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0.999998 | How Do You Define Witch/WitchCraft?
If you were writing the definition (in an encyclopedia) for the word "Witch/Witchcraft" (in the modern sense) what would it say?
Hi, TWV! To define Witchcraft would be from the perspective of one with over 30 years in the occult supplies trade.
Some claim it as a religion, but that imposes religious implications of doctrine and dogma, which Witchcraft contains only in the processes of working Magic and Spellcraft. Witchcraft is more of an occult tool and procedure.
Definition: Witchcraft is the practical application of traditional occult arts and psychic sciences. A Witch is an independent practitioner of Magic and dealer in occult supplies.
Independent is the key word. It releases the Witch from the constraints of a Priesthood and institutional control, as the Witch must be able to work Magic, good, bad or otherwise as each particular situation demands.
The Witch, as an archetype in the Western World's psychology is the poor man's psychiatrist, who must have a remedy in his/her bag of tricks for the purposes of that which makes the occult world go around.
He/she must be able to bring extra metaphysical power into people's lives in the area of love, luck, money, psychic insight and to rid persons of those things which plague them from the spiritual realm.
The Witch goes where normal "clergy" fear to tread.
Haveing just past my year and a day I would say that the definition should say or include this: A witch is any person who chooses to consiously take controll of there lives and destiny regardless of religious belief.
Why? because All gods are one god and All goddesses are one goddess. And perhaps there is a little bit of witch in everyone.
Witchcraft: The modern use of this term causes much confusion thanks to 2, 000 years of misrepresentation and the fact that magick, as a philosophy and a religious approach, has grown and changed with humankind and the earth. Presently Witchcraft is as much an ideal as it is a system of faith. It provides constructs and methods aimed at earth-healing, self evolvement, community reunification, and universal awareness (among other things).
The constructs and methods change depending on the "flavor" of witchcraft being practiced by an individual. Just as Christianity has many sub-sects, witches havemany paths that lead back to the One. None of these paths is better or more owerful than another - simply different ways that appeal to the diversity of human consciousness and experience.
Witchcraft typically involves meditation, prayer, spells, rituals, psychic methods (like divination), and employs a variety of tools like an athame, cup, brazier, and wand. While these tools are not "necessary" to being a witch, they provide a focus. Just as a plumber finds a wrench more effective than bare hands on a tough job, the witch uses tools to direct energy more effectively. As with the schools of witchcraft, the choice of tools is a personal one (or sometimes dictated by the cultural path one explores).
The witch can work alone or in groups. As a solitary, each witch becomes his or her own priest/priestess and guide. Within groups there is usually a hierarchal structure that provides coherancy and wise counsel. As with schools and tools, the choice here returns to the individual.
Stressing individual vision and self-responsibility is, perhaps, one of the most important factors setting modern witchcraft apart from other belief systems. The witch, by definition, bends and changes energy. By so doing, one remains a co-creator in present and future fates. In the most positive sense, a witch is a healer, a walker between the worlds, a seer, a minister, a warrior, and a sage. He or she is one who is trying to develop body, mind, and spirit into a greater whole for the greatest good.
witchcraft is seen as many things by many people, even witches don't entirely agree on the definition of this.
for me, being a witch means taking responsibility for my actions, whether physically or magickally. it also means respect for other faiths, as i would expect respect for mine, as well as respect for personal choices.
witchcraft is a tool for me to celebrate my faith of Wicca. it gives me the knowledge and ability to commune with the gods and with nature.
I would define a witch as someone who, instead of following a set path, thinks for themself and does what feels natural and right to them.
Witch -wich-noun- 1. A person, male or female, from one of many earth-centered Pagan or Neo-Pagan religions who practices or professes to practice magic through the use of ritual ceremony. 2. A person who practices divination through the use of mediums such as Tarot cards, runes, various scrying methods or psychic ability. 3. A person who uses herbal or other alternative methods of healing and considers themself to be a witch. 4. (Historical) A person has been put on trial and tested or punished by usually lethal methods for their use or suspected use of witchcraft. 5. (Slang) An ugly, usually old or eccentric woman, a hag. (O.E)wicce Witchcraft - wich-kraft-noun- 1. The use of methods such as established rituals, spells and divination to foretell or affect the outcome of events.
In an encyclopedia, I would also explain something of the belief systems of pre-Christian Britannia and continental Europe to give the reader the historical origin of the belief systems that make up the current Pagan belief systems. Specifically, I would give a little description of the major Celtic and Gods and Goddesses and explain the major Pagan celebrations so that they could see the origins of the modern Christian celebrations. I would also refer the readers to the "Paganism" and "Shamanism" sections, because Shamanism has similarities to the ancient Celtic belief system and because it is usually considered part of the realm of modern Paganism.
From my perspective, a witch is a practitioner of witchcraft, no matter the religion. This means not only that Wiccans are not the only people who can be called witches, but also that people of nonpagan religions may also choose to practice witchcraft. For that is what it is--a practice. It is a practice based upon using specific types of rituals and spells in individual amounts to bring change through will focused in what is commonly called magick. Witchcraft generally draws its energies from the witch as well as the natural environment surrounding the witch. What makes a witch, too, is how magickal energies are focused. Many witches find their best foci in the folklore and traditions of Celtic-area Europe are most popular, and the Italian Stregha is also gaining members. Other cultures such as Egyptian and Japanese also find places in witchcraft; still, it tends to be mostly European-based. Most witches use such tools as athames, chalices, etc., though these are not 100% universal. A witch may do elaborate rituals calling on the forces and deities of Nature or simple spells, often handwritten, in the privacy of their own home. Sometimes witchcraft blurs into the realms of other magickal systems such as shamanism, druidism and ceremonial magick, all of which have given their own flavours to witchcraft as it is most commonly seen today.
Nor does having psychic sensitivity or other abilities make one a witch. Sitting on a chair and seeing an aura does not make one a witch; nor does watching "The Craft" and dressing like Marilyn Manson. Witchcraft requires study, practice and acquired skill; it does not "just happen." There are those for whom working magick through witchcraft is easier, though this simply means that other people may have to work harder--it does *not* mean they can't be a witch, too! If witchcraft really were all that easy, the degrees and other forms of "graduation" used by witches' covens, Wiccan and otherwise, would not be necessary. Nor would the resources available to solitaries urge them to do further reading and personal study.
Witchcraft is neither black nor white. Some older traditions do use colour to denote different areas of witchcraft, such as Green for herbal witchcraft, bornw for animal-based witchcraft, etc. Witchcraft can, however, be used for both helpful and harmful purposes, despite what some people would believe. It is a tool, and just like any other tool can have numerous uses--it is up to the wielder to decide what uses those will be. Not all witches follow the Threefold Law and the Rede, either--those are unique to the Wiccan religion though other witches may use various forms of those ideals. A witch does not have to necessarily believe in the Wiccan idea of Deity as personified by the Goddess and God. A witch can be polytheistic, pantheistic, atheistic, monotheistic, humanistic or agnostic.
Of course, there is always the saying, "Ask ten witches what witchcraft is and you'll get (minimum) 25 different answers...."
Witch.- A magician adept in the Sciences of Nature and in certain ancient bodies of knowledge, devoted to spread the concepts of love, tolerance and compassion, as opposed to the wide- spread hatred, intolerance and selfishness that plague the modern world.
Witchcraft.- The techniques, ideologies and spells that can help a witch disseminate his / her mission of love.
Farrar and Bone sum it up beautifully, and truthfully.
A Witch is a person, either male or female, who has the ability to channel energy to cause an effect to happen. While there is the occasional rogue Witch, most use their abilities for good. This is because of their belief in Karma, and the Law Of Three Fold Return.
Karma basically says, "What goes around comes around".
Law of Three Fold Return states that whatever you send out (intentions or energy), will return to you three times (at least, if not more).
Witches also seek to be in harmony with Nature and the Universe.
Thus, saying Witches or Witchcraft is evil goes contrary to the Wiccian Rede and basic beliefs of Witches, Wiccans or Pagans. |
0.999861 | In linguistics, a consonant cluster (CC) is a group of two or more consonant sounds that come before (called an onset), after (called a coda) or between (called medial) vowels. Also known simply as a cluster, these occur naturally in written and spoken English — though sometimes may be altered phonetically.
This process, called consonant cluster simplification (or reduction) sometimes occurs when at least one consonant in a sequence of adjacent consonants is elided or dropped. In everyday speech, for instance, the phrase "best boy" may be pronounced "bes' boy," and "first time" may be pronounced "firs' time."
Onset consonant clusters may occur in two or three initial consonants, wherein three are referred to as CCC while coda consonant clusters can occur in two to four consonant groups.
The written English language contains up to 46 permissible two-item initial consonant clusters, ranging from the common "st" to the less common "sq," but only 9 permissible three-item consonant clusters, as Michael Pearce posits in his book The Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies.
Pearce illustrates the common three-item initial consonant clusters in the following words: "spl/ split, /spr/ sprig, /spj/ spume, /str/ strip, /stj/ stew, /skl/ sclerotic, /skr/ screen, /skw/ squad, /skj/ skua," wherein every word must start with an "s," be followed by a voiceless stop like "p" or "t" and a liquid or glide like "l" or "w."
In terms of codas, or consonant clusters that end words, they may contain up to four items, though they are often truncated in connected speech if the consonant cluster is too long, as in the word "glimpsed" being acceptably written as "glimst."
In spoken English and rhetoric, oftentimes consonant clusters will be truncated naturally to increase speed or eloquence of speech, oftentimes dropping the same consonant if it occurs at the end of one word and again at the beginning of the next. This process, called consonant cluster reduction, is relatively variable but confined by linguistic factors that inhibit the operation of reducing these words.
Walt Wolfram, writing in Dialect in Society, expounds, "with respect to the phonological environment that follows the cluster, the likelihood of reduction is increased when the cluster is followed by a word beginning with a consonant."
What this means for average English users is that cluster reduction is more common in phrases like "west coast or cold cuts" than in "west end or cold apple."
This technique can also be found in poetry to force similar-sounding words with different consonant endings to rhyme. Take for example the words test and desk, which don't rhyme in their original form, but if one uses consonant cluster reduction, the rhyme "Sittin' in my des', takin' my tes'" can be forced through truncation, as Lisa Green describes in African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, this is most common in the poetic raps of African American origins in the United States. |
0.999993 | There is a fence with n posts, each post can be painted with one of the k colors. You have to paint all the posts such that no more than two adjacent fence posts have the same color. Return the total number of ways you can paint the fence.
The key to solve this problem is finding this relation.
Assuming there are 3 posts, if the first one and the second one has the same color, then the third one has k-1 options. The first and second together has k options. |
0.919187 | What a sentiment to bring home from a memorable day at The Royal Albert Hall at the WI Annual Meeting. Sunny as always - this event is held during the first week of June and my memories of earlier AGMs are all of warm sunny Summer days. This was no exception.
We'd travelled up from Gloucestershire yesterday, spent the night in an hotel on Bayswater Road and walked across Kensington Gardens, enjoying the spectacle of the Albert Memorial looking fine in the sunshine. A bunch of us went out last evening, first to dinner, then to a performance of The Jersey Boys which was fun, so the walk was a welcome breath of air.
Sad to say, my photo isn't as sharp as I'd have liked - the one on my photo of the day is better - but hopefully it's clear to see what an astounding sight such a meeting is. Singing Jerusalem together with 5000 women, accompanied by the Albert Hall organ is a spine-tingling moment and one which stays in the memory long afterwards.
We listened with interest to some inspiring speakers, voted overwhelmingly in favour of our resolution in support of honey bees and laughed at Maureen Lipman's jokes. Such a clever speaker, she had us giggling one minute and quietly contemplative the next, as she championed the cause of Aung San Suu Kyi with real passion. Clearly focusing her presentation squarely on the 99.9% female audience, her shared thoughts on such topics as the joys of BBC Radio 4 and the dearth of similarly intelligent content on TV were all received with mutters of approval. At times, she sailed close to the wind with one or two fairly political comments about tomorrow's elections (an absolute no-no at these meetings - remember this?) but with the audience firmly onside, she survived.
At lunchtime, what else but cross the road and sit, with another few thousand friends, on the steps of the Albert Memorial?
But, saving the best bit till last, the meeting ended on a real high, with a performance from Richard Stilgoe and apprentices from the Orpheus Centre . Just as earlier in the day, our emotions were given a workout as we laughed one minute, fell silent the next as we listened intently to the marvellous performance put on by four talented youngsters. Yes, the second bloke in is wearing a blonde wig and orange dress - singing a song about a cross dresser called Melvyn, he just about brought the house down. The meeting finished with the audience joining in the chorus of "I believe I can really make a difference" and looking around the vast auditorium, every person I could see was joining in with the actions too. Wow.
Mar 24 Can it be Saturday already? |
0.950889 | It's first down and ten when it comes to college and pro football leagues tackling Twitter, Facebook, and user-generated video content from the sidelines. It's only pre-season and the Miami Dolphins have already tried putting the kibosh on tweets from players, the media, and even fans. But concerns vary among college teams and professional clubs about how to handle these new forms of media. The NFL told me that it's not overly concerned with Twitter and actually encourages players and fans who use the microblogging service to talk football, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can turn your Twitter account into an NFL broadcast channel and there are limits to what is permissible.
am is restricting the use of social media by the press and fans inside the Dolphins' practice stadium. The Dolphins allow the media to tweet as much as they like for the first 20 minutes or so of practice, but once team drills begin all electronic equipment including computers, cameras, and cell phones has to be turned off, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Dolphins fans, on the other hand, are forbidden to blog, tweet or even send SMS messages while watching their team practice. The Dolphins aren't the only NFL team wary of new forms of communication either. Teams like the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints, Denver Broncos, and Detroit Lions all have similar restrictions, while the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina Panthers are running tweet-friendly training camps.
As the NFL and its teams grapple with Twitter, other sports associations are also trying to deal with the proliferation of social media. The NCAA's Southeastern Conference reportedly wanted to stop fans from using Twitter while in the stands, and the SEC went so far as to prohibit fans from posting photographs or video footage of games online, according to The St. Petersburg Times. A few days later, the SEC revised its thinking, and now the college sports conference has approved tweets, Facebook updates and taking photographs for non-commercial use by fans attending SEC games.
Social media bans and guidelines may seem like paranoia on the part of the SEC and professional sports teams, but it's not hard to see why these bans are in place. NFL teams depend on keeping their game day strategies out of the hands of opposing teams, so the Dolphins are understandably queasy about allowing too much information to flow out of training camp.
Besides, it's not like information leaks and technology abuses aren't unprecedented. Last season, the NFL disciplined the New England Patriots after the team was caught recording the New York Jets' defensive signals. In September 2008, Washington Redskins tight end Chris Cooley posted a photo of the team's playbook on his blog, as well as revealing a little too much of his personal anatomy in the process.
The SEC's ban, on the other hand, wasn't about information leaks but an attempt to protect the conference's television contracts, worth about $3 billion, from competing with user-generated content online.
The NFL has similar concerns and forbids fans from posting online video taken at an NFL game. The NFL told me that while it encourages the use of all kinds of social media, it draws the line at online video because the league has to protect its content rights and those of its partners.
But a fan tweeting about the game from the sidelines is just fine.
"Twitter is tailor made for the NFL," said NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy in a phone interview earlier this week. McCarthy said he sees Twitter like an online sports bar where you are able to follow what others are saying about your favorite player, team, or the league in general. So posting messages like, "Great kick by Vinatieri from the 50-yard line, go Colts!" won't get you in trouble with the NFL, and taking photographs or video from a cell phone or digital camera is just fine, too -- camcorders are forbidden at NFL stadiums.
But while the NFL is media-friendly, that doesn't mean there's no limit to what you can do. In addition to forbidding the posting of videos online, the NFL says posting a detailed description of every single play during league games -- whether it's through Twitter messages or a series of photographs uploaded to Flickr -- is out.
orts can easily be found on YouTube and other video sites.
Unauthorized online video could be an even bigger headache for the NFL this year, with the increasing popularity of video-enabled handsets and 3G data plans that make it cheap and easy to upload large amounts of data onto the Web. Forget about YouTube; fan video can now reach an audience instantly through sites like Qik and UStream where live video goes directly from a cell phone to the Web. Sure, the video may not be high quality, and you might be thinking it is no big deal to post a grainy video of that killer toss from Kurt Warner. But don't be surprised if the copyright owner wants you to remove it from your blog regardless of the quality.
It's hard to know for sure how problematic video will become as it gets easier and easier to post content online, and predicting the future of tech is always a tricky business. But it is not unreasonable to argue that professional and college sports may have to revisit how online video is dealt with if fan-made reels start becoming too widespread. |
0.999999 | Is our universe unique? From science fiction to science fact, there is a proposal out there that suggests that there could be other universes besides our own, where all the choices you made in this life played out in alternate realities. So, instead of turning down that job offer that took you from the United States to China, the alternate universe would show the outcome if you decided to venture to Asia instead. Let's take a deeper look of this intriguing theory.
As you are reading this text, what is 'you' in another world doing?
Or should we ask like this: Do you believe that there is another 'you' in another universe?
The theory of parallel universes is one of the most important topics that have preoccupied the world of science for many years.
It is also the theory that unanswered questions are the most heavily accumulated.
So, what does this theory say?
First of all, it is worth pointing out that scientists revealed that a particle smaller than an atom exploded in less than a second and created the universe we now live in.
The Parallel Universe Theory is also based on this sudden explosion.
Scientists believe that the Big Bang, which we all accept as the beginning of the universe and took place about 13.8 billion years created another universe where time flows in the opposite direction and there is a reflection of us.
That is, there is more than just one universe. It's eternal.
An argument made by this theory is that we can never prove the existence of universes, even though the existence of these universes is definite.
The reason is that there is no interaction between these universes.
So they say there is another you in another universe, but this can never be proven.
Because your decisions didn't create another universe, that universe was already there, and you just have the power to change the way you are in the world you're already in with the decisions you make.
One more claim was added to the brain-burning theory, and this one is a bit more concrete.
Because the Cold Spot, whose mystery has been trying to be solved by the world of science for many years, is the basis for the existence of parallel universes.
The Cold Spot is a concept in the universe that can't be revealed just like black holes.
We knew that there have been recent developments in the formation of this spot that is for some reason 0.00015 degrees colder than its environment.
One of the most widely accepted views in recent years was that it was a 'lost matter' in comparison to its environment.
So it had fewer matters than black holes or other structures around it, and this was the reason it was cooler.
This claim can be explained by particle physics and hasn't yet been completely refuted, but another claim has been made.
According to this claim, the Cold Spot may have formed by the collision of our universe with another bubble universe.
If this assertion is true, we are one of the living beings randomly living in of the existing universes.
A simple living creature that lives in a random order from an infinite number of universes that we we will never be able to understand. |
0.960975 | I often hesistate to openly describe how I prefer to play certain kinds of games, because the way I play these games could suggest a certain disrespect for certain elements of a game. These are elements of a game which many people have often put a lot of time, effort and care into designing and implementing.
The elements I'm mostly describing are story, narrative, voice acting, sound design and music. These are all elements I care a lot about in games, but certain games are designed in such a way that some of these become secondary and they can be safely tuned out. So I do, these are games which I look forward to having in my current 'rotation' because they're games I can do other things whilst playing.
I can listen to podcasts, watch/listen to tv shows, audiobooks or even just my own music. The game sound will be turned down - not to silent - I can still hear it, but the primary sound will be this secondary media I'm listening to whilst playing the game.
The games I do this with often have a lot in common with each other, they involve repetitive tasks or they're purely mechanical. Some examples include racing games (Forza, Gran Turismo, F1), dungeon crawlers (e.g. Diablo) and strategy games (Civilization). I really look forward to these games, they may not demand 100% of my attention whilst I'm playing them, but they're just as valued as ones that do.
Whilst I did not play the original Destiny (I logged into the beta on PS4, used the dance emote and logged off), I long suspected that it would fit into this category of games and so my excitement for the Destiny 2 PC release was primarily based on this. My expectations for the game, then, was something that I could fire up at any time, start a podcast and start grinding away for some loot on.
For a game to fit into this category, it needs to have longevity in one way or another. Diablo - I can grind away for better and better loot, the ceiling is high and difficulty scales even higher. Forza, there are plenty of races for me to complete, challenges to attempt or simply repeat races to beat my times. Civilisation, well... there's always one more turn.
How is Destiny 2 doing then? It has been three and a half weeks since the PC release and it doesn't seem to be doing terribly well. Now - I wanted to describe my criteria for this game above because I think it's important to emphasise how specific they are, and therefore how potentially unfair my criticism of it is.
I feel like I'm beginning to hit the limit of the base game. I can go days before I get a bit of gear that will marginally increase my damage or defence and as such, the loot grind isn't satisfying enough. Part of this problem is perhaps that I don't do the Raids or Nightfall strikes. These are events which require you to team up and talk with other people, they offer no matchmaking to just get playing, it requires some organisation.
This obviously violates my criteria for the game, I don't want to listen to other team members.. or even talk to them.. I want that in other games (e.g. CSGO), but for this - I just want to mindlessly grind. Therefore, I only really have access to the daily challenges on public events and strikes to complete, which don't offer good loot with any real frequency.
The high level content is seemingly restricted to players who want to organise with other players to do raids, there's no real option for us mindlessly grinding solo players, am I justified in criticising the game for that? I'm not sure.
The side of me which thinks I am justified looks at the amount of content in the base game. It feels as if the game has been designed to incentivise you aggressively towards buying the expansions and to feel that barely a few weeks after the game release isn't great. Diablo 3, a game with a similar loot-oriented gameplay loop, launched in a pretty poor state. It was heavily criticised for failing to offer longevity to players - but I feel Destiny 2 is significantly worse than Diablo 3 was even in its worse state.
Diablo 3 also managed to significantly improve the base game by rebalancing difficulty and loot over the following year for free. Where Diablo 3 and Destiny 2 differ is in their approach to expansions, however - there seems to be an acceptance that the expansions for Destiny are just a necessary component of the game. Diablo 3 didn't have that reliance on a future expansion and I think it really shows in the longevity each of these two offered in the base game.
That is my primary disappointment with the game, so let me finally get on to what I like.
It's highly polished, it feels high quality, with an interesting universe and fundamentally solid mechanics. It feels good to play, it's smooth, it performs very well on PC and it looks good. The story was more motivating and compelling than I expected, given the framework in which these games usually develop stories within (i.e. not a tight, highly focused linear package). There's a reason why I have actually played so much of it in the past 3.5 weeks and it is because they do get a lot right.
It's just let down in the medium to long term by the content strategy and reliance on expansions. I'm not sure if I'll buy the expansions, it'll depend on whether or not another game can enter my games rotation and fill the need games like this usually do before the expansions release. |
0.995234 | Ben Stiller is in talks to take a short break from making terrible things (Little Fockers, probably Brett Ratner's Tower Heist) and re-team with Greenberg director Noah Baumbach on another project about listless, aging, likely well-to-do types. James Franco and Cate Blanchett are also in talks for the film, which THR says, "is described as being more accessible and more commercial [than Greenberg] ... [and] centers on a free-spirited couple who have an impact on a documentarian and his wife, getting the latter duo to loosen up." Noah Baumbach, could you be any more of a Noah Baumbach than this?
\n\nBen Stiller is in talks to take a short break from making terrible things (Little Fockers, probably Brett Ratner's Tower Heist) and re-team with Greenberg director Noah Baumbach on another project about listless, aging, likely well-to-do types. James Franco and Cate Blanchett are also in talks for the film, which THR says, \"is described as being more accessible and more commercial [than Greenberg] ... [and] centers on a free-spirited couple who have an impact on a documentarian and his wife, getting the latter duo to loosen up.\" Noah Baumbach, could you be any more of a Noah Baumbach than this? |
0.952071 | В этом случае также возможны 2 образца развития событий. Один из них - так называемый безусловный сценарий, когда получатель снимает претензии на свои права без указания лиц, в пользу которых он это делает. Этот случай может повлечь за собой приращение долей остальных получателей активов умершего либо получение права на них наследниками следующей очереди. Например, если единственный представитель 1-ой очереди отказался от своих притязаний, получить собственность завещателя смогут имеющиеся представители 2-ой очереди.
Кроме того, наследники вправе указать, что осуществляют отказ от наследства в пользу каких-либо других лиц. В качестве такого лица может выступать любой гражданин, входящий в число наследников по завещанию или по закону, вне зависимости от того, к какой очереди он принадлежит. Таким образом, снятие претензий в интересах другого претендента возможно в случае, если оба лица - отказывающийся и получающий право на него - имеют право на наследство одного и того же лица. Это правило применимо вне зависимости от того, призваны или нет к вступлению в наследство лица, в пользу которых осуществляется отказ.
The death of a close relative confronts the heirs of a number of legal issues. For example, the rejection of the inheritance in favor of other persons (with or without conditions) or acceptance of inheritance.
Question dispose of property the person becomes relevant after admitting he had been dead. This is followed by the issuance of a sample of the death certificate. Usually, it is prepared by the relatives in the registry offices. Day of death in this case is the reference point for determining the period for acceptance of the inheritance. Under the law, it must take place within 6 months from this date. Exactly the same rules apply in the case of a deceased person recognition by the court.
Currently, there are 2 basic sample of events in the case of death of a relative: the inheritance of the law and in the presence of a will. The latter is a document that records the order of the testator with respect to his property after his death. Wills sample provides the ability to specify how and in what shares should be distributed among the families belonging to it cash, real estate, cars and other items, and values. If such an indication in the document is missing, everything must be distributed among the heirs in equal shares owned by the citizen.
In order for a will to be valid, it is required that it be notarized and personally signed by the originator. In this case, the distribution of property remaining after the deceased, will be the order that is specified in the sample and is a priority in comparison with the procedure established by the current legislation. The only exception to this rule is the requirement of an obligatory share allocation that targets a minor or disabled children, spouses, parents and dependents of the deceased.
If the actual sample of the will at the time of death of the citizen is absent or is declared invalid, it comes into action mechanism of inheritance by law. It is also used in situations where a sample of the last will of the deceased has, however, describes the order only in respect of any part of his property. The remaining part is distributed according to the law.
Among the legal heirs are persons who were with the deceased in a relationship based on kinship or property, marriage, adoption and dependents. In addition, people can be attributed to their number on the right of representation or order of hereditary transmission. In accordance with the law, the order of distribution of all that the deceased owned, is determined by the sequence of the sample in accordance with the membership of his relatives. So, first of all, having a priority right of succession, make children, parents and spouse of the deceased. In a situation where the heir to the first queue is missing, his assets will be distributed among the heirs of the second stage and so on. The same rule applies in case of refusal of the inheritance.
Adoption of the property of the deceased as a bequest, and the law is only a right, not a duty of the citizen.
Therefore, in both cases, the law gives the right to the heirs refuse the inheritance for any reason, they are not required to articulate.
Also in this case two possible developments of the sample. One of them - the so-called unconditional scenario, when the recipient removes the claim to their rights without the persons in whose favor he is doing. This case may lead to the increase share of other recipients of the deceased's assets or obtain rights to their heirs the next stage. For example, if the only representative of the 1st stage retracted his claims, obtain ownership of the testator can existing representatives of the 2nd stage.
In addition, the heirs have the right to point out that the refusal to perform the inheritance in favor of any other persons. As such a person can be any citizen, ranking among the heirs by will or by law, regardless of whether the queue to which it belongs. Thus, the withdrawal of claims for the benefit of another applicant may, if both parties - refuses and gets right to it - have the right to inheritance of one and the same person. This rule applies regardless of whether or not called upon to join the person inheritance, in favor of which the refusal.
In this case, the proportion of persons in whose interests the claims were withdrawn, in the inheritance of the deceased will be increased by the amount of the share of the heir, he donated his share, that is going to happen so-called increment of share of the inheritance. Under the law, the person for whom waived inheritance, gets all the powers at the disposal of the shares. In other words, this may also be the heir to transfer their rights to the inheritance to another person.
Possibilities of transfer bases for the property of the testator to other categories of persons in accordance with the law does not exist. Including not allow disclaimer of inheritance in favor of persons deprived of their property in accordance with the order of the testator, fixed in the will. In this case the testator has the right not to indicate the reasons that have led to this decision.
There are several limitations when removing the claim on the property in favor of another person: one of them is a situation when all the property of the testator, in accordance with the will leaves its designated citizens in accordance with the will. In this case, a citizen who refuses to produce it, can only do so in order to transfer the circle of persons who are included in the sample will. This limit is set by law to comply with the will of the deceased, recorded in his will, for the disposition of the assets belonging to him.
Also, it does not allow for the possibility of transferring rights to the ownership of other persons, if one heir podnaznachen other, because in this case the rights of the latter will be broken. Podnaznachenie can be carried out in the will: it will enter into force, if the first person designated by the testator dies at the same time or before the opening of the succession or does not have time to take him for any reason, or abandon it or lose that right, being judged unworthy. This podnaslednik is a man within the circle of persons in whose interests may be implemented refusal to share in the property of the deceased by any of the heirs, including when he was not called to the succession.
Finally, the law does not provide citizens the right to take the necessary share of the inheritance and transfer of rights to it to another person. This is done to protect the rights of minors, the disabled and people with reduced mobility, in order to protect them from the pressure at the disposal of the property due to them, since it is to them in accordance with the current legislation it is meant compulsory share.
If a citizen takes on claims due to him hereditary property for the benefit of another person, he must submit a notary or other authorized person statement the respective sample. In this case such an application must be filed within the time allowed for acceptance of the inheritance, that is, within 6 months from the date of death of the testator. The citizen, as a result of acquiring a right to transfer all the property of the testator, must take it within 6 months from the date of his rights to the share.
Transfer of ownership rights to other parties is possible even in the case where a citizen has already accepted the inheritance, however, the statutory deadline for its adoption for a period of 6 months has not expired. However, the refusal of the property of the deceased is irreversible and can not be changed or withdrawn. Thus, the citizens who inherited was transferred to the person entitled to receive it, can have a guarantee of their rights in the disposal of these assets. This condition ensures the legitimacy of transactions made by them, which can not be challenged on the basis of reviews by the previous owner of your order.
If the property of the deceased refused to the citizen, who is a minor, incapable or partially incapable, a valid sample refusal procedure includes the need to obtain her consent of the guardianship authorities. Such a restriction is established by law in order to meet the interests of these categories of people in order to protect them from possible negative consequences of such an act, they do not take into account. The refusal may not apply to compulsory share of the inheritance.
The situation is the refusal of the testator's property for the benefit of other people means the transfer of the entire volume on inherited property rights. In accordance with applicable law, the rejection of its parts is not allowed. This condition is made to ensure the transfer of the entire volume of the relatives of the deceased's assets and liabilities, excluding the possibility of a situation where, for example, it takes the testator left property, but refuses to accept it available to the debt.
The only caveat, fixed in the law in this respect is the situation when a citizen gets the right of inheritance for several reasons: for example, by will and by law. In this case, he has the right to abandon the property, due to him for one or more of the grounds and take the one that is to him for other reasons. This is followed by the right to withdraw from the estate of the deceased for all available grounds.
If a citizen refused the property of the testator intended it for several reasons, in the interests of other heirs, he shall have the right to choose as these individuals different heirs of the number of citizens having the right to act in this role.
Смерть близького родича ставить перед спадкоємцями цілий ряд юридичних питань. Наприклад, відмова від спадщини на користь інших осіб (або без умов) або прийняття спадщини.
Питання розпорядження власністю особи стає актуальним після визнання його померлим. Це супроводжується видачею зразка свідоцтва про смерть. Як правило, його отримують родичі в органах РАГС. День смерті в цьому випадку є точкою відліку для визначення строку прийняття спадщини. Відповідно до закону це має відбутися протягом 6 місяців з цієї дати. Точно такі ж правила діють в разі визнання особи померлою за рішенням суду.
В даний час існує 2 основних зразка розвитку подій у разі смерті родича: спадкування за законом і за наявності заповіту. Останнє являє собою документ, в якому заповідач фіксує розпорядження щодо належної йому власності після його смерті. Зразок заповіту передбачає можливість вказати, яким чином або в яких частках слід розподілити між родичами належні йому грошові кошти, нерухомість, автомобілі та інші предмети і цінності. Якщо така вказівка в документі відсутня, все належить громадянину необхідно розподілити між спадкоємцями в рівних частках.
Для того щоб заповіт було дійсним, потрібно, щоб воно було нотаріально посвідчено і підписаний особисто упорядником. У цьому випадку розподіл власності, що залишилася після померлого, буде відбуватися тим порядком, який вказано в зразку і є пріоритетним в порівнянні з порядком, встановленим чинним законодавством. Єдиним винятком з цього правила є вимога виділення обов'язкової частки, яка призначається неповнолітнім або непрацездатним дітям, подружжю, батькам та утриманцям померлого.
Якщо дійсний зразок заповіту на момент смерті громадянина відсутня або воно визнане недійсним, в дію вступає механізм спадкування за законом. Він також використовується в ситуації, коли зразок останньої волі померлого є, однак описує розпорядження лише по відношенню до будь-якої частини належної йому власності. Частина, що залишилася розподіляється по закону.
До числа спадкоємців за законом належать особи, що перебували з померлим у відносинах, заснованих на спорідненості чи властивості, шлюбі, усиновлення та утриманні. Крім того, люди можуть бути віднесені до їх числа за правом представлення або в порядку спадкової трансмісії. Відповідно до законодавства, порядок розподілу всього, чим володів померлий, визначається за зразком черговості відповідно до приналежністю його родичів. Так, 1-у чергу, має пріоритетне право успадкування, складають діти, батьки і чоловік або дружина померлого. У ситуації, коли спадкоємець 1-ї черги відсутній, його майно буде розподілено між спадкоємцями 2-ої черги і так далі. Це ж правило застосовується в разі відмови від спадщини.
Ухвалення власності померлого як за заповітом, так і за законом є лише право, а не обов'язок громадянина.
Тому в обох випадках закон надає спадкоємцям право відмовитися від спадщини по будь-яких мотивів, які вони не зобов'язані озвучувати.
У цьому випадку також можливі 2 зразка розвитку подій. Один з них - так званий безумовний сценарій, коли одержувач знімає претензії на свої права без вказівки осіб, на користь яких він це робить. Цей випадок може спричинити за собою збільшення часток інших одержувачів активів померлого або отримання права на них спадкоємцями наступної черги. Наприклад, якщо єдиний представник 1-ої черги відмовився від своїх домагань, отримати власність заповідача зможуть наявні представники 2-ої черги.
Крім того, спадкоємці вправі вказати, що здійснюють відмова від спадщини на користь будь-яких інших осіб. Як такої особи може виступати будь-який громадянин, який входить до числа спадкоємців за заповітом або за законом, незалежно від того, до якої черги він належить. Таким чином, зняття претензій на користь іншого претендента можливо в разі, якщо обидві особи - відмовляється і отримує право на нього - мають право на спадщину одного і того ж особи. Це правило застосовується незалежно від того, покликані чи ні до вступу в спадщину особи, на користь яких здійснюється відмова.
У цьому випадку частка особи, на користь якої були зняті претензії, в спадщині померлого буде збільшена на величину частки спадкоємця, який пожертвував йому свою частку, тобто відбудеться так зване прирощення частки спадщини. Відповідно до закону особа, для якого заявлена відмова від спадщини, отримує всі повноваження в розпорядженні цією часткою. Інакше кажучи, такий спадкоємець також може здійснити передачу своїх прав на спадщину іншій особі.
Можливості передачі підстав для отримання власності заповідача іншим категоріям осіб відповідно до закону не існує. У тому числі не допускається відмова від спадщини на користь осіб, позбавлених майна відповідно до розпорядження спадкодавця, зафіксованим в заповіті. При цьому заповідач має право не вказувати причин, які спричинили за собою таке рішення.
Існує ще кілька обмежень при знятті претензій на власність в інтересах іншої особи: одним з них є ситуація, коли вся власність спадкодавця згідно з заповітом відходить призначеним ним громадянам відповідно до заповіту. У цьому випадку громадянин, який відмовляється від її отримання, може зробити це тільки з метою передачі колу осіб, які включені в зразок заповіту. Це обмеження встановлено законом з метою дотримання волі померлого, зафіксованої в заповіті, щодо розпорядження належними йому активами.
Крім того, не допускається можливість передачі прав на власність іншим особам у разі, якщо одному спадкоємцю підпризначений інший, оскільки в цьому випадку права останнього будуть порушені. Подназначение може бути здійснено в заповіті: воно вступить в силу, якщо перше призначена ним особа помре одночасно з заповідачем або до відкриття спадщини або не встигне його прийняти з яких-небудь причин, або відмовиться від нього або позбудеться такого права, будучи визнаним негідним. При цьому поднаследнік є людиною, що входять в коло осіб, в інтересах яких може бути здійснений відмова від частки в майні померлого будь-яким із спадкоємців, в тому числі і в разі, коли він не був покликаний до спадкоємства.
Нарешті, закон не надає громадянину права неприйняття обов'язкової частки спадщини і передачі прав на неї іншій особі. Це зроблено для захисту прав неповнолітніх, непрацездатних і обмежено дієздатних громадян з тим, щоб захистити їх від тиску при розпорядженні належної їм власністю, оскільки саме їм відповідно до чинного законодавства призначається її обов'язкова частка.
У разі, якщо громадянин знімає претензії на належне йому спадкове майно в інтересах іншої особи, він повинен подати нотаріусу або іншій уповноваженій особі заяву за відповідним зразком. При цьому така заява має бути подана в строк, відведений для прийняття спадщини, тобто протягом 6 місяців з дня смерті заповідача. Громадянин, який отримує внаслідок такої передачі права на все майно спадкодавця, повинен прийняти це протягом 6 місяців з дня виникнення у нього права на цю частку.
Передати права на отримання власності іншим особам можна навіть в разі, коли громадянин вже прийняв спадщину, однак встановлений законом термін для його прийняття тривалістю в 6 місяців ще не закінчився. Однак відмова від власності померлого є незворотнім і не підлягає зміні або відкликання. Таким чином, громадяни, яким спадок було передано особою, яка мала права на його отримання, можуть мати гарантію своїх прав при розпорядженні цими активами. Ця умова забезпечує правомочність скоєних ними угод, які не можуть бути оскаржені на підставі відкликання попереднім власником свого розпорядження.
