two teams are pushing against each other like two moose fighting over territory. He looks down to see the ball, sitting just in front of his feet. If he could just hook it with his foot and heave it to his teammate behind him… This is what every player in a scrum is thinking while they fight each other for possession. Rugby is the true sport of men, because you wear no pads, and it is even more violent than football; however, football requires that you wear pads, thus being the true sport of want-to-be men. The rules of these similar yet vastly different games are extremely complex, so only the basics are necessary to distinguish the better sport. In football, the primary rule is that you must advance the ball forward by throwing it or running with it. Once a player with the ball is downed, the entire team lines up again, and the ball is snapped to the quarterback. The short pause in-between each down may not seem significant,...
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Ariel - MilkThis past month at Sisters4Science the girls of Ariel learned the science behind some of their favorite dairy products. While a lot of us drink skim milk or eat whipped cream, many people don’t realize that all of those products come from the same kind of milk that comes out of a cow! To learn about how fat contents affect the dairy products we consume, I led an experiment with the girls that used different types of milk.
To start off the lesson, I asked the girls what kinds of milk they drank at home. Almost everyone said that they drank either 2% or skim milk. When I asked the girls if they knew what the difference was between those two milk types, Amara said that it told you the amount of fat that was in the milk. When cows are milked, all of the fat floats to the top of the liquid – whatever’s not scraped off the top is what determines the fat content of our milk. However, that fat doesn’t just get thrown away! While low-fat milk is normally contains about 2% of milk fat, heavy whipping cream contains about 30%! While Kody thought that was ”kind of gross, “ she quickly got over it when she remembered how delicious whipped cream is! So how does liquid heavy whipping cream turn into the whipped cream that we all put on our desserts? This is what the girls focused on for their first experiment! Using heavy whipping cream, the girls all used their muscle power to whip the liquid into the creamy texture that we see when spraying it out of a can. After many minutes and some sore arms, the girls had whipped cream to eat with some delicious strawberries! The fat from the cream is contained in tiny droplets and when you whip cream, you’re introducing tiny air bubbles into the liquid, which makes it have the fluffy texture we love so much. Camilah joked that next time she wanted to make her own whipped cream, she would use an electric mixer because it was much easier! Next, the girls got to make some milk art! First, the girls poured some whole milk into a pan and then put drops of food coloring into the milk. With the help of some dish soap and some fat particles, the drops of food coloring were able to break apart and create the amazing color symphony we saw in the pan! Who would have thought that all that was happening when we’re washing our dishes?
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Economy in Mauritania
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Economy—overview: A majority of the population still depends on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood even though most of the nomads and many subsistence farmers were forced into the cities by recurrent droughts in the 1970s and 1980s. Mauritania has extensive deposits of iron ore which account for almost 50% of total exports. The decline in world demand for this ore however has led to cutbacks in production. The nation's coastal waters are among the richest fishing areas in the world but overexploitation by foreigners threatens this key source of revenue. The country's first deepwater port opened near Nouakchott in 1986. In recent years drought and economic mismanagement have resulted in a substantial buildup of foreign debt. The government has begun the second stage of an economic reform program in consultation with the World Bank the IMF and major donor countries. Short-term growth prospects are poor because of the heavy debt service burden rapid population growth and vulnerability to climatic conditions. Offshore oil deposits began to developed in 2004. It is uncertain how much of an impact this new industry will have on the average population.
GDP: purchasing power parity—$4.1 billion (1996 est.)
GDP—real growth rate: 6% (1996 est.)
GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$1 750 (1996 est.)
GDP—composition by sector:
agriculture: 26%
industry: 31%
services: 43% (1996)
Inflation rate—consumer price index: 4.7% (1996)
Labor force:
total: 465 000 (1981 est.); 45 000 wage earners (1980)
by occupation: agriculture 47% services 29% industry and commerce 14% government 10%
Unemployment rate: 23% (1995 est.)
revenues: $329 million
expenditures: $265 million including capital expenditures of $75 million (1996 est.)
Industries: fish processing mining of iron ore and gypsum
Industrial production growth rate: 7.2% (1994)
Electricity—capacity: 105 000 kW (1995)
Electricity—production: 143 million kWh (1995)
Electricity—consumption per capita: 63 kWh (1995)
Agriculture—products: dates millet sorghum root crops; cattle sheep; fish products
total value: $494 million (f.o.b. 1996)
commodities: fish and fish products iron ore gold
partners: Japan 22% Italy 16% France 14%
total value: $457 million (c.i.f. 1996)
commodities: foodstuffs consumer goods petroleum products capital goods
partners: France 30% Algeria 10% Spain 7% China 6% US 3%
Debt—external: $2.5 billion (1995)
Economic aid:
recipient: ODA $NA
Currency: 1 ouguiya (UM) = 5 khoums
Exchange rates: ouguiyas (UM) per US$1—~300 (April 2005) 169.880 (January 1998) 148.916 (1997) 137.222 (1996) 129.768 (1995) 123.575 (1994) 120.806 (1993)
Fiscal year: calendar year
June 30, 2005 change by greenleaf
Where World66 helps you find the best deals on Mauritania Hotels |
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Are Socialists Sadists?
It is two hundred years since the Marquis de Sade died – we examine his political ideas.
On 2 December 2nd, 1814 Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, the Marquis de Sade, died in an insane asylum. The words ‘sadism’ and ‘sadist’ are derived from his name. De Sade was incarcerated for about 32 years of his life (including ten years in the Bastille), often without access to the courts. During the French Revolution he was an elected delegate to the National Convention. He was given the task of reviewing sanitation in the hospitals. These were terrible places but thanks to de Sade, individual beds were given to each and every patient, whereas formerly one was obliged to share, sleeping alongside the dying and the dead in one bed. De Sade forced the hospital authorities to transform the clinics and hospitals into places fit for patients. He was also given the task of overseeing the renaming of the streets of Paris, abolishing the Christian names, renaming them after republican heroes, for example, Rue Spartacus.
He began to challenge the efforts by the new masters of France to sabotage democratic measures. But democracy was to be overtaken swiftly by The Terror. Unlike the English Jacobins (of the London Corresponding Society etc), the French Jacobins were not the representatives of the still weak and relatively new working class. They represented the petite-bourgeoisie. Only 6 percent of those passing beneath the guillotine during the Jacobin regime were aristocrats. The rest were minor clergy and workers, 80 percent of victims being manual labourers. The nascent workers’ movement was silenced by Robespierre, and not later.
As regards prison and the death penalty, de Sade was opposed to every form of punishment: ‘It is far simpler to hang men than to find out why we condemn them.’ Again and again he spoke for the release of those brought before the tribunal, and never once would he allow himself to vote for the death penalty. Finally, having stormed out of the tribunal, he wrote to his friend Gaufridy: ‘They wanted me to put through a bestial and bloody resolution, which I couldn't do.’ Then toward the end of the year 1793 they came for Citizen de Sade himself. He was pencilled in to be guillotined but avoided that fate by the good fortune of having been transferred to another prison. When Napoleon Bonaparte became military dictator de Sade’s temporary liberty ended and without any trial he was thrown into political prison once more, before being sent to an asylum.
De Sade held no illusions about the natural goodness of man, but he believed that with complete economic and sexual equality human conditions could be greatly bettered. He went far beyond the ‘advanced’ social thinkers of his time and even of the present day. One of his earlier biographers Geoffrey Gorer, who wrote The Revolutionary Ideas of the Marquis De Sade, pointed out that Sade was in complete opposition to contemporary philosophers for both his ‘complete and continual denial of the right to property,’ and for viewing the struggle in late 18th century French society as being not between ‘the Crown, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy or the clergy, or sectional interests of any of these against one another’, but rather all of these ‘more or less united against the proletariat.’ Gorer argued, ‘he can with some justice be called the first reasoned socialist.’
Socialists say that society is divided into two antagonistic classes, the haves and the have-nots. This point is so fundamental for de Sade that he stresses it in every book. His definition of class can hardly be improved: ‘Don't think that I mean by the people the caste called the tiers-etat [bourgeoisie in the limited sense]; no, I mean by the people ... those who can only get a living by their labour and sweat ’. In his Aline et Valcour the good king Zamé begins his description of his visit to Europe by saying:
This is the beginning of a treatise on the class-war by the extremely savage Bishop of Grenoble who declaims ‘That is the [lower] class that I would abandon to perpetual chains and humiliation ... all others ought to join together against this abject class ... to fasten chains upon them, since they in their turn will be enchained if they relax.’
On theft, de Sade wrote that the oath taken by the nation with respect to the law of property is ridiculous: ‘How can you expect the man who has nothing to honour a law which protects the man who has everything? It is his duty, surely, to attempt to redress the balance!’ Property is itself theft, he says. The thief proposes a law to punish theft against himself, the original thief, and expects those with no other recourse than theft to respect such a law! Laws against theft are therefore absurd.’
Gorer, in his book, explains: ‘This distinction of classes is founded on property; and with unaccustomed epigrammatic terseness De Sade defined property as 'a crime committed by the rich against the poor ... theft is only punished because it attacks the right of property; but that right is in itself a theft, so that the law punishes theft because it attacks theft.’
On leadership, de Sade had this to say: ‘you can only govern men by deceiving them; one must be hypocritical to deceive them; the enlightened man will never let himself be led, therefore it is necessary to deprive him of enlightenment to lead him as we want ...’ Elsewhere, he says ‘Politics, which teach men to deceive their equals without being deceived themselves, that science born of falseness and ambition, which the statesman calls a virtue, the social man a duty, and the honest man a vice ...’
Religion is summed up by his view 'When the strong wished to enslave the weak he persuaded him that a god had sanctified the chains with which he loaded him, and the latter, stupefied by misery, believed all he was told.' Blasphemy can only exist if God exists. If there is no God, then blasphemy and all other ‘religious crimes’ are likewise non-existent. So how can you have laws against them? If one, on the other hand, believes in a God, can he really believe his God to be so petty as to take offence at being calumnied? Such a God isn't worthy of honour’.
De Sade also condemned war, which he said sent the wrong message to those abroad whom we would wish likewise to follow our example and liberate themselves. It is not our job to make war on them, but to show them through our peaceful example what a free republic can and ought to be. He claimed war is simply public and authorised murder, in which hired men slaughter one another in the interests of tyrants: 'The sword is the weapon of him who is in the wrong, the commonest resource of ignorance and stupidity.'
As mentioned, de Sade was no supporter of capital punishment. He wrote: ‘The state publicly honours those proficient in murder and encourages them. Yet it punishes the man who disposes of his enemy for a personal reason!’ As for the death penalty, he writes: ‘Either murder is a crime, or it is not. If it is not, why punish it? If it is, then by what perverse logic do you punish it by the same crime?’ It also is tantamount to bad arithmetic, since ‘now two people are dead instead of one!’
De Sade thought the greatest causes of misery were four things; private property, class distinctions, religion and family life. In the future societies he wrote of these institutions being abolished or transformed. In one section of Aline and Valcour, a brutal African kingdom is contrasted with the Pacific island utopian paradise of Tarnoé. He describes an imaginary island where all priests were banished, there were no temples and no vested interest in religion. There were also no professional lawyers and discussion of theology or law was punished as one of the gravest anti-social crimes. There was also no money.
Wherever you look in the world today you will find a parasitical minority suffering an embarrassment of riches while the toiling masses endure real and unnecessary pain as very much part of their everyday lives. The Marquis de Sade would find many examples of this obscenity in today’s class divided society. De Sade may not have been a socialist as we would now define one, but a man of his times, though he perhaps ought be remembered far more for raising important social questions than raising erections through his masturbatory sexual fantasies.
For more information see: A Brief Account of the Life of the Marquis De Sade by Anthony Walker |
Leopard slug -Limax maximus (Lode)
Leopard Slug
Common Name: Leopard Slug
Scientific Name: Limax maximus
Body Colour: Brown or grey with brown or black spots/blotches. The colouration of both juveniles and adults is similar.
Size: It can grow up to 16cm in length
Habitat: This slug species is widespread and common in the UK and they favour woodland and old gardens with mature trees.
And Toad. |
Graph Theory · Mathematics
Hypergraphs: Introduction
Graph theory is the study of graphs, which can be used to model relationships, routes, etc. People understands a lot about graphs. However, there is a generalisation of graph theory that we can talk about – the hypergraphs!
Like graph theory, hypergraphs contains vertices, denoted by V, and edges which we call hyperedges, denoting E. Instead of connecting two vertices u,v \in V, a hyperedge e \in E connects any subset of V, i.e. e is an element of the power set of the vertices.
Intuitively, hypergraphs are just a set of vertices, and hyperedges are lines that connects some vertices together. For instance, the n \times n grid is a hyper graph, with n^2 vertices and 2n hyperedges. In the n \times n grid, each pair of hyperedges, e,e' \in E intersects at a vertex v \in V uniquely. Another example of a hypergraph is the Fano plane, which is the hypergraph below
Fano Plane
As we can see, there are seven vertices in total in the hypergraph above. There are also seven hyperedges in the hypergraph above, each hyperedge is represented by a unique colour itself.
We can also talk about the properties of a hypergraph just as we do in normal graphs. Recall that in a graph, we say that a graph is k-regular if each vertex has exactly degree k. Similarly, a hypergraph is k-regular if for each vertex in the hypergraph, the degree of the vertex (number of lines that pass through a vertex) is exactly degree k. So a n \times n-grid is 2-regular, and the Fano plane is 3-regular.
Another interesting property that we want to inherit from graph theory is the dual. Amazingly, basic properties of duality that we learn from normal graph theory is also true for hypergraphs. Perhaps the most important such property is that G^{**} \cong G for any hypergraph G, where G^* denotes the dual graph of the graph G. This is another post for another time.
There are many other types of hypergraphs, and they are used in many ways. Hopefully this post helps you with some intuition in hypergraphs.
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Schematic of rivers
Inspired by this discussion I tried to bang out a quick map of just the biggest rivers in the US in schematic form. My idea was to sort them all by length and draw them side by side, like this awesome 19th century visualization, but without straightening them first. I counted up which gnis_ids in NHDPlus had the most rows (as a proxy for river size), then made a special vector map source with just those rivers.
select geometry, name, strahler, huc8 from merged_rivers where gnis_id in ( 354236, 591690, 465582, 1034981, 78762, 517018, 42838, 1384150, 517033, 400069, 201759, 1091369, 425264, 485443, 1035255, 835960, 1428399, 1101881, 78956, 1385432, 837263, 1533479, 1629903, 45730, 756398)
Sadly the resulting image (attached here) doesn’t really work. Some things are screwed up, like the Platte River in Nebraska which just kind of ends. Also you run into the question of defining what a river is; why do we call the Missouri a separate river as opposed to folding it into the MIssissippi? I could show every single watershed that has a unique drainage to the oceans, but then that’s a fanned out watershed map instead of a nice linear river map. Needs more thinking.
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• Submitted By: mmfriar
• Date Submitted: 12/02/2014 6:35 PM
• Category: Science
• Words: 554
• Page: 3
Carbohydrates are an essential nutrient that helps maintain our health by allowing proper function of internal organs, the nervous system, and muscles. They supply us with energy that allows for everyday activities.
Proteins are responsible for developing and repairing bone, muscle, skin, and blood cells. They are a major component to antibodies which help our bodies fight off diseases and control chemical activities in the body. These nutrients are another source of energy to cells when fats and carbohydrates are not available.
Lipids have a huge role in maintaining healthy skin and hair, insulating body organs against shock, maintaining body temperature, and promoting healthy cell function. Fats provide a form of energy in a concentrated form, which make you feel full when you’re actually lacking efficient amounts of carbohydrates.
Vitamins play a vital role in a healthy lifestyle. Not only do the promote growth, but they help maintain your health in your everyday life. Vitamins are constantly helping maintain nerves and skin, produce blood cells, build strong bones and teeth, and heal wounds. They also convert food energy into body energy to be used.
Minerals are another vital role in a healthy lifestyle. Minerals help aid physiological processes in the body, and without them, vitamins would not be able to be absorbed.
Water is a very important nutrient that is crucial to maintaining your health. The water in our system bathes cells, aids in fluid and electrolyte balance. It also maintains pH balance, and transports molecules and cells throughout the body. Water is a huge make up of out blood, which allows it to carry oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and maintaining cells in proper working order.
Fiber helps move foods through the digestive system, delays absorption of cholesterol and other nutrients, and softens stool by absorbing water.
Carbohydrates and proteins both have 4 calories per gram. Lipids have 9 calories per gram....
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How and why
There are a number of ways to look at behavior. A bird selects material to make a nest. One person might say that the bird is looking for twigs of a particular size because those can be woven into the shape of nest that the bird wants as a snug place to lay eggs. This implies a certain amount of thinking, remembering, learning and motivation on the bird’s part. We are looking at the bird’s behavior similarly to how we look at our own. Or it might be that the bird has an instinctive program to build a nest. The bird is doing what feels ‘right’ to the bird. Again this is similar to how we view our own instinctive behavior. These are how explanations. They are concerned with how the behavior gets initiated in the brain.
But there are also why explanations. It does not matter whether the behavior is a product of reflex, instinct, drive or cognition – the why explanation will be about the evolution of the animal, its traits, its niche and the environmental problems it faces. It is about the strategy that the animal uses to stay alive and have descendants. The same evolutionary explanation could be used with very different how explanations. The opposite could also be the case one how used with many whys.
It is confusing enough when talking about animals – why explanations are often heard as how ones with the implication that the animal knows about things and thinks about things that are not credible for that animal.
When we talk about people it becomes very difficult. This is because people tend to work on the assumption that they know how and why they decide to do things. They are not working in the realm of neuroscience (how) and genetic/social evolution (why) but working in the folk psychology realm with a very different how and why. They think that all is transparent to them, they have direct knowledge of their minds but a more realistic view is that almost nothing is transparent to them and they are guessing about the workings of their minds. It is disturbing to be told that you did something for reasons and by processes that you never dreamed of. Whose mind is it anyway?
Still to many people it is also fascinating to understand the brain. I often think that this field is going to be confusing until people forget ‘I think therefore I am’ and start looking at ‘I am therefore I think’. I know I exist so I don’t need a philosophical proof of that. What I don’t know much about is my thinking and for that I need a scientific understanding – a neuroscience how and an evolutionary why.
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Botanically this genus includes Chamoecy-paris and Retinospora, but the latter is kept distinct in this work. Amongst the Cupressus proper, Lawson's Cypress (C. Lawsoniana), from California, and its many beautiful varieties, are raised in thousands from seeds and cuttings every year. In a native state Lawson's Cypress grows up to 200 ft. high, but the tallest trees in Britain are little more than 50-60 ft. high. Amongst the best varieties are erecta viridis, Allumi, Fraseri, glauca, and several with silvery variegation (albo-variegata, argentea, Silver Queen, &c); and golden variegation (aureo-variegata, lutea, &c); some with more pyramidal habit (pyramidalis, albo-spica); and others like Triomphe de Boskoop, a pretty blue-green variety; versicolor, Wisseli, etc.
There are several other Cypresses, including macrocarpa and its variety lutea; Macnabiana; lusitanica; nootkatensis, etc., the latter better known as Thujopsis borealis, with varieties albo-variegata and lutea. The White Cedar (C. thyoides or Chamcecyparis sphoeroidea), 30-60 ft. high, from the swampy regions of North America, is a good plant, and has a fine golden-coloured variety called lutea. |
Gradient Descent with Momentum
October 2nd, 2017
Gradient descent is commonly used search algorithm in machine learning. We use it to learn parameters of prediction model. One of the problems with straightforward gradient descent is that it oscillates too much on vertical axis (as show in above image). This oscillations slows down the convergence to minimum (the red dot).
What we want is less oscillation on vertical axis and faster march on horizontal axis towards the minimum. Consequently this would result into faster learning and convergence to the minimum of energy landscape.
How do we achieve this objective? Gradient descent with momentum is one of many possible ways to do that. Gradient descent with momentum is an optimization algorithm which relies on exponentially weighted averages - applied (exponentially decreasing) weighting factors to older data points.
Here is how we implement gradient descent with momentum:
On each iteration of batch or mini-batch gradient descent, first compute derivatives, $dW$ and $db$, and then get exponentially weighted averages as following
$$v_{dW} = \beta v_{dW} + (1-\beta)dW$$
$$v_{db} = \beta v_{db} + (1-\beta)db$$
This will add another hyperparameter $\beta$ to learning algorithm. Typically value 0.9 is used for $\beta$ to take average of last 10 iterations' gradients. There is no need for bias-correction as the bias will disappear after few iterations of gradient descent. In equations 1 and 2 above, the derivatives represent acceleration whereas momentum terms are velocity. $\beta$ term can be seen as friction.
Now we can update the weights using exponentially weighted averages (than usual derivatives);
$$W := W - \alpha V_{dW}$$
$$b := b - \alpha v_{db}$$
This will smooth out gradient descent and the vertical oscillations will average out to zero. As a consequence gradient descent will to converge quickly because it is not taking every step independent of previous ones. It is rather taking previous steps into account to gain momentum from them. |
Realistic Influencing (part one)
'Criteria' are personal norms and values a person finds important. Sometimes they are implicit, sometimes explicit. Criteria are the ground of convictions. Some criteria are valid forever, some are valid during a project or a weekend, for instance. Example of a criterion is 'result driven' and 'be on time'. Note: a fact can also be a criterion.
The last part of the diagram is 'Conclusions'. Conclusions are the conclusions people draw based on the 'Facts' and 'Criteria'.
The whole model together comprised our 'Convictions'. So, 'Convictions' consists of 'Facts', 'Criteria' and 'Conclusions'.
2. As I said 'Criteria' can be implicit or explicit. Finding a person's criteria is important when influencing. Based on someone's 'Conclusions' you can try to find the other's 'Criteria' by asking: 'Why do you conclude this?'
The same goes for 'Facts'. They can be implicit or explicit too. Often people just state their 'Conclusions'. Understanding their underlying 'Facts' is essential for influencing. Asking 'What their factual basis is for their conclusion' is an easy way to find the fact or facts underlying their conclusion.
3. This diagram basically says: Don't try to change someone's Facts and Criteria. It's really hard to do that. This was an eye-opener to me. I find myself often not wondering what the criteria are of the person I'm trying to influence (usually because there is not enough time... - not an excuse!). Or I find myself working on his/her facts. Trying to prove the facts are wrong... And usually this doesn't work.
4. The underlying conviction(!) of this diagram is you need to 'click' with the other person to be able to influence. This 'click' needs to be on the level of 'convictions'.
5. So, the only place we can start is we have to start is Conclusions. How do we change them? There are three strategies:
1. Offer alternatives: based on the same facts and conclusions, draw different conclusions
2. Reframing: draw new conclusions, based on extra facts (remember don't try to change his/her facts!) you put next to the facts of the person you're trying to influence. Don't use too many extra facts!
3. Pragmatic evaluation: don't change a thing but think the filled in diagram through. What consequences do the conclusions have based on the facts and criteria. Are these consequences realistic, intended, etc.
6. We played around with the diagram and strategies, as said. And practiced using it in in real discussions.
7. We also examined our own criteria. We made a list of them and tried to rank them. (As I wrote, don't try to change someone's criteria. But if you have to try to start with the one that is ranked lowest.) Comparing your list to other's helped find overlap in criteria. This overlap is a good starting point for influencing.
Asking each other what his/her criteria are is a good way of finding the 'click'. The other can change the way you see him/her or he/she sees you are really listening.
What are some of my criteria? Honesty, Faithfulness, Justice, Do your best, etc.
8. An interesting part of the course was investigating our inner-voice. Most people have voices in their head telling them what to do. These voices can contradict each other. These voices usually have a link to short-term or long-term personal criteria. Listening to them is important to understand your personal criteria. You can play with them by speaking out loud about them. 'On the one hand I'd like to, but on the other hand...'.
9. We also went into nonverbal communication. Are these cues incongruent with what is being said?
10. And finally, on day 2 of the first part of the course, we also looked at 'Objections'. Objections are barriers that block seeing the future bright world. Objections can be practical or relate to criteria. Use the above-mentioned strategies to approach criteria-related objections. Approach objections related to practice with practical solutions.
That was all for the first part of the course. I'll blog about the second part soon.
I hope you enjoyed this post. How do you influence others? What is your approach? What works for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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Idea generation is a methodology which usually takes place in the Concept Design part of the creative process. This methodology combines divergent thinking (applying a stimulus to generate potential outcomes) and convergent thinking (bringing facts and data together and applying logic).
Iterations help divergent thinking by giving suggestions on how to process the output. They work as a set of guitar effect pedals to your process. There is an input, a set of ambiguous instructions that can be applied to this input, and an undetermined output created by these effects.
In layman’s terms: you sketch an idea, then draw a card. Then draw a new sketch based around your interpretation of what the card says. Then draw another card. Sketch another new sketch based on what the card says. And repeat.
The results can lead iterative sketching down new and innovative paths not normally reached through standard idea generation.
The Web App
I designed and built an app that does the same thing as these cards. It’s free. Go check it out at Go steal the source code at Github.
The Cards
These cards are licensed CC BY-SA which means you can do what you like with them as long as you reference Sparkwood and 21 and this page.
This is the back of the cards. There is a secret code hidden into it. Can you work it out?
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Friday, December 03, 2010
How best to feed Africa, Part 2
As mentioned in our previous post on this topic, Africa has an untapped potential in agriculture. Many believe that the continent can grow enough food to feed itself, yet the continent has lagged behind all the others in food production.
Asia has seen explosive growth in the amount of food it grows since the 1970s, but that same type of expansion has not reached most of Africa. The country of Malawi has proved that it is possible to grow a surplus of food, and ever since the international community has changed their thinking on how to best aid Africa.
Despite this knowledge there is still debate on how to best move forward, scientists believe new technologies in in bio-tech can help, yet many environmentalists are reluctant to use them. From the Guardian, writer Madeleine Bunting examines this debate.
Juma and his prestigious panel of international experts have attempted to pick a politically feasible path between these two positions. His report, A New Harvest, is being launched with the backing a clutch of presidents, including those of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
One old hand in the field told me the other day that, on average, it takes 46 years for agricultural innovations to get from the laboratory to widespread use in the field in Africa; it's not lack of technology that is the problem but effective means to disseminate practical solutions. Technology might be able to achieve quick fixes in health on the continent, but they might be elusive in agriculture because it entails much more complex issues of land rights and power.
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What Are The Health Benefits Of Deep Breathing
In our busy lives, we never pay attention to the way we breathe. Our busy lives force us to live at a fast pace and gradually develop a habit of shallow breathing. Shallow breathing can affect health adversely in the long run. Learning to breathe deeply again can help avoid these problems in the long run. Here are a few benefits of deep breathing.
Health benefits of deep breathing
Better Respiration
Thisgbtg3e6dy73eu28ied92o202 benefit is obvious; deep breathing allows the respiratory system to remain healthy and working at its maximum. Problems such as bronchitis and asthma can go away with healthy deep breathing habits.
Better Digestion
With deep breathing, you massage your internal organs. This ensures the development of a healthy digestive system and reduces bowel irregularities such as constipation.
Calmer Nervous System
By deep breathing, the sense of anxiety, restlessness and negativity go away. Deep breathing allows the nervous system to relax and calms down. For this reason, the primary approach to tackling anxious thoughts is deep breathing while counting to ten.
Better Blood Pressure Regulation
One of the tips by science experts for deep breathing is to breathe deeply while blowing on your left thumb tip when nervous. This lets your blood pressure regulate and reduce your nervousness. By deep breathing, you can lower your blood pressure and heart rate.
Better Circulation
With deep breathing, you also improve your blood circulation. The blood flows more freely through the blood vessels and provides a healthy supply of oxygen to the eyes and the brain.
Relaxes Muscles
Breathing deeply also allows you to relax your muscles and gain energy. Through deep breathing, you can relax your whole muscular system and relieve your muscles and joints of cramp and tension.
Better Energy
During exercise and strength training, it is recommended that you breathe deeply. The reason is that deeper breathing allows better access to air, which provides the cells with just the right amount of oxygen to continue producing energy.
Better Control of Emotions
Negativity builds in the body when you are not relaxed. Deep breathing can help get over a lot of feelings including fear, anger, rejection and denial. This gives you a better sense and control of emotions.
Better Immune System
Lastly, breathing deeply also improves the flow of lymphatic system in the body. The body cleanses itself and purifies the areas of nose and throat clearing itself of dirt, mucus, and other impurities.
Increase in Spirituality
With deep breathing, there is a gradual increase in the levels of intuition and creativity. When relaxed, you can also focus more on your surroundings, meditate better and gain a better sense of self-awareness. With so many benefits, it is appropriate that you start the habit of breathing deeply today. |
The Cape Ann Test | Mid-Book Test - Easy
Faith Sullivan
Buy The Cape Ann Lesson Plans
Name: _________________________ Period: ___________________
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What does Mama say she wants to occur by next year?
(a) A new car.
(b) New shoes for Lark.
(c) Carpenters to be working on a house for the family.
(d) A new baby.
2. What does Maria serve Lark with her break and butter?
(a) Strawberry jam and cheese.
(b) Blueberry jelly and cheese.
(c) Ham and cheese.
(d) Strawberries and ham.
3. What happens to the bread Mama tries to toast on the stove?
(a) It doesn't get warm.
(b) It's toasted just right.
(c) It barely gets warm.
(d) It burns.
4. What does the German neighbor say when Lark returns her sheet?
(a) She hadn't expected them back so quickly.
(b) They aren't her sheets.
(c) Thank you.
(d) They are folded wrong.
5. What does Beverly's father do for a living?
(a) He's gone.
(b) He's a clerk at the depot.
(c) He's a traveling salesman.
(d) He's a janitor at the school..
6. What is the skill Beverly has that she shares with Lark?
(a) Making sandcastles.
(b) Stealing.
(c) Diving.
(d) Swimming.
7. Why does Mama say Grandma Browning can't stay with Aunt Betty?
(a) She doesn't have money for the trip.
(b) She has a broken ankle.
(c) She is too old to make the trip.
(d) She is already staying with another sick relative.
8. What is Mr. McPhee wearing when he talks with Lark at the depot?
(a) The book doesn't say.
(b) Striped overalls.
(c) A short-sleeved shirt and coveralls.
(d) Faded blue jeans.
9. Why does Lark get a spanking from Papa?
(a) For kicking Mrs. Grubb's dog.
(b) For disobeying Mama.
(c) For biting her nails.
(d) For making a "D" in Communion Class.
10. What does Lark sing while she's washing Aunt Betty's dishes?
(a) Dixie.
(b) The Old Gray Mare.
(c) Amazing Grace.
(d) When the Saint Go Marching In.
11. Which of the following ingredients does Mama say she would never put in a pie?
(a) Flour.
(b) Cornstarch.
(c) Sugar.
(d) Blueberries.
12. How much does Lark learn Aunt Betty pays in monthly rent?
(a) Eighty dollars.
(b) Forty dollars.
(c) She doesn't pay rent.
(d) Fifteen dollars.
13. Where does Mama plan to go after dinner?
(a) To visit Hilly.
(b) To the hairdresser's.
(c) To play bridge.
(d) To the cemetery.
14. What is the name of the story Lark reads to Hilly?
(a) Peter Pan.
(b) Peggy Among the Pansies.
(c) Bedtime for Bitsy.
(d) Lilly and the Lost Ladybug.
15. What is the baby's name?
(a) Martha Lark.
(b) Matilda Ann.
(c) Marjorie Ann.
(d) Majorie Lark.
Short Answer Questions
1. How much education has Mama had?
2. What is Beverly wearing when she first sits down by Lark?
3. What is hanging on the wall over Lark's crib?
4. What kind of ice cream does Papa buy for Lark?
5. What section of the paper is across Papa's chest when he falls asleep on Sunday afternoon?
(see the answer keys)
This section contains 484 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
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Home » Green Living » Top 10 Green Cities in the U.S.
Top 10 Green Cities in the U.S.
By Senior Editor
Food Pyramid -
Top 10 Green Cities
Reducing our carbon footprint is an important element of saving the planet, and there are several green cities locations where the community has focused on steps that can be taken to create programs for the residents of these green cities. Many of these green cities have setup community efforts and processes that make it easier for the community members to live an environmentally friendly lifestyle.
Some of the programs that have been implemented by these green cities include: improving water and air quality, allowing accessibility to local products, setting up efficient waste management and recycling programs, encouraging clean transportation, and devoting plots of land for green space.
According to MNN.com, the top 10 green cities in the United States are:
1. Portland, Oregon: Portland is at the top of the green cities list, it is known as the best city in the US to travel by bike, and it has over 200 miles of bike lanes to decrease pollution. The city also offers classes to teach people how to garden and find sustainable food sources.
2. San Francisco, California: San Francisco has implemented a big solar power program, as well as a recycling program to cut back on waste. Also, San Francisco has banned the use of plastic grocery bags, and encourages consumers to bring their own reusable bags instead.
3. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston has been working to replace the taxis with hybrid cars, install solar panels for energy, and use recycled trash for energy creation. Additionally, the use of electric motorbikes is encouraged to cut down on pollution.
4. Oakland, California: Oakland is well known for the availability of organic, local food sources. Also, the public transit system is powered by hydrogen and 17% of the cities energy comes from renewable sources.
5. Eugene, Oregon: Number five on our list of green cities is Eugene, which has a great public transportation system and many people in the city ride bikes instead of driving cars. There are over 150 miles of bike paths in the city, making it easy to get around without increasing pollution.
6. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge is known to be the “best walking city,” and it is a great place to cut down on the use of transportation. The city is also focused on energy efficient buildings, and all new construction must comply with “LEED” standards.
7. Berkeley, California: Berkeley is a great place to find local, organic restaurants and food. The city also has programs in place to implement solar power, wind power, hydropower, and biofuels.
8. Seattle, Washington: Seattle has a program to encourage LEED-certified building, and there are now 20 buildings that meet the LEED certification requirements. Additionally, they offer a program to incentivize residents and businesses to install solar power panels.
9. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago has a beautiful greenbelt around the city area, and it also has a program called the “Chicago Green Roof Program” that encourages plant growth on building roofs. It is estimated that there are over 2.5 million square feet of roofs that have plant life in Chicago.
10. Austin, Texas: Finishing out our list of green cities, Austin has 206 parks, 50 miles of trails, 12 preserves, and 26 greenbelts. The city’s goal is to be carbon neutral by the year 2020.
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Food, the Body's Source of Positive Energy
When you are feeling tired or low, physically and mentally, you can increase your energy levels by eating correctly.
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Maybe you are overworked and stressed, or perhaps you went out dancing all night and woke up with a pounding hangover; we all turn to coffee, thinking it will wake us up, and it does, but only temporarily. The glucose in our system, our basic source of energy, is still asleep. In order to “refill”, you need protein, some fat, and crucially, composed carbohydrates. Make a dynamic start to the day with cereals, peanuts and raisins which all contain potassium, necessary to convert glucose into energy, and magnesium, whose absence can lead to a build-up of lactic acid, resulting in fatigue.
As the day goes on and you become thirsty, a cup of green tea with some sugar will help your metabolism and prevent dehydration. Are you hungry? Don’t settle for quick cheese pies and sandwiches; a fresh juice or fruit salad contain carbohydrates that will be slowly absorbed into the bloodstream, releasing energy gradually. Good choices of fruits are apples, bananas, oranges, kiwis, plums, grapefruits and strawberries. Don’t forget that the brain constantly uses glucose for its functions, therefore it is necessary to eat multiple, small meals throughout the day, as the brain requires 2-3 hours to convert food into energy.
For lunch, try to include a source of Omega-3 fatty acid, such as a salmon fillet or other fatty fish; this will increase the activity of red blood cells, assisting with blood circulation, and provide your system with more oxygen for the production of energy. A chicken salad, ham, turkey and lots of olive oil and vinegar, and even traditional, Greek, white beans, will also fill you with the necessary energy; olive oil slows down the digestion of proteins and carbohydrates, stabilizing glucose levels in the blood and keeping your energy levels high.
At times of particular weakness, natural supplements can offer additional help. Panax ginseng eliminates stress and fatigue symptoms, guarana (also known as Brazilian cocoa) increases energy levels, the Chinese root Huang Qi helps the circulation of energy in the body and royal jelly arouses both appetite and mood.
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Home / Health / Diet / Pacific Islander Americans, Diet of
Pacific Islander Americans, Diet of
The Pacific Islands contain 789 habitable islands and are divided into the three geographic areas: Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are over a million Pacific Islanders in the United States, most of whom live in California, Hawaii, Washington, Utah, and Texas. ethnicities in the United States include Carolinian, Fijian, Guamanian, Hawaiian, Kosraean, Melanesian, Micronesian, Northern Mariana Islander, Palauan, Papua New Guinean, Ponapean, Polynesian, Samoan, Solomon Islander, Tahitian, Tarawa Islander, Tongan, Trukese (Chuukese), and Yapese. Prior to 1980, (except Hawaiians) were classified with Asian under the classification of “Asian and Pacific Islander American.” Today, the U.S. Census Bureau includes Pacific Islander under the classification of “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander.” Pacific Islanders are a racially and culturally diverse population group, and they follow a wide variety of religions and have an array of languages.
Nutrition and Status
Accurate mortality and morbidity statistics for this population are limited, mainly because data on Pacific Islander Americans were classified with Asian Americans until a few years ago. Pacific Islander Americans have a high rate of , and Native Hawaiians and Samoans are among the most people in the world. Dietary and lifestyle changes, as well as a likely genetic predisposition to store fat, are possible causes for this high rate. Lifestyles have changed from an active farming- and fishing-based subsistence economy to a more sedentary lifestyle. Pacific Islanders may be genetically predisposed to store fat for times of scarcity (the “thrifty gene” phenotype), and there is evidence that prenatal undernutrition modifies fetal development, predisposing individuals to adult and chronic diseases.
