proba float64 0.5 1 | text stringlengths 16 174k |
|---|---|
0.970316 | Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hungary’s population is falling and the prime minister hopes these measures will reverse the trend Hungarian women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax, the prime minister has said, unveiling plans designed to boost the number of babies being born.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Orban has taken a hard line on immigration, often clashing with his European counterparts While Mr Orban was delivering his state of the nation address, the latest demonstrations were being held in Budapest against his government’s policies.
Viktor Orban: The man who thinks Europe has been invaded Correspondents say the biggest applause during Mr Orban’s speech was for his announcement of a seven-point plan to increase the birth rate.
‘Remarkable’ decline in fertility rates Why is IVF so popular in Denmark? ‘Why I never want babies’ ‘I’m not having children because I want to save the planet’ In 2016, France had the highest fertility rate in the EU – 1.92 children per woman – and Spain and Italy had the lowest at 1.34, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reports.
How do other countries help mothers? Many other countries with relatively low birth rates have introduced extra payments and other benefits for mothers.
Hungary tries for baby boom with tax breaks and loan forgiveness Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hungary’s population is falling and the prime minister hopes these measures will reverse the trend Hungarian women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax, the prime minister has said, unveiling plans designed to boost the number of babies being born.
The government’s new package, she emphasised, is based on the number of babies couples would actually like to have, and then to encourage them with financial help. The aim is to increase the fertility rate to 2.1 by 2030. How do other countries help mothers? |
0.816664 | Do transmembrane protein superfolds exist?
A reliable and widely used transmembrane protein structure prediction algorithm was applied to five representative genomic sequence data sets in order to re-examine the hypothesis that in contrast to globular proteins there are no favored transmembrane protein fold families. When the number of predicted membrane spanning segments and the topology of these segments is taken into account then definite biases are observed which suggest that certain transmembrane topologies are significantly more common than others. |
0.999999 | Why do some firms pay dividends while others do not?
WHAT ARE STOCKS AND DIVIDENDS?
To understand why some companies pay dividends while others do not, we would need to first understand what stocks and dividends are, as well as why it is advantageous for a company to issue stocks in the first place.
A stock is a share in the company's ownership. Companies sell stocks to raise the capital needed in their operations. An investor may be one of many owners in a company, and hence own a proportionate amount of all of the company's assets and earnings. If the company goes bankrupt, the investors may receive a portion of the company's profits and assets, after creditors have received their due payments. Companies that issue stock are not required to pay interest on the money received. Nor are they required to pay back the money to shareholders. This is advantageous to companies. By buying stocks, investors hope that the shares will increase in value over time; however, this may not be a big enough draw for investors, which is why some companies also offer dividends.
• Cash dividends, as the name suggests, are paid to shareholders in the form of cash, either as a check or via electronic transfers. As the company transfers this wealth to shareholders, the company's share price drops by approximately the same amount as the dividend paid.
• Stock dividends, however, are distributed to shareholders in the form of additional shares of stock rather than as cash. No money changes hands. Instead, the shareholder receives an increase in the number of shares of the company. Stock dividends have no value because the price drops in order to account for the dividend. Companies may wish to distribute stock dividends instead of cash dividends in the event that the company lacks the liquid cash available to pay cash dividends.
From the investor's viewpoint, cash dividends are seen by investors as a regular income stream, together with the possibility of capital appreciation of the stock; However, the investor is required to pay federal income taxes on the amount of the dividends, hence decreasing the actual benefit received.
From the investor's viewpoint, stock dividends are beneficial as they offer the investor a choice between selling the shares from the dividend to receive cash, or keeping the shares in the hopes that the company's stock price will increase. Another benefit is that the investor typically does not pay federal income taxes on the dividend until it is sold.
Note that some stock dividends have a cash-dividend option. In this case, the investor will be required to pay taxes even if the investor decides to keep the dividend in the form of shares. In general, stock dividends (that do not have a cash-dividend option) are considered by investors to be more beneficial than cash dividends due to the flexibility offered by the former.
Dividends, regardless of whether they are in the form of cash or stock, do not increase the value of the company. They do, however, reduce the value per share.
WHY DO SOME COMPANIES HAVE A POLICY OF PAYING DIVIDENDS?
Dividend policies are guidelines that companies use to determine the amount of dividends to be distributed to shareholders, instead of keeping the retained earnings to reinvest in the company. These policies are financing decisions since a company's profits are a large source of financing that is used by the company.
Some companies believe that dividends, in particular cash dividends, are a good way for management to show their confidence in the company's financial health. In order to pay a steady stream of cash dividends, a company has to have good cash flow, and, in particular has to have the liquid cash to make regular dividend payments. Dividends can attract investors to the stock.
Companies that have historically paid dividends regularly and which decrease or eliminate dividend payments often experience a sharp drop in the stock price. This is seen by investors as a weakening of the company's financial strength, hence causing investors to dump its shares. Contrastingly, if a company that has historically paid no dividends now declares that it will start paying dividends, the company's stock price will generally increase as investors show their confidence in the company by buying its shares.
Dividend-paying stocks tend to be stable companies that can afford to pay their shareholders, and have no problems honoring other financial obligations. Note that owning dividend-paying stocks is not without its risks, as the company can stop paying dividends at any time.
Do not assume that receiving a dividend is always better for the investor. Stockholders of companies with good growth prospects are sometimes better off reinvesting the profits back into the business for maximum long-term growth, and foregoing the dividends. If a company is paying too much in dividends and not investing enough in its future, it can lose market share. This will result in decreased profits and a decreased dividend payout.
WHY DO SOME COMPANIES HAVE A POLICY OF PAYING NO DIVIDENDS?
Management at some companies feel that investors who want a steady income stream can invest in other vehicles such as bonds. Because the interest payments of bonds are constant, the investor can receive a more stable source of income than that offered by cash dividends or stock dividends.
Both parts have been answered in a total of 3,712 words. Thirty-three sources have been cited.
Potential capital project for Apple, Inc. |
0.848232 | Philip T. Griffin (born November 27, 1956) is a television executive, who in 2008 became president of MSNBC, a United States cable news channel.
The youngest of four children, Griffin grew up in Chappaqua, New York and Toledo, Ohio. His father was an executive at Macy's. Griffin's family were Democrats and politically-minded. As a child, his mother took him to rallies for the hungry. His brother was a conscientious objector.
In 1979, Griffin graduated with a degree in English from Vassar College. He wrote his thesis on Milton's Paradise Lost.
Following graduation, Griffin moved to Atlanta to take a minimum wage job at the fledgling CNN. Griffin was working a camera at CNN when it aired for the first time, on June 1, 1980.
At CNN, he befriended future MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who worked there as a sportscaster. After several years with CNN, working primarily as a writer-producer-editor in their sports department, Griffin began work at NBC in 1983, working as a relief producer for vacationing producers at The Today Show. Six months later Griffin convinced The Today Show's executive producer to hire him on staff.
In 1987, he became a producer at USA Today: The Television Show. After it was canceled, he returned to The Today Show. At NBC, Griffin had several jobs, including as a senior broadcast producer for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. He led the NBC News coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial.
Griffin was with MSNBC from its start in 1996. He has been executive producer for shows such as Hardball with Chris Matthews and MSNBC's The Big Show with Keith Olbermann. He was the head of prime-time programming for the network. Griffin approved the launch of many shows, including The Rachel Maddow Show and Morning Joe. He also hired Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz, and Chris Hayes.
In 2005, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker appointed Griffin senior vice president of NBC News and in 2008, president of MSNBC.
In 2013, Griffin said he wanted MSNBC to be more of a lifestyle brand than a political hub. In 2014, Griffin said the network would take steps to widen its demographic to include a more ethnically diverse audience, to increase its coverage outside of the Washington, D.C. beltway and to appeal to younger viewers, including with online initiatives. Griffin has asserted that MSNBC is an independent voice that does not favor Democrats. He has rejected claims that partisanship is equivalent at MSNBC and Fox News.
In 2016, after MSNBC started covering more hard news during the day, Griffin likened its evening shows to an op-ed page in a newspaper. The network had its highest ever ratings in 2016 and in the first quarter of 2017 averaged 1.46 million views in prime time, beating CNN. Griffin said that he thought the surge in audience was attributable to scoops and new information, rather than partisan leanings.
In May 2017, Griffin signed a multi-year renewal contract to remain as president of MSNBC in the midst of a ratings surge during and following the 2016 presidential election. In June 2017, he said that the network was making an effort to include diverse political voices. Earlier in the year, Griffin signed former George W. Bush communications director Nicolle Wallace to host an afternoon program for the network.
In 1997, Griffin married Kory Kim Apton in a civil ceremony in New York. They have two children, daughter Riley and son Jackson.
He has said his idols are former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and television news executive Andrew Lack. "I am one of the few people in television who never wanted to be on-air," he told The New Republic in 2013.
^ "Person Details for Phil T Griffin, 'United States Public Records, 1970–2009'". FamilySearch. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
^ a b c d e f g h i Gillette, Felix (October 28, 2008). "Original Cable Guy Phil Griffin Tastes Network Revenge". The New York Observer. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Dana, Rebecca (March 25, 2013). "Slyer Than Fox". The New Republic. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
^ Gillette, Felix (July 16, 2008). "Phil Griffin Gets New Title: President of MSNBC". The New York Observer. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
^ a b Klaassen, Abbey (June 12, 2006). "'Today' Show's Phil Griffin to Oversee MSNBC". Ad Age. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Olbermann, Keith (November 6, 2010). "The Scandal That Ate My TV Program". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
^ Kurtz, Howard (January 30, 2017). "Keith Olbermann: How Anger Fueled His Rise and Fall at MSNBC". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Sanneh, Kelefa (September 2, 2013). "Twenty-Four-Hour Party People". Annals of the Media (story series). The New Yorker. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Battaglio, Stephen (December 29, 2014). "MSNBC to widen its scope and make other changes, its president says". Company Town (story series). Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Cogan, Marin (September 11, 2012). "The GQ+A: With MSNBC's Phil Griffin". GQ. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Gold, Hadas (June 1, 2016). "MSNBC's year of standing up straight". Politico. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ THR Staff (April 13, 2017). Brower, Alison; Guthrie, Marisa (eds.). "The 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Steinberg, Brian (May 30, 2017). "MSNBC Chief Sees Hard News Focus, Trump Scandals Driving Ratings Surge". Variety. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ de Moraes, Lisa (May 26, 2017). "MSNBC President Phil Griffin Signs New Deal; Whither Goest Lawrence O'Donnell?". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Steinberg, Brian; Littleton, Cynthia (June 13, 2017). "Cable News Wars: Inside the Unprecedented Battle for Viewers in Trump Era". Variety. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Steinberg, Brian (April 28, 2017). "MSNBC Sets Nicolle Wallace at 4 P.M. Hour". Variety. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Smith Brady, Lois (February 9, 1997). "Kory Apton and Phil Griffin". The New York Times. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ "Erna Neu Apton Obituary". The New York Times. April 9, 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ Guthrie, Marisa (October 3, 2012). "MSNBC President Phil Griffin on Whom He'd Poach From Fox News and Why Obama Avoids the Network (Q&A)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
This page was last edited on 16 March 2019, at 12:07 (UTC). |
0.999998 | What do the regulatory texts say? Other than public organisations, only companies whose core activities consist of regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects or processing sensitive data on a large scale are obliged to appoint a DPO. 'Regular and systematic monitoring', 'core activities' and 'large scale' are vague terms, however. This is why some work has been done to define the scope of the obligation to appoint a DPO.
We must therefore look at the number of people targeted, the volume and the scope of data categories, the duration and the geographic area of the data processing to be carried out. Some examples? A telephone operator or a bank are clearly affected, whereas an independent doctor is not in terms of managing their patients (who are not 'on a large scale'). Conversely, a hospital is also affected, as this falls under their 'core activities'.
More important than knowing whether your company is affected by this obligation, you must ask yourself about the overall consistency of your approach to the GDPR. You will certainly need a specialised 'conductor' who is able to take on all the tasks required of the DPO.
First instinct: you might be inclined to look internally and appoint someone already active in you company, but this choice requires having the right person available (in terms of technical and ethical competences), training them properly, but above all ensuring their independence in order to avoid any overlapping of their tasks and possible conflicts of interest. All the more so since Article 38 of the GDPR clearly specifies the independent nature of the DPO: "The controller and processor shall ensure that the data protection officer does not receive any instructions regarding the exercise of those tasks". In reality, you'll be at risk of searching for a needle in a haystack. In this context, it seems clear that the solution is better found elsewhere: outside of your company.
You should know that the GDPR allows this option. If the independence factor and lack of conflicts of interest are your main (and good) reasons to look externally, you could also benefit from other advantages. On the one hand, if your company is made up of several branches, you can 'share' your DPO and ensure overall consistency of your approach to the GDPR. Similarly, many SMEs could find a significant financial benefit in pooling a data representative. Indeed, a full-time DPO is certainly not necessary in most companies.
Costs at the forefront: even if taking the decision to find an external consultant is not always cheap, sourcing them externally guarantees the best visibility and control of expenses incurred. This allows you to better adapt their tasks to your needs and make 'à la carte' decisions. What's more, you may, in certain cases, be able to count on dedicated GDPR tools placed at your disposal (toolboxes, diagnostics, etc.). Among the downsides of looking externally is the lack of knowledge of the inner workings of your company. That is why it is in your best interests to include a full initial audit in the tasks assigned to the expert in order to hone their knowledge of your company environment and your internal processes. |
0.999993 | This lunch had approximately 494 calories, 67g carb, 19g fat, and 17g protein.
Alice was so nice to give us an extra piece of her amazing homemade strawberry cake to take back with us last night, so Joe and I split that for dessert, and I had a little skim milk to go with it.
Calories for this meal and dessert were approximately 873 calories, 70g carb, 30g fat, 23g protein. |
0.999982 | Are you ready to take photography classes in Sikes LA? No matter if you are a hobbyist, professional, or beginner, the most effective approach to improving your photography technique is through hands-on classes with professional instructors.
There are numerous accredited photography schools in Louisiana. Topics covered in photography classes include lighting techniques, digital capture, outdoor photography, exposure, composition, and many other basic and advanced camera techniques. Becoming a skilled photographer can pave the road to a booming professional career or lifelong hobby. |
0.999997 | How can I help my boyfriend who was abused by his former partner?
I am in a relationship with a man who was abused severely emotionally and psychologically through an 8 year marriage. He is now divorced for three years, but it is pretty clear to me that he continues to carry the denigration he received. I refuse to be critical because I believe he needs validation and understanding more. But I would like to know what else I can do, say, be so that he comes to realize his own goodness and his value? It seems as though the ruin he experienced at her hands he now brings down on himself as though she were still there. It is clear from the outside (me) that all the people in his life (his family) are nothing but critical, and the man seems almost immobilized to get on with the rest of his life. Additionally, I see a truly good person scarred by bitterness he doesn't even understand, and now turns on himself. I would be so grateful for any insight. |
0.944799 | Along with MTV camera crews and beach-volleyball buffs, corporate recruiters looking for fresh grads have been flocking to spring-break hot spots.
A recent survey of recruiters working the Florida coast found most expected to hire at least as many entry-level workers this year as they did last year.
Most of the starting salaries averaged around $30,000, but many companies (predominantly in the high-technology sector) reported starting salaries from $45,000 to $65,000, according to the New York-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
More than half the companies said they were considering offering signing bonuses.
But bonuses or not, two-thirds of the students surveyed anticipated staying with their first employer for less than two years.
They don't plan to sacrifice pay for this lack of loyalty. In a Jobtrack.com poll of more than 2,000 college students and recent grads, more than 50 percent said they expected to be millionaires by age 40.
These soon-to-be grads have reason for high hopes. Some 596,000 US households have a net worth of $5 million or more - a jump of 46 percent in the past five years, according to the consulting firm Spectrem Group.
USA Update What does this Florida Holiday Inn do to wake up spring breakers?
Have scientists found the little lost comet lander Philae? |
0.997065 | Michael and Emily Eavis have been petitioned by "a disgruntled local" who tried and failed to get local tickets this month.
A nearby resident of Glastonbury Festival has launched a campaign asking for more local tickets to be released.
The change.org petition, which is entitled: "Make Michael/Emily Eavis hold back more local tickets for Glastonbury Festival!!" implores organisers of the famous Somerset event to do just that.
This year, it was widely reported that local residents in 35 areas would have the chance to buy weekend tickets for the festival on Thursday 18 October, but according to this music fan, they sold out in just "11 minutes on Thursday and 3 minutes on Saturday".
The petitioner writes: "Glastonbury Festival is pretty great.
"But not when your outside the festival dealing with the back lash with no ticket and living locally... We deal with a lot of s**t being local to the festival - traffic being a number one issue practically making the whole of the region gridlocked, as well as noise and pollution (*cough* rivers - decline in marine life since the festival *cough*) also general interference."
They added: "Local people's money is just as good as the rest of country's, so sell us some more - there's clearly demand. Local Tickets sold out in 11minutes on Thursday and 3 minutes on Saturday which is unheard of for Locals.
At the time of writing this article, the petition has almost reached its target, with 486 of 500 people having already signed.
The local resident still has another chance to get Glastonbury tickets in the general resale, which will take place in early April.
Meanwhile, Richard Ashcroft has had some thoughts on Glastonbury too. |
0.999986 | One way to help you handle social anxiety is to read self-help books. It can be a great idea to learn mindfulness by signing up in a mindfulness workshop. An experienced mindfulness teacher can help you learn easily, and guide you through the process.Another benefit of being a part of a mindfulness workshop is that you’ll have the opportunity to meet other individuals whom you might be sharing the same interests with. This can be a supportive social environment where you can learn mindfulness, and learn the best ways to overcome social anxiety as well.|How Can I Tell if I Have an Anxiety Disorder?It’s common to feel nervous when dealing with certain difficult or stressful circumstances, such as having issues at work, meeting a client or launching a new business. Lots of people claim about feeling nervous when delivering a speech before a large crowd.Nevertheless, if you believe that your worries and fears are starting to become too much for you to handle, then you might be suffering from an anxiety disorder. Some of the signs of an anxiety disorder include being constantly worried or very uncomfortable, having consistent and unreasonable fears, avoiding situations due to your excessive fears and worries, and having trouble falling or staying asleep.It’s hard to know for certain if what you’re experiencing is just a common feeling or reaction, or if it’s already a sign of an anxiety disorder. It’s important to look for professional help, particularly if your symptoms are interfering with your ability to carry on with your daily responsibilities.If you’re looking for natural ways to conquer anxiety, it can be a good idea to sign up in a mindfulness workshop or an introduction to mindfulness class. Research studies indicate that mindfulness meditation can help reduce anxiety and mental stress. Some people say that learning mindfulness techniques in a group setting can be useful in dealing with an anxiety disorder.|Effective ways to Relax Yourself When Suffering From an Anxiety AttackWhenever you’re dealing with an anxiety attack, it’s important to find techniques to calm yourself down. One of the most important things you can do is to determine the factors that can trigger your anxiety. This can help you find the best ways to overcome them. When you find yourself facing a difficult situation, or feel that you’re under too much pressure, it’s important that you have the ability to practice techniques that can help calm your anxious mind.Mindfulness training techniques can help ease feelings of stress and anxiety. Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis can help you achieve a relaxed and non-judgmental awareness of your thoughts and feelings. It allows you to pay close attention to what’s happening within and around you in the present moment. So instead of being concerned about issues from the past or being stressed about the coming years, you’ll have the ability to focus your mind on the present and rest your mind for a while.One thing that you can do to help you learn this mind-calming technique is to enroll in a mindfulness meditation class. |
0.955992 | Identifying small subsets of features that are relevant for prediction and classification tasks is a central problem in machine learning and statistics. The feature selection task is especially important, and computationally difficult, for modern data sets where the number of features can be comparable to or even exceed the number of samples. Here, we show that feature selection with Bayesian inference takes a universal form and reduces to calculating the magnetizations of an Ising model under some mild conditions. Our results exploit the observation that the evidence takes a universal form for strongly regularizing priors—priors that have a large effect on the posterior probability even in the infinite data limit. We derive explicit expressions for feature selection for generalized linear models, a large class of statistical techniques that includes linear and logistic regression. We illustrate the power of our approach by analyzing feature selection in a logistic regression-based classifier trained to distinguish between the letters B and D in the notMNIST data set. |
0.9949 | How much should I feed a kitten?
Kittens are just a bundle of cuteness overload, agree? However, if you’ve got one or a few, you will probably need to know how to take care of your new adorable feline friend: how often to feed her or him? what to feed her? And also the best kitten foods just to mention a few.
Trust me it’s more complicated than it sounds, actually, if you’re worried about getting it right, well if your concerns are among the ones mentioned above then you are on the right track!
Properly feeding is among the kitten care tips to ensure your adorable baby cat develops into a fully-grown, healthy adult.
Essentially, it will gradually transition from mother’s (or any nursing cat’s) milk after the first 4 weeks to food designed for it, the complete weaning process takes about 8 weeks.
The nutritional need for kittens significantly differs from those of adult cats. This is because of the growth spurt which occurs within the first few weeks in addition to high activity levels.
Therefore, it’s important to consider calories, vitamins, and fatty acids intake. Moreover, they require higher amounts of proteins, amino acids, vitamins and minerals as compared to adult cats.
When it comes to selecting the best food between canned or dry, both are great and have their advantages.
For canned kitten food, the moisture comes in handy since it keeps your cat hydrated while dry one is more suitable to feed them and takes longer to spoil if left in a bowl.
Additionally, dry foods are richer in carbohydrates as compared to some of the canned ones -which basically increases the potential of your cat to gain weight easier while on dry food than wet. Nonetheless, cats can gain weight whether on dry or wet food if allowed to overeat.
Ideally, in order for your kitten to eat a proper diet to sustain the explosive growth pattern during the first few weeks and obtain sufficient calories to match the high energy levels, it’s important to create a meal plan.
Your kitten needs to eat three times on a daily basis for instance, in the morning, at noon and in the evening, can be the feeding schedule or you can arrange it to fit with your normal routine.
Consider the food labels for feeding guidelines in order to determine the amount you need to feed your kitten. Depending on the daily amount it requires, divide this amount into 3 equal portions and feed each portion to it at the pre-planned time.
Additionally, it’s important to keenly monitor your kitten generally and continuously adjust the food quantity accordingly: this basically means if you notice it is gaining too much weight-reduce intake and if it seems too thin increase the portion of food.
If you are feeding it with canned food, it should be left out for a maximum of 30minutes, the remaining amount if any after half an hour should be thrown out. However, dry foods can stay out for longer periods of time.
During this period, it’s essential for a kitten to feed on a nursing cat’s breast milk.
However, if the mother cat refuses to nurse or is absent for whatever reason, it’s important to get a foster nursing mother or buy a kitten milk replacer-KMR which basically replicates the nutritional benefits in similar quantities as those present in the mother’s milk such as carbohydrates, fats, and protein.
During this stage it is gradually weaned, meaning that the mother’s milk is replaced with either dry or wet kitten food.
According to ASPCA, the weaning process is usually the responsibility of the mother cat but in cases where it is missing, it may be your responsibility to wean it.
However, it’s important to refrain from trying to wean a kitten very early on- the process should start when it can comfortably stand on his feet and his eyes are open and able to focus.
It’s important to consider that kittens generally learn through observation- observing their mother. Typically, they will pick up on how to feed, play or how to use the litter box by observing their mother. Hence, abruptly removing them from the mother can affect them negatively both socially and health-wise.
Once it has reached 4 weeks you can alienate them from their mother for a short period of time to reduce their dependency on the mother’s presence as well as milk.
Place the kitten in their own place which is completely set up with food, water, and a litter box. With time it will become more independent meaning that they can stay for longer periods of time away from their mother.
To wean it off the mother’s milk or bottle, use a KMR in a shallow bowl- insert your fingertip, syringe or the nursing bottle into the solution and allow it to lick, then guide him by moving your finger deeper into the bowl.
When the kitten becomes acclimatized to lapping liquids, create a thin mixture of high quality dry or wet food with KMR to form the consistency of oatmeal.
While it is still learning to feed on solid food, aid his transition by giving him the bowl of gruel followed by the bottle.
During this stage, the kitten develops food preferences- wet or dry food. Additionally, within this period of time, a feeding schedule should be devised in order to ensure it obtains the maximum nutritional needs.
Normally, the kitten should feed at least 3-4 times since they have very small stomachs to hold up all the nutritional needs they require.
During this phase, it appreciate routines.
Considering the kitten food label will help you determine whether the feed contains all the necessary ingredients such as minimum fats and proteins and the maximum fiber and moisture. Ensure the kitten diet remains constant to avoid problems caused by too little proteins in the diet.
During this time, it is typically considered a cat.
The cat’s food should again contain adequate amounts of proteins, taurine, and arginine- which are vital amino acids.
It’s vital that kittens get some canned foods included in their diets. More so because, when they are very small they have very tiny teeth and hence cannot chew properly especially when it comes to dry food.
Canned food ensures that they get proper nutrition and growth. In case you chose to feed your cat on both dry and wet foods it’s advisable to alternate the food and offer canned food at least twice daily, but if you are feeding your cat on canned foods only then feed it 4 times in a day.
While cats are masters at being picky-its possible to alter their usual kitten feed. The trick is to expose it to different food textures and flavors early on.
However, if you are trying to introduce your cat to a new flavor, avoid mixing this new flavor with the old one- just in case your kitten doesn’t fancy the new flavor, because this may make him dislike both flavors all together.
Switching will be a gradual process, but over time together with hunger will help the cat with the transition, however, it’s advisable to continuously offer the kitten both the new and old food.
Raw meat or liver due to the possibility of parasites and harmful bacteria.
Raw eggs because they can possibly reduce proper intake of vitamin B which can affect the kitten’s skin and hair coat as well as may contain salmonella.
Raw fish causes the loss of appetite, may lead to seizures, lead to vitamin B deficiency or even death.
Milk may cause diarrhea in weaned kittens and cats because they lack the enzyme required to break down milk.
Additionally, avoid onions, garlic, coffee, raisins, tea, chocolate or grapes since they are toxic to kittens and cats. |
0.999996 | In western Catholicism, there is an idea that if you commit a grave sin with full consent and full knowledge that it is grave, it becomes a mortal sin. You loose your state of grace and are set on a trajectory for Hell. You are forbidden to receive the Eucharist unless you go to confession.
I'm wondering what the eastern Christian understanding is, particularly eastern Catholic, because they are bound to accept the mortal/venial sin distinction but I understand they don't emphasize it in the same way as western Catholics do. What is the eastern understanding of mortal sin?
There is no such distinction between "mortal" and "venial" sin in the fashion you suggest within the Eastern Orthodox Church, but it must also be understood that sin, as well as the related concepts of grace and free will, is understood completely differently in the Orthodox Church.
Sin, within the Eastern Orthodox Church, is seen as a spiritual disease - a disease that we inherit as a result of man's Fall in Paradise. It is seen more as a sickness to be treated than a crime to be punished.
A dogmatic definition of "sin" is provided in John's first Epistle - the definition that also appears in one of the few formal "catechisms" of the Orthodox Church (The Longer Catechism of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow): αμαρτια εστιν η ανομια - "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). In the Latin: peccatum est iniquitas - "sin is iniquity".
The force of this thought is grasped more easily in the Greek language in which the Letter is written, since in that language iniquity is called ἀνομία, which implies something done, as it were, against the law or without the law, since in Greek νόμος means law. When John says therefore, Everyone who commits sin also commits iniquity, that is, ἀνομίαν, and sin is iniquity, he clearly suggests that by every single sin we act against the law of God, according to the saying of the Psalmist, I have counted all sinners on earth as transgressors [Psalm 118:119 LLX]. For all who commit sin are guilty of transgression, that is, not only those who reject the known precepts of the written law which have been given them, but also those who whether through weakness or negligence or even ignorance destroy the innocence of the natural law which we received in the first-created man.
Sin defiles man and his being, which is in the divine image of God and God-given. It is the fundamental impurity, proto-impurity, and the origin of all impurities. Purity is, in reality, purity from sin and its impurities. That is holiness.
For such purity, such holy purity, is the divine law of man's being. This purity is achieved and maintained by living in goodness in love, in prayer, in righteousness, in meekness, in fasting, in self-restraint, and in the rest of the virtues of the Gospel - simply put, in holiness, conceived of as the synthesis and unity of all the holy virtues and grace-filled energies. In opposition to purity, to holiness as law, to the divine law of man's being, stands sin as the first and fundamental lawlessness.
While certain sinful acts - which we might refer to as specific "sins" - reflect a graver spiritual condition than others, there is really no systematic categorization of them as exists within the Roman Catholic Church.
I cannot really comment on the doctrine on sin that Uniates hold, but I would be surprised if it held to Eastern Orthodox rather than Roman Catholic doctrine. The two theologies are quite distinct. I am assuming that if there is a lighter emphasis on the mortal/venial distinction it is a residual influence of Eastern Orthodoxy.
(As a footnote, I attended high school at the Benedictine Abbey where Dom David, the translator of Bede's commentary above, was a novice at the time. I was surprised to encounter him in print decades later as an Orthodox convert).
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged catholicism eastern-orthodox mortal-sin eastern-catholicism or ask your own question. |
0.999993 | A Midland student died of pneumonia less than 36 hours after a doctor sent her home with antibiotics for a chest infection.
Black Country coroner Robin Balmain said an assessment of promising illustrator Evelyn Purchase had been “less than optimal” but stopped short of saying her death could have been prevented.
The 20-year-old, a second-year student at Hereford College of Arts, was found dead by her mother Tara at their home in Butchers Lane, Cradley, early on April 6 last year.
An inquest heard she was seen by Dr Mahmud Ahmed at the Holly Hall walk-in centre in Dudley late on April 4.
He gave Evelyn strong antibiotics but did not look into her failure to respond to two previous courses of weaker tablets, he admitted.
Dr Ahmed also said he gave Evelyn anti-depressants, believing depression to be the reason for her loss of appetite, but did not give her a mental health examination.
He added he did not test her lung capacity, and would not send her to nearby Russells Hall Hospital for X-rays despite her mother’s protests that it was a matter of urgency.
Consultant pathologist Dr Swapna Ghosh said Evelyn died of extensive bilateral lung pneumonia, with pulmonary abscesses.
Dr Ahmed, by day a clinical assistant in stroke and geriatric medicine at Russells Hall, claimed he had not recorded readings for Evelyn’s pulse and respiratory rate because they were “within normal limits”.
“She was talking to me, she was not unduly short of breath, she was not distressed and she came walking with her mother into the consulting room,” he told the coroner.
In a short narrative conclusion, Mr Balmain said: “Death was due to a natural cause. A medical examination that took place late on the evening of April 4 was less than optimal.
Mr Balmain said of Dr Ahmed: “He made the assumption that what he was prescribing was going to be stronger [than the previous antibiotics] and there was no basis for that assumption, because he simply didn’t have the relevant information.
Divorced Mrs Purchase, 41, said her daughter had been ill for several months with a range of symptoms but had been badly let down by doctors.
The Halesowen College lecturer said that she would seek answers from the General Medical Council about the doctor’s diagnosis, saying her daughter “never got the chance to fight for her life”.
Mrs Purchase said Evelyn was an “unbelievably talented young lady” who previously went to Cradley High School and had eventually wanted to work for video games firm Sega. |
0.994875 | a home based company produces both scarves and sweaters, the scarves take 2 hours of labor ro produce and the?
a home based company produces both scarves and sweaters, the scarves take 2 hours of labor to produce and the sweaters take 14 hours. the labor available is limted to 40 hours per week and the total production capacity is 5 items per week. write a system of any qualities repressenting this situation where x is the number of scarves and y is the number of sweaters, then graph the system of inequalities. |
0.958809 | Who Is Nick Szabo, and Is He Satoshi Nakamoto?
Although he has repeatedly denied it, there is a decent chance that computer scientist and cryptocurrency expert Nick Szabo is, in fact, bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi's true identity (or identities—there are some who believe that Satoshi is a nickname for a group of developers rather than a single founder) has remained one of the great mysteries of the cryptocurrency era. Nonetheless, many analysts and cryptocurrency enthusiasts are convinced that Nick Szabo is the true Satoshi. Here are some of the reasons why.
One of the reasons that Szabo could be Satoshi is that the computer scientist created an important predecessor of bitcoin. Called "bit gold," this early example of a digital currency provided an important impetus for some of the developments that would later characterize bitcoin. Further, Szabo and Satoshi contacted the same group of people for feedback and advice with their respective cryptocurrency projects. According to Gizmodo, Szabo even backdated a blog post asking for advice on how to launch bit gold in order to make it appear that he wrote the query after Satoshi released a paper on bitcoin in 2008.
Gizmodo's report indicates that Satoshi and Szabo even have a similar writing style, citing Szabo's blog post and Satoshi's early paper on bitcoin. From research conducted at Aston University in Birmingham, England, to determine potential contenders for the real identity of Satoshi, a report concluded that Szabo's writing contains "striking parallels" to Satoshi's, including similar writing mannerisms and phrasings. Aston's Jack Grieve described the similarities as "uncanny."
A report on Medium draws further parallels between Szabo and Satoshi. According to the report, "Szabo and Satoshi each give essentially an identically unique explanation" as to why bitcoin should have value. While it's possible that two independent cryptocurrency experts would arrive at a nearly identical arguments in favor of the world's most popular digital currency, again, the parallels between the two arguments have some analysts and others in the cryptocurrency community wondering if it might be more than a coincidence.
Of course, if Nick Szabo really is Satoshi Nakamoto, there is another question to be answered: Does it matter? |
0.99994 | Between them, the M50, A40 and A449 form a single dual carriageway route connecting the West Midlands to South Wales - a key aspiration of the government at the time it first set about its national motorway programme in the 1950s. Given how important the connection between those industrial areas was supposed to be, it's rather a shame that only a part of this route is actually a motorway - the rest is a dual carriageway that borrows parts of the A40 and A449.
The M50 came first, and is a very old motorway, first opening in 1960. It's not enormously busy and it was built to an early set of motorway design standards that required only narrow hard shoulders that are discontinuous through bridges and very tiny junctions. As a result, a journey on the M50 doesn't feel much like a journey on a typical English motorway.
Its important-sounding number isn't the only delusion of grandeur held by the M50 though. Such was the perceived importance of the road from the Midlands to South Wales, it was mostly built and opened before the M5 in the area was even under construction. For several years afterwards, the M5 terminated on the M50, with all traffic bound for Bristol and the West Country exiting at junction 1 for the A38.
But there's something very lovely about the M50. It's virtually unchanged from the day it opened, so this is the best opportunity to see a motorway as it appeared in the early sixties. The only significant additions since 1961 have been some electronic message signs and crash barriers down the central reservation. It's also widely agreed to be one of the most scenic motorways there are.
The route that continues from Ross to Newport is partly A449 and partly A40. While the southernmost section, from Monmouth to Newport, is a smooth, fast road with very few junctions, and is very nearly a motorway in its own right, the middle part from Ross to Monmouth is a little more demanding to drive. There's several roundabouts at Ross, a number of side turnings and private accesses at Pencraig, and then - either the worst or the most interesting part of the route, depending on your perspective - the Monmouth Bypass.
At Monmouth there is not much room for a fast expressway, so the road stops for a roundabout and a set of traffic lights, squashed up between the town and the river. To access this narrow strip of land it also negotiates the Gibraltar Tunnel, a rare bit of heavy engineering in the gentle Welsh borders.
No matter its unusual history and its occasional stoppages - the M50, A40 and A449 route from Strensham to Newport is a reliably fast and scenic drive and, even if it took a long time to arrive and it's not all motorway, it does indeed get you from South Wales to the West Midlands in record time.
This page is about the parts of the M50, A40 and A449 that are designated a motorway or that have motorway characteristics. Other sections of this road will not be featured here and will not count towards the length of the road as shown below.
Photograph of the M50 near Gorsley taken from an original by Julian P Guffogg and used under this Creative Commons licence.
With thanks to Chris Bertram for information in this section. |
0.999938 | Secular or humanistic Judaism has existed as an alternative in Jewish life for over 100 years. For most of its history, it was an informal option -- secular Jews weren't organized as such, but participated in a variety of movements such as Zionism, Yiddish nationalism or Bundism, Jewish schools, cultural associations, and Jewish communal organizations. Only recently has the movement specifically for Humanistic Judaism taken form.
While respecting all of the other denominations of Judaism and their beliefs, Humanistic Judaism offers an alternative for those who are not comfortable with traditional God-centered worship services, but who seek a community or congregation in which they can celebrate their Jewish identity, in which non-Jewish partners or spouses are fully welcome as full participants, in which children receive a Jewish education which respects our ancient legends and has relevance for living today, and in which single individuals and both traditional and non-traditional families have a place.
We have the power and responsibility to shape our lives independent of a supernatural power or authority.
We have the responsibility to try to make things better for ourselves, our families, our community, and our world.
There may or may not be "something" that underlies creation (we acknowledge that there is no proof of whether there is or isn't, and respect each individual's right to an opinion or belief on this question) but, if there is, it is a part of nature, and not anything that can be influenced by prayer, or certain behaviors, or a supernatural power that interacts with people.
Our Jewish heritage is precious to us, and we feel a connection to the Jewish people, traditions, history, values and culture. The essence of Judaism is the experience of the Jewish people.
We believe in intellectual freedom in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, for our children and ourselves. There are no questions that may not be asked, no answers that are forbidden.
We interpret Jewish history, holidays and ceremonies without reference to a supernatural being, focusing instead on the values we see underlying them.
A Jew is someone who identifies with the history, culture and future of the Jewish people. Being a Jew, in other words, does not depend on matrilineal or patrilineal descent, or on conversion by circumcision or a trip to the mikvah, which are the traditional criteria. Nor does it depend on holding a certain set of beliefs. Jewish beliefs have varied widely among Jews for all of history. If some standard of belief were the criterion, how many Jews would pass the test? Some standards would rule out Einstein, Freud, and probably over half of American and Israeli Jews!
We believe that the guidelines for ethical behavior lie in circumstances, conscience and consequences. This is where responsibility is of paramount importance: we must examine the circumstances and probable consequences of our actions, and examine our consciences as well and strive to act accordingly.
We believe that human happiness is a primary goal in living: the happiness that can be attained by independence, security, courage, self-actualization, achievement, responsible ethical behavior, and good relationships. We think that no one should put stumbling blocks--such as race, religion, or gender identity--in the way of a person's choice of a life partner.
Pluralism is what lends vitality, creativity and the chance of survival to Judaism. Humanistic Judaism is not for everyone, but it should be one of the available options for Jews for whom the other Judaisms are not a comfortable fit. We also welcome members coming from a non-Jewish culture and we want them to feel comfortable among us. If they choose to become Jews "officially," we will help them in that journey.
So What Do Humanistic Jews Do?
Our Portland congregation or community was organized in the fall of 1993. We are volunteer-run (except for our children's education director and teachers), although we do get periodic rabbinic visits and occasionally have a weekend with one of the madrikhim visiting from out of town, and in early 2005 we transitioned to a part-time professional administrator instead of a volunteer. "the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism is the educational and ordaining branch of Humanistic Judaism. One of our members has completed the requirements for being a Madrikha (lay leader) through the IISHJ, and is continuing on with rabbinic training.
Early in 1963, a group of Jews who were members of Temple Beth El in Detroit wanted to start a new, small-but-hip, suburban--and very Reform--congregation. They approached 35-year-old Rabbi Sherwin Wine, who had been Beth El's assistant rabbi and who had moved from there to leading a Reform congregation in Windsor, Ontario. Rabbi Wine had come to be known as a brilliant and dynamic speaker.
August 1963: Sixteen couples met at the home of one of them in Birmingham, Michigan. They wanted to start a Reform temple that was open to "creative development." Eight of the couples ended up joining what was dubbed, that night, the Birmingham Temple.
In 1969, the Society for Humanistic Judaism was established in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, MI, to help spread the movement by starting affiliated communities in other cities. The quarterly Journal of Humanistic Judaism began to be published.
Today, the Birmingham Temple and the Society have come a long way from the "scandalous" beginnings. The Temple has an attractive building, housing all the functions normal to a congregation, and the Society has offices adjoining the Temple. In odd-numbered years, the Institute sponsors colloquia, held at the Temple and attracting large audiences, with panels of respected scholars in Jewish Studies and related fields. For the first five of these events, the Jewish Federation of Detroit provided a very generous grant to help underwrite the event. Rabbi Wine (who died in an auto accident in July 2007) was a popular speaker in other congregations and gave talks at national conferences of the Humanists, Unitarian-Universalists, and other liberal and free-thought organizations. When the United Jewish Appeal and the United Jewish Federations combined as United Jewish Communities in 2000, the Society for Humanistic Judaism was invited in as one of the branches of Judaism, and participates in the UJC's Annual Gatherings. In affiliates throughout the country, most are recognized players in the Jewish community.
Kol Shalom has been affiliated with the Society for Humanistic Judaism since 1993. It's early history was written in 2002 and updated in 2008 by Jane Goldhamer.
A human-centered connection to Jewish culture, values and heritage. |
0.961199 | Find out the difference between investment classifications and how to account for each using both US GAAP and IFRS methods.
