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The Four-Step Process for Effective Technical Interviews
Wednesday Dec 23rd 2015 by Robert Reselman
Learn the finer points on how, and how not, to interview a prospective employee.
Technical interviews are the arduous rite of passage into a job. Although there is a growing trend in which a candidate is hired on résumé and testing alone, with no human intervention involved, most companies still want the bodies in the room. That's the good news. The bad news is that many technical interviews lack a clarity of intention: Why are you interviewing someone and what do you want to know?
Let's be honest. If you're the hiring manager, you want to know two things:
1. Can the person in front of me be trusted to do what we want him or her to do?
2. Is the person in front of me going to get along with others?
If you are an engineer, you most probably you want to know two things also:
1. Does the person in front me know his or her stuff?
2. Can I work with this person?
That's what it boils down to. A good technical interview process is comfortable, informative, and revealing in terms of the questions I listed above. You want to know as much about a candidate as you can, as quickly as you can, so you can make a wise hiring decision.
Thus, to help things along a little, I offer the Four-Step Process for Effective Technical Interviews. These steps are:
1. Do your homework.
2. Have a conversation.
3. Do something together.
4. Have a group interview at the end.
Allow me to elaborate.
1. Do Your Homework
A good technical interview process is one in which you know a lot about the candidate before he or she walks through the door. At interview time, you have a good idea what a person knows and has done. The interview is the time when you find out who the person is. This means doing your homework.
What does the homework look like? It's about getting as much relevant information as you can about the person before he or she walks to through the door. That information becomes part of the candidate's profile packet. Get code samples from GitHub. Look up the candidate on LinkedIn. Distribute the candidate's résumé to relevant parties at least 24 hours beforehand. Also, provide evidence of the candidate's competency to you before he or she comes in for the formal interview.
My practice is to describe a technical problem in writing, a problem that is within the scope of competency that is required for the position in question. Have the candidate provide a written response to the problem.
For example, if you are looking at a candidate who will be doing a lot of architecture work, provide a problem description that includes the technical issue at hand, the business case surrounding the problem, as well as the financial considerations in play.
Read the response very closely. As they say on the terrain, you can see a lot by watching. Of course, you want to look at the technical feasibility of the response. Also, look at the clarity of the writing as well as the thought given to the business issues at hand. Again, you want to know as much about the candidate as possible beforehand.
As I mentioned earlier, distribute the résumé as early as possible. My style is review the résumé carefully beforehand, not in front of the candidate. Why? Because in my opinion, it's a showing of respect. Having a résumé before me as I talk to someone is a sign of lack a preparation and creates a dynamic of dominance. Why should I have the candidate's résumé and he or she not have mine? Now, if you want to have a dynamic of dominance in which I, the interviewer, had more information than you, the interviewee, that's fine. But, that's not my style. I do my homework and then I….
2. Have a Conversation
A conversation is an exchange of ideas. An interrogation is an extraction of information. During the formal interview process, I prefer to have a conversation with a candidate. It's the easiest way to achieve my objective: to find out how the candidate thinks and if I can work with him or her. The "does the person know his or her stuff" is determined as part of the homework we did. No way I am going to learn the breadth of someone's knowledge in a 30 minute exchange. But, I can learn about his or her character.
I have come to discover that it really doesn't matter what the subject at hand is. We can talk about baseball; we can talk about concurrent programming; we can talk about music. The essence of the person will come through no matter what the subject is. But, you may ask, "I need to understand this person from a technical point of view. How can get an understanding?" Which leads to….
3. Do Something Together
Usually, during the conversation part of the interview process, I will ask the candidate to help me solve a problem I am having, a real problem, not something I've made up for some Technical Interview Exercise. Let's face it, all of us in the tech game have at least one technical problem on our plate at any given time. My style is to invite the candidate to help me solve mine. Nothing beats real stuff in the real world.
I have found that working together to solve a problem is where the rubber meets the road. Does the candidate have the communication skills to get the information from me necessary to pursue a mutual collaboration? Can I respond is a way that is relevant and comfortable to the candidate? Does a mutual enthusiasm develop? Is the candidate accepting and encouraging when I reveal that I have lack of understanding in a given area? Am I accepting and encouraging? Are we on our way to solving the problem in a meaningful, useful way? Are we having fun?
To use a musical analogy: Two people can talk about music all day long, but the real test of artistic compatibility is each picking up the instrument and playing together.
More than once, I've been able to solve a technical problem I am having because of an experience I've had during a collaboration with a job candidate. There is little downside to having a collaborative experience with another human being, regardless of whether or not the candidate gets the job.
4. Have the Group Interview at the End
I'll share a secret with you, I am not a big fan of group interviews. Unless you are interviewing a candidate who will be doing a lot of presentations to groups of people, I find that group interviews to be of questionable value. Fifty per cent of the time is spent actually interviewing the candidate. Another fifty per cent is spent with each attendee posturing for the others in the group.
Yes, there is a good argument to be made that you can't determine how a candidate will contribute to a group's dynamic until the person is actually in the group. If that is the case, have the candidate interview with the group at the end of the day, after he or she has had individual time with each member. At that point, the candidate will have a chance to get to know each member as an individual and as a group member. All parties will have a better read of the situation during and after the group interview.
Also, putting off the group interview has an added benefit: saving time. By the end of the day you will have a good idea if you want to move forward with the candidate. If not, you can bring the interview process to a graceful close and avoid tying up a lot of people's time for little benefit.
Putting It All Together
The reality is that you never really know if you've made the right hiring decision until a time well after the interviews have taken place, the offer has been made, and the candidate is on payroll doing work. It's a crap shoot. But, you can put the odds in your favor when you engage in a technical interview process that allows you to make a hiring decision that is based on real world, collaborative experience coupled with accurate information gathered beforehand.
The Four Steps described above are a step in this direction. Take what you like. Adapt the the steps to meet your needs. Hopefully, my contribution will save you time and provide a way for you to find just the right person to hire.
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Friendship: Mental Vitamins
Do you have one of those friends where you can go months without talking to or seeing each other, but still think about them often? Maybe you send a funny text every once in awhile or comment on their Facebook post. Then you get really lucky, the stars and planets align and you finally get to meet her for coffee. Like in the flesh where REAL hugs and LOLs can be exchanged. After you have taken 20 minutes to order that triple venti non-fat latte because you were too busy talking 100 miles an hour, you get to sit down and really talk. And laugh (a lot.) And probably complain about your current woes. But basically, you can just pick up where you left off the last time you saw each other. You don’t judge one another for not having been “a better friend” and simply take each other for who we are, flaws, busy lives and all…and mostly that “all” is some really awesome stuff. And life is good. The crappy stuff just doesn’t seem quite as crappy anymore.
Well, today I was extra lucky and got to have coffee with a friend I had not seen for months. Mentally I feel like I just took a handful of vitamins! You see, she filled me up. I like to think that my glass is usually pretty full, or at least two thirds full. But then my kids come and knock it over (jerks!) And who gets to mop it up? Yeah. Me. And of course that cup had the last of my favorite drink in it and it probably got all over their homework (which I told them 20 times to pick up off the table and put in their backpack already fer fucksake!!) *Sigh.* Then I sit there with an empty cup, soggy papers and probably an extra load of laundry to do. And then grumble some extra profanity to make myself feel better.
And even though I go to Target a million times a week, I somehow always forget to buy more of that favorite beverage of mine. I always manage to remember all the random shit my kids politely request (demand) and usually 20 other things I have good intentions to cook up into some delicious meal EVERYONE will love…(Hahahaha! Even I couldn’t type that with a straight face!! Why is it Target makes me feel like my family’s nutritional Nirvana is actually achievable? Maybe it’s the heady excitement of saving 5% with my Red Card and doubling down on the savings with Cartwheel. Or maybe Target pumps in extra oxygen like a Vegas casino to get you to spend more money.)
Sorry. I digressed there. Where was I? Oh yeah my empty cup. Why is it as moms/wives/sisters/daughters we rarely make our needs just as important as our family’s? It’s really stupid when you think about it. Would you let your best friend neglect themselves like that? Hells no! And why do we think that our husbands and kids would ever hold some good self-care against us? (Okay, maybe if they’re being super assholeish that day they might…but glass full. GLASS FULL!)
Life has been full of challenges lately, and I had been isolating myself from my friends. Whether that was to wallow in self-misery or protect them from catching any of my crap as if it were headlice, I don’t know. I was a cranky wife and mom and somehow my family didn’t institutionalize me. But lately I’ve been trying a lot harder to get out there and be a friend. To others AND to myself. And you know what? It’s pretty f’ing awesome. Am I the perfect, patient, ever-loving person I aim to be? He’ll no. But I’m trying. Really. I am.
So. The point of this post is to thank all of my friends who put up with my neglect and take me for who I am — drama, insanity, bitchiness and all — and still manage to like me anyway. Thank you. And I want all of you, dear readers, to pledge along with me: we will do a better job of taking care of our friends, and thereby ourselves. Let’s call it the circle of happiness.
One comment
1. Meghan · November 2, 2017
Bottoms up! Meaning I’ll drink to that. Not, the minions turning the bottom up thus causing the catalytic cycle of mess, mop, laundry and bleep-bleep-bleeps. Lol. Love you. Let’s meet soon.
Liked by 1 person
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As designed by the syndication partners, all advertising is a push communication and will sit in a queue until the system picks up the promotion. What this means it may take a few hours to start to propagate through out the internet. Each service that subscribes to the communication will pick this advertisement up on their own timeline. Some as soon as a few hours and some as slow as a day latter.
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Sunday, July 17, 2011
I am no longer a Stampin' Up! demonstrator
Sadly, I am no longer a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Due to work schedules and now a deployment, I was not able to maintain my status as a demonstrator. I still love SU! products, and if you are looking for demonstrator, I can refer you to some awesome people, just email me at:
It will most likely be a long while before I can get crafty again, but as soon as I am able to, I'll start posting again. Here's a little view into my world right now:
Thanks for visiting the site!
1. Dawn, just saw your post and saw you were deployed. Are you still in the states? Thinking of you!
Barb aka snowmanlover!
1. Hey Barb. I just now saw your comment. I was in Afghanistan, but now I'm home. :)
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The Too-Big Very Large Dictionary
Have you ever wondered who decides what words are included in the dictionary? Is there some secret society of Masonic librarians that is the keeper of the linguistic units? Merriam-Webster’s covey of word keepers recently made a few additions to their collection.
Some of their new inclusions are so overused in the media that there is no choice but to make them official. For example, IED (improvised explosive device), a joint creation of CNN and the Department of Defense, is mentioned in almost every newscast on television. Others, like Bollywood, have such accepted use in pop culture that they make the cut.
Sponsored Message
Then there are the more fun new words like ginormous. It’s even fun to say. I’m sure the word originated from American society where big is never big enough and where our laziness means that really, really big takes too long to say. And don’t forget crunk. I don’t know what it means, but I like to say it. I guess I can look it up.
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Along with these practical and fun words are some that I can’t imagine having any useful purpose outside of tormenting young spelling bee contestants. Take nocebo for example. This refers to a placebo that when taken by a patient is associated with harmful effects because of the patient’s negative expectations. While I’m sure that this is important to some in the medical community, I’m also sure this will be the first and last time I will ever use that word.
Every year the good people at Webster’s add more entries to their dictionary. But are their motives all good, or is it a plot to sell more dictionaries? Obviously they have not considered the negative impacts the new words have on society. For one, spell-check doesn’t recognize the new words, forcing people to use the latest model of the dictionary.
Meanwhile, the dictionary keeps getting fatter and fatter by the year. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary contains over 214,000 definitions. And not once do I recall hearing about a word being retired. This is highly inefficient and irresponsible. It’s time we trim the fat. We could get by just fine with 1500 words.
How do we do it? First we put a 10-year moratorium on new words. This will stop the expansion. Then we implement a synonym eradication program. This effort alone will reduce the word count by thousands. And finally we retroactively remove all new words that have been added over the past 10 years. Then maybe the dictionary won’t be so ginormous.
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More from Bill Breedlove
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Babies, Family
300+ Unique Yoruba Girl Names and Their Meaning
I don’t know about you but I love native names. As a Yoruba girl, I find Yoruba names so sweet and beautiful. My first name is Olubunmi and my middle name, which I chose by myself at baptism, is Mabel. I was only thirteen then. Maybe I’d have chosen a Yoruba name if I’d known better. I hope there’s no law that states that one must choose an English name for baptism. Maybe a biblical name, yeah, but Mabel isn’t even in the Bible. LOL.
Anyway, I love my name, Mabel, and a lot of people know me as Mabel. I love its meanings- beautiful, loving, lovable. Awwnnn. So sweet! Forget the fact that I didn’t know the meaning when I chose it. Thank God it’s something that describes me so perfectly and something positive too. I guess I was lucky. Don’t judge me, please. I didn’t have access to the internet then unlike now. That is why I don’t expect anyone to make such a mistake now. Not with the present unlimited access to the internet.
Unfortunately, some parents give their babies names without knowing the meaning of such names. I’ve witnessed this before, so I’m not exaggerating.
I’m showing my kindness by making available cute Yoruba girl names for those who want to give their baby girls Yoruba names or those who want to change their names or adopt Yoruba names for themselves. What’s there not to love about Yoruba girl names? They’re so sweet to the ears and they carry very deep meanings.
As much as I love the name Mabel, I love being called Bunmi more. I kinda feel that those who call me Bunmi are those who really know me and are very close to me. My family calls me Bunmi, and my husband too, except when he teases me by calling me OluMabel. LOL.
I believe this list of Yoruba girl names will guide parents in choosing cute and meaningful names for their baby girls because some names we hear these days are cringeworthy. I understand that parents have the right to give their children whatever names they desire but that doesn’t mean they should throw caution into the wind. I don’t understand why parents should name their children ‘tithes’ and ‘offering’. Like seriously?
Please don’t give your children names that will make them to be objects of bullying and mockery in school and anywhere.
Below is the list of Yoruba girl names and their meaning. Some are the ones I’ve heard from others and others are my coinage. You should pay for my creativity but…don’t worry…I gat you.
Yoruba Girl Names and Their Meaning
Aanuoluwapo (The mercy of the Lord is abundant)
Aarinola (The centre of wealth)
Abiodun (Born into celebration)
Abidemi (Born before my arrival)
Abisodun (Born into celebration)
Abimbola (Born to meet wealth)
Abimbare (Born into goodness)
Abiola (Born into wealth)
Abisola (Born into wealth)
Abisoye (Born into royalty)
Adebanke (The crown helps to pamper me)
Adebare (Crown meets goodness)
Adebare (We came into goodness)
Adebola (Crown meets wealth)
Adebola (We meet wealth)
Adedamola (Crown mix with wealth)
Adedamope (Crown mix thanks)
Adedire (Crown becomes goodness)
Adedola (Crown becomes wealth)
Adedoyin (Crown becomes honey)
Ademidun (My crown is sweet)
Adedun (Crown is sweet)
Adenike (The crown has care)
Aderinsola (Crown walked into wealth)
Aderonke (Crown has something to pamper)
Adesola (Came into wealth)
Adesire (Came into goodness)
Adeola (Crown of wealth)
Adesewa (Beauty of crown)
Adewunmi (I desire crown)
Adetutu (Crown is patient)
Adunoluwa (The sweetness of God)
Adunola (The sweetness of wealth)
Adunife (The sweetness of love)
Afopefoluwa (We give thanks to the Lord)
Aduramigba (My prayer is answered)
Adurapemi (Prayer profits me)
Adunade (The sweetness of crown)
Amiifeoluwa (The sign of God’s love)
Ayomi (My joy)
Ayobami (Joy meets me)
Ayomikun (My joy is full)
Ayomipe (My joy is complete)
Ayomitide (My joy has come)
Anjolaoluwa (We are enjoying the goodness of God)
Aridunnuomo (A child of joy)
Aramide (My family is here)
Araloluwa (God is awesome)
Araoluwa (The wonders of God)
Ariyike (Someone to care for)
Ayooluwa (The joy of the Lord)
Atinuke (Pampered from the womb)
Ayooluwakiitan (The joy of the Lord doesn’t end)
Bimpe [I was born complete]
Bidemi (Birthed before my arrival)
Boluwatife (As God wants)
Boluwatito (How big the Lord is)
Bolatito (How great wealth is)
Bisade (Born into crown)
Bisayo (Born into joy)
Bolade (Came with wealth)
Bolawa (Came with wealth)
Boluwaji (Resurrect with the Lord)
Bimbola (Born to meet wealth)
Bimbade (Born into royalty)
Bolanle (Met wealth at home)
Bowofoluwa (Honour the Lord)
Bowofade (Honour the crown)
Bowofola (Honour wealth)
Bukola (Add to wealth)
Bukolami (Add to my wealth)
Busola (Add to wealth)
Busolami (Add to my wealth)
Busayo (Add to joy)
Busayomi (Add to my joy)
Damifola (Created me for wealth)
Damifunre (Created me for goodness)
Darasimi (Good to me)
Diekololaoluwa (The wealth of the Lord is not little)
Diekoloreoluwa (The goodness of the Lord is not little)
Dolapo (Mix with wealth)
Desire (Arrived into goodness)
Derayo (Arrived to see joy)
Desola (Arrived into wealth)
Demilade (Crown me)
Eniola (A wealthy person)
Eniayo (A joyful person)
Enibunkun (A blessed person)
Enire (A good person)
Enitan (A person of reference)
Eminirekan (I’m next to experience goodness)
Ebunoluwa (God’s gift)
Ewaoluwa (The beauty of the Lord)
Ewaola (The beauty of wealth)
Ewatomi (Beauty is enough for me)
Ewaife (The beauty of love)
Ewaade (The beauty of crown)
Eriifeoluwasimi (The proof of God’s love to me)
Eyitayo (Worthy to be happy for)
Eyitope (Worthy to be thankful for)
Eyitolami (This is enough wealth for me)
Eyiwunmi (I love this)
Eniwaju (One who is always ahead)
Farayola (Romance with wealth)
Fiyinfoluwa (Give praises to the Lord)
Folakemi (Pamper me with wealth)
Fayokemi (Pamper me with joy)
Feyikemi (Pamper me with this)
Firekemi (Pamper me with goodness)
Feyisekemi (Pamper me with this)
Feyisara (Make this a relative)
Funmipe (Given to me in full)
Funmike (Given to me to take care of)
Fehintola (Relaxing on wealth)
Fehintoluwa (Relax on God)
Fogofoluwa (Give God the glory)
Folashade (Use wealth as crown)
Gbemisola (Put me into wealth)
Gbemisade (Put me into crown)
Ibunkunoluwa (The blessing of the Lord)
Inioluwa (God’s heritage)
Ifedun (Love is sweet)
Ifedunni (Love is sweet to have)
Itunuoluwa (Comfort of God)
Ifeyinka (Love surrounds me)
Ifeoluwakitan (The love of God never ends)
Ifeoluwa (The love of God)
Ifewunmi (I love love)
Ifepemi (Love profits me)
Ireayo (The goodness of joy)
Ifetomi (Love is enough for me)
Iremitide (My goodness has come)
Ireola (The goodness of wealth)
Irede (Goodness has come)
Iretomiwa (Goodness comes for me)
Ilerioluwa (The promise of the Lord)
Ileriayo (The promise of joy)
Irebami (Goodness meets me)
Inumidun (I’m happy)
Iretiola (The hope of wealth)
Iretioluwa (The hope of God)
Iyinoluwa (God’s praise)
Ikeoluwa (The care of the Lord)
Irewamiri (Goodness searched and found me)
Iseoluwa (The work of God
Ireoluwa (The goodness of God)
Iyanuoluwa (The miracle of God)
Jesutofunmi (Jesus is enough for me)
Jadesola (Step out into wealth)
Jadesire (Step out into goodness)
Jadesayo (Step out into joy)
Jenyinooluwa (Let me praise you Lord)
Jesuyefunmi (Jesus is alive for my sake)
Jenrola (Let me find wealth)
Jokotola (Sit with wealth)
Jokotade (Sit with crown)
Jumoke (Join hands to care for)
Kafopefoluwa (Let’s give thanks to the Lord)
Kanyinsola (Add honey to wealth)
Kafiyinfoluwa (Let’s give praise to the Lord)
Kikelomo (Children to be pampered)
Kikiola (Different shades of wealth)
Kikiogo (Different shades of glory)
Kikiope (Different shades of thanks)
Kikioreoluwa (Different shades of God’s goodness)
Kikioreoluwa (Different shades of God’s gifts)
Kikiifeoluwa (Different shades of God’s love)
Matanmi (Don’t deceive me)
Mayomi (Don’t mock me)
Mobolayo (I rejoice with wealth)
Modupeoluwa (Lord, I’m thankful)
Mopelola (I’m complete in wealth)
Moromoke (I have a child to pamper)
Morolayo (I see wealth and I’m happy)
Makomi (Don’t forsake me)
Morenikejimi (I have seen a companion)
Moyinoluwa (I give God praise)
Motilola (I have wealth)
Motilayo (I have joy)
Morayoninuoluwa (I find joy in God)
Molayoninuoluwa (I have joy in the Lord)
Momoluwa (I know the Lord)
Moboluwaduro (I’m standing with the Lord)
Mofeoluwa (I love God)
Mojetoluwa (I’m God’s own)
Mojisola (I woke up to wealth)
Mojirade (I woke up to find crown)
Moromola (I cling with wealth)
Mojirola (I woke up to find wealth)
Mosunmola (I draw near to wealth)
Moyosade (I rejoice at crown)
Morireoluwa (I have seen the goodness of the Lord)
Mofetoluwa (I love God’s things)
Momooreoluwa (I appreciate the goodness of the Lord)
Mojoyinola (I enjoy the honey in wealth)
Modoluwamu (I hold on to the Lord)
Modiromoluwa (I cling unto the Lord)
Moyoninuoluwa (I rejoice in the Lord)
Moyeninuoluwa (I’m saved in the Lord)
Moyosola (I rejoice at wealth)
Moteleola (I follow wealth)
Motunrayo (I have seen joy again)
Morounmubo (I brought back something)
Moyosire (I rejoice at goodness)
Nihinlolawa (Wealth is right here)
Olubunmi (The Lord gifted me)
Oluwabukolami (God has added to my wealth)
Oluwabunkunmi (The Lord blessed me)
Oluwadara (God is good)
Oluwadarasimi (God is good to me)
Omosewa (Child makes beauty)
Omosola (Child makes wealth)
Omosade (Child makes crown)
Omosayo (Child makes joy)
Oluwadunni (God is sweet to have)
Omodele (Child got home)
Omotunde (Child came again)
Omolere (Child is the gain)
Omotoyosi (Child is worthy to be happy for)
Onamiyeoluwa (God understands my path)
Oladara (Wealth is good)
Ojurereoluwa (The favour of God)
Opeyemi (God deserves my thanks)
Oluwatamilore (God has freely given me a gift)
Oluwasemilore (The Lord has done me well)
Oluwarantimisirere (God remembers me for good)
Oluwadunmininu (God has made me joyous)
Oluwadunsin (God is sweet to serve)
Oluwafimidaraire (God does great and mighty things with my life)
Oluwanifemi (God loves me)
Oluwaferanmi (God loves me)
Omolola (Child is wealth)
Omotara (Child is enough family)
Omotola (A child is enough wealth)
Omotoke (A child is worthy to be pampered)
Oladunni (Wealth is sweet to have)
Olamide (My wealth has come)
Olasayo (Wealth makes joy)
Olaoluwakiitan (The wealth of God doesn’t end)
Olanrewaju (Wealth keeps increasing)
Oluwafifehanmi (God has shown me love)
Oluwadolabomi (God showers me with wealth)
Oluwadarebomi (God showers me with goodness)
Oluwayonusimi (God is pleased with me)
Oluwatomisin (God is enough for me to serve)
Oluwarinumi (God sees into my mind)
Oluwarokanmi (God sees my heart)
Oluwafunmileyi (God gave me this)
Oluwafikayomi (God has added to my joy)
Oluwafirekayomi (The Lord has added goodness to my joy)
Oluwatomi (God is enough for me)
Olatomi (Wealth is enough for me)
Oluwadabira (The Lord performs wonders)
Oluwafunmilayo (The Lord gives me joy)
Oluwaseyifunmi (The Lord has done this for me)
Oluwaseyifunmitan (The Lord it for me completely)
Oluwaseyitanfunmi (The Lord has fully done it for me)
Oluwadamilola (The Lord enriched me)
Oluwademilade (God has crowned me)
Olapeju (Wealth is complete)
Oluwapamilerin (God has caused me to laugh)
Oluwateniolafunmi (God spreads the mat of wealth for me)
Oluwateniayofunmi (God spreads the mat of joy for me)
Oluwajuwon (God is greater than them)
Oluwatosin (God is enough to be served)
Oluwasekemi (God pampers me)
Oluwakemi (God pampers me)
Omolara (Child is family)
Otamayomi (My enemies do not mock me)
Oreoluwa (The gift of God)
Ooreoluwa (The goodness of God)
Otope (Is enough to be thankful for)
Oromitope (My stuff is enough to be thankful for)
Omobolanle (Child met wealth at home)
Omowonuola (Child has entered into wealth)
Omotanwa (The child we are looking for)
Oluwapelumi (The Lord is with me)
Oreofeoluwa (The grace of God)
Olayinka (Wealth surrounds me)
Oluwayinka (God surrounds me)
Olasimbo (Wealth accompanies me)
Olatilewa (Wealth came from home)
Oluwatomisona (The Lord guides me)
Olawande (Wealth searched and found me)
Pamilerin (Make me laugh)
Pemisire (Call me into goodness)
Pemisayo (Call me into joy)
Pemisola (Call me into wealth)
Pelumi (Be with me)
Remilekun (Wipe my tears)
Rantimi (Remember me)
Simisola (Relax in wealth)
Sunmisola (Lead me into wealth)
Simidele (Escort me home)
Seunfunmi (Done well for me)
Temiloluwa (God is mine)
Tejumola (Fix your gaze on wealth)
Tejumade (Fix your gaze on crown)
Toluwanimi (I’m God’s)
Temilola (Wealth is mine)
Temiwuoluwa (Mine pleases the Lord)
Tomilola (Enough wealth for me)
Tantoluwa (Who is great as God?)