У разі, якщо від власності померлого відмовляється громадянин, який є неповнолітнім, недієздатним або обмежено дієздатним, діючий зразок процедури відмови включає необхідність отримання на неї згоди органів опіки та піклування. Таке обмеження встановлено законом з метою дотримання інтересів цих категорій громадян з тим, щоб убезпечити їх від можливих негативних наслідків такого вчинку, які вони не беруть до уваги. Відмова не може стосуватися обов'язкової частки спадщини.
Ситуація відмови від власності заповідача в інтересах інших людей має на увазі передачу всього обсягу прав на успадковане майно. Відповідно до чинного законодавства, відмова від його частини не допускається. Така умова прийнято для того, щоб забезпечити передачу родичам всього обсягу активів і пасивів померлого, виключивши можливість ситуації, коли, наприклад, він приймає залишену спадкодавцем нерухомість, але відмовляється від прийняття наявних у нього боргових зобов'язань.
Єдиною застереженням, зафіксованої в законі в цьому відношенні, є ситуація, коли громадянин отримує права спадкування за кількома підставами: наприклад, за заповітом і за законом. У цьому випадку він має право відмовитися від власності, яка належить йому по одному або декільком з підстав, і прийняти ту, яка призначена йому з інших підстав. При цьому за ним залишається право відмовитися від майна померлого за всіма наявними підставами.
У разі, якщо громадянин відмовився від власності заповідача, призначеної йому за кількома підставами, в інтересах інших спадкоємців, він має право вибрати в якості цих осіб різних спадкоємців з числа громадян, які мають право виступати у цій ролі. |
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0.944543 | Ask me a question and I will tell you my Truth.
I am frequently traveling and working on several projects at any one time, so please be patient if I haven’t gotten back to you straight away. I will do my best to reply to everyone who has taken the time to write to me.
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For Nike Golf we utilized lighting techniques that would draw the viewer into the image, looking for more and more detail as their eye traveled around the composition. We decided to treat the curves of the body and the areas of technology in the apparel like the rolling hills, sand traps and water hazards on a golf course, lighting for texture as if the sun was setting across the grass, highlighting the rises of the hills and touching every blade of grass. |
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0.960405 | Werner Heisenberg was born on 5th December, 1901, at Würzburg. He was the son of Dr. August Heisenberg and his wife Annie Wecklein. His father later became Professor of the Middle and Modern Greek languages in the University of Munich. It was probably due to his influence that Heisenberg remarked, when the Japanese physicist Yukawa discovered the particle now known as the meson and the term "mesotron" was proposed for it, that the Greek word "mesos" has no "tr" in it, with the result that the name "mesotron" was changed to "meson".
Heisenberg went to the Maximilian school at Munich until 1920, when he went to the University of Munich to study physics under Sommerfeld, Wien, Pringsheim, and Rosenthal. During the winter of 1922-1923 he went to Göttingen to study physics under Max Born, Franck, and Hilbert. In 1923 he took his Ph.D. at the University of Munich and then became Assistant to Max Born at the University of Göttingen, and in 1924 he gained the venia legendi at that University.
From 1924 until 1925 he worked, with a Rockefeller Grant, with Niels Bohr, at the University of Copenhagen, returning for the summer of 1925 to Göttingen.
In 1926 he was appointed Lecturer in Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen under Niels Bohr and in 1927, when he was only 26, he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig.
In 1929 he went on a lecture tour to the United States, Japan, and India.
In 1941 he was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Berlin and Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics there.
At the end of the Second World War he, and other German physicists, were taken prisoner by American troops and sent to England, but in 1946 he returned to Germany and reorganized, with his colleagues, the Institute for Physics at Göttingen. This Institute was, in 1948, renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics.
In 1948 Heisenberg stayed for some months in Cambridge, England, to give lectures, and in 1950 and 1954 he was invited to lecture in the United States. In the winter of 1955-1956 he gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, these lectures being subsequently published as a book.
During 1955 Heisenberg was occupied with preparations for the removal of the Max Planck Institute for Physics to Munich. Still Director of this Institute, he went with it to Munich and in 1958 he was appointed Professor of Physics in the University of Munich. His Institute was then being renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics.
Heisenberg's name will always be associated with his theory of quantum mechanics, published in 1925, when he was only 23 years old. For this theory and the applications of it which resulted especially in the discovery of allotropic forms of hydrogen, Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1932.
His new theory was based only on what can be observed, that is to say, on the radiation emitted by the atom. We cannot, he said, always assign to an electron a position in space at a given time, nor follow it in its orbit, so that we cannot assume that the planetary orbits postulated by Niels Bohr actually exist. Mechanical quantities, such as position, velocity, etc. should be represented, not by ordinary numbers, but by abstract mathematical structures called "matrices" and he formulated his new theory in terms of matrix equations.
Later Heisenberg stated his famous principle of uncertainty, which lays it down that the determination of the position and momentum of a mobile particle necessarily contains errors the product of which cannot be less than the quantum constant h and that, although these errors are negligible on the human scale, they cannot be ignored in studies of the atom.
From 1957 onwards Heisenberg was interested in work on problems of plasma physics and thermonuclear processes, and also much work in close collaboration with the International Institute of Atomic Physics at Geneva. He was for several years Chairman of the Scientific Policy Committee of this Institute and subsequently remained a member of this Committee.
When he became, in 1953, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he did much to further the policy of this Foundation, which was to invite scientists from other countries to Germany and to help them to work there.
Since 1953 his own theoretical work was concentrated on the unified field theory of elementary particles which seems to him to be the key to an understanding of the physics of elementary particles.
Apart from many medals and prizes, Heisenberg received an honorary doctorate of the University of Bruxelles, of the Technological University Karlsruhe, and recently (1964) of the University of Budapest; he is also recipient of the Order of Merit of Bavaria, and the Grand Cross for Federal Services with Star (Germany). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a Knight of the Order of Merit (Peace Class). He is a member of the Academies of Sciences of Göttingen, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Sweden, Rumania, Norway, Spain, The Netherlands, Rome (Pontificial), the German Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Halle), the Accademia dei Lincei (Rome), and the American Academy of Sciences. During 1949-1951 he was President of the Deutsche Forschungsrat (German Research Council) and in 1953 he became President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
One of his hobbies is classical music: he is a distinguished pianist. In 1937 Heisenberg married Elisabeth Schumacher. They have seven children, and live in Munich. |
0.999986 | Return to main article: "INS Face Off"
Return to main Working Papers article: "Peer-to-Peer Cooperative Positioning, Part II"
Return to main Working Papers article: "Peer-to-Peer Cooperative Positioning: Part II"
In 2003, China committed to investing €200 million (US$270 million) for the privilege of participating in the development of Europe’s Galileo program. But by 2007 it had been forced out of major decision-making because of security concerns and the collapse of the original financing plan for the program, which was to include public and private money.
In the 1974 Mel Brooks’ movie, Blazing Saddles, one of the characters — surrounded by his enemies — points a gun at his head and tries to escape by taking himself hostage.
As I recall, he gets away with the absurd move and survives to fight another day. That’s Hollywood!
Members of Congress — who have not finished next year’s appropriations, face half a dozen major tax and program fixes set to expire, and have their own re-elections to worry about — must quickly decide how to handle a tsunami of federal budget cuts that experts say could sweep the economy back into recession. |
0.947855 | It is known that people who exercise are always taking protein supplements, such as high protein milk. Protein intake in the diet of an athlete is extremely important.
It is emphasized that everyone who sports and exert effort should not eat or drink protein after sports, even if it is not a national athlete.
Protein supplementation is often recommended for people who exercise. The reason is that the protein nourishes and strengthens the muscles. The proportion of protein in animal foods such as meat, eggs, cheese, yoghurt is quite high. For this reason, it is recommended to use foods that can be consumed quickly, such as eggs, cheese or yoghurt, in order to replace the power consumed after the sport. Athletes always drink high-protein milk, and there are various products that replace protein supplements. So why is protein so important when it comes to sportsmen? In our next subtitle, we tried to explain this.
People are wondering why sports people should buy protein supplements. The main reason for this is to reduce the weight-bearing carbohydrate foods by eating predominantly protein. In the diet of the athlete, it is important to prevent protein loss, loss of muscle, decrease of carbohydrate value and protein replacement. As a result, a healthy and flexible muscle structure ensures that the body resistance is also high. Thus, people become more resistant to diseases and feel happy as long as they are well-trained in sports and nutrition. |
0.999999 | Microsoft Cortana is your smart personal assistant. She helps you keep track of your most important stuff, across all your devices. Cortana responds to your voice and has an answer for what you need. Cortana wants to know your favorite things. Tell Cortana your favorite artists or sports teams, and she will give you timely and relevant updates. Cortana helps you stay on top of things, 24 hours a day: - The latest news stories, served fresh and personalized to your interests. - Track your important flights and incoming packages. - Calendar awareness. If traffic is a mess and you need to leave home early to make that meeting, Cortana has got your back. - Reminders based on location. Have Cortana remind you to buy groceries when you drive past the local supermarket. - Reminders based on commitments. Have Cortana remind you to follow up when you promise someone something over email. Here are some things that you can say to Cortana: - "Remind me to buy groceries." - "Start a shopping list." - "Tell me something interesting." - "Bitcoin to USD." - "What's my schedule today?" - "Where's the nearest Starbucks?" - "What's up?" - "Will it rain this weekend?" Cortana is constantly learning, with new capabilities being released every month. We encourage you to give Cortana a try and share your feedback with us. |
0.999998 | What are the proper following distances you should keep from the car in-front of you?
• Pay attention to the car in front of you.
• As it passes a stationary object on the side of the road, like a mile marker, start counting seconds off until you reach that same stationary object.
• Increase that distance to 3 seconds for a comfortable following distance between you and the car in front of you.
This is with good weather and road conditions. The worse the weather and road conditions are, the higher you go on the rule. In rain you’ll count six seconds between you and the car in front.
In snow, fog and ice, you’ll want 9 to 12 seconds between you and the car in front. |
0.694692 | The territory was split from the Northwest Territories in 1898. The federal government's Yukon Act, which received royal assent on March 27, 2002, confirmed "Yukon" as the current standard, though "Yukon Territory" remains the more popular usage. Though officially bilingual (English and French), the Yukon Government also recognizes First Nations languages.
At 5,959 m (19,551 ft), Yukon's Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest on theNorth American continent (after Mount McKinley in the U.S. state of Alaska). The territory's climate is Arctic in the north (north of Old Crow), subarctic in the central region, between north of Whitehorse and Pie Town, and has ahumid continental climate in the far south, south of Whitehorse and in areas close to the British Columbia border. Several rivers run through Yukon, some being the Stewart River, Peel River, and the Yukon River, after which the territory was named.
Long before the arrival of Europeans, central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, and the area escaped glaciation. Thevolcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in the U.S. state of Alaska blanketed southern Yukon with a layer of ash which can still be seen along the Klondike Highway and forms part of the oral tradition of First Nations peoples in Yukon and further south.
Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks. European incursions into the area only began early in the 19th century with the fur trade, followed by missionaries and the Western Union Telegraph Expedition. By the 1870s and 1880s gold miners began to arrive. This drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold rush led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories and the formation of the separate Yukon Territory in 1898. Sites of archeological significance in Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human occupation in North America. The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon. More information is found in the Yukon Archaeology Program.
Most of the territory is in the watershed of its namesake, the Yukon River. The southern Yukon is dotted with a large number of large, long and narrow glacier-fed alpine lakes, most of which flow into the Yukon River system. The larger lakes include Teslin Lake, Atlin Lake, Tagish Lake, Marsh Lake, Lake Laberge, Kusawa Lake and Kluane Lake.Bennett Lake on the Klondike Gold Rush trail is a lake flowing into Nares Lake, with the greater part of its area within Yukon.
Other watersheds include the Mackenzie River, the Peel Watershed and theAlsek–Tatshenshini, and a number of rivers flowing directly into the Beaufort Sea. The two main Yukon rivers flowing into the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories are the Liard River in the southeast and the Peel River and its tributaries in the northeast.
The capital, Whitehorse, is also the largest city, with about two-thirds of the population; the second largest is Dawson City (pop. 1,327), which was the capital until 1952.
Yukon's tourism motto is "Larger than life". Yukon's major appeal is its nearly pristine nature. Tourism relies heavily on this, and there are many organizedoutfitters and guides available to hunters and anglers and nature lovers of all sorts. Sports enthusiasts can paddle lakes and rivers with canoes and kayaks, ride or walk trails, ski or snowboard in an organized setting or access the backcountry by air orsnowmobile, climb the highest peaks in Canada or take a family hike up smaller mountains, or try ice climbing and dog sledding.
Yukon also has a wide array of cultural and sporting events and infrastructures that attract artists, participants and tourists from all parts of the world; Yukon International Storytelling Festival, Frostbite Music Festival, Dawson Music Festival, Yukon Quest, Sourdough Rendezvous, the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Northern Lights Centre,Klondike Gold Rush memorials and activities, "Takhini Hot Springs", and the Whitehorse fish ladder.
There are many opportunities to experience pre-colonial lifestyles by learning about Yukon's First Nations. Wildlife and nature observation is exceptional and a wide variety of large mammals, birds, and fish are easily accessible, whether or not within Yukon's many territorial parks (Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park, Tombstone Territorial Park, Fishing Branch Ni'iinlii'njik Park, Coal River Springs Territorial Park) and national parks (Kluane National Park and Reserve,Vuntut National Park, Ivvavik National Park) and reserves, or nearby Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park in British Columbia.
The latitude enables the view of aurora borealis in Yukon.
Although English is the main language used in the territory, as evidenced by the census, the Government of Yukon recognizes several aboriginal languages as part of the cultural heritage of the territory: the Tlingit, and the less commonTahltan, as well as seven Athapaskan languages, Upper Tanana, Gwitchin, Hän, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone,Kaska and Tagish, some of which are rare. As noted above, the "aboriginal identity population" makes up a relatively small part of the total population, accounting for about 25 percent. Notwithstanding, the aboriginal culture is strongly reflected in such areas as winter sports, as in the Yukon Quest sled dog race. The modern comic-book character Yukon Jack depicts a heroic aboriginal persona. By far the strongest cultural and tourism aspect of Yukon, however, is the legacy of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897 - 1899), which inspired such contemporary writers at the time as Robert W. Service, Jack London and Jules Verne and which continues to inspire films and games from Mae West's Klondike Annie to The Yukon Trail (see Cultural legacy of the Klondike Gold Rush). Notable residents have included Leslie Nielsen, Erik Nielsen andPierre Berton. |
0.936933 | Despite the Society's reaffirmation of hereditary succession, several constituent societies entered a period of decline after Washington's death, as the original members aged and the Revolutionary War grew ever more remote. The French Society had been abolished in the early stages of the French Revolution, and many of its members had been killed during the Reign of Terror that followed. The North Carolina Society had ceased to function by 1800. The Georgia Society did not meet after 1800, though it did not dissolve; new officers were elected in 1822, but there is no record of activity in the intervening decades. The Delaware Society dissolved in 1802, dividing its assets among its members. The Connecticut Society dissolved in 1804 and presented the residue of its treasury to Yale College.
Other state societies dissolved during the first decades of the nineteenth century. The Virginia Society, despite the reaffirmation of hereditary succession, did not admit any hereditary members, implicitly anticipating that it would not outlast the founding generation. It dissolved in an orderly manner, entrusting the commonwealth with a fund to provide relief for its widows and turning over the balance of its money to Washington College—now Washington and Lee University. The Virginia Society held its last meeting in 1824. The Rhode Island Society continued in operation until July 4, 1835, when it held its last meeting. The New Hampshire Society continued to hold meetings until 1823, although participation waned. It simply faded away, without any formal act of dissolution. In 1842 the son of the last secretary pronounced the New Hampshire Society extinct and sent its records to the state historical society.
The decline of the Society during the early nineteenth century was not at all uniform. The South Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey societies continued to operate with vigor and have functioned continuously since 1783. All of them, with the exception of the New Jersey Society, have been intimately associated with the social life of particular cities—Charleston, Baltimore, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—where members have lived in numbers sufficient to maintain the traditions of the organization. The commemoration of the Revolution in those cities, in particular, has often involved, and in many cases has been led by, the Society or its members. Members of the Maryland Society, for example, led the effort to build the distinguished Washington Monument in Baltimore, completed in 1829. The monument was built on land donated by John Eager Howard, a Maryland Society member and hero of the Revolution. The Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland was later instrumental in establishing the Maryland Historical Society.
Lafayette's farewell visit to the United States in 1824-1825 reinvigorated the Society. Each of the surviving state societies welcomed Lafayette on his tour of the country. By then the young officers of the Continental Army were in their seventies and their numbers were dwindling. The surviving officers were themselves objects of veneration in 1826—the fiftieth anniversary of American independence.
The Society capitalized on these commemorations to renew its campaign for half pay for life. Congress finally relented in 1828, granting each surviving Continental officer full pay for the remainder of his life. By the end of that year, some 850 former officers were receiving full pay. After forty-five years, the Society's efforts to secure the compensation promised by the Continental Congress came to a close. By then the Society had fewer than three hundred members—including a large proportion of hereditary members.
The Revolutionary generation was almost extinct by 1844, when William Popham, a ninety-two year old former major in the New York Continental Line, was elected president general. He was the last veteran of the American Revolution to be entrusted with the Diamond Eagle. By then some old officers had begun to suggest that the Society ought to dissolve. "Perish the thought!" Popham replied. "I will never consent to consign to eternal oblivion an Institution which received the sanction of Washington."
Popham lived until 1847 and was the last Continental officer to serve as an officer of the Society. His successor, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, was the first hereditary member to serve as president general. Without a concerted effort to attract more hereditary members, he warned, the Society "will cease to exist within a third of a century." |
0.911774 | Google is considering adding an ad-blocker to Chrome. The built-in ad-blocker would likely filter out bad ads, letting those that meet a certain standard through. Google has declined to comment on the rumors, but this would be a logical next step for the company. And good news too.
Advertising is an essential part of the online experience How Advertisements On Your Website Could Make Or Break You How Advertisements On Your Website Could Make Or Break You An Internet without ads would be an Internet smothered in subscriptions and paywalls. You don't have to feel guilty for running ads on your website, but make sure you do it right. Read More . Without it, the vast majority of websites would simply cease to be. And yet people are blindly using ad-blockers with no regard for the websites that rely on advertising to pay the bills. Including MakeUseOf.
The rumors come courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, which cites “people familiar with the company’s plans”. The WSJ claims Google could “announce the feature within weeks, but it is still ironing out specific details and still could decide not to move ahead with the plan”.
Google’s ad-blocker wouldn’t block everything. Instead, it would likely “filter out certain online ad types deemed to provide bad experiences for users as they move around the web”. This includes “pop-ups, auto-playing video ads with sound and ‘prestitial’ ads with countdown timers”.
Essentially, Google would be trying to improve the quality of advertising for everyone using Chrome. The idea being that people don’t hate ads per se, but rather bad ads that ruin their online experience. Which is feedback we have previously heard when broaching this subject It's About Ethics in Stealing Games Journalism: Why AdBlock Needs to Die It's About Ethics in Stealing Games Journalism: Why AdBlock Needs to Die A simple, free browser plugin killed Joystiq – and is ruining the Internet. Read More .
This would actually makes a lot of sense. Google is in the online advertising business, and, despite its flaws It's Time To Break Up With Google Chrome It's Time To Break Up With Google Chrome As a big fan of Google Chrome for a long time, I finally decided it was time for us to break up. It came down to overall performance, customization, and extensions. Read More , Chrome is the biggest web browser on the planet. If it can use the latter to change people’s minds on the former, then it would be taking control back from the ad-blockers increasingly threatening its livelihood. This is therefore a win-win for everything concerned.
This is currently nothing more than hearsay based on a solitary publication. So it may come to nothing. Or Google could be on the cusp of disrupting things yet again. Lest we forget that Google I/O 2017 starts on May 17, which would surely be the perfect time to announce such a thing.
Do you currently use an ad-blocker? If so, why? Do you whitelist certain websites? Or do you employ a blanket ban on advertising? What do you think of Google’s plans? Do you like the idea of an ad-blocker which filters out bad ads? Please let us know in the comments below!
Explore more about: Ad-Blockers, Google, Google Chrome, Online Advertising.
Google is part of the problem with its own ads that are still sometimes against what it considers bad, I still see adsense that if someone else was doing google would call deceptive. As for everybody including MUO making money and living, well of course, but don't let a third party dictate terms for you. Autoplay is probably the current worst type imo but I don't see google or anybody doing anything real about it ... because to me 'anything real' would mean they don't exist at all.
Of course Google is part of the problem. That's why I welcome this move, because it suggests the company is at least aware the ad business needs to evolve.
It's insanely hard to make the money needed to run a site of this size without using third-parties. So we're always going to be somewhat at the mercy of the companies running the ads.
All advertising on the internet should be treated as hostile. Any endorsement of this from a major internet company should be treated as a positive development.
The internet as a whole needs to have a major re-think of revenue models. Google is actually as much part of the problem as a component of the solution.
How much are you willing to pay for site subscriptions? Whenever a site tries to implement a paywall it fails hard. Or do you have some magical idea that keeps content free and doesn't require advertising?
The value of even a single "tip" of $2 on any reasonably large site frequented by general audiences (e.g. MUO) is worth more than all the ad impression revenue I would in theory create over the course of a year. But the issue of funding commercial sites is not my problem since I'm not the one trying to monetize it. |
0.999999 | Repackage an existing product based on a structured persona and design aesthetic.
Product: Rembrandt introduced the first whitening toothpaste in 1989, the first mouthwash in 1998, and the first whitening strips in 2004. They are leaders in researching whitening technology and provide customers with their best product. They focus on consistency, flavor, form, fit, texture, and comfort. Rembrandt costs $5.99 while other brands (Colgate and Crest) are around $3.99. |
0.99469 | Do stye antibiotics come in ointment or tablet form?
I read that erythromycin or bacitracin antibiotics are sometimes prescribed for styes. Are they ointments or tablets?
Mild to moderate styes are usually treated with topical antibiotic drops or ointments, such as erythromycin and bacitracin. Tablets are usually not used. Warm compresses are often applied to the eyelid for 10 to 15 minutes prior to the use of the topical medication. Your ophthalmologist might also prescribe oral antibiotics if your entire eyelid is swollen, red, and painful, which happens in a small number of cases. You must never squeeze a stye the way some people try to "pop" a pimple. This could cause the infection in the eyelid to spread across the entire eyelid and into the surrounding tissue. |
0.966281 | Concussions are a type of traumatic brain injury that affects the way in which the brain functions. These are most commonly caused by a blow to the head during participation in a contact sport, or a fall, but can also be caused by violent shaking of the head or upper body.
People often recover from concussions quickly and completely. However, symptoms stemming from a concussion can last for days or weeks following the injury. The following are common symptoms of a concussion, which you should look out for if someone you know might be suffering from a head injury.
There is a wide variety of immediate symptoms, which are common when someone has experienced a blow to the head severe enough to cause a concussion. These vary from person to person and may depend on the seriousness of the injury.
Immediately after the injury occurs, a person might lose consciousness for a short period of time. When they regain consciousness, they may seem disoriented and complain of a headache, experience dizziness or have trouble remembering what happened. This amnesia often applies only to the memories which surround the event of the injury, altering none of the victim’s long-term memory.
Additionally, within the first few hours of the incident, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and ringing in the ears can occur as common symptoms of a concussion.
Some concussion symptoms may be delayed or may not begin until days after the event of the injury, which can last for an extended period of time. Following a concussion, some people will experience difficulty concentrating or difficulty regaining memory.
They can also experience personality changes such as irritability and depression. This can sometimes be explained by the possible sleep disturbances that concussions can cause. Other long-term symptoms include sensitivity to light and noise and difficulty with or changes in smell and taste.
When a child experiences a head injury, there are specific symptoms of a concussion you should watch for. Along with common symptoms such as being dazed, irritable or experiencing unsteady walking, smaller children can also exhibit excessive crying or lack of interest in something they used to enjoy.
Other symptoms that a concussion can cause are changes in the child’s sleeping and/or eating patterns, as well as listlessness and a lack of energy.
When a head injury occurs, it is always better to play it safe. If someone experiences such an injury, they should see a doctor in no later than 48 hours, especially if that someone is a child who has experienced a blow to the head.
More severe symptoms, however, require immediate, emergency care. If someone experiences a head injury and loses consciousness for more than 30 seconds, they should seek emergency care. Following the injury, if someone has experienced repeated vomiting, a worsening headache or slurred speech, they should consult a doctor as soon as possible.
Depending on the severity of the injury, seizures, difficulty with physical coordination and pupil dilation can occur, and are also indicative of an emergency. If you would like to lead more information about the symptoms of a concussion, please contact us today for further assistance. |
0.99835 | Why fitness through boxing is so beneficial to the body and mind.
Boxing can simply be a means of getting yourself into great shape, and it may even be the single most effective way to get fit. It incorporates all aspects of fitness including muscular strength, muscular endurance, speed and coordination, and will allow you to feel better about yourself in a number of other ways, including inspiring confidence, giving you more determination, focus, patience and discipline.
The physical benefits that stem from activities including running, push-ups, sit-ups, star jumps, and punching either a heavy bag or focus mitts will not only make you stronger, they will also improve your endurance, making you go for longer. This will in turn assist you in other aspects of your life that include any type of physical activity. Other physical benefits that stem from boxing training include an increase in speed, coordination and overall fitness. These too will also assist in other aspects of your life, or other sports you may wish to participate in. Boxing training will give you more get-up-and-go, and provide you with more energy when not training, which can lend itself to other aspects of your life, e.g. spending more play-time with your children and family or participating in more active hobbies.
Mental Benefits this includes the development of confidence, determination, patience and focus. Boxing training brings on certain physical changes to the body. It tones, builds muscle, and changes its shape without you even realising. Many people want to look good, and if you look good, you will feel good as a result, which in turn increases confidence. Determination and focus will be developed from a desire to train harder every time you train. The only person you will/ or should be competing with here is yourself. You will want to do more push-ups than last time, throw more punches than the time before, and run longer/quicker than the previous time. Before you know it, you’ll be applying this approach to your everyday life.
Patience is something that will occur based on the fact each time you train you will be realising endorphins, which gives you a sense of calmness afterwards. The more you train, the more patience and tolerance you will apply to your life. This will be beneficial to you in a number of ways outside of training, and will assist with your family and work life (in particular family and work based stresses). |
0.999889 | What's it like to go on a trip or vacation to Langkawi?
For me going on a trip to Langkawi is satisfying my adventurous spirit. I have organized the tour with the help of the DMC in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I have done snorkeling and kayaking there. I love the adrenaline rush and excitement. I was happy to see the sea animals and a variety of birds. Langkawi island gives a breathtaking view of the exotic beauty. |
0.985985 | Washington (CNN) -- Your hotel, health club and neighborhood pool can remain open this weekend without fear of violating the law.
The Justice Department said Thursday it is delaying for 60 days a new law that requires all public pools to install "lifts" or provide other means to make pools accessible to disabled individuals.
The law was passed in 2010 and was scheduled to take effect Thursday. But in recent months, there has been widespread confusion about what sort of pools are required to make the change, whether pools must install permanent lifts or can use cheaper portable lifts and whether one lift could service more than one pool.
As the Thursday deadline neared, hotels and other pool operators nationwide unleashed a torrent of calls and letters to industry associations and politicians, saying the rule threatened to close pools from coast to coast. Several Republican lawmakers charged the rule was an example of unwieldy government regulation. And scribes even gave the debacle a name: "Poolmaggeddon."
A hotel industry association said the government originally indicated portable lifts were acceptable, but reversed itself in a legal interpretation released early this year. It also said the government is requiring a separate lift for every pool, greatly increasing the costs to facilities with numerous pools.
Permanent lifts are costly because they must have electrical grounding work, which requires installers to "tear up" a pool deck, said Marlene Colucci, executive vice president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
"You have to do electrical grounding requirements anytime you're within five feet of water, and that's required by the government. And this was not at all contemplated by the Department of Justice when they issued this further guidance," Colucci said.
Permanent lifts also are an "easy attractive nuisance" for children, she said.
"Children see it, they look at it and say, 'This is a diving board. This is something to play with. And we're very concerned about injuries that result from that."
Colucci said portable and permanent lifts range in cost from $4,000 to $10,000, but permanent lifts have additional installation costs.
Pool operators said there is also widespread confusion about language in the law that says they must accommodate disabled individuals to the extent that it is "readily achievable" to do so.
The Justice Department said the "readily achievable" language has been in the Americans with Disabilities Act since 1992, and is an acknowledgment that it is not always possible to remove all architectural barriers in an existing building at the outset.
"Readily achievable" means that it is "easily accomplished" and can be done "without much difficulty or expense."
"An existing pool must do what is readily achievable (affordable and easy). If a fixed lift is affordable and easy for that hotel, they need to provide a fixed lift. If only a portable lift is affordable and easy for that hotel, they can use a portable lift. If they already have a portable lift, they should explore whether it is affordable and easy to attach the lift. If no lift is achievable, they should make a plan to achieve access when it becomes readily achievable for them."
That language seemingly gives wide latitude to pool operators. But Colucci says it also creates problems.
"By having a definition that's so broad, you really don't give anybody any certainty," Colucci said. "Which means that you end up having to litigate the definition of what is 'readily achievable.'"
In a press release Thursday, the Justice Department conceded there were "misunderstandings" about the pool law and extended the deadline 60 days. It also held open the possibility of even longer delays and said it will accept public comments on a possible six-month extension. |
0.951117 | In the year 1520, Hernando de Magallanes spotted these lands for the first time, after crossing the strait that now bears his name. He encountered a rocky littoral and massive mountains, which we now know as Aysén, and which he named as “Tierras de Diciembre” (“Lands of December.”) Three decades later, the Spanish conqueror Pedro de Valdivia sent an expedition under the command of Francisco de Ulloa. He was the first navigator to disembark on these southern lands. However, what seemed like a wild, cold and virgin territory to his eyes, was actually already inhabited. Several indigenous tribes dwelt there. In the mainland, north of the Strait of Magellan, lived the Tehuelches or Patagones; great nomad hunters, of slanted eyes, robust bodies and dark skin.
They moved on foot over long distances, since they did not master horse-riding yet. With bows and arrows, and bolas made by themselves, they hunted guanacos, rheas (ñandú), and southern Andean deer (huemul) for food. In the southernmost costs of Aysen, lived the Alacalufes, who were canoeing tribes that called themselves Kaweskar. Further north, the Chonos populated the islands that we now know as Guaitecas; they were also canoeist peoples who had similar customs as the Alacalufes. Their diet was mainly based on seafood. They gathered their supplies mostly from hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish from the cold southern waters that they traveled. They navigated in rustic and primitive canoes made from tree bark, preferably from coigüe trees. They always lit a fire inside the canoes, and women were in charge of taking care of it.
In the centuries after the discovery of Aysén, its history was marked by the presence of different kinds of expeditions. First, by religious missions, such as the one led by father José García Alsué, who traveled the southern lands of Palena, between the years 1766 and 1767. Afterwards, there were scientific explorations in the area, such as the one led by the pilot José de Moraleda y Montero, who by the end of the XVIII century made the first mapping of Chiloé and Palena. Later came Robert Fitz-Roy and Charles Darwin, who between the years 1831 and 1836 explored Australia, New Zealand and the coasts of South America, from Galapagos to Tierra del Fuego. They carried out important and detailed scientific observations of the Aysén region. After Robert Fitz-Roy’s journey, the Chilean Navy conducted its first exploration in charge of Lieutenant Francisco Hudson who suffered a shipwreck and died during the expedition. In 1870 the Navy commissioned Captain Henry Simpson the mission to trace the western coast of Patagonia with the objective of finding an entrance to the inland valleys. This is how he discovered Simpson River.
During the War of the Pacific, Chile and Argentina signed a treaty fixing the binational limit in the line of the highest peaks and the continental divide of waters. Due to the complexity of the region’s geography, it became necessary to resort to arbitration by the English monarchy. To do that, the Chilean State hired the services of German scientist Hans Steffens, to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the area during the years 1892 and 1902, and whose contributions have helped develop the mapping of this southern area, which in turn contributed to its later colonization.
Sociedad Industrial de Aysén (SIA) that was established in the valleys of Aysén, Simpson and Mañihuales. This was the most successful of all companies. Aside from creating roads between its facilities, it established a trade route between Puerto Aysén and Puerto Montt.
Anglo-Chilean Pastoral Co. This company was established in the area of Cisnes River and had relative success.
Sociedad Explotadora del Baker. This company was installed in the south and due to the complexity of the terrain and other difficulties, it went bankrupt shortly thereafter.
The War of Chile Chico started because the pioneers occupied lands that were leased to Swedish resident Carlos Von Flack, although they had previously been inhabited by settlers. Von Flack appealed to the authorities to evict the settlers, who in turn got organized to avoid eviction. They were led by Antoín Silva Ormeño (known as “the general” by the pioneers.) Due to a court order, a troop of policemen was sent to remove the settlers, which sparked a fight that ended with three dead policemen, causing the rest to withdraw from the scene.
During that time, in 1917, the town of Balmaceda was founded. It was the most important settlement during the first quarter of the last century.
The settlers opened and cleared land routes by burning forests, which caused huge fires that lasted years and where lots of native forests were lost; all for the purpose of racing animals and planting crops. These lands were originally leased to cattle ranches, yet after the conflict between the stays and the settlers, the State decided to support the pioneers by regularizing their situations and extending their presence through diverse initiatives. In the year 1927, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo defined the Aysén territory and named General José Luis Marchant mayor, who at the time was a colonel. After ten years, this area became another one of Chile’s provinces and the State started to dictate policies to promote and regulate the occupation of the territory. This is how the Aysén that we know today was created. |
0.999998 | Are Winston-Salem's guidelines for the use of economic development incentives adequate, or do they need to be strengthened? That was a current topic of debate in September.
Use of economic development incentives: The city council in September approved the offer of an economic development incentives package for the opening of a Mast General Store in Winston-Salem. Mast General is an "old-fashioned" general goods variety store with several locations in western North Carolina and South Carolina. It has the reputation of being a "destination" retail establishment--that is, one which draws customers from a sizable surrounding territory, as if it were a tourism attraction.
I concur that Mast General will be a good addition to our city, especially to a downtown which is in need of more retail sales venues. However, I voted against the economic development incentives package. My 'no' vote was based on my opposition to expanding our use of incentives deals into the retail category. To explain that concern, let me review some background on economic incentives.
Definition: Economic incentives are payments to companies by local or state governments as a way to attract an investment project that the company could choose to send to any one of a number of different locations. The guarantee of these payments is used by the company to help finance the costs of the investment, including new construction, equipment, or employee training associated with that project.
Winston-Salem's approach: Winston-Salem's approach is to consider the provision of incentives when requested by a business considering making a new investment here. Incentive deals normally take the form of a contract between the city and the business, in which the city agrees to payments to the company of up to a particular dollar amount, capped according to other factors. The cap is normally set as a percentage of the net new city tax revenues generated by the project. Incentives requests are considered on a case by case basis, and must meet several tests to qualify. Projects must perform as projected in order to receive the incentives payments, which can also be recovered if a project is shut down or moved away.
"But for" test: A true "incentives" deal must meet the "but for" test: That is, but for the incentives, the project and its benefits would go elsewhere. This means that the deal is truly an incentive to bring to our city development, jobs, and revenue that we would not have had at all otherwise.
Each deal must pay for itself: One of my most important bottom line requirements for an economic incentives deal is that it pay for itself in net new revenues to the city. That is, the project must create more in tax revenues for the city within a reasonable time than it will cost the city in incentives paid. This is a requirement that can be clearly demonstrated for projects that involve new construction of taxable real property, or create new jobs with sufficient local payroll (a calculable average part of which will go toward local sales taxes). New manufacturing or research facilities can often meet this test when the size of the proposed incentives package is reasonable.
Problems with using incentives for retail: Retail development has a special problem meeting these tests. That's because in a community like ours which already has plentiful retail establishments, another retail venue is unlikely to create net new local revenues. Instead, it merely shifts around dollars that are already being spent here. Therefore, any sales taxes generated would most likely have come in anyway from sales at other retail establishments already here. I have no quarrel with new business competition coming into the city. However, I don't think it's appropriate to use city tax revenues to pay an incentive for it to come here if it's just competing for dollars already being spent here at other stores. That's also not fair to our existing companies selling those same items.
Alternatives: There are other programs designed to encourage investment in development or redevelopment of certain targeted locations, such as declining older commercial areas in need of revitalization for the well-being of the surrounding neighborhoods. However, those should be considered separately from general economic development incentives deals, under different criteria designed to measure their actual value to our community. For example, the criteria for programs encouraging redevelopment of declining older commercial areas are associated mostly with the value of preventing or cleaning up their adverse impacts on adjacent neighborhoods.
My conclusions: In my view, a great deal of careful work needs to be done to prepare adequate standards for testing the community benefit of new retail projects before we consider them for incentives offers. Incentives payments already play too great a role in our strategy for attracting new economic investments. I do not believe that it is fiscally viable for our community in the long run to continuing expanding their use. It's an unfortunate fact that they are required for our city to effectively compete for many new business investments, but we should not expand their use beyond what is necessary for us to remain economically competitive. That's because the overuse of incentives cumulatively increases the percentage of community tax burden carried by residential property compared to commercial property. We should be looking for ways to reduce our reliance on economic incentives payments, not expand it.
Update on Fire Station 2: As many of you know from the news, WSFD Fire Station #2 on Somerset Drive was temporarily closed about a month ago in order to fix a recurring serious mold problem that presented a health concern for firefighters there. The mold was located and removed from ceiling and walls in a hallway and bedrooms. The building is now being monitored to be sure that the problem is fully fixed before repairs are completed and the station re-occupied.
Fire safety lesson for residents: Many of you may have noted the news story last month when a cooking fire from an unattended stove caused the temporary evacuation of Healy Towers apartments on Healy Drive. You may not have noticed why the fire was far less severe than it might have been, and most residents were back in their homes the same day. It's because stove tops at this Winston-Salem Housing Authority property have been equipped with automatic fire stop canisters as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant. The Housing Authority purchased 750 of these fire suppression devices and installed them at 615 units in its three residential towers. (It has 135 spares for replacements.) Total project cost was about $33,000. A single fire--like the one at Healy--burning uncontrolled would have created far more damage costs than that, and threatened residents' lives. In the Healy Towers fire, the canister operated as designed, and popped open to release fire-suppression powder to smother the fire before it could spread.