Alright, let's talk about marketable securities. Now, we're still talking about investments. We just talked about cost versus equity. That was cost 0 to 20% equity, 20 to 50. Now, we're going to talk about marketable securities, which again is still 0 to 20, however there is a market value, fair market value. So, as we look at marketable securities, we're going to see that there's different ways to account for them. So, let's think back again for a minute...we said if it's 0 to 20%, that was called the cost method or marketable securities. If it's 20 to 50%, that was called the equity method or one line consolidation, and 50% plus was consolidations. Alright, 0 to 20, 20 to...we've already talked about this and this. Now, we're going to look at this one, which is marketable securities. What it says is, we own 0 to 20. However, it does have a market value. In other words, it's traded on a national exchange, for example. Let's say, for example, I own, you know, 100 shares in Microsoft. So, when I was single, I'd go out to the clubs and go, "Hey, can I buy a drink? What are you doing?" And they'd say, "Hey, what do you do for a living?" I'd go, "Oh, I own Microsoft." They go, "Oh, wow, you own Micro...you and Bill Gates, right?" Well, Bill Gates owns like 30% worth 50, 60 billion dollars, right? And I own 100 shares worth, like, 3000 dollars. So, obviously, but the point is, how much influence do I have? Same kind of rules. If I own 0 to 20% of the stock, I have no influence. That's cost, or in this case, marketable securities, but within marketable securities there's different categories called trading available and held to maturity. You'll see here, top of the page, it says, "When investment is made in securities, debt or equity." What is debt? Debt bonds. What is equity? "Stocks that are publicly traded, and the investment is not large enough to provide the investor with any significant influence over the investee. The accounting for the investment will depend on the classification." This is covered again by ASC 320 or FASB 115. We've got trading available, held to maturity. Trading securities means this, and it's all based on the 4th paragraph down, management's intentions. So, when I go out to the company, I pick up these statements. Whose statements are these? Management's. I'm going to ask them, "What are your intentions? What are you going to do with this stock?" Well, some people buy stocks and bonds, and they watch the market, "I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna sell, I'm gonna buy," and they call their broker, "Sell, sell, buy, buy, sell, sell!" What is their intention? To trade it currently.. So, what does that mean? It is held for trading. We call that HFT, held for trading or trading securities. Another type is called available for sale, AVS. That means they bought a security, and they're going to hold it for a while, but their intention is to hold it, but if they need the money, then it's what? Available for sale. So, if they need the money, it's AVS. Held to maturity. This is for something they intend, they have the intent and ability to hold it until it matures. So, for example, bonds mature. So, that would be, for example, debt securities or bonds. So, bonds only. Again, it says there as a result...trading...management's intention. So, again, we have to talk to management and say, "What do you plan to do with these securities? What are your goals?" Now, trading securities, with trading securities called held for trading or HFT, it says when trading securities are required, they're recorded at cost since they're being purchased for the purpose of generating profits from resale. They're kind of a form of inventory, and transactions are normally reported in the operating section of a statement of cash flows. So, we're going to have to learn kind of where do they go in a statement of cash flows as well, which we'll talk about in a moment. Let's jump ahead and kind of look at a chart. Now, this is going to be a really important chart. It will benefit you in your life, and your children, and your children's children. Look at this chart on page 5, and it says they're trading securities, HFT, held for trading, available for sale AVS, held to maturity HTM. So, what I want to do is kind of talk about these different securities and how we account for them. So, let me set this chart up over here, and we're going to have what we call trading securities, which is held for trading. We have available for sale and we have held to maturity, HTM. These are the different categories of securities that we can have. Now, as far as a trading securities, I said your intention is to what? Trade it currently, trade it currently, buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell. So, on the balance sheet, this is generally considered a current security. It could either be stocks or bonds. Now, what are stocks or bonds? Equity or debt. So, it could be either equity or debt. Equity securities being stocks, debt securities being things like bonds, and we generally acquire it at cost, but we're going to carry it at it's fair market value. So, that's what we're looking at on the balance sheet. So, on the balance sheet, current, it's considered a current security. It could be stocks or bonds and fair market value. Now, I buy this security, my intention is to trade it currently. So, how is this affected in the financial statements? Well, let's say the value...remember back in conceptual framework for accounting, we talked about recognition realization, recognition realization? So, I said if you buy a security you haven't sold it, but the value goes up or down, that's an unrealized gain or loss, but it's recognized. So, what we have to look at is if the value changes, we're going to have what? These things called unrealized with gains or losses. If it is a trading security, you're unrealized gains or losses go on your income statement. So, they go on your income statement. So, on the income statement, if the value changes, called an unrealized gain or loss, that's going to go on your income statement. If you sell it, what kind of gain or loss is that? Realized. That would also go on your income statement. Now, what do stocks and bonds pay? They generally pay a interest and dividends, right? Bonds pay interest, and stocks hopefully pay a dividend. So, if you have interest or dividend income, that would also go on your income statement. What about on a statement of cash flows? Now, we haven't talked about this yet. We're going to talk about it in the cla...cash flow section, but generally with cash flows, generally speaking, when you buy or sell, a trading security is normally considered an operating activity. Now, we're going to learn in cash flows in FAR 6, we've got trading...I'm sorry...we've got operating, investing and financing. Operating is normal operations, how a company survives buying selling and so on. Trading...trading...operate...investing is where they invest in themselves or they invest in somebody else. They buy property plant equipment, they buy securities and so on. They're making an investment. And then finally operating...financing is how you finance a company, how you get money into the company, by issuing stocks, issuing bonds, things like that. So, these are all different types of operating, again, on a statement cash flows called operating, investing or financing. Here, it's normally operating. It could be investing as well, but it's normally an operating activity, and that's kind of relatively new, that it could be investing. but it's normally operating. Alright, as you look at available for sale...now, remember with available for sale, with available for sale, available for sale...this could be either current or non-current because available for sale means you bought a security, but what's your intention? Your intention is to hold it, but if you need the money, it's what? Available for sale. So, this could be current or non-current, although it's usually current. It could be stocks or bonds, and you buy it at cost, however you keep it at its fair market value. So, you can see here with AVS, again, current or non-current. Now, notice non-current, generally AVS. Current could be held for trading or could be also, AVS. Now, here's the big difference. This box right here. This thing here, that's going to go up here in this top part. So, if you have an unrealized gain or loss, it goes on the balance sheet as part of comprehensive income, which is part of equity. So, when I teach you this mnemonic, which is going to be dent, D-E-N-T on your stockholder's equity, it is going to be there, it is going to be the N, which is your net unrealized gain or loss on available for sale. So, the big difference is this thing here, your unrealized gain or loss goes on the balance sheet, not on the income statement. So, it's going to go on the balance sheet, not on the income statement. Now, what about realized gains or losses? Yeah. Those still go income statement. What about interest and dividends? That still goes income statement, and generally, when you buy or sell this available for sale, it is an investing activity on your statement of cash flows. Okay, so, that's available for sale. So, that's the big difference here, which I'm going to show you, because that they love to test. Finally, held to maturity, held to maturity. I'm not going to cover a lot today because I'm on going to cover a whole different section on bonds in a separate topic, but held to maturity...if look right on page 5. This is where you buy a security, but your intention is to do what? Hold it until it matures. So, this could be current or non-current because you could have bonds that you bought 10 years ago that mature in a week, current, or they mature in 10 years, non-current. This is bonds only, or what I'll say is debt only. Why is that? Because, let's think about it...bonds mature, stock doesn't. Here's a quick question. What's the difference between a bond and...what's the difference between yeah a bond and your boyfriend? Bonds eventually mature. Ha ha ha. Love you, mean it. Alright. So, there you go. So, what does that say? Bonds only, which is debt, so that's held to maturity. Basically this is kept at something called amortized cost. Now, amortized cost, again, I'm going to cover it in detail when I'm teaching you bonds, but it's basically cost of unamortized discount or premium. So, as we go through, that's called amortized cost. So, let me have you highlight that third bullet down...carry at amortized cost, face, net unamortized discount or premium. Now, what do I mean by this? One of the things that I'm going to be teaching you, and look over here, is when I issue bonds, bonds payable for 1000 bucks, let's say I got cash of 900. So, we have a discount of 100. That's the journal entry when you issue a bond. What's going to happen is, as we go through this, we're going to have to see that your amortizing it out. So, as I teach you this in the bond section is we're going to have some kind of cash that we're paying. We're going to amortize out the discount and our plug will be interest expense. So you'll notice that the amortization of the discount increases our expense, but we'll cover that in a separate section. This is from the person who's issuing the bond. The person who's buying the bond would do this...they would debit investment in bonds for 1000. They would credit cash. They only paid 900. They too would have a discount of 100. Now, the investor would keep this investment at what we call amortized cost, face, net unamortized discount or premium. So, in this case, it would be 900, and let's say it was a 5 year bond they're amortizing at 20 a year. So, this would come out by 20, this goes down from 100, down to 80. Now, it goes up to 920, 940, 960, 980 and then 1000. So, that is what we mean by amortized cost, face net of amortized discount or premium. I'm going to spend a lot of time on bonds generally, from this perspective, the issuer. However we need to understand both sides, but in this section, this is not as heavily tested. This goes over here with held to maturity. However, what we need to understand is, the distinction between all 3 of these. So, we need to know what is trading, what is available, what is held to maturity and kind of the differences between all of them. So, here's what I've covered so far. If it is a held to maturity, that's bonds only, current or non-current, amortized cost, cost net of discount or premium. Generally withheld to maturity. You really should not have any kind of gain or loss until you sell it, right, because you're going to hold it till it matures. But if it does occur, which is rare, you could have a realized gain or loss. You also would have interest income. When you buy or sell a bond, it is going to be what? An investing activity, an investing activity on the statement of cash flows. So, I'm covering cash flows in another section, but I'm just trying to kind of introduce you to it right now. So, for today, we're going to really focus on these two more so than even held to maturity. So, we need to understand this chart because it is very important as far as conceptually. Here's the big thing I want you to see. What I want you to realize is trading, woops, trading versus available for sale, trading, stocks or bonds, current, fair market value. Here it can be current or non-current stocks or bonds, fair market value. Here, an unrealized gain or loss goes to the income statement. Here, an unrealized gain or loss goes to the balance sheet. The other thing, too, is, if it's non-current stock, it can't be this, can't be this, it's generally this. So, on the exam, if its current stock, it's usually this. Non-current stock, usually this. If it's bonds, it could be this or this or this. Okay? So, that's what we're going to see as far as going through it. So, let's turn back in our notes, look back to about page...look at about page 2, and let's do a class example because I want to walk through it because I want make sure that you're understanding the concepts here. So, let's go through this class example and kind of see what's going on. Alright, it says here, class example, purchase price on 1-1, x1 for 100,000, 12-31, x1 for 140, 12-31, x2 it went down to 90, alright. So, we're going to go through this problem. We're going to do both trading and available for sale. That's what we're going to do over on this board. So, let's start out here with trading, and then later on we'll do available for sale. So, when I purchased this security, I debited investment, and I paid what was it I paid? I paid 100 bucks. I debit investment, credit cash. Okay. So, that the investment. Now, here's my investment T account, 100 bucks. Then it says in x2, it went to...or in x1, it went to 140. So, at the end of the year, it went to 140. So, now I want it to be 140 in value. So, what I will do is, I will allow for the increase, 100 plus 40 is 140. That's my target. I'm going to adjust it to my target, my target. So, 140. Now, is this a realized or unrealized gain? I haven't sold it. So, it's what? Unrealized. So, what did we learn? If it's trading and its unrealized, it goes where? Income statement. So, for x1, my journal entry's going to be debit allowance for 40 credit, unrealized gain for 40. Now, this unrealized gain goes where? Income statement. The next year goes to 90, value goes to 90. So, my new target or target is 90. So, at that point, 100 minus 10 is 90. So, that...I need a goal of a credit to 10. How do I get it there? 50. That's my journal entry. So, over here for x2, what was my journal entry going to be? I guess I credit allowance for 50, and I debit unrealized loss for 50. Now notice, where does the unrealized loss go? Both of these go where? Income statement, income statement. How do I know? Because it's trading. So, again, notice I bought it for 100, it went up to 140. 140 debit allowance, credit unrealized gain, income statement. Then it went down in 90. What do I do? Credit allowance. Take it out and hit a loss. Where does the gain or loss go? Income statement. So, let's look back over here again, and let's kind of look at my chart. What does it say? Trading, current, stocks or bonds put it in...you want it at cost carried a fair market value. The value changed. Unrealized gain or loss goes where? Income statement. Ok. And, again, the concept is, it goes to the income statement. Why is that? Because your intention is to hold it currently, to trade it currently. Therefore, the gain or loss goes to the income statement. So, what I want us to realize there is the gain or loss goes to the income statement. Look at the journal entries in your notes to purchase it, boom, then it goes to 140, boom, then it goes down to 90. We have a loss or gain that goes the income statement. Note. Look at the note. The income statement effect in x1 is 40, and in x2 is -50. These amounts represent the current year effects only since they're both income statement items. Here's what I want you to realize. There are certain items that...when you think of an income statement or balance sheet, an income statement is what? It's a picture of the company this year only, this year only, because, remember, income gets closed out to retained earnings. Whereas the balance sheet is what? Cumulative, cumulative, cumulative. I started the year with 100 dollars, I made another 100 dollars. How much do I have at the end of the year on my balance sheet? 200 dollars. How much did I make for the year? 100. So, that 100 is my income statement number, which shows this year's number only but balance sheet is cumulative, cumulative, cumulative. So, because these are income statement item numbers only, those cumulative, therefore, they go where? They're going to my income statement, income statement. Let's do the same question. Instead of trading, let's do available for sale, AVS. Alright. So, what I do is, I go out and I buy the investment, debit investment for 100, credit cash for 100, then at the end of x1, what happens? The value goes up to 140. So, it goes up to 140. Now, when it goes up to 140, what's happening here? Is it realized or unrealized? Unrealized. So, debit mmm allowance for 40, credit unrealized gain for 40. Now, this unrealized gain, this is an available for sale security. So, therefore it goes where? it goes to the balance sheet, balance sheet as part of comprehensive income. Then the next year, what's going to happen? The next year in x2, it goes down to 90. So, that's my target. So, therefore, what do I do in x2? I'm going to have to debit unrealized loss and credit allowance. Now, remember where does the unrealized go? The unrealized goes to the balance sheet, the balance sheet. So, the unrealized goes to the balance sheet. So, that's balance sheet, boom, that's balance sheet. Now, remember, an income statement is this year only. A balance sheet is cumulative. So, if the balance sheet is cumulative, then what do I have after 2 years? I have a gain of 40 and a loss a 50. These are balance sheet accounts. It nets out to what? 10 negative. This goes to an account called OCI, which is other comprehensive income. So, what it means is it goes to this balance sheet account, part of stockholder's equity, called OCI. That is, remember the mnemonic, DENT, which is comprehensive income, D-E-N-T, derivative cash flow hedges, which is the next chapter, excess amortization on pensions, therefore, net unrealized gain or loss on AVS goes to the balance sheet, and T, foreign currency translation adjustments. So, notice it goes where? On your OCI, N goes to stockholder's equity. So, again the big difference is back over here. This is income statement. This year only, this year only, x1 40 dollars, x2, 50. Over here, what is this doing? Over here, this is going to be balance sheet and balance sheet. They offset. So, your cumulative is going to be what? Balance sheet. So, that's why coming back over here, your AVS, current stocks or bonds, fair market value, unrealized gain or loss goes on the balance sheet as part of comprehensive income, that's part of your DENT, which is part of OCI, called other comprehensive income. You'll see this in your notes. Let's actually turn back to page 1...look back at page 1, and on page 1...bullets at the bottom of the page. It says, ìTrading securities are purchased for the purch...purpose of selling in the near term. They are current assets on the balance sheet if operating, and if investing then non-current, include both debt and equity, initially recorded cost, they carried fair market value, any unrealized gain or loss, temporary appear on the income statement.î Now, I mentioned the word temporary. Why? Because when you buy stock, how often does the stock price change? Like every second, right? You're watching channel 58, you watch the numbers go by. What is it? Buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, buy, sell, but it changes every second, but those declines and increases are generally considered temporary. So, normally you're going to allow. That's why we had an allowance account. You will allow for them to come back and forth versus in a few minutes, we'll talk about like an impairment loss or a non-temporary permanent decline. That's when you would write it down and actually hit the investment, but otherwise, you normally hit the allowance because if it's temporary, you're allowing for it to come back and go back and forth. The next bullet here, it says, "Any unrealized gain or loss goes on the income statement. Realized gains and losses are always on the income statement. The acquisition or disposal is normally operating on the statement of cash flows, although..." it says, "per SFAS 159, trading securities can be classified as either operating or investing based on the nature and purpose for which the securities were acquired." Normally, if current, then they're normally operating. So, you could have a non-current trading. It's rare, but you could. Again, normally, it's going to be an operating activity. Alright, let's look at available for sale. Look at the bottom of page 2...3. It says, "Available for sale securities debt or equity, current or non-current there include both debt and equity initially recorded at cost, but you're going to carry it at fair market value." Circle the next bullet. "Any unrealized gains or losses appear on the balance sheet as part of comprehensive income. The cumulative amount is called accumulated other comprehensive income which are..." I'll show you in a minute. "...Realized gains and losses are always on the income statement as well as interest and dividends. The acquisition or disposal of AVS investments in an investing activity on the statement of cash flows." So, that's the journal entries right there. You'll see on page 3 to purchase it, fair market value goes to 140, fair market value goes down to 90. So, those are the amounts there. Then it says, "Note: the unrealized gain x1 is 40 is called other comprehensive income, OCI, and in x2, 50; however, the net unrealized loss in x2 on the balance sheet is only 10. Since it is a balance sheet account we're concerned with the cumulative balance..." and this amount is called what? Accumulated other comprehensive income. So, then I added kind of an income statement there. So, let me kind of set up this income statement right here so we can understand what it looks like. And here's my GAAP income statement. Now, remember, I had GAAP income statement. I said, what is it? I like to go surfing ON the TIDE N OC, which is operating, non-operating, taxes, discontinued, extraordinary net income, other comprehensive income, comprehensive income. So, I've got operating, non-operating, taxes gives you income from continuing, discontinued extraordinary gives you net income. Then I've got OCI. What's OCI? DENT. Other comprehensive income which gives you your comprehensive income. So, let's say we're looking at this gap income statement, and let's say we're looking at here's x1, here's x2. So, let's go through and look at this to compare it. Alright, so the first one, I'm going to do this example. So, just from here back, remember this example, here back, which is for trading. So, for trading, you buy an investment 100, then it goes up to 140, allowance, unrealized, then it goes down. So, where do these 2 numbers go? Income statement. Where would they go on the income statement? They would go up here as n other non-operating. So, in x1, I have a gain of how much? I have a gain of 40 dollars. In x2, I have a loss of how much? I have a loss of 50 dollars. So, notice, they go up here as part of your gap income statement in here. Mmm hmm... and that's the picture I've put in there. It says if trading goes here. Now, instead, let's pretend it is available for sale. If it's available for sale, it doesn't go here, it goes down here as part of comprehensive income because comprehensive income is what? Comprehensive final in school was what? Scary. All-inclusive. Comprehensive income is what? All-inclusive. So, its net income plus more. So, that's why your comprehensive income is net income plus or minus OCI, which gives you co...so, it's plus more. So, let's come over here and look at this example. Now, when we look at this, we've got available for sale, debit investment, credit cash, then debit allowance, credit unrealized, then debit unrealized, credit allowance. Where does this unrealized gain or loss go? Balance sheet as part of what? OCI, other comprehensive income. So, let's see how this differs. Let's say, for example, in x1, so instead of trading, it goes down here. Available for sale 40 and 50. Let's say in x1, we had 100 dollars of net income, and in x2, we had 200 dollars of net income. So, what is other comprehensive income? For x1, it's going to be 100 as net income because this didn't show up there because it was available for sale. Then we've got 40 dollars of OCI gives me 140. Over here, x2, 200 of income minus 50 is 150 of comprehensive income. Now, what does this word comprehensive income? It shows up only on a comprehensive income statement because the way we can show comprehensive income as part of an income, it could say statement of income and comprehensive income or it could be a comprehensive income statement. I'm just starting with net income and going to this. But here's where it shows up in the financial statements. Watch this. Net income plus net income is 300. That goes to where? Retained earnings. That's where income gets closed out into. We've got OCI of 40 minus 50 is 10 negative. Where does that go? That also goes to the balance sheet as part of stockholder's equity, as part of accumulated other comprehensive income, or what we call accumulated OCI. So, notice that. Then the net of that is your 290. Now, in reality, this 290, that doesn't really show up anywhere. However, the 300 minus 10, these show up separately. Retained earnings is 300. Other comprehensive income is minus 10. The net is 290. So, what I want you to realize is this, is what shows up. Why does the net show up? Because it's cumulative. Balance sheets are cumulative, cumulative, cumulative. Income statement is this year only, this year only. So, that's the real difference between the two as you go through it. So, you'll kind of see that example I put in there. So, when you're doing problems, you've got to read them carefully. Are they asking for OCI for x1, OCI for x2 or accumulated OCI for x2? That would be the -10. So, this is OCI x1, OCI x2, accumulated OCI. What number shows up? Accumulated OCI shows up. Where? In the balance sheet as part of stockholder's equity. Okay. So, again, I understand that's a little confusing. So, make sure we understand that. Alright, then it says, sale of AVS securities, it says when an investment in AVS is sold, the difference between the cost and the proceeds is treated as a realized gain or loss. So, when you sell an AVS, obviously, it says here, realized. Now, when we sell it, we ignore the allowance account and adjust to the new target balance without the security that was just sold, unless it is the last investment then the allowance and the unrealized gain or loss must both be eliminated. So, what they're kind of saying there is that when you sell an investment, what we need to do is, we need to see how that affected it, and basically, if it's not your last investment, nor the allowance account because in a sense, the allowance account is self-adjusting. So, what I want us to do is I want us to understand that concept, and basically, what we're saying is, if I have...let's come over here and look, let's do an example. Let's say, for example, back over here, my AVS, I'm selling the AVS. So, I bought an AVS and let's say, for example, I had more than one. So, here's an investment. I had 100, and then I bought another for 50. That's 150. And let's say the value was 180. So, how do I get that? I'm going to allow, boom, boom, here's 30. 150 plus 30 is 180. Ok. Now, let's say I sell just this one investment. Now, normally, for AVS, as we just covered for available for sale. Normally, what's happening? Normally when you sell or when you have it available for sale, an unrealized gain or loss goes to where? Balance sheet. Comprehensive income. This says that when you sell it, when you sell the security, and here my example is AVS, available for sale, when you sell the security, you're going to debit cash. Let's say I sold it for 60. You're going to credit investment for cost 50. Your difference is a gain or a loss. Now, what kind of gain is this? You sold it, it's called a what? Realized gain. It's a realized gain, you realized it. You sold it. But what about the allowance? Let's say they told you that of the 50, 10 of this was allowance. Guess what? You ignore it. Huh? You ignore the allowance. Why? Because the allowance is self-adjusting because what you'll do then is, you'll say, "Okay, I got rid of 50, I'm left with what? 100." How much is that 100 dollar security worth? Let's say it's worth 125. How much do I have? 100 plus 30 is 130. I want 125. I better take out 5 to get me to 25. How do I do that? Credit allowance, debit unrealized loss. So, when you do this, notice it's self-adjusting. How is it self-adjusting? Because it adjusts because you only have that one security left, therefore it self-adjusts. Now, obviously if I sold it, and it was my last security, then you have to offset the allowance, but if it's not your last security, then this unrealized gain or loss, you ignore the allowance, you ignore it until you sell it. Let's read that sentence again. It says, "When the investment in AVS is sold, the difference between the cost in the proceeds is treated as a realized gain or loss. Ignore the allowance account and adjust to the new target without the security that was just sold, unless it's the last investment, then the allowance and the unrealized gain or loss must both be eliminated." Alright. So, let's do a couple of questions in the back of this section, and actually, before we do, let me just show you a little bit about where this stuff shows up. If you look first of all on page 3 dash 3, on 3 dash 3, that's where we went through and we looked at our balance sheet. So, let's go ahead and look back again at page 3 dash 3. So, on 3 dash 3, let me kind of put a little mark here...3 dash 3...mmm mmm mmm...here we go...balance sheet...you'll see there it says short term investments, marketable securities, trading, that's an asset. Then we've got non-current assets, available for sale, held to maturity. So, you can see those there, see how they show up The other thing I want to show you is, if you jump to page 17 dash 6, you'll see an example of a statement of comprehensive income. On 17 6, it says Roger Co., statement of comprehensive income, net income, then you have your OCI. What's OCI? Other comprehensive income. There's that mnemonic going down the page, DENT, which is derivative cash flow hedges, which is excess adjustment o pension PBO over fair value. That's for pensions...we haven't learned yet...net unrealized gain or loss on AVS. That's the one we're talking about. Yellow that in. And translation adjustment is comprehensive income. So, that is called your OCI, other comprehensive income. If you look at page 15 dash 1, 15 1, that's stockholder's equity. Let me show you what your balance sheet or stockholder's equity looks like. Remember, your balance sheet is assets, mmm hmm, liabilities, mmm hmm and equity. What does equity look like? Preferred stock, common stock, APIC, non-controlling interest, that's for consolidations, retained earnings, accumulated other comprehensive income. There's your DENT. What is it? D-E-N-T, derivatives, excess amortization, net unrealized gain or loss on AVS and foreign currency and then treasury stock. So, notice that's the accumulated. So, in this example, remember the 10,000 negative? That's the cumulative. That shows up where? On your balance sheet. That shows up on your balance sheet as part of stockholder's equity. Hopefully lights are going on. Alright, let's look at a couple of questions. Mmm hmm...let's go back to chapter 5. Let's look at question number 1, 1 and 2. Question number 1, 1 and 2. Alright, question number 1 says, "NOLA has a portfolio of marketable equity securities that it does not intend to sell in the near-term. How should NOLA classify these securities, and how should it report unrealized gains and losses from these securities." Now, it says marketable securities, it doesn't intend to sell near-term. So, that sounds like non-current. So, over here, and let's look at our chart. What does that sound like? Non-current. Sounds like current, non-current. Sounds like available for sale. Sounds like unrealized gains or losses go where? Balance sheet versus income statement. Okay, let's look back. Classified as trading? No. Classified as available? Yes. And separate component other comprehensive income? Yes, OCI, other comprehensive income goes where? On your balance sheet as part of equity. Trading? No. Available component of income. No. Best answer is B. Number 2. Last sentence first...Ball's x3 other comprehensive income would be...so, how much is their other comprehensive income? How much is their OCI? It says, "Data regarding Ball Corp.'s available for sale securities are as follows: December 31st, cost 150, went down to 130, x3 150, went up to 160. The differences between cost and market are considered temporary." Why do we care? Because if it's called non-temporary or permanent, then you would write down the security. But usually we consider them all to be what? Temporary, because there's a chance we could recover it. So, it says here, they want to know...now, here's the tricky question...are they asking for this or this? This or this? What's the difference? This is called OCI. OCI, accumulated OCI. So, what are they asking for? Hmmm? Sounds like OCI. So, let's see our journal entries. In x1, we bought it for 150, went down to 130. In x2, x3 went up to 160. So, let's set up over here again. Bought it for 150. By the end of the year, it went down to 130. I have a 20 dollar credit. How do I get it there? Let's see...credit allowance, debit unrealized loss. 20. Where does that go? It goes to the balance sheet. The next year, the value goes to 160. 160. What's my new target, my target? I want it to be 10, therefore I need to hit this for 30. Journal entry, debit allowance, 30, credit unrealized gain, 30. Now, where does the unrealized loss, unrealized gain go? Go to the balance sheet. So, if I were looking over here, what do I have? In the first year, I would have a loss of 20, and the next year I would have a gain of 30. The cumulative would be 10. Look at your choices...30 uh huh, 20 uh huh, 10 uh huh, 0. Oh my gosh, every choice is there. You better know what they're asking for. It says, again, Ball's x3 other comprehensive income. They want to know your OCI for the second year, for x3. So, your 2nd year OCI would be what? That would be x3's OCI, 30. If they ask for accumulated OCI, then the answer would be 10. But keeping in mind they're asking for this. Okay, they're asking for this. Okay? So, that's what we're looking at as far as those 2 questions. Alright, let's turn back in our notes, and let's talk about impairment loss. Now, here it says impairment loss other-than-temporary. What does that mean? It means that all the losses, we said they're temporary, they're temporary, they're temporary. Well anytime it is other-than-temporary, that means we don't think we're going to recover it. Now, they had to come up with reasons and rules. It said in debt or equity securities classified as trading available are held to maturity or under the equity method experience a loss. So, it could be the equity method as well, which we talked about in the last chapter. This is considered other-than-temporary. Then the security must be written down to the new cost bases and treated as a realized loss. Now, remember, I haven't sold it yet, but what happened is, we don't expect to recover this loss, therefore, you write it down. For example, they just did a study and found out Mountain Dew causes cancer. Mmmm. Let's pretend. So, if that's the case, what do you expect the value of the stock amount do to Dew? To drop, right? Unless it's cigarettes. Somehow, they go up, right? William Morris just keeps going up. So, the thing is, that would be a loss other than temporary because it's not just a fluctuation in the day-to-day market. We think it's a loss we're not going to recover. You don't do this unless they tell you in the problem it's permanent or non-temporary. So, that's called permanent, non-temporary or an impairment loss. It says here the securities written down at fair market value, the loss is treated as a realized lost on the income statement. The remaining balance is considered the new cost basis. So, that would be the new cost basis. Debit loss, credit investment. It says the street...3-step process to determine the adjustment is 1: determine whether an investment is impaired. So, in other words, is the value impaired? Is the fair value less than the cost? Step 2, determine whether it's other-than-temporary. In other words, we don't expect to recover it. It says the investor has the ability and intent to hold it for a reasonable period of time to sufficient for the forecasted recovery of the fair value and evidence indicating that the cost is recoverable. So, if you think the value's going to come back, and you expect to hold it that long, then don't hit it, but if you don't know if you're going to hold it that long and/or it's not recoverable, then you would write it down. And then step 3: record the loss. It says the impairment loss is the difference between the cost and its fair value. So, what you would do is, just debit loss, credit investment. Notice, though up until now, every adjustment was what? We had a loss, but we didn't hit the investment. We hit an allowance, allowance, allowance, allowance, allowance. Okay, that's what we've been doing so far. So, stay this way, we're in this, there we go. Okay? So, that's what we're looking at. So, that's this part here, okay. So, that's what we're saying, where it's just a kind of a temporary loss. Here, we're talking about a non-temporary. Alright, next area talks about reclassifications. With reclassifications, that's where we're reclassifying between what? One category and another. So, when reclassifying, here are my 3 categories. For my 3 categories, I have trading, available, held to maturity, held for trading, available for sale, held to maturity. If I go from here to here, here to here, here to here, here to here. So, you may reclassify. Why? Based on management's intention. Management goes, "You know what? I think we're going to do this or this or this." That is called management's intention. Now, when you reclassify, basically if you touch the word trading, you go from here to here, here to here, here to here, here and here, you touched the word trading, fair market value, gain or loss income statement. If you go here to here, here to here, then gain or loss, fair value, balance sheet. So, that's a good cheat sheet, quick way to remember it. If you look in your notes it says reclassifications. It says if you're reclassifying from trading and available between trading available, it says fair market value, the difference is treated as a realized gain or loss on the income statement and eliminate any valuation allowance. Reclassifications between held to maturity and AVS, reclassified fair value, if held to maturity to AVS, then record OCI. If AVS to held to maturity, then the unrealized gain or loss goes on the balance sheet, and then it's amortized over the life of the security. Okay. Held to maturity...I said those are bonds. You have to have the intent and ability to hold it until it matures. There's a whole bunch of things. Non-current, bonds, record at cost, carried at amortized cost, unrealized gains or losses shouldn't happen, realized gain or loss shouldn't happen, but could and so forth. So, again, I'm going to talk much more about this when we hit the bond chapter. Alright, now, let's look back up here one last time at my chart because it's a beautiful chart. I want you to remember this chart. Trading, available, held to maturity. Trading, generally current. It could be stocks or bonds, unrealized gains or losses, go to the income statement, realized gains or losses, income statement, interest dividend goes to the income statement, and of course, it's generally an operating activity on the statement of cash flows. Let's talk about this one. Available for sale. It says current or non-current, stocks or bonds, fair value, but the big difference, this comes up here, which means unrealized gains or losses go on the balance sheet as part of OCI. Same things about what's on the income statement other than unrealized, and generally buying or selling is an investing activity. Held to maturity, current or non-current, usually non-current, bonds only, carried at amortized cost. Buying or selling is generally an investment, investing activities. So, again what you're going to see on the exam most likely is a distinction between these two. So, a little bit of change in between these two, which is training and available for sale. So, that's what I really want to make sure you understand. Alright, finally, fair value accounting. It mentions here for available for sale securities, for held to maturity, for equity securities. It says here any unrealized gain or loss would be reported on the income statement rather than OCI. For held to maturity they would no longer report the investment in amortized cost, instead it would be at fair value, and again, gain or loss would go to the income statement. So, the big difference here is, you debit the investment, credit cash and then every year it goes up, income statement, goes down, income statement, goes up, income statement, goes down, income statement. So, it makes it a lot easier. That's why you could elect fair value. The way they generally test it is this stuff. So, that's why I'd rather have you remember this as far as understanding what and how it all goes together. Alright. Some of the disclosures...remember, we talked about disclosures? Those are disclosures here in the financial statements. We've got fair value, distinguishable between instruments and do not net or aggregate the fair values for the derivatives. So, that's just talking about some of the different accounting for those items. Okay, let's talk about investments in financial instruments other than entities under IFRS. So, this is an important area because there have been a few changes here, different ways that you can value these investments, for example. In looking at investments and financial instruments, it says the term investment refers to investments that are either held for trading, HFT, available for sale, or held to maturity, as well as equity investments. A financial instrument should be classified as either fair value through profit or loss. Now, that's kind of weird. Fair value through profit or loss. It says fair value. It says includes any financial assets and held for trading, could include AVS and held to maturity if elected, and there's an active market. So, what it says is, you can only use it if there is what we call an active market, and what we mean by an active market is that you can see in the market what the fair value really is because if we're doing a fair value through profit or loss, you've got to be able to see pretty readily, pretty easily what the fair value is. It says here, held to maturity instruments with fixed indeterminable and fixed maturity dates. You would show at amortized cost, which is what we already do, held to maturity at what? At amortized cost. We already do that. It says here loans and receivables, amortized cost. You break those out separately. Available for sale, financial assets that do not fall in the above 3 categories, we would show at fair value and your gain or loss would go to OCI, kind of like what we did earlier. So, those are, again, some of the big differences there. It says that if an asset is classified as fair value through profit or loss, it is re-measured at fair value at the end of each accounting period. Any profit or loss goes to the income statement. An election can be made to use fair value through profit or loss method for accounting purposes for an asset normally classified as AFS or held to maturity. In order to be done, again, it has to have an active market. So, that's the key. They like to sometimes ask that active market. Once you classify that, you cannot change it. So, once you make that decision, you're stuck fore..it's like marriage, you're stuck forever, and if you try to get out, you'll be paying for it, baby. Alright. It says the fair value profit or loss is not elected. The different rules apply, the investment is classified as held maturity, it's recorded at cost, says re-measured at amortized cost, kind of like what we already do. If classified as loans and receivables, it's accounted for using the amortized cost method. If the investment is classified as available for sale, the asset is measured at fair value, and any income loss goes to where? OCI, which is what we already do. Note that if a debt is classified as AFS, any premium or discount must be amortized using effective interest method, which we have not learned yet. We're going to learn that with bonds in FAR 3. So, what is the overview? It says declines in fair value below cost may result in an impairment loss for IFRS. Generally, only evidence of a credit default would affect your AFS, available for sale. When impairment is recognized through income, the new cost basis is established, and you cannot reverse that. So, when you have an impairment loss, you write it down. That write down is not recovered. So, when you write that down, do not recover. In other words, that is your new base; however, if you have an impairment loss under IFRS, it says here it may be recovered. So, that's a big difference, too, because we talked about an impairment loss, a loss other than temporary, permanent decline, you write it down, you don't write it back up. With IFRS, you write it down, but you could write it back up, unless the fair value option is elected under US GAAP, loans and receivables are classified as either held for investment, which is measured at amortized cost, or held for sale, which is lower of cost or value. Loans and receivables under IFRS are at amortized cost, unless you should choose the fair value through profit or loss or the available for sale category, both of which are carried at fair value. So, again not huge, huge differences but enough where you could easily see a multiple choice question or two. Alright, let's look at a couple questions here. Look at question number 7 about IFRS. It says, "On March 1st, Acadia purchased 1,000 shares of common stock of Marston for 50,000 dollars, and classified the investment as available for sale. On December 31st, the Marston stock had a fair value 53. Acadia prepares its financial statements in accordance with IFRS and they elected the fair value through profit or loss to record its investment in available for sale." Now, remember, normally, where does your AFS go? Available for sale goes where? Normally, it goes here, OCI, balance sheet, part of equity. Okay, that's where it normally goes. However, if you choose the fair value through profit or loss, then that gain or loss goes where? Income statement. It says, "How is the gain on the investment shown?" As 3,000 gain in OCI? No. That's if you did AF...available for sale normally. No gain or loss? No. 3,000 prior period adjustment? No. That's a correction of an error, which we haven't learned. As a 3,000 gain on the current earnings? Yes. In the income statement, answer D. Debit allowance, credit unrealized gain. Alright. Number 8. Under IFRS, the company uses the fair value method for accounting for an investment. Any changes in fair value are recognized where? Well, we just did that. Where? Profit or loss. OCI? No. Retained earnings? No. Profit or loss? Yes. Why? What's it called? Fair value through profit or loss. Alright, what I want to do now is, I'm going to do a simulation problem, but we're going to do that in just a sec. |
0.999998 | Archie Manning doesn't cotton to the notion that he and his wife Olivia are the heads of the First Family of the Southeastern Conference. For one thing, it's a presumption of self-importance, and Archie wasn't raised to be anything but humble.
"I've always said, in the era that I played, all those years with the Saints, you don't come out with a big ego," Manning said.
For another, Manning is the chair of the National Football Foundation and the College Football Hall of Fame. To his well-developed sense of propriety, appearing to favor one conference over another is downright unseemly, like belching in church or not throwing the checkdown.
Of course, Manning also understands that to ignore his family's ties to the SEC is to ignore the fusion of history and reality, of myth and memory, of what makes college football a family heirloom. There's a reason that 4-year-olds in Manning's home state of Mississippi know the words to "Hotty Toddy."
"I love the conference," Manning said on the phone the other day. "I cherish my time at Ole Miss. I cherish those four years. I've said publicly, and it's true, I've had a lot of wonderful things come my way. But personally, the greatest thing I ever accomplished was when I was named the starting quarterback at Ole Miss. That was my childhood dream, as it was thousands of kids in Mississippi. Every kid I knew wanted to be a quarterback at Ole Miss. They were such heroes in those days, Ole Miss quarterbacks. They were to me."
In the SEC Storied documentary "The Book of Manning," which debuts Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN, the story of Archie and Olivia is told -- how they met and fell in love at Ole Miss, the folk hero quarterback and the homecoming queen. The film tells the story of the hero worship that Manning endured until it went away, of how Archie and Olivia settled down and raised three boys in New Orleans as normally as they could, right down to the VHS camera on Archie's shoulder.
And it is a story of how those three boys -- Cooper, Peyton and Eli -- followed in their dad's footsteps and signed to play football in the SEC.
"I get invitations to go speak," Manning said. "They want to put a title on there -- 'How to Raise an All-American.' No, no, no, no, no. ... We tried to raise kids. Not NFL quarterbacks."
Archie and Olivia managed to do both. Peyton became an All-American at Tennessee. Eli went to Ole Miss like his dad and became the first pick in the NFL draft like his brother. But you know that. Everybody knows that. The Mannings have managed to live their lives in the public eye without being curdled by the attention.
If it were easy to do, every NFL player would be doing it.
"I really don't think I have lived my life as an open book," Manning said. "It's just the boys are so high profile. People ask questions. Things are out there. ... We've just been blessed. But I know Ryan Leaf used to call Peyton, 'Peyton Perfect.' Well, Peyton wasn't always Peyton Perfect, and Cooper wasn't always Cooper Perfect, and Eli wasn't Eli Perfect. There are always hills there in raising kids, and we've had ours. We've just been fortunate to get through them."
The Mannings have had their hills. Only after Archie's mother passed away did he begin to speak publicly of the suicide of his father, who ran a farm machinery business in Drew, Miss. Elisha Archibald Manning Sr. had health problems, and business problems, and in small-town Mississippi in the late 1960s, men didn't ask for help.
"He was stubborn," Manning said. "He was tough. He had a stroke! And he didn't go to the doctor for two weeks! ... He smoked, like everybody. Smoked Chesterfields. He wore to work, every day, a pair of khakis and a shirt. And he had to have two front pockets. If you gave him a birthday present, and it had one front pocket, it was never going to come out of the wrapper. One pocket for his pens, and one for his Chesterfields."
In the film, Cooper's chin quivers as he talks about how the discovery of a congenital spinal condition swept away his football career at Ole Miss before he ever played a down. The hate mail that Peyton got from Rebels fans when he signed with Tennessee, the public drunkenness citation that turned Eli's career around at Ole Miss -- the hills are apparent.
It may sound nonsensical, a man known for humility agreeing to participate in a documentary about his life. Archie turned down the film. Then he said yes. Then he pulled out of it. Six months later, Olivia asked him how the documentary was going.
"I nixed it," Archie said.
"Well, you're going to call them back and tell them you're going to do it," Olivia said, "because your grandchildren need to see your story."
The rest is SEC history. |
0.999829 | Getting music into your homeschool day when you are not comfortable with it can be daunting. Lucky for you, I have five tips for you to easily get music into your homeschool day without you having to sweat over it.
The easiest and most hands off for the parent is to get your child to take music lessons on an instrument. Not only is this rewarding, but there have been countless studies that show music lessons affect students and have shown higher intelligence, more focused concentration, better test taking skills, and more all because of music lessons! The downside is that it can be expensive to take lessons after you calculate the cost of the instrument, upkeep, lessons, music, and more. This is a great option and I highly recommend all kids learn an instrument, but I also know it isn't the only way to get music into your day, and it might not work for your family.
A composer study could be purchased as a curriculum or you could easily make it yourself. Pick a composer, like Mozart. Listen to his music, like his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I recommend listening to multiple pieces of different types like an opera, a violin sonata, a symphony, etc. Visit your library and read a biography about the composer. You can pick any composer you like, but I suggest starting with the big guys: Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Like the composer study, the musical period study requires to choose a time period and go from there. Some of the musical time periods include: Early Music, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic. There are other time periods, but after the romantic time period it gets dicey because of modernism, nationalism, and lots of splinters in thought. You would then listen to multiple composers and songs from that period including both sacred (church music) and secular music. This is a fun study to line up with history class. If you are studying the Civil War, you can see what music was being composed during that time and expand your lessons with music!
Just like tying music to history class, you can also tie it into your geography class. Whatever country or continent you are studying, add in music from that area! Listen to the National Anthem of the country, folk music, and composers that were born and/or lived there.
Another way to study music is to pick a *type* of music to study. Perhaps you want to listen to opera arias. Pick some from many composers and time periods and listen to the differences. It could be orchestral music, pop music, sacred music, or any other type of music. This is also a great way to hear the evolution of music.
Lastly, if you have a preschooler, then just listen to any fun music and DANCE to it! I would suggest the Sabre Dance, Hoedown, or the Trepak to start! |
0.973494 | Is it safe to directly upgrade directly from 7.6.6 to 7.11.2 or there is some precautions or further steps that we need to take take.
Note: When migrated recently from 6.X to 7.6 we had to migrate to multiple versions to make it work with Jira and tempo together.
Technically and ideally it's possible to upgrade directly from 7.6.6 to 7.11.2.
But I suggest that you carefully refer to Jira Software 7.11.x upgrade notes for any kinds of preparations you're supposed to perform in advance, for example, perform a test upgrade in a test environment. |
0.999978 | Not sure what to read this month? Try these suggestions based on authors born in the month of March!
Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917-September 12, 1977): Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet who inspired the confessional style of other poets such as Sylvia Plath. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was a United States Poet Laureate. His own personal history and his family and friendships were important subjects in his poetry. Recommended: Life Studies (1959).
Ralph Ellison: (March 1, 1914- April 16, 1994): Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American literary critic, scholar, and novelist. He won the National Book Award in 1953 served on The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recommended: Invisible Man (1952).
Garbriel García Márquez (March 6, 1928-April 17, 2014): Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez was a Colombian author of plays, short stories, and novels. He is considered one of the most important writers of the twentieth-century, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. Garcia Marquez was also a journalist who criticized national and international politics, but he is best known for his fiction and magical realism. Recommended: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
Jack Kerouac: (March 12, 1922- October 21, 1969): Kerouac was a pioneering member of the 1950s Beat Generation. He originally went to college on a football scholarship, but upon moving to New York City he discovered Jazz and the Harlem scene, which would change his life, and the American literary landscape, forever. Recommended: On the Road (1957).
Louis L’Amour (March 22, 1908-June 10, 1988): Louis Dearborn grew up in North Dakota during the sunset years of the American frontier. His interactions with traveling cowboys, the great Northern Pacific Railroad, and the world of cattle ranching would shape his later fiction, as would the stories of his grandfather, who fought in civil and Indian wars. Recommended: The Daybreakers (1960).
Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925-August 3, 1964): Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American writer. She flourished in the essay, short story and novel genres and was also a significant contributor to literary reviews and commentaries. Greatly inspired by her Roman Catholicism, her works often explored major themes of ethics and morality. She is one of the greatest Southern writers in American literature. Recommended: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955).
Tennessee Williams: (March 26, 1911- February 25, 1983): Thomas Lanier Williams III is one of America's greatest playwrights and an important presence in the history of homosexual writers. His works are heavily inspired by his own life, especially is unhappy family history. He had a great string of successful plays in the late 1940s, before shifting to a more experimental style which was not as well-received by audiences. Recommended: Suddenly, Last Summer (1958).
Robert Frost: (March 26, 1874- Jauary 29, 1963): Robert Frost, perhaps America's greatest and most successful poet, first explored a variety of careers, such as cobbler, editor, and teacher, before publishing his first poem ("My Butterfly") in 1894. Frost spent some time living in England during the early 1900s, where he met such talents as Robert Graves and Ezra Pound. These experiences had a profound influence on his work. Recommended: North of Boston (1914).
Anna Sewell (March 30, 1820- April 25, 1878): Anna Sewell is an English novelist, born into a Quaker family. When she was a girl, she severely injured both of her ankles, which confined her to crutches and limited walking for the rest of her life. Recommended: Black Beauty (1877). |
0.977816 | One year after solving a series of murders in the Baztan valley, Detective Inspector Amaia Salazar attends the trial against Johana Marquez's stepfather, Jason Medina, who raped, maimed and murdered his stepdaughter. Suddenly the judge announces that the trial should be cancelled: the defendant has just committed suicide in the bathroom of the courthouse. He has left a suicide note addressed to Amaia, containing just a mysterious and disturbing word: 'Tarttalo'. What is the message Jason was trying to send? To unravel the truth, Amaia must return once again to the Baztan valley where her investigation takes a sinister turn. |
0.999999 | Despite how it sounds, Markdown is actually a markup language! A markup language is a system for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. Markup languages tend to encourage writers to focus on content and structure before concerning themselves with presentation.
Structure is defined for a processor through the use of tags embedded directly in the text.
A **markup language** is a system for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. Markup languages tend to encourage writers to focus on *content* and *structure* before concerning themselves with presentation.
You can see that in order to make text bold, I need to wrap it in double asterisks: **bold**. Italic text is wrapped in single asterisks: *italic*. |
0.999881 | > Welcome to PVMS! > About PVMS > FAQ > Why is Montessori so expensive compared to conventional schools?
Montessori programs are normally more expensive to organize and run than conventional classrooms due to the extensive teacher education needed to become certified and the very high cost of purchasing the educational materials and beautiful furniture needed to equip each Montessori classroom.
Montessori is not always more expensive. Tuition costs depend on many factors, including the cost of the various elements that go into running a particular school, such as the cost of the buildings and grounds, teacher salaries, the size of the school (in general, larger schools tend to be more cost-effective to run than small ones), the programs it offers, and whether the school receives a subsidy payment from a sponsoring church, charity, or government agency. |
0.999999 | The inflation rate in Poland between 2007 and today has been 27.1%, which translates into a total increase of zł27.1. This means that 100 zloty in 2007 are equivalent to 127.1 zloty in 2019. In other words, the purchasing power of zł100 in 2007 equals zł127.1 today. The average annual inflation rate has been 1.86%. |
0.999999 | this started as a paragraph and escalated to an essay.
It’s dedicated to those of us who find it hard to integrate their synaesthesia in public, those of us who are yet to learn that it’s OK and in some cases lovely to be a little different, and those of us who might be struggling with interacting with the bright loud sharp world that we inhabit compared to those without our quirky neurology.
I went back to see my old music tutor at Oxford a few weeks back. It must have been around 15-20 years ago when I studied music there. The prof told me I spoke like no-one else he taught. I would describe, say, Bach in terms of texture, taste, colour, touch – with so many layers to music it was really important to me to be accurate in my description, but how odd to my tutor for me to describe Bach as a green forest or the smell of damp wood – back then I didn’t know about synaesthesia so it was a joy to finally talk to him about it.
For him, it made sense of all the things I used to say about music – I got a feeling that he was almost relieved to have an explanation for it!
And for me, it made me think a lot more on what might be why many of us with synaesthesia struggle with human interaction.
I think describing the world and especially music cross-modally (i.e. synaesthetically) works really well in a creative context, but in normal conversations I started to wonder if my happily jumping between senses may be jarring to people who are just trying to understand what I’m on about.
Here’s my theory: we synaesthetes freely switch from taste to sound to colour to texture to <insert sense here> when we are talking about something – we engage whatever description works to convey the feeling we have with the most clarity or accuracy, just like someone else would, though we have a much larger vocabulary to choose from, sometimes even including gestures or noises. So to a non-synaesthete I wonder if it might sound like we’re picking from the wrong list.
For example – let us imagine people are expecting a food to taste like <taste>.
c) (common with non-synesthetes) conversation moves to curiosity and synaesthetic experience questions – the question of what the food is like is not as important anymore! Questions, so many questions!
d) (common with other synesthetes and close friends) conversation partner understands, accepts and enjoys description, conversation continues and comparative modalities are explored. Amazing, a meeting of uncommon minds!
All of these are OK. I’ve probably missed some others out.
“I have synaesthesia which means my senses are a bit mixed together” works really well.
“I think everyone has a version of synaesthesia, some people experience it more intensely than others” is great when people are more curious and want to perhaps explore their own associations. I believe that everyone has the potential to experience cross-modality at some level.
I’m actually happy to talk about my synaesthesia when asked, much happier if I have access to a piano at the same time. If/when someone says I’m weird that’s OK. I tell them that they are probably right and smile gently. If someone says I’m making it up that’s OK too, it doesn’t matter to me what they think, I smile and say that it’s my experience, which is all we have to go on. If I’m feeling a little like I’m being judged negatively – and some people will be suspicious of things they don’t know about – I try to remember that everyone has their own struggles, perhaps they’re not in a receptive mood for other reasons – then I’ll think privately on how much I’m enjoying delicious food or music around me more than someone who’s not wired the same way.
We have many challenges as synaesthetes. Having said that though I feel that the overall potential to experience the world so deeply with so little effort is worth the odd strange look, explanatory conversation and sense of overwhelm that we no doubt all have to deal with.
Here is an interview I did (it was really early in the morning!) about food and synaesthesia for a documentary on Radio New Zealand – I’m among a variety of artists interviewed all talking about their own experience.
To me, one of the more surprising things about synaesthesia is that I don’t seem to find it surprising! Two possible explanations occur to me. The more mundane is that probably a good 40 years ago an aunt I was quite close to described her synaesthesia to me. For her, everything (numbers, days of the week, people) had very distinct colours. I don’t remember it relating to music or other senses, though she did play the piano. To her, I think I was white. She had two daughters (my cousins) but had always wanted a son – I think she regarded me as the son she never had, which maybe “coloured” her perception of me. I don’t remember her synaesthesia ever striking me as strange, after all, it seems most people have a visual conception of the number line, stretching in different directions over different ranges, and visualise days of the week and months of the year in circles or some form of cyclic shapes. Adding colours isn’t that much of an extension. But maybe I’ve simply known about synaesthesia for sufficiently long to have forgotten any initial surprise.
However, I like to think there may be another more interesting explanation: that most people are synaesthetes to some extent at a subconscious level. I was fascinated by Prof Sean Day’s theory which he outlined on the Radio NZ piece, namely that sensory inputs at birth are not directed to specific parts of the brain and only in the first few years of life are connections pruned, leaving in most people the processing of different senses to specialised of brain regions.
The idea that there may remain vestiges of largely disused and depleted pathways seems highly plausible. After all, we are very used to the fact that the English language contains various cross-sensory adjectives such as “sharp”, “bright”, “dull”, “sweet” etc., which are inherently synaesthetic at a basic level, and we think nothing of it. Each of our senses (but most notably hearing and vision) go through a very complex processing chain, analysing the raw nerve impulses, making sense of them and testing them against our knowledge and relating them to memories before entering our consciousness as a multi-sensory awareness of self in the environment in which we find ourselves, where they evoke conscious rational and emotional responses. It would seem that in a synaesthete, the combining of the sensory inputs maybe just happens at an earlier subconscious stage in the processing chain.
A key question for me is whether that sheds any light on why music is so powerful, a long-standing open question which I’ve had in the back of my mind for many years. Music consists of three elements: rhythm, melody and harmony. Rhythm is clearly related to the heart beat, which we have all been exposed to since before birth, and which in turn is associated with states of mind such as excitement or relaxation. It’s almost universally appreciated, even it would seem by those of minimal musicality. But melody and harmony are much more puzzling, often being entirely abstract yet having the ability (for me, at least) to evoke a much wider palette of emotional responses. The other day I was listening yet again to the Schubert piano sonatas D958 – 960, which seem to sum up the whole of life and make sense of the human condition, and if I let them, can reduce me to tears. Yet at a reductionist level they are just squiggles on a page or vibrations in the air. How can this be? Music seems somehow to penetrate directly to that level of the mind where all the processed sensory inputs merge into our sense of self with its emotional and rational responses, like an intravenous injection of caffeine. Maybe some otherwise largely dormant synaesthetic pathways are involved. The normal explanation of the appeal of music in terms of anticipation, revelation and repetition seems inadequate to fully explain the delicious ambiguity of a diminished 7th or the exquisite tension of a really scrunchy suspension or false relation or the delight of a really subtle modulation or sublime melody. Why should those sounds mean any more than the notes on the page unless they invoke possibly cross-sensory neural pathways? A Bach fugue ought to be just as beautiful a creation on paper as it is when played, but it clearly isn’t, for most people at least.
The idea that music in some way short circuits other processing pathways seems to be validated by the fact that it can often still be appreciated by those with fairly advanced dementia, a fact that I would give me tremendous solace if I were ever given such a prognosis, assuming of course that I managed to get my favourite albums onto a music player before I forgot how! I recently read that music can even be beneficial to patients undergoing surgery under general anaesthesia, lending further support to the notion of its in some sense primal nature.
Sorry to ramble on a bit, but thank you for your piece – I found it most interesting. I understand synaesthesia tends to run in families, but I don’t seem to have it. I envy you! |
0.999949 | How to control composition in camera photography?
Composition in photography is the way an object is placed in relation to the background, or the way a group of objects are arranged in relation to one another and the background. In a good composition the elements of the picture are positioned to give the picture as a whole a unified effect.
Nature arranges things in its own way, and the trick of a photographer is to compose his pictures carefully out of nature s arrangements. Often one or more objects are -moving in relation to the background. Birds might be flying across a landscape or horses galloping around a race track. In situations of this kind I take several pictures in quick succession, and then choose the best one.
Above all, patience is required. You can't arrive at a place, quickly snap a picture, and go home expecting it to be a great shot (although this does happen sometimes). If there's time, good results are usually obtained after thoroughly studying the locale, getting into the mood of it, and finding the best angles from which the most interesting elements of a scene could be photographed. Furthermore, when photographing something specific like the facade of a historic building, it is helpful to know the time of day when the light is at its best and when the shadows might add rather than detract from the particular effect you are after.
When photographing fast-moving subjects or candid portraits, you seldom have time for careful composition. Under these circumstances a picture can often be improved by cropping in the final print. Ideally, however, the picture should be carefully composed in the camera at the time of shooting, especially when taking color slides.
There are no rules for composition except good judgment and taste. The more one photographs, the more one becomes aware of balancing light areas with dark ones, large objects with small. I found that studying the work of great painters was most helpful in training me to be aware of good composition.
Also, the more one reviews one's owns work, the more one comes to recognize which pictures are dramatic, which are flat, and what makes them so. There is no real substitute for experience - in other words, learning trial and error. |
0.981829 | Paris was the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, who eloped with Helen, queen of Sparta, thus causing the events that led to the Trojan War.
Before he was born, Hecuba saw a dream in which her child was a flaming torch. The explanation to the dream that was given by the seer Aesacus was that the yet unborn child would be the doom of Troy. Aesacus also said on the day of Paris' birth that a child born of royals that day should be killed in order to save the kingdom. However, Priam and Hecuba could not kill their baby son, and instead gave the baby to a herdsman so that he would do the deed. The herdsman, also unable to kill the baby, left him to die on Mount Ida, but the boy was saved by drinking milk from a female bear. When the herdsman returned nine days later, he found the baby still alive and took him back to Troy. While growing up, Paris met the nymph Oenone, and they became lovers; after he left her for Helen, Oenone told him that she would be happy to treat all of his injuries, small or serious, whenever he was wounded.
Years later, a magnificent ceremony took place on Mount Olympus for the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. Major and minor deities had been invited, except Eris, the goddess of strife. In retribution, Eris decided to cause havoc, by throwing the Golden Apple of Discord amidst the goddesses, which was inscribed with the words "To the fairest". Hera, Athena and Aphrodite started quarreling over who should get the apple, and asked Zeus to decide. The king of the gods, knowing that his decision would bring upon him the wrath of the two discontent goddesses that would not be picked, decided to abstain. Instead, he appointed Paris to be the judge.
Paris asked the three goddesses to remove their clothes, but even so, he was unable to select the most beautiful of them, as they were all equal in beauty. That's when the goddesses decided to bribe him. Hera told him that if he picked her, she would appoint him ruler of all Europe and Asia. Athena told him he would be endowed with battle skills, wisdom and swordsmanship. Aphrodite said she would give him the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris chose Aphrodite.
The most beautiful woman in the world was Helen, queen of Sparta and wife to King Menelaus. Paris either stole Helen from Menelaus aided by Aphrodite, or Helen had already fallen for him and eloped together. After this event, Menelaus invoked the Oath of Tyndareus; this oath had been taken by all prospective suitors of Helen when she was still single, swearing that they would all protect whomever Helen would choose as her husband. As a result, the expedition to Troy was planned and the Greek forces sailed towards the western coast of Asia, thus starting the Trojan War.
Paris was considered unskilled in battle and a coward. He preferred to use a bow and arrow, which was not the weapon choice of the brave and the heroes. At some point during the war, Achilles' death was caused by an arrow that hit him on his heel; some sources claim it was Paris' shot helped by Apollo, while others claim it was Apollo transformed into Paris.
Paris was eventually mortally wounded by Philoctetes; at that point, Helen tried to find Oenone, who had promised to heal any wounds that he would suffer. However, the nymph, still angry that Paris had abandoned her for Helen, refused to give any help. Paris died that same day, and when Oenone heard about it, she threw herself in the same funeral pyre out of grief. Helen was then forced to marry Paris' brother, Deiphobus, who was killed by Menelaus after Troy fell. |
0.950817 | Is the posthuman postracial? Posthumanism, an interpretive paradigm that unseats the human individual as the de facto unit of literary analysis, can be a powerful tool for Asian American literary studies when deployed with attention to critical race theory and literary form. Throughout American literature, Asian Americans have frequently been figured as inhuman—alien, inscrutable, and inassimilable. Representations of Asian Americans as either sub- or superhuman populate many genres, including adventure literature, domestic realism, comics, and science fiction. This trope, which combines yellow peril and model minority stereotypes, forms a through line that runs from depictions of Asian Americans as nerveless 19th-century coolies to 21st-century robotic office workers. Manifesting both threat and promise for America, posthuman representations of Asian Americans refract national and racial anxieties about the fading of the United States’ global influence as Asian nations, especially China, become political and economic superpowers. Rather than directly refuting these characterizations, Asian American writers have creatively engaged these same thematics to contemplate how developments in science and technology produce different ways of understanding the human and, concomitantly, engender changes in racial formation. Novelists, dramatists, poets, and artists have all deployed posthumanism in order to conduct imaginative experiments that challenge expectations regarding the typical purview of Asian American literature. Several nodes of inquiry that demonstrate the importance of posthumanist critique for Asian American literary studies include race as an index of humanity, the mutability of race through biotechnology, the amplification of racial inequality through infrastructure, and the reproduction of race through algorithmic culture. In the wake of early 21st-century ecological disaster and biotechnological fragmentation, examining the evolving relationship between Asian American racialization and posthumanism continues to provide important insights into how race is structured by the changing boundaries of the human and, in turn, demonstrates that the posthuman subject is never “beyond” race. In addition to offering an overview, this article provides a case study regarding the stereotyping of Asian Americans as robotic. |
0.928699 | Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, PC, FRSL (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for 33 years from 1964 to 1997. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.
Hattersley was born on 28 December 1932 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Frederick Hattersley and Enid Hattersley.
