Westworld Star Leonardo Nam Is Clueless about What Is Coming

Westworld star Leonardo Nam recently discussed his role in the series. Why does the actor feel that his character bears an uncanny similarity with the viewers of the show?

Leonardo Nam portrays the role of Felix in the series. He feels that his character is quite like the show’s viewers. That is because just like the show’s audiences, he gets to know the storyline as and when they are revealed.

Leonardo Nam Gets Breathing Room Like Other Cast Members

Entertainment Tonight noted that Nam has had played a crucial role during the escape attempt made by Maeve (Thandie Newton) in Season 1 of Westworld. Yet the actor feels he was unaware of the plot like the show’s viewers.

As far as  Season 2 is concerned, Westworld star Leonardo Nam says he is “interested to find out what they’re going to do”  just like the fans of the show. Nam wanted to share that though he is a member of the cast and watches the show on the TV, he is clueless about what is coming.

However, the actor does not feel his ignorance is a disadvantage. Nam feels that just because there are a lot of mysteries surrounding the series, the show’s production is quite intense.

He said that the ambiance gives all the cast members of Westworld including him some breathing space, International Business Times AU Edition reported. He was oblivious of the various twists in the plot just like his character Felix.

Westworld Star Leonardo Nam Praises Co-Star

Nam was also full of praises for his co-star Newton. The actor feels that Newton gave her best for her performance in Season 1 of Westworld.

Nam complimented the actress for being so professional and for being loving and affectionate. Nam added that the actress has given all her efforts for portraying her character in Season 1 and that was quite evident.

The actor thinks that the responses of the viewers to Maeve and the storyline have been pretty good. Moreover, Nam is grateful to be able to be associated with Westworld.

The best part is when the actor confessed that he becomes a bit shaky while acting with Newton. However, though he had been nervous, it was a wonderful experience for him. He told Entertainment Tonight, “She was just so wonderful, just so darling and really took me under her wing.”

The premiere date for Westworld Season 2 has not yet been confirmed. In Australia, Westworld Season 1 was aired on Foxtel.

ALSO READ: Westworld Season 2 Update: When and Who Will Return in the Series

Image Source: Facebook/Westworld

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Westworld Star Leonardo Nam Is Clueless about What Is Coming

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work in progress

Datsun has unveiled the GO-Cross concept during the Tokyo Motor Show.

Described as the “brand’s vision for possible expansion of the Datsun GO/GO+ family in high growth markets”, the study takes the shape of a compact crossover featuring a distinctive front end with hexagonal radiator grille and sweptback LED headlights. The rugged design is completed by plastic body cladding, big round fog lamps and a massive rear diffuser.

Based on the Datsun GO+, the vehicle is only a design exercise and the producer hasn’t decided whether to introduce a production version of it or not. Given it’s conceptual nature, Datsun is not providing any technical details.

The revived brand announced “the concept investigates the market potential of a crossover with spirit and a sense of adventure” and that “it’s a car that fully handles the day-to-day routine yet still has plenty left for holidays or weekend fun”.

In other related news, Vincent Cobee, global head of Datsun, reconfirmed the company will launch a brand new model at the beginning of 2016 that will be based on Renault-Nissan’s CMF-A global architecture. The company is also “studying further business expansion possibilities in other high-growth markets around the world”.

Source: Datsun via IAB

Datsun GO-Cross concept previews possible future SUV in Tokyo


America In True Perspective

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. President International Association of Educators for World Peace Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education, Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament

Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

There has never been a country in the history of the world that has occupied the minds of so many nations as the United States. A person is best judged not by the looks, outfit, wealth and power but rather by the character and personality. These two elements are generally viewed as sources of credibility and predictability. This means everyone knows where one stands with such a person in a way that would make us feel comfortable and at ease all the time.

Positive and Constructive Aspects

If we were to read several books about the United States we will soon discover how different they may be. In fact, each of such books may sound to be talking about an entirely different country that happens to bear the same name. The reason is simple. We may view an object from 360 angles each one of which tends to give us a somewhat different perspective. Churchmen, for example, may prefer to focus on American traditional spiritual values that may include week-end participation in religious services, the invocation of God’s name in prayer before every major event, and families united in love and friendship.

Several news-reporters tend to focus on a variety of sports, football in particular. In fact, quite a few millions do not miss watching some tournaments especially in their final stage. Of course, the list in this area may go on and on. Humanitarian groups, along with philanthropists, talk often about their favorite charities, which may serve to help the handicapped and the homeless as well as the poor and the hungry. In this regard, the United States donates yearly more money for just humanitarian causes than any other nation on earth.

Thomas Millington, Ambassador IICor.5:20, Ambassador to Jerusalem had Charles Mercieca as colleague when working with Algonquin Wabanaki Nation

In terms of virtue, Americans in general are viewed to be good and trustworthy. Most of them have visited several countries as tourists. In virtue of their presence, they proved to be the best ambassadors of good will that the United States ever had. Until a couple of decades ago or so, Americans were not only liked but, at times, envied as well. As a matter of fact, many foreigners felt the desire to immigrate to the United States and become also citizens. All of this reveals some of the positive and constructive aspects of the United Sates.

We need to keep in mind that viewing the United States from the aspects that have just been presented is not the same as when viewing this same nation from entirely different angles. The United States is a capitalistic nation that is ruled in practice by big corporations, which finance the election of virtually every senator and congressman. Hence, although in theory people elect their government officials to represent them; in practice such government officials represent, first and foremost, the interests of big corporations even when proven to be detrimental to the American people.

Evil of Communism and Capitalism

When Pope John Paul II was asked in Mexico during the decade of the eighties as to whether world peace was feasible he did not hesitate to give a quick reply. He said clearly and emphatically: “Yes, world peace is feasible but only after two of the greatest evils of the 20th century are gone.” Then he added saying: “These two great evils are communism and capitalism because both try to achieve their goals through the exploitation of people.” Some three years later, communism collapsed and the world took a great sigh of relief.

This event gave capitalism the chance to reveal its true self. Instead of embarking on a program of international disarmament and arms control, the elimination of landmines and the abolition of all nuclear weapons, the United States embarked on the largest military build-up in history. Tens of billions of dollars were spent to open hundreds of US military bases around the world and to literally pollute the major oceans of the world with warships.

Instead of cooperating with philanthropists and humanitarian groups in the build-up of a peaceful world community, the United States assumed determinedly the role of becoming literally the policeman of the world. Instead of offering nations across every continent with humanitarian assistance to help eliminate hunger and provide natives with adequate home facilities, the United States offered governments across every continent with all kinds of weapons and all military equipment as to enable them to solve all problems with neighboring countries through struggles and wars.

After the collapse of communism, the United States had the unique opportunity to become an asset to the entire world. Yet, it deliberately blew up this opportunity and set on irreversible course of struggles and wars. As a result, tens of thousands, amounting to millions, of innocent people were slaughtered mercilessly. The world, instead of becoming safer, emerged to become more dangerous. Thousands of those who managed to survive whose properties were destroyed and relatives were killed have now lost the will to live.

Some non-governmental organizations have asked children, ages 9 through 11 in both Gaza and Iraq, what it was they wished to do when they grew up. To their full surprise, more than 80% said unanimously: “Killing Americans!” When each one was asked as to “why” this was their ambition, the answer was quick:

American Flag

“Because Americans killed my father, they killed my mother, they killed or maimed my brother, along with several relatives; they destroyed our homes and all of our belongings; in essence we lost our will to live.”

Planting Seeds for Future Terrorism

What will happen when in a few years from now, these thousands of children become late teens or in their early twenties? They will surely find ways that would endanger the lives of Americans and even proceed to destroy their property wherever it may be. Of course, when such events will take place because they were instigated in the first place by the Americans years earlier, the US government officials will then label them as Al-Qaeda or Taliban, even though they might never had connection with any of these two groups.

American foreign policies have been viewed by many around the world to be very belligerent. Such policies are based on the slogan: “Do it our own way or else face the consequences!” Such policies are also seen as an expression of machismo revealed in a determination to haunt people with fear, which often leads to paranoia. Once paranoia takes over, the elements of self-control and of solving conflicts through healthy dialogues tend to disappear very fast. More soldiers mean more killing of innocent people that is bound to bring more negative and destructive reactions toward Americans.