According to the fire department, cooking fires are the most common form of household fires. These stovetop fire-stop canisters cost less than $50 each and are available at local retail stores. The WSFD strongly encourages residents of our city to buy and install these devices (about the size and shape of a tuna can) on stoves. Plus, never leave food cooking on the stove unattended.
Don't text and drive: By mayoral proclamation, September 19 was "No Text on Board Pledge Day" in Winston-Salem. It was part of a public education campaign on the hazards of texting while driving--a serious and growing cause of traffic accidents. Research by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute showed that texting drivers are 23 times more likely to be in an accident. According to the National Safety Council, texting drivers are involved in more than 100,000 auto wrecks a year. North Carolina made texting while driving illegal in 2009, but too many drivers (especially young drivers) persist in this extremely dangerous practice. An educational site at www.itcanwait.com is designed to appeal to younger drivers with this safety message.
Voting starts Oct. 18: One-stop early voting for national, state, and local offices begins Thursday, October 18. With so many ways and days to vote, there's no excuse to miss it. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone how to vote, but I have no hesitation in offering my opinion that all citizens of our community do need to VOTE for the candidates of your choice!
--Big Sweep: This is our annual community volunteer cleanup day for local waterways. It's set for this Saturday, October 6, from 9 a.m. to noon at over 30 sites from Salem Creek to Peters Creek to Silas Creek.
--Community Roots Day: Our city's 20th annual community tree-planting project will take place this year on Saturday, October 27, from 9 a.m. to noon along New Walkertown Road and the Newell/Massey Greenway. Volunteers are asked to arrive by 8:45 a.m. at the Twin City Baseball Complex at Waterworks Road.
--These are great projects for students, scouts, service clubs, church groups, and other concerned citizens. For more information or to sign up, go to www.kwsb.cityofws.org.
That's my report for September. As always, you are welcome to email me at danbesse@danbesse.org with comments or questions. Thanks! |
0.964963 | The Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol, also known as the Plasma Pistol, is a Covenant infantry firearm, carried commonly by the smaller species, such as the Unggoy, Kig-yar, and the Yanme'e, as well as occasional sidearms for larger species such as the Sangheili and Jiralhanae. The Plasma Pistol is a Covenant Directed Energy Weapon reverse engineered from Forerunner technology that uses a weaponized variant of the fourth stage of matter Plasma to serve as a worthy weapon on the battlefield. The weapon is powered by a battery cell and uses a superheated form of Hydrogen Fluoride gas as a source of fuel. Before the plasma pistol can be fired, the user must place his or her thumb on the pad, which activates the weapon and prepares it for use. On the left side of the device is another small red button used to open the top heating vent, used to cool the weapon to prevent overheating and to allow access to the internal components of the weapon. The weapons convenient size and efficiency makes it a prime choice as a standard-issue for lower-ranking Covenant infantry such Unggoy, Kig-Yar and Yamne'e, but also is occasionally used by higher ranking species within the Covenant such as Ossoona Elites, or vehicle drivers, from time to time. It is the most commonly encountered Covenant energy weapon. Generally, two hits from either a Plasma Pistol or Plasma Rifle will kill a light or unarmored target such as a UNSC Marine. The T25 Pistol also has the ability to charge a single superheated bolt, which can instantly eliminate almost any form of energy shielding. The Plasma Pistol is a great close-to medium range weapon; but at longer ranges is all but useless save for a few lucky shots; but some users have also been known to effecively use the weapon at long range if the user fires slowly and aims carefully by leading the target. The Plasma Pistol, when fired continuously, or when an overcharged bolt is fired, will overheat because of the rapid cycling, loading, ignition, and release sequence of energy. To prevent the weapon from being damaged, the Type-25 DEP temporarily shuts down and opens a cooling vent to allow the excess heat to dissipate before the weapon reactivates. This process leaves the weapon temporarily inoperable. Infantry who are not aware of the function of the Plasma Pistol can get killed because of this.
The Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle, more commonly known as the Plasma Rifle, is a Covenant infantry weapon. The Plasma Rifle is a Covenant directed energy weapon reverse engineered from forerunner technology that uses a superheated ionized gas called Plasma instead of projectile ammunition. Unlike the Plasma Pistol, the plasma rifle is capable of semi-automatic and full automatic fire; this is thanks in part to its dual plasma collimator design. Placed atop one another, these collimators fire in a "stagger" taking the slow automatic fire of each individual collimator and combining it, this design allows a faster rate of fire and more rounds per second, which adds to the lethality of the weapon. Taking fire from the Type-25 DER can cause severe second, third, and in some cases, fourth-degree burns (a fourth-degree burn completely burns away all flesh, leaving only bone tissue). The Type-25 DER is the primary weapon of the Covenant’s officer corps, used by Elites and Brutes, although Jackals, Grunts and higher ranking Drones have been seen using this weapon, but not as common. Against UNSC infantry, the Type-25 Rifle's lethality is considerably greater than its counterpart, the Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol, due to the faster rate of fire, injuries inflicted to the victim are severe third-degree burns, with the wound being cauterized instantly upon impact. The Plasma Rifle is a close to medium range weapon, and as such can inflict very high damage at range. The Plasma Rifle can also be used at long range if the user fires slowly and aims carefully by leading the target. The rifle is extremely efficient at killing "soft" targets, while doing lethal amounts of damage to a heavily armored target. Enough infantry equipped with Type-25 Rifles can halt enemy infantry advance with its ability to deliver harassing suppressive fire; this tactic is also reflected in the Covenant's combat doctrine: destroy enemy morale with harassing fire from distant or hidden snipers and intimate exposure to the alien-ness of their infantry. The Plasma Rifle, when fired continuously, overheats very quickly because of the rapid cycling, loading, ignition, and release sequence of energy; to prevent the weapon from being damaged, the Type-25 DER temporarily shuts down and opens heating vents to allow the excess heat to dissipate before the weapon reactivates. This process leaves the weapon inoperable and useless. Careless infantry who are not aware of the function of the Plasma Rifle can get themselves killed because of this. Human military experts and scientists do not understand how Covenant plasma weapons work, or how they are recharged; as such, when the battery is depleted, the rifle must be discarded or replaced.
The Type-33 Guided Munitions Launcher, more commonly known as the Needler, is a Covenant infantry weapon. It is used by Elites, Grunts, Skirmishers and Jackals, and is sometimes used as a side arm by higher-ranking Elites. The Needler is a Covenant projectile weapon that fires long, sharp crystalline shards that are guided until they impale a target — hence the “needler” moniker. Several seconds after coming to rest in their target, the needles detonate, creating severe and in most cases fatal wounds. The needler's top plate has 14 holes, with the needles protruding out of the holes. When the trigger is pulled, the needle is fed from the top into the "barrel" of the weapon, and fired at high speed. The Type-33 GML is used by Covenant foot soldiers of nearly all types. Drones are also fond of this weapon, and their efficiency with it is high as their flying capabilities and large numbers make the needles harder to dodge. When the trigger is held down, the rate at which the 'needles' are fired increases. Razor-sharp crystalline projectiles are fired from this elaborately designed Covenant weapon; it is widely believed that these needles use heat or organic signatures to home in on targets, and may have some relation to the Plasma Grenade and the Plasma Pistol's charged shots, which also react to living tissue and Sentinel mechanics. The needles appear to have some sort of "identify-friend/foe" function, as they will home in on hostile targets but not allies of the wielder. Once fired, a needle will seek its target until impact, entering the victim's body violently. After several seconds, the contents of the crystalline shard will detonate; injuries inflicted from the exploding shard are gruesome, as microscopic pieces of shrapnel can become embedded in tissue. The Type-33, unlike other Covenant weapons, allows the user to aim at the closest target, fire and move on, as its homing ability allows its user to avoid being exposed to enemy fire while inflicting his own. The more needle shards that impact the target, the higher degree of damage it will do to the target, seven or more needle shards detonating at the same place will cause a massive explosion that will cause splash damage and cause shrapnel damage, which can also cause nearby explosives to detonate, giving the enemy another reason to run. The projectiles ricochet when they hit rigid surfaces at oblique angles and retain sufficient velocity, making dodging them a challenging feat. While the Type-33 GML is incredibly effective against most infantry, it is much less effective against vehicles. The crystalline projectiles are slow and ineffective to even light armor and will simply bounce off of them. The Needler is also limited to medium range combat situations and even at that range is not as effective, as the projectile travels it loses velocity and thus loses altitude, reducing the chances of impacting a target. |
0.999942 | Stuffed catfish is an interesting dish that is easy and convenient to cook.
First, you need to steam and chop the oysters.
Then, mix the oysters, crabmeat, and the shrimp with a combination of chopped onion, breadcrumb, juice from lemon, and garlic in bowl.
This mixture is then stuffed into the cavity of the catfish.
Sprinkle a pinch of zest from the lemons onto the prepared fish.
Next, add ¼ cup white wine to the stuffed fish, and wrap it in aluminum foil.
Once the fish is wrapped, you can grill it on a low heat or even bake it at around 325°F.
This should be done for around half an hour.
In order to check when the catfish is cooked, you need to use a fork to poke it and find out whether the meat is soft enough.
With the quantity of ingredients used in this recipe, you should be able to serve around 4 people.
It takes around 30 minutes to prepare this dish and around 30 minutes or more to cook it properly. |
0.999997 | Read P67 and P68, fill in the blanks with because or so. Make the sentence logical.
A.- Michael thought the world was coming to an end he shouted.
B.- Nobody could see Mr. Klutz's shut up sign it was too dark.
C.- A.J. thought people could hear a pin drop in the all-purpose room it was silent.
D.- People yelled "Where is Mrs. Mentry", but there was no reply A.J. thought Mr. Mentry was gone. |
0.998607 | Hi! My name is Jeremy.
As an IT professional, I understand that there are always new digital best practices to follow and it can be difficult to keep up with the latest and greatest practices. Let’s go over a few digital best practices to follow for IT professionals.
It’s important that your IT leaders gain a solid understanding of the organization and the challenges its users face before assessing the fit of new technology. A good place to look for paperless opportunities is to map document touch-points across your organization to determine which tasks would most benefit from digital transactions.
The top strategic focus of your IT leaders should be to foster IT-business unit partnerships and leading organizational change efforts to align IT initiatives with business goals. By setting up an ongoing system of communication with other teams, your organization can achieve guaranteed success.
Your IT teams can more effectively help improve day-to-day operations by limiting vulnerabilities related to printing, signing, scanning, emailing and faxing documents.
With increased budgetary pressures, it’s important to identify ways to make the most of your existing investments in department-specific technology. By researching and selecting tools and applications that integrate within your existing systems, you can achieve faster and broader adoption of digital workflows.
External customers and vendors are likely focusing on their own digital efficiency initiatives which is why it’s very important for IT teams to align with client and vendor processes and technologies.
Fast reaction times are crucial to success in high-service, deadline-driven businesses and mobile-enabled digital signature technology can not only help improve employee productivity and enhance client satisfaction but also securely complete agreements from any mobile device, anywhere in the world.
Employees, vendors, and customers today are located around the world which creates challenges in document execution given strict national and international security laws and standards. This makes it very important to be certain that your signature processes are legally binding and comply with geographic standards and regulations.
As you look to achieve digital efficiencies in your IT processes, look for ways to mimic consumer services best practices in your internal and client-facing transactions to be able to offer clients a better experience.
Best digital practices for IT professionals are constantly changing and it’s important to stay up to date with these changes to be able to offer clients the best experience possible.
If you want to learn more about the best digital practices for IT professionals, click the link below for more information. |
0.999986 | Social gifting company eGifter has expanded its platform to allow retailers to add social and group gifting to the product catalog on their websites.
The eGifter platform enables site visitors to create a group gift around any product available at a retailer’s e-commerce store. The recipient is notified about the gift via an email or social notification that presents the product their friends have chosen for them. Upon redemption, recipients are presented with an eGift card in the amount they need to purchase the product their friends have gifted them, however, recipients can also choose to use the eGift card on any other available item on the retailer’s site.
That said, retailers have the option to make the feature only available on select products, such as higher ticket items that may be more appropriate for group gifts. Moreover, the platform adds a layer of social activity to gift cards. For example, when a digital gift card is delivered through social gifting, retailers receive increased visibility via friend-to-friend marketing. In addition, social gifting and group gifting can be added to registries and wish lists, too.
It is also important to note that the new offering includes all of eGifter’s latest features, including a personalization feature that lets all group gift contributors add personal videos or pictures to the gift. Additionally, the entire experience, including video creation and delivery, can take place on a mobile device. |
0.947376 | Britons are being advised to stay away from Kenyan coastal areas near the Somali border after a French woman was kidnapped by pirates following a fierce gun battle.
Disabled Marie Dedieu was snatched from a beach resort in the Lamu archipelago, northern Kenya, by ten heavily armed Somali militants after a gunfight with local police.
On September 11, Briton David Tebbutt, 58, was killed and his wife Judith, 56, abducted by armed gunmen from a resort near the popular tourist town of Lamu.
The foreign office statement read: 'We advise against all but essential travel to coastal areas within 150km of the Somali border, following two attacks by armed gangs in small boats against beach resorts in the Lamu area on 11 September and 1 October 2011.
'This advice will be kept under review. Both attacks were on beach-front properties, with two Westerners kidnapped and one murdered.
The Tebbutts, from Bishop's Stortford, were the only guests at the Kiwayu Safari Village, 25 miles from the Kenya-Somalia border.
Security forces yesterday tracked down and surrounded the pirate boat believed to be carrying the French hostage.
Several of the masked Somalis were wounded in the battle, which followed their boat being surrounded by coastguard vessels and an aircraft in a stand-off as France and Kenya tried to save Dedie.
The FCO said its travel advice is 'under constant review in the light of the situation on the ground'.
'Travel advice is based on objective assessments of the risk to British nationals, whose safety is our main concern,' said the statement.
Last night two aircraft were pursuing the kidnappers into Somalia as fears grew for Ms Dedieu, who now has no medication to combat her illness.
The kidnap took place 30 miles from the beach near the Kenyan-Somali border where Briton Judith Tebbutt, 56, was seized by gunmen last month.
She was taken by six men who burst into her beach-front bungalow which she rents for half the year on Manda Island at 3am.
The island is located across the channel from the tourist town of Lamu.
Her Kenyan boyfriend John Lepapa, 39, said the gang marched the staff off at gunpoint, then one man lifted 66-year-old Ms Dedieu on to his shoulders and carried her to the gang’s motorboat.
The couple had returned two days earlier from France, where they spend part of the year.
Mr Lepapa said the gang fired assault rifles into the air as they came ashore and shouted: ‘Where is the foreigner? Where is the foreigner?’ as they burst into her sleeping quarters.
He said he and Ms Dedieu, who uses a wheelchair, had planned to marry.
Three weeks ago social worker Judith Tebbutt, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, was snatched in a speedboat by Somali pirates who shot dead her husband David, 57, a publishing finance director.
Mrs Tebbutt is now believed to be held in the northern Amara area of Somalia. No contact has been established with her kidnappers and no ransom demanded.
Last night, Kenyan authorities said that despite a gun battle, pirates had escaped into Somalia with Ms Dedieu. Several of the abductors were wounded.
‘They’ve crossed the border into Ras Kamboni. There are two aircraft on top of them monitoring their position,’ said Kenyan tourism minister Najib Balala.
The UN has ruled that foreign military forces can pursue pirates in Somalia.
Before the gunfight, Mr Balala said two coastguard vessels had surrounded the pirates’ motorboat carrying Ms Dedieu and a military aircraft was circling overhead.
‘Our fear was that if we drowned the boat, we would also drown the woman,’ he said.
Locals on Manda Island and nearby Lamu, exclusive holiday destinations for wealthy Euro¬peans, said they believed Ms Dedieu was specifically targeted.
France said it was ‘working with the Kenyan authorities, which have mobilised significant air and sea resources in order to free our compatriot’.
The UN’s envoy to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, warned last week of a growing link between Somalia’s pirates and militants. Much of southern Somalia is controlled by the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab group. |
0.997323 | What kind of parent are you? Which would you say best describes your parenting style—someone who is demanding and controlling; someone who is warm and responsive; or someone who indulges their kids and rarely disciplines? As in the case of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, one of these approaches is clearly better than the others.
In the 1960s, psychologist Diana Baumrind wrote a groundbreaking paper based upon her research in which she detailed three types of parenting styles she observed: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative parenting.
Parents who fall under this classification of parenting style tend to demand absolute obedience from their children, no ifs, ands, or buts. Parents who practice authoritarian parenting do not believe they need to explain any of the rules they set, and they expect children to obey, no questions asked. They exert their will over their children and punish them with little warmth or support. Children of authoritarian parents often exhibit low self-esteem, depression, and fear of new situations.
This fourth style, identified by researchers Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin, describes a method of parenting in which there is little communication, lack of involvement in their kids' lives, little warmth and responsiveness to kids' emotional needs, and inadequate or insufficient attention to disciplining kids or supervising them. Uninvolved parenting is associated with the worst outcomes for children: Kids who are raised with this style of parenting tend to be emotionally withdrawn, anxious and may be at greater risk for delinquent and dangerous behaviors as well as substance abuse.
They become more responsible, are able to regulate themselves, and learn to make good decisions on their own.
They have respect for adults, other people, and rules.
They're not anxious or worried about who's in charge because they know who is making decisions to make sure they are healthy and happy: the parents.
They are more empathetic, kind, and warm.
They tend to have fewer social problems with peers, get along with teachers, and be more popular at school.
They tend to have secure attachments and better relationships with their parents.
They may be more resistant to peer pressure. |
0.993646 | water scorpion looks so strong, does it have a sting in the tail?
It has some strength, enough to hold struggling prey bigger than itself.
The tail is a breathing tube and has no sting, though if mishandled it can stab with its needle like mouth. |
0.918375 | Evaluate liver and biliary disease. Increased direct bilirubin occurs with biliary diseases, including both intrahepatic and extrahepatic lesions.
The blood test for bilirubin measures the level of bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin is found in the bile and is typically yellowish - brown in color. When the liver breaks down old red blood cells, this fluid is produced by the liver. This fluid is then discarded from the body through the stool. If bilirubin is not removed from the bloodstream or is not attached to glucose - derived acid (conjugated) in the liver, this may be a sign that the liver is damaged. |
0.958741 | When you need to announce new brews in your taproom, you will need some great event ideas! Events are the perfect way to announce new lines of beer from your brewery. Sure, you have social media, industry neighbors, and other outlets, but nothing says “Hey! Check this out!” than a community event.
New craft breweries rely on events and news releases to get their name out into the airwaves. In addition to these resources, they also appreciate the word of mouth from their patrons, suggestions from their competitors, and community support in any form. In return, they support their communities, competitors, and patrons by providing great reviews and outstanding brews as well!
Although they could simply rely on word of mouth alone, this is not the best suggestion when starting out in the business. Some form of marketing is absolutely necessary when a new craft brewery opens its doors. This ensures that the brewery gets a solid start into the industry and can grow at the expected rate to keep up with demand. While you might not think the demand for craft beer is that high, you are sorely mistaken. Just a quick Google search can show you that the demand for craft beer is rising every year and the 4,000 breweries already in the United States are fighting to keep up!
What are some great event ideas that work?
Every community appreciates the businesses that support their needs. This makes a great resource for events because there are always community programs needing a boost! Charity events such as those for the Boys and Girls Club, or even for a local Food Bank are always a great idea. Set up a donation booth and schedule a food truck or two. Pair this with some excellent craft beer and you have an event that will draw the local community, as well as patrons from the surrounding area, to support a great cause in the community!
Another way to create some great buzz about the brewery is to host a food truck regularly. Food trucks offer patrons a chance to try out a new beer while eating delicious food. Try to select food trucks that will complement the beer you serve, as this provides you the opportunity to feature food pairings as well! People love food almost as much as they love a great craft beer, so this type of event will bring out the foodies too!
Games and cultural arts go great with craft beer!
Although some may scoff at the idea of bringing a Book Club, Art Club, or even Trivia games into the taproom, this is one of the great event ideas that really do bring in the crowds. Craft beer enthusiasts love to try new things and learn new things. That includes learning about art, music, and culture, as well as learning new things through trivia! While the critics are laughing at the idea, the brewery is gaining some great clientele who will give honest and concise feedback about their brews. This is a win-win situation, as the patrons enjoy the events and brewmasters need feedback to improve their beer!
Another great way to gain some handy word of mouth is to offer local artists the chance to feature their work in the taproom. Many businesses are using this as an opportunity to decorate their shops with lovely art without having to spend a dime. By offering the artists the ability to showcase the art and place a price on it, the business gains decor while the artist has somewhere to sell their wares. This also means that the decor rotates randomly when items sell! What better way to decorate the taproom than to do it while helping someone else?!
These are just a few of the great event ideas that new craft breweries can use to gain a bit of notoriety or promote a new beer they’ve put on the market. There are many other methods to do this, including online marketing and direct advertising. However, when it comes to being a strong part of the community from start to finish, these ideas are certain to help with integration and support. |
0.999999 | I want to learn to sing and play guitar. How would I go about doing that?
Please give some simple and perfect tips to learn guitar?
I would first get used to doing each of them separate. When you are comfortable with each part, memorize the words of the first line in the song. Then look at the rhythm and try to sing that line until you are comfortable. If you keep singing that verse line while you are looking at the rhythm, you will quickly get comfortable singing and playing at the same time.
I feel your pain - it’s not easy to sing and play. What makes it tricky, obviously, is that you’re strumming one rhythm and singing an entirely different one.
You’re probably not feeling the rhythms and the pulse together.
Here’s how I always start people off with strumming: You HAVE to begin by feeling the pulse of the music.
The pulse is not the rhythm. The pulse is that steady underlying heartbeat in all music. If you think that’s complicated, let me assure you, it’s not really - the pulse is just where you would naturally tap your foot to a song (hard to explain without demonstrating).
You have to understand that, whether you’re singing the rhythm of the melody, or playing the rhythm of the chords, the pulse stays the same - it’s its own thing.
If you can tap your foot along with the music in a steady beat that doesn’t change, then that’s a great beginning. That’s feeling the pulse.
The next thing to do, is to keep your foot going with the pulse, while singing (no guitar just yet).
Next, keep your foot going with just your guitar (no singing).
I suspect that you are not involving your body in feeling the pulse as you play and sing (e.g. tapping your foot). That’s absolutely essential.
Next, when you can do the above accurately, break the song up into smaller parts. Start by keeping the beat with your foot, then add your guitar for the intro, and then just try sing the first line of the song.
If you could get that right, then add the next line of the song. If you hit any difficult parts that keep tripping you up, isolate them and practice them until you can really feel the rhythm.
The good news is that when you make a breakthrough with one song, with regards to rhythm, it will lift your game for every other song that comes after that, too.
Take heart, you’ll get it right.
If you could get that right, then add the next line of the song. If you hit any difficult parts that keep tripping you up, isolate them and practice them until you can really feel the rhythm Tutuapp 9apps Showbox .
Last edited by klimbo; 01-29-2019 at 11:47 AM.
I have also same question.
Is is possible to LEARN how to sing? |
0.940362 | deliver a message of reassurance that had given him peace and sleep.
reasonable mind to support the truth of his companion’s tongue.
arm by the sight of Huntly Hill combined with the news in his pocket.
disregarded, and himself marked as the discoverer of a mare’s nest.
conscientious man’s instinct for martyrdom.
instructions from the map he carried.
shout with delight at the end of each verse.
pine-needles underfoot–sweeping over the stumps and the naked roots.
leaping, with cocked ears and flying mane.
keeping his post with desperate tenacity in the din.
the dead troopers on the ground.
One of the men drew the pistol from his belt.
“Ay, shoot the brute,” said another.
James held up his hand.
“The man is dead,” said he, looking over his shoulder at his comrades.
Ferrier raised his pistol again, but James thrust it back.
“The world needs a few such creatures as that in it,” said he. “Lord!
man who has ridden away will bring the whole country about our ears.
“There is no burying him with that devil left alive!” cried Ferrier.
did not always understand James.
“You are going to hamper yourself with him now?” he exclaimed.
the top of Huntly Hill. |
0.978127 | San Francisco Mission District burning in the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
One important aspect of an earthquake sequence is the clustering of earthquakes within an area in a duration of time. This is observed in both small scale and global levels.
Earthquake swarms or clusters are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time. Most earthquakes, except possibly the strongest ones, come in clusters. Earhquakes consists of one main shock and the resulting aftershocks, there are even events of multiple earthquakes clustered so densely that they are considered as a single event.
The phenomena of clustering has been garnering attention due to the recent spate of earthquakes in the last decade. It has increased recently when it was noticed that unusually large clusters of earthquakes often occur after a strong earthquake. However, the mechanism of clustering is not clear and presents an important problem due to its intrinsic connection with one of the unexplained fundamental features of earthquakes-their interaction with each other over wide distances and time intervals.
Are large earthquakes linked across the globe?
The past decade has been plagued with what seems to be a cluster of large earthquakes, with massive quakes striking Sumatra, Chile, Haiti and Japan since 2004. Some researchers have suggested that this cluster has occurred because the earthquakes may be "communicating" across large distances, possibly triggering each other. But a new analysis by Tom Parsons and Eric Geist of the US Geological Survey concludes that the cluster could just as well be the result of random chance.
Each of the devastating quakes in the 2000s drew huge media coverage and required extensive rebuilding and economic restoration. The intense interest in the earthquakes has led some to wonder if we are living in the middle of an "age of great quakes," similar to a global cluster of quakes in the 1960s. It's important to know whether these clusters occur because big earthquakes trigger others across the world, Parsons and Geist say, in order to predict whether more severely destructive quakes might be on the way.
To determine if the quake clusters in the 1960s and 2000s could be attributed to random chance, the researchers looked at the timing between the world's largest earthquakes--magnitude 8.3 and above--at one-year intervals during the past 100 years. They compared simulated lists of large quakes and the list of real quakes during this time with the between-quake intervals expected from a random process. The intervals between the real-life large quakes are similar to what would be expected from a random process, they found. In other words, the global hazard of large earthquakes is constant in time. Except in the case of local aftershocks, the probability of a new large quake occurring isn't related to past global quakes.
This could be disappointing news for researchers who thought global communication between quakes might offer a way to predict the most severe seismic activity. But there also may be some good news after a decade of destruction. If global great earthquakes are occurring at random, the authors say, then a specific number of quakes that cluster together within a short time is unlikely to be repeated in a similar way over a 100-year span. |
0.99942 | What is the difference between the U.S. and the Russian economy? Answer: In Russia, they do not pretend to be capitalists. Seriously though, it appears that we are getting closer to nationalizing many of the broken industries that still remain in the U.S. such as automobiles, airlines, financials and who knows what else. |
0.999916 | Calling The Oberoi, Lombok "the pretty younger sister to the Oberoi Bali's Grande Dame", the writer highlights the resort as "a more low-key alternative to Bali." Having given it an overall Lux score of 93/100, the writer gives a worthy mention to the hotel's centerpiece, the airy main lobby, restaurant and bar, wet-edge swimming pool and the covered open-air pavilions that offer shade during the day.
To sum it all up, the writer says The Lux Traveller loves "The classic design of the buildings in lush gardens overlooking the Gili Islands", ",The flawlessly prepared dishes of both Eastern and Western cuisines" and "The charming and attentive staff members who always went above and beyond the call of duty to offer guests a special experience."
www.theluxtraveller.com is designed with love and passion for travellers who enjoy the finer things in life. The website covers luxury hotels around the world that provide guests with unique experiences, 5-star hotels that are excellent and represent good value for money for the seasoned travellers. |
0.993474 | A Roth IRA is an individual retirement account that helps you save and investment for retirement. A Roth IRA is funded with after-tax dollars, which means that you have already paid taxes on the cash that you contribute. The good news is that the earnings from your Roth IRA investments grow tax free, even if you make a profit. You can use the cash that you contribute to your Roth IRA to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs and other investments.
When you retire, you can withdraw these funds tax-free to help fund your retirement.This means that you will never owe any capital gains taxes on your Roth IRA investments, nor will you dividends be taxed. A Roth IRA makes sense if you think your tax rate in the year of your Roth IRA contribution is lower than the tax rate in the year of your tax withdrawal.
The decision where to open a Roth IRA is an easy one. Plus, the process of how to open a Roth IRA is simple. You can open a Roth IRA retirement account online in minutes. To open a Roth IRA that you plan to manage yourself, you can choose from the best online brokers to set up a Roth IRA. If you want your Roth IRA investment to be managed by someone, you can choose from the best robo-advisors to provide an automated portfolio service that uses computer algorithms to invest in low-cost investments.
If you want to know how to open a Roth IRA, it is simple. Once you choose your Roth IRA brokerage, you will be asked to enter basic contact information, including your social security number.Then, you will fund your account through a wire transfer, check or bank transfer.
How is a Roth IRA different than a Traditional IRA?
There are several differences than a Traditional IRA.
There are two main types of IRAs: a Traditional IRA and a Roth IRA. The main difference between a Traditional IRA and Roth IRA are the tax benefits.
Roth IRA: With a Roth IRA, you contribute funds on an after-tax basis. This means that you do not receive a tax deduction in the year of your contribution. The benefit of a Roth IRA is that you do not pay any taxes when you withdraw your retirement funds, and you can enjoy the profits of your IRA investment tax-free. A Roth IRA makes sense if you have a lower tax rate now than you will in the future. Roth IRA retirement accounts are not available to everyone, and are limited by your annual income.
No Mandatory Withdrawals: Unlike a Traditional IRA, there are no mandatory withdrawals from a Roth IRA.
Ability To Contribute Regardless of Age: Unlike a Traditional IRA, you can contribute to a Roth IRA at any age, even if you are retired.
Ability to Withdraw Contributions: Since you already paid taxes on your contributions, you can withdraw them anytime with no penalty or tax implications.
Estate Planning: You can pass your Roth IRA investment account to your heirs.
Bankruptcy Protection: Your contributions to your Roth IRA are shielded from creditors.
You should aim to contribute the maximum amount permitted by law to your Roth IRA each year. As you come closer to our retirement, you may want to adjust your Roth IRA investment choices to reflect your personal and financial preferences, goals and risk profile.
Unlike a Traditional IRA, not everyone can contribute to a Roth IRA, however. First, either you or spouse need to earn income to be able to contribute to a Roth IRA. Therefore, if your only earnings are from investments or dividends, you may not be able to contribute to a Roth IRA.
Second, there are income limitations based on your modified adjusted gross income that are set by the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS. These income thresholds – and the amount you can contribute to your Roth IRA – may change annually.
How do I withdraw money from my Roth IRA?
Roth IRAs are more flexible than Traditional IRAs when it comes to withdrawing money. The goods news is that you can withdraw from your Roth IRA any time, for any reason and with no penalty. However, if you withdraw any earnings before age 59 ½, you will be penalized, unless it is for a qualifying reason. |
0.997124 | A reactor that uses heavy water as its moderator. Heavy water is an excellent moderator and thus permits the use of inexpensive natural (unenriched) uranium as fuel.
A pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) is a nuclear reactor, commonly using unenriched natural uranium as its fuel, that uses heavy water (deuterium oxide D2O) as its coolant and neutron moderator. The heavy water coolant is kept under pressure, allowing it to be heated to higher temperatures without boiling, much as in a pressurized water reactor. While heavy water is significantly more expensive than ordinary light water, it creates greatly enhanced neutron economy, allowing the reactor to operate without fuel-enrichment facilities (offsetting the additional expense of the heavy water) and enhancing the ability of the reactor to make use of alternate fuel cycles.
A nuclear reactor that uses heavy water as its moderator. Heavy water is an excellent moderator and thus permits the use of inexpensive (unenriched) uranium as a fuel. |
0.999998 | The New York Red Bulls put together one of the best seasons in Major League Soccer history in 2018, setting a new league record for points on the way to a third Supporters' Shield in six seasons, while also making an impressive run to the Concacaf Champions League semifinals.
Despite that strong campaign, there was still a palpable sense of disappointment surrounding the team because of its failed bid to win the club's first MLS Cup title. The playoff loss to Atlanta United wasn't quite as devastating as some past playoff disappointments, but there was still a sense that the Red Bulls could have gone further, a sentiment that also lingered after their Champions League semifinal exit.
Chris Armas took over as head coach midway through the season, stepping in to replace Jesse Marsch after Marsch moved to Bundesliga side RB Leipzig. The transition to Armas was a smooth one, as the Red Bulls went on to register an MLS-record 71 points. Armas drew some criticism for his tactical decisions during the playoffs, but will now have a full preseason to put his own stamp on a team that will still be consider a top title contender in 2019.
The Red Bulls are no strangers to having to adapt for departing star players, but replacing Tyler Adams is going to be particularly challenging. The U.S. national team midfielder's presence will be sorely missed in the Red Bulls midfield, but Armas has several options to fill the vacant role in central midfield.
The Red Bulls didn't make many additions in the offseason, but the return of Florian Valot, Vincent Bezecourt and Kyle Duncan from long-term injuries will be like adding three new players to an already-deep squad. Valot should compete for a starting role while Bezecourt and Duncan provide depth for a team that will be competing in multiple competitions.
The league's best defense is back intact, with reigning MLS defender of the year Aaron Long leading a back four that allowed the fewest goals in MLS. Tim Parker signed a new contract while Michael Murillo also returns after some previous rumblings about wanting to leave MLS.
Consistent attacking production will be the leading challenge for the Red Bulls, with star striker Bradley Wright-Phillips and playmaker Kaku tasked with generating enough offense to keep up with fellow East power. Newly-acquired Danish striker Mathias Jorgensen should provide needed depth at striker, and will give Armas more tactical options.
How did the Red Bulls perform in 2018?
2017 finish: 6th in Eastern Conference (22-7-5), lost to Atlanta United in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Red Bulls were dominant during the regular season, riding a league-best 14 home wins to secure the best single-season points total in MLS history. Led by a stingy defense and the goal-scoring exploits of Wright-Phillips, the Red Bulls stayed consistent, even through a midseason coaching change.
Tim Parker's arrival at the start of the season helped turn the Red Bulls back-line into the best in MLS, and helped them reach the Concacaf Champions League semifinals, where they lost a close series to eventual champion Chivas Guadalajara. Kaku's arrival helped give the Red Bulls the playmaker they needed, though the Red Bulls attack slowed down in the playoffs.
A move to Europe was inevitable for the dynamic Tyler Adams, and replacing him isn't going to be easy. Armas will turn to a committee of options, including veteran Marc Rzatkowski. Replacing Adams' work rate won't be easy, but Rzatkowski showed well in 2018, and has the familarity with the high-pressing system to slide into the deep-lying midfield role next to Sean Davis.
Felipe Escobar was an underrated depth option along the back-line, but he has returned to Panama, while Aurelien Collin was also let go, and has resurfaced with the Philadelphia Union. One painful loss was Hassan Ndam, a young defender with a bright future who was scooped up by FC Cincinnati in the expansion draft.
The $2 million transfer acquisition of Mathias Jorgensen was the biggest signing of the winter for the Red Bulls, and the 18-year-old Danish forward is expected to contribute in year one.
Homegrown player signing Omir Fernandez is one young player to keep tabs on. The skilled winger starred at Wake Forest for two seasons and should challenge for playing time as a rookie after impressing in preseason.
Former Philadelphia Union midfielder Marcus Epps was acquired this winter and will also challenge for minutes on the flanks, with his speed giving the Red Bulls a different option on the wing.
The Red Bulls added some much-needed left back depth by picking up Amro Tarek from Orlando City. The Egyptian defender made 19 starts for the Lions in 2019 and offers some depth behind Best XI left back Kemar Lawrence.
The Red Bulls bring back 10 of 11 regular starters from the squad that set a new MLS record for points, with Rzatkowski the leading candidate to fill the starting spot vacated by Tyler Adams. There is serious competition for Muyl's starting spot, with Florian Valot the leading candidate to take the job from Muyl.
The back four returns intact, and a year of experience playing as a unit should help make the Red Bulls defense even tougher to deal with. Adams' departure will hurt, but the Red Bulls delivered one of their best performances of the season without Adams, in a 2-0 win against Atlanta United, a victory that saw Rzatkowski shine in central midfield.
Jorgensen's arrival will give Armas the option to consider occasionally deploying with a two-forward system at times. Wright-Phillips has spent most of his Red Bulls career as a lone striker, but Jorgensen's arrival should help lighten his load, and give the Red Bulls some different looks, particularly late in matches.
Kaku appears set to stay with the Red Bulls after reported interest from Liga MX champions Club America, and the Paraguayan playmaker will look to regain the top form he enjoyed in the first half of 2018. His production dipped in the second half of last season, but he should benefit of having a full preseason with the Red Bulls this year after joining the team late in the 2018 preseason. |
0.776419 | Rolf Liebermann was born on 14th September 1910 in Zurich, studied law at the university of his home town from 1929-1933, and music at José Berr's private conservatory. His first compositions (chansons) date from 1933-1936; at the time Liebermann was studying conducting with Hermann Scherchen. He worked as Scherchen's private secretary in Budapest and Vienna in 1937-1938, where Scherchen had founded the Musica Viva orchestra (mainly with Jewish musicians who had fled into exile from Germany). In Switzerland Liebermann gave tuition to refugee children, and wrote music criticism. He did his military service in Ascona. There he also studied composition from 1940 on with Vladimir Vogel.
From 1945 to 1950 Liebermann worked as a recording engineer with Radio Zurich; from 1950 to 1957 he headed the orchestra department of the Swiss Radio (now called Radio DRS Zurich). From 1957 to 1959 he was head of the main music section of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk and from 1959 to 1973 General Manager of the Hamburg State Opera. He made this a contemporary centre of contemporary music theatre (with 23 first performances, of which 21 were commissioned works). He filled a similar position in Paris (Administrateur Général du Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris). At this time he wrote a number of books: Actes et entractes, Paris 1976 (Opernjahre, Bern/Munich 1977) and En passant par Paris. Opéras, Paris 1980 (Und jedermann erwartet sich ein Fest. Musiktheater, Frankfurt.a.M – Berlin – Vienna 1981). With the director Joseph Losey, in 1979 Liebermann produced a film version of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, which Lorin Maazel conducted.