He was a socialist and Labour supporter from his youth, electioneering at the age of 12 for his local MP and city councillors, beginning in 1945. His mother, Enid (née Brackenbury), was a city councillor, and later served as Lord Mayor of Sheffield (1981). His father, Frederick Hattersley, at various times a police officer, clerk at Sheffield town hall, and chairman of the council's Health Committee, was a former Roman Catholic priest, who renounced the church and left the priesthood to marry; he died (in 1973) an atheist.
Hattersley won a scholarship to Sheffield City Grammar School and went from there to study at the University of Hull. Having been accepted to read English at the University of Leeds, he was diverted into reading Economics when told by a Sheffield colleague of his mother that it was necessary for a political career.
At university Hattersley joined the Socialist Society (SocSoc) and was one of those responsible for changing its name to the "Labour Club" and affiliating it with the non-aligned International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) rather than the Soviet-backed International Union of Students. Hattersley became chairman of the new club and later treasurer, and he went on to chair the National Association of Labour Student Organisations. He also joined the executive of the IUSY.
After graduating Hattersley worked briefly for a Sheffield steelworks and then for two years with the Workers' Educational Association. He married his first wife Molly, who became a headteacher and educational administrator. In 1956 he was elected to the City Council as Labour representative for Crookesmoor and was, very briefly, a JP. On the Council he spent time as chairman of the Public Works Committee and then the Housing Committee.
His aim became a Westminster seat, and he was eventually selected for Labour to stand for election in the Sutton Coldfield constituency but lost to the Conservative Geoffrey Lloyd in 1959. He kept hunting for prospective candidacies, applying for twenty-five seats over three years. In 1963 he was chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the multi-racial Birmingham Sparkbrook constituency (following a well-known local 'character', Jack Webster) and facing a Conservative majority of just under 900. On 16 October 1964 he was elected by a majority of 1,254 votes; he was to hold that seat for the next eight general elections.
At first he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Margaret Herbison, the Minister for Pensions. His maiden speech was on a housing subsidies bill. Still a Gaitskellite, he also joined the 1963 Club. He also wrote his first Endpiece column for The Spectator (the column moved to The Listener in 1979, and then to The Guardian).
Despite the support of Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland he did not gain a ministerial position until 1967, joining Ray Gunter at the Ministry of Labour. He was reportedly disliked by Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a "Jenkinsite". The following year he was promoted to Under Secretary in the same ministry, now led by Barbara Castle, and become closely involved in implementing the unpopular Prices and Incomes Act 1966. In 1969 after the fiasco over In Place of Strife he was promoted to deputy to Denis Healey, the Minister of Defence, following the death of Gerry Reynolds. One of his first jobs, while Healey was hospitalised, was to sign the Army Board Order – putting troops into Northern Ireland.
The Labour defeat of 1970 ended six years of Labour government. Hattersley was to hold his seat – often increasing his majority – but for the next twenty-six years as MP he was to spend twenty one in Opposition. He was appointed Deputy Foreign Affairs Spokesman, again under Healey, which involved a lot of foreign travel if nothing else. He also took a Visiting Fellowship to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. During this time he also became an enthusiastic supporter of the Common Market, and his "drift to the political centre" put him at odds with much of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). He was one of the sixty-nine 'rebels' who voted with the Conservative government for entry into the EEC, which precipitated the resignation of Roy Jenkins as deputy leader (10 April 1972) and eventually a permanent split within Labour. (It was the adoption of a referendum on the EEC as shadow cabinet policy that caused Jenkins to resign.) For 'standing by' the party Hattersley was appointed Shadow Defence Secretary 1972 to 1973 and later Shadow Secretary of State for Education (the one government post he had always coveted).
In the Wilson government of 1974 he was appointed the (non-cabinet) Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and in the 1975 New Year Honours, he was sworn of the Privy Council. Hattersley headed the British delegation to Reykjavik during the "Cod Wars", but was primarily given the task of renegotiating the terms of the UK's membership of the EEC. Following the resignation of Wilson he voted for Jim Callaghan in the ensuing leadership contest in order to stop Michael Foot (a man "[who] for all his virtues ... could not become Prime Minister"). Under Callaghan he finally made it into the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, a position he held until Labour's defeat in the 1979 General Election.
In 1979 he was appointed to shadow Michael Heseltine as the Minister for the Environment, contending with him over the cuts in local government powers and the "right to buy". Following the rise of the 'hard left', as demonstrated at the 1980 Labour Conference, Callaghan resigned. The leadership contest was between Healey and Foot, with Hattersley organising Healey's campaign. "An electorate [the PLP] deranged by fear" elected Foot. Healey was made deputy leader and Hattersley was appointed Shadow Home Secretary, but felt that Foot was "a good man in the wrong job", "a baffling combination of the admirable and the absurd". Healey was challenged for his post in 1981, following electoral rule changes, by Tony Benn, retaining his post by 50.426% to 49.574%. Hattersley felt that "the Bennite alliance [although defeated] ... played a major part in keeping the Conservatives in power for almost twenty years". Hattersley also had very little regard for those Labour defectors who created the SDP in 1981. He helped found Labour Solidarity (1981–83) and credits the group with preventing the disintegration of the Party.
Following Labour's devastating defeat in the 1983 general election Foot declined to continue as leader. Hattersley stood in the subsequent leadership election, John Smith was his campaign manager and a young Peter Mandelson impressed Hattersley. The other competitors were Neil Kinnock, Peter Shore, and Eric Heffer. Hattersley had the support of most of the Shadow Cabinet, but the majority of the PLP, the constituency groups and the unions were in favour of Kinnock. In the final count Kinnock secured around three times as many votes as the second-place Hattersley. As was standard practice at the time Hattersley was elected deputy leader. The combination was promoted at the time as being a "dream ticket" with Kinnock a representative of the left of the party and Hattersley of the right. Hattersley remained deputy for eight years and also Shadow Chancellor until 1987, when he moved back to Shadow Home Affairs.
Kinnock and Hattersley attempted to rehabilitate Labour after 1983. After the Miners' Strike they resumed expelling members of the entryist Militant group whose activities, organisation and politics had earlier been found to contravene the Labour Party's constitution. In 1988 they fought off a leadership challenge by Tony Benn, Eric Heffer, and John Prescott. Defeat in 1987 was expected; by 1992 it was much more even. Labour had regularly topped opinion polls since 1989 and at one stage had a lead of up to 15 points over the Tories, though this was cut back and more than once overhauled by the Tories after the resignation of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister to make way for John Major in November 1990. In the run-up to the 1992 election, Hattersley was present at the Labour Party rally in his native Sheffield and backed up Kinnock with the claim that "with every day that passes, Neil looks more and more like the real tenant of number 10 Downing Street".
The general election was held on 9 April 1992, but saw Labour again defeated by the Conservatives. Kinnock announced his resignation as party leader on 13 April, and on the same day Hattersley announced his intention to resign from the deputy leadership of the party, with the intention of carrying on in their roles until the new leadership was elected that summer.
Hattersley supported his friend John Smith in the leadership contest, which Smith won in July that year. In 1993 Hattersley announced he would leave politics at the following general election. He was made a life peer as Baron Hattersley, of Sparkbrook in the County of West Midlands on 24 November 1997.
Hattersley was long regarded as being on the right of the party, but with New Labour in power he found himself criticising a Labour government from the left, even claiming that "Blair's Labour Party is not the Labour Party I joined". He mentioned repeatedly that he would be supporting Gordon Brown as leader.
Hattersley is the author of three novels and several biographies. He has written biographies on religious topics, and on the Edwardian period as well. His 700-page biography of Lloyd George The Great Outsider: David Lloyd George was published by Little, Brown in 2010.
In 1996 he was fined for an incident involving his dog, Buster, after it killed a goose in one of London's royal parks. He later wrote the "diary" of Buster, writing from the dog's perspective on the incident, in which it claimed to have acted in self-defence. In January 2010, after the death of Buster the previous October, Hattersley adopted a white bull-terrier dog called Jake from an animal rescue centre.
In 2008, Hattersley appeared in a documentary on the DVD for the Doctor Who serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, to discuss the political climate that existed at the time of making the serial. He now writes a regular column for the Daily Mail, "In Search of England", about different parts of the United Kingdom; it normally appears in the paper on Tuesdays. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Hattersley married his first wife Molly in 1956. They divorced in April 2013 after 57 years of marriage, having been separated for five years. They had no children. In summer 2013, he married Maggie Pearlstine, his literary agent. Hattersley supports a British republic, but took a seat in the unelected House of Lords.
Hattersley is a dedicated supporter of Sheffield Wednesday.
↑ "Enid Hattersley". Retrieved 20 September 2016.
↑ "Agenda: Skeletons in the family cupboard; Labour grandee tells of his parents' big secret". Western Mail. Cardiff, Wales. 14 June 2002. Retrieved 20 September 2016 – via Free Online Library.
↑ Staff (22 May 2001). "Enid Hattersley's obituary". The Telegraph. London, UK. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
↑ "Short, sharp aftershock". The Guardian. 18 September 2007.
↑ "Books for pleasure". The Guardian. 12 February 2007. Retrieved 13 February 2007.
1 2 Jill Reilly "Labour's 80-year-old former deputy leader Roy Hattersley is granted a 'quickie' divorce from his wife after 57 years of marriage", dailymail.co.uk, 13 April 2013; accessed 18 March 2014.
↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 46444. p. 1. 31 December 1974.
↑ "Listening. (Neil Kinnock's election campaign)". The Economist. 23 January 1988. Retrieved 6 April 2015 – via HighBeam Research. (subscription required (help)).
↑ Barnard, Stephanie (27 July 2009). "Sheffield & South Yorkshire: Kinnock came and didn't conquer". BBC News. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
↑ The London Gazette: no. 54961. p. 13331. 27 November 1997.
↑ "Labour peer urges Blair to quit". BBC News. 16 July 2006. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
↑ "Buster's Diaries as Told to Roy Hattersley With a New Postscript: Amazon.co.uk: Roy Hattersley: Books". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
↑ Profile, Timesonline.co.uk; 21 January 2010.
↑ Hattersley classified as a republican in The Guardian, theguardian.com, 3 April 2005; accessed 12 April 2014. |
0.99845 | What are the differences between TPM and HSM?
TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and HSM (Hardware Security Module) are considered as cryptoprocessor, but what are the differences exactly?
Does one of them have more advantages than another?
A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a hardware chip on the computer’s motherboard that stores cryptographic keys used for encryption. Many laptop computers include a TPM, but if the system doesn’t include it, it is not feasible to add one. Once enabled, the Trusted Platform Module provides full disk encryption capabilities. It becomes the "root of trust" for the system to provide integrity and authentication to the boot process. It keeps hard drives locked/sealed until the system completes a system verification, or authentication check.
The TPM includes a unique RSA key burned into it, which is used for asymmetric encryption. Additionally, it can generate, store, and protect other keys used in the encryption and decryption process.
A hardware security module (HSM) is a security device you can add to a system to manage, generate, and securely store cryptographic keys.
High performance HSMs are external devices connected to a network using TCP/IP. Smaller HSMs come as expansion cards you install within a server, or as devices you plug into computer ports.
One of the noteworthy differences between the two is that HSMs are removable or external devices. In comparison, a TPM is a chip embedded into the motherboard. You can easily add an HSM to a system or a network, but if a system didn’t ship with a TPM, it’s not feasible to add one later. Both provide secure encryption capabilities by storing and using RSA keys.
The primary difference is in use. TPMs are meant to provide a hardware root of trust to enable secure computing by providing a secure key storage enclave with minimal cryptographic functions primarily in the signing and signature verification space. Some one did outline the primary use cases ... storage of drive encryption keys and validation of signatures on boot loaders, kernels, and device drivers. Note, much of this can be accomplished without a TPM (secure boot with bios that support Windows WHQL including default Microsoft keys), password based disk encryption. TPMs typically cost between $7 USD (as part of the bill of materials for a custom board) to $15 USD (as a pluggable module for after market modification). TPMs can include smart card reader / virtual smart card functionality.
HSMs typically have two primary, closely related functions. The first function is hardware enabled / accelerated cryptographic functions including encipherment, decipherment, key generation, PRNG functions, and related signing/signature validation functions. Typically these are hardware accelerated by onboard FPGA or ASIC (or a combination). The second function typically is a smart card reader with / without virtual smart card for key / certification storage with enhanced (PIN) based protections. The integration of the two provides a powerful model for using hardware to generate a non-exportable certificate embedded within the virtual smart card. HSMs can run from tens of thousands of dollars (for chassis based solutions) to thousands of dollars (for PCIE cards) to 100s of dollars (USB) to 10s of dollars (for H-SDC versions).
In my experience, TPMs are primarily used for key storage, HSMs are primarily used for hardware accelerated cryptography with key storage.
TPMs are very exactly specified parts wrt to function and security level they provide (https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org).
It has fixed function, is a rather low cost and yet high security chip (less than $2.00). The purpose is to serve as a ‚root of trust‘ on a platform. Also they are tested and certified to withstand a defined level of side-channel/observing attacks, semi-invasive/fault attacks and even invasive attacks.
In contrast the term HSM essentially just says „hardware security module“ and this leads to an ambiguity and variety of interpretations.
Traditionally an HSM is module that is optimized to generate AES, RSA or ECC keys and certificates in very high performance. Imagine you run a web-server that shall be able to quickly establish hundreds or thousands of https (SSL/TLS) session. This requires a massive crypto performance (i.e. key generation). HSMs do this - very fast! They are not necessarily well protected sophisticated against attacks, since they are usually operated in a secure environment. However they typically are packaged in a way that provides tamper resistance and evidence. Big difference to TPMs: these modules cost $1000s upwards. It‘s low volume specially designed silicon and comes e.g. on PCIexpress boards where the customer can scale the required performance by plugging in multiple HSMs on his motherboard/rack. The TPM market is north of 100mio pcs/yr. And by definition there is 1 TPM ‚bound‘ (=mostly ‚soldered‘) to the platform.
Other forms of „HSM“ interpretations: Some use the term HSM ambiguously e.g. even for the TrustZone in the ARM-A series family or anything where there is a dedicated security processor in a more general (multi-core) CPU.
TPMs are verifying, that computer runs only signed code. It usually builtin motherboard.
HSM used to store private or symmetric keys for encryption.Usually it is separate network deivce.
TPM chips often are embedded onto a motherboard, but not always. HSM are almost always external.
My motherboard actually supports adding a TPM chip via a header.
TPM can replicate some HSM functionality, but a HSM cannot replace a TPM. TPM allows a root of trust for booting.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged encryption cryptography hardware hsm tpm or ask your own question.
What is the difference between HSM and Key server?
Is AIK from the TPM publicly accessible?
Where is the Bitlocker key stored without the Trusted-Platform Module (TPM)?
What are the functional similarities and differences between TPM and SGX in trusted computing?
What is the difference between SGX and TPM? |
0.999988 | How many times have you heard someone say, “Let’s do it now and ask permission later?” It’s a common practice in companies where there is a barrier between levels in the chain of command, or lack of communication between contemporaries. The statement represents a failing at some point in the delegation or communication chain by a higher level of management, and should be taken as a warning that there is a problem greater than the issue handled at the moment.
I’ve worked with organizations that are so large that extensive paperwork is required to obtain approvals to accept customer orders, make any purchases of any size, or any commitment of resources. In every case, people try to stretch those restrictions in as many ways as possible to get around the time taken to complete forms and lost in waiting for approvals. It’s the “order prevention department” syndrome.
Incomplete delegation of responsibilities, or controls that are too tight, both lead to a rationale for subordinates to circumvent the system. The worst thing about this is that the people most likely to do this are those most entrepreneurial and creative in doing their jobs. Conversely, those most likely to fall back and seek guidance, clarification and direction are those most subservient and least creative.
Middle managers sometimes identify those who assume power as non-conformists or even troublemakers. It is rare to ever see a dialog come out of such an event that leads to better defined delegation of responsibilities, removal of roadblocks, or relaxation of overly restrictive rules. More often such actions lead to reprimands without analysis of the underlying general cause. And occasionally, the very creative, driven individuals you would otherwise celebrate are made candidates for elimination instead of catalysts for change. |
0.999997 | What are the pros and cons of a dental hygienist career? Get real job descriptions, career prospects and salary info to see if becoming a dental hygienist is right for you.
Dental hygienists help keep patients' teeth clean and educate individuals about the importance of oral health. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), most dental hygienists learn their trade via one of the roughly 300 dental hygiene programs accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation. This career has schedule flexibility and great career prospects; however, finding full-time employment may be difficult. Check out the pros and cons below to determine if the career is what you are looking for.
Dental hygienists assist dentists by performing routine procedures, such as removing plaque, taking x-rays and identifying oral abnormalities or diseases in their patients. Their duties generally fall into the categories of practical hygiene and patient education. Not only do dental hygienists administer periodontal dressings and some temporary fillings, but they also educate patients on proper brushing and flossing methods, dietary risks and practices to improve the patient's oral health.
Dental hygienists work in clean, well-lit offices, typically in a dental office, stated the BLS. However, the American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA) says they can also work in such settings as hospitals or public health clinics, as well as in schools. They use a variety of tools in performing their jobs, including hand tools during oral inspections and x-ray equipment when taking pictures of patients' teeth. Each state has its own regulations; for example, the BLS reports that some states permit hygienists to perform complex tasks, like placing or carving fillings.
As of May 2014, the BLS reported that most dental hygienists earned between approximately $50,000 and $97,000. This is a high figure for the more than 196,000 dental hygienists employed at this time, considering that more than half of all hygienists work part-time. The BLS also noted that dental hygienists can be paid in a variety of ways, including daily, on commission, hourly or by salary.
The career field was projected to grow much faster than average, with a 33% growth from 2012-2022. This growth was expected due to a variety of factors, including an increase in preventative care for patients, an aging population and dentists hiring more hygienists to perform routine care so they can see more patients.
The American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA) notes that all 50 states require hygienists to be licensed or registered, and the education requirements vary by state. You typically need to earn at least an associate degree from a CODA-accredited program. Several different educational options are available, according to the BLS, depending on your career interests. The CODA accredits certificate, associate, bachelor's and master's degree programs. However, the certificate and associate degree programs are designed for private practice, whereas bachelor's and master's programs are for teaching or school health positions. Accredited programs allow graduates to take required licensing examinations and enter the career field.
Depending on the education program, students must complete anywhere from 2-6 years of education, which combine classroom learning with hands-on clinical experiences in dental hygiene. Technical and interpersonal skills are important, so practical training will help develop familiarity with the machinery and instruments you'll be operating, as well as develop compassion for your patients. It can also help your dexterity, which is another useful trait to have as dental hygienist. Programs typically examine anatomy, nutrition, dental pharmacology and dental ethics.
In every state - with the exception of Alabama, which has their own exam - you must pass the American Dental Association's National Board Dental Hygiene Examination. It consists of written and clinical examinations, which test your knowledge and skills in dental hygiene. Upon passing the exams, you receive the designation of Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH). Some states also have additional licensing requirements, which vary. Continuing education is required in order to maintain licensure over time. Licensing may not be transferable amongst states.
A general dentistry practice in Wisconsin is seeking a part-time RDH for 3 days of work per week. Requirements include familiarity with both paperless and digital work environments, as well as organizational and communication skills.
A Boston, MA health services company seeks a dental hygienist to travel to different locations. The preferred candidate must be a Registered Dental Hygienist with experience. The job listing notes there is the potential to provide emergency dental care.
A temporary dental hygienist is needed by a family dental practice in Florida. To qualify for this position, you must be licensed in the state of Florida and have experience working with digital radiography equipment. Professional appearance and the ability to work nights and weekends is also required.
While it's been noted that this is a competitive career, joining a professional dental hygienist or dentistry association can be helpful. They can provide insight into job opportunities, as well as networking, education and conference opportunities. Many states offer professional associations, such as the Arizona State Dental Hygienists' Association.
Would you like to work in the dental field, but don't think a career in dental hygiene is for you? Dental assistants work in the same field as hygienists, but they have easier entry requirements. Most education programs can be completed in a year or less. Dental assistants have less complicated tasks, and they work under the direct supervision of dentists. Unfortunately, their salaries suffer by comparison as a result, with assistants earning mean annual salaries of just under $35,000 as of May 2011. Still, excellent job growth was expected, at 31% between 2010 and 2020, so the overall career outlook was projected to be strong. |
0.955137 | The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; German: Wiener Philharmoniker), founded in 1842, is an orchestra regularly considered one of the finest in the world.
The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Selection involves a lengthy process, with each musician having to demonstrate his or her capability for a minimum of three years' performing for the opera and ballet. After this probationary period, the musician may request from the Vienna Philharmonic's board an application for a position in the orchestra.
The Vienna Philharmonic was already observed to have a characteristic sound by the turn of the last century. David Hurwitz notes that Bruno Walter told an interviewer on Austrian Radio in 1960 that hearing the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in 1897 was for Walter (in Hurwitz's translation): "...a life-altering impression, because it was this sound of the orchestra that I have experienced ever since – I have the feeling: this is the way an orchestra should sound; the way it should play. I had never heard the beauty, this calmness of the sound, that sort of glissando, the manner of vibrato, the string sound, the blend of woodwinds with the strings, with the brass, the balance of the brass in combination with the percussion contributing together to the overall sonority of the orchestra. For me, this impression was definitive, and now I would like to anticipate a point and tell you this: this sound, 1897, is the same today.".
The VPO's sound has been attributed in part to the VPO's instruments and in part to its playing styles.
Hurwitz notes that the 1960 Walter interview indicates that the strings' vibrato (as of 1960) was audibly like that of 1897, and also quotes music critic Richard Specht in 1919 writing of "something inimitable in the vibrato and the passionate virtuosity of the violins" of the Vienna Philharmonic.
As for other instruments, using early recordings, the musicologist Robert Philip has documented some changes in how VPO players used vibrato during the mid-20th century, although he also notes differences between the VPO and other orchestras of the era. As was typical of the era, the pre-1945 flutes show "very little vibrato" in recordings "until after World War II... even in the long solo in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde the flautist [under Bruno Walter in 1936]... plays almost without vibrato" except on "a few long notes [with] a delicate medium-speed vibrato"; but "by the late 1940s the flautists... had adopted a gentle medium-speed vibrato". The oboes before the 1940s show "little or no vibrato," but by the late 1940s "the principal oboist had adopted a very delicate fast vibrato ... but he uses it very sparingly." (The cor anglais is, he notes, even in the late 1940s still played "without any vibrato"). The bassoonists "show virtually no bassoon vibrato up to the 1950s".
The Vienna Philharmonic website states that today, with the flute, "as in all wind and brass instruments in the Viennese classics, vibrato is used very sparingly."
Philips notes that by 1931 the Vienna Philharmonic strings were reported to use uniform bowing, which was still unusual in Britain. As for portamento – sliding audibly from one note to another, a prominent effect among pre-war string players – the VPO strings' sliding in the early 1930s "sounds more deliberately expressive, and less a matter of routine, than that of British orchestras. This is partly because of the firmer dynamic shaping of the melodic line, partly because of the warmer and fuller string tone." Further, he hears "strong evidence of a free approach to portamento" – that is, of "different players shifting at different points" within the same phrase (which, he shows, was standard internationally in pre-war orchestral playing). He notices a reduced use of portamento in recordings from 1931 to 1936, but in 1936 also notes that the VPO strings still make "conspicuous" use of portamento in Mozart, where British orchestras by this time were using less of it in Classical-era composers. Finally, he hears a "trend towards greater subtlety in the use of portamento" post-war, with "only discreet portamento" in a recording under Herbert von Karajan in 1949. |
0.974542 | Getty Images3Alvaro Morata?says he expects to join Chelsea this summerThe Telegraph have reported th.Reuters13Jay Rodriguez scored the second for Southampton in the 39th minute to put them into a nice .
"k in the middle of a relegation scrap, can they secure some festive cheerWhat is the latest West Ham?team newsAndre Ayew came on for the Hammers at half-time during their unconvincing win against Hull, and could earn a start supporting Andy Carroll on Boxing Day."Getty Images2Mario Balotelli has rediscovered his goal-scoring form since joining NiceMario Balotelli is sent off after scoring another great winner for NiceThe Sun.
Phelan insisted his own stand-off was not about cash and that he felt on trial.Senes Erzik (Turkey)Erzik still on the Fifa Council. |
0.999972 | Write a review on Betancourt Nutrition Bullnox Androrush!
BULLNOX™ is a Pre-Workout Nitric Oxide (NOX) Intensifying drink mix, and one of the only formulas of its kind with a "Super-Set" formula structure whose effects are intended to change with each set that you perform.
Keep your cellular nitrogen and glycogen levels high and boost your anabolic potential even further!
From looking at the profile of Androrush, you can tell Betancourt is trying to do way too much, which is probably why this product falls short. This supplement is supposed to be taken 30 minutes pre-workout, yet it contains ZMA, a compound usually suggested for use 30 minutes before bed. In an effort to counteract the sleepiness, Androrush contains caffeine, guarana, tyrosine, synephrine, theobromine, arginine AAKG and more. Sound like a confusing case of overkill? That's just the beginning. Androrush also offers a variety of purported test boosters such as tribulus, maca and horny goat weed. Unfortunately, it's likely underdosed to make up for all the other ingredients in here. Unsurprisingly, I did not feel energized, and actually felt lethargic and weak during my workout. The taste of the Blue Raspberry was sub-par but strangely the best attribute Androrsh had.
Physical energy No added energy, pump or anything positive.
Pump No added energy, pump or anything positive.
Nausea or vomiting In fact, this supplement made me nauseated through out the work out and after about 45 minutes gave me the crashed feeling.
Crash In fact, this supplement made me nauseated through out the work out and after about 45 minutes gave me the crashed feeling.
Muscle gain So big increase and pump/weight, my eyes were not bigger than my muscles this day either.
Pump So big increase and pump/weight, my eyes were not bigger than my muscles this day either.
Focus I found this pre to be a game changer for me in the gym, real easy on my stomach unlike others with very high amounts of caffeine, no jitters all focus and I noticed myself performing more and heavier sets than ever before.
Pump Not to mention the pump is unlike any other!
Value for money overall great product and well priced would recommend.
Focus I feel more focused and "pumped up" during my workouts.
Pump I feel more focused and "pumped up" during my workouts.
Motivation The mental edge, and motivation it gives you in beyond anything in this world.
Physical energy The mental energy only pushes your physical energy further as well.
Focus but it will not give you any pump or focus, is just a bland of BCAA, ZMA, Tribulus and other stuff.
Pump but it will not give you any pump or focus, is just a bland of BCAA, ZMA, Tribulus and other stuff.
Taste Taste horrible watermelon and grape as well.
Physical energy gives you the energy you need with an awesome pump during your workout.
Pump gives you the energy you need with an awesome pump during your workout.
Endurance Great product for endurance activity.
Physical energy I have also been using the chewables prior to running (training for Marathons)... and i have noticed a substancial energy increase in my long runs.
Mixes well I don't like the powder mixes prior to training given that they leave me a bloated sensation.
Gas or bloating I don't like the powder mixes prior to training given that they leave me a bloated sensation.
Physical energy but it ended up just giving me a stomach ache and a little to none energy rush.
Taste The taste is amazing and the product works well.
Focus Fruit punch tastes amazing by the way and mixes well (not chalky), and the effect it gives me is not jittery and I have a clear mental focus as well as a good pump when I am in the gym.
Texture Fruit punch tastes amazing by the way and mixes well (not chalky), and the effect it gives me is not jittery and I have a clear mental focus as well as a good pump when I am in the gym.
Strength FYI my bench increased from 165lb to 235lb in 9 months while using this I do 3 sets of 5-6 reps then a 4th set 10reps with a 40lb drop for a finisher.
Pump Fruit punch tastes amazing by the way and mixes well (not chalky), and the effect it gives me is not jittery and I have a clear mental focus as well as a good pump when I am in the gym.
Taste Fruit punch tastes amazing by the way and mixes well (not chalky), and the effect it gives me is not jittery and I have a clear mental focus as well as a good pump when I am in the gym.
Mixes well Fruit punch tastes amazing by the way and mixes well (not chalky), and the effect it gives me is not jittery and I have a clear mental focus as well as a good pump when I am in the gym.
Physical energy This pre workout definitly gives me the energy necessary to push myself to the limit during my workout the only BIG CON is that the label doesn't say anything about the quantity of most of the product so this is why even though the feel and the taste is awesome I won't buy this pre workout anymore.
Taste The watermelon taste when mixed with ice is just incredible.
Taste This pre workout definitly gives me the energy necessary to push myself to the limit during my workout the only BIG CON is that the label doesn't say anything about the quantity of most of the product so this is why even though the feel and the taste is awesome I won't buy this pre workout anymore.
Mixes well The watermelon taste when mixed with ice is just incredible.
Ingredient profile This pre workout definitly gives me the energy necessary to push myself to the limit during my workout the only BIG CON is that the label doesn't say anything about the quantity of most of the product so this is why even though the feel and the taste is awesome I won't buy this pre workout anymore.
Taste The grape was a good taste.
Ingredient profile Yet.But The Label Of The Bullnox That I Have In My Hands Dont Have Arginine And A Lot Of Others Ingredients.Check The Label On The Betancourt Nutrition Page And Compare With The Old.
Taste I always buy Blue Raspberry pre-workout and this is one of the best tasting I've had.
Pump It provides a great pump without excess stimulants.
Thermogenic effect I left the gym pumped and sweating profusely.
Pump I left the gym pumped and sweating profusely.
Taste The fruit punch flavor tastes average, like a preworkout should. |
0.999704 | Many types of dance can be enjoyed by kids of all ages. Even dances as complex as ballet and tap have classes where very young children can learn the basics. Dance is a great way to get kids moving, and can make the perfect hobby for an active child who likes to move to music. Kids looking for information about dance can learn most quickly at children's classes. There are also books and websites available that teach children about dance.
Most types of dance can be enjoyed by children. Around the world, there are classes in ballet, modern, tap, street dance, ballroom dances, Irish dance and folk dances that can be taken by children. When trying to work out which type of dancing would suit their kids best, parents should consider each child's personal preferences, whether they would enjoy dressing up, and whether they would like the chance to perform. It's also worth thinking about how much of a time commitment dance will be: Some types of dancing will involve weekly classes, while others could involve more, particularly if there are regular exams.
Most dance schools, large and small, provide classes in ballet, modern and tap for kids. Children can begin learning all three forms of dance when they are as young as three or four, in classes known as "pre-primary", which involve activities such as dancing in circles, skipping and simply moving to the music. Street dance, Irish dancing and ballroom can also be taught to kids, with classes usually catering to kids aged 7 or older.
The "Angelina Ballerian" fictional picture book series, by Katharine Holabirdrnis, is ideal for children interested in ballet. Designed for children aged 3 to 6, the story books give plenty of insight into the world of ballet, while telling the tales of Angelina the mouse. For parents who want to get their kids moving at home, "101 Dance Games for Children: Fun and Creativity With Movement," by Paul Rooyackers and Cecilia Hurd, lets children experiment with dance themselves before trying out a class.
Kids who are interested in dance can find more information online. "Dance Kids," which describes itself as "the website for children who love to dance," is a brightly colored, easy to use website with games, quizzes and information about dances from across the world. The Royal Academy of Dance in the UK also has a children's website, "Radacadabra," that is specifically designed for kids. The site involves colorful characters and interactive features, and it gives information about everything from taking dance exams to different types of stages.
Dance has numerous fitness benefits for kids: It gets kids moving, shows them that exercise can be enjoyable and improves their flexibility. Learning to move in time to the music can also help children pick up musical skills that can be useful, if they want to learn to sing or play an instrument. As well, dance can make kids more graceful. Mastering new steps and performing in front of an audience can give kids greater self-confidence. |
0.999962 | More recently, jihadist violence has reinforced this image in particular by groups associated with ISIL and Al Qaeda in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
However, as climate change becomes a leading global political issue, an emerging and increasingly powerful policy narrative presents global warming as a major driver. But how valid is this argument?
Two elements underpin the climate-conflict narrative. First, it assumes global climate change leads to drought and desertification, which in turn leads to resource scarcity.
Second, it suggests this resource scarcity causes migration ̶ fuelling new conflicts, or triggering existing unrest bubbling below the surface.
Since the Sahelian ecosystem largely depends on rainfall, global warming ̶ if it reduces rainfall ̶ may lead to desertification and resource scarcity in the long run.
However, current rainfall trends and projections do not point to less rainfall: while some climate models support the idea that this region will become drier, most models actually suggest more abundant ̶ but also possibly more delayed and concentrated ̶ rainfall in the future.
One example comes from the dry parts of Africa where pastoralism and farming overlap as the main forms of land use, and where conflicts ̶ large or small ̶ are ongoing.
In Mali, farmer-herder conflicts are linked to the state’s pastoral and land tenure policies and legislation. These generally favour farmers and tend to lead to pastoralists being squeezed out of access to grazing land.
-corruption and rent seeking among government officials.
Pastoral marginalization was also at the root of the Tuareg rebellion that triggered Mali’s civil war in the 1990s and again in 2012.
The drought of the 1970s and 1980s only played an indirect role in the rebellion: it led to the migration of young Tuareg men to Libya, where they were hired as soldiers and exposed to revolutionary ideas.
There was already a strong feeling among Mali’s Tuareg and nomads in general that they were being marginalised by state policies of modernisation, and by policies that encourage fixed settlements.
Then, embezzlement of drought relief funds by government officials in Bamako added to the anger ̶ and young Tuareg in Algeria and Libya took up arms against the Malian state in 1990.
The rebellion would have likely taken place without the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. It’s worth noting the first Tuareg rebellion in Mali took place in 1963 following an unusually humid period.
Pastoralists are flexible and opportunistic in how they use their resources meaning they can more easily adapt to climate variability than many others groups.
But at the same time, state policies that favour settled agriculture in many countries in the Sahel at the expense of mobile and flexible livestock production undermine not only pastoralists’ access to land but also livestock-keeping ̶ still one of the region’s most important economic activities.
Tor A. Benjaminsen ([email protected]) is professor at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
He is author of the chapter Does Climate Change Lead to Conflicts in the Sahel? from the book The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in tbe Drylands published by Springer in 2016. |
0.817752 | FC Twente is a football club from Enschede in the Netherlands. They play in the Eredivisie and also in the UEFA Champions League.
Twente plays its games in the Grolsch Veste (a capacity of 30 000).
FC Twente currently holds the national cup and the Johan Cruijff Schaal. In season 2010/11 they ended second in the league.
FC Twente was founded on 1 July 1965 as a combination of Sportclub Enschede and Enschedes Boys. The two professional football teams in Enschede at that time (Sportclub Enschede and Enschedese Boys) had both money problems and were forced to merge. FC Twente started in the Eredivisie (highest Dutch league) and within a few years they were part of the top of Dutch football. Between 1970 and 1980 they came close to several prizes, but they always lost the final. In 1974 the ended second in the Eredivisie and in 1975 the lost the Dutch cup final as well as the UEFA Cup final (after beating Juventus in the semi-final). Only in 1978 they won the Dutch Cup (by beating PEC Zwolle in the final with 3-0). In the next decade (1980-1990) the club went down hill, with the relegation to the Eerste Divisie (second tier of Dutch football) in 1983 as all-time low. Twente was back in the Eredivisie within a year however. In the nineties Twente played a modest role in Dutch football, usually ending around the 5th place in the Eredivisie. In the first decade of the 21st century the golden era started. In 2001 FC Twente won the Dutch cup by beating PSV Eindhoven in the final with a penalty shootout. This victory caused huge celebrations in the eastern part of the Netherlands. This showed the popularity of the club in the region, eventhough FC Twente almost never wins a prize. In 2003 the club almost went bankrupt and Joop Munsterman took over as chairman. He understood the potential of this club and developed a plan to increase the sportive, economic and social capacity of Twente. In 2008 the stadium size was increased from 13,500 to 24,000 seats. In 2011 the stadium was further increased to 30,000 seats. FC Twente again played on the top of the Dutch league, resulting in their first national title in 2010. Also the Intertoto Cup was won in 2006, the Johan Cruijff Schaal was won in 2010 and 2011 and the Dutch cup in 2011. In these years FC Twente also started a social programm to help unemployed people to find a job, encourage handicaped people to do sports and to give away free seats in the stadium to people that cannot afford a ticket.
As of 20 July 2012.
For recent transfers, see List of Dutch football transfers winter 2011–12 and List of Dutch football transfers summer 2012. Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
This page was last changed on 29 March 2017, at 13:42. |
0.999778 | Why are smoke detectors and alarms necessary?
Bottom line, smoke detectors save lives and in the event of a fire can give you the early notice necessary for a quick exit. Since nearly all fatal home fires occur at night, smoke detectors provide the necessary jolt to awaken a household and warn them of the impending danger. Toxic gases and fumes can sometimes make it almost impossible to rely on your own senses. Smoke detectors will essentially replace your senses and give you a better chance of survival if a fire should occur. |
0.920756 | How much sexism do women who play rugby in NI face?
Attitudes to women in rugby have hit the headlines in recent months after a female referee suffered verbal sexist abuse during a match and sexist jokes were made at a club dinner.
But what are the views of women who play the sport?
BBC News NI visited to City of Derry Rugby Football Club to find out.
The club attracts members from beyond Londonderry, with many players coming from areas outside the city like Coleraine and Letterkenny.
According to 1st XV captain Michelle Gormley-McLaughlin, the club has worked to improve the atmosphere around the sport.
"I think when we have aired our grievances, we have seen action, they [the club] have been proactive," she said.
"The members in the club are more than willing to help us change things and I can see improvements, compared to some other sports I play in."
The team has been steadily filling the silverware cabinet since it founded, thanks to team members achieving international glory with Ireland in the Six Nations.
The club is also building for the future with its growing girls' youth team, but player Maeve O'Neill feels there's still some distance to go.
"The publicity around women's sport in general is very important," said Ms O'Neill.
"In the last few years, it's really improved with the women's Six Nations being on the television, which has been excellent.
"But I remember as a child I was sport mad. I used to look at the paper and I would see no women in the sports section of the paper at all and I think not much has really changed there.
"It would be amazing to see more press given to women's sport, because then young women would have role models and they could see themselves in that in the future."
Image caption Referee Grainne Crabtree said she was subjected to a "tirade of profanities and sexual remarks"
Last year, City of Derry player and referee Grainne Crabtree experienced verbal sexist abuse from spectators during a men's match at Coleraine.
"I've certainly never had anything from the sidelines," said player Joanna Ha'unga, who has played here and at numerous clubs in England.
"But it's the same as every day, I don't think it's a rugby-specific problem. I don't think there's an issue more so than any other aspect of life."
"There's definitely still an element of sexism there with some sports.
"It is a running battle sometimes, people just don't think that you're up to the job, but you have to go out and prove yourself sort of twice as much as your male colleagues." |
0.999998 | As an island nation, New Zealand is vulnerable to invasive species. This is because the country relies heavily on international freight transport, which can act as pest pathways and our native flora and fauna have evolved largely in isolation without the predation and competition effects of invasive species from other parts of the world.
Northland is particularly vulnerable given that the region has some of the warmest land and sea temperatures in New Zealand, as well as high levels of sunshine and sub-tropical weather patterns. This makes for excellent establishing grounds for new exotic pests. Pest species that originate from warm climatic environments have the advantage of similar weather conditions, low levels of frost, and very low levels of natural predators to deal with. Northland's forests are also botanically diverse and contain a high number of threatened plants and animals, which are sensitive to the impacts of pest species.
Invasive pest species have the potential to significantly impact on our environment, economy, health and our social and cultural well-being. These impacts can occur through loss of biodiversity, reduced production and impacts on amenity and cultural resources.
What are the main pest species in Northland?
Hundreds of weeds thrive in Northland's warm climate. However, to become a pest plant, a weed must also represent a threat to the region because of its ability to invade or take over land that is productive or has important ecological or cultural values (Table 10).
Pest plants can be given scores that give an indication of the plant's relative significance, such as biological success and weediness ratings (Esler et al.: 1993; Owen et al.: 1996). Biological success ratings are associated with the plant's ability to establish and spread, while weediness refers to the nuisance value of the plant. For example, high scores in both would make a plant high priority for management as it could easily spread and establish in new areas and cause significant impacts.
Wild ginger (left) and African feather grass (right) are just two invasive pest plant species found in Northland.
Kahili (wild) ginger Kahili ginger forms dense stands in native bush, on road sides and river banks, smothering and eventually replacing all other species.
Manchurian wild rice Manchurian wild rice is a tall perennial grass that grows up to 3m tall. It forms dense stands in aquatic or semi-terrestrial situations, and can block drains, cause flooding and invade pasture.
Giant reed Giant reed is a clump-forming, bamboo-like grass. It grows in dry and wet areas, forming dense stands, and can block streams and drains causing flooding, and displacing other vegetation.
African feather grass African feather grass is a perennial grass that forms large clumps. It invades coastal dune areas, pasture, roadsides and reserves, and can completely suppress all other low-growing plants.
Pampas Pampas is a perennial tussock-like grass, and is widespread in Northland. It invades dunelands, exotic forests, quarries, roadsides and disturbed native forests. It forms dense stands, excludes other vegetation, and provides habitat for animal pests.
Climbing asparagus Climbing asparagus forms dense patches on the ground or sub-canopy in most forest types. It smothers other plants, and carpets the forest floor preventing the growth of native seedlings. It is fast growing and rapidly colonises new areas.
Moth plant Moth plant is an evergreen vine that grows to 10m tall. It is long-lived, fast-growing and shade-tolerant, forming dense, heavy, smothering masses that overtop and strangle supporting plants. It invades intact or disturbed forest and is poisonous.
Taiwan cherry Taiwan cherry is a deciduous tree growing to 8m tall, and has commonly been planted in gardens. Seeds are dispersed by birds, and naturalised populations are now present in bush areas in Northland, where it crowds out native plants.
Elaeagnus Elaeagnus is a long-lived, vigorous scrambling vine. It forms a dense blanket smothering native species up to mid-canopy level. It is a problem in forest interiors and can prevent access into recreational areas.
Woolly nightshade Woolly nightshade is a spreading shrub that grows to 10m. It forms dense, often pure stands, and inhibits or prevents the establishment of native plant seedlings. It also invades pastures, and may be poisonous to livestock.
Privet Privet is any one of four species of evergreen shrubs or trees. It inhabits bush, gardens, roadsides and ungrazed wasteland areas. It prevents native plant regeneration and can completely dominate areas of bush. It can contribute to respiratory disorders and is toxic to livestock.
Lantana Lantana forms dense impenetrable thickets, and invades bush edges, pasture, roadsides and wasteland, where it replaces all other vegetation. It is poisonous to stock and humans.
Northland has a number of animal and insect species that are considered pests. Many of them have been present in New Zealand for a considerable period of time, and their impacts affect the regional economy, environment and culture (Table 11).
Argentine ants Argentine ants are often present near sites of human habitation throughout Northland. They impact native invertebrate species through predation and competition. These ants are a domestic nuisance, swarming over food and infesting gardens, and can cause significant costs to the horticulture and agriculture industries.
Feral cats Feral cats are widespread throughout Northland and live in most terrestrial habitats. Cats kill millions of birds in New Zealand each year, as well as eating eggs, lizards, insects and frogs. They can also spread parasites and diseases such as bovine tuberculosis (Tb) and toxoplasmosis.
Feral deer There are four species of feral deer in Northland, but none are widespread or numerous. Deer can destroy the understorey of native forest by over browsing, grazing, bark stripping and trampling. Feral deer can also damage crops and exotic forests and can transmit bovine Tb.
Feral goats Feral goats are widespread throughout Northland. Populations are generally dense in areas of exotic and native forest, as well as in areas of poor pasture/scrub. Goats destroy the understorey of vegetation, and when combined with possum damage to the upper canopy, severe deterioration of the forest can occur. Goats can also cause erosion problems.
Mustelids (ferrets, weasels and stoats) Mustelids are widespread throughout Northland. They can be devastating to native birds, lizards, frogs and invertebrates. Mustelids can also spread parasites and diseases such as bovine Tb and toxoplasmosis.
Possum Possums are found throughout the region, and are one of the most destructive animals in forests. Possum browsing damages forests, affects pasture, vegetable and horticulture crops. Possums can also spread diseases such as bovine Tb.
Rabbit Rabbits are widespread throughout Northland. Infestation levels vary, with greatest densities on hard-grazed lighter and drier sandy and volcanic soils. Rabbits compete with stock for grazing, damage crops and can cause erosion.
Rats Rats are widespread throughout Northland. They are mainly nocturnal, and eat seeds, bird eggs, nestlings, invertebrates, frogs and lizards. They have a significant impact on native plants and animals, and also eat and contaminate grain and food stores.
The Northland Regional Pest Management Strategies 2010-2015 include 100 terrestrial plant pests and 35 terrestrial animal pests, of concern to the Northland region (Northland Regional Council: 2010). A much higher number of pest species in the current strategies are of considerable concern for biodiversity values than for agriculture or horticulture, as is the trend for most regions of New Zealand.
The pests fall under different classifications in the strategies, depending on whether they are established in the region and how widespread they are. The classification of the pest helps guide the strategies' objectives, operational plans and management programmes for each pest.
During 2010/11, 20 new operational plans were developed for the terrestrial pests in the strategies. Each plan covers the five-year period of the strategies and includes clear links between outcomes defined in the Long Term Plan, the Regional Pest Management Strategies and the operational plans. Indicators and measures of performance are defined and are used to gauge programme progress, guide programme improvements and report performance clearly and effectively.
The objectives of the programmes and the management methods vary depending on the pest species and its classification in the strategies, but are either species-led or site-led. The main pest management methods can include education, surveillance, community programmes, occupier control, biological control and council response.
Spraying dune weeds at Waipū Cove.
A key aim for the council is to raise public awareness of terrestrial pests by providing information about the pests, their impacts, dispersal and management options through publicity campaigns, publications, events and providing an advice and identification service.
The number of biosecurity enquiries received by the council has increased from approximately 850 in 2007 to more than 1100 in 2011. The council also provides pest control products to customers on a non-profit basis, to assist with animal pest control (for example, possum and rat bait). This service encourages greater public participation in animal pest control and the council currently sells over $50,000 worth of materials each year and provides information to customers regarding best practice pest control methods.
Project possum training day – an initiative that teaches secondary school pupils about possum control and plucking the fur to sell.
Biocontrol (biological control) is the use of naturally occurring enemies and diseases to control pests and weeds. Biocontrol will not totally eradicate a species but aims to suppress populations to low levels. It is the most cost effective method of pest control over a wide area and at remote sites. Once sustainable populations have established and become widespread the biocontrol agents carry on working against the target pest indefinitely.
Biocontrol agents have been introduced to Northland to control pests such as gorse, ragwort, thistles, broom, alligator weed, mist flower, buddleia, Mexican devil weed, St John's wort and boneseed. There are currently nearly 100 species of biocontrol agents in Northland. These include 28 species (including five diseases) of weed biocontrol agents, and more than 30 insect biocontrol agents, including earwigs, lacewings, hoverflies, nabid and pentatomid predatory bugs, numerous parasitoid wasps of aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and scale. There are also 10 species of exotic predatory ladybird and two native species of predatory ladybird, and at least seven species of predatory mites.
A total of $50,000 a year is invested in Northland's biocontrol and a national collective of 13 regional councils and the Department of Conservation provide approximately $670,000 annually toward a national biocontrol programme. The programme is managed by Landcare Research and provides research, quarantine facilities and management of releases of the agents which target plant and insect pests within New Zealand.
Mexican devil weed gall fly – a biocontrol agent.
In Northland, Manchurian wild rice covers approximately 500 hectares. It is widespread in the Kaipara district, with the main infestation found next to the Northern Wairoa River and its tributaries. There are also a small number of sites in Whāngārei, Kerikeri, and Mangakāhia. Manchurian wild rice is a tall perennial grass that grows up to 3m tall in aquatic or semi-terrestrial habitats, blocking drains, causing flooding and invading pasture.
Manchurian wild rice on the banks of the Wairoa River.
The council is working with the Ministry for Primary Industries to ensure the containment, reduction and eventual eradication of Manchurian wild rice within Northland. The council manages the programme in Northland and has received funding between $240,000 and $320,000 annually from the ministry since 2008. Initially, the programme has focussed mainly on eradication of outlier sites, those sites not connected to the main infestation area which adjoins the margins of the Northern Wairoa River.
Infested sites require repeated spraying and a programme of sustained control is necessary for eradication of the plant at each site. Sites which have been under an active control programme for three years or more are showing a decline in the number of plants and percentage ground cover and there are more sites with only scattered juvenile plants or none at all ( Figure 46).
Lantana is a major weed of both natural and agricultural ecosystems overseas, and forms dense impenetrable thickets, invading bush edges, pasture, roadsides and wasteland. It is found throughout Northland with the heaviest infestations located near old settlement areas in the Hokianga and near Whangaroa. The 2010-2015 operational plan aims to remove the threat of lantana to areas of high ecological significance and to reduce the impacts of the plant throughout the wider region, by controlling sites outside the main infestation areas.
There are on-going programmes in Northland to increase awareness of the problems caused by this species; to support research into biocontrol; and to encourage community control. The council-funded control programme is systematically locating and eradicating outlier sites of lantana from the North Cape down the Aupōuri Peninsula, and from the Bream Bay area. Controls of other small outlying infestations located throughout Northland, are also occurring.
Control requires site inspections and spraying for several years to ensure that no viable seeds remain in the soil. The Far North control programme is currently ahead of schedule, with all sites in the stage 1 area now controlled and site surveys and control work extending well into the stage 2-4 zones.
A project to introduce two new rust species as biocontrol agents for lantana was also launched during 2011 with Landcare Research and culminated in importation of the rusts being approved by the Environmental Protection Agency during 2012.
Feral deer – a rare sight in Northland since the implementation of a joint agency deer response team in 1997.
Feral deer are listed as an eradication species in the Regional Pest Management Strategies and rules aimed at preventing their importation and illegal release are in place. Feral deer are not common in Northland but if left uncontrolled would spread to occupy all available habitats, and damage Northland's unique native forests.
Farming communities are also justifiably concerned as feral deer have been confirmed as an efficient vector of bovine Tb to domestic animals. Feral deer are the main, if not only, vector of Tb transmission to possums (Lugton et al.: 1997). Northland is currently free of bovine Tb however, the economic costs of deer to Northland should Tb become established in feral deer herds and other wildlife, could balloon out to $6 million per annum (Sweetapple: 2006). A joint agency deer response team, funded by the council, Department of Conservation and the Animal Health Board, was established in Northland in 1997 in response to increasing feral deer populations, and associated impacts (Fraser et al.: 1996). The programme aims to remove all feral deer populations, and halt their dispersal through reducing the risk of farm escapes (McKenzie: 1996).
When the programme began in 1997 more than 140 wild deer in five separate herds were established in Northland. By 2007 all red, fallow and wapiti herds had been eliminated and the sika herd had been reduced to very low population levels. Since 2007, the sika herd has been targeted and no remaining individuals are known to exist, however further survey and time is required to confirm eradication. Unfortunately illegal liberations of a small number of fallow and sika deer have occurred in 2012 and these herds are targeted for eradication by the response team.
Deer escapes from farms are common, occurring at an average rate of 6.5 escape events per annum since 1999 (Figure 47). All deer known to have escaped from farms between 2007 and 2011 have been either shot or recaptured so that no further wild herds have established. The cause of escapes is related to stock management, lack of fence maintenance, damage to the fence caused by storm weather events or simply leaving a gate open. Once deer escape from a farm they are easily frightened, becoming wary and extremely difficult to recapture. These deer quickly revert to a wild state. Responding to these escapes and preventing the establishment of wild herds is a key role of the response team.