Teniola (Spread the mat of wealth)
Titobiloluwa (God is big)
Talodabioluwa (Who is like God?)
Towobola (Dip hand into wealth)
Tomisonaoluwa (Guide me, Lord)
Wonuola (Enter into wealth)
Wemimo (Vindicated)
Wunmi (I desire this)
Yemi (Suits me)
Yemisi (Honour me)
Yosola (Rejoice for wealth)
Yosire (Rejoice for goodness)
Yomade (Rejoice with crown)
Yiyenitemi (Salvation is mine)
If there are other cute Yoruba girl names you know, kindly share them in the comment section. Also, feel free to share this, you could help people who have problems choosing Yoruba girl names for their babies.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55824
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OrigenLink (0.4.2)
This is a plug-in for Origen that enables live silicon debug directly from origen source. There are 2 parts to OrigenLink, the plug-in and the server. Setup for each is documented separately. The OrigenLink server is capable of being shared by multiple people working on the same project. It will lock out other users during your debug or pattern execution session.
Instructions for integrating and using the plug-in with your app.
How To Import
Add the following line to your application’s GEMFILE:
gem 'origen_link'
# Note that the field for providing the computer name or IP address is a string
OrigenLink::VectorBased.new('<ServerComputerName -- or IP_Address>', 12777)
origen e environment/link.rb
origen g pattern/my_pattern.rb
How To Configure
Before OrigenLink can be used the physical pin map and timing must be setup. There are 2 supported ways of doing this. The high-level setup method allows OrigenLink to determine how to configure the server side pin sequencer. The high-level setup method is highly recommended. For cases where the high-level setup is not functioning correctly, legacy apps, or if you just enjoy doing things the hard way, a legacy low-level api is available. Both will be described here.
How To Configure - High-Level Method (Preferred)
This is the recomended way to setup OrigenLink in your application.
Physical Pin Map
OrigenLink needs to tell the server application which physical IO pin on the UDOO device (see UDOO-Neo GPIO documentation) corresponds to which DUT pin in your app. The number after ‘gpio_’ is what OrigenLink needs. This IO number is passed to OrigenLink through pin meta data.
add_pin :tclk, meta: {link_io: 8}
add_pin :tdi, meta: {link_io: 146}
OrigenLink emulates a tester sequencer through software. The timing it implemtents will not be precise. Setting the drive edge of tdi to 5ns and tclk to 20ns will not result in tclk being driven 15ns after tdi. What will happen, though, is the sequencer will drive tdi first, followed by tclk. It is recommended that you use the built in Origen API for setting timing.
# Configure timing for jtag communication with RL tclk
tester.set_timeset('api_tst', 40)
dut.timeset :api_tst do |t|
t.drive_wave :tclk do |w|
w.drive :data, at: 10
w.drive 0, at: 30
t.drive_wave :tdi, :tms, :tdo do |w|
w.drive :data, at: 5
t.compare_wave do |w|
w.compare :data, at: 25
Start your OrigenLink server (see server setup section), connect your DUT to the server device and off you go.
How To Configure - Low-Level Legacy API (Skip Reading This Section)
The prefered configuration method is above. These methods for configuring the server application are supported for legacy applications. This method is more prone to producing hard to debug errors during setup of a new app.
Low-Level Physical Pin Map Setup
Create a comma separated list of pin_name and IO# and pass it to the tester. The .pinmap method will clear all server settings. So, this should be done first. The pin name string provided to the pinmap must exactly match the pin name string provided to the pin timing and pin order methods. Any typo may result strange behavior (pin operation not occuring, timing error messages, and/or server crash). No cause for alarm, just be sure to check for consistent names if you get those problems.
tester.pinmap = 'tclk,119,tms,6,tdi,116,tdo,124'
Low-Level Pattern Pin Order Setup
Pins that don’t have an assiciated physical IO will not have their pin data transmitted to the link server. Create a comma separated list of the pins that are linked (only include pins that are in the pinmap) in the order that they appear in the pattern. Using this command is not needed unless you used the low-level pin map setup command AND your dut.pins(:pin_name) doesn’t match the pin name that you setup using ‘tester.pinmap =’.
pin_pattern_order :tclk, :tms, :tdi, :tdo # This sets the order of the pins in the pattern
# order given below must match order in pin_pattern_order
# names used below must match names used in tester.pinmap=
# the below example will cause issues because of a typo: 'tck' versus 'tclk' (tester.pinmap = 'tclk,119,)
tester.pinorder = 'tck,tms,tdi,tdo' # This tells the server what order the pins are in the pattern
Low-Level Timing Setup
# pinformat=
# This method is used to setup the pin clock format on the debugger device.
# The supported formats are rl and rh
# example:
# tester.pinformat = 'func_25mhz,tclk,rl'
# pintiming=
# This method is used to setup the pin timing on the debugger device.
# Timing is relative to the rise and fall of a clock
# timing value: 0 1 2
# clock waveform: ___/***___
# example:
# tester.pintiming = 'func_25mhz,tms,0,tdi,0,tdo,1'
Debugging Your App
What follows are some pointers for using OrigenLink to debug your app (or pattern). Run the origen pattern generation command with debug enabled and set a break point in your code to interactively debug.
origen g pattern/my_pattern.rb -d
# inside pattern/my_pattern.rb
# stop after updating this register to observe device state
debugger # generation of the pattern will pause here
Debugging Pin Map
There are pin methods available to aid debug of an OrigenLink setup.
# Cause a pin to continuously toggle every 2 seconds
(debugger prompt): dut.pin(:tdi).hello
# Stop the pin from toggling
(debugger prompt): dut.pin(:tdi).goodbye
Staying Synchronized
For efficiency vectors that are generated by your app are compressed and stored until the pattern generation is completed. This means that when execution reaches a ‘debugger’ statement the previously generated vectors may not have been sent to the server yet. There are a handful of ways to make this happen.
Use the tester.synchronize command from the debugger interface:
# one time synchronize
(debugger prompt): tester.synchronize
# tell debugger to evaluate the synchronize command every time it gets control
# will cause continuous synchronization
(debugger prompt): disp tester.synchronize
Use tester.transaction
It makes the most sense to have this in your app’s reg read/write methods). Before the transaction method executes the code block provided it will perform a synchronization. Then, the code in the block is executed (which generates new vectors) and a second synchronization is performed. The transaction method returns a boolean indicating whether the vectors generated by the code block passed or failed.
result = tester.transaction { dut.jtag.shift_xx (yy) }
if tester.link?
# result = true if the code in the provided block passed
Capturing DUT Information
There are a few methods for observing the actual state of the DUT.
Capture using tester.capture
# example of capturing and programatically using information read from the DUT
ss "reading default ID"
default_id = tester.capture {dut.jtag.read_dr dut.reg(:testreg), size: 32 }
default_id_str = default_id[0].to_s(2)
default_id = default_id_str.to_i(2)
puts 'Captured default ID through JTAG: 0x' + default_id.to_s(16)
Capture using mem api
This command will read the contents of memory from the DUT and display it.
# example of mem api use
(debugger prompt): dut.mem(0x2000_0000).sync(3)
20000000: DEADBEEF
20000004: 200000D4
20000008: 1C000898
(debugger prompt): dut.mem(0x2000_0000).write!(0x1234567)
20000000: 01234567
20000004: 200000D4
20000008: 1C000898
This command will read the contents of the register from the DUT and display it by bit field.
(debugger prompt): dut.reg(:My_Reg).sync!
0x3B4 - :My_Reg
| unused[16:9] |
| 0x0 |
| unused[8:1] |
| 0x0 |
| unused[0:0] | result[14:8] |
| 0x0 | 0x1C |
| result[7:0] |
| 0x98 |
When A Shared Server Session Isn’t Properly Ended
The server is able to handle multiple users. Once a user connects to the server, it will only allow access from that same IP address and user name until the session has ended. The session end command is transmitted when pattern generation is completed. If a user fails to properly end their session (happens when you exit debug mode by typing ‘q’ instead of ‘c’), the server application will continue to lock out access until the time out has expired (20 minutes). Before terminating a running session, check with the user who started the session to make sure they aren’t in the middle of debug (the user id and IP address will be displayed when you try to connect).
...origen/work 224$ origen g pattern/sar_debug.rb
[ERROR] 0.011[0.011] || Busy: server is in use by joshua from IP address
retry in 1 second
[ERROR] 1.039[1.028] || Busy: server is in use by joshua from IP address
retry in 1 second
[ERROR] 2.203[1.164] || Busy: server is in use by joshua from IP address
retry in 1 second
If the previous session needs to be manually terminated, this is how you do it (this should be a rare exception to the rule - it’s bad manners to forcefully kill another user’s session):
require 'socket'
require 'etc'
user_name = Etc.getlogin
TCPSocket.open('udooneo-computer-name', 12777) do |link|
while received = link.gets
puts received
puts "unlocked the server"
This section describes how to setup a new IOT device to serve the OrigenLink pin sequencer.
UDOO NEO Shopping list
These items will be needed:
• UDOO NEO - The UDOO NEO Full is recommended (WiFi & Ethernet built in)
• 8GB micro SD card
• Micro USB to USB cable
These items are optional, but likely helpful:
• Bread board (solderless prototyping board)
• Prototyping wires (male to male, male to female, female to female)
• 300 ohm resistors (for current limiting)
• 10K ohm resistors (for pull up)
• Diodes (for constructing cheap 1 way level shifter)
• Level shifters (required if shifting down a clock signal - TXS0108E is easy to use)
• Power adapter (if you plan to connect through a network instead of USB) - old cell phone micro USB charger or 12v 3amp DC supply
• 3D printed case. The bottom half of this design has worked well.
Setting Up a New UDOO device
Here are the steps to take to setup a new UDOO-Neo to run the OrigenLink server application. These instructions are not intended to be exhaustive, but should be good enough to get you up and running.
Change the name of the computer to something unique (like udooneo-myname).
This name is the string that you will enter in your environment ruby file for your app. Your computer running origen g pattern/my_pattern.rb and the UDOO should be attached to the same network (either through USB or ethernet)
prompt$> sudo nano /etc/hostname
Disable the M4 core (allows access to all IO’s from unix)
menu -> preferences -> Udoo web configuration -> Advanced settings
** Option 1 (I want the gem): You need to install ruby 2.2.
prompt$> sudo apt-get install ruby22
** Option 2 (I’m fine using git to pull down the server code)
# of course you're still welcomed to install a newer ruby version
# the server will run just fine
prompt$> sudo apt-get install ruby
** Option 1 (if you installed ruby22 you can do this). Install origen and origen_link gems.
# follow the instructions for installing origen at origen-sdk.org
prompt$> sudo gem install origen
prompt$> sudo gem install origen_link
** Option 2 (This is what I do)
prompt$> git clone https://github.com/Origen-SDK/OrigenLink.git
# if you get SSL certificate errors do this and retry the clone command
prompt$> git config --global http.sslverify false
Starting the Server
If you installed Ruby 2.x and Origen, run this command to start the server:
<command_prompt>$ start_link_server
If you chose to clone the OrigenLink project from github, navigate to the OrigenLink directory and type this command:
<command_prompt>$ bin/start_link_server
The server is now running
To have the server started automatically when the UDOO boots add the following line to the end of ~/.profile (note replace the path with your path):
lxterminal -e "/home/udooer/RubyCode/OrigenLink/bin/start_link_server"
Physical Interconnect
Keep the following things in mind when connecting the IO’s of your UDOO Neo to a DUT
• Ground is important. As a rule of thumb, connect at least 2 ground wires between the UDOO and your DUT
• Pay attention to pin levels. The UDOO IO’s are 3.3v. If your device is not also 3.3v, the most reliable and convenient way to connect the IO’s is by using a bi-directional (auto-direction sensing) level shifter. This one works well and is easy to find (available on Amazon Prime at the writing of this document): TXB0108
• An alternative method for shifting a voltage down is to use a diode and pullup resistor. The anode gets connected to the higher voltage device. The cathode is connected to the lower voltage device. A 10K pullup resistor is connected from the cathode to the supply voltage for the lower voltage device. — A word of advice: This method is quick and easy. But, you get a slow rise time which makes it a terrible way of shifting the level of a clock signal (like TCLK for JTAG or SPICLK for SPI).
How It Works
This section will explain the in’s and out’s of how the plug-in and server applications work and how they communicate. This section is intended to aid developers who want to add or modify features. More in depth information can be found in the api documentation.
Server Side App
What follows is the structure of the server side app.
Pin IO
Pin IO is accomplished by using the file objects exported by linux at \sys\class\gpio
<command_prompt>$ cd /sys/class/gpio
# export the file objects for a pin
<command_prompt>$ echo 20 > export
# read the state of gpio20
<command_prompt>$ cd gpio20
<command_prompt>$ cat value
# drive gpio20 to logic 1
<command_prompt>$ echo out > direction
<command_prompt>$ echo 1 > value
# change gpio20 from output to input
<command_prompt>$ echo in > direction
Pin Class
The server pin class implements IO interactions for a pin. When the pin assign command creates a pin object, it exports the associated IO number and opens IO objects for the direction and value of that pin. The IO objects are kept open until the pin is destroyed. For more information see the api documentation.
Pin Sequencer
The pin sequencer is the class that does all of the heavy lifting for the server side app. It implements all of the command messages that begin with “pin_”. See the api documentation (Server::Sequencer) for more information. Timing is perhaps the most complicated construct to understand:
# tset is a number that corresponds to a timeset name from origen ex: 1 corresponds to 'tp0'
# @cycletiming[tset] is a hash
# each timeset contains these keys:
# 'events' - [array of timestamps for timing events]
# 'drive_event_data' - hash, the keys of the hash correspond to elements of 'events'
# - each value in the hash is an array
# - each element in the array is one of 3 values: 'data', '0', or '1'
# 'drive_event_pins' - hash, the keys of the hash correspond to elements of 'events'
# - each value in the hash is an array
# - each element in the array is an array of pin objects
# - the drive event data will be performed for each pin object
# 'compare_event_data' - similar to drive_event_data, the only valid event data is 'data'
# 'compare_event_pins' - similar to drive_event_pins
@cycletiming[tset] = {
['events'] = [0, 5, 10, 35]
['drive_event_data'] = {
0: ['data']
10: ['data','0']
35: ['0']
['drive_event_pins'] = {
0: [[pin_obj1, pin_obj2]]
10: [[pin1,pin2], [pin3]]
35: [[pin4]]
The main message supported by the sequencer is ‘pin_cycle’. As the name implies, this message implements 1 or more cycles of vector data. It will return the response of the dut to the plug-in side app along with pass/fail information.
The server serves a TCP socket at 12777. No fancy gems are used for several reasons, the main one being simplicity. Ruby has a built in socket library that is extremely simple to use. Multiple messages from the plug-in side app can be received with a single connection. “\n” indicates the end of a message. “\n\n” indicates that the packet of messages has ended. Why TCP and not UDP? I know the web says that UDP socket communication is faster. But, my testing indicated otherwise. Plus, TCP is more reliable.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55826
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Reversing AutoIT Applications
When we try to open a compiled AutoIT application in a debugger we get this error message.
Let’s try to find the return address from the MessageBoxA API from the stack.
And we can clearly see that AutoIT applications by default when compiled uses the IsDebuggerPresent API as a simple anti debugging trick.
If you look at the IsDebuggerPresent API it works like this:
FS[18] segment register points to the TEB Structure. You can check these links for the TEB structure, .
In the TEB structure 0x30 contains the pointer to the PEB structure. In the PEB structure 0x2 is the BeingDebugged bit.
typedef struct _PEB {
BYTE Reserved1[2];
BYTE BeingDebugged;
BYTE Reserved2[1];
PVOID Reserved3[2];
PPEB_LDR_DATA Ldr;
BYTE Reserved4[104];
PVOID Reserved5[52];
BYTE Reserved6[128];
PVOID Reserved7[1];
ULONG SessionId;
To bypass this trick of course you could patch the application but patching the PEB structure would be a better choice. But in this case only one check is performed. But in situations where multiple checks are performed it is always better to patch the structure. Don’t forget there are lots of Olly plugins to bypass this simple trick 🙂
You could either place a breakpoint in the MOV EAX,DWORD PTR DS:[EAX+30] instruction of the API and follow in dump and patch the bit or as soon you load the application the EBX register points to the PEB structure.
After that you simply change that bit to 0 or just simple fill the whole dword with 0s 🙂
After that you can start debugging normally and run the app.
AutoIT executables can be decompiled back to normal AutoIT script using Exe2Aut tool
3 thoughts on “Reversing AutoIT Applications
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55827
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GNU Radio TensorFlow Blocks
TensorFlow is a powerful python-numpy expression compiler which supports concurrent GPP and GPU offload of large algorithms. It has been used largely in the machine learning community, but has implications for the rapid and efficient implementation of numerous algorithms in software. For GNU Radio, it matches up wonderfully with GNU Radio’s python blocks, which pass signal processing data around as numpy ndarrays which can be directly passed to and from TensorFlow compiled functions. This is very very similar to what I did with gr-theano, but with the caveat that TensorFlow has native complex64 support without any additional patching! This makes it a great candidate for dropping in highly computationally complex blocks for prototyping and leveraging highly concurrent GPUs when there is gross data parallelism that can easily be leveraged by the compiler.
A quick example of dropping TensorFlow into a python block might look something like this
class add(gr.sync_block):
x = tensorflow.placeholder("complex64")
y = tensorflow.placeholder("complex64")
def __init__(self):
in_sig=[numpy.complex64, numpy.complex64],
self.sess = tensorflow.Session()
self.op = tensorflow.add( self.x, self.y)
def work(self, input_items, output_items):
rv =[self.op], feed_dict={self.x:input_items[0], self.y:input_items[1]})
output_items[0][:] = rv[0]
return len(rv[0])
We simply define self.op as an algorithmic expression we want to compute at run time, and TensorFlow will compile the kernel down to the GPP or GPU depending on available resources, and handle all of the data I/O behind the scenes after we simply pass ndarrays in and out of the work function.
Dropping this block into a new gr-tf out of tree module, we can rapidly plug it into a working GNU Radio flowgraph stream! Clearly there are algorithms which make a lot more sense to offload than “add_cc”. Things like streaming CAF or MTI computations with lots of concurrent integration come to mind and would be pretty trivial to add. For now this is just a proof of concept, but it seems like a great way to prototype such things in the future!
The module is available on github @
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55847
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#PBPitch Twitter Contest is Tomorrow!
PBPitch Logo
It’s not often picture books get included in twitter contest’s where agents participate to sign a new client, but this one is all about them! If you write or illustrate picture books, mark this event on your calendar. Writers may pitch only twice during the event for each manuscript: once in the morning and once in the evening. This keeps the feed from getting congested. Plus, agents won’t exhaust from reading repeat pitches and ditch the party!
To be clear, the contest starts on June 16, 2016 from 8am-8pm EST. Be sure to include the hashtag #PBPitch in your 140 characters. If your an illustrator/writer be sure and attach one illustration to your COMPLETED manuscript. For all information regarding PBPitch, FAQs, and even a fantastic list of agents who represent picture books, go to the PBPitch website.
As always, good luck!
P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55862
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Solapur is a city located in the south-western region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Solapur is located on major road and rail routes between Mumbai and Hyderabad, with a branch line to the cities of Bijapur and Gadag in the neighbouring state of Karnataka.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55864
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1. Backgrounds, Tools, IDEs, Project Approach and keeping things simple.
Manage episode 184861024 series 1527735
10 episodes available. A new episode about every 50 days averaging 56 mins duration .
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55869
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Stora Enso stallpellets
Stora Enso stallpellets
How to ruin a pony in no time at all.
How to ruin a pony in no time at all.
Av Ulrika In English -Best of PonyMama 22 Nov 2017
1. Get the pony. It´s just as easy to ruin an expensive pony as a cheap one. It does´nt even have to be Yours!
2. Replace everything in the pony´s life! The rider, the tack, the blacksmith, trainers, routines, everything! Don’t even ask how and with what they fed the pony. Overfeed it!
3. Don’t waste any time getting to know the animal. Go competing right away, give it all you´ve got!
4. Don’t listen to idiots who tell you that your pony needs other ways of training and that sort of stuff. You do what you do! It´s Your pony, period!
5. Let the kids do what the kids wanna do! If the kids like show jumping, let them do show jumping! Don’t tell them they also must do dressage if they think that´s boring. A jumping pony is for jumping, right?