From 1983 to 1987 Liebermann was Director of the International Summer Academy of the Mozarteum Conservatory in Salzburg. From 1985 to 1988 he once more was General Manager of the Hamburg State Opera. In 1998, at his instigation, the first jazz opera was produced in the premises of the Kampnagel factory in Hamburg: Cosmopolitan Greetings by Georg Gruntz and Rolf Liebermann (music), Allen Ginsberg (text) and Robert Wilson (set and direction).
As a composer, Liebermann attained international renown, not least for his one-act operas Leonore 40/45 (première: Basel 1952), Penelope (première: Salzburg 1954) and Die Schule der Frauen (première: Louisville,Kentucky 1955), which had its the first European performance in a complete three-act version at the Salzburg festival. There followed the operas La Forêt (Hélène Vida, after the comedy by Aleksandr Ostrovskrij, première: Geneva 1987) and Freispruch für Medea (première: Hamburg 1995). Liebermann's Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra (première: Donauschingen 1954, directed by Hans Rosbaud), an early attempt to combine jazz with dodecaphony, also met with interest and recognition.
Liebermann received many awards in Switzerland, in Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany, in France (Commandeur de l'Ordre de la Légion d'honneur), Ordre des Arts et des Letters), Italy, Great Britain and the USA. He was a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and in Hamburg, an Honorary Member of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Royal Society of Arts in London. Liebermann died in Paris on 2nd January 1999.
Liebermann's development as a composer is reflected in a piece of contemporary history: the rebellious law student's first compositions – chansons, music for the theatre and marching songs – were performed by Liselott Wilker (= Lale Andersen) in 1933 in the Studio Fluntern in Zurich, a meeting place for emigrants. From 1940 on Vladimir Vogel taught Liebermann the necessary craftsmanship to bolster his talent as a composer, showing him the principles of dodecaphony, without trying to turn him into an adherent of a particular system of aesthetics. The first result was the Five Polyphonic Studies for chamber orchestra (première: Bern 1943). A year later Liebermann presented the public with the cantata Sodom et Gommorhe. Une des fins du monde, for baritone and orchestra (Jean Giraudoux, première: Zürich 1945). In this apologia, Liebermann underlays the text with constructivist elements, which paints an apocalyptic vision in dramatic pictures. In this work, and in Furioso for orchestra (première: Darmstadt 1947) his individuality as a composer is already very marked: the dodecaphony here functions as a framework with tonal elements and a musical language utilising even cadence-like processes.
It was his operas which made Liebermann internationally known. They are characterised by a very individual style of dodecaphony and the vocal parts show strong melodic elements. In his 'Gesang-Oper' Die Schule der Frauen (Heinrich Strobel, première:1955) Liebermann combines Baroque and contemporary elements. He uses the harpsichord "to provide a series of ironic quotations in a bitonal score, and Strobel, in turn 'alienated' the comedy by introducing the character of Molière" (Liebermann 1977). The musical forms are tailored to the happenings on stage; they never overwhelm the theatrical action. Liebermann's last work for the music theatre is Freispruch für Medea (Medea's Acquittal) (Ursula Haas, première: Hamburg, 1995) an opera in two acts. Shortly before his death he reduced the instrumentation and extended the work to three acts.
For the Swiss National Exhibition's pavilion 'Exchange, Goods and Values' he wrote Les Echanges for 156 punched-tape-driven office machines (première: Lausanne 1964). The composition for the machines on display there is based on using the principle of exchanging rhythmic structures as an element of form. Besides his use of dodecaphony and his interest in opera and experimentation, nearly all Liebermann's compositions reveal his love of jazz and dance rhythms, e.g. his Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra (1954). In his last works, such as the Violin Concerto (1994) the Piano Concerto (1995) or Mouvance, for nine percussionists and piano (1998) he contrasts rhythmic vitality and strong music-theatrical effects with terse dodecaphonic construction. |
0.990031 | What Was The Highest Scoring World Cup Game Of All Time?
The answer to that question can be traced back to the 1954 World Cup when Switzerland and Austria combined for a record 12 goals in one game.
Switzerland and Austria clashed in the quarterfinals of the 1954 World Cup, which was held in Switzerland. The quarter-final game between Austria and Switzerland took place at the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Switzerland jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead thanks to goals from Robert Ballaman (16') and Sepp Huegi (17', 19'). The crowd of 35,000 was overwhelmed after 20 minutes as it appeared certain that the home club was set to make a trip to the semi-finals.
The team from Austria, however, proved to be resilient - very resilient.
Over the next 25 minutes, Austria would go on a goal scoring extravaganza, notching a total of 5 goals before the halftime whistle was blown. As a matter of fact, Austria would score three goals in a three minute stretch in the first half, tying the game at 3-3 before the 30th minute.
By the time that the two teams reached the halfway point of the game, Austria had stormed out to a 5-4 lead, thanks to Theodor Wagner (25', 27'), Alfred Koerner (26', 34') and Ernst Ocwirk (32'). Switzerland, which found themselves down 5-3 after 34 minutes, managed to notch a goal before the end of the first half to make it 5-4.
The second half saw just three goals get scored, a seemingly paltry sum compared to the offensive explosion that was witnessed during the first half. Theodor Wagner notched his third goal of the game in the 53rd minute to make it 6-4 before Sepp Huegi responded for the Swiss team in the 60th minute.
In the 76th minute, Erich Probst put the game away for Austria after making it 7-5, which is where the game finished up.
Switzerland, which had a seemingly insurmountable lead after the first 20 minutes of play, suffered a devastating loss while Austria moved on to the semi-finals.
Austria would lose to West Germany in the semi-finals (6-1) before winning the third place match against Uruguay 3-1.
Note: 11 goals have been scored in two World Cup matches - 6-5 Brazil over Poland in 1938 and 10-1 Hungary over El Salvador in 1982. |
0.999998 | With indifferent weather forecast for today I decided to stay local and do a walk in the nearby Ribble Valley. I worked out this route that would give me the opportunity to walk along part of the Ribble Way, visit the ruins of Sawley Abbey and enjoy views across the valley and beyond from Beacon Hill. It's just a minor height on the side of Easington Fell but has a surprisingly good view. As I arrived in Bolton-by-Bowland at 1100 it was still trying to brighten up from overnight rain. The walk to Sawley was done under grey skies and the odd shower but from then on it improved and the afternoon had some warm sunny spells, great visibility but windy. More showers were forecast to develop by the end of the afternoon but they didn't bother me. Compared to some of the walks that I've done recently this was a gentle stroll.
From the car park in Bolton-by-Bowland (free) I crossed Skirden Bridge and turned left onto the public footpath that follows a drive to some cottages. The path then leaves this and heads south by Skirden Beck, across Holden Beck and then by the River Ribble to Sawley Bridge. After having a look at the ruins of Sawley Abbey I returned to Sawley Bridge and took the trail of the Ribble Way. This took me west, briefly by the Ribble then up Sawley Road before heading back to the river to reach the road just south of Grindleton. The trail was left here to walk north up the road towards the centre of the village, then left onto the road towards West Bradford. When I reached the bridleway of Green Lane this was followed uphill past the farms of White Hall and Cob House. Past Cob House the bridleway forks, I took the right hand one to reach a lane below Beacon Hill. I turned right and there was a brief walk along the road to reach a footpath on the left that took me uphill to the track of Shivering Ginnel and the trig point on Beacon Hill. The footpath then continued east down to Smalden Lane, then after a short walk north along the road I turned right onto the bridleway to Higher Heights (this was very boggy in places). From Higher Heights I followed a bridleway north and then a footpath east, downhill past Priest Biggins and Fat Hill to reach the hamlet of Holden. A walk along roads took me back to Bolton-by-Bowland.
The footpath joined the intriguingly named track of Shivering Ginnel..
The bridleway I followed east from Smalden Lane was very boggy in places but it did give great views across the countryside to the north..
Shower clouds have started to develop during the past hour. The anvil from a cumulonimbus cloud spreads across the sky.
A last shot of Pendle Hill as I walk along the road back to.. |
0.952423 | Is copying your employer's Sage database and using it in the employment of a competitor actionable as a breach of confidence?
Yes, if the information it contains is actually used, according to the Patents County Court in Pintorex Limited v Keyvanfar.
Mr Keyvanfar copied the Claimant's database and loaded it onto a laptop owned by his new employer, Parax Office Limited ('Parax'). Mr Keyvanfar then used the pricing information it contained to approach two of the Claimant's clients, and undercut the Claimant's prices.
Parax was held to be liable for the breaches of confidence by Mr Keyvanfar, including those pre-dating Mr Keyvanfar's employment, on the basis that he was acting to further Parax's interests as Parax's agent, and that Parax had sufficient knowledge of what was going on to be jointly liable.
The Third Defendant, the sole Director of Parax, could also have been jointly liable for the breaches had he had a 'common design' to commit them, or 'dishonestly' ignored what was going on, but it was held he did not know and so could not be jointly liable. |
0.967702 | Do you, my fellow red dirt gardeners, know how to properly mulch around your trees? Are you able to select from the images above the tree that is properly mulched? I know I see all too many trees mulched as the picture on the left, by home owners and professionals. In fact, mulched piled high up the truck is all too common of a site. This practice is called “volcano mulching” and creates a very unhealthy environment for the tree.
1. Deep mulch can lead to excess moisture in the root zone, which can stress the plant and cause root rot.
2. Piling mulch against the trunk or even the stems of other plants, creates stress. A stressed plant or tree will most likely lead to insect and disease problems.
3. PH is often adversely affected by an over abundance of mulch, the improper use of mulch, or the wrong type of mulch. Especially those mulches containing cut grass. Over long periods of time, this type of mulching causes deficiencies or toxicities in the soil because of the high nitrogen levels created by the grass clippings, as well as the suffocation of the micro organisms in the soil.
4. Mulch piled high against the trunks of young trees may create habitats for rodents that chew the bark. The tree may also girdle.
5. Thick blankets of fine mulch can become matted and may prevent the penetration of water and air. In addition, a thick layer of fine mulch can become like potting soil and may support weed growth (they are very easy to pull out of mulch).
In closing, trees once stressed by improper mulching often never really achieve their potential beauty because of the unhealthy environment that has been created for them.
Remember: If the tree had a say in the matter, its entire root system would be mulched going out away from the tree about 3 feet with no mulch against its trunk. The mulch would be at a depth of up to 3 or 4 inches deep. This will help conserve moisture and add nutrients as the mulch decomposes.
No tree nor plant should ever be mulched up the trunk or stem. |
0.999987 | How is gold a hedge against currency risk?
What's unique about gold as a hedge is that it operates as what I call, "the 4th currency." There are really 3 major currencies in the world the dollar, the yen, and the euro. Demand for gold, again as I mentioned before quoting Greenspan, "tends to rise in periods of financial risk." A major source of financial risk in the financial markets today is currency risk. So the reason that gold is so unique as a hedge is it hedges this currency risk and acts as a 4th currency against which all the other currencies are compared. So it is considered to be the most sustainable currency. Paradoxically, the largest holders of gold today are central banks themselves, as a group. The last time I checked, I think, they still hold about 25% of all the gold that has ever been produced in the history of the world. You have to ask yourself, if they don't think it's valuable, well why haven't they sold it? They certainly had 30 years to do it since we've went off the gold standard. The other argument I make to friends is… one of the reasons to hold gold is for the same reason the central banks do. They're trying to hedge the same risk, which is the currency system may not hold up through a crisis and they may need the gold to fall back on. I think that's a perfectly reasonable reason or fair reason to buy gold. |
0.995807 | How to establish good community relations with Roma?
I am managing a charity shop and there are lots of Roma (also known derogatorily as gypsies) in my shop all the time. They are often unwashed and unkempt because they are overcrowded into cold water flats. They frequently want discounts on items, which I give when I can, the kids do not go to school, and - I worry even about saying this - they are stealing.
There is very occasional theft from non roma people, but roma people - mainly children and teenagers - are the ones who are stealing, according to all the volunteers. It's not just the ones caught - an item will be found missing after a roma family has been in the shop.
I caught a young lady once and she literally shrugged at me! No guilt at all, defiance when I yelled at her to leave.
The rest of the charity shops have banned all Roma. I don't want to do this as it's morally wrong and against the law - quite racist.
My heart goes out to them, especially the young teenage girls, often pregnant or with a baby or a toddler, pleading for me to give them £1 baby clothes for ten pence in coppers or whatever they have got. I want to help and I want to establish a community connection so there is less stealing. It would be useful to me to know how to go about that.
We need the stealing to stop - it's becoming quite time consuming and I feel very uncomfortable watching people of a certain race more closely than others.
Also useful would be resources in Slovak and Romanian - these are the countries from which the Roma population here comes from.
This is a difficult issue. My readings on the Roma suggest that the stealing you're seeing may come from centuries of self-fulfilling prophecy -- they were looked upon as thieves, so why not be one?
But at the same time, there may be other people -- non Roma -- who also have stolen from your shop over the years. Because of the stereotypes, these items might not have been missed. Is the fact that "most" of the stealing seems to come from Roma at least partially confirmation bias?
I agree that you shouldn't watch the Roma more closely than others. I think what you want to do is a strategy of what to do if they steal. Something that gives the message that you will deal more fairly with them if they don't steal.
then you need to report them. I fear that your humanitarian efforts -- ie, teaching professional thieves that stealing is wrong -- can not take the back seat to the necessity to report them.
would you report a thief who's 100% Scottish? if you would, report the Romas, too. if you wouldn't report the Scot either, take the hit and write off your losses due to theft as cost of doing business in a humanitarian manner.
and I feel very uncomfortable watching people of a certain race more closely than others.
then install security cameras. they're neither racist nor stupidly politically correct, they just record moving images.
I think what you want to do is a strategy of what to do if they steal. Something that gives the message that you will deal more fairly with them if they don't steal.
Seems obvious, but probably bears re-stating: You need a system that create incentives for honesty. Society is built on incentivizing honesty, but you need it in industrial strength.
So let's start with a framework.
1. The incentive system should reward any paying customer.
2. The system should not discourage normal shopping behaviors.
3. The system must enhance your bottom line as an end product. You are in business.
4. You must find the system morally palatable.
Great. Now you (and/or HiveMind) begin brainstorming ideas. Any idea is acceptable as an idea, but only ideas that fit the framework can be seriously considered.
Can you offer a discount to Romas on certain days of the week? I realize this sounds unfair to others, but I know of several stores that have "Senior Tuesdays" and the like, so why not try to schedule a day when you know you will be there each week and celebrate them, instead of constantly having to come down as the heavy?
Then, if you do catch a Roma stealing, you can put up a sign saying how you want to keep the discount day going, but you might be forced to stop if theft like the one that happened such-and-such-a-day continues. I don't know if this would work, of course, but it might help to promote your shop as more Roma-friendly than your competition, at the very least.
Get into their heads. Seriously. Learn anything you can about the Roma, warts and all - they are both a very beautiful and very ugly people. If you can put what they're doing to them in their own terms and convince them they're stealing from themselves, they might quit.
But theft is an entrenched behavior. If you can cultivate a relationship with one of them, it might be possible to ask why - but you might also end up being conned out of your very existence. I know you want to be gentle and nonjudgmental, and that's great in theory but impossible in practice.
My favourite. Only useful, however, if you want to actually learn the language, instead of just "hello" and such.
Basic phrases. No pronunciation help, really.
More basic phrases, grouped by category, and with sound. As sources for Romanian go, pretty awesome.
More basic phrases. Slightly less useful that most, as it's taken up with hiking terms.
A handful of phrases, but with audio.
The above posters have better ideas about the interpersonal problem than I do.
Sorry that I can't help with the Slovak.
Roma and Romanian are not the same. Roma are a nomadic people thought to be ethnically southern asian.
Roma folklore is that they were given, by God, the "right" to steal, connive and swindle in return for some good deed done in ancient times. I think it has something to so with swindling the Roman soldiers out of some nails during Christ's crucifixion.
Every culture has it's rules and freedoms, and unfortunately for you, the culture of the people you are getting in your shop is a culture of "it's not stealing if you need it."
I recognize that stealing is culturally defined, and their culture may well define it differently than yours, but I feel you wouldn't be asking this unless you wanted to stop facilitating their forcing that particular aspect of their culture on you.
C) you won't physically detain and report to the police people you observe stealing.
If those are all commonly known, I think you're experiencing the inevitable results, and it sounds like you're loath to change any of those (certainly rightfully so in the case of A). Several people are suggesting you should change C, using a security guard. I also think you should change C with clear warning -- with posted signs that say "SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED" and listing whatever the criminal penalties are in your area.
Find out exactly what the right procedure is (how the guard should stop people observed by the guard or the staff to have taken something, and how this should be documented). If it works as it does in my area, there will be a point in each case where you decide whether to press charges and at that point you could decide to accept the return of the item rather than press the charges. That would make a lesser, but perhaps somewhat meaningful, impression. Perhaps you could have a policy of pressing charges for all repeat offenders. Again, clearly stating that and being consistent about it would be the key. I assume you're also entirely within your rights (legally as well as ethically) to bar individuals in the future if you've documented them stealing from your shop.
gjc: I realize that (trust me, the best way to get my Romanian friends to curse: mention gypsies/Roma or Stalin) but she did mention Romanian. It's not impossible that they speak Romanian. |
0.960204 | Tea brewing procedures are simple and complex, depending on the specific circumstances, combined with the characteristics of the tea. In other places, due to different tea drinking habits and local customs, there are some differences in brewing procedures.
Although there are many factors affecting the brewing of a pot of tea, in addition to the technical factors such as the amount of tea, the temperature of water, and the infusing time, the tea brewing concept and the tea brewing program are also important.
With high-quality tea, water, and exquisite tea sets, we must have good brewing skills to fully reflect the original fragrance and taste of tea.
For the brewing of tea, it is necessary to prepare tea sets, tea and water, and drink it after brew by boiling water. However, it is not easy to brew the tea's inherent color, aroma and taste.
Modern scientific research has confirmed that due to the difference in water quality of tea, the quality of tea soup is greatly affected, which is caused by various minerals in the water and their different qualities.
What kind of water is used for tea is good, and it has attracted people's attention and interest since ancient times. Lu Yu once clearly pointed out in the "Tea Classics": "mountain water is the best, and then is the river water, last is well water."
Everyone drinks tea, but it is not easy to brew. Tea brewing is very knowledgeable. The same quality tea, such as different water or different brewing techniques, will have different effects, and the difference is very obvious. Since ancient times, China has been paying great attention to the brewing technology of tea and has accumulated rich experience. |
0.994196 | The Hubble Space Telescope has granted astronomers fresh insights into a special family of supernovae that represent a vital tool for measuring vast cosmic distances. The discovery revolved around observing the aftermath of a Type Ia supernova and analyzing the properties of the residual light.
The significance of Type Ia supernovae is that they are predictable. The vast explosions are believed to occur when a white dwarf in a binary system siphons enough stellar material off of its companion to reach what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit.
Once this occurs, a thermonuclear explosion is inevitable. The light from this explosion is somewhat of a known quantity, allowing astronomers to observe the extent to which the light has dimmed before it reaches Earth, and from this, work out the distance to the supernova.
For the new study, Hubble focused on SN 2012cg, a type Ia supernova located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth in the galaxy NGC 4424. Previous research had indicated that roughly 500 days after the first light of a type Ia supernova reaches our telescopes, the residual light would start to fade.
This is known as the "infrared catastrophe," which was believed to occur as the half life of the nickel isotope 56Ni, a heavy element created in the dramatic supernova, comes to an end, ultimately transitioning into a more stable iron isotope.
However, this drop off has never actually been observed, leading some astronomers to theorize in 2009 that the prolonged light was thrown off from a heavier form of a cobalt isotope with a longer half life known as 57Co.
Observations of SN 2012cg that were carried out three years after the light of the violent explosion reached Earth supported the theory, albeit with an interesting twist. According to an analysis of the residual glow, there would have had to have been twice the amount of 57Co than had previously been believed in order to account for the light output that long after the initial explosion.
There are still a great number of unknowns regarding the supernovae. For example, as it stands astronomers assume that Type Ia supernovae discovered in the local Universe result from the same type of star and type of explosion as those that occured earlier in the lifespan of the cosmos. Should either of these assumptions be proven incorrect, it would introduce a fundamental inconsistency in the way we measure the distances between galaxies.
The new research will attempt to mitigate one area of uncertainty by constraining the explosion models of Type Ia supernovae. The discovery that the powerful explosion of SN 2012cg produced significant quantities of 57Co will allow astronomers to focus on models that successfully predicted higher ratios of the element. This new insight will ultimately allow astronomers to make more accurate measurements of vast cosmic distances, and a better understanding of the expansion of our Universe.
However, there is a possibility that the drop off in light did occur as previously theorized, and that the light detected in recent observations was simply a "light echo." This occurs when light from the original explosion strikes a dust cloud. This cloud refracts the light, scattering it in all directions and causing it to arrive at Earth as an echo years after the first detection of the event.
A paper on the study is available online in the Astrophysical Journal. |
0.946559 | For the American Olympic bobsledder, see John Kasper (bobsleigh).
John Kasper (1929–1998) was an American far-right activist and Ku Klux Klan member who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement.
Educated at Columbia University, Kasper became a devotee of Ezra Pound and corresponded with him as a student. Between 1950 and 1963 Kasper sent 400 letters to Pound and received an unknown number of replies (Pound's letters to Kasper are lost). In the letters Kasper identifies with Pound and within a short time of beginning the correspondence he considered himself Pound's main disciple. Directed by Pound, Kasper started a small press (Square Dollar Press) in 1951 to publish works the poet favored; in 1953 he opened the Make it New bookshop in Greenwich Village, displaying Pound's letters in the shop window. Kasper campaigned against racial integration in the Southern United States, calling it a Jewish plot. In these activities and others, Kasper believed he was disseminating the poet's ideas. Pound's association with Kasper caused chagrin among those who were attempting to have Pound released from St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he was incarcerated on charges of treason.
After running a bookshop in Greenwich Village, Kasper moved to Washington, DC, where he befriended Pound and set up a company to publish the poet's works, as well as those of others such as Charles Olson. Imbibing Pound's right-wing ideas, he formed the Seaboard White Citizens Council immediately after Brown v. Board of Education in order to prevent desegregation in Washington.
Kasper came to prominence during the integration of Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee. He sought to mobilize the opponents of the desegregation order, and was arrested during the resulting unrest. Kasper was acquitted in the subsequent trial, that included a number of jurors who served on the arresting auxiliary police force.
As a result of this incident, Kasper became a focal point at a number of such protests across the Southern United States, often an unwelcome one. While he was campaigning, Kasper was jailed for crimes ranging from inciting a riot to loitering. He was a suspect in a school bombing in Nashville as well as a number of synagogue bombings—he was a virulent antisemite—although no evidence was provided to link him directly to any of the cases.
In 1956 he was under a court order to desist, which he ignored, prompting his arrest and conviction for contempt of court. He was found guilty, appealed and lost. he was then sentenced to one year in jail. He served eight months for conspiracy in 1957.
Upon his release, he called for a return to Constitutionalism, and the creation of a third party to oppose the integration that was now supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He became associated with the National States' Rights Party and ran in the 1964 Presidential election with J. B. Stoner as his running mate. Kasper attracted negligible support: just 6,434 votes in just two states, Kentucky and Arkansas.
Kasper returned to his northern roots in 1967 and effectively left politics, settling down to family life and a series of clerical jobs.
^ a b "JAIL TERM UPHELD FOR BIAS LEADER: Kasper, Foe of Integration, Loses Appeal in Tennessee School Disorders Case Details of the Ruling Faces Another Trial". New York Times. 2 June 1957. p. 57.
^ Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos; Stephen Adams (2005). The Ezra Pound Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-313-30448-4. Retrieved 24 June 2012.
This page was last edited on 7 April 2019, at 10:36 (UTC). |
0.952225 | Who were the Apostolic Fathers, and why should you care? I would like to spend today dealing with the first of these questions, or rather the first part of the first of these questions. The expression apostolic fathers is a fairly recent one, although the term expresses a reality that existed in the first and early second century AD. The reality expressed is that the Apostles influenced later believers who, like them, did some writing. It is possible that some of the writers we know within this tradition may have known some of the Apostles personally. It is clear that some of these people were very interested in passing on either the written (Polycarp) or oral (Papias) information that they had received from others and that this was a major interest of theirs. But who were these people, these ancient men, most of whom are extremely obscure? Before we delve into the writings of these ancient men and examine their relevance to us today, I would like to give a bit of an introduction to who these people were that we will be looking at.
Clement of Rome is the first of the Fathers we will be looking at, specifically as the author of the book of 1 Clement. I may, at a later time, examine 2 Clement, which was not written by the same author as 1 Clement and is an anonymous work, but I will save that for later, and as the author of that early sermon is anonymous, there is nothing to be said about him. Clement is often considered, by those who believe in apostolic succession , to be among the early Bishops of Rome. Whatever the truth about this, the book of 1 Clement reveals him to have been a leader in Rome who was deeply concerned with maintaining proper church authorities in Corinth, and the book is an early hint of the power that the leaders of the Church of Rome would gain in later generations, which is one of the factors that makes this book well worth discussing.
Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom, managed to write several letters along the way, which have much of interest concerning the relationship of Christianity to Judaism, the importance of the imitatio Christi to those of later generations, and other related matters of church authority. The epistles, even where one may find that they do not always reflect very positively on our view of the personality and perhaps even the character of the author, are at least emblematic of a man who is on his way to face death and is trying to do so as bravely as possible and giving some encouragement to others, one of whom is Polycarp of Smyrna.
It just so happens that Polycarp of Smyrna is perhaps the unsung hero of the Apostolic Fathers. His brave defense against the Bishop of Rome of the keeping of the Passover as it was kept by Jesus Christ and the apostles on the beginning of the 14th of Nisan (as opposed to Easter Sunday) has been an inspiration within my own particular religious tradition, and has ensured that he is the best known of this particular group of people. In addition to this, he was the recipient of one of the letters of Ignatius and was responsible for collecting the rest of Ignatius’ epistles (seven in total) as one set that he provided along with a letter of his own to the Philippians which is another one of the works in this collection. The martyrology of this leader was among the first, and the first we have recorded outside of the Bible, and thus serves as an early example of a genre of particular importance in the early Church of God. For all of these reasons, as a defender of the faith, as a writer, as a collector of the writers of others, and as a martyr for the faith, Polycarp certainly deserves to be remembered and thought of fondly.
Hermas is another one of the Apostlic Fathers, and is responsible for a lengthy book that we will looking at eventually (but not particularly soon). Hermas is interesting as a person because he was a literate but not necessarily intellectual writer whose book reveals him to have been a somewhat flawed person–no spoilers–and who also appears to have been a brother of a bishop of Rome and a former slave. Hermas is an interesting figure because he demonstrates to some the sort of background that people would expect of the early Church of God in terms of literacy as well as social class.
Papias was an Apostolic Father who may not have known any of the apostles personally but who was an avid collector of tales and traditions about them. Despite the fact that he was a prolific writer during his lifetime, none of his writings survive except insofar as they have been collected in excerpts by other writers, most notably Eusebius. Among the most notable achievements of Papias was that he is one of the early witnesses to the four writers of the canonical Gospels and collects some interesting information about how they were viewed in the early second century AD, and that is certainly well worth remembering.
There are, of course, other Apostolic Fathers as well, but we know very little about them so it is worthwhile to write them only briefly. The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written by a fellow named Marcion (not the famous heretic by that name) about which nothing more is known. 2 Clement, as we have mentioned earlier, is an anonymous second century example of Christian writing about whose author we know nothing. The author(s) of the Epistles of Barnabas and the Didache have likewise left us very little if any personal information except for the content of their own views about, respectively, the law of God and the proper discipline for Christian congregations. Quadratus is a largely forgotten Apostolic Father who is only remembered in a single citation by Eusebius where he is said to have been an early leader of the Church of God in Athens and a disciple of the Apostles. The Epistle to Diogenes is likewise written by someone about whom we know nothing.
What does all this tell us about the Apostolic Fathers? For one, these were not famous people about whom the world knew a lot. Most of these people are only remembered for what they wrote and for the fact that they lived in the generation or two after the apostles and who may have known the apostles personally. That this sort of obscure connection is enough that their writings are often collected and some of them were well regarded throughout history suggests that we do not know much about what happened with Christianity in its early periods. If a writer who is remembered for a single sentence and for having been a disciple of the apostles is listened among the top figures of the Church of God in the early 2nd Century, and if the best known figures are known to have been famous in large part for having been martyrs, that suggests that the Apostolic Fathers are truly only the survivors or remnants from a particularly difficult time in history where very little has survived from. To the extent that we value what has survived, then these people have something that is worthwhile for us to ponder and reflect on, as we will do if time permits.
This entry was posted in Christianity, Church of God, History, Musings and tagged ancient history, writing. Bookmark the permalink. |
0.999941 | A parallel line will have the same value, in this case , as the orignal line but will intercept the at a different location.
What is the equation of the line parallel to that passes through (1,1)?
The line parallel to will have the same slope.
The equation for our parallel line will be: .
Which of these lines is parallel to ?
This line has a slope of .
The only answer choice with a slope of is .
Choose which of the four equations listed is parallel to the given equation.
is the correct answer because when each term is divided by 2 in order to see the equation in terms of y, the slope of the equation is , which is the same as the slope in the given equation. Parallel lines have the same slope.
Write an equation for a line that is parallel to and has a y-intercept of .
The equation of a line can be written using the expression where is the slope and is the y-intercept. When lines are parallel to each other, it means that they have the same slope, so . The y-intercept is given in the problem as . This means that the equation would be .
Write the equation for a line parallel to passing through the point .
Find the equation of a line that is parallel to and passes through the point .
A line cannot pass through this point and be parallel to the original line.
Parallel lines have the same slope. So our line should have a slope of 2x. Next we use the point slope formula to find the equation of the line that passes through and is parallel to .
is the slope of the line parallel to which passes through .
Use point-slope form to find the equation of the new line.
Plug in known values and solve. |
0.999588 | Learn the way of the Shinobi as you start as an aspiring Academy Student. Fight your way to the top to become the Kage: the single shadow that protects your village from any danger, or become your village's worst nightmare as a wandering Outlaw of pure darkness.
There are not so many ways I can describe this game, other than saying that The Ninja-RPG is an old school browser game.
Starting as an academy student, a new character can start to train the various skills of a ninja. These are divided mainly in offensive, defensive, and general. The first two types of trainings affect the offensive and defensive scores of Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Weapon proficiency; the general skills instead are the more usual Strength, Intelligence, Speed, and Willpower. Above these, there are the main three stats: health (your HP's), Chakra (power) and Stamina (sort of action points). Having said that, training is implemented in a quite boring and uninteresting way, which takes away a lot of the ninja settings' appeal: hit a button (actually three), wait for a counter, do it again. And this goes indefinitely; it's just a matter of patience (and boredom). But all this is done for a righteous cause, right? The fights!
Yes, because combat is definitely the most relevant aspect of this game (what are these ninjas training for, after all?!). The combat system, however, is automatic and obscure, and it takes a long time to gain some understanding of its mechanics. A combat is split in many rounds, and in each of these you can choose you action, style of attacks, etc. The aforementioned skills are not indeed the only variables affecting a combat outcomes: your ninja can train specific jutsu to perform special attacks beyond simple fist and chakra attacks. A jutsu's effectiveness is dependent on its level, your offense/opponent's defense, and your/their general stats. Moreover, there are different types of jutsu (normal, special, forbidden, clan, village and bloodline), each of which allows different abilities and have different constraints, including the character's current location.
The game map (quite rudimental) includes a few villages, which players can join and in which they gain reputation points (to spend in exchange for new perks). Although villages do not offer anything special as they are, they allow to leverage on the main strength of this game: the multiplayer. PvP, as well as old school RPG, are here possible, and bands of characters can travel the map, participate in group fights, even jointly attack other villages, etc. The community is quite good, and players are generally helpful and nice. Although I did not have a personal experience with this, by looking at the forum and chat it seems that it is possible here to actually meet other players.
Coming back to the ninjas, experience points measure your progression through the different ranks, from Academy Student to Genin to Kage, but for ranking up you will also need to complete all requirements to pass the exam. Usually, these comprise performing errands for the village, train specific skills, gain money (ryo), and so on. Experience is also gained in combat, and by completing small quests. These quests are however extremely elementary, and lack any true storyline or adventurous plots: more than quests, they should be called tasks. Some proper missions become available only later in the game.
Another main game mechanics is represented by the character's regeneration rate. Health, chakra and stamina points are regenerated at fixed intervals. At the start, the rate is quite fast compared to the cap and the set of activities you can perform(mainly training). After a few levels, as your stat's cap (maximum level) raises, the perceived rate becomes quite slow. Of course, there are various ways of improving the rate, one of which is by supporting the game.
In conclusion, The Ninja-RPG can be very addictive due to its strong multiplayer and RPG components (as it is the case for other games with the same style, as Mafia Returns). However, the gameplay is rudimental and unpolished, although the developers put much efforts in capturing many detailed aspects of the way of the ninja. |
0.710203 | What Is Bonnie Blue Flag?
The Bonnie Blue Flag is commonly known as the first flag of the Confederate States of America, though its origins date to before the states seceded.
Also known as the Lone Star Flag, it features a blue background with a single white star in the center.
Its first recorded use dates back to 1810 when it represented the Republic of West Florida, an organization of people from southern Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana that spoke English and rebelled against Spanish government, according to Washington Artillery.
Melissa Johnson is believed to have sewed the flag a couple days before forces from the rebel Republic set out to capture the Spanish capital in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, on September 11, 1810.
After the successful capture, the republic lasted about three months, dissolving once Louisiana was annexed as part of the United States by President James Madison.
The lone star of the Bonnie Blue Flag also showed up in 1839 as a variation on the Republic of Texas’ flag.
The song focuses on what the South deemed Northern aggression with abolitionists attempting to steal their rights from them, according to the Civil War Trust.
The banner was eventually replaced by the Stars and Bars as the official flag of the Confederacy later in 1861.
The blue of the Bonnie Blue Flag is said to have represented truth, and the white of the star represents purity, according to Washington Artillery. A single star was typical to signify independence in the 19th century. Some states also felt that the star on the Bonnie Blue banner represented them taking back their star from the Union’s flag. |
0.999998 | The Jeep Wrangler is definitely the most unique vehicle on the road, and over the years it has become a true American icon. With a body shape that is unmistakable and the most vigorous yet sophisticated four-wheel drive system on the market, the 2017 Jeep Wrangler continues to offer an unforgettable experience no matter where you take it. Customers who are considering the Jeep Wrangler for 2017 can look forward to some great new options, like LED foglights and LED headlights. A new Cold Weather package is also being offered, and it will equip your Wrangler with features including all-weather floor mats, heated seats, and remote engine start.
One of the reasons that the Wrangler has such an enduring legacy comes down to its powertrain, which features the most capable four-wheel drive system available. This powertrain not only offers a dynamic performance in the most rugged conditions, but it has also been constructed to ensure comfort during your highway and city commutes. Powering the Wrangler is a 3.6-liter V6, and it sends power to a four-wheel drive system that has high- and low-range gearing. A six-speed manual transmission is standard, and a five-speed automatic transmission is available. Both transmissions will provide drivers with access to hill start assist, and the available automatic transmission will further equip hill descent control. Altogether, the Wrangler's powertrain will work to produce 260 lb-ft of torque and 285 horsepower. When the Wrangler is properly equipped for towing it can offer a maximum of up to 2,000 pounds. Since this is the Wrangler, customers will be able to choose from a wide range of optional powertrain equipment to enhance the off-road performance in even the most extreme conditions. A good place to start would be to choose the Rubicon trim, as it boasts an upgraded transfer case, an extra-low crawl ratio, and uniquely short gearing.
What are the Jeep Wrangler's design features?
The Wrangler is a continual favorite not only among off-road enthusiasts, but also for customers who want a vehicle that can be customized to their own individuality The Wrangler starts off with the traditional and beloved boxy design, and it features two doors (a four-door Wrangler Unlimited is also available). There are three main trim levels available with the 2017 Wrangler, which include the Sport, Sahara, and Rubicon. Each of the main trims can be enhanced with a range of optional packages and standalone features. Starting with the Sport trim, the Wrangler will come equipped with on/off-road tires, 16-inch steel wheels, tow hooks, removable doors, and skid plates. Optional on every Wrangler is a premium nine-speaker Alpine audio system and Uconnect technology with optional navigation. Additionally, parts and accessories from Mopar can be installed to create a Wrangler that is exclusively and uniquely yours.
Where can I learn more about the parts and accessories offered with the Wrangler?
You can find more information by heading to our Parts Department!
Do you have any 2017 Jeep models in stock?
Yes, we have a wide range of new 2017 models, which can be found in our New Inventory!
Can I get approved for financing before I come in?
The Wrangler will come equipped with a range of great safety features, including front airbags, traction and stability control, antilock brakes, and the option to equip front side airbags. If you have questions about the fantastic 2017 Jeep Wrangler we would love to tell you more about it at Reedman-Toll Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram! |
0.998525 | Put the correct verb into the blank place.
1. She ----------waiting here for three hours.
2. We--------- talking here for the last hour.
We --------- talking here for last hour.
3. Tiya -------- collecting her toys for last two hours.
Tiya --------- collecting her toys for last two hours.
4. I --------- working in this company for two years.
I ---------- working here for two hours.
5. What she -------- doing here for last 20 minutes.
What ---------- doing for last 20 minutes.
6. Savya -------- doing her practice.
Savya ------------ doing her practice.
7. My father ------------ teaching in this university since 1981.
My father -------- teaching in this university since 1981.
8. They ---------- coming here for last two days.
They ------------ coming here for last two days.
9. I --------- using this oil for last three month.
I ---------- using this shampoo for last three months.
10. Siya ---------- trying for house since July.
Siya --------- trying for house since July.
11. I --------- felling a little depressed.
I ----------- feeling a little depressed.
12. We ----------- doing shopping together for last few months.
We ----------- doing shopping together for last few months.
13. She --------- cleaning her room for last hours.
She ------------------ cleaning her room lor last hours.
14. She --------- learning English for last four months.
She --------- learning English for last four months.
15. I ------------ playing with my friends for last 50 minutes.
I --------------- playing with my friends for last 50 minutes.