Community projects which target multiple pest species are increasingly popular and by December 2011 regional council staff had helped set up 39 community plans – 21 in the last five years – involving more than 830 people, and 38,000 hectares of land. Community plans are used to help support the protection of kiwi, brown teal and other endangered fauna as well as deliver pest ant and weed control. The majority of the Community Pest Control Areas target multiple pest species.
Community Pest Control Areas targeting possums are monitored at regular intervals and communities are required to keep possums below agreed levels. Wax tag monitoring is a standardised way of estimating possum abundance and is measured by recording the proportion of possum bite marks on tags over randomly located lines. Wax tag indices in Northland prior to possum control were consistently recorded at more than 30% and had reached peaks of more than 70% in some habitats.
Wax tag monitoring is completed annually in a selection of the Community Pest Control Areas with up to 100 lines spread over 10 to 20 different areas in a year. In the last five years, only one of the 39 Community Pest Control Areas has consistently failed to meet targets for possum control. Although results have varied between areas and years, average results across those monitored have consistently shown possum numbers averaging 6% per year (range 0-24%).
Low possum populations can be assumed when wax tag interference levels are below 10% or less. General improvement in the forest canopy, flowering and fruiting of certain plant species such as kohekohe can be attributed to control of possums to these low levels (Nugent et al.: 2002).
Baby kiwi are vulnerable to animal pests, especially uncontrolled dogs, stoats and cats.
Landowners on Purerua Peninsula and the northern entrance to the Bay of Islands have been actively managing predators of kiwi and the endangered Pāteke or brown teal for over a decade. Supported by the Northland Regional Council and the NZ Kiwi Foundation, a charitable trust set up for the restoration of kiwi, landowners have been successful at restoring brown teal and enhancing kiwi populations over more than 3000 hectares of farmland, forestry and native forest.
Pest control at this large landscape-scale provides the best opportunity for juvenile Pāteke to survive as they disperse many kilometres from their breeding sites where they are vulnerable to cats and stoats. Kiwi also benefit from pest control undertaken over several thousand hectares as the frequency and impact of predator reinvasion on the core kiwi breeding areas is reduced while providing additional pest free habitat for their offspring.
Trapping the killers of kiwi and Pāteke is a major focus of the project and results collected since 2008 show a 56% decline in the number of cats caught per month and monthly catch levels for stoats of less than 0.4, indicating that population densities are low. Over 1500 stoat traps and 330 wild cat traps are in place and a zero tolerance policy for wandering or stray dogs is in force. This means uncontrolled dogs are destroyed on sight as they are known to have a severe impact on ground dwelling birds like kiwi and Pāteke as well as preying on livestock.
Northland Regional Councillor Joe Carr reintroduces Pāteke to boost populations at Purerua.
The purpose of this project is to identify, document and promote the protection and better management of significant indigenous wetlands in Northland. The first part of the project identified over 300 of Northland's best wetlands and ranked them into groups by ecological district and wetland type. From this list the top ranked 150 wetlands in Northland have been identified.
In total, 13.75% of Northland's terrestrial area has some form of legal protection. This equates to 2067 areas covering a total of 180,336ha (Wildlands report No. 1844). Of this total, 1905 areas covering 156,451ha (around 92% of the total area) are protected with the aim of conserving natural values. The remainder of the areas may protect natural values as a by-product of protection but that is not the purpose of the reserve or protected area. So the total amount of Protected Natural Areas comprises around 11% of the total of Northland's land area. If Protected Natural Areas are not in Department of Conservation estate or embodied in district/regional plans, they may have no protection.
The agency with both the greatest number of Protected Natural Areas and the largest area is the Department of Conservation: 144,089ha in 802 sites which equates to 92% of the area covered by Protected Natural Areas. Areas managed by the Department of Conservation are classified into a range of different reserve types and are managed under a number of different acts of parliament.
At June 2011, Northland had 578 registered QEII National Trust Open Covenants and a further 51 approved, as shown in Table 12. The total land area in registered and approved covenants was 9570 hectares. The largest covenant is 417ha. However, most covenants in Northland are small, with an average size of 15ha. Northland has the largest number of registered covenants of all the regions in New Zealand but the average size is the smallest. Of the 16 regional councils and unitary authorities, Northland ranks fifth in terms of total area covenanted, and in terms of percentage of total area protected with QEII covenants, it is third (0.76% of total area).
The Whāngārei District Council has a process whereby conservation covenants can be established on private property under the Reserves Act (1977). As at 2010 there were 346 conservation covenants broken into 799 parts covering a total of 1185ha. Average covenant size is 1.5ha and the largest is 58ha.
Māori landowners can protect their indigenous ecosystems under Nga Whenua Rahui kawenata. The agreement is sensitive to Māori values in terms of spirituality and tikanga. Cultural use of these natural areas is blended with the acceptance of public access within the agreements. The objective is long-term protection with inter-generational reviews of conditions.
As at April 2008 there were 15 Nga Whenua Rahui kawenata in Northland covering a total of 3509ha.
Biodiversity Northland (formerly Northland Biodiversity Enhancement Group) was formed in 2001 and was New Zealand's first regional biodiversity forum. It is convened by the NZ Landcare Trust and its partners are organisations and agencies with a role in biodiversity protection in Northland. These include Northland Regional Council, Department of Conservation, NZ Landcare trust, district councils, Queen Elizabeth II National Trust, BNZ Save the Kiwi, Fish and Game New Zealand and the Farm Forestry Association.
Biodiversity Northland increases the level of co-operation between the various groups and encourages a strategic interagency approach. Projects to date include development of a landowner self-help kit Restoring the Balance, a regular biodiversity display at the Northland Agricultural Field days, workshops on different biodiversity related topics and the Whole of Northland Project.
The council's Environment Fund is a contestable fund that was established to assist landowners and community groups to carry out work that has wider environmental benefits for the community. The fund will meet up to 50% of the cost of approved projects in recognition of the fact that environmental protection work carried out on private land has benefits to the wider community. Types of projects funded include fencing of wetlands and waterways, excluding stock from coastal areas, dune protection and restoration and pest control.
For a number of projects additional funding has been obtained from the Department of Conservation Biodiversity Condition Fund. Other projects have been jointly funded with Queen Elizabeth II National Trust where the landowner is covenanting the land.
• Of the 416,900ha of indigenous vegetation land cover recorded in Northland in 2002 (33% of the total land area of Northland – approximately 1.25 million hectares), 150,084ha had some form of legal protection. This equates to 12% of the total land area in Northland. In 2012, a total of 180,336ha was recorded as legally protected. This equates to 14.4% of Northland's total land area, suggesting that this environmental result is being achieved.
• In 2004 there were 179 threatened plant species recorded in Northland, and in 2009 there were 241. The increase in number is attributed to several factors including improved knowledge of plant distributions stemming from dedicated survey, taxonomic resolution of long-established tag-named entities, the discovery of novel plants, and the loss of key habitat types through changes in land use practices over the last decade (Forester and Townsend: 2004; de Lange et al.: 2009).
• In 1997 it was estimated that there were more than 140 wild deer in five separate populations in Northland. Although these numbers were low there was the potential for a rapid increase in numbers and consequently in the damage that they would do. A joint council, Department of Conservation and Animal Health Board operation led to the total removal of these wild populations, while on-going work ensures any new escapes from deer farms are either recaptured or killed. Feral deer can be very damaging to indigenous forest. By removing much of the understory they stop regeneration and increase the likelihood of soil erosion.
• The council works with a number of local communities in joint pest control operations where the community has identified particular pest animals or pest plants that are a concern to the communities. To date 39 community pest plans have been developed, often targeting multiple species. Included are intensive operations targeting feral goat populations, which impact upon forest health and can lead to an increase in erosion, and possum control operations on possums that are damaging coastal pohutukawa forest, an iconic natural feature of Northland.
Ausseil, A., Gerbeaux, P., Chadderton, L., Stephens, T., Brown, D. and Leathwick, J. (2008). Wetland ecosystems of national importance for biodiversity: Criteria, methods and candidate list of nationally important wetlands. Landcare Research Contract Report: LC0708/158.
Conning L. (2001). Northland Protection Strategy. A Report to the Nature Heritage Fund Committee. Published by the Nature Heritage Fund, Wellington, New Zealand.
Craig.E, Gardiner C., Renwick N., Sporle W. (2011). Taxon Plan for Northland Brown Kiwi. Department of Conservation. 2011. Department of Conservation Publication.
Craig E., 2012. Call count monitoring of Northland brown kiwi (2011). Department of Conservation. Department of Conservation Publication.
Forester, L. and Townsend, A. (2004). Threatened plants of Northland Conservancy. Department of Conservation.
Fraser K. W. (2005). Wild deer in Northland: Modelling potential new populations and the extant Russell population. Landcare Research Contract Report LC0506/053.
Lugton I. W., Wobeser G., Morris R. S., Caley P. Epidemiology of Mycobacterium bovis infection in feral ferrets (Mustela furo) in New Zealand: II. Routes of infection and excretion. New Zealand Veterinary Journal 45, 151–7, 1997.
Mckenzie D. S. (1996). Wild deer in Northland. A proposal to eradicate feral populations and reduce the risk of farm escapes. Unpublished. Department of Conservation Report, p12.
McLennan, J. A., Potter M. A., Robertson H. A., Wake G. C., Colbourne R., Dew L., Joyce L., McCann A. J., Miles J., Miller P. J., Reid J. (1996). Role of predation in the decline of Kiwi Apteryx Spp. in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology Vol. 20, No.1, 1996.
Nugent G.; Whitford J.; Innes J.; Prime K. (2002). Rapid recovery of kohekohe (Dysoxylum spectabile) following possum control. New Zealand Journal of Ecology, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2002.
Sweetapple P. J. (2006). Costs of deer to Northland. Landcare Research Contract Report LC0607/060. Prepared for Northland Regional Council, Whāngārei.
Van Meeuwen-Dijkgraaf (2008). Protected Natural Areas in Northland, and Care Standards for Protected Natural Areas. Wildlands Consultants Report No. 1844. |
0.935385 | What if someone said, evolution was only the first step? The idea that humans evolved from apes is a very popular theory, but why is it that only apes have evolved into something greater? Is it so impossible to believe that other animals are incapable of breaking free of their quadruped, instinct-driven lives, and walking on hind legs? What if a dog could stand on two legs, what if a dog could talk? What if a dog could laugh, and love, and hate and feel? What if a dog could be a productive member of society, if he could be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a dentist? Welcome to the real world, welcome to the world we live in, where the theory is no longer a theory, but an inescapable truth. They are the Anthrahsians, and they are real, there is no denying their existence; they live among us, they work, play, live and love. But like all minorities, there are always those who will persecute and hate them.
The sun broke through a tiny gap in the luxurious velvet curtains, illuminating the exquisitely furnished apartment within. The light cast itself upon the velour duvet of the king-size bed in the centre of the immaculately clean room. The occupant of the bed stirred softly as the sun played across his face, his dreams of happier times faded swiftly as he gradually awoke from his sleep. Cym sat up slowly and stretched his powerfully built arms outwards, flexing his tired muscles and willing energy back into them after his lengthy slumber. He stumbled out from under the sheets, pulled open a drawer next to the bed and carefully chose a pair of beautiful silk boxer shorts. He grumbled to himself; "damn sun, need to close the curtains properly," yawning loudly, he plodded to the bathroom, his toes clicking on the varnished wooden floor with every step. He clasped both sides of the sink, and slowly looked up into the face that had caused so much anger and fear for so many people. His glassy green eyes reflected nothing, the emotionless gaze that had withered his competition on so many occasions, but these were also the eyes that had caused young children to cry and scream in the streets. His scaly, crimson skin looked old and withered, doubtless due to the years of coffee-fueled nights trying to get one more step up the promotion ladder; but just as likely due to the physical abuse he suffered from the hands of "normal" people. His dirty orange dreadlocks hung loose by the sides of his head, scraggy from years of neglect and abuse. Cym sighed deeply and turned the shower on. He stepped back and looked at himself from head to toe. "It's good to be a Komodo Dragon," he thought to himself.
The water washed over Cym, steam rising from his sweat drenched scales, a long slow sigh escaped from his lips, as he shut his eyes and contemplated the day ahead of him. Get up. Get showered. Eat breakfast. Walk to work. Get something thrown at him by a vindictive member of the public. Tell people all over the world if it's going to rain or if it's going to shine. Come home. Eat dinner. Collapse in bed. Cry himself to sleep. After a while it all became routine. He knew his quasi-fame as the local weatherman afforded him a certain level of authority and respect, certainly above what most Anthrahsians have to put up with. It also meant that there were a lot of prejudiced people out there who thought that they knew everything about him because they see him on the television for five minutes every day; and of course it granted them special power to abuse and torment him on his way to work. Cym reached out and slowly twisted the taps until the water stopped. He slumped up against the wall and let his gaze drift upwards, "how did it get like this?" he murmured to an invisible audience. Letting out one final exasperated sigh, he stepped out of the shower and grabbed the nearest towel.
The beautiful oak wardrobe stood before Cym, inviting him to open it and see the glory within. He was very proud of his clothes; he had spent most of his life trying to afford them; like most Anthrahsians he had grown up poor, oppressed and starving. It was only his fierce determination and burning will for equality that got him to where he was today. His claws delicately caressed the handle of the wardrobe; a slight smile crept across his reptilian face as he daydreamed of the smartly dressed Komodo he would soon become. He flung the doors open and his slight smile transformed into an enormous toothy grin. At least a dozen beautiful designer suits stood before him, each one beckoning him to slip them on. "Always the best part of the morning," Cym whispered gently to himself. After careful deliberation, he plucked his favourite out: an immaculately hand-made grey suit, with a purple velvet lining. He would give his critics something good to look at as they launched heavy objects at him today.
Cym found himself adjusting his tie, a simple red silk one, when he heard the knock at his apartment door. "Odd", he thought "don't people normally ring the doorbell before arriving unannounced?" He hastily did his cufflinks up, swallowed thickly and softly tiptoed to the door, his clicking toes silenced by the specially designed shoes he was now wearing. He pressed his ear up to the door, cursing the fact that he declined to have a spy hole installed instead of the large brass knocker that stood in its place. Cym's eyes darted from side to side, looking for a possible exit should he need one; the last time an unexpected guest had called, he spent the next week in a hospital bed recovering from a hate-crime inspired assault. "Who is it?" he called out in a frustratingly timid voice. "Cym, open the door, I need to speak to you," came a gruff, grizzly response. He relaxed immediately and flung the door open. "Tol....." he began, but before he could finish, he found himself being picked up off the ground and being pressed into a huge mass of warm, soft fur, two tree trunk-like arms wrapped around his comparatively scrawny body.
"Yeah, all too well sometimes," Cym retorted with a hint of playful sarcasm "that last time you bruised my back and I spent 3 days in bed trying to get feeling back into my spine!"
Tolstoy smirked and playfully looked at his feet in mock apology. "Please, don't stand in the hallway, come in, come in!" Cym said enthusiastically.
He waddled forward, got stuck in the door, breathed in deeply and stumbled forward as he collapsed into Cym's apartment. Tolstoy was an Anthrahsian fisherman, a little cliché one could argue when you consider he evolved from a grizzly bear, nature's finest salmon catcher. He was also enormous, put it down to a life of good eating and a "to hell with exercise" attitude. But it never bothered Tolstoy; he always said he'd rather die fat and happy than spend his life worrying about conforming to the conventional ideology of what the general public considered to be thin and normal. He shifted his considerable weight, pulled his suspenders up, adjusting his loose fitting linen trousers, and plodded over to Cym's leather sofa.
"Do you mind if I..." Tolstoy gestured at the beautiful cream leather.
"Not at all Tol, go ahead, but watch yourself, if it breaks on you, I'm not helping you up like last time," Cym said with a nostalgic grin on his face.
Tolstoy threw himself onto the inviting leather; he let out a sigh of content as the couch let out a sigh of desperation, straining under the bear's not inconsiderable bulk. He steepled his fingers over his stomach and fixed Cym with a gaze that spoke of ill-tidings.
"Ok Tol, what's going on?" enquired Cym with a dazed look on his face, "You've only ever looked at me like that when something bad has happened. Last time it was that fishing tax the government imposed on Anthrahsians, so what is it this time?"
"Cym, it's Garrett," Tolstoy choked, tears forming in his eyes as he forced the words out, "he's trying to pass the law for Anthrahsian registration."
At these words, Cym's blood turned to ice, the room felt cold and uninviting, a feeling of palpable disgust and anger slowly filled the apartment. Senator Peter Garrett was infamous to the Anthrahsian community, and a hero to those who hated them. For twelve years, Garrett had been campaigning against people like Cym and Tolstoy, always trying to find new ways to reduce their freedom and crush their civil rights underneath his steel-capped boots.
"Wh-what did you say?" stammered Cym, his voice barely above a whisper, a look of utter horror spread across his face, "if that law gets passed, every Anthrahsian in the world will be branded with a number."
"Yeah," Tolstoy interrupted, "and we'll have about as many rights and freedoms as a railway sleeper." Tolstoy now had tears rolling down his big cheeks, a look of anger, hatred, despair and sorrow etched upon his usually smiling face.
"How in the name of God is he getting away with this?" Cym sniped, a venomous look in his eyes, "no reasonable government or ruling system would even allow the proposition of such a barbaric idea! Let alone consider passing it!"
"No-one knows Cym, I've spoken to Daryl and Tori already, and they're pretty shaken up about it. No-one knows what's going to happen now. There isn't anyone who'll do anything, you know the way the courts treat us, if we so much as threaten him, he'll have us locked away until we rot!"
Cym sank to his knees, a feeling of utter helplessness overwhelmed him. This was the nightmare he had suffered his whole life. He and his fellow Anthrahsians were going to be branded, labeled, and thrown into a world that treats them not like people, but like a product, like livestock. Everything they had struggled to do to find acceptance was about to be destroyed, by one man, a single man with a grudge against his species. Cym fought back the tears he wanted to cry, he knew he had to do something, the very survival of his species, of those he loved and cared for was under threat. He looked up at Tolstoy, the sight of his friend so distraught gave him an energy fueled by rage.
"Tol, I'm going to do something about this, I cannot just sit here and let our very way of life be destroyed," Cym spoke with a reassurance in his voice that was more for himself than it was for his friend, "I'm going to go to work, I'm going to do my job, then I'm going to pay Senator Garrett a visit."
"Cym please, don't do it, he'll have you arrested, he'll find a reason!" Tolstoy screamed, the fear obvious in his tone, "every Anthrah who's ever tried to stare down Garrett has ended up in jail," Tolstoy's voice drifted off slightly, "or worse."
"Listen Tol, I know the risks, but don't forget, I'm a well known TV personality," a smirk crossed his face, "people are going to notice if I go missing, and they'll ask questions."
"That's if any humans even care! You know the way most of them feel about our kind! They'll probably be glad to see you gone!" Tolstoy's yelling was getting increasingly panicky, he had stood up now and was getting increasingly animated.
"I'm doing this for us, Tol, for every Anthrah in the world, if no-one else will do anything, then I guess the Weatherman will have to do it. Tell Daryl and Tori, make sure they know what I'm doing. I'll be back tonight Tol, I promise you. Come round at about 7, ok?" Cym was desperately trying to calm his ursine companion, he knew that Tol could get angry if he got scared, and the last time that happened, several humans ended up in hospital, and Tol ended up behind bars for a month. He wiped his eyes on his loose fitting shirt, and nodded slowly.
"Ok Cym, but for the love of God be careful, I am not bringing your cousins over tonight to find that your apartment has been cordoned off by the police."
"I'll be fine Tol, you'd best get down to the market, you'll be late for work otherwise," Cym said, a brave smile worn on his face "and I'd best be off too, got a lot of paperwork and whatnot to deal with at the studio before my broadcast tonight."
Tolstoy turned to the door, and shuffled out into the hallway, he looked back at Cym one last time, a look of raw emotion sketched onto his face. Tears rolled down his cheeks again, as he turned towards the elevator. Cym closed the door to his apartment, turned around, pressed his back against the wall, sank to the floor, and wept. |
0.953227 | For other uses, see Tulip (disambiguation).
Tulips (Tulipa) form a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm colours). They often have a different coloured blotch at the base of the tepals (petals and sepals, collectively), internally. Because of a degree of variability within the populations, and a long history of cultivation, classification has been complex and controversial. The tulip is a member of the Liliaceae (lily) family, along with 14 other genera, where it is most closely related to Amana, Erythronium and Gagea in the tribe Lilieae. There are about 75 species, and these are divided among four subgenera. The name "tulip" is thought to be derived from a Persian word for turban, which it may have been thought to resemble. Tulips originally were found in a band stretching from Southern Europe to Central Asia, but since the seventeenth century have become widely naturalised and cultivated (see map). In their natural state they are adapted to steppes and mountainous areas with temperate climates. Flowering in the spring, they become dormant in the summer once the flowers and leaves die back, emerging above ground as a shoot from the underground bulb in early spring.
While tulips had probably been cultivated in Asia from the tenth century, they did not come to the attention of the West until the sixteenth century, when Western diplomats to the Ottoman court observed and reported on them. They were rapidly introduced into Europe and became a frenzied commodity during Tulip mania. Tulips were frequently depicted in Dutch Golden Age paintings, and have become associated with the Netherlands, the major producer for world markets, ever since. In the seventeenth century Netherlands, during the time of the Tulip mania, an infection of tulip bulbs by the tulip breaking virus created variegated patterns in the tulip flowers that were much admired and valued. While truly broken tulips do not exist anymore, the closest available specimens today are part of the group known as the Rembrandts – so named because Rembrandt painted some of the most admired breaks of his time.
Tulipa (tulips) is a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes, dying back after flowering to an underground storage bulb. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 4 inches (10 cm) and 28 inches (71 cm) high.
Flowers: The tulip's flowers are usually large and are actinomorphic (radially symmetric) and hermaphrodite (contain both male (androecium) and female (gynoecium) characteristics), generally erect, or more rarely pendulous, and are arranged more usually as a single terminal flower, or when pluriflor as two to three (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica), but up to four, flowers on the end of a floriferous stem (scape), which is single arising from amongst the basal leaf rosette. In structure, the flower is generally cup or star shaped. As with other members of Liliaceae the perianth is undifferentiated (perigonium) and biseriate (two whorled), formed from six free (i.e. apotepalous) caducous tepals arranged into two separate whorls of three parts (trimerous) each. The two whorls represent three petals and three sepals, but are termed tepals because they are nearly identical. The tepals are usually petaloid (petal like), being brightly coloured, but each whorl may be different, or have different coloured blotches at their bases, forming darker colouration on the interior surface. The inner petals have a small, delicate cleft at the top, while the sturdier outer ones form uninterrupted ovals. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colours, except pure blue (several tulips with "blue" in the name have a faint violet hue), and have absent nectaries. Tulip flowers are generally bereft of scent and are the coolest of floral characters. The dutch regarded this lack of scent as a virtue, as it demonstrat the flowers chasteness.
Androecium: The flowers have six distinct, basifixed introrse stamens arranged in two whorls of three, which vary in length and may be glabrous or hairy. The filaments are shorter than the tepals, and dilated towards their base.
Gynoecium: The style is short or absent and each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers.
Fruit: The tulip's fruit is a globose or ellipsoid capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.
Leaves: Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip's leaf is cauline (born on a stem), strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternate (alternately arranged on the stem), diminishing in size the further up the stem. These fleshy blades are often bluish-green in colour.The bulbs are truncated basally and elongated towards the apex. They are covered by a protective tunic (tunicate) which can be glabrous or hairy inside.
Tulipanin is an anthocyanin found in tulips. It is the 3-rutinoside of delphinidin. The chemical compounds named tuliposides and tulipalins can also be found in tulips and are responsible for allergies. Tulipalin A, or α-methylene-γ-butyrolactone, is a common allergen, generated by hydrolysis of the glucoside tuliposide A. It induces a dermatitis that is mostly occupational and affects tulip bulb sorters and florists who cut the stems and leaves. Tulipanin A and B are toxic to horses, cats and dogs. The color of a tulip is formed from two pigments working in concert; a base color that is always yellow or white, and a second laid-on anthocyanin color. The mix of these two hues determines the visible unitary color. The breaking of flowers occurs when a virus suppresses anthocyanin and the base color is exposed as a streak.
Tulipa is a genus of the Liliaceae (lily) family, once one of the largest family of monocots, but which molecular phylogenetics has shown to be a much smaller discrete family with only 15 genera. Within Liliaceae, Tulipa is placed within Lilioideae, one of three subfamilies, with two tribes. Tribe Lilieae includes seven other genera in addition to Tulipa.
The genus, which includes about 75 species, is divided into four subgenera.
The word tulip, first mentioned in western Europe in or around 1554 and seemingly derived from the "Turkish Letters" of diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, first appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entering the language by way of French: tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze"), and may be ultimately derived from the Persian: دلبند delband ("Turban"), this name being applied because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. This may have been due to a translation error in early times, when it was fashionable in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips on turbans. The translator possibly confused the flower for the turban.
Tulips are mainly distributed along a band corresponding to Latitude 40o north, from south-east of Europe (Ukraine, Russia) and Turkey in the west, through the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan) and the Sinai Peninsula. From there it extends eastwards through Jerevan, (Armenia) and Baku (Azerbaijan) and on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea through Turkmenistan, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent (Uzbekistan), to the eastern end of the range in the Pamir-Alai and Tien-Shan mountains in Central Asia, which form the centre of diversity. Further to the east, Tulipa is found in the western Himalayas, southern Siberia, inner Mongolia, and as far as the northwest of China. While authorities have stated that no tulips west of the Balkans are native, subsequent identification of Tulipa sylvestris subsp. australis as a native of the Iberian peninsula and adjacent North Africa shows that this may be a simplification. In addition to these regions in the west tulips have been identified in Greece, Cyprus and the Balkans. In the south, Iran marks its furthest extent, while the northern limit is the Ukraine. Although tulips are also throughout most of the Mediterranean and Europe, these regions do not form part of the natural distribution. Tulips were brought to Europe by travelers and merchants from Anatolia and Central Asia for cultivation, from where they escaped and naturalised (see map). For instance, less than a half of those species found in Turkey are actually native. These have been referred to as neo-tulipae.
Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates, where they are a common element of steppe and winter-rain Mediterranean vegetation. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Tulips are most commonly found in meadows, steppes and chaparral, but also introduced in fields, orchards, roadsides and abandoned gardens.
Botrytis tulipae is a major fungal disease affecting tulips, causing cell death and eventually the rotting of the plant. Other pathogens include anthracnose, bacterial soft rot, blight caused by Sclerotium rolfsii, bulb nematodes, other rots including blue molds, black molds and mushy rot.
The fungus Trichoderma viride can infect tulips, producing dried leaf tips and reduced growth, although symptoms are usually mild and only present on bulbs growing in glasshouses.
Variegated tulips admired during the Dutch tulipomania gained their delicately feathered patterns from an infection with the tulip breaking virus, a mosaic virus that was carried by the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae. While the virus produces fantastically streaked flowers, it also weakens plants and reduces the number of offsets produced. Dutch growers would go to extraordinary lengths during tulipomania to make tulips break, borrowing alchemists’ techniques and resorting to sprinkling paint powders of the desired hue or pigeon droppings onto flower roots.
Tulips affected by mosaic virus are called "broken"; while such plants can occasionally revert to a plain or solid colouring, they will remain infected and have to be destroyed. Today the virus is almost eradicated from tulip growers' fields. The multicoloured patterns of modern varieties result from breeding; they normally have solid, un-feathered borders between the colours.
Tulip growth is also dependent on temperature conditions. Slightly germinated plants show greater growth if subjected to a period of cool dormancy, known as vernalisation. Furthermore, although flower development is induced at warmer temperatures (20–25 °C), elongation of the flower stalk and proper flowering is dependent on an extended period of low temperature (<10 °C). Tulip bulbs imported to warm-winter areas are often planted in autumn to be treated as annuals.
The colour of tulip flowers also vary with growing conditions.
Cultivation of the tulip began in Persia, probably in the 10th century. Early cultivars must have emerged from hybridisation in gardens from wild collected plants, which were then favoured, possibly due to flower size or growth vigour. The tulip is not mentioned by any writer from antiquity, therefore it seems probable that tulips were introduced into Anatolia only with the advance of the Seljuks. In the Ottoman Empire, numerous types of tulips were cultivated and bred, and today, 14 species can still be found in Turkey. Tulips are mentioned by Omar Kayam and Jalāl ad-Dīn Rûmi.Species of tulips in Turkey typically come in red, less commonly in white or yellow. The Ottoman Turks had discovered that these wild tulips were great changelings, freely hybridizing (though it takes 7 years to show color) but also subject to mutations that produced spontaneous changes in form and color.
A paper by Arthur Baker reports that in 1574, Sultan Selim II ordered the Kadi of A‘azāz in Syria to send him 50,000 tulip bulbs. However, John Harvey points out several problems with this source, and there is also the possibility that tulips and hyacinth (sümbüll), originally Indian spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi) have been confused. Sultan Selim also imported 300,000 bulbs of Kefe Lale (also known as Cafe-Lale, from the medieval name Kaffa, probably Tulipa schrenkii) from Kefe in Crimea, for his gardens in the Topkapı Sarayı in Istanbul.
It is also reported that shortly after arriving in Constantinople in 1554, Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, ambassador of the Austrian Hapsburgs to the court of Suleyman the Magnificent, claimed to have introduced the tulip to Europe by sending a consignment of bulbs west. The fact that the tulip's first official trip west took it from one court to the other could have contributed to its ascendency.
Sultan Ahmet III maintained famous tulip gardens in the summer highland pastures (Yayla) at Spil Dağı above the town of Manisa. They seem to have consisted of wild tulips. However, from the 14 tulip species known from Turkey, only four are considered to be of local origin, so wild tulips from Iran and Central Asia may have been brought into Turkey during the Seljuk and especially Ottoman periods. Sultan Ahmet also imported domestic tulip bulbs from the Netherlands.
The gardening book Revnak'ı Bostan (Beauty of the Garden) by Sahibül Reis ülhaç Ibrahim Ibn ülhaç Mehmet, written in 1660 does not mention the tulip at all, but contains advice on growing hyacinths and lilies. However, there is considerable confusion of terminology, and tulips may have been subsumed under hyacinth, a mistake several European botanists were to perpetuate. In 1515, the scholar Qasim from Herat in contrast had identified both wild and garden tulips (lale) as anemones (shaqayq al-nu'man), but described the crown imperial as laleh kakli.
In a Turkic text written before 1495, the Chagatay Husayn Bayqarah mentions tulips (lale). Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, also names tulips in the Baburnama. He may actually have introduced them from Afghanistan to the plains of India, as he did with other plants like melons and grapes.
In Moorish Andalus, a "Makedonian bulb" (basal al-maqdunis) or "bucket-Narcissus" (naryis qadusi) was cultivated as an ornamental plant in gardens. It was supposed to have come from Alexandria and may have been Tulipa sylvestris, but the identification is not wholly secure.
Although it is unknown who first brought the tulip to Northwestern Europe, the most widely accepted story is that it was Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, an ambassador for Emperor Ferdinand I to Suleyman the Magnificent. According to a letter, he saw "an abundance of flowers everywhere; Narcissus, hyacinths and those in Turkish called Lale, much to our astonishment because it was almost midwinter, a season unfriendly to flowers." However, in 1559, an account by Conrad Gessner describes tulips flowering in Augsburg, Swabia in the garden of Councillor Heinrich Herwart. In Central and Northern Europe, tulip bulbs are generally removed from the ground in June and must be replanted by September for the winter. It is doubtful that Busbecq could have had the tulip bulbs harvested, shipped to Germany and replanted between March 1558 and Gessner's description the following year. Pietro Andrea Mattioli illustrated a tulip in 1565 but identified it as a narcissus.
Carolus Clusius is largely responsible for the spread of tulip bulbs in the final years of the sixteenth century. He planted tulips at the Vienna Imperial Botanical Gardens in 1573. He finished the first major work on tulips in 1592, and made note of the variations in colour. After he was appointed director of the Leiden University's newly established Hortus Botanicus, he planted both a teaching garden and his private garden with tulips in late 1593. Thus, 1594 is considered the date of the tulip's first flowering in the Netherlands, despite reports of the cultivation of tulips in private gardens in Antwerp and Amsterdam two or three decades earlier. These tulips at Leiden would eventually lead to both the Tulip mania and the tulip industry in the Netherlands. Over two raids, in 1596 and in 1598, more than one hundred bulbs were stolen from his garden.
Tulips spread rapidly across Europe and more opulent varieties such as double tulips were already known in Europe by the early 17th century. These curiosities fitted well in an age when natural oddities were cherished and especially in the Netherlands, France, Germany and England, where the spice trade with the East Indies had made many people wealthy. Nouveaux riches seeking wealthy displays embraced the exotic plant market, especially in the Low Countries where gardens had become fashionable. A craze for bulbs soon grew in France, where in the early 17th century, entire properties were exchanged as payment for a single tulip bulb. The value of the flower gave it a special ‘aura’ of mystique, and numerous publications describing varieties in lavish garden manuals were published, cashing in on the value of the flower. An export business was built up in France, supplying Dutch, Flemish, German and English buyers. The trade drifted slowly from the French to the Dutch and is thought to have sparked the infamous tulip mania in Holland.
Between 1634 and 1637, the enthusiasm for the new flowers in Holland triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the tulip mania that eventually led to the collapse of the market three years later. Tulip bulbs had become so expensive that they were treated as a form of currency, or rather, as futures, forcing the Dutch government to introduce trading restrictions on the bulbs. Around this time, the ceramic tulipiere was devised for the display of cut flowers stem by stem. Vases and bouquets, usually including tulips, often appeared in Dutch still-life painting. To this day, tulips are associated with the Netherlands, and the cultivated forms of the tulip are often called "Dutch tulips." The Netherlands have the world's largest permanent display of tulips at the Keukenhof.
The majority of tulip cultivars are classified in the taxon Tulipa ×gesneriana. They have usually several species in their direct background, but most have been derived from Tulipa suaveolens (today often regarded as synonym with Tulipa schrenkii). Tulipa ×gesneriana is in itself an early hybrid of complex origin and is probably not the same taxon as was described by Conrad Gessner in the 16th century.
It is believed the first tulips in the United States were grown near Spring Pond at the Fay Estate in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts. From 1847 to 1865, Richard Sullivan Fay, Esq., one of Lynn's wealthiest men, settled on 500 acres (2.0 km2) located partly in present-day Lynn and partly in present-day Salem. Mr. Fay imported many different trees and plants from all parts of the world and planted them among the meadows of the Fay Estate.
The Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.
Tulips can be propagated through bulb offsets, seeds or micropropagation. Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation for producing genetic clones of the parent plant, which maintains cultivar genetic integrity. Seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or to create new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridise and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.
Offsets require a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower. Tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years before plants are of flowering size. To prevent cross pollination, increase the growth rate of bulbs and increase the vigor and size of offsets, the flower and stems of a field of commercial tulips are usually topped using large tractor-mounted mowing heads. The same goals can be achieved by a private gardener by clipping the stem and flower of an individual specimen. Commercial growers usually harvest the tulip bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted for sale in the future.
Because of the fact that tulip bulbs don’t reliably come back every year, tulip varieties that fall out of favor with present aesthetic values have traditionally gone extinct. Unlike other flowers that do not suffer this same limitation, the Tulip’s historical forms do not survive alongside their modern incarnations.
In horticulture, tulips are divided into fifteen groups (Divisions) mostly based on flower morphology and plant size.
Div. 1: Single early – with cup-shaped single flowers, no larger than 8 cm across (3 inches). They bloom early to mid season. Growing 15 to 45 cm tall.
Div. 2: Double early – with fully double flowers, bowl shaped to 8 cm across. Plants typically grow from 30–40 cm tall.
Div. 3: Triumph – single, cup shaped flowers up to 6 cm wide. Plants grow 35–60 cm tall and bloom mid to late season.
Div. 4: Darwin hybrid – single flowers are ovoid in shape and up to 8 cm wide. Plants grow 50–70 cm tall and bloom mid to late season. This group should not be confused with older Darwin tulips, which belong in the Single Late Group below.
Div. 5: Single late – cup or goblet-shaped flowers up to 8 cm wide, some plants produce multi-flowering stems. Plants grow 45–75 cm tall and bloom late season.
Div. 6: Lily-flowered – the flowers possess a distinct narrow 'waist' with pointed and reflexed petals. Previously included with the old Darwins, only becoming a group in their own right in 1958.
Div. 7: Fringed (Crispa) – cup or goblet-shaped blossoms edged with spiked or crystal-like fringes, sometimes called “tulips for touch” because of the temptation to “test” the fringes to see if they are real or made of glass. Perennials with a tendency to naturalize in woodland areas, growing 45–65 cm tall and blooming in late season.
Div. 11: Double late – Large, heavy blooms. They range from 18 to 22 inches tall.
Div. 12: Kaufmanniana – Waterlily tulip. Medium-large creamy yellow flowers marked red on the outside and yellow at the center. Stems 6 in. tall.
Div. 14: Greigii – Scarlet flowers 6 in. across, on 10 in. stems. Foliage mottled with brown.
Div. 15: Species or Botanical – The terms "species tulips" and "botanical tulips" refer to wild species in contrast to hybridised varieties. As a group they have been described as being less ostentatious but more reliably vigorous as they age.
Div. 16: Multiflowering – not an official division, these tulips belong in the first 15 divisions but are often listed separately because they have multiple blooms per bulb.
A number of names are based on naturalised garden tulips, and are usually referred to as neo-tulipae. These are often difficult to trace back to their original cultivar, and in some cases have been occurring in the wild for many centuries. The history of naturalisation is unknown, but populations are usually associated with agricultural practices and are possibly linked to saffron cultivation[clarification needed] . Some neo-tulipae have been brought into cultivation, and are often offered as botanical tulips. These cultivated plants can be classified into two Cultivar Groups: 'Grengiolensis Group', with picotee tepals, and the 'Didieri Group' with unicolourous tepals.
Tulip bulb planting depth 6 inches/15 cm.
Tulip bulbs are typically planted around late summer and fall, in well-drained soils. Tulips should be planted 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) apart from each other. The recommended hole depth is 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) deep, and is measured from the top of the bulb to the surface. Therefore, larger tulip bulbs would require deeper holes. Species tulips are normally planted deeper.
The tulip was a topic for Persian poets from the thirteenth century. In the poem Gulistan by Musharrifu'd-din Saadi, described a visionary garden paradise with "The murmur of a cool stream / bird song, ripe fruit in plenty / bright multicoloured tulips and fragrant roses..." In recent times, tulips have featured in the poems of Simin Behbahani.
Tulips are called lale in Turkish (from Persian: "laleh" لاله). When written in Arabic letters, "lale" has the same letters as Allah, which is why the flower became a holy symbol. It was also associated with the House of Osman, resulting in tulips being widely used in decorative motifs on tiles, mosques, fabrics, crockery, etc. in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip was seen as a symbol of abundance and indulgence. The era during which the Ottoman Empire was wealthiest is often called the Tulip era or Lale Devri in Turkish.
The shape of emblem of Iran is chosen to resemble a tulip, in memory of the people who died for Iran. According to Iranian folklore, when a martyr dies, a red tulip grows from where he has fallen.
Tulips became popular garden plants in east and west, but, whereas the tulip in Turkish culture was a symbol of paradise on earth and had almost a divine status, in the Netherlands it represented the briefness of life.
The Black Tulip is a historical romance by Alexandre Dumas, père. The story takes place in the Dutch city of Haarlem, where a reward is offered to the first grower who can produce a truly black tulip.
While tulips can be bred to display a wide variety of colors, black tulips have historically been difficult to achieve. The Queen of the Night tulip is as close to black as a flower gets, though it is in fact a dark and glossy maroonish purple - nonetheless an effect prized by the Dutch.
The first truly black tulip was bred in 1986 by a dutch flower grower in Bovenkarspel, Netherlands. The specimen was created by cross-breeding two deep purple tulips, the Queen of the Night and Wienerwald tulips.
The Semper Augustus was the most expensive tulip during tulip mania. “The color is white, with Carmine on a blue base, and with an unbroken flame right to the top” – wrote Nicolas van Wassenaer in 1624 after seeing the tulip in the garden of one Dr. Adriaen Pauw, a director of the new East India Company. With limited specimens in existence at the time and most owned by Pauw, his refusal to sell any flowers, despite wildly escalating offers, is believed by some to have sparked the mania.
By contrast to other flowers such as the coneflower or lotus, tulips have historically been capable of genetically reinventing themselves to suit changes in aesthetic values. In his 1597 herbal, John Gerard says of the tulip that “nature seems to plaie more with this flower, than with any other that I do know.” When in the Netherlands, beauty was defined by marbleized swirls of vivid contrasting colors, the petals of tulips were able to become "feathered" and "flamed." However, in the 19th century, when the English desired tulips for carpet bedding and massing, the tulips were able to once again accommodate this by evolving into “paint filled boxes with the brightest, fattest dabs of pure pigment.” This inherent mutability of the tulip even led the Ottoman Turks to believe that nature cherished this flower above all others.
The Tulip is also viewed prominently in a number of the Major Arcana cards of the Oswald Wirth Tarot deck. Specifically: Arcanas Zero, One, Four, and Fifteen.
Today, Tulip festivals are held around the world, for example in the Netherlands and Spalding, England. There is also a popular festival in Morges, Switzerland. Every spring, there are tulip festivals in North America, including the Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley, Washington, the Tulip Time Festival in Orange City and Pella, Iowa, and the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Tulips are also popular in Australia and several festivals are held in September and October, during the Southern Hemisphere's spring.
In Christianity, symbolize passion, belief and love. White tulips represent forgiveness while purple tulips represent royalty, both important aspects of Easter.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pollan, Michael (2002). The Botany of Desire. New York: Random House. p. 95. ISBN 0-375-76039-3.
^ a b King 2005, p. 164.
^ a b Tenenbaum 2003, p. 395.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Christenhusz et al 2013.
^ a b c d e Grey-Wilson & Matthews 1980.
^ Straley & Utech 2003.
^ Christensen, L. P.; Kristiansen, K. (1999). "Isolation and quantification of tuliposides and tulipalins in tulips (Tulipa) by high-performance liquid chromatography". Contact Dermatitis. 40 (6): 300–9. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0536.1999.tb06080.x. PMID 10385332.
^ Sasseville, D (2009). "Dermatitis from plants of the new world". European Journal of Dermatology. 19 (5): 423–30. doi:10.1684/ejd.2009.0714. PMID 19487175.
^ "Tulip". ASPCA. Retrieved 2013-04-01.
^ "Tulip". Etymplogy Online. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
^ a b Marais 1984.
^ King 2005, p. 16.
^ a b Hall 1940.
^ Eker et al 2014.
^ Reyes, A. Leon; Prins, T. P.; van Empel, J.-P.; van Tuyl, J. M. (2005). "Differences in Epicuticular Wax Layer in Tulip Can Influence Resistance to Botrytis Tulipae". Acta Horticulturae. 673 (673): 457–46. doi:10.17660/ActaHortic.2005.673.59.
^ Westcott, Cynthia; Horst, R. Kenneth (1979). Westcott's Plant disease handbook. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. p. 709. ISBN 978-0-442-23543-7.
^ Rietveld, Patrick L.; Wilkinson, Clare (March 2000). "Low temperature sensing in tulip (Tulipa gesneriana L.) is mediated through an increased response to auxin". Journal of Experimental Botany. 51: 587–594.
^ Le Nard, M.; Biot, E. (1997). "MEASUREMENT OF COLOUR VARIATION OF TULIP FLOWERS GROWN IN DIFFERENT CONDITIONS". International Society for Horticultural Science. 10: 837–842.
^ Sims, John, ed. (1804). "Tulipa Breyntiana. Cape Tulip". Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Vol. 19. Drawn by Sydenham Edwards; Engraved by F. Sansom. T. Curtis. plate 717.
^ a b c d Mathew, Brian; Baytop, Turhan (1984). The Bulbous Plants of Turkey. Frome: Batsford. p. 100. ISBN 978-0713445176.
^ Baker, A. (1931). "The Cult of the Tulip in Turkey". Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society. LVI (1): 240ff.
^ Wilford, Richard. Tulips. Species and hybrids for the gardener. Portland: Timber Press. p. 53.
^ Hernández Bermejo, J. Esteban; García Sánchez, Expiración (2009). "Tulips: An Ornamental Crop in the Andalusian Middle Ages". Economic Botany. 63 (1): 60–66. doi:10.1007/s12231-008-9070-3. JSTOR 40390435.
^ Blunt, Wilfrid (1950). Tulipomania. Illustrated by Alexander Marshal. London: Penguin Books. p. 7.
^ Forster, E. S. (trans. et ed.) (1927). The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. Oxford.
^ Pavord, Anna (2014). The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. Introduction p.4. ISBN 9781408859032.
^ "How A Turkish Blossom Enflamed the Dutch Landscape". The New York Times. 2001-03-04. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
^ a b Christenhusz, Maarten J. M. (June 2013). "Tiptoe through the tulips – cultural history, molecular phylogenetics and classification of Tulipa (Liliaceae)". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 172: 280–328.
^ "Tulipa spp". Floridata. Retrieved 2009-12-07.
^ Nishiuchi, Y. (1986). "Multiplication of Tulip Bulb by Tissue Culture in vitro". ISHS Acta Horticulturae. 177 (177): 279–284. doi:10.17660/ActaHortic.1986.177.40.
^ Brickell, Christopher; Zuk, Judith D. (1997). The American Horticultural Society A–Z encyclopedia of garden plants. New York, N.Y.: DK Pub. p. 1028. ISBN 978-0-7894-1943-9.
^ "Tulips". The Plant Expert. 2008-10-15. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
^ Pavord 1999, p. 352.
^ The Western Garden Book (Third ed.). Menlo Park, CA: Lane Magazine & Book Company. 1972. p. 448.
^ Eyster, William H. (1950). "The 'Species' Tulips". Organic Gardening. 16–17: 22. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
^ Bales, Suzanne F. (1992). Bulbs. Macmillan General Reference. p. 74. ISBN 9780671863920.
^ Fell, Derek (1990). The Easiest Flowers to Grow. Ortho Books. p. 97. ISBN 9780897212205.
^ Jauron, Richard. "Tulip Classes". Iowa State University. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
^ Pavord 1999, p. 31.
^ "TULIP FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM". Tulip Festival Amsterdam. Tulip Festival Amsterdam. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
^ "Easter Flowers". flowermeaning.com. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
Botschantzeva, Z. P. (1982). Tulips: taxonomy, morphology, cytology, phytogeography and physiology. CRC Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-90-6191-029-9.
Clusius, Carolus (1601). Rariorum plantarum historia: quae accesserint, proxima pagina docebit. Antwerp: Ioannem Moretum.
Dash, Mike (1999). Tulipomania: The Story Of The World's Most Coveted Flower & The Extraordinary Passions It Aroused. London: Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-78022-057-4.
Davis, PH, ed. (1984). Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean islands volume 8. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0852244944.
Everett, Diana (2013). The Genus Tulipa: Tulips of the World. Kew Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84246-481-6.
Goldgar, Anne (2007). Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226301303. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
Hall, A. Daniel (1940). The genus Tulipa. London: Royal Horticultural Society.
King, Michael (2005). Gardening with Tulips. Portland, OR: Timber Press. ISBN 978-0-88192-744-3.
Pavord, Anna (1999). The Tulip. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7475-4296-4.
Pollan, Michael (2001). The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780375501296.
Papiomitoglou, Vangelis (2006). Wild flowers of Greece. Mediterraneo Editions. ISBN 9789608227743.
Tutin, T. G.; et al., eds. (1980). Flora Europaea. Volume 5, Alismataceae to Orchidaceae (monocotyledones). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521201087. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
Tenenbaum, Frances, ed. (2003). Taylor's Encyclopedia of Garden Plants. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-22644-3.
Christenhusz, Maarten J.M.; Govaerts, Rafaël; David, John C.; Hall, Tony; Borland, Katherine; Roberts, Penelope S.; Tuomisto, Anne; Buerki, Sven; Chase, Mark W.; Fay, Michael F. (2013). "Tiptoe through the tulips – cultural history, molecular phylogenetics and classification of Tulipa (Liliaceae)". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 172 (3): 280–328. doi:10.1111/boj.12061.
Clennett, John C. B.; Chase, Mark W.; Forest, Félix; Maurin, Olivier; Wilkin, Paul (December 2012). "Phylogenetic systematics of Erythronium (Liliaceae): morphological and molecular analyses". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 170 (4): 504–528. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2012.01302.x.
Eker, İsmail; Babaç, Mehmet Tekin; Koyuncu, Mehmet (29 January 2014). "Revision of the genus Tulipa L. (Liliaceae) in Turkey". Phytotaxa. 157 (1): 001. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.157.1.1.
Harvey, John H. (1976). "Turkey as a Source of Garden Plants". Garden History. 4 (3): 24–42. doi:10.2307/1586521. JSTOR 1586521.
Tan, Dun-Yan; Zhang, Zhen; Li, Xin-Rong; Hong De-Yuan, De-Yuan (2005). "Restoration of the genus Amana Honda (Liliaceae) based on a cladistic analysis of morphological characters" (PDF). Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica (in Chinese). 43 (3): 262–270. doi:10.1360/aps040106 (inactive 2019-02-11). Retrieved 14 September 2015.
Turktas, Mine; Metin, Özge Karakaş; Baştuğ, Berk; Ertuğrul, Fahriye; Saraç, Yasemin Izgi; Kaya, Erdal (July 2013). "Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Tulipa (Liliaceae) based on noncoding plastid and nuclear DNA sequences with an emphasis on Turkey". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 172 (3): 270–279. doi:10.1111/boj.12040.
Veldkamp, J. F.; Zonneveld, B. J. M. (2011). "The infrageneric nomenclature of Tulipa (Liliaceae)". Plant Systematics and Evolution. 298: 87–92. doi:10.1007/s00606-011-0525-0.
Straley, Gerald B.; Utech, Frederick H. (2003). "Tulipa". Flora of North America Volume 26. p. 199. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
"Tulipa". The Plant List (2013). Version 1.1. 2013. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
"Tulipa". World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tulipa. |
0.975759 | Apple and Samsung: A seven-year patent feud The dispute over the alleged copying of the iPhone has been settled between Apple and Samsung Electronics.
Apple and Samsung Electronics have settled a seven-year patent dispute over Apple's allegations that Samsung violated its patents by "slavishly" copying the design of the iPhone.
The terms of the settlement, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, were not available.
In May, a US jury awarded Apple $539 million after Samsung had previously paid Apple $399 million to compensate for patent infringement.
The South Korean electronics giant would need to make an additional payment to the US-based Apple of nearly $140 million if the verdict was upheld.
Apple had argued that it was owed more than $1 billion, while Samsung contended the $399 million should be slashed to $28 million.
"The only way Apple can come up with $1 billion in damages is by saying the article of manufacture applies to the whole phone," Samsung attorney John Quinn said at the time. "None of the patents is the whole phone."
The issue was escalated to the US Supreme Court, which determined in 2016 that a lower court needed to re-examine $399 million of the $548 million. In that trial, the court sided unanimously with Samsung's argument that a patent violator does not have to hand over the entire profit it made from stolen designs if those designs covered only certain portions of a product but not the entire object.