6. If your trainer turns out to be a pain in the ass
and starts telling you things that You don’t want to hear, that Your pony needs more variation in training or whatever, just don’t listen! You´re paying them, right? Then You don’t need to listen to any bull shit. If they go on, fire them and get someone new!
7. Go competing every week end,
as much as You possibly can! Then don’t do anything on the weekdays in between.
8. Let the kids decide -about everything.
Don’t push them too hard taking care of the every day stuff, that may make them lose interest. If they want that saddle that does´nt really fit, let them have it anyway. Brands and stuff is important to kids these days.
9. If the pony is disobedient and runs around with the head up high, throw on a sharp bit and tell the kid to pull as hard as possible.
10. If the pony protests ands starts stopping or bucking, hit it, kick it with spurs, whip it up and give it a real lesson. That should teach it!
11. If someone would be so rude as to say Your kid is not a good rider or that You are pushing the pony too hard -don´t talk to them ever again! You really don´t need that kind of shit.
There. By following these easy steps, You should now have a pony that stops, kicks, bites and is utterly mean and unhappy. Good job!
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55876
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Video: Guards - "Do It Again"
Publish date:
If you ever wanted to see a mariachi version of New York crew Guards jam out in classic regalia while a bunch of stylish Los Angeleans perform their best dance moves Soul Train-style down a runway in their own city’s Echo Club, now you can!
We loved Guards’ latest anthemic, ‘60s-inspired release “Do It Again,” and we love the video’s new, appropriately timed Soul Train-referencing video (if you didn’t know, Soul Train creator Don Cornelius just passed away earlier this month). It’s worth a few watches, if just to listen to that fantastic song. “Do It Again” is out now on Guards’ recent 7” release for White Iris records.
Grab the MP3 below:
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55892
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An Arguments Container pattern
In a comment on my earlier post A Globals Class pattern for Python, Mike Müller wrote
“No need for globals. Just explicitly pass your container. In my opinion this is much easier to understand.”
Mike’s comment led me to some further thoughts on the subject.
Suppose you have a number of things — x, y, and z — that you want to make available to many functions in a module.
There are four strategies that you could use. You could
1. pass x, y, and z as individual arguments
2. make x, y, and z globals
or you could create a container C of some sort and
3. pass container C as an argument
4. make container C a global
So you have two basic questions to answer. When you make the things — x, y, and z — available:
A. Do you make them available in global variables, or in arguments that you pass around?
B. Do you make them available individually, or do you put them in some kind of container and make the container available?
My original post assumed that in at least some situations you might answer question A with “use global variables” and then went on to propose that in those situations the best answer to B is “put them in a container”.
Since the point of that post was to point out the usefulness of a class as a container, I called the proposed pattern the Globals Class pattern. But in most cases some other kind of container would do as well as a class. I could almost as easily have called the pattern the Globals Container pattern.
So if you look at these two questions — A and B — I think it is interesting where Mike and I differ, and where we agree.
Question A: args or globals
Where we differ, if you could call it that, is in the answer to A.
In my post I wrote “Sometimes globals are the best practical solution to a particular programming problem.” But that wasn’t really what the post was about. It was about the answer to question B.
So I can’t really say that Mike and I disagree very much. He says “I like apples”. I say “Sometimes I like an orange.” No big deal.
Question B — multiple things or a single container
What is much more interesting is that we both agree on the answer to question B: use a container object.
But since I was talking about globals, I was talking about a container for globals. Since Mike was talking about arguments, he was talking about a container for arguments.
Which means that we have two different patterns. My earlier post was about strategy 4 — a Globals Container pattern. Mike is talking about strategy 3 — what we might call an Arguments Container pattern.
As it happens, I had stumbled onto the Arguments Container pattern myself, not in Python but in Java. The circumstances were very similar to the circumstances that led to the Python Globals Class pattern. I had a lot of variables that I needed to pass around. As the code evolved,the argument lists got longer and harder to manage. Finally I just bundled all of the variables into a single container object and passed the container around. As I needed to add new arguments, I was able to add them to just one place — the container.
At the time, I felt sort of stupid doing this. I hadn’t ever heard of this as a programming technique. It smacked of sneaking global variables in through the back door, and of course everybody knows that globals are always bad. But it worked, and it made my life a lot easier.
So now Mike comes along and proposes doing exactly the same thing. I feel relieved. I’m not the only one doing this. It may even be a Good Thing.
So I’m happy to announce — not the discovery, certainly — the christening of the Arguments Container pattern, which says, basically:
Sometimes when you have a lot of individual variables that you need to pass around to a lot of different functions or methods, the best solution is to put them into a container object and just pass the container object around.
This is not a specifically Python pattern. And in a way it is No Big Deal. But I’m doing a bit of shouting and arm-waving here because I think that somewhere there is probably at least one person for whom this post might be useful.
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5 Responses to An Arguments Container pattern
1. Steve Holden says:
And, of course, nowadays the easiest container to use would probably be a named tuple from the collections library
>>> import collections
>>> x = collections.namedtuple("myType", "a b c d e")
>>> x1 = x(5, 4, 3, 2, 1)
>>> x1.a
>>> x1[0]
>>> x1[4]
>>> x1.e
2. Paddy3118 says:
Damn! Steve H. pipped me to the post 🙂
I should also add that sometimes more than one container might be best when you start grouping; and the reason for those groupings might begin to appear.
3. Ben Finney says:
The idiomatic way to do what you’re describing in Python is to put those needed-by-lots-of-things as attributes of a module.
Then, whatever needs them can import that module (e.g. ‘import config’) and everything has access to the objects that way: ‘do_something_with(’.
That way, there’s no need for any ‘global’ statement, there’s no confusion over why a class is being defined but not instantiated, etc.
4. Kent Johnson says:
There is another way to solve your problem, which is to put the functions that need access to the variables into a class, and make the variables attributes of the class. If the functions are related this can be a very clean solution.
What you call an arguments container is not new. Martin Fowler calls it a parameter object in his book Refactoring.
5. Phil Mayes says:
Firstly, I am opposed to globals because they extend the variables supplied to a function, making testing, verification and comprehension much harder.
Secondly, I make an exception fore read-only variables:
FILEMASK = ‘trace%s.txt’
Thirdly, I revoke that exception if the constant might become a real variable in later development:
COUNTRYCODE = ‘us’
Now to Question A. Imagine you are retro-fitting existing code and adding the container as a parameter to existing functions. Users outside the module that call any of these functions will have to be modified, and will have to pass in the container. Now this container member is potentially changed anywhere in the entire code base.
Instead, making it a private global within the module limits the scope of where its members are changed:
_gbl = Mem()
If you argue that other modules may have a need to change its values, I would respond that these values should, instead, live in a module of their own called (say), making it explicit what values are truly program-wide global.
Comments are closed.
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#12 – AD&D: Hillsfar
You forget yourself, sir, and the realm from whence you came. Get thee to the Far Hills- er, Hillsfar!
There, but for the grace of God…
RELEASE DATE: November 1993
Hear ye, hear ye! Should ye need a D&D game on your Nintendo that doth not sucketh as much as its brethren, gaze thine eyes upon Hillsfar, an RPG dungeon-crawler for all the land!
Well, maybe not all the land. Hillsfar‘s not a crowd-pleasing summer blockbuster, but unlike the other D&D atrocities for the NES, it contains competent gameplay. Start by creating your own character (the game also pretends that you can “import” characters from different saves, but let’s remember that you’re playing a Nintendo, not a computer – apparently the creators of the game forgot), get on your horse and ride to Hillsfar. Traverse dungeons, collect loot, fight enemies; typical RPG stuff.
What really makes Hillsfar stand out is the sheer amount of choices for an early Nineties adventure game. Walk into a tavern and you have seven options for what you can do/say while you’re there. I chose to buy the comely wench/waitress a drink and brag about my exploits (I hadn’t accomplished any, which was even more impressive). The wench was grateful/advanced on me, and everyone else thought I was awesome. I left the tavern on a high note.
Dungeon exploring is ok, if not a little repetitive. Fighting is ludicrous, though. The jerky animation of the enemy makes it difficult to know when you’re supposed to hit them. The animation, as a whole, is too advanced for the NES’ aged processor. Navigating through a dungeon is like wading in molasses. Walking in town is jerky step after jerky step. Riding a horse was the NES’ last straw; it just about exploded having to push those pixels. If Hillsfar had been ported to the SNES (which it could have, since it was released in 1993), the graphics would have been cleaner, the animation smoother. At least Tasslehoff and his cronies from Heroes of the Lance are nowhere to be found.
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IRC Technical Info
IRC is an open protocol that uses TCP and, optionally, TLS. An IRC server can connect to other IRC servers to expand the IRC network. Users access IRC networks by connecting a client to a server. There are many client implementations, such as mIRC, XChat and irssi, and server implementations, e.g. the original IRCd. Most IRC servers do not require users to register an account but a user will have to set a nickname before being connected.
IRC was originally a plain text protocol (although later extended), which on request was assigned port 194/TCP by IANA However, the de facto standard has always been to run IRC on 6667/TCP and nearby port numbers (for example TCP ports 6660-6669, 7000) to avoid having to run the IRCd software with root privileges.
The protocol specified that characters were 8-bit but did not specify the character encoding the text was supposed to use. This can cause problems when users using different clients and/or different platforms want to converse.
All client-to-server IRC protocols in use today are descended from the protocol implemented in the irc2.4.0 version of the IRC2 server, and documented in RFC 1459. Since RFC 1459 was published, the new features in the irc2.10 implementation led to the publication of several revised protocol documents (RFC 2810, RFC 2811, RFC 2812 and RFC 2813); however, these protocol changes have not been widely adopted among other implementations.
Although many specifications on the IRC protocol have been published, there is no official specification, as the protocol remains dynamic. Virtually no clients and very few servers rely strictly on the above RFCs as a reference.
Microsoft made an extension for IRC in 1998 via the proprietary IRCX. They later stopped distributing software supporting IRCX, instead developing the proprietary MSNP.
The standard structure of a network of IRC servers is a tree. Messages are routed along only necessary branches of the tree but network state is sent to every server and there is generally a high degree of implicit trust between servers. This architecture has a number of problems. A misbehaving or malicious server can cause major damage to the network and any changes in structure, whether intentional or a result of conditions on the underlying network, require a net-split and net-join. This results in a lot of network traffic and spurious quit/join messages to users and temporary loss of communication to users on the splitting servers. Adding a server to a large network means a large background bandwidth load on the network and a large memory load on the server. Once established however, each message to multiple recipients is delivered in a fashion similar to multicast, meaning each message travels a network link exactly once. This is a strength in comparison to non-multicasting protocols such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP).
Commands and replies
IRC has a line-based structure with the client sending single-line messages to the server, receiving replies to those messages and receiving copies of some messages sent by other clients. In most clients, users can enter commands by prefixing them with a '/'. Depending on the command, these may either be handled entirely by the client, or (generally for commands the client does not recognize) passed directly to the server, possibly with some modification.
Due to the nature of the protocol, automated systems cannot always correctly pair a sent command with its reply with full reliability and are subject to guessing.
The basic means of communicating to a group of users in an established IRC session is through a channel. Channels on a network can be displayed using the IRC command LIST, which lists all currently available channels that do not have the modes +s or +p set, on that particular network.
Users can join a channel using the JOIN command, in most clients available as /join #channelname. Messages sent to the joined channels are then relayed to all other users.
Channels that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a '#', while those local to a server use '&'. Other less common channel types include '+' channels–'modeless' channels without operators – and '!' channels, a form of timestamped channel on normally non-timestamped networks.
Users and channels may have modes that are represented by single case-sensitive letters and are set using the MODE command. User modes and channel modes are separate and can use the same letter to mean different things (e.g. usermode "i" is invisible mode whilst channelmode "i" is invite only.) Modes are usually set and unset using the mode command that takes a target (user or channel), a set of modes to set (+) or unset (-) and any parameters the modes need.
Some but not all channel modes take parameters and some channel modes apply to a user on a channel or add or remove a mask (e.g. a ban mask) from a list associated with the channel rather than applying to the channel as a whole. Modes that apply to users on a channel have an associated symbol that is used to represent the mode in names replies (sent to clients on first joining a channel and use of the names command) and in many clients also used to represent it in the client's displayed list of users in a channel or to display an own indicator for a user's modes.
In order to correctly parse incoming mode messages and track channel state the client must know which mode is of which type and for the modes that apply to a user on a channel which symbol goes with which letter. In early implementations of IRC this had to be hard-coded in the client but there is now a de facto standard extension to the protocol called ISUPPORT that sends this information to the client at connect time using numeric 005.
There is a small design fault in IRC regarding modes that apply to users on channels: the names message used to establish initial channel state can only send one such mode per user on the channel, but multiple such modes can be set on a single user. For example, if a user holds both operator status (+o) and voice status (+v) on a channel, a new client will be unable to know the less precedented mode (voice). Workarounds for this are possible on both the client and server side but none is widely implemented.
Channel Operators
A Channel Operator is a client on an IRC channel that manages the channel. IRC Channel Operators can be easily seen by a symbol "@", or a Latin letter "+o"/"o". On most networks, an operator can:
Kick a user
Ban a user
Give other user IRC Channel Operator Status or IRC Channel Voice Status.
Change the IRC Channel topic.
Change the IRC Channel Mode locks.
IRC Operators
There are also users who maintain elevated rights on their local server, or the entire network; these are called IRC operators, sometimes shortened to IRCops or Opers (not to be confused with channel operators). As the implementation of the IRCd varies, so do the privileges of the IRC operator on the given IRCd. RFC 1459 claims that IRC operators are "a necessary evil" to keep clean state of the network, and as such they need to be able to disconnect and reconnect servers. Additionally, to prevent malicious users or even harmful automated programs from entering IRC, IRC operators are usually allowed to disconnect clients and completely ban IPs or complete subnets. Networks that carry services (Nickserv et al.) usually allow their IRC operators also to handle basic "Ownership" matters. Further privileged rights may include overriding channel bans (being able to join channels they would not be allowed to join, if they were not opered), being able to op themselves on channels where they would not be able without being opered, being auto-opped on channels always and so forth.
A hostmask is a unique identifier of an IRC client connected to an IRC server. IRC servers, services, and other clients including bots can use it to identify a specific IRC session.
The format of a hostmask is [email protected] The hostmask looks similar to, but should not be confused with an e-mail address.
The nick part is the nickname chosen by the user and may be changed while connected. The user part is the username reported by ident on the client. If ident is not available on the client, the username specified when the client connected is used after being prefixed with a tilde.
The host part is the hostname the client is connecting from. If the IP address of the client cannot be resolved to a valid hostname by the server, it is used instead of the hostname.
Because of the privacy implications of exposing the IP address or hostname of a client, some IRC daemons also provide privacy features, such as InspIRCD or UnrealIRCD's "+x" mode. This hashes a client IP address or masks part of a client's hostname, making it unreadable to users other than IRCops. Users may also have the option of requesting a "virtual host" (or "vhost"), to be displayed in the hostmask to allow further anonymity. Some IRC networks such as Freenode use these as "cloaks" to indicate that a user is affiliated with a group or project.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55925
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What Manic Pixie Dream Girl?
There are few cinematic terms I despise as much as the phrase “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (MPDG for short). My problems with this term are legion, so first off let’s have a little history. Nathan Rabin coined the term when describing Kirsten Dunst’s character ‘Claire’ in the Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. According to Rabin, Dunst epitomizes the MPDG, a female character who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” These women are describes as bubbly, childlike muses who exist solely to inspire a male protagonist, encouraging him to embrace and enjoy life.
The MPDG is one of those cinematic terms that was assimilated as soon as it was uttered; a lot of people accepted its existence as fact immediately, as if Rabin’s term was absolute and not to be questioned. No one seems to care if it’s a particularly useful or accurate term. The AV Club (which originally featured Rabin’s Elizabethtown review) later published a list of “16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls.”
The problem is that I don’t think the MPDG even exists. The AV Club and other websites have spent a lot of energy chasing rainbows, trying to chronicle a supposed Grand History of MPDGs in Cinema, supposedly proving this trope exists by shoehorning some of film history’s most notable female characters—from Diane Keaton’s eponymous Annie Hall and Kate Winslet’s Clementine (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) to Katharine Hepburn’s Susan (Bringing Up Baby)–into this category. I can’t possibly think what Claire in Elizabethtown has in common with Annie Hall, except perhaps that they’ve both fallen for neurotic men. Indeed, if these women represent the MPDG, perhaps we could just as easily dub Orlando Bloom’s’Drew Baylor’ and Woody Allen’s ‘Alvy Singer’ the archetypal Neurotic Suicidal Boyfriends. Or would that be reductive?
Yes, there are characters like Claire in Elizabethtown, who are childlike and irreverent. However, not all of the characters considered MPDGs are as one-dimensional as Rabin would have you believe. The MPDG is not an archetype, but is instead a failure by screenwriters to create multidimensional and realistic female characters. She represents a lack of interest by screenwriters and directors to develop nuanced and complicated depictions of women on screen, when cardboard cutout women who merely stand, look pretty, and say compelling things would do just fine. Because, lest we forget it, this is not our story: it’s the male protagonist’s story. Elizabethtown, for example, is the story of how a suicidal man’s life is saved, not how one girl actively choses to do the saving.
The inclusion of so many complicated, strong female characters on these lists illustrate just how arbitrary and useless the definition of the MPDG really is, and how people eager to verify this term via example are actually misreading and/or oversimplifying complex female characters. Many MPDG lists wrongly include Clementine from Eternal Sunshine, and Summer from 500 Days of Summer. Clementine, for example, is explicitly not a MPDG: her character actually turns to the male protagonist of the film and says “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.” She explicitly tells Joel (and the viewer) that she is just a girl—she is no MPDG–and yet here we are literally assigning to that character the very thing she makes a point of rejecting.
It’s the same problem with 500 Days of Summer—people imagine that Summer is some quirky girl meant to cheer up and reinvigorate the depressed male protagonist, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ‘Tom’. In reality, the crux of the film is that Tom not only has to take control of his own life, but that he wrongly imagines Summer is his own personal MPDG. In fact, director Marc Webb was asked specifically whether Summer was an MPDG and denied it, noting: “That is one of the codes of the movie. He falls in love not with her but the idea of her.”
It’s not bad enough that Hollywood chooses to make men the protagonists of most movies. No, we as viewers have to oversimplify and quantify some of our most well-drawn, unique, and complicated portrayals of women on screen. Labelling Annie Hall, Clementine, and other female characters as MPDGs serves as a means of dismissing them. They are written off as manic (emotional) pixie (troublesome) dream (imaginary) girls (not women). In other words, the application of the term MPDG to a breadth of female characters serves as a means of highlighting the many one-note representations of women on screen, while simultaneously reducing any richer female characters to supposed one-dimensionality. MPDG is a term used to turn women into girls, characters into quirks. Ultimately, just as Tom did to Summer, American pop culture writers, theorists, and film viewers alike have fallen in love with the idea of the MPDG, when in reality she doesn’t exist.
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Title: Section 441.44 - Betterment
441.44 Betterment. An expenditure having the effect of extending the useful life of an existing fixed asset, increasing its normal rate of output, lowering its operating cost, increasing rather than merely maintaining efficiency or otherwise adding to the worth of benefits it can yield.
VOLUME C (Title 10)
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2920 Larimer St
Denver 80205
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CATEGORIES: Places to Eat + Drink / Bar | Places to Eat + Drink / Brewery
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In many ways, Ratio started in the punk scene back in the late 90’s. We cut our teeth by touring, playing out, creating zines, and working at labels. That DIY mindset prepared us for the challenges of creating and sharing our passions on our own terms. Over the years that energy has been channeled into brewing, learning the craft, and teaming up for our most ambitious project yet - Ratio Beerworks, a Denver brewery.
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Rue de la Mort
Ghost Travelers
Editing Your Portal Video
Editing Your Portal Video
Instructions for editing your Portal video. We use a $4.99 app we downloaded from the App Store called iMovie. It takes a little practice, but its’ a great app. We list our best advice below. Enjoy! To view our Spirit Box Sessions, check out our YouTube Channel: Rue de la Mort on YouTube Subscribe for updates!
1. Film in small segments. Then piece them together in iMovie.
2. Film in quiet areas with controlled sound. Portal sessions are not for groups. It will be too hard later to distinguish between outside noise and box noise. It’s harder to record outside. Make reference on the video for yourself later, like “that was my daughter coughing”, or “that was a car driving by”.
3. Edit your video at full volume with headphones on. You will miss 50% of what’s said without headphones. I use the pair I got with my iPhone.
4. Film short sessions with controlled questions. You Tube Max upload for most is 15 minutes. Editing longer is tedious and frankly, people get bored.
5. I’ve noticed YouTube speeds thing up at upload, so be careful. Go slow.
6. Within the app. First screening, I pause (plus a moment) after I hear each spirit and isolate the audio by ‘split’ button.
7. That enables me to use the text button to write what I hear them say.
And increase the volume just for that segment.
8. Every time you listen you will hear something different.
9. I use a still photo on the beginning because that’s what ends up on the YouTube thumbnail.
10. My voice is always too loud on sessions. I sometimes lower my volume.
11. I am still training myself to shut up. Spirits seem to take longer to answer than a normal conversation. Train yourself to pause extra long.
12. If I get an unknown sound, I put in ??? If I have a lot of those I just delete them. You just can’t hear them all.
13. Other than that I leave everything in sequential order.
14. Keep your ghost box session short. Unless you are at a super cool location, 5-15 minutes.
15. It takes me at least an hour for every five minutes of video time.
16. At a certain point you have to put it away and come back to it. Your brain will start to fuzz out.
17. I almost never hear what I think I hear during the video. I’ve noticed other people have the same issue. You’ll hear us laugh and say what we think they said. We are almost NEVER right. This is funny to me.
18. Also every time you come back to it you may hear something different. I liken it to listening to my seven-month-old grandson babble. He’s just learning to talk. Sometimes you’ll hear a word loud and clear but most of the time you’ll just hear pieces of things.
19. Take Portal Sessions seriously. It’s fun and enlightening, but it’s not a parlor game. Talk to spirits like they are right in front of you. Introduce yourself. Ask them their name. Ask them how or when they died. Ask them for messages. Ask them questions. The more specific information you have, the more confirmation you can do later. Treat them with respect. And thank them for their time.
20. Don’t let bad stuff in your house. Don’t edit or record sessions in your bedroom. If you get a bad entity or something saying bad things or just get really bad feelings, end the session. Turn the box off. Say a prayer of protection. You’ll get all kinds of personalities coming through. And you’ll get guides. We notice the same ‘protectors’ coming through. My husband has a saying “Stupid in life, stupid in death.” It’s pretty much true whether living or dead.
21. Don’t use your box when you’re tired, sick or depressed. You need to be in a strong frame of mind. Spirits can drain you, and they can jump right in. If you notice personality changes or obsessive behavior with participants, you should probably hide your box for a while. Keep an eye on each other.
22. If you have issues. Don’t continue. Put The Portal away for another day. Salt and Sage your home.
23. Don’t use your Portal with negative or inebriated people. Trust me.
24. We never provoke spirits ever. We think it’s asking for trouble.
25. Call on your guides for protection. Call on your angels to watch over you. They will keep you safe. Always ask for God’s protection.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/55958
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The 100 Medal Extravaganza
It has been a long and worthwhile journey. Almost 4 years ago I took up running and ran my first race, the 2012 BUPA London 10K (my anniversary run). I was hooked. The atmosphere was amazing. Mo won it. I survived it. And with a goody bag and a t-shirt came the bling. A medal? Oh yes! The inner magpie in me was awakened and soon I was picking up medals each week.