1. She has been waiting here for three hours.
2. We have been talking here for the last hour.
We have not been talking here for last hour.
3. Tiya has been collecting her toys for last two hours.
Tiya has not been collecting her toys for last two hours.
4. I have been working in this company for two years.
I have not been working here for two hours.
5. What she has been doing here for last 20 minutes.
What she has not been doing for last 20 minutes.
6. Savya has been doing her practice.
Savya has not been doing her practice.
7. My father has been teaching in this university since 1981.
My father has not been teaching in this university since 1981.
8. They have been coming here for last two days.
They have not been coming here for last two days.
9. I have been using this oil for last three month.
I have not been using this shampoo for last three months.
10. Siya has been trying for house since July.
Siya has not been trying for house since July.
11. I have been felling a little depressed.
I have not been feeling a little depressed.
12. We have been doing shopping together for last few months.
We have not been doing shopping together for last few months.
13. She has been cleaning her room for last hours.
She has not been cleaning her room lor last hours.
14. She has been learning English for last four months.
She has not been learning English for last four months.
15. I have been playing with my friends for last 50 minutes.
I have not been playing with my friends for last 50 minutes.
No Comment to " Present Perfect continues exercise " |
0.981914 | I’d like to explain a very important text in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which is called The Seven Point Mind Training. This is by a great master from the Kadam tradition, Geshe Chekawa.
This teaching is primarily based on the whole practice of changing the viewpoint of self and others, which is instead of always thinking about ourselves and cherishing ourselves, and ignoring others, then we reverse that and always cherish and think of others, and how to benefit them, without thinking selfishly about ourselves.
The sources of this in the sutras of Buddha are two. One is the Gandavyuha Sutra, which is part of a much larger text called the Avatamsaka Sutra. The Gandavyuha Sutra tells about someone seeking for enlightenment, who goes to fifty different bodhisattvas, and each of them teach him a different type of bodhisattva way. This text and the larger one, Avatamsaka Sutra, was one of the few texts that were translated actually from Chinese into Tibetan, because the Sanskrit was lost by the time it was transmitted, and Tsongkhapa said that if it weren’t for this literature, that Tibet wouldn’t really have the full teachings of the bodhisattva way. The other sutra that it’s based on is the Vajradvaja paripriccha Sutra. It’s the sutra which was requested by the person called Vajradvaja, so it does come from sutra teachings. A lot of people always question where these teachings come from in the sutras, so Serkong Rinpoche explained where they came from.
They were explained quite extensively by Shantideva in Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, as we’ve seen in the concentration chapter on mental stability. We’ve been studying it, by the way, for many years here together at the center, so the others are familiar with that. This lineage Atisha got from Dharmarakshita, and he was the author of The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, which many of you might know. Then Atisha brought them to Tibet, and he transmitted them along in his Kadam tradition that followed, so it went to his main disciple Dromtonpa, and from him to Geshe Potowa.
Geshe Potowa, who was also very well-known, he had two main disciples. One was Langri Tangpa, who wrote the Eight Verses of Mind Training. He was the older disciple, and then the younger disciple that he had was Geshe Chekawa. He is the author of this text.
Geshe Chekawa came across this text later on at the house of some other Geshe, Chagshinpa was his name, and he was actually drawn to the line, “Give the victory to others and accept the fault on yourself.” He asked who wrote it, and he was told Langri Tangpa. And he went to Lhasa to find him, but Langri Tangpa had passed away, and so he was told that he could get it from another disciple, Geshe Sharawa, and so he went to Sharawa.
It’s a long story, but eventually he convinced Geshe Sharawa to teach him, and he did. And Geshe Sharawa said that that line actually came from Nagarjuna’s text, Ratnavali, which is The Precious Garland, also a well-known text. Geshe Chekawa spent six years studying these teachings with Geshe Sharawa, and then wrote this text we have now.
Then it was passed on to Lhadingpa, and Lhadingpa, from him comes two lineages. One went from him, he taught it to his disciple Togme Zangpo, who is the author of 37 Bodhisattva Practices.
So, you see, all these early texts on the bodhisattva practices, the authors were all basically in a lineage with each other. The other line that went from Lhadingpa, I don’t have a list of the disciples, but it was another line, and after about two centuries it got to Tsongkhapa. The lineage that comes from Togme Zangpo, that’s the one that is followed by the Sakya, Nyingma and Kagyu traditions, and the one that went to Tsongkhapa is the Gelug tradition. He gave it to his disciple Namkapel, who is the author of the Mind Training like the Rays of the Sun, which is another well-known text that you might have heard of. So, all of these fit together.
One thing that’s quite noticeable with this text is that there are many, many different versions of it and editions of it. There is the Togme Zangpo side and the Tsongkhapa side, and those have many lines, which are different, slightly rearranged – some are added, some are left out. And within each lineage itself there are many versions with small, little differences. Especially what I’m more familiar with is down in the Gelugpa line, there you find it in so many different versions and different texts that it appears in, and it’s always slightly different. This can be sometimes very confusing when you read, because there are so many commentaries to this, given by different teachers, which have been translated and are available in European languages, and it will be very confusing, because every one you read, the lines are slightly different, and the order is slightly different.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama was asked about this and he said, particularly concerning this lojong tradition, that sometimes this happens with the transmission of texts and it really doesn’t make any difference. The main intention is the same, and they’ve just added a few things from oral tradition or taken away, and you can always rearrange some lines in one way or another. That’s quite unusual, I must say, it can be quite confusing. But he said it’s OK; otherwise you have this big hassle of, “which is the correct one,” which you’re never going to be able to decide, because this whole tradition is really based very much on practice and practical application to life. So, when different people have taught it or written versions of it, and commentaries on it over the history, then obviously when you work with a text, you don’t work just as a scholar, academic about the text, but how do you apply it, and what makes more sense fitting it all together. That’s probably how all these differences arose.
My own teacher, Serkong Rinpoche, the teacher of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, taught the Togme Zangpo version, the older version, and that’s the one that I’ll follow and teach here, following primarily his way of explaining it. Although I’ve also received teachings on it from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, my other main teachers, but I’ll follow Serkong Rinpoche’s way of explaining.
We need to understand the term “lojong.” It’s usually translated as “mind training,” but “lo” means not just “the mind,” and not just “the emotions,” but also our “mental attitude,” and “emotional attitude” toward life and toward dealing with situations – here particularly difficult situations that we come across. “Jong” has two meanings. One meaning is “to cleanse.” That doesn’t mean to clean them like to wash them; it means to clear them out, clean out, like you clean out dirt. It’s not that you make the dirt clean, you clean out the dirt, so it’s no longer there. Likewise, you clean out the mind of the negative attitudes. “Jong” also has the meaning “to train,” and so you want to build up, and learn, and develop, and train in positive ones. So lojong is cleansing out the negative attitudes, and training in positive ones. That’s the meaning of lojong – not easy to translate it into any European language with two words.
This teaching, by the way, is quite an advanced teaching; it’s not a beginner teaching. It assumes really that already we’re following the bodhisattva path, with bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is a mind and a heart, which is aimed at our own future enlightenment that we haven’t obtained yet, but with the intention to achieve it, and the intention to benefit all beings. Because we want to benefit all beings, then we want to achieve it. Once we achieve it, what we’re going to do is benefit all beings. [This teaching] assumes that we already really have that, so it doesn’t go so much into detail about the preliminaries for that, or for the actual way to develop that bodhichitta. It starts from there.
Because the text has many, many points in it, I don’t want to give a long explanation of all of those preliminaries and how to develop bodhichitta, because most of you have received teachings on that before. I’ll just mention it very briefly, so we get to the main parts of the text that follow from that.
Compassion is the foundation for all of these bodhisattva practices. Compassion in general, is the wish for others to be free of their suffering, and problems, and the causes of it. Great compassion is aimed at everybody, not just a few people, that means all the insects, that means everybody in the universe to be free. And it’s without favorites, equal to everybody, and entails also the willingness to do something about it as well. Although that comes more in the extraordinary resolve, that I’m actually going to do something, but it also implies this willingness and the courage to actually help them. That’s great compassion.
Train first in the preliminaries.
That’s all it says. This refers to the preliminaries that we find in all the traditions, which are preliminaries to bodhichitta. In lam-rim that covers the initial and intermediate scopes. It starts with the precious human life, and then impermanence and death. It’s not going to last forever, so we take safe direction, or refuge, and then we think about the karmic cause and effect and resolve to act in a positive way and avoid negative ways in order to improve future lives. Then, thinking of the disadvantages of uncontrollable rebirth in samsara altogether, we develop renunciation to gain liberation from it. These are the preliminaries here.
What’s significant is that it’s not that we are starting with them as beginners, going through them and developing ourselves from the very beginning, without any background. But this is going back to them when we already have the bodhichitta aim, and going through all of these in terms of bodhichitta. That’s important. You don’t go through the lam-rim just once, these graded stages, you always go through them again and again with a deeper understanding, based on what you’ve learned first time going through. Each time gets deeper and deeper, and more and more fits together.
So, the precious human life, what makes it so precious? That we have all the freedoms from situations that would prevent us from practicing and developing ourselves, and we have all the opportunities that will allow us [to practice and develop]. What’s so precious about it is that we can use it with bodhichitta to work toward enlightenment and to help others as much as possible. I mean, we can’t help others so much if we’re an animal, or if we’re starving to death, and so on, but we can use our precious human life to benefit others, and to work to reach enlightenment, so it’s with bodhichitta.
We have these negative circumstances, so we have to transform them, such as impermanence and death. So, then we think in terms of future lives, and wanting to continue to have the circumstances to be able to work toward enlightenment – because it’s going to take a long time – and to continue to be able to benefit others. Then what we need to do as much as possible is to refrain from acting destructively and actually do something which is helpful. So, again, this whole discussion of karma, and wanting to improve future lives, and trying to work toward that, is very much connected here with bodhichitta, and very much connected on a very practical level.
It’s going to take a long time, many lifetimes, and so we need to really make sure that we continue to have all the opportunities in our future lives. And not just leave it very vague, but make very careful preparations, very strong connections with teachers, very strong connections with study, with the practice, with the meditation, with actually helping others, so that instinctively as a child in the next life – we’re praying for a precious human life over and over again – that we’ll be drawn to being kind by nature, because our instincts are so strong, instinctively be kind, and want to help others, and want to develop ourselves more and more in a spiritual way, and are interested in these things, rather than being born – if we happen to be a human – as instinctively cruel, and selfish, and so on. So, this whole preliminary thing of thinking of karmic cause and effect also very much emphasized here, and doing that with bodhichitta in mind.
The last preliminary is thinking that no matter what type of rebirth we have, that it’s always going to be filled with samsaric problems, up and down, and any situation, even the most ideal, is still going to have – you get sick, and you grow old and all these sort of things, and you have to somehow make a living, and so on – there’s always these problems. Everybody has these problems and that this is really a hindrance to being able to help everybody fully, because, in each life you have to start as a baby again, and you can’t do terribly much helping others when you are a little baby, for example, or when you’re really very old and become senile or sick or these sort of things. And so really we’ve got to overcome all of that and gain liberation.
“I’ve really got to overcome all these adverse circumstances of any samsaric rebirth, and transform that, and with renunciation work toward gaining liberation from all of this, because once I’m liberated from samsaric rebirth, from uncontrollably recurring rebirth, then I can really, without having to go through all of the samsaric garbage, work the rest of the way to really reach enlightenment to benefit others fully.” So, again, what’s covered in the intermediate level of lam-rim can be done again, with the emphasis of bodhichitta.
That’s the first point of this Seven Point Mind Training, which is to go through the preliminaries. But as we can see, we can go through them from the point of view of bodhichitta, and it really strengthens our bodhisattva practice more and more. So that’s important, because so many of us studied these graded stages of lam-rim, not to just think, “Well, now I’ve gone through it, and I’m in the advanced level, and so stay with the Mahayanatraining,” but it’s very important to go back over the earlier stages and reinforce them, because they reinforce our bodhichitta and they help very, very much.
The second point is the actual training in bodhichitta. Here there are two ways of training in bodhichitta; there are two types of bodhichitta. There’s the relative or conventional bodhichitta, which is the heart or mind which has the intention to benefit others as fully as possible, and so it’s aimed at our future enlightenment with the intention to achieve it and thereby to help everybody as much as possible. Then there’s the deepest bodhichitta, which is aimed at voidness, the way in which things exist, also of course the aim to understand it, but it’s ultimately with the understanding of it. You go into a big discussion about those two, but basically we’re dealing here with the causes for building up a Dharmakaya, a mind of a Buddha that would be always focused on voidness, the understanding of all phenomena, and relative bodhichitta, would result as the main cause – I mean, you need both for both – but for the Rupakaya, the body of forms to actually help others. So, we need the two.
There are two orders for developing them. One, which you find in the lam-rim, the graded stages, is that, even though in order to gain liberation you need the understanding of voidness, but still you want to not emphasize it so much there, but get the bodhichitta motivation and then do the understanding of voidness. Because that gives the stronger energy to the understanding of voidness, so that it breaks through the obstacles, not just the obstacles that prevent liberation, but also the obscurations that prevent becoming a Buddha, omniscience. That’s one order of it.
The other order is doing the deepest bodhichitta first, gaining the understanding of voidness first, and then developing the relative bodhichitta. His Holiness explains this very nicely. The explanation I’ve heard from him is that with the understanding of voidness, you do become convinced of the void nature of the mind and of all the disturbing emotions and attitudes, and that it’s possible to actually get rid of them, and that it’s possible to actually achieve liberation and enlightenment. Unless you have that confidence from the understanding of voidness, that it’s possible to achieve liberation and enlightenment, unless you have that, it’s very difficult to really put your heart into working to achieve enlightenment with relative bodhichitta.
So, for the more intelligent disciple, rather than the more emotional type, it’s recommended to develop the deepest bodhichitta first, at least to some level. Then you can be more confident that it is possible to achieve liberation and enlightenment, and then you develop the strong motivation to achieve it for the benefit of others, and then you can go and get the final understanding of voidness.
The order of the text, the older version, Togme Zangpo’s version, is to have the voidness, the deepest bodhichitta, explained first, and then relative bodhichitta, but Tsongkhapa, who emphasized the lam-rim very much, put the order the other way. He said that according to the oral tradition that he follows, that he received, you do the relative bodhichitta first. And so Namkapel, his disciple, who wrote the Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun, which is basically a commentary on this, puts the deepest bodhichitta verses at the absolute end, after all the seven points. Pabongka, who lived in the first half of the last century, Pabongka made an edition of this and he tried to edit from all the different versions, and so he made a compromise, and he put within the second point first the verse of relative bodhichitta and then the verse of deepest bodhichitta.
So, we find these three variations of how it goes, but Serkong Rinpoche explained it, and the Sakyas, Nyingmas, and Kagyus all follow this, explaining the deepest bodhichitta verses first, and we’ll do that.
Ponder that phenomena are like a dream. Discern the fundamental nature of awareness that has no arising. The opponent itself liberates itself in its own place. The essential nature of the path is to settle within the state of the all-encompassing basis.
This is basically the Chittamatra, the mind-only position, which is where the Sakya meditation on voidness begins. All objects are appearances that come from the same karmic natal source as the consciousness of it, so they come from the mind, like a dream, appearances that we perceive, these mental holograms. The person as well, who perceives them is also something which can be labeled by the mind on the aggregates that make up our experience of that. Also it can be understood in terms of the mind that does labeling it, and so non-dually both the subject, the one that perceives things, and the objects that are perceived, like a dream, come from the mind.
It’s a non-dual thing. Both the objects that are perceived and the person that does the perceiving them are both the play of the clarity of the mind, of the appearance-making function – basic Chittamatra, which many of you have studied with me in the Shantideva class. It doesn’t mean that they’re one, but it means that both are in the nature of the mind, appearances of the mind.
Discern the fundamental nature of awareness that has no arising.
The mind itself, this appearance-making function, can’t be found – it has no true arising, no true abiding, no true ceasing, it lacks true findable existence – this is the basic Prasangika understanding, which is the second step in the Sakya way of meditating on voidness. All things are the appearance of the mind, it comes from the karma; and then: the mind itself has no true findable existence – going to the Prasangika understanding.
All of this is, of course, very important, and connected with relative bodhichitta as well. You want to help others, and so you have to realize that the appearances of what they are doing, and what I am doing, and “me” as a person, and the other persons, that all of that is coming from karma and mental labeling and so on, and the mind as well that’s producing all these things – the appearance of me helping them, the appearance of them being helped, and so on – the mind as well doesn’t have true findable existence, so that in helping others you don’t have all this clinging and grasping. That’s very relevant to the bodhisattva path, namely that the appearances of true existence are baseless, that the mind that’s producing them, what is being produced and the mind that is producing all these appearances – “I’m the great bodhisattva helping everybody, and you are this miserable being that I’m helping, and the situations that I’m seeing,” and all of that – all of them are coming from the mind, from karmic seeds, and so on. It’s happening to them, happening from my own way of training and so on, and the mind itself doesn’t have true existence. None of it has true findable existence.
So, you don’t become attached, and then angry if it doesn’t work and so on. Or “All my problems, and disturbing emotions, and me, poor me suffering from them,” that also is coming from karma, coming from the mind and the mind has no true findable existence. And so it’s possible to get rid of all of it and actually reach liberation and enlightenment. There are many ways in which it’s very relevant to the bodhisattva path, and this way of going through the Chittamatra to the Prasangika is very helpful – that’s Sakya meditation on voidness.
This is speaking about the opponent, which is voidness. Voidness as well is something which is imputable by words and concepts, and the conceptual understanding of that, as well, has to be… you have to go beyond that to get the non-conceptual cognition of it, which liberates itself in its own place, which means that this understanding, this conceptual understanding simultaneously arises, abides, and ceases, which is the basic mahamudra, dzogchen type of approach, mahamudra in Sakya as well, and so it’s beyond words and concepts, and you get here to the non-conceptual cognition of voidness – that’s the opponent.
The essential nature of the path is to settle within the state of the all-encompassing basis.
What is this non-conceptual meditation on voidness? It’s to settle into the clear light mind and its voidness. That’s what is in Sakya called “the causal alaya,” the causal all-encompassing basis, it’s the word “alaya,” this is referring to the clear-light mind, which is the clear-light foundation mind that’s the cause of all appearances, both pure and impure. That’s the fourth step in the Sakya voidness meditation, so these lines are very clearly Sakya.
The opponent is the one who is doing the meditating. That’s the person, so this line refers to the voidness of the person who is doing the meditating.
That’s stabilizing meditation on voidness. Voidness here is taken as the all-encompassing basis, so you get a quite standard Gelugpa way of interpreting these lines as well.
That’s the discussion of deepest bodhichitta. What we’ve particularly learned is that all the other sections, besides the actual teachings on relative bodhichitta, from lam-rim, including the initial and intermediate scope before, and the voidness teachings that come after, all of them very much are things that we need to incorporate into our bodhisattva practice.
These voidness teachings are especially relevant. We need to become convinced that it’s possible to achieve enlightenment, which means become convinced that it’s possible to clear out the negative attitudes and develop positive ones. That’s impossible if the mind itself didn’t have voidness as its nature, no true findable existence. The appearances of all these disturbing things – even while I’m helping – all of that’s coming from the mind, karma. The person who is acting as well is void, and the mind itself is void. The whole bodhisattva practice then can work, and does work, only because of the voidness of the mind, basically. Don’t just stay with the conceptual understanding, but go to the non-conceptual understanding of it. All of that is very, very relevant. |
0.929845 | Jane Garrett (Labor) since the 2010 election.
Minor boundary changes in the south, gaining parts of Parkville north of the rail line from Melbourne, and the boundary with Richmond through Fitzroy North being re-aligned to run along Park Street. The Labor margin versus the Greens increases from 3.3% to an estimated 3.6%. The Labor two-party preferred margin versus the Liberal Party is 25.1%.
Brunswick is an electorate that has always been held by Labor. It existed from 1904 until 1955, when it was split into two seats, Brunswick East and Brunswick West. Brunswick was re-created in 1976, but again abolished in 1992 when declining inner-city enrolments saw the electorate divided between Melbourne and Coburg. The recent trend to inner-city apartment living has seen the electorate of Melbourne contract, pulling Coburg south again and resulting in it being re-named Brunswick at the 2002 election.
The first member for Brunswick was Frank Anstey, who represented the seat 1904-10 before serving in the House of Representatives 1910-34. Another former member is former Kirner government Treasurer Tom Roper, who represented the local area from 1973 to 1994, as member for Brunswick East 1973-76, Brunswick 1976-92 and Coburg 1992-94.
In recent years Labor has been challenged in Brunswick by the rise of the Greens, the Liberals having finished third behind the Greens at each election since 2002. Labor would have lost Brunswick at the 2010 election had it not been for the Liberal Party's reversal of previous preference recommendations by choosing to put Labor ahead of the Greens. Labor was also helped in 2010 by the non-Labor left vote being split when former Federal MP Phil Cleary contested as an Independent.
Brunswick is a slightly less well off version of inner-city electorates to the south. The electorates has the fifth lowest proportion of children aged 5-14 (7.6%) but the fourth highest proportion of working age adults aged 25-64 (60.8%). Reflecting an older migration wave, Brunswick has the fifth highest proportion of residents born in Italy (5.2%), and given its closeness to universities, the third highest proportion of residents attending university (12.6%). The electorates has the second highest female workforce participation rate (49.8%), the fifth highest proportion of rental dwellings (40.7%), the second highest use of public transport to travel to work (28.2%) and the state's highest use of bicycles to travel to work (8.8%).
1999 63.7 26.9 5.9 3.5 71.2 28.8 .. ..
Note: 1999 results have been adjusted to take account of the new electoral boundaries introduced for the 2002 election. The new electoral boundaries for the 2014 election have little impact on 2010 election party shares.
At the 2006 election the Liberal Party listed the Greens ahead of Labor on all how-to-vote material. As a result, in the four inner-city Labor-Green contests, Liberal preferences flowed only 25% to Labor.
Having recommended that the Greens be put last on its how-to-vote material in 2010, Liberal preferences in the same four electorates flowed 67% to Labor at the 2010 election.
Labor recorded 53.3% of the two-candidate preferred vote versus the Greens in Brunswick at the 2010 election. Had Liberal preferences flowed to the Greens at the same rate as in 2006 then the Greens would have won Brunswick with 55.1% of the two-candidate vote.
In 2-party preferred terms Labor's results in Brunswick and Coburg have been consistently 15-25 percentage points stronger than for Victoria as a whole. However, as the red line shows, the contest has been much closer in 2-candidate preferred terms versus the Greens.
Statewide opinion polls have shown the Green vote up since 2010, though in recent years polls have regualrly inflated the Green vote. Any increase is likely to be greatest in core Green voting seats like Brunswick, which may be enough to overcome the Liberal Party's decision to again recommend preferences for Labor ahead of the Greens.
Read is a doctor and medical researcher working and works in the public health system, currently in sexual health and HIV medicine. He has lived in Brunswick for more than two decades. He was the Green candidate for the local seat of Wills at the 2013 Federal election.
41 year-old Garrett is a community activist, lawyer and local mayor who states that her family has been in Brunswick for six generations. She was elected to the City of Yarra Council in 2008 and elected Mayor at the end of 2009. Before her election in 2010 Garrett worked for Slater and Gordon in workers compensation law, and previously worked as a Senior Legal and Policy Advisor to the former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks. She is currently Shadow Cabinet Secretary.
'Deano' O'Callaghan describes himself as a passionate environmentalist and small businessman. He runs his own business as a brewer and event manager, travelling around Moreland on a bicycle carrying his 'low-carbon' kegs of beer and magic tea. Candidate for the unregistered Save the Planet Party.
Vellotti is the son of Italian immigrants who at the age of 10 started his working life with a local milk round. He went on to complete a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and later an MBA and now works as a sales engineer.
Peters was born in Pakistan. In 1984 he migrated to New Zealand, and then in 1988 migrated to Australia. He is self-employed and works as a registered Migration Agent and Trainer. |
0.992342 | Posted on Thu, Mar 29, 2012 : 1:25 p.m.
Access to the pill has meant more to women than better family planning, a new University of Michigan study suggests. It has also boosted women’s earning power, MSNBC reports.
Researchers who analyzed data from a multi-decade study concluded that women who had access to birth control pills when they were in their late teens and early 20s made 8 percent more 20 years later than those who no access to oral contraceptives.
The National Bureau of Economic Research published the study as a working paper.
Read the article in MSNBC.com.
Fri, Mar 30, 2012 : 1:24 p.m.
I'm surprised that some find the subject controversial. I would like to hear why. It is true that it is a bit of a "Chicken vs. Egg" subject -- education leads to birth control, and birth control leads to education. In the Western World, where birth control, and at least some level of education, are both almost universal, that may be a bit hard to see. It has been dramatically obvious for a long time in Third World countries, though, where access to either one of those two can help break the cycle of overpopulation and poverty. Do serious people really question that?
Fri, Mar 30, 2012 : 8:03 p.m.
We have more birth control than our parents. When they retire, we will need to pay for their Social Security, Medicare, pension, and health care with fewer people. Fewer people paying the bills for more people makes us poorer. Birth control makes us poorer.
Fri, Mar 30, 2012 : 9:43 a.m.
Yeah, and also makes their teeth whiter!
Thu, Mar 29, 2012 : 9:14 p.m.
Thu, Mar 29, 2012 : 9:06 p.m.
Thu, Mar 29, 2012 : 6:53 p.m.
Ok - I am a huge proponent of birth control, but this conclusion seems like a huge, almost absurd generalization. Could you make an argument that the type of woman who pursued birth control as on option was the same type of person that wanted more control of their destiny, and was thus more likely to succeed as a rule?
Do you mean the 98% of woman that purse birth control?
It is easy to see that if women don't have unplanned children they are going to probably do better economically throughout their lives. However, by no stretch of the imagination should taxpayers be required to pay for birth control for these people! This is second only to BCBS having to cover unlimited Viagra for the UAW. |
0.999999 | Story Text: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has nominated Hans Eichel as the new finance minister to replace Oskar Lafontaine, leader of the Social Democrats.
World markets have reacted favourably to the resignation of former Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine.
Lafonteine disappeared behind the gates of his home near the French border on Friday (March 12) - and so completely shut out the world that he even refused to take calls from Chancellor Schroeder.
Eichel's appointment as German finance minister is expected to put the reins of power firmly back in Chancellor Schroeder's hands, and spell an end to months of political pressure on the European Central Bank.
Eichel, ousted as SPD premier of Hesse state in an election last month, is a bland but able technocrat with a more moderate stance than left-wing Oskar Lafontaine, whose resignation as finance minister and SPD chairman sparked a share rally on Friday.
Schroeder said he planned no other cabinet changes and added that the SPD's governing coalition with the ecologist Green party, formed after the election last September, would go on until the next parliamentary poll in 2002.
World markets reacted favourably to Lafontein's departure.
In Tokyo, the dollar rose againmst the euro.
Lafontaine's departure was a gift for Britain's top-selling newspaper, The Sun.
"We haf vays of making you QUIT," the front page of the tabloid's Friday edition screamed, adopting the cliched German accent beloved of some British comedy shows.
Late last year, the anti-European Sun labelled Lafontaine "the most dangerous man in Europe" for his plans to harmonise tax rates across Europe.
Friday's edition said the Sun's condemnation of the German finance minister had prompted a joint plot by the European Union's 15 member states to buoy up the struggling euro, part of which involved Lafontaine's political assassination.
The paper said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was secretly delighted by the demise of "Red Oskar", adding that he would now look to forge a powerful axis in Europe with Schroeder.
European shares closed mixed on Friday.They rose after Lafontaine's departure, but were later hit by profit-taking and by Wall Street, which faltered in its march to the magic 10,000 level.
The Dow Jones industrial average of leading U.S.shares romped almost 60 points higher to 9,958 but then edged back and was around 0.9 percent or 20 points down when European trading drew to a close.
Germany was the star.Frankfurt closed five percent higher as investors welcomed the resignation of Lafontaine and the nomination of Eichel.
Video Story Text: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has nominated Hans Eichel as the new finance minister to replace Oskar Lafontaine, leader of the Social Democrats. World markets have reacted favourably to the resignation of former Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine. Lafonteine disappeared behind the gates of his home near the French border on Friday (March 12) - and so completely shut out the world that he even refused to take calls from Chancellor Schroeder. Eichel's appointment as German finance minister is expected to put the reins of power firmly back in Chancellor Schroeder's hands, and spell an end to months of political pressure on the European Central Bank. Eichel, ousted as SPD premier of Hesse state in an election last month, is a bland but able technocrat with a more moderate stance than left-wing Oskar Lafontaine, whose resignation as finance minister and SPD chairman sparked a share rally on Friday. Schroeder said he planned no other cabinet changes and added that the SPD's governing coalition with the ecologist Green party, formed after the election last September, would go on until the next parliamentary poll in 2002. World markets reacted favourably to Lafontein's departure. In Tokyo, the dollar rose againmst the euro. Lafontaine's departure was a gift for Britain's top-selling newspaper, The Sun. "We haf vays of making you QUIT," the front page of the tabloid's Friday edition screamed, adopting the cliched German accent beloved of some British comedy shows. Late last year, the anti-European Sun labelled Lafontaine "the most dangerous man in Europe" for his plans to harmonise tax rates across Europe. Friday's edition said the Sun's condemnation of the German finance minister had prompted a joint plot by the European Union's 15 member states to buoy up the struggling euro, part of which involved Lafontaine's political assassination. The paper said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was secretly delighted by the demise of "Red Oskar", adding that he would now look to forge a powerful axis in Europe with Schroeder. European shares closed mixed on Friday.They rose after Lafontaine's departure, but were later hit by profit-taking and by Wall Street, which faltered in its march to the magic 10,000 level. The Dow Jones industrial average of leading U.S.shares romped almost 60 points higher to 9,958 but then edged back and was around 0.9 percent or 20 points down when European trading drew to a close. Germany was the star.Frankfurt closed five percent higher as investors welcomed the resignation of Lafontaine and the nomination of Eichel.
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0.987488 | Nonlinear classifiers are more powerful than linear classifiers. For some problems, there exists a nonlinear classifier with zero classification error, but no such linear classifier. Does that mean that we should always use nonlinear classifiers for optimal effectiveness in statistical text classification?
To answer this question, we introduce the bias-variance tradeoff in this section, one of the most important concepts in machine learning. The tradeoff helps explain why there is no universally optimal learning method. Selecting an appropriate learning method is therefore an unavoidable part of solving a text classification problem.
Throughout this section, we use linear and nonlinear classifiers as prototypical examples of ``less powerful'' and ``more powerful'' learning, respectively. This is a simplification for a number of reasons. First, many nonlinear models subsume linear models as a special case. For instance, a nonlinear learning method like kNN will in some cases produce a linear classifier. Second, there are nonlinear models that are less complex than linear models. For instance, a quadratic polynomial with two parameters is less powerful than a 10,000-dimensional linear classifier. Third, the complexity of learning is not really a property of the classifier because there are many aspects of learning (such as feature selection, cf. feature, regularization, and constraints such as margin maximization in Chapter 15 ) that make a learning method either more powerful or less powerful without affecting the type of classifier that is the final result of learning - regardless of whether that classifier is linear or nonlinear. We refer the reader to the publications listed in Section 14.7 for a treatment of the bias-variance tradeoff that takes into account these complexities. In this section, linear and nonlinear classifiers will simply serve as proxies for weaker and stronger learning methods in text classification.
We first need to state our objective in text classification more precisely. In Section 13.1 (page ), we said that we want to minimize classification error on the test set. The implicit assumption was that training documents and test documents are generated according to the same underlying distribution. We will denote this distribution where is the document and its label or class. graphclassmodelbernoulligraph were examples of generative models that decompose into the product of and . typicallineartypicalnonlinear depict generative models for with and .
In this section, instead of using the number of correctly classified test documents (or, equivalently, the error rate on test documents) as evaluation measure, we adopt an evaluation measure that addresses the inherent uncertainty of labeling. In many text classification problems, a given document representation can arise from documents belonging to different classes. This is because documents from different classes can be mapped to the same document representation. For example, the one-sentence documents China sues France and France sues China are mapped to the same document representation in a bag of words model. But only the latter document is relevant to the class legal actions brought by France (which might be defined, for example, as a standing query by an international trade lawyer).
To simplify the calculations in this section, we do not count the number of errors on the test set when evaluating a classifier, but instead look at how well the classifier estimates the conditional probability of a document being in a class. In the above example, we might have .
where is the expectation with respect to . The mean squared error term gives partial credit for decisions by that are close if not completely right.
We define a classifier to be optimal for a distribution if it minimizes .
Minimizing MSE is a desideratum for classifiers. We also need a criterion for learning methods. Recall that we defined a learning method as a function that takes a labeled training set as input and returns a classifier .
where is the expectation over labeled training sets. To keep things simple, we can assume that training sets have a fixed size - the distribution then defines a distribution over training sets.
We can use learning error as a criterion for selecting a learning method in statistical text classification. A learning method is optimal for a distribution if it minimizes the learning error.
Arithmetic transformations for the bias-variance decomposition. For the derivation of Equation 157, we set and in Equation 150.
where the equivalence between and 162 is shown in Equation 157 in Figure 14.6 . Note that and are independent of each other. In general, for a random document and a random training set , does not contain a labeled instance of .
Bias is the squared difference between , the true conditional probability of being in , and , the prediction of the learned classifier, averaged over training sets. Bias is large if the learning method produces classifiers that are consistently wrong. Bias is small if (i) the classifiers are consistently right or (ii) different training sets cause errors on different documents or (iii) different training sets cause positive and negative errors on the same documents, but that average out to close to 0. If one of these three conditions holds, then , the expectation over all training sets, is close to .
Linear methods like Rocchio and Naive Bayes have a high bias for nonlinear problems because they can only model one type of class boundary, a linear hyperplane. If the generative model has a complex nonlinear class boundary, the bias term in Equation 162 will be high because a large number of points will be consistently misclassified. For example, the circular enclave in Figure 14.11 does not fit a linear model and will be misclassified consistently by linear classifiers.
We can think of bias as resulting from our domain knowledge (or lack thereof) that we build into the classifier. If we know that the true boundary between the two classes is linear, then a learning method that produces linear classifiers is more likely to succeed than a nonlinear method. But if the true class boundary is not linear and we incorrectly bias the classifier to be linear, then classification accuracy will be low on average.
Nonlinear methods like kNN have low bias. We can see in Figure 14.6 that the decision boundaries of kNN are variable - depending on the distribution of documents in the training set, learned decision boundaries can vary greatly. As a result, each document has a chance of being classified correctly for some training sets. The average prediction is therefore closer to and bias is smaller than for a linear learning method.
Variance is the variation of the prediction of learned classifiers: the average squared difference between and its average . Variance is large if different training sets give rise to very different classifiers . It is small if the training set has a minor effect on the classification decisions makes, be they correct or incorrect. Variance measures how inconsistent the decisions are, not whether they are correct or incorrect.
Linear learning methods have low variance because most randomly drawn training sets produce similar decision hyperplanes. The decision lines produced by linear learning methods in and 14.11 will deviate slightly from the main class boundaries, depending on the training set, but the class assignment for the vast majority of documents (with the exception of those close to the main boundary) will not be affected. The circular enclave in Figure 14.11 will be consistently misclassified.
Nonlinear methods like kNN have high variance. It is apparent from Figure 14.6 that kNN can model very complex boundaries between two classes. It is therefore sensitive to noise documents of the sort depicted in Figure 14.10 . As a result the variance term in Equation 162 is large for kNN: Test documents are sometimes misclassified - if they happen to be close to a noise document in the training set - and sometimes correctly classified - if there are no noise documents in the training set near them. This results in high variation from training set to training set.
High-variance learning methods are prone to overfitting the training data. The goal in classification is to fit the training data to the extent that we capture true properties of the underlying distribution . In overfitting, the learning method also learns from noise. Overfitting increases MSE and frequently is a problem for high-variance learning methods.
We can also think of variance as the model complexity or, equivalently, memory capacity of the learning method - how detailed a characterization of the training set it can remember and then apply to new data. This capacity corresponds to the number of independent parameters available to fit the training set. Each kNN neighborhood makes an independent classification decision. The parameter in this case is the estimate from Figure 14.7 . Thus, kNN's capacity is only limited by the size of the training set. It can memorize arbitrarily large training sets. In contrast, the number of parameters of Rocchio is fixed - parameters per dimension, one for each centroid - and independent of the size of the training set. The Rocchio classifier (in form of the centroids defining it) cannot ``remember'' fine-grained details of the distribution of the documents in the training set.
According to Equation 149, our goal in selecting a learning method is to minimize learning error. The fundamental insight captured by Equation 162, which we can succinctly state as: learning-error = bias + variance, is that the learning error has two components, bias and variance, which in general cannot be minimized simultaneously. When comparing two learning methods and , in most cases the comparison comes down to one method having higher bias and lower variance and the other lower bias and higher variance. The decision for one learning method vs. another is then not simply a matter of selecting the one that reliably produces good classifiers across training sets (small variance) or the one that can learn classification problems with very difficult decision boundaries (small bias). Instead, we have to weigh the respective merits of bias and variance in our application and choose accordingly. This tradeoff is called the bias-variance tradeoff .
Figure 14.10 provides an illustration, which is somewhat contrived, but will be useful as an example for the tradeoff. Some Chinese text contains English words written in the Roman alphabet like CPU, ONLINE, and GPS. Consider the task of distinguishing Chinese-only web pages from mixed Chinese-English web pages. A search engine might offer Chinese users without knowledge of English (but who understand loanwords like CPU) the option of filtering out mixed pages. We use two features for this classification task: number of Roman alphabet characters and number of Chinese characters on the web page. As stated earlier, the distribution ) of the generative model generates most mixed (respectively, Chinese) documents above (respectively, below) the short-dashed line, but there are a few noise documents.
One-feature classifier. Shown as a dotted horizontal line. This classifier uses only one feature, the number of Roman alphabet characters. Assuming a learning method that minimizes the number of misclassifications in the training set, the position of the horizontal decision boundary is not greatly affected by differences in the training set (e.g., noise documents). So a learning method producing this type of classifier has low variance. But its bias is high since it will consistently misclassify squares in the lower left corner and ``solid circle'' documents with more than 50 Roman characters.