The US full reliance on the military to get what it wants by hook or by crook has already put this great nation of so many good projects and good people on the road to financial collapse. US government officials as a whole tend to call the countless trillions of dollars spent on weapons and the military as “defense” money. To this end, there is always money with no end in sight, even to the detriment of Americans’ lives. And these same US government officials refer to any money for the health care of Americans as “deficit” money.

In other words, US government officials as a whole do not even dream to do anything that is substantial for Americans, if that were to interfere with the financial interests of big corporations. The saintly Pope John Paul II, who may become canonized in our lifetime, was right when he condemned capitalism as a great evil because, as he said, “it advances its causes through the exploitation of people.” Ironically, these are Americans for whom their government claims to be fighting wars all over the world “to safeguard their democracy and freedom!”

In recent decades, more people in the United States and around the world are beginning to believe that this nation does not have itself the democracy it advocates other nations to have. Also, Americans do not have the freedom that their government claims it wants to bring to other nations. Democracy is derived from two Greek words, demos (people) + kratia (government). In the United States we only have a façade of democracy. In theory, people elect their government officials supposedly to represent them.

View of Democracy and Freedom

  However, for anyone to be elected one must reach the people in their homes through the press, radio and television. To use such media one must pay millions of dollars. This means that to have a chance to be elected one must be either very rich or have some rich sources to finance the campaign. Here is where the big corporations step in. Once the people elect their representatives through a well prepared propaganda, commonly known as “advertisements,” then such elected officials proceed to thank the corporations that financed their campaign by doing anything in their power to boost their corporate products.

All of this modus operandi reveals that to have genuine democracy in a capitalistic nation constitutes a contradiction. As long as the US subscribes to capitalism, it can never have true democracy. Since democracy and freedom seem to be tied together, let us examine the concept of freedom of movement, since this is viewed as vital for people anywhere. When top US government officials advocate to other nations to give freedom to their people, they will have first to see what kind of freedom they do give to Americans in the first place.

Although many people of several countries enjoy the freedom to travel anywhere in the world, even at their own risk, Americans are forbidden by their US government to travel freely in a number of countries. That includes Cuba their peaceful neighbor. The US news-media hardly ever bring any good and constructive news about Cuba, which has been viewed as “enemy” for almost half century! In fact, the United States has put an embargo against Cuba for well over four decades. Cuba committed only one “crime!”

When the Revolution freed Cuba from the tyrannical Fulgencio Batista, the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, made it clear that “Cuba belongs to the Cubans and not to US big corporations.” When such corporations realized that he meant what he said, then they asked US government officials who were elected by corporate money to “punish” Cuba and the embargo, which is still in operation, was imposed. It’s an example of how US government elected officials serve more as puppets of big corporations than as representatives of the people.

A few years ago, Cuba found a cure to some forms of cancer. While people from overseas went to Cuba to be cured of their maladies, the American news media did not bring any news about this event. This was in line with their US corporate policies that news about Cuba must only be negative and destructive. Only God knows how many Americans died that would have still be alive if they paid a visit to Cuba to this end. If Americans do not have freedom of movement to go wherever they want, how can the US government give other nations such a freedom? Nemo dat quod non habet – No one can give anything that one does not have.

Self-Proclaimed Christian Nation

The United States is considered to be mostly a Christian nation. US government officials who feel proud of their traditional Christian heritage speak proudly of the country’s traditional belief in God. In fact, the American motto on money and on quite a few monuments reads: “In God We Trust.” Almost all of these US government officials attend church religious services on week-ends. The majority of them view the Master Teacher of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, as their Redeemer and Lord. All of this is perfectly fine and all of us should feel edified.

However, we are faced with something ironic here. A good number of these self-proclaimed Christians in the US government do not seem to hesitate to censure the teachings of their proclaimed Master Teacher when they feel disagreeable. Whereas the mindset of Jesus was deeply trenched in the culture of peace, the mindset of most of our US government officials is deeply ingrained in the culture of war. We all recall the words of the Master Teacher to the Pharisees:

“The God you preach is not the God I know. You preach a God that advocates the eye for an eye and the tooth for a tooth; the God I know is one who when stricken on the cheek he would not only refrain from retaliating but He would rather be stricken on the other cheek as well.” And when His disciple Peter tried to defend Him by taking out the sword, Jesus was quick to tell him: “Put the sword away for he who kills by the sword will die by the sword.” The mindset of this Master Teacher was truly ingrained in the culture of peace.  [Side post: War Culture vs Peace culture]

This mainly Christian nation, whose mindset is deeply trenched in the culture of war, has defied the instructions of the Master Teacher, through its weapons, struggles and wars. Its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be replaced with humanitarian agencies. The US can still provide world leadership to bring world peace. This would need first of all a shift from the mindset of the culture of war to the mindset of the culture of peace. US military bases could become humanitarian quarters. Besides, US war ships floating over the oceans need to be changed into floating hospitals to help save the lives of many.

Thomas personally hugged Dave Roever and welcomed him home at a Promise Keepers Convention

If what has been stated sounds clear and obvious, how come nothing is being done to change the role of the US military from one of destruction to one of construction? It is more noble and humane to preserve human life from every aspect than to destroy it brutally! The traditional US governmental philosophy of the culture of war needs to be replaced with the virtual unanimous people’s urge toward the eventual implementation the culture of peace. [Dave Roever, Vietnam Veteran “We may change political parties, pass constitution amendments and restructure gun laws but until the heart of man is in right relationship with God nothing will change and violence will continue.]

Questioned United States Leadership

Is there any hope for the United States to emerge as an instrument of harmony and peace instead of struggles and wars? The answer is yes if all those who are concerned with the creation of a harmonious and peaceful world were to become involved. We cannot leave our constructive actions for tomorrow for as Frank Sinatra said in one of his songs: “Let’s forget about tomorrow for tomorrow never comes.” Here are steps to help replace the culture of war with that of peace.

Periodical demonstrations against war policies are needed to demonstrate to our politicians our outrage and condemnation of their actions.

Legal actions against those politicians who became millionaires through weapons and wars should be taken and have all of their money confiscated.

Constant pressure should be put on government officials to close 50% of the hundreds of US military bases overseas. This would allow the American people to have all the money they need for their health care and education.

Clergymen and physicians, who are responsible for the people’s spiritual and physical needs, should condemn openly the “abuse of power” involved when the US military destroys cities and kills thousands of innocent people.

Big Corporations must be made fully aware of their moral obligation to change their destructive products into constructive ones; instead of making tanks for soldiers they could make tractors for farmers.

Courage and determination should be revealed by those working in the manufacture of weapons to quit immediately their job and to seek for a kind of work that is constructive and beneficial to our earthly community..

Nations everywhere should stop cooperating with the United States when it comes to the manufacture and sales of weapons and the promotion of struggles and wars. They should say loud and clear: Satis est satis – Enough is enough!

We’ve a Story to Tell the Nations

A nation cannot be the seat of capitalism and the seat of democracy and freedom at the same time. As stated earlier, this constitutes a contradiction. In capitalism the power lies with big corporations where government officials are merely puppets of such elements, which financed their election. The real hope of the United States lies with the American people. Their courage and perseverance to move forward is bound to bring about constructive results in due time.


1. Baby
  2. Conception
  3. Ovulation
  4. After ovulating
After ovulating

After ovulation

So you’re pretty sure you’ve ovulated, and you and perhaps your partner have done your best to become pregnant – what now?

The waiting time after ovulation until you are able to either take a pregnancy test or your period starts may be agonising, particularly if you have been trying to get pregnant for a while.

In the ‘average’ 28 day cycle, menstruation occurs on Day 1 and ovulation occurs at around Day 14. But remember, every woman and her cycle are unique

Many women get confused by the ‘Day 14’ terminology and assume that ovulation occurs fourteen days after menstruation has ended. Assuming an ‘average’ 5 days of menstruation, ovulation is more likely to be around nine days after menstruation has finished.