Inspired by Marty Ewers and Alana Bonner as they approached 100 medals each I ran over 30 races a year for a couple of years before upping my distance and somehow, with the Hyde Park 10K I reached 100 medals in 3 years, 11 months and 9 days. Or so I thought. Here is the first 100…
Notice something about about that 100? Yes, the Hyde Park 10K is not there. Why? Well, as I was prepping this blog post I realised that I had already reached the 100 at the 40th anniversary Dartford Half on 13th March. I guess I am just not very good at counting.
Here is the 101st then, the Runthrough Hyde Park 10K medal. And a new rack is on the way for it to go on.
One Comment Add yours
1. Wow, that is some bling collection! Congrats!
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Definition: church from Philip's Encyclopedia
Community of believers. Although adopted by non-Christian movements such as scientology, it is usually used in reference to Christianity. The characteristics of the Christian Church as the whole body of Christ's followers are described in the Nicene Creed. The church is also the name of the building used for worship by Christians. Churches vary from the stark plainness of some Protestant chapels to the grandeur of the world's major cathedrals.
Summary Article: Church, the
from The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization
This article describes the Christian church, both the concept and the institution, as distinct from other phenomena such as the Kingdom of God and Christendom. In the spiritual realm, the Kingdom of God refers to the universal reality of God's sovereign rule. In the temporal realm Christendom refers to the society (medieval, western society) that sprang from the church and, in turn, is the context of the church's life and its mission base. The church is the fellowship of those who worship the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (John 3:16; 1 Thes.1:1), and who, having received the forgiveness of their sins, are saved through the grace of Christ (Acts 15:11). As a church is comprised of members, and they are the church, so every local association of Christ-followers is a member of the church universal, existing throughout time and place since its founding in the mid 30s of the lst century of the Christian era. Thus church refers both to the universal reality and to particular local and historical examples. While other ways of identifying the church — for example as the visible and invisible church — are described below, exploring the church's fundamental nature as both universaland particular requires an understanding of the biblical-theological ideal, followed by an examination of historical examples.
Biblical Terms
Defining the church properly begins with a consideration of its original biblical terms. The Greek New Testament word ekklesia (most often translated “church”) refers to the assembly of God's people. Among Greek-speaking Jews, ekklesia was the usual term for a meeting to which certain people had been called, or rather “called out” since the term combines ek, meaning “out of,” and kalein, meaning “to call.” In the context of the Greek polis, the ekklesia was the duly summoned and authorized gathering of free citizens assembled to make decisions. The first Christians moreover read of an ekklesia in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament), where it was a name for God's people gathered to receive the Law from Moses (Dent. 5:22). In the New Testament the church is the “ekklesia of God” (1 Cor. 1:2) and the “ekklesia in Christ Jesus”(1 Thes. 2:14) so that, apart from the Triune God, “the full significance of ekklesia cannot be appreciated,” since “the … Church of God always stands in contrast and even in opposition to other forms of society (Kittel 1965: 3:505).
It is notable that the English word “church” does not derive from ekklesia but from kuriakon, a Greek New Testament word meaning “of the Lord,” (as in “the Lord's supper,” 1 Cor. 11:20). After Christianity was legalized under the Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century ad (more on this below), places of Christian worship came to be designated kuriakon. The Roman church preserved the use of ekklesia in its Latin form, ecclesia, but Germanic invaders and their Christian descendants preferred terms such as kirika (West Germanic) and cirice (Old English), all of which apparently derive from kuriakon (Oxford English Dictionary). Perhaps the memory of plundering valuables (i.e. “things of the Lord”) from Christian places of worship during the invasion of the empire led to the change; or perhaps it was a general resistance to Latin church terms by Northern Europeans. Whatever the case, there seems to have been a change in the significance of the name “church,” from a people to a place.
The Concept of the Church in the New Testament
Surprisingly, since the church was founded after Christ's ascension, in contrast to the frequent mention of preaching about the kingdom of heaven (in Matthew's Gospel) or of God (in the other Gospels), there is only Christ's prophecy, “… I will build my ekklesia” (Matt. 16:18b), and his instruction that the church is to be the final arbitrator of earthly judgment for unrepentant members (Matt. 18:17). Although many biblical scholars view these lone references to ekklesia in the Gospels as later insertions by the church itself, there is no textual basis for such skepticism since all of the earliest manuscripts include both references. (In the full reference of the passage above, Christ will build his ekklesia on the “rock” of Peter and give him the keys to the kingdom of God, and this is cited as the authoritative basis for apostolic succession — the doctrine that locates the true church in Peter's successors, the Catholic bishops of Rome.) The Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke, describes the founding of Christ's church immediately following the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples (Acts 1:8; 2:1-13) and Peter's sermon, which clarified the phenomenon to a disbelieving crowd of religious pilgrims from all over the world (Acts 2:14-36). The response of some 3,000 on that day — repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37-41) — was, biblically speaking, an “ingathering” that recalled Christ's words, “the fields are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). In the face of opposition from the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:17), “the word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). Regular progress reports of the building up of the Jerusalem Church follow (e.g. Acts 4:32-35; 6:7) as well as accounts of the scattering of believers due both to persecution (8:1, 4; 9:1-3) and to the Holy Spirit's leading (8:40). The net result, however, was that “the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, (and) being built up … it continued to increase.” Notably, in the passage just quoted (Acts 9:31), it is the singular noun “church” that is applied to all the fledgling fellowships throughout Palestine (the King James Version, however, follows the Textus Receptus in using the plural “churches”). The preaching of the gospel to non-Jews led to the establishment of a church at Antioch in Syria on the Orontes River, the third largest city of the Roman Empire. There, Barnabas and Paul gained experience with ministry to Gentiles (11:19-21) and made their base of missionary operation (13:1-4). The mother church of Jerusalem rejoiced to learn that there were Christianoi (Christians) in Antioch. The resulting fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers was characterized by joy and mutual encouragement (11:23; 15:3). The fellowship of believers at Antioch moreover provided the nucleus for subsequent evangelistic missions — i.e. of “sending out by the Holy Spirit” — to Gentiles and Jews living to the west, that is, in Greece and ultimately to Rome. Meanwhile, the question of whether it would be necessary for Gentile believers to observe the Law of Moses was settled by church leaders (apostles and elders) at Jerusalem, with Barnabas and Paul in attendance. Peter addressed the matter by defining salvation (“we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus”), and James recognized the legitimacy and autonomy of the mission congregations as a people “turning to God from among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:11, 19). Later chapters of Acts describe the founding of churches throughout the Mediterranean basin, and the book ends on a note of open, unhindered preaching and teaching. The New Testament letters of Paul are addressed to churches or church leaders in answer to their specific questions, concerns, and circumstances. The Catholic or General letters may have been written to circulate among a group of churches in a specific region. All of these employ a variety of analogies to communicate particular truths about the church, including botanical images (e.g. God's planting, a vine and its branches, trees, a vineyard), architectural images (household, tabernacle, temple, city), somatic images (head, blood, body), and various relational, tribal, and national images (Abraham's sons, brotherhood, the twelve tribes, the people of God, a holy nation) to name a few. Paul Minear identified over 100 such images and noted the tendency of New Testament authors to proliferate and combine the various analogies. The Corinthians are at once God's field and God's building (1 Cor. 3:9), and 1 Peter speaks of “living stones … being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2:5). Whatever sort of analogy is employed, “the purpose of every comparison is to point beyond itself” and “the collage of images arrayed in the New Testament points to the reality and work of God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ” (Minear 1960: 222-223). Compared to these ideal images the churches themselves struggled to grow, and to maintain the witness of unity, love, and godliness (categories mentioned in Acts 9:31). And just as the earliest churches exhibited strengths and frailties in their particular cultural milieus, so also did the churches they spawned.
Historical Developments
Synagogues and House Churches
The earliest churches met in the homes of extended families (1 Cor. 16:9; Col. 4:15; Phil. 2) who, following the pattern found in Acts 2:42-47, were committed to the apostles' teaching and to a quality of fellowship that met the basic needs of all its members, particularly its most needy and vulnerable members. Although prior to Pentecost the disciples still met in the temple courts (Acts 2:46), which shows their historical unity with Judaism, afterward the seclusion of private homes allowed for anonymity and protection from a hostile society. From the mid 1st century onward, Jews viewed the church as a heretical sect — the Nazarenes — banning them from the synagogue, and Romans saw Christians as pagans since they would not participate in the worship of Roman deities. Early forms of Christian worship, leadership, and ministry at first followed the model of the Jewish synagogue. Increasingly, however, the fledgling congregations were influenced by a series of postapostolic Christian encyclicals known later as the “church fathers” but which early on were regarded as “scripture.” One of these, Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, attests the gradual emergence of specifically Christian patterns from the Jewish milieu. The Didache combines Gospel teachings with Jewish liturgical themes and directions for Christian discipline and sacramental practice. Its harshly worded directives, e.g. “don't be like the hypocrites who fast on Mondays and Thursdays,” may be aimed at early Jewish Christians who insisted on observance of the law of Moses as necessary for salvation. Its rigorous guidelines for scrutinizing itinerant teachers and prophets, and the admonition to honor local bishops and deacons, foreshadow a growing inclination to centralize the church's authority.
Church Structure and Authority in the 2nd Century
As the Christian movement spread — estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 Christians by the end of the 1st century — heretical teachings, questions about the canon of Scripture, and problems such as whether or not to readmit “lapsed” Christians to communion, all led to a growing reliance on centralized authority, with the bishop (Greek episkopos) as the administrative head of each local area. “Do nothing without the Bishop,” Ignatius advised, writing late in the 1st century (in his Letter to the Magnesians, chap. 3). The previously described Didache, circulating among the churches during the first half of the 2nd century, helped along the establishment of a standard, threefold church order: bishop, elder, and deacon. By the 3rd century, Bishop Cyprian, speaking on behalf of the church in politically tumultuous times, expressed the need for authority in exclusivist terms: “There is no salvation outside of the church” (Salus extra ecclesiam non est). Concern for doctrinal purity, moreover, led to the development of formal creeds recited during baptism. The Nicene Creed (“We believe in One God …”) originated among the Eastern Church and speaks of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” This was, for late ancient and early medieval Christians, a universal “symbol” of the Church's unity and authority. However, there were differences in the precise wording of the creed as spoken by churches of the East (for whom the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” alone) and the West (for whom he proceeds “from the Father and the Son”), and in fact the Apostles' Creed (“I believe in God the Father Almighty”) became the standard for the West. Given the nature of Christian diversity, the goal of a unified church proved to be elusive, as it had been from the very beginning (see, for example, Acts 6.1). The New Testament itself illustrates this diversity in its description of a range of churches, from the great urban churches of Rome, Corinth, and Antioch, to those of remote Asia Minor addressed in the Revelation to John.
The Legalization of Christianity in the 4th Century
From those first apostolic churches scattered throughout the Mediterranean basin there emerged urban centers of church authority which, by the late 3rd century ad, had begun to coalesce in five “patriarchies,” i.e. Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople. This coincided with the conversion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine and the legalization of Christianity early in the 4th century. The subsequent dramatic rise in the numbers of professing Christians made public worship both possible and necessary. The gifts of wealthy benefactors funded the construction of large urban basilicas and the increase in church wealth, together with the increasing political power of her bishops, produced a church that would have been scarcely recognizable to earlier generations of persecuted Christians. Documents of the period, such as the late 4th century collection known as the Apostolic Constitutions, attest an increasing degree of separation between ordained clergy and laity, as well as elaborate formal prayers and catechetical rituals. The church of medieval Christendom was still the ekklesia — the assembly of God's people — but in its transformation from illegal cult to the “dominant form of religion in the Roman empire” the church was forever changed and, in turn, “imprinted the most important difference between ancient and medieval society” (Chadwick 2001: 1).
The Church East and West
The medieval church was considered to be the visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth, represented in her gathered bishops — men whose increasing position and power were understood to be evidence of God's sovereignty over all society. The medieval synthesis of church and society, however, did not hasten church unity. As the church's borders expanded it was inevitable that its development would follow the lines of church division. The year 1054 marked the formal schism of the church, East and West. Rome became the chief apostolic see forthe Catholic, Latin-speaking Western church, and Constantinople (Istanbul) for the Orthodox, Greek-speaking Eastern church. While the former was (and is) characterized by a central government (the Vatican), a single liturgical language — Latin — and experienced a progressive development of its rites and traditions over time, the latter is far less centralized, and remains rooted in the ancient liturgies — of St. Basil, of the Presanctified, and of St. Chrysostom — celebrated in the formal tongues of each church's homeland. Moreover, while the celebration of Mass is the center of worship for both churches, Eucharist is taken far less often in the Eastern Church and is preceded by lengthier fasts. Both bodies support monastic life, but while the Western Church has a variety of monastic orders, all Eastern monks keep the Rule of St. Basil. Although the Eastern Church, beginning in the 9th century, experienced growth through the evangelization of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia, it is numerically small and geographically isolated when compared with the worldwide Catholic Communion. The limited usefulness of East and West as comprehensive designations for the church becomes apparent when the fact of the existence of Greek (Eastern) Catholic churches is taken into consideration. These churches (found in Albania, Egypt, Ethiopia, Western Syria, and elsewhere), while arising historically from Eastern Orthodoxy, are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and view themselves as a kind of bridge between East and West.
The Quest for the True Church
In the late medieval period, corruption and division within the church fueled the quest for the vera ecclesia (the true church), a quest that intensified amidst widespread poverty and the prevalence of sickness and death during the Middle Ages, as well as a growing discontent with the traditional basis of authority, e.g. the divine right of kings. The Protestant Reformers were themselves Roman Catholics who opposed the Roman magisterium — the Western Church's authoritative teaching basis. In the late 14th century John Wyclif taught that a corrupt church hierarchy must be subject to correction by the state. In the early 16th century Martin Luther denied that the pope or church councils were “masters of Scripture,” possessing sole authority for interpretation. For Luther, the church was not to be identified with the succession and hierarchy of Roman bishops, but was rather a spiritual priesthood of all Christian believers (see 1 Peter 2:9). Nailing his criticisms to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517, Luther used his position as professor of theology at a German university to make an assault on Catholic doctrine, and in so doing unleashed revolution in the church. Stripping away those claims to authority that were based in apostolic succession (i.e. Matt. 16:18-19), Luther found “the word alone … sufficient to identify the Church,” that is “the external word, preached orally …” such that “whenever you hear or see this word preached, believed, professed and lived do not doubt that the true ecclesia sancta catholica [holy Catholic Church], a Christian holy people, must be there, even though their number is very small” (quoted in Avis 1981: 14). In addition to the preached word, Luther described several marks of a true church including the sacraments rightly administered (reduced from seven traditional Catholic sacraments to two: baptism and the Lord's Supper), the office of the keys (the hearing of confession and declaration of forgiveness), and public worship. The Augsburg Confession gave shape to Luther's teachings and defined the church as “the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly” (Article vii). It is important to note that Luther sought the purification of the church and did not intend to found a new church. In making the distinction between the invisible church (comprised of the elect and known only to God) and the visible, imperfect church, Luther set limits on the extent of that purification. Radical Reformers, however, “were dissatisfied with this worldly Church and strove for perfection” (Avis 1981: 54-55). Their vision was nothing less than the restoration of the primitive church since the passing of the apostles (or the conversion of Constantine, the point was debated), had led to the corruption and loss of the true church. Paul Avis (1981) notes four principles underlying the view of the church held by Radical Reformers. These include:
1. Voluntarism: dichotomizing the sacred and the secular, they made a radical distinction between church and state, and rejected altogether the notion of Christendom (Christianized society) in favor of the body of Christ. The Church, then, was “a voluntary association which took its spirit and its discipline from those who intentionally belonged to its fellowship” (Avis 1981: 55).
2. Primitivism: in the documents of the New Testament they found the blueprint for the true church. Thus, and here Avis quotes church historian Philip Schaff, “The Reformers aimed to reform the old Church by the Bible; the Radicals attempted to build a new Church from the Bible” (p. 56).
3. Exclusivism: in their view Luther, in his reforming agenda, had compromised with a corrupt church. Separating themselves entirely, and enduring persecution for their actions, Radical Reformers saw themselves as “the true Church of the apostles and prophets” (p. 55).
4. Discipline: an unwillingness to abstain from serious sin or to be reconciled to a neighbor resulted in an individual's being banned from fellowship, with no further relations with those in good standing.
While the Radical Reformers may seem, simply, to have taken Luther's reforms to an extreme, their spiritual, idealized picture of the church contrasts markedly with that of Luther and other Reformers, and this was due largely totheir rejection of the visible/invisible church distinction.
Church, Sect, and Mysticism
Writing nearly 100 years ago, Ernst Troeltsch employed a sociological analysis in order to describe the historical development of The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. Surveying the development of Christian thought broadly, Troeltsch identified “three main types of sociological development,” including institution (church), voluntary society (sect), and personal and inward experience (mysticism), which types he determined had appeared “from the very beginning” (Troeltsch 1931: 993). This analysis brings a coherence to the inherent variety of Christian expression that is otherwise difficult to discover, and offers helpful categories for describing the post-Reformation development of the church. While Catholics reaffirmed tradition by way of the Catholic (or Counter-) Reformation, Protestants reformulated the institution of church on the basis of the preached word of God. Here the principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) stood in place of the “rule of faith,” that operated in the ancient church. From the German states the Reformation spread throughout the European Continent giving rise to Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist churches. In the British Isles, the Church of England had its own distinctive genesis, being formed when King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church over the matter of the unsanctioned divorce of his wife. Inevitably, the evangelical zeal that had guided the Reformation diminished: the Reformation churches were intertwined with the state whose regulation and oversight encouraged the hardening of the church into a bureaucratic institution with little tolerance for diversity or interest in evangelism. Renewed quests for a true church gave rise to Christian sects and encouraged the expression of the “personal and inward experience” described by Troeltsch. Anabaptists, Lollards, Puritans, and others separated themselves from corrupt and lifeless state churches, and at the risk of their own lives, met secretly until they won the right to establish their own churches. British Methodists evangelized huge throngs of the working class by preaching outdoors, and gathered their converts into classes for spiritual growth through testimony and mutual encouragement. The freedoms and opportunities available in the American colonies led to the sponsoring of missions and the spread of Old World churches (Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, etc.) there, as well as to the birth of new “Restoration churches” (i.e. seeking the restoration of “primitive” or ancient Christianity) such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). American church participation was increasingly characterized by a voluntary covenant.
The Church in Modernity
The growth of indigenous churches throughout the world and the continuation of efforts to work toward church unity have shed further light on the nature of the church. “The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God.” So wrote Leslie Newbigin (1986: 124), a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to India, who presided as bishop over the union of Protestant mission churches to form the Church of South India in 1947. In The Household of God (1953) Newbigin defined the church in the context of “the breakdown of Christendom — the dissolution of the synthesis between the Gospel and Western culture … that synthesis by which Christianity had become almost the folk-religion of Western Europe” such that the entire population was, at least nominally, Christian (Newbigin 1953: 1). In Reformation theologies, Newbigin noted, the church is defined within the context of “a situation in which Christendom is taken for granted” - i.e. within a social matrix that Christendom created or helped to create such as in Western Europe or the United States — and not in a missionary situation, in which case the church is defined “as over against a pagan world” (pp. 1-2). Situated in Hindu culture, the Church of South India was “compelled to define itself as a body distinct from the community as a whole, and therefore to reflect on its own nature” as a new community. Widespread renewed efforts at church unity have arisen from the modern world missions movement, as various missionary organizations such as the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation sponsored worldwide missionary conferences and supported the establishment of the World Council of Churches (1948). The ecumenical movement has inspired an extended dialogue among hundreds of participating denominations and church connections about the meaning and nature of the church, evangelism, and missions, and has produced an extensive literature on ecclesiology.
The Church of China
Historical examples of the church, in each unique context, yield insights into its nature. Christianity came to China in the 7th century ad with the Nestorians (deemed heretics by other Christians because of their view of Christ as two distinct persons), but made little impact there until the advent of modern Christian missions. Throughout the 19th century, the church — Catholic and Protestant — struggled against the Chinese perception of Christians as “foreign devils.” Only as missionaries put aside western pride and cultural prejudice did the church gain a foothold: the early 20th century saw a “Chinese quickening,” or revival, in the Protestant Church, with significant growth occurring every decade thereafter. By the time of the Communist Revolution in 1949, the Protestant Church numbered about 1,000,000 members and was independent of western control. Communist leaders, however, rejected the church as unscientific and representative of foreign imperialism. Under the rule of Chairman Mao Zedong, with his policy of total religious suppression, the Church of China disappeared from sight until Mao's death in 1975. During his 25 year rule the church endured severe persecution and survived by means of alliance, in some quarters, with the Three Self (i.e. self-reliant) Movement, but primarily through the proliferation of secretive and widely dispersed house churches. With the reinstatement of religious freedom under Deng Xiaoping in 1978, a church numbering many millions reemerged to the view and astonishment of the world. Communist strategies for suppressing the church had failed, for while “the government could seize control of an organization … the Church (of China) was not a structured order, but it was a growing, living organism.” Indeed, “the weakness of Protestantism, by its individuality and local autonomy became its very strength” (Suman 2006: 180).
Church Growth in Korea and Latin America
Not all indigenous churches have been planted by mission churches. In the case of the Korean Catholic Church, “missionaries from the West came after an indigenous church had been founded” in 1784 (Sunquist 2001: 447). Protestant missionaries began arriving much later, and consequently Christianity grew much faster than in either Japan or China, due to the church's self-reliance and lack of dependency on foreign leadership and funds, close cooperation between various Protestant missions, and the fact that foreign imperialism was associated with Japan and not the Christian west. Sustained prayer and exponential church growth through the proliferation of cell churches are characteristics of the Korean Church.
Wherever the gospel is freely and accurately proclaimed, the church takes root and grows among people of every race, culture, and economic circumstance, thus transcending traditional social barriers. In late 20th century Latin America, for example, the Pentecostal Church evangelized Creole, Indian, mestizo, and black, both rich and poor, becoming the largest and fastest growing segment of the church in Latin America, and among the fastest growing churches in the world. Emphasizing dynamic worship and life transformation through salvation and sanctification — power to live a new and holy life — the Pentecostal Church offers a strong, supportive community that differs radically from religious and nonreligious forms of traditional Latin community.
The Emerging Church Movement and Other Contemporary Trends
In every generation the tenor of the debate about the meaning and mission of the church reflects its spiritual health and intellectual vigor. The adjective “emerging” speaks of what is only dimly seen, and whose arrival, though anticipated, is yet to be fully realized. The megachurch movement and the so-called “third wave” of Pentecostalism comprise the context out of which the current debate arises. Among neo-evangelical participants of the more recent “conversation” pragmatic core values have displaced Christian doctrine as the focus: in place of ecclesiology is a discussion about “doing church,” and concern for denominational loyalty is sidetracked by worries about worship styles. On the other side are critics from the Reformed theological perspective who find heresy — the adulteration of gospel — in seeker-sensitive worship and generation-based programming. In this sense, the discussion about what the Church should be and do seems to have progressed little in over two centuries of Old School/New School theological debate. Recent ecumenical efforts in some quarters appear to be more promising. Over 480 years after the posting of Luther's 95 theses, a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification was signed (symbolically, on October 31st) at Augsburg, Germany, by official representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Lutheran Federation, with an invitation for others to join. The accord was designed to establish common ground between the Catholic and Lutheran perspectives on justification — the basis of salvation — yet, “it remains to be seen whether this document will bridge the barriers that have separated the churches for so long” (Bloesch 2002: 253). It has always been difficult to square the marvelous concept of church as described in Scripture — built by, loved by, and nourished by the very life of Christ — with the messy reality of the historical church. Key biblical images of the church, e.g. the people of God, the body of Christ, living stones built into a spiritual house, still best express its abiding attributes — unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. Lack of unity is only the most visible problem; as concern for historic Christian doctrine diminishes, the other attributes suffer as well. Even so, to a church torn with strife and worldliness the Apostle Paul declared, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (2 Cor. 11:2).