The numbers by national origin do not add up to the total population figure because respondents may have put down more than one country. Respondents reporting several countries are counted several times. The total includes Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders alone or in combination with other races or groups. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population alone in 2000 was 398,835.
National Origin Population Percent
*Less than 0.1%.
Total 874,414 100.0%
Native Hawaiian 401,162 45.9
Samoan 133,281 15.2
Tongan 36,840 4.2
Tahitian 3,313 0.4
Tokelauan 574 0.1
Polynesian, not specified 8,796 1.0
Guamanian or Chamorro 92,611 10.6
Mariana Islander 141 *
Saipanese 475 0.1
Palauan 3,469 0.4
Carolinian 173 *
Kosraean 226 *
Pohnpeian 700 0.1%
Chuukese 654 0.1
Yapese 368 *
Marshallese 6,650 0.8
I-Kiribati 175 *
Micronesian, not specified 9,940 1.1
Fijian 13,581 1.6
Papua New Guinean 224 *
Solomon Islander 25 *
Ni-Vanuatu 18 *
Melanesian, not specified 315 *
Other Pacific Islander 174,912 20.0
blood pressure. The poor health status of Pacific Islander Americans is also linked to socioeconomic indicators—Native Hawaiians have the worst socioeconomic indicators, the lowest health status, and the most diet-related maladies of all American minorities.
Eating Habits and Meal Patterns
Nutritional Transition
Nutrition education is needed to stimulate nutrition-related indigenous knowledge and the consumption of traditional nutrient-rich local foods as a more healthful alternative to fast foods and processed foods. There is also an urgent need for increased awareness of the health perils of obesity, especially among individuals with low socioeconomic status. Many health professionals are now emphasizing eating traditional “native” foods and encouraging residents to get back to a healthy lifestyle and to their cultural roots. Language is a major barrier to health education and medical interventions, however, and more health professionals need to be recruited from this population into health and medical fields in specific geographic areas. Professionals from the dominant (white) culture also need to become more culturally competent.
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Henry VIII
Copyright Michael D. Robbins 2005
Astro-Rayological Interpretation & Charts
Images and Physiognomic Interpretation
to Volume 3 Table of Contents
Henry VIII—King of England: (1491-1547)
June 28 1491, Greenwich, England, 8:45 AM, LMT. (Source: according to LMR, Martin Harvey quotes the birth record.) Died of hepatic dropsy on January 28, 1547, OS, February 7, 1547, NS, Westminster, England.
Ascendant, Virgo with Mars in Virgo, H1; MC, late Taurus with Venus in Gemini conjunct MC; Sun in Cancer; Moon in Aries; Mercury in Leo; Jupiter in Gemini; Saturn in Aquarius; Uranus in Capricorn; Neptune in Sagittarius; Pluto in Scorpio.
Henry VIII took the helm of the English church because the Pope would not let him divorce his first wife. He dissolved the monasteries and took over their property but allowed church services to continue in their old form.
Handsome and popular when young, as Henry grew older he became renowned for his tyrannical ways.
Henry VIII (1491–1547), British monarch, King of England. speech, Dec. 24, 1545, to Parliament.
from Shakespear's Play Henry XIII
If Love now Reigned as it hath been
1If love now reigned as it hath been
2And were rewarded as it hath sin,
3Noble men then would sure ensearch
4All ways whereby they might it reach,
5But envy reigneth with such disdain
6And causeth lovers outwardly to refrain,
7Which puts them to more and more
8Inwardly most grievous and sore.
9The fault in whom I cannot set,
10But let them tell which love doth get--
11To lovers I put now sure this case:
12Which of their loves doth get them grace?
13And unto them which doth it know
14Better than do I, I think it so.
Lusty Youth should us ensue
1Lusty Youth should us ensue,
2His merry heart shall sure all rue.
3For whatsoever they do him tell,
4It is not for him, we know it well.
5For they would have him his Liberty refrain
6And all merry company for to disdain,
7But I will not so whatsoever they say,
8But follow his mind in all that we may.
9How should Youth himself best use
10But all disdainers for to refuse?
11Youth has, as chief assurance,
12Honest Mirth with Virtue's pastance.
13For in them consisteth great honour,
14Though that disdainers would therein put error,
15For they do sue to get them grace
16All only riches to purchase.
17With Good Order, Counsel, and Equity,
18Good Lord, grant us our mansion to be!
19For without their good guidance
20Youth should fall in great mischance.
21For Youth is frail and prompt to do,
22As well vices as virtues to ensue.
23Wherefore by these he must be guided
24And Virtue's pastance must be therein used.
25Now unto God this prayer we make,
26That this rude play may well be take,
27And that we may our faults amend,
28An bliss obtain at our last end.
Though some Saith that Youth Ruleth me
1Though some saith that youth ruleth me,
2 I trust in age to tarry.
3God and my right and my duty,
4 From them I shall never vary,
5 Though some say that youth ruleth me.
6I pray you all that aged be,
7 How well did ye your youth carry?
8I think some worse, of each degree:
9 Therein a wager lay dare I,
10 Though some saith that youth ruleth me.
11Pastimes of youth sometime among,
12 None can say but necessary.
13I hurt no man, I do no wrong,
14 I love true where I did marry,
15 Though some saith that youth ruleth me.
16Then soon discuss that hence we must.
17 Pray we to God and Saint Mary
18That all amend, and here an end,
19 Thus saith the king, the eighth Harry,
20 Though some saith that youth ruleth me.
(Venus in Gemini conjunct South Node & MC)
The Time of Youth is to be Spent
1The time of youth is to be spent
2But vice in it should be forfent.
3Pastimes there be, I nought truly,
4Which one may use and vice deny.
5And they be pleasant to God and man,
6Those should we covet, win who can,
7As feats of arms and such other
8Whereby activeness one may utter.
9Comparisons in them may lawfully be set,
10For thereby courage is surely out fet.
11Virtue it is then youth for to spend
12In good disports which it doth fend.
Alas, what shall I do for love?
Alas, what shall I do for love?
For love, alas, what shall I do?
Since now so kind
I do you find
To kepe you me unto.
Oh my heart
Oh my heart, and oh my heart,
My hart it is so sore.
Since I must from my love depart,
And know no cause wherefore.
Alac! Alac! What shall I do?
Alac! Alac! What shall I do?
For care is cast in to my heart,
And true love locked thereto.
Who so that will all feats obtain
In love he must be without disdain.
For love enforces all noble kind,
And disdain discourages all gentle mind.
Wherefore, to love and be not loved
Is worse than death? Let it be proved!
Love encourages, and makes one bold;
Disdain abates and makes him cold.
Love is given to God and man;
To woman also, I think the same.
But disdain is vice, and should be refused,
Yet never the less it is too much used.
Great pity it were, love for to compel
With disdain, both false and subtle.
Departure is my chief pain
Departure is my chief pain
I trust right well of return again.
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) from 22 April 1509 until his death. He was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. He is famous for having been married six times and for wielding the most untrammeled power of any English monarch. Notable events during his reign included the break with Rome and the subsequent establishment of the independent Church of England, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the union of England and Wales.
Several significant pieces of legislation were enacted during Henry VIII's reign. They included the several Acts which severed the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church and established Henry as the supreme head of the Church in England, the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 (which united England and Wales into one nation), the Buggery Act 1533, the first anti-sodomy enactment in England; and the Witchcraft Act 1542, which punished 'invoking or conjuring an evil spirit' with death.
Henry VIII is known to have been an avid gambler and dice player. In his youth, he excelled at sport, especially jousting, hunting, and royal tennis. He was also an accomplished musician, author, and poet; his best known piece of music is Pastyme With Good Company (The Kynges Ballade). Henry VIII was also involved in the construction-from-scratch and improvement of several significant buildings, including Nonsuch Palace, King's College Chapel in Cambridge and Westminster Abbey in London - the existing buildings improved were often properties confiscated from Wolsey (such as Christ Church, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace, palace of Whitehall) and Trinity College, Cambridge.
The future Henry VIII was born at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich in 1491.Born at the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, Henry VIII was the third child of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Only three of Henry VIII's six siblings: Arthur (the Prince of Wales), Margaret and Mary, survived infancy. His Lancastrian father acquired the throne by right of conquest, his army defeating and killing the last Plantagenet king Richard III, but further solidified his hold by marrying Elizabeth, the daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV. In 1493, the young Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1494, he was created Duke of York. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, though still a child.
Henry VII was still eager to maintain the marital alliance between England and Spain through a marriage between Henry, Prince of Wales, and Catherine. Since the Prince of Wales sought to marry his brother's widow, he first had to obtain a dispensation from the Pope from the impediment of affinity. Catherine maintained that her first marriage was never consummated; if she were correct, no papal dispensation would have been necessary, but merely a dissolution of ratified marriage. Nonetheless, both the English and Spanish parties agreed on the necessity of a papal dispensation for the removal of all doubts regarding the legitimacy of the marriage. Due to the impatience of Catherine's mother, Queen Isabella, the Pope hastily granted his dispensation in a Papal Bull. Thus, fourteen months after her husband's death, Catherine found herself engaged to his brother, the Prince of Wales. By 1505, however, Henry VII lost interest in an alliance with Spain, and the young Prince of Wales was forced to declare that his betrothal had been arranged without his assent.
Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509 upon his father's death. Catherine's father, the Aragonese King Ferdinand II, sought to control England through his daughter, and consequently insisted on her marriage to the new English King. Henry VIII wed Catherine of Aragon about nine weeks after his accession on June 11, 1509 at Greenwich, despite the concerns of Pope Julius II and William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, regarding the marriage's validity. They were both crowned at Westminster Abbey on 24 June 1509. Que
Upon his accession, Henry was faced with the problematic issues posed by Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, two nobles of Henry VII's reign who imposed heavy arbitrary taxes on the nobility. In one of the many ways in which he tried to separate himself from the principles of his father's reign, he had them imprisoned in the Tower of London and later beheaded. Henry's constant willingness for war would prove to be another way in which he undertook to distance himself from Henry VII's reign; his predecessor favouring peace.
Anonymous portrait of Henry VIII c. 1509For two years after Henry's accession, Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchesterand Lord Privy Seal, and William Warham controlled matters of state. From 1511 onwards, however, power was held by the ecclesiastic Thomas Wolsey. In 1511, Henry joined the Holy League, a body of European rulers opposed to the French King Louis XII. The League also included such European rulers as Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and Ferdinand II, with whom Henry also signed the Treaty of Westminster. Henry personally joined the English Army as they crossed the English Channelinto France, and took part in sieges and battles. In 1514, however, Ferdinand left the alliance, and the other parties made peace with the French. Irritation towards Spain led to discussion of a divorce with Queen Catherine. However, upon the accession of the French King Francis Iin 1515, England and France grew antagonistic, and Henry became reconciled with Ferdinand. In 1516, Queen Catherine gave birth to a girl, Mary, encouraging Henry in the belief that he could still have a male heir despite his wife's previous failed pregnancies (one stillbirth, one miscarriage, and two short-lived infants). Ferdinand died in 1516, to be succeeded by his grandson (Queen Catherine's nephew) Charles V. By October 1518, Wolsey had engineered the Papacy-led Treaty of London to resemble an English triumph of foreign diplomacy, placing England at the centre of a new European alliance with the ostensible aim of repelling Moorish invasions through Spain, which was the Pope's original aim. In 1519, when Maximilian also died, Wolsey, who was by that time a Cardinal, secretly proposed Henry as a candidate for the post of Holy Roman Emperor, though supporting the French King Francis in public. In the end, however, the prince-electorssettled on Charles. The subsequent rivalry between Francis and Charles allowed Henry to act as a mediator between them. Henry came to hold the balance of power in Europe. Both Francis and Charles sought Henry's favour, the former in a dazzling and spectacular manner at the Field of Cloth of Gold, and the latter more solemnly at Kent. After 1521, however, England's influence in Europe began to wane. Henry entered into an alliance with Charles V through the Treaty of Bruges, and Francis I was defeated by Charles' imperial armies at the Battle of Paviain February 1525. Charles' reliance on Henry subsided, as did England's power in Europe, and Henry was refused help to acquire the Fleur-de-Lys, despite Charles' guarantees. This lead to the Treaty of Westminsterin 1527. Henry's interest in European affairs extended to the attack on Luther's German revolution. In 1521, he dedicated his Defence of the Seven Sacraments, which earned him the title of "Defender of the Faith" (Defensor Fidei). Prior to this, his title had been "inclitissimus", meaning "most illustrious". The later title was maintained even after his break with Rome, and it is still used by the British monarch today.
Henry VIII's accession was the first peaceful one England had witnessed in many years; however, the new Tudor dynasty's legitimacy could yet be tested. The English people seemed distrustful of female rulers, and Henry felt that only a male heir could secure the throne. Although Queen Catherine had been pregnant at least seven times (for the last time in 1518), only one child, the Princess Mary, had survived beyond infancy. Henry had previously been happy with mistresses, including Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount, with whom he had had an illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. In 1526, when it became clear that Queen Catherine could have no further children, he began to pursue Mary Boleyn's sister, Anne. Although it was almost certainly Henry's desire for a male heir that made him determined to divorce Catherine, he was very infatuated with Anne, despite her child-bearing inexperience and famously plain looks.
Without informing Cardinal Wolsey, Henry directly appealed to the Holy See. He sent his secretary William Knight to Rome to argue that Julius II's Bull was obtained by trickery, and consequently void. In addition, he requested Pope Clement VII (1523–34) to grant a dispensation allowing him to marry any woman, even in the first degree of affinity; such a dispensation was necessary because Henry had previously had intercourse with Anne Boleyn's sister Mary. Knight found that Pope Clement VII was practically the prisoner of the Emperor Charles V. He had difficulty gaining access to the Pope, and when he finally did, he could accomplish little. Clement VII did not agree to annul the marriage, but he did grant the desired dispensation, probably presuming that the dispensation would be of no effect as long as Henry remained married to Catherine.
Being advised of the King's predicament, Cardinal Wolsey sent Stephen Gardiner and Edward Fox to Rome. Perhaps fearing Queen Catherine's nephew, Charles V, Pope Clement VII initially demurred. Fox was sent back with a commission authorising the commencement of proceedings, but the restrictions imposed made it practically meaningless. Gardiner strove for a "decretal commission", which decided the points of law beforehand, and left only questions of fact to be decided. Clement VII was persuaded to accept Gardiner's proposal, and permitted Cardinal Wolsey and Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio to try the case jointly. His decretal commission was issued in secret; it was not to be shown to anybody, and was to always remain in Cardinal Campeggio's possession. Points of law were already settled in the commission; the Papal Bull authorising Henry's marriage to Catherine was to be declared void if the grounds alleged therein were false. For instance, the Bull would be void if it falsely asserted that the marriage was absolutely necessary to maintain the Anglo-Spanish alliance.
Cardinal Campeggio arrived in England in 1528. Proceedings, however, were brought to a halt when the Spanish produced a second document allegedly granting the necessary dispensation. It was asserted that, a few months before he had granted papal dispensation in a public Bull, Pope Julius II had secretly granted the same in a private Brief sent to Spain. The decretal commission, however, only made mention of the Bull; it did not authorise Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey to determine the validity of the Brief and for eight months, the parties wrangled over its authenticity. During the spring of 1529, Henry's legal team assembled the libelus (the summary of Henry's royal arguments, including Lev: 2021) that was presented before the papal legates, where the following may be observed: 18 June, 1529 'The Queen was summoned to the great hall of the Black Friar's convent in London. The King, on a raised platform, sat at the upper end. Some distance away Catherine was given her place. The Cardinals, sitting lower than the King, flanked the royal presence, and near them the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops were given position. Doctor Richard Sampson, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, and Doctor John Bell, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, led those who pleaded for the King. Representing the Queen was John Fisher Bishop of Rochester, and Doctor Standish, a Gray Friar and Bishop of St. Asaph.' Following a series of deliberations, the matter was appealed to Rome, primarily after Catherine's nephew, Charles V, pressured the Pope into recalling Cardinal Campeggio and Catherine was then placed in the care of Sir Edmund Bedingfield at Kimbolton Castle.
Power then passed to Sir Thomas More (the new Lord Chancellor), Thomas Cranmer (the Archbishop of Canterbury), and Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (the Secretary of State). On 25 January 1533, Cranmer participated in the wedding of Henry and Anne Boleyn. In May, Cranmer pronounced Henry's marriage to Catherine void, and shortly thereafter declared the marriage to Anne valid. The Princess Mary was deemed illegitimate, and was replaced as heiress-presumptive by Queen Anne's new daughter, the Princess Elizabeth. Catherine lost the title "Queen", and became the Dowager Princess of Wales; Mary was no longer a "Princess", but a mere "Lady". The Dowager Princess of Wales would die of cancer in 1536.
Sir Thomas More, who had left office in 1532, accepted that Parliament could make Anne queen, but refused to acknowledge its religious authority. Instead, he held that the Pope remained the head of the Church. As a result, he was charged with high treason, and beheaded in 1535. Judging him to be a martyr, the Catholic Church later made him a saint.
A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's wives is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". An alternative version is "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded". The doggerel, however, may be misleading. Firstly, Henry was never divorced from any of his wives; rather, his marriages to them were annulled. Secondly, four marriages — not two — ended in annulments. The marriages to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were annulled shortly before their executions. Ironically the annulments undermined the process under which Boleyn and Howard were executed: annulments operate on the basis that there had never been a marriage. If they had never been married to him, they could not have committed adultery, one of the central charges brought against them. However this technicality did not stop their execution.
King Henry VIII died in the Palace of Whitehall in 1547.Later in life, Henry was grossly overweight, with a waist measurement of 54 inches (137 cm), and possibly suffered from gout. The well known theory that he suffered from syphilis was first promoted approximately 100 years after his death. More recent support for this idea has come from a greater understanding of the disease and has led to the suggestion that Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I all displayed symptoms characteristic of congenital syphilis. Henry's increased size dates from a jousting accident in 1536. He suffered a thigh wound which not only prevented him from taking exercise, but also gradually became ulcerated and may have indirectly led to his death, which occurred on 28 January 1547 at the Palace of Whitehall. He died on what would have been his father's 90th birthday. Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, next to his wife Jane Seymour. Within a little more than a decade after his death, all three of his children sat on the English throne.
Along with Alfred the Great, Henry is traditionally called one of the founders of the Royal Navy. There are good reasons for this - his reign featured some naval warfare and, more significantly, large royal investment in shipbuilding (including a few spectacular 'great ships' such as the Mary Rose), dockyards (such as HMNB Portsmouth) and naval innovations (eg the use of cannon onboard ship - although archers were still deployed on medieval-style forecastles and bowcastles as the ship's primary armament on large ships, or co-armament where cannon were used). However, it is a misnomer since Henry did not bequeath to his immediate successors a 'navy' in the sense of a formalised organisation with structures, ranks, formalised munitioning structures etc, but only in the sense of a set of ships (albeit some spectacular ones). Elizabeth I still had to cobble together a set of privately-owned ships to fight off the Spanish Armada and in the former, formal sense the modern British navy, the Royal Navy, is largely a product of the naval side of the Napoleonic wars).
By his break with Rome, Henry incurred the threat of a large-scale French or Spanish invasion. To guard against this he strengthened existing coastal defence fortresses (such as Dover Castle and, also at Dover, Moat Bulwark and Archcliffe Fort - he personally visited for a few months to supervise, as is commemorated in the modern exhibition in Dover Castle's keep there). He also built a chain of new 'castles' (in fact, large bastioned and garrisoned gun batteries) along Britain's southern coast from East Anglia to Cornwall, largely built of material gained from the demolition of monasteries. Also known as Henry VIII's Device Forts
Henry VIII was the subject of William Shakespeare's historical play, Henry VIII: All Is True, written once it was safe to do so (once his daughter Elizabeth I had died). The play, however, has never been one of Shakespeare's more popular plays. Henry VIII was playing on June 29, 1613 when the Globe Theatre burnt down. Ironically, in another Renaissance play in which Henry might be expected to appear - the Elizabethan play Sir Thomas More, he is always an offstage presence, mentioned but never seen.
The most notable modern example is Robert Bolt's play and film A Man for All Seasons (see also 'Cinematic films', below).
Henry VIII was also the subject of a best-selling fictional autobiography written by Margaret George.
There have been many films about Henry and his court. Two that bear mention are The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring Charles Laughton, whose performance earned him an Academy Award, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1972), starring Keith Michell. Richard Burton and Genevieve Bujold were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress for their roles as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). Henry, played by Robert Shaw, also appears as one of the main characters in the multiple-Oscar-winning movie about Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons (1966), based upon Robert Bolt's play of the same name.
Sid James played Henry in the movie Carry On Henry (1970), which portrayed the relationship between the King and two fictitious wives ("Marie of Normandy" and "Bettina", a mistress).
He has also been a TV stalwart, both in drama and documentary, and in America and the UK. In drama, one notable example is the 1970 BBC series 'the Six Wives of Henry VIII', made up of six television plays, one per wife, each by a different author. Another is the 2003 ITV feature-length Henry VIII, with Ray Winstone as Henry VIII, critically panned for Henry as an East End gangster, spoken in Winstone's usual Cockney tones, surrounded entirely by a court speaking in Received Pronunciation, such as David Suchet as Wolsey.
An episode of the 1960s American sitcom Bewitched had Samantha Stevens staving off a lustful Henry's intentions to make her his next wife. Henry's life was the subject of the famous but inaccurate Simpsons television episode named "Margical History Tour" in 2004, in which Homer Simpson played the King.
In Homecoming: A Shot in D'Arc, an episode of Clone High, a dolphin impersonated Henry VIII to play on the basketball team. The writers chose Henry VIII because they viewed him as someone recognizable as a real historical figure yet someone that most North Americans know almost nothing about.
In documentary, the leading academic on Henry, David Starkey leads the field, with Channel 4 series entitled 'Henry VIII' and 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII' - the latter gave one episode each to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, one jointly to Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and another jointly to Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. Henry also has an episode to himself in his more recent series 'Monarchy' (Monarchy TV series).
Henry was almost certainly the inspiration for the title of the popular song "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am" (1911), recorded by Harry Champion and later by Herman's Hermits; the actual song, however, is about a man named Henry whose wife has been married to seven different individuals, all named Henry.
In 1973, Rick Wakeman released a rock concept album on The Six Wives of Henry VIII, his first solo album after splitting from Yes.
Henry's motto was Coeur Loyal (true heart) and he had this embroidered on his clothes in the form of a heart symbol and with the word 'loyall'. His emblem was the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis.
By Catherine of Aragon (married June 11, 1509 annulled 1533; she died January 6, 1536)
Miscarried daughter
January 31, 1510
January 31, 1510
Henry, Duke of Cornwall
1 January 1511
22 February 1511
Unnamed son
November 1513
November 1513
Henry, Duke of Cornwall
December 1514
December 1514
Queen Mary I
18 February 1516
13 September 1558
married 1554, Philip II of Spain; no issue
Unnamed child
November 10, 1518
November 10, 1518
By Anne Boleyn (married January 25, 1533 annulled 1536; she was executed May 19, 1536)
Queen Elizabeth I
7 September 1533
24 March 1603
never married, no issue
"Henry Tudor"
"Edward Tudor"
29 January 1536
29 January 1536
King Edward VI
12 October 1537
6 July 1553
By Anne of Cleves (married January 6, 1540 annulled 1540; she died July 17, 1557)
no issue
By Catherine Howard (married July 28, 1540 annulled 1541; she was executed February 13, 1542)
no issue
no issue
By Elizabeth Blount
Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset
15 June 1519
18 June 1536
illegitimate; married 1533, the Lady Mary Howard; no issue
By The Lady Mary Boleyn (most historians now reject the legend that the following two children were fathered by Henry VIII)
Catherine Carey
c. 1524
15 January 1568
reputed illegitimate; married Sir Francis Knollys; had issue
Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon
4 March 1526
23 July 1596
reputed illegitimate; married 1545, Ann Morgan; had issue
By Mary Berkeley
Sir Thomas Stucley
c. 1525
August 4, 1578
reputed illegitimate; married Anne Curtis; had issue
Sir John Perrot
c. 1527
September 1592
By Joan Dyngley
Etheldreda Malte
c. 1529
aft. 1555
HENRY VIII (r. 1509-1547)
Henry VIII was born at Greenwich on 28 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He became heir to the throne on the death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, in 1502 and succeeded in 1509.
In his youth he was athletic and highly intelligent. A contemporary observer described him thus: 'he speaks good French, Latin and Spanish; is very religious; heard three masses daily when he hunted ... He is extremely fond of hunting, and never takes that diversion without tiring eight or ten horses ... He is also fond of tennis.'
Henry's scholarly interests included writing both books and music, and he was a lavish patron of the arts.
He was an accomplished player of many instruments and a composer. Greensleeves, the popular melody frequently attributed to him is, however, almost certainly not one of his compositions.
As the author of a best-selling book (it went through some 20 editions in England and Europe) attacking Martin Luther and supporting the Roman Catholic church, in 1521 Henry was given the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the Pope.
From his father, Henry VIII inherited a stable realm with the monarch's finances in healthy surplus - on his accession, Parliament had not been summoned for supplies for five years. Henry's varied interests and lack of application to government business and administration increased the influence of Thomas Wolsey, an Ipswich butcher's son, who became Lord Chancellor in 1515.
Wolsey became one of the most powerful ministers in British history (symbolised by his building of Hampton Court Palace - on a greater scale than anything the king possessed). Wolsey exercised his powers vigorously in his own court of Chancery and in the increased use of the Council's judicial authority in the court of the Star Chamber.
Wolsey was also appointed Cardinal in 1515 and given papal legate powers which enabled him to by-pass the Archbishop of Canterbury and 'govern' the Church in England.
Henry's interest in foreign policy was focused on Western Europe, which was a shifting pattern of alliances centred round the kings of Spain and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor. (Henry was related by marriage to all three - his wife Catherine was Ferdinand of Aragon's daughter, his sister Mary married Louis XII of France in 1514, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catherine's nephew.)
An example of these shifts was Henry's unsuccessful Anglo-Spanish campaigns against France, ending in peace with France in 1520, when he spent huge sums on displays and tournaments at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry also invested in the navy, and increased its size from 5 to 53 ships (including the Mary Rose, the remains of which lie in the Portsmouth Naval Museum).
The second half of Henry's reign was dominated by two issues very important for the later history of England and the monarchy: the succession and the Protestant Reformation, which led to the formation of the Church of England.
Henry had married his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, in 1509. Catherine had produced only one surviving child - a girl, Princess Mary, born in 1516. By the end of the 1520s, Henry's wife was in her forties and he was desperate for a son.
The Tudor dynasty had been established by conquest in 1485 and Henry was only its second monarch. England had not so far had a ruling queen, and the dynasty was not secure enough to run the risk of handing the Crown on to a woman, risking disputed succession or domination of a foreign power through marriage.
Henry had anyway fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his many mistresses, and tried to persuade the Pope to grant him an annulment of his marriage on the grounds that it had never been legal.
Royal divorces had happened before: Louis XII had been granted a divorce in 1499, and in 1527 James IV's widow Margaret (Henry's sister) had also been granted one. However, a previous Pope had specifically granted Henry a licence to marry his brother's widow in 1509.
In May 1529, Wolsey failed to gain the Pope's agreement to resolve Henry's case in England. All the efforts of Henry and his advisers came to nothing; Wolsey was dismissed and arrested, but died before he could be brought to trial.
Since the attempts to obtain the divorce through pressure on the papacy had failed, Wolsey's eventual successor Thomas Cromwell (Henry's chief adviser from 1532 onwards) turned to Parliament, using its powers and anti-clerical attitude (encouraged by Wolsey's excesses) to decide the issue.
The result was a series of Acts cutting back papal power and influence in England and bringing about the English Reformation.
In 1532, an Act against Annates - although suspended during 'the king's pleasure' - was a clear warning to the Pope that ecclesiastical revenues were under threat.
In 1532, Cranmer was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury and, following the Pope's confirmation of his appointment, in May 1533 Cranmer declared Henry's marriage invalid; Anne Boleyn was crowned queen a week later.
The Pope responded with excommunication, and Parliamentary legislation enacting Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church soon followed. An Act in restraint of appeals forbade appeals to Rome, stating that England was an empire, governed by one supreme head and king who possessed 'whole and entire' authority within the realm, and that no judgements or excommunications from Rome were valid.
An Act of Submission of the Clergy and an Act of Succession followed, together with an Act of Supremacy (1534) which recognised that the king was 'the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia'.
The breach between the king and the Pope forced clergy, office-holders and others to choose their allegiance - the most famous being Sir Thomas More, who was executed for treason in 1535.
The other effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries, under which monastic lands and possessions were broken up and sold off. In the 1520s, Wolsey had closed down some of the small monastic communities to pay for his new foundations (he had colleges built at Oxford and Ipswich).
In 1535-6, another 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved by statute, followed by the remaining greater houses in 1538-40; as a result, Crown revenues doubled for a few years.
Henry's second marriage had raised hopes for a male heir. Anne Boleyn, however, produced another daughter, Princess Elizabeth, and failed to produce a male child. Henry got rid of Anne on charges of treason (presided over by Thomas Cromwell) which were almost certainly false, and she was executed in 1536. In 1537 her replacement, Henry's third wife Jane Seymour, finally bore him a son, who was later to become Edward VI. Jane died in childbed, 12 days after the birth in 1537.
Although Cromwell had proved an effective minister in bringing about the royal divorce and the English Reformation, his position was insecure. The Pilgrimage of Grace, an insurrection in 1536, called for Cromwell's dismissal (the rebels were put down) but it was Henry's fourth, abortive and short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves that led to Cromwell's downfall. Despite being made Earl of Essex in 1540, three months later he was arrested and executed.
Henry made two more marriages, to Katherine Howard (executed on grounds of adultery in 1542) and Catherine Parr (who survived Henry to die in 1548).
None produced any children. Henry made sure that his sole male heir, Edward, was educated by people who believed in Protestantism rather than Catholicism because he wanted the anti-papal nature of his reformation and his dynasty to become more firmly established.
After Cromwell's execution, no leading minister emerged in the last seven years of Henry's reign. Overweight, irascible and in failing health, Henry turned his attention to France once more.
Despite assembling an army of 40,000 men, only the town of Boulogne was captured and the French campaign failed. Although more than half the monastic properties had been sold off, forced loans and currency depreciation also had to be used to pay for the war, which contributed to increased inflation. Henry died in London on 28 January 1547.
To some, Henry VIII was a strong and ruthless ruler, forcing through changes to the Church-State relationship which excluded the papacy and brought the clergy under control, thus strengthening the Crown's position and acquiring the monasteries' wealth.
Significantly, Parliament's involvement in making religious and dynastic changes had been firmly established. For all his concern over establishing his dynasty and the resulting religious upheaval, Henry's six marriages had produced one sickly son and an insecure succession with two princesses (Mary and Elizabeth) who at one stage had been declared illegitimate - none of whom were to have children.
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The Wearable Computer Gamble
moneys.jpg (5705 bytes)
Development of a card-counting computer
and of a roulette-predicting machine.
Photo Joyce Stonehocker
Roulette Prediction: Data - Pictures
BlackJack: KIN to KIM -- Development
The earliest developers of wearable computers had less useful goals in mind. The first was built by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate student Ed Thorp and his professor, Claude Shannon, of information theory fame. Meant to predict roulette wheel numbers, it took shape in Shannon's basement workshop at his home in Mystic Lakes, Mass.
The unit, an analog computer the size of a cigarette pack, was linked to micro switches in the wearer's shoes. Input was big toe pressure at the moment when a wheel's spun ball passed a reference mark and when it passed it again, allowing its speed to be calculated. The output was in the form of tones heard through the bettor's hearing aid, with each of eight tones assigned to a possible bet.
Conceived by Thorp in 1955, the apparatus was built over the 1960-1961 academic year and tested by a nonchalant Thorp, a nervous Shannon, and their wives in a Las Vegas casino in June 1961. According to the abstract of Thorp's paper, "The Invention of the First Wearable Computer," delivered at the Second International Symposium on Wearable Computers in 1998 in Pittsburgh, the "predictions were consistent with the laboratory expected gain of 44 percent [this being in the increase over standard odds in predicting on which number the ball would land] but a minor hardware problem deferred sustained serious betting."
Thorp first went public with his story in 1966. By 1985, Nevada would ban "use or possession of any device to predict outcomes, analyze possibilities of occurrence, analyze strategy for playing or betting, and keeping track of cards played." Thorp observes: "The descendants of the first wearable computer were formidable enough to be outlawed."
In the interim, the first digital wearable computer was also made to beat the house at roulette. In 1978, Doyne Farmer, Norman Packard, and others--under the collective name Eudaemonic Enterprises--created a computer that fit in a shoe. It had toe-operated buttons for input (the left toe switched through eight data-gathering modes, while the right increased or decreased pre-programmed game parameters). Radio frequency output transmissions were felt by the bettor as tapping against the body through solenoids.
For wearable applications other than gambling, MIT and other universities like Carnegie Mellon and Stanford have had R&D efforts for years. At Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon, for instance, the computer science department has been pioneering wearable PCs based on Intel processors. The first was the 1991 VuMan for browsing blueprint data, running at a modest 8 MHz. Since then, Carnegie Mellon has developed over 20 generations of wearables. --S.D.
This article first appeared here: IEEE Spectrum October 2000 Volume 37 Number 10 [defunct]
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" ~ Niels Bohr
Copyright @Com 2016. Last updated 08.21.2016 |
Audubon: On Birds and Slaves
The great blue heron twisted its neck down to reach the water, even as its beady eye stared straight at me. The look was not friendly. Its thin scissor-like beak was long enough to spear my gut.
I stared back at the bird, captured on the page of an elephant-sized book by John James Audubon. The book and its author are icons of the conservation movement. Walking through the art gallery, I browsed some twenty prints from the magnificent Birds of America.
Audubon is a staple of conservation chats around the campfire. He is the founder of modern ornithology and pioneered the methods still used for studying birds, such as banding and annual bird counts. Birds are an early indicator of wildlife and ecological health. Audubon and slavery. These two words rarely appear together in most conservation talks, websites and books. As a Black woman playing with birding, I am always looking for evidence that we too have a history in the outdoors. The search led to Audubon.
He fancied himself as the rock star of outdoor living. Audubon boasts of his tight pants, silk shirts and his curls flowing in the wind as he charged away on his horse. He, and women, loved his muscles of steel. Men admired his sharp-shooting and hunting skills. Some probably liked his muscled chest too.
Audubon was a gifted painter, writer and fabulist. He created and massaged his image as an American man of the backwoods. On publicity tours he wore buckskin pants, loose, and fur-trimmed leather jackets. The truth was twisted and spun, much like his birds, they to fit the page, his to enhance fame.
Let’s start with his birth in 1785. Audubon spent a lot of time insisting that he was white and American-born. He could never quite keep the story straight, or perhaps, others noticed his slight tan, even in the winter. Audubon was born in Haiti on his white father’s sugar plantation. The race and status of his mother is still debatable. The conflicting claims about her serves only to highlight the fact that it was not a black and white case.
The Haitian Revolution spun Audubon into the USA. He arrived with enough money to start his own business at Mill Grove. There, he owned nine enslaved people, buying and selling them as needed. In his autobiography Audubon called them his servants. They did the housework, farmed the vegetable garden, ran the mill and the shop, dug the fish pond, and rowed the boats ashore. The slave labour gave Audubon the freedom and the money to pursue his love of birds.
On his treks in the USA Audubon passed through many plantations. He noticed the birds and the plants, but not the enslaved people, except on one occasion. On a birding expedition Audubon slid into a fugitive man hunting in the Louisiana swamps. Guns cocked, the stand-off ended with the men sharing dinner in the bayou.
Over the small fire, the enslaved man told his story. He, his wife, and three children were sold to separate owners. The man feigned sickness for a few days, biding his time. He escaped. He tracked down his splintered family, and one by one reunited them in the swamp. Always, they were on guard for slave catchers. When food was low, they visited the plantations at night, knowing that the enslaved people there would feed them and keep their secret. The story then takes an improbably turn. Audubon says he persuaded the runaway family to return with him to their original owner. He persuaded the owner to rebuy the family and to promise never to sell them again.
The story is significant, as it highlights how enslaved people resisted the shackles. For some it was to flee into the woods, living a precarious life. For others, it was aiding the runaway, a symbol that freedom was indeed possible. The story also shows that slavery was such a common and accepted institution that it never occurred to Audubon to free the enslaved family.
The bird man visited Canada in 1833, as he wanted to paint every bird in North America. He succeed in capturing some 450 of them. It is an astonishing achievement. He insisted on paining life-sized images of the birds, hence the massive size of the deluxe folio edition of his books. His paintings are dynamic, showing the birds in movement, whether flying, hunting or swimming. There is an unsettling urgency to his prints. It feels as if he was rushing to capture creatures on the verge of extinction. If he could fix them in oil, colour, shadow and light, they would live.
Audubon knew the world was changing rapidly. The woods he hiked as a youth were replaced by roads and cities in his dotage. He noted that the government policy of destroying the buffalo was intended to decimate the Indigenous people. He saw their disappearance as the sad but inevitable price of civilization. Audubon died in 1851.
In 2011 Sotheby’s sold an original Audubon deluxe folio for $12 million. The man’s legacy increases with each year, there are many parks, school and centres named after him. Mill Grove, his original home is now a national historic site. I plan on visiting it one day. I want to see where the nine enslaved people work. Will there be a monument to mark their role in supporting Audubon’s talent, and the continuing wealth of those who own his original books and paintings?
Audubon white-washed himself throughout his life. The conservation movement does the same by ignoring the racial context in which he lived. Slavery built America. Conservation and environmental groups are still seen as white institutions with white agenda. A first step in changing this perception is putting race back into the conversations around the campfires.