The luteal phase is the time after ovulation but before a period starts. It’s the longest-lasting phase of the menstrual cycle.

Can you still get pregnant after ovulation?

It is only possible to get pregnant for a short window of time after ovulation.

After ovulation – when the egg is released from the follicle – there is a period of between 12 and 48 hours when egg is in its best possible condition to be fertilised by a mature sperm.

Sperm can last for up to five days inside a woman’s body, sustained by the cervical mucous. Often, conception happens just after ovulation. If there are sperm already waiting in the fallopian tubes one will fertilise the egg after it has just been released.

Healthy, active sperm take around six hours after ejaculation to swim through the cervix and uterus, then into the fallopian tube to meet a waiting egg. For up to a couple of days after ovulation, it is still possible to conceive.

Can you ovulate two times in one cycle?

In any one menstrual cycle, there is generally only one fertile period. As levels of FSH (follicular stimulating hormone) rise, a number of follicles will develop in your ovaries, but usually just one will be released.

Because ovulation is triggered by a unique combination of hormones that rises and falls over the normal menstrual cycle, eggs can only be released from the ovaries during the 24-hour period when the ovulation-promoting hormones are at their peak. However, ovulation is not always precise or exact. Many babies have been conceived during windows of time which don’t fit within the average or “normal” fertile phase.

A pregnancy with fraternal twins results from two eggs being released from two different follicles. These eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm.

Around 4% of births are twins, but there are lots of factors which influence the rate of twins.

It is now thought that up to one in eight pregnancies may involve the very early fertilisation of more than one egg, but less than half of the second embryos will survive for more than a few weeks after ovulation. If the second embryo does not survive, it is reabsorbed by the woman’s body.

After ovulation, hormone levels decline and a feedback cycle triggers menstruation before the next ovulation.

What happens immediately after ovulation?

The follicle which released the egg grows larger and turns into a gland-like structure called the ‘corpus luteum.’ It then starts to produce the hormone progesterone, which causes the lining of the uterus (the endometrium) to grow thick and become covered with mucous that is produced by glands within the endometrium. This helps to prepare the lining of the uterus to sustain the fertilised egg.

What happens after ovulation – if you are not pregnant?

After ovulation, if you are not pregnant, within around 48 hours, the egg moves along the fallopian tube, disintegrates and is absorbed back into the body.

The blood that is already in the lining then pools lower in the uterus and the mucous-covered uterine lining, deprived of oxygen, dies back, the blood and lining seep into the vagina, so menstruation occurs and the cycle begins again.

After ovulation and until menstruation, your basal body temperature can remain about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher. Your cervical mucus becomes less slippery and more sticky or creamy in consistency.

What happens after ovulation – if you are pregnant?

Around eight to ten days after fertilisation, the blastocyst implants into the wall of the uterus.

But after ovulation and then implantation, there’s lots happening. Sometimes there is a slight spotting or bleeding just after implantation – which some women mistake for a period.

But when the blastocyst attaches to the endometrium, becoming an embryo, various hormones are released which thicken the endometrium and help to seal off the cervix with a plug of mucous. This helps to reduce the risk of infection.

The embryo and placenta develop separately. After implantation, the placenta produces the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Within a few days, the level of hCG may be detected by a pregnancy test using the woman’s urine.

By Fran Molloy, journalist and mum of four


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Almost nothing happens.

 By Bonnie Jones in response to Jeph Jerman (a month of) sundays, Eulachon 2012

As we celebrate John Cage’s Centennial this year, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about what it means to be a Post-Cagean “experimental” musician. This term always made me a bit squirmy. As a student studying English, I didn’t end up working through the Western musical canon and so came late to Cage’s work. In fact, I was several years into the music I’m making now before I ever laid eyes on Cage’s scores or listened to seminal recordings he did with David Tudor. Whether artists and musicians practicing today can or should be traced to defined musical traditions and lineages is an increasingly moot point in our late-Capitalist, globalized world. The threads of one’s influences and the nature of our dialogue with the past appears more like a medieval tapestry than a simple throw rug. So calling myself Post-Cagean always felt a bit, well, disingenuous. Can you be post-something if the something isn’t something you actually know/knew that much about and likely still don’t?

Yet, Cage’s influence on the work I make and listen to is surely undeniable. Cage made everyday non-intentional sound(s), noise, silence, and chance operations viable, if not acceptable, musical elements. He expanded the definition of what we call “music” and proffered an invitation for us to embark on more adventurous forms of listening. In Cage’s work, the incidental everyday sounds had as much place inside music as any other sound we might produce. By removing the precedence of mastery and authorship in favor of chance and process, Cage proposed that we imagine both musician and composer as an explorer, as one who encounters sound and as one whom sound encounters. Cage spoke for the presentness of the present, the way we interact with sound, the act of moving through a sound event, even at the expense of conscious making.

What I find most compelling about Arizona musician/artist Jeph Jerman’s (a month of) sundays is just this act of encounter, laid bare in the sounds he produces and records. The piece, recorded in four, overdubbed layers over the span of a month, is a document, a letter to the listener from the past. As Jerman humbly notes, “almost nothing happens” in (a month of) sundays, that is to say there are very few sound events in this work that an average listener might declare “composed” or “complex in musical form”. Yet this listener hears something quite complex in this “nothing.”

The piece begins with the sound of a door opening, what sounds like a blurt from a fed-back amplifier, and the hiss of a recorder being turned on in Jerman’s studio/home. The track then proceeds through 20 minutes of minute and discrete sine tones, wooden scratches, metal scrapes speaker blurts and buzzes, with occasional chair creaks and breath sounds from Jerman. Each sound carefully engages with the environmental sounds picked up by the recorder, often matching volume and intensity with what is happening in the room. At times, Jerman even seems to listen and respond to the digital hiss that will appear on the recording but that would not have been audible during the session. Around 3’40” the first small sine tone is heard. At 5’09” the second and higher pitched sine tone is heard. At 11’43” a metal rod jangles to the floor or table. At 12’43” the third lower pitched sine starts, and some piece of metal is lightly rattled a few seconds later. At 13’13” is that a dog barking outside and the sound of a low bass in a moving car rolling past? The unusually active and “noisy” two minute ending arrives with an uncommon forcefulness and intentionality within a piece that moves so glacially and precisely through the smallest sounds and musical gestures. In the context of the work, it’s like a signature on a document.

Dear Listener,

It’s Sunday and I’m here and you are there sometime in the future in some other place. I imagine you, because I know your ear may find me someday. But here in this place, in this time, I wonder if time and place have anything to do with what is (not) happening. I left a few breadcrumbs for you to follow, an object catalog that you might use in association or reference (small speakers attached to a battery, wooden balls, pumice, an e-bow and metal rods, and various spaces around the house and studio). However, the object will speak and sometimes her voice is quite different than you would imagine, so don’t worry if you can’t find the pumice or the wooden ball, they still have plenty to say.

I once thought encountered and recorded sounds might be about capturing a place and gifting that place to you, listener. But recently, I started to wonder if whether it’s not about place at all, because place is so much more confusing now and we’re all getting used to living in places that don’t exist in space. I thought maybe it was time I was interested in, rooting a moment that can’t be recaptured. But for me, as a document / storage medium, that work is done, that time is captured. So now, you are listening, and maybe that is what is important above all – you are listening now and in the past I was recording a listening, a body and sound. There’s history in my document that passes through these vibrations to the present, to you listening. There’s a hand and a body and a set of ideas in history being transmitted to your present. I’m a medium, I can speak for what is not longer there or too distant to be found again.

As with much of Jerman’s previous works involving field recordings (and I see this work as a field recording of a performance or maybe even a performance of a field recording) the piece seems less concerned with a specific musical or formal development and more with Jerman’s attempt to make his performance, as nearly as possible, inside and inextricable from the “field” recorded.