SEE ALSO: Authority; Creeds and Confessions of Faith; Ecclesiology; Ecumenism; House Churches; Kingdom of God: Modern Interpretations; Medieval Church, the; Ontology of the Church; Reformation; Sobornost
References and Suggested Readings
• Avis, P. (1981). The church in the theology of the Reformers. John Knox Press Atlanta, GA.
• Bloesch, D. G. (2002). The church: Sacraments, worship, ministry, mission. InterVarsity Press Downers Grove, IL.
• Chadwick, H. (2001). The church in ancient society, from Galilee to Gregory the Great. Oxford University Press New York.
• Clowney, E. P. (1995). The church. InterVarsity Press Downers Grove, IL.
• Dulles, A. (1974). Models of the church. Doubleday & Co Garden City, NY.
• Haight, R., /??/S.J. (2005). Christian community in history, 2 vols. Continuum New York.
• Kittel, G. (ed.) (1966). Theological dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3. Eerdmans Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 501-536.
• Minear, P. (1960). Images of the church in the New Testament. Westminster Philadelphia.
• Newbigin, L. (1951). A South India diary. SCM Press London.
• Newbigin, L. (1953). The household of God: Lectures on the nature of the church. SCM Press London.
• Newbigin, L. (1986). Foolishness to the Greeks. Eerdmans Grand Rapids, MI.
• Pannenburg, W. (1983). The church (trans. Crim, K. ). Westminster Philadelphia.
• Schreiner, S. E. (1996). Church. In Hillerbrand, H. (ed.), The Oxford encyclopedia of the Reformation. Oxford University Press New York, vol. 1, pp. 323-327.
• Suman, M. D. (2006). The church in China: One Lord two systems. South Asia Institute for Advanced Christian Studies Bangalore, India.
• Sunquist, S. W. (ed.) (2001). A dictionary of Asian Christianity. Eerdmans Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 446-449.
• Troeltsch, E. (1931). The social teaching of the Christian churches. Macmillan New York. (Original work published 1911.).
• Weston, P. (ed.) (2006). Leslie Newbigin, missionary theologian: A reader. Eerdmans Grand Rapids, MI.
• Robert F. Lay
Wiley ©2012
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Human rights
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Human rights are rights that are human. For example, you cannot be forced to worship some guy in the sky. Wait, you can! You can't be brutally molested and tied down to the ground. Oops, happens all the time. You can't get shot. Who am I kidding? So, do these things even exist? Methinks not.
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Another people finder – Yasni
In the week I spotted Phil Bradley’s review of a people finder called Yasni.
I’ve linked to the UK domain here, for obvious reasons.
Having blogged elsewhere on the merits (and limitations) of various people finders, and given how useful they are becoming as people increasingly remove themselves from more traditional people finders (like electoral rolls), I thought it worthwhile giving it a quick once-over.
Although I always use a range of approaches to people finding, I thought I’d do a quick compare and contrast of its results against 123people – probably the free, bespoke people finder I use most at present.
So here‘s the (UK) results for a search for me in Yasni.
…and here‘s the World (there used to be a UK option, but alas no more) results for a search for me in 123people.
The first major advantage 123people has over Yasni, is it’s organisation by type of web content. Right at the top of results in the former, you will find images, then email addresses, then phone numbers (US only, from experience) etc.
Yasni does filter, but not as intuitively – it tends to filter more by source than by type of content.
That said, often the email search in 123people lacks a touch of finesse – opting for best match rather than exact match, and hence returning lots of irrelevant results (which I suppose is to an extent inevitable, given the unorthodox conventions people and companies use in email names).
To be fair, I can only find one mention of my BBC email address in either Google or Yahoo – from a game of Online Chess I didn’t(!) play ages ago. Neither Yasni nor 123people found reference to it.
I have to say there’s an interesting clash between two of the more contentious aspects of people finding between these two engines. Across the top of results in Yasni you will find a Private tab, which brings back results from Amazon (wish lists) and Myspace.
The latter is a little disingenuous to say the least – as public Myspace profiles (for viewing purposes) have always been public.
Nevertheless, the Amazon results in 123people are getting less useful than once they were. When I first started using 123people, the Amazon results brought back customer’s wish lists (which Yasni has done – albeit not my wish list, rather that of someone else who shares my name).
Now in 123people this module just features book titles authored by people of the name you are searching. This is where 123people falls down on two counts – it’s only bringing back book titles (how many people have actually authored books?), and it found a range of results for an author called Dick Murray – which just goes to show that Pipl‘s attempt to find names incorporating word-order in the search, is a valuable addition to the mix of people finding.
In terms of general web and blog results returned, 123people definitely pips Yasni – by some margin, in my case.
However, there is an exception. The biographies section in 123people has never been one I focus too heavily on – but here is a section where Yasni comes out on top – they’ve recovered my CV, where 123people has failed to. Surely it can’t be that hard to filter biographical content for the terms CV and curriculum vitae?
Keeping on with the theme of biographies – and thinking aloud here, it would make sense for any people finder to focus heavily on filtering about pages in websites and blogs. That is after all where people (if they’re going to share information) will tell you the who, why and what of their online presence – neither set of results brought back the about pages from my blog or website.
It wouldn’t be so difficult either – WordPress urls feature an about folder by default, Blogger urls feature a profile folder etc.
Actually that’s just got me thinking about developing that contributor-finding search engine I made a couple of months back.
The tag cloud function in 123people is something I’ve often got some mileage out of – in terms of teasing out relationships between the person you’re searching for and their associates – and both are good.
I’d have to say 123people’s social net profiles are broadly better (courtesy of the rather hit-and-miss ZoomInfo results) than Yasni’s results (for me).
Phil mentioned in his review (and this is borne out from my experience) that you can claim your own identity in Yasni, and even pick out those Yasni results from a search to create a wider profile of yourself (or the person you are after).
This is, though, something to be rather wary of – I’ve found before how other people finders (like Spock) allow complete strangers to claim a web identity, and how this can be a possible breeding ground for hoaxery and other bad stuff.
One last thing to mention – Yasni offer a search agent function – which is summarized here:
…we search in many more sources on the web and will send you an email about all results within 24 hours. After that you will be notified weekly regarding new results about “Murray Dick” (this search can be canceled at any time).
I’ve subscribed, and will update the blog when/if anything comes back. This is a great initiative, albeit I imagine something which may not be easy (or cheap) to replicate en masse.
So in summary, I’d say I’ll still be using 123people first, but clearly Yasni has a couple of aspects about it which make it good to use too. If nothing else, the results just go to show what I’ve always thought, which is the more tools you use, the more likely you’ll be able to find who you’re after.
Of course by way of caveat, I should point out that a single search for a single person isn’t a particularly fair way to measure which is best out of these engines, but I’m short on time this weekend so…
UPDATE: so I got my search agent mail back from Yasni, roughly 24 hours after I blogged the above. Written in German, it directed me to three more pages, sadly none of which are relevant to me. Still, its a good initiative, in principle if not necessarily in practice.
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About & Author
Taylor Marvin’s interests include US foreign policy, Latin America, and economic history. He previously wrote at the UC San Diego student publication Prospect Journal of International Affairs, where his writing was cited in numerous national outlets. Taylor edited the academic blog Political Violence @ a Glance, and you can also follow him on Twitter.
Taylor’s work from Prospect is archived here. Items published before August 2012 were originally published at Prospect, unless otherwise noted.
Views my own, etc.
Interested in guest posting? Email me at smokeandstir [at] gmail dot com.
Header image: Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, 1668.
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16:26 GMT +315 December 2018
Listen Live
FlyDubai Boeing Crash: Possible Causes of Accident
© Sputnik / Stringer
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FlyDubai Boeing Crashes in Russia (67)
A terrible incident marked this weekend in Russia – the FlyDubai Boeing-737-800 crashed in the early hours on Saturday in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, killing all 62 people on board. Sputnik takes a closer look at what could have caused the crash.
The FlyDubai Boeing-737-800 en route from Dubai to Rostov-on-Don crashed at the city's airport at around 3:40 AM Moscow time (00:40 AM GMT) Saturday after missing the runway amid poor visibility and bad weather conditions. All 62 people on board including 55 passengers and seven crew members died in the accident.
Currently, the Russian Investigative Committee is considering three main versions of the crash: poor weather conditions, technical fault and human error.
"Different versions of the incident are being investigated, including crew error, technical failure, bad weather and other factors," Investigative Committee head Vladimir Markin said.
According to the Investigative Committee, the crew failed to land the plane during the first attempt and spent over two hours flying around the airport hoping to find a good moment for another takedown. Finally, the plane went for the second landing attempt during which it crashed.
Poor Weather Conditions
At the time of the crash the wind is reported to have reached 22 meters per second and it was cloudy and rainy. According to the head of Transport Committee of the Russian State Duma, Evgeny Moskvichev, poor weather conditions could have been the main reason of the plane crash.
"The fact that the plane was circling around the area for two hours while other planes left to other airports suggests that the wind was very strong," Moskvichev explained.
The Dubai Aviation Corporation [which trades as FlyDubai] thinks the weather conditions played no part in the crash.
"If the weather was unsuitable then the plane wouldn't have flown [to Rostov-on-Don]," FlyDubai CEO Geit Al Geit said.
Human Error
Editor-in-Chief of the aviation online portal Avia.ru Roman Gusarov said human error was the cause of the crash. Although captain Aristos Sokratous had almost 6,000 flight hours, he could have made a couple of serious mistakes. First, a bad judgment call by deciding to land the plane during poor weather conditions and then making a piloting mistake during the landing.
The aviation expert suggested that the crew captain was probably asked to fly away and land on a reserve airport, as it's a common practice in aviation.
"If a pilot realizes that the weather conditions are such that he won't be able to make a landing, an airport air communicator always offers an alternative landing spot, especially if the plane was flying above the airport for two hours. There can't be any accusation against airport personnel. A decision to land is made by the captain," Gusarov explained.
Technical Fault
Russian authorities are also investigating whether a technical failure may have been the cause of the accident. Investigators suggested it might have been a mechanical fault that forced the Boeing to stop its initial attempt to land on the runway over two hours prior to the crash. Another question is why the crew took so long between the two landing attempts. Was it because they were trying to fix a technical problem?
Boeing said it would provide Russian investigators with technical consultations.
"Under the direction of the US National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing is launching a team and will serve as technical advisor to the investigating authority in charge, the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee," the company said in a statement.
Black Boxes Found
The investigation into the Boeing crash is expected to take two months, according to Oksana Kovrizhnaya, a spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee.
"The terms of the investigations are set by [Russia's] criminal code — two months. But they could be prolonged because of the inspections' duration," Kovrizhnaya said.
Flight recorders [black boxes] from the FlyDubai Boeing 737-800 have been found and are in good condition.
As of now the main phase of the search operation at the scene of the plane crash has finished. All the victims' bodies were collected and sent for a forensic analysis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of all the victims. Sunday has been declared a day of mourning across Russia.
FlyDubai Boeing Crashes in Russia (67)
US to Assist Russian Inquiry Into FlyDubai Crash
Russian Transport Minister Unaware of Malfunctions Aboard FlyDubai Plane
Black Boxes of Crashed FlyDubai Plane in Good Condition
Commander of Crashed FlyDubai Boeing Cypriot Citizen - Prosecutor's Office
Flight Recorder Found at FlyDubai Boeing Crash Site in Russia
Plane crash, human error, bad weather, technical problems, possible causes, FlyDubai crash in Russia, Boeing, FlyDubai, Oksana Kovrizhnaya, Vladimir Markin, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
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Learning the Ten Commandments Milestone Moment Download
Learning the Ten Commandments Milestone Moment Download
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Life is full of meaningful moments that can be expected or totally unanticipated. Recognizing these milestone moments helps bring an awareness of God's presence into the home and highlights the rituals of daily life experiences. This Learning the Ten Commandments Milestone Moment supports the important experience of celebrating the learning of the Ten Commandments.
Historically, it has been a basic Christian tradition to learn and know the Ten Commandments. Celebrating this moment as a milestone affirms the importance of reading Scripture and learning about God’s love for us. The Ten Commandments present foundational ways to love God and neighbor and provides the Christian community with vital language to shape daily conversations, conduct with others, and values and concerns.
This Milestone Moment includes the Four Keys for practicing faith outline which encourages growing in our faith by recognizing the home and family gatherings as church, too. A simple five-step structure is also included to establish a solid base for faith formation.
These Ten Commandments pottery stones are individually hand-crafted and available at a low cost to purchase and gift as an important reminder for individuals to love God and keep his commandments as they celebrate learning the Ten Commandments.
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2. Greetings Guest!!
Dismiss Notice
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4. Hail Guest!,
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(NEWS) Zed & Ginsu’s vendors
Discussion in 'UO Siege Perilous' started by Ginsu's, Aug 10, 2010.
1. Ginsu's
Ginsu's Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Dec 26, 2009
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Zed & Ginsu’s vendors
Zed is working over 10-12 hours a day.
So he asked me to let everyone know he has not been playing.
So I will be taking over his Kegs until he can fill his vendors.
If you need any type of kegs that i am not stocking.
please ICQ me (see sig)
2. Lorddog
Lorddog Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran Stratics Legend
Oct 25, 2004
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its nice to be in demand for work these days. much better then looking for work
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6 Useful Teaching Tips to Keep Your Students Engaged
Useful Tips to Keep Your Students Engaged|CBSE School in Howrah
6 Useful Teaching Tips to Keep Your Students Engaged
Teaching is an art, and usually we find teachers resorting to the traditional method of classroom lectures; which can bore the students. Eventually the students resort to day dreaming, bird watching from the class, counting the minutes to the bell and so on. This is when you being a teacher, can use some effective methods, to keep the child interested rather than the usual shouting and punishments in class. There is a Best CBSE School in Howrah namely Sudhir Memorial Institute Liluah has adopted innovative teaching methods to impart knowledge to its students.
Some of these tips can help you keep your students engaged in class, as they learn the day’s lesson.
Firstly, be honest, friendly and firm. No student wants an Adolf Hitler as their teacher, but rather a person on whom they can rely upon for help. See that the work assigned is to their level, simple addition cannot be given to class eight students it will bore them easily, or give them problems on permutations and combinations it will make them lose interest. Rather give them topics such as problems on mensuration, time and speed, and Pythagoras Theorem.
Secondly, connect what you teach with real life. This is especially applied in the case of teaching socially deprived children. For a playschool teacher, always teach them each alphabet with an example of an object in real life. For example instead of teach D for dinosaur, teach them D for dog. Teach them things which they can relate to their culture. You cannot teach Indian children about Halloween because that is celebrated in western countries not in India. Link their routines with learning. For example the concept of body parts can also taught by discussing daily routine activities such as washing hands, bathing, and brushing of teeth.
Thirdly, give them choices. Allow them to form groups, and choose a topic to work on. This will keep their interest, bring out their leadership skills, and help them to understand the concept of team work, as they work for the same topic. Let them work at their own pace.
Fourthly, use methods of audio-visual learning. Nothing is better than audio-visual learning, as this captures the attention of students. This can be from movies to even puppet shows, and small skits. Playschool students can be taught morals and manners, by narrating story with flash cards. For primary to middle school children, puppet shows can be arranged to teach them about health and hygiene, such as importance to keep your environment clean.
Fifthly, learn and use their interests and fascinations. If a student in your class is interested in cars the Physics teacher can use this and tell about how simple machines and levers are important in the case of making and repairs of cars.
Last but not the least; do not use the same teaching method everyday. Once the students get used to the teaching method they will get tired and resort to methods of portraying their disinterest in the topic. Therefore, best way is to mix up your teaching methods.
Using these six tips, a teacher will not only have the attention of his students, but will also be able to keep them engaged in their work. Because to learn something, needs proper concentration, which can never be gained by disinterest in the subject.
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PyCodeConf 2011: Snakes in an Infinity Pool
If there is one thing that I learned from PyCodeConf, it’s that all conferences should be in Miami in October. And they should all feature parties at rooftop infinity pools. Aside from the fun, PyCodeConf had a great selection of speakers that showed the breadth of the Python community, from wedding web sites to scientific computing. Read on for an overview of the some of the talks that pulled at my heartstrings.
The slides and audio from all talks can be downloaded from the PyCodeConf site.
What makes Python AWESOME?
This talk by Python core developer Raymond Hettinger was one of my favorites. When working with a language on a day-to-day basis, it is easy to take features for granted. Iterators, generators, and comprehensions are things that seem simple at first, but allow you to do very complex operations in very little code. The new-ish with statement provides an elegant interface for resource management and separation of common set up and tear down code.
Physics is renowned for the beauty and elegance of it’s theories and equations. It’s these same principles that made me love Python. While the language is slower in gaining new features, you can be guaranteed that the implementation will be incredibly clean and consistent with the principles of the language.
Embracing the GIL
I was fortunate to see David Beazley give a GIL thrashing talk at PyCon and this talk was just as good. The GIL is a very controversial part of Python which has both FUD and actual issues surrounding it. David has done a lot of research into how the GIL works and demonstrates how it behaves under various conditions. The summary: Python 2.7 is okay, Python 3 needs work, and a basic implementation of thread priorities in Python 3 puts it on par with 2.7.
API Design and Pragmatic Python
Kenneth Reitz is best known for his wonderful packages such as requests, envoy, tablib, and clint. If you’ve used any of Kenneth’s projects you’ll have noticed that he values creating sensible APIs that insulate users from the messier parts of Python. He takes a very conservative approach to his cause; no need to actually replace messy packages, just create wrappers that make them easier to use.
Kenneth also announced the release of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python. His goal is to create a central repository for Python best practices covering everything from installation and editors to coding style and app layout.
The one common theme of nearly everything at the conference was PyPy, famed alterna-interpreter. The team has come a long way and everyone was eager to show the areas in which it excels over CPython and point out the parts that need some work.
The general consensus seems to be that over the next few years PyPy will become the interpreter of choice for running Python. The team is currently accepting donations on their site for general development, Python 3 support, and a port of NumPY. I’ve donated, you should too!
Who’s coming with me next year?
I highly recommend checking out out each of the talks. Even though I only highlighted a few here, they were all quite excellent. Thanks to GitHub for putting on such a great conference and all of the sponsors that allowed it to happen (free mojitos).
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Is there an ad free version?/ How do I get rid of all these ads?
There are both Free and Paid versions in the iTunes store. Paid does not contain any video ads.
If you purchase the Paid edition after having played the Free version on your device, please make sure to delete the Free version. Having both on your device can cause some conflicts.
Magmic Support Team
Available on iTunes or Google Play
Feedback and Knowledge Base
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There are several automated emails within Refersion that simplify your communication with your affiliates. You have the ability to customize those messages and provide additional info about your program. We highly recommend customizing those emails, especially the New Affiliate email.
To do this, go to Channels > Email. From there you can turn on and off the different templates as well as customize the copy within each template.
You have the following automated emails available to you to send to your affiliates:
• New Affiliate
• Pending Affiliate
• Denied Affiliate
• Approved Conversion
• Pending Conversion
• Denied Conversion
• New Payment Alert
• Payment - Gift Card
You can turn on and off the email under Email Status, choose to show the Referral Link, and choose to show Tracking Information (or a coupon code that is associated to the affiliate, if applicable)
Clicking on Dynamic Tags shows the available dynamic tags for each email. Dynamic tags are replaced in the email with the relevant value for the affiliate. Feel free to copy and paste any of these tags in your email!
What's Next
How To Create Custom Urls For Your Affiliates
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What are description campaigns? Running a campaign will add in your desired text(including URLs) to all of your video descriptions. All URLs in the campaign will be shortened with vid.io so you can monitor CTRs (Clickthrough Rates).
Setting up a campaign is easy— just log into the web app and click on the descriptions icon, type in your links and copy and click run campaign. That’s it, easy peasy.
We recommend using description campaigns to promote new videos, encourage users to subscribe, and even to drive viewers to your off-YouTube websites to purchase your awesome mix tape. Here are some examples to get your started:
When you’re done with a campaign you can always run another, don’t worry we’ll keep track of your campaigns:
Description Campaigns are a powerful part of your vidIQ arsenal—make sure to use them regularly!
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Posts Tagged ‘Steppenwolf’
Saturday Matinee – TUOOGB, Steppenwolf & Link Wray
Saturday, 14 April 2018
I’m embarrassed to say that I never heard of The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain (TUOOGB) until recently, even though they’ve been around for a while. From their website:
Great stuff. The world is your lobster if you have a bass ukulele.
Nice groove.
It’s a cover of Willie Dixons’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” by Steppenwolf at the Riverfront Festival in Louisville, KY, 7 October, 2000.
How ’bout some 1974 retro?
Link Wray played so dirty and nasty. No flourishes.
It was all in-your-face-deal-with-it-badass-rock the way it was always meant to be.
You still want toast?
Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here in a few hours.
Saturday Matinee – Playing For Change, Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf & Meatloaf
Saturday, 4 August 2012
The Stones‘ “Gimme Shelter” by multinational conglomeration Playing For Change, created by American producer Mark Johnson, is very cool. (Watch for Taj Mahal.)
I find it odd that they would choose that particular song, as it’s forever linked to a free rock festival in 1969 that ended up in tragedy at Altamont Speedway, California, much of it due to the actions of the hired “police” – Sonny Barger & The Hell’s Angels.
The event is best known for having been marred by considerable violence, including one homicide and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four births were reported during the event. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.
From the same year, Steppenwolf had a hit with the greatest biker song ever – “Born To Be Wild.” Okay, where do we go from here? Oh wait. I know.
That’s for José from Spain who tutored me on cryptanalysis, and recently discovered the wonderworld of Meat Loaf.
Have a great weekend folks, and be back here tomorrow for Day 3 of our 6th Glorious Year of pure awesomenecessity.
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[Help!] What would you show/teach with Pokitto to shy 10-12 yr olds?
Hello everyone!
Today I visited a code school class with a dozen 10-12yr olds. I showed the Pokitto to them and I am due to hold a 1-hour class to them.
1. all of them were quite shy. It seems they prefer to work alone instead of as a group
2. even though they’ve had several classes this semester, they’re pretty beginners. They do Scratch and Python
3. many of them were ‘stuck’ in doodling graphics with Scratch
Now, point #3.
I am wondering if Scratch really is the right way to start learning programming. Instead of grasping the concept of programming, many of them spent the hour fine-tuning their Scratch program background images. And this was their 6th lesson.
It was a sobering encounter. I didn’t realize this is the normal situation.
If you have any good ideas what I could teach to complete beginners, something that can be accomplished in 1 hour, and would be fun on a Pokitto then help me with your ideas!