But when the case went back to lower court for trial this year, the jury sided with Apple's argument that in this specific case, Samsung's profits were attributable to the design elements that violated Apple's patents.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the terms of the settlement, but said Apple "cares deeply about design" and that "this case has always been about more than money." A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment.
Apple and Samsung are rivals for the title of world's largest smartphone maker, and the dollar sums involved in the decision are unlikely to have an impact on either company's bottom line. But the case has had a lasting impact on US patent law.
Michael Risch, a professor of patent law at Villanova University, said that because of the recent verdict, the settlement likely called for Samsung to make an additional payment to Apple.
But he said there was no clear winner in the dispute, which involved hefty legal fees for both companies.
While Apple scored a major public relations victory with an initial $1 billion verdict in 2012, Samsung also obtained rulings in its favour and avoided an injunction that would have blocked it from selling phones in the US market, Risch said.
In its first-quarter earnings posted in April, Samsung Electronics had operating profits of around $14.6 billion, a jump of over 50 percent year-on-year and a record first-quarter result for the company.
Although Samsung's mobile arm made up almost half of the company's 60.5 trillion won in revenue, the division only contributed 3.8 trillion won to the 15.6 trillion won in operating profit. The vast majority of the profit, 11.6 trillion won, was driven by Samsung's semiconductor unit, which recorded 20.8 trillion won in revenue.
For its part, Apple reported $61 billion in revenue for its second quarter in May, selling 52 million iPhones and 9 million iPads, resulting in $38 billion and $4 billion from the products, respectively.
"Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter, just as they did following its launch in the December quarter," said Apple CEO Tim Cook at the time. "We also grew revenue in all of our geographic segments, with over 20 percent growth in Greater China and Japan."
With screen time under attack and Siri preparing for a huge boost, the company is taking tentative steps toward making hero devices for voice.
The models affected range from 2015 to 2017 models.
In Apple's macOS Mojave, there are security and performance enhancements, as well as new features and applications. Here's what business professionals need to know about macOS Mojave.
Plenty of ink is being spilled about the speed, the design, and the camera of Samsung's latest flagship smartphone. But, its battery life is what makes it an excellent choice for professionals. |
0.987014 | 1. The rate or extent of occurrence or effect: a high incidence of malaria in the tropics.
a. Usage Problem A specific event; instance or incident: fewer incidences of fraud after the regulations were enforced.
b. The action, fact, or instance of occurring: did not expect criticism and was surprised by its incidence.
a. The arrival of radiation or a projectile at a surface.
Usage Note: The singular noun incidence usually refers to the rate at which something happens, as in The city has taken measures to reduce the incidence of vandalism.In this sense, it is used in the plural only in relatively rare situations when several rates are being discussed (for example, incidences of heart disease, cancer, and stroke). However, incidence is often confused with the similar-sounding words incident and instance, which refer not to a rate but to a discrete event and are pluralized as incidents (which sounds exactly like incidence) and instances (which has an ending similar to incidences). This confusion often leads people to use incidences as a plural referring to a number of events, as in the sentence Incidences of religious intolerance are on the rise, creating tensions within many communities. In our 2014 Usage Survey, 74 percent of Panelists found this sentence unacceptable, and many Panelists remarked that incidences should be replaced with incidents or instances. The same sentence was unacceptable to 67 percent of Panelists in 2002, suggesting that there has been no increase in acceptability of this usage. A few Panelists remarked that this sentence might be acceptable if it were referring to rates of vandalism in several different places. A less ambiguous sentence (The election was marred by a few violent incidences) was rejected by 80 percent of the Panel. In this sentence, incidents is the better choice.
1. degree, extent, or frequency of occurrence; amount: a high incidence of death from pneumonia.
1. the rate or range of occurrence or influence of something.
a. the striking of a ray of light, beam of electrons, etc., on a surface, or the direction of striking.
b. angle of incidence (def. 1).
2. incidence - the striking of a light beam on a surface; "he measured the angle of incidence of the reflected light"
noun prevalence, frequency, occurrence, rate, amount, degree, extent The incidence of breast cancer increases with age.
She liked men and women, and she spoke of them - of kinglets she had known in the past; of her own youth and beauty; of the depredations of leopards and the eccentricities of love Asiatic; of the incidence of taxation, rack-renting, funeral ceremonies, her son-in-law (this by allusion, easy to be followed), the care of the young, and the age's lack of decency.
The sentences “In 2009-2011, the national incidences of PKU were 0.
Poverty incidences among population and families in Biliran province have significantly dropped in the first semester of 2015 based on the recent special release on poverty statistics of the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA)- Biliran Provincial Statistical Authority (BPSA).
The ACS projected the number of new cases, so incidences here are calculated via recent Census Bureau population estimates.
Once the corrected sample was calculated, the incidences of Meniere syndrome and migraine headache were estimated.
7% in 2003 compared with 2001, equivalent to 600 fewer breast cancers out of about 9 000 incidences of breast cancer annually for women of this age.
Statin use was associated with significantly lower incidences of all categories of prostate cancer stages and grades.
Prudent prescribing of antimicrobial drugs to hospital inpatients may reduce incidences of antimicrobial drug resistance and healthcare-associated infection.
1989); a third showed increased incidences of total malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias, and testicular interstitial-cell adenomas in male rats (Soffritti et al.
Jennifer Flynn of the AIDS Housing Network notes that Latino and black men were the first people of color to show high incidences of HIV/AIDS infections.
For Oregon, incidences for children in those age groups were 2.
Yet lung and breast cancer rates are increasing in women, as are the incidences of 10 less common cancers, according to an annual report on national cancer trends. |
0.999939 | If it looks just like a human smile, and it means the dog is happy, why cant we say that dogs smile?
A well-accepted theory among dog behavior experts is that dogs smile because they know that we humans love it. We see our dogs lounging on the rug with their mouths hanging open, lips pulled back, looking utterly satisfied with themselves, and we go ga-ga with praise and pets. Dogs probably also observe their humans smiling at them and among themselves; they know people smiles are inherently positive (at the very least, benign), and that they can communicate amicability by miming that behavior. |
0.999999 | Allegation of fraud against Spanish music collecting society results in arrests.
arrested along with other directors of the association.Bautista lobbies in Brussels on behalf of the European alliance of collecting societies known as GESAC. The outcome of the Spanish prosecutor's investigation could therefore have consequences in European policy-making fora.
acting on a complaint which dates back to 2007, made by the Asociation de Internautas. The prosecutor opened a formal investigation in March 2010. The allegation against the SGAE directors is that they set up a web of small companies which they used to filter off money from the collecting society funds. If these activities were judged to be for their own personal gain, then it would count as fraud or embezzlement.
The prosecutor has stated that such activities are not compliant with the colecting society objectives of distributing money to the authors and artists who comprise its membership, and that Senor Bautista, as chairman, would have had to have had knowledge of these activities.
The SGAE put out a press release yesterday saying that the directors who had been arrested, were now released, and that it is co-operating fully with the police and the public prosecutor. The SGAE has also pleaded for the presumption of innocence to hold good until the Prosecutor's investigation is completed.
The SGAE represents music composers and song writers. It is the Spanish equivalent of the PRS for Music in the UK, SACEM in France and GEMA in Germany. It is a member of the European loybbing group known as GESAC. Among other things, GESAC lobbied for copyright enforcement measures in the Telecoms Package.
Please attribute this article: Monica Horten (2011) Spanish police raid copyright society in fraud probe http://www.iptegrity.com 5 July 2011 . |
0.977186 | (CNN) — The Senate has approved former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as the next secretary of state, filling one more slot on President Donald Trump’s national security team.
“Mr. Tillerson led a global enterprise with 75,000 employees, possesses deep relationships around the world, and understands the critical role of US leadership,” Corker said in a statement.
The 64-year-old Texan had a shaky confirmation hearing before Corker’s committee in January, generating frustration among Democrats and Republicans alike after he dodged a series of questions.
He wouldn’t agree when asked if Russia’s Vladimir Putin — who has given Tillerson Russia’s highest civilian honor for his work there as an oil man. Tillerson also avoided condemning human rights abuses in China, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. And he sidestepped a direct answer about whether human beings cause climate change. |
0.902564 | Donald Ervin Knuth (pronounced /kəˈnuːθ/) (born January 10, 1938) is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.
Author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming ("TAOCP"), Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms, contributing to the development of, and systematizing formal mathematical techniques for, the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms, and in the process popularizing asymptotic notation.
In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.
A writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MMIX instruction set architecture.
Knuth was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small printing business and taught bookkeeping at Milwaukee Lutheran High School, which he attended. He was an excellent student, earning achievement awards. He applied his intelligence in unconventional ways, winning a contest when he was in eighth grade by finding over 4,500 words that could be formed from the letters in "Ziegler's Giant Bar." The judges had only about 2,500 words on their master list. This won him a television set for his school and a candy bar for everyone in his class.
Knuth had a difficult time choosing physics over music as his major at Case Institute of Technology (now part of Case Western Reserve University). He also joined Theta Chi Fraternity. He then switched from physics to mathematics, and in 1960 he received his bachelor of science degree, simultaneously receiving his master of science degree by a special award of the faculty who considered his work outstanding. At Case, he managed the basketball team and applied his talents by constructing a formula for the value of each player. This novel approach was covered by Newsweek and by Walter Cronkite on the CBS television network.
While doing graduate studies, Knuth worked as a consultant, writing compilers for different computers. In 1963, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics (advisor: Marshall Hall) from the California Institute of Technology, where he became a professor and began work on The Art of Computer Programming, originally planned to be a single book, and then planned as a six, and then seven-volume series. In 1968, he published the first volume. That same year, he joined the faculty of Stanford University, having turned down a job offer from the National Security Agency (NSA).
In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal and the Kyoto Prize. After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly developed electronic publishing tools (esp. those which provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the TeX and METAFONT tools.
In recognition of Knuth's contributions to the field of computer science, in 1990 he was awarded the one-of-a-kind academic title of Professor of The Art of Computer Programming, which has since been revised to Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming.
In 1992 he became an associate of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at Stanford University in order to finish The Art of Computer Programming. In 2003 he was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society. As of 2004, the first three volumes of his series have been re-issued, and Knuth is currently working on volume four, excerpts of which are released periodically on his website. Meanwhile, Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at Stanford University, which he calls Computer Musings. He is also a visiting professor at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in the United Kingdom.
In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a devout Lutheran, is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated (1991), ISBN 0-89579-252-4, in which he attempts to examine the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf.
He is also the author of Surreal Numbers (1974) ISBN 0-201-03812-9, a mathematical novelette on John Conway's set theory construction of an alternate system of numbers. Instead of simply explaining the subject, the book seeks to show the development of the mathematics. Knuth wanted the book to prepare students for doing original, creative research.
On January 1, 1990, Knuth announced to his colleagues that he would no longer have an e-mail address, so that he might concentrate on his work.
In 2006, Knuth was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery in December that year and started "a little bit of radiation therapy [...] as a precaution but the prognosis looks pretty good," as he reported in his video autobiography.
Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics.
Knuth is known for his "professional humor".
He used to pay a finder’s fee of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because “256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar”, and $0.32 for “valuable suggestions”. (His bounty for errata in 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, is, however, $3.16). According to an article in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review, these Knuth reward checks are “among computerdom’s most prized trophies”. Knuth had to stop sending real checks in 2008 due to bank fraud, and instead now gives each error finder a "certificate of deposit" from a publicly listed balance in his fictitious "Bank of San Serriffe".
Version numbers of his TeX software approach the number π, in that versions increment in the style 3, 3.1, 3.14. 3.141, and so on. Similarly, version numbers of Metafont approach the base of the natural logarithm, e.
Knuth's "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures"
Knuth published his first “scientific” article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title “Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures.” In it, he defined the fundamental unit of length as the thickness of MAD magazine #26, and named the fundamental unit of force “whatmeworry.” MAD magazine bought the article and published it in the #33, June 1957 issue.
Knuth's first “mathematical” article was a short paper submitted to a “science talent search” contest for high-school seniors in 1955, and published in 1960, in which he discussed number systems where the radix was negative. He further generalized this to number systems where the radix was a complex number. In particular, he defined the quater-imaginary base system, which uses the imaginary number 2i as the base, having the unusual feature that every complex number can be represented with the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3, without a sign.
Knuth’s article about the computational complexity of songs, "The Complexity of Songs", was reprinted twice in computer science journals.
To demonstrate the concept, Knuth intentionally referred 'Circular definition' and 'Definition, circular' to each other in the index of The Art of Computer Programming Vol. 1.
^ a b "Frequently Asked Questions" at Stanford site. Gives the pronunciation of his name as "Ka-NOOTH".
^ Knuth, Donald Knuth versus Email last changed on 2005-09-23, Retrieved on 2008-12-29.
^ Great Lives - Donald Knuth, Coping with cancer.
Oral history interview with Donald E. Knuth at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Knuth discusses software patenting, structured programming, collaboration and his development of TeX. The oral history discusses the writing of The Art of Computer Programming as well as his early education and Lutheran heritage.
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Donald Knuth", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Knuth.html .
Waychoff, Richard, "Stories of the B5000 and People Who Were There", September 27, 1979. Cf. pp.6-8, "The Summer of 1960 (Time spent with don knuth)".
Donald Ervin Knuth (pronounced /kəˈnuːθ/) (born January 10, 1938) is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.
Knuth had a difficult time choosing physics over music as his major at Case Institute of Technology (now part of Case Western Reserve University). He also joined Theta Chi Fraternity. He then switched from physics to mathematics, and in 1960 he received his bachelor of science degree, simultaneously receiving his master of science degree by a special award of the faculty who considered his work outstanding. At Case, he managed the basketball team and applied his talents by constructing a formula for the value of each player. This novel approach was covered by Newsweek and by Walter Cronkite on the CBS television network. As an undergraduate at Case, Knuth was hired to write compilers for different computers.
In 1963, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics (advisor: Marshall Hall) from the California Institute of Technology, where he became a professor and began work on The Art of Computer Programming, originally planned to be a single book, and then planned as a six, and then seven-volume series. In 1968, he published the first volume. That same year, he joined the faculty of Stanford University, having turned down a job offer from the National Security Agency (NSA).
In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal, and the Kyoto Prize. After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly developed electronic publishing tools (especially those that provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the TeX and METAFONT tools.
In 1992 he became an associate of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at Stanford University in order to finish The Art of Computer Programming. In 2003 he was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society. As of 2004[update], the first three volumes of his series have been re-issued, and Knuth is currently working on volume four, excerpts of which are released periodically on his website. Meanwhile, Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at Stanford University, which he calls Computer Musings. He is also a visiting professor at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in the United Kingdom.
In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Lutheran, is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf.
He is also the author of Surreal Numbers, a mathematical novelette on John Conway's set theory construction of an alternate system of numbers. Instead of simply explaining the subject, the book seeks to show the development of the mathematics. Knuth wanted the book to prepare students for doing original, creative research.
Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
He used to pay a finder’s fee of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because "256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar", and $0.32 for "valuable suggestions". (His bounty for errata in 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, is, however, $3.16). According to an article in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review, these Knuth reward checks are "among computerdom's most prized trophies". Knuth had to stop sending real checks in 2008 due to bank fraud, and instead now gives each error finder a "certificate of deposit" from a publicly listed balance in his fictitious "Bank of San Serriffe".
He once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
Knuth published his first "scientific" article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures." In it, he defined the fundamental unit of length as the thickness of MAD magazine #26, and named the fundamental unit of force "whatmeworry." MAD magazine bought the article and published it in the #33, June 1957 issue.
Knuth's first "mathematical" article was a short paper submitted to a "science talent search" contest for high-school seniors in 1955, and published in 1960, in which he discussed number systems where the radix was negative. He further generalized this to number systems where the radix was a complex number. In particular, he defined the quater-imaginary base system, which uses the imaginary number 2i as the base, having the unusual feature that every complex number can be represented with the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3, without a sign.
Knuth's article about the computational complexity of songs, "The Complexity of Songs", was reprinted twice in computer science journals.
To demonstrate the concept, Knuth intentionally referred "Circular definition" and "Definition, circular" to each other in the index of The Art of Computer Programming Vol. 1.
At the TUG 2010 Conference, Knuth announced an XML-based successor to TeX, titled "iTeX" (pronounced [i᷉ːtɛ̌ks], with a cow bell ringing), which would support features such as arbitrarily scaled irrational units, 3D printing, animation, and stereographic sound.
Graham, Ronald L.; Knuth, Donald E.; Patashnik, Oren (1994). Concrete mathematics: A foundation for computer science (Second ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. pp. xiv+657. MR1397498. ISBN 0-201-55802-5.
^ Knuth, Donald (1991). 3:16 : Bible texts illuminated. A-R Eds.. ISBN 9780895792525.
^ Knuth, Donald (1974). Surreal numbers : how two ex-students turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness : a mathematical novelette. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 9780201038125.
^ "Gruppe 1: Matematiske fag" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. http://www.dnva.no/c26849/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40116. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Donald Knuth", [Expression error: Unexpected < operator MacTutor History of Mathematics archive], University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Knuth.html .
Waychoff, Richard, "Stories of the B5000 and People Who Were There", September 27, 1979. Cf. pp. 6–8, "The Summer of 1960 (Time spent with don knuth)".
Donald Ervin Knuth (born 10 January 1938), Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University, is a renowned computer scientist and winner of the 1974 Turing Award.
Knuth, Donald (2002). "All Questions Answered". Notices of the AMS 49 (3): 321.
Letter sent in February 1994 by Donald Knuth to the Patent and Trademark Office - Letter to the Patent Office from Professor Donald Knuth. Programming Freedom.N11.Feb95. |
0.994105 | Try to solve this brain teaser in less than a minute.
The Moon, and the question of how it was formed, has long been a source of fascination and wonder.
Scientists are predicting a change to the night sky that will be visible to the naked eye.
Astronomers have been surprised to see a huge shadow sweeping across a disk of dust and gas encircling a nearby star, and incredibly, it takes 16 years for just one rotation.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the material along the Voyager 1 and 2 probes' trajectories as they move through space.
NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) recently identified two gas-enshrouded supermassive black holes, located at the centers of nearby galaxies. |
0.997548 | If you're looking for a sweet way to end a special event, consider buying a milkshake machine that you can use during the festivities and after. You can find restaurant-quality machines that make homemade shakes just like you'd get at your favorite eatery.
Milkshake makers from companies like DSL Northwest, Inc. are typically constructed of some type of metal, such as die-cast aluminum or stainless steel. Invest in one that features a commercial-grade mixing spindle with two agitators for the best results. Multiple speed options will allow you to adjust the thickness of the milkshake to you and your party guests' tastes.
Milkshake machines are versatile in that you can also use them for mixing other types of drinks, such as malts and smoothies, as well as pancake and cake batters. The machines feature housings of different colors, such as blue, red, pink, and yellow, so you can coordinate them with a specific event theme.
A do-it-yourself milkshake bar makes a fun and whimsical dessert option for a variety of special occasions and events, including bridal and baby showers, birthday parties, and even family holiday get-togethers. Supply vanilla and chocolate ice cream and then set up a buffet-style table filled with a mix of ingredients, such as chocolate candies, cookie dough, peanut butter, and fresh fruit.
Ideal for summertime soirees, s'mores milkshakes will remind party-goers of their favorite bonfire treats. Provide mini marshmallows or marshmallow fluff, graham crackers, chocolate chips, and chocolate syrup and allow guests to add as many toppings as they like.
Everyone knows that they can add cookie dough to milkshakes, but cake batter shakes are just as good. Guests can blend vanilla ice cream with milk and any type of cake batter and then top with rainbow sprinkles as a colorful touch.
These batter-flavored milkshakes are perfect for birthday parties where they can even take the place of traditional cakes.
If you prefer a lighter-tasting shake or are looking for a dessert for a tropical-themed celebration, you can't go wrong with mango shakes. Start with vanilla ice cream and milk and then add chunks of fresh mango. Guests can also blend in pineapple or any other type of fruit. Provide toasted coconut shreds for topping.
Serve up a festive dessert at your next holiday party by providing guests with vanilla and chocolate ice cream and peppermint candy pieces. Top the milkshakes with whipped cream and crushed candy and serve with white-and-red-striped straws. |
0.944904 | Can someone tell me what's wrong with my thumb nail?
About six years about a fine line appeared along the nail bed and the nail in that one area was weak. About a week ago it started throbbing real bad and the line became thick and red. Any ideas?
That is called a splinter hemorrhage. There are small blood vessels call capillaries that bring blood to the nail bed. Damage to the nail when you clip the nail, or if you are a biter, can cause this. It will eventually go away on its own. Under very rare circumstances, splinter hemorrhages can be a sign of congestive heart failure, but as long as you're not a 60 year old with previous heart attacks you don't need to worry. |
0.961074 | As a small investor with a substantial percent of my assets kept in money market funds, I am totally opposed to the idea of having the price of money market funds "float" rather than being pegged to $1. Investors like myself rely on money markets as a highly liquid and relatively safe instrument where we can temporarily hold money that we are waiting to invest or that is needed for expenses. No other instrument serves those purposes as well. While money market funds can theoretically "break the buck" price, the probability of that is quite low, especially with a conservative money market fund.It has never happened to my funds in my 30+ years of investing. If the price is allowed to float, I will be exposed to a far higher risk of losing money in those funds than I am currently. To maintain an acceptable level of safety, I will be forced to transfer the money into a ladder of CDs which is both inconvenient and far less liquid. Such a step by the SEC will hurt, not help the investing public. If steps must be taken to increase the safety of money market funds, it would be far better to place more controls on the nature of the investments they can hold or on the reserves they must hold. Allowing the price to float is a serious mistake. |
0.999852 | Programming language development has been influenced by hardware design. One example from this answer mentions how C pointers were, at least in part, influenced by the design of the PDP-11. Has the reverse taken place, where a construct provided by a language drove the development of hardware?
To be clear, I'm wondering about core language constructs, like pointers for example, rather than industry consortiums coming up with something like OpenGL then being implemented in hardware. Perhaps hardware floating-point support?
It's a myth to suggest C's design is based on the PDP-11. People often quote, for example, the increment and decrement operators because they have an analogue in the PDP-11 instruction set. This is, however, a coincidence. Those operators were invented before the language was ported to the PDP-11.
processors that include features that a high level language might find useful.
In the former category we have most of the interesting eventual dead ends in computer hardware history. Perhaps the one of the earliest examples of a CPU architecture being targeted at a high level language is the Burroughs B5000 and its successors. This is a family of machines targeted at Algol. In fact, there wasn't really a machine language as such that you could program in.
The B5000 had a lot of hardware features designed to support the implementation of Algol. It had a hardware stack and all data manipulations were performed on the stack. It used tagged descriptors for data so the CPU had some idea of what it was dealing with. It had a series of registers called display registers that were used to model static scope* efficiently.
Other examples of machines targeted at specific languages include the Lisp machine already mentioned, arguably the Cray series of supercomputers for Fortran - or even just Fortran loops, the ICL 2900 series (also block structured high level languages), some machines targeted at the Java virtual machine (some ARM processors have hardware JVM support) and many others.
One of the drivers behind creating RISC architectures was the observation that compilers tended to use only a small subset of the available combinations of instructions and addressing modes available on most CPU architectures, so RISC designers ditched the unused ones and filled the space previously used for complex decoding logic with more registers.
In the second category, we have individual features in processors targeted at high level languages. For example, the hardware stack is a useful feature for an assembly language programmer, but more or less essential for any language that allows recursive function calls. The processor may build features on top of that for example, many CPUs have an instruction to create a stack frame (the data structure on the stack that represents a function's parameters and local variables).
*Algol allowed you to declare functions inside other functions. Static scope reflects the way functions were nested in the program source - an inner function could access the variables and functions defined in it and in the scope in which it was defined and the scope in which that scope was defined all the way up to global scope.
And not just a few instructions, but whole CPUs have been developed with languages in mind. Most prominent maybe Intel's 8086. Already the basic CPU was designed to support the way high level languages handle memory management, especially stack allocation and usage. With BP a separate register for stack frames and addressing was added in conjunction with short encodings for stack related addressing to make HLL programs perform. The 80186/286 went further in this direction by adding Enter/Leave instructions for stack frame handling.
While it can be said that the base 8086 was geared more toward languages like Pascal or PL/M (*1,2), later incarnations added many ways to support the now prevalent C primitives - not at least scaling factors for indices.
Since many answers pile now various details of CPUs where instructions may match up (or not), there are maybe two other CPUs worth mentioning: The Pascal Microengine and Rockwells 65C19 (as well as the RTX2000).
The Pascal Microengine was a WD MCP1600 chipset (*3) based implementation of the virtual 16 bit UCSD p-code processor. Contrary to what the name suggests, it wasn't tied to Pascal as a language, but a generic stack machine tailored to support concepts for HLL operations. Beside a rather simple, stack based execution, the most important part was a far reaching and comfortable management of local memory structures for functions and function linking as well as data. Modern time Java Bytecode and its interpreter as a native Bytecode CPU (e.g. PicoJava) isn't in any way a new idea (*4).
The Rockwell R65C19 is a 6500 variant with added support for Forth. Its 10 new threaded code instructions (*5) implemented the core functions (like Next) of a Forth system as single machine instructions.
Forth as a language was developed with a keen eye on the way it is executed. It got more in common with Assemblers than many other HLL (*6). So it's no surprise that, already in 1983, its inventor Charles Moore created a Forth CPU called N4000 (*7).
*1 - Most remarkable here the string functions which make only sense in languages supporting strings as discrete data type.
*2 - Stephen Morse's 8086 primer is still a good read - especially when he talks about the finer details. Similar and quite recommended his 2008 interview about the 8086 creation where he describes his approach as mostly HLL driven.
*3 - Which makes it basically a LSI-11 with different microcode.
*4 - As IT historians, we have seen each and every implementation already before, haven't we? So let's play a round of Zork.
*5 - There are other nice additions as well, like mathematical operations that ease filter programming - after all, the 65C19/29/39 series was the heart of many modems.
*6 - The discrimination with assembler as not being a HLL and miles apart becomes quite blurry when looking close anyway.
*7 - Later sold to Harris, who developed it into the RTX2000 series - with radiation hardened versions that power several deep space probes.
One interesting example of programming languages driving hardware development is the LISP machine. Since "normal" computers of the time period couldn't execute lisp code efficiently, and there was a high demand for the language in academia and research, dedicated hardware was built with the sole purpose of executing lisp code. Although lisp machines were initially developed for MIT's AI lab, they also saw sucess in computer animation.
These computers provided increased speed by using a stack machine instead of the typical register based design, and had native support for type checking lisp types. Some other important hardware features aided in garbage collection and closures. Here's a series of slides that go into more detail on the design: Architecture of Lisp Machines (PDF) (archive).
The architecture of these computers are specialized enough that in order to run c code, the c source is transpiled into lisp, and then run normally. The Vacietis compiler is an example of such a system.
Yes. Case in point, the VAX. The instruction set design was influenced by the requirements of the compiled languages of the day. For example, the orthogonality of the ISA; the provision of instructions that map to language constructs such as 'case' statements (in the numbered-case sense of Hoare's original formulation, not the labelled-case of C), loop statements, and so on.
VAX Architecture Ref - see the Introduction.
The B6500/B7500 contains a network of Display Registers (D0 through D31) which are caused to point at the appropriate MSCW (Fig. 5). The local variables of all procedures global to the current procedure are addressed in the B6500/B7500 relative to the Display Registers.
In particular, C and other high-level languages use the stack for arguments and local variables. The 8086 has both a stack pointer (SP) and a frame pointer (BP) which address memory using the stack segment (SS) rather than other segments (CS, DS, ES).
Programs for the 8087 can be written in Intel's high-level languages for 8086/8088 and 80186/80188 systems; ASM-86 (the 8086, 8088 assembly language), PL/M-86, FORTRAN-86, and PASCAL-86.
The 80286 added several instructions to the architecture to aid high-level languages. PUSHA, POPA, ENTER, and LEAVE help with subroutine calls. The BOUND instruction was useful for array bounds checking and switch-style control statements. Other instructions unrelated to high-level languages were added as well.
The 80386 added bitfield instructions, which are used in C.
[...] The availability of advanced, structured assemblers and block-structured high-level languages such as Pascal simplifies modular programming. Such concepts are virtually useless, however, unless parameters are easily transferred between and within software modules that operate on a re-entrant and recursive basis. [...] The MC68000 provides architectural features that allow efficient re-entrant modular programming. Two complementary instructions, link and allocate (LINK) and unlink (UNLK), reduce subroutine call overhead by manipulating linked lists of data areas on the stack. The move multiple register instruction (MOVEM) also reduces subroutine call programming overhead. [...] Other instructions that support modern structured programming techniques are push effective address (PEA), load effective address (LEA), return and restore (RTR), return from exception (RTE), jump to subroutine (JSR), branch to subroutine (BSR), and return from subroutine (RTS).
The 68020 added bitfield instructions, which are used in C.
Whereas the above processors added instructions to support programming languages, Reduced Instruction-Set Computers (RISC) took the opposite approach. By analyzing which instructions compilers actually used, they were able to discard many complex instructions that weren't being used. This allowed the architecture to be simplified, shorten the instruction cycle length, and reduce instructions to one cycle, speeding up processors significantly.
Over time, there have been various language-specific CPUs, some so dedicated that it would be awkward to use them for a different language. For example, the Harris RTX-2000 was designed to run Forth. One could almost say it and other Forth CPUs were the language in hardware form. I'm not saying they understand the language, but they are designed to execute it at the "assembler" level.
Arguably, VLIW architectures were designed mainly for smart compilers. They rely on efficient building of individual very complex instructions (a single "instruction" can do many things at the same time), and while it's not impossible to write the code manually, the idea was that you could get better performance for your applications by using a better compiler, rather than having to upgrade your CPU.
In principle, the difference between e.g. a x86 superscalar CPU and something like SHARC or i860 is that x86 achieves instruction level parallelism at runtime, while SHARC is a very simple CPU design (comparatively) that relies on the compiler. In both cases, there's many tricks to reorder instructions, rename registers etc. to allow multiple instructions to run at the same time, while still appearing to execute them sequentially. The VLIW approach would be especially handy in theory for platforms like JVM or .NET, which use a just-in-time compiler - every update to .NET or JVM could make all your applications faster by allowing better optimizations. And of course, during compilation, the compiler has a lot better idea of what all of your application is trying to do, while the runtime approach only ever has a small subset to work with, and has to rely on techniques like statistical branch prediction.
Some ARM CPUs used to have partial support for executing Java bytecode in hardware with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle Direct Bytecode eXecution (DBX).
Apparently ThumbEE has automatic NULL-pointer checks, and an array-bounds instruction. But that was deprecated, too, in 2011.
When C was invented, many different string forms were in used at the same time. String operations were probably handled mostly in software, therefore people can use whatever format they want. Null-terminated string wasn't a new idea, however special hardware support, if any, might not be meant for it.
How did the PDP-8 handle strings?
Arguably, the relatively simple logical structure of DO loops in Fortran motivated the development of vector hardware on the early Cray and Cyber supercomputers. There may be some "chicken and egg" between hardware and software development though, since CDC Fortran included array slicing operations to encourage programmers to write "logic-free" loops long before that syntax became standardized in Fortran 90.
Certainly the Cray XMP hardware enhancements compared with the Cray 1, such as improved "chaining" (i.e. overlapping in time) of vector operations, vector mask instructions, and gather/scatter vector addressing, were aimed at improving the performance of typical code written in "idiomatic" Fortran.
The need to find a way to overcome the I/O bottlenecks caused by faster computation, without the prohibitive expense of large fast memory, led to the development of the early Cray SSD storage devices as an intermediate level between main memory conventional disk and tape storage devices. Fortran I/O statements made it easy to read and write a random-access file as if it were a large two-dimensional array of data.
See section 2 of http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/ccd/supercomputers/p005.htm for an 1988 paper by the head of the Cray XMP design team.
There was a downside to this, in that the performance of the first Cray C compilers (and hence the first implementation of the Unix-like Cray operating system UNICOS) was abysmal, since the hardware had no native character-at-a-time instructions, and there was little computer science theory available to attempt to vectorize idiomatic "C-style" loops with a relatively unstructured combination of pointer manipulation and logical tests, compared with Fortran's more rigidly structured DO loops.
Another specific example of hardware design to match the languages was Recursiv, which was designed to implement object oriented language features in hardware.
Our Recursiv has been preserved in a museum.
I recall, back in the 80’s, and referenced in the Wikipedia article, Bellmac 32 CPU, which became the AT&T Western Electric WE32100 CPU was supposedly designed for the C programming language.
This CPU was used by AT&T in their 3B2 line of Unix systems. There was also a single board VME bus version of it that some third parties used. Zilog also came out with a line of Unix systems using this chip - I think they were a second source for it for AT&T.
I did a lot of work with these in the 80’s and probably early 90’s. It was pretty much a dog in terms of performance, if I remember.
Yes, definitely. A very good example is how Motorola moved from the 68k architecture to the (somewhat) compatible ColdFire range of CPUs. (It is also an example of how such an evolution might go wrong, but that is another story).
The Motorola Coldfire range of CPUs and Microcontrollers was basically a 68000 CPU32 core with lots of instructions and addressing modes removed that "normal" C compilers wouldn't use frequently (like arithmetic instructions on byte and word operands, some complex addressing modes and addressing modes that act only on memory in favor of registers,...). They also simplified the supervisor mode model and removed some rarely used instructions completely. The whole instruction set was "optimized for C and C++ compilers" (This is how Motorola put it) and the freed up chip space used to train the CPUs for performance (like with adding larger data and instruction caches).
In the end, the changes made the CPUs quite a bit too incompatible for customers to stay within the product family, and the MC68k range of CPUs went towards its demise.
Several microprocessor families offer limited decimal support. For example, the 80x86 family of microprocessors provide instructions to convert one-byte BCD numbers (packed and unpacked) to binary format before or after arithmetic operations. These operations were not extended to wider formats and hence are now slower than using 32-bit or wider BCD 'tricks' to compute in BCD (see ). The x87 FPU has instructions to convert 10-byte (18 decimal digits) packed decimal data, although it then operates on them as floating-point numbers.
The Motorola 68000 provided instructions for BCD addition and subtraction; as does the 6502. In the much later 68000 family-derived processors, these instructions were removed when the Coldfire instruction set was defined, and all IBM mainframes also provide BCD integer arithmetic in hardware. The Zilog Z80, Motorola 6800 and its derivatives, together with other 8-bit processors, and also the Intel x86 family have special instructions that support conversion to and from BCD. The Psion Organiser I handheld computer’s manufacturer-supplied software implemented its floating point operations in software using BCD entirely. All later Psion models used binary only, rather than BCD.
BCD was used in many early decimal computers, and is implemented in the instruction set of machines such as the IBM System/360 series and its descendants, Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX, the Burroughs B1700, and the Motorola 68000-series processors. Although BCD per se is not as widely used as in the past and is no longer implemented in newer computers' instruction sets (such as ARM; x86 does not support its BCD instructions in long mode any more), decimal fixed-point and floating-point formats are still important and continue to be used in financial, commercial, and industrial computing, where subtle conversion and fractional rounding errors that are inherent in floating point binary representations cannot be tolerated.
Do modern x86 processors have native support for decimal floating point arithmetic?
Another interesting example are Java processors, CPUs that execute (a subset of) Java Virtual Machine bytecode as their instruction sets.
If you’re interested enough to ask this question, you might want to read one of the later editions of Andrew Tanenbaum’s textbook, Structured Computer Organization¹, in which he walks the reader step-by-step through the design of a simple Java processor.
¹ Apparently not the third edition or below. It’s in Chapter 4 of the fifth edition.
Yet another example: The Prime minicomputer had a segmented architecture, and anything in segment 07777 was a null pointer (Prime used octal, and the top 4 bits of the 16-bit word had other uses). Segment 0 was a kernel segment, and just loading 0 into a segment register in user code was an access violation. This would have been fine in properly written C (int* p = 0; stored bit pattern 7777/0 into p).
However it turns out that a lot of C code assumes that if you memset a block of memory to all bits zero, that any contained pointers will have been set to NULL. They eventually had to add a whole new instruction called TCNP (Test C Null Pointer).
The MIPS RISC ISA often seems strange to newcomers: instructions like ADD generate exceptions on signed integer overflow. It is necessary to use ADDU, add unsigned, to get the usual 2’s complement wrap.
Now, I wasn’t there at the time, but I conjecture that MIPS provided this behavior because it was designed with the Stanford benchmarks - which were originally written in the Pascal programming language, which requires overflow detection.
The C programming language does not require overflow traps. The MIPSr6 new (circa 2012) ISA gets rid of the integer overflow trapping instructions - at least those with a 16 bit immediate - in order to free up opcode space. I was there when this was done.
Not yet retro (as of 2019), but on topic: the ARM Cortex-M design was influenced by the C language (may also apply to Cortex-A and -R, but I don't have experience with them).
No assembly code is needed for startup. The hardware sets the initial stack pointer at reset and then the compiled code can execute without any "magic" (some exceptions to this may exist depending on the exact hardware).
Interrupt handlers are just regular functions from compiler's point of view. They only require specific names, so that the linker can put their vectors in the right place for the NVIC (interrupt controller) to find them. The hardware takes care of stacking and unstacking of registers on ISR entry/exit. Compare that with other architectures (eg. AVR, MSP430, older ARM), where special compiler attributes are needed for interrupt handlers and the compiler has to emit extra code to handle entry/exit.
Yes. More recently, the TPUs (Tensor Processing Units,) designed by Google to accelerate AI work, are designed to efficiently process their TensorFlow language.
This is a more traditional-looking two-operand instruction² that updates the destination register in place.
There is even a (gasp) three-operand version similar to what you see in other processors.
These additional forms produce only single-precision results, but that's what the C and C++ languages produce, so it fits well with those languages. If you need a double-precision result, then you can use the single-operand MUL and IMUL instructions.
Note that there is no unsigned version of these additional forms. Fortunately, you can use the signed version for unsigned multiplication because the single-precision result is the same for both signed and unsigned multiplication. However, the flags are always set according to the signed result, so you cannot use them to detect unsigned overflow.
In practice, this is not a problem because the C language doesn't give you access to the overflow flags anyway.
Since they're more flexible, fit perfectly with the type model, and don't care about signness (because non-widening multiplication is the same for signed and unsigned values), compilers began to use it exclusively for almost all multiplications. As a result, Intel focused to optimize even more for those forms of imul. In fact nowadays single-operand mul and imul are very rarely used and may be slow on many μarchs. See Why is imul used for multiplying unsigned numbers?
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged hardware software c or ask your own question.
Why did C have the return type before functions? |
0.960164 | What is body fat and why are we obsessed with it?
Body fat is basically a store of energy that the body has not used yet. A certain amount of body fat is required by our bodies to function correctly, including the regulation of our body temperatures, for the functioning and cushioning of our internal organs, and also serving as a source of emergency energy during illnesses. This body fat is termed essential fat.
So how much body fat is considered healthy and normal? The table below shows the ranges of acceptable body fat by the American Council of Sports Medicine.
As we can see, for our bodies to function normally, women need at least 10-12% body fat, and men around 2-4%. Any levels below those will pose serious health risks. However, excess or non-essential body fat will lead to equally serious problems with our health–including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
It is estimated that 1.1 billion adults and 115 million children are obese worldwide. In 2006, the Malaysian National Health Morbidity Survey showed that 43.1% of the Malaysian adult population was overweight, and that 14% was obese. A later study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2010 indicated that 60% of Malaysian adults were overweight.
The Malaysian Association for the Study of Obesity (MASO) reports that as many as 15% of toddlers and pre-school Malaysian children in the country could be overweight and obese, and 30% of primary school children could be in the same category.
In 2011, Malaysia had become the country with the highest obesity rate in South East Asia. The number of Malaysian adults living with diabetes has alarmingly doubled from 1.5 million in 2006 to 3 million.
There are many tools available for measuring our body fat, each with its pros and cons, and difference in accuracy. Some examples include skin fold measurements, hydrostatic (underwater) weighing, DEXA scans etc. Methods like hydrostatic weighing and DEXA scans require the right equipment, and can be costly; whereas skinfold measurement is a more accessible method but will depend on the skill of the person carrying out the measurements. One simple way of assessing body fat is bioelectrical impedance analysis, where a small electrical current is passed through the body, and the impedance to the current flow is measured. Its accuracy is similar to skin fold measurements, as long as the subject obeys a few protocols prior to assessment, such as fasting for a few hours.
Do you take into account your body fat percentage when you set your fitness goals? If you do, what is your target body fat percentage? If not, why not visit us and take a simple test with our Tanita scanner, which utilizes impedance analysis technology? Let’s work together to make Malaysia a healthier, fitter nation. |
0.999985 | A summary of Golden Theater mode, Catherine: Full Body's story mode where players switch between Adventure and Action Puzzle gameplay.
Golden Theater is Catherine: Full Body’s story mode where you can enjoy the game’s unique story and characters while solving challenging puzzles. The game world consists of an adventure section and an action puzzle section.
While in Adventure, the player interacts with various characters in a bar called the Stray Sheep. You can talk to and have drinks with the game’s non-playable characters here. Hanging out in the Stray Sheep also allows you to check your email on your phone, save the game, or adjust the game’s difficulty.
The Action Puzzles are encountered during the player’s nightmare after going to sleep. In the nightmare, you are required to solve various block puzzles to reach the top of the dream. If you fall off the platform, the game will end.
The type of ending you get at the end of the game depends on the answers given to various questions asked in the story. The most critical period that affects the ending is the question you are asked in the 9th night. To see the different endings, just save your game at this time and change the answer to your question upon reloading. |
0.955235 | The World Fantasy Awards were established at the first World Fantasy Convention, an annual convention of professionals, collectors, and others interested in the field of fantasy, held that first year in horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's home city of Providence, Rhode Island in 1975. Winners were presented with a trophy in the form of a bust of an elongated caricature of Lovecraft designed by cartoonist Gahan Wilson, nicknamed the "Howard", which matched the theme of the first convention, "The Lovecraft Circle". As stated by Wilson in First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic, "The point of the awards was, is, and hopefully shall be to give a visible, potentially usable, sign of appreciation to writers working in the area of fantastic literature, an area too often distinguished by low financial remuneration and indifference".
At the start of the awards in 1975, seven categories were presented: Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Collection, Best Artist, Special Award—Professional, Special Award—Non-professional, and Life Achievement. Only a few categories have changed since then, and no changes have been made to the rules. 1978 saw the addition of the Convention Award, a special award given for general contributions to the genre, and the only award not given every year since the beginning. The Short Fiction award was split into Short Story and Novella awards in 1982, and in 1988 the multi-author anthologies, previously eligible for the Collection award, were split into their own Best Anthology category. No changes have been made since.
Winners were presented with the H. P. Lovecraft bust through the 2015 awards; at that ceremony the presenters announced that future ceremonies will no longer use the trophy. Although controversy had arisen in recent years over Lovecraft's history of racism, no explicit reason was given for the change. A new statuette, designed by Vincent Villafranca, was announced in April 2017 to be used for the 2016 awards on. The new award, which depicts a tree in front of a full moon, was intended to evoke the use of trees and night imagery in mythology, fantasy, and horror works.
World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by judges and attendees of the World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, with the two most-nominated selected, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors, as well as other fantasy professionals and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties if the judges are deadlocked. The awards administration is a subgroup of the World Fantasy Convention Board, which selects sites for upcoming World Fantasy Conventions. Both the board and the judges panel are largely made up of professionals in the field of fantasy. The judges for the 2014 awards, for example, were authors Andy Duncan, Kij Johnson, Oliver Johnson, and Liz Williams, and editor John Klima.
The nominees are announced in July, and final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention around the end of October. The Life Achievement and Convention Awards do not list nominees, and instead have the winner announced along with the other categories' nominees. The Life Achievement winner is decided by the judges panel, while the Convention award winner, not given every year, is selected by the convention organizers. The World Fantasy Convention itself is a multi-day event with several hundred attendees taking place in a different city each year, usually in the United States but sometimes in Canada or the United Kingdom. In addition to the awards ceremony, the conventions include an art show, a dealer's room, autograph receptions, and numerous panels and discussions.
The World Fantasy Awards are split into ten categories, including both awards for written works and for professionals in the field. Eligibility requirements are loosely defined: works must have been published in the prior calendar year, and professionals must still be living. All types of fantasy works are accepted, regardless of subgenre or style, though whether a given work is considered to be fantasy is left up to the discretion of the nominators and judges.
Across all categories, Ellen Datlow has both the most nominations and most wins of any nominee, with 10 wins out of 42 nominations, primarily for her anthologies. She is followed by Terri Windling with 9 out of 30 and Stephen Jones with 3 out of 28, both also mainly for editing anthologies. Jeffrey Ford has the highest number of wins after Datlow and Windling with 6 out of 14 nominations, and is tied for the highest number of fiction awards with Stephen King at four.
The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction). In 2010 multiple winner George R. R. Martin described winning the Hugo, Nebula, and "the prestigious World Fantasy Award" as the "triple crown". Others have also noted the award's prestige in the field, such as Tachyon Publications and 2014 Best Anthology winner Gardner Dozois. Stephen Jones of the Best New Horror series has said that winning the anthology award for their first volume in 1991 helped "establish the series among readers and some publishers" in multiple countries. Winners such as Nnedi Okorafor—Best Novel in 2011—have described the award as "one of my greatest honors as a writer". Editor and bookseller Rick Klaw in 2007, however, noted that the consensus at the time "in the bookselling community" was that winning the novel category did not have any effect on sales and did not help keep the book in print, with 57 percent of prior winners out of print, compared to 23 percent of Hugo Award winners from the same time period.
Two anthologies have been drawn from the World Fantasy Award winners: First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic in 1977, edited by Gahan Wilson and covering stories from the initial award year, and The World Fantasy Awards: Volume Two in 1980, edited by Stuart David Schiff and Fritz Leiber.
At the 1991 awards, graphic novel The Sandman issue #19 "A Midsummer Night's Dream", scripted by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess, won the award for Best Short Story. A common rumor afterwards was that the rules were subsequently changed to prevent another graphic novel from winning. The awards administration later clarified that comics and graphic novels were not intended to be eligible for that category, which did not require a rule change: "Comics are eligible in the Special Award Professional category. We never made a change in the rules." No person has won or been nominated for the Special Award Professional category for their work on a comic or graphic novel either before or since the controversy.
A minor controversy about the trophy occurred in 1984, when Donald Wandrei refused his Life Achievement award as he felt the award bust was a demeaning caricature of Lovecraft, whom he had known personally. Wandrei's rejected trophy was later recycled and given to another award winner.
A larger controversy surrounding the bust began in the 2010s, when several authors began to object to using the author H. P. Lovecraft as the symbol of the awards, given his outspoken racism, though others such as Lovecraft biographer S. T. Joshi claimed that Lovecraft's attitudes were not considered extreme at the time. Winners Okorafor and China Miéville noted in 2011 that they disliked being honored by a bust of a man who would have found many of the winners and nominees distasteful because of their race. Several authors and editors argued for the trophy to be changed, including a petition by author Daniel José Older in 2014, an editorial by The New York Review of Science Fiction editor Kevin J. Maroney arguing that it should be changed "as a courtesy to generations of writers whom the WFA hopes to honor", and 2014 Best Novel winner Sofia Samatar's acceptance speech.
In September 2014, the administrators of the World Fantasy Award announced they were "in discussion" about the future of the award trophy. In November 2015, at the 2015 awards, they announced that the Lovecraft bust would no longer be used beginning the following year. Lenika Cruz, associate editor of The Atlantic, defended the decision, stating that "Lovecraft's removal is about more than just the writer himself; it's not an indictment of his entire oeuvre". Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, however, expressed anger at the decision, and returned his two World Fantasy Awards and urged a boycott of the convention.
^ a b c d Flood, Alison (2014-09-17). "World Fantasy awards pressed to drop HP Lovecraft trophy in racism row". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2015-01-18. Retrieved 2015-01-30.
^ a b Cruz, Lenika (2015-11-12). "'Political Correctness' Won't Ruin H.P. Lovecraft's Legacy". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
^ Wilson, Gahan, ed. (1977). First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic. Doubleday. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-385-12199-6.
^ a b c "World Fantasy Awards". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
^ a b c Flood, Alison (2015-11-09). "World Fantasy award drops HP Lovecraft as prize image". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2015-11-18. Retrieved 2015-11-20.
^ "World Fantasy Awards Administration Awards Announcement". World Fantasy Convention Board. 2017-04-13. Retrieved 2017-04-13.
^ a b c d "World Fantasy Award Judges". World Fantasy Convention Board. Archived from the original on 2013-01-13. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
^ "World Fantasy Convention Board". World Fantasy Convention Board. Archived from the original on 2016-01-19. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
^ "World Fantasy Award Judges". World Fantasy Convention Board. Archived from the original on 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
^ a b "World Fantasy Convention Board Requirements". World Fantasy Convention Board. Archived from the original on 2016-01-19. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
^ "Supernatural convention set". Bangor Daily News. United Press International. 1975-10-09. p. 8. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
^ "World Fantasy Awards Tallies". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Archived from the original on 2015-06-30. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
^ a b Hermann, Brenda (1991-12-20). "Comic Book Wins Fiction Award For First, And Maybe Last, Time". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Company. Archived from the original on 2013-09-24. Retrieved 2013-09-24.
^ Waldrop, Howard (2010-10-23). Howard Who?: Stories. Small Beer Press. p. IV. ISBN 978-1-931520-18-8.
^ "We Are All Completely Fine wins the World Fantasy Award". Tachyon Publications. 2015-11-09. Archived from the original on 2015-12-07. Retrieved 2015-12-04.
^ Dozois, Gardner, ed. (1997-10-15). Modern Classics of Fantasy. St. Martin's Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-312-16931-2.
^ Jones, Stephen, ed. (2010-04-13). The Mammoth Book of the Best of the Best New Horror. Running Press. ISBN 978-0-7624-3841-9.
^ a b c Okorafor, Nnedi (2011-12-14). "Lovecraft's racism & The World Fantasy Award statuette, with comments from China Miéville". nnedi.blogspot.no. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
^ Klaw, Rick (2007-11-05). "The World Fantasy Award and Book Sales". Jeff VanderMeer. Archived from the original on 2014-08-11. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
^ Wilson, Gahan, ed. (1977). First World Fantasy Awards: An Anthology of the Fantastic. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-12199-6.
^ Schiff, Stuart David; Leiber, Fritz, eds. (1980). The World Fantasy Awards: Volume Two. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-15380-5.
^ "World Fantasy Awards Winners By Category". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Archived from the original on 2015-06-30. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
^ Sullivan, Jack (1986). The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. Viking Press. pp. 448–449. ISBN 0-670-80902-0.
^ Grant, John; Clute, John, eds. (1997-04-03). "Wandrei, Donald". The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St. Martin's Press. pp. 994–5. ISBN 0-312-19869-8.
^ Tyson, Donald (2010-11-08). The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft. Llewellyn Worldwide. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7387-2284-9. The least palatable aspect of Lovecraft's character was his lifelong, deeply ingrained bigotry and racism.
^ Maroney, Kevin J. (August 2014). "Editorial: Chance of Face, Change of Heart". The New York Review of Science Fiction. Burrowing Wombat Press (312). ISSN 1052-9438. Archived from the original on 2015-09-08.