The sonic and conceptual space opened by this gesture is fascinating. Here we have a field recording/document of a space and place in time that includes the actions and gestures of a performer. A performer who is aware of being recorded and chooses to consciously situate himself inside the total recorded space. He is improvising with the space, he is working within that small gap between intention and non-intention between what is natural (un-thought) and what is made and chosen. The work asks a question about agency, about how we act upon and are acted upon by the sound world that surrounds us. What is the nature of this connection and construction? In this space, does the individual move not towards erasure of the self but towards evidence of the self through the very act of seeming to dissolve into the space?

Cage’s musical proposition was to make music outside of history, deskilling* the role of composer and performer, and working towards a certain “death of the author.” However the logical conclusion of Cage’s argument is what we as “experimental” musicians seem to grapple with today. Is the artist/maker/self meant to be invisible in the work? In (a month of) sundays, there would be no need to include Jerman’s performance to make this a piece of music. These days a field recording can stand alone. And yet, there he is scraping wood and metal, working objects with his hands and body, moving in his chair, walking across the room. There he is placing himself inside of history, his history, our history, his ear, our ear. Jerman's work seems to respond to a desire to be both inside and outside of time. To capture and remember one’s lived experience and history while calling attention to the primacy and intimacy of the present.

Far from being a piece where nothing happens, (a month of) sundays seems to contemplate everything that can happen within a recorded sound space. The combination of field recording and performance, puts Jerman’s decisions not to include a sound or texture, in relief against the environmental and inclusive sound world of his studio, his body shifting in its seat, the cars outside, the dogs barking, the Arizona desert. The work reveals the self (evident) and the self (invisible). It sparks the restless imagination of the listener as we move through each minute sonic space that Jerman explores. Jerman responds to Cage’s invitation for us to be more adventurous in our listening and to reconsider our definition of music and the role of the performer.

*In the 2005, two-volume text book, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Benjamin Buchloch defines this un-masterful gesture, this “deskilling” as "a concept of considerable importance in describing numerous artistic endeavors throughout the twentieth century with relative precision. All of these are linked in their persistent effort to eliminate artisanal competence and other forms of manual virtuosity from the horizon of both artist competence and aesthetic valuation." Rosalind Krause, co-editor of the book, in an interview with Brooklyn Rail summarizes the term as such, “deskilling is a way of forgetting, insisting that the artist forget.”

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

notes to follow bonnie jones' "eulachon 4/21/12"

by jeph jerman in response to bonnie jones' 'eulachon 4/21/12, Eulachon 2012

struggling to find a word to describe jones' text piece, as if i had to, the word palimpsest leapt to mind. not that the piece itself represents that reworked slate, but it makes of mind a palimpsest, as each sentence or sentence fragment scrolls upward and we are left, in the intervening time, to try and remember and connect past fragments with new bits of information. it is a bit like watching someone write-sentences flow haltingly, words are misspelled and then re-spelled. at times words flash for split seconds, thoughts that don't stick around. showing what mind does, and then, in the end, giving us an alternative, and antidote perhaps.

not knowing much about text pieces, i am not sure if this is a new idea, this working of language as a concrete moving thing. when reading text in an everyday context, as you may be doing this instant, you can go back and re-read anything you may've lost/forgotten/not been paying attention to. if left to play through, this doesn't happen with"... 4/21/12", and a struggle with meaning ensues. mind tumbles, having been tripped up. it wanders, as it will, and it searches through the dust and erasure marks, trying to re-construct.
i believe that this is what we are being shown. perhaps then not so much a page written/erased/re-written, as a finger pointing at the moon.

texts on pieces

in the weeks to come, we will be posting a series of texts written by eulachon contributors.
these texts will be in response or compliment to, directly or indirectly, pieces from past editions of eulachon.

the first, to be published very shortly, is a text written by jeph jerman to follow bonnie jones' piece in the inaugural april 2012 edition.

the second will be a text written by jones to follow jerman's piece from the october edition.

more will follow.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

available now:

the second edition of EULACHON.
featuring work by catherine lamb & bryan eubanks, joshua beckman, jeph jerman, alejandro de acosta, gust burns, tyler wilcox, and tucker dulin.

all free downloads.

Friday, April 27, 2012

out now:

the first edition of EULACHON.
featuring work by joshua beckman, gust burns, bryan eubanks, bonnie jones, radu malfatti, ray stoller, and tyler wilcox.

all free downloads.

Monday, April 23, 2012

coming very soon: new music, video, text, scores at including work by joshua beckman, gust burns, bryan eubanks, bonnie jones, radu malfatti, ray stoller, and tyler wilcox.


+918427123322, +918427023322

ISO 9001:2008

Apr, 2018

Career options in Music Production

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Does music excites your soul? Do you want to make a career in music industry? Bigboxx Academy has started a music production and sound engineering in Chandigarh. It is the best place for you. Here we train passionate, aspiring and dedicated personalities to meet the industry standards by providing them with electronic sound education with latest industry technology.

The music producer oversees all aspects of the recording process, including hiring session players and supervising the recording budget. In music industry, producers usually work with record labels and recording artists to make songs and albums for release.

Careers options in Music Production

  • Sound Designer: The sound designers make and create music and sound effects for productions, from television, digital cinema, games and animation to plays, commercials, and other multimedia shows. The audio is recorded and formatted for playback during execution such performance or concert.
  • Sound Mixer: They mix and manage sound and volume quality when more than one microphone is used.
  • Record/Music Producer: The music producers are the creative leaders of the recording project. They oversee various aspects of the recording process such as hiring musicians and helping them select material to keep the project within the set budget. Music production works include working on projects for films, artists, television or other types of media.
  • Instrument Specialists (i.e. bass tech, guitar tech): An instrument technician who maintains the instrument and establishes the musical equipment for his instrumentalist during a concert or show tour.
  • Recording Engineer: They work with performers and producers to determine what kind of sound is desired. Accordingly they record “sound” using the recording equipments and that sound is mixed and edited for quality and volume using a sound mixing board. Sound engineers also create copies of the recording in other formats keep records of the recordings they make.
  • Live Sound Engineer/audio technicians: These engineers adjust and mix the audio quality, including music and speech, as it is created at different places such as sports stadiums, theaters, churches and conference rooms. They also control the sound by the use of a mixer and are also responsible for high-quality sound, setting sound levels and sound control and music during concerts and live performances.
  • Recording Studio Manager: They supervise the daily business of running a recording studio including the budget management. They also schedule and hire qualified engineers to manage the studio team and equipment, books artists for the studio; they also negotiate the rates and thus do marketing of the studio for potential clients.

For further details:

Contact-0172-4612244, +918427123322

Bigboxx Academy

SCO- 146-147, Basement, Sector-34-A

Chandigarh 160022


Folding Wooden Armchair of Ming Style

Folding Wooden Armchair of Ming Style

Shanghai Museum's furniture exhibition room is named after two brothers of the Hong Kong Chuang family, Chuang Tze-Yuen and Chuang Tze-Kong, who donated a large number of exhibits in the 1990s.

One of the donations is a folding wooden armchair (黄花梨圆后背交椅) the family bought for a very low price from Wang Shixiang, a renowned antiques expert and collector.

Typical of the style of ancient Chinese home design, especially in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the armchair is slight in structure rather than chunky.

It was one of the significant pieces of furniture in a household, usually placed in a prominent position of the sitting room, for example, in the middle of the room.

Only the most important members of the family were permitted to sit on it.

The armchair is of typical Ming style with simple but elegant shape and carvings.

Its features include openwork carvings at the back of the chair which are in three distinct parts.

At the top has been carved a ruyi, a curved decorative scepter that symbolizes power or good fortune.

In the middle is featured a qilin, a mythical creature that is believed to bring prosperity and good luck.

Around the creature have been carved rocks and linzhi. Linzhi is a rare mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine which is believed through myth to have a benevolent influence that brings happiness and longevity.

Curved shapes of herbs have been carved into the bottom of the back of the chair.

The thin armrests are curved for the user's comfort and the surface is so smooth that it shines under the soft light.

The seat's support frame is designed so it can be easily folded.

The armchair is made of Huanghuali, literally meaning "yellow flowering pear wood," a member of the rosewood family.

The color is neither too dark nor too light and the indistinct pattern of the grain evokes the wood's unique beauty.

It is regarded as one of the finest woods in China for furniture making, appreciated and cherished by ancient scholars and furniture collectors.