50 Places: A Black History Travel Guide of London
Race in the Graveyard
Neither the dead nor the living paid much attention to me as I wandered around the cemetery. It would have been hard for the corpses to do as they were, well, dead. I strolled along the meandering paths looking for the graves of the famous Black residents.
The spring sunshine warmed my face, even as the air tried to freeze it. Like a clueless dinner guest, winter was determined to hang on until the very end. I wrapped the scarf more snugly around my neck and donned my hood. I had to find the graves.
Homes for the dead are unique outdoors spaces that reflect the basic values and beliefs of a society. In multi-racial countries the fault lines of race tend to follow the dead to the grave. Sometimes it is shrouded in religious garments such as Jews only in Jewish cemeteries, Catholics in Catholics boneyards and so on. Yet, lift the denominational death mask and race stares back, cold, unblinking, and as enduring as the bones.
The Toronto Necropolis cemetery is a brisk fifteen minute walk from my downtown apartment. When it opened in 1850, it was on the outskirts of the city. The cemetery lies on a high ridge overlooking a steep valley. A century ago the Don River gurgled in the wide crevice on its way to Lake Ontario. Today the acoustics is provided by cars, buzzing like angry wasps, as they race along the highway. The poor river is entombed in a concrete straightjacket as its drips down to the lake.
The Necropolis was a non-denominational burial ground, meaning that anyone could sleep in peace there. Make that anyone who was rich. Race and religion was not an issue, but money was, and still is, essential to be allowed to rot in the hallowed grounds. The gravestones are a who-was-who of life in Toronto. Mayors, doctors, politicians and journalists who argued among themselves in life are now quiet together in death.
The cemetery was designed as a pastoral park, filled with winding paths and elegant trees. The graves are loosely arranged. Like flowers in an English garden, there is order but not rigidity. I found the first grave on my second loop through the park. It was a red granite obelisk pointing to the sky. The Egyptian symbol of the sun’s rays, hence of life, was a fitting tribute for Thornton and Lucie Blackburn.
Both were escaped slaves. Their flight to Canada in 1833, caused the first race riot in Detroit and a legal ruckus between Canada and the USA. Canada ruled that slaves could not be returned to their former owners, thus the country became the terminus for the Underground Railroad. The Blackburns thrived in Toronto, starting the first taxi company in the city. Thornton risked everything to go back to the USA to rescue his mother and brother from slavery. The size of the obelisk, some six feet tall, is a good indicator of the Blackburns wealth and status in the city.
Boneyards are outdoor places of culture, history and memory. In life, it is essential that we are individuals, first to ourselves and then to the rest of the world. It is no different in death. Gravestones are etched with a name, birthday and death-day. Some point to the place of the dead in the family. They were once mother, husband, beloved child.
The fresh graves had heaped soil spilling from the plot. Without a marker the unnamed corpse was anonymous. Such was the fate of most enslaved people. In life, they were recorded in the plantation ledger, as a sexed and aged property among the other assets like the cows and the pigs. In death they were interred in unmarked graves at the bitter edges of the cotton, sugar or rice plantations. Most of these slave graveyards are now lost, reclaimed by overgrown vegetation or concrete parking lots. They are buried by a present determined to forget that it forged the shackles and cracked the whips.
The gravestone was simple for William Peyton Hubbard. He was the first Black politician elected in Canada. In a twenty-year career he served as the acting mayor of Toronto. This is remarkable as in those long ago days, politicians were elected annually. Every year he had to campaign to earn his votes! Hubbard was born in Toronto in 1840; his parents were fugitive slaves from the USA.
Anderson Ruffian Abbot was the first Black Canadian to become a doctor. He came from a wealthy family which owned about 50 houses in Toronto in the 1870s. Anderson imperiled his life by joining the union army in the USA Civil War. He was one of the doctors who tried to save President Lincoln after the assassin’s bullet munched his flesh.
Abbot, the Blackburns and the Hubbards disrupt the expected story of Black life in Toronto. They showed what was possible when free. They were among the wealthy elite in Toronto. And they never forgot were the came from. Passionate activists in the abolition movement, they endangered their comfortable lives by returning to the USA to rescue other family members from the whip.
Departing the lifeless, I headed back to the entrance of the cemetery. The elaborate gates – huge, arched and covered with gingerbread trim – were impressive. They were a not so subtle indicator that in entering the gates, we were leaving one world behind and entering another.
Black History Walks in Toronto
Black History Walks in Toronto
The next time you are in Toronto, give me a call. We can spend an afternoon chatting and walking as we explore the Black history of the city.
Together we will trace the Toronto footsteps of abolitionists Harriet Tubman, Josiah Henson, and others. As we explore homes, churches, and cemeteries that played key roles in the Underground Railroad, we’ll discuss why and how many Black leaders—including former slaves—migrated to Toronto and built the foundations of a strong Black community.
On the walk, there will be stops for drinks and we will end it with a tasty snack at a Caribbean café.
I already lead walks for two outdoor clubs and a Meet Up group. This walk is done through Airbnb. It is part of their new programme called Airbnb Experience. The idea behind it to get an insider’s view of the city and to share in the activities that make city life so vibrant. As being outside and Black history are my passions, it made sense to combine both.
All prospective Experience hosts are screened and trained by Airbnb. I am in the first group of those launching the initiative in Toronto. Others are offering food and wine tours, mural painting, silk screening and a jazz safari.
The Experience is a chance for me to earn some extra cash. Studying for a PhD, even on a full scholarship, is expensive. Many PhD students graduate with their head stuffed with knowledge and their bank accounts stuffed with debts. I don’t want to be one of those.
So the next time you are in Toronto, check out my Black History walking tour.
Black History Walks in Toronto
Dreaming of Cycling Around Lake Ontario
50 Places: A Black History Travel Guide of London
Hiking in the Hills of Jamaica
“I want to go hiking up in the hills,” I said.
“Oh my. What do you want to do that for?” said my cousin.
“Because it’s there. Because I like hills. Because the Maroons used the trails to escape slavery.”
“That’s work my girl. You’re on vacation. Why not just relax yourself by the beach? Watch the waves. Swim a little. Relax.”
“I am relax, but the hills are calling me.”
“So you want to walk in the hot, hot sun, just to get to the top of the hill? And then you walk back down again? My girl I won’t be doing that with you. No mam, I walk enough already. I’m not going to hot up myself and sweat up myself. That’s not fun.”
“It is for me. Who can come with me?”
“You best book a tourist trip. I’ll ask Mr. Thomas to check out the details.”
“I don’t want to do it that way. When I go hiking in Canada I am the only Black person in the group. I’m in Jamaica, I want to hike with a Jamaican group.”
“The only one I can think of is those English people them. After forty years in England they come back to Jamaica a bit different. Some say mad. They are the ones you see walking up and down in the hot sun for exercise. You know what they say about mad dogs and English men. Add the women too in Jamaica.”
“Come with me just for a bit. We won’t go far.”
“I’ll come only if we take a taxi drive. You can feast your eyes and your clothes won’t get sweaty. Better yet, let’s just go to the beach. That’s how we Jamaicans relax.”
Sailing on a Half Moon |
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The Web cookie may be dying, but that doesn’t mean it is the end of consumers being tracked online.
An industry group representing online publishers that are supported by advertising published a white paper Tuesday that examined how online ads would function in a world without “cookies,” the small pieces of code that track people’s web browsing. In the paper, called “Privacy and Tracking in a Post-Cookie World,” the Interactive Advertising Bureau also explores technologies that could replace the cookie.
The upshot: Most replacements for the cookie shift control of the basic technologies of online tracking from large websites and marketers to web giants, namely Google and Apple.
The future of the cookie is on the minds of digital advertisers this week as Facebook, Google and other major tech companies announce earnings. The marketing industry relies on the ubiquitous code to target people with ads based on their tastes and browsing habits. But as people’s eyeballs move from desktop computers to smartphones, cookies are becoming less reliable. In its press release, the IAB described the white paper as a “first step” toward “eliminating one of the biggest limitations impacting mobile advertising today.”
One area the IAB examined is targeting consumers by the devices they use.
To understand how this differs from tracking today, here’s a recap of how cookies work: Businesses such as news organizations and retailers add cookie code to their websites. People opening up browser pages get “cookied,” meaning the tiny code attached to them and logs their travels on Web. From there, marketers create profiles of people’s interests.
In the alternative scenario, device manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and Google’s Motorola unit could provide information about people’s habits to marketers. The manufacturers would assign each device a unique number that would be shared with servers and advertisers as the consumer browses the Web. When the device is a smartphone or tablet, other data such as the person’s location could also be shared. Apple already has a unique identifier for iPhones and iPads that is provided to advertisers.
The device identifier solves many of the problems plaguing marketers that are dependent on cookie-tracking. Cookies can’t follow people across different browsers and lose track of people who clean them out. Also, because cookies don’t work well on phones, advertisers who use cookies often have trouble figuring out when a desktop and mobile device belong to the same person. They can’t easily discern, for example, whether a person who was looking at shoes on their phone early in the day decided to buy the shoes on their desktop that evening. (Facebook, however, offers ways for advertisers to make the connection between devices, but the program is only available to select retailers). Another problem: it is nearly impossible for marketers to ping people who are walking by stores selling items the person may have checked out earlier on their phone or desktop.
The way the industry approaches cross-device matching today is through sophisticated guesswork. A crop of startups have built complex algorithms that match the location of the personal computer — known through its IP address — and the location of the phone, which advertisers can see when people share their location with apps. If marketers can observe enough devices in the same place at the same time, they can make a reasonable guess that the device belongs to the same person.
By contrast, a device identifier affords perfect accuracy. It also wrests control of online advertising mechanisms from large websites and marketers and puts it squarely in the hands of large companies that manufacture devices.
Device identifiers also potentially provide consumers with better control over their privacy than cookies, which have sparked concerns. With a unique identifier, users could opt out of having their devices tracked, says Steve Sullivan, IAB’s vice president of advertising technology. Under the current system, users can’t get out of tracking because there are hundreds of companies placing cookies and many ignore people’s requests to not be monitored.
The IAB also noted a single privacy dashboard — an on/off switch — where people can convey their preferences to all advertisers at once.
While the device identifier is most viable, other alternatives in the white paper include conducting tracking through the operating system, which would then pass the information to third parties. That model favors Google, Apple, and Microsoft, which own the Android, iOS and Windows operating systems. Tracking could also be done at the browser level, which would open up the field to other entities such as Mozilla, which operates the Firefox browser.
Another area the IAB discussed would be to track information in the cloud, which the paper describes as a “centralized service that all parties agree to work with.” That option is murkier, if only because it is unclear who would control and pay for a giant cloud to house all the personal data that the fractured marketing industry relies on.
In an email, Sullivan said advertisers will eventually have no choice but to adopt one of these other methods as cookies become increasingly unworkable.
Corrections: The Interactive Advertising Bureau represents online publishers that are supported by advertising. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the IAB represents digital advertisers. Also, the IAB’s published white paper discussed possible options in the marketplace for tracking users’ Internet behavior in new ways beyond the use of web cookies. An earlier version incorrectly characterized those options as proposals by the IAB.
Copyright 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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Threshing and Winnowing
There is much in the Bible about threshing and winnowing, a process that today is entirely automated. Even in the 1st century AD people did the threshing and winnowing in the ‘old-fashioned’ way.
I needed to know about this for Hold the Faith and found many sources. I also liked to picture in my mind how it was done.
It was hard work…
First the crop was reaped… then threshed.
The process of threshing was performed usually by spreading
oxenthe sheaves on the threshing-floor and causing oxen and cattle to walk repeatedly over them
On occasions flails or sticks were used to beat the grain.
There was also a “threshing instrument” which was drawn over the grain. The Hebrews called this moreg, a threshing board. It was somewhat similar to the Roman tribulum, or threshing tool.
Threshing board with stones
Those are stones
The threshing board was some invention!
Check out what Wikipedia has to say…
After that came the winnowing…
This was done by being thrown up against the wind and afterwards tossed with wooden scoops. The shovel and the fan for winnowing are mentioned in Ps. 35:5Job 21:18Isa. 17:13. The refuse of straw and chaff was burned.
men winnowing grain
Hard work… for fit people
Now, modern machinery make this a quick process. Imagine how much your loaf of bread would cost if it was made like this.
Just thinking,
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birth certificate wm
Excerpt from the birth register
On this day 142 years ago, Erik Weisz was born in Budapest in Austria-Hunagry, the son of the rabbinical lawyer Meyer Sámuel Weisz (1829–1892), and Cecília Weisz (née Steiner; 1841–1913). Four years after his birth, his family emigrated to the United States, where their name was changed to “Weiss” by the immigration officers, “Erik” became “Ehrich”, later “Harry”. Erik’s father had arranged to work as Rabbi of the German-speaking Zion Reform Jewish Congregation in Appleton, Wisconsin. As there was never enough money, Harry began to work young.
16 year-old Harry with medals.
Photos also tell the story of a teenager who enjoyed acrobatics and athletics, where he revealed his competitive nature. Eventually, he would try his hand at magic performances to earn money, and after reading the autobiography of the French master illusionist Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), considered the “Father of Modern Magic”, in 1890, Harry adopted “Houdini” as his name as an artist.
with brother in Paris, small
Right: Houdini-in Paris, 1901.
He and his brother Ferencz Deszo (1876-1945) (stage name: “Theodore Hardeen”) tried their success as magicians in sideshows, dime museums, and even at the circus. In 1893, while performing together as the “Houdini Brothers” at Coney Island, Harry met his future wife Wilhemina Beatrice (Bess) Rahner (1876-1943), then member of the Floral Sisters’ sing and dance group. They were soon married, and “Bess” became Houdini’s assistant henceforth. Fame came only after Harry had met the impresario Martin Beck in 1899, who advised him to focus on ‘escapology’. Houdini emerged as “the King of Handcuffs”, was booked on Beck’s large vaudeville Orpheum Circuit, and soon made headlines with his escapes from special handcuffs and security prisons without trickery or assistance from others. Of that, the police had made sure beforehand.
In 1900, he embarked on a European tour, from which he returned a confirmed star about to become legendary: In England he had escaped Scotland Yard’s manacles, in Germany he had proved that neither shackles on hands and feet, nor additional handicaps like straightjackets or rivers could keep him imprisoned. In Russia he had successfully defied a Siberian prison transport van, and so on.
Source: Library of Congress, embedded links
Each further successful and daring performance in public, carefully set up and publicised in advance, added to the legend. From 1908, because of a growing number of imitators, Houdini made the act of escape more difficult and spectacular: escape from a water-filled milk can, from nailed packing crates, riveted boilers, wet sheets, a barrel of beer, the belly of a dead whale, and, most famously, from the Upside Down Water Torture Cell (from 1913). Famous among his merely illusionist performances was the vanishing of a full-grown elephant at New York’s Hippodrome Theater. From 1906 onward, Houdini would also work his performances into a number of films.
Throughout his life, Houdini collected all available material on magic and spiritualism, past and present, and became a leading expert on the art of magic as it ought to be practised professionally. He published several books on the subject, and would go to some length denouncing fraud when it crossed his path, especially in the case of psychics and mediums. In 1906, he founded the magazine Conjurers’ Monthly Magazine; from 1917 to his death he served as President of the Society of American Magicians (founded 1902), which, owing to his incessant campaigns to increase membership and cohesion, is now one of the richest and longest-surviving organisations of magicians worldwide. From 1923 to his death, he was also President of Martinka & Co., America’s oldest magic company, still in operation today.
Harry Houdini died of peritonitis at Detroit’s Grace Hospital on Halloween, 31 October 1926. More about his untimely death here. You may find the following sites of interest:
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Sources: Library of Congress, embedded links, The New York Public Library Digital Collections |
Blurred Lines: How the Convergence of Work and Leisure Affects Our Physical Habits
I began to associate computers with video games around the age of 8. For the first time, teachers were offering computer games as an alternative to recess. This development not only equated the two activities but also signaled the beginning of a troubling trend, one that promised and encouraged a mental escape over a physical one. In other words, as technology began to encroach on classroom activities during my childhood, the role of a computer began to transcend its original boundaries, latching itself on to our world of leisure and offering a new kind of distraction.
In his book The Language of New Media, author Lev Manovich brings up this convergence during his discussion of the interface. As he points out, “both ‘work’ applications (word processors, spreadsheet programs, database programs) and ‘leisure’ applications (computer games, informational DVD) use the same tools and metaphors of GUI” (77). In this case, the cross-functionality of the computer interface merges the world of leisure and work. My question is: what effect does this fusion have on how we use computers and how we operate in daily life? Does it have any effect at all on our brains or physical habits?
Computers in Bed
Image via Flickr
It would be hard, I think, to claim that these blurred lines have no impact on our minds. Take my mother, for example. A few years ago, my mom went to a clinic to have a sleep study done to figure out the cause of her chronic insomnia. What the doctors revealed to her was surprising. Namely, that her tendency to work on her computer in bed for hours on end was impairing her ability to sleep at night by creating a mental connection between her bed and “work time.” According to the doctors, associating lying in bed with fiddling on the computer drove out the associations previously tied to her bed: that is, sleep.
If the digital realm and what we do in it has a physical impact on how we function, then the need to separate work and leisure time on the computer becomes more significant. After all, it is this very lack of separation that likely causes us (or, at least, me) to become easily distracted while trying to conduct online research for a class or project (when Facebook and Research Databases are both available at the touch of a few buttons, the desire for a mental escape that has been fostered since elementary school can often guide one towards the first option).
Could it be, then, that the solution to procrastination (and perhaps, chronic insomnia, among other medical problems) lies in a new computer interface, one that manages to separate work tools from leisure applications? (In a world where the Internet is the gatekeeper of knowledge and practically a requirement for academics or the workplace, is this even possible?) Should the idea of a computer as a “mental” escape be abandoned, at least until later on in a child’s education, to avoid the physical repercussions later on?
Image via Flickr
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Plants & Shrubs That Like Coffee Grounds
To raise beautiful flowers, tasty vegetables and healthy plants, gardeners have all matter of solutions, including the liberal use of coffee grounds. High in nitrogen, old coffee grounds provide plants with nutrients and attract helpful creatures like earthworms while deterring destructive pests. Best of all, coffee grounds are all natural, and many coffee shops give them away for free.
Coffee grounds can improve soil quality and keep away garden pests.
Tomato Plants
Tomato plants can benefit from the nitrogen contained in coffee grounds.
To get big, juicy tomatoes, gardeners can use old coffee grounds as a fertilizer. Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen and have a slightly acidic quality, which help soil to create natural strains of bacteria that are beneficial to the plants. The grounds also supply tomatoes with a steady diet of nitrogen, which they require to thrive. Though commercial nitrogen fertilizers are available, coffee grounds are an natural option, something worth considering when growing vegetables for human consumption.
Rose Bushes
Rose bushes benefit from the worms attracted to coffee grounds in the soil.
Many gardeners take pride in their ability to grow roses that burst with color and fragrance and the process is made all the easier and even less expensive by using coffee grounds as a fertilizer. Bella Online explains that roses need nutrient-rich soil to grow, though making or purchasing the needed compost can be expensive and time-consuming. However, used coffee grounds infuse the ground with nitrogen, making it well-suited for rose bushes and worms attracted by coffee grounds; and they further aerate the soil, making it better for growing.
Spring Bulbs
Coffee grounds can help keep slugs away from daffodils.
Flowers that bloom in the spring from bulbs, like tulips and daffodils, can benefit from a dose of coffee grounds in more ways than one. Like tomatoes and other plants, such flowers will thrive from an extra dose of nitrogen and other nutrients that grounds release into the soil. Perhaps more importantly, coffee grounds are also a way to protect spring flowers from predators like slugs without resorting to harsh chemicals. When crawling over coffee grounds, slugs absorb the caffeine contained therein, which poisons them and prevents them from destroying gardens.
Rhododendrons, like tomatoes and marigolds, love acidic soil and can benefit from a sprinkling of coffee grounds, which raise acid content, making the ground more amenable to the plant's needs. Coffee grounds also help to protect rhododendron bushes from root weevils. A layer of grounds around the base of a rhododendron shrub will deter the pests, though regular application is necessary to keep the weevils at bay. |
04 April 2009
One of the objectives of multilingual literature is to mirror more of the world than any one language can or, negatively, not to be blind to elements of reality that any one language is necessarily blind to. Why not, then, one could ask, use Esperanto, as one reactor to this blog suggests?
This is Wikipedia's account of how the debate about Esperanto has moved as far as literature is concerned: "Esperanto is intended to be an ethnically neutral auxiliary language. The lack of an inherent culture is one of the things that makes Esperanto so much easier to learn and to use than other languages. In an ethnic language like English or Chinese, the student has to learn innumerable arbitrary expressions. It's not enough to learn the grammar and vocabulary; many perfectly grammatical expressions are unacceptable because people simply don't speak that way. In Esperanto, such considerations are much less important. Speakers can say what they'd say in their native tongue, or whatever makes sense at the moment, and Esperantists from other language backgrounds aren't likely to notice the difference."
Whatever we think of Esperanto, the insight of Esperantists that using a language is not only knowing grammar and vocabulary but culture is accurate. One of the silliest defenses of English as an international language is that it is culture-free. Of course not! It is as British as the British or as American as the Americans! (Substitute for the proper nouns any people or place that speaks any of the Englishes.) A Filipino that writes in English is more British or American than Filipino. This may sound nativist or essentialist, but read a novel originally in Cebuano or Ilocano or Tagalog and read it again in its English translation. If you know both languages well (as many bilingual Filipinos do), you will immediately sense the difference (provided, of course, that you have literary competence as defined by the structuralists). The language itself imposes a different sensibility quite apart from plot, structure, character, imagery, theme, and other literary elements.
1 comment:
1. It's so good to see a positive mention of Esperanto
Esperanto, indeed, has a superb future
If you want to see how international this language is please check http://www.lernu.net |
Read Student Writing
Back to Age 9
How The Alligator Got It's Bumps On It's Back
By: Jason H.
New York, Age 9
The alligator was a robber and stole acorns from a squirell. The alligator had a small belly, so all the acorns to the alligators back.The alligator loved his back so he stopped robbing and started looking for his own food. He started looking for bananas because they're soft. |
lørdag den 23. august 2008
Questions of the Day (part 16)
Inflation and unemployment
IN THE LAST QUARTER of the nineteenth century, during what was known at that time as The Great Depression, and again in the depression between the two world wars, an increasing number of workers — and even some professional economists — were paying attention to the analysis of capitalism made by Karl Marx in his work Capital. Marx showed that unemployment, and its rise to peak levels in periodical phases of trade depression, arise put of the structure of capitalism itself, and are therefore inevitable while capitalism lasts.
This growing interest in Marx was all but extinguished with the publication in 1936 of J. M. Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. According to the new doctrine it only needs that the government "manage the economy in such a way as to maintain demand" for full employment to be created and trade depressions to be abolished.
Keynes described Marx's Capital as "an obsolete economic textbook, which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world" ("A Short View of Russia", J. M. Keynes, 1925. p 14). Keynesian doctrines were accepted by most economists, political parties and the trade unions. Writing in 1957 (Remedies for Inflation) Mr. (now Sir Harold) Wilson stated that the Labour Party and all other "major parties" were Keynesian. As late as 1974, in spite of the evidence that Keynesian techniques had been a failure, the Tory M.P. Mr. Peter Walker called his party "the party of Keynes and Disraeli"; while the Liberal M.P. Mr. John Pardoe said that the Liberal Party is "the party of Keynes and William Beveridge".
Alone in this country the Socialist Party of Great Britain insisted from the outset that Marx was right; that the new doctrines were fallacies; that full employment cannot be maintained; that trade depressions cannot be eliminated, that the remedies proposed were only disguised inflation and would do nothing to serve working-class interests.
The Labour Party adopted the new policy at its Annual Conference in 1944, in a Report on Full Employment and Financial Policy, which declared:
"If bad trade and general unemployment threaten this means that total purchasing power is falling too low. Therefore we should at once increase expenditure .... We should give people more money and not less, to spend."
The Tory Party was committed to a similar view; but such was the confusion created by Keynes' theories that neither Party recognised that this is a policy of the crudest inflation. So at every general election in the post-war years they continued to declare their opposition to inflation. Both parties pledged themselves to maintain "full employment", defined in the Labour Party's 1945 General Election programme as "Jobs for All".
In the history of capitalism, as Marx had explained, periods of good trade and low unemployment alternate with periods of bad trade and high unemployment. One such period of low unemployment occurred in the years immediately following the second world war (helped by work on making good war damage); but Labour and Tory Governments both claimed this to be evidence of their success in "managing the economy". From 1955 onwards, however, unemployment has been on a sharp upward trend, each peak of unemployment rising to a higher level — to 747,000 in 1963, to above a million under the Heath Government in 1972, and to 1,500,000 in 1976 under Labour Government, and to over 1,600,000 in July 1977, This was capitalism operating in its normal way; but it led many who had wrongly believed that Keynesian techniques would abolish unemployment to reach the false opposite conclusion: that it was those techniques that had been the cause of unemployment. The Times,13 February 1976, told its readers that "unemployment ... will decline as fast and as soon as we all forget Keynes".
But if Keynesian policies did nothing for unemployment, their effect on prices was that by 1977 the general level was ten times what it had been in 1938, and was rising fast.
Inflation is caused by governments going on year after year printing and putting into circulation hundreds of millions of pounds of additional paper money.
Wherever and whenever currency has been issued in excess, the price level has risen; and wherever and whenever currency has been restricted, prices have stabilised or fallen. In the period 1920-23, the printing presses of the German central bank were busy day and night pouring out notes, and prices were rocketing upwards. In Britain in the same three year period the Government had decided to halt inflation; the note issue was restricted and prices were falling fast.
Inflation is not the only factor affecting prices. In Britain, in the 90 years before 1914 when there was no inflation (the price level in 1914 being below that of 1820), prices rose moderately in trade booms and fell again in periods of bad trade, a process also explained by Marx.
The reason there was no inflation in Britain in the century before 1914, was that through the operation of the gold standard the note issue was controlled. Beyond a fixed low limit the Bank of England could not issue additional notes without adding an equivalent amount of gold to the reserve in its vaults. Also the notes, by law, were freely convertible into a fixed amount of gold — one pound or a sovereign being fixed at about a quarter of an ounce of gold. Gold coins and Bank of England notes both circulated; but because of legally enforced convertibility a Bank of England note "was as good as gold", and the combined circulation of notes and gold coins was equivalent to the circulation of a total amount of gold.
Marx showed that if that total amount of gold is replaced by inconvertible paper money, and if the amount of that paper money is then issued in excess, prices are pushed up accordingly.
"If the quantity of paper money issued is, for instance, double what it ought to be, then in actual fact one pound has become the money name of about one-eighth of an ounce of gold instead of about one quarter of an ounce .... The values previously expressed by the price £1 94 will now be expressed by the price £2" (Capital, VoL 1.
Allen & Unwin Edition, p. 108).
Governments since 1938 have followed the policy of continually increasing the amount of currency in circulation, from under £500 million in 1938 to over £7,000 million in 1977, an increase far beyond any increase that would have been necessary because of the expansion of total production and trade. In 1976 and 1977 when the Government claimed that its "wages and incomes policy" would curb inflation the flood of additional paper money went on without interruption.
The man, more than any other, who was responsible for abandoning the nineteenth-century policy of controlling the amount of paper money was J. M. Keynes, who declared that it was no longer necessary "to watch and to control the creation of currency".
So for 40 years the major British political parties and the trade unions have been misled by the Keynesian policy of inflation into believing that capitalism could be rid of unemployment and trade depressions. It failed as it was bound to do with the market conditions and 'free' labour conditions of the western world.
Marx showed, and subsequent events have confirmed his analysis of capitalism's economic laws, that, arising from capitalism's inescapable anarchy of production, its progression is the cycle of moderate expansion of production and sales, then boom, then crisis, then depression. But just as there is no Keynesian device which will secure conditions of permanent boom, so there is no such thing as a permanent depression or "collapse of capitalism". (In the middle of "The Great Depression" Frederick Engels, three years after the death of Marx, did temporarily hold that Marx's cycle had ceased to operate and put forward a theory of "Permanent Depression"; but events soon showed this to be wrong and he returned to Marx's view — Preface to Capital 1886.)
In a depression, with bankruptcies which remove competitors, stocks of unsold goods disposed of, wages restrained by unemployment, and raw material prices and interest rates forced down, sooner or later conditions return restoring prospects of making a profit and capitalism expands again: but only to repeat the cycle. There is, however, one kind of 'collapse' that can occur, a collapse of the currency if the excess issue is expanded to the point where the currency as Marx put it "falls into general disrepute", and nobody wants to hold or receive paper money.
Although he only half understood the problem, such a situation was foretold by Herman Cahn in his Collapse of Capitalism published in 1919. What he foretold as inevitable, like an "Act of Nature", was that "within a few years" (or within a year if the war continued), there would be collapse and "social chaos"; out of which, though the workers were not prepared for it, Socialism would arise.
A currency collapse was at that time on the way in the great German inflation (by contrast the British Government had decided in that year to halt it). By December 1923 inflation in Germany had reached fantastic proportions and unemployment had risen to 30 per cent of workers registered as unemployed, an unknown number not registered, and 42 per cent on short time. There was indeed "social chaos" while a new currency was issued and conditions got back to normal. But chaos does not produce Socialism. In Germany it helped to prepare the way for the rise to power of the Nazi Party under Hitler.
The situation in Britain in 1977 is that, although Keynesian inflation has lost many of its adherents, the Keynesians have not given up the struggle. Under the name of 'reflation' it is still being pushed by the T.U.C., by some professional economists, by Labour Party leaders and by some of the Tories and Liberals. (Most of the 'Left-wing' organisations are all for it.) If the inflationists have their way they could produce a currency collapse here. The dilemma of all parties is that if they abandon the Keynesian belief that unemployment and depression can be eliminated under capitalism, what can they do except face the alternative — fearful for them — of getting rid of capitalism?
Some politicians and economists are now urging a return to the nineteenth century gold standard in order to get rid of inflation.
It only needs to add that getting rid of inflation is not the answer. Capitalism without inflation, as in the nineteenth century, no more solves working class problems than does capitalism with inflation, as in the years since the end of the second world war.
Further Reading
Marx versus Keynes SPGB education document
The Marxian Theory of Inflation SPGB education document
the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive
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[Preface] [Introduction] [Index]
Lesson 27
Psalms 36 & 37
Psalm 36
1. Compare at least three different translations of the first two verses and then complete the chart below:
translation #1 translation #2 translation #3 translation #4
Name of Bible Version:
within whose heart?
who flatters someone?
who is flattered?
who will hate his iniquity?
2. Psalm 97:10 teaches the opposite of the attitude described in what verse of the 36th psalm?
3. Does God have wings?
4. In what sense does "the foot of pride" (verse 11) come upon the wicked? (cf. verse 2)
Psalm 37
1. This is an acrostic, or alphabetical psalm. What does that mean?
2. What might a person find himself doing when thinking of them that work unrighteousness, or iniquity? (37:1)
3. Why should we not envy the wrongdoers? (37:2)
4. When will they be cut down like the grass and wither like the green herb? (cf. 37:10)
5. If we delight in Jehovah, what will he give us?
6. Verse 7 expresses an idea similar to that of what earlier verse?
7. What will those who wait for Jehovah inherit? (cf. 37:11, Mt. 5:5; on the significance of the "land," cf. Zechariah 13:1-2)
8. How long would their inheritance last? (cf. 37:18)
9. What would happen to the wicked when they drew their sword?
10. Why is the little that the righteous have, better than the abundant riches of the wicked?
11. "A man's goings are established of Jehovah" (37:23). On the basis of the following verse, what does this mean?
12. Why does the psalmist tell us that he has been young and is now old?
13. A contrast between what two groups is maintained throughout this whole psalm? |
Benzene, a Colorless, Flammable and Toxic Sweet-smelling Liquid
Work-related injuries can happen in any type of work environment, an office setting or outdoor, while an employee is on a n errand. Accidents, however, occur more frequently in construction, industrial and agricultural sites, and pharmaceutical and chemical companies where exposure to dangerous substances is part of the daily risk workers face.
Work-relatd Injuries have always registered a high rate of claims lawsuit in the U.S. and, due to the high cost of medical treatment plus lost wages due to days of absence from work, compensation need not just be sure, but fast too.
One of the most common causes of injuries is hazardous or toxic substances. Exposure to harmful chemicals will always inflict harm on anyon, especially those who are properly suited in protective gears. One of the worst things about exposure to chemicals is that their harmful effects are not immediately obvious; there have been many occasions in the past when the harmful effects of substances became manifes only after months or years have already passed.
There are different ways through which toxic substances can inflict harm. One is through inhalation of its fumes, which can cause skin rashes, disease in the lung, kidney, or liver, and poisoning. Substances that can cause these dangers include disinfectants, solvents, acids, caustic substances, petroleum products, pesticides, glue and heavy metals (such as aluminum, cadmium, mercury and lead).
Benzene, a colorless, flammable liquid that has a sweet odor that is widely-used in the manufacture of synthetic fibers, plastics, lubricants, rubbers, dyes, detergents, drugs, and pesticides; in the past, it was also widely used as a a gasoline additive and as an industrial solvent (to dissolve or extract other substances). The ones most exposed and harmed by benzene are those working in shipyards, refineries, chemical plants and construction industries.
The health hazards that may be suffered by those exposed to benzene, include acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), aplastic anemia, myelodysplasia, non-hodgkins lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
“Though people who work in more hazardous jobs, such as industrial factories and construction, experience elevated levels of exposure to dangerous toxins and chemicals, the reality is that anyone can suffer from toxic exposure if other people, such as a landlord or company, are negligent. Sadly, toxic exposure can have traumatic effects on a person, from debilitating injuries to permanent disabilities, causing them to suffer physical, emotional, and financial harm. And, in the most tragic of circumstances, toxic exposure can even lead to an innocent person’s untimely death, leaving their loved ones grieving.
The law firm Ronald J. Resmini LTD., believes that anyone who has suffered harm as a result of toxic exposure should not have to endure the consequences on his/her own. With the help of a legal representative, he/she may be able to hold the party who exposed him/her to dangerous toxins or substances responsible for his/her losses, which can provide much-needed financial compensation.” |
A presidential estate opens its doors to conversation on slavery
JUDY WOODRUFF: As part of our ongoing Race Matters Solutions series, special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault recently visited Montpelier, the home of the fourth U.S. president, James Madison. It's in Virginia.
A new permanent exhibit is opening the door on a rarely told side of Madison involving his slaves and how they lived.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This sprawling, bucolic Virginia countryside is the plantation where James Madison, the so-called father of the Constitution, puzzled over liberties as he helped frame America's democracy.
It's also here that he and his wife, Dolley, held over 300 slaves. Now, with a new interactive exhibit called The Mere Distinction of Colour, there is a new way of looking at that story.
Visitors hear stories of the slaves here told by their living descendants. There's insight into economic, ideological and political factors that cemented slavery in the Constitution, without ever using the word slavery.
And films connect the past to the present, looking at the legacy of slavery to issues of race and identity today.
In addition to the new exhibit in the Madison home itself, there are new ways of talking about the rich and complicated history of Montpelier.
Visitors can tour slave cabins, tour a slave cemetery which bears no headstones, watch archaeologists dig up more evidence that pieces together the interconnectedness of everybody on the plantation.
To talk about those issues, I spent time with Leontyne Peck, a genealogist and participant in Montpelier's public archaeology program.
Peck took me inside one of the cramped slave quarters where eight people lived.
So, this was all dirt?
LEONTYNE PECK: It was all dirt, yes.
We found our artifacts. We found a lot of different things. We found a pipe, which was extraordinarily exciting. My grandfather, he had smoked a pipe. And, really, when I touched the pipe, I really felt connected to him.
And then I found much more than that. I found my family.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I also visited Madison's bedroom with Mary Alexander, a great-great-granddaughter of Paul Jennings. He served Madison at the White House and also at Montpelier. He wrote the first White House memoir, "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison."
She told me what her reaction was when she saw this room or the first time.
MARY ALEXANDER, Montpelier Descendent: I had just finished caretaking for my father, who died of Parkinson's disease. And to think that Paul Jennings was doing the same exact things for James Madison that I had done for my father, it just overwhelmed me.
I knew the intimacy and the love and the care that had to go on between the two of them, because you can't take care of someone and not love them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I talked further with Mary Alexander and with Montpelier president and CEO Kat Imhoff inside the Madison mansion.
Kat, first tell me how you arrived at the title for this exhibition.
KAT IMHOFF, President, The Montpelier Foundation: The title The Mere Distinction of Colour comes from a quote that Madison writes in his notes when he's working in 1787 on the Constitutional Convention.
He says: "We have never seen the mere distinction of color in a most enlightened period of time a ground for the most oppressive dominion exercised by man over man."
Now, Madison is saying this as a young man. He's in the debates about the rights and the freedoms that are going to be set forth in what becomes the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: When he uttered those words, he didn't have slavery in mind.
KAT IMHOFF: He did. He was saying that mere distinction of color, what an incredible missed opportunity that we're using that distinction of color to make one man oppress the other.
And this is as a young, idealistic 35-, 36-year-old in the hot rooms in Philadelphia as they're duking out writing the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But who had slavery.
KAT IMHOFF: And he is a slave owner, and he's grown up now third-generation slave owner here at Montpelier.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, what happened? He just didn't make that distinction, or …
KAT IMHOFF: What the debate ends up being is, can you get enough votes to get the U.S. Constitution ratified? If you said that you were not going to allow or enable in some way or codify slavery, without ever mentioning it, you were never going to get enough votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
So, James Madison, in those early days, chooses the union over really what he knows in his heart is the right thing to do. But the other part that got me so intrigued was the descendant community was involved with Montpelier early on, but no one had really been able to pick up that thread and bring those 300 voices into the stories.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The descendant community is sitting next to you. So what drew you here?