^ Flood, Alison (2015-11-11). "HP Lovecraft biographer rages against ditching of author as fantasy prize emblem". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2015-11-30. Retrieved 2015-12-03. |
0.992007 | Giải đáp những thắc mắc về diễn đàn Bạn là lính mới? Hodnocení uživatelů Hodnocení uživatelů Uživatelé hodnotí aktuální stav střediska - ten se dělí na tři ukazatele: Fronty - Aktuální fronty ve středisku, hodnocenéje nejlépe). Statistika obiskov za Poroilo za mesec: Maj - Napotitelj Izdelano 01- Jun- 00: 01 CEST GEO- 106FREEBuild 1 Copyright ( c) MaxMind. Duisburg - Germany.
Windows Essentials ( Movie Maker Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer) reached end of support on January 10 . Hãy vào đây để được giúp đỡ Thành viên mới xin vào đọc FAQ trước khi post bài hay đặt câu hỏi. Solutions 2 GO ha annunciato i pre- order per le edizioni fisiche di Ark: Survival Evolved per Switch, oltre a quelli di PixArk ed Ark Park. New era packers stocking hat collana di ambra per neonati a cosa serve java artist faridabad weather city link courier sibiu new england rsp participants in ww1. Kvalita sněhu - Hodnocení kvality sněhu ve středisku hodnocenéje nejlépe) Stav sjezdovek - Hodnocení stavu sjezdovek ve středisku hodnocenéje nejlépe) Firefox Beta per Android si aggiorna alla versione 46 con la possibilità di visualizzare in offline le pagine web visitare di recente.
Obituaries for the last 7 days on Your Life Moments. Rent the latest blockbuster movie or order the big fight on pay per view. Free 3d ferrari live wallpaper for android. Fonte: Firefox Beta per Android si aggiorna alla versione 46 con alcune novità. Maxximize your television enjoyment by streaming your live local channels tons of On Demand TV shows movies. Questi titoli saranno disponibili presso i negozi in autunno. It’ s the perfect balance of creativity science to propel brand awareness, engagement, conversion loyalty. Postmedia Solutions gives you the power to grow your business. Andiamo con ordine: ARK: Survival Evolved su Nintendo Switch permette ora di portare la propria tribù ovunque a casa e in K su Switch include i contenuti e le v 03 · Windows downloads to help personalize protect your PC. Free 3d ferrari live wallpaper for android. L’ articolo Firefox Beta per Android si aggiorna alla versione 46 con alcune novità è stato pubblicato originariamente su Tutto Android. We blend media expertise with smart marketing. Oct 24, · Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up ( Official Video) - Listen On Spotify: Learn more about the brand new album ‘ Beautiful.
Free HD wallpaper and backgrounds for PC, iPhone and Android. Best way to entertain yourself is to look for funny pictures, images, photos, wallpapers, stock photos, phone wallpapers and free stock images all.
To Download Asphalt Nitro For PC, users need to install an Android Emulator like Xeplayer. With Xeplayer, you can Download Asphalt Nitro for PC version on your Windows 7, 8, 10 and legation strategies for the NCLEX, Prioritization for the NCLEX, Infection Control for the NCLEX, FREE resources for the NCLEX, FREE NCLEX Quizzes for the NCLEX, FREE NCLEX exams for the NCLEX, Failed the NCLEX - Help is here. |
0.999992 | Target: I can write a narrative essay that uses dialogue.
Look at the picture above. Think about what is happening in the picture. What do you think happened before? What do you think will happen next? Why is that snowman upside down?
Your task is to write a story inspired by this picture. You will write your story on a Google Document. |
0.998018 | "The cure for teen obesity? Eating five times a day," is the advice on the Mail Online website. It reports on a study that looked at how frequently a large number of teenagers ate their daily meals, and whether this might affect the impact of genetic risk factors for being obese. A number of genetic variants have been identified as being associated with an increased risk of an individual becoming obese.
The researchers found that in adolescents who ate five meals a day (three standard meals plus two snacks), genetic risk factors seemed to have less of an effect on body mass index (BMI).
However, the main limitation of this study is that meal frequency was assessed at the same time as BMI, so researchers can't say for certain whether meal frequency was affecting BMI or vice versa. They also didn't have information about what the participants ate, so couldn't see how the number of calories consumed compared between those eating five meals a day and those who did not.
Although this study by itself is not conclusive, there is a growing interest in how our eating patterns, and not just what we eat, is linked to our risk of being overweight. It is hoped that a better understanding of these links will help people know how best to maintain a healthy weight.
The study was carried out by researchers from the University of Eastern Finland and other research centres in Finland, the UK and France. It was funded by the Academy of Finland and the Nordic Centre of Excellence on SYSDIET (systems biology in controlled dietary interventions and cohort studies).
The study was published in the peer-reviewed open access journal PLoS One, which can be read online or downloaded for free.
The Mail Online's headline uses the word "cure", a word that needs to be used with more caution. It is unlikely that regular mealtimes on their own are a "cure" for obesity, and this is not what the study itself suggests.
The Mail also refers to the genetic risk factor as "eight gene mutations that cause obesity", which is a bit of an oversimplification. The genetic variants in question are common among the population and don't "cause" obesity: they are in fact associated with an increased chance of a person being overweight.
Both genetic and environmental factors (diet and physical activity) play a role in a person's weight. Carrying these genetic variants may mean a person is more likely to gain weight, but they don't guarantee that they will be overweight or obese, or make it impossible to lose weight.
The Mail also reports on other findings from this ongoing study, such as the impact of maternal obesity in pregnancy on child obesity. These findings were not part of the study in the PLoS publication being covered. The accuracy of the reporting of these claims has not been reported here.
This was cross-sectional analysis that looked at the relationship between meal frequency and BMI in adolescents with and without genetic risk factors for obesity.
The causes of obesity are complex, and include genetic and environmental factors. Genome wide analyses have identified many common genetic variants linked to an increased risk of obesity. These genetic variants do not guarantee that a person will be overweight; instead, people who carry them have a higher risk of being overweight. Some studies have suggested that patterns of eating – such as meal frequency – also have an effect.
The researchers found in a previous study that 16-year-olds who ate five meals a day were less likely to be overweight or obese. In the current study, they wanted to see if meal frequency might "modify" the effect of genetic risk factors in adolescents. That is, whether adolescents genetically predisposed to be overweight might be less likely to have a higher BMI if they ate five meals a day rather than fewer meals.
The researchers assessed mealtime habits, BMI and genetic risk factors for obesity in 4,669 Finnish teenagers. They looked at how these factors were inter-related, particularly how meal frequency was related to BMI in teenagers with or without a genetic predisposition to becoming overweight.
The study analysed adolescents taking part in the prospective Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986, an ongoing cohort study. This study recruited 9,432 infants born in the two northernmost provinces of Finland to women with expected delivery dates between July 1, 1985 and June 30, 1986. This represented 99% of the eligible births in the region. The participants have been followed up since the pregnancy.
The researchers checked whether the participants carried eight genetic variants associated with an increased risk of obesity. Each participant had their own "genetic risk score", which was the sum of all the genetic risk variants they carried. The current study only included participants who had complete data on all of the factors being analysed.
The researchers then analysed whether meal frequency and genetic risk score were associated with BMI. They also looked at whether meal frequency impacted the relationship between genetic risk score and BMI. In these analyses, they took into account the participants' gender and stage of puberty.
The average BMI among the study participants was 21.2 kg/m2. The researchers found that adolescents with a high genetic risk score (eight risk variants or more) had an average BMI 0.7 kg/m2 higher than those with a low genetic risk score (fewer than eight risk variants). Adolescents who usually ate five meals a day had an average BMI 0.9 kg/m2 lower than those who had fewer meals. Genetic risk score and meal patterns were not related.
When the researchers looked at individuals with different meal patterns separately, they found that the effect of the genetic risk factors was less among those who ate five meals a day. In adolescents who ate five meals a day, each additional genetic risk variant was associated with a 0.15 kg/m2 increase in BMI, compared with a 0.27 kg/m2 increase among those who did not eat five meals a day.
For an adolescent who was 170cm tall, this would mean each additional genetic risk variant was associated with a 0.43kg increase in weight for those who did eat five meals a day, compared with a 0.78kg increase among those who did not eat five meals a day.
Among those who ate five meals a day, the difference in BMI between those with high genetic risk scores and low scores was 0.32 kg/m2, while in those who didn't the difference was greater (0.90 kg/m2).
The researchers concluded that having a regular five meals a day pattern reduced the impact of genetic risk factors on BMI in adolescents. They suggest that promoting regular eating patterns could be an effective obesity prevention strategy.
This study has suggested that having regular meals is associated with a reduced impact of genetic risk factors for being overweight in adolescents. The study was part of an ongoing cohort study, which benefits from the fact that it included a high proportion of the eligible population, its prospective data collection, and standard measurement of BMI.
There are two main limitations of the current study. Although it was part of a cohort study, the analyses only looked at data collected at one point in time, when the children were 16 years old. Their genetic risk factors would have been present from conception and therefore would have preceded their current BMI.
However, their reported meal patterns may not have preceded their current BMIs, and there may be some "reverse causality" at play. This means that the adolescents may be adapting their meal pattern as a result of their BMI and not vice versa, so if they think they are overweight, they may try to restrict their meals.
The second main limitation is that only a small amount of information was collected on meals. Only one question was asked about meal frequency, and this question had not been tested for how well it matched data collected in food diaries, for example. Also, no data was collected on what the adolescents ate, so this could not be taken into account in the analyses. It is not clear how the number of calories or types of foods those eating five meals a day were eating compared with those who did not have this number of meals a day.
It is also worth noting that BMIs are interpreted differently for children and young people aged under 18 than for adults. It was not clear if any of the adolescents in the current study would have been considered overweight or obese.
This study illustrates a growing interest in how we eat and what we eat, as well as the relationship between genetic and environmental risk factors for obesity. |
0.999422 | How does a flood happen?
Floods can happen for many reasons, two of the main reasons are: too much rain and infrastructure damage.
Floods occur when a typically dry region becomes wet (a street becomes a river).
Most commonly, when a region is exposed to excessive (torrential) rainfall rivers, streams, and lakes overflow and their banks spillover onto land that is normally dry.
Sometimes a storm system doesn't deliver enough rain to a region to make the banks of a body of water spillover but the system does have enough force to destroy infrastructure.
Infrequently, snow melts at higher elevations quite rapidly (near instantaneously) and flows down to lower elevations, this results in a flood.
Another new type of flood is called a Glacial Outburst Flood that occurs in mountain regions around Nepal, Greenland and similar locations.. Many towns are located downstream from natural dams left by the glaciers. With rapid global warming, the lakes that are often found behind these natural dams start to rapidly fill up. At some point, the natural dam fails and a torrent of water is sent flying down the valley, killing hundreds.
How evolution affects our lives?
How can evolution be measured?
Can you explain how evolution occurs?
How is evolution both fact and theory?
How does evolution produce new species? |
0.967256 | Is pumkin itself kosher for passover?
Yes. Pumpkin is kosher for Passover. However, pumpkin seeds alone, that have come in contact with water are considered kitnyos, and not acceptable by some ashkinosic Jews. |
0.999679 | You need to ensure that Developer1 and Developer2 meet the requirements. How should you design the process?
Developer1 should build the UI components to expose the data. Developer2 should implement the data collection component of the SocialRetriever class.
Developer1 should implement the data collection component of the SocialRetriever class. Developer2 should build the UI components to expose the data.
Developer1 should develop the new code. Developer2 should perform the testing process.
Developer1 should design the test cases. Developer2 should develop the new code.
Two developers will create the SocialRetriever class, with the following assignments: Developerl must update methods for getting data.
Developer2 must implement three new methods for exposing data to the user interface.
05 args.Request.ApplicationCommands.Add(cmd) ; You need to configure the Settings charm.
Fabrikam purchases 200 Windows 8.1 RT devices for each museum. Fabrikam plans to develop an app to replace the paper pamphlets.
Fabrikam plans to minimize development effort and reuse the data access components, if possible.
->The app must be available from the Windows App store.
->The app must be available to devices that run Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT.
->If a user switches to a different app, the new app must enter a Not Running state after 10 seconds.
->The app must provide users with the ability to share pictures with other apps.
->Users must be able to search for paintings and sculptures by name from within the app.
->When users type in search terms, the app must present users with a suggested list of painting and sculpture names.
->The main page must display grouped items.
->Once the users tap on a group on the main page, the app must open the group detail page.
->The main page must display all of the items for a selected group.
->The group detail page must have two groups, named Paintings and Sculptures, and must display a list of the paintings and sculptures in the museum with the name and a small image of the item.
->The group detail page must display a list of all the items in the group. The list must contain the image and the name of the item.
->The app must have a second view of the group details that displays the name, a description, and an image of each item.
->Users must be able to use the mouse wheel or pinch gestures to move between the two views of the group detail page.
->The item detail page must display the name, a full description, and a large image of the item.
->When the user taps the image of an item on the item detail page, an element named FoundNotFoundFlyout must be displayed. The FoundNotFoundFlyout element will be declared in the Resources section of the page.
->As an alternative to tapping an image on the item detail page, users must be able to use a check gesture to mark the item as found.
->A page named CapturePhoto will be created to capture and display pictures.
->Pictures must have an aspect ratio of 16 by 9.
->As new pictures are taken, the app must update the app tile to show the current number of pictures taken.
->A method named UpdatePictureCount will be called any time a new picture is saved. The method will take an integer parameter named pictureCount. The method will use NotificationExtensions library to handle updates.
->The tile will have a text block named outputText.
You need to add code to the lt;Imagegt; element to support marking items as found or not found.
Which code segment should you add to the lt;Imagegt; element on the item detail page?
Explanation: Scenario: When the user taps the image of an item on the item detail page, an element named FoundNotFoundFlyout must be displayed. The FoundNotFoundFlyout element will be declared in the Resources section of the page.
* A semantic zoom control allows the user to zoom between two different semantic views of the same data set. One view contains a list of items grouped by some key, and the other view contains a list of group keys. Tapping a group key zooms back into the items in that group. |
0.969894 | Why did Poe write Eureka?
The cosmogony Eureka, which Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) published the year before his death, anticipates modern science and cosmology. It describes a process that is now popularly known as the ‘Big Bang’ and the expanding universe. But it also contains ideas about the unity of space and time, the mathematical equality of matter and energy, the velocity of light and a rudimentary concept of relativity, black holes (including one at the center of our Milky Way), a “pulsating” universe that renews itself eternally, and other universes in other dimensions with different laws of nature.
Contrary to the 19th century belief in a static and clockwork universe, Eureka describes a dynamic universe that is continually evolving, including evolution and succession of species on earth, even the human one. Poe saw Eureka as the completion of his oeuvre. But it was immediately attacked and harshly criticized, and after the initial edition of only 500 copies, it was not reprinted for more than a century. Until the end of the 20th century it was Poe’s most ignored work in the USA.
But in Europe things went differently. The French translations of Poe’s work by the poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), made Poe incredibly popular and influential. Eureka was published in 1859 in a French/Swiss international cultural magazine, so it got a flying start and it was regarded as a visionary masterpiece by one of the greatest minds ever. In 1871 it was even officially forbidden in czarist Russia because of the revolutionary contents, although Poe’s other work was admired and influential there.
This means that from 1860 onwards the concepts of a Big Bang and an evolving and open universe were common knowledge in Europe. It would only be a matter of time till these ideas were picked up by scientists. This happened during the “Roaring Twenties,” when physics and astronomy were completely revised, due to the General Theory of Relativity and the advent of quantum physics.
The first who used Poe’s ideas was the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann (1888-1925), who was a fan of Poe. In 1922 he published the mathematics for a dynamic universe, as an alternative for Einstein’s “cosmological constant.” The second one was the Belgian astronomer and priest Georges Lemaître (1894-1966), who suggested the Big Bang in 1927. Poe’s ideas were clearly behind these scientific breakthroughs, but he never received the credits.
Most Poe biographers and scholars were at odds over Eureka. Some considered it humbug that was not worth reading; it even helped to convince Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein that Poe had a pathological personality. But others had a positive opinion, like the American Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman (1923-2013), who saw it as a masterpiece and the key to Poe’s oeuvre.
Fortunately, Eureka is now gradually receiving more and more serious attention as a major step in our understanding of the universe.
So what is the deeper meaning of Eureka? And why did Poe write it, although he foresaw that it would be “trodden down,” as he wrote in the introduction?
Such a miserable and powerless human condition was unacceptable to Poe. So clocks and pendulums (a symbol for both time and gravity) became metaphors for loss of freedom, death, destruction and despair in tales like The Pit and the Pendulum; The Masque of the Red Death; A Predicament; The Devil in the Belfry and Hop Frog.
In order to escape from this philosophical death trap, Poe had to deconstruct the existing scientific ideas about the universe, and design a completely new one. And that is what Eureka does: it is a radical attack on science, which is followed by the construction of an alternative universe that is fit for humans to live in.
Eureka opens with a deriding summary of western thought, but seen in retrospect from the year 2848. The real message is that rational thought and the scientific method of deduction and induction are not sufficient to understand the deeper reality of nature. That requires another human faculty, the “intuition.”As an example Poe mentioned the astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) who “imagined” the cosmic laws, who “grasped these laws with his soul,” who could understand the machinery of the universe “through mere dint of intuition.” And, following the British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Poe rejected the notion of axioms. or self-evident truths. because these only indicate the limitations in our imagination. It is remarkable that he mentions Euclid’s fifth axiom, that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, as such a fake axiom, because that idea would later lead to the development of hyper-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.
The first part of Eureka anticipated later philosophers of science, like Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend. But Poe clearly meant it to undo the certainties in his readers minds, to open them to a new world.
So he reduced gravitation into a temporary effect that only acts as long as matter is radiated and diffused into space. Once matter returns to the original unity, gravity will immediately cease to exist. Further gravity is not a force by itself, but an effect that is generated by a deeper and immediate interaction between fundamental particles, the “sympathy,” which creates an immaterial field throughout the universe. So the effect of gravitation acts instantaneous, regardless of distance.
But Eureka also states that electromagnetic phenomena can never exceed the velocity of light, which creates a dichotomy in the universe: the gravitational effects of celestial bodies are observable, long before their light reaches us! This dichotomy gives an elegant and simple explanation of dark matter and dark energy, which are the gravitational effects of matter that is not yet visible, because its electromagnetic information has not yet reached us. If Poe is right, the universe is larger and older than we think now. Our visible universe is then surrounded by a still invisible outer shell with millions or even billions of galaxies whose gravitation is attracting the interior in all directions, thereby causing a local acceleration of the expansion.
Could Edgar Allan Poe be right? For 160 years Eureka has not only stealthily contributed to science, but it has also easily admitted new ideas and explained unanswered questions. It is certainly one of the most prolific and intriguing documents in world literature.
The evolution in Eureka is a gradual ‘vitalic’ development to ever higher forms of life, in combination with the sudden extinction of old species and the advent of new ones, due to cosmic and geologic catastrophes.
See Poe in Belgium in Poe Abroad; University of Iowa Press, 1999. And Poe and the Belgian Aesthetic Movement in Poe Studies, Dark Romanticism, Volume 33, Nrs. 1&2, Washington State University, 2001.
In 1933 Princess Marie Bonaparte wrote a psychoanalytical biography of Poe. In the foreword Sigmund Freud diagnosed Poe as a pathological case. This biography did severely damage Poe’s reputation in Europe and the USA. However, it is clear that Bonaparte and Freud had no idea what Poe’s intentions were with Eureka and several of his best known tales.
At the First International Poe Conference (Richmond, VA, 1999) one paper on Eureka was presented. At the second international conference (Baltimore, 2002), there were two Eureka presentations. At the third international conference (Philadelphia, 2009) there was one. The ‘Positively Poe’ conference (University of Virginia, 2013) had four papers on Eureka. And the fourth international Poe conference (NY City, 2015) had two sessions on Eureka with eight presentations. In 2008 the ‘Poe Society of Japan’ organized a special conference on Eureka, together with four universities.
The website www.poe-eureka.com collects all available information on Eureka.
That gravity is not a fundamental force of nature, has also been suggested in theoretical physics, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html In 2012 the physicist Erik Verlinde (University of Amsterdam) also suggested that gravity acts instantaneous.
That the recently discovered ‘gravity waves’ have the velocity of light, does not impede that the gravity effect acts instantaneous. Gravity waves are vibrations of the time-space fabric itself, but the gravity effect acts inside that fabric. An analogy can be found in water: pressure waves inside water go hundreds of times faster than ripples on its surface. |
0.999915 | Expand the Backyard Patio If your home has a tiny back patio, increase its size. The process is simple: Dig up the grass in the area you would like to expand the patio into, cover the area with a thin tarp (so weeds won't grow through), and install 12" x 12" concrete pavers, which can be purchased from your local home improvement store. Pavers are very reasonably priced, so your only significant investment is time and a little sweat. Level the ground as much as possible prior to laying down the tarp, and push the pavers tightly into place.
Resurface the Blacktop Driveway An old, cracked blacktop driveway is truly an eyesore, especially if weeds are pushing through. But repairing it isn't as hard as you might think. Check the weather report beforehand, as you need a few days of dry weather to complete the job. Next, remove all the weeds growing through, and fill all the cracks with blacktop filler. Be sure to apply the filler generously, as it tends to settle over time. Next, sweep your driveway thoroughly to remove all dust and debris, and clean any gas and oil stains as best you can with a degreaser. Pour a thin layer of driveway sealer across the top of the driveway, and smooth it out with an industrial-strength squeegee. Just be careful around the edges of the driveway; if you're concerned about overspill, line the driveway with piece of 2" x 4" lumber to protect your yard. Don't forget to cordon off your driveway to keep visitors and neighbors from driving and walking on it - and allow it to dry for at least 48 hours.
Install Walkways Another way to spruce up your yard is to install walkways. No concrete pouring is necessary - just measure your walkway and purchase 12" x 12" pavers to be placed approximately 30 inches apart along the length of it. Dig shallow squares where you'd like to place the pavers, making sure to dig holes deep enough so that the pavers settle in slightly below the the level of your yard. If you dig the holes too shallow, you may find that the pavers rise and protrude slightly, creating unsightly obstacles.
Plant Flowerbeds One of the easiest home staging tips is to plant a flowerbed. You could run a flowerbed across the side of your home, along either side of your front walkway, or around a tree in the front yard. If weeds are present in the area, first spray them with weed killer or pull them out. If you use a weed killer, let the area sit for two hours before proceeding. Next, dig your flowerbed to a depth of approximately six inches. Mix the removed soil with equal amounts of planting mix and compost, and place this mixture into the bed. Now, you're ready to plant. Make sure the flowers are spaced evenly. If you like, add fertilizer or weed preventer.
Final Thoughts When it comes to any home landscaping project, proper maintenance is key. Nothing looks worse than a flowerbed overgrown with weeds, or a patio with grass growing through it. Take the time to do these projects correctly, and properly care for them once completed. Aside from the pride you can take in your attractive surroundings, you're also likely to reap the benefits when you sell your home. What other simple landscaping projects can you think of to improve the value of your home?
David Bakke is a homeowner in Atlanta who enjoys taking part in DIY home improvement projects. He writes about money saving tips, real estate, and more on Money Crashers Personal Finance.
Love to have a raise bed for veggies besides planting flowers! It will surely give a beautiful appeal! |
0.936793 | Boris Karloff, whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was an English-born actor who emigrated to Canada in the 1910s. Karloff performed in a variety of contexts throughout his career, but is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein, 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939 film Son of Frankenstein. His popularity following Frankenstein in the early 1930s was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or, on some movie posters, "Karloff the Uncanny".
Karloff was born at 36 Forest Hill Road, East Dulwich, London, SE22, England, where a blue plaque can now be seen. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and Eliza Sarah Millard. His paternal grandparents were Edward John Pratt, an Anglo-Indian, and Eliza Julia Pratt, a sister of Anna Leonowens The two sisters were also of Anglo-Indian heritage.
Karloff was brought up in Enfield. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was raised by his elder siblings. He later attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, and went on to attend King's College London where he studied to go into the consular service. He dropped out in 1909 and worked as a farm labourer and did various odd jobs until he happened into acting. His brother, Sir John Thomas Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat. Karloff was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered as a young boy. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable all through his career.
In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada and some time later changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff". Some have theorized that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called "Boris Karlov". However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films. Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H.R.H. The Rider which features a "Prince Boris of Karlova", but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their "baby" brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him. |
0.99698 | How can I reinforce my castle?
There are different approaches. You can upgrade your walls and most of your weapons gradually.
Items are marked with their current and their maximum level. Wooden walls, for example, will eventually become stone walls. The positioning of walls and weapons, however, is crucial as well.
To win as many battles as possible, you should reinforce your castle as often as possible and upgrade your weapons as much as you can!
To do this, press the "Build" button. Now you see the number of available and already in use construction sites.
With each level up, you will receive an additional construction site.
With the "Green Plus" you can buy additional construction sites and expand your castle even faster and equip it with more weapons. |
0.999057 | Which game am I referring to in the headline above? Atlus' breast-y, Guardian Heroes-esque beat 'em up, Code of Princess.
Aside from that, two thoughts ran through my head while watching this Code of Princess teaser. The first: I really hope a demo of this game appears on the 3DS eShop sometime between now and whenever it's released in North America. The second: I'll bet it would be sweet to play this game on a 3DS XL.
Are any of you also salivating over the possibility of playing Code of Princess later this year?
I'm getting a shoujo pokemon vibe from this game. Still this is the first time I've seen a trailer and it looks pretty good. I might end up buying this right away if they release a demo on the eShop. Otherwise it'll be the usual Gamefly rental.
Hey there, Frank! Yes, I think getting a demo of this game onto the eShop would be a very wise move for the folks at Atlus. Another important aspect of this release, I think, will be its price. Personally, I doubt I'll buy it if it retails for $39.99. At $29.99 or less, though, I'd be much more likely to pick it up.
As for the XL ruining my 3DS experience: Nah, not yet. That may change, though, as more colors are released. Also, I have a feeling the release of Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion and Paper Mario will prompt me to want one a lot more than I do now.
I'm still pretty interested in Code of Princess. My only concern is that it seems like it might be a bit too focused on the multiplayer experience (like the Crystal Chronicles games). I mean seriously, do you see yourself doing a lot of multiplayer in this type of game? And usually that's an excuse to make the quests generic and not have much of a story.
A demo won't do me any good since I don't have a 3DS yet, so I'm gonna wait to see what the reviews say.
Well, that's why I want a demo, warp. I think a demo would help me decide if the game is too shallow, multiplayer-focused, whatever to pick up or if it's exactly what I'm looking for. Reviews will help, too. I'm definitely not interested in picking up a game that focuses solely, or even mostly, on multiplayer, though, as that not where I spend most of my time these days.
After watching the trailer, I don't get the game. Tho the combat looks like it could degenerate into a button mashing fest (like Tales of the Abyss), which I have vowed to avoid, which may include that Project X Zone game too!
Have you ever played Guardian Heroes for the Saturn, Igor? It's basically the same game -- or a very similar one. If you haven't played that game, it's a brawler -- like Final Fight, etc. -- only there are different planes you can fight on. If you don't like button-masher brawlers, though, it probably isn't for you!
Never heard of it, and that's probably cos I never had a Saturn (Sega consoles never interested me much).
And yeah, if its a fighter-like game, then it won't be as interesting to me. I generally find them boring and like I said, degenerate into button mash fests.
If it's anything like Guardian Heroes it will be far from a button mash fest.
Really looking forward to this game. I'm a big fan of gaurdian heroes!
Igor: Well, this game may not be for you, then. Personally, I'm interested in it mostly because of the graphics and because it promises to be like Guardian Heroes, which I liked a lot back in the day. No worries if it's not your thing, though!
i was kind of intrigued by this one, although watching this review dampened my interest some.
Hey there, sharc! Thanks for sharing that video. I hadn't seen it before now. You're right that the review makes the game seem a bit less interesting than it did previously -- the part about no branching paths was especially disappointing to me -- but I'm still looking forward to checking it out. Like I've said before, I really hope a demo will be released so we can see for ourselves if the game is worth the price of entry or not. |
0.946058 | When Caleb was young he loved to play and imagine different worlds. Dressing up and pretending to be another person along with being able to build characters is what gave him joy. Unfortunately, this talent wasn't encouraged. As a result, he did not do anything with the passion until his early teens when he participated in the youth group at City Hope Fellowship performing small skits.
Then Caleb started going to Beit Shalom and joined their youth group; that also performed a couple skits a year to celebrate different jewish holidays such as Purim and Hanukkah. It was a fun thing to do with everyone, but it wasn't anything serious.
Finally, in his senior year of High School, Caleb got the courage to try out for the High School musical, Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical. He was casted as the pimp. It was then that a strange thing happened for him. He found joy and a sense of community that he had never really truly felt before. Originally, Caleb was scared to go out on stage, but he had intense passion that chased away any feelings of stage fright.
With this new sense of community Caleb discovered a drive and a passion start to grow in him for the performing arts. When his cousin and brother took over the Beit Shalom youth group, it led to quite a few changes. Since then he has directed, produced, acted in, and written multiple productions. Caleb has co-written a jukebox musical Chasing Annie (2015) with Megan Marzeski. Most recently co-wrote the book with Heather Valyou and wrote the music for the first in a series of musicals called The Promise: The Story of Tamar (2017).
Caleb continues to pursue what G-d has for him and EagleTree Productions. As he surrounds himself with people in the company that will push him and that he will push towards the mission given to them and this company.
How did EagleTree Productions come to be?
It started when Caleb's cousin, Elizabeth, and brother, Zachary, wanted to rewrite the Purim skit. He took a leap of faith when he asked to help write a new script. He wrote and co-directed For a Time: A Story of Esther. In doing the production, Elizabeth and him founded the Beit Shalom Players, now EagleTree Productions. Beit Shalom Players were born out of a passion to see Biblical and non-biblical stories come to life using the arts. With that birth, the belief that with the G-d given talents bestowed in each of us; we can use them to create great art that will glorify G-d. Since then, He has starred in, directed, and produced For Such A Time: A Story of Esther, The Chosen, Screwtape, and Chasing Annie. |
0.992061 | You have a terrible headache. How do you know if it's something serious? Some of the symptoms of a migraine can be very much like those of a stroke.
If you think there's even the slightest chance you're having a stroke, call 911 right away. Early treatment can limit the damage to your brain and possibly save your life.
If you're over 40 and have never had a migraine, assume your pain is something more serious. People who get migraine typically have it most of their lives. It's rare to have your first symptoms when you're older.
If you get migraine and your aura symptoms or headaches seem different than what you’ve typically experienced,, get checked out. Most people with migraine have similar symptoms each time.
During a stroke, blood flow to part of your brain is cut off. Cells there don't get enough oxygen and start to die.
There can be two causes. Either a blood vessel is blocked, for instance with a blood clot, or a blood vessel tears or bursts and causes bleeding in or around the brain.
The kind of stroke that tends to be mistaken for a migraine is called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA. It's also known as a "mini stroke" because blood flow to your brain is cut off only for a short time. Symptoms are less severe than with a regular stroke and may last less than an hour.
Migraine is a disease that causes recurrent attacks of head pain together with other symptoms such as a bad headache that often comes with nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light, sound, smell, or touch. The pain may throb or pulse, and you usually feel it on one side of your head around your eye or temple.
A migraine with aura is the kind that can be confused with a stroke. An aura affects your senses and usually happens before the headache. You may see light flashes, zig-zagged lines, or blind spots, or you might feel tingling or numbness in your arms, legs, or face. You might have ringing in your ears or trouble speaking. Sometimes, you'll have those symptoms but never get a headache. That tends to happen more often as you get older.
With a stroke, symptoms usually come on suddenly. With a migraine, they happen gradually; the headache usually starts small and gets more painful.
A stroke is more likely to have what are called "negative" symptoms such as you might lose sight in one eye or lose feeling in one of your hands or feet. A migraine is more likely to have "positive" symptoms. That means added sensations, like flashes in your vision or tingling in your skin.
If you're young, it's more likely to be a migraine. If you're older, it's more likely to be a stroke, especially if you've never had a migraine before or you have high blood pressure or an irregular heartbeat.
Doctors aren't sure exactly how migraine and strokes are linked. They do know that people who get migraine with aura are about twice as likely to have a stroke as people who don't get migraine at all. The risk goes way up if you're also a young woman who smokes and takes birth control pills.
A migraine without aura don't seem to affect your chances of having a stroke. But they may make you more likely to have other heart-related problems.
One theory about the connection has to do with damage to the cells that line the blood vessels. Some research has found that a migraine can cause inflammation inside your arteries. That can make them stiff and cause your blood to clot more easily. Both of those increase your chances of a stroke.
It's possible to have a stroke while you're having a migraine, but that doesn't mean the migraine caused the stroke. A stroke can trigger migraine symptoms, including the aura.
Certain medications for migraine headaches, including ergot alkaloids and triptans, can narrow your arteries. If you've had a stroke, you shouldn't take those.
In general, medicines and lifestyle changes (like quitting smoking) that lower your risk of a stroke may also keep you from having migraine.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: "Stroke Information Page," "Transient Ischemic Attack Information Page," "Migraine Information Page."
American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
National Headache Foundation: "Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIA)," "Migraine," "Aura."
The Migraine Trust: "Stroke and Migraine."
American Migraine Foundation: "Migraine, Stroke and Heart Disease."
Migraine Research Foundation: "Migraine Facts."
National Stroke Association: "Do I Have A Migraine, Or Is This A Stroke?"
Kurth, T. Stroke, November, 2012.
Quiz: What Do You Know About Strokes? |
0.988476 | Read about the factors that cause both vacant and occupied properties to be unhealthy or unsafe. Unhealthy & unsafe properties Read about the factors that cause both vacant and occupied properties to be unhealthy or unsafe.
Both vacant and occupied properties with overgrown vegetation, an accumulation of materials or swimming pools with stagnant water can pose a health, safety and environmental hazard to the community.
Overgrown properties are one of the most common issues reported to Council, especially during the spring and summer months. Overgrown properties are a concern as they can potentially harbour vermin, create a neighbourhood nuisance and in some cases, pose as a fire danger.
Council encourages residents to try to solve the problem amicably by talking to the property owner, occupier or managing agent if known. Often people are unaware that their lack of property maintenance is causing a problem.
Accumulated materials stored on a property can potentially harbour vermin, create a neighbourhood nuisance and in some cases, pose as a fire danger. The materials, if left unsecured, can potentially enter our stormwater drains and pollute our City's waterways.
Swimming pools that are not regularly filtered and chlorinated can produce putrid odours and breed mosquitos, which are known to spread disease.
Council encourages residents to try to solve the problem amicably by talking to the property owner, occupier or managing agent if known. Often people are unaware that their lack of swimming pool maintenance is causing a problem. |
0.93426 | An historic Jaguar driven by a host of motorsport legends, including Sir Stirling Moss, has gone for sale for a whopping £11m.
The D-Type Jag was the lead car of the Jaguar Works team during the 1954 Le Mans 24-hour race and was driven by Moss and Peter Walker.
The pair were hot favourites for the title and they led the race until midnight, even setting a then record speed of 172.97mph, before the brakes gave up, costing them their shot at glory.
The 3.4l motor continued to compete for Jaguar throughout the 1954 season before it passed through several owners who also raced it.
In 1963 British mechanic Alistair Smith was killed in the car during a low speed crash in Canada.
The incident led to the D-type being placed into storage where it remained for 17 years.
It was brought out of storage in 1980 and has spent much of its recent life owned by enthusiast Terry Larson, from Arizona, US.
Larson sold the car to its current owner in 2011, but he too has now decided to sell, with bidding expected to reach around £11.1m.
The 22nd annual 24-hour endurance race took place between June 12 and 13 1954 at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans.
It was badly affected by poor weather throughout and Moss and Walker did not finish the race due to brake failure 12 hours in.
José Froilán González and Maurice Trintignant won. The year after saw 84 killed in a crash.
The Jaguar is being sold by RM Sotheby's Auctioneers.
A spokesman for the auctioneers, said: 'This is the third of just six Works D-Types to come out of Jaguar's Coventry factory in 1954.
'It was piloted by none other than Sir Stirling Moss and Peter Walker.
'The car led the race and set a new speed record of 172.97mph before retiring with brake problems just after midnight.
'All told, it was one of the most actively raced D-Types of the 1950s and was driven at one point or another by some of the most hallowed names in racing.
The two-seater car has British racing green bodywork and matching interior.
'It remains in superb condition and has a racing number 12 painted on the left hand door and at the rear.
Also at the rear is a huge fin designed to take in air for the engine which sits at the front.
The classic racing look is completed by a list of the drivers to have used the car which is painted on the side door, including Moss and Walker.
The sale takes place on January 18.
Sir Stirling first raced in 1948 at the age of 18, and joined F1 in 1951.
From 1955 and 1961 he finished second in the F1 championship four times, and third on the other three occasions.
His name became a byword for English sportsmanship, and he was rated by five-time Formula One world champion Juan Manuel Fangio as the greatest driver of all time.
Widely regarded as his finest achievement was winning the 1955 Mille Miglia at an average speed of almost 100mph on Italian public roads, a performance still seen by many as the greatest drive in the history of competitive racing. |
0.970472 | The Yasukuni Shrine built in the 19th century to honour those who died on behalf of the emperor of Japan.
Japanese nationalism (Japanese: 国家主義, Hepburn: Kokka shugi) is the nationalism that asserts that the Japanese are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of the Japanese. It encompasses a broad range of ideas and sentiments harbored by the Japanese people over the last two centuries regarding their native country, its cultural nature, political form and historical destiny. It is useful to distinguish Japanese cultural nationalism (see also nihonjinron) from political or state-directed nationalism (i.e., Shōwa statism), since many forms of cultural nationalism, such as those associated with folkloric studies (i.e., Yanagita Kunio), have been hostile to state-fostered nationalism.
In Meiji period Japan, nationalist ideology consisted of a blend of native and imported political philosophies, initially developed by the Meiji government to promote national unity and patriotism, first in defense against colonization by Western powers, and later in a struggle to attain equality with the Great Powers. It evolved through the Taishō and Shōwa periods to justify an increasingly totalitarian government and overseas expansionism, and provided a political and ideological foundation for the actions of the Japanese military in the years leading up to World War II.
Constituted over a long time by house manuals on war and warriorship, it gained some official backing with the establishment of the Bakufu, which sought an ideological orthodoxy in the Neo-Confucianism of Chu Hsi tailored for military echelons that formed the basis of the new shogunal government . An important early role was played by Yamaga Sokō in theorizing a Japanese military ethos. After the abolition of the feudal system, the new military institutions of Japan were shaped along European lines, with Western instructors, and the codes themselves modeled on standard models adapted from abroad. The impeccable behaviour, in terms of international criteria, displayed by the Japanese military in the Russo-Japanese war was proof that Japan finally had a modern army whose techniques, drilling and etiquette of war differed little from that of what prevailed among the Western imperial powers.
The wars against China and Russia were modern wars, and demanded a nationalist expression of patriotic sentiment. From this period, the Yasukuni Shrine (originally founded in 1869) was converted into a focus for nationalist sentiment, and received state patronage until the end of World War II. Yasukuni was dedicated to those Japanese and non-Japanese (Korean and Taiwanese) who had lost their lives serving Japan, and includes all war deaths from domestic and overseas conflicts from 1869-1945 (and none from any conflicts since 1945), but also civilians (women and students) and civil administration in colonies and occupied territories.
During 1940 Prince Konoe proclaimed the Shintaisei (New National Structure), making Japan into an "advanced state of National Defense", and the creation of the Taisei Yokusankai (Imperial Authority Assistance Association), for organizing a centralized "consensus state". Associated are the government creation of the Tonarigumi (residents' committees). Other ideological creations of the time were the book "Shinmin no Michi" (臣民の道), the "Imperial Way" or "War Party" (Kodoha) Army party, the "Yamato spirit" (Yamato-damashii), and the idea of hakko ichiu (which directly translates to "4 walls and 4 corners under one roof", that means, "one house in which every people can live" or "everyone is family"), "Religion and Government Unity" (Saisei itchi), and Kokka Sodoin Ho (General Mobilization Right).
Other groups created were the Government Imperial Aid Association. Involved in both was Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, who proposed a Nationalist single party dictatorship, combined with a state-run economy. The militarists had strong support from the wealthy owners of major industries, but there were also certain socialist-nationalist sentiments on the part of radical officers, aware of poor farmers and workers who wanted social justice.
In 1996, the National Police Agency estimated that there are over 1,000 extremist right-wing groups in Japan, with about 100,000 members in total. These groups are known in Japanese as Uyoku dantai. While there are political differences among the groups, they generally carry a philosophy of anti-leftism, hostility towards People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea, and justification of Japan's role in World War II. Uyoku dantai groups are well known for their highly visible propaganda vehicles fitted with loudspeakers and prominently marked with the name of the group and propaganda slogans. The vehicles play patriotic or wartime-era songs. Some have been associated with yakuza groups.
↑ Clemons, Steven (2006-08-27). "The Rise of Japan's Thought Police". The Washington Post. |
0.971533 | Americans need to know these key differences in tax law before filing their tax returns this spring.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the most significant set of changes to the U.S. tax code in several decades. The vast majority of the changes go into effect for the 2018 tax year, which is the return that you'll file with the IRS in the spring of 2019.
One of the headline changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a general lowering of U.S. tax rates. While the number of tax brackets remained at seven, the rates were generally lowered, with the exception of the minimum tax rate staying at 10% for the poorest Americans.
In addition to lower tax rates, the income thresholds were increased, particularly at the higher tax brackets. In other words, the highest tax brackets now apply to fewer (higher-earning) Americans than it did previously. For example, before the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the top tax rate was 39.6% and applied to married couples filing jointly who earned more than $480,050. With tax reform, that top rate was lowered to 37% and only applies to married couples making more than $600,000 in taxable income, much more income than before.
Here's a look at the tax brackets in effect for the 2018 tax year, which will apply to the next tax return you'll file in 2019.
Before the 2018 tax year, inflation adjustments to things like the tax brackets, standard deduction, and other tax provisions had been based on the CPI-U (consumer price index for all urban consumers). This index tracks a basket of goods and services that affects the typical U.S. household, so it made sense that it was used to gradually increase tax-related figures over time.
The new tax law uses a metric known as the Chained CPI instead, which makes the assumption that if a particular good or service becomes too expensive, consumers will begin buying a cheaper alternative. Without getting too deep into a discussion about the Chained CPI, the effect is that the index grows at a slightly slower rate over time than other forms of the CPI.
This is a relatively subtle change and unlikely to have a big impact on a year-to-year basis. However, because Chained CPI increases at a slower pace over time, it could have a big impact on the inflation adjustments to the tax code over decades. Simply put, the long-term effect of this means that the higher tax brackets will begin to apply to lower-income taxpayers, as real inflation will (theoretically) rise faster than the income thresholds of the marginal tax brackets.
On the other hand, the standard deduction simply is a set amount that Americans can choose to deduct instead. Taxpayers can use whichever of the two methods is more beneficial to them.
The majority of U.S. households use the standard deduction, so this change will certainly affect millions of people.
The effect of this change is that more Americans will end up using the standard deduction on their returns beginning in 2019 when they file for the 2018 tax year. Historically, approximately 70% of individual tax returns used the standard deduction, while the other 30% found it more beneficial to itemize. For 2018 and beyond, experts have projected that roughly 95% of individual tax returns now will utilize the standard deduction.
To be perfectly clear, although the standard deduction has roughly doubled, it doesn't mean that people are getting double the tax break -- far from it, actually.
While the standard deduction has increased, the valuable personal exemption has gone away. The reasoning for this is that, in addition to a tax cut, lawmakers were also attempting to simplify the tax code. So instead of giving taxpayers a standard deduction and a number of exemptions, these two things were essentially combined into a higher standard deduction.
In plain English, a personal exemption is a certain amount of income Americans can exclude from their taxable income each year. In prior tax years, Americans could claim one personal exemption for themselves, their spouse, and one for each dependent.
In the 2017 tax year, each personal exemption was an effective $4,100 tax deduction. And there was no limit to the number of personal exemptions that could be claimed. For example, a married couple with six dependent children could claim eight personal exemptions. You can see how the higher standard deduction may not exactly be a gift -- especially for larger families.
Although families with several children may feel the sting from the repeal of the personal exemption, there's some good news. Not only has the Child Tax Credit been increased, but more of the credit now is refundable and the income limitations are far less restrictive.
Briefly, it's important to mention that a credit is very different from a deduction. While a deduction lowers the amount of income that the government considers when taxing you, a tax credit actually reduces the amount of tax you owe, dollar for dollar. If you owe $1,000 in tax, a $1,000 credit would pay it off for you while a deduction just would lower the income level that your tax rate would apply to. In other words, a $1,000 credit is far more valuable than a $1,000 deduction.
Tax reform was good for the Child Tax Credit, which was doubled to $2,000 per qualifying child under age 17. As much as $1,400 of this amount is refundable -- meaning that it can be claimed even if the taxpayer's federal income tax liability is already zero. So even if a parent has little income or otherwise owes no federal income taxes, they could still take advantage and get this money back.
Furthermore, the income phase-out thresholds are significantly higher than the previous levels, which makes the credit available to far more Americans than in previous years. Several tax breaks phase out above certain income levels. The reason is that many tax benefits are intended to benefit low- to moderate-income taxpayers, not the rich. However, the range of people who can benefit from the Child Tax Credit has been significantly expanded.
The two popular tax credits for college expenses, the American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit, both survived tax reform unscathed. These are designed to lower the tax bills of people who paid college tuition. The American Opportunity Credit applies to tuition paid toward a degree or certificate program but only for the first four years of college, while the Lifetime Learning Credit applies to nearly all tuition and fees.
However, it's worth noting that the tuition and fees tax deduction is no longer available, as the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 only made it available through the 2017 tax year -- although it's possible that Congress will still choose to extend it. Previously, certain taxpayers who couldn't qualify for one of the two credits could deduct as much as $4,000 worth of tuition and fees as an adjustment to income. Now, taxpayers who can't qualify for either credit are out of luck.
The two main college savings accounts, 529 savings plans and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, both remain in the revised tax code. These accounts provide a tax-advantaged way for parents and other relatives to save and invest money for educational expenses such as tuition, fees, books, and certain other qualifying expenses. While there's no deduction for contributions to these accounts on federal tax returns, any money these accounts earn from investments can be withdrawn tax-free when used for a qualified expense.
However, a change was made to 529 savings plans to allow use of the funds for qualifying educational expenses at any level, not just for college. This was already the case with Coverdell ESAs. As one potential example, if you end up sending your child to a private high school, you could potentially use funds from their 529 savings plan to help pay for it.
The deduction for mortgage interest is one of the most popular U.S. tax breaks. In fact, tax benefits like these are often a primary reason Americans decide to buy a home. Fortunately for many homeowners, the mortgage interest deduction survived the tax reform efforts, but it did receive two major modifications.
First, the cap (or limit) on the total deduction allowed has been reduced to the interest on up to $750,000 of qualified residence debt, or mortgage principal on a primary or secondary home. This is down from the previous limit of $1 million, although mortgages obtained before December 15, 2017 are grandfathered in to the higher limit.
Second, the previous additional limit that allowed taxpayers to deduct interest on as much as $100,000 of home equity debt has been eliminated. To be clear, interest on a home equity loan (such as a HELOC) may still be used as a deduction, but if and only if the loan was used to substantially improve your home. In this case, it becomes qualified residence debt and is counted as part of your $750,000 cap.
The charitable contributions deduction is another wildly popular tax break and was never really on the chopping block. In fact, highly charitable taxpayers can now deduct donations of as much as 60% of their AGI -- a boost from the previous 50% maximum.
One potential negative change, however, is that donations made regularly to colleges and universities in exchange for the right to purchase athletic tickets are no longer deductible.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the threshold for medical expense deductions to 7.5% of AGI from the prior threshold of 10%. In other words, a taxpayer with an AGI of $100,000 can now deduct medical expenses exceeding $7,500. The IRS has a long list of expenses that qualify as "medical expenses," so it can be a good idea to start keeping track of yours if you think you may qualify.
However, this change only was made for the 2017 and 2018 tax years. So you'll be able to take advantage of it on the tax return you file in 2019. Beyond that time, however, the threshold is set to increase to 10% again unless Congress acts to extend it.
State and/or local property taxes, such as those paid on a personal residence, automobile, or other personal property.
State and local income taxes or state sales taxes, whichever results in the larger deduction. Generally speaking, income taxes are the better deduction, but the option to deduct sales tax allows residents of states without an income tax to benefit, as well. If you choose the sales tax option, you don't need receipts -- the IRS provides a calculator to determine this deduction.
Starting with the 2018 tax year, however, the SALT deduction is limited to a total of $10,000. This may sound like a lot, but many Americans -- especially those in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California -- have been deducting several times this amount. For example, the property tax on my parents' modest home in New Jersey almost reaches the $10,000 cap all by itself.
Now, millions of Americans cannot deduct their state and local taxes, and on top of that, the higher standard deduction means that many families who pay high amounts of state and local taxes may not be able to take advantage of the SALT deduction at all.
While the Republican administration and Congress have thus far been unsuccessful in repealing the Affordable Care Act, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did eliminate the individual mandate -- aka the "Obamacare penalty." This is the penalty you pay for not having health insurance.
One important caveat: The penalty is only repealed in tax years 2019 and beyond. If you didn't maintain qualifying health coverage throughout 2018, you still may face the penalty when you file your tax return in 2019.
Designed as a tax break for small business owners, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act includes a 20% deduction for "pass-through" income. This includes income you receive from a sole proprietorship or other pass-through entities such as partnerships, LLCs, and S-Corps. Real estate income counts, as do dividends you receive from REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) stocks.
There's one notable restriction. The new law sets a maximum amount of income people in "professional services" businesses, such as lawyers, doctors, and consultants, can earn while still taking advantage of the deduction. For the 2018 tax year, the pass-through deduction for these types of business starts to phase out at an AGI greater than $157,500 (single filers) or $315,000 (married filing jointly).
Many legislators had initially sought a repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, but it still exists in 2018 and beyond. If you aren't familiar with it, the AMT is designed to ensure that high-income taxpayers pay their fair share of taxes, even if they're entitled to tons of deductions and credits.
Taxpayers still need to calculate their taxes twice -- once under the standard method and again using the AMT -- and pay whichever results in a larger bill. Don't worry, though -- your tax-preparation software program will determine if you need to be concerned about the AMT. However, there were a couple of significant changes made by the new tax law.
First, AMT exemptions never were indexed for inflation. This became the main problem with the AMT -- because it didn't change over time with purchasing power, it began to apply to more and more Americans. The AMT never was designed to affect the middle class, but it had started to do just that. From here on out, the AMT exemption amounts will be indexed for inflation.
Data source: IRS. Beyond 2019, these will be indexed for inflation.
To be perfectly clear, the estate tax, which is essentially a tax on inherited wealth, only applied to the wealthiest U.S. households, even before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed. However, the new law makes it apply to even fewer filers.
Under the former tax law, the estate tax only applied to the portion of an estate that was in excess of $5.59 million (2018). The new law doubled the threshold to $11.18 million for 2018 and will increase again in 2019.
Which tax deductions are gone?
As we've seen, many tax deductions survived the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, either in their previous form or with modifications. On the other hand, there are some that didn't get to remain on the books at all. Remember, the goal of the tax reform effort wasn't just to cut taxes but to simplify the U.S. tax code, as well. As part of the simplification, several deductions got axed.
Moving expenses -- This was an above-the-line deduction, meaning that it could be taken whether or not a taxpayer itemized, and was designed to offset the costs of job-related moving expenses. Now, this deduction is gone, except for certain moves related to active-duty military service.
Casualty and theft losses -- If your home was burglarized, you formerly were able to deduct the value of the stolen items. Now, the deduction only can be used for losses attributed to a federally declared disaster.