Javascript - Number Number Conversions

There are three functions to convert nonnumeric values into numbers:

  • the Number() casting function,
  • the parseInt() function, and
  • the parseFloat() function.

The first function, Number(), can be used on any data type; the other two functions are used specifically for converting strings to numbers.

Number() function performs conversions based on these rules:

Boolean values
Number() returns
true and false get converted into 1 and 0, respectively.
the value is passed through and returned.

If the string contains only numbers, optionally preceded by a plus or minus sign, it is converted to a decimal number, so "1" becomes 1, "123" becomes 123, and "011" becomes 11. leading zeros are ignored.
If the string contains a valid floating-point format, such as "1.1", it is converted into the appropriate floating-point numeric value. Leading zeros are ignored.
If the string contains a valid hexadecimal format, such as "0xf", it is converted into an integer that matches the hexadecimal value.
If the string contains no characters, empty, it is converted to 0.
If the string contains anything other than these previous formats, it is converted into NaN.

valueOf() method is called and the returned value is converted based on the previously described rules.
If that conversion results in NaN, the toString() method is called and the rules for converting strings are applied.

Here are some concrete examples:

var num1 = Number("Hello world!");  //NaN
var num2 = Number("");              //0
var num3 = Number("000011");        //11
var num4 = Number(true);            //1

"Hello world" is converted into NaN because it has no corresponding numeric value.

empty string is converted into 0.

The string "000011" is converted to the number 11 because the initial zeros are ignored.

The value true is converted to 1.

The unary plus operator works the same as the Number() function.


Florencia en el Amazonas (featuring American soprano Pamela Armstrong) encompasses elements of magical realism blended with a late romantic style. Set in the early 1900′s aboard an Amazon steamboat, Florencia tells the story of a passage through the fabled rain forest. During this mystical voyage of discovery, each passenger harbors secret hopes of what the trip will bring. Among them, a famous prima donna hopes to recapture the great love of her life. Reality and fantasy intertwine as the dangerous splendors of the Amazon test the travelers’ preconceptions of their hopes and dreams. Composer Daniel Catan’s musical influences of Puccini and Debussy are heard, with themes drawn from Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (whose works include “Love in the Time of Cholera”).


Principle Five: Acknowledge Mistakes And Do What It Takes

– Judith Henderson

Failure within a startup is a fairly frequent occurrence. The important piece of that statement is not that failure happens often, rather that the opportunity to learn and grow exists more in startups than it does anywhere else. Early stage companies and startups must grasp the ideology that being right is not the objective, but learning from their failures and mistakes is.

Acknowledging mistakes in a startup is often a practice of stepping away from your ego. Where startups are by nature small groups of people working very closely together a skewed sense of responsibility can easily develop. Team members may begin to assume credit for successes and place blame away from themselves when a project results in a failure.

Removing egos from a situation helps all those involved see not only where they can improve, but how the team can be strengthened as well.

We’ve broken Principle Five down into Two Steps:

    1) Acknowledge Mistakes

    2) Do What It Takes


Insufficient oxygenation of the arterial blood. Results in hypoxia (below-normal levels of oxygen supply to tissue).

It is evidenced by restlessness, confusion, poor concentration, loss of the sense of taste, and, eventually, a coma.

It is treated by giving the patient added oxygen through a face mask, although ultimately the underlying cause will have to be determined and treated.

This can be caused by many diseases, but pneumonia is a common cause. Causes include by hypoventilation, a venous to arterial shunt, and thin atmosphere, such as is found at high altitudes.

Also spelled hypoxaemia.


Many Different Subjects Are Possible

Nonobjective Painting

Why Artists Paint

Four 20th-Century Paintings

Painting in Ancient and Medieval Times

Late Italian Gothic Painting

Late Gothic Painting in Flanders

Van der Weyden and Memling

The Fantasies of Bosch

The Renaissance in Italy

Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo

Titian and Veronese

The Renaissance in Germany

Two Spanish Painters

Brueghel and Rubens

The Dutch School

The English Painters

Beginnings of Painting in America

Goya and Daumier

The French Impressionists

19th-Century United States Painters

Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Modigliani

Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall

Dalí, Miró, and Vasarely

20th-Century United States Painters

Canadian Painters

Latin American Painters

Asian Painters

Painting by Amateurs and Children

The Materials of Painting

Fresco, Oils, Acrylics, and Watercolors

Brushes and Surfaces

Artists’ brushes are made of the hairs of various animals, such as sable martens, camels, or oxen, or from the bristles of hogs and boars, or from artificial fibers. The kind and size of brush depend on the medium the painter is using and the effects that are desired. Some painters, when working in oils, apply the paint with a palette knife that has a thin, flexible blade, rather than with a brush. Van Gogh…

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Additional Reading


Meets: Last Monday of every month.

Time: 6.30pm - 8.30pm

Accessibility Info: The building is not very accessible for people with mobility difficulties. There are small steps in the garden approach and very big steps to get from the entrance lobby to the main building and again from the main room into the kitchen. It has grab-rails by the steps.

Postcode: NR30 1LN


The Queen of King Street: Part 3

Editing Lola's autobiography has been a challenge. (See my previous blogs for news about Lola.) Not because it wasn't written well, or because it rambled (well, it did a bit) but because it was wayyyyy too long.

Most books come in at around 80,00 words, 100,00 if you're famous, I was told. Lola used over 401,000 words (!) to recount 150 years of history in minute detail.

Every primary school classmate was lovingly mentioned by name, every actor who she produced was listed along with what character they played, every word was precious to her. Yet I had to cut out four-fifths of it. What could I remove, what could remain?

Exterminate, exterminate!

The first thing I had to determine was where and what was the focus. The reason she wrote her memoirs was to remind us of a long-vanished city; the cottage she lives in formed its benchmark, its gold standard, its plumb line. The life around the cottage reflected the changes of a colonial capital transforming into a cosmopolitan city.

With Lola's story, it was easy to find the focus. The story circled around this tiny cottage. Even though she travelled widely and her numerous adventures took place away from home, most chapters have some action taking place in the cottage.

After I'd found the focal point, the rest was relatively easy. Twelve chapters of overseas travel, fascinating though they are, had to go. All people mentioned only once also were 'exterminated'. If they were mentioned occasionally but I couldn't find references of them on the internet or in libraries, they were also 'deleted'.

512px-Scissor-for-paperThat got me down to about 120,000 words. Now tough decisions had to be made. A second edit of the whole text revealed stories that were irrelevant to the main story. (Did we really need to know that she taught at one school for only three weeks where nothing of note happened?)

I found more compact ways of relating her story without changing her words by eliding certain passages and joining paragraphs together. I drew a family tree so that that family relationships didn't need explanations in the text.

I scrutinised the text to excise repetitions, much like an artist making fine paper cutouts with delicate scissors.

Phone a friend

I left it for a few weeks so I could 'forget' it and come back to it afresh. This allowed me to make more reductions. Then I rang a friend to get another pair of eyes to run over it.

Some of my editing had gone too far and I'd chopped out so much so that some passages didn't make sense. Upon restoration, we now have a text that is only 89,000 words long - a compact, readable and highly amusing story.

If you are thinking of writing a book, or have written one and don't know what to do next, feel free to contact me for an editing consultation. I love reading and working on stories, and I make your writing ZING!

Need more information?


Nonprofit Internships

A comprehensive experience of growth in leadership, lifestyle, and direction.

Intern speaking.JPG
Interns working at Garden on Marais
Intern building a bed
Intern reading to children

Have you ever listened to some good ole' New Orleans jazz?

It's a concoction of each musician's sound, creativity and impulse that somehow flows together in harmony. Elan Ministries operates in a similar fashion. Every individual is encouraged to explore and develop their own “sound”, creativity and gifts, and incorporate them into a lifestyle of service. Our internship is tailored to the individual, offering well-rounded instruction in the areas of leadership skills, financial stewardship, personal development, and hands-on experience in the urban community.

Interested in joining us for an internship?

Please contact Suzanne Duvall with any questions or for further information.