MARY ALEXANDER: Well, actually, my mother, she never told the family history to anyone outside of our family.
Paul Jennings was enslaved here with James Madison. He said that he shaved him every day for 42 years. My understanding is that he and James Madison had a relationship where they were almost like brothers with each other, the way that they interacted.
I think if you put it in the context of slaves being assets and property, and that, when James Madison died, his estate being in such debt, and them having to sell off every asset they had, and, unfortunately, the human beings who were here were assets also, he didn't get the chance to be distinguished outside of those people.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kat, how do you see that?
KAT IMHOFF: Well, they had trouble explaining their double standard even to themselves during their time period. And I think it's quite intriguing to look at their own writing on this.
But, I mean, I think that's the challenge of American history. Not only can you be inspired, yes, James Madison, father of the Constitution, great thinking, defines rights, but I think we have always had this love-hate affair with really understanding how complex our history is.
Not only can I be inspired by James Madison, but I can be inspired by people like Paul Jennings. I can now understand that African-American history is indeed American history.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think it's working, Kat? I mean, who is coming here? And what are they taking away from it in terms of race?
KAT IMHOFF: What I'm hearing from people when they're visiting, they're both saying, we're so happy because now we really understand more the humanity of the people who lived here.
KAT IMHOFF: Black and white.
I think, really, people, when they hear those stories and they can put themselves, project themselves into those places, they really take more away from it, and also the relevance today. I think that's what we have always been — it's really easy to talk about things 200 years ago.
And it's a lot more difficult when you bring it all the way up today, and you go, no, the legacy of slavery is still with us. It's part of our democratic DNA. It is hard-baked into how we are as a people.
MARY ALEXANDER: There's a morality question that all of us have to grapple with. This was a business to these people.
Unfortunately, the business was other human beings. James Madison would have never been able to do, or any of the founding fathers would have never had the liberty to go into this whole discussion about government and humanity and how people should conduct themselves. They would have never been able to do that without these people who were in the background working for them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, this will help set that record straight, you think?
MARY ALEXANDER: I'm praying.
KAT IMHOFF: You know, Mary has often commented on how she wants people to think and understand and have that strong intellectual connection. So, I love that fact that we're both the heart and the head in thinking about how people should connect with Montpelier.
MARY ALEXANDER: And I also recognize you can't get the head without getting to the heart first.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Kat Imhoff and Mary Alexander, thank you so much for your insights. Thank you very much.
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How to calculate CPU utilisation
Posted: 02 Aug 2004 Print Version Bookmark and Share
Keywords:CPU processors processors CPU utilisation
Many theories and guidelines dictate how burdened a processor should be at its most loaded state but which guideline is best for you? This article presents several ways to discern how much CPU throughput an embedded application is really consuming. You can use this information to verify the system software design versus a maximum processor load.
Selecting a processor is one of the most critical decisions you make when designing an embedded system. Your selection is based on the features required to satisfy the control functionality of the final product and the raw computing power needed to fulfil those system requirements. Computing power can be formally specified with benchmarks such as MIPS, FLOPS, Whetstones, Dhrystones, EEMBC marks, and locally contrived benchmarks. Many times, however, you won't know precisely how much raw throughput is needed when you select the processor. Instead you'll have only experience and experiential data to work with (from the microprocessor vendor or the systems engineer).
In any case, once the system development has progressed, it's in the team's best interest to examine the CPU utilisation so you can make changes if the system is likely to run out of capacity. If a system is undersized, several options are available: upgrade the processor (if possible), reduce available functionality, or optimise, optimise, optimise.
This article doesn't focus on any of those solutions but illustrates some tools and techniques I've used to track actual CPU utilisation. You can use these methods to determine how close to the "edge" a specific project is performing.
image name
Equation 1 through 4
Defining CPU utilisation
For our purposes, I define CPU utilisation, U, as the amount of time not in the idle task, as shown in Equation 1.
The idle task is the task with the absolute lowest priority in a multi-tasking system. This task is also sometimes called the background task or background loop, shown in Listing 1. This logic traditionally has a while(1) type of loop. In other words, an infinite loop spins the CPU waiting for an indication that critical work needs to be done.
Listing 1: Simple example of a background loop
int main( void )
while(1) /* endless loop—spin in the background */();
{ ();
nbsp; MonitorStack();
nbsp; ... do other non-time critical logic here.
This depiction is actually an oversimplification, as some "real" work is often done in the background task. However, the logic coded for execution during the idle task must have no hard real-time requirements because there's no guarantee when this logic will complete. In fact, one technique you can use in an overloaded system is to move some of the logic with less strict timing requirements out of the hard real-time tasks and into the idle task.
Using a logic state analyser
Of the several ways to measure the time spent in the background task, some techniques don't require any additional code. Let's look at three techniques.
The first is an external technique and requires a logic state analyser (LSA). The LSA watches the address and data buses and captures data, which you can interpret. In this test, you should configure the LSA to trigger on an instruction fetch from a specific address and measure the time between each occurrence of an observation of this specific address.
The address to watch for could be any address within the while(1) loop from Listing 1. The task of identifying an appropriate address is tricky but not inordinately difficult. You can use the map file output by the linker to get close to a good address. Peruse the map file for the address of the main function, and then set up the LSA to look for the occurrence of any address within a limited range beyond the entry to main. This range is justified because, unless there's a large amount of logic between the entry to main and the start of the while(1) loop, the beginning of the loop should be easy to spot with a little iteration and some intelligent tweaking of the address range to inspect.
If your LSA can correlate the disassembled machine code back to C source, this step is even more straightforward because you only have to capture the addresses within the range known to hold the main function (again, see the map file output from the linker) and then watch for the while(1) instruction. If the while(1) loop is moved to its own function, perhaps something like Background(), then the location is much easier to find via the linker map file.
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Saturday, March 30, 2013
Profit and Loss, Private Property, and the Achievements of Capitalism
IN DEALING WITH ALL MATTERS CONCERNING CAPITALISM, it is fundamental never to forget the difference between “capital goods” and “capital.” “Capital goods” are physical things. The concept of “capital” is purely a theoretical concept within the framework of a definite method of calculation and computation. The evolution of this concept of capital finally resulted in including in the accountant’s concept of capital, the auditor’s concept, and also those things that are not capital goods.
The system of accountancy started, of course, with businessmen. Anxious to know what the results of their transactions were they developed this method of accounting—double-entry bookkeeping and so on. The concept of capital that they applied referred to, and included, only those funds that they had diverted to the development of business. It did not include real estate or the private property of the head of the enterprise, of his family, and so on. You can still read in legal treatises and papers essays debating whether or not the private capital of the owner should be included in the balance sheet of a firm. According to the methods in practice in accountancy, the concept of capital as used today includes the real estate and all rights owned by the enterprise.
Agriculturists also began to pay attention to these problems, but only much later. In the beginning they developed methods of accounting which were limited to the operation of the farm only, without including the whole property of the owner. I mention these facts because if you look into the balance sheet of an enterprise there is room for the building, the real estate, owned by the enterprise. The concept of capital as used today includes more than capital goods; it includes all the things owned by the enterprise.
From this point of view we must raise the question also of whether or not there are other distinctions which may have greater importance for the practical problems of capital. If we speak of capital we discover that we have in mind all the total material factors of production as far as they may be used for production purposes.
If we talk about the decisions to be made concerning the employment of capital, we must take into account the fact that the greater part of the capital available is embodied in nonconvertible or not perfectly convertible goods. Capital goods are intermediary factors between the natural goods and the final consumer’s goods. In a changing world, in which the productive processes and other things are constantly changing, the question is whether we can use these intermediary products, which were originally designed for a specific end use, for any other end. Is it possible, even after a change in plans and intentions, to use for other purposes capital accumulated or produced in the past with different plans and different intentions in mind? This is the problem of the convertibility of capital goods.
For more than one hundred years, a movement popular in the whole world, today especially in California, is represented by a group of reformers who call themselves “technocrats.” Technocrats criticize the fact that we have still going on side by side with the most modern methods of production, processes of production of an outdated character. And they are not the only ones to criticize this fact. They point out how wonderful it would be if all that they call “economic backwardness” were eliminated, if we had all the factories located in the best places, and if all the factories were equipped with the most modern equipment. Then there wouldn’t be any backwardness, nor any machines and methods of production being used which are no longer up to date. There was a German, or a Russian—I had better say a Baltic—socialist who pointed out, for instance, how backward German agriculture was. He would abandon or diminish all existing farms and machines, substitute the most modern achievements of agriculture, and then it would be possible to produce everything cheaper.
The weak point of these plans is that the capital accumulated in the past was in the form of capital goods that represented the technical wisdom of the ages in which it was accumulated. Although the factories are out of date it does not necessarily mean that the old machines have to be sold as scrap iron and new machines substituted. It depends upon the superiority of the new machines. Unless it is impossible for the old factory to make any surplus over current expenses, it would be a waste, not only both from the point of view of the individual factory owner but also from the point of view of a socialistic system that had to deal with the same thing. The problem is similar to that of a man who must choose between buying a new typewriter or a new television set because better ones have now been invented, or buying something else that he doesn’t have at all. Just as not everybody will throw away his old typewriter or his car when a new model appears, so will a businessman have to make similar decisions in business. While in the household precise calculations are not needed, in business these decisions are made on the basis of more careful calculations.
The capital equipment that makes up the wealth of our age and that also makes one country richer as against poorer countries is embodied in capital goods created in the past by our ancestors, or created by ourselves under different technical conditions and for different purposes. If we want to use this old capital equipment in the future, too, in spite of the fact that it does not render as much service as new equipment, we do so because we consider the service it renders worth more than what we can gain by throwing away the old machines and replacing them with new machines.
The settlement of the world was done in other ages under other assumptions and other conditions with other technical knowledge. If we were to come to earth from another planet with perfect knowledge of today’s geographical conditions, we would settle the world with the use of that other knowledge, knowledge very different from that which was responsible for our present capital equipment. In the past our wealth consisted to a great extent of capital goods adjusted to conditions which are different from our conditions. Decisions of the past were based on conditions at that time. The fact that our ancestors made the decisions they did helps to influence us to keep things as they are; it wouldn’t be worthwhile to abandon the investments of the past. In every individual case we have to make a decision between continuing in the old ways, in spite of the fact that we now know better, or renouncing the old ways for some other employment of additional capital goods which we now consider more important.
In answer to the technocrats, we say we are not rich enough to scrap everything that was built in the past. Perhaps it would be better to have the industrial centers somewhere else than where they were built in the past. But this transfer, this shifting, is a very slow process. It depends on the superiority of the new sites. This is a refutation of the famous infant-industry argument, which says that the new industries must be protected against the old industries. In this case too—in the case of shifting industries from physically less favorable to more favorable sites—the decision must depend on the degree of superiority of the new sites. If the superiority of the new sites is sufficient the industries will move without any outside assistance at all. If it is not sufficient, it is a waste to assist industries to make such a move. (For instance, the textile industries developed in New England even though the cotton was grown in the south. More lately the textile mills have been shifting to the south, again without any outside assistance.) If the advantage to be derived from the abandonment of capital goods is great enough, the change will be made.
Technical backwardness is not the same as economic backwardness. If capital needed for eliminating this technical backwardness, from our point of view or from the point of view of the buying public, has a more urgent employment somewhere else, then it would be economically a very serious mistake to employ it in making changes to new equipment simply because there are already better machines.
Capital goods are scarce. The economic problem consists precisely in the fact that consumers seek to employ them for the satisfaction of their most urgent not-yet-satisfied demands. The economic problem is not to employ capital goods for producing something which is less important than another product, which cannot be started precisely on account of the fact that these capital goods are being employed in the production of the less important product. This is what unprofitability means. A businessman says, “This is unprofitable. The project could be undertaken but it would be unprofitable. Therefore, we do not want to start it.” What the socialists say is, “But businessmen are greedy; they want to produce only those things which are profitable, not those which are unprofitable.” However, what makes an enterprise unprofitable is that, given the prices of the factors of production and the rate of interest, the anticipated proceeds would lag behind the expenditures.
What does it mean if the price of copper is higher than it used to be? It means that consumers are ready to pay a higher price for the copper that goes into the making of other products; they are not ready to pay the higher price for copper in its present uses. They make some prices high enough to make the production of other products profitable. On the other hand, if there is an increase in the supply of copper, or if some branches of business which used to employ copper until now use something else instead of copper in production, then copper becomes more readily available, the price of copper drops, and it now becomes profitable to use copper to produce some things that yesterday were unprofitable. Ultimately it is the consumers, in their buying, who determine what should be produced and what should not be produced.
When aluminum was first introduced, many things could not be produced from aluminum because its price was very high. Napoleon III [1808–1873] immediately had the idea to give to his cavalry armor of aluminum, but it was so expensive then that it would have been cheaper to give them armor made of silver. When I was a child, aluminum was used for children’s toys, but the really serious industrial use of aluminum was then more or less out of the question. Slowly the production of aluminum improved and the use of aluminum for many articles became possible. Years ago, it was as unprofitable to use aluminum as it is today to use some high-grade metals for certain commercial purposes.
The slogan “Production for use and not for profit” is meaningless. A businessman produces for profit. But he can make profits only because consumers want to use the things he produces, because they want to use them more urgently than other things.
In the absence of profits and losses there wouldn’t be any guides for production. It is profits or losses that show the businessmen what the consumers are asking for most urgently, in what qualities and in what quantities. In a system in which there were no profits or losses, the businessman would not know what the wishes of the consumers were, and he wouldn’t be able to arrange his production processes according to the wishes of the consumers.
Besides this function of profit or loss there is the role they play in shifting ownership of the means of production into the hands of those who knew—in the past, of course, i.e., until yesterday—how best to employ them for the needs of the consumers. This is no guarantee that the means of production will be used in the best way tomorrow. But if they aren’t, the owners will suffer losses. And if they do not change their methods of production, they will lose their property and will be thrown out of their eminent position as the owners of factors of production. But this is something given, and it cannot be changed. Every judgment about people refers to the past. A candidate in an election can only be judged by what he has done in the past. The same applies also to the choice of a doctor, a shop, and so on, and also to producers. It is always good will referring to the past.
Past profits shift the ownership of the means of production from the hands of those who were less efficient in using them in the eyes of the public into the hands of those who are expected to be more efficient. Therefore, the meaning of ownership of the means of production is very different in a system based on the division of labor from its meaning in a feudal system. In a feudal system, private ownership was acquired by conquest or by the arbitrary appropriation of pieces of land. The proprietor was the conqueror; the supreme conqueror was the head of the army, the king, the “Führer.” Other people acquired private property as gifts from the supreme lord. There was a whole hierarchy—kings, dukes, knights, and so on, and at the bottom were the people with no property. The dukes and knights could lose their property by being deprived of their “gift” by the higher authority—the king—revoking his gift; or they might be defeated by a successful conqueror. This system prevailed until capitalism replaced it to varying degrees in many countries.
If you study the history of private ownership in land you can, of course, go back either to conquest or to appropriation of ownerless property by somebody. From this point of view, the older critics of private ownership said property does not have a legal origin; it was acquired by might, by conquest, without any legal basis. Hence, they say they want to take it away from the current private owners and give it to everybody. Whether the origin described here is right or wrong is one question. Another question is what to do now that property is privately owned.
The socialists took over this critique of the origin of property without realizing the enormous difference that existed between then and now. If you say that in the old days the owners of land did not depend on the market, that is true; there was no market; there was only an insignificant amount of trade. The feudal lord had only one real way to spend his great income in the products of the earth—to retain a great retinue of armed men in order to fight his battles. The court of a feudal lord consisted of an enormous household in which many people lived (boarders I would say), supported by the great estate. In Brandenburg in Berlin, for instance, there was one case of a councilor in the sixteenth century who was living in the king’s household. This is very different from the conditions in the market economy.
In the market economy, private ownership is, as it were, a social function because it can be retained and enlarged only by serving customers in the cheapest and best possible way. Those who do not know how to serve consumers in the cheapest and best possible way suffer losses. If they do not change their methods of production in time they are thrown out of their positions as owners, entrepreneurs, capitalists, and shifted to positions in which they no longer have entrepreneurial and capitalistic functions. Therefore, the meaning of private ownership in the capitalistic system is entirely different from the meaning of private ownership in the feudal system.
Critics of private ownership are still living mentally in the Middle Ages (like critics of interest and creditors). They don’t realize that the market determines every day who should own what and how much he should own. The market gives ownership to those people who are best fitted to use the means of production for the best possible satisfaction of the needs of the consumers. Therefore it is not correct to criticize the institutions of private property by citing conditions as they existed in the early days under feudal conditions, under absolute kings.
As President Franklin Roosevelt [1882–1945] said, capitalism has never been really tried.1 There always remains something from the old days. But it is absolutely useless to tell us today, “Look how the wealth of many aristocratic families originated in the seventeenth century.” Some modern wealthy people may be descendants of wealthy aristocratic families, but what has that to do with the situation today? The Prussian Junkers were still privileged in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century; they could retain their property only because the whole apparatus of the imperial government was glad to preserve them, to protect them, and to prevent consumers from putting persons in their places who were better equipped to serve consumers.
We must realize that every governmental measure that lowers the amount of profit successful enterprises can make or which taxes away their profits is a measure that weakens the influence of the consumers over producers. For example, the great industrial fortunes of the nineteenth century were acquired by successful innovators in their business. Henry Ford [1863–1947] started with almost nothing; he made enormous profits which were plowed back in his enterprise; in this way over a comparatively short time he developed one of the biggest fortunes of the United States. The result was that something quite new happened, mass production of automobiles for the masses. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were some successful motor cars. The French Renault cost about $10,000 in gold; it was a luxury car for a few very rich men. The activities of Ford and of some other people made the motor car something for everybody. In this way great fortunes were developed. The great department stores and the great factories developed in this way. But now this cannot happen. If a man starts a small enterprise and makes huge profits, the greater part of this profit is absorbed by taxes. However, there are still some loopholes. If you have a good accountant you may avoid being expropriated 90 percent and may be expropriated only 70 percent. But the greater part of the profits which would have been reinvested are taken by the government and spent for current expenses.
In the case of department stores, formerly an old store had to compete for potential new consumers with new competitors. Today this is no longer the case. The small man will never develop into a big store because his profits are taken away by the government. It is true that the old and new stores operate under the same laws; the large old store also has to pay high income taxes. But the old store has already accumulated the capital needed for a big business, while the new man is prevented from accumulating the capital needed to expand into a big-scale enterprise. The consequence, therefore, is that the competitive spirit could easily disappear from the management of the big store. Without any danger to the old store in the conduct of its affairs, the old store may sometimes become “lazy.”
There are people who say capitalism is dying because the spirit of competition no longer exists as it used to and because great enterprises become bureaucratic. But capitalism is not dying; people are murdering it. There is a difference between dying by a disease that finally results in death and dying as a result of assault and assassination. It is fantastic to use as an argument against capitalism the fact that the competitive spirit in business is weakening and that businesses sometimes become bureaucratic. This is precisely due to the fact that people are fighting against the capitalistic system and don’t want to tolerate the institutions that are essential for its existence. Therefore, I must say something about the difference between profit and loss under business management on the one hand, and bureaucratic management on the other hand.
Profit-and-loss management is the sign of an enterprise, of an outfit, that is subject to the supremacy of the market, i.e., the supremacy of consumers. In such an outfit the determining factor is “Is it profitable or not?” This yardstick is applied not only to the whole enterprise but to every portion of the enterprise. This is the method of double-entry accounting which Goethe characterized in such a wonderful way by saying that it makes it possible for the man at the head of an organization to control every aspect of a business without becoming enmeshed in too much detail work.
Under such an accounting system you can establish whether or not any special department or branch pays. For instance, an enterprise in New York has a branch store in San Francisco. There is only one standard the head of the company in New York need apply: is it profitable? He has a special balance sheet for the store in San Francisco. He assigns to this branch on his books the necessary capital, compares the costs and the prices of this branch, and on this basis judges whether or not it is useful, whether or not it is profitable, for the total enterprise to continue this branch office in San Francisco. He can leave all the details to the head of the branch office in San Francisco because this man always knows that he is responsible. It is not necessary that the branch manager get a share of the profits. He knows very well that if the branch does not pay it will be discontinued and he will lose his job; his future depends on this branch. Therefore, the man in New York does not have to say to this branch manager in San Francisco anything more than, “Make profits!” The head in New York doesn’t interfere because if he does and the branch office has losses, the branch manager will be able to say it was because “You ordered me to do so and so.”
The consumers are supreme. The consumers are not always intelligent—not at all—but the consumers are sovereign. They can be stupid and they may change their minds, but we must accept the fact that they are sovereign. Businessmen are subject to the supremacy of the consumers. The same is, of course, true for the whole business establishment; the decisive voice is the voice of the consumers. It is not the problem of the producers or manufacturers to criticize consumers, to say, “These people have bad tastes—I recommend they buy something else.” This is the task of philosophers and artists. A great painter, a great leader, a man who wants to play a role in history must not yield to the bad taste of consumers. However, businessmen are subject to profit-and-loss management and are directed in every detail by the wishes of the consumers. The consumers are supreme; they are buying the product and this is justification for the producer. If it is not weakened by government interference, this is profit-and-loss management, production for consumers.
Now what is bureaucratic management? People often confuse bigness with bureaucracy. Even such an eminent man as Max Weber [1864–1920] thought that the essential factor of a bureaucracy was that people sat at desks and had a lot of paperwork to do. But this is not the essential feature of a bureaucracy. The characteristic of a bureaucracy is that it deals with things which are necessary but which cannot be sold and that do not have a price on the market. Such a thing, for instance, is the protection of individuals against gangsters and other criminals. This is the job of the police department. It is very important, indispensable. But the services of the police department cannot be sold on the market. Therefore, you cannot judge the results of these police operations in the same way as you can judge the operations of a shoe factory. The shoe factory can say, “The public approves of our operations because we make profits.” The police department can only say the public approves through the actions of its town council, congress, parliament, and so on. Therefore, the system of management which must be used for a police system is the bureaucratic system.
The nation, or the citizenry, elects parliamentary bodies and these parliamentary bodies determine how much should be spent for the various functions of the government, including the police department. You cannot evaluate in dollars and pennies the results of a police department. And, therefore, you cannot have bookkeeping and auditing of a police department in the same way you do in private businesses. In private businesses, the expenses are measured in terms of dollars against the proceeds. In the police department you cannot measure the expenses against the proceeds. The police department has only expenses. The “proceeds” of a police department are, for instance, the fact that you can walk safely through the town, even after midnight. Such proceeds cannot be evaluated in terms of money.
The parliaments set the budget for the police department; they determine the amount of money to be spent. They must also tell the police department what services they should perform. The FBI could no doubt be improved by increasing its appropriations, but it is the will of the people that it not go any further; the head of the Department of Justice tells the FBI what to do and what not to do; the Department of Justice head cannot leave these decisions to the “branch managers.” Therefore, the manager of a bureaucratic operation issues instructions on many things which appear unnecessary to the businessman—how often to clean the offices, how many telephones to have, how many men to watch a certain building, and so forth. These detailed instructions are necessary because in a bureaucracy what has to be done and what has not to be done must be determined by such rules. Otherwise the man on the spot would spend money without giving heed to the total budget. If there is a limited budget you must tell the employees what they can and what they cannot do. This refers to all branches of government administration.
This is bureaucracy, and in these areas it is indispensable. You cannot leave it to the individual employee; you cannot tell a man, “Here is a big hospital. Do what you want with it.” A limit is drawn by the parliament, the state, or the union and, therefore, it is necessary to limit the money spent in each department. This bureaucratic method of management does not apply under profit management. But, of course, if you weaken the profit motive of private businesses, bureaucratic ideas and bureaucratic management creeps in.
Given the present-day excess-profits tax, corporation taxes, and individual taxes on corporation shareholders, many enterprises say when calculating a new expenditure, “It means an expenditure of $100 more, of course. But considering the 82 percent tax I must pay on the firm’s earnings, it will cost much less. If I don’t spend this $100 on business, I will still have to pay a tax of $82. Therefore, spending this $100 will cost the firm only $18.” People calculating this way no longer compare the total expenditure with the advantages to be derived from it on the market; they compare only that part of the expenditures which affects their own income. In other words, in spending $100 on its business, the company could afford to be lavish, wasteful, or extravagant; it would no longer consider consumer wishes primarily.
If this tax system is continued, it could lead finally to complete government control. For instance, if government takes 100 percent of a company’s income, its business expenses would all be deductible and chargeable to the government. The company wouldn’t need to worry then about consumer sovereignty, about whether consumers would be willing to pay enough for their product to cover costs; it wouldn’t need to worry about keeping expenses down. But then the government couldn’t allow the business to do as it wished; the government would have to control all aspects of the business’s operations. Therefore, if you hear that business is becoming bureaucratic and wasteful, it is not the consequence of big business, of capitalism, of an unhampered market system; it is the consequence of government taxation and government interference with these things.
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The concept of autonomous public transport BOT
January 9, 2015 at 18:03
BOT is a completely autonomous transportation solution for areas, which are less populated (such as Finland). The vision of a vehicle for a new transportation system consists in would be an alternative for private cars (which are preferably used for commuting) and public transport.
Currently, new “unmanned” vehicles were designed primarily for personal use. However, the BOT concept involves the introduction of low-cost and safe autopilot in the public transport system.
Designer Chris Luchowiec developed a concept that combines the basic principles of a taxi and a public bus.
autonomous public transport BOT pics
autonomous public transport BOT picture
Electric cars will be running around the city, picking up passengers and getting them to their destination. Clever system will choose the best routes for quick and profitable transport.
autonomous public transport BOT pics
autonomous public transport BOT image
The car itself is a four-seat “cab”, equipped with all necessary facilities for the safe autonomous movement through the city streets. According to the designer, the car will communicate with passengers during the trip and create a cozy atmosphere in the cabin with soft music and warm lighting. BOT concept took first place in the competition Michelin Design Challenge 2014.
categoryCategories: Futuristic Modern |
Welsh Marches
(redirected from marcher)
Welsh Marches,
lands in Wales along the English border. After the Norman conquest of England in the 11th cent., William I established the border earldoms of Chester, Shrewsbury, and Hereford to protect his English kingdom. Norman barons were encouraged by William's successors to conquer and hold other earldoms in the east of Wales. These nobles ruled as petty feudal princes, owing allegiance only to the king. Attempts to control the resulting lawlessness were made by Edward I and by Edward IV, who set up the Council of Wales and the Marches in 1471. Finally the act of Union (1536) abolished the more than 100 marcher lordships, providing for their division into Welsh shires or their incorporation into English counties.
References in periodicals archive ?
The US president, wife Michelle and 100 members of Congress gathered in Selma, Alabama, to remember the day in 1965 when police attacked marchers demonstrating for voting rights.
He used to say that while the Jarrow marchers had soup kitchens and halls to sleep in along the route, he and his mate slept in barns and had to scrounge food every day.
As a 20-year-old, Mr Shiels was on a government work scheme in London when the marchers approached the capital.
At the Presidential Palace hundreds of other protestors waited to greet the marchers who had been due to arrive at 10pm.
The marchers were demanding relief from alleged religious suppression of Khmer Krom by Vietnamese authorities, and had hoped to deliver a protest letter to the Vietnamese Embassy but were dispersed by some 150 riot police.
In a statement issued after yesterday's ruling, Mr Roberts said, 'The Lord Marcher of Trelleck regrets that so much adverse reaction has been caused because he has offered to grant rights of way to the residents of Peterstone who cross his land.
Owner Elmo Nier, whose single Chelsea 20-by-60-foot property at 755 Sixth Avenue was a target of the marchers, said Duane's statement is untrue and his only wish was to have a legitimate tenant.
What was surprising was how important it was to the marchers.
MODERN-day Jarrow marchers have paid tribute to Con Shiels, who was the last surviving member of the original 1936 march.
Marchers will hand in a petition to Downing Street signed by 20,000 people demanding action to tackle unemployment, the restoration of financial grants for students and a house-building programme.
Marcher 1260 is now Classic Gold Digital offering a bland mix of nothing special. |
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Postperovskite, a high-density material named after the mineral perovskite
Perovskite, CaTiO3, is a naturally occurring mineral with a hardness of 5.5 on Mohs scale and a specific gravity of 4.0 [1]. It was first found in the Ural mountains. This mineral is named after the Russian mineralogist L. A. Perovski (1792-1856) [2]. The name perovskite also stands for the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as perovskite. This perovskite structure is, for example, found in magnesium silicate (MgSiO3), which makes up 70 percent (by weight) of the perovskite layer in earth's lower mantle [3].
Postperovskite is a synthetic material or material phase observed in the laboratory under high temperature and very high pressure simulating conditions at the deep-earth boundary between the lower mantle and the outer core. Kei Hirose tells the story of its discovery and name [3]. Here, an excerpt about its name and relation to known crystalline materials is selected:
We decided to name the new phase postperovskite. (Strictly speaking, it is not a mineral, because it has yet to be found in nature.) As it turns out, its structure is essentially identical to that of two known crystals, uranium ferrous sulfate (UFeS3) and calcium iridiate (CaIrO3), which are stable under ambient conditions. And our direct measurements have shown that the density of postperovskite is indeed higher than that of perovskite, by 1 to 1.5 percent.
A postperovskite layer is assumed to exist in the inner earth at a depth of 2,600 to 2,900 km, as a phase that is formed by transformation of perovskite. Interestingly, this layer at the lowermost mantle could not have been formed in the “early earth” (2.3 billion years ago and before) when temperatures were too hot.
Keywords: earth sciences, mineralogy, earth mantle, crystal structure, high pressure, calcium titanium oxide, magnesium silicate
Dictionary of Geology & Mineralogy. McGraw Hill. Second Edition. 2003.
[3] Kei Hirose: The Earth's Missing Ingredient. Scientific American June 2010, Volume 302, Number 6, pp. 76-83.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Atlantic Puffins and puffineers
The word puffineer is derived from the noun puffin, denoting seabird species in the auk family (Alcinae). During summer months, puffineers live in the midst of seabird colonies on islands off the coast of Maine [1], where they study the Atlantic Puffin. This bird species was almost extinct along the coast of the northeastern Unites States, but has successfully been re-introduced.
The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) is also known as the Common Puffin. The Atlantic Puffin's Range stretches from Novaya Zemlya, Svalbard, Norway, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and Ireland to Greenland and eastern Canada. Six nesting sites, such as Eastern Egg Rock, are currently established in Maine.
Nicknames for the Atlantic Puffins are “sea parrot” and “clown of the ocean,” referring to the circus-style behavior with a wobbly, slapstick walk and the colorful, facial markings. The German name, for example, is Papageitaucher [2], meaning diving parrot. Is there a German word for puffineer? Maybe the composed noun Papageitauchkundler.
[1] Michelle Nijhuis:
Comeback! Thanks to a young biologist's unconventional ideas, Atlantic puffins have returned to the United States. Smithsonian Magazine June 2010, Volume 41, Number 3, pp. 58-65.
[2] Grzimeks TierlebenAchter BandVögel 2, page 233.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Short notation in chemistry: HBOB for bis(oxalato)boric acid
Bis(oxalato)boric acid (HBOB) is an organoborate acid. It consists formally of a proton and a boron(3+) cation that is chelated by two bidentate ethanedioato (oxalato) ligands, each contributing two negative electronic charges.
HBOB has been studied as a mild acid catalysts in the living cationic polymerization of styrene in the ionic liquid N-butyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide [1]. The fact, that HBOB acts as an acid initiator in styrene polymerization under the investigated conditions, was substantiated by substituting the hydrogen of HBOB by a tetramethylammonium cation, producing the neutral salt tetramethylammonium bis(oxalato)borate (Me4NBOB), which did not exhibit any catalyst activity when used instead of HBOB.
Other salts of HBOB are also known, for example lithium bis(oxalato)borate (LiBOB) [CASRN: 244761-29-3].
HBOB also stands as an abbreviation for Honda Battle Of the Bands, Hanging Body Opponent Bag, and Hand Brushed Old Bronze [2].
Keywords: cationic polymerization of vinyl monomers, Lewis acids, catalyst recycling
[1] R. Vijayaraghavan and D. R. MacFarlane: Living cationic polymerisation of styrene in an ionic liquid. Che. Commun. 2004, 700-701. DOI: 10.1039/b315100j.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
An acronym in economics and geopolitics: BRIC for Brazil, Russia, India and China
Brazil, Russia, India and China are commonly referred to as BRIC to highlight their economical development and their advances in technology, contrasting BRIC with the rest of the world.
Whereas the PIIGS countries—another acronym built from the first letters of country names—are typically mentioned in context of financial crisis, the BRIC nations are mostly viewed and discussed as fast-developing countries and emerging markets. These countries do not form an economic bloc or a political alliance in the way the European Union does—and to which it tries to hold on.
The BRIC countries, located on two different continents, are politically, culturally, and economically diverse. Each has its own currency. And they differ in their regulatory frameworks and financial transparencies, making long-term planning, investment and risk assessment a complex task.
Brazil and Russia are important suppliers of raw materials. India and China are important suppliers of manufactured goods. It has been speculated (at Goldmann Sachs and elsewhere) that the BRIC countries would dominant the world by 2050 economically. More likely, interdependence of BRIC with NAFTA, EU and other regions will keep any dominance in check.
Finally, there remains the interesting question if our financial future will unfold in Thomas Friedman's Flat World (the hot and crowded one to be saved by a green revolution) or in David Smick's Curved World (the one with all the hidden dangers to the global economy) or in another, completely Unexpected World with groupings and alliances for which we don't have acronyms yet.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
A new acronym in economics and geopolitics: PIIGS for Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain
The PIIGS nations are Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. These five European countries—all in the Mediterranean region, except Ireland— are lately often found to be grouped together due to credibility and debt concerns.
I am wondering about the order in which they are listed and acronymized. Shouldn't Greece come first regarding the current situation of difficult bailout talks, strikes and riots? Maybe someone was looking for an acronym that looks and sounds similar to the plural form of the English word pig?
Some people see Great Britain in a financial crisis and are turning PIIGS into PIIGGS. But if Great Britain is in a crisis, isn't the United Kingdom as well and shouldn't we talk about PIIGUKS?
As the crisis is going to quell and more nations are stumbling we may get a very long acronym. In the United States, the crisis, mismanagement, debt, and budget cuts touches (hits) the many states differently. But they haven't been grouped by acronyms yet. |
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Are Noctilucent Clouds connected with Climate Change?
NLCs in Finland. (c) Pekka Parviainen
NASA reported yesterday that their AIM Mission continues to add to our understanding of Noctilucent Clouds (NLC).
"The 2013 season is remarkable because it started in the northern hemisphere a week earlier than any other season that AIM has observed," reports Cora Randall of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. "This is quite possibly earlier than ever before."
The ScienceCast video below was posted in the STEM on Google+ Community, where the focus was aimed toward work that connects NLCs to climate change.
NLCs are cloud-like phenomena that are located near the edge of polar mesospheric clouds in the upper
atmosphere. They are made of ice crystals and are typically observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator when the Sun is below the horizon.
Their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere.
Wikipedia pulls some of the connections together:
There is evidence that the relatively recent appearance of noctilucent clouds, and their gradual increase, may be linked to climate change.[1] The author of this study, atmospheric scientist Gary Thomas of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado has pointed out[2] that the first sightings coincide with both Krakatoa and the nascent Industrial Revolution, and they have become more widespread and frequent throughout the twentieth century, including an uptick between 1964 and 1986. The connecting of global warming and noctilucent clouds however, remains controversial.[2]
Climate models predict that increased greenhouse gas emissions cause a cooling of the mesosphere, which would lead to more frequent and widespread occurrences of noctilucent clouds.[3] A competing theory is that larger methane emissions from intensive farming activities produce more water vapour in the upper atmosphere.[4] Methane concentrations have more than doubled in the past 100 years.[5]
One possible weakness is the timing coincidence of the first sightings. Given the limited time of day, typical geographic location, and overall appearance of NLCs being so similar to aurora, they may have been lumped together with that phenomenon. See photos [A, B] of recent low latitude aurora, which is also a fairly rare event. Oddly, NLCs are anti-correlated with the peak of the solar cycle which is going on right now, and is the direct cause of the conditions that spark the aurora.
It's also curious to me that the word "competing" is used between cooling of the mesosphere and more water vapor in the upper atmosphere, as both are necessary characteristics of NLCs.
Relating to the last post here is the question: Is it better to push the envelope when it comes to possible connections to climate change in order to increase awareness, or is it too risky given that many people won't have adequate knowledge of varied and lessor known phenomena, and how they would relate? The risk being that either people will dismiss these connections out of hand, or if ultimately disproved, would become fodder for denialism.
[1] Thomas, GE; Olivero, J (2001). "Noctilucent clouds as possible indicators of global change in the mesosphere". Advances in Space Research 28 (7): 939–946.
[2] Phillips, Tony (August 25, 2008). "Strange Clouds at the Edge of Space". NASA.
[3] A. Klekociuk, R. Morris, J. French (2008). "First Antarctic ground-satellite view of ice aerosol clouds at the edge of space". Australian Antarctic Division. Retrieved 2008-10-19.
[4] "Noctilucent clouds". Australian Antarctic Division.
[5] Hsu, Jeremy (2008-09-03). "Strange clouds spotted at the edge of Earth's atmosphere". USAtoday. |
Owls As Found In Zoo Birds
Animalblog Owls Artificial Owls
Animalblog Owls As Found In Zoo Birds
Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing and feathers adapted for silent flight.
Artificial Owls As Found In Zoo Birds
Artificial owls are birds make of plastic or wood and used as art or to ward off other birds.
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From Conservapedia
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Diplomacy is the conduct by government officials of negotiations and other relations between nations. A person engaging in diplomacy is referred to as a diplomat. One common type of diplomat is an ambassador, who represents his country at foreign capitals.