The "miscellaneous deduction" category -- This is one true simplification to the tax code. There used to be a long list of deductions that Americans could take advantage of, to the extent that they exceeded 2% of AGI. This included things like unreimbursed employee expenses, tax preparation expenses, and more. Starting with the 2018 tax year, these deductions are gone, so some taxpayers with lots of these expenses may feel the sting from this.
Which tax breaks stay the same in 2019?
Will these tax changes expire after 2025 or will Congress make them permanent?
One big uncertainty is what will happen to the Tax Code after 2025. The way the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is set up, the changes to the corporate side of the tax code are permanent, but the individual tax changes are mostly set to expire after the 2025 tax year. The most significant exception is the change from the CPI-W to the Chained CPI when it comes to calculating inflation -- that one's a permanent change.
Here's the problem. If the tax changes expire as scheduled after 2025 and our individual tax code reverts back to its previous form, the lower inflation calculation will effectively make taxes even higher than they were before for most Americans.
There's currently an effort underway to make the changes permanent (lawmakers refer to this as part of "Tax Reform 2.0"). However, with a split Congress, any further tax bills are likely to face an uphill battle.
Admittedly, these changes may sound a little complicated. However, the good news is that if you use tax preparation software or have your taxes done by a professional, you don't need to worry too much about them. They'll ensure you're following the updated tax code and will calculate the effect of these changes on your wallet. |
0.666412 | Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba comprises the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Today, the Jewish population of Cuba is approximately 500.
While it remains unclear when Jews first arrived in Cuba, it is popular lore that three Jewish men arrived after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Some believe that these Jews traveled to Cuba with Columbus: Luis de Torres on the Santa Maria, Juan de Cabrera on La Pinta, and Rodrigo de Triana on La Nina. All three were Marranos, or forced Jewish converts to Catholicism. Francisco Gomez de Leon, a Jew, was put on trial during the Inquisition in Havana. He was later executed in Cartagena and his large fortune was confiscated. There is little information about Jews in Cuba until the late 19th century, the beginning of the organized Cuban Jewish community.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews immigrated to Cuba from Brazil. They were persecuted under Portuguese control. New Jewish immigrants established trade in Cuba and, by the 18th century, Cuban Jewish trade reached Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Hamburg, Germany. Jews continued to be harrassed during this time, and many of the originial Jewish immigrants assimilated and acculturated into Cuban society.
In the late 1800's, Jews from the Dutch Antilles settled in Cuba. They supported Jose Martí, who liberated Cuba from Spanish colonial rule in 1898. Many Jewish traders pursuing business in the New World set up outposts on the island. In 1898, after the Spanish-American War, Jews established a permanent presence in Cuba. American Ashkenazi Jews born in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe immigrated to Cuba to work for U.S.-owned plantations and businesses. In 1906, 11 American Jews founded Cuba's first synagogue, the United Hebrew Congregation, a Reform synagogue that conducted services in English. This is considered the official beginning of the Cuban Jewish community.
A large number of Jews immigrated to Cuba from 1910 until 1920, including Sephardic Jews from Turkey. Many of these Jews came from Eastern Europe and used Cuba as a stopover en route to the United States, which had a strict quota system at that time. Many decided to stay since there was little anti-Semitism in Cuba, as well as good weather. Many of the new immigrants from Europe prospered in Cubans garment industry. By 1924, there were 24,000 Jews living in Cuba.
In 1921, Rodolfo Zillon Namer founded Cuba's third official synagogue, Union Israelita Bnai Zion, in Holguin. He was related to Roberto Namer, a Syrian Jew who was nominated in 1935 as Cuba's consul to Palestine.
Jews were called "Polacos" (Pollacks) by the Cubans, even if they were not from Poland. In fact, all immigrant Jews and non-Jews without an English accent were called Polacos, including Germans, French, Hungarians and Turks.
In the 1930s, a Central Jewish Committee was founded for all the Jewish groups in Cuba. Jews continued to seek asylum in Cuba during the Holocaust. One Havana-bound German liner, the St. Louis, was denied access and the Jews were unable to depart from the ship. In 1944, Jews from Antwerp who were able to find refuge in Cuba began a diamond-polishing business. In 1952, only 12,000 Jews were living in Cuba.
Two synagogues were built in Camaguey, in the 1920's. Shevet Ajim served the Ashkenazi, while Tiferet Israel served the Sephardim. The Jewish population of Camaguey grew to more than 800 people before the Revolution.
A Jewish community was founded in Santiago in 1924, called the Jewish Society of Eastern Cuba. The society was housed in a rented space until 1939, when it finally moved into a new building, which became the Synagogue of Santiago de Cuba. Two Rabbis served in the synagogue, Senor Isaac Chiprut Confri, from 1924 until 1943, and Senor Victor Farin Sarfati, from 1946 until 1967. Santiagos Jewish population consisted mainly of Sephardim from Turkey, who came to Cuba seeking a better life. At the beginning of World War II, Ashkenazi Jews from Poland arrived in Santiago fleeing Nazi persecution. The Jewish Society remained active until 1959; after the Revolution, most of the Jews immigrated to other countries.
Havana has the largest Jewish community in Cuba. During its height, more than 12,000 Jews lived in Cuba and, of that, 75 percent lived in Havana. Havana had five synagogues (including one Sephardic synagogue built in 1914), a Kosher restaurant, one Jewish high school and five Jewish elementary schools.
At the time of the Revolution in 1959, Cubas Jewish population peaked at 15,000 people.
Approximately 94 percent of Cubas Jewish population fled after the Revolution. Some settled in Israel, thanks to secret diplomatic efforts made by the Canadian government. While the Revolution did not target Jews specifically, they did suffer economically along with other members of Cubas middle class.
Most the remaining Jews lived in Havana. Those who chose to stay did so because they were either too old or too poor to leave, were assimilated into Cuban society or believed in the Revolution.
An interesting mix of cultural freedom and Anti-Zionist feelings prevailed in Cuba. Cuban Jews were discriminated against, along with other Cubans who were members of religious groups. Jews and Christians and other religious people had restricted access to jobs and universities. Despite school and job restrictions, Jews were able to practice their religion. They were permitted to buy and distribute kosher food and were able to receive donations from Canada and other countries for special Passover and New Years food products. Protection against national, religious and racial hate was also a part of the Cuban criminal code.
On the other hand, Cuba permitted training camps for Palestinians terrorists on its soil, both Abu Nidal and George Habasch trained in Cuba. Cuba also published Anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda pieces and banned the books by Anne Frank, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel.
In the late 1960's, a number of Jews were sent to forced labor camps for political dissenters, religious peoples, gays and exit applicants. Jewish activists were under constant surveillance.
Due to this atmosphere, Jewish life suffered in Cuba, but never disappeared. Jews still could pray in shuls and attend Jewish Sunday schools. In the 1970's, the synagogue in Santiago, the school in Havana and the Zionist Union of Cuba were closed. Another synagogue in Havana, the United Hebrew Congregation, was abandoned in the 1980s.
Throughout the 1980s, the Patronato, Havanas main synagogue, could barely recruit a minyan. Some Jewish families continued to practice Judaism at home and celebrate the major holidays. Cuban Jewry faced increased assimilation and its elders were worried about the communitys future.
In the early 1980s, the Tikkun Olam Hebrew Sunday School opened in Havana to address the needs of Cubas dwindling young Jewish population. The school grew with time, due to the leadership of Dr. Moises Asis, the principal and one of Cubas few Jewish educators.
In the early 1990s, Operation Cigar was launched. In the period of five years, more than 400 Cuban Jews secretely immigrated to Israel. Another 200 Cuban Jews are currently in the process of making aliyah. The details surrounding the operation are unclear; some claim Margarita Zapata, a relative of one of Castros close colleagues, convinced Castro to permit the Jews to emigrate. Castro did not want to publicize the emigration because it might appear he was allowing special arrangements to be made for Cubas Jews. While, officially, Cubans are allowed to emigrate, most do not have the finances to do so.
The first group of 70 Cuban Jews arrived in Israel in 1994. The Jewish Agency eventually covered the initial exit fee of $150, which was more than fifteen times the average monthly wage in Cuba at the time.
The current Jewish population in Cuba is one tenth of the size that it was before the 1959 revolution, and shrinking. Despite anti-Israel sentiment that existed in Cuba, the only time blatant anti-Semitic attacks occurred in all of Cuban history was during the Gulf War. Arab students threw stones at Adas Israel Synagogue in Havana, but the violence was quelled immediately and no one was physically harmed.
Because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, as well as the economic hardships due to the U.S. embargo, Cuba sought to liberalize some of its policies. In 1991, a law permitted members of the Communist Party to participate in religious associations. This was the first step toward a rejuvenation of Jewish life in Cuba.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was instrumental in rebuilding Cuba’s Jewish population. Since 1992, the JDC has sent rabbis and community organizers to help with education and to perform ceremonies and has established a computer educational center linking the Jewish communities of Havana, Santiago and Camaguey. The JDC also provides basic commodities, which are scarce in Cuba, such as food and special shipments of items needed for Jewish holidays. Health services and medication is also provided by the JDC, which are distributed through a special pharmacy in Havana. The Castro regime has never stopped U.S. or Canadian Jewish organizations from delivering wheelchairs, school supplies and kosher food to Cuban Jews. Aside from the JDC, B’nai Brith and other international organizations are also providing relief to Cuba’s Jewish community.
Three synagogues in Havana survived the Revolution, one Orthodox, one Conservative and one Sephardic. According to Adela Dworin, president of Havana’s largest synagogue, the Patronato, more than 85 percent of Cuba’s estimated Jewish population of 1,500 lives in Havana. However, sources in Miami estimate that only 600 to 800 Jews remain in Havana, as nearly 700 Cuban Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past 10 years. In 2013 72 Cuban Jews made Aliyah and moved to Israel. Havana’s Jewish Sunday school teaches more than 150 students, ranging in age from 4 to 60. Classes are held in the sanctuary because of lack of space elsewhere.
Santiago’s synagogue was reopened in 1996 and served 90 members of Santiago’s Jewish population. A women’s organization was started and a Hadassah chapter, run by Cuban Jewish doctors, began distributing medicine to the sick. There is a synagogue in Camaguey, and Shabbat services are held at private homes in Cienfuegos, Guantanamo, and Sancti Spiritus.
Outreach programs have started to reach out to interfaith couples living in Cubas remote provinces, in many instances the spouses have converted to Judaism and are raising their children Jewish. More than 60 percent of Cubas Jewish population are converts, according to the Joint Distribution Committee. Israels Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, visited Cuba in 1994 and deemed the conversions valid.
Currently, there is no rabbi in Cuba, but Rabbi Shmuel Szteinhendler (a rabbi in Santiago, Chile) is considered the Chief Rabbi. He travels to Cuba several times a year to perform weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, circumcisions, and baby namings. Typically weddings are performed for multiple couples because the rabbi is there so infrequently. Jewish religious services are held routinely on Friday nights and Saturday mornings at the Beth Shalom (El Patronato) Synagogue.
The Hotel Raquel in Havana caters to Jewish visitors. The top floor rooms have names like "Sinai" and "Gallilee." There are stained glass windows with Jewish themes and contemporary paintings by Cuban Jewish artist Jose Luis Farinas. The phone system plays the theme song from Schindler's List when callers are put on hold. There is a kosher style restaurant serving gefilte fish, Israeli salad, cheese blintzes and Hungarian goulash.
There are plans to create a Jewish square on Acosta Street where the Adath Israel Synangogue is located.
In December 2006, the Cuban Jewish community celebrated its 100th anniversary. Festivities began with a cultural gala at Havana’s National Fine Arts Museum and will continue all month with religious services, music, dancing, parties, and speeches.
The Jewish community in Cuba enjoys certain benefits due to their status as a religious minority, and their assistance from outside organizations. The local synagogue has computers with internet access, video game systems for children, and various other luxuries that are scarce in Cuba's restrictive culture. The community receives financial support from organizations such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which allows the synagogue to provide free meals on Fridays and Saturdays. The synagogue also houses the community pharmacy, and gives out free medicine that has been donated by aid organizations. Despite this, Jewish individuals in Cuba still suffer the same depressed conditions as other Cuban citizens and often make less than $40 US per month from their jobs. US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced a plan to improve US-Cuba relations on December 17, 2014 in a move that has been called "The Cuban Thaw". This announcement came after over one year of sporatic negotiations in Vatican City between officials from the two countries brokered by Pope Francis himself. As a product of the negotiations, Cuban Jews living in America with family in Cuba are now allowed to send them $2,000 every three months, four times the previous limit. These improved relations will hopefully stimulate the Cuban economy and provide more opportunities for Cuban Jews as the Cuban-US Market expands.
Although Fidel Castro has been respectful towards the Cuban Jewish community, he has been generally hostile toward Israel. Originally Castro was very supportive of Israel, mostly due to sympathy he had for Jews as victims of facism and his identification of the State of Israel as a socialist country. As a result, Cuban foreign policy was generally sympathetic towards Israel. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, this position changed. Castro broke relations with the Israel just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He also sent Cuban soldiers to participate in battles on the Syrian side.
In 1974 the Cuban government invited Yasser Arafat to visit Cuba and provided advance training for the PLO and other Palestinian military organizations. On October 12, 1979, Castro made a speech at the U.N. claiming that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian people, similar to the "genocide that the Nazis once visited on the Jews."
Opposing Israel has led Castro to aspire to the leadership of non-aligned nations and to gain support from Arab countries in the United Nations. It also has become a way for Cuba's leader to take a stand against imperialism and express his hatred of the power concentrated in the United States.
By the late 1980s, relations warmed up somewhat. In 1988, an official delegation from Cuba visited Israel to study irrigation methods. In 1994, Israel's chief Ashkenazic Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau visited Cuba and was cordially recieved by Fidel Castro. Israel has also taken advantage of Cuba's new openness to foreign investment, investing in the Cuban citrus industry and inciting the anger of the U.S. government.
Sources: Tapper, Josh. "Despite new hope, old problems remain for Cuba's Jews". Haaretz, January 26 2015.
Abel, David. "Cubas Jews Take Heart from First New Synagogue Since Revolution. The Jews of Cuba. Jewish Cuba.
Asis, Dr. Moises. "Judaism in Cuba 1959 - 1999: A Personal Account." The Jews of Cuba.
Bandler, Kenneth. "Jewish Youth lead the way in a long-isolated community." The Jews of Cuba.
Cuba. The Jews of Cuba.
Frank, Ben G. "The Jewish Traveler: Havana". Hadassah Magazine, January 2005.History of the Community. The Jews of Cuba.
Letter from Havana. The Jews of Cuba.
"Operation Cigar: A Not-So-Secret Cuban Aliya." Jewish Agency for Israel October 14, 1999.
"Castro can’t make it, but Jews in Cuba mark 100 years on island." JTA News, November 30, 2006.
Jewish Community of Cuba by Jay Levinson. |
0.999744 | (CNN) -- The murder of rapper Dolla reverberated throughout the music industry on Tuesday as police sought a motive for the brazen killing.
Rap artist Dolla was known as a nice guy who survived a rough childhood.
The aspiring Southern hip-hop artist, whose real name was Roderick Anthony Burton II, was gunned down in the busy parking lot of the upscale Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles, California, on Monday afternoon.
Police later arrested Aubrey Louis Berry, 23, at Los Angeles International Airport, a Los Angeles Police statement said. No other details were given about Berry.
The 21-year-old rapper was based in Atlanta, Georgia. He was in Los Angeles to work on his debut album.
Those who knew him said that despite coming from a rough background, Burton was extremely gracious and polite.
"Everything with Dolla was 'please' and 'thank you,' " said Ant Rich, manager of A&R for Jive Records, who discovered the rapper for the label when Burton was 17 and helped sign him a year later. "The streets did not define him at all. He was bigger than that."
Dolla was a protégé of singer Akon, who collaborated with him on his first single, "Who the F--- is That?" which also featured another high-profile artist, T-Pain. Another Dolla song, "Feelin' Myself," appeared on the soundtrack to the 2006 movie "Step Up."
According to his official MySpace page, Dolla was born in Chicago, Illinois, and his family relocated to Los Angeles soon after.
He was 5 years old when he and his older sister, Divinity, witnessed their father committing suicide. After that incident, their mother moved the family to Atlanta, according to his biography.
"First and foremost we, the family, would like to thank everyone for all their kind thoughts and prayers. Furthermore, the family would like to note that rumored details of the shooting on popular Web/blog sites are false.
"Due to the circumstances of the situation, no other information will be released at this time. We are grateful for your continuous support and would be very appreciative if we could mourn this loss in private.
"Additionally, information released before and after this official statement are not confirmed nor should they be considered accurate."
Rich said Dolla, who also did some modeling for P. Diddy's Sean John label, loved his family deeply. He was the guy with the great smile who would do things like offer to pick up the bill after a meeting with music executives, Rich said.
"You would tell him 'Look Dolla, you don't have to do that because we get reimbursed for this' and he would say 'No, no you got it last time, let me,' " Rich said. "The world lost a really good kid and he had the biggest heart."
DeAngelo Jones books talent for BET and got to know Dolla after he performed at the network's "Spring Bling" event last year.
He said the artist was humbled and grateful for the success he was starting to find in the industry.
"That energy was what drew me to him," said Jones, who stayed in touch with Dolla after the show and often ran into him at other events. "A lot of times there are negative associations that go along with being a rapper, but he was not at all what the image of a rapper is portrayed to be."
Jones said he was at the Beverly Center only a short time before the shooting occurred. Jones said it was unfortunate that Dolla's slaying is yet another incident that will link hip-hop with violence.
"Hip-hop gets such a bad rap, ever since the deaths of Biggie and Tupac," Jones said. "[Dolla] just wanted to be successful, help other people and do the right thing. What's so hard for me is to see where his life was heading, because he was definitely on the right course."
Jerry Barrow, senior editor for The Urban Daily, a publication devoted to African-Americans in pop culture, noted that it was unfortunate that Dolla is finding mainstream recognition posthumously.
"With his modeling and his music, he did more before the age of 20 than many people do," Barrow said. "It's a shame that this is how many people are now discovering him and his music."
Rashan Ali, a disc jockey with Atlanta's Hot 107.9 radio station, said the city has a thriving hip-hop community. Her station, which plays hip-hop, often has its lobby filled with aspiring artists trying to get their music heard.
With the success of Atlanta-based artists like rappers T.I., Outkast, and Young Jeezy, more and more young people are drawn to the area to try and make the connections that will find them fame, Ali said.
That Dolla was killed while pursuing his craft is especially sad, she said.
"[Dolla] was minding his business, in Los Angeles trying to record his music and this happens," Ali said. "It's horrific and now a mother has to bury her child. It's senseless." |
0.993009 | Denizli is a growing industrial city in the eastern end of the alluvial valley formed by the river Büyük Menderes, where the plain reaches an elevation of about a hundred meters, in southwestern Turkey, in the country's Aegean Region.
The city has a population of about 400,000 (2006 census) and is the capital city of Denizli Province.
Denizli also attracts many visitors to the nearby mineral-coated hillside hot spring of Pamukkale, and the ancient ruined city of Hierapolis, as well as ruins of the city of Laodicea on the Lycus, the ancient metropolis of Phrygia. Also in the depending of Honaz, about 10 miles west of Denizli is, what was, in the 1st century A.D., the city of Colossae.
The weather is very hot in Denizli in summers, whereas in winters, it may occasionally be very cold with snow on the mountains that surround the city. Springs and autumns are generally rainy.
The name Denizli means "a locality with a sea or with a lake" in Turkish, but the town is not on the coast. The name mutated through several spellings and must have referred to the abundance of underground water sources or the city's location on the way to western Turkey's lakes region nearby.
The city was founded in its current location after the area has been settled by the Turks.
In the 17th century, the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Denizli and recorded the town as follows: "The city is called (Denizli) (which means seaside in Turkish) as there are several rivers and lakes around it. In fact it is a four day trip from the sea. Its fortress is of square shape built on flat ground. It has no ditches. Its periphery is 470 steps long. It has four gates. These are: painters gate in North, saddle-makers gate in the East, new Mosque gate in the South, and vineyard gate in the West. There are some fifty armed watchmen in the fortress, and they attend the shop. The main city is outside the fortress with 44 districts and 3600 houses. There are 57 small and large mosques and district masjids, 7 madrasahs, 7 children's schools, 6 baths and 17 dervish lodges. As everybody live in vineyards the upper classes and ordinary people do not flee from each other."
The city lived in peace for centuries without being involved in wars in a direct manner. Following the World War I during the Independence War the Greek forces managed to come as close as Sarayköy, a small town 20 km (12 mi) northwest of Denizli, but did not venture into Denizli where resistance was being prepared.
Denizli is located in Aegean Region of Turkey, but the climate is not uniformly Aegean throughout the whole province. A terrestrial climate may be felt in the center of the province, because the area is like a pathway from the seaside to inland areas. The inland area is cooler than the seaside because of these climatic differences. The land is open to winds coming from the Aegean Sea because the mountains are perpendicular to the sea. Winters are rainy or sometimes snowy, but generally mild.
Aside its visitor's attractions, the city of Denizli is known for its textile industry and (and outlet shopping for cut-price clothing), for connected fields of activity such as the dye industry, and for its famous cockerels. The saying goes that Denizli is known for 'kız', 'toz' and 'horoz'; respectively, the girls (the girls of the Aegean Region are famously the fairest in Turkey), the dust and the cockerels. There are statues and other images of the birds all over the city. Extremely resourceful in catchy phraseologies evolving from the folk culture, the region also affirms itself by saying "Denizli'nin horozları bellidir" (the cockerels of Denizli make themselves known).
The textile industry in Denizli grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s making itself a place in the domestic market and for exports. Towels and bathrobes are products associated with Denizli in particular emphasis. Thus, Denizli grew rapidly in the last decades, raising a number of very rich businessmen, some reasonable to very good restaurants, notably one renowned across Turkey for serving only mushrooms in different varieties (Mantar Restaurant), and the look and the amenities of a modern city. The biggest firms in the city include Değirmenci and Funika (especially for bathrobes).
The city is quite smart with trees along the main avenues and lovely views of the surrounding mountains from many locations. As Denizli has prospered in the 90s new compounds of luxury villas have sprung up on the city's outskirts in areas like Çamlık. In the city itself air pollution from coal-fired central-heating becomes a problem in winter. There are some highly-regarded high schools and Pamukkale University opened in the 1990s, now in phase of academic maturing. Many young people still leave to go to university in İzmir, Ankara or Istanbul, and sometimes stay there to build careers.
There are large shops, bars and cafes, even some live music, although this is a city that grew recently and is located deep in the countryside. The presence of Pamukkale University improves the cultural amenities of the city. The region's inhabitants have been influenced by the production of grapes and the wine since centuries and a joyful culture is present in Denizli, although it is coupled with hard working and creative thinking, reflected in an apparent conservatism. For example, it is sometimes difficult to get a license to sell alcohol.
On the other hand, the new wealth in Denizli has been much more rapid than many other places in Turkey in investing in developing an urban culture. Many private clubs and associations are opening up including: The society for the Protection of the Environment and History of Denizli; The Poets and Poetry Lovers Association; the Pizza Appreciation Group and the Jazz-rock Local. There is an annual amateur theatre festival, attended by groups from Turkey and overseas. Denizli has the second-largest number of ranking chess-players in Turkey, after Istanbul. Also, inspired by the unusually high reports of UFO sightings in the region over the years, one of the world's handful of museums dedicated to ufology was recently opened in Denizli.
The wines of the Pamukkale winery are mostly made from traditional Turkish grapes such as Tokat, Narince and Çalkarası, although now they are planting Shiraz in the area too. They also make a well-known cherry wine. The Denizli kebab is roast lamb served on flat bread. Zafer Gazozu is a locally produced fizzy lemonade.
Denizli airport is about 45 minutes drive from the city. There is direct flight almost everyday from Istanbul usually in the morning and back to Istanbul in the evening both with Turkish Airlines. The ticket would cost approximately $60.
Driving time to the capital city of Ankara is approximately 7 hours.
Driving time to İzmir is approximately 3 hours, with special alertness to be preserved at all times during the extremely busy Denizli-Aydın section. The extension of İzmir-Aydın highway to Denizli, to better benefit the production hub that Büyük Menderes River valley is, remains announced since years. Initial infrastructure is laid in Aydın, but the rest is yet to come and the present Aydın-Denizli road, although straight and flat, has a very high level of traffic, especially trucks, with each town along the road possessing its own industrial zone.
Hierapolis and Pamukkale World Heritage Sites -20 km north of Denizli Pamukkale traventines. The city of Hierapolis was founded by the Pergamon King Eumenes II in 190 B.C. Its closeness to Laodicea led to commercial and military rivalry. The town was built in Greek style. Despite suffering a violent earthquake in 17 A.D., it reached its peak during the Roman and Byzantine periods. It was reconstructed during the 2nd and 3rd Centuries in stone from quarries in the area, in a Roman style. The town had its most glorious years during the reign of Roman Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla and became an episcopal seat during the expansion of Christianity. However, as a result of several earthquakes, the most violent of which was in 1354, a great part of the town was destroyed, and its people migrated.
The Seljuq caravanserai Akhan, which is 6km from Denizli City on the Ankara highway, and a great part of which still remains, was constructed by Karasungur bin Abdullah in 1253-54 when he was acting as the commander of Ladik. It is recently restored along with the Ottoman konaks nearby and is set to become a visitor's attraction by its own right.
Honaz mountain is a popular picnic excursion for Denizli's people in summer.
The nearby village of Goncalı, which is on the railway line, is another excursion. People come to eat the charcoal-grilled thinly-cut kebab called Çöp Şiş, preferably with the local süzme yoghurt and a glass of rakı.
The statue of Atatürk at Çınar Meydanı in the city centre is renowned for the large testicles on the horse that Atatürk is riding.
Servergazi turbesi is located close to the Yenişehir neighborhood. The tomb of the 12th century Turkish commander of the Seljuk akinci unit is located there. Many locals enjoy visiting and making prayers at the tomb especially on weekends. |
0.999659 | Don't try to order-to-go after 1:00 am. If you're not in person they won't take the order.
Waffle Brownie Sundae - just do it.
Fried egg sandwich, add cheese.
order the hot fudge shake off the menu.
Nut 'n Honey shake. AMAZING.
Not very impressive food. Slow service. Don't understand why the review rating is high. Nothing special about this place, especially from food quality perspective.
Staff aren't really nice or attentive ! |
0.956948 | Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599 - September 3, 1658) was an English politician; who, as Lord Protector following the overthrow of the British Monarchy, ruled England, Scotland and Ireland from December 16, 1653, until his death.
When the English Civil War broke out, Cromwell raised a cavalry troop which became the basis of his Ironsides. It was at the Battle of Marston Moor (1644) that Cromwell came to prominence. As a leader of the Parliamentarian cause, and commander of the New Model Army which he was instrumental in forming, he defeated King Charles I's forces, thus bringing to an end the absolute power of the English monarchy.
Oliver Cromwell descended from Catherine Cromwell (born circa 1483), an older sister of Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell. Although she married, her children kept her name, possibly to maintain their connection with their famous uncle. Of these children, Richard Cromwell (c 1500 - 1544) was the father of Henry Cromwell (c 1524 - January 6, 1603). Henry's extravagant tendencies left his heirs including his son Robert Cromwell, Esquire (c 1560 - 1617) with an inheritance that included lands but not money. Oliver was born to Robert Cromwell and his wife Elizabeth Steward or Stewart(1564 - 1654) on April 25, 1599.
Oliver was born in Huntingdon, in the county of Huntingdonshire in East Anglia. He was a gentleman farmer, but had to sell his farm and land to repay debts he had accumulated. Already a devout member of the hard-line Puritan sect, he became an evangelical member.
Having decided against joining his uncle in Virginia, he instead became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628 - 1629. His maiden speech was defending a radical democrat who had argued in an unauthorised pamphlet in favour of giving the vote to all men. He was also prominent in defending the people of The Fens from wealthy landowners who wanted to drive them off their land.
Cromwell's influence as a military commander and politician during the English Civil War dramatically altered the military and the political landscape of the British Isles.
Having joined the Army with no military experience at the age of 43, he recruited a cavalry unit and gained experience and victories in a succession of battles in East Anglia. Promoted to the General in charge of cavalry in the New Model Army, he trained his men to rapidly regroup after an attack, tactics first employed with great success at the Battle of Naseby. With military success came political power, until he was the leading politician of the time.
The so-called "second civil war", which broke out in 1648 after Charles I's escape from prison, suggested to Cromwell that no compromise with the king would be possible. Many hold Cromwell responsible for the execution of Charles I in January 1649, although there were 59 signatories to the death warrant.
Cromwell's actions made him very unpopular in Scotland and Ireland which, as nominally independent nations, were effectively conquered by English forces. In particular, Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture -- comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests -- is one of the historical memories that has fuelled Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife for over three centuries. Cromwell felt justified in ordering the massacre because the city's defenders had continued to fight, in violation of what were then the norms of warfare, after the walls had been breached.
In the wake of victory, the monarchy was abolished, and between 1649 and 1653 the country became Europe's first republic since the fall of the Roman Empire. The republic was known as the Commonwealth of England.
Many of Cromwell's actions following the end of the war appear unwise or hypocritical. He was savage in putting down the mutinies which occurred within his own army towards the end of the war (prompted by failure to pay the troops) and showed little sympathy for the Levellers, an egalitarian movement which had contributed greatly to Parliament's cause. His foreign policy led him into the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652 against the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, eventually won by Admiral Robert Blake in 1654.
With the king gone, and with it their common cause, Cromwell's unanimous backing dissolved, and the various factions in Parliament became engaged in infighting. In a repeat of the actions the former king had taken that had contributed to civil war, Cromwell eventually dismissed the republican Rump Parliament in 1653 and instead took personal control as, effectively, a military dictator.
In 1657 Cromwell was offered the kingship by a reconstituted parliament, presenting him with a dilemma since he had been instrumental in abolishing the monarchy. After six weeks of deliberation, he turned down the crown largely because the senior officers in his army threatened to resign if he accepted. Instead, he was ceremonially installed as Lord Protector at Westminster Abbey, sitting on the former king's throne, practically a coronation and a king in all but name.
Within two years of Cromwell's death on September 3, 1658 (his son Richard Cromwell having proved an unworthy successor), parliament restored Charles II as king.
This should have been the end of the story but in 1661 Oliver Cromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution - on January 30, the same date that Charles I had been executed. He was in fact hung, drawn and quartered. At the end his body was thrown into a pit; his head however was detached from his body and displayed on a pole outside Westminster Abbey until 1685. Since then it changed hands several times before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.
In 2003, Cromwell came 10th in a popular BBC poll of "Great Britons".
"Let us restore the king to his throne, and let the king in future agree to govern with the consent of Parliament. Let us restore the old church, with its bishops, since that is what most of the people want; but since the Puritans and Separatists and Baptists have served us well in the war, let us not persecute them anymore but let them worship as they like, outside of the established church. And so let us have peace and liberty." |
0.999997 | You may be reluctant to exercise for fear that it'll aggravate your symptoms, but research shows that regular moderate exercise lessens pain and improves function.
While the pain and fatigue associated with fibromyalgia may make exercise and daily activities difficult, it is crucial to be physically active. Research has repeatedly shown that regular aerobic exercise improves pain, function and overall quality of life.
Won't exercising make my pain flare up?
You may be reluctant to try exercise for fear that it will make your pain worse. But starting low and going slow helps keep symptoms from flaring up. Consider starting with walking two minutes a day and gradually work your way up to 30 minutes two or three times a week.
It's crucial to pace yourself. If you do too much on your good days, you may have more bad days. If an exercise causes you increased pain for more than two hours, reduce the time or intensity of that exercise next time.
Appropriate exercises include low-impact aerobic activities, such as walking, swimming, biking and water aerobics. A physical therapist familiar with fibromyalgia can help you develop a home exercise program. This is especially important if you've become significantly deconditioned. A good goal is to work up to at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week.
Strength training, also called resistance training, may be helpful but hasn't been as extensively researched. Resistance training is a type of exercise that may involve lifting weights, using resistance machines or using elastic resistance bands. Strengthening exercise also appears to reduce pain and improve quality of life and muscle strength.
Although less studied, mind-body practices may help improve symptoms and overall well-being. Yoga and tai chi are practices that combine meditation, slow movements, deep breathing and relaxation. Both have been found to be helpful in controlling fibromyalgia symptoms. |
0.999993 | Viral marketing can best be described as a marketing campaign that permits you to reach a large number of people quickly online, much in the same way a human cold virus might spread throughout an office complex. The online equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing, viral marketing permits people to pass along marketing material to friends, customers, and colleagues so that the marketing campaign catches on and spreads like wildfire. Because many online distribution channels are free or low cost, viral marketing is possibly the most cost-effective Internet marketing technique out there. Once you've launched your viral marketing campaign, it has the capability grow and spread automatically for years. With a well-thought out and implemented viral marketing campaign, you can: --increase targeted traffic to your site --build brand recognition --increase your link popularity --collect contact information from targeted prospects Two of the most common viral marketing strategies I've seen implemented are viral movies and viral ebooks. Movies can be quite costly to produce, but with the increasing popularity of video viewing sites like YouTube, your ROI (return on investment) may be the highest from this form of viral marketing.
TheTimeMovie.com was the movie that introduced me to the concept of video viral marketing. It's short, compelling, and evokes an emotional response from the viewer -- all important attributes to ensure that people pass it along to each other. One of the best viral ebook creators is Seth Godin, who had over 1,000,000 people download his ebook, Unleashing the Ideavirus. It's still one of the most discussed marketing books around, and Seth has had similar success and gained a great following by giving away other ebooks he wrote, as well.
Most of these ebooks are now for sale as paperbacks, and I'm sure this viral marketing strategy led to very high sales of his printed books. At the very least, the strategy has pushed him to the top of the list of marketing experts. How can you create a viral marketing strategy to drive traffic to your website? Here's a step-by-step process: 1. Determine what you're giving away.
Will you make a movie, write an ebook, create an ecourse, or have a special piece of software written for you? The key to success in picking your product is to make sure that it solves a big problem experienced by your target market. You may also locate your giveaway by using something that someone else has created that permits you to brand it with your company information. (Get an example below in the author's resource box). 2. Brand the product. Make sure that your logo, your website URL, and/or your tagline is on the viral marketing piece.
You want anyone who downloads this viral marketing product to be able to link back to your website, just as you would want someone to be able to contact your brick-and-mortal store when you provide a promotional giveaway like a pen, coffee cup, mousepad, etc. 3. Set up delivery process. Will visitors be able to download the software directly from your site, or will they have to provide their contact information? The best option is to give it away with no strings attached. However, on the page in which you offer the download, you can offer visitors yet another gift, one that requires their contact info to receive. 4.
Give away the rights. If you'd like to really jump start the viral marketing process, give people the rights to give away your viral marketing piece to their own customers. 5. Rebrand the item. If you permit people to rebrand the giveaway with some of their contact info or affiliate links, as well, they will really be motivated to pass along your viral marketing piece.
6. Announce the availability of the item. Write an article or a press release about your viral marketing item. Announce its availability to your contact database or ezine list. Ask your readers or visitors to your blog to announce it to their lists or just simply give it away. Capturing the power of viral marketing is a simple and cost-effective strategy to drive traffic to your website.
If implemented properly, who knows how much fame and fortune this technique could bring you? Copyright (c) 2007 Donna Gunter.
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. Get your free affiliate link cloaking program at Affiliate-Link-Cloak.com. It's a perfect example of viral marketing in action! Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com . |
0.97467 | Do you still suffer from smoking?
The homeopathic remedy, Caladium, can help reduce withdrawal symptoms, such as cravings, tension, irritability and moodiness that can result when you stop smoking.
I would like you to know that homeopathy and a few lifestyle changes can help anyone wanting to quit smoking. I know this because, aside from being a homeopath (who has helped others quit), I went through the process myself nearly 25 years ago.
The homeopathic remedy, Caladium, can help reduce withdrawal symptoms, such as cravings, tension, irritability and moodiness that can result when you stop smoking. Homeopathic remedies can also work on a psychological level, thus removing the psychological cravings and temptation to resume smoking. Homeopathic remedies are non-addictive, do not produce side effects or complications, and do no harm or produce unwanted reactions when used as directed.
The caladium plant is from the Araceae species, which are often tuberous, such as the peace lily, and contain calcium oxalate crystals. This is interesting because calcium oxalate crystals, if ingested in the pure state, induce suffocation, thus affecting the lungs. Calcium oxalate crystals are the lead component of kidney stones, which are very prevalent in heavy smokers.
Many plants in this family are thermogenic, or heat producing. Their flowers can reach up to 45 C even when the surrounding air temperature is much lower. One reason for its unusually high temperature is to attract insects (usually beetles) to pollinate the plant, thus rewarding the beetles with heat energy.
Another reason is to prevent tissue damage in cold regions. The prevention of tissue damage and the purity of the white peace lily, I think, are a representation of the cleansing and healing of a smoker’s badly damaged lungs, often referred to as being crystallized.
Caladium is also known by the common names Elephant Ear, Heart of Jesus and Angel Wings. More than 1,000 named cultivars of caladium exist, which originated in South America; however, the majority of American bulbs now come from Lake Placid, Florida.
To use Caladium for smoking cessation, take doses of four to six pellets, dissolved under the tongue, up to four times daily for two weeks. Then, reduce to twice daily for another two weeks. Continue once daily if you still feel the need, for up to another month. Carry a vial of Caladium with you everywhere for at least two months.
Additionally, I always recommend a thorough cleansing, inside and out. The following steps are important to help get through the withdrawal process.
Flush your body with water. At least triple your daily intake of water. Better yet, focus on drinking at least one gallon or more if you can. Actually set the gallon of water out where you can see the progress. Do not simply guess at the intake amount.
Start taking a good quality daily multi-vitamin, a strong antioxidant to rid the body of toxins and a magnesium supplement to keep the edge off and to stay calm and relaxed.
It is extremely important to snack on lots of raw veggies throughout the day, as they will cleanse and flush your system. Eat some vegetables that you have not tried before. Get up immediately after eating, perhaps do the dishes or take a walk.
Shower, wash your hair and brush your teeth more often each day.
Exercise — it passes the time, helps the body with elimination and keeps the weight off. Really break a sweat, as this cleanses the skin.
Get plenty of fresh air. Clean the house and throw out or dry-clean all things that absorb smoke, such as curtains, bedding, throw pillows, linens, clothes, rugs and even silk plants. Throw away ashtrays. Open your house and air it out; use a disinfectant, candles or scented oils so you will start to enjoy fresh, clean smells.
Put the money you would have spent on cigarettes into a container so you can see how much you have saved. Go for a two-month plan and decide what you are going to buy yourself as a reward. Keep your eye on the prize and treat yourself.
Realize the damage that your second-hand smoke may have caused your loved ones, including children and pets. Focus on keeping them healthy.
Remember, smoking is an addiction — the same as any other addiction, i.e. drugs, alcohol or gambling. Like other addictions, it hurts the people around you, those who care. Commit to them that you are going to stop.
Definitely change your morning routine to avoid that first cigarette. Change physicality, locale habits and whatever you currently do while having a cigarette.
Do not eat foods that make you crave a cigarette or drink alcohol for six weeks, as these tend to lessen your willpower.
Do not sit in the same chair with your coffee while talking on the phone, using the computer, or reading the paper or a book. Change it all up.
Tell the smokers in your life that you cannot associate with them for a short while until you get over the hump. Call someone when you need a cigarette so they can distract you.
Expect six weeks to three months to get past the cravings. Trust that you will do it. Remember, nobody ever died because they quit smoking.
Dannette Hunnel is the author of Shorten the Distance, a book focusing on long-distance parenting and a homeopathic consultant. DannetteHunnel.com, dhunnel@yahoo.com or 602-418-0505. |
0.955468 | (CNN) — Simba the French bulldog is probably alive today because of the attentiveness of an Air Canada pilot.
"As soon as the crew became aware of the temperature issue, the captain grew rightfully concerned for the dog's comfort and well-being," Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told CNN via email. "With the altitude it can become very uncomfortable, and possibly the situation could have been life-threatening if the flight had continued."
The aircraft diverted to Frankfurt, Germany, where Simba, age 7, was boarded onto another flight, causing a delay of about 75 minutes for the original flight's passengers.
"Frankfurt was a good choice due to proximity, the fact there are multiple Air Canada flights (and flights by our partner Lufthansa) to Canada each day, and also because the airport can turn aircraft quickly, meaning there would be little time on the ground," said Fitzpatrick.
"While we recognize this was an inconvenience for our customers, the overall reaction was positive, particularly once people understood the dog was in potential danger but safe as a result of the diversion," he said.
Kontorovich was grateful for the pilot's decision. "It's my dog, it's like (my) child. It's everything," he told City News after landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
"It was definitely the right thing to do," a fellow passenger said.
The diversion could cost the airline thousands of dollars in fuel costs, aviation expert Phyl Durby told City News, but he called it the right decision. "The captain is responsible for all lives on board." |
0.955989 | The Eurasian nomads were a large group of nomadic peoples from the Eurasian Steppe, who often appear in history as invaders of Europe, the Middle East and China.
The generic title encompasses the varied ethnic groups who have at times inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, Mongolia, and what is now Russia. They domesticated the horse around 3500 BC, vastly increasing the possibilities of nomadic life, and subsequently their economy and culture emphasised horse breeding, horse riding and nomadic pastoralism; this usually involved trading with settled peoples around the steppe edges. They developed the chariot, wagon, cavalry and horse archery and introduced innovations such as the bridle, bit and stirrup, and the very rapid rate at which innovations crossed the steppelands spread these widely, to be copied by settled peoples bordering the steppes.
Scythia was a loose state or federation covering most of the steppe that originated as early as 8th century BC, composed mainly of people speaking Iranian languages, and usually regarded as the first of the nomad empires. The Roman army hired Sarmatians as elite cavalrymen. Europe was exposed to several waves of invasions by horse people, including the Cimmerians in the 8th century BCE, various peoples during the Migration period, the Magyars in the Early Middle Ages, the Mongols and Seljuks in the High Middle Ages, the Kalmuks and the Kyrgyz and later the Kazakhs up to modern times. The earliest example of an invasion by a horse people may have been by the Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves, following the domestication of the horse in the 4th millennium BCE (see Kurgan hypothesis). Cimmerian is the first invasion of equestrian steppe nomads that is known from historical sources. Their military strength was always based on cavalry, usually marked by prowess as mounted archers. Kurgan is a general term for steppe burial mounds, which sometimes contained very elaborate burials.
Historically, areas to the north of China included Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang were inhabited by nomadic tribes. Early periods in Chinese history involved conflict with the nomadic peoples to the west of the Wei valley. Texts from the Zhou dynasty (c.1050-256 BC) compare the Rong, Di and Qin dynasty to wolves, describing them as cruel and greedy. Iron and bronze were supplied from China. An early theory proposed by Owen Lattimore suggesting that the nomadic tribes could have been self-sufficient was criticized by later scholars, who questioned whether their raids may have been motivated by necessity rather than greed. Subsequent studies noted that nomadic demand for grain, cereals, textiles and ironware exceeded China's demand for Steppe goods. Anatoly Khazanov identified this imbalance in production as the cause of instability in the Steppe nomadic cultures. Later scholars argued that peace along China's northern border largely depended on whether the nomads could obtain the essential grains and textiles they needed through peaceful means such as trade or intermarriage. Several tribes organized to form the Xiongnu, a tribal confederation that gave the nomadic tribes the upper hand in their dealings with the settled agricultural Chinese people.
During the Tang dynasty, Turks would cross the Yellow River when it was frozen to raid China. Contemporary Tang sources noted the superiority of Turkic horses. Emperor Taizong wrote that the horses were "exceptionally superior to ordinary [horses]". The Xiajiasi (Kyrgyz) were a tributary tribe who controlled an area abundant in resources like gold, tin and iron. The Turks used the iron tribute paid by the Kyrgyz to make weapons, armor and saddle parts. Turks were nomadic hunters and would sometimes conceal military activities under the pretense of hunting. Their raids into China were organized by a khagan and success in these campaigns had a significant influence on a tribal leaders prestige. In the 6th c. the Göktürk Khaganate consolidated their dominance over the northern steppe region through a series of military victories against the Shiwei, Khitan, Rouran, Tuyuhun, Karakhoja, and Yada. By the end of the 6th century, following the Göktürk civil war, the short-lived empire had split into the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates.
The concept of "horse people" was of some importance in 19th century scholarship, in connection with the rediscovery of Germanic pagan culture by Romanticism (see Viking revival), which idealised the Goths in particular as a heroic horse-people. J. R. R. Tolkien's Rohirrim may be seen as an idealised Germanic people influenced by these romantic notions. Tolkien's Wainriders of eastern Rhûn recall ancient steppe peoples like the Scythians. Similarly, George R. R. Martin's nomadic Dothraki people are heavily influenced by the lifestyles and cultures of historical horse people.
Nomadism persists in the steppelands, though it has generally been disapproved of by modern regimes, who have often discouraged it with varying degrees of coersion.
Chronologically, there have been several "waves" of invasions of either Europe, the Near East, India and/or China from the steppe.
^ "What We Theorize – When and Where Domestication Occurred". International Museum of the Horse. Retrieved 2015-01-27.
^ "Horsey-aeology, Binary Black Holes, Tracking Red Tides, Fish Re-evolution, Walk Like a Man, Fact or Fiction". Quirks and Quarks Podcast with Bob Macdonald. CBC Radio. 2009-03-07. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
^ Annamoradnejad, Rahimberdi; Lotfi, Sedigheh (2010). "Demographic changes of nomadic communities in Iran (1956–2008)". Asian Population Studies. 6 (3): 335–345. doi:10.1080/17441730.2010.512764.
^ a b Di Cosmo, Nicola. "Ancient Inner Asian Nomads: Their Economic Basis and Its Significance in Chinese History." The Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 4 (1994): 1092-126.
^ Susan E. Alcock (9 August 2001). Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and past. Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-0-521-77020-0.
Amitai, Reuven; Biran, Michal (editors). Mongols, Turks, and others: Eurasian nomads and the sedentary world (Brill's Inner Asian Library, 11). Leiden: Brill, 2005 (ISBN 90-04-14096-4).
Drews, Robert. Early riders: The beginnings of mounted warfare in Asia and Europe. N.Y.: Routledge, 2004 (ISBN 0-415-32624-9).
Golden, Peter B. Nomads and their neighbours in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Qipchaqs (Variorum Collected Studies). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003 (ISBN 0-86078-885-7).
Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the steppe: A military history of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700. New York: Sarpedon Publishers, 1997 (hardcover, ISBN 1-885119-43-7); Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001(paperback, ISBN 0-306-81065-4).
Kradin, Nikolay. 2004. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective. In Alternatives of Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, A.V. Korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P.K. Wason (p. 274–288). Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; reprinted in: The Early State, its Alternatives and Analogues. Ed. by Leonid Grinin et al. (р. 501–524). Volgograd: Uchitel'.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2002. Nomadism, Evolution, and World-Systems: Pastoral Societies in Theories of Historical Development. Journal of World-System Research 8: 368–388.
*Kradin, Nikolay. 2003. Nomadic Empires: Origins, Rise, Decline. In Nomadic Pathways in Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, Dmitri Bondarenko, and T. Barfield (p. 73–87). Moscow: Center for Civilizational Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
*Kradin, Nikolay. 2006. Cultural Complexity of Pastoral Nomads. World Cultures 15: 171–189.
Kradin, Nikolay. Nomads of Inner Asia in Transition. Moscow: URSS, 2014 (ISBN 978-5-396-00632-4).
Littauer, Mary A.; Crouwel, Joost H.; Raulwing, Peter (Editor). Selected writings on chariots and other early vehicles, riding and harness (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 6). Leiden: Brill, 2002 (ISBN 90-04-11799-7).
Shippey, Thomas "Tom" A. Goths and Huns: The rediscovery of Northern culture in the nineteenth century, in The Medieval legacy: A symposium. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 1981 (ISBN 87-7492-393-5), pp. 51–69.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurasian nomads.
A nomad is a member of a community of people without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from the same areas, including nomadic hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads, and tinker or trader nomads. As of 1995, there were an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world.
The Rouran Khaganate, Ruanruan, Ruru, or Tantan was the name of a state of uncertain origin ,, although it is commonly believed that its people were descended from the Xianbei. The Rouran are noted for being the first people to use the title of "khan" or "khagan". The Rouran Khaganate lasted from the late 4th century until the middle 6th century when they were defeated by a Göktürk rebellion which subsequently led to the rise of the Turks in world history. The Rouran may have fled west after that and became the Pannonian Avars, however this is a contested theory among historians. The Göktürks chased after these "Avars" into the Byzantine Empire and referred to them as "Varconites" who were escaped slaves of the Türks. However they also claimed that these were not "true Avars", who remained in the east as subjects of the Türks, while the ones in the west were only "pseudo-Avars".
The history of Central Asia concerns the history of the various peoples that have inhabited Central Asia. The lifestyle of such people has been determined primarily by the area's climate and geography. The aridity of the region makes agriculture difficult and distance from the sea cut it off from much trade. Thus, few major cities developed in the region. Nomadic horse peoples of the steppe dominated the area for millennia.
Scythian art is art, primarily decorative objects, such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes in the area known to the ancient Greeks as Scythia, which was centred on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and ranged from modern Kazakhstan to the Baltic coast of modern Poland and to Georgia. The identities of the nomadic peoples of the steppes is often uncertain, and the term "Scythian" should often be taken loosely; the art of nomads much further east than the core Scythian territory exhibits close similarities as well as differences, and terms such as the "Scytho-Siberian world" are often used. Other Eurasian nomad peoples recognised by ancient writers, notably Herodotus, include the Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Saka, the last a name from Persian sources, while ancient Chinese sources speak of the Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu. Modern archaeologists recognise, among others, the Pazyryk, Tagar, and Aldy-Bel cultures, with the furthest east of all, the later Ordos culture a little west of Beijing. The art of these peoples is collectively known as steppes art.
Turco-Mongol or the Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century, among the ruling elites of Mongol Empire's successor states. These elites adopted Islam while retaining Mongol political and legal institutions.
The Pontic–Caspian steppe, or Pontic steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea as far east as the Caspian Sea, from Moldova and eastern Ukraine across the North Caucasus Federal District, Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan, forming part of the larger Eurasian steppe, adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to the east. It is a part of the Palearctic temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.
Turkic migration refers to the expansion of the Turkic tribes and Turkic languages into Central Asia, Eastern Europe and West Asia, mainly between the 6th and 11th centuries. The region of origin of the Turkic peoples is suggested to be somewhere in Siberia, Mongolia or northwestern Manchuria.
The Ordos culture was a culture occupying a region centered on the Ordos Loop during the Bronze and early Iron Age from the 6th to 2nd centuries BCE. The Ordos culture is known for significant finds of Scythian art and is thought to represent the easternmost extension of Indo-European Eurasian nomads, such as the Saka. Under the Qin and Han dynasties, from the 6th to 2nd centuries BCE, the area came under at least nominal control of contemporaneous Chinese states.
The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. It stretches from Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova through Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, and Mongolia to Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe or Puszta, located mostly in Hungary and partially in Serbia and Croatia.
Yueban, also written Üeban, Urpen literally: "Weak Xiongnu") was the name used by Chinese historians for remnants of the Xiongnu in Zhetysu, now part of modern-day Kazakhstan. In Chinese literature they commonly called Yueban. The Yuebans gained their own visibility after disintegration of the Eastern Xiongnu state, because unlike the main body of the Northern Xiongnu, who escaped from the Chinese sphere of knowledge, the Yueban tribes remained closer to China.