Elan Ministries' internships are in partnership with:


Welcome to Jangada Design Studio. Let's create!

Creative studio based in Matosinhos, Portugal, that specialises in identity development and vectorial illustration
with a strong influence from my city's history, coastal life and nature.

I aimed to build a studio with focus on communication projects, with a different core – something cool and unique. How? Paying homage to my history and hometown, the coastal city of Matosinhos, a city of fishermen and hard work. Thus Jangada (which means "raft" in Portuguese), as something that is here to help you.

My goal is to provide solutions in the several areas I work in, to companies that the need either a complete overhaul to their communication or just that extra push to achieve their goals. My motto is to simplify and improve. I want to be a local worker with a window open to the world. My mission is to be there for you along the trip.

want to know more?


Ghost theme for building personal websites & portfolios

get it

Abadesi@abadesi · 👩🏽💻 Product Hunt | Hustle Crew | NTT
Congrats on launching @arp_ban can you tell us more of the story behind Pamphlet?
Arpit BansalMaker@arp_ban
Hi, I do a lot of side projects in my spare time and I have developed a habit of writing about all my work on the internet. So for a long time I wanted to build a website where I could write and document all my work in a beautiful manner. So, I started working on a theme with the sole purpose of serving individuals who want to write about their work or just want a personal blog. Whether you are a designer, a coder, an engineer, an entrepreneur, or an artist, you can use this theme to document all your life's work. I've used Ghost as the cms platform because it's really fast and has a beautiful interface built for writing and managing posts. I've tried to keep the theme as simple and minimal as possible. These days, a lot of designers create websites that are full of animations and special effects, they look good but sometimes they are very confusing to a person approaching them for the first time. So I've designed it such that a visitor is able to grasp the structure of the website at a single look.


Escape Plan 2: Hades

Escape Plan 2: Hades

The movie is set years after Ray Breslin fought his way out of the escape-proof prison called "The Tomb." Now Ray manages an elite team of security specialists trained in the art of breaking people out of the world's most impenetrable prisons.

Duration: 96 min

Quality: HD

Release: 2018

IMDb: 4.8


Art Critic (4)

Miki Akiko
LIN Yilin is known for works made by stacking bricks. Originally trained as a sculptor, he later became interested in architecture and found brick walls an expressive means through which to explore the relationship between sculpture and architecture.
Part of the Big Tailed Elephant (meaning an elephant with lots of expenses), a group pursuing problems related to the high speed of change in Chinese cities, LIN has examined the relationship  between human beings and architecture, the materialization of the body, and the complex relationship between human beings and nature. From Guangzhou, the earliest region of China to be opened to the outside, LIN's work clearly reflects the problems caused by the ongoing transformation of the large southern cities, commercial prosperity, and the resulting chaos and disorder.
Among his wide variety of installations and performances, the most interesting was perhaps a performance in which the artist moved a wall from one side of a road to the other, one brick at a time. The performance took place during rush hour in one of the most crowded thoroughfares inGuangzhou and called attention to physical labor and exercise, time, and process. It caused traffic to stop, inconveniencing drivers whilst giving them a renewed awareness of their environment and illuminating the problem of the traffic jam, a new phenomenon in China. The movement of the wall, with its references to larger architectural structures, made people more conscious of the reality of their society and its incessant changes. LIN's action also referred to jaywalking, a practice common even on streets with heavy traffic and in defiance of the law, revealing the shortcomings of urban planning and failure of people's awareness to keep up with the rapid development of the city.
LIN constructed a wall for this exhibition in the outdoor sculpture yard using some 5,000 bricks and 1,000 bank notes. The rough stacking of the bricks and the hollowed space in the wall in the shape of a human body, subvert the wall's solidity and permanence. The work is thus an effective visualization of the possibilities of disintegration and transformation existing in any aggregation of individuals units, an inherent feature of architecture or human society.
LIN prefers familiar materials commonly found in everyday life. He uses water and money as well as brick, items essential to our lives and widely circulated or distributed in every community. In this installation, pieces of paper money are held in the cracks between the courses of brick, and viewers may feel the desire to steal. Some may actually try to dismantle the wall, in spite of the danger and take some of the money. If they do, they will be playing the artist's game since his intention is to make viewers see through their own actions, see how structures of society, culture, and tradition are broken down by the desire to make money.

1998 Taipei Biennialcatalogue, P.63


What is the difference between $message and $$message?

$message is a variable and $$message is a variable of another variable.

$Message = “A”;
$A= “B”;

echo $message //Output:- A
echo $$message //output :-B

We can echo above strings like

echo $Message.$A;

This weill print we “AB”

Note : variable’s value can be act as variable


Breaking Down a Training Plan: The Taper

Breaking down the 5 steps when creating a training plan.

When developing a training plan I block off 10-21 days from an athletes A race date to taper. For a Sprint and Olympic Distance Triathlon, a taper is generally 10 days, for a 70.3, 14 days, and for an ironman, 2 days long. It is important to note, a taper is gradual reduction of training volume and intensity over a period of time, not just a few days of rest. Some people think if they rest a couple days before their race, that is a taper. Adding some more recovery or off days the week before a race is what I refer to a rest week, not a taper.

Below is an example of a 14 day reduction in volume and intensity assuming your peak volume happens 2 weeks, day 14 and day 15, from your A event

  1. Maintain your schedule. If you normally swim on Wednesdays and Fridays, run on Tuesdays, Thursday and Sunday and bike T/Th and Saturdays, then continue that schedule
  2. Reduce volume on days 9-13 by 25%  and maintain “like intensity”.
  3. Days 8-3, continue to reduce volume another 25%. For example if your longest bike and run on day 14 and 15 was 4 hours and 2 hours respectively, day 8 ride 2 hours on and day 7 and run 1 hour.
  4. Transition to a strength training maintenance program if you have not done so already in the build phase, keep it to one day a week.
  5. Take naps and go to bed at the time you plan to go to bed the day before the race
  6. Tapering  is not the time to cut out nutrients in hopes of losing weight. Continue to eat nutrient dense foods with healthy fats, carbs and protein at all meals. Reduce portions slightly, not too much, since your body still needs those nutrients to repair from the heavy workload before taper started.
  7. On day 6-3 continue to reduce overall volume while maintaining  intensity at the same levels you’ve been training. For example, If 12 days out you ran 6X800s at the track, 5 days out run 6X 400s at the track. If 11 days you you did 5X 5 minute threshold pace on the bike, 4 days out bike 5X 2.5 minutes at threshold pace.
  8. If you plan to get a massage I recommend getting on no less than 4 days out from your event.
  9. Review your race plan outline
  10. Days 3 is meant to be a short workout just to keep the body lose, Review your training to remind yourself you are physically ready.
  11. Day 2 is complete rest day, stay off your feet
  12. Day before the race keep body loose with a 20 minute bike, 10 minute run, 10 minute swim.
  13. Race Day: Race it Like you trained it.

I look forward to taper time as it motivates to to training smart during the build phase of my plan. I love to spend extra time sleeping and napping cause I know how much my body and mind respond to the extra rest. I love fueling my body nutrient dense meals and filling up my glycogen stores to have race day.

If you have a question you want featured on the Endurance Hour podcast, email us at or  send us a voicemail. Record it HERE from your cellphone.

Join t2Endurance Club on Facebook

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Career | The best ways to find a new job

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Knowing you want a change of job is one thing. Finding a new one that will fulfill your desires, demands and passion is another.

Finding a new job that ticks all of your boxes is increasingly hard. While updating your CV and LinkedIn account may get you so far, it may not be enough to get your foot in the door. Finding that dream job involves a lot more hard work. But all is not lost. Here are our tips to the best ways to find a new job.

Networking, for example, is one path to help you get that job. Ireland is a small place and so within your own network, there are probably two to three people that can open doors for you.

Draw up a list of the places you desire to work or the roles you want. Do a quick scan on LinkedIn or general search and identify who may help you on your mission to find a new job. Brainstorm as to how you can strengthen your relationship with each person.

Attend any events that are related to the industry that you want to get into. Thankfully, there are many meet-ups of like minded individuals in pubs and other venues around the country. Do a search and try to find who else is going that you want to meet.