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What Is Fannie Mae? And Freddie Mac, for That Matter?
Fannie Mae headquarters
Fannie Mae headquarters (2008 AFP)
Whether you are shopping for a mortgage or just occasionally read financial news stories, you've probably heard of Fannie Mae. But what is Fannie Mae, anyway? And for that matter, what about her buddy Freddie Mac? While they may sound like a Nashville singer and standup comic, respectively, they aren't actual people. Rather, they're oddly cute nicknames for major forces in the mortgage market.
Fannie Mae stands for the Federal National Mortgage Association, or FNMA (FNMA becomes Fannie Mae, get it?). Fannie's brother organization is Freddie Mac, aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or FHLMC. In a nutshell, these two government-sponsored enterprises -- hybrids of government agencies and private corporations -- help thousands of Americans get loans for homes, so it pays to familiarize yourself with what they do in more detail.
How Fannie and Freddie help homeowners
Fannie Mae was born in 1938, during the height of the Great Depression, when about 25% of Americans were defaulting on their mortgages. As part of the New Deal, the federal government created Fannie (followed by Freddie in 1970) to stimulate the housing market by making mortgages more accessible to lower-income borrowers who might not qualify otherwise. So how do they do that, exactly?
For starters, Fannie and Freddie don't actually make loans -- which is why you may have only heard about them in vague terms, since you wouldn't approach them directly for a mortgage. Instead, these organizations purchase other lenders' loans on the secondary market, package them (into mortgage-backed securities), and sell them to investors such as hedge funds.
By buying up banks' loans, Fannie and Freddie essentially flood those companies with cash, which they can then turn around and lend to more home buyers. This, in turn, helps more buyers get homes who might not qualify otherwise.
"They are the behemoths of the housing finance sector, owning or guaranteeing nearly half of all the residential mortgages in the United States," says David Reiss, professor of law and academic program director at the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship at Brooklyn Law School.
In short, Fannie and Freddie have homeowners' backs, so when you overhear their names in the news, listen up -- it could affect your house-hunting prospects more than you think.
-- -- -- -- --
Watch: What Your Mortgage Broker Wishes You Knew |
Acouple of weeks ago we visited Olompali State Historical Park in Marin County, a site whose inhabitants have ranged from the Coast Miwok to the Grateful Dead.
In 1863, the property was given to Mary Burdell, bride of San Francisco dentist Galen Burdell, as a wedding present. A gardener with an eye for the exotic, she traveled to Asia in the 1870s to collect plants. Although the Burdell gardens have long since succumbed to entropy and weeds, some of Mary's specimen plants - notably a Chinese chestnut tree - are still going strong.
In the Burdells' era, botanical explorers combed China and its borderlands for introductions to British and American gardens. Political turmoil put an end to that in the 1920s, and China was off-limits to Western botanists and horticulturalists for the next 60 years. But that has changed. Chinese plant exports - including live plants, or in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's terminology, "plants for planting" - are booming. And scientists are concerned that the trade may provide a pathway for invasive exotics - plants that will do entirely too well in North America.
Richard Mack of Washington State University specializes in the study of plant invasions. "Horticulturists and nurserymen are going to China, bringing back species that we don't know how they will behave," he says. These plants are most likely to be found at high-end specialty nurseries. Hundreds of species are already in the live-plant trade, and little is known about their basic ecology, let alone their invasive potential: "Will they just sit tight or will they jump the garden fence?"
"Can we predict an invasive species as it comes in the door?" Mack asks. "That turns out to be a fairly challenging task." If the plant has never been exported before, there's no track record to go by. "Then you look at features of the plant as you see it. Is it bird-dispersed? How readily does it produce runners and stolons for vegetative reproduction? Does it regularly produce lots and lots of seeds, and are they wind-dispersed?" All those traits could mean trouble.
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Mack adds that generalist plants are more likely to get out of hand than those specialized to a narrower ecological niche: "Roadside weeds in China are more likely to take up the same roles over here. If they're also showy, these may be the very plants that collectors have looked for."
Some newcomers may be particularly well suited to life in the American wildlands. "If you take a map of China and a map of the United States and move one on top of the other," says Mack, "you find an almost total overlap." The American Arctic has no Chinese counterpart; otherwise, the range of habitats is a close match: subtropics, deserts, grasslands, deciduous forests. "That doesn't say that a species from one range would become a problem in the other," he explains, "but that the plants have dealt with similar environmental hurdles successfully in their native range."
North America and East Asia share many plant genera: magnolias, roses, rhododendrons. Both areas provided refugia from Ice Age glaciers where remnants of an ancient temperate-zone flora survived.
"If you're in a Chinese temperate forest, you see congeners - plants in the same genus - that seem to be playing the same ecological role," Mack says. "Those are the species we're particularly interested in evaluating." However, even close relatives wouldn't provide the same ecosystem services as the natives they displaced.
At Washington State, Mack and his students are experimenting with native plants of the Pacific Northwest and their Chinese near-relatives that are already in the horticultural trade. Examples include the native mock-orange Philadelphus lewisii and the Chinese P. kansuensis, and the native hardhack Spiraea douglasii and the Chinese S. japonica and S. wilsonii. Members of the legume family are also being tested. The researchers plant them out and manipulate light levels and growing conditions. "It does take a while," he concedes. "You can't rush plants." Similar work is being done in Florida and Illinois. That's important because the success of an invasive plant may depend on local conditions.
"Our goal is to identify problem species right up front," says Mack. As of now, any plant that is not on the Federal Noxious Weed List sails right through. Support for stricter regulations is diffuse. "Most people realize we have to have some ability to provide biosecurity," he says. "We already have laws in place for both plants and animals, but are they adequate?" The Department of Agriculture is looking at updating its Quarantine Regulation 37, on the books for 60 years or so.
There's also a role for education. Sarah Reichard of the University of Washington has developed voluntary codes of conduct for government agencies, nursery professionals, the gardening public, landscape architects and botanical gardens in dealing with potential invasives. They were adopted at a 2001 conference at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Reichard has also suggested that garden writers, constantly looking for new material, may feed the demand for novelty without considering ecological consequences. Who, us? |
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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood and can profoundly affect the academic achievement, well-being, and social interactions of children. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active.
Your pediatrician will determine whether your child has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using standard guidelines developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. These diagnosis guidelines are specifically for children 4 to 18 years of age.
It is difficult to diagnose ADHD in children younger than 4 years. This is because younger children change very rapidly. It is also more difficult to diagnose ADHD once a child becomes a teenager.
There is no single test for ADHD. The process requires several steps and involves gathering a lot of information from multiple sources. You, your child, your child’s school, and other caregivers should be involved in assessing your child’s behavior.
Children with ADHD show signs of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity in specific ways.
What are some of the signs of ADHD?
Many children have trouble focusing and behaving at one time or another. However, children with ADHD do not just grow out of these behaviors. The symptoms continue and can cause difficulty at school, at home, or with friends.
A child with ADHD might:
• daydream a lot
• forget or lose things
• squirm or fidget
• talk too much
• make careless mistakes or take unnecessary risks
• have a hard time resisting temptation
• have trouble taking turns
• have difficulty getting along with others
Deciding if a child has ADHD is a several step process. There is no single test to diagnose ADHD, and many other disorders, like anxiety, depression, and certain types of learning disabilities, can have similar symptoms. One step of the process involves having a medical exam, including hearing and vision tests, to rule out other problems with symptoms like ADHD. Another part of the process may include a checklist for rating ADHD symptoms and taking a history of the child from parents, teachers, and sometimes, the child.
AAP Releases Guideline on Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of ADHD
In most cases, ADHD is best treated with a combination of behavior therapy and medication. For preschool-aged children (4-5 years of age) with ADHD, behavior therapy is recommended as the first line of treatment. No single treatment is the answer for every child and good treatment plans will include close monitoring, follow-ups and any changes needed along the way.
(Source: healthychildren.org, cdc.gov) |
Persuade Speech
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Persuasive Speech Outline
Topic: Academic Pressure
Organizational Pattern: Problem-Solution
Specific Purpose: To persuade the audience that academic pressure can have a huge toll on a student’s mind and body. Primary Audience Outcome: I want the audience to know how they can reduce the stress level on their academic life. Introduction
(Attention catcher) In college life how many times do you stress yourself over academic problems? It’s financial aid, grades, exams, or other problems that come with the college life. (Listener relevance) Now, think about how much stress you are putting on your mind and body. Don’t you think you as a person should be able to keep your stress level down at this young of an age. (Thesis Statement) Academic pressure doesn’t just start in college, but as you get older you stress yourself out on maintaining a good GPA so you can get that good job when you finish school. (Preview on main points) I will first share some factors of academic pressure for students in school. Then, I will discuss some of the solutions that can possibly help you overcome academic pressure. Body
I. Academic pressure is one of the main reasons students don’t go through college or get super stressed out over their work load. College students may in fact experience the burnout phenomenon due to learning conditions that demand excessively high levels of effort and do not provide supportive mechanism that would facilitate effective coping. (Neumann and Reichel) a. Your environment can change you’re your academic pressure in a big way. i. Students have about an average of 10-15 hours per week. (Repak) 1. Our time as students are split between school work, family, and having a job. 2. Not having enough time for yourself to take a break and let your mind catch up with itself. ii. Also, not having enough money can cause your academic pressure to increase. 3. Dealing with money pressures can result in a...
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Power of Reporting
Our sources of intuitive information are external sensations (seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting) and internal sensations (thoughts, feelings, moods, memories). Reporting everything we notice from these sources without one interfering with the other enhances creativity and intelligence. Reporting and drawing from our inner senses give us quickness of perception, an improved mental power such that we cannot be blank on any subject. We enhance our intuitive capacity by learning to take a deep breath, focusing on any one of the internal sensations and allowing it to lead us to another sensation and so on. We also need to allow every ‘noise’ or distraction to recede and report everything we feel without judging its worth, or relevance. Power of reporting entails gathering and noting intuitive information. Learning to report sensations, thoughts, and feelings as they are experienced makes us become articulate and brilliant, for example, a car beeping or nose that itches or any other impression we are receiving that does not make sense to the ordinary minds have to be reported. We don’t need to mentally struggle to receive information from the universe but simply allow whatever we are receiving in response to a question to be reported – therein lies the answer . |
Freedom in the World
Freedom in the World 2009
2009 Scores
Freedom Rating
(1 = best, 7 = worst)
Civil Liberties
(1 = best, 7 = worst)
Political Rights
(1 = best, 7 = worst)
Kosovo’s February 2008 declaration of independence led to snap parliamentary elections in Serbia, and Belgrade recalled its ambassadors from countries that recognized Kosovo’s statehood. Parties that favored European Union integration won the May elections, and almost all of Serbia’s envoys had returned to their posts in foreign capitals by year’s end. Serbia also considerably improved its cooperation with the United Nations war crimes tribunal by arresting and extraditing two key fugitives during the summer, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Serbia was recognized as an independent state in 1878 after several centuries under Ottoman rule. It formed the core of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes proclaimed in 1918. After World War II, it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the Communist rule of Josip Broz Tito. Within the boundaries of the Serbian republic as drawn at that time were two autonomous provinces: the largely Albanian-populated Kosovo in the south, and Vojvodina, with a significant Hungarian minority, in the north.
After Tito’s death in 1980, Slobodan Milosevic, a functionary in the League of Communists of Serbia (renamed the Socialist Party of Serbia, or SPS, in 1990) began his gradual rise to power. Following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro in 1992 formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Serbia under Milosevic was extensively involved in the 1991–95 wars that accompanied the old federation’s breakup, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia. Milosevic and the SPS succeeded in ruling Serbia throughout the 1990s by controlling the country’s security forces, financial institutions, and state-owned media.
In 1998–99, an ethnic Albanian insurgency in Kosovo provoked increasingly violent reprisals by FRY forces against the guerrillas and segments of the civilian population. In March 1999, NATO launched a 78-day bombing campaign against the FRY to force the withdrawal of Yugoslav and Serbian forces from the province. A NATO-led force then occupied Kosovo, and the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) oversaw institution-building efforts.
Milosevic was forced from office in October 2000, after his attempt to steal the September Yugoslav presidential election from opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) drew hundreds of thousands of protesters to Belgrade. An anti-Milosevic coalition, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), took power following Serbian parliamentary elections in December, and Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party (DS), part of the DOS, became Serbia’s prime minister. The FRY was replaced with a looser State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, and each republic was granted the option of holding an independence referendum after three years.
Djindjic was assassinated by organized crime groups allied with Milosevic-era security structures in March 2003, and after parliamentary elections in December, Kostunica became Serbia’s prime minister at the head of a fragile coalition government. DS leader Boris Tadic won the Serbian presidency—vacant since the Milosevic-era occupant stepped down in 2002—in a June 2004 election, defeating Tomislav Nikolic of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS).
Montenegro held a successful referendum on independence in May 2006, formally breaking away the following month. Nevertheless, the main anti-Milosevic parties—including the DS, the DSS, and G17 Plus—managed to collectively outpoll the SRS and SPS in January 2007 parliamentary elections and form another coalition government led by Kostunica in May. Tadic won a second term as president in early February 2008, taking 51 percent of the vote in a runoff with Nikolic.
Later that month, after years of unsuccessful negotiations, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. In response, the Serbian government strengthened its control over Serb-populated sections of northern Kosovo and recalled its ambassadors from countries that endorsed Kosovo’s statehood. Days after the independence declaration, rioters in Belgrade attacked and burned the U.S. embassy and the diplomatic offices of other countries that had recognized Kosovo.
Debate over the proper approach to the Kosovo problem increased tensions within Prime Minister Kostunica’s government, and in March he resigned and called for new parliamentary elections. The ensuing May polls resulted in an undisputed victory for the DS and its smaller allies, which favored economic reform and European Union (EU) integration. Significantly, the new coalition government, led by Mirko Cvetkovic, brought the SPS—now portraying itself as a mainstream center-left party—into power for the first time since 2000. It also marked the first time since 2000 that a single party, the DS, controlled the presidency, the premiership, and a working majority in parliament. This shift toward stability continued in September, when moderates within the SRS broke with the party’s hard-liners, further marginalizing the country’s ultranationalist factions.
The DS and its allies had been bolstered in part by the EU’s decision to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia in April, which held out the prospect of future EU membership if the country continued on a moderate course. By the fall, Belgrade had returned most of its ambassadors to their posts abroad and opted to challenge Kosovo’s secession through legal and diplomatic means, rather than impose an embargo or provoke violence. The UN General Assembly in October endorsed Serbia’s appeal to the International Court of Justice, though the case was expected to take several years to resolve.
Political Rights and Civil Liberties:
Serbia is an electoral democracy.The president, elected to a five-year term, plays a largely ceremonial role. The National Assembly is a unicameral, 250-seat legislature, with deputies elected to four-year terms. The prime minister is elected by the Assembly. Both the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008 were deemed free and fair by international monitoring groups.
Serbia adopted a new constitution in October 2006. The charter, which included a provision that reasserted Serbia’s claim to Kosovo, was endorsed by ethnic minority leaders and representatives of the main religious communities. Although critics found several flaws in the new charter, most observers deemed it an improvement over the previous document, which dated to the era of late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Regulating the status of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, home to a significant Hungarian population, remains a topic of considerable political debate.
Numerous political parties compete for power. The main parties are the DS, led by President Boris Tadic; the DSS, led by former prime minister Vojislav Kostunica; the SRS, officially headed by war crimes defendant Vojislav Seselj; G17 Plus, a party that emerged from an economic think-tank; and Milosevic’s old SPS, which has sought to adopt a more moderate image. After SRS presidential candidate Tomislav Nikolic split with Seselj loyalists—partly due to his support of the SAA with the EU—in September 2008, he and other disaffected SRS members formed the new Serbian Progressive Party. A host of smaller parties also exist, but their influence is minimal.
Serbia has made some progress in the battle against corruption since the Milosevic period, but it remains a serious concern. Serbia was ranked 85 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The press is generally free and operates with little government interference, although most media outlets are thought to be aligned with specific political parties. During the February 2008 riots after Kosovo’s declaration of independence, a prominent television and radio broadcaster that was generally considered to be “pro-Western,” B-92, was besieged by the rioters. In March, several media outlets reported receiving threats for “unpatriotic reporting.” Investigative journalism in Serbia remains weak, and businesspeople and government agencies often try to influence outlets through advertising purchases. Libel remains a criminal offense punishable by fines, but not imprisonment. There were no reports of the government restricting access to the internet.
The 2006 constitution guarantees freedom of religion, which is generally respected in practice. However, increases in interethnic tension often take the form of religious intolerance. The April 2006 Law on Churches and Religious Communities was intended to improve the independence and legal standing of religious communities in the aftermath of Communist rule, but critics have claimed that it privileges seven “traditional” religious communities by giving them tax-exempt status or by forcing other groups to go through cumbersome registration procedures. In May 2006, the parliament approved legislation on returning property that had been confiscated from religious communities during the Communist period. There were no reports that the government attempted to restrict academic freedom during 2008.
Citizens enjoy freedoms of assembly and association. Foreign and domestic nongovernmental organizations have the freedom to pursue their activities, although the legal structure governing such groups has not been updated since the Milosevic era. The laws and constitution allow workers to form or join unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. In April 2008, two representative trade unions and employers’ organizations signed a new general collective agreement, which was seen as a major step in promoting social dialogue. The pact covered workers’ rights and other topics, such as absence, fringe benefits, and workplace safety.
Legal and judicial reform has been slow in recent years because of the complicated political situation. The EU’s 2008 progress report on Serbia noted that the quality and professionalism of judges is relatively high, and that pay for judges has improved, but it cited concerns over the investigative capacity of the prosecutorial service and political influence in the selection of judges. The judicial system suffers from a large backlog of cases, long delays in filing formal charges against suspects, and the failure of legislative institutions to heed judicial rulings. Prisons are generally considered to meet international standards, although overcrowding, drug abuse, and violence among inmates remain serious problems.
Serbian cooperation with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) improved significantly in 2008, especially after the arrests of two suspects who were wanted by the tribunal. Former Bosnian Serb police chief Stojan Zupljanin was arrested in June, and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic—a high-priority fugitive—was captured in July. Both men were quickly extradited to the ICTY. By year’s end, 44 out of the tribunal’s 46 Serb indictees had been arrested, leaving only former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic and a former Croatian Serb leader at large.
Cultural and ethnic minorities have access to media in their own languages, their own political parties, and other types of associations. Nevertheless, they are underrepresented in government. The country’s main ethnic minorities are the Bosniaks (Muslim Slavs), concentrated in the Sandzak region adjacent to Montenegro; an Albanian population in the Presevo Valley, adjacent to Kosovo; and the Hungarian community in Vojvodina. There are concerns that tensions in Kosovo could spill into Presevo, and that the spread of extreme forms of Islam in the Sandzak could lead to other problems. Tensions within the Bosniak community mounted in 2008 due to increasing rivalry between two leading Bosniak politicians, and separately, rival Bosniak clerics. There are frequent complaints of police harassment and unfair treatment of the Romany community.
Conditions in mental institutions are exceptionally poor. A report released in November 2007 by Mental Disability Rights International claimed that very serious cases of abuse and neglect of individuals with mental disabilities had been found in Serbia.
There are 53 women in the 250-seat parliament elected in May 2008, and five women currently serve as ministers in Serbia’s 23-member government. According to electoral regulations, at least 30 percent of a party’s candidate list has to be made up of women. Although women are legally entitled to equal pay for equal work, traditional attitudes often limit women’s roles in the economy. A study released in 2007 showed that women account for 54 percent of the unemployed in Serbia and 80 percent of the illiterate population. Domestic violence remains a serious problem. The 2005 Law on the Family criminalized “behavior by one of the family members that endangers the bodily integrity, mental health or peace of another family member,” although its implementation has been difficult due to the reluctance of victims to report such cases to the police and to prevailing patriarchal social norms. Some towns in southern Serbia have become transit points for the trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union to Western Europe for the purpose of forced prostitution.
Explanatory Note:
The ratings through 2002 are for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was a part, and those from 2003 through 2005 are for the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Kosovo is examined in a separate report. |
Category Archives: Soviet Naval Infantry
Baltic Diversions
The deteriorating political situation in Europe during the summer of 1985 resulted in the forward deployment of elements of the French 7e Division Blindée (7th Armoured Division) to reinforce the Danish military. This reinforcement being itself a direct result of a number of Danish formations themselved having moved forward to forward deployment areas while Danish reserve formations had not yet fully mobilised. The French deployment, effectively a reinforced brigade, would result in one of the early clashes between French ground forces and the Soviets once hostilities began.
Soon after the Soviet forces crossed the West German frontier a series of naval landings occurred along the Baltic by Polish and Soviet Naval infantry. The landing by the 336 Naval Infantry Brigade would result in the dramatic clash between elements of the French 7e Division Blindée. As the naval infantry pushed inland French forces deployed to seize key terrain and conduct an aggressive couster-attack to halt the Soviet expansion of the bridgehead.
Limited intelligence of the immediate landing came from Danish covering forces, as well as reconnaissance flights by French Mirage jets. The staff of the 7e Division Blindée quickly developed a likely scenarios open to the Soviet commander. It was expected that a two naval infantry battalions would advance rapidly to seize two towns in the area of operations, the largest being Agestrup on the Soviet right and the smaller, Glattrup, in the Soviet centre. A third battalion would, it was expected, be directed towards a large ridge on the Soviet left. The Orders Group believed that a fourth battalion, possibly comprised of armour, would be held initially in reserve but would likely operate with this 3rd Battalion to advance against the French right and seize a key bridge on the Fensholt-Kildekrog road. Subsequent intelligence revealed this fourth battalion, of armour, was allocated out in support to the various naval infantry battalions.
To counter this scenario, and seize the initiative in the sector, elements of 7e Division Blindée were issued the following orders. Firstly, 35 RI (Regiment d’Infanterie) would advance on the French right secure a key road bridge and deploy in a blocking position to halt any Soviet expansion. Secondly, the main French effort would be on the French left where a daring operation was planned. Speed would be essential. The large town of Agestrup if seized by the enemy would be costly to retake. 5 RD (Regiment Dragons) would launch a rapid deep flank march that was to arrive on the enemy’s right flank. It was hoped this rapid attack would catch many of the Soviet forces in the open before they reached Agestrup. Simultaneously the 170 RI, mounted in VAB wheeled transports and lacking integral armoured support, would advance in support. One company would advance in road column directly towards Agestrup. To the left another company would advance across the rolling countryside. The third company, supported by specialised HOT ATGW vehicles and a divisional reconnaissance company, would secure a long ridge and deploy to overwatch positions. The attack would be supported by two self propelled F3 155mm battalions, retained in divisional support, as well as a TR-155 155mm towed artillery battalion dedicated to counter-battery fires.
Above, the general situation with elements of the French 5 RB advancing on Agestrup, which is a five sector town in the left foreground. Soviet forces are advancing from the left with the town of Glattrup beyond Agestrup, and a long ridge top left. The French 170 RI is advancing from the right while 35 RI is just visible on the top right as it advances to its blocking position on the French right.
Below, another view of elements of 5 RB as they advance on Agestrup. The Soviet battalion here scattered on seeing the advancing French AMX-30 tanks and supporting mechanised infantry in AMX-10Ps. While many Soviet BTRs were able to reach the eastern sectors, and others deployed in the woods, the Soviet Battalion HQ was destroyed.
Below, a company of from 170 Regiment d’Infanterie, mounted in VAB APCs advance rapidly by road towards Agestrup seen here passing through a small Danish village. To allow this rapid move the command arrow for the regiment was drawn directly down the road.
Supporting the regiment was an ATGW company equipped with HOT armed VABs. Behind the VABs are jeeps of the divisions reconnaissance company. The reconnaissance company would push forward after the ATGW vehicles had deployed into overwatch positions.
As the VAB equipped 170 Regiment d’Infanterie raced towards Agestrup the tanks of 5 RB started to manoeuvre to the flank and behind Agestrup where the tanks would eventually engage the rear of the Soviet forces. Desperate to halt the advance of the French armour Soviet Forward Observers, operating in support of the naval infantry, directed a massive Mutiple Rocket Launchers strike, below.
Fortunately casualties from the strike were limited, though several platoons were suppressed. The massive fire signature of the MRLs allowed French counter-battery teams to locate the MRLs. French artillery now targeted and destroyed the 140mm MRLs. This was the first of three Soviet MRL systems that were engaged in a series of effective French counter-battery fires.
Below, elements of the 35 Regiment d’Infanterie advance to secure a bridge on the French right. The regiment comprised three companies of mechanised infantry and one of AMX-30s. An AMX-13 DCA is visible on the right foreground and provided local AA protection. A Roland SAM system, providing expanded protection for the battle area is to the right.
Both French and Soviet forces conducted a series of electronic warfare radar location missions to identify and then target enemy radar systems as they shaped the battlefield for later air strikes. Long range Soviet SAMs were located but due to their range could not be targeted. However, local radar controlled gun systems were located, targeted and silenced.
Soviet operators were also active and located French Roland SAM. Additional Soviet MRLs as well as frigates firing in support struck the Roland deployed on high ground on the French right.
The tracked Roland SAM system was suppressed by these massive strikes, yet surprisingly the Roland systems soon recovered and relocated. Now, French artillery located this second MRL and silenced it.
However, the Soviets now had a window and with the Roland temporarily inactive a stream of Soviet SU-17s swept in to engage 5 RB near Agestrup.
Above, SU-17s engage AMX-13 DCA self-propelled AA gun systems, mechanised infantry and tanks using smart bombs. The use of these stand off weapons limited the ability of the DCA to disrupt the air attacks, especially with the Roland suppressed. While casualties from the air strikes were heavy, the regiment remained undeterred and 5 DB continued it’s advance.
Both combatants also conducted a series of radio jamming EW missions in an attempt to degrade and disrupt enemy communications.
The rapidly advancing infantry of the 170 RI looked likely to gain a foothold in Agestrup. However, the Soviet Naval Infantry also moved quickly. Just as the advanced VAB company arrived at Agestrup the final sector of the town was garrisoned by the Soviets, as can be seen above. All five sectors were now under Soviet control. Rather than assault the town 170 RI would now switch to supporting the French main effort, a drive against the Soviet rear. Agestrup would be bypassed.
Above, AMX-30s of the 5 RB engage Soviet ATGWs. The support fires by self-propelled F3 guns were ineffective and the Soviets ATGWs were eventually overcome by tank fire.
Indirect fires by Soviet self-propelled 122mm guns were generally ineffective. However, after location the Soviet weapons were also subjected by heavy counter-battery fires by two French artillery battalions resulting in some 50% casualties, forcing the remaining Soviet guns to relocate.
Below, as the French armour pushed deeper some companies targeted towed Soviet ZSU-23 artillery and mortars while others engaged Soviet infantry and PT-76s. French armour and infantry would soon move into the woods catching a company of PT-76s redeploying.
Facing a now desperate situation Soviet commanders requested fixed wing air-support. Again Soviet EW teams located French Roland SAM which were immediately targeted by the third MRL battalion. Again the MRL failed to destroy the French SAM, and were themselves located and hit by further massive French counter-battery fires. However, for critical moments, the suppressed Roland were off-line and during that time a flight of Yak-38 aircraft conducted an attack using ICM.
Despite the air strike French resolve stiffened. Yet again the French armour moved forward. However, the advance would be short lived as Soviet naval Helix attack helicopters appeared over the Soviet rear. With no local AA systems operational the French armour was all but defenceless against this new threat.
Above and below the Helix gunships, allocated to tank busting, engage the AMX -30s of 5 RB. Visible on the left elements of a second naval infantry battalion can be seen forming a second defensive line while in the top left French reconnaissance teams fall back from Soviet positions.
Unable to continue the advance the 5 RB was forced to retreat. Now, and effectively unsupported, the advanced VAB companies of 170 RI broke-off their own advance, falling back to defensive blocking positions.
The Soviet Naval Infantry Regiment had secured its bridgehead. The French commander, accepting defeat, took some satisfaction that with the destruction of so many Soviet artillery systems. Two Soviet battalions were eliminated and two others had suffered 50% casualties. The Soviet 336th Naval Infantry Brigade would be unable to conduct offensive operations for sometime.
This entertaining Mutual Encounter scenario was developed using the Scenario Generation System. Both forces comprised a basic 850 points. The French forces were however reinforced by an Option B, with a victory point penalty. Unfortunately the French fixed wing aircraft, that comprised much of this reinforcement option, were not engaged. The final result was a significant Soviet victory. |
Kids And Video Games
Kids And Video Games
Strict study patterns, high competition in sports, and pressure from pals, parents, and teachers are some problems that can trigger kids to be under immense stress and mental exhaustion. One of the most common ways for children to relieve mental stress is video gaming. Youngsters may even so get so addicted to video games that it may change their mental state and way of life.
A few of the most common video games played by children are Counter-Strike, Halo, Warcraft, Playstation, Xbox, classics, and other arcade games. The most prevalent video games played by children incorporate the aspects of violence. Violence in video games may have a few of the most adverse effects on the mental state of children. Violence leads to the increase in belligerent thoughts, resulting within the probability that a gentle or ambiguous irritation could be interpreted in a hostile manner. Violent video games also result in a general arousal of physical and mental states like heart rate and brain interpretation rates. Youngsters tend to develop diverse behavioral patterns and tendencies that could reflect the kind of games to which they had been exposed. They might tend to directly imitate some violent behavior they have recently been exposed to leading to real life physical fights that might trigger severe injuries. There have been recent real life killings at schools and public locations and the cause of such brutal killing has been concluded as the increased exposure to violent video games. It has been proved that children’s exposure to violent video games is potentially more hazardous than the exposure to violent television and movies.
Video games also prove to be beneficial in several techniques for kids. Video games need a lot of observation and reaction at the same time. Practically all video games are played with hands. In game scenarios call for fast responses from players allowing youngsters to enhance hand and eye coordination and observation abilities. Most video games require concentration to be successfully mastered. Video games facilitate the improvement of concentration skills. Some video games encompass concepts of education and knowledge. Parents have began allowing children to play video games, which have educational knowledge on various topics. Some games also generate successful decision-making skills and intuitive and imaginative thinking within the minds of youngsters. Video games improve decision-making speeds and aid to make correct judgments based on previous experiences.
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Key signatures are a form of rhythmic notation that symbolize which key the limerick is to be vie in. But key signatures, despite the name, are not the same state of affairs as key. Key signatures are but notational devices; fitting as a note is the notational dub for a pitch, key signatures are the notational names for keys. It is what it says it is: a signature, a unsubdivided wedge of message that tips you off to the somatogenetic profile (the key) to be contend.
What does it be set to to be "in the key of F", or "in the key of Bb"?
It money that the composer supported the composition on the graduated table of F (which has 1 parallel in it), or the size of Bb (which has 2 footwear in it).
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Key signatures look authority after the musical notation (before the example signature) and show signs of a crisp or even on the procession or celestial related to the personal letter to be altered. Key signatures settled at the naissance of songs will conveyance finished the complete song, unless some other key signatures are illustrious after a twofold bar, canceling out the introductory. For instance, it's wholly mathematical to move into a nursery rhyme in the key of F but end it in the key of E flat; it all depends on the key signatures and where on earth they're located all through the musical composition (a key signature can relocate at any spear). Accidentals can likewise entertainment up for the duration of a rhyme and individual erstwhile or twice raze or file a billet that was not before indicated; this cancels out the key signatures, as well, but one and only temporarily, for as long-lived as the extrinsic lasts.
Beginners vindicatory basic cognitive process to publication auditory communication ofttimes have a unyielding occurrence near key signatures because the key itself is not with specific intentions written, and it's sometimes serious to call to mind what goes wherever.
Key signatures beside cardinal footgear or sharps have been better-known to hale new musicians - how in the world, they think, are we so-called to evoke all these billet changes spell we're musical performance the song? It's distinctly possible, though, and nearby are every rules that can support beginners place and call back the key as it relates to the key signatures, rules that go beyond committal to memory memorisation. If nearby is much than one flat, the key is the line on the ordinal to past even. If in attendance are any sharps at all, the key is a fractional pace up from the closing one known. F major, a key commonly found in setting up piece of paper music, only has one level (B), and C principal has no sharps or footwear at all. Key signatures, once viewed in airy of these rules, are much easier for beginners to digest, ensuring that a decent psychological feature of key signatures is on its way done the movable barrier.
One fact that utmost those don't agnize is that sharps and footwear ever occur in the aforesaid order:
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The dictation of the footwear is B, E, A, D, G, C, F.
The decree of the sharps is simply the conflicting - F, C, G, D, A, E, B.
So if within is one flat in the key signature, it is ever B. If there are two footgear in the key signature, they are ever B and E. Three footwear are always B, E, and A. Four footwear in a key name outbreak the declaration BEAD. And so on.
It's the one and the same in sharps, too, excluding sweptback. If at hand is one delicate in a key signature, it is always F. Two sharps in a key dedication are ever F and C. Three are F, C, and G. And so on.
So sometime you have memorized the command of the flats, all you have to do is utilise the conception mentioned earlier: the next to the finishing face down is the moniker of the key. For example, if you have cardinal footwear in a key signature, they are Bb, Eb, Ab, Db. The concluding face down is D, so the adjacent to the past plane is A. So the key is Ab.
With sharps, retributory mentally go up 1/2 manoeuvre from the finishing sharp, and that is the key. For example, if a key has 4 sharps, they are F#, C#, G#, D#. One-half maneuver above D# is E, so the key is E.
Memorize the proclaim of the footgear and sharps and those two unpretentious rules, and you'll be able to set what chief key any piece is in like lightning and easy. (Minor keys are lately as easy, but elapsed the scope of this nonfictional prose.)
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Expressed, Manifest, Tested, and Inventoried Interests
InterestsNo universally accepted conceptual definition of interests has emerged in vocational psychology. As a result, interests often are defined as what an assessment measures. At the most basic level, operational definitions of interests commonly focus on an individual’s constellation or pattern of likes and dislikes for vocational, academic, and leisure activities, as well as for types of occupations, settings, and people. Donald Super organized these operational definitions into four methodological categories: expressed interests, manifest or evidenced interests, tested interests, and inventoried interests.
Frank Parsons, an early career specialist, introduced a parsimonious framework in his widely known book Choosing a Vocation that provided an impetus for the measurement of interests. Parsons (1909) argued that individuals seeking to choose a line of work should engage in a rigorous process of self-study during which they consider how their “capacities, interests, resources, and limitations, and their causes” (p. 5) might best fit with the attributes of certain occupations. Parsons intended this process of self-study to occur with the aid of a counselor, and he offered a variety of innovative methods for counselors to assess a client’s personal characteristics.
Among these methods, Parsons presented a questionnaire that asked respondents to simply identify and write down their interests as well as the nature of those interests. According to Super’s classification system, Parsons’s questionnaire elicited expressed interests. In other words, expressed interests are those that an individual is able to articulate via introspection without the assistance of a list of options. For example, in response to the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” one could state an occupation (e.g., medical doctor) or an activity (e.g., care for others). Expressed interests are highly subjective in nature and tend not to be limited to certain content areas or levels of specificity. Furthermore, expressed interests reflect how an individual perceives his or her interests rather than provide an objective and complete picture of his or her interests.
A more objective method of assessing interests, also proposed by Parsons, involved asking clients to report how they spend their time, particularly outside of work. For instance, if an individual spends his or her evenings reading novels and writing poetry, then these behaviors may indicate an interest in literature or the humanities. These manifest or evidenced interests have been described as those measured by observing or examining an individual’s participation in activities. The most objective form of manifest interests involves direct observations of an individual’s behavior over time, whereas the most subjective form involves an individual’s self-reported activities.
In addition to reporting how one has previously spent his or her time, Parsons (1909) further suggested that individuals, particularly young individuals with little breadth of experience, should attempt to gather a variety of experiences to bring their “true interests and aptitudes into clear relief” (p. 12). This effort to accumulate a variety of work experiences with the intention of identifying one’s interests was later known as try out activities. As Parsons and others have suggested, try outs are based on the hypothesis that experience allows latent interests to emerge into an individual’s awareness.
In yet another method of assessment, Parsons suggested that individuals should attempt to compare their memory of the content of certain lectures, plays, or books to that of other individuals such as friends and family. Implicitly, Parsons proposed that an examination of one’s memory or knowledge of certain subject matter may indicate personal characteristics such as one’s interests in certain subject matter or activities. Interests measured by an individual’s knowledge of particular areas have since been classified as tested interests. Much of the research on tested interests is based on the notion that one’s interests have a positive influence on learning. For example, if an individual has a strong interest in psychology, then he or she is more likely to give more attention to psychological subject matter than other academic subjects and as a result accumulate more knowledge of psychology. That is, interests are thought to influence learning by way of attention. In recent years, researchers have studied domain-specific knowledge, which includes tested interests, as a way to conceptualize knowledge that one accumulates over time as a result of one’s constellation of interests, personality characteristics, and abilities.
In the 1920s, checklists and rating scales emerged as methods of measuring interests using surveys. Whereas checklists simply ask respondents to examine a list of activities and indicate those in which they have an interest in participating, rating scales ask respondents to rate the intensity or level of their interest for various activities. Checklists and rating scales evolved into what now are known as interest inventories. Interest inventories ask respondents to report their likes and dislikes according to a list of activities, school subjects, and occupations, and then the individual’s pattern of likes and dislikes is aggregated into interest scales. Accordingly, inventoried interests have been defined as an individual’s normative level of interest in a particular content area.