Linear classifier. Shown as a dashed line with long dashes. Learning linear classifiers has less bias since only noise documents and possibly a few documents close to the boundary between the two classes are misclassified. The variance is higher than for the one-feature classifiers, but still small: The dashed line with long dashes deviates only slightly from the true boundary between the two classes, and so will almost all linear decision boundaries learned from training sets. Thus, very few documents (documents close to the class boundary) will be inconsistently classified.
``Fit-training-set-perfectly'' classifier. Shown as a solid line. Here, the learning method constructs a decision boundary that perfectly separates the classes in the training set. This method has the lowest bias because there is no document that is consistently misclassified - the classifiers sometimes even get noise documents in the test set right. But the variance of this learning method is high. Because noise documents can move the decision boundary arbitrarily, test documents close to noise documents in the training set will be misclassified - something that a linear learning method is unlikely to do.
It is perhaps surprising that so many of the best-known text classification algorithms are linear. Some of these methods, in particular linear SVMs, regularized logistic regression and regularized linear regression, are among the most effective known methods. The bias-variance tradeoff provides insight into their success. Typical classes in text classification are complex and seem unlikely to be modeled well linearly. However, this intuition is misleading for the high-dimensional spaces that we typically encounter in text applications. With increased dimensionality, the likelihood of linear separability increases rapidly (Exercise 14.8 ). Thus, linear models in high-dimensional spaces are quite powerful despite their linearity. Even more powerful nonlinear learning methods can model decision boundaries that are more complex than a hyperplane, but they are also more sensitive to noise in the training data. Nonlinear learning methods sometimes perform better if the training set is large, but by no means in all cases. |
0.98874 | As the influence of the Sun's magnetic field and solar wind grow weaker, both Voyager robot spacecraft eventually will pass out of the heliosphere and into the interstellar medium. Through NASA's Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) (which began officially on January 1, 1990), the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft will continue to be tracked on their outward journey.
The two major objectives of the VIM are an investigation of the interplanetary and interstellar media and a characterization of the interaction between the two, and a continuation of the successful Voyager program of ultraviolet astronomy. During the VIM, the spacecraft will search for the heliopause (the outermost extent of the solar wind, beyond which lies interstellar space). Scientists hope that at least one Voyager spacecraft will still be functioning when it penetrates the heliopause and will provide them with the first true sampling of the interstellar environment. Barring a catastrophic failure on board either Voyager spacecraft, their nuclear power systems should provide useful levels of electric power until at least 2015.
Each Voyager spacecraft has a mass of 1,815 pounds (825 kg) and carries a complement of scientific instruments to investigate the outer planets and their many moons and intriguing ring systems. These instruments that are provided electric power by a long-lived nuclear system called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) recorded spectacular close-up images of the giant outer planets and their interesting moon systems, explored complex ring systems, and measured properties of the interplanetary medium.
Once every 176 years, the giant outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—align themselves in such a pattern that a spacecraft launched from Earth to Jupiter at just the right time might be able to visit the other three planets on the same mission, using a technique called gravity assist. NASA space scientists named this multiple giant-planet encounter mission the Grand Tour and took advantage of a unique celestial alignment opportunity in 1977 by launching two sophisticated spacecraft, called Voyager 1 and 2.
The Voyager 2 spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 20, 1977, on board a Titan-Centaur rocket. (NASA called the first Voyager spacecraft launched Voyager 2 because the second Voyager spacecraft to be launched eventually would overtake it and become Voyager 1.) Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977. This spacecraft followed the same trajectory as its twin (Voyager 2) and overtook its sister ship just after entering the asteroid belt in mid-December 1977.
on to encounter both Uranus (January 24, 1986) and Neptune (August 25, 1989) successfully. Space scientists consider the end of Voyager 2's encounter of the Neptunian system as the end of a truly extraordinary epoch in planetary exploration.
During the first 12 years since they were launched from Cape Canaveral, these incredible robot spacecraft contributed more to the understanding of the giant outer planets of the solar system than was accomplished in more than three millennia of Earth-based observations. Following its encounter with the Neptunian system, Voyager 2 also was placed on an interstellar trajectory and (like its Voyager 1 twin) now continues to travel outward from the Sun.
Since both Voyager spacecraft would eventually journey beyond the solar system, their designers placed a special interstellar message on each in the hope that perhaps millions of years from now some intelligent alien race will find either spacecraft drifting quietly through the interstellar void. If they are able to decipher the instructions for using this record, they will learn about the contemporary terrestrial civilization and the men and women who sent Voyager on its stellar journey.
The Voyager interstellar message is a phonograph record called "The Sounds of Earth." Electronically imprinted on it are words, photographs, music, and illustrations that will tell an extraterrestrial civilization about planet Earth. Included are greetings in more than 50 different languages, music from various cultures and periods, and a variety of natural terrestrial sounds such as the wind, the surf, and different animals. The Voyager record also includes a special message from former President Jimmy Carter (1924- ). The late Carl Sagan (1934-96) described in detail the full content of this phonograph message to the stars in his book Murmurs of Earth.
time for one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds. Here, the time units are 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing further indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and the stylus, with a binary number giving the time needed to play one side of the record (approximately one hour).
properly decoded the terrestrial pictures. A circle was selected for this first picture to guarantee that any aliens who find the message use the correct aspect ratio in picture reconstruction.
Finally, the drawing at the bottom of the protective aluminum shield is that of the same pulsar map drawn on the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaques. The map shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are also given. The small drawing with two circles in the lower-right-hand corner is a representation of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1. This indicates that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the times given on the protective aluminum shield and in the decoded pictures. |
0.917331 | Should I re-install my OS, good Internet habits, how to go about re-installing my operating system, should I buy or build a new computer.
How to remove specific characters from a huge text list.
Objective - You want to remove the numbers, the space, the dash and the space from the following list so that all is left is the genre.
Method - Paste the text into a Word document. Click Edit > Replace > Click the More button > put a check in the Use Wildcards box > put 2 question marks, a space, a dash and a space in the "Find What" field ?? - . Leave the "Replace" with field blank. Click Replace All. Voila!
If you have a varying sequence(your numbers go to 3 digits) you'll have to replace using the above ?? - string and then use one question mark to remove the remaining digit.
Recuva - Undeleting content on USB drive.
This is pretty awesome!! Buy the commercial version to reward the author for a job well done.
Superior Alarm Software (it does so much more) Go get this now and learn to use it. You will be glad you did.
4K has several useful apps: Videodownloader, youtubetoMP3, stogram, videotoMP3, slideshowmaker, Telegram. My activation codes are kept in the software folder and password manager.
Excellent software for recording audio on your computer. I use it to record streaming post-production Internet radio programs. It has integrated scheduling and voice actuation, the two most important options that I need.
Esword - The Keys for the modules you bought are located in your mail account. Search for subject, Product Keys for eSword Premium Products dated 1/2018.
1/22/2007 Outlook is crashing again, but there was very little information in the crash window that popped up. I tried rebooting, and then clearing my mail via webmail (I've had bad emails crash other email apps). Neither of these helped. Hmmm... maybe McAfee has broken outlook again. I removed McAfee and sure enough, Outlook started working.
Faulting application outlook.exe, version 12.0.4518.1014, stamp 4542840f, faulting module scanemal.dll, version 8.0.0.1020, stamp 4480ec45, debug? 0, fault address 0x0000349d.
CuteFTP settings for folder synchronization.
If the destination date is <no matter> & the size is <different> during <any transfer>, then <overwrite>. Settings file available here.
How to schedule a defrag of your drives - Create a batch file, with the following content and then run the batch monthly with kirby alarm.
Replace driveletter: with whatever drive you want to defrag, followed by a colon.If you have more than one drive, enter a defrag command line for each drive. They will defrag one at a time in the order listed.
This is usually, if not always caused by a problematic third-party shell extension. This is the Google discussion that helped me find the fix. Here's Ramesh's Page on the subject and my mirror of it in case it goes away. Here's an excellent program to help you. And here's my mirror of the file. Here's an app (that I haven't tried) that may be useful when you have things working normally again.
A user on an XP box with less than admin privileges wants to run a program as administrator without manually entering the admin credentials each time. Can this be done? Yes.
"Create a shortcut to the program and then under the properties for that program icon in the Target add: c:\windows\system32\runas.exe /savecred /user:Administrator before the actual path, so for internet explorer it would like this: c:\windows\system32\runas.exe /savecred /user:Administrator "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"
CuteFTP breaks ability to right click a batch file and click Edit.
CuteFTP adds a context menu item called CuteFTP 8 Professional Shell Extension which breaks the ability to right click a batch file and click "Edit". Use the program called ShellExView to find this and disable it.
Easy access to whois information http://whois.domaintools.com/domainame Replace the word domainname with whatever domain you wish to get info about.
If Excel is not scaling any longer for you, try changing your printer driver. Mine stopped one day and I changed from PS to PCL driver and all was well.
Running MSConfig gives the following error - An Access Denied eror was returned while attemtping to change a service, You may need to log on using an administrator account to make specific changes.
Fix: If you're using McAfee A/V disable On Access Scan. You may have to poke around a while in the console to change a setting that will permit this. Look for confirmation that On Access Scan is off. The McAfee icon may have a red circle/slash on it. Now run MSConfig and close it. When I did these things, MSConfig runs normally now.
Do you know where your application CD’s and registration keys are located if you need to rebuild your system?
Are your recent photos safe?
Have you verified that your backed up data is not corrupted?
Does your backup program include everything you’ll want to save?
Has your backup software been updated recently to fix bugs?
If you are looking for a backup program, check out the following: Synctoy - Powertoy from MS, Syncback, Robocopy or Replicator at karenware.com .
Pinning a file to the Start Menu - Drag it to the start button, then to the pinning area.
If you find that Framemaker is putting a security password on the PDF file, open the Adobe Distiller program > Settings > Security and remove security.
Why doesn't Chrome remember its window size settings?
7-9-2017 Chrome spawns lsass.exe, consumes a lot of processor and chrome takes 90 seconds to open google.com.
Excel's Conditional Formatting feature makes this a simple task.
Click the Format button, select the Fill tab, and specify a color for the shaded rows.
The row shading is dynamic. You'll find that the row shading persists as you insert or delete rows within the original range.
Run the Nirsoft app and history will be viewable and is exportable to a text file.
If you run into a situation where you cannot work with files because the directory contains files with a name or path that is too long, this will tell you how to find those files. This happened to me when I tried burning a DVD to backup a user’s files. The file name or directory path was too long for the file system on the DVD.
Run the script and enter the path to the directory you want to check.
Results will be placed in a text file.
Import that information to Excel.
The left column will have the number of characters of the file to the right, along with a drive letter and ( ).
Use the find/replace function, along with Options > Search: By columns, to remove the ( ) and the letter of the drive so that you only have a number in that left column.
Sort on that number and you’ll find the files with the largest number of characters.
Find them on your media and clean them up.
Not too tough and it worked. I was able to burn the DVD.
LogFileName = oShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop") & "\FilePathLength.txt"
oShell.Popup "Check the FilePathLength.txt file on your desktop.", 3, "Path length checker" |
0.995823 | New Orleans is one of the cities in the United States, named after Philippe d'Orleans, Duke of Orleans. Its connection to the French is therefore undisputable as they were its founders. Its culture consists of African Americans, American Indians, French, Spaniards, etc. It is located in the south eastern Louisiana, on the banks of Mississippi river. New Orleans is estimated to have a population of 1,235,650 as at 2009.
New Orleans is rated the 46th largest state in the United States, and attracts tourist all over because of its multicultural and multilingual heritage, together with its abundance of unique architectures, hence one of the most visited states in the United States. One of its major attractions is the "French Quarters".
Due to its location being surrounded by waters from the east, south and north, and its low elevation, new Orleans is very vulnerable to catastrophic waves inform of hurricanes. These hurricanes bring floods that cause not only physical and cultural risk, but also a major loss of lives. This also gives it the subtropical climate with mild winters and hot summers.
Since 1559 when the first hurricane was reported, there have been many other hurricanes in new Orleans, striking via Lake Pontchartrain, the major ones being hurricane Betsy In 1965 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Because of the beautiful architectural buildings of new Orleans that bring tourists to this city, Tourism as a major revenue earner is greatly affected by these hurricanes leading to devastating effects on the economy as a whole. However, most of these buildings like the French Quarters have managed to withstand these floods and remain put (Ottt 54).
The economy is also affected by the frequent migration of people, usually at warnings of a flood or later after a flood. Despite all these, New Orleans maintains its unique culture and lifestyle. The historic heritage of New Orleans is found in the Multicultural Museums and traditions still held by the locals. The traditions are seen in the ethnic restaurants and hotels, multicultural tours and festivals and in the museums as well.
Having that understanding of the New Orleans, one captivating aspect of it is its multicultural combinations and the effect this brought to New Orleans. As a port, it received slaves from Africa and India, and people from other countries like Spain and France, bringing together people with different cultural background to form one unique culture, and language. The major outcomes of multiculturalism are the voodoo culture. As part of this paper, I attempt to understand the origin of voodoo in New Orleans, its impact, practice and its state as at today.
Voodoo comes from the word "vodou" which means spirit or mystery. It is a religion, culture, heritage, magic that instils fear and discipline amongst people. Human beings naturally fear the unknown and what is not easy to understand and therefore it is not strange that people believed and feared voodoo practitioners in New Orleans.
New Orleans received slaves from West Africa and the Native American slaves. It is from these slaves that voodoo originated. Because they were slaves, they were mistreated and continuously separated from their families. This hard ways of life forced them to seek solace and comfort from spiritual powers. African slaves came to New Orleans with their African practises of believing in ancestors and fear of the dead. Consequently, they had ways of waning off bad spirits that were believed to carry bad luck and misfortunes, meanwhile entice good spirits to bring love, money and posterity. With the spread of these slaves, so was the spread of voodoo.
African slaves came with their herbs, roots, candles, bones, and other elements that they used in this practise. Soon, the influence of voodoo was common place and even the white population started giving it a thought. Because of its similarity to the practises of Roman Catholicism, voodoo soon incorporated catholic practise in its ritual, making it even more acceptable. Another reason why voodoo became so related to Catholicism was because slaves were not given as much freedom of worship. They were forced to worship as Catholics and avoid their native ways of worship. This forced them to perform rituals similar to catholic ways in order to remain safe and continue worshiping.
Africanism involved witches, respect for the elders and the strong belief in extended family. Witches were believed to possess supernatural powers that they used to cast spells on people as well as heal the sick. The practise of voodoo in African included a hierarchy of deities with priests at the top, priestesses, novices, helpers, etc, going down. The novices underwent rigorous training in convents that saw them go through spiritual rituals and conventions before they were allowed to practice voodoo. These training lasted nine months or "moons" as they were referred to. Rituals include dancing with snakes, blood rituals, fasting, animal offerings, etc. these were done in order to receive powers from the higher being, "God".
Slave trade was therefore the main vehicle for voodoo in New Orleans. The voodoo in New Orleans is always confused with the Haiti voodoo. The difference between the two is that Haitian voodoo does not depend on calling of spirits interventions, however, they use the voodoo symbols like dolls only to invoke power. The religious symbols, locally referred to as "veve" represented each "loa" in a voodoo ritual. These symbols were used instead of names of the "gods" or "loas".
Voodoo and hoodoo are commonly confused in their terms as some people interchange them, one to mean the other. They are very different in the sense that hoodoo does not emphasise on religion but refers to the knowledge and practice of voodoo spirits and their works (Tallant 87).
The above five factors explain why voodoo became so popular in new Orleans that it came to be part of their daily lives, controlling each and every part of it.
The voodoo culture can not go without the mention of Marie Laveau., who was dubbed the "queen of voodoo." Marie, was born in 1783 in Santo Domingo. Marie, was a hairdresser before being interested in voodoo practices. Her history reports that she was a staunch Catholic believer and attended mass every day of her life. She was first married to Jacques Paris who passed away before she remarried Christophe Glapion, with whom she gave birth to fifteen children, amongst them her daughter Marie who continued with her work after her death. Laveau was believed to have Psychic powers and that she could tell what was going on without being present at a scene. She used ghostly tales and strangeness that captured her listeners and instilled fear of the unknown in them. She attended catholic masses and consequently advised her followers to do so. She performed her rituals near st. Peters hence her operations were not suspicious. She was believed to have supernatural powers and that she could entice someone to act in a particular way, and performed exorcism to remove bad spirits (Louise 89).
Besides all these, she was also known for her philanthropy and good heartedness. She took care of the sick, and administered to convicts on death row. She encouraged people and took part in humanitarian activities improving the lives of others, hence gaining many followers and increasing popularity.
At her death in 1881, she had many followers who loved and believed in her. Though feared in life, in death, many considered her a saint and visit her tomb to ask for favours, divine intervention, protection, money, etc. she was buried in S.t. Louis cemetery #1. Her daughter Marie immediately took over and continued with her voodoo practice, also gaining followers. Up till now, there are reports of Laveau's ghost being present in several parts of New Orleans. Her grave is reported to be haunted by ghosts, her apartment and several streets.
One could easily conclude that this voodoo belief was a matter of fear and superstitions as most locals feared the voodoo curse more than anything, but among the New Orleans, voodoo was real and part of their lives. With several documentation, witnesses and occurrences related to voodoo, it is not a questionable factor that voodoo had supernatural powers on the lives of New Orleans. Voodoo is given attention and the practitioners given respect up to date. A visit to the French Quarters enables one to see voodoo shops selling dolls, herbs and books (Holloway 102).
Its practise does not bring a negative influence on the economy as tourists flock New Orleans to visit voodoo practitioners who are believed to be able to tell the future and bring good luck, love, money, revenge, and happiness. Questions can therefore be raised, if voodoo practice is a form of devil worship. Followers of voodoo do not see it as devil worship because they follow religious dogmas just like all other religions like catholic. They also claim that it does not involve black magic or bad omens; rather they use it for the good. They foretell the future, heal the sick and satisfy the spiritual needs of their followers.
Today, certain life aspects of new Orleans are affected and controlled by the voodoo practices. There are music experiences dedicated to voodoo and those in attendance include modern day contemporary musicians like Wycliffe Jean. It also controls games and social functions like weddings. Football in new Orleans is also greatly impacted by voodoo as it is believed there are voodoo practises within football players and managers. With no doubt, politics is not left un mentioned. The need for power and affluence is connected to voodoo magic. We can therefore conclude that voodoo practice in new Orleans is not something that is going away any time soon as the locals still strongly believe in it. It is called the Haunted city of voodoo. |
0.996138 | While eating at a fast food chain like McDonalds or Burger King, we just wonder what food eating would have been if fast food were not available. Well, one thing is for sure, there would have been fewer incidences of obesity. Change in the eating habit and food consumption pattern of Americans has increased serious health concerns. More and more Americans eat out avoiding homemade food, increasing their consumption of fast food provided by restaurants.
Some critics believe that federal policy to increase the cost of healthy food has led to the increase in consumption of the cheaper alternative i.e. fast food (Monsivais, Aggarwal and Drewnowski 1472). Therefore, for the middle class whose eating habits has already increased consumption of outside food finds it more cost effective to consume fast food that is more cost effective, thereby, moving towards an unhealthy eating habit.
Others believe that fast moving lifestyle and paucity of time has increased consumption of fast food. Whatever be the reason behind the growth of consumption of fast food be, they inflict serious health issues. Fast food chains provide mouth-watering food at a very reasonable price therefore, increasing of the same for the normal American, but at the cost of serious damage to their health. Fast food increases kidney problems, hypertension, and diabetes (Heal Talk).
Therefore, many believe that such unhealthy eating patterns have heightened health concerns (Harnack, French and Oakes 2). Another issue that arises is nutritional content of fast foods such as burgers, pizza, or French fries. Calorie content of these foods is much higher than a regular meal cooked at home and lacks a large share of the nutritional content.
Therefore, fast food has three-fold effect on its consumers – it increases unhealthy eating habit, increases health hazards, and does not provide adequate or balanced nutritional needs of the human body. I believe that increase nutritional regulations can control the widespread menace that fast food is creating. This essay argues that there should be increased nutrition regulations on fast food restaurants because fast foods encourage unhealthy eating patterns, increase the risk of disease, and are nutritionally unsound.
Fast lifestyle and a constant lack of time for routine tasks, like, eating food has increased preference towards fast food that can be squeezed in-between meetings, school and ballet class, or work and soccer. Paucity of daily time has reduced the number of households that have a meal together regularly (Williams). Another trend observed is increased preference towards packaged or frozen food.
Therefore, fast food as the name itself suggests gave rise to a consumption pattern among people where in they eat meals faster and intake a lot of calorie, trans fat and sugar. As the brain takes 20 minutes to register if it is full, a normal adult ends up eating more while eating too fast (Williams).
Ironically, people state paucity of time as the reason behind consuming more fast food, but actually, they end up consuming more food (Williams). Fast food eating habit in the US started in the 1950s and today, an average American consumes at least three burgers and four servings of French fries every week (Mifflin).
Americans have slowly moved towards food that contain more added fats, oils, dairy fat, and sugar per capita serving from 1970 through 2009 (USDA). In terms of calorie intake, the maximum calorie provided in per capita calorie intake by food categories, maximum calorie intake occur from caloric sweeteners, flour and cereal products, and added fat and oil (USDA).
Americans spend up to $140 million on fast food each year and there are 250,000 fast food chains in the U.S. (The Healthy Eating Guide). The numbers show an alarming shift of the nation’s eating habit that has moved majorly towards fast food, eating out and other frozen packed food that lack gross in basic nutrients and cause serious health problems.
How do we stop this trend? An initiative to provide nutritional calorie count in the menu and the display board shows that people tend to order less the item that accounts for higher calorie. Therefore, nutritional information provided to consumers can actually reduce the consumption of fast food items.
Research has shown that fast food consumption has a serious effect on the dietary quality and health of children in the U.S. (Bowman, Gortmaker and Ebbeling). Presently 36 percent of the U.S. population is obese and half of the population is expected to become obese by 2030 if the current eating habits continued (The Healthy Eating Guide).
In 1960, 44.8 percent of the U.S. adults aged between 20 years and 74 years were obese that increased to 66 percent in 2004. All this relates to the increase in fast food consumption and change in dietary habits of the majority of the population. Excess weight has led to other related diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, strokes, cancer, and kidney problems.
Further, research has shown that this issue with obesity and health is more among the people belonging to lower income groups (Drewnowski and Darmon 901). Financial disparity is a major issue that causes impediment to the access of healthier diet (Drewnowski and Darmon 900). This may be due to the lack of regulation that can control both the nutritional effect of food choices and cost of food available.
Further, many of the fast food available does not provide any nutritional guidelines in their packaging and the consumers are actually unaware of the health hazards that it may cause. Therefore, proper regulation is required that would adequate information regarding the nutritional effect. Further, regulatory measures must be taken to make hazardous fast food dearer than healthier food options in order to induce a change in dietary habit.
Fast food alternatives available today fail to meet the nutritional balance that the body requires for healthy living. The first problem is a complete lack of control over the cooking procedure of fast food that causes the problem. Usually they are cooked in a lot of oil or butter and there are hardly any options available therefore making the food high on trans fat. Further, it also encourages overeating as the servings come in larger portions.
These also lack in fresh fruit and vegetables therefore taking out two of the healthiest and mineral rich item from the meal. Usually fast foods are rich in fat, sodium, and sugar increasing tendencies of high blood sugar, blood pressure, and heart diseases. Therefore, fast foods fail to provide the key ingredients of a balanced diet such as essential vitamins, protein, and iron. However, it provides fat and carbohydrate harmful to the body in abundance.
Fast food has changed the eating habit of average Americans. Eating out has become more common than homemade food. Fast food has changed the healthy eating habits of the Americans increasing the content of fat, oil, and sugar in per capital serving showing an increase of fast food intake.
On the other hand, increase of fat, oil, and sugar in diet has increased incidences of obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, and kidney problems. Fast foods lack nutritional benefits required for a healthy body and are cause obesity. Policymakers must be concerned about these health issues that face America, as there are a large number of Americans who are affected due to the increased consumption of fast food.
Therefore such policy as proper nutritional information regarding fast food on packaging, less targeted advertising towards children and adolescents, increased quality check on nutrients provided in the fast foods, and menu labeling can decrease the health hazards related to fast food or reduce its consumption.
Bowman, SA, et al. “Effects of fast-food consumption on energy intake and diet quality among children in a national household survey.” Pediatrics, 3(1) (2004): 112-118. Print.
Drewnowski, Adam and Nicole Darmon. “Food Choices and Diet Costs: an Economic Analysis.” Symposium: Modifying the Food Environment: Energy Density, Food Costs, and Portion Size. NA: The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr, 2005. 900-904. Print.
Harnack, Lisa J, et al. “Effects of calorie labeling and value size pricing on fast food meal choices: results from an experimental trial.” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 5(63) (2008): 1-13. Print.
Heal Talk. Unhealthy Eating Habits: Fast Food Chains. 2 March 2011. Web. 23 February 2012 .
Mifflin, Houghton. “Fast Food Nation.” 2000. New York Times. Web. 23 February 2012 .
Monsivais, Pablo, Anju Aggarwal and Adam Drewnowski. “Following Federal Guidelines To Increase Nutrient Consumption May Lead To Higher Food Costs For Consumers.” Health Aff August 2011 30(8) (2011): 1471-1477. Print.
The Healthy Eating Guide. Healthy Eating Statistics: America’s Obesity Crisis. 2011. Web. 23 February 2012 .
USDA. “Loss-Adjusted Food Availability: Spreadsheets .” 13 July 2011. Economic Research Service. Web. 23 February 2012 .
Williams, David E. “A nation’s eating habits.” 24 March 2006. CNN Health. Web. 23 February 2012 . |
0.957024 | What do you wish someone had told you about being a mother?
No matter what stage of motherhood you are in, you have probably wished at some point that someone had been around to tell you all the things you had to learn the hard way. You've probably read quite a few parenting books, which can be helpful, but no book covers all the bases. What advice do you wish someone had shared with you once you became a mother?
Most of the lessons I have learned have been through trial and error and I certainly wish that someone had told me the best places to nurse in my local mall, for example, or what the real story is with vaccinations -- almost like cliff notes for parenting.
None of us have a crystal ball to see what is ahead, yet we all see the value of perspective. It seemed that if I asked a direct question to a group of local mothers, I could get an answer, but mostly it took my making a mistake for someone to share their wisdom with me. Generally, people don't want to impose or have others think they're sticking their nose in their business --and that is certainly a risk when giving unsolicited advice.
So from one mom to another, I'm offering this short list of things I had to figure out for myself. Adhering to this list won't change your parenting style because when it comes to your family, you know what's best. It will just make your life easier and a bit more manageable.
1. If you want your spouse to help you more, you must be clear about what you need. Do not wait for your spouse to read you mind or to pinch-hit for the family.
2. Self-care is an important part of motherhood. Taking time to improve your mental and physical wellness benefits both you and your entire family.
3. The difficult times in motherhood come in seasons. There is a season for sleepless nights, colic, fevers, extracurricular activities, middle school and smart talk from your teen. Sometimes it's more than one season at once. And while it might seem that what you're dealing with now will last forever, it won't, so hang in there.
4. Create a supportive family culture that shares the age-appropriate responsibilities. It often seems easier to just do it all in motherhood, but doing so means that your children don't get the benefit of learning how to do things for themselves and, well, you have to do everything.
5. Ignore moms that compete with you because your best is good enough. Just make sure to do your best.
6. Cleaning floors and dishes don't count as quality time with the family.
7. Let your children know what you like and share your hobbies with them. It is so easy to be the mom and forget to share the person that you are with your family.
8. Date yourself, date your spouse, date your children -- all separately, of course.
9. Set boundaries with relatives who stress you out. This can be initially awkward, but worth it in the end.
10. Let you children sleep with you if it allows you to rest, but kick them out of your bed if it prevents you from sleeping or enjoying quality time with you partner.
13. If you don't like the choice that you have made, renegotiate it.
As a mother of three, I still don't know it all and I'm still learning things the hard way. Let's get interactive and help each other out. What do you wish someone had told you about being a mother? |
0.999885 | I’m not sure that Liberalism necessarily entails a positive view of human nature and human decision-making capacities; certainly Locke and Hobbes have different appraisals of this.
“Positive” to the extent of “teachable” or “correctable,” and liberalism can provide the means. Certain liberalism carries a far more positive appraisal of human nature than any of the three counter-revolutionary thinkers mentioned, particularly Cortes who saw mankind as lower than lizards. |
0.517928 | Climate change is real. Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced.
The evidence is clear. Our Earth is warming. Rising global temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate. Many places have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The planet’s oceans and glaciers have also experienced some big changes: oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting, and sea levels are rising.
As these and other changes become more pronounced in the coming decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and our environment.
Over the past century, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The scientific consensus is that these man-made greenhouse gases are the main cause of global warming and climate change. Sixteen percent of these greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels to produce energy to light, heat, cool, and ventilate commercial buildings.
Creating a market for energy-efficient buildings reduces emissions and grows the economy.
It can be done. Emissions reductions can be accomplished through implementing energy efficiency in buildings. It can be done at a profit and while growing the economy. It’s a strategy for reducing emissions that is good for the environment and good for the economy.
So often we hear that reducing emissions from power plants will create a drag on economic activity by reducing the pace of economic growth resulting from higher energy costs. The answer to this assertion depends on the perspective from which policy-makers see the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Policy-makers seem to focus heavily on energy production, electric utilities, and the operation of power plants, regulating energy-related emissions at the production source. This perspective only considers the impact on energy utilities, which are heavily invested in old technologies and are only too anxious to pass along the costs of a renewable energy transition to energy consumers. The inevitable result of this approach is the self-fulfilling prophecy of rising energy costs and decreased economic activity.
However, if policy makers look at the emissions reduction challenge from the perspective of energy consumers, a completely different scenario arises. Energy users have for decades taken advantage of evolving energy efficiency technologies to reduce energy consumption and save money. Reducing energy consumption in buildings reduces operating costs, empowering businesses to reap higher profits or to lower prices for the purpose of being more competitive in the marketplace, resulting in the creation or retention of jobs. Additionally, the process of creating more energy-efficient buildings is a decentralized activity that takes place at the point of energy consumption and results in the employment of many thousands of technical and trade workers to implement the latest energy-saving technologies and management practices in buildings. Thus, stimulating energy efficiency in buildings has the potential result of increasing economic activity while repositioning an economy to be more cost effective and competitive in the future, while also reducing emissions from power plants by simply using less energy.
It is easy to understand why utilities have not embraced energy efficiency more robustly. After all, they are in the business of selling more and more energy. But given the scientific imperative to reduce emissions, the time has come to worry less about the old electric utility business model and encourage the new industries of energy efficiency and renewable energy that are now cost effective and can be implemented directly by energy users.
Improving the energy efficiency of buildings—and reducing the associated greenhouse gas emissions—is a significant opportunity that saves money, creates jobs, strengthens the local economy, supports grid reliability, and helps pave the way for investments in renewable energy.
This guide is intended for government policy-makers, trade associations, and non-profit organizations that wish to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants to address global warming and climate change.
Typically, energy efficiency in commercial buildings is regulated by governments through codes and standards. This guide describes how to reduce carbon emissions resulting from energy consumption in buildings by implementing key elements of the successful United States’ ENERGY STAR Buildings program as a template for creating a market for energy-efficient commercial buildings. What makes the ENERGY STAR Buildings program unique is that it is a successful voluntary program that relies on using the power of information to influence markets. By establishing a voluntary program that identifies and recognizes energy-efficient buildings and their inherent value attributes, governments, trade associations, or nonprofits can stimulate demand for energy-efficient buildings and the services and technologies that are used to create them. Most importantly, building owners, managers, and occupants can be motivated to voluntarily improve the energy efficiency of their buildings and businesses simply by being made aware of the financial benefits, without having to resort to regulations or stricter building codes. While building codes and standards are important for setting a floor for energy performance, a more powerful and flexible market stimulus is the fact that saving energy saves money for building owners, managers, and occupants. This financial motivation results in creating energy-efficient buildings that are more competitive, profitable, and valuable.
At the community level, the economic result of a market-driven voluntary program is a more attractive, competitive, and constantly improving building infrastructure, as well as the creation of an energy efficiency services industry that stimulates economic activity and creates jobs.
In 1999, the United States Environmental Protection Agency developed and implemented the ENERGY STAR Buildings program (www.energystar.gov/buildings). This voluntary program is focused on improving the energy efficiency of existing commercial buildings in the United States and reducing the associated carbon emissions from power plants and other energy sources.
In order to influence market behavior and create demand for energy-efficient buildings, ENERGY STAR Buildings created a set of market-influencing program elements that would drive the demand for energy-efficient buildings as well as the practices, technologies, and energy efficiency services that would improve and achieve a high level of energy performance for commercial buildings. What were those dynamic market-influencing program elements? How were they promoted to building owners, managers, occupants, mortgage lenders, and investors? Why were they embraced by the real estate market and US corporations?
This guide contains the answers to these questions. It describes how emissions reductions can be achieved and documented on a voluntary basis in a world that is allergic to environmental regulation or doubtful of the effectiveness of carbon trading, carbon taxes, and international carbon reduction commitments. And finally, it will describe the environmental and economic benefits that accrue to communities, not only resulting from improved building infrastructure, but also from the development and manufacturing of new energy efficiency technologies and the establishment of a profitable energy efficiency services industry.
By focusing on existing commercial buildings, the ENERGY STAR Buildings program was able to address all the energy consumption and emissions that resulted from their operation. Newly designed and constructed buildings were included on a “post construction performance basis” since new buildings become existing buildings as soon as they are put into service. The ENERGY STAR Buildings program also encouraged new building designs that would result in the construction of high-performing energy-efficient buildings.
While the ENERGY STAR Buildings program did not limit the scope of buildings that were included in the program, it did provide a particular focus on building types that were the most energy intensive, represented the most square footage, and had the potential to result in the greatest carbon emissions reductions.
Critical to this process is the essential realization that the energy performance of buildings can be improved in a financially justifiable manner, creating energy-efficient buildings.
Energy efficiency remains the cheapest and cleanest form of new energy supply. Greater building efficiency can meet 85 percent of future demand for energy in the United States.(5) (See chart from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy) Simply put, a watt not used does not have to be generated. When considering a shift from fossil fuels to renewables, it is important to reduce the demand and consumption of energy as much as possible in concert with deploying a renewable energy supply system. While both energy efficiency and renewable energy generation can be pursued together, it is important to remember that reducing the overall demand and consumption of energy will result in a reduction in the amount of renewable energy resources that will be required to achieve the overall goal of reducing carbon emissions. In this way the transition to a low carbon energy system based primarily on renewables can be accomplished more quickly.
The United States’ ENERGY STAR Buildings program defined an energy-efficient building as a one that is more energy efficient that 75 percent of similar buildings in the nationwide building population. The ENERGY STAR Buildings program provides ENERGY STAR building certification to buildings that perform in the top quartile of similar building types. In this way, an energy-efficient building does not have to be an abstract idea, or a conceptual maximization of energy efficiency in a building. The placing of the ENERGY STAR building certification level at the top quartile of buildings enables the vast population of buildings to have a realistic opportunity to embrace energy efficiency and achieve certification.
By comparing buildings based on ACTUAL energy performance, it is not necessary to prescribe the technological components or the management practices that are inherent to energy-efficient buildings but merely to assess the resulting energy performance. This “results orientation” frees the program to focus on overall energy management strategies and the benefits of improved energy performance without getting bogged down in the complex world of evolving energy efficiency technologies.
Understand the process of improving the energy performance of buildings.
And, the market must be able to identify and recognize energy-efficient buildings through a generally accepted certification process.
The United States’ ENERGY STAR Buildings program incorporated a suite of market-transforming program elements to successfully improve the energy performance of buildings, identify energy-efficient buildings, and create a market for them. This guide will show how.
US EPA. “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas and Sinks: 1990-2013. Table 2-5: CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion by End-Use Sector (MMT CO2 Eq.).” February 2015.
Dickinson, Jonathan; Khan, Jamil; and Amar, Mikael. “Inventory of New York City Greenhouse Gas Emissions, December 2013.” City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. |
0.927119 | Advanced Python �Lists �Automate the exporting and printing of map documents �Automate map production and create map books -Extend Data Driven Pages capabilities . Referencing Map Documents (MXDs) �Opening Map Documents (MXD) with arcpy.mapping �Use the arcpy.mapping.MapDocument function �Takes a path to MXD file on disk or special keyword "CURRENT� �Reference map on disk... PDF is the only export format that supports multiple pages in a single document. Here is an example of a multipage map book: Here is an example of a multipage map book: Though much of this document consists of pages displaying a map, for example, pages 3 through 9, this PDF also contains pages that were not created using Data Driven Pages.
The scale at which to export the layer. This parameter is used with any scale dependency, such as layer visibility or scale-dependent rendering. If the layer is not visible at the export scale, it will not be included in the created KML file. Any value, such as 0, can be used if there are no scale dependencies.... I'm experiencing differences from exporting features to PDF from within ArcMap and using a stand alone python program. Basically, I'm selecting a feature from a layer, zooming to the selected extent, changing the scale of the dataframe, and exporting the image to a pdf from PAGE_LAYOUT view- something pretty simple.
A string that includes the full path and file name of an existing map document (.mxd) or a string that contains the keyword CURRENT. The MapDocument object provides access to map document properties and methods. A reference to this object is essential for most map scripting operations. (mxd_path) Provides access to map document (.mxd... I am trying to create a JSON file for jstree. But I'm having trouble getting this code to output the full path of the folders and only show folders.
Exporting a Map Document to PDF So you made a map, and you want to show it to everyone without printing it, well let's export it! ExportToPDF() - exports the page layout or data frame of a map document to a PDF. |
0.974267 | A coffee with a twist!! Ingredients: 1/4th tspn vanilla essence 1/4th tspn cinnamon powder pinch of red chilli powder 2 tbsp instant coffee powder 1/4th cup cocoa powder 1/3rd cup sugar 1/2 cup water 2 cups milk For garnish: cocoa powder white chocolate shavings whipped cream Method: Boil the water. Turn off the gas. Add the instant coffee powder, vanilla essence and red chilli powder. |
0.999463 | Say you’re a business person with many years experience, or perhaps an MBA, and you’re thinking, what does astrology have to do with me? You think, I’ve been fairly successful to date without any of this; if I invested my time and money, what value would astrology add to my success?