I would not want to turn them to making graphics editing of any sort because that will be the entire hour gone. I would really like to teach some real concept of programming instead.
I have seen many turning to scratch as a crutch more than a stepping block to more practical programming code.
Maybe it would be possible to fit in a number guessing game? And have the pokitto face for happy or sad on success or failure?
Yes, I was thinking about that also. But since there is no number keys, its kind of hard.
I am about to start teaching kids about this age programming in Snap (similar to Scratch) sometime this month. I have some very basic games ready. Some of the simplest that could be made within an hour (that’s really too little time for anything more complex than really trivial though):
Then I also have an aquarium and a rallye game, but that’s most likely too much for one hour lesson.
It’s a tough question. Kids associate computers nowadays with something with a touchscreen. Writing code involves a learning curve that wasn’t there for people who started using computers with a terminal.
That said, if you’re trying to get them to do actual code… The first thing anyone does in any new language is print “hello world”.
Once output is taken care of, now they need input: give them an ask function that blocks until a button is pressed.
With that they’ll be able to print the number of the button and that’s all you need for a rough guessing game: printf("The dice rolled %d, you guessed %d.", random(1, 6), ask());
Next teach them if and they can print “you win” or “you lose”. Maybe also teach how to declare variables.
At this point they know all that’s needed for a simple text adventure game. Add loops and they can have a state machine for complex text adventures.
I suppose making an up or down selector would be a bit much when included with the math logic…
I’m going to ramble my thoughts out loud in case I say something useful.
(If not, we’ll just have another incoherant word wall to add to the collection.)
I highlighted the important bits if you don’t have time for my ramblings.
You don’t need number keys.
Provide them with an extra library/utility that prints a number and that number goes up when they press up and down when they press down (and possibly cap it to something sensible, like 0-10).
class NumberGadget
int getNumber(void) const;
void increaseNumber(void);
void decreaseNumber(void);
NumberGadget numberGadget;
using Pokitto::Core;
using Pokitto::Buttons;
using Pokitto::Display;
int main(void)
// ...
Display::setCursor(60, 40);
// ...
Remember, half the point of an API is to create an easy-to-use interface so that the end user doesn’t have to care about how it’s implemented.
You can use that to your advantage.
E.g., if you want to show off the traffic light hat:
class TrafficLight
void redLightOn(void);
void redLightOff(void);
void yellowLightOn(void);
void yellowLightOff(void);
void greenLightOn(void);
void greenLightOff(void);
If you make the API simple enough, a 10 year old genuinely can understand it.
That’s how Arduino came about after all.
That may or may not be a bad sign, I think it depends on:
• How many lessons there are in total
• What they’ve covered in previous lessons
• How the teachers are teaching them
• Cultural elements (e.g. here in Britain we start school at age 4, whereas other countries start aged 5)
It could just be that they aren’t as far in as you think.
And in all fariness, it’s hard enough getting teenagers and adults interested in programming, so I would expect it to be difficult to get children interested.
Personally I dislike Scratch and other forms of block code.
I think things like flowol/flow charts are good for understanding and visualising algorithms, but they always feel like a bit of a lie because they’re so far removed from the real deal.
The problem here is finding something that interests them.
Not many younglings are going to be particularly interested in maths or physics, even if they have useful aplication in games.
Instinctually I would say: try to set them a challenge.
Programming isn’t about punching numbers into a terminal, it’s about problem solving and critical thinking.
We may be architects of the abstract, but there’s always an end goal - always a problem to overcome.
Rather than trying to get them to make a program from scratch (if you’ll pardon the pun) I think it would be better to provide them with a half-finished program and get them to finish it.
A lot of people, when they start out with programming, really struggle to think for themselves.
They can verbalise an answer to the problem, but they don’t understand the language enough to know how to formalise that thought stream as code.
By giving them half-finished code, you give them a leg-up.
Not only does it test their ability to read code and understand it, but hopefully it will make it feel like you’re cooperating with them rather than demanding something from them.
When they complete the challenge, or even if they don’t complete it, you should encourage them to play around with the code in an attempt to do something interesting.
I can’t remember who said it, but I remember back when Space Engineers used to put quotes on the loading screeen, one of the quotes was something like:
“If you want to understand something, study it when it’s coming apart.”
The same is true of programming, to understand the wheel you must break it apart and reinvent it.
The main reason I understand quite a lot about the inner workings of the stdlib is because I’ve attempted to reimplement a lot of it at various points in time, and I’ve looked at different implementations - disecting them to understand how they work.
Also, humans learn from failure - trial and error is a perfectly valid learning strategy.
(Without it, we wouldn’t know which berries are poisonous.)
If you were looking for a more concrete sugggestion…
Noughts and crosses is always one of my favourite games for testing a system’s capabilities, but even if you implemented most of it and got the kids to do the finishing touches I’m slightly worried that it might involve concepts they aren’t ready for.
A number guessing game as others have suggsted could be good if you want to touch on conditional expressions.
Fundamentally I think what you demonstrate to them or ask them to do will be governed by a fundamental question:
How much (and what exactly) do you plan to teach them?
From my point of view (feels like being on the outside looking in!) I would go with whatever software teaches the point of the lesson. Sorry if that is obvious but if you bombard people with C++ (for example) then they aren’t necessarily going to grasp it with both hands.
There are so many different programming languages available that that in itself can be a daunting prospect.
So lesson 1 would be, ideally, what languages are available and what famous software they were used to create - forge a link with your audience.
Lesson 2 might be some BASIC, learning a bit of Boolean operators and the like,
Lesson 3 loops - using SonicPi. It’s brilliant for just that purpose
And so on…Use the best tool for the job - being the one that is most engaging - and then highlight what the lesson means (vars, loops etc.)
Does that sound about right?
Note:- Forgot to add that the addition of visual / aural stimulus is vital (imo). But it’s all very well showing a demoscene show reel so long as you don’t go straight into assembler :wink:
Some advice from a seasoned expert (or an arrogant buffoon, depending on your viewpoint :P),
once you’ve got experience in one programming language and start learning a second one,
it gets a lot easier to pick up new ones after that.
You eventually realise that actually programming is all about problem solving and conceptual ideas,
and that programming languages are just a tool for expressing those ideas to the computer (and other programmers).
That said, languages still have different nuances and everyone has their preferred languages and hated languages,
but once you’re reasonably skilled in one language it doesn’t take very long to learn the basics of another language.
It will always take a long time to ‘master’ a language (if anyone actually can) and/or to learn all its little quirks and idioms,
but the more experienced you get, the less time it takes to go from knowing nothing about a language to being able to do something useful with it.
Fundamentally, pretty much all languages have variables, expressions, functions and data structures.
I feel the need to say that bacause I don’t think it gets said often enough and it probably isn’t obvious given the number of people who like to war over languages (myself included).
Technically speaking the language is called ‘an assembly language’ and the tool that ‘assembles’ that into machine code is called ‘an assembler’.
You mean almost like… math? Reference to our private conversation :slight_smile:
Anyway, you’ve pointed out an important idea about the languages that makes me want to add this advice:
When introducing beginners to programming languages, explicitly make it clear they’re very different from human languages.
I say this because when a newcomer to programming hears “programming language” they probably think it’s like a foreign language and that it takes many years to be able to effectively use any one. The word language must sound scary. So be sure to tell them it’s as @Pharap says: the first one takes a while to learn, though not nearly as long as a foreign language, and then the new ones are very easy to pick up, as they reuse most ideas.
There was one guy who was playing around with Unity. The problem is he didn’t know C#.
So he was looking for answers to Unity API questions from C# references.
I remember my own confusion when learning C++ and started with some sort of a library and was unable to distinguish the different abstraction levels
I’ve been working with middle school kids in the U.S. (11-13 year olds), and one thing that seems to engage them is the physical crafting of breadboard circuits. I give them a spool of solid core wire and some strippers and have them get all the connections as precise as they can. Maybe they would like connecting LEDs, pots or light sensors to the extension header.
I am also suspicious of block programming languages, mainly because it makes it difficult to share and discuss code.
But you can’t program computers with maths alone.
Besides which programming is arguably more fun and more useful.
Programming is to formal logic what carpentry is to geometry.
(That’s probably an analogy riddled with errors, but it sounds cool.)
That’s not entirely untrue, it does take years to get good at programming.
But it’s true that they’re much quicker to learn than foreign languages, as my poor abilities in French and Japanese will attest to.
This is one of the reasons I don’t like Unity.
It encourages people to try to make games without learning how to program.
Trying to make games without learning how to program just punishes you in the long run because you don’t learn about hardware details, why certain approaches are faster than others, and most importantly you don’t learn the problem solving skills.
I won’t deny, trying to get a dynamic-link library working with your code is one of the fiddliest things about C++.
One of the few things I learnt in college that I think was particularly useful was the black box analogy - the idea that you don’t need to know how something works to use it.
At the time I didn’t appreciate it because I wanted to know how everything worked and I didn’t realise that “you don’t need to know how it works” had the implicit exception of “you do need to have a general idea of what it does”.
But now I appreciate the analogy more, and I know how it can be improved on:
I don’t need to know how a remote control works at a circuit level to know how to change channels.
I don’t need to know how a sorting algorithm works to know it’s going to sort my objects when I give the function an array of objects.
It might take some explaining and convincing, but it’s the fundamental idea of libraries.
And of course, some people will want to know how everything works - that’s fine.
Just remind them that rome wasn’t built in a day.
I’m pretty sure at least some block languages do have file formats.
From what I can tell, scratch use JSON compressed in a .zip file with a custom file extension.
For example, this block code:
Corresponds to the JSON:
["doUntil", [">", ["timer"], "10"], [["gotoSpriteOrMouse:", "_mouse_"]]],
["think:duration:elapsed:from:", "Scratch 2.0 is amazing!", 3]]]
You can certainly see the relationship between the two,
but you probably wouldn’t want to try to edit the plaintext version.
That’s probably one the big advantages of programming languages that people take for granted - if you really want to, you can write code in any old text editor, you don’t really need a big, fancy IDE.
Sometimes I’ll even write code on paper if I’m not at a computer (though I might elide some of the syntax details, writing by hand is more effort than typing).
Before Pokitto I did a couple of Unity games for a hobby. Unity is a huge, bloated, environment which enables you to do a lot of of things. Over the years, you probably get familiar with all the aspects in it, and everything get easier, but do not expect to be productive any time soon.
Pokitto programming was like a breath of a fresh air after that!
I dislike Unity for a different reason :wink: Luckily there is Godot.
To address the main point though: I think it’s not necessarily bad if you learn programming this way – it’s different from how programming has been taught traditionally – that is from the bottom up, command line to graphics and so on. Because traditionally there hasn’t even been any (good) alternative.
This is a different, new way of how to get there (same with Scratch) – it’s a top-down learning. You learn in different order, but the necessity will force you to eventually learn the lower level details (if you manage to persist in learning, that is).
Of course both approaches have advantages and weaknesses, but I don’t think one is necessarily superior.
(Personally I potentially see the combination of both bottom-up and top-down as the most effective.)
Same feeling here!
This is the problem - many people don’t feel the necessity to go further.
They can make fancy-looking games by just copying code snippets from the internet so they persist in doing so,
they never bother to try to go further because they’re convinced they don’t need to.
So what you end up with is someone who can’t really do much who is convinced they can make any game they want to just by copying snippets off of Unity’s forums.
Scratch is a bit better because it at least forces people to think a bit about what they’re doing at a higher level.
@Pharap I usually get Assembler and Assembly the wrong way around, it’s a feature! :+1::joy:
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TapRun Consulting
What Is a Commodity?
by Adam Juda on Tuesday, May 1, 2018
There's one word that appears over and over on my blog: commodity. I always thought its definition was clear, but now I'm not so sure. Let's take a look at some of the ways that it is both used and misused.
Like most economists, when I use the word commodity, I'm referring to a product that is so indistinct and plain that one vendor's offering is pretty much the same as any other. Think about products like thumbtacks, staples, and paper clips. When's the last time you looked for a particular brand of thumbtacks? Probably never. Very few people in this world have a favorite thumbtack manufacturer, and those who do should certainly be avoided for obvious reasons. Commodity markets lack premium offerings, and are chockfull of shoppers whose primary consideration is price.
Those in the field of finance use the term a little differently. Investors use the word commodity when referring to items that possess substantial value and can be traded in liquid markets. Whether they're dealing with pork bellies or orange juice is irrelevant. To investors, these products are just commodities.
Some people use the phrase hot commodity. It denotes a product that enjoys significant demand. This term flips the definition of commodity upon its head and serves as a source of confusion for those of us familiar with commodity's proper definition. An individual offering can never, ever, be hot when compared to other items within its category, because, if it were, it would no longer be a commodity. It would be a premium offering.
Others use even more bizarre definitions for the word. I recently found myself browsing through the Connecticut's general statutes. This was bizarre for two reasons: I'm not a lawyer, and I don't live in Connecticut. Nevertheless, I found myself shocked by the text in question. Between giveaways to corporate interests and legal mumbo jumbo of dubious value, I came across this bizarre definition of consumer commodity:
"Consumer commodity" means any food, including, but not limited to, any food that is weighed for retail sale at the point of purchase, or any drug, device, cosmetic or other article, product, or commodity of any other kind or class, except drugs sold only by prescription, which is customarily produced for sale to retail sales agencies or instrumentalities for consumption by individuals, or use by individuals for purposes of personal care or in the performance of services ordinarily rendered in or around the household, and which usually is consumed or expended in the course of such consumption or use;
Setting aside my distaste for the fact that the statute used the word in its own definition, I find myself bewildered by the passage.
Now, I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that the elected representatives in the Connecticut legislature have some explaining to do. They have, quite literally, codified an incorrect meaning for the word commodity that no rational human being would ever think to use. What they describe is not a commodity, so much as a consumable.
Although some may think it silly to place so much importance on the meaning of a single word, I disagree. Grammatical nitpicking is quickly becoming the central focus of our entire legal system. Lawsuits abound, with highly-paid firms arguing about everything from the meaning of the word "milk," to the proper use of commas, and even the appropriate length of pauses between words.
While I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to address every mistake made by speakers of the English language, I am drawing a line in the sand. I'm choosing to defend the word "commodity." I'm deciding to teach people to use it correctly. To do any less would be uncivilized.
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Amusement Park: Jumping Kid
From The Cutting Room Floor
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Title Screen
Amusement Park: Jumping Kid
Also known as: The Worms (VT02)
Developer: Nice Code
Platforms: Unlicensed NES
CopyrightIcon.png This game has hidden developer credits.
GraphicsIcon.png This game has unused graphics.
Carts.png This game has revisional differences.
Developer Credits
Amusement Park- Jumping Kid-devcreditscreen.png
As with many Nice Code games, pressing Up, Down, Up, Left, Right, Left, B on the title screen will briefly display a credits screen. Nature Color Game is one of several aliases used by Nice Code, and PJ most likely refers to the Power Joy series of Famiclones which many Nice Code games have been released on.
(Source: Original TCRF research)
The Worms
To do:
• There appears to be more unused tiles for the logo, though they use the same colours as the used tiles making it hard to tell what the original title could have been
An alternate version of this game exists which replaces the graphics and music. The code to access the credits screen was disabled in this version.
Unused Graphics
The Worms contains some unused graphics for the title logo, with two letters being in different colors.
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Home : Technical Terms : Kilohertz Definition
One kilohertz (abbreviated "kHz") is equal to 1,000 hertz. Like hertz, kilohertz is used to measure frequency, or cycles per second. Since one hertz is one cycle per second, one kilohertz is equal to 1,000 cycles per second.
Kilohertz is commonly used to measure the frequencies of sound waves, since the audible spectrum of sound frequencies is between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. For example, middle C (C4) on a piano keyboard produces a frequency of 261.63 Hz. The C key two octaves above middle C (C6) produces a frequency of just over 1 kHz (1,046.5 Hz). Since the sound frequency doubles with each octave, the C7 key produces an audible frequency of just over 2 kHz (2,093 Hz). As you might guess, frequencies above 2 kHz sound very high-pitched.
Sound waves and low frequency radio waves are often measured in kilohertz. Other waves, such as high frequency radio waves, visible light waves, and ultraviolet rays, have much higher frequencies. Therefore, most waves in the electromagnetic spectrum are measured in megahertz, gigahertz, or even greater units of measurements.
Abbreviation: kHz
Updated: March 3, 2011
Cite this definition:
TechTerms - The Tech Terms Computer Dictionary
This page contains a technical definition of Kilohertz. It explains in computing terminology what Kilohertz means and is one of many technical terms in the TechTerms dictionary.
All definitions on the TechTerms website are written to be technically accurate but also easy to understand. If you find this Kilohertz definition to be helpful, you can reference it using the citation links above. If you think a term should be updated or added to the TechTerms dictionary, please email TechTerms!
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Who in the World is Tony Da Mimbo
Some of you might be wondering who this clown is? Is this just Danny’s alter ego? Is he from the neighborhood? Did he ever drown anyone at Whealan?
To answer all of these questions, it’s a pretty simple no. As you can tell by the nauseating picture luring you in, I’m pretty much an open book, and my DMs are always open. If you really need to know who I am, it’s nothing a quick google search can’t solve, but I did want to give a little background here since I am letting you into my world.
I was basically born and raised for the most part in Mt. Greenwood on the South Side. Lived there over 25 years, and still have family in friends there. Even though I now live in the Western Burbs, I will always call Mt. Greenwood home, and am very proud to be from there.
Mt. Greenwood is basically like Edison Park, just like 8% shittier if I had a guess. If you don’t know where Mt. Greenwood is, it is between where the South Side Irish Parade is, and where Bourbon Street is. That is usually how I landmark it, and the only reason any of you venture south of Pershing.
I lived in Mt. Greenwood until I was 29 or 30. I met my wife online because I am a fat loser, but now a very happy fat loser. Only reason I bring her up is that she grew up in Niles, and has a large family that all live within what feels like 12 minutes of each other. So I have gotten to know the neighborhoods on the NW Side a little bit, and look forward to hearing all of your stories about how much better you all are than I am.
To be serious for one paragraph, I do appreciate any feedback that you all have. If you don’t think something is funny, tell me. I need to know what you like and what you don’t, otherwise this isn’t going to work. I appreciate Danny Conrad giving me an outlet like this, and I hope my blogs (and future videos) entertain you all, and take your minds off of the every day lives you all lead.
Going forward, I will be sharing stories of my glory days and trying to make you laugh, and maybe cry if my dog dies or something. I look forward to eventually meeting you at one of your exquisite shrines such as Teasers or Chasers.
P.S. TBK fucking STINKS! Be better.
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January 20 – Zaphenath-Paneah
Then Pharaoh gave Joseph a new Egyptian name, Zaphenath-paneah. He also gave him a wife, whose name was Asenath. She was the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On. So Joseph took charge of the entire land of Egypt. (Genesis 41:45)
Read: Genesis 41:17 – 42:17, Matthew 13:24-46, Psalm 18:1-15, Proverbs 4:1-6
Relate: Names mean something. Well, maybe they don’t mean all that much anymore but they used to. It is rare to hear about a significant name change in our world today. A couple big exceptions are Malcolm X (formerly Malcolm Little and later El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) and Martin Luther King Jr (born Michael King Jr but his father changed both his own name and his son’s after a trip to Germany) For most of us these days, our name is simply something our parents thought sounded nice when we were born or perhaps it is the name of a significant relative or friend. By the way, Beejai means “victory” in Hindi and a similar pronunciation in Kurdish means “forever”.
Names might not mean much in our time but they were huge in Biblical times. This is especially true when a name is changed or added in a person’s adult life. Joseph (Yosef) means “He will add” or “He will do again.” So what does Zaphenath-paneah mean? It was clearly significant for the Egyptians. Joseph was, to them, the representation, the ambassador of the one true God. What impression did he make? If you’re reading from many versions of the Bible (KJV, NKJV, NIV, ESV, RSV, etc) there is no footnote to help out even though you will find one explaining the kids names just a couple verses later. The NASB and NLT do say that it probably means God speaks, He lives (NASB) or God speaks and lives (NLT). That probably is an awfully big word and for me, it’s not good enough.
So I did a little digging. The problem of the name is that it is an Egyptian name transliterated into Hebrew and then more than a couple millennia passed by before anybody bothered to start thinking seriously about what it might mean. True, when Jewish scholars first translated the Tanach into Greek (the Septuagint) they used a Greek transliteration basically meaning “the one who furnishes the nourishment of life” and the Latin Vulgate played off this to use a name meaning “healer of the world”. The Coptic (Egyptian Christians who trace their heritage all the way back to Solomon) claim the name means “the man who knows all things” or “the man to whom secrets are revealed”. Considering that their language would, to a degree, be descended from that ancient Egyptian, that at least deserves a bit more consideration than the other two.
ankhThe reason why we think the name probably means something along the lines of “God speaks, He lives” is because Egyptologists believe Joseph’s Egytian name is a combination of two ancient words, “Zat-en-aph” (pronounced DJED-un-ef) and “Aneah”. The first of these means something along the lines of “He who is called” or “He who calls”. The second “life”. It is the same word from which ankh is derived, It is the most famous of Egyptian symbols and still represents immortality. If these Egyptologists and Biblical scholars are right (and they’re all a lot smarter in this than I am) the Joseph’s Egyptian name, Zaphenath-paneah, means, “He who calls is life.” Or, more simply, “God speaks, He lives.” Or even, “God speaks life.”
React: God still speaks life today. Even if, someday this best of theories as to what Joseph’s name means is blown out of the water, God still speaks life. He is still speaking to hearts and lives today that many might be saved from death. Are we listening? Are there Josephs out there today with the fate of tens of thousands in their hands who are ignoring His words? Am I?
He who speaks still lives. What He has said, His commands and precepts, His promises, are all still just as relevant for us today as when they were first put down in writing. They are just as valid as when the original prophets and apostles recorded them. Jesus’ sermons on the hillsides still live on in the hearts and lives of His followers today. Do they live in mine?
He who calls still promises life eternal. Where He calls, what He calls us to might not be easy. He still promises to us a future loaded with impossibly good as well as horrendously bad. He still demands from us the use of both wisdom and action. Are we using them? The living God is still speaking today. Are we listening? Am I?
Dear God,
You still speak. You still live. In and through my life, let this be evident to all. When people look at me, when they hear what I say, when they see how I live, let them say like they did around Joseph. The God who speaks is alive. Let my every breath bring glory to You.
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Green Pastures and Quiet Water
Psalm 23:1b-2
Tom Pennington • September 28, 2014
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I invite you to turn with me again to Psalm 23, a Psalm penned by David during his reign in Israel now 3,000 years ago. Here is a short, compact poem that has ministered more grace to more people even though it is from so long ago.
This week I was reading a little bit about Hudson Taylor, the 19th-century missionary to China. I was reminded of the fact that Hudson Taylor understood what it is to trust God's provision in one's life. He had complete trust in God's faithfulness to meet his needs. Hudson Taylor, in his journal, wrote these words, "Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning. He sustained three million Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. We do not expect He will send three million missionaries to China, but if He did He would have ample means to sustain them all. Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."