Ideally, you should contact them beforehand to arrange a chat. Be prepared at such events; do up a business card that you can pass on. Alternatively, bring a notebook and write down the names and contact numbers of each person that is of interest and contact them the next day.

LinkedIn is more than a resource to just put up your own experience. Use it to connect with the right people. For example, search your target market based on your industry, qualifications, university and interests, and connect with the people who interest you.

Be precise and creative in your dealings with companies. Ensure that you stand out in the crowd of job seekers. Identify what they are trying to achieve in the marketplace and create solutions. Come to the table with a comprehensive list of ideas and workings that will help them fulfil their goals, and not just yours.

The jobs market is tough but a bit of hard work can go a long way.


Learn English

Summary and Review of Webinar – “How to Be a Reflective Teacher”

March 25th, 2014

On March 12th, 2014, the American Embassy in Peru hosted a webinar about “How to Be a Reflective Teacher” lead by a professor at an upstanding university in Lima, Giovana Risco. The webinar was effective in giving insight on practical ways to be an effective educator to students of all ages. The lesson taught about how to meet the academic and social needs of students in ESL classrooms while keeping the material engaging and stimulating. In the following brief recap, the main points of the webinar will be outlined.

A good teacher:

Firstly, a good teacher cares about the students. Being an educator requires a sense of passion for the material sold (information) and the clientele served (students). Without this sense of passion, the remaining aspects of teaching have nothing upon which to base themselves. First and foremost, an educator must care about the students at a fundamental level. This will ensure that the instructor will do whatever possible to aid in the students’ learning process and sacrifice effort, time and small amounts of sanity in order to support growth for the students.

Secondly, a good teacher listens to the students’ concerns. It is easy, at times, to grow tired of excuses and tall tales from students. There seems to be a never-ending supply of stories about why they didn’t do their homework or why they are using their cell phone during a test. Despite this thrilling aspect of teaching, teachers must listen to their students concerns keeping in mind that they are people with needs, too. It is essential that educators use a discerning ear while listening to students’ concerns to know when to exercise flexibility or when to “put your foot down”, so to speak.

Thirdly, a good teacher is flexible. Being an educator is impossible without being flexible. Snow days, sick students, early dismissals, difficult-to-grasp topics taking a longer time than planned, unexpected meetings with administration, topics taking shorter than planned, student arguments, no-show guest speakers and even teacher illness are some examples of the millions of unexpected things that could happen during a “normal” day of teaching. A good teacher is flexible and can quickly adapt and make changes to his/her lesson plans to flow with the curveballs that are thrown at them throughout a school day.

Fourthly, a good teacher is motivated. One must be motivated to be the best teacher one can be and to instruct to the best of one’s abilities. Students know when a teacher is motivated about their work or lazy and unsatisfied. Students are more likely to respond to a teacher with motivation rather than to a teacher who simply reads from the book, gives the minimal possible passing effort and goes home for the day. Without teacher motivation, students will not be encouraged to be energized about their studies, which will lead to boredom, which leads to failure.

Fifthly, a good teacher is disciplined. Disciplined is a multi-faceted word. To be disciplined means to have good time management. It also means to be prepared through concise lesson plans and ample knowledge about the subject. Being disciplined means taking the job seriously and completing the tasks at hand to the best of one’s abilities. A disciplined teacher takes charge of a classroom with authority and care and establishes a solid foundation of knowledge for students.

Lastly, a good teacher knows the material well. This is a given in the teaching world because without a complete understanding of the material, an instructor cannot instruct people with less knowledge about the topic effectively. A teacher should be an expert in their field. Some people believe that a person best understands a subject when he/she can teach it. This idea expresses that an instructor must have the highest level of understanding of a subject in order to instruct others.

Giovana Risco goes on to mention that instructors must not only be “good” in and of themselves, but they must also present “good” activities to engage students. She mentions that engaging class work stimulates curiosity, permits students to express creativity, makes them think, is challenging and fosters positive relationships. Keeping this in mind, a teacher knows that activities should not be repetitive, require little thought, nor be forced onto the students. Learning is more effective when students are in charge of their educational process. Ms. Risco encourages educators to allow students to develop their independence in the classroom and that by reducing teaching time, students take more responsibility for what goes on in the lessons.

This webinar was educational for teachers, specifically ESL teachers for whom the lecture was created. Giovana Risco demonstrates a solid understanding of what makes a reflective teacher and what instructors should do to create a positive learning environment for students. Her insight was invaluable and she will hopefully produce more webinars in the near future.


Also found in: Dictionary, Medical, Wikipedia.
Related to gallamine: Atracurium, Pancuronium, Suxamethonium
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References in periodicals archive ?
After stabilisation, gallamine was administered and the depression of thumb muscle tension and the subsequent recovery were recorded.
In contrast, gallamine (a non-depolarizing muscle relaxant) or the venom of the puff adder Bitis arietans reduced the force of contraction.
Sprague-Dawley rats were anesthetized with isoflurane, paralyzed with gallamine, artificially ventilated and instrumented to record arterial blood pressure (BP; mm Hg), heart rate (HR; bpm) and left ventricular dP/dt (percent change from control; LVC; an index of cardiac contractile force).
Presumably its use in Operation Desert Storm would be to protect persons from the effects of a type of nerve gas; it is already approved by FDA for use as an antidote to curariform drugs and gallamine triethoxide, drugs that have toxic effects related to those of the nerve gas in question.
At the start of my training in 1962 suxamethonium was widely used for intubation, as the two non-depolarizing relaxants curare and gallamine in doses that would lead to easy and early reversal provided prolonged intubation times.
02% tricaine, immobilized with a 2-[micro]l injection of 1% gallamine triethiodide (Flaxidil), and placed on their sides on a small sponge over a silver chloride pellet reference electrode.
The response to suxamethonium and gallamine was largely unaltered by halothane, but with d-tubocurarine, profound bradycardia and hypotension occurred, and also to a lesser extent with neostigmine.
Tubocurarine was the drug of choice for operations of any significant duration, but because tubocurarine lasted around thirty minutes, gallamine was often preferred for shorter operations.


Posted on Wednesday, 05/02/2014
By:Kesta Love

I had a guy who was really into me and pursued me for over 6 months.  I was always honest with him that I just wanted to be friends.  However, the minute he started seeing someone else I started pining over him, becoming jealous, and kicking myself for not giving him the time of day when I had the chance. Why is it that the more a guy (or girl) likes us the more we take them for granted? Are we meant to always like someone who is hard to get?

-Celosa in VA

Dear Celosa:

There is nothing like knowing something is temporarily unavailable to make you want it even more (iPhone 5 anyone?)

So, yes, we are already conditioned to think that when something is too available, it must not be that good or desirable. But when it comes to your question, the full explanation comes from years of research in adult attachment theory.  Here’s a crash course on the three “attachment styles”:

  • Secure- tends to be reliable, consistent and trustworthy- not interested in playing games.
  • Anxious- craves intimacy and worries a lot about their partner loving them back.
  • Avoidant - thinks intimacy means losing their independence, sends mixed messages, and always runs when relationships get too close.

Secure types make up more than 50% of the population; however they take a very long time to re-appear in the dating pool because they tend to stay in long-lasting, committed relationships.  While Avoidant types (only 25% of the population) are everywhere because they don’t last too long in relationships and are ready to start dating immediately after a break up.

The odds are you may have dated many Avoidant people and have become used to the guessing game that follows (getting mixed messages and analyzing every little gesture for clues that someone likes you). Sometimes we mistake this anxiety, the “roller coaster” feeling, with passion, or even “love at first sight” and end up with someone who is wrong for us.

Conversely, when an honest, open, ready for commitment, secure person (major catch in attachment terms!) comes along, someone who has a more anxious style may dismiss it because "there's no chemistry", everything’s too calm, it feels too boring.

Once your friend became interested in someone else you started experiencing the roller coaster feeling you've felt before with “hard to get” guys allowing you to finally feel the “sparks” and appreciate the qualities he had all along.