Inventories, and thus operational definitions of interests, became increasingly sophisticated as new methods of measurement were introduced. The four most frequently used methods of scale construction include the empirical method of contrast groups, clustering techniques, rational methods, and sequential methods. The empirical or criterion keying method of scale construction, developed by Edward Kellogg Strong, Jr. in 1927, involves contrasting interests of certain groups of individuals to determine preferences that predict group membership. In other words, criterion-keyed scales indicate how consistent or similar one’s likes and dislikes are to those of a particular group of individuals. Commonly used to measure interests of occupations, items (i.e., survey questions) that predict occupational group membership are aggregated to produce a single score. For example, an occupational scale constructed to measure the interests of psychologists would indicate the level of similarity between an individual’s pattern of likes and dislikes and the likes and dislikes of psychologists in general.
Clustering methods of scale construction involve a statistical technique, such as factor analysis, that determines factors or dimensions underlying a group of items. In other words, preferences that can be explained by a certain factor or dimension are aggregated to generate a single scale score. Often, scales determined using a clustering method represent a homogeneous category of activities (e.g., mechanical) and are referred to as basic interest scales.
The rational method of scale development entails simply grouping items in accordance with a theory or rationale; thus, this method of scale construction is not empirical in nature. Proposing that interests can be described by six general types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional), John Holland’s widely known and empirically supported typology is an example of a theoretical model that has served as a basis for the construction of rational interest scales. Interest scales also have been developed using the sequential techniques, which are a combination of construction methods. For instance, the General Occupational Themes of the Strong Interest Inventory (Strong) and the Orientation Scales of the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS) were developed using Holland’s typology to initially select items and then using empirical data and clustering methods to finalize the scales.
The costs and benefits of the different modes of interest measurement tend to determine usage in research and applied settings. Interest inventories are arguably the most common form of interest assessment. Because there is little monetary or temporal cost for measuring expressed interests, career counselors often assess clients’ expressed interests as part of an intervention. Due to the high cost of paying observers, interests are rarely, if ever, measured in research or practice via direct observation. More commonly, manifest interests are elicited in practice through discussion concerning current and past vocational and leisure activities. Interest inventories, which offer objective, comprehensive, quantitative, and convenient measures of interests, are considered to be a comparatively cost-effective method of assessment. The Strong, CISS, Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, and Career Assessment Inventory are commonly used inventories that include general, basic, and occupational interest scales that provide a multi-faceted profile of a respondent’s interests. The Self-Directed Search also is a commonly used inventory that can be self-administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted. Other interest inventories include the Career Occupational Preference System Interest Inventory, Jackson Vocational Interest Survey, Unisex Edition of the ACT Interest Inventory, and Vocational Interest Inventory.
1. Hansen, J. C. (1984). The measurement of vocational interests: Issues and future directions. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (pp. 99-136). New York: Wiley.
3. Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a vocation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
4. Strong, E. K., Jr. (1943). Vocational interests of men and women. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
5. Super, D. (1949). Appraising vocational fitness by means of psychological tests. New York: Harper.
6. Super, D. (1957). Psychology of careers. New York: Harper.
7. Walsh, W. B., & Betz, N. E. (1995). Tests and assessment (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. |
Friday, July 8, 2011
Big Daddy Khan
Statue of Genghis Khan in front of the Government Building in Sükhbaatar
Square, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Image courtesy of GenuineMongol/Wikipedia.
In December of 1241, Mongol armies stood poised to invade Vienna and northern Albania. Thus far they had been unstoppable as they spread into Europe. Led by Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis by his son Jochi, at the last minute he was informed of the death of the current great Khan, Ogedei. According to Mongolian military tradition, when a Khan died all the princes immediately met to elect a successor. Europe was saved from what would have been an inevitable takeover.
Coin of Genghis Khan minted at Balkh, Afghanistan in 1221 CE.
Image courtesy of PHGCOM/Wikipedia.
The Khan lineage did manage a huge takeover in another realm - genetically. For centuries most Asian potentates have claimed descent, many spurious, from the House of Borjigin - the most famous family in Central Asia. Members of the clan are still found throughout Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Kazakhstan. According to legend, one of the female ancestors was impregnated by a ray of light, and the spawn of that light sired the entire Mongol nation.
Portrait of Genghis Khan. Image courtesy of Cultural China.
However, with the advent of genealogical DNA testing, which examines the nucleotides at specific locations on a DNA strand, it is possible to really trace the ancestry of the Great Mongol ruler Genghis Khan. A man's patrilineal ancestry can be traced using the DNA on his Y chromosome. The Y chromosome passes down virtually unchanged from father to son, unlike other parts of the genome which recombine. A man's test results are compared to another man's to determine when they shared a "most recent common ancestor" or MRCA. (Matrilineal ancestry can be using mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA.)
Portrait of Genghis Khan from the 14th century. Paint and
ink on silk. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
In 2003, an international group of scientists identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (amounting to about 0.5% of all men in the world), or about 16 million descendants living today. The pattern of variation they found led to their hypothesis that the lineage originated in Mongolia some 1,000 years ago, which makes it prior to the birth of Genghis Khan, but consistent with the founding of the Borjigin clan.
Reverse of a 100 Tenge coin from Kazakhstan.
Image courtesy of the Nat'l Bank of Kazakhstan.
This kind of spread is considered to be too rapid to have been caused by genetic drift, the effects of which are much smaller in large populations. Therefore it has to have been the result of selection. The 23 authors of the 2003 study proposed that the lineage was carried by male descendants of Genghis Khan and his close male relatives which spread through social selection. This is consistent with the then prevalent Mongol custom of having several wives, concubines, and unfortunately, the rape of conquered women.
The Mongol Empire circa 1311. Map courtesy of Wikipedia.
One of the authors, geneticist Spencer Wells, stated, "It's the first documented case when human culture has caused a single genetic lineage to increase to such an enormous extent in just a few hundred years." When Genghis Khan died, his empire extended across Asia, from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. Whole populations were slaughtered, but the most beautiful women were taken for harems, and Big Daddy got first pick.
Portrait of Empress Xiao Zhuang Wen (1613-1688), historically
the mother of the Qing dynasty, she was a descendant of
Genghis Khan. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Included in the spreading of the great Khan's genes were some of the ruling descendant groups: The Yüan Dynasty, the Chaghatai Khans, the Ilkhanids of Persia, the Shaybanids of Siberia, the Korean Goryeo Dynasty, and the Astrakhanids of Central Asia. There have been many specious claims of descent from Genghis Khan, including western genealogists who have tried to link Queen Elizabeth II to him.
Chokan Valikhanov (l) (1835-1865) shown here with Doestoevsky.
Valikhanov was a well-known Kazakh scholar and historian who
was a descendant of Genghis Khan. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
One of the populations, the Hazaras of Pakistan, had a long tradition of claiming descent from Genghis Khan. This group was the only one from the study found outside of Mongolia, proving their claim. However, the most conclusive proof will be had once the great Khan's grave is found and DNA extracted from his remains. The search for his final resting place has been ongoing and futile. Legend has it that everyone involved in his burial will killed for secrecy, and a river was diverted over his gravesite to confuse future seekers.
Portrait of Genghis Khan on a Mongolian hillside for the 2006 Naadam
celebration - a summer festival held for centuries comprised of three games:
wrestling, horse racing, and archery. Image courtesy of Vidor/Wikipedia.
Which begs the question: Who's your daddy?
Click here to see an article from The American
Journal of Human Genetics from 2003.
1. Ir has been also said by Geneticists that the Native American has roots in the Mongol Empire as well.
2. While I've heard of the Bering Strait theory I didn't know there was any genetic study. If you find a link to this, please post! Thanks! |
October 21, 2011
Combat Helicopters
The combat helicopters can be classified into two categories i.e. the armed helicopters/ gun ships and the modern day dedicated attack helicopters (AH). Both are military helicopters, wherein the armed helicopters are normal utility, cargo or reconnaissance modified with weapon mounts for defence against and attacking targets on the ground. The purpose of modification could be field expediency during combat as well as the need to maintain helicopters for missions that do not require weapons. In fact these are basically the Multi Role Helicopters (MRH) which can transport troops as well as carry basic armaments in terms of machine guns /rockets/ missiles depending on the type of mission required to be undertaken.
The AH on the other hand is specifically designed and built to carry weapons for engaging targets on ground and air with special emphasis on anti-tank role. Its weapons include machine guns, cannons, rockets and guided missiles for air to ground and air to air engagement. Modern day AH have two main roles of providing direct and accurate close air support for ground troops and anti-tank role to destroy enemy armour. Specialized armed helicopters flying from ships at sea are equipped with weapons for anti submarine and/ or anti shipping operations. A number of countries are today looking at acquiring MRH for their armed forces due to the changing nature of conflict, specially related to counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations. A befitting example is the successful employment of modified Black Hawks by the Americans in Operation Neptune Spear (Geronimo).
Combat Helicopter Concept
The concept of combat helicopters evolved with the French during the Algerian and first Indo China wars (1954-62) in the form of modified armed helicopters. The first use of armed helicopters by USA in large scale combat operations was in Vietnam. Until Vietnam conflict, military helicopters were mostly used for troop transport, observation and casualty evacuation. These helicopters while flying missions often came under heavy fire resulting in the need for arming them. The Huey UH-IC troop transporter was modified with stub wings attached to its fuselage and kitted with machine guns and rockets. The other helicopters modified as armed helicopters were the Sikorsky and Chinook CH-47. This was a quantum jump from the manned door fitted machine guns of the earlier versions of armed helicopter.
During the 1960s, the Soviet Union also felt the need for armed helicopters and modified the military MI-8 troop transporter helicopter with weapon pods for rockets and machine guns. This subsequently led to the development of a dedicated armed helicopter/ gunship the MI-24 which saw active action in Afghanistan during the 1980s. In our context we had earlier MI-8 and Ranjeet (modified Cheetah helicopter), fitted with machine guns fired from the side doors. Presently the MI-17 and Lancer (Cheetah helicopter) are modified for armed role capable of mounting guns and rockets.
With the armed helicopter/ gunship concept battle proven, began the development of dedicated AH with the primary aim of engaging tanks. The late 1970s/ early 1980s saw the advent of AH like the American Apache (AH 64A) and upgraded Huey Cobras (AH 1), the Soviet MI-24 and the Italian Mangusta (A-129). While some questioned the relevance of these dedicated AH due to increased cost over gun ships, the 1991 Gulf War put at rest these doubts. Fleets of Apaches and Huey Cobras dominated Iraqi armour in the open desert during the war.
In fact the Apaches fired the first shots of war destroying early warning radars and SAM sites with Hellfire missiles. The Soviet operations in Afghanistan during 1979-1989 saw the emergence of the MI-25/ MI-35 AH, a variant of the MI-24. We have in our inventory the Russian MI-25/ MI-35 AH which are vintage, though certain amount of upgrading has been carried out to make them night capable.
Notably, the Apaches were the first helicopters to use protective plates for the crew made of Kevlar and composite materials, a fact disclosed at the 1991 Dubai Air Show by pilots who flew missions over Iraq.
Combat Helicopter Armament Systems The most common weapons are machine guns and rockets for use against soft targets on the ground and for self defence while transporting troops over conflict areas. While armed helicopters have mostly used direct firing weapons with bombs considered more appropriate for fixed wing aircraft, certain armed helicopters have successfully lent themselves to use with heavy bombs. The US army used the Chinook helicopters for dropping bombs to clear landing zones and saturate base camps and infiltration routes during the Vietnam War.
Armed helicopters today can also be fitted with mine dispenser/ mine clearance systems. The system is composed of racks on both sides of the helicopter for up to 40 canisters. Each canister contains six anti-tank and one anti-personnel mine. The rapid air borne mine clearance system is another armament sub system where the intended targets are naval mines. The system consists of a single modified, 30mm cannon for targeting and neutralizing the mines in shallow depth and is fitted on the US naval Black Hawk helicopters.
The AH on the other hand carries guns, rockets and guided missiles, both air to ground and air-to-air. The gun is normally a 20mm/30mm weapon and is located in the chin of the helicopter. The gun provides suppressive ground fire while the AH carries out its anti tank mission. The unguided aerial rockets complement the short range gun and the long range anti tank missiles. The rockets are cheap and effective as an area weapon. The rockets can also be used to attack and destroy soft ground targets that are not vulnerable to anti tank missiles like depots and anti aircraft gun sites.
In emergent situations they could also be used in the air-to-air role. Today there are rockets with submunition war heads which can disperse a number of grenades/ bomblets over specified target areas. The air-to-air missile system is basically to counter the threat from other AHs and is more of a defensive armament system.
The anti tank guided missile is the main punch of the AH. The advent of fire and forget missiles is the greatest asset of the AH which increases its lethality. The hellfire missile on the Apache AH is in this class. The carriage of the armament and type will depend on the mission and area of operations.
The combat helicopter has also to be fitted with a counter measures suite to include radar and missile detectors, infrared jammers and chaff and flare dispensers, depending on the degree of threat perceived for their own defence and survival.
The Modern state-of-theart AH The modern day AH has been further refined and the American Apache Longbow (AH 64D) with a mounted combat radar demonstrates many of the advanced technologies being considered for deployment on the future AH.
The Longbow Apache is an upgraded version of the AH 64A Apache and is the most sophisticated AH in the world at present. It has a radar dome atop the main rotors, which facilitates firing of the Hellfire missiles in full fire and forget mode, allowing the AH to stay masked behind terrain as it acquires and engages targets. In contrast, the earlier Apache had to pop up to scan the battlefield leaving it exposed or rely on target data from other sources such as scout helicopters. The Apache Longbow armament consists of a 30mm cannon, 70mm rockets, Hellfire missiles and stinger/ sidewinder air to air missiles. It has the Honeywell integrated helmet and display sighting system with state of the art counter measure sensors.
The Apache Longbow can also operate in today’s net centric and electronic warfare (EW) environment, and the pilots can link to satellites, AWACS, Ground radars and other aircraft to transmit or receive Command and Control inputs.
The Russians have also developed the state of the art AH in the Ka-50 and MI-28. This decision was taken after their experience in Afghanistan with the MI-24 AH, which was basically an armed helicopter and hence not suited for a typical AH role. The Ka 50 is the world’s first coaxial, single seat AH. The MI- 28 on the other hand is roughly equivalent of the Apache Longbow but without the significant Command and Control linkup.
The MI-28 has a 30mm chain gun, Ataka anti tank missile and rocket pods for S-8 and S-13 rockets. The Ataka is an improved version of the Vikhr anti tank guided missile fitted on the MI-25/ MI-35 AH. It also has in its armament the Igla/ Vympel air to air missiles.
The other dedicated AH operating are the Italian Augusta Westland AW129 (Mangusta), Bell helicopters Viper (the latest version of Huey Cobra), and Eurocopter’s Tiger. Then there is the latest formidable entry, the Chinese Z-10 (Zhising). As per reports, China is also in the process of developing another AH, the Z-19. Its first prototype is reported to have flown in Dec 2010.
Multi Role Concept
The Multi Role Helicopter (MRH) concept evolved during the Vietnam War but was subsequently taken over by the requirement of dedicated AH as an anti armour/anti tank weapon system due to the threats from the ground. However the nature of wars to be fought has undergone a major change in the last few years with emphasis on non conventional operations.
World over, the armed forces are looking at this concept and requirement, particularly for counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations. The MRH is basically a utility/troop carrying helicopter built with provisions for armament fitment or duly modified for the same.
The MRH can be fielded for roles such as ground attack, air assault, cargo, surveillance and troop transport. The size of such helicopters is generally between cargo and light observation helicopters. The basic armament on these helicopters would generally be restricted to guns and rockets; however air to ground and air to air missiles are also reported to be a part of armament of some MRH primarily putting them in the class of armed helicopters.
All these helicopters are also fitted with self protection suites to include features such as missile approach warning system, threat warning equipment and chaffs/ flare dispensers. Some of the MRH in service in different countries are US marine Bell UH-IN Twin Huey, Augusta Westland AW-139, German Army’s NH-90, US Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk and Russia’s MI-17 (all versions) etc.
The US, with its experience in Afghanistan, has embarked on a programme for developing four variants of different sizes of MRH. In India’s context, we have the MI-17 IV/V, Navy’s Sea King and the armed version of advanced light helicopter (ALH) under final trials now.
Indian Scenario
The Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), also known as the Dhruv, is already in service with the Armed Forces. The weaponised version of the ALH called the ALH weapons systems integrated (ALH WSI) is currently undergoing weapons integration and likely to enter service by end-2011.
Designated Rudra, this version is fitted with the more powerful Shakti engines being manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) in collaboration with French Safran Turbomeca. This engine has also been trial evaluated for high altitude operations on the utility ALH. Basically the ALH WSI is a new generation armed helicopter duly modified for fitment of all types of weapon sub systems which can be fitted on a modern day AH. It needs to be noted that it also falls in the class of MRH. The ALH WSI has a 20mm gun turret, 70mm rockets and the Mistral air to air missile. The integration firing for these subsystems has already been carried out successfully.
However the anti-tank missile Helina, the air version of NAG being developed by the Defence Research and Development organization (DRDO) is still not ready. Once developed, Helina is stated to be a fire and forget missile with 7 kilometers range and would compare with the Hellfire missile. To meet the interim requirement the Army is scouting for a suitable anti tank missile in the world market. In contention are the two fire-and-forget French PARS-3 and Israeli SPIKE-ER.
Spike is stated to be a 4th generation fire and forget anti tank missile developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, which is also cooperating with India on some other missiles.
HAL has also embarked on the development of the light combat helicopter (LCH). The LCH is using the technology of the ALH and its configurations, except the fuselage which is streamlined and suitably modified for tandem seating of pilot and weapons system operator with adequate armour protection. The weapons and systems will be the same/ similar to the ALH WSI. The above approach has an inherent advantage as most of the critical systems have been proven either on the ALH or the ALH WSI.
An indigenous AH like the LCH is a step in the right direction as it can be tailored to suit the terrain and climatic conditions of our area of operations. The first flight of LCH took place on 29 March 2010, and the AH is likely to enter service by 2014. The LCH once fielded should compare well with Eurocopter’s Tiger, Italian Mangusta and Bell’s Huey Cobra as it is in the same weight class.
In the MRH class, the Navy is already looking at replacing its vintage Sea King fleet. In fray are the US Sikosrky S-70 Bravo and Eurocopters NH-90. HAL’s Dhruv, or its variations, are not in the running as it has not been found suitable for naval operations.
HAL is also looking at the development of a 10-12 ton class of MRH for the requirement of armed forces in a joint venture with a foreign based company like Eurocopter or Sikorsky.
However no major headway has been made in this project as yet. The Army is keen to acquire this class of helicopters and has suitably called it the Tactical Battlefield Support Helicopter (TBSH). This will enhance its lift capability in the Tactical Battle Area.
Incidentally, the Indian Air Force though has also completed its trial report for 15 heavy Lift Helicopters. In the running are Boeing Chinook, which can even land on water and allow small boats to enter it – as the US Navy Seals routine do – and a newer, modified version of the Russian Mi 26 which the IAF already uses.
Surprisingly, Chinook is the only helicopter in the world which can submerge its floor in water to allow small boats to zip in, and apparently such a helicopter can play a significant role in disaster relief operations also besides being able to carry heavy loads under-slung or onboard. Notably, the US Navy Seals used a combination of Black Hawks and Chinooks for Operation Neptune Spear.
Conclusion The combat helicopters whether armed, dedicated AH or MRH will be extremely relevant in future conflicts which will be short notice, short duration and high intensity with emphasis on depth battle. The battle proven Apaches from their anti tank role in Iraq have got into infantry support role against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The MRH is playing and will continue to play a pivotal role in future conflicts, more so in special operations. With the ALH WSI and the LCH being indigenously developed by HAL and likely to enter service in the coming years, the Indian Armed Forces will have formidable and state of the art combat helicopters in their kitty – a useful force multiplier which can turn the tide in battle.
Numbers have to be kept in mind however. Indian Armed Forces have a relatively small number of helicopters, and their requirement would have to be tripled in the coming years.
India Strategic By Lt Gen B S Pawar (Retd)
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Saturday, April 19, 2014
From the "Did you know?" Files p2
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. that's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. (developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications)
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the . 50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded
Today's Reflection:
Don't wait for the one you can live with -wait for the one you can't live without.
Live Long and Prosper...
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Tungsten Copper Rocket Nozzle
Tungsten copper rocket nozzle is the important part of thrust chamber. Its first half is shrunk to a narrow throat by the middle into small. And the expansion of rocket to the bottom after a narrow throat from small to large outward. The rocket body by high pressure gas into the nozzle of the first half, after passing through the narrow escape from the latter part of the larynx. This structure allows the air flow velocity due to changes in cross-sectional area of the discharge varies from the airflow to subsonic speed of sound, until accelerate to supersonic speed.
Rocket engine gas flow in the combustion chamber under pressure through the nozzle moves backward into the nozzle of the A1. At this stage, the gas movement follow the principle that moving fluid in the tube cross section at small velocity, large cross-section of the flow rate of the small, so the airflow accelerated constantly. In A2, the gas flow speed is further accelerated, 2-3 km / s, equivalent to 7-8 times the speed of sound, thus creating a great thrust. Besides, there is a similar design in the spray tube of missile.
1. Convergent nozzle: sectional area of the flow direction gradually reducing, in large mach flying, incomplete expansion will cause great loss of thrust;
2. Eject nozzle: consists of adjustable convergent main nozzle and a fixed or adjustable ejector. It is light and has simple structure, can maintain good performance over a wide range of flight, it has been widely used in many high performance aircraft;
3. Adjustable nozzle: mainly used for high-speed flight afterburning turbojet aircraft or military afterburning turbofan engine. Easy to adjust nozzle area ratio, may vary with flight conditions, and often in a fully expanded state.
tungsten copper rocket nozzle photo tungsten copper rocket nozzle picture
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Her neighbours were sick of seeing her clean naked. But when she died aged 101, her house was something unimaginable.
In December 2016, Frances Gabe, a resident of Newberg, Oregon, died aged 101. Her neighbors weren't sure whether Frances was crazy or a genius — but why would they think that? Well, the first key to answering this question comes from the fact she hadn't cleaned her house for more than two decades and hadn't had anyone in to do it for her either. How was this possible? Let's take a look...
It turns out that Frances lived in a house that was unique. What was so special about it? It was self-cleaning — and Frances was the sole inventor! It all started in the 1980s, when Frances could not longer stand the amount of effort it took to raise her two children and do the housework.
One day, confronted by a spot of fig jam that was sliding down her kitchen wall, she lost her temper and blasted it off with a garden hose. Although it may seem like an extreme reaction, it gave her an idea. Here we see Frances with a model of the house she wanted, in 1979:
In 1984, Frances had made her home into the first ever self-cleaning house. Thanks to 68 patented inventions, her house washed and dried itself. It was basically a giant dishwasher. Not only the walls and floors were cleaned, but also the clothes in the closet, the dishes in the kitchen cabinet, and the dog house (dog included!). At the beginning of the "washing cycle," Frances got an umbrella and a raincoat and only had to press a button that activated the system.
The floors of the house were tilted towards the walls, and there were gutters at the edges of the rooms. This meant that water coming out of the ceiling sprinklers would drain directly out of the house and through the dog house, washing the dog on the way. The sprinklers first covered the house completely with soapy water, then rinsed it, and to finish, warm air dried the whole house.
YouTube/Milt Ritter
In less than an hour, the walls, floors, bathrooms, bath, and even clothes, were dry, warm and clean. In order to carry out the self-cleaning, Frances covered most of the surfaces inside the house with plastic, or placed items on clotheslines. The house had no carpets or curtains as they attracted too much dust. Her innovative house was a success in the '80s, appearing in television shows and being visited by tourists as if it were a museum.
When she designed her home, Frances's goal was to make it easier for the disabled, the elderly, and mothers and wives to do household chores. Women could spend more time with their families. "I want to eliminate all unnecessary motion so that handicapped and elderly people can care for their homes themselves," Frances explained.
YouTube/Milt Ritter
In spite of wanting to help others with the housework, Frances was seen by her neighbors as eccentric and difficult — in her younger years, she used to clean naked. Unfortunately, an earthquake in 2001 damaged the technology used by the self-cleaning house and since then, only the kitchen sprinklers are operational.
To see the self-cleaning house in action, you can watch this video:
In 2008, Frances's family sent her to a nursing home, where she eventually died alone, at the age of 101. She outlived both her husband and her children. However, although her death was mostly unnoticed, her work and inventions are a true inspiration and something to admire even to this day. After all, Frances spent 20 years without cleaning! Isn't it everyone's dream to have a house that does the hard work for you?
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Reginald Heber Goldsworthy (1895-1938)
Reginald Heber Goldsworthy was born into a Methodist family in Bristol.
Inspired by a visit of the famous missionary Samuel Pollard, he became a local preacher and then candidated for the United Methodist ministry with the specific intention of becoming a missionary.
Appointed to overseas service in 1921, he served in South-west China for the rest of his life. During his last year he was placed in charge of the work among the Miao and Nosu peoples which had been pioneered by his hero Samuel Pollard.
Goldsworthy was murdered by Chinese bandits during an attack on his mission station on March 6 1938. He was the first Methodist missionary in South-west China to be martyred.
Source: Minutes of Conference 1938
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Confusion Of Goods, * This takes place where the goods of two or more persons become mixed together so that they cannot be separated. There is a difference between confusion and commixtion; in the former it is impossible, while in the latter it is possible, to make a separation. Bowy. Comm. 88.
2. When the confusion takes place by the mutual consent of the owners, they have an interest in the mixture in proportion to their respective shares. 2 Bl. Com. 405; 6 Hill, N. Y. Rep. 425. But if one willfully mixes his money, corn or hay, with that of another man, without his approbattion or knowledge, the law, to guard against fraud, gives the entire property without any account, to him whose original dominion is invaded land endeavored to be rendered uncertain, without his cosent. Ib.; and see 2 Johns. Ch. It. 62 2 Kent's Comm. 297.
3. There may be a case neither of consent nor of wilfulness, in the confusion of goods; as where a bailee by negligence or unskilfuluess, or inadvertence, mixes up his own goods of the same sort with those bailed; and there may be a confusion arising from accident and unavoidable casualty. Now, in the latter case of accidental intermixture, the rule, following the civil law, which deemed the property to be held in common, might be adopted; and it would make no difference whether the mixture produced a thing of the same sort or not; as, if the wine of two persons were mixed by accident. See Dane's Abr. ch. 76, art. 5, 19.
4. But in cases of mixture by unskilfulness, negligence, or inadvertence, the true principle seems to be, that if a man having undertaken to keep the property of another distinct from, mixes it with his own, the whole must, both at law and in equity, be taken to be the property of the other, until the former puts the subject under such circumstances, that it may be distinguished as satisfactorily as it might have been before the unauthorized mixture on his part. 15 Ves. 432, 436, 439, 440; 2 John. Ch. R. 62; Story on Bailm. c. l, 40. And see 7 Mass. 11. 123; Dane's Abr. c. 76, art. 3, 15; Com. Dig. Pleader, 3 M 28; Bac. Ab. Trespass, E 2; 2 Campb. 576; 2 Roll. 566, 1, 15 2 Bul. 323. 2 Cro. 366 , 2 Roll. 393; 5 East, 7; 21 Pick. R. 298.
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Second Class Notes, Emily Howald
Reading Notes:
Reading through both the book and article, along with some pondering of my own, I came to a surprising conclusion: As an objective scientist concerned for “the big picture”, environmentalism is useless. Now as a subjective and passionate person, I am an environmentalist. But taking morals and emotions out of the picture and using the history of the Earth and the life on Earth, it is hard to make a case that people could really mess it up that badly and that it must be the moral additions that give environmentalism its strength. Also, some selfish intention boosts the cause even more. If you trace most environmental and conservation causes they lead to the sustaining of diversity of life on earth. Killing of life and extinctions are the core of the cause. But life is more incredible than we are giving it credit with this view. First, if 90% of life could go extinct in a single extinction event plus several other events since and there is the amazing life diversity we have today then the extinction event people “cause” will be pretty normal and recoverable. Extinction events are simply the passing from one era of life forms to another on earth. The ones around today are really cool making it sad to think of them replaced but that is the course of life. Second, people won’t be around forever. This may seem to go with the theory that only the death of the human species could save earth but really I’m just pointing out that we are simply a transient part of the story of life on earth. Third, whatever people leave behind, life will overcome. Creatures have been evolving to survive harsh environments and perform feats pretty much forever. It would be underestimating of the natural world to think it can’t “come up” with new solutions to whatever things humans leave (like plastic and the ruins of cities). Fish have been making homes of shipwrecks since ships starting sailing. Animals have been digesting new substances and poisons for awhile too. The meadowlands are a perfect example of other organisms overcoming what people leave behind. If toxic water and dumps next to the once “unhealthiest city in America” can sustain so many insects, plants, and birds, and even the occasional fish, and rodent, the world will be alright. The real problem of an extinction event is that hundreds of generations of humans (probably until humans are also extinct, assuming that, as with other life, they will be) will have to live in the world of transition with little diversity. The levels of diversity will recover but humans probably won’t witness it so we must selfishly preserve it. Again, I really am an environmentalist, and I am simply “playing devil’s advocate” and looking at the problem objectively. I’ll admit that this is kind of a relief. My environmentalist side can know that not all hope is lost and focus on what environmentalism means to culture and to people and less what it means to the world.
Also, in contribution on the discussion of wilderness I found that in reading about the meadowlands, they are never considered good. On one hand they are wild which has the connotations of chaos, uncontrollably (like all the people that were determined to utilize it) and on the other hand they aren’t wild because they are imprinted on by people which has the connotation of waste (like all those who want to clean it). At least in this particular instance being wild or not has nothing to do with value because both are bad.
Personal Introduction: I am a zoology and environmental studies major from Ohio. I have recently gotten involved in the sustainability issues on campus like the sustainability plan. I also help with Earthdance Ohio, a super cool hippie event held every fall. I work in IS and for the alumni center.
Project Ideas:
1. Start the student run energy reduction challenge from the sustainability plan
2. Promote and work on the sustainability plan
3. Work on the food collaboration proposal in the sustainability plan
4. Get proposal for “life hacks” quarter credit courses
Current Environmental Topic:
Why is compressed natural gas not more popular?
Image Source
Recently while in Columbus I saw a bus with a sign that it was run by compressed natural gas. Having little knowledge or experience of this fuel source, I investigated. Turns out it is super abundant, cheap, and safe plus it emits 90% less harmful emissions than traditional car fuel sources. Usually this fuel source is retrieved from natural gas deposits in the Earth however there are even sustainable ways of getting it since it is mostly just methane. One example is the gases that come off of manure or landfills. Sadly the US has yet to embrace this fuel source yet it seems other places globally have. At least in my experience, electric cars are the green model of vehicles in the US but electricity is produced by mostly non-renewable resources, some still harmful like coal burning. That isn’t very green especially compared to compressed natural gas. This source for vehicles may not be perfect but it seems a lot better to me. Here and Here are two links concerning compressed natural gas.
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1. […] August 31st: Meadowlands, Wilderness, and Compressed Natural Gas […]
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Carcinogenesis of basal cell carcinomas: genetics and molecular mechanisms.
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) of the skin is the most common type of cancer in humans. Like squamous cell carcinomas, they are also believed to be ultraviolet (UV)-induced, but several data suggest that some differences might exist in the mechanisms of their UV induction. The originating cells may arise from interfollicular basal cells, hair follicles or sebaceous glands, thus from a deeper zone than the SCC ones, which probably means exposure to different doses or wavelengths of UV. The p53 gene and the patched gene (PTCH) are major targets of UV for BCC induction. Mutations in p53 are present in about 56% of human BCC, even small early lesions. The "UV signature" is observed in 65% of them. Mutations in the PTCH play also a major role in BCC development, being responsible for hereditary BCCs in Gorlin's syndrome, sporadic BCC, and BCCs isolated from xeroderma pigmentosum, although with a lower incidence of "UV signature". Smoothened-activating mutations and PTCH2 mutations are also involved in BCC formation. Transgenic mice overexpressing Smoothened or Sonic hedgehog in the skin spontaneously produce skin lesions resembling human BCCs, but contrary to findings in the hairless albino mouse and with SCC, no data on experimental UV induction of BCCs are available.[1]
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22 Times Kids Rocked Writing Notes To Their Teachers
"Your bun is on fleek."
There's a special bond between a teacher and a student. They spend so much time together that kids don't just feel comfortable being who they are — they also become more eager to learn and to express themselves.
Sometimes that expression comes out in stunning artwork or beautiful essays for class, and sometimes it comes in the form of hilarious and adorable notes. But we're not complaining. As we've always said here at A Plus, real success is found in the happiness that curiosity, creativity, and connection make possible, as opposed to perfect scores.
From the ones that are brutally honest to those that teachers will cherish forever, these notes are proof that our educators are making an impact and building relationships that could last a lifetime.
Check out the ones below that make this especially clear.
1. The "it's the thought that counts" note.
2. The inspiration for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" note.
3. The TMI note.
4. The "age is nothing but a number" note.
I teach Kindergarten...this is my new favorite note from a student.
5. The wannabe Shakespeare note.
6. The guilty conscience note.
7. The note for the teacher who really likes Beyoncé.
8. The "we need a few more spelling lessons but it's still adorable" note.
9. The "someday your prince will come" note.
10. "You are the beast!"
11. The "brutally honest" note.
12. The "surprise inside" note.
13. The apology note.
14. The note that's riddled with words you just learned the meaning of.
15. The "let's be BFFs" note.
16. The "it's the little things" note.
17. The odd compliment note.
18. Again, same.
19. The note you don't show your coworker.
20. The "I'll take what I can get" note.
21. The note that humbles you.
22. And lastly, the note that makes it worth it.
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Friday, 19 April 2013
Can I flip it?
Yes I can!
Yesterday, Danny got home from school and found that the strong wind had finished off the demolition job he'd begun on his den and the bits of timber were lying scattered about. After a bit of discussion about whether a big bad wolf had come to "huff and puff it" while he was out, he moved on to some very entertaining rubber-duck-flipping. He put a short plank across another piece of wood like a seesaw, carefully placed a little blue duck on one end, and stamped hard on the other. It was surprisingly effective! The rubber duck soared high into the air in a very satisfactory way and he kept up with this game for quite some time. He also tried with a ball, but found that the ball rolled off the plank before he could get to the other end to jettison it. Eventually he stamped so hard the plank came up and hit him on the head- lesson learned!
It reminded me of that tv program "Whose Line is it Anyway?" where the contestants were given a prop and had to think of as many uses for it as they could. Planks have been used for a lot of stuff in our garden, some of which I know I've mentioned already in this blog and others a bit more random, so here's a run down of a few!
• Dens:
Making the plank roof.
This will be the chimney!
Inside the plank tent.
Danny's most recent, and not very wolf-proof den, was made out of bits of board with planks to make the roof. He even filled it with leaves to make it cosy. But an easier and more effective one they made involved creating a tent out of a bedspread hung over a plank and weighted down with stones along the edges. As you can see, there was not quite room to stand up, but again they filled it with random bedding and toys and made it all homely.
• See-saws
When's it going to tip?
A like-a-bike challenge
See-saws in parks are generally too big for little kids- their legs don't touch the ground and they're not heavy enough to make their end go down, which means poor mummy has to put in most of the effort. But a plank across a log gives the same effect, although it is a bit less stable! Walking over a low seesaw can feel quite risky because they're never quite sure where the tipping point will be, and biking over it is fun too because you suddenly tip and roll.
Martin made this temporary see-saw for the boys and it worked really well, tho looking at the picture now I can't believe they didn't keep tumbling off! They definitely had lots of fun with it:
• Balancing on and jumping off
I talked about using planks for balancing in my post on gross motor skills. We've used fixed ones and movable ones at various different heights and the boys have gained a lot of confidence physically from learning to walk along them. They also love jumping off of course!
It's a long way down!
That's more like it.
• Ramps
We've had lots of plank ramps for endless wheeled toys to drive up and down, for bikes to do jumps over, and even for the kids to climb up.
• Tool practice
For small boys, there is nothing better than to be allowed to use real tools. The boys were allowed to play with bits of timber while Martin was constructing part of the climbing frame, and really enjoyed banging in nails and screwing in screws. It was great for their fine motor skills and they managed not to injure themselves or each other because they took the task so seriously, having been given a health and safety briefing about the responsibility of handling real tools correctly by Daddy!
• Other randoms
Zac, being a very keen draw-er has used the balance planks as an outdoor desk.
Modelling the soggy-trousers look
Art in the long grass.
Danny once spent a lot of time being a surfer by lying on a plank and shouting "paddle... paddle... pop-up!" before falling off onto the grass and pretending to be eaten by a shark! Plus they both used the plank as a cat walk when their big sister became a model and they thought they'd rather like to do some modelling too!
And if, like us, you're likely to leave a plank lying around on the grass for days after you've finished playing with it you can investigate what happens to the grass it covers and which creatures set up home underneath it.
So there you go. It's even possible to be creative with something as basic as a plank of wood. What else could we try?
Toy coconut shy.
Plank riding?!
Here's a clip of the professional prop-guys to make you chuckle:
1. Tee hee I love this! Isn't it amazing what little boys can find to 'tinker' with...your boys are so cute :)
1. Thank you Suzanne, they keep me on my toes!
2. what a really lovely post!I am so impressed with how many things you can actually do with a plank!
Thanks for linking up with #magicmoments x
3. Brilliant post - but is it the same plank in ebvery picture? You're very brave letting boys loose with hammer and nails even with a Health and safety briefing.
4. Uuum, we do have a "favourite" plank, which gets used for most things, but it's quite heavy and probably would have clobbered Dan if he'd used it for his rickety den roof! As regards tools, I reckon a bit of pain is the quickest way to learn a new lesson ;) x
5. Absolutely brilliant what you can do with a simple object like that - great imagination. Good stuff
6. Great Post! never knew there was so much you could do with a plank of wood :-) Love the concentration look on your boys face when screwing in the screw
7. Wow! I never thought about how many things you can do with a plank of wood. Thanks for sharing these lovely photos and ideas.