During his many years of ministry in China, Taylor found himself often having to look to the Lord alone to meet his needs, and as a sort of reminder to him of the Lord's care in his life, Hudson Taylor had two Hebrew words transliterated into English, written on scrolls, and then he affixed them to the wall of his sitting room. One scroll had just this word, Ebenezer; it's a Hebrew word that simply means, thus far Yahweh has helped us. Thus far Yahweh has helped us. On the other scroll he had the words written, Jehovah-jireh, or Yahweh-jireh, Yahweh will provide. Toward the end of his life Hudson Taylor reported, "I have sometimes met people who said, 'Trusting God is a beautiful theory, but it won't work.'" He said, "Well, thank God it has worked, and it does work."
As we return to Psalm 23 tonight David reminds us of this very same truth, our Shepherd knows exactly what each sheep of His really needs and that is exactly what He provides. Just to remind you of sort of the flow in the context we find ourselves in tonight, Psalm 23 begins, you'll notice, by identifying its author, David. Once you understand that, it makes perfect sense why it uses the metaphor of a shepherd. David spent his early years alone caring for his father's sheep there in Bethlehem. So for him the image of a shepherd caring for the sheep captures the goodness and the grace of God in the lives of all of those who belong to Him.
Let's read this magnificent Psalm again together. You follow along, and as I admonished you last time, try to read along with me in your mind as though you had never read these words before and you were learning something about your God that you had never seen.
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and steadfast love will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Really, an amazing Psalm, as you noted, there is not a petition in this Psalm, not a request, not a prayer. This is a Psalm instead of trust, a Psalm of confidence in God. Essentially, if we could reduce the message of this Psalm to one sentence it would be this: Because Yahweh is our Shepherd King He will always care for our every need. He will always care for us. David was completely confident of God's goodness, both in this life and in the life to come.
Just to remind you of the structure of this Psalm, some argue about whether there are two metaphors here or one. Some say the Psalm is based around two metaphors in verses 1 to 4, the Lord as a loving shepherd, and in verses 5 and 6, the Lord as a gracious host, but we're approaching this Psalm differently and I think it will bear out as we work our way through, it really is based on one extended metaphor. There's only one metaphor here, it is God as our shepherd, but as our Shepherd King.
David begins then, defining the nature of our relationship with God, and the essence of that relationship as he portrays it here is God is the Shepherd to each of us who are His sheep, who are true believers in Him, and then in the rest of the Psalm David explains the practical results, or the practical effects, of the fact that God is our Shepherd. So really, I think the Psalm divides neatly with the statement of fact in the first half of the first verse and the rest of the Psalm is an explanation, an exposition, if you will, of that reality.
Now, last time we looked at how to think about God. How to think about God, one powerful illustration of our relationship with Him, that is simply, in verse 1, "The Lord is my shepherd." And just to remind you, I'm not going to go back through it, if you were here last time I invite you to catch up, but we went through emphasizing each of these words, the Lord, the word, the Hebrew word, is Yahweh, the One who simply is, the One who is all sufficient, who needs nothing and no one, but who relies solely upon Himself for everything. That self existent gracious One who declared Himself in Exodus 34 to be the God who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin," that God is the one we're talking about.
"The Lord IS my shepherd." As I mentioned last time, although the verb of being is not in the Hebrew text, all of our translations supply it, because even in Hebrew it's clearly understood. He is, this is a current reality; this is a current state of being. "Yahweh IS my shepherd." "Yahweh is MY shepherd." You know, the emphasis, really in many ways, falls here. It's shocking because the Old Testament is filled with examples, as we looked at last time, of God as the shepherd of His people, the flock of Israel as a whole, but here David dares to make it much more personal. "The Lord is MY shepherd," and then we examined "The Lord is my SHEPHERD." Now, in looking at that term shepherd we asked the question, why? Why did David choose the image of a shepherd with his sheep to picture our relationship to God, and you might be tempted to go with the easy answer, well, because he was a shepherd, but it's more complicated than that.
The image of a sheep certainly best describes us and I think that's one of the reasons he chose it, but also because the image of a shepherd best describes God's role in our lives. We will see that as it unfolds. There really is no better picture of God's care for us than that of a shepherd caring for his sheep, and then a third reason I think he chose this picture was because in the ancient world, and we see glimpses of this even in the Scripture, kings were often called the shepherds of their people. So Yahweh then, here, is likened to a shepherd because He is our Shepherd King.
Now, we noted that the New Testament tells us that this Shepherd King came into the world. Jesus said in John 10:11, "I am the good shepherd." Hebrews 13:20 calls Christ, "the great Shepherd of the sheep, even Jesus our Lord." This Shepherd, who is our Shepherd, is Yahweh, but specifically He is the second member of the Trinity who has come and has become the good Shepherd, the great Shepherd of the sheep. Just as a shepherd does with his physical flock of sheep, Christ chose us to belong to Him. He bought us. He bought us with the cost of His own blood and He knows each of us individually. He has made us His own and He delights in caring for us. You see Psalm 23 is the divine job description of Jesus Christ our Shepherd King. He labors night and day for our good. So understand this, when we say, "The Lord is my shepherd." We are really saying, in New Testament terms, Jesus is my shepherd.
Now, tonight we begin the second part of this Psalm, and I've entitled the second part, beginning at the middle of verse 1 and running through the rest of the Psalm, What to Expect From God, Six Practical Results of Our Relationship with Him. So, in verse 1, we saw: How to Think About God, One Powerful Illustration of Our Relationship with Him. But then, beginning in the middle of verse 1 and running to the end of the chapter we have: What to Expect from God.
Now, let me show you the breakdown. The second half of verse 1 is a summary of what we can expect from God, "I shall not want." And verses 2 through 6 are some specific expressions of what we can expect from God, or Six Practical Results of Our Relationship with Him. So then, the second half of verse 1, the summary, verses 2 through 6, some specific results. So let's look, first of all, at the summary in the second half of verse 1, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Those words really are the keynote of the Psalm.
What is the relationship between the first half of verse 1 and the second half of verse 1? It is one of cause and effect, because Yahweh is my shepherd, I will never want. As long as Yahweh is my shepherd, I will never experience want. Now, the Hebrew word for want here does not imply that God will so lavish me with blessings my whole life, kind of an Old Testament prosperity gospel, that there will never be anything else I want. That's not what he's saying, nor does David mean that all of my desires will be met. The Hebrew word that's translated want means to be devoid of something or to lack something. Because Yahweh is my Shepherd King, because Jesus Christ is my Shepherd, I will not lack, ever, the care I need. The one who has the Lord, the One who owns all things, will have everything he needs. He will supply for us whatever is good in itself, and whatever would be good for us.
His sheep will have everything that He decides is good for them, and is necessary for them to enjoy the gift of life He's given them to the fullest, in His time and in His plan. The main idea here in the second half of verse 1 is that our Shepherd is never lacking, never deficient when it comes to caring for His sheep. Philip Keller, who wrote a book on the twenty third Psalm, he was an Australian shepherd for a time, he wrote a book on the twenty third Psalm; he writes this, "I shall not lack the expert care and management of my master. He is the owner who delights in his flock. For him, there is no greater reward, no deeper satisfaction than that of seeing his sheep, contented, well fed, safe and flourishing under his care. This is indeed his very life. He gives all he has to it. He literally lays himself out for those who are his."
This isn't always true of shepherds. There are hirelings who care nothing for the sheep that they care for. There are also spiritual shepherds who neglect their flocks. I want you to turn with me to Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34, here Ezekiel compares the spiritual leaders of Israel to shepherds and he describes them in awful terms. Ezekiel 34:1,
Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Son of Man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. [These are the leaders of the nation.] Prophesy and say to those shepherds, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! [These are greedy people who are into their leadership for how it advances their own interests.] Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. [Sadly, these words are all too true in many of the churches today.] Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost, but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or
Not only do they not feed the flock they ate the flock. They devoured those they were supposed to be caring for. These were the spiritual leaders of Israel. So, understand there are spiritual shepherds who don't care for their flock. That was true then, it's true today, but here's the good news, that is not what Yahweh is like. That is not what our Lord is like. He truly cares for His people.
You see this, there is a lot of imagery in Psalm 23 that harkens back to the Exodus, back to what God did in caring for his people as they left the land of Israel, the land of Egypt rather, to head to the land of Israel. And let me show you His care, His physical care for Israel in the wilderness. Listen to Deuteronomy 2:7, "For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done. He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing." Nothing you needed. By the way, here's a hint that we're not talking about the prosperity gospel, because the wilderness was not exactly a fun place to be and yet God cared and provided for them through difficulty and trouble as he does for us in this life. You have not lacked a thing.
Nehemiah 9:21, "Indeed forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want;" there's our word, "their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell." When they got to the land it was no different; He continued to care for them. This was His promise through Moses as they were about to go into the land of promise. On the plains of Moab, this is what Moses said to them, Deuteronomy 8:9, "I'm going to give you a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper." Here's the point, just as God cared for the nation Israel, His Old Testament people, He cares for us as individual believers as well. So understand then, the second half of verse 1 is a summary, because Yahweh is my shepherd, because Jesus Christ is my shepherd, therefore, I will not want, because of who He is, because of His nature, because of His care.
Now in verses 2 through 6, we begin to get to the specific manifestations of His care. What is it that we will not lack? "I shall not want." I shall not lack. What? Well, in the rest of the Psalm David identifies six benefits that we will not lack because Yahweh is our shepherd. Our Shepherd King will abundantly supply all that His trusting people will ever need. First of all, we will not lack provision. Look at verse 2, "He makes me live down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters." Those verses just sort of make your heart rest, don't they? And that's the point. Obviously, grass and water are the sheep's greatest necessities and our Shepherd meets the necessities of His sheep in abundance. What I want you to see, though, is the way it's worded. Notice that both of the pleasant circumstances described in verse 2 are solely the result of the deliberate actions of our shepherd. He makes me lie down. He leads me. This describes our Shepherd's personal care and provision for each one of His sheep.
You see, sheep are the most dependent and helpless of the domesticated animals God made. They can do almost nothing for themselves. They cannot find their way. They cannot find their way back. They cannot care for themselves. They cannot defend themselves. They cannot provide the grass and water that they need. They are completely dependent upon their shepherd for everything. That's exactly how we are and because of the kind of Shepherd we have, we know that He will provide for us. Everything good that we have in this life, physical or spiritual, comes to us from our Shepherd, from His provision. Do you understand that God has promised to provide for His own?
Notice how David describes God's provision in two ways. First of all, he says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures." The expression "green pastures" speaks of pastureland with fresh, green tender grass. In other words, ideal succulent pastures, the kind of food that's perfect for sheep. Green pastures are those where the sheep don't need to keep moving from one place to another to find a little patch of grass here and a little patch of grass there in order to be satisfied. David says that our God causes us to "lie down in green pastures." Now, that is a remarkable statement. When I ask you to picture sheep lying down in green pastures, when I ask you to picture sheep in Israel, if you've never been there, I think your mind typically draws a picture of sheep grazing in green fields like the green fields of England. Wouldn't that be nice, but if you've ever been to Israel, you understand that's not the picture David had in mind at all.
In fact, Israel, as is true for many of the countries in the world with the greatest number of sheep, is dry and semi-arid. In Israel, except for a few months in winter and early spring, most of the year is very dry. The landscape is barren. It can be difficult in many places to even find a few blades of grass. In addition, sheep in Israel are commonly pastured in the wilderness; they're pastured in the wilderness so that the better land can be used for crops. So, sheep grazing in England is not the picture here. David shepherded in Bethlehem. This is a picture of what sheep grazing in Bethlehem looks like; it's a totally different picture. The typical pasture is parched land that doesn't receive enough rainfall to sustain crops, but it grows enough grass to support flocks as long as they keep moving.
So one of the shepherd's primary tasks is to find good pasture for his flock, not just in the rainy season when it's easy, but all year long. You see what David is saying? In spite of the difficult conditions, and he knew them firsthand, he shepherded in Bethlehem, he said in spite of how hard it may be, our Shepherd makes sure that His sheep have the best pastures, have green pastures. In other words, our Shepherd will go to extraordinary lengths to make sure our needs are met, but there's a still deeper meaning in this expression. Sheep will not lie down and rest if they're still hungry. They're going to stay on the move, looking for that next bunch of grass, looking to satisfy their hunger and appetite. They're a lot like my kids, and the shepherd of Psalm 23 will stop at nothing to discover the best place for his sheep to eat and he provides so well for them that their hunger is completely satisfied, and when they've eaten their fill they lie down to rest and even though the sheep have eaten everything they want and they lie down with their hunger satisfied, they are still surrounded by green grass and abundance. You see, the picture in this expression is not merely of God's provision, but of abundant provision.
Now, look at the second way that David describes God's provision for us. Not only, "He makes me lie down in green pastures," but secondly, "He leads me beside quiet waters." Our Shepherd, not only provides food for His sheep, but water as well. Like us, the body of a sheep consists of about seventy percent water on average and the water that they so desperately need comes primarily, in Israel, from three sources. One of them may surprise you and that is dew on the morning grass. In some areas sheep can go a long time without actually drinking, when it's not too hot, simply by eating the grass that has the dew on it. A second source of getting water is wells and the third source is springs and streams.
Now literally, look at verse 2 again, literally David says, "Beside waters of rest, He leads me." Our Shepherd leads His sheep to the best watering holes. Now, it's a little difficult to decide exactly what David meant here. Specifically, David may have meant by this expression, He leads me beside a slow-moving stream. You see, sheep are fearful and skittish creatures. Again, Philip Keller wrote in his book, and by the way it's an excellent little book, I will tell you that there are several, when he gets into theology he can stray a little bit so read carefully and read discerningly, but he's very insightful when it comes to sheep and he recounts an event from his own sheep herding days. A friend of his from the city came to visit and brought with her a little Pekinese dog. A flock of two hundred sheep had been resting quietly nearby. As soon as they saw that little dog get out of the car, to a sheep, they all leapt to their feet and ran away at full speed. They're easily thrown into a panic. So, in spite of their thirst, sheep will refuse to drink from a stream if the water in the stream is running too rapidly. So because of this tendency, it's not uncommon for shepherds to have to move some large rocks in the streambed into place in order to create a little damn that slows the flow of the water and that collects some water in a little basin. Only then, after it's been carefully prepared, will the sheep actually drink.
So, if this is what David is saying then his point would be that our Shepherd will expand whatever energy is necessary in order to make sure that our needs are met, or David may have meant, He leads me beside waters where sheep can drink all they want and then rest. Often in Israel the sources of water are not flowing streams, but small pools of water. They are shaded places where weary sheep can find both rest and refreshment. Sometimes this takes the form of a desert oasis. Other times there are pools hidden in the shadow of a cliff or in the shadow of some rocks where the sun has not been able to evaporate the water and where there is a natural spring. Such pools of water may be what David had in mind. If so, his point here is similar to the green pastures. Our shepherd leads his sheep to watering holes, or to oases, that have more than enough and after they've drunk their fill they can lie down and rest, and when they're done resting if they want to, they can get up and drink again. Clearly then, in verse 2 David intends to remind us of God's amazing and abundant provision for all the needs of those who are his sheep.
Now, those are wonderful promises. Sadly, many Christians read these promises and come to mistaken conclusions about what David meant. It's important to understand, you know I do this all the time to you, but it is important to understand what this does not mean. This does not mean that every true believer will be wealthy. Sadly, this text has been used to make that very point. Compare that with even our Lord Jesus Christ, who enjoyed more of God's blessing than he, and yet Matthew 8:20, "Jesus said, 'The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.'" I could take you to Luke 16 and show you the parable Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus and here is this true believer who closes his eyes on this life and opens them in the presence of God, who lived in abject poverty, whose sores the dogs licked every day. So it's not true that every true believer will be wealthy.
God's promise of provision also does not mean that no true believer will ever experience want or some sort of, deprivation is with that should say, for any period of time. Deuteronomy 8:2-3, Moses, talking about God's true people, the nation of Israel, says, "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you. He let you be hungry, and then He fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord."
Listen, there are times in our lives when God intentionally, for a time, deprives us, just as He did Israel, in order to see what's in our hearts, to let us see what's in our hearts as well, because He intends to meet that need in His own way and in a way that directs our dependence completely to Him. Paul understood this, in 2 Corinthians 11:27 he said, "I have been in labor and hardship," now don't forget, this is an apostle, "through many sleepless nights, I've been in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure." In Philippians 4 he's reflecting on all of that and he says in verse 12, "I know how to get along with humble means, I also know how to live in prosperity;" he had experienced both, "in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need." He knew it all. He experienced it all. So it is not true that no true believer will ever experience want or deprivation for any period of time.
In fact, think about David himself, the one who wrote this Psalm. In fleeing from Saul and from Absalom, David often found himself in want for a time. In fact, you remember at one point, the only option he had for food was eating what? The sacred bread at the tabernacle, it's all he had. So, true believers may not be wealthy and they may experience times of shortage and of leanness in their lives. You see, God in His providence may choose for us to live either for a time or in some cases and in some places in our world, for a lifetime, in leanness, but here's the key. If He does He will consistently provide for the needs of His own and in our leanness, He will bring spiritual blessing.
You see, our Lord makes whatever He gives us satisfy. This is the promise. Whatever He gives us, He will give us strength and grace and He will make it satisfy. Psalm 37:16 says, "Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked." Look at Proverbs with me, Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15:15, "All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast." It is the disposition of your heart in the end, rather than your circumstances, that affect your outlook on life, that affect your joy in life. Verse 16,
Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and turmoil with it. Better is a dish of vegetables [and that's saying something] where love is than a fattened ox served with hatred.
You see what happens? God can take a little and He can satisfy the hearts of the righteous. He can make it not just barely enough, He can make it more than enough. This is who our God is; look at Hebrews 13. This is one of those great promises you ought to star and live under the shadow of, Hebrews 13:5, "Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have;" and watch this, "for," because here's why you want to be content, whatever He gives you, "for He Himself has said 'I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.'" Listen, you may not have all that you want in this life, you may have leanness in this life, for a time, or for your entire life, but if you live in the fear of God, you always have Him, and that will be more than enough, that will bring satisfaction where a rich man's feast will not.
"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want." You can have confidence in our Shepherd. Not only does He make whatever He gives us satisfy, but He always provides what is best for His own. Psalm 34:9-10, "O fear the lord, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the Lord, shall not be in want of any good thing." Psalm 84:11, "The Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly." This doesn't mean that He gives you everything you want, but it means He gives you exactly what you need, what's best in His providence.
Charles Spurgeon, commenting on this, this sort of contrast between the Lord providing what we need and it not always being what we want, says this, "I may not possess all that I wish for, but I shall not want. It is not only I do not want, but I shall not want. Come what may, if famine should devastate the land or calamity destroy the city, I shall not want. Old age with its feebleness shall not bring me any lack and even death with its gloom shall not find me destitute. I have all things in abound, not because I have a good store of money in the bank, not because I have skill and wit with which to win my bread, but because the Lord is my shepherd, God's promise of provision."
Let me summarize the promises that are really found in these two verses, Psalm 23:1-2. The Lord promises His provision, and His provision for our needs is, first of all, comprehensive. In other words, God meets both our physical needs and our spiritual needs. Now on the face of it, the expressions in Psalm 23 might seem to be solely physical, you know, water, grass, that seems to be meeting just the physical need of sheep and maybe that's all he has in mind, but it's not because the Psalm points to these provisions from God also being spiritual. Look at verse 3, "He guides me in the paths of righteousness." We're not talking here just about the food you eat and the water you drink. We're talking about both your physical and your spiritual needs. Notice verse 6, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." That's certainly more than physical needs being met.
So understand then, when I say it's comprehensive, His provision, I mean it's for our physical needs, there's no question about that, if we had time I'd take you back to Matthew 6. You remember we studied in the Sermon on the Mount where He says, why would you worry? Why would you worry about what you're going to eat when God feeds the birds of the air? "Are you not worth more than they?" "Your Father knows you need these things, so seek first His kingdom and all these things will be added to you." God's going to take care of your physical needs, in His time and in His way. There may be periods of leanness to teach us lessons, but He's always in charge. He's always our good Shepherd.
But He also meets, in addition to our physical needs, our spiritual needs. Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" And in the context He's talking about all of the spiritual things we need to live this life in a way that honors and pleases Him even through the trials and the troubles. If God loved us so much that He gave His Son for us, really, He's not going to shepherd us and provide the spiritual needs of this life for us? Second Peter 1:3, "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness." Our Shepherd meets our needs in a way that is comprehensive.
Secondly, He meets our needs in a way that is consistent. In His time, in His way, according to what He has determined is best for each sheep, He meets our needs. It's consistent; He just always does, in His way and according to His plan. Thirdly, His provision is abundant. Remember, "He makes us lie down in green pastures." When we have had all we need there's still more. Fourthly, His provision for us is appropriate. Just as a shepherd knows what each sheep needs and all of his sheep need green pastures and quiet waters, our Shepherd knows exactly what we need and that is what He provides. I don't know where you find yourself tonight. I don't know what your needs may be, but I can promise you this, if you know Jesus Christ, if you know God through His Son, He is your Shepherd. He knows what you need and He will provide.
And finally, God's provision for our needs is eternal. I love this. Notice verse 1, "I shall not want." As Spurgeon pointed out, that's looking to the future. Ever. Our Shepherd will always provide. And I love the way the Psalm finishes, "Surely goodness and steadfast love will follow me all the days of my life," every day of this life, "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." It's eternal. Christian, you will not want our lack anything that you truly need physically or spiritually in this life or in the life to come.
In fact, turn with me to Revelation 7. I love how this picture comes back as we look to the eternal future. Revelation 7:13. You remember the scene, one of the elders said to John, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?" This massive crowd, verse 9, "which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne, clothed in white robes." So the angel says, or one of the elders rather, asks John, "Who are these people?" Verse 14,
"I don't know, you know." And he said to me, "These of the ones who
You see, our Shepherd's commitment is not just for this life, it's forever. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters." What a Shepherd we have.
Let's pray together. Father, we are overwhelmed by Your goodness to us. That we, who once were Your enemies, that we, who hated You, who had strayed from You, our Creator, that You sought us out in Christ. You made us Your own and in Him You have become our Shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls. Father, I pray for everyone here tonight. I pray for those who are going through really difficult times, wondering if their physical needs will be met, whether it's the need for a job or for the fear of losing one, or some physical struggle, or some health issue. Father, maybe there are those here tonight who are struggling responding to the trials of this life, the difficulties that you have allowed to come, and their soul feels overwhelmed. Lord, I pray that tonight You would remind them of who You are from this passage. May they be reminded that You're still their Shepherd and that You will, in Your time and in Your way, meet every need as You see best. Father, help us to trust You, help us to remember those two great words, Ebenezer, thus far the Lord has led us, and Yahweh-jireh, the Lord will provide. We pray in Jesus's name, amen.
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Life changes in mid-twenties and after Graduation
Here’s how life feels like it’s falling apart after graduation:
One obsessive thought
There it is!
To find myself, I lost myself, just to find myself again
I could have been faster,
I could have been wiser,
I could have been someone else instead of myself,
I strove for speed and intelligence,
But for what?
Just to reach there a little earlier,
Just know know a little more,
And in that race I lost myself,
What no one tells you in this race is,
It’s much harder to find yourself back again,
But when you do.
There is calm.
Days, I stop existing
You know those days of misery where I think of being unborn,
Not treading across the paths and words I have till today,
But that’s not how it’s meant to be,
I was supposed to be born.
Now I am here,
And my life is in shambles,
I’ve lost a love and aged in my memories,
I cripple past the present days,
Picking myself up,
Wondering how my mind had wandered a thousand years from the last time I felt joy.