First of all, by working with astrology you’re in good company. People have been using astrology since the 3rd millennium B.C., by some accounts. Pharaohs, kings, popes, presidents (Ronald Reagan is a well-known example), founding fathers have all consulted astrologers to help them guide the timing of their endeavors. When President Obama recently praised people of the Middle East for the various arts and sciences that have emerged through them, such as algebra, navigation, printing, and poetry, he was referring in part to Al Khwarizmi, the father of algebra and algorithm, a Persian who was also an astrologer. Galileo, Copernicus, and Isaac Newton were astrologers.
I’m suggesting you take an empirical approach, test, experiment, and see if the return on your investment is worth the time and money. Look at it like this: there are fundamental events in our lives that no one questions, like the seasons which are due to the orbit of the earth around the sun and the tilt of the earth on its axis. You wouldn’t plant your garden in the late fall as you know that would not be a successful investment of your energy. You would wait until spring, when the natural cycle that leads to growth and harvest has begun. Day and night are also planet-based cycles and we are all biorhythmically connected to these cycles.
No one doubts the effect of day and night on human affairs. You may say this is just science, but can you honestly say you experience no difference internally between dawn and dusk? These are the same principles astrology is based upon, that there is a time and season for all endeavors, and further, that it is possible to attune our lives to these cycles so we can be sure we’re not coming when we should be going.
I live by the sea, where the daily tides have become a part of my life. If I want to swim, I go out just before low tide when there are safe pools for swimming. If I want to fish, I go out at high tide, when the fish have been rushed in by the currents and the water is deep. A good walk can be had at any tide although the route has to change, and a wedding or a picnic can combine tides and time of day for the ideal event (as I just experienced when my son got married on the beach).
This is astrology. Not just the science of what celestial body is where, but the effect of celestial movements on our lives. We can choose to learn these cycles and work with them through the use of astrology.
As businesspeople we understand cycles in our bones: economic cycles, investment cycles, seasons when we can expect solid revenue, like tax season for tax preparers, or summer for the ice cream shop. You may even have noticed the effect of full moons on your business, as customers and employees tend to be “loonier” on those days. Think about other cycles that affect your business and note them in the comments section below. We can share examples as we start to contemplate the effects of cycles on our businesses and how these tie to the cycles to astrology.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 and is filed under Introduction to Astrology for Business, Pluto in Capricorn. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. |
0.981154 | How do we break down the terms used in pseudocode into code blocks to be implemented?
The program segment below is intended to move a robot in a grid to a gray square. The program segment uses the procedure GoalReached which evaluates to true if the robot is in the gray square and evaluates to false otherwise. The robot in each grid is represented as a triangle and is initially facing left. The robot can move into a white or gray square but cannot move into a black region. |
0.924436 | Naturally balance hormones and protect against the side effects of excess estrogen with natural progesterone Progest-E and these additional products!
Sixty years ago, progesterone was found to be the main hormone produced by the ovaries. Since it was necessary for fertility and for maintaining a healthy pregnancy, it was called the “pro-gestational hormone,” and its name sometimes leads people to think that it isn’t needed when you don’t want to get pregnant. In fact, it is the most protective hormone the body produces, and the large amounts that are produced during pregnancy result from the developing baby’s need for protection from the stressful environment. Normally, the brain contains a very high concentration of progesterone, reflecting its protective function for that most important organ. The thymus gland, the key organ of our immune system, is also profoundly dependent on progesterone.
Experiments have shown that progesterone relieves anxiety, improves memory, protects brain cells, and even prevents epileptic seizures. It promotes respiration, and has been used to correct emphysema. In the circulatory system, it prevents bulging veins by increasing the tone of the blood vessels, and improves the efficiency of the heart. It reverses many of the signs of aging in the skin, and promotes healthy bone growth. It can relieve many types of arthritis, and helps a variety of immunological problems.
If progesterone is taken dissolved in vitamin E, it is absorbed very efficiently, and distributed quickly to all of the tissues. If a woman has ovaries, progesterone helps them to produce both progesterone and estrogen as needed, and also helps to restore normal functioning to the thyroid and other glands. If her ovaries have been removed, progesterone should be taken consistently to replace the lost supply. A progesterone deficiency has often been associated with increased susceptibility to cancer, and progesterone has been used to treat some types of cancer.
It is important to emphasize that progesterone is not just the hormone of pregnancy. To use it only “to protect the uterus” would be like telling a man he doesn’t need testosterone if he doesn’t plan to father a child, except that progesterone is of far greater and more basic significance than testosterone. While men do naturally produce progesterone, and can sometimes benefit from using it, it is not a male hormone. Some people get that impression, because some physicians recommend combining estrogen with either testosterone or progesterone, to protect against some of estrogen’s side effects, but progesterone is the body’s natural complement to estrogen. Used alone, progesterone often makes it unnecessary to use estrogen for hot flashes or insomnia, or other symptoms of menopause. |
0.962065 | Fatty acids are one of the most essential categories of biological lipids and their synthesis and degradation are vital for all organisms. Severely compromised phenotypes of yeast mutants and human patients, which have defective components in their degradative or synthetic processes for fatty acid metabolism, have highlighted the importance of these processes for overall metabolism. Most fatty acids are degraded by β-oxidation, which occurs in mitochondria and peroxisomes in mammals, whereas synthesis is catalyzed by cytosolic multifunctional peptides, although a synthesis system involving individual enzymes in mitochondria has been also proposed.
In this study a novel mitochondrial 2-enoyl thioester reductase Etr1p from the yeast Candida tropicalis, its homolog Mrf1p from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and their mammalian ortholog were identified and characterized. Observations indicating that mitochondrial localization as well as enzymatic activity is needed to complement the respiratory-deficient phenotype of the mrf1Δ strain from S. cerevisiae suggests that Etr1p and Mrf1p might act as a part of the mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis machinery, the proper function of which is essential for respiration and the maintenance of mitochondrial morphology in yeast. The mammalian enzyme, denoted Nrbf-1p, showed similar localization, enzymatic activity, and ability to rescue the growth of the mrf1Δ strain suggesting that mammals are also likely to possess the ability and required machinery for mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis.
This study further included the characterization of another mitochondrial thioester reductase, 2,4-dienoyl-CoA reductase, which acts as an auxiliary enzyme in the β-oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids. The function of this gene was analyzed by creating a knock-out mouse model. While unstressed mice deficient in 2,4-dienoyl-CoA reductase were asymptomatic, metabolically challenged mice showed symptoms including hypoglycemia, hepatic steatosis, accumulation of acylcarnitines, and severe intolerance to acute cold exposure. Although the oxidation of saturated fatty acids proceeds normally, the phenotype was in many ways similar to mouse models of the disrupted classical β-oxidation pathway, except that an altered ketogenic response was not observed. This mouse model shows that a proper oxidative metabolism for unsaturated fatty acids is important for balanced fatty acid and energy metabolism. |
0.937946 | The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation between dialects. The competition between the popular and the learned registers (see Diglossia), culminated in the struggle between Dimotiki (Demotic Greek) and Katharevousa during the 19th and 20th centuries. As for regional dialects, variation within the bulk of dialects of present-day Greece is not particularly strong, except for a number of outlying, highly divergent dialects spoken by isolated communities.
Ever since the times of Koiné Greek in Hellenistic and Roman antiquity, there was a competition between the naturally evolving spoken forms of Greek on the one hand, and the use of artificially archaic, learned registers on the other. The learned registers employed grammatical and lexical forms in imitation of classical Attic Greek (Atticism). This situation is known in modern linguistics as diglossia.
During the Middle Ages, Greek writing varied along a continuum between extreme forms of the high register very close to Attic, and moderate forms much closer to the spoken Demotic. According to Manolis Triantafyllides, the modern Greek language of the beginning of the 19th century, as used in the demotic poetry of the time, has very few grammatical differences from the vernacular language of the 15th century. During the early Modern Era, a middle-ground variety of moderately archaic written standard Greek emerged in the usage of educated Greeks (such as the Phanariots) and the Greek church; its syntax was essentially Modern Greek. After the Greek War of Independence and the formation of the modern Greek state (1830), a political effort was made to "purify" this form of Greek by bringing it back to resemble classical Attic Greek more closely. The result was Katharevousa (καθαρεύουσα, lit. 'the purifying one'), still a compromise form with basically Modern Greek syntax, but re-lexified with a much larger amount of Ancient Greek words and morphology. Katharevousa was used as an official language in administration, education, the church, journalism, and (until the late 19th century) in literature.
At the same time, spoken Demotic, while not recognised as an official language, nevertheless developed a supra-regional, de facto standard variety. From the late 19th century onwards, written Demotic rather than Katharevousa became the primary medium of literature. During much of the 20th century, there were heated political conflicts over the use of either of the two varieties, especially over the issue of their use in education. Schools were forced to switch from one form to the other and back several times during the 20th century. The conflict was resolved only after the overthrow of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, whose strong ideological pro-Katharevousa stance had ultimately contributed to bringing that language form into disrepute. In 1976, shortly after the restoration of democracy, Demotic was finally adopted for use everywhere in education and became the language of the state for all official purposes. By that time, however, the form of Demotic used in practice was no longer the pure popular dialect, but had begun to assimilate elements from the Katharevousa tradition again. In 1982 diacritics were replaced by the monotonic orthography.
Modern linguistics has come to call the resulting variety "Standard Modern Greek" to distinguish it from the pure original Demotic of earlier literature and traditional vernacular speech. Greek authors sometimes use the term "Modern Greek Koiné" (Νεοελληνική Κοινή Neoellinikí Koiní, literally 'Common Modern Greek'), reviving the term koiné that otherwise refers to the "common" form of post-classical Ancient Greek; according to these scholars, Modern Greek Koiné is the "supra-dialect product of the composition of both the Demotic and Katharevousa." Indeed, Standard Modern Greek has incorporated a large amount of vocabulary from the learned tradition, especially through the registers of academic discourse, politics, technology and religion; together with these, it has incorporated a number of morphological features associated with their inflectional paradigms, as well as some phonological features not originally found in pure Demotic.
The first systematic scholarly treatment of the modern Greek dialects took place after the middle of the 19th century, mainly thanks to the work of the prominent Greek linguist Georgios Hadjidakis. The absence of descriptive accounts of the speech of individual regions made the efforts of the researchers of the 19th century more difficult. Therefore, the dialects' forms are known to us only during their last phase (from the middle of the 19th century, and until the panhellenic dominance of the Standard Modern Greek).
Modern linguistics is not in accord with the tendency of the 19th century scholars to regard modern Greek dialects as the direct descendants of the dialects of ancient Greek. According to the latest findings of scholarship, modern Greek dialects are products of the dialect differentiation of Koine Greek, and, with the exception of Tsakonian, they have no correlation with the ancient dialects.
It is difficult to monitor the evolution of Koine Greek and its splitting into the modern Greek dialects; certain researchers make the hypothesis that the various local varieties were formed between the 10th and the 12th century (as part of an evolution starting a few centuries before), but it is difficult to draw some safer conclusions because of the absence of texts written in the vernacular language, when this initial dialect differentiation occurred. Very few paradigms of these local varieties are found in certain texts, which however used mainly learned registers. The first texts written in modern Greek dialects appear during the Early Renaissance in the islands of Cyprus and Crete.
Before the establishment of a common written standard of Demotic Greek, there were various approaches to using regional variants of Demotic as a written language. Dialect is recorded in areas outside Byzantine control, first in legal and administrative documents, and then in poetry. The earliest evidence for literary dialects comes from areas under Latin control, notably from Cyprus, Crete, and the Aegean islands. From Cyprus under the Lusignan dynasty (the 14th to 16th centuries), legal documents, prose chronicles, and a group of anonymous love poems have survived. Dialect archives also survive from 15th century Naxos.
It is above all from the island of Crete, during the period of Venetian rule from 1204 until its capture by the Ottomans in 1669, that dialect can be illustrated more fully. Documents showing dialectal features exist from the end of the 12th century, rapidly increasing in number from the 13th century onward. During the Cretan Renaissance in the 16th and early 17th centuries there existed a flourishing vernacular literature in the Cretan dialect, based on Italian literary influences. Its best-known specimen today is the verse romance Erotokritos, by Vitsentzos Kornaros (1553–1614).
Later, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Ionian Islands, then also under Italian rule, became a centre of literary production in Demotic Greek. The best-known writer from that period was the poet Dionysios Solomos (1789–1857), who wrote the Greek national anthem (Hymn to Liberty) and other works celebrating the Greek Revolution of 1821–1830. His language became influential on the further course of standardisation that led to the emergence of the modern standard form of Demotic, based on the south-western dialects.
Examples of Northern dialects are Rumelian, Epirote (except Thesprotia prefecture), Thessalian, Macedonian, Thracian.
Part of Southern Albania (known as Northern Epirus among Greeks).
(Tsakonian/Greek) "Our language is Tsakonian. Ask and they'll tell you". Greek sign in the town of Leonidio.
Tsakonian is a highly divergent variety, sometimes classified as a separate language because of not being intelligible to speakers of standard Greek. It is spoken in a small mountainous area slightly inland from the east coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is unique among all other modern varieties in that it is thought to derive not from the ancient Attic–Ionian Koiné, but from Doric or from a mixed form of a late, ancient Laconian variety of the Koiné influenced by Doric. It used to be spoken earlier in a wider area of the Peloponnese, including Laconia, the historical home of the Doric Spartans.
Anatolian Greek until 1923. Demotic in yellow. Pontic in orange. Cappadocian, Pharasiot and Silliot Greek are in green. Green dots indicate non-Pontic-speaking villages in 1910.
Pontic Greek varieties are those originally spoken along the eastern Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, the historical region of Pontus in Turkey. From there, speakers of Pontic migrated to other areas along the Black Sea coast, in Ukraine (see Mariupol#Language structure), Russia and Georgia. Through the forced population exchange after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, the Pontic speakers of Turkey were expelled and moved to Greece. Of the Pontic speakers in the ex-Soviet Union, many have emigrated to Greece more recently. The number of Pontic Greeks currently maintaining the dialect is unclear. A small group of Muslim Pontic speakers remain in Turkey, although their varieties show heavy structural convergence towards Turkish.
Other varieties of Anatolian Greek that were influenced by the Turkish language, besides Pontic, are now almost extinct, but were widely spoken until 1923 in central Turkey, and especially in Cappadocia. In 1923, non-Muslim Greeks were forced to emigrate to Greece after the Greek Genocide (1919–1921) during the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey. In 2005, professors Mark Janse and Dimitris Papazachariou discovered that there are still native speakers of the Mistiot dialect of Cappadocian in Central and Northern Greece. Cappadocian Greek diverged from the other Byzantine Greek varieties earlier, beginning with the Turkish conquests of central Anatolia in the 11th and 12th centuries, and so developed several radical features, such as the loss of the gender for nouns. Having been isolated from the crusader conquests (Fourth Crusade) and the later Venetian influence of the Greek coast, it retained the Ancient Greek terms for many words that were replaced with Romance ones in Demotic Greek. The poet Rumi, whose name means "Roman", referring to his residence amongst the "Roman" Greek speakers of Cappadocia, wrote a few poems in Cappadocian Greek, leaving one of the earliest attestations of the dialect.
The Greek dialect spoken in Pharasa (Faraşa, now Çamlıca village in Yahyalı, Kayseri) and other nearby villages (Afshar-Köy, Çukuri), to the east of Cappadocia, is not particularly close to Cappadocian. It may be closer to Pontic, or equally distant from both. The Pharasiot priest Theodoridis published some folk texts. In 2018, Metin Bağrıaçık published a thesis on Pharasiot Greek, based on speakers remaining in Greece.
The Greek dialect of Sille (near Iconium/Konya) was the most divergent of the varieties of Asia Minor Greek.
Griko or Italiot Greek refers to the Greek varieties spoken in some areas of southern Italy, a historical remnant of the ancient colonisation of Magna Graecia. There are two small Griko-speaking communities known as the Griko people who live in the Italian regions of Calabria, the southern tip of the Italian peninsula, and in Apulia, its south-easternmost corner. These varieties too are believed to have developed on the basis of an originally Doric ancient dialect, and have preserved some elements of it, though to a lesser extent than Tsakonian. They subsequently adopted influences from ancient Koiné, but became isolated from the rest of the Greek-speaking world after the decline of Byzantine rule in Italy during the Middle Ages. Among their linguistic peculiarities, besides influences from Italian, is the preservation of the infinitive, which was lost in the modern Greek of the Balkans.
Rumeíka (Ρωμαίικα) or Mariupolitan Greek is a dialect spoken in about 17 villages around the northern coast of the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Mariupolitan Greek is closely related to Pontic Greek and evolved from the dialect of Greek spoken in the Crimea, which was a part of the Pontic Empire of Trebizond until that state fell to the Ottomans in 1461. Thereafter the Crimean region remained independent and continued to exist as the Greek Principality of Theodoro. The Greek speaking residents of the Crimea were invited by Catherine the Great to resettle in, and found, the new city of Mariupol after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) to escape the then Muslim dominated Crimea. Its main features present certain similarities with both the Pontic (e.g. the lack of synizesis of -ía, éa), and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism).
Istanbul Greek is a dialect of Greek spoken in Istanbul, as well as by the Istanbul Greek emigre community in Athens. It is characterized by a high frequency of loanwords and grammatical structures imported from other languages, the main influences being Turkish, French, Italian and Armenian, while also preserving some archaic characteristics lost in other dialects. Speakers are noted for their production of dark L and postalveolar affricates.
In Asia Minor, Greek varieties existed not only in the broader area of Cappadocia, but also in the western coast. The most characteristic is the dialect of Smyrna which had a number of distinguishing features, such as certain differences in the accusative and genitive cases of the definite article; the Greek speakers of the area had also incorporated into their dialect many French words. Constantinopolitan Greek, on the other side, has very few dialectal features, and it is very close to what scholars call "Modern Greek Koiné."
Another Greek outlying dialect was spoken, until the mid-20th century, in Cargèse on Corsica, by descendants of 17th-century settlers from the Mani peninsula. The dialect, which is now regarded as extinct, had preserved the main characteristics of the Mani dialect, and had been also influenced by both the Corsican and the French language (official language of the island after its union with France).
Map showing the distribution of major Modern Greek dialect areas. The dialect of Northern Epirus (not listed here) belongs to the southern varieties.
Unlike the above, the varieties described below form a contiguous Greek-speaking area, which covers most of the territory of Greece. They represent the vast majority of Greek speakers today. As they are less divergent from each other and from the standard, they are typically classified as mere "idioms" rather than "dialects" by Greek authors, in the native Greek terminology.
The most prominent contrasts between the present-day dialects are found between northern and southern varieties. Northern varieties cover most of continental Greece down to the Gulf of Corinth, while the southern varieties are spoken in the Peloponnese peninsula and the larger part of the Aegean and Ionian islands, including the large southern islands of Crete and Cyprus. The most salient defining marker of the northern varieties is their treatment of unstressed vowels (so-called northern vocalism), while many southern varieties are characterised, among other things, by their palatalisation of velar consonants. Between these areas, in a contiguous area around the capital Athens (i.e. the regions of Attica and neighbouring parts of Boeotia, Euboia, the Peloponnese and nearby islands), there is a "dialectal void" where no distinctly marked traditional Greek dialects are found. This is due to the fact that these areas were once predominantly inhabited by speakers of Arvanitika Albanian. The Greek spoken in this area today is the product of convergence between varieties of migrants who moved to the capital and its surroundings from various other parts of the country, and it is close to the standard. On the whole, Standard Modern Greek is based predominantly on the southern dialects, especially those of the Peloponnese.
At the fringes of this former Arvanitika-speaking area, there were once some enclaves of highly distinct traditional Greek dialects, believed to have been remnants of a formerly contiguous Greek dialect area from the time before the Arvanitic settlement. These include the old local dialect of Athens itself ("Old Athenian"), that of Megara (to the west of Attica), of Kymi in Euboia and of the island of Aegina. These dialects are now extinct.
The following linguistic markers have been used to distinguish and classify the dialects of Greece. Many of these features are today characteristic only of the traditional rural vernaculars and may be socially stigmatised. Younger, urban speakers throughout the country tend to converge towards accents closer to the standard language.
Northern vocalism (high vowel loss). In the north, unstressed high vowels (/i/ and /u/) are typically deleted (e.g. [skon] vs. standard [ˈskoni]) 'dust'). Unstressed mid vowels (/e/ and /o/) are raised to [i] and [u] instead (e.g. [piˈði] vs. standard [peˈði] 'child'). Subtypes of this phenomenon can be distinguished as follows: in "Extreme Northern" dialects these two processes apply throughout. In mid "Northern" dialects the deletion of /i/ and /u/ applies only to word-final vowels. "Semi-Northern" dialects only have the deletion of word-final /i/ and /u/, but not the raising of /e/ and /o/. The latter include Mykonos, Skiros, Lefkada and the urban dialect of the Greeks of Constantinople.
Palatalisation. Standard Greek has an allophonic alternation between velar consonants ([k], [ɡ], [x], [ɣ]) and palatalised counterparts (([c], [ɟ], [ç], [ʝ]) before front vowels (/i/, /e/). In southern dialects, the palatalisation goes further towards affricates (e.g. [tʃe] vs. standard [ce] 'and'). Subtypes can be distinguished that have either palato-alveolar ([tʃ], [dʒ], [ʃ], [ʒ]) or alveolo-palatal sounds ([tɕ], [dʑ], [ɕ], [ʑ]). The former are reported for Cyprus, the latter for Crete, among others.
Tsitakism. In a core area in which the palatalisation process has gone even further, covering mainly the Cycladic Islands, palatalised /k/ is further fronted to alveolar [t͡s] and thus merges with the original phoneme /t͡s/. This phenomenon is known in Greek as tsitakism (τσιτακισμός). It was also shared by Old Athenian.
Ypsilon. A highly archaic feature shared by Tsakonian, the Maniot dialect, and the Old Athenian enclave dialects, is the divergent treatment of historical /y/ (<υ>). While this sound merged to /i/ everywhere else, these dialects have /u/ instead (e.g. [ˈksulo] vs. standard [ˈksilo] 'wood').
Geminate consonants. Most Modern Greek varieties have lost the distinctively long (geminate) consonants found in Ancient Greek. However, the dialects of the south-eastern islands, including Cyprus, have preserved them, and even extended them to new environments such as word-initial positions. Thus, the word <ναι> 'yes' is pronounced with a distinctively long initial [nː] in Cypriot, and there are minimal pairs such as <φύλλο> [ˈfilːo] 'leaf' vs. <φύλο> [ˈfilo] 'gender', which are pronounced exactly the same in other dialects but distinguished by consonant length in Cypriot.
Dark /l/. A distinctive marker of modern northern vernaculars, especially of Macedonia, is the use of a "dark" (velarised) [ɫ] sound.
Medial fricative deletion. Some dialects of the Aegean Islands, especially in the Dodecanese, have a tendency of deleting intervocalic voiced fricatives /v/, /ð/, /ɣ/ (e.g. [meˈalo] vs. standard [meˈɣalo] 'big').
Nasals and voiced plosives. Dialects differ in their phonetic treatment of the result of the assimilation of voiceless plosives with preceding nasals. All dialects have a voicing of the plosive in this position, but while some dialects also have an audible segment of prenasalisation, others do not; thus <πομπός> (<pompós>, 'transmitter') may be realised as either [poˈmbos] or [poˈbos]. Furthermore, prenasalisation tends to be preserved in more formal registers regardless of geography. In informal speech, it tends to be more common in northern varieties.
Lack of synizesis of -ía, éa > /ja/. Standard Greek and most dialects have a pattern whereby Ancient Greek /e/ or /i/ immediately before an accented (later stressed) vowel have turned into a non-syllabic glide /j/, for instance in <παιδιά> [peˈðʝa] ('children'), from Ancient Greek <παιδία> [pa͜idía]. In some dialects this process has not taken place or has done so only partially. These dialects display either full preservation of [e, i], or a schwa sound [ə], leading to forms such as <φωλέα> [foˈle.a] 'nest' and <παιδία> [peˈði.a] 'children'. The phenomenon is common in Griko and the Pontic dialect. It is also reported in Mani and Kythira. On the other hand, in some dialects that have /j/, the glide gets further reduced and deleted after a preceding sibilant (/s, z/), leading to forms like <νησά> [niˈsa] ('islands') instead of standard <νησιά> [niˈsça] (de-palatalisation of sibilants).
Final /n/. Most Modern Greek varieties have lost word-final -n, once a part of many inflectional suffixes of Ancient Greek, in all but very few grammatical words. The south-eastern islands have preserved it in many words (e.g. [ˈipen] vs. standard [ˈipe] he said; [tiˈrin] vs. standard [tiˈri] 'cheese').
'inda? versus ti?' In Standard Greek, the interrogative pronoun what? is ti. In most of the Aegean Islands (except at its geographical fringe: Rhodes in the south-east, Lemnos, Thasos and the Sporades in the north; and Andros in the west) as well as on Cyprus, it is inda.
Indirect objects. All Modern Greek dialects have lost the dative case. In some dialects, this has resulted in a merger between the dative and the genitive, whereas in others there has been a merger between the dative and the accusative. In the standard and in the southern dialects, the personal pronoun forms used to express indirect objects are those of the genitive case, as in example 1 below. In northern dialects, like Macedonian; mainly in Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Rhodes and Mesa Mani, the accusative forms are used instead, as in example 2. In plural, only the accusative forms are used both in southern and northern dialects.
^ Ferguson, Charles A. (1959): "Diglossia." Word 15: 325–340.
^ Horrocks (1997), ch.10; Trapp, Erich (1993). "Learned and Vernacular Literature in Byzantium: Dichotomy or Symbiosis?". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 47: 115–129. doi:10.2307/1291674. JSTOR 1291674. Although scholars have not been inclined to transpose to Byzantine literature the former conflict between καθαρεύουσα and δημοτική in modern Greek, the outward appearance of a clear dichotomy in learned and vernacular literature lasts, especially in the manuals, bibliography and lexica.
^ Law 309/1976 "About the Organization and Administration of the General Education"
^ Browning, Robert (1983). "The Dialects of Modern Greek". Medieval and Modern Greek. Cambridge University Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-521-29978-0.
^ Kontosopoulos, Nikolaos G. (2007). "Dialects and Idioms of the Modern Greek". Papyros-Larousse-Britannica (in Greek). 53 (Greece: Language-Antiquity). Athens: Papyros. pp. 149–150. ISBN 978-960-6715-39-6.
^ Browning (1983), 119: "Scholars of the generation of F.W. Mullach sought to find Dorisms and Aeolisms in the medieval and Modern Greek dialects, or even went further back, seeking the origin of certain of their characteristics in primitive "Indo-European".
^ Alexiou, Margaret (2002). "The Emergence of Dialect Literature: Cyprus and Crete". After Antiquity: Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor. Cornell University Press. pp. 28–29. ISBN 0-8014-3301-0.
^ For the distinction between "Greek dialects" and "Greek idioms", see Kontosopoulos, Nikolaos (1999): "Dialektoi kai idiomata". In: Manos Kopidaks et al. (eds.), Istoria tis ellinikis glossas.. Athens: Elliniko Logotechniko kai Istoriko Archeio. 188–205; Kontosopoulos (2008) 2–3; Trudgill (2003) 49 [Modern Greek dialects. A preliminary Classification, in: Journal of Greek Linguistics 4 (2003), p. 54-64] : "Dialekti are those varieties that are linguistically very different from Standard Greek [...] Idiomata are all the other varieties."
^ a b c Studies in Greek Syntax (1999), Pg 98–99 Artemis Alexiadou; Geoffrey C. Horrocks; Melita Stavrou (1999). Preview in Google Books. ISBN 978-0-7923-5290-7.
^ Nick Nicholas. Appendix A. History & Diatopy of Greek. Archived 2004-12-06 at the Wayback Machine The story of pu: The grammaticalisation in space and time of a Modern Greek complementiser. December 1998. University of Melbourne, p. 20.
C.F. & F.M. Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World's Languages (1977, Elsevier), pg. 148–149.
^ Horrocks, ch.4.4.3; C. Brixhe (2007): A modern approach to the ancient dialects, in: A. F. Christides (ed.), A history of Ancient Greek, Cambridge University Press, p.499.
^ a b c Dawkins, R.M. 1916. Modern Greek in Asia Minor. A study of dialect of Silly, Cappadocia and Pharasa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ Dawkins, R.M. (1916): Modern Greek in Asia Minor. A study of dialect of Silly, Cappadocia and Pharasa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Janse, The Cappadocian Language.
^ a b Symeonides, Ch.P. (2007). "Greek language". Papyros-Larousse-Britannica. Editions Papyros. ISBN 978-960-6715-39-6.
^ Metin Bağrıaçık, Pharasiot Greek: Word order and clause structure, University of Gent, 2018.
^ Dawkins, Richard M. "THE PONTIC DIALECT OF MODERN GREEK IN ASIA MINOR AND RUSSIA". Transactions of the Philological Society 36.1 (1937): 15–52.
^ "Greeks of the Steppe". The Washington Post. 10 November 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
^ See Kontosopoulos (2008), 82–83, who regards Cargese as an "idiom".
^ Map based on: Peter Trudgill (2003): Modern Greek dialects. A preliminary Classification. Journal of Greek Linguistics 4: 54–64 pdf Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine. Shown in grey color is the core Greek-speaking area, in which Greek used to form a solid majority language among contiguous rural populations.
^ Kontosopoulos (1999); Trudgill (2003), 51.
^ Trudgill 2003: 53; Kontosopoulos 1999.
^ a b Trudgill 2003: 54.
^ Trudgill 2003: 56, quoting Newton 1972: 133.
^ a b Trudgill 2003: 57.
^ Trudgill 2003: 53, citing Newton 1972.
^ Trudgill 2003: 49, citing M. Triandaphyllides (1938): Neoelliniki Grammatiki. Vol. 1: Istoriki Isagogi. Thessaloniki: M. Triandaphyllidis Foundation. p. 66-68; and C. Tzitzilis (2001): "Neoellinikes dialekti ke neoelliniki dialektologia, in: A. F. Christidis (ed.), Egkiklopedikos Odigos gia ti Glossa. Thessaloniki: Kentro Ellinikis Glossas, p.170. |
0.967245 | In 1954, after a lifetime of serious theoretical work in economic science, Mises turned his attention to one of the great puzzles of all time: discovering why the intellectuals hate capitalism. The result is this socio-psycho-cultural analysis informed by economic theory. Mises explores answers from a wide variety of angles, and discusses the nature of academic institutions, popular culture, and how vices like jealousy and envy affect theory.
Like F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises' writings on these matters have received less attention than they deserve. Theory and History, writes Rothbard in his introduction, "remains by far the most neglected masterwork of Mises".
Here Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences. He defends the epistemological status of economic proposition. He has his most extended analysis of those who want to claim that there is more than one logical structure by which we think about reality. He grapples with the problem of determinism and free will. He presents philosophy of history and historical research. Overall, this is a tremendously lucid defense of the fundamental Misesian approach to social philosophy.
"It is Mises's great methodological work, explaining the basis of his approach to economics, and providing scintillating critiques of such fallacious alternatives as historicism, scientism, and Marxian dialectical materialism.... Austrian economics will never enjoy a genuine renaissance until economists read and absorb the vital lessons of this unfortunately neglected work."
Theory and History should be required for any student of 20th-century ideas.
Pardon the accusatory Subject line. Put it in positive terms: Mises has so clearly & devastatingly explained social process that one will never again have to wonder why our civilization faces the intense problems that challenge us, in civility, peace, individual fulfillment, & perhaps even in simple sanity. A work that may truly be described as magisterial, it nevertheless reads easily & directly. Mises derives today's major trends from the historical context of those founders of great ideas, sound & mistaken, that drive public consciousness today. It would, of course, be demeaning to us & to him to try to make a brief review encompass this great work. Suffice to say that he shows plainly & simply that studying humanity requires the sound development of theory as well as the gathering of facts. Not least, he reminds us that, as in the physical sciences, theory means the definition of natural laws, as a solid basis for interpreting facts.These apply, again, really, quite simply, to the confusion ascribed to economics, to the "scientific" inevitability of socialism, to psychological misinterpretations of history, & to many other topics propagated as truths. The Audible reading of this book does justice to the written work. One may prefer the Audible as a tonic for navigating through traffic, waiting interminably at airports or for appointments. For any young men or women contemplating the time & expense of a university education, they could do well for themselves to simply read/listen to Theory & History before making their decisions - because if they do undertake 4 undergraduate years, or more, they will be well-armed to deal with the horribly mistaken precepts offered to them by the majority of academics today. |
0.97429 | Your article (Revealed: One in four Europeans vote populist, 21 November) appeared hampered by the lack of any coherent definition of the term “populism”. Any term that can be stretched to incorporate Syriza and Fidesz is probably meaningless. “Populism” appears to in fact mean simply something popular that the liberal mainstream dislikes.
There are obvious reasons for the growth in support for the far right. In almost all cases, the failure of social democracy to protect its working-class base is at the root. The use of racism by parties of the mainstream, as a means to distract from class issues, is then picked up and given an anti-systemic orientation by far-right groups. These, though, only make use of a racist politics already in place, so as to establish within the body politic a “war of the poor against the poor”. There is also a too-often disregarded existential element to all this – that those fleeing poverty elsewhere serve to signal to the settled working class that they have nowhere to flee to. In the absence of coherent class-based alternatives, this becomes pitched as a battle for resources within the working class.
The solution to this, though, cannot be a retreat to the liberal status quo. Defending what Richard Alston recognised as a “punitive …callous” system rooted in deliberate immiseration can only be strategic surrender to the far right.
• Remainers might yet have cause to celebrate the UK’s severance from the EU. For some years now – a speculation hastened by the fall of Angela Merkel and encouraged by far-right successes in Italy, Hungary and elsewhere, with the spectre of a Le Pen France ever on the horizon – it has been far from impossible to imagine a fascist Europe that Britons might be profoundly glad to be separate from. This Europe could easily legislate in favour of deporting anyone that its politicians might deem not properly European.
The far right’s appeal is based on scapegoating, a timeless means of foiling proper thought, and there is never a limit to what and who can be scapegoated. It would be ironic if the tireless efforts of scapegoaters in Britain, such as Nigel Farage, led to a situation where the UK were to end up outside the jurisdiction of fellow scapegoaters in a Europe owned and dominated by the boneheaded simplicities and falsehoods of the far right.
• I am beginning to think the Guardian is living in two parallel universes. You reveal that one in four Europeans now vote for populist parties while continually and strongly advocating for the UK to remain in the EU. You must see that the two are connected. One of the main reasons that citizens all over Europe are deserting traditional centrist parties is the democratic deficit they feel as a result of the increasingly undemocratic liberalism that is at the heart of the EU. There is a cause and effect dynamic involved here that the Guardian should recognise and comment on.
• Your front-page lead on the new populism is excellent. The rise of mostly rightwing populist governments is truly alarming. It also shows no signs of ebbing. However, I must take issue with your inclusion of India in the countries further afield. I don’t think Modi fits in well with the others. He has a lifelong track record of being a party man in a political party that has been active since independence, and he has held senior positions in the Gujarat state government before becoming PM. In fact, he is not even the first prime minister from the BJP. His popularity rests on what the electorate perceived as his successful track record in power. The BJP is very much part of the elite, and although all political parties in India accuse the others, often with cause, of being corrupt, his campaign was against the dynasty that runs Congress and not against a national elite. I may add I am no supporter of the BJP and come from an opposite direction but the inclusion of India while excluding China makes little sense to me.
Get five political scientists in a room and you will get five different definitions of populism. Your article says “Populists tend to frame politics as a simple battle between overlooked ‘ordinary’ people and a corrupt, self-serving elite.” This is such a broad definition that it is little wonder you find 25% voted populist in Europe.
Many would wonder at Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia, four times leading the government of Italy, being described as “populist”. And why is Marine Le Pen’s National Rally described as “populist”, while Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche is not? Macron stood as an “outsider” to the main parties in 2017, with a party founded a few months earlier. And why is Syriza, a left social democratic party, described as “populist” yet Jeremy Corbyn’s massively expanded and transformed Labour party isn’t? Wouldn’t every self-respecting Corbynista agree with battling for the ordinary people against a self-serving elite?
To ask these questions shows that these broad definitions of “populism” are largely useless to analyse actual parties and movements. Worse, by throwing all these parties into one “populist” basket, it masks the really dangerous far-right and proto-fascist groupings growing across Europe. It is these that should be causing alarm.
• Your chilling, but hardly surprising, front-page revelation that one in four Europeans vote populist was long on excellent analysis, but lacked any solutions. Reversing this trend and its fallout, including Brexit, will require tackling the reasons for its rise, such as widespread concerns about inadequately controlled migration and the economic insecurity now rife among both the employed and unemployed. Tackling the latter will require spelling out a “project hope” agenda which reverses austerity and instead invests in the rebuilding of Europe’s social infrastructure, while also funding a massive green infrastructure programme for transforming the energy, energy-saving and transport systems continent-wide. Europeans should take inspiration from the US, where progressive new congresswomen and men are now pushing the Democrats into adopting just such a “Green New Deal”. They realise that a “jobs in every part of the country” programme is central to defeating Trump.
Here, Jeremy Corbyn could play a central role by capitalising on the present parliamentary chaos and asserting that Labour supports a people’s vote, but with the “remain and reform” agenda for Europe, similar to that he “campaigned” for in the run up to the referendum. Putting rebuilding local economies at the heart of such reform would gain support from leave-voting areas and could be a rallying call for those fighting rightwing populism across Europe. It could also have the domestic payoff of forming the core of Labour’s next and hopefully successful election manifesto, whenever required.
• So the Belgian far-right politician Michael Modrikamen “would have loved to have a godfather” in the person of Steve Bannon to help fund the forthcoming campaign in the EU parliament elections (Bannon plan for far right in Europe in disarray, 22 November). He could hardly have a chosen a better epithet. |
0.949973 | Melt the cocoa butter slowly in the saucepan until it is fully melted. Add the milk powder first and stir continually until it is fully dissolved. Add the confectioners' sugar and unsweetened cocoa �... The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough.
The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough.... The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough.