8. Absolutely love this post :) how amazing to find so many different things to do with one piece of wood! Very inspiring x
9. So many wonderful play activities with the wonder of wood and children's imaginations and creativity. Thanks for linking up and sharing your great outdoor fun with Country Kids.
10. I so love how your boys play and explore!! and den building is so something i ought to have a go at it x
11. I love all these ideas for creative play. We have lots of fun with milk bottles as water jugs, scoops, buckets, mud pie mixing bowls! It is fun to give them something and see where their imagination takes them
12. Thanks all, it's really down to the boys' creativity and imagination, tho I like to think my chaotic attitude to life means there are plenty of raw materials lying around to work with!
13. Brilliant! Actually so much more fun for them doing all sorts of things with the plank than a playground set as it allows their imaginations to soar while having fun outdoors.
14. So many things that a kid can do with just fe pcs of wood! Creative =) #LetKidsBeKids
15. This is great, so much imagination and fun! #LetKidsBeKids |
Old American Flag
Old American Flag : Historical and Collectible
American flag is historical items as it changes the number of white stars as the number of states joins the United States increase. The current American flag consist of 13 equal stripes of red and white with blue rectangle baring the 50 white 5 pointed stars. The 13 stripes of the flag means there were 13 states when they declared independence while 50 stars means currently there are 50 states in the United States. There was previously lesser number of stars on the current American Flag as not all states joined from the start. So if your grandparent give you an Old American Flag with lesser number of stars, you are lucky to have rare flag.
Old American Flag with lesser stars are highly collectible as long as it is real and authentic. Collectors who are history enthusiast would willingly purchase with high price but it also has to be in good condition. An authentic American flag with 42 stars is sold USD 400. The lesser the stars, the more expensive it would be. The first American flag consist of 13 stars similar with the number of the stripes. The shape and the color are similar to the new flag and the stars are arranged into circular.
American flag rules were established in 1942. Congress enacted this Code to provide guidelines & rules to ensure the American flag continues to receive the respect it deserves. Many of the regulations provided in the Code are well known, however some of the American flag rules are more obscure. The American flag rules cover everything from folding, placement, & lighting. Understanding the Code will ensure that you give this national treasure proper attention.
Most people are aware that the American flag should never be allowed to touch the ground, however some rules are much more obscure. In fact some of the restrictions are violated on a daily basis by well meaning citizens. Because American flag rules are meant as a guideline an individual cannot be fined or punished by violating them. No doubt the majority of us want to abide by the American Flag Code & the rules it sets forth.
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Go's goroutines make it easy to make embarrassingly parallel programs, but in many "real world" cases resources can be limited and attempting to do everything at once can exhaust your access to them.
In these cases, you need to limit the concurrency of your program to fall in line with the acceptable or optimum use of those resources. In many languages which use threads (or greenlets), pools are used to limit concurrency. They can be as easy to use as this example in python:
from gevent.pool import Pool
from requests import get
concurrency = 5
urls = ["url1", "url2", "..."]
Pool(concurrency).map(get, urls)
Since Go already has built in concurrency primitives in the way of goroutines and channels, lets look at an example which is an idiom borrowed from the net package:
concurrency := 5
sem := make(chan bool, concurrency)
urls := []string{"url1", "url2"}
for _, url := range urls {
sem <- true
go func(url) {
defer func() { <-sem }()
// get the url
for i := 0; i < cap(sem); i++ {
sem <- true
First, a channel is created called sem (as it will act as a semaphore) with the level of concurrency desired. As we loop over the urls, we attempt to put a bool onto the channel. If it isn't full, we fire off the goroutine on the URL, which defers a read from the semaphore which frees its slot.
After the last goroutine is fired, there are still concurrency amount of goroutines running. In order to make sure we wait for all of them to finish, we attempt to fill the semaphore back up to its capacity. Once that succeeds, we know that the last goroutine has read from the semaphore, as we've done len(urls) + cap(sem) writes and len(urls) reads off the channel.
This is of course more verbose than the pool example above, but it's conceptually very simple, and there is opportunity for semaphore write/reads to be delayed or surround multiple throughput-controlled sections of the code in a flexible yet readable manner.
Dec 5 2012 |
Reducing Blood Pressure
Recent research underscores the importance of a healthful lifestyle including a fitness regimen for both the prevention and treatment of hypertension. Often, changes in diet and exercise habits are enough to control blood pressure without medication, especially for people with mild to moderate blood pressure levations. Sometimes diet and exercise can even reduce the need for medication, and thereby reduce side effects and lower costs.
If you are already taking medication for hypertension, it's important to discuss your lifestyle changes with your doctor, and continue taking your medication as prescribed. If lifestyle changes result in improved blood pressure, your doctor will want to work closely with you to reduce your dosage in a safe and effective manner. Following are some of the most important things you can do to prevent and control hypertension.
Reducing your sodium intake is a major factor. Many people with hypertension find that reducing sodium intake reduces blood pressure as well. Learn which foods are high in sodium, and avoid them as much as possible.
Regular exercise is the most important hypertension-prevention habit for three reasons:
First, it helps prevent and control hypertension. Formerly sedentary people who begin exercising regularly experience, on average, a drop of six or seven points in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Second, active people have lower death rates than their sedentary friends, even when they have the same blood pressure. Research has shown that exercise reduces risk for cardiovascular and other disease. Exercise also helps prevent obesity, another hypertension risk factor.
Third, regular exercise provides the foundation for successful behavior change programs. Exercise makes you feel good and feel positive about yourself. Stress reduction is one of the greatest benefits of exercise. Stress not only raises blood pressure, but it makes you less inclined to stick to your positive eating plan, your
smoking cessation program or your decision to cut down on your alcohol intake.
Eating more fruits, vegetables and grains increases your intake of important minerals such as calcium and potassium, not to mention vitamins and fiber. One study found that volunteers consuming a diet high in these foods and low in fats (such as the diets created by our on-staff nutritionist) reduced systolic blood pressure by four points, and diastolic by three points. This small but significant reduction was accomplished with diet alone. Add exercise, stress management and weight loss for people who are overweight, and blood pressure reductions often improve much more.
Eating well and exercising regularly are the cornerstone.
Deprivation programs are out! Don't focus on weight loss; focus on a healthy lifestyle. A little weight loss may occur by cutting down on "junk food," eating more fruits, vegetables and grains, and increasing physical activity. Even a relatively small loss, such as 5 to 10 pounds, can reduce blood pressure. The most important goal is the development of healthful habits that stay with you for a
lifetime, so that the weight stays off. Weight cycling (repeatedly losing and regaining weight) may raise your blood pressure and be harmful to your health.
Reducing stress is another lifelong task. Take a stress management workshop, develop your sense of humor and read some good books. Develop coping techniques that increase your resistance to stress related illness. And don't forget the importance of exercise for stress reduction.
Limiting your alcohol and caffeine intake will make a profound difference in your health. You should strive to drink alcohol and caffeine in moderation, if at all.
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
Spring Celebration - The Legend of the Nian Monster
Chinese people held the first New Year Festival more than 3,000 years ago. Farmers gave thanks for the harvest and prayed. They asked the gods for good crops in the coming year.
But there is a story behind all the celebration, below is the legend of how the Chinese New Year celebration began.
According to legend, there was a man-eating wild monster "Nian" with an extremely large mouth, capable of swallowing several people in a single bite. This beast appeared in a country village, towards the end of winter when there was nothing to eat it would visit the villages and attack and eat whatever it could. The villagers would live in terror over the winter.
The next year it returned and the same thing happened. The monster seemed too strong to be defeated. So all the villagers would take their old and young deep into the mountains to hide from Nian.
One day, a wise old man passed through the village and told an old woman, "I will teach you how to scare Nian away!"
That evening when Nian arrived at the village, he saw that all the houses were dark except the house in which an old woman lived. Nian approached the house, licking his lips in anticipation. Suddenly, the deafening noise of firecrackers sounded endlessly.
The monster was startled and jumped. Suddenly he realized that the house was covered in red paper. This scared him even more and it ran off into the mountains. When the villagers returned they saw that the old woman was unharmed!
People later learned that "nian" was afraid of loud noises and the color red, The villagers came together and agreed that when it was time for Nian's annual visit towards the end of winter they would start a fire in front of every door and not go to sleep but rather make noise.
The following year, the villagers were ready for it. They set off firecrackers, lit all their lamps and decorated their houses in red, they paste red paper on the doors, wear red clothing, hang up red lanterns. They made loud music, play the gong and drums and they dance and burn the fireworks whenever Nian was about to arrive, to scared away the beast.
Nian had not come down the mountain to cause any trouble thereafter.
This eventually become a tradition of China and leads to the celebration for another year of safe life. Chinese people celebrate in remembrance of this legend and still continues till today!
PICTURE: Beautiful garden full of flowers and plants - By City Square Mall
TODAY, Thursday January 21, 2010, PLUS PAGE 35
PHOTO: Chinese New Year Concerts By Nai-Ni Chen Co.
PHOTO: On the days before the New Year celebration, Chinese families give their home a complete and through cleaning. It’s believed that the cleaning sweeps away any bad luck and makes their home ready for good luck to arrive. The night before New Year’s Day, all brooms are stored away so that good luck cannot be swept away.
PHOTO: Sydney's Chinese New Year Festival is the largest celebration of the Lunar New Year outside Asia.
PICTURE: WEEKEND TODAY, Thursday January 23-24, 2010, WORLD PAGE 20 - By Social Development Network (SDN)
PICTURE: TODAY, Thursday January 21, 2010, PLUS PAGE 35
Celebrate Valentine and Chinese Lunar New Year together for Year 2010 - By City Square Mall |
Genital Herpes Fact Sheet
Genital herpes is one of the very most typical sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The illness may be bothersome.
The chance of transmission to an infant varies substantially according to when a woman is infected. A pregnant woman who develops a first episode of genital herpes during her pregnancy is could be at higher risk for premature delivery and at highest risk of passing the virus. The infant’s risk of infection is high if a mother has her first outbreak near or at the time of a vaginal birth. The infant’s risk is a lot lower –meaning before she was pregnant, the mother was infected — if the outbreak is a recurrence. Studies show that the virus was acquired by less than 2 percent of pregnant women with HSV during there a cure for genital herpes yet
You’ll not be alone. About 1 million new genital herpes cases are reported each year in the U.S. Millions more are likely unreported because people do not know they have the virus. This is why it’s very important genital herpes to wear condoms each time you’ve got oral sex or sexual intercourse. And while condoms are the best protection, they’re 100% ineffective. Get tested to know for sure.
Where it lies low again, after theses sores heal, the virus goes back up the nerve again. But it can become activated again at any given time, and go down the nerves to skin to cause another sore. The virus constantly travels down and up the same or nearby nerve pathways, which describes herpes sores constantly recur in roughly exactly the same spot.
But much of this discrimination is fueled by harmful stereotypes about the kinds of people who have genital herpes. However, these stereotypes are rooted in misinformation and scare tactics that are not representative of the fact that people living with genital herpes (like me) actually face. Which means that there are over 51 million Americans with it. Chances are if you don’t have it yourself, you know someone with it. The blot appears to have already been made with a pharmaceutical company to sell their newly developed antiviral medication. |
New Cretaceous fossils shed light on the early evolution of ants
New Cretaceous fossils shed light -GeologyPage
General dorsal view of holotype of new late Cretaceous worker ants Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri. Credit: WANG Bo
Ants comprise one lineage of the triumvirate of eusocial insects and experienced their early diversification within the Cretaceous. The success of ants is generally attributed to their remarkable social behavior. Recent studies suggest that the early branching lineages of extant ants formed small colonies of either subterranean or epigeic, solitary specialist predators.
The vast majority of Cretaceous ants belong to stem-group Formicidae and comprise workers and reproductives of largely generalized morphologies, and it is difficult to draw clear conclusions about their ecology, although recent discoveries from the Cretaceous suggest relatively advanced social levels.
Remarkable exceptions to this pattern of generalized morphologies are ants with bizarre mouthparts in which both female castes have modified heads and bladelike mandibles that move along a horizontal plane rather than a vertical plane. The specific ecology of Haidomyrmecines has puzzled evolutionary biologists, who believe the mandibles apparently act as traps triggered by sensory hairs in a way distinct from that of modern trap-jaw ants.
Not all ants cooperate in social hunting, however, and some of the most effective predatory ants are solitary hunters with powerful trap jaws. Models of early ant evolution predict that the first ants were solitary specialist predators, but discoveries of Cretaceous fossils suggest group recruitment and socially advanced behavior among stem-group ants.
Dr. WANG Bo of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues describe a new bizarre ant, Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri, from 99 million-year-old Burmese amber that displays a prominent cephalic horn and oversized, scythelike mandibles that extend high above the head. These structures presumably functioned as a highly specialized trap for large-bodied prey. The horn results from an extreme modification of the clypeus hitherto unseen among living and extinct ants, which demonstrates the presence of an exaggerated trap-jaw morphogenesis early among stem-group ants.
Together with other Cretaceous haidomyrmecine ants, the new fossil suggests that at least some of the earliest Formicidae were solitary specialist predators. In addition, it demonstrates that soon after the advent of ant societies in the Early Cretaceous, at least one lineage, the Haidomyrmecini, became adept at prey capture, independently arriving at morphological specializations that would be lost for millions of years after their disappearance near the close of the Mesozoic. The exaggerated condition in the new fossil reveals a proficiency for carriage of large-bodied prey to the exclusion of smaller, presumably easier-to-subdue prey, and highlights a more complex and diversified suite of ecological traits for the earliest ants.
The study, entitled “Extreme morphogenesis and ecological specialization among Cretaceous basal ants,” has been published online in Current Biology.
Vincent Perrichot et al, Extreme Morphogenesis and Ecological Specialization among Cretaceous Basal Ants, Current Biology (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.075
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Write a short note on Dowry System in India
The practice of giving dowry is common in our country. Dowry is the money or gifts given to a daughter by her parents at the time of her marriage. Unfortunately, this has become a social problem. The family of the boy demands large sums of money from the girl’s parents. For this reason the birth of a daughter is considered a curse in our society. She is considered as a financial burden on the family. The boy’s family considers it as their right to make demands and a lot of unpleasantness is caused at the time of marriage. Sometimes people even refuse to go through with the marriage if they feel they are not getting enough money.
The girl is very often tortured by the husband and his family for bringing insufficient dowry. Sometimes they are compelled to commit suicide to escape ill-treatment. Worse still, people even resort to murder to do away with a bride who has not brought enough dowries.
Dowry deaths have become a very serious problem in our society. Various legislative safeguards have been introduced over the past fifteen years to combat this problem. But the tragic truth is, that marital and domestic violence including dowry deaths have continued to grow and spread.
The Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961 but it has not been effectively implemented. It was further amended in 1986. Under this law, a person who is convicted can be imprisoned for five years and fined up to fifteen thousand rupees.
But laws alone cannot help to control the menace of dowry deaths. Social awareness, especially amongst young men, needs to be developed through public campaigns. The education and economic independence of women also needs to be encouraged so that their parents do not feel compelled to marry them to dowry seekers. |
Posted by: Chris Maloney | August 3, 2015
Is Obesity In the U.S. Declining?
It has if you read the Times. According to the New York Times, U.S. caloric intake peaked in 2003 and has declined since. Our youngest citizens have experienced a 9% drop in calories. The children’s weight has declined slightly, while obesity rates have stopped rising for U.S. adults. Among the notable changes in the U.S. diet is a drop in full calorie soda of 25% since the late 1990s.
When I looked at the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) research the NY Times article was based on, the reality is a little more complex. While obesity rates for two to five-year-olds from 13.9% down to 8.4%, obesity rates rose for women older than women over sixty (from 31.5% to 38.1%). The JAMA article concluded: “Overall, there have been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012.”
But clearly caloric intake has declined, and soda intake has declined dramatically. So how are we to credit the fact that, as a nation, the U.S. is dieting but not losing weight? Could it be, as I have often wondered, a more complex issue than calories alone? Low-income U.S. citizens consume fewer calories than upper-income U.S. citizens, but far fewer fruits and vegetables. But low-income U.S. citizens are more obese that upper-income U.S. citizens. The issue is far worse for minorities. The study on fruits and vegetables found that a 10% subsidy on fruits and vegetables would impact the intake of fruits and vegetables for lower-income citizens. We’ve known for decades that high fruit and vegetable intake is linked to lower rates of cancer almost across the board. Obesity is also linked to an increase in cancer, and caloric restriction alone has not lowered obesity rates. Now that we’ve dieted as a nation, perhaps it’s time for us to start eating more healthy foods. Image result for cancer images
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Monday, June 8, 2015
Blog Tour Guest Post: Crow Hollow by Michael Wallace
Please join me in welcoming author Michael Wallace to Let Them Read Books! Michael is touring the blogosphere with his brand new novel, Crow Hollow, a historical mystery set in Colonial America during the aftermath of a period of conflict between the New England settlers and the Native Americans known as King Philip's War. read on for some insight into the war's impact on the colonies and enter for a chance to win a paperback copy of Crow Hollow!
Always Independent
by Michael Wallace
Every American knows about the events of 1775, when American militia fired upon British troops in Concord and Lexington, beginning the process that would lead to the Declaration of Independence the following year and the defeat of General Cornwallis at Yorktown that finally secured American independence.
What many people don’t realize is that the colonists of New England always considered themselves independent. The Mayflower Compact referred to the colonists as loyal subjects of King James, but it also gave itself complete power to determine its own laws and offices for self-governance. There was no provision for a royal governor or any other sort of control from England.
The problem was, these supposedly independent colonists were still English through and through. They wanted autonomy from Crown and Parliament, but they were still embroiled in politics and religion back home. Hundreds returned to England to fight in the English Civil War in the struggle between the Puritan forces of Oliver Cromwell and the royalist opposition. When the French or the Dutch threatened, the colonists demanded full protection from the British Navy.
For the most part, this arrangement worked. The colonies in North America were poor and underpopulated. The richer prizes were in the sugar plantation islands of the Caribbean, and in any event, it was useful to have an English buffer between the French in Quebec and the Spanish in Florida. Let the colonists squabble, let them resolve their own issues with the local tribes.
But when a brutal, genocidal war broke out between the hard-pressed native tribes of New England and the English colonists who had been steadily pushing them back from the coasts, the autonomy of the colonies came into question. Most of the native population was wiped out in the war, and a dozen English settlements were destroyed. Ten percent of all English men of fighting age were killed. Thousands of Wampanoag, Narragansett, and others were killed or sold into slavery in the Caribbean, never to return. At one point, serious thought was given to abandoning New England altogether, were the native tribes to get the upper hand in the conflict. And even though the English won the war, larger, more powerful tribes such as the Iroquois lurked further inland.
When King Philip’s war ended, the English Crown attempted to exert greater control. An Anglican church was established in Boston, ending the Puritan monopoly. Royal governors arrived. The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was revoked in 1684. For the first time, nearly a century before the Revolutionary War, the colonists began to stir restlessly against the home country.
It is into this post-war landscape that royal agent James Bailey arrives in my book Crow Hollow. He has been sent by the Crown to exert direct control of the restive New England colonies. What he doesn’t count on is a more complicated, treacherous environment than expected, and a beautiful young Puritan widow with the ability to bend his motives and desires.
1. I love American colonial HF, but am not familiar with this particular period. Sounds very interesting. Thanks for the giveaway.
2. This sounds like an exciting story with interesting characters and a wonderful setting. I'd love to win a copy. Thanks
3. Thanks for this fascinating historical which I would enjoy greatly. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com
4. I lived in central Massachusetts for 10 years and I heard about King Philip's war. There's all kinds of places. He made his mark on the history of New England and is respected today, please me enter me, I want this book. annfesATyahooDOtcom
5. I have never read anything about this time period in American history. Sounds like an interesting time and look forward to reading Crow Hollow.
6. I've been seeing this book cropping up everywhere. It looks like something that I would love to read. Thanks for the giveaway.
7. There are very few books set in Colonial America so I am very excited for the opportunity to win this book. Thanks!
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Vimeo / food recovery, 06 Feb 2013 04:42:38 -0500Vimeo Operation Recovery: The war on food wasteWed, 06 Feb 2013 04:42:38 -0500<p><iframe src="" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" title="Operation Recovery: The war on food waste" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe></p><p><p class="first">BY ALEX NEASON</p> <p>Waste—it’s a part of daily life in American homes, stores and restaurants nationwide. We throw away a shocking amount of food. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 25 percent of all food produced yearly is thrown away. Jonathan Bloom, author of the blog, says Americans are pretty good at wasting stuff and food is no exception.</p> <p>“People aren’t really aware of how much food is thrown out,” he says.</p> <p>In 2008, 12.7 percent—or 32 million tons—of the nation’s waste was food and a lot of it was still edible. Food is the third largest waste stream behind only paper and yard trimmings. Heaps of unwanted food occupy America’s landfills. Here, all it does is rot and produce methane, a harsh greenhouse gas, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.</p> <p>Bloom thinks part of the problem is our conditioned desire for perfect food.</p> <p>“We as a country and as a culture have come to expect food that looks perfect,” says Bloom. “Anything that diverges from that is just going to get tossed aside. When we see things in our fridge that don’t look quite right, the instinct on many people’s part is to just throw it away.”</p> <p>That instinct isn’t unique to just consumers. Grocery stores, restaurants and even farmers are notorious for rejecting oddly-shaped or even lightly bruised fruits and vegetables. Ugly food apparently breeds ugly business. Misleading sell-by and expiration dates also encourage buyers to avoid food and drinks that can still be consumed, prompting retailers to throw them out.</p> <p>Our desire for Stepford-like food doesn’t stop at the parking lot. Lean Path, a company that sells food tracking systems, says between four and ten percent of the food we purchase ends up in kitchen trashcans. Spotted bananas? Toss. Too much hamburger meat? Toss.</p> <p>We over-produce, over-purchase and then let all that food go to waste.</p> <p>We need an intervention.<br> Who’s paying attention?</p> <p>DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) specializes in recovery and redistribution of surplus food and crops in and around Washington D.C. Using refrigerated trucks and vans, staff and volunteers collect over three tons of excess food from area food service corporations daily, according to the organization’s website. The food is insured by DCCK’s adherence to strict Food and Drug Administration guidelines and the kitchen’s zero tolerance waste policy.</p> <p>“We believe very simply that waste is wrong,” says DCCK CEO Michael Curtin.</p> <p>DCCK’s main kitchen resembles Santa’s workshop. Carts carrying everything from heads of lettuce to chocolate cakes zip in and out. Carrots are shredded, sliced and diced in assembly lines of workers clad in hair nets and blue gloves. In one corner, a supervisor works with volunteers making ham sandwiches. Massive freezers line the walls, packed with fresh vegetables and raw meats—all donated from retailers that would have thrown them away.</p> <p>The kitchen creates almost 5,000 meals daily and then donates them to local shelters and non-profits. In 2009, DCCK recovered roughly 800,000 pounds of food. But there’s plenty more where that came from.</p> <p>Founder Robert Egger says despite the disheartening statistics, he’s noticed a shift in the public’s attitude about waste since he opened the kitchen in 1989. Food has become an essential rallying point in the movement towards sustainable lifestyles, largely due to rising grocery costs and a temperamental economy.</p> <p>“It’s a doorway to a really amazing new way to think,” says Egger. “We’re coming out of an era where our economy was consumption driven.”<br> What does the government think?</p> <p>Despite the public change of heart, the U.S. government has largely ignored our nasty little food habit. Very few government mandated studies have been released—the last one was completed in the late 90s.</p> <p>One exception was the Food Recovery and Gleaning Initiative, which was created in the late 90s by former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The initiative was designed to energize the public and provide assistance to food recovery organizations. Later on, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, signed into law by in 1996, gave food recovery groups some protection from liability issues. Since then, the federal government seems to have lost interest.</p> <p>DCCK and other food recovery agencies like it are working hard to pick up the slack. DCCK operates a culinary training program where students learn to be food handling managers. Fresh Start Catering offers job opportunities to graduates to recycle excess food. They also have a Campus Kitchens project that operates at 25 college and high school campuses nationwide.</p> <p>Curtin, DCCK’s CEO, used to work in the restaurant business. He says as a hospitality organization, DCCK’s job is to serve the community in as many ways as possible.</p> <p>“You make people happy,” he said. “You hopefully improve people’s lives. And that’s exactly what we do here at DC Central Kitchen.”</p> <p>Producer: Bei Zhang<br> Producer / Photographer: Wayne Huang<br> Multimedia Editor: Ellen Webber</p></p><p><strong>Cast:</strong> <a href="">NPR Intern Edition</a> and <a href="">ellen webber</a></p><p><strong>Tags:</strong> <a href="">food waste</a>, <a href="">npr</a> and <a href="">intern edition</a></p>tag:vimeo,2013-02-06:clip14128104Operation Recovery: The war on food waste |
Purchase Linux CDs / DVDs / Flash Drives at OSDisc.com
Welcome to Our Community
C++ and Python
Discussion in 'General Linux' started by thelowbudget, Jan 10, 2012.
1. thelowbudget
thelowbudget Guest
Is there any form of Python or c++ tools for Linux development. I'm deeply interested in the highly recommended programming that Linux supposedly has to offer.
2. thelowbudget
thelowbudget Guest
Is there some form of console to run these developed productions also. I'm very inexperienced with Linux in General is it easier than a windows system.
3. tomfmason
tomfmason Guest
I am not sure what you mean by "Tools" - IDE, compiler, or ? I don't really work with c++ much anymore but it is a universal language. AFAIK, the preferred IDE is Eclipse(which is written in java). I recommend that you find a few tutorials. The main issue that you might run into is that they are a bit dated but they should give you a good basic start. Also, most linux distros come with python installed by default.
I think you mean the terminal. It should be relatively easy to find depending on your distro.
1 person likes this.
4. thelowbudget
thelowbudget Guest
I promgrammed a small test program in python and it wouldn't work with windows command prompt(windows programmers notepad python language). I will have to try it on the kubuntu terminal.
5. SevenxWasly
SevenxWasly Guest
That is so sorry, the attribute of open source determines a face that there are no wonderful IDE for Linux.
6. TheMugenFox
TheMugenFox Guest
Sad but true. I do not like any of the Linux IDE. There are some decent free ones, but the key word is decent. If you are looking for something exceptional, Linux is not the place to find it. Programming is generally very difficult and most things I know of are Python based.
7. Akendo
Akendo Guest
That is twice in a row wrong. You can use a LOTS of GREAT IDEs on Linux. Netbeans, Eclipse, are two bigs shots and BOTH are supported on almost every linux. And both are OpenSource.
And you can turn Editors like Vim easy to an IDE!
so but back to the Top of this thread:
I recommend to start with Python, but taking a look about C/C++ is also important. There great How To's, one of the best is "Dive Into Python"
C always a good fundation of knowledge. It's the basic of modern Computer. So you may should some days to try some work with it. But till then use Python.
so far
8. raptorak
raptorak Guest
I personally prefer to use Netbeans as an IDE just because it's somewhat clean and looks like you'd expect a Windows one to look like. Check it out at Netbeans.org.
For C++ you can find an entire tutorial on their website: http://netbeans.org/kb/trails/cnd.html
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Movement on a sphere (elliptic integrals)
1. Apr 10, 2009 #1
A point moves with constant speed (value) over a sphere, following the curve defined by: f = t = l
For t=0, the point is at (t,f) = (0,0) and for t=3 it's at (pi/4, pi/4).
How long does it take to reach the north pole of the sphere?
2. Relevant equations
The parametric equations for this sphere are:
x = 5·cos f·cos t
y = 5·cos f·sin t
z = 5·sin f
3. The attempt at a solution
OK first of all, the parametric equations turn into:
x = 5·cos2 l
y = 5·cos l·sin l
z = 5·sin l
Then we know that:
v2 = x'2 + y'2 + z'2
So we find:
x' = -5·sin(2l)
y' = 5·cos(2l)
z' = 5·cos l
By adding them up, we simplify the squared sines-cosines:
v2 = 25(1 + ·cos2 l)·(dl/dt)2
v·dt = 5√(1 + ·cos2 l)·dl
However I don't know how to find v, and I'm not sure this is correct so far.
Thank you for your help
2. jcsd
3. Apr 14, 2009 #2
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Reasoning, Free-Will & Determinism
The intellectual reasoning mind is nothing to think of as 2nd rate.
It is just that this is the mind that was purposely created to have a limited exposure to “All that is”. This is so that while being intimately, totally and completely “One” in every way with “All that is”, we can also have the unique perspective that discerns features and details in such a manner that, along with the rest of all consciousness, “All that is” improves our great universe to benefit “All that is”, that of which I am and we have our being.
We ONLY have this unique awareness BECAUSE we are so powerfully focused.
The remainder of this page is quoted From SETH in DREAMS. ‘EVOLUTION: AND VALUE FULFILLMENT Pgs. 269-273 Jane Roberts
(Slowly:) Chapter Six. Now: Any real discussion of genetic her-
itage must also bring up questions involving free will and deter-
minism,” and to some extent those issues must also lead to
questions concerning the nature of the reasoning mind itself.
Reasoning, as you are familiar with it, is the result of mental
or psychic processes functioning in a space-time context, and in
a particular fashion. To some extent, then, reasoning-again, as
you are familiar with it (underlined)-is the result of a lack of
available knowledge. You try to “reason things out,” because the
answer is not in front of you. If it were, you would “know,” and
hence have no need to question.
The reasoning mind is a uniquely human and physical phe-
nomenon. (Long pause.) It depends upon conscious thinking,
problem-solving methods, and it is a natural human blossoming,
a spectacular mental development in its own framework of activ-
Your technology is one of the results of that reasoning mind.
That “reasoning” is necessary, however, because of the lack of a
larger, immediate field of knowledge. Thoughts are mental ac-
tivity, scaled to time and space terms so that they are like mental
edifices built to certain dimensions only. Your thoughts make
you human (underlined).
(Still slowly at 8:59:) Other creatures have their own kinds of
mental activity, however. They also have different kinds of im-
mediate perceptions of reality. All species are united by their
participation in emotional states, however. It is not just that all
species of life have feeling, but that all participate in dimensions
of emotional reality. It has been said that only men have a moral
sense, that only men have free will-if indeed free will is possible
at all. The word “moral” has endless connotations, of course. Yet
animals have their own “morality,” their own codes of honor,
their own impeccable senses of balance with all other creatures.
(Pause.) They have loving emotional relationships, complicated
societies,” and in a certain sense at least-an important one-
they also have their arts and sciences. But those “arts and sci-
ences” are not based upon reasoning, as you understand it.
Animals also possess independent volition, and while I am
emphasizing animals here, the same applies to any creature,
large or small: insect, bird, fish, or worm; to plant life; to cells,
atoms, or electrons. They possess free will in relationship to the
conditions of their existence (underlined).
The conditions of existence are largely determined by genetic
structure. Free will must then of course function in accordance
with genetic integrity. Genetic structure makes possible physical
organisms through which life is to be experienced, and to a large
extent that structure must determine the kind of action possible
in the world, and the way or ways in which volition can be effec-
tively expressed.
The beaver is not free to make a spider web. (Long pause.) In
human beings the genetic structure largely determines physical
characteristics such as height, color of eyes, color of hair, color
of skin-and, of course, more importantly, the number of fin-
gers and toes, and the other specific physical attributes of your
specieshood. So physically, and on his physical attributes alone,
a man cannot use his free will to fly like a bird, or to perform
physical acts for which the human body is not equipped.
The body is equipped to perform far better, in a variety of
ways, than you give it credit for, however-but the fact remains
that the genetic structure focuses volition. The genetic appara-
tus and the chromosomal messages actually contain far more
information than is ever used. That genetic information can, for
example, be put together in an infinite number of ways. (Long
pause.) The species cares for itself in the event of any possible
circumstance, so that the genetic messages also carry an endless
number of triggers that will change genetic combinations if this
becomes necessary.
Beyond that, however, genetic messages are coded in such a
way that there is a constant give-and-take between those mes-
sages and the present experience of any given individual. That
is, no genetic event is inevitable.
Now besides this physical genetic structure, there is an inner
bank of psychic information that in your terms would contain
the “past” history-the reincarnational history-of the individ-
ual. This provides an overall reservoir of psychic characteristics,
leanings, abilities, knowledge, that is as much a part of the indi-
vidual’s heritage as the genetic structure is a part of the physical
A person of great intelligence may be born from a family of
idiots, for example, because of that reincarnational structure.
Musical ability may thus appear complete-
(9:27. We were startled by the sudden ringing oj the telephone.)
Take your break.
(A close friend, one who used to attend Jane’s ESP class, had called
our unlisted number to ask one of us some psychic questions. Jane had
been jolted out of trance, of course. After I hung up we wondered why
our friend, who knows our usual routine so well, hadn’t realized that
we’d probably be having a session at this time on a Monday evening.
Yet, at 9:30 Jane resumed the session just as though there hadn’t been
any interruption.)
-with great technical facility, regardless of family back-
ground, genetically speaking, and again, the reincarnational
bank of characteristics accounts for such events. That inner rein-
carnational psychic structure is also responsible for triggering
certain genetic messages while ignoring others, or for triggering
certain combinations of genetic messages. In actuality, of course
-say that I smiled-all time is simultaneous, and so all reincar-
national lives occur at once.
(Pause.) Perhaps an analogy will help. An actor throwing him-
self or herself into a role, even momentarily lost in the part, is
still alive and functioning as himself or herself in a context that
is larger than the play. The character in the play is seemingly
alive (creatively) for the play’s duration, perception being limited
to that framework, yet to play that role the actor draws upon the
experience of his own life. He brings to bear his own under-
standing, compassion, artistry, and if he is a good actor, or if she
is, then when the play is over the actor is a better person for
having played the role.
Now in the greater framework of reincarnational existences
you choose your roles, or your lives, but the lines that you speak,
the situations that you meet, are not predetermined. “You” live
or exist in a larger framework of activity even while you live
your life, and there is a rambunctious interplay between the yous
in time and the you outside of time.
(Long pause.) The you inside of time adopts a reasoning mind.
It is a kind of creative (underlined) psychological face that you
use for the purposes of your life’s drama. This psychological
face of our analogy has certain formal, ceremonial features, so
that you mentally and psychologically tend to perceive only
those data that are available within the play’s formal structure.
You cannot see into the future, for example, or into the past.
You reason out your position. Otherwise your free will would
have no meaning in a physical framework, for the number of
choices available would be so multitudinous that you could not
make up your mind to act within time: With all the opportunities
of creativity, and with your own greater knowledge instantly
available, you would be swamped by so many stimuli that you
literally could not physically respond, and so your particular
kinds of civilization and science and art could not have been
accomplished-and regardless of their flaws they are magnifi-
cent accomplishments, unique products of the reasoning mind.
Without the reasoning mind the artist would have no need to
paint, for the immediacy of his mental vision would be so instant
and blinding, so mentally accomplished, that there would be no
need to try any physical rendition of it. So nowhere do I ever
mean to demean the qualities or excellence of the reasoning
mind as you understand it.
You have, however, become so specialized in its use, so preju-
diced in its favor, that your tendency is to examine all other
kinds of consciousness using the reasoning mind as the only
yardstick by which to judge intelligent life. You are surrounded
everywhere by other kinds of consciousness whose validity you
have largely ignored, whose psychic brotherhood you have dis-
missed-kinds of consciousness in the animal kingdom particu-
larly, that deal with a different kind of knowing, but who share
with you the reality of keen emotional experience, and who are
innately aware of biological and psychic values, but in ways that
have escaped your prejudiced examination.
To some extent that emotional reality is also expressed at
other levels-as your own is-in periods of dreaming, in which
animals, like men, participate in a vast cooperative venture that
helps to form the psychological atmosphere in which your lives
must first of all exist.
End of dictation. End of session, unless you have a question.
Ruburt can relax now (with amusement).
(“Okay, Seth. No questions. That was very good. “)
I bid you a fond good evening.
(“Thank you. Good night. “)
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21st Century Lego: Synthetic Biology and Molecular Engineering
As long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed designing and building stuff. I have clear memories of building things with tinkertoy when I was around 3 years old, and as I grew up I made the usual progression through Lego, mechano, balsa wood models, electronics, software, ... The stuff you can build is limited only by the properties of the building materials, your skill level and knowledge, and your imagination. Well, wouldn't it be cool if you could build stuff out of molecules? If, through synthetic biology, you could craft some DNA to create the necessary infrastructure within a cell to create a tiny manufacturing plant for, say, carbon nanotubes?
First thing to do when some far out idea like this pops into your head is to see if someone else has thought of it too (which is almost always the case).
As we become more adept at modifying proteins not just for binding but for catalysis, the nanotechnologist can begin to glimpse some rather dizzying prospects. Can one design an enzyme that constructs carbon nanotubes [39], perhaps even with a specified diameter and chirality (and hence electronic structure)? Could such a molecule then be fitted with a recognition tag that will ensure it does its job of construction only at a particular location in a semiconductor landscape?
Natural proteins and protein-based assemblies have shown considerable potential for nanotechnological applications. The light-activated proton pump bacteriorhodopsin, a membrane protein that regulates the pH of some bacterial cells, is perhaps the prototype, having been used over 10 years ago as a material for optical molecular data storage [40].
More recently, Meier et al [41] have shown that this and other membrane proteins will retain their structure and function when immobilized in thin, robust films of
crosslinked copolymers with a hydrophilic–hydrophobic–hydrophilic sandwich structure, mimicking the environment of lipid membranes. Ho et al [42] used bacteriorhodopsin immobilized in such a polymer membrane to actively pump protons against a pH gradient and thereby to reduce hydrogen ion leakage across the proton exchange membrane of a fuel cell.
More ambitiously, can we imagine designing a cell that will build a genuine photovoltaic cell based on the chloroplast, or a versatile and programmable polymer synthesis factory based on the ribosome?