I cry, because I believed my best friend and his promises.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. This isn’t how I pictured it in my head. Things were meant to be calm and sorted, happy and exciting.
Then why does it feel like I’m coming to an end? Why does it feel like my passion for life is dying away?
You and I were supposed to make life easier. That’s what you told me in the beginning. I believed you. Every time you told me that things will eventually make sense. You paved your way through regardless of all the protests of logic and rationale I threw your way.
That’s what caught my entirety, that’s when I thought you would be standing by me all the time. I knew how to be by myself, I knew what it was like to live alone and be happy. But you promised that together we could create something magical in this mundane world.
I believed you.
Tonight I’m staring at the screen and typing in all these words. I’m thinking back to that moment when I held onto those words. Tonight I feel naive. Tonight I feel like those promises only lived in words and not in this world. I know you try. I know you do. But when I need you the most, you disappear, only to make yourself visible when I’ve picked up my pieces and cleaned the mess.
But you have pushed me off the edge now, and I have given you so much of myself that I’ve started forgetting who I am.
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Expressing Your Inner…?
…Green Man/Morris Dancer/Goth at the annual Rochester Sweeps’ Festival.
To find out more go to “Unexpected with bells, sticks and hankies at the Sweeps Festival” HERE
Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Express Yourself
Express Yourself
35 thoughts on “Expressing Your Inner…?
1. Everyone needs t read him once in a while.
Although I am disappointed with the newer stuff, especially Raising Steam. I think his illness is taking its toll, sadly.
2. Apparently he now ”speaks to his computer”.
I don’t how the writing process is for you, but I find the physical aspect f typing or writing the words is part of the creative process and it differs slightly from what runs around in my head.
Thinking words and simply repeating them, is not ( for me) the same as writing.
I have no idea if this is part of the problem for Terry, ( and if his secretary/assistant helps put) but the writing in Raising Steam, for example, was flat and the characters came across as wooden – characters I have come to love.
3. I’ve often toyed with the idea of dictating my stories, but I think you’re right about the act of writing. It is part of narrative process. It expands – makes some space around the original thoughts – and then often changes them. Of course, there may also be a time when one gets to the end of one’s well of fictional ideas, though that’s a rather sad thought.
4. I can’t say, Tish. I know I have hit several brick walls in story outlines/plots, but usually if I leave them alone they will come home dragging their tales behind them …
I have mental mapped out entire scenes and swathes of dialogue while out on a jog and all was required was for me to sit at the laptop and type. But I firmly believe that the physical act was the icing on le gateaux; something my gut tells me Terry needs and is sorely missing. Whatever the reason you are right about this : it is a rather sad thought.
1. Yes, Frizz, I agree. Fiesta, festivals and feasts, and general friends and family get-togethers are all good for bringing joy to people’s lives, and creating a satisfying structure..
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butt stuff
People on the Keto Diet Have All Kinds of Problems Pooping
The high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet can lead to constipation and diarrhea.
AC Shilton
I Felt Sick All the Time and Then Realized It Was Actually Anxiety
In movies, the character who's having a panic attack clutches at his chest, gasps for air, and then breathes into a paper bag to calm himself. But that's never been my experience.
Sarah Watts
You're Smarter Than That
So Really, What Are the Benefits of Probiotics?
People take probiotics for digestion, immunity, depression, you name it. We looked into whether they're worth it.
Elizabeth Brown
Antibiotics Don’t Make Birth Control Less Effective
Your doctor may have told you to use condoms when he handed you an antibiotic prescription, but he's almost certainly wrong.
Jessica Migala
FDA Urges Smaller Boxes of Imodium so People Stop Using it to Get High
The active ingredient, loperamide, has been called “the poor man’s methadone."
Jesse Hicks
Living With It
The Stress of My Job Destroyed My Stomach
It took me two months to fix it.
Nick Keppler
survival guide
Meditation Helped Me Poop Less
The link between mindful breathing and my IBS.
Wendy Wisner
What I'm Freaking Out About
Norovirus Could Turn the RNC into a Sea of Diarrhea and Vomit
Twelve staffers from California have reportedly been quarantined to stop the spread of the contagious virus that causes unfortunate bouts of diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pains.
VICE Staff
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18 May 2016
Horizon Wars - First impression & shopping for a British Battlegroup
I just bought Horizon Wars...
The rules seem promising and I actually have other interested parties in my gaming group.
One thing I like very much is that the small scale hasn't lead to an explosion of mini count.
In most games, the smaller the scale the larger the scope: 28mm is for platoonish games, 15mm for company-sized games, 6mm for battalion and so on... Table size, number of elements (bases with either a single or several minis on) and game duration remain more or less constant around 4' to 6' by 4' (120cm to 18cm by 120cm), 30 to 50 elements and 2 to 3 hours a game.
After having been exposed to games like Mordheim and more recently X-Wing, I've come to appreciate games with a limited number of elements (a dozen) and short games (around one hour, allowing for two or three games on ), but have been missing the miniature diversity (infantry, ground vehicles, "air"-crafts all together on a table) of larger scope "combined arms" types of games...
Horizon Wars goes for a more "skirmish" (from a number of elements point of view) approach which should allow to enjoy varied "combined arms" miniatures while remaining in the realm of fast paced "skirmish" games...
Pictures from the author collection... "A 'typical' Horizon Wars force (less airframes), it has a mix of infantry, armour and mechs; and elements can be dropped to create smaller lists or manipulated to create a list up to ~30 points, what I consider to be a large game that would take about 2 hours to play out."
The other think I'm excited about is that army selection is done from a limited list of archetypal units (from memory: Infantry, Power Armour, Mobile Infantry*, Airborne Infantry, Special Forces, Recon, Light Tanks, Heavy Tanks, Field Artillery & Self Propelled Artillery, I might forget one or two; plus mechs and flyers that both come in three sizes that can be custom designed) a bit like in Alien Squad Leader...
I love having such a framework army to build on by just selecting the miniatures I want to use... I find it both inspiring and liberating: limited choices mean you can plan a decent army after having just read the book and without having to consider each tiny option (and ideally having already played the games a dozen time to try your ideas before committing to buy the minis out of fear of buying "useless" minis that don't work with the game and/or your playing style)!
Another shot from the author collection... A armoured battlegroup: 6 times Heavy Tanks ("heavy cavalry"), 3 times Mobile Infantry (the APC) and a free HQ! All of them with the "grav" option.
The background in the book sketches four different "milieus":
• The world as we know it spiral into war after the Brits (for no apparent reason, although mad cow disease horse lasagna, over-exposure to Reality Television and perhaps insular consanguinity is hinted at) invade France; most of the world watches and consider the French had it coming, except Spain and Argentina who promptly invade Gibraltar and the Falklands to "support" France...
• Milieus 2 and 3 are both about Martian and Venusian Megacorps fighting eachother while Earth watches mechs gladiator games (milieu 2) or has been destroyed (milieu 3)...
• In milieu 4, Humanity colonize the stars and the setting goes all space opera!
I have been thinking about doing a French Foreign Legion forces that could defend France against the British invasion and double duty in the Tomorrow's War setting as French expeditionary forces allied with the Republic of Arden against the evil Democratic People Republic of Glory, but ended up wanting to to a British Battlegroup instead!
And another "typical" Horizon Wars battleground, from the author's collection once more!
So I promptly ordered:
• Light Infantry: Ground Zero Games NAC Infantry
• Heavy Infantry: GZG NAC Power Armour
• Mobile Infantry: GZG NAC Skimmers
• Light Cavalry: Brigade Models British (ONESS) Apollo MBT
• Heavy Cavalry: Brigade Models British Hermes Light Tanks
• Light Artillery: Brigade Models generic Mortars with GZG NAC Infantry
• Armoured Artillery: Brigade Models British Prometheus SPG
• Recon: Brigade Models French (EuroFed) Musaraigne Observer Car
• Airframe: Brigade Models British Hestia Attack VTOL
I'm still on the fence about mechs... But this should give me a good pool of units to try the shit of Horizon Wars!
1 comment:
1. Thanks for the enthusiasm. It's nice to see the game's smaller "scope" is attractive to some people, as I so often hear people asking about Battalion+ level games and I have to say "yeah, you can do that, but it's not really what I designed it for..."
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365 Days of Sci-Fi #236
365 Days of Sci-Fi, Movie News1 Comment
"From the mind behind the mega-hit Syfy show you've probably never heard of (EUREKA) comes a tribute to all those no-budget Syfy original movies and the "so bad, they're good" films that inspired them. Move over Roger Corman, step back Ed Wood, make way on your weekend programming schedule Mr. Stern, because here comes Andrew Cosby's 365 DAYS OF SCI-FI.
And it's all happening here! Each day, your friends at CHUD will bring you a brand new bad movie pitch -- the best of the worst title Cosby can come up with, no matter where he's at or what he's doing, rain or shine, drunk or sober. That's a whole year of the quality concepts you've come to expect from the network that brought you MANSQUITO and SHARKTOPUS."
365 days of Sci-Fi Archive
“C’mon, which one of us hasn’t been waiting for the day when someone finally does a medieval fantasy version of SAW? Don’t act like you don’t want it.”
- Andy Cosby (Twitter)
“Experience Counts!”
LEVEL UP!: Stuck in a treacherous dungeon filled with hideous monsters and intricate deathtraps, seven stout adventurers are forced to slowly turn against one another in order to survive and make it to the next level. But is the ingenious Dungeon Master controlling their fate from behind the scenes, or has he been hiding amongst the party this entire time?
Nick Says: It's like Devil meets Mazes and Monsters meets Dragon*Con meets Longtime Companion!
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If yes, you should definitely go for the following cookie recipe as it is one of my favourites.
Did you know that macadamia nuts are called as well ‘Queen of Nuts’? This is due to:
– the difficult production
– the very complicated processing
– the increasing demand
– and last but not least because they are pretty expensive due to all above points
Due to that I am always very careful when buying a pack of Macadamia nuts which I want to use for a baking recipe. The nuts are also known for their high percentage of fat. I propose that you shouldn’t eat a whole pack of these nuts everyday. 🙂 But enjoying them occasionally delights your taste of flavour which always happens when I use them for the cookies.
I mentioned my favourite base cookie recipe already in an older post and I am still using this one. Due to that I am not describing it anymore but you can have a look at the previous cookie post ‘in the land of cookies… and cookies…’.
The combination of additional ingredients in the current cookies is the following:
– 100g white chocolate, chopped
– 80g Macadamia nuts, chopped
– 80g either dried cherries or cranberries
Hope you can enjoy them very soon! 😉
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Physics Van 3-site Navigational Menu
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VeloVoices Awards 2018: Unsung Hero
It’s time to salute and sing of the praises of riders who rarely take the spotlight themselves. The last ones standing by their leader on the mountain or in the white heat of the sprint. Need some pace setting, a bidon, banana or waterproof? These are the teammates you call. Here’s our unsung hero selection. But if you’d like to sing the praises of someone not on our list, it’s time for a write in vote …
Previous winners: 2015 – Manuel Quinziato; 2016 – Stephen Cummings and Damien Howson; 2017 – Daniel Oss
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VeloVoices Awards 2015: Best Race Finish of the Year
It is never all over until the fat lady sings and your front wheel is over the white line (err …) on the road. 2015 has provided us with race finishes that were astute, exciting, tear-jerking and in some cases quite frankly outrageous. Stand by and get ready to cheer until you’re hoarse for the VeloVoices Best Race Finish Award.
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Presentation and moderation at the International Conference “Representation in the Age of Populism”, co-organised by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and the Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy (Represent) in Brussels.
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Type 14 10 cm cannon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Type 14 10 cm cannon
Type 14 10cm Cannon.jpg
Type 14 10 cm cannon
Type Field gun
Place of origin Japan
Service history
In service 1925-1945
Used by War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army.svgImperial Japanese Army
Wars World War II
Production history
Designer Osaka Arsenal
Produced 1925-?
No. built 64
Weight 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) Firing
1,979 kg (4,363 lb) Traveling
Length 4.72 m (15 ft 6 in) Firing
8.94 m (29 ft 4 in) Traveling
Barrel length 3.556 metres (11 ft 8 in) L/34.2
Width 1.57 m (5 ft 2 in) Track
1.84 m (6 ft 0 in) Maximum
Height 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Shell 105 x 464mm R[1]
Shell weight 15.77 kilograms (34 lb 12 oz)
Caliber 105 mm (4.13 in)
Breech interrupted screw
Recoil hydro-pneumatic
Carriage split trail
Elevation -5° to +33°
Traverse 15° right, 15° left
Rate of fire 6-8 rounds/minute
Muzzle velocity 620 m/s (2,034 ft/s)
Maximum firing range 13,265 metres (14,507 yd)
Sights Panoramic
The Type 14 10 cm cannon (十四式十糎加農砲, Jyūyon-shiki Kanōhō) was the first medium caliber cannon totally of Japanese design and the first with a split trail carriage. The Type 14 designation was given to this gun as it was accepted in the 14th year of Emperor Taishō's reign (1925).[2] It was used Imperial Japanese Army but was not considered successful and was replaced by the Type 92 10 cm cannon.
History and development[edit]
Following reports based on first-hand observation of European artillery tactics in World War I by Japanese military observers, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff instructed the Army Technical Bureau to begin work on new designs to modernize Japan's largely antiquated artillery. One priority was the development of a medium caliber artillery piece that would be able to provide greater firepower than the standard 75mm artillery currently in front line service. However, Japan lacked much of the technical expertise or industrial infrastructure to develop such as weapon, and initial prototypes issued as the "Type 7 10cm cannon" and the "Type 12 10cm cannon" were rejected as unsatisfactory.
However, with the incorporation of advancement in design taken from contemporary Schneider designs, the Type 14 10 cm cannon was finally accepted into service in 1925. However, due to technical and budgetary issues, only a total of 64 units were produced.[3]
The Type 14 10 cm cannon was similar in design to the earlier Type 38 10 cm cannon, which was in turn based on a 1905 Krupp design, but is notable in that it was the first design done independently in Japan. It had an interrupted screw breechblock, a hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism, heavy wooden wheels, and a split trail.[4]
Ammunition was semifixed, with high-explosive, armor-piercing, shrapnel, and gas shells, and time fuzes for smoke and incendiary projectiles.[5]
It was designed to be transportable by a team of eight draft horses. However, in 1931, a tractor was designed for use with the Type 14, with a 50-horsepower diesel engine, which greatly increased its transportability, albeit at a top speed of eight miles per hour.
Combat record[edit]
The Type 14 10 cm cannon proved disappointing in terms of range and accuracy, and was not regarded as a successful design. The units which were completed with assigned to reserve and training units in the Japanese home islands, and were not deployed overseas in World War II.
1. ^ "101". www.quarryhs.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-09-05.
2. ^ War Department Special Series No 25 Japanese Field Artillery October 1944
3. ^ [1] Type 14 on Taki's Imperial Japanese Army page
4. ^ US Department of War, TM 30-480, Handbook on Japanese Military Forces
• Chamberlain, Peter and Gander, Terry. Light and Medium Field Artillery. Macdonald and Jane's (1975). ISBN 0-356-08215-6
• Chant, Chris. Artillery of World War II, Zenith Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7603-1172-2
• McLean, Donald B. Japanese Artillery; Weapons and Tactics. Wickenburg, Ariz.: Normount Technical Publications 1973. ISBN 0-87947-157-3.
• Mayer, S.L. The Rise and Fall of Imperial Japan. The Military Press (1984) ISBN 0-517-42313-8
• War Department Special Series No 25 Japanese Field Artillery October 1944
• US Department of War, TM 30-480, Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, Louisiana State University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8071-2013-8
External links[edit]
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Tools of the (Astronaut) Trade
What you’ll need to assemble your own space station
Joe Tanner works outside the International Space Station during the STS-115 mission. (NASA)
Last September space shuttle Atlantis carried Joe Tanner and five other astronauts to the International Space Station to install two 17-ton truss segments, the first large sections added to the orbiting facility in nearly four years (see "How Things Work" in the Feb/March 2007 issue of Air & Space). Tanner’s spacewalk was going smoothly when he discovered a potential showstopper: a worn bolt starting to become stripped of its threads. Tenaciously, the astronaut worked the bolt with his pistol-grip hand drill until it came free, enabling him to attach the new 45-foot section to the station’s truss. “It stressed me out,” Tanner says. “If anything would have gone wrong with that bolt, the mission would be over.” It just goes to show that a lot depends on the equipment astronauts carry with them on a spacewalk.
From This Story
The gadgets need to be specially designed for use in space—hardened against the vacuum, resistant to extreme temperatures, and easy to use while wearing gloves. Below are a few of the tools used to construct the International Space Station, one of the most challenging feats of engineering ever attempted.
1. Pistol-Grip Tool
The main tool used by spacewalkers is this 21st century hand-drill, built by Swales Aerospace Inc. Designed for use in the thick-gloved hands of spacewalkers, it features a pistol-style handle and large information screen. Astronauts can program the speed and torque, and the settings show up on the screen. The torque can range from less than 1 to 38 foot-pounds of force, and the drill can run at anywhere between 5 and 60 rotations per minute. According to NASA, this is the first hand-held electronic power tool to include all the features of a cabinet-mounted tool, courtesy of the configurable design.
A rechargeable battery slots into the handle like the clip of a handgun. Its metal hydride batteries can hold more charge at extreme temperatures—perfect for the cycles of shadow and sunlight the station experiences in orbit. The body is made of a durable, glass-infused plastic called Lexan. But you won’t see it; the whole thing is covered with aluminum tape for durability. NASA began developing the requirements for the three-pound tool in 1993 to make repairing the Hubble Space Telescope easier. It was first used in space in 1997. Engineers are not eager to design another one—the pistol-grip tool is modular so improvements can be added later.
2. Robot Crane
The Canadian government chipped in $1.1 billion to develop a jointed construction crane that astronauts use to position themselves and large pieces of equipment during ISS construction. The Mobile Servicing System, better known as Canadarm 2, is a larger version of the space shuttle’s long robot arm, and its reach is eight feet longer. The space station arm was developed to move objects of more than 200,000 pounds. Or it can delicately move suited astronauts, plucking them up from the airlock and transferring them to designated work areas and back again, like a mother cat relocating kittens. The arm moves along a track built into the truss. Inside the station, astronauts use closed-circuit TV to guide the crane. Unlike the shuttle arm, Canadarm 2 has force sensors to provide an artificial sense of “touch” and an automatic collision avoidance system.
3. Trace Gas Analyzer
Leaks of fluid or gas from the space station during construction can be a big deal. For example, when spacewalking astronauts connected the Destiny laboratory module to the ISS in 2001, a plume of ammonia was spotted jetting from the hose lines they had just installed. The hazardous coolant was seeping from the fittings that connected the lines. What if the leak had been too small to spot? Oceaneering Space Systems of Houston and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed an answer—the world’s smallest high-performance mass spectrometer. The analyzer is about two inches long, part of a larger unit that weighs about five pounds. The shoebox-sized system is placed on an astronaut’s chest so it can easily be pointed at areas of interest. It can also detect leaking water, seeping rocket fuel, or escaping oxygen.
4. Safety Tethers
This is not a terribly exciting piece of equipment, unless it keeps a spacewalker from becoming orbiting space junk. While working outside, every astronaut is attached at the waist with a 25-foot tether made of heat-resistant webbing. The tether attaches to handrails built into the station’s truss. The system also includes a cable that can reel out as needed. Maximum load is 878 pounds—enough to include the astronaut plus equipment stowed in a toolbox, which NASA wonks call an “extravehicular mobility unit.”
Other tethers serve as toolbelts. Without these short tethers, equipment would zip away into space, where they would risk collision with the station or shuttle. Self-closing trash bags are also available for stowing extra bolts.
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Weekend Special | Take 10% Off. Get the code »
Yasuhiro Kano
Yasuhiro Kano made his manga debut in 1992 with "Black"" City", which won "Weekly Shonen Jump's" Hop Step Award for new artists. From 1993 to 2001, a novel series called "MIDNIGHT MAGIC", written by Mugen and illustrated by Kano, was serialized in Japan's "Jump Novel" magazine. Kano also created a "MIDNIGHT MAGIC" manga based on the novel. Two collections of manga short stories by Kano have been released: "BLACK CITY" in 1996 and "TOKYO ANTS" in 2003. Kano's six-volume series "PRETTY FACE"...See more
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Sentence Examples with the word Inundating
Above low-water mark, thus inundating the plains for many miles along both its banks.
It owed its fertility to the Nile, which, inundating the land near its banks, was distributed by means of canals over more distant portions of its valley.
Local thunderstorms and cloud-bursts are a characteristic phenomenon, inundating limited areas and transforming dried-up streams into muddy torrents carrying boulders and debris.
View more
High are maintained for 60 m., but they do not always prevent the river from inundating the plains of Opole in Lublin and Kozienice in Radom, the waters sometimes extending for 150 m.
A tiny rill gradually became a boisterous stream, and the boisterous stream grew into a great river, which spread to all sections of the administration and ended by inundating the whole country.
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Continental Conversion
Submissionby Michel Houellebecq
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 256p $25
This novel, published on the day of the Jan. 7, 2015, attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, has continued as a best-seller at the center of critical wars for over a year. Its author, a French novelist, filmmaker, poet and biographer, has published several novels, the most famous of which, The Map and the Territory (2010), won the Goncourt Prize in France for its satiric portrait of the art world. His writings have provoked laughter and criticism, most often for their vulgarity, caricatures of women and races, and, in this most recent novel under review, of Europeans and Islam.
Reviewers questioned not only his pessimistic narrators, stereotypical characters and exaggerated plots but also the political correctness of his themes. Submission was even denounced by the French prime minister for being unpatriotic. Reviewers asked, Is this novel a satire on religion or secularism? Is the narrator, Francois, a nihilistic caricature of contemporary French academics or all European males? What is the attitude of the novel toward religion, especially Islam and Catholicism? What is the role of the narrator’s favorite author, J. J. Huysmans, and his decadent 19th-century background or his religious conversion? Some readers found the novel offensive, but many admitted it was thought-provoking. Some have compared its tone to that of a Jonathan Franzen novel for its misogynism and pessimism.
The novel begins by exposing the biases of the narrator, a French professor of 19th-century literature at the Sorbonne, who feels no vocation as a teacher, dislikes students (except as female sex objects), has few friends at the university and is estranged from politics and religion. Only in 2017, after his graduate-student mistress departs for Israel during a sudden upheaval in French politics, does the narrator become fascinated by the coalition between the Socialists, Muslims and later some conservatives to defeat the National Front nativists. Five years later, in 2022, the coalition elects Mohammed Ben Abbes, a popular Muslim leader, as prime minister. The government soon takes over education, transforms the Sorbonne into an Islamic university and forces teachers like the narrator to retire unless they become Muslims. Women are gradually pressured out of jobs and return to family life and more modest public attire.
During this upheaval, the narrator escapes Paris to the southwest, where he visits Martel and the shrine of the Black Virgin at Rocamadour, admiring its young pilgrims but finding its traditions to be only a “vanished universe.” Although he feels “a desperate desire to be part of a religion,” he returns to Paris “deserted by the Spirit.” There, he laments the death of his parents and the loss of his mistress, eventually feeling “close to suicide.” He makes one brief effort to follow his literary hero, Huysmans, by making a retreat at a Benedictine monastery