Next time you are ready to dismiss the reliable, "no-games" nice guy or girl, think again! There's nothing more satisfying than a drama-free relationship with complete trust and certainty that you are each other’s #1.

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P&F Grant Awards

Year 3

Grant # 4

NLRP3 Expression in Myeloid Cells is Sufficient to Stimulate Bone Resorption

PI: Gabriel Mbalaviele, Ph.D.,

Specific Aims

The Nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is an intracellular protein complex responsible for the maturation of several members of interleukin (IL)-1 family, including the osteotropic factors, IL-1b and IL-18. NLRP3 is also involved in the inactivation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1), a negative regulator of osteoclast (OC) development [1-3]. NLRP3 is activated by danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) such as crystals, wear particles and degradation products of endogenous components of the extracellular matrix (ECM) [4].

Trafficking of both organic and inorganic degradation products from bone ECM through bone-resorbing OC to the extracellular milieu is a critical step during bone resorption [5, 6]. This process enables OC to excrete degraded matrix components while digging deep into bone and maintaining an enclosed resorption site. Thus, the products of bone resorption are potential activators of NLRP3 in OC. Interestingly, patients with neonatal-onset multisystemic inflammatory disease (NOMID), a condition linked to NLRP3-activating mutations [7], exhibit skeletal malformations and low bone mass in up to 60% of the cases [8]. Our own preliminary data demonstrates that mice globally expressing a constitutively active NLRP3 mutant, which model the human NOMID syndrome, have severely decreased bone mass and increased bone resorption, leading to stunted post-natal growth. Thus, there is now strong evidence from human and mouse genetics that NLRP3 is critically involved in normal skeletal homeostasis. However, little if any is known about the role of NLRP3 in bone homeostasis. We hypothesize that 1) NLRP3 activation in myeloid cells is important for bone resorption, and 2) bone ECM degradation products function as endogenous DAMPs for NLRP3 in the OC lineage. Accordingly, we propose to test these hypotheses in the following Specific Aims.

  1. Determine whether NLRP3 activation in myeloid cells is sufficient to stimulate bone resorption.
  2. Identify bone-relevant DAMPs and study the regulatory mechanisms of NLRP3 activation in OC.
The peri-natal lethality of pups globally expressing mutant NLRP3 hampers the efforts to elucidate the role of NLRP3 in bone. To gain further insight into the role of NLRP3 in bone resorption, we propose to use mice in which the expression of mutant NLRP3 is restricted to the myeloid cell lineage. These mice are available to us from our collaborator, Dr. Hoffman (Univ of Calfornia at San Diego). The funding requested will support the characterization of these mice to advance this project to the point where a comprehensive data package is generated for future NIH applications. We anticipate that these studies will unravel a novel communication mode among bone cells and with their environment via NLRP3, and reveal this upstream component of the IL-1 family and PARP1 pathways as a potential new target for therapeutic intervention in bone diseases.


What happens if DHS shuts down?

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Congress has just two days until Department of Homeland Security funding runs out, and it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll take the department off the cliff.

On Monday night, the Senate again voted down a DHS funding bill that included a measure rolling back President Barack Obama’s executive action delaying deportations for immigrants. But that night, a potential solution emerged as wjell, with Sen. Mitch McConnell announcing he’ll bring a separate bill to the floor tackling Obama’s immigration move, potentially allowing a clean DHS funding bill to move on its own track.

It’s unclear whether the tactic will work, and conservatives are still expressing opposition to the move. But some Republicans have previously suggested that the fact that a Texas court recently issued an injunction against the order, pausing its implementation, could offer conservatives cover to vote for at least a short-term clean funding bill and use the time bought by the courts to figure out a solution to the immigration issue.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has said a shutdown would cause a “terrible disruption” for everyday Americans.

Republicans, however, say the impact of a shutdown would be minimal, because most of DHS’ operations are considered essential, and so would continue despite a funding lapse.

So what would actually happen if Congress doesn’t pass a funding bill in time?

Would average Americans feel the impact of a shutdown?

For most, not immediately. Communities that are home to a particularly large number of DHS staffers, including border towns where border patrol stations are located and some areas just outside of Washington with a heavy government contracting presence could take an economic hit.

In those areas, thousands of workers could be furloughed or forced to work without pay, and in some of the smaller communities that can make a big difference to local businesses.

Local fire departments and law enforcement operations could also lose staff that were funded by DHS grants, slowing emergency response efforts.

Business owners looking to process immigration documents for their workers will have to wait till the shutdown passes, potentially affecting hiring. And officials have warned that low morale for DHS staffers could translate to slower service for Americans, particularly at airport security checkpoints.

Some DHS employees would be furloughed — but most won’t.

Two kinds of government staffers are required to work during a shutdown: Employees whose salaries are paid for by funds outside the appropriations process, and those “whose work is necessary for the preservation of the safety of human life or the protection of property,” according to the Congressional Research Service. Unsurprisingly, that latter part covers quite a lot of DHS’ workforce.

During the 2013 government shutdown, around 200,000 DHS employees were required to report to work, many of them without pay.

Those that are required to work include 50,000 TSA screeners, 40,000 active duty Coast Guard members, 13,000 immigration law enforcement officers, 40,000 border patrol and customs officers, and 4,000 Secret Service agents.

But there would be some — around 30,000 or so — furloughs, mainly hitting the department’s management and administrative functions. It’s possible, though, that staffers furloughed could be called back to work in case of an emergency — and immediately re-furloughed after they handled the issue.

That doesn’t sound like it would be pleasant for DHS emplyees.

It’s not — and the potential hit to DHS morale is a serious problem with the possible shutdown. A third-party review of federal employees found DHS ranked dead last in employee satisfaction and commitment over the past two years, and morale actually declined in 2014. It’s a challenge for the Department, which struggles to retain and recruit employees, and a shutdown wouldn’t help.

But it does sound necessary for, well, homeland security…

Exactly. Many of DHS’ most fundamental operations won’t be impacted.

A number of DHS programs are funded by fees, rather than congressional appropriations, and would continue to operate even if funding lapses.

Those include the bureau’s cybersecurity operations and the Federal Protective Service, the law enforcement agency that oversees federal buildings. Border security efforts, the TSA and intelligence gathering efforts, among others, are all key DHS activities that would remain.

FEMA’s disaster relief operations and the national flood insurance program would continue to operate.

And most U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services operations, including the visa program, immigrant naturalization and asylum claims, would continue — except for the E-Verify system employers use to verify workers’ visas, which would pause in case of a shutdown.

Wait — so Obama’s executive action on immigration, which started this mess, would still be implemented?

Yep. It turns out defunding the agency that’s implementing Obama’s executive action delaying deportations for millions of immigrants won’t prevent the executive action from taking effect.

Republicans haven’t given up, though. They’re looking to add a policy rider to the bill extending funding for DHS that would block the executive order from taking effect — which remains a sticking point for Senate Democrats, who say they’ll only vote for a clean funding bill.

And even if House and Senate Republicans were able to pass a DHS funding bill that blocked Obama’s immigration move, he would likely veto it.

That’s caused the current showdown. And Boehner’s comments this weekend indicate there’s no clear compromise yet.

Then what DHS operations would take a hit?

State law enforcement could feel the pain of a shutdown the most.

Johnson has previously warned that, if DHS funding lapses, “we cannot engage in new starts, new spending, new initiatives, new grants to state and local law enforcement to fund homeland security missions.”

Many local law enforcement operations, including training, hiring of new staff and purchasing new equipment, are funded through DHS grants, and those would be discontinued during a shutdown. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said that disaster recovery grants — even those being used to respond to lingering impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy — would stall, and no new applications would be processed in case of a shutdown.

Fugate said that while any urgent natural disasters would be attended to, because of the shutdown, the response could be sluggish or delayed.

“If we have a no-notice event — a terrorist event, some kind of technological disaster or an earthquake, I’ll be calling staff back in the same time we’re responding,” he said.

And it could impact the nation’s ability to respond to future threats. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, said during a hearing this week that a DHS shutdown would halt “research and development work on countermeasures to devastating biological threats.”

Civil rights and civil liberties complaint lines and investigations would shut down as well.