The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough. how to make spy gear with household items The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough.
The butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are placed in a saucepan and brought to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 90 seconds. Set a timer and keep track becasue the cookies might not set up right if you boil the mixture too long or not long enough. |
0.999999 | Can you explain some of the ebike battery lingo?
Voltage can be tricky to explain, the easiest way to think of it is as the pressure and strength of an electrical power source (think of it like water pressure in a hose). Generally speaking, the higher the voltage the better. This is because high voltages pass through wires and motors more efficiently. Usually electric bikes will have a voltage of between 12-36 volts, 12 volts will generally be the lowest you can find as anything less than that will just need to work overtime to get the bike up to the same speed. Electric bike voltage will increase up to around 36v on more powerful motors.
AMPs measure the volume or quantity of electric current that is available. To add to this definition, the flow of amps is called the current. The speed of flow of an electrical current is fixed and does not change. The higher the level of amps in a system, the thicker the wiring you will need to accommodate the level of electricity.
The wattage is considered the “power” of a system and is calculated by multiplying both the flow of amps (current) and voltage (pressure) together. The number of watts in a system is the important one, this is a large determinant of the level of power output available in the system.
This will depend on the type of riding you will be doing and the extent at which you will use your motor. Typically ebikes that will be used for hills will need more Watts that an ebike that will be used strictly on flat ground. If you want your motor for hilly areas you may want a motor with peak consumption of around 600 Watts or more. For flat terrain, a motor of 200 Watts may be enough.
Battery capacity is typically measured by the amount the amount of current it can supply over a period of time (amp/hours). But, in order to get the most accurate reading you will need to multiply this figure by the voltage to get watt/hours. The capacity reading on your battery should only be taken as indicative as the performance can differ depending on the conditions of use (temperature, battery age etc). If you will be using your ebike regularly and for longer distances, you should look for a battery with a capacity that falls at the higher end of the spectrum. |
0.999972 | Imagine a workplace that embodies the term "corporate wellness." What would a company like that look like? How much better would it perform? What skills and habits would its employees practice daily and how much more healthy, engaged, and productive would they be?
Great companies value and prioritize the health and well-being of their employees by creating a culture that inspires and nudges individuals towards healthy and mindful decisions. They understand that an environment that encourages healthy eating, exercise, and regeneration habits elicits improvements in employee engagement, satisfaction, and performance. Such organizations have less work hours lost due to illness and pain problems, and ultimately outperform and outlast their competitors.
Creating a dynamic, engaging, and health-conscious corporate culture starts with the health and performance of its individual members. From the C-Suite to the entry level employees, our state-of-the-art, scalable, and customizable Exercise and Nutrition Coaching Curriculum will ensure every individual in the organization is able to learn, and more importantly, practice eating and exercising optimally for health, productivity, and performance.
By combining our Nutrition Coaching Program and our Online Fitness Training Program you would be igniting a "workplace wellness revolution" and providing your organization with an incomparable competitive advantage. In addition, our coaches can help you incorporate various Group MSB Classes such as FRC mobility, Kinstretch, Metabolic Density, and Strength Training Classes as well as specific Wellness Workshops throughout the year.
We would love to sit down (or walk?) with you to discuss a corporate wellness strategy that fits your needs and circumstances and helps you transform your organization into a healthy, productive, and high-performance culture. |
0.999998 | Summarize recent rheumatology research findings.
A growing body of research is exposing the role of a certain protein found in the blood of people living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It’s called 14-3-3eta protein and there’s a simple blood test that measures the levels of the protein in the blood to help detect RA early, as well it determines how likely the disease will become aggressive. This knowledge is important in helping the rheumatologist (arthritis specialist) determine a course of treatment. In the spirit of the ACR Annual Meeting, which brings the combined knowledge of arthritis specialists everywhere to one location, ten studies related to this protein will be presented at the ACR event. |
0.909149 | Is it possible to bypass VAC ban? I'm just curious as I've seen people talk about this, but never seen a program / proof that this is possible to do.
everything is possible, you just gotta do research and see how it works.
I haven't done any research on VAC, but most likely it simply bans your game serial, so when you try to join a server with that serial, you get kicked.
from what i know, you can use packed editors to make server think you are not banned. For example in some older games, when server sent you a message "you're banned", but you modified your game client to ignore that message, then server still accepted the packets after that, still allowing you to join.
It's a lot of work and i don't think anyone would do this just for the fun of it and if they do, they wouldn't release it in public cuz it would get patched very fast.
VAC ban is same as any other ban, so i'm quite sure it bans your serial and that's it.
There are many ways to try and bypass any type of ban, but you need to know how to debug the game and its protocol and find out how the system works and then try to manipulate it. For example in some games you can steal somebody's "session id", like stealing cookies on websites and then use that, so you join as someone else, while still playing from your own account.
If game has specific check towards the serial, then i don't think you can unban yourself. For example like Wireless WPA2 authentication works with 4-way handshake, where you router sends you decrypted data and your client encrypts it with the key you provide, then you send the encrypted data back and router compares that data to the data it encrypted itself with the right key, so if they match, then router communicates with the client, however router always sends the encrypted files after that, so even if you make router think that you had right key (which doesn't happen), then you still get encrypted data which you can't decrypt. so check is done on the router side.
Same method is used in some games and websites, where check is made on server side and there's nothing you can do about it.
Ok, interesting. Yep, the ban apply straight to your Steam account. The game automatically blocks your communications with the online multiplayer game servers.
You cannot just "steal" someones session ID, am I right? You have to a website or something else to get their info, as use it yourself?
Well in most games, server always sees the necessary info, so if you host your own server, you can collect info. As far as i know, server has all the info necessary to join and play. Some games are so badly made, that they display the serial directly, however most games should have it encrypted and it shows as "session id", but it doesn't really matter, cuz if you can replicate that when joining, then server would think that someone else is joining.
On steam i'm sure it's difficult, but it's possible.
VAC scans the checksums of each important DLL / EXE file, so injecting something into dll or exe will still get you banned. VAC also scans for the .text area of .exe (it's where static instructions are kept), so modifying those will also get you banned.
Only VAC secure method i'm aware of, is to use pointer scans and then use 3rd party tool to find them and write your own value. I used Luigi's QuickBMS and one of his scripts he wrote for me to find and write values in memory. I found them with cheat engine, but CE is detected by VAC, so I used QuickBMS script to find the pointers and then write my values, such as like health to 99999 ..etc. It was a cmd script, so i minimized the game, ran the script and it did the thing within like 100ms or less and then closed, there's no way VAC would detect this.
but unbanning .. it wouldn't help.
Yeah, I see. Doesn't seem that it's the easiest thing to do, but I guess that there is always a way to do things with computers and software. |
0.919694 | Jack Guiney is no longer part of the Wexford Senior hurling squad, but team manager Davy Fitzgerald has not ruled out a return before completion of the championship campaign.
As Wexford step up their preparations this week for their Leinster championship opener with Dublin in Innovate Wexford Park on Sunday, May 20, Fitzgerald is confident of having a full squad to choose from.
Guiney, who returned to the hurling fold in November 2016, has been struggling with a knee injury for several months which curtailed him to a couple of league appearances as a substitute.
The new hurling championship format brings a barrage of games, a schedule that will test the fitness of the players, particularly Wexford who play on four consecutive weekends, opening with Dublin and then away to Offaly in O'Connor Park, Tullamore, the following weekend, two games that will have huge bearing on Wexford's prospects of advancing through to the knock-out stages.
'Jack (Guiney) is no longer part of the panel. Presently he is off the panel as he is struggling with his fitness levels. He has been carrying a knee problem for some months, which curtailed his training,' said the former Clare star.
Although he figured with his club, Rathnure, in their championship opening victory over Naomh Eanna, contributing 1-5 from placed balls, Fitzgerald is firmly of the belief that he is no way near inter-county fitness.
'Jack is not part of the panel. He has been four months out of serious training, the knee being slow responding to treatment, but it leaves him months behind the fitness levels of other players and what's required for inter-county hurling.
'He has been unable to train for months, so we decided to let him back to his club to have some game time with the hope he will continue treatment for his knee problem and return to full fitness.
'We have four championship games in the space of 21 days. Being honest with you a player carrying a long-term injury and being unable to train would have no place in such a fixtures schedule.
'There is no problem with the management. I have spoken with Jack this morning.
'We spoke of his injury and what's needed but even after the club championship game he did not feel right. He is now back with the club, but that's not to say he won't be back with us. Time will tell,' added Fitzgerald.
On the injury front, Fitzgerald is confident of having a fully fit squad for the championship opener.
'We return to full training this week. We will be easing Matthew (O'Hanlon) back into training having received a knee ligament injury against Kilkenny. David Dunne should be fully recovered from his ankle problem which forced him to miss recent club championship games. Colm Kehoe should also be back after a second hamstring strain, hopefully seeing some championship action,' said Fitzgerald. |
0.999995 | # Idiom: standard targets (all, clean, etc.) We want an `all` target that builds everything, but we also want a way to build individual components (say, everything in `rts/`). This is achieved by having a separate "all" target for each directory, named `all_`*directory*. For example in `rts/ghc.mk` we might have this: ```wiki all : all_rts .PHONY all_rts all_rts : ...dependencies... ``` When the top level **make** includes all these `ghc.mk` files, it will see that target `all` depends on `all_rts, all_ghc, ...etc...`; so `make all` will make all of these. But the individual targets are still available. In particular, you can say - `make all_rts` (anywhere) to build everything in the RTS directory - `make all` (anywhere) to build everything - `make`, with no explicit target, makes the default target in the current directory's stub `Makefile`, which in turn makes the target `all_`*dir*, where *dir* is the current directory. Other standard targets such as `clean`, `install`, and so on use the same technique. There are pre-canned macros to define your "all" and "clean" targets, take a look in `rules/all-target.mk` and `rules/clean-target.mk`. These targets also work for the libraries, eg `make all_libraries/ghc-prim_dist-install`. This target is parsed as make `all` in `libraries/ghc-prim` for the `dist-install` build. Some libraries also have a `dist-boot` build. In order for `make` to be able to find your new directory and apply the rules to it you need to add it to the `BUILD_DIRS` list in the top-level `ghc.mk`: ```wiki BUILD_DIRS += rts ``` Without this entry calling **make** will not allow it to find a `target` for the new entry. |
0.995363 | John Adams on "the great anniversary Festival"
I'm traveling this weekend, so it seemed like a good time to discuss a notable journey by a Revolutionary Bostonian: Dr. John Jeffries's balloon trip across the English Channel in 1785. For this feat, and an earlier balloon flight in Nov 1784, Jeffries is sometimes called the first American to fly.
Jeffries was an unusual Loyalist since his father, David Jeffries, was a Boston official, town treasurer for many years before and after the Revolution. John himself went to Harvard College, earned an M.A. in 1766, and then traveled to Scotland for a quick medical degree. Back in Boston in 1769, he started to practice under the wing of Dr. James Lloyd, an Anglican who was an old friend of the British general and politician Sir William Howe.
During the Boston Massacre trial, Drs. Lloyd and Jeffries both testified for the defense. They said they had heard one of the shooting victims, Irish sailor Patrick Carr, say that the soldiers had held off shooting longer than they would have in Ireland under the same provocation. This sort of hearsay testimony would probably not be allowed in trials today (except under the Bush-Cheney administration rules for special military tribunals). But the words of a dying man carried great weight in the culture of colonial America.
In the mid-1800s a story circulated in Boston that just after the Revolutionary War broke out Dr. Joseph Warren paddled a canoe over to the besieged town to meet Dr. Jeffries and try to convince him to join the provincial cause. The implication is that Jeffries was such a good doctor Warren was ready to risk being captured. I don't believe it. The only source on this secret two-man meeting must have been Jeffries himself since Warren had died in 1775. There's no contemporaneous evidence for it; indeed, Paul Revere remembered Warren as trying to discourage Dr. Benjamin Church from going into Boston, as I discussed in this article. When Jeffries returned to Boston after the war, he had to win over patients, and claiming the endorsement of the great, martyred Warren would have been a sharp way to do that.
What the record shows about Dr. John Jeffries at the start of the Revolution is that he sent his wife and children to England, left with the British military for Halifax in 1776, and then won a commission as Surgeon-General of the British forces in North America. A couple of years later, wanting a higher and more lucrative position, he set off for England.
Tomorrow: in Part 2, Dr. Jeffries goes to London.
Dying declarations are still exceptions to hearsay today, and I didn't appreciate the jab at our president and vp.
Yes, dying declarations are a form of hearsay evidence admitted under the Federal Rules of Evidence. There was a tradition of that in 1770 that has survived the Sixth Amendment guarantee that defendants be able to confront the witnesses against them.
There was some question in 1770 about whether Patrick Carr's statement was a dying declaration, however. According to Jeffries, his mentor Lloyd urged him to ask Carr about the shootings as soon as he started to treat the man. Jeffries probed, he said, and Carr answered that he thought the soldiers fired in self-defense. Jeffries kept asking the same questions, he said, and Carr kept answering the same. After more than a week, Carr died. Months later, Jeffries testified.
Did Carr believe he was about to die when he first said that the soldiers had fired in self-defense? At some point Jeffries and Lloyd told him his wound was mortal. Did those doctors, both Loyalists, hope to make Carr an exculpatory witness? Samuel Adams wrote that they did, and made other (largely weak) arguments that the evidence shouldn't have been admitted or credited.
The usual example of why dying declarations must be admissible in court involves a dying victim who identifies his or her killer and then is, of course, not available for cross-examination. But that model doesn't apply here since there was no question that the British soldiers fired the musket ball that killed Carr. The Massacre trial is an unusual example of the exception.
The soldiers' defense lawyers introduced Jeffries's testimony to make the case for self-defense. Under the rules of the time, they couldn't call the defendants themselves, but they had other, disinterested witnesses who could testify about the violent crowd. They probably chose Jeffries because he could present himself as speaking for Carr, and such testimony was unusually powerful in that culture.
As for the Bush-Cheney administration, on the day I posted this blog entry, the news came out (as reported in the link I provided) that its lawyers were continuing to insist on rules for trying alleged terrorists that follow neither standard US criminal law nor the rules of military tribunals. Military lawyers, who had been excluded from the rule-writing process, were objecting. Issues that echo across time are part of what makes history interesting and relevant. The Bush-Cheney administration could avoid criticism about unconstitutional measures by giving more respect to the Constitution.
I have two questions. Who did he marry? What were the names of his children?
Dr. John Jeffries married Sarah Rhoades in Boston about 1770. She died in London on 19 Jan 1780. They had three children: John, who died shortly after his birth in December 1772; a second John, born 17 Jan 1774 and died 5 Sept 1796 “at Paris, on his way to Russia”; and Ann, born 27 Aug 1775, married Samuel Brown in 1800, and died in 1807.
Dr. Jeffries married a second time in London on 8 Sept 1787 to Hannah Hunt, born there 4 Nov 1764. She died 27 Sept 1835 at Boston. Their children were: Harriet Maria, born 3 Dec 1788 and “smothered May 6, 1789”; George Jaffrey, born at Boston on 21 Dec 1789, married a woman from Baltimore in 1814, and died 4 May 1856; Robinson Ardesoif, born 7 Jan 1791 and “burnt to death February 24, 1796”; Edward, born 13 Feb 1792 and died 9 June 1813; Harriet Maria, born 26 Feb 1793 and died 20 Feb 1796; Eyre Massey, born 11 Sept 1794, died in South America 6 July 1826; a third John, born 23 Mar 1796 (before his older brother’s death), graduated from Harvard in 1815, got his M.D. in 1819, practiced in Boston 57 years, and died 16 July 1876; Catherine Matilda, born 23 May 1797, married a Portsmouth man, and died in 1859; Julia Ann, born 15 Nov 1800, married an Eckley in 1820, and died in 1874; and Sarah Augusta, born 21 June 1804, died in 1830.
That information is John Temple Lloyd Jeffries’s privately published family history, Jeffries of Massachusetts, 1658-1914. |
0.999999 | My French friend's mother has just died.
How do I write my condolences to her?
As it is such a sensitive topic, I do not want to risk getting it wrong.
If you wanted to say something like, 'I was so sorry to hear about the death of your mother, my sincerest condolences and my thoughts are with you'.
"Ça m'a fait beaucoup de peine d'apprendre la disparition de ton père, sincères condoléances et je suis de tout coeur avec toi/vous". |
0.99487 | What type of RVer are You?
There are different categories of RVer depending on their selected RV lifestyle. The four mentioned here serve as a guide to RVing.
Since the categories are based on the duration or amount of time per year that a person uses a Recreational Vehicle, this informal classification may overlap.
These are travelers using Recreational Vehicles with the intention of taking a short camping vacation over a weekend up to about a week, with more comfort than sleeping in a tent.
The vehicle used can be rented for such a short period.
This is the person who goes RV camping for a duration of one to six weeks, returning home after the vacation is completed. Far away friends or family members are often visited during these lengthier RV vacations.
The Recreational Vehicle used can also be rented for this longer period of traveling.
This is the individual who escapes the winter weather of northern latitudes every year to enjoy the clement weather of the south.
The snowbird normally resides in the Recreational Vehicle for a six month period and then returns home for the summer.
The RV is often parked at the residency location of the RV camper (a "brick and stick " home, possibly a cottage), when not in use.
This is the person who decides to live fulltime in a motorhome or camper trailer and makes it a permanent residence.
Either traveling constantly, being parked at one destination, or a combination of the two, most fulltimers are fully retired. However, more and more people are adopting this lifestyle to simplify their lives and work on the road.
Generally, RVers are considered full timers after one year of RVing. Some people in the RVing community would argue that a real "fulltimer" no longer owns a "brick and stick" home.
In North America, it refers to a mobile vehicle, motorized or towed, equipped with living space and other amenities found in a home and used for recreational purposes.
In other countries, the terms caravan and camper van are more common. As strange as it sounds, RVs are very mobile and differ from mobile homes which are trailers pulled once to a site in order to serve as a home. |
0.936595 | Are sports important for personal development?
1. Working as a team – While this may be the most obvious, it’s also one of the most important lessons I’ve learned from baseball.
The quicker you can mesh the strengths of others with yours, the better the overall end product will be.
Working as a team is reflected in relationships, marriages, sports, and particularly in business and life after sports. Leveraging individual strengths into a cohesive group where everyone works together toward accomplishing the same goal is much more beneficial and rewarding than having a group of individually minded players.
2. Strong work ethic - Work ethic is the foundation for anything in life.
You will find yourself in rewarding situations more often if you work hard and apply yourself regardless of outcome.
A strong work ethic comes from a deep down desire and drive within yourself to improve. This type of mindset is contagious and is very much recognized and appreciated by teammates and coaches.
3. Dealing with pressure - Often it’s the decisions we make under pressure that define who we are professionally and sometimes personally.
The pressure we place on ourselves to perform during a baseball game is not all that different than the stresses and pressure we may face every day in the real world. (I am not trying to compare a 0-21 slump to how you are going to make enough money to pay the rent).
But I do believe the lessons we learn from the pressures we deal with in baseball helps us to learn how to manage our emotions and improve our focus on whatever the immediate task at hand might be.
For example, when you are at the plate, you have to keep your mind on your hitting approach, and not be distracted by thoughts of what will happen if you don’t get a hit right then. Or if your mind wanders after hours of playing in the field without any action, inevitably it will be that moment that a laser line drive comes your way. In life, losing your focus or buckling under pressure creates different problems.
Pressure at work can affect your performance at work or at home, or a distracted moment at the wheel can lead to tragic consequences. This is why learning to deal with pressure in ways not controlled by your emotions or feelings is a valuable life skill. |
0.999968 | Premier Li Keqiang chose Switzerland and Germany as the only two European destinations of his first foreign trip since taking office in March. Why these two?
Switzerland is not in the European Union. In an op-ed published in a Swiss newspaper, Li said that he has several "important obligations to be fulfilled" during the trip.
First is a free-trade agreement between China and Switzerland, a deal that will make Switzerland the second European country, after Iceland, to have a free-trade agreement with China.
The agreement will certainly be welcome in Switzerland, especially by the country's watchmakers. China is Switzerland's largest trading partner in Asia, and Switzerland is China's seventh largest trading partner in Europe and the sixth largest European source of foreign investment.
Swiss products face an 11 percent tariff in China, and famous Swiss watches are hit with a 20 percent import tax. The mainland is the third largest market for Swiss watches, after the United States and Hong Kong. A recent campaign against corruption has affected the sales of Swiss watches in China, and means the free-trade agreement is a timely boost for the watch industry.
The deal's significance goes beyond Switzerland. Li's visit is set against the backdrop of the EU's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese exports of solar panels and telecoms equipments. Also, the EU has not recognized China as a market economy. Li said in his op-ed that "China will not stop opening to the outside and is determined to hold on to the multilateral trading system while promoting regional trade liberalization." Specifically, this trade agreement "sends a powerful message" that China rejects trade and investment protectionism, he wrote.
In addition to the free-trade agreement, Li said that strengthening exchanges and cooperation in the financial sector, and increasing mutual trust and understanding, are also his purposes. Switzerland was among the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with China, and one of the first European countries to recognize China's market economy status. Since 2008, Switzerland's policy towards China has become more practical, especially with its policy on Tibetans in exile.
In 1960, Switzerland started to accept Tibetans seeking refuge. Today it has more than 4,000 Tibetans, the largest number of any European country. The Dalai Lama has a representative office in Switzerland and has been received by Swiss officials many times. In August 2008, however, the Swiss government for the first time in ten years decided not to meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to the country. China's closer ties with Switzerland demonstrated the Chinese government's firm policy on its core issues.
Germany is the last leg on Li's first foreign trip. The two countries have enjoyed close cooperation and strong economic ties. Bilateral trade with Germany accounts for one-third of total China-Europe trade. Direct investment from Germany to China is about one-quarter of the European total.
In September 2012, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited China, German officials said Sino-German ties were special, a term usually used only between countries sharing values and ideologies, such as the United States and Britain. Given China and Germany's differing political systems and ideology, the wording tells us a lot about how strong the economic linkages and consensus are. But how special are the ties?
First, the two economies are complementary. Germany needs a market and China needs technology. While the euro crisis is still unfolding, China has taken advantage of a weak euro and invested heavily in Germany. In 2012, a total of 15 German companies merged with or were acquired by Chinese companies, including construction equipment maker Sany's merger with Putzmeister and Lenovo's purchase of electronics producer Medion.
Moreover, both the Germans and Chinese share a preference for a high rate of savings and investment in the real economy. These linkages and similarities lead to good will. Merkel voiced her objection to the anti-dumping investigation into Chinese exports, and the country's economic minister, Philipp Rosler, said the European Commission's decision to impose punitive import duties on Chinese products is a "grave mistake."
To some extent, Li's visit is a returning of this support. With this solid foundation and the opportunity offered by China's urbanization, there will certainly be more room for Sino-German relations to grow.
By choosing to visit a practical, non-EU country and a heavyweight in the union, Li is setting up two models China can use to work with countries within and without Europe's borders. |
0.968241 | This paper identifies the globally stable conditions under which an individual facing the same choice in many subsequent times learns to behave as prescribed by the expected-utility model. To do so, the analysis moves from the relevant behavioural models suggested by psychology (i.e., weighted probabilities applied to regret and rejoice theory), and by updating probability estimations and outcome preferences according to the learning models suggested by neuroscience (i.e., adaptive learning aimed at reducing surprises), and analogous to Bayesian updating. The search context is derived from experimental economics, whereas the learning framework is borrowed from theoretical economics. Analytical results show that obstinate and lucky individuals are better off in the short-run (i.e., a low density of events in the reference period), but they do not learn, and this is true to a greater extent in a simple context; in contrast, reactive and unlucky individuals are worse off in the short-run, but they learn and are better off in the long-run (i.e., all individuals are equally lucky or unlucky), and this is true to a greater extent in a complex context. The expected-utility model explains real behaviours in the long-run whenever unlucky events are more likely than lucky events. |
0.999975 | Chlorine accepts the electron and its oxidation state resultat concours infirmier vichy is reduced.
28 Finally, reaction 3 is favorable because it describes the proliferation of OH ions thus tirage au sort de la coupe du monde 2014 letting a probable reduction of H ions less favorable an option.The standard-state half-cell potential for the reduction of Ag ions is approximately.800 volt.Reduction: 2 H.An electric circuit is formed as passage of electrons and ions occurs, thus if an electrolyte is present it will facilitate oxidation, explaining why rusting is quicker in salt water.For example, when atomic sodium reacts with atomic chlorine, sodium donates one electron and attains an oxidation state.The polarity of the standard electrode potential provides information about the relative reduction potential of the electrode compared to the SHE.11 In 1832, Michael Faraday 's experiments led him to state his two laws of electrochemistry.Standard electrode potential edit Main article: Standard electrode potential To allow prediction of the cell potential, tabulations of standard electrode potential are available.
The emf of the cell at zero current is the maximum possible emf.
But it doesn't tell us anything about the absolute value of the reducing power for either zinc metal.
Since the free energy is the maximum amount of work that can be extracted from a system, one can write: 23 G n F E c e l l displaystyle Delta G-nFE_cell A positive cell potential gives a negative change in Gibbs free energy.Practice Problem 2: Use the overall cell potentials to predict which of the following reactions are spontaneous.This forces the structural metal to be cathodic, thus spared corrosion.An atom or ion concours expertise comptable tunisie that gives up an electron to another atom or ion has its oxidation state increase, and the recipient of the negatively charged electron has its oxidation state decrease.(EPA estimates that 85 of the PCB loading to Mass Bay comes from atmospheric deposition.) trac's P2 plan is expected to focus on cooperative efforts to find groundwater sources to the mwra sewer and a sampling program to ensure that potential commercial and industrial sources.The Nernst equation can be used to calculate the potential of a cell that operates at non-standard-state conditions.Rather than permit these facilities individually, trac is working with these facilities and the companies that supply the corrosion control agent to switch to an agent that does not contain molybdenum.
Water doesn't decompose into hydrogen and oxygen spontaneously as the Gibbs free energy for the process at standard conditions is about 474.4.
The decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen can be performed in an electrolytic cell. |
0.999958 | Cellulosic biofuel developer Iogen has been pursuing the second-generation biofuel for a number of years, but experienced setbacks after pulling the plug on previously planned facilities in the U.S. and Canada. The company has since partnered with Raízen Group for a plant in Brazil and is now considering new plant sites in North America. On Tuesday, OPIS spoke with Iogen President and CEO Brian Foody to get his thoughts on where the company is headed and what challenges lie ahead of the industry.
OPIS: In April 2012, Iogen announced plans to refocus its strategy with Shell by cutting 150 jobs and said it would not pursue plans for a commercial cellulosic plant in southern Manitoba. Meantime, in October 2012, Raízen Group announced it was committing an initial investment to jointly develop a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in Brazil with Iogen, while in January, Novozymes acquired Iogen Bio-Products, the industrial enzyme business of Iogen. Given these announcements, what is Iogen's current near and long-term strategy for the company?
Foody: Our focus is on cellulosic ethanol. We've got one of the world's largest and most experienced teams in the field. We're developing, designing, debugging and scaling up and deploying this technology. We have a great group of people and we intend to use our knowhow to drive a successful commercial cellulosic biofuel business.
We have three near-term strategies: First is to make our program with Raízen a success; second is to differentiate and distinguish our technology; and third is to develop a commercial path for cellulosic ethanol outside Brazil.
On the Raízen front, we have a substantial program with them to advance our technology. They have said their goal is to have a 10-million gal/yr plant operational in 2014 at a cost of roughly $100 million and eight plants operational by 2024. That is what we are working towards.
In terms of differentiating our technology, we are working towards delivering high yield and high performance elements of the technology. We're optimistic about pushing overall yields to cellulosic up substantially and making other improvements that are important to the deployment of the technology, like reducing overall water requirements.
In developing a commercial pathway outside of Brazil, we're principally looking at developments in the U.S. and particularly in converting corn ethanol facilities to cellulosic biofuel production. We believe there are ways to repurpose those assets to generate substantially extra value.
Longer term, we really appreciate that this is going to be a great and huge industry. We're not going to get there without operating through alliances and partnerships and forming effective strategic partnerships is going to be a core element to seeing our technology grow.
OPIS: What is the status of Iogen's 1-million gal/yr cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Ottawa? Does it still use wheat straw as its main feedstock? Are there plans to expand production at the demo plant? What has it taught Iogen since being in operation in 2004?
Foody:The facility is operational, although we run it in campaigns to target different feedstocks. The plant is multi-feedstock, so it runs on wheat straw, corn stover and most recently bagasse to support our work with Raízen. Over the years, we have made a huge commitment to its operation. We went through all of the tough work to get high reliability running 24/7 operations over many months.
We worked through all sorts of bugs. ... I feel like we built a whole wealth of knowhow in nine years of operation, together with 300 patents. That is really going to put us in a super position to manage scale up effectively and address operating problems.
OPIS: Are there plans to expand production at the demo plant?
Foody: I think we're not going to be expanding production. The demonstration plant is like a very high fidelity process-testing system and a fairly expensive system. It really allows one at quite substantial scale to test out and run operations.
OPIS: A handful of years ago, Iogen had been planning to build its first commercial-scale plant in Idaho, however plans were scrapped in 2008 after it appeared that the U.S. grant process was taking much longer than expected. Does Iogen have any plans to again focus on the U.S. market? If not, what would be needed to make the U.S. market attractive?
Foody: In terms of what has changed, we're going to be operating from a base of proven commercial technology with large scale. The work we did with the U.S. government initially was on helping to finance the first commercial plant and we will have put that together with Raízen. America is really the key place developing renewable transportation fuels. We are looking at a number of locations.
We have actually done a lot of work in terms of sourcing feedstocks in different sites around the U.S. We've developed a template for collecting feedstocks because we think feedstock security will be critical to the commercial deployment. We put together an approach for building a feedstock supply chain and actually assembled contracts to acquire roughly 2.8 million tons/yr of cereal straw and corn stover over the years. Our organization is well experienced in the U.S. We think we will have passed a critical milestone with the technology proven at commercial scale to be able to deploy effectively in the U.S.
OPIS: What are Iogen's timelines for U.S. plants and general plant production capacity?
Foody: We're looking at matching to existing corn ethanol plants. That's in the 100 to 115 million gal/yr range. We are looking at converting corn ethanol plants to make cellulosic biofuel. In terms of timelines, it's fair to say we're beginning to look at sites and the overall timeline will depend on how our own work develops on the commercial front and with partners.
OPIS: Iogen has been in the biofuels business for a long time. What do you see as the biggest barriers for why first and second generation biofuels are experiencing challenges in the marketplace and how they can be overcome?
Foody: Let's distinguish between first- and second-generation biofuels. For second-generation, obviously the biggest challenge has been to get commercial plants out the door and rolling, including ourselves with Raízen. We have now five groups pursuing commercial-scale enzyme based cellulosic ethanol. That's a multi-billion dollar industry-wide commitment. In that sense, I feel like the challenge of three or four years ago has been met with really quite huge investments. The challenge in the future is to ensure those plants deliver reliable, cost effective production and then to deploy the technology. Those are the keys for second-generation biofuels.
For first-generation biofuels, I think almost by any measure, it's been a huge success, delivering something like 10% of the U.S. gasoline volume. The price of ethanol is well below gasoline. The challenges are associated with the blendwall and from an investor perspective, with the play in pricing between corn and gasoline and then excess capacity they have now. From a U.S. perspective, we have an industry that has done every bit of what it has promised.
OPIS: What is the cost per gallon estimate on the planned plants in the U.S. and with Raízen?
Foody: We expect the plant in Brazil is going to be a profitable commercial venture and we expect the plants we build in North America to do the same. As for detailed prices, those are sometimes site specific or dependent on scale. I don't want to get into the debate of my number is cheaper than the other guy's number. It turns into a game of liar's poker.
However, I think that generally people would be targeting to be below $3/gal, with capital costs below $5 an annual gallon.
OPIS: Petro-Canada has been a long-time sponsor and supporter of Iogen. Has that helped make inroads in the petroleum community in Canada? Would you suggest similar partnerships between U.S. biofuel and petroleum interests?
Foody: I see all sorts of partnerships in the future that will strengthen our industry. That includes alliances between technology developers, biofuel producers and the oil industry players. I think our alliances with PetroCanada and Shell have really helped us in that way. I also think we're going to see horizontal alliances within the industry to deliver stronger and more integrated technology platforms. We have a lot of players in this industry committing a lot of money. The truth is good ideas are spread among them. We probably will see some degree of, I hope, constructive consolidation.
OPIS: Can you elaborate on horizontal alliances?
Foody: Think of two of the companies developing biofuels teaming up together to delivery better technology. The obvious choice is POET and DSM.
OPIS: Will there also be consolidation in the advanced biofuels space?
Foody: I think there will be. I am not sure how it will be deployed, but in the advanced biofuels space, even for enzyme cellulosic ethanol, we're going to have five groups driving forward with plants and another three or four queued up to do the same thing later. Eight technology platforms is a huge number and then if you go to other people making cellulosic ethanol or advanced biofuels, you're talking about a dozen separate technology platforms. I think ultimately there won't be a dozen exclusively successful platforms, even though these platforms have seen hundreds of millions in investment. I think we may see some consolidation among them. ... I don't think any reasonable person would expect we'll see 12 separate technology platforms moving forward in a decade.
OPIS: While there have been numerous challenges in the U.S. to meet our RFS, Canada's version doesn't seem to have as many snags. Why is that and do you believe any changes should be made to the U.S. RFS?
Foody: On cellulosic biofuels, there's no doubt that the financial crisis delayed investment in plants. It's been a challenge to bring forward good, working technologies. But as I said earlier, we now have a number of really strong groups driving commercialization. Whether they will be able to deliver the kind of growth envisioned in the RFS, I don't know. But I think America and America's policymakers should feel really good about the signal that the RFS has given to advanced biofuel. A lot of private sector money has been to deliver on the promise.
OPIS: There are some major differences between the Canadian and U.S. versions of the RFS, mainly that Canada's version doesn't have specific renewable volume obligation buckets for each type of biofuel. Did that cause any complications?
Foody: I am a great proponent of the U.S. RFS. I was involved in its development. I think the different RVO [renewable volume obligation] buckets are a central feature to providing the policy signal that has got the investment going in cellulosic biofuel and I think the divisionary targets are what are growing the business tremendously. If we went back to RFS1, we wouldn't have nearly the investment we have in corn ethanol or cellulosic ethanol.
OPIS: Do you support expanding Canada's RFS to include different RVO buckets?
Foody: The truth is, we have not been highly engaged in the Canadian market. I certainly would support expanding the mandate. One of the things Canada has done is put in place a system for helping first commercial plants through Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) funding. That was very helpful to us, although ultimately we are pursuing something in Brazil. But it would be helpful to other companies.
From what Canada should do, when you argue policy issues, you have to look at the interests of what the recipient or the country at hand is. Canada is in quite a different situation than the U.S., as a net energy exporter. One of the things we do have issues with is the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our petroleum sector. That has been a debate that has had an impact on the approval of pipelines and on the access of oil produced in Canada to serve markets in the U.S. To the extent that Canada was looking at stepping up its RFS, I would think the most practical thing would be to link it to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its own petroleum sector. I really think when you look at public policy at its core, it's not about helping industry, but about helping the people of the country achieve things that are important to the country.
When people look at corn ethanol and look at the problems with RIN prices, it is certainly clear corn ethanol is having to face up to its success and deal with the blend wall. But from my perspective, the RFS is operating exactly how it was designed to. It is giving an incentive to the most cost effective renewable fuels to come into the mix. The rise in D6 RIN prices is making E85 a very economic choice. ... This whole thing is going to provide all sorts of opportunity for the drop-in options that can come into place without any infrastructure issue. May the best man win, but what we have here is a well-functioning regulatory system that is providing a signal that we need to overcome infrastructure barriers and it is not doing it in a command and control way.
It's doing it in a way that the market is going to make the right choice and give America access to the vast quantities and cost effective renewable made fuel.
OPIS: Did Iogen seek any SDTC funding?
Foody: We did file for SDTC funding. It is a fine organization and they did not hold us up at all. The truth of the matter was what held us up was the cost essentially. In Western Canada, where we were building, is a very high construction cost market because of the success of oil sands. And for better or worse, we were pursuing a greenfield design, which is intrinsically more expensive, especially if you're doing a bit of a smaller scale commercial plant.
It just became too costly for it to be appropriate. I think our switch to Brazil was in that respect, very successful.
OPIS: Would Iogen support a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) in Canada?
Foody:I would be very happy to see an LCFS measure in Canada. Canada has a very difficult issue in dealing with greenhouse gas emissions of oilsands production.
The country very much wants to have a globally green profile and its oilsands have greater greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. I think the country is seeking to find the best way to achieve reduced emissions and you might do it as an LCFS. You might do it through an RFS that has a tiered [greenhouse gas emission reduction] structure the way the U.S. system does. A lot depends on what gets through the push and pull of what's going in the country. My own guess is that an LCFS would be hard to sell through Canada ... but the engagement of the people in the oilsands is an important part of making it a success.
OPIS: Is Iogen also looking at building plants in Canada?
Foody: I think there are a lot of opportunities in Canada, as well as the U.S. for construction. I do think the RFS makes a natural market for ethanol and cellulosic ethanol. I think as this industry builds, you'll probably see a more continental energy policy in respect to renewable fuels. ... There are some great opportunities in Canada.
OPIS: What are the timelines for plants in North America?
Foody: A crucial thing for us is the scale up and operation of our facility with Raízen. We are now looking at sites and where and how we would deploy it. But I don't think those deployments will start until the Raízen facility is up and operating next year. The timeline will be driven by our success.
OPIS: Do you regret any "roads not taken" by Iogen since your leadership began in 1982?
Foody: I must say, it's hard to look back a long distance, but I have one that in some ways I think about it all the time. In my view, we really should have shifted our focus to Brazil two or three years earlier than we did. The economics and the opportunities for doing cost effective scale up there are just really compelling and instead, we spent too much time developing a greenfield plant in a very high-cost environment, and that led us to the setback that cost 150 people their jobs. It's a huge regret for me. If I revisit anything, the roads not taken would have been to have more aggressively pursued the relationship with Raízen at an earlier date. I think we could have been three years faster and would not have to have taken so many people through such a wrenching time. |
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