Nikolay Nikolaevich Kradin is a Russian anthropologist and archaeologist. Since 1985 he has been a Research Fellow of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok. He was Head and Professor of the Department of Social Anthropology in the Far-Eastern National Technical University, and also Head and Professor of the Department of World History, Archaeology and Anthropology in the Far-Eastern Federal University. Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2011).
The Khitan people were a nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East. They spoke the Khitan language, which appears to be related to the Mongolic languages. As the Liao dynasty, they dominated a vast area north of and including parts of China. After the fall of the Liao dynasty in 1125 following the Jurchen invasion, many Khitans followed Yelü Dashi's group westward to establish the Qara Khitai, or Western Liao dynasty, in Central Asia, which lasted several decades before falling to the Mongol Empire in 1218.
The conquest of the Western Turks, known as the Western Tujue in Chinese sources, was a military campaign in 657 led by the Tang Dynasty general Su Dingfang against the Western Turkic Khaganate ruled by Ashina Helu. The Chinese war against the Western Turks began in 640 with the annexation of the Tarim Basin oasis state Gaochang, an ally of the Western Turks. Several of the oasis states had once been vassals of the Tang Dynasty, but switched their allegiance to the Western Turks when they grew suspicious of the military ambitions of the Tang. Tang expansion into Central Asia continued with the conquest of Karasahr in 644 and Kucha in 648. Su Dingfang commanded the main army dispatched against the Western Turks, while the Turkic generals Ashina Mishe and Ashina Buzhen led the side divisions. The Tang troops were reinforced by cavalry supplied by the Uyghurs, a tribe that had been allied with the Tang since their support for the Uyghur revolt against the Xueyantuo. Su Dingfang's army defeated Helu at the battle of Irtysh River.
The military of the Tang Dynasty was staffed with a large population of Turkic soldiers, referred to as Tujue in Chinese sources. Tang elites in northern China were familiar with Turkic culture, a factor that contributed to the Tang acceptance of Turkic recruits. The Tang emperor Taizong adopted the title of "Heavenly Kaghan" and promoted a cosmopolitan empire. Taizong regularly recruited and promoted military officers of Turkic ancestry, whose steppe experience contributed to the western and northern expansion of the Tang empire. The Turkic general Ashina She'er participated in the Tang capture of the Karakhoja, Karasahr, and Kucha kingdoms in Xinjiang. The half-Turkic general An Lushan started a revolt that led to the decline of Tang Dynasty.
This article summarizes the History of the western steppe, which is the western third of the Eurasian steppe, that is, the grasslands of Ukraine and southern Russia. It is intended as a summary and an index to the more-detailed linked articles. It is a companion to History of the central steppe and History of the eastern steppe. All dates are approximate since there are few exact starting and ending dates. This summary article does not list the uncertainties, which are many. For these, see the linked articles.
This is a short History of the central steppe, an area roughly equivalent to modern Kazakhstan. Because the history is complex it is mainly an outline and index to the more detailed articles given in the links. It is a companion to History of the western steppe and History of the eastern steppe and is parallel to the History of Kazakhstan and the History of central Asia. |
0.999999 | Returns true if the trigger has been activated. Note: The trigger could be local or remote but the result returned by this command will be for the trigger condition set up locally on the client that executed the command. See createTrigger for more info.
If trigger already activated at least once, triggerActivated will only return false if trigger is set to activate Repeatedly.
In other words, a trigger set to activate Once will always return true once activated at least once (even if trigger is no longer activated). |
0.999999 | Write a topic on "ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUSINESS".
The importance of social media has increased in recent years with a large percentage of people who use social media. It has paved the way for the marketers to reach a huge number of people through social media. Every business needs to interact with the customers via social media platforms. This project focuses to identify the advantages and disadvantages of social media in business. Based on the background study on the topic project objective has been set. Based on the objective the subject has been elaborately discussed with using proper methodology. This paper attempts to identify different aspects of social media networks in business.
To understand the usefulness of social media in terms of business.
To understand the ways through which usage of social media can proved to be fruitful for different business organizations.
To understand the disadvantages and challenges that underlie in using social media for business purposes.
The scope of this project is limited as it primarily focuses on the evaluation of existing literature in the field of using social media in business. As there has been lots of work regarding this issue, the aim of this particular research is to go beyond the often discussed problems of social media and identify seldom discussed problems and scopes of social media when incorporated in any business. The researcher also attempts to critique the advantages and disadvantages of social media in business in order to understand the previous development of literature regarding this pertinent issue and compare that with current research outcomes in order to focus upon the underlying research gap.
According to current study among over 3 billion internet users over 2 billion users have active social media accounts. Famous social media websites have become marketing platforms for large and small business organization. Its effectivity is in the fact that is equally affordable for most of the companies. It has been proved to be a greater marketing platform for the companies. As per the market reports the number of social networking media users is increasing gradually in the recent few years (Scott, 2015). Therefore, it is evident that are tempted to use the social networking media as marketing platforms.
Here the discussion focuses upon different areas of social networking based media. There are several advantages and disadvantages of using social media for business marketing and other business related functions (Scott, 2015). Different business houses have gained success recently due to their effective use of social media. There is some benefit of social media for every company if they use it in a correct manner. Without having the knowledge of how to use it properly it can proved to be harmful for any company. In previous years web based social networking used to be considered as a passing prevailing fashion (Scott, 2015). With the increase of social media based consumers different business organization started off with associating their profile with some or the other social media based platform. Social media can serve as a marketing platform in order to launch new products and services (Scott, 2015). It can also be used as a mode of contact between the service providers and the users. With the advent of E-commerce and social media networking business different companies can use them for selling their products and services as well (Scott, 2015).
In current scenario, the customers are busy with their social media accounts and the advertisers can facilitate their advertising, promoting and showcasing through the social media networks.
They can gain valuable customer insight from their social media activity. Social media has the capacity to provide your customers a huge number of data in a very short period of time (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013). The business organization can collect information about their customers. This can be utilized the data in order to decide more intelligent business choices.
Social media platform can also be used as the mode of gaining loyalty and to increase brand awareness. A strong social media connection can ensure an easy contact between any company and their customers. It is helpful for customer retention and brand loyalty. According to a recent U.S based study 53% of the Americans who follows their brands in different social media networks are more loyal to their brand choices (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013).
Social media platforms can also be used as the platform to run the targeted ads with fruitful results. It can be a wise marketing choice as the ad services through social media are inexpensive and affordable for the companies (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013). Posting ads on social media can help the companies to reach their target audience in a short span of time. It becomes easy for the companies to measure the performance of their advertisement.
The social media marketing option also helps in generating higher converting leads as the companies have the opportunity of regular interaction with the audience (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013). It helps to retain the audience and increase the sales.
Nowadays more than 67% of the consumers use their social media networks as a purchasing platform (Scott, 2015). therefore, the companies through associating with the social networks can improve their service and customer experience.
With increasing website traffic and search ranking any company can have a higher enquiry position of their company (Jussila,Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014). It helps to have a successful online marketing strategy for a company.
Social media can also be used to recognize the activities of the competitors. With the help of web based marketing a company can easily be aware of the activities and marketing strategies and their manners of product showcasing of their competitors (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013).
Social media networks can be used for faster communication with the audience and the companies can share content in a faster and easier way.
Social media apart from being used as a marketing and a platform for communication, can also serve the purpose of building relationship with the customers.
Sometimes social networking can be intensive the long term commitment and relationship that the social media networks attempts to establish between the companies and the customer, can have an adverse and long term effect on the company (Aral,Dellarocas & Godes, 2013). It is important for every business organization to have a responsible team to communicate with the customers properly. Every business organize should focus on the fact that with a service to manage their social networking activities it can be difficult for the companies to compete.
According to the opinions of experts for different companies it is critical to ensure their individual trademark and copyrights while utilizing the web based advertising and marketing options (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).
Active use of social media networks can also cause privacy, trust and security issues of the company. It is therefore, important for the organizations to be mindful of the security issues that they might encounter in future (Nielsen & Schrøder, 2014). Trust of the customers is primary aspect that is directly associated with the position of any company. The company needs to work on building and keeping the trust of their customers in order to maintain their reputation.
Some of the recent studies have found that the customers have spent more time and energy in sharing data, suppositions and contemplations with each other through internet. Advertising systems have included and influenced the person to person communications and because of this more customer generated data and content are being fused through the medium of internet (Hajli, 2014).
one of the major disadvantages that the use of social media in business is the negative feedback which is generated by the customers (Trainor,Andzulis,Rapp, & Agnihotri, 2014). Negative feedback that the company encounters via social media create both positive and negative pressure on the company. Recently, the power of feedback is rising as the customers check the review of the product or services before they avail them. The negative feedback of a product or service can have adverse effect on the company’s reputation and can decrease their sales as well.
This study is led to identify the advantages and disadvantages of social media networks from the perspective of a business organization (Laroche,Habibi & Richard, 2013). With the increasing technological advancement social media networks are been used by different business organization for promotional and marketing purposes (Vinerean,Cetina,Dumitrescu & Tichindelean, 2013). Therefore, it is identified to be important to discuss other use of social media as well. The study with the help of adequate data attempts to bring out several aspects of social media networks that can proved to be instrumental in the progressive development of different business organizations.
Social media is such a platform that can be established anywhere, anytime with enough knowledge on how to operate the system with the help of internet connectivity. It is important for the marketers, online content creators and the advertisers to consider as a basic part of their communication system. It is noteworthy for the marketers and the advertisers as social media has its impact on every aspect of people’s lives.
Research designs indicates a proper structure that has been maintained in order to conduct the study successfully. It is maintained for the structured representation of the overall strategy that has been selected by the researcher in order to integrate different components of the study in a coherent and logical fashion. Research design presents a layout of the complete study. There are mainly three types of research designs namely, descriptive design, explanatory research design and exploratory research design. The researcher for this study attempts to select the descriptive design in order to reach a productive conclusion of the evaluation.
Research methodology describes different tools and techniques that have been used in order to reach the conclusion of the study successfully (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015). It is highly important to maintain a correct methodology in order to conduct the study properly. It is important to achieve a proper framework of the study through different methodological tools (Flick, 2015).
Research philosophy is the primary component that formulates the path of the research. There are different research philosophies with their individual characteristics (Panneerselvam, 2014). Based on the topic research philosophy needs to be selected accordingly. For this study positivism has been suggested as the appropriate research philosophy (Smith, 2015). Positivism because of its individual reasoning can be helpful in the developing the conclusion of the evaluation.
Choosing the right data collection method is considered to a vital part of the research. Data collection method is distinguished between Primary Data Collection method and Secondary data collection method (Smith, 2015).
Primary data is considered to be the new data that is collected by the researcher whereas secondary data is the already available data that is collected by someone else. Secondary data collection method is suggested as the appropriate one for this study as there is already a huge amount of data available regarding the issue under discussion.
Sampling is a vital part of data collection method. Sample indicates a small proportion of the overall population that has been selected on the basis of few special attributes that they possess. Sampling techniques are of two kinds, probability sampling and nonprobability sampling. Here non probability sampling has been suggested as it seems to be appropriate for the research.
It is important to analyse the gathered data using proper techniques. There are primarily three types of data analysis techniques that are been appreciated highly by the researchers. Among qualitative, quantitative and mixed data analysis technique both qualitative and quantitative data analysis technique have been taken under consideration by the researcher (Smith, 2015).
Qualitative method is important to evaluate the already available literature on this research topic and analysing different aspects of social media networks in association with the business. Quantitative method is important for the analysis of the quantitative or the statistical data associated with the issue.
One of the primary limitation of this research is that the study has been conducted in a limited period of time. It has been difficult to understand the complex procedure through which the companies establish a contact with the stakeholders like blogs, user generated contents and social media. It has been difficult to understand the marketing strategies that the companies apply in their social media marketing process because different companies use contrasting strategies from each other.
Because of limited amount of capital thorough research has not been possible by visiting different companies and have the firsthand data with the help of interviews in person with the managers. The research is based on the secondary data and huge amount of already available on the discussion of this particular issue. Because of limited time the relevant data which has been gathered and scrutinized are collected mainly from internet sources. As there is already a huge amount of data available it is problematic for the researcher to select the authentic data. Further studies can be done to focus upon different ways through which the company can effectively use the social networking platform.
This study different aspect of social networking and its advantages and disadvantages upon any business organization. Both the advantages and the possible adverse effects have been scrutinized with the help of the proper methodology. A hypothesis has been generated with the detailed discussion on the available literature on this particular issue. This project aims to offer new information and enlighten new aspects of social media and its use in business. The existing literature mostly sheds light upon the ways through which social media can be used as a online marketing and advertising platform. This project attempts to go beyond that and identify other aspects of social media when incorporated in any business activity. |
0.837128 | Lelouch is back in Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2 to take revenge on his father and to change the world. After an exciting cliffhanger ending of the first series, how will it end? Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2 is here to answer all your questions and provide the ultimate ending that will shock everyone.
That was necessary. Since this is a direct sequel to the first series, many elements of the story are continuations from the first series. That said, I will be referring to some points taken from the first series in reviewing this series. Let's start of with the cliffhanger. Lelouch has been mind-wiped and dropped back into his 'normal' life as a high school kid. He is constantly monitored by undercover Britannian forces that will do everything to prevent him regaining his memories. Of course when you first watch you will have no idea what is going on. What happened to Lelouch after the end of the first series is adequately explained within the first few episodes of the series. This is after he regains him memories of the past. Basically, after the return of 'Zero' the whole 'I must take over the world' story gets into motion once again. So throughout the series you will be watching as 'Zero' and his rebellion try to overcome the Britannian Empire rule by any means possible. Any means possible meaning lying or betraying friends in the process. The whole story is basically one big plot twist where love and hate are always constantly being challenged. By the end, you will have totally lost count of how many times a character has switched sides. However, what comes in the end is just truly genius.
Since I got used to the first series art style, this series didn't make that much of a difference to me. I must say that the battles have gotten more fierce and mechs more stronger and the explosions are stunning. Really well done for visual presentation and character appeal. I really didn't mind the squishy faces anymore, I must have gotten too used to them.
Voice acting is pretty much the same as the first series. Lelouch's voice still slightly annoys me at times. Anyway, apart from him, the other characters were excellent. I found the theme songs in Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2 were better than the first series. Also the sound effects were great with plenty of explosions and gunfire.
Characters' motives and personalities are revealed even more in this series. You will get to know Lelouch a lot more in this series as his identity is revealed to everyone. In the end, you will feel some pity for him. There are just so many characters shown throughout this anime there is no way to get to know them all. However, the main characters you will definitely find memorable are Lelouch, Kallen, C.C. and Suzaku. They are pretty much central to the whole plot of the anime.
Overall, this series was really enjoyable to watch. Being able to finally see the end of this epic two-series story is just satisfying. Everything is explained and you will fully understand why Lelouch has his attitude and how he solved the problems of the world in one big plot. This anime is amazingly compiled and just makes sense in the end.
Same as first series with little or no difference.
I liked this series' theme songs better than the first. Characters are all the same.
Mixture of many different characters.
Amazed and impressed at the ending of the story.
I enjoyed the anime a lot. Suitable for sci-fi fans who love mechs and war! |
0.999993 | The family probably enjoyed some stature as Nathaniel Hill served in the House of Representatives for the County of York in 1827.* Information found on Find-a-Grave, suggests Deborah and her sister Margaret (1820-1854) never married. This land transaction might have been an attempt by Deborah's parents Nathaniel and Margaret Townsend Hill (1780-1864) to ensure Deborah held property. Yet, the effort was relatively short-lived as Deborah died only seven years after the sale.
Margaret and Deborah were buried near their parents in the Hill-Elwell Cemetery in York County, Maine. That sentence should actually be restated. Nathaniel's wife and the sister's mother, Margaret Hill, was buried near her husband and daughters, for they all pre-deceased her.
The relationship of the other signatory on the document, Justice of the Peace Daniel Hill 2nd (1802-1863), to the family was unclear until I came across this webpage, which clarified much of the Hill family genealogy. Credit goes to the anonymous genealogist who made the page, but I am not sure who to credit or the context in which the page exists (you'll see what I mean if you try clicking any of the links on that webpage). Regardless, if the information in this genealogy is correct, Daniel Hill 2nd was one of Deborah's brothers. His gravestone, as shown on Find-a-Grave, is interesting in that it denotes him as Daniel Hill 2nd. He also signed this document using the "2nd." In fact, the handwriting of the document is apparently Daniel's with the one exception of Nathaniel Hill's signature.
The last person mentioned is that of Benjamin Kimball. Out of curiosity, I performed a cursory search for Benhamin and came across the following passage, which I find amusing. I do want readers to be aware, that I am not entirely sure this is referring to the correct Benjamin Kimball.
**Not to confuse the issue, but in case the mistake in middle name is not mine alone and has been repeated, the search for Granville S. Hill turned up a man that was approximately 48 by the time of the 1850 census. The MooseRoots link also denotes persons in the household associated with Granville S. Although their names do not correspond with those found on the above document, these might prove to be extended family members, so I have included the link (on the census). |
0.999546 | Home cinema, also called a home theater, a home theatre, and a theater room, are home entertainment audio-visual systems that seek to reproduce a movie theater experience and mood using consumer electronics-grade video and audio equipment that is set up in a room or backyard of a private home. In the 1980s, home cinemas typically consisted of a movie pre-recorded on a LaserDisc or VHS tape; a LaserDisc or VHS player; and a heavy, bulky large-screen cathode ray tube TV set. In the 2000s, technological innovations in sound systems, video player equipment and TV screens and video projectors have changed the equipment used in home theatre set-ups and enabled home users to experience a higher-resolution screen image, improved sound quality and components that offer users more options (e.g., many of the more expensive Blu-ray players in 2016 can also "stream" movies and TV shows over the Internet using subscription services such as Netflix). The development of Internet-based subscription services means that 2016-era home theatre users do not have to commute to a video rental store as was common in the 1980s and 1990s (nevertheless, some movie enthusiasts buy DVD or Blu-ray discs of their favourite content).
Today, a home cinema system typically uses a large projected image from a video projector or a large flat-screen high-resolution HDTV system, a movie or other video content on a DVD or high-resolution Blu-ray disc, which is played on a DVD player or Blu-ray player, with the audio augmented with a multi-channel power amplifier and anywhere from two speakers and a stereo power amp (for stereo sound) to a 5.1 channel amplifier and five or more surround sound speaker cabinets (with a surround sound system). Whether home cinema enthusiasts have a stereo set-up or a 5.1 channel surround system, they typically use at least one low-frequency subwoofer speaker cabinet to amplify low-frequency effects from movie soundtracks and reproduce the deep pitches from the musical soundtrack.
In the 1950s, playing home movies became popular in the United States with middle class and upper-class families as Kodak 8 mm film projector equipment became more affordable. The development of multi-channel audio systems and later LaserDisc in the 1980s created a new paradigm for home video, as it enabled movie enthusiasts to add better sound and images to their setup. In the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, a typical home cinema in the United States would have a LaserDisc or VHS player playing a movie, with the signal fed to a large rear-projection television set. Some people used expensive front projectors in a darkened viewing room. During the 1990s, watching movies on VHS at home became a popular leisure activity. Beginning in the late 1990s, and continuing throughout much of the 2000s, home-theater technology progressed with the development of the DVD-Video format (higher resolution than VHS), Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio ("surround sound") speaker systems, and high-definition television (HDTV), which initially included bulky, heavy Cathode Ray Tube HDTVs and flat screen TVs. In the 2010s, affordable large HDTV flatscreen TVs, high resolution video projectors (e.g., DLP), 3D television technology and the high resolution Blu-ray Disc (1080p) have ushered in a new era of home theater.
In the 2000s, the term "home cinema" encompasses a range of systems meant for movie playback at home. The most basic and economical system could be a DVD player, a standard definition (SD) large-screen television with at least a 27-inch (69 cm) diagonal screen size, and an inexpensive "home theater in a box" surround sound amplifier/speaker system with a subwoofer. A more expensive home cinema set-up might include a Blu-ray disc player, home theater PC (HTPC) computer or digital media receiver streaming devices with a 10-foot user interface, a high-definition video projector and projection screen with over 100-inch (8.3 ft; 2.5 m) diagonal screen size (or a large flatscreen HDTV), and a several-hundred-watt home theater receiver with five to eleven surround-sound speakers plus one or two powerful subwoofer(s). 3D-TV-enabled home theaters make use of 3D TV sets/projectors and Blu-ray 3D players in which the viewers wear 3D-glasses, enabling them to see 3D content.
Home theater designs and layouts are a personal choice and the type of home cinema a user can set up depends on her/his budget and the space which is available within the home. The minimum set of requirements for a home theater are: a large television set or good quality video projector CRT (no new models sold in U.S.), LCD, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma display, organic light-emitting diode (OLED), Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD), Laser TV, rear-projection TV, video projector, Standard-definition television (SDTV), HDTV, or 3D-TV at least 27 inches (69 cm) measured diagonally, an AV receiver or pre-amplifier (surround processor) and amplifier combination capable of at least stereo sound but preferably 5.1 Channel Dolby Digital and DTS audio, and something that plays or broadcasts movies in at least stereo sound such as a VHS HI-FI VCR, LaserDisc player (no new stand-alone models of either are available; VHS VCRs are usually bundled in combo decks with DVD players), a DVD player, a Blu-ray disc player, cable or satellite receiver, video game console, etc. Finally a set of speakers, at least two, are needed but more common are anywhere from six to eight with a subwoofer for bass or low-frequency effects.
The most-expensive home-theater set-ups, which can cost over $100,000 (US), and which are in the homes of executives, celebrities and high-earning professionals, have expensive, large, high-resolution digital projectors and projection screens, and maybe even custom-built screening rooms which include cinema-style chairs and audiophile-grade sound equipment designed to mimic (or sometimes even exceed) commercial theater performance.
This chart shows some of the design flow options for home theatre in the 2000s.
Movie or other viewing content: As the name implies, one of the key reasons for setting up a home cinema is to watch movies on a large screen, which does a more effective job at reproducing filmed images of vast landscapes or epic battle sequences. As of 2016, home cinema enthusiasts using "Smart" Blu-ray players may also watch DVDs of TV shows, and recorded or live sports events or music concerts. As well, with a "Smart" player, a user may be able to "stream" movies, TV shows and other content over the Internet. Many 2016-era DVD players and Blu-ray players also have inputs which allow users to view digital photos and other content on the big screen.
Video and audio input devices: One or more video/audio sources. High resolution movie media formats such as Blu-ray discs are normally preferred, though DVD or video game console systems are also used. Some home theaters include a HTPC (Home Theater PC) with a media center software application to act as the main library for video and music content using a 10-foot user interface and remote control. In 2016, some of the more-expensive Blu-ray players can "stream" movies and TV shows over the Internet.
Audio and video processing devices: Input signals are processed by either a standalone AV receiver or a preamplifier and Sound Processor for complex surround sound formats such as Dolby Pro-Logic/and or Pro-logic II, X, and Z, Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The user selects the input (e.g., DVD, Blu-ray player, streaming video, etc.) at this point before it is forwarded to the output stage. Some AV receivers enable the viewer to use a remote control to select which input device or source to use.
Audio output: Systems consist of preamplifiers, power amplifiers (both of which may be integrated into a single AV receiver) and two or more loudspeakers mounted in speaker enclosures. The audio system requires at least a stereo power amplifier and two speakers, for stereo sound; most systems have multi-channel surround sound power amplifier and six or more speakers (a 5.1 surround sound system has left and right front speakers, a centre speaker, left and right rear speakers and a low-frequency subwoofer speaker enclosure). Some users have 7.1 Surround Sound. It is possible to have up to 11 speakers with additional subwoofers.
Video output: A large-screen display, typically an HDTV. Some users may have a 3D TV. As of 2015, flatscreen HDTV is the norm. Options include Liquid crystal display television (LCD), plasma TV, OLED. Home cinema users may also use a video projector and a movie screen. If a projector is used, a portable, temporary screen may be used or a screen may be permanently mounted on a wall.
Seating and atmosphere: Comfortable seating is often provided to improve the cinema feel. Higher-end home theaters commonly also have sound insulation to prevent noise from escaping the room and specialized wall treatment to balance the sound within the room. Some luxury home cinemas have movie theatre-style padded chairs for guests.
A mid-level home theater system consisting of large-screen LCD television, a Sky+ HD satellite TV box, and a DVD player (and a Blu-ray Disc-capable PlayStation 3 game console). The equipment is on a TV stand.
Home cinemas can either be set up by purchasing individual components one by one (e.g., buying a multichannel amp from one manufacturer, a Blu-ray player from another manufacturer, speakers from another company, etc.) or a by purchasing a HTIB (Home Theater in a Box) package which includes all of components from a single manufacturer, with the exception of a TV or projector. HTIB systems typically include a DVD or Blu-ray player, a surround sound amplifier, five surround speakers, a subwoofer cabinet, cables and a remote. The benefit of purchasing separate components one by one is that consumers can attain improved quality in video or audio and better matching between the components and the needs of a specific room, or the consumer's needs.
However, to buy individual components, a consumer must have knowledge of sound system and video system design and electronics and she or he must do research on the specifications of each component. For instance, some speakers perform better in smaller rooms while others perform better in larger rooms and seating location must be considered. One of the challenges with buying all the components separately is that the purchaser must understand speaker impedance, power handling, and HDMI compatibility and cabling. Given these challenges, HTIB systems are a simpler and more cost-effective solution for many families and consumers; they are also better suited to smaller living spaces in semi-detached homes or apartments/condos where noise could be an issue. As well, buying an HTIB package is often less expensive than buying separate components.
A large projection screen in a media room.
This example is of home theater screening room with video projector mounted in a box on the ceiling. Built-in shelves provide a place for movie decor, DVDs, and equipment. Note the component stack on the right, where the audio receiver, DVD player, secondary monitor, and video game system are located.
Some home cinema enthusiasts build a dedicated room in their home for the theater. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including "room-in-a-room" construction that isolates sound and provides an improved listening environment and a large screen, often using a high definition projector. These installations are often designated as "screening rooms" to differentiate them from simpler, less-expensive installations. In some movie enthusiast's home cinemas, this idea can go as far as completely recreating an actual small-scale cinema, with a projector enclosed in its own projection booth, specialized furniture, curtains in front of the projection screen, movie posters, or a popcorn or vending machine with snack food and candy. More commonly, real dedicated home theaters pursue this to a lesser degree.
As of 2016, the days of the $100,000 and over home theater system is being usurped by the rapid advances in digital audio and video technologies, which has spurred a rapid drop in prices, making a home cinema set-up more affordable than ever before. This in turn has brought the true digital home theater experience to the doorsteps of the do-it-yourselfers, often for much less than the price of a low-budget economy car. As of 2016, consumer grade A/V equipment can meet some of the standards of a small modern commercial theater (e.g., THX sound).
Home theater seating consists of chairs or sofas specifically engineered and designed for viewing movies in a home theater. Some home theater seats have a cup holder built into the chairs' armrests and a shared armrest between each seat. Some seating has movie-theater-style chairs like those seen in a movie cinema, which feature a flip-up seat cushion. Other seating systems have plush leather reclining lounger types, with flip-out footrests. Available features include storage compartments, snack trays, tactile transducers for low-frequency effects that can be felt through a chair (without creating high volume levels which could disturb other family members), and electric motors to adjust the chair. Home theater seating tends to be more comfortable than seats in a public cinema.
In homes that have an adequately sized backyard, it is possible for people to set up a home theater in an outdoor area. Depending on the space available, it may simply be a temporary version with foldable screen, a video projector and couple of speakers, or a permanent fixture with a huge screen and dedicated audio set-up mounted in a weather-proof cabinet. Outdoor home cinemas are popular with BBQ parties and pool parties. Some specialist outdoor home-cinema companies are now marketing packages with inflatable movie screens and purpose-built AV systems. Some people have expanded the idea and constructed mobile drive-in theaters that can play movies in public open spaces. Usually, these require a powerful projector, a laptop or DVD player, outdoor speakers or an FM transmitter to broadcast the audio to other car radios.
In the 1950s, home movies became popular in the United States and elsewhere as Kodak 8 mm film (Pathé 9.5 mm in France) and camera and projector equipment became affordable. Projected with a small, portable movie projector onto a portable screen, often without sound, this system became the first practical home theater. They were generally used to show home movies of family travels and celebrations, but they also doubled as a means of showing some commercial films, or even private stag films. Dedicated home cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing commercial films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the very wealthy, especially those in the movie industry.
Portable home cinemas improved over time with color film, Kodak Super 8 mm film cartridges, and monaural sound but remained awkward and somewhat expensive. The rise of home video in the late 1970s almost completely killed the consumer market for 8 mm film cameras and projectors, as VCRs connected to ordinary televisions provided a simpler and more flexible substitute.
The development of multi-channel audio systems and LaserDisc in the 1980s added new dimensions for home cinema. The first-known home cinema system was designed, built and installed by Steve J. LaFontaine as a sales tool at Kirshmans furniture store in Metairie, Louisiana in 1974. He built a special sound room which incorporated the earliest quadraphonic audio systems, and he modified Sony Trinitron televisions for projecting the image. Many systems were sold in the New Orleans area in the ensuing years before the first public demonstration of this integration occurred in 1982 at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois. Peter Tribeman of NAD (U.S.) organized and presented a demonstration made possible by the collaborative effort of NAD, Proton, ADS, Lucasfilm and Dolby Labs, who contributed their technologies to demonstrate what a home cinema would "look and sound" like.
Over the course of three days, retailers, manufacturers, and members of the consumer electronics press were exposed to the first "home-like" experience of combining a high-quality video source with multi-channel surround sound. That one demonstration is credited with being the impetus for developing what is now a multibillion-dollar business.
In the early to mid-1990s, a typical home cinema would have a LaserDisc or VHS player fed to a large screen: rear projection for the more-affordable setups, and LCD or CRT front-projection in the more-elaborate systems. In the late 1990s, a new wave of home-cinema interest was sparked by the development of DVD-Video, Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel audio, and high-quality front video projectors that provide a cinema experience at a price that rivals a big-screen HDTV.
A home cinema from the late 2000s, using a rear projection television.
In the 2000s, developments such as high-definition video, Blu-ray disc (as well as the now-obsolete HD DVD format, which lost the format war to Blu-ray) and newer high-definition 3D display technologies enabled people to enjoy a cinematic feeling in their own home at a more-affordable price. Newer lossless audio from Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio and speaker systems with more audio channels (such as 6.1, 7.1, 9.1, 9.2, 10.2, and 22.2) were also introduced for a more cinematic feeling.
A store display for a home cinema package at a consumer electronics retailer. Some stores "bundle" home cinema components into a package which can be purchased for a lower cost than buying each component separately.
By the mid-2010s, the Blu-ray Disc medium had become a common home media standard, and online video streaming sources such as Netflix and YouTube were offering a range of high definition content, including some 4K content (although various compression technologies are applied to make this streamed content feasible). The first 4K Blu-ray discs were released in 2016. By this point, 4K TVs and computer monitors were rapidly declining in price and increasing in prevalence, despite a lack of native 4K content. While many DSP systems existed, DTS-HD Master Audio remained the studio standard for lossless surround sound encoding on Blu-ray, with five or seven native discrete channels. High definition video projectors also continued to improve and decrease in price, relative to performance.
As a result of continuing price reductions, large (up to 80'') TVs became a financially competitive alternative to video projectors in living room or even smaller dedicated room setups. Technologies such as local dimming and the like improved the black levels of LCD screens making them more suitable for use in a dark room. Consumer-grade OLED TVs measuring 55'' and above began to emerge in the second half of the decade. These had even better black levels. However, as of 2018, video projectors remained the only viable option when screen sizes much over 80'' are needed.
NC 40: Significant but not a dooming level of ambient noise; the highest "acceptable" ambient noise level. 40 decibels is the lower sound pressure level of normal talking; 60 being the highest.
NC 30: A good NC level; necessary for THX certification in cinemas.
NC 20: An excellent NC level; difficult to attain in large rooms and sought after for dedicated home cinema systems. For example, for a home cinema to be THX certified, it has to have a rating of NC 22.
NC 10: Virtually impossible noise criteria to attain; 10 decibels is associated with the sound level of calm breathing.
Brightness, usually at least 1800 lumens.
Resolution (the number of pixels making up the image), usually at least 1920×1080, one of the HDTV standards.
^ "How Much Cash Do I Need For A Home Theater Setup?". about.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
^ Feldstein, Justin. "Next Generation Televisions: Beyond Conventional LED and LCD Technologies". Audio Den. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
^ "Create Your Own Home Theater", by Stargate Sonem, Articles Organization Free Directory.
^ "Projector Screen Buying Guide from Projector Screen Store". www.projectorscreenstore.com. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
^ "Is there any reason to own a projector when big TVs are so cheap? Glad you asked". Digital Trends. 29 December 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
^ "OLED vs LED LCD: Which is the best display technology? | Trusted Reviews". Trusted Reviews. 12 September 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
^ Wood, Mike (2002). "Design the Ultimate Home Theater—On a Budget." Home Theater.
^ DeBoer, Clint (2007)."THX Certified Home Theater Program." Audioholics Online A/V Magazine.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Home theaters.
Look up home cinema in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
0.997045 | How can I increase deck board gap without removing the boards?
You could install three identical blades in your circular saw with the teeth staggered, then run that down the channel. The saw should follow the gap fairly well, but you'll want to brace the saw with a firm grip to prevent wobble and keep things looking very straight. This should get you about 5/16". Be sure to set the depth properly to avoid damaging your joists, and be aware of the increased tendency for kickback.
Find a roundover router bit with a small guide that just fits the gap, and run that down as well. If you're lucky you can just run once in each direction (this reduces fibrous texture with softwood). If the bit guide is too narrow you'll need to go both directions while in contact with each board.
I'd actually borrow or rent a random-orbit (plate style) floor sander and get things level beforehand. If the boards aren't perfectly flat with respect to each other your bullnose will vary quite a bit.
If it's moldy, lifting deck boards can usually be done with a swift kick... A crowbar and a 5lb sledge will pull it right up, if not.
If you decide to pull them up and reuse them, pressure wash it first to see as many fasteners as possible and pull 'em out. If it's nailed down I either wouldn't pull them or I wouldn't reuse them. If they used nails the boards are probably 20yo and done for anyway. Screws you can pull or they'll snap off anyway, but with rusty nails they're always be some crap left sticking out somewhere.
I'd like to see a picture first (and know how lose everything is), but that's only to say if you should bother to pull the boards, or just wash it every year. Give a good pound with the sledge on a few boards to check the integrity, and especially the stairs. Check all fasteners for obscene amounts of rust, such as the bolts for the railings, metal joist hangers and stair hangers. Replace as necessary. Everyone inherits a slippery deck, but those are the other things you need to check, and keep an eye on from now on.
I would not be cutting them in place; that's just going to look like crap, and splinter. But if I was going to go through the work of pulling the wood boards, I'd probably be replacing them with composite decking that you install with hidden claw spacers (I haven't had a single "Tiger Claw" fail yet, 10 years in).
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged deck drainage or ask your own question.
How do I attach plywood over 2“ x 6” deck boards in preparation for a waterproof cover?
How do I use hidden deck fasteners without compromising the integrity of the flashing?
How can I convert an enclosed deck to an open deck?
How to attach deck when ledger board will be too low?
How do I rid moisture under my deck that's causing rotting of boards?
can wood deck boards be installed over Hardiboard on balcony? |
0.999996 | Rep. Dan Crenshaw Daniel CrenshawVA 'ain't broke' — but it can certainly be improved Ocasio-Cortez plans visit to Kentucky despite being disinvited by GOP colleague Ocasio-Cortez knocks Republican over Kentucky trip: 'GOP thought they could catch us with a bluff' MORE (R-Texas) on Sunday came to the defense of Chelsea Clinton after a video of protesters confronting her at a vigil for victims of a massacre in New Zealand went viral.
Crenshaw replied to a tweet from liberal activist Linda Sarsour, who wrote that she was "triggered" by those who criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar Ilhan OmarDems seek to rein in calls for impeachment Nancy Pelosi had disastrous first 100 days as Speaker of the House The silencing of American Muslims MORE's (D-Minn.) tweets as anti-Semitic who have in turn spoken out against anti-Muslim bigotry in the wake of shootings at two New Zealand mosques.
"This is the kind of insanity poisoning young minds, and led to the terrible accusations against Chelsea Clinton at NYU," Crenshaw tweeted. "Chelsea Clinton is not to blame."
Protesters confronted Clinton, an author and the daughter of former President Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonFive town hall takeaways: Warren shines, Sanders gives ammo to critics Heavy lapses in judgment are politicizing the justice system Bernie Sanders claims his Sister Souljah moment MORE and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonTrump rips Krugman, NYT after columnist writes GOP no longer believes in American values Klobuchar jokes to Cuomo: 'I feel you creeping over my shoulder' but 'not in a Trumpian manner' Dems seek to rein in calls for impeachment MORE, while she attended a vigil for victims of Friday's massacre at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Those who approached Clinton claimed she "stoked" hatred that led to the New Zealand mosque shootings. The protesters were reportedly focused on the former first daughter's condemnation of Omar's comments, which numerous lawmakers have said deployed anti-Semitic tropes to question the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Clinton, who is pregnant with her third child, said she was sorry the students felt that way.
Clinton on Friday condemned the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and called for a "global response to the global threat of violent white nationalism."
As video of the exchange went viral, liberals and conservatives alike came to her defense.
Donald Trump Jr. Donald (Don) John TrumpTrump Jr. slams 2020 Dems as 'more concerned' about rights of murderers than legal gun owners It is wrong to say 'no collusion' Nadler: I don't understand why Mueller didn't charge Donald Trump Jr., others in Trump Tower meeting MORE on Saturday called it "sickening" to see the protesters confront Clinton "because she spoke out against anti-Semitism."
“We should all be condemning anti-Semitism & all forms of hate," he tweeted. "Chelsea should be praised for speaking up. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is part of the problem." |
0.997349 | What does a Lino Lakes kitchen designer or bathroom designer do?
A kitchen and bath design professional in Lino Lakes, MN knows to take all of these crucial points into consideration and can help plan the layout, materials and overall look and feel of either of these rooms in your home.
Kitchen designers, as well as bathroom designers, are constantly staying on top of trends in the ever-changing industry. The designer also knows the best layout for your room, and can configure the layout for optimal functionality and utilization of the space. In the kitchen the refrigerator, stove and sink should be laid out in relation to one another, and it should be seamless and easy to move from one to the other. A Lino Lakes kitchen and bath designer will know how to work with a contractor and architect to plan the flow of the room to work best for your needs. Here are some related professionals and vendors to complement the work of kitchen & bath designers: Kitchen & Bath Fixtures, Appliances, Tile, Stone & Countertops, Cabinets & Cabinetry, Woodworkers & Carpenters.
Before you talk to bath and kitchen designers in Lino Lakes, MN, consider how you will use the room. For your bathroom, is it necessary to have a bathtub for bathing kids or pets, or would a shower suffice? Perhaps all you need is a half bath for downstairs or a smaller guest bath for occasional use. Similarly, for kitchen renovations consider your cooking habits. Do you eat out every night but need a space to entertain in? If so, a smaller kitchen might be fine for you, with a space devoted to wine storage or a bar, whereas others might prefer a bigger stove or extra cabinets. When interviewing Lino Lakes kitchen and bath designers, make sure to share these habits so they can best fit the room to suit your needs.
Find a Lino Lakes kitchen designer or bathroom designer on Houzz. Narrow your search in the Professionals section of the website to Lino Lakes, MN kitchen and bath designers. You can also look through photos in Lino Lakes, MN to find a kitchen or bathroom you like, then contact the professional who designed it. |
0.986913 | Another popular project in primary schools is the one about how animals breathe in air, how their lungs then take the oxygen out of the air, how the oxygen is then used to power the animals' muscles, converting it into carbon dioxide in the process, and then how the unwanted carbon dioxide is released into their lungs to be breathed out into the air. (In short, animals turn oxygen into carbon dioxide.) The second half of the story is that plants take in carbon dioxide from the air through pores in their leaves, they use the energy from sunlight to split it into carbon and oxygen, they use the carbon to make new plant material, and then they release the unwanted oxygen back into the air. (in short, plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.) This is a good balance - plants make oxygen for animals to breathe, and animals make carbon dioxide for plants to breathe, and the whole thing is powered by the sun. Now, I don't think you need to spend a month of your life doing a project on this or to cover a wall in a giant picture of it. Let's just save ourselves a lot of time and move straight on so that we can learn more.
There is a third part of the story which is very rarely told in primary schools: animals and plants are both made of carbon, plus a lot of other things such as water (which is in turn made of oxygen and hydrogen), but it's mainly the carbon that holds everything together. Animals get all their carbon by eating plants (or by eating other animals which eat plants; or by eating other animals which eat animals which eat plants; or by eating animals which eat animals which eat animals which eat plants, but in every case the chain ends with animals that eat plants). Carbon is a very good building material - it's what gives trees their enormous strength - but it's also an extremely powerful fuel, which is why materials rich in carbon burn so well: wood, coal, oil and petrol/gasoline are all rich in carbon, and we burn masses of the stuff to power cars and planes, and even more of it to make electricity. Animals use carbon as a fuel too, and they "burn" it in their muscles to power themselves. Carbon can only be burned if there is enough oxygen around it, because the whole burning process depends on combining carbon with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. This is why animals have to breathe in oxygen, and it also explains why they breathe out carbon dioxide as a waste product. Car engines are much the same as animals: they burn petrol (mixed with air so that there is plenty of oxygen in with the carbon), and then they put our carbon dioxide as a waste product. The only difference is that animals have found a way to burn carbon in their muscles without producing any flames or smoke, though they do get hot in the process. So, plants give us carbon to burn and oxygen to burn it with - we depend on them completely. Plants get their energy from the sun, using sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen which they release into the air and carbon which they use to build themselves, thereby making wood and coal which we can burn, and all sorts of leaves, fruits and vegetables that we can eat.
There's another part of the story which is rarely told in primary schools, and that is about how plants existed long before there were any animals on the Earth. Volcanos played the part of animals in those days: they put out lots of carbon dioxide from deep inside the Earth and the plants then took it in and used the sun's energy to split it into oxygen (which they released as a waste product) and carbon (which they used to build themselves). There was no oxygen cycle in those days because the vocanos didn't take in any oxygen, and the result of this was that the amount of oxygen in the air went up from virtually none to the point where a fifth of all the gas in the air was oxygen, and it was this high level of oxygen that made it possible for animals to exist. The amount of oxygen was actually much higher at one point, but it reached the stage where fires kept breaking out all over the place and the trees were repeatedly burned down. Things only became stable when animals appeared on the scene and started to use up oxygen, preventing the oxygen level from getting too high. You should also be aware that plants removed carbon dioxide from the air to such a degree that it only makes up half a percent of the air around us, though that's still plenty to allow plants to grow. We are now burning a lot of oil and coal and putting massive amounts of carbon dioxide back into the air, so the amount of this gas in the air is double what it was a couple of hundred years ago, and the result of this is that the planet is gradually warming up. While it's true that the world used to be a great deal hotter in the past, humans didn't exist until long after it had cooled down: we are designed to live on a cold planet and it is very much in our interest to keep it cool. We need to find better ways of powering our cars and planes and of heating our houses. |
0.999207 | How long have you been practicing yoga? My first class ever was 6 years ago, but I didn't really start practicing regularly and digging deeper until about 3 years ago.
Current happy pose? Side Plank: I love the strength and energy it brings to the practice.
Current nemesis pose? Paschimottanasana (or any forward folds, really). I have tight hamstrings and some low back funkiness, so the combination of these two things does not an ideal forward fold make. I've been re-learning how to approach these in a way that makes them safe and comfortable for my body.
What is your favorite food? I love food and spend a lot of my time cooking, trying new recipes, modifying existing recipes, and then modifying them again. But there's one rule of thumb I follow: There can never be enough kale.
Why do you teach yoga? I think it's wonderful the way the practice allows us to find our own unique approach to love and compassion in our lives. It also helps us navigate a lot of tricky terrain. One of the reasons I came to yoga was because my mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and I truly feel yoga helped me through that emotionally dark period. I want to help others realize the potential in themselves, that anything is possible when we have a sound mind and body.
Brown Rice or Quinoa? Both, but not simultaneously.
What is your favorite bad habit? Coffee, coffee, and more coffee.
What is your best asana tip? Finding length and space through the spine in every single pose.
What is your favorite yama/niyama? Ahimsa, especially as we approach the holiday season, and we're tired of the tourists, and we can't stand the lines, and the subways are crowded, and it's cold... It's important to remember that everyone has their own story, and we need to do our best to respect that.
Anything Else? This quick little recipe has been keeping me going lately. No dairy, and you know exactly what's going into your coffee. Working on a version with less refined sugar! |
0.944696 | The 23rd Infantry Division, more commonly known as the Americal Division, was formed in May, 1942 on the island of New Caledonia. In the immediate emergency following Pearl Harbor, the United States had hurriedly sent three individual regiments to defend New Caledonia against a feared Japanese attack. They were the 132nd Infantry Regiment, formerly part of the 33rd Infantry Division of the Illinois National Guard, the 164th Infantry Regiment from North Dakota, and the 182nd Infantry Regiment from Massachusetts. This division was formed as one of only two un-numbered divisions to serve in the Army during World War II. After World War II the Americal Division was officially re-designated as the 23rd Infantry Division, however, it is rarely referred to as such. The division's name comes from a contraction of "American, New Caledonian Division". The Americal Division was involved in ground combat in both World War II and Vietnam.
The 164th Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division went into action on Guadalcanal on October 13, 1942 alongside the 1st Marine Division. It was the first United States Army unit to conduct an offensive operation against the enemy in either the Pacific or European Theaters of Operation (seven other U.S. Army divisions began offensive combat operations in late 1942. The Americal arrived piecemeal on the island, the 164th being first, was fed into combat alongside the battle-hardened Marines. The soldiers, benefitting from the combat experienced Marines, were able to learn jungle warfare opposing the Japanese without suffering as many casualties as they might have by coming into the combat alone and "green" like many units in the Pacific Theater were forced to do.
The Americal Division fought well at Guadalcanal as individual regiments. The 164th was involved in repulsing a major Japanese offensive in October, 1942, and the 132nd took Hill 27 and 31 and assaulted the highly fortified Japanese Gifu defensive complex at Mount Austen in January, 1943. The Americal Division was described as the most effective of all the US Army divisions on Guadalcanal. Elements of the Americal Division defended Henderson Field against heavy enemy attacks during October and, the following month, took part in the offensive across the Matanikau River. Following the withdrawal of the 1st Marine Division, the Americal participated in offensives to sweep Guadalcanal of remaining Japanese resistance. After the last Japanese defenders were killed, captured, or evacuated from the island, the Division was relieved on February 9, 1943.
The Division next moved to the Fiji Islands, beginning March 5, 1943, assuming the defense of the main island of Viti Levu and engaging in extensive training. On December 25, 1943, the Americal Division, alongside the 37th Infantry Division, a Marine defense battalion, and various supporting units, landed on Bougainville, the largest of the Soloman Islands. They were relieving the 3rd Marine Division and were given the task of holding and extending the right half of an established perimeter. The Division went on the offensive in March, 1944, driving the Japanese east of Mavavia River and seizing numerous strategic hill bases during the remainder of the month. Training and long-range patrol activity continued until November 30, 1944 when the Division was relieved.
On January 8, 1945, the Division began movement to the islands of Leyte and Samar, to take part in cleaning out remaining Japanese forces They also invaded the islands of Biri, Capul, Ticao, and Burias. Relieved from Leyte on March 13, 1945, the Division landed on Cebu, March 26th, and seized the city and airfield by March 28th. Divisional combat teams made landings on Bohol, Negros, and Mindanao, clearing out Japanese holdouts until June 17th. The division was then ordered to return for training for the proposed invasion of Japan. Because the Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945, the division landed on Japan on September 10, 1945 and took part in the occupation of theYokohama, Yawasaki and Yokosuka areas.
The Division returned to United States on November 21, 1945, and was inactivated on December 12, 1945. The Americal Division was reactivated on December 1, 1954, as the 23rd Infantry Division, retaining the name "Americal" as part of its official designation, and served in the Panama Canal Zone until April, 1956, when it was again inactivated.
The Division was reactivated in 1967 in Vietnam. A division-sized task force known as "Task Force Oregon" was created in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin provinces with brigades from the 25th Infantry Division, 101st Airborne Division and the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, an independent brigade that deployed to Vietnam in 1966. The Americal's initial mission was to operate in close cooperation with the 1st Marine Division in the northern part of South Vietnam. As new U.S. brigades arrived in Vietnam, they were assigned to "Task Force Oregon", which was re-designated the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal). The Division was composed of the 11th, 196th, and 198th Light Infantry Brigades and divisional support units (see Americal Units).
The 198th and 11th Light Infantry Brigades were withdrawn from Vietnam in November, 1971, and the Division was inactivated. The 196th Brigade was reconstituted as a separate brigade and remained in Vietnam until June 29, 1972, the last major combat unit to be withdrawn. Its 3rd Battalion 21st infantry was the last U.S. maneuver battalion to leave Vietnam, on August 23, 1972.
The Americal Division fought "jungle" warfare throughout World War II and Vietnam. The Americal never lost a major battle in Vietnam, accounting for thousands of enemy dead and wounded, and is noted for its exemplary performance throughout its approximate 6 year deployment there. Americal casualties during WWII numbered 4,050 in 600 days of combat in the "Pacific Theater". Casualties in Vietnam numbered 4,041 (infantry brigades only) during 2,111 days of combat. American KIA's for the Americal infantry brigades in Vietnam were: 196th LIB (1,188), 11th LIB (1,109), 198th LIB (987), 199th LIB (757).
The following table lists the infantry battalions of the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) for all ground combat operations conducted during the Vietnam War. |
0.966203 | Autumn, Melanie, Aaliyah and Gracie have to walk through a long dark tunnel. They only have one torch between them so a maximum of two people can go through the tunnel at any one time. Each person takes a different amount of time to get through the tunnel and if two people walk together they must walk at the rate of the slowest.
1. All four begin at the same end of the tunnel.
2. The torch must be walked back through the tunnel by at least one person, it cannot be thrown.
3. The answer is less than 30 minutes!
If Aaliyah and Gracie walk through the tunnel together it will take 11 minutes, If Aaliyah then walks the torch back through the tunnel a total of 19 minutes will have passed. Continue till all four are at the other end of the tunnel.
Can you recommend any practical resource sites for non-whiteboard resources?
Wow! That was great!!! you definitely had to think outside of the box on that one!
The first time we looked at the Transum Tunnel problem it had different number of minutes/names etc What has happened to them we need to check the answer!
WOW Amazing a good use of 30min.
This is a good question but we would like to know the answer because we are not quite sure.
We calculated that it took 26 mins. Lucas and Juan start and take 13 mins. As soon as they finish Juan comes back shining the torch whilst Aaron starts from the other end at the same time, he takes 8 mins. When he is over the last 2 set off, Juan and Charles together taking 5 mins. 13+8+5=26 mins. It does not say that you cannot walk without a torch as long as there are only 2 people in the tunnel at one time.
It's a great puzzle isn't it? Regarding the comments above, each time this page is loaded the names of the people change and the times change too so if you want to know the answer (subscribers only) make sure you scroll down the page before reloading it!
Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of this starter with different numbers and names.
Here is the URL which will take them to Tran Tunnels, a mathematical adventure. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.