It is not at all hard to envisage bacteria or viruses acting as sensor devices that detect and signal (by fluorescence, say) traces of certain substances in their environment. More startling, perhaps, are possibilities such as programming cells to reproduce the algorithms of cellular automata—an ironic reversal of the metaphor—so that they interact with their neighbours in tightly prescribed ways, allowing them to develop spontaneous patterns, collective and multicelled behaviour, and even forms of computing
NASA Ames Research Lab
from :
Ames is focusing on a major component of all cells (proteins) that are capable of self-assembling into highly ordered structures. A protein known as HSP60, which spontaneously forms nano-scale ring structures that can be induced to form chains or filaments is currently being studied.
ring structures (fig. 1a, end view; 1b, side view), chains (fig. 1c),filaments (fig. 1d)
With thermostable HSP60s, highly efficient methods have been developed for purifying large quantities of these proteins; their composition and structure-forming capabilities are being currently modified by using the "tools" of molecular biology. For example, if a small fragment of the HSP60 protein is removed, protein rings are produced that do not form chains or filaments, but continue to form rings that spontaneously assemble into highly ordered hexagonally packed arrays. If these proteins are modified to bind metal atoms, they can be used as a template to create an ordered pattern of metal on a surface with nanometer spacing. Ultimately the hope is to use such ordered arrays of metal to manufacture nano-scale electronic devices. Similarly, metal binding to proteins that form filaments may be used to create self-assembling nano-scale wires, which may someday be used to produce self-assembling circuits.
Modified proteins form hexagonally packed rings (left) or metal-containing protein filaments (right)
MIT's Biobricks
from : A registry of 'standard biological parts' aka bio-bricks:
There are currently about 300 BioBricks, and another 800 parts have been built by combining those into composite BioBricks. Knight and his collaborators presented results on a next generation of the system called BioBricks++.
Just as object-oriented programming constructs allowed programmers to quickly combine previous software modules into more complex systems, the BioBricks++ system has standard interfaces for all DNA segments that can be combined in any sequence using commercially available enzymes.
Rettberg is working on an online data book, and is initiating a standards process so that anyone can build BioBricks and add them to the catalog. He envisions an assembly service with measurement and quality control leading to the evolution of "open source biology". Rettberg is also organizing a summer design contest sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where teams of graduate and undergraduate students will genetically engineer a Finite State Machine
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Monday, 31 January 2011
Language (Dialectal) Variation
Language Variation or Dialectal Variation, refers to changes in language due to various influences. These include, social, geographic, individual and group factors.
This refers to the variety of language characteristic of a particualar group of people in a given speech community (country) or region. For example one may refer to a Caribbean dialect as there are certain vocabulary items and sentence structures that Caribbean countries have in common.
There is no definition of creole that is accepted by all. The meaning of the word 'creole' has changed considerably over the years. However, it is normally used to refer to a dialect or language which results from contact between the language of a colonizing people and the language of a colonized people. In the Caribbean, Creole languages are as a result of contact between English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch (languages of the colonizers) and West African languages (languages of the colonized).
Patois is a word of French origin which translates most closely, in French, to mean 'gibbrish'. It was a word used to describe how foreign and strange Creole languages sounded to the speakers of European languages. Patois is used to refer to a geographical dialect which differs from the standard language spoken in a given country. In Jamaica, for example, the word patois is used to refer to the English based creole spoken. Patois carries the usual negative associations and lack of prestige which characterize non-standard, rural or regional dialects.
Standard Variety (Eg, English, French)
This is the variety of language or dialect that is used for formal, official and education purposes. It is also used as an instrument for mass education and communication causing it to acquire greater prestige and uniformity. (Creoles have been observed to lack uniformity as a result of not being standardized.) Most Caribbean countries have a Eurpoean language as its standard variety for formal, official purposes and a Creole language for informal communication amongst native, family and friends. The notable exception is Haiti where the French Creole was made an official language alongside French.
This is a popular, fashionable use of words and phrases which may be either old words given new meaning or completely new words. In the same way that fashion changes, so do slang expressions. Slang is a normal part of everyday speech but may not be acceptable in certain formal settings. When used in formal writing, in particular, these expressions should be put in inverted commas (For e.g, 'wicked'- Jamaican slang for good/amazing, 'off the chain'-American slang for exciting/good)
Foreign English
This refers to varieties of the English language spoken by persons not from ones country.
Rasta English
This refers to a special variety of English indegenous to Jamaica, spoken by a religious group of persons called Rastafarians. This variety diffrentiates itself from standard and non-standard English by use of different, specialized vocabulary items. The psychology of 'no contradiction' extends to all aspects of a Rastafarian's life, including language. Hence because it sounds contradictory for oppress -/up-res/ to mean held down in life, Rastafarians refer to this verb as downpress. Likewise instead of participation -/part-icipation/ to mean being fully involved they refer to this noun as fullticipation. The language is also characterized by use of 'I' to signify positivity and the importance of the individual in relation to another, so instead of 'You and I', Rasta would refer to us as 'I and I' to signify that we are both equal in importance. Irie, refers to a good vibe and Ital food refers to food considered good for the body (i.e, Vegetarian based food). |
Clergy shirts are clothing that priests, pastors or ministers wear as street clothing. These are called "clericals," as opposed to "vestments," which are the clothing worn while conducting an official church ceremony or worship service. Clergy shirts are often thought of as Catholic, but they are Protestant in origin and can be found in many denominations.
Smiling Family with Preacher
In Christianity, priests or pastors wore common clothing in the earliest times. As the Catholic church developed, black was often worn as a symbol of formality and seriousness. When Protestantism started, some groups continued the practice of priestly attire, while others wore the same clothing as everyone else. The clergy shirt itself is Protestant in origin, invented by The Rev. Dr. Donald McLeod of Scotland in the late 1800s. The Catholic church adopted this later.
Gospel Choir Singing and Clapping During a Church Service
The clergy shirt is a Clerical, which refers to street clothing worn by members of the clergy. There are two types of clergy shirts: the neckband shirt and the tab-collar shirt. A neckband shirt has no color, but has a band of cloth around the neck. The clergy collar is attached. The tab-collar shirt has a folded down collar with an opening in front, above the throat, which is where the clergy collar is seen.
Portrait of happy catholic priest smiling at camera in church
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Formal occassions
Priest pouring wine into a chalice
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Hydraulic Systems
Accumulator - Description
Actuator - Description
Check Valve - Desc.
Directional Valves - Desc.
Filter - Desc.
Flow Control Valve - Desc.
Hydraulic Fluid - Prop.
Motor - Desc.
Orifice Flow - Desc.
Pipe Flow - Description
Pipe Flow - Equations
Power Control Unit - Desc.
Pressure Regulating Valve - Desc.
Pressure Relief Valve - Desc.
Priority Valve - Desc.
Pump - Desc.
Reservoir - Desc.
Seals - Desc.
Servo - Desc.
Servovalve - Desc.
Mechanical Systems
Flight Control Systems
Oxygen Systems
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Actuator, Hydraulic - Description
Hydraulic actuators translate hydraulic fluid flow into linear mechanical motion. A “balanced” linear actuator is shown in Figure 1 below. The actuator is considered balanced because the piston pressure areas in Chamber A and Chamber B are equal. Balanced actuators are used on primary flight control surfaces and other locations where loads are the same in both directions. Normally one or more lugs are located on the housing for connection to fixed structure. The moving end is connected directly to the load, such as a landing gear, or through a linkage to provide rotation movement, such as a primary flight control surface.
Figure 1 Balanced Actuator Schematic
Figure 2 shows an unbalanced actuator where extend and retract piston areas are different (due to the piston rod on the retract side). Unbalanced actuators are used where loading is different in two directions, such as a spoiler panel actuator, thrust reverser or landing gear actuator, or where space constraints prohibit a balanced actuator. The actuator in Figure 2 also has a Linear Variable Differential Transducer (LVDT) installed in the center of the piston rod and attached to the fix housing. This transducer provides actuator stroke position information for the control electronics (used for closed loop position control and fault detection).
Figure 2 Unbalanced Actuator Schematic
Figure 3 shows a dual tandem actuator. This actuator is controlled by two pistons and four chamber pressures. Normally, both pistons are controlled by separate, but with identical control valves. The two valves would be supplied by separate hydraulic systems for redundancy. In event one control valve fails or hydraulic system fails, the actuator still operates but at ½ of the force capability.
Figure 3 Balanced Dual Tandem Actuator Schematic
The most important characteristics for a hydraulic actuator are
Load Capability – load capability is the primary design criteria in sizing an actuator. Accurate load determination is critical and must include the external force as well as friction, inertial and disturbance forces. Also, in many applications load varies with stroke. For example, the load force on a landing gear actuator usually varies greatly as a function of gear position. As another example, “bucket” type thrust reverser actuators have an aiding load on extend and an opposing load on retract. In fact, aero forces can pull the buckets open, extending the actuator, and the possibility of actuator extend chamber cavitation must be investigated (use of accumulators are common in thrust reversers systems). Loads for flight control surfaces vary widely as function of flight condition.
Piston areas in both chambers – this determines the amount of force the actuator can output
Flow port restrictors (or orifices) – these determine the amount of flow into and out of the actuator chambers, and hence determine the velocity of the actuator piston. Note, flow port restrictors are not always used but are included here for discussion. Generally, the flow pipe leading up to an actuator is sized for fluid velocity and pressure drop, not to control flow into and out of actuator chambers. Actuator velocity may be set either by the inflowing or the outflowing orifice (or valve), depending on the orifice diameters and pressure drops across both orifices. Also, on the chamber with increasing volume it is important that the sufficient flow into the chamber is possible without cavitation. A secondary effect of orifice is to damp upstream pressure fluctuations to reduce effects on piston movement.
Housing geometry – affects actuator installation characteristics and clearances to structure and surrounding components. The envelope requirements often dictate housing geometry and mounting lug locations.
Piston rod diameter – From a structural point of view, an actuator behaves like a column loaded in tension and compression. Column loading characteristics are determined by the housing and piston rod area. Maximum actuator static load capability is set by the lesser of the column load capability and piston area hydraulic (Force = Pressure x Piston Area).
Piston seals – Contribute to overall actuator friction and hydraulic flow leakage between chambers. Ideally friction is low (minimizes heat generation) and leakage is zero. Seals must also hold up over the life of the actuator (100,000 cycles or more) in all environmental conditions. Seals may be dual redundant providing greater reliability but higher friction. Some actuators do not use seals on the piston head but instead maintain close machine tolerances on the piston outer diameter and inner bore diameter. This type of design will have some amount of hydraulic laminar leakage across the piston head proportional to the differential pressure across the piston. Additionally, this type of design requires pressure equalization grooves on the piston head outer diameter in order to prevent the piston head from hydraulically locking against the actuator bore.
Housing Seals - Contribute to overall actuator friction and any external leakage. Ideally, actuator friction is low (minimizes heat generation) and external leakage is negligible. Housing seals may also be dual redundant. In addition, scraper seals may be installed at the external housing / piston rod interface. Scraper seals help clean frost/ice/debris off of the piston rod to help prevent damage to the pressure seals and helps prevent foreign particles from entering into the actuator.
Chamber Volumes – Set by actuator travel requirements and required piston area. Piston area and chamber volume are used to compute frequency response characteristics of the actuator.
Static Load & Fatigue Load Characteristics – As discussed previously, actuator load and rate requirements determine necessary piston areas. However, the load bearing structural elements (parts) in an actuator must be capable of standing limit and ultimate loads and therefore the actuator structural elements must be designed to these loads. Furthermore, fatigue loads (usually defined by a duty cycle spectrum which contains #of cycles, load for each cycle, stroke and rate) can also be significant and must be taken into account when designing an actuator. Actuator piston, rod, and housing must be designed for static and fatigue loads. For actuators which have low cycles over their life, static loads may be the dominant structural design factor. However, for actuators with high cycles over their design life, fatigue often becomes the dominant structural design factor and ends up sizing components within the actuator.
Other features may be installed in an actuator. Locks hold the actuator in either the extend or retract position. Locks are pin or cam that physically locks an actuator in position. Full hydraulic system pressure is normally required to “unlock” an actuator. Position switches (often called “down and locked” or “up and locked” switches for landing gear actuators or “extend” / “retract” switches for other actuators) to provide indication when an actuator has reached a full travel in 1 direction. If they are to signify that the actuator lock is in place, then ideally, the switch is activated by the locking pin and not the piston. Figure 4 shows a switch and plunger that activate off of piston position. As the piston nears the extend position, the switch plunger will ride up the ramp and, at the point of full extension, will activate the switch. The switch is spring loaded to the open position. Normally these switch installations have some means for rigging the switch setting.
Figure 4 Unbalanced Actuator Schematic With Extend Position Switch and Spring Snubbers
A last feature that may be installed in an actuator is a snubber. A snubber is a typically a coil or belleville spring used to slow the piston down prior to the piston bottoming out on the housing (see Figure 4). Snubbers may be required when an actuator has a high load and fast velocity to prevent damage to the load or the housing. Snubbing may also be done by reducing the outlet flow area as an actuator gets to the end of its travel. The smaller flow area reduces outlet flow and damps/slows down the actuator at the end of its travel.
In some applications a hydraulic orifice actuator snubber is tuned to minimize the peak deceleration of the load should the actuator be driven into the end stop. In this case, a hydraulic snubber would be tuned to exhibit a square wave snubbing pressure when the cushion is engage at the actuator full speed condition. This will tend to generate a square wave deceleration of the load thereby minimizing the peak deceleration experienced – dissipates the energy over a longer distance. The snubber is tuned by controlling the snubber orifice area as the actuator travels in the snubber. A full six degree of freedom flight simulator motion base would be one application where a tuned snubber would be incorporated. Here the motion base playload will house training crews along with expensive electronic equipment.
Actuator Friction Characteristics
Friction always opposes actuator motion. So the direction of the friction force vector switches direction with velocity. There are 3 types of friction present in a hydraulic actuator:
Coulomb friction – Coulomb friction is a constant friction force (does not vary with velocity). Coulomb friction represents friction associated with mechanical surfaces rubbing together and includes bearing friction, friction in flight control surface hinges, and so on.
Viscous friction – Viscous friction represents the force required to push hydraulic (viscous) fluid through restrictive passages. This would include the force required (or used) for leakage or to push fluid through any small passages that may exist in the actuator. Viscous friction is small at low velocity and increases linearly with piston velocity.
Seal (Stribeck) friction – Seal friction is the friction of the seals against the housing or piston. Seal friction is high at low velocity and drops off exponentially as actuator velocity increases.
Notionally, the three types of friction are shown in the Figure 5. The total actuator friction is the sum of coulomb, viscous and seal friction. Note how the total friction curve has a minimum value and is dominated by the seal friction at low velocities and by viscous friction at high velocities. Coulomb friction simply raises or lowers the total friction curve.
Figure 5 Seal Friction Characteristics
Friction represents wasted energy that is dissipated as heat within the actuator. Therefore, friction reduces overall actuator efficiency. Normally, it is desirable to keep friction low. However, there are tradeoffs in the potential for leakage and seals to wear prematurely if friction levels are pushed too low. In some cases, a minimum friction is required to provide flutter damping under loss of hydraulic power, or to reduce an actuator’s sensitivity to external disturbances (such as gust loads).
Hydraulic Natural Frequency
Hydraulic natural frequency for an actuator sets bounds on actuator performance. Generally for a bang-bang type actuator (such as a landing gear or thrust reverser actuator), hydraulic natural frequency is not a concern. However, for actuators where cycling occurs at fast rates (such as a servoactuator), hydraulic natural frequency should be evaluated in the design process.
Hydraulic fluid in an actuator chamber is compressible and thus acts like a very stiff spring. The stiffness of the spring is a function of the fluid bulk modulus, piston area and chamber volume. The piston in a hydraulic actuator can then be viewed as a mass with a spring connected on each side of the piston. The basic equation for computing the natural frequency of the actuator is
where the spring rate is based on the two hydraulic springs connected in series. The specific equation to compute the hydraulic natural frequency is provided in the actuator modeling section.
It is not practical to operate an actuator above the actuator’s natural frequency as the actuator will essentially be unstable and uncontrollable. Typically hydraulic actuators have very low damping (ξ = 0.05 to 0.10); hence, when the actuator is commanded to cycle at its natural frequency the output is extremely large and uncontrollable. See Figure 6 for a typical second order response with a damping ratio of 0.05. This would approximate a hydraulic actuator output position divided by input sine wave position command. At the natural frequency the actuator stroke would be amplified ten times the amplitude of the input. Therefore, maximum duty cycles for a hydraulic actuator should be limited to a value much less than the hydraulic natural frequency.
Figure 6 Variation of Output/Input Ratio with Frequency for Damping Ratio of 0.05 |
Friday, February 12, 2010
Music In A Snap!
I found a fun web-page that is actually part of the American Heart Association. The page is called the "Hands Symphony" and is set up with three different styles of rhythms: dance, hip-hop and Latin. The page shows pictures of 12 different sets of hands performing a certain clap, snap or other movement that create different sounds. Each set of hands is actually a short video loop that can be turned on or off by a simple mouse click. The hands change for each style of music, but you can have all 12 hands playing at the same time and it still sounds good!
My daughter and I had too much fun playing around with the different sounds and rhythms! I gave her choices between two sets of hands and let her choose which one to activate until we had a nice rhythm going. By isolating just one set of hands we also tried to imitate what the hands were doing. She is only 21 months old, but was pretty good at trying to copy them! I think that this could easily be adapted to the classroom setting by choosing 4-5 sets of hands and playing the rhythms on instruments after the students learn the rhythms with their hands. Start with one rhythm and then layer in the other rhythms one by one. It may be helpful to have someone keep a steady beat on a drum or cowbell. There are endless combinations, so everyone in a group can have a turn in developing a unique rhythm!
1 comment:
1. This is so neat! I learned a lot just by watching how everyone used their hands. Thanks for sharing.
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Aerodynamics aerospace interview question and answers
Yesterday I asked you 12 questions that you can face in an aerospace
interview. Today I am giving answers to those.
If you haven't read the questions read the previous post.
Aerodynamics is a branch of fluid dynamics concerned with the study of
gas flows.
The solution of an aerodynamic problem normally involves calculating
for various properties of the flow, such as velocity, pressure,
density, and temperature, as a function of space and time.
Understanding the flow pattern makes it possible to calculate or
approximate the forces and moments acting on bodies in the flow.
Two ways of aerodynamics are an experimental one, using wind tunnel
etc. and the numerical one, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
It is the science of predicting fluid flow, heat and mass transfer,
chemical reactions, and related phenomena by solving numerically the
set of governing mathematical equations. A discretization of the
spatial domain into small cells to form a volume mesh is needed, and
then a suitable algorithm is applied to solve the equations of motion.
The results of CFD analysis are relevant in conceptual studies of new
designs and detailed product development as well as troubleshooting
and redesign. It complements testing and experimentation of a new
design, reducing the total effort required in the experiment design
and data acquisition.
Aerodynamic problems can be classified in a number of ways.
1. Based on the flow environment
External/ Internal aerodynamics
2. Based on the ratio of the problem's characteristic flow speed to
the speed of sound
3. Based on viscosity in the flow
Viscous/ Non viscous flow
External aerodynamics is the study of flow around solid objects of
various shapes, for example the study of a wing profile, whereas
internal aerodynamics is the study of flow through passages in solid
objects, for example the study of the internal flow of a wind tunnel,
especially of the boundary layers near its walls
Navier-Stokes equations are named after Claude-Louis Navier and George
Gabriel Stokes!!
Navier-Stokes equations are a set of equations that establish that
changes in momentum of the particles of a fluid are simply the product
of changes in pressure and dissipative viscous forces acting inside
the fluid. These viscous forces originate in molecular interactions
and dictate how viscous a fluid is. Thus, the Navier-Stokes equations
are a dynamical statement of the balance of forces acting at any given
region of the fluid.
Navier-Stokes equations are one of the most useful sets of equations
because they describe the physics of a large number of phenomena like
ocean currents, water flow in a pipe, flow around an airfoil, etc.
My question answer is just a preview of what one will face in an
interview. Hope this helps you to be better prepared for all aerospace
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Monday, March 21, 2011
The Parsha begins with the joyful celebrations of the Inauguration of the Mishkan (tabernacle), however this joyous occasion becomes a time of mourning with the sudden deaths of Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadav and Avihu. "The sons of Aharon, Nadav and Avihu, each took his fire pan, they put fire in them and placed incense upon it; and they brought before Hashem an alien fire that He had not commanded them. A fire came forth from before Hashem and consumed them, and they died before Hashem. "
Chazal offer a number of explanations as to the exact wrongdoing of these two great men which caused them to receive such a strict punishment. The Toras Kohanim writes: “...Nadav and Avihu did not seek advice from Moshe.. and each man went on his own accord and they did not seek advice from each other.” This Midrash teaches us that Nadav and Avihu did not actually go to offer the incense together, rather they each had the same idea and went alone to offer the incense in the Mishkan. They are criticized because they did not seek advice from their Rebbe, Moshe Rabbeinu, before undertaking this bold act, and also because they did not seek advice from each other. Rav Berel Soleveitchik zt”l asks that this Midrash is very difficult to understand; it is obvious why they should have consulted Moshe Rabbeinu because he would have surely advised them to not offer the incense, however why are they criticized for not consulting with each other? They both evidently believed in the correctness of their plan and so what benefit would have been gained from consulting each other - surely they would have merely confirmed that the plan was a good one?!
Rav Soleveitchik answers that we learn from here a fundamental principle in human nature; A person may want to commit a certain sin and yet he may simultaneously see the flaw in such an action when his friend is about to commit the very same sin. This is because each person is greatly influenced by his yetser hara which prevents him from making decisions with objectivity. Rather, the yetser hara clouds his reasoning and causes him to rationalize that it is acceptable to undertake certain forbidden actions. However, when this same person looks on his friend about to perform the very same sin he is able to take a far more objective attitude towards his friend’s actions. This is because with regard to others a person is not clouded by a desire for self-gratification and he can more accurately assess the validity of his friend’s plans. Accordingly, had Nadav consulted Avihu about his plan (or vice versa) then there would have been a good chance that Avihu would have seen the flaw in his brother’s reasoning despite the fact that he planned to do the very same act! That is why they are criticized for not consulting each other despite the fact that they both planned to do the same sin .
Rabbeinu Yonah brings out this principle from the teaching in Avos: “...Acquire for yourself a friend. ” He writes that one of the benefits of having a friend is that he can help you in observing Mitzvos. “Even when a friend is no more righteous than him and sometimes he even acts improperly, nonetheless he does not want a friend to do the same [action], because he has no benefit from it. ” He then brings as a proof to this idea the principle that “a person does not sin on behalf of someone else.” This means that a generally observant person usually sins because he is blinded by some kind of desire for pleasure, however with regard to someone else we presume that he is not blinded in the same way and therefore we do not suspect him of sinning on behalf of others. This idea is applied in a number of places throughout the Gemara . Rabbeinu Yonah thus teaches us the importance of acquiring at least one friend who can act as an objective onlooker towards our own actions, and that this friend need not necessarily be on a higher level than ourselves.
We learn from these ideas a very important life lesson; a person should not rely on his own assessments of his actions - it is impossible to be purely objective when making decisions because of one’s natural subjectivity that causes him to rationalize the validity of doing certain aveiros. Rather, he must realize the necessity of finding a friend who will be prepared to offer advice and even rebuke when necessary when he sees that his friend is blinded by his desires. May we all merit to acquire true friends who can help us find the true path of Avodas Hashem.
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Sunday, December 30, 2012
Illustrated story of water damage
The southern porch on the keepers house is one of my favourite rooms. On sunny days the multiple windows act like a green house, warming up the room to very comfortable temperatures even without heat on. However, it was also one of the most damaged rooms in the entire duplex. Other than the water damage from the flashing leaking around the western chimney, no where was there as much water damage as in the southern porch.
Southern porch on keepers house - sun porch
Some of the problem was the windows. The storm windows were missing, much of the window glazing was gone or in bad shape letting water in, and the single pane windows sweat and frost over. The ceiling showed signs of water damage from the roof. The roof itself had two layers, asphalt shingles and rolled roofing but still the water came in. The walls were often wet after it rained and the dry wall was crumbling and mouldy. The window trim was turning black in places from the constant water penetration.
The first attempt to stop the water coming in was to strip all the roofing material and reshingle it but water still came in. The cedar shingles were peculiar under two windows that are over the southern porch, much too thick than they should be so it was decided to tear off the cedar shingles under the windows and see what was going on. Once the step flashing was exposed, where it was attached to the walls of the house, great holes in it were visible, however, the flashing extending under the asphalt shingles looked good. This was definitely one of the sources of water penetration and because the boards run diagonally, water from anywhere along the step flashing would be directed into the walls in the sun porch on both sides because the boarding changed directions in the middle of the house with both sides directing water back to the sun porch.
Corroded flashing under the cedar shingles.
Keepers house during construction in 1958. Note the diagonal sheathing boards.
Investigating where the water was getting in - not under the window but from above and travelling down the diagonal sheathing into the southern porch.
Looking at the water damage on the inside of the southern porch walls, coming from the main house (blackened wood).
The peculiar thick shingles were explained by a lack of knowledge of the person who tried to fix the leaks at one point, perhaps when the southern porch roof was reshingled and flashing replaced. Instead of tapering the ends of each shingle as they worked up the wall, full thickness shingles were layered on top of each other causing the thickness to become unwieldy. The shingles also did not extend up into the groove under the window sill allowing water to be blown up and under the shingles and thence down the walls. The shingles between the two windows above the sun porch were bulging so the entire wall was stripped and the flashing replaced.
Incorrect layering of cedar shingles above the southern porch which covered corroded flashing.
Stripping off all of the cedar shingles and flashing above the roof on the southern porch to redo and stop the water penetration into the southern porch.
New step flashing. The roof had been reshingled and the new shingles had to be removed so the flashing could be replaced. The corroded flashing couldn't be seen because of the incorrect layering of the cedar shingles.
Flashing under the windows as an added precaution from wind driven rain.
Cedar shingle debris from stripping above the southern porch between two windows.
Completing the cedar shingling after repairs. Plywood covered windows until new storm windows could be installed to prevent an additional source of water penetration.
The original door was returned to the sun porch replacing a steel door that no longer opened or closed from swollen door frames. The intent was admirable to try to stop the water damage by installing a steel door but without a storm door, water still came in on the floor and the three layers of floor boards were water soaked and rotting. Although the bottom floor boards looked okay from the cold rooms in the basement, the wood was very punky and a large section had to be torn out.
Returning the original wooden door to the southern porch. This had been replaced by a steel door but did not solve the problem of water coming in under the door because there was no storm door.
Reglazing windows after old door was returned.
Damage to floor inside the southern porch from years of water coming in under the door.
Removing the subfloor in the southern porch to replace the rot. The upper layer was a new product in 1958, MDF or particle board.
Patch in the subfloor. The southern porch sits over the cold rooms in the basement.
Carrying out the plywood for the southern porch floor.
The water damage was worse on the western side of the sun porch than the eastern side which is easily explained by the protection of the hill on the eastern side from driving south east rain storms but the entire porch had signs of water damage.
In the end, some of the dry wall and insulation was removed, the floor was stripped down to the subfloor and even some of that had to be replaced. The roof was reshingled and the cedar shingles replaced. The windows have been reglazed and storm windows installed A storm door and weather stripping were installed. The floor still needs to be tiled and the walls and ceiling painted and the trim and doors varnished. Interestingly we found that the sun porch was poorly insulated with some sections completely missed, perhaps during one of the attempts to repair the water damage.
Cleaning out the drywall and insulation under the windows to make repairs.
Replacing insulation under windows. Some of the windows were removed to complete the reglazing. The paint was removed from the trim because it was originally varnished.
Drywall and vapour barrier has been returned, as are windows after reglazing. Layers of peeling paint on the walls also had to be scraped off, revealing the original paint colour.
1. Water damage can really be troublesome! But it makes me wonder why rain is still penetrating the roof even though it has two layers of roofing materials on it. I think the problem is with poor flashing, or maybe no flashing at all! Flashing is really important to the roof because it helps divert the flow of water that runs down under the roof.
@Sasha Herrick
water damage Sydney
3. Oh my gosh! We recently had our beach house taken down to the studs and found so many of the similar things wrong with it. We had to look up so much information about water damage because we had no idea how to treat it or what to do about some of the studs that were covered with mold. Thanks so much for sharing your pictures.
4. I am grateful to you for this great content.I am reading your article and its very nice, useful. The way you tell the thing is awesome. Thanks for sharing information about water damage repair sydney.
5. That was a lot of water damage to tackle! I hope that by now, you've also dealt with the mold situation. Water damage is enough of a headache to deal with; but adding mold on top of that makes it even more serious, as it can cause health problems due to exposure.
6. Looks like you had a lot of work done! Based from the photos, the house definitely needs repairs and replacement. It is a good thing that you decided to fix and replace the damaged part. And Darryl is right; there could be mold forming somewhere because of the water and moisture. Better watch out for that.
7. Flashing, chimneys, old or damaged roofing, windows and doors - if there is water getting in, chances are it is from these sources. Once in, if there isn't proper ventilation, then it is a great breeding ground for mould. All of these things were the culprits in the Swallow Tail house but fortunately we have been able to track them down and fix them. It is a great space and we are happy that we were able to save it. |
Archive > Fall 2009 > Course Project > Buddy Suite > Milestone 3: Chess Game Logic >
0x88 Chessboard
This is alternative chess board representation. The information contained in this document has been copied from here. Be careful, the information may not be accurate.
The reason it's called 0x88 is that this constant is the point of the whole scheme.
The advantages of the 0x88 scheme are:
1. It's acceptably fast.
2. The code is small and not complex.
3. You get a good in-check routine as a side-effect.
Board representation and basic mechanics
A regular chessboard is 8 x 8 squares. The "standard" numbering of these squares is 0..63, with a1 being 0, b1 being 1, a2 being 8, h8 being 63, and you can fill in the rest for yourself.
0x88 uses a board that is a bit different. The board is 128 squares. a1..h1 are still 0..7, but there are un-used files i-p to the right of the h-file. Essentially it's as if you take a dummy chessboard and put it to the right of the "real" chessboard.
So a2 ends up being 16, a8 ends up being 112, and h8 is element 119.
The formula for any square is:
index = rank * 16 + file
You are probably wondering why this is done. There are a couple of reasons, but I'll only discuss the most critical in this section. The reason it is done is so you can detect if an iterated ray traversal has reached the left or right edges of the board.
I'm sure that was clear as mud. Let's assume that you have an 8 x 8 board, and we want to consider a rook on the square a3, which is index 16 on an 8 x 8 board. Let's generate destination squares for this rook. We'll start by going up the a-file. To go up a file, we'll add 8 to the index. So we start from 16, add 8, and get 24. Is this on the board? With this 8 x 8 board, we can check to see if the index is less than 64. 24 is less than 64, so we're on the board. Next destination is 32, then 40, then 48, then 56, then 64. 64 is not less than 64, so this one is off the board, and we stop.
Okay, let's go down the a-file from a3 now. a3 is 24, subtracting 8 gets us 16. Is that on the board? The test here is greater than or equal to zero, and 16 is. So index 16 (a2) is on the board. The next destination is 8, that's on the board, then 0, which is on the board, then -8, which is less than zero, so that is off the board.
We've used a different test in each of these cases, which is annoying. It would be much better if we could use one piece of code to do this, which would require one test. The test can be:
if ((index < 0) || (index >= 64))
That's really two tests, which is inefficent. We can do this in one test, since the board size is a power of two:
if (!(index & 0x40))
This catches both the case where the index has gone off the bottom of the board, and the case where it's gone off the top. In the top case, the 0x40 bit is set because we've exceeded 64, and in the bottom case it's set thanks to the way in which negative numbers are represented in two's-complement.
If you don't understand this, you'd better stop and figure it out, because unless you understand it, the rest of this page is going to read like hash.
If you are paying attention, you will have noticed that the rook when up the file and down the file, but it didn't go left or right. The reason it didn't go left or right is that this system fails if you try to go left or right. The system cannot detect if an iterated ray traversal has gone off the right or left edges of the board. If you start on a3, and you increment your index by one until you end up on h3, you can increment the index again, which gets you to a4. a4 is still on the board, and there is no elegant trick you can use to figure out if you've gone past the h-file. You have the same problem if you try to go left -- if you start on a3 and decrement, you are on h2, which is still on the board, but there is no piece that moves like this in chess.
The 0x88 system solves this problem. By using a 16 x 8 board, you get a marker bit. You can tell if you've gone off into the unused right board, because the 0x08 bit is set if you've done this. h1 is 7, if you add one you get 8, which has the 0x08 bit set. None of the "left" (real) board squares has the 0x08 bit set, and all of the "right" (dummy) board squares have this bit set. If you are on a3 and you try to go to the left one square, you're on p2, which is in the dummy board, which has the 0x08 bit set.
You can combine the 0x08 test with the 0x80 test (0x80 rather than 0x40, since things have changed a bit since there are 128 squares), and do both tests at the same time. 0x80 combine with 0x08 is 0x88, hence the name of the scheme.
If you understand what I'm talking about, it should be clear now how 0x88 works. Your move generation loop looks like this:
while (!(index & 0x88)) {
index += delta;
This is extremely elegant. You can do something like this:
void GenerateMoves(int square, int * ptab)
for (; *ptab; ptab++) {
int index;
for (index = square; !(index & 0x88); index += *ptab)
int argdBishop[] = { 17, 15, -17, -15, 0 };
void GenerateBishopMoves(int square)
GenerateMove(square, argdBishop);
This is fast enough, and there is very little code. The only thing that distinguishes a bishop from a rook or a queen is the data in the little table, so obviously you can add in the rest of the pieces in a few seconds without adding any significant code.
Of course you still have special code for with pawns and castling, but every system has those problems. The 0x88 system helps you a little with this, but the code is still ugly.
A bonus
Another thing you get from the 0x88 system is quick detection of attacks, and this is the other reason for the 16 x 8 board. If you subtract two indexes of squares on that board, you get a value that accurately describes the relationship between the two squares.
For example, if the result of the subtraction is 1, you know that the second square was to the right of the first square. If your result was 16, you were one square up the file from the first square.
This is not true if you are using an 8 x 8 board. It's true that d1 - c1 = 1, but a2 - h1 is also 1. This problem of confusion due to "wrap-around" is solved if you use a 128-element board.
You can make use of this if you are trying to write an in-check function or something else that needs to know if a piece on one square attacks another.
You can make an array of approximately 257 elements (-128 ... +128), which is appropriately filled in with bit-fields that describe which pieces can conceivably move between two squares separated by some delta. You can use fewer than 257 elements, but I won't get into that trivial detail.
For example, in the element corresponding to a delta of 1, you have the king, queen, and rook bits set. If the delta is 17, you have bits set for king, queen, bishop, and white pawn.
This can be used to make an acceptably fast in-check routine. You get a delta by subtracting the attacker's square from the target's square, add 128 to it so you avoid a negative index, and look up in the pre-computed attack array to see if a piece of the attacker's type could conceivably get to the destination square in one move.
If you determine that it's possible to get to the destination square, you check to see if you are looking at a sliding piece (queen, rook, bishop). If not, you are done. If the piece is a sliding piece, you traverse the ray from the source to destination square, looking for intervening pieces.
The resulting routine, which I won't provide code for, is fairly easy to write and is acceptably fast. |
Know the risk factors of heart disease
Heart health is important at any age. Heart disease is a term associated with those that are middle-aged or older; rarely is it ever associated with a young person. Many of the risk factors for heart disease are contributors due to an illness or bad habit. They are all preventable. We can avoid each and every one of these if we have the willpower. Here are the most common heart disease risk factors. Use these as fuel to better your health.
First, too little exercise invites heart disease. How often do you exercise? Most doctors will encourage you to exercise at least 30 minutes every day. By no means does this have to include a gym membership. Go outdoors and walk or run. Go for a bike ride, go fishing or go swimming. If you do have a gym membership, make the most of it. Alternate cardio and strength-training. Take advantage of every machine they have in the building. You have to keep your heart strong and healthy. If you need a trainer then get a trainer, but get it done.
An unhealthy diet is also a contributing factor. Think about how much you eat out at restaurants. Now, how much of that is fast food restaurants? Do yourself a favor and cut out fast food altogether. In fact, you need to stop eating a high fat and high sugar diet. Cut out drinking soda and energy drinks. Instead, switch to a high protein diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and lean meats. It’s going to energize you and give you the ambition to get things done. Start drinking water, tea, and coffee. It’s going to be a game changer for you; you’re going to find that you drop weight and have a positive new outlook on life.
Similarly, being overweight is a risk factor for heart disease. It’s important to realize that not all those individuals who are overweight have poor diets or exercise. Some have medically-related conditions, which in turns makes them gain weight as an effect of the condition. But at the same time, this makes their risk for heart disease much higher. If you’re the latter, it’s important to work with your doctor. Get on a diet and exercise plan that best suits you. You want to make sure your heart is healthy while you have the condition.
Smoking is also a high-risk factor for heart disease. More than two million people die each year in the United States due to heart disease deaths impacted by smoking. When you’re a smoker, fat builds up quicker around the heart’s arteries which make it more likely for a heart attack. It also affects every organ within the body. It also makes you more likely to experience blood clots. This is because the nicotine in cigarettes makes your blood sticky. It makes it more of a challenge to move throughout the blood vessels.
Finally, an individual is more at risk if heart disease is in their family. There are two ways this could happen. You could have a history of early heart disease throughout your family line, anything from heart attacks or coronary heart disease. Or, you could have a history or preeclampsia during pregnancy. This is where the mother-to-be’s blood pressure spikes prior to delivering her baby. Both of these are risk factors for heart disease and make your risk of encountering it much higher. Do your best to stay away from these risk factors and keep your heart healthy; it’s worth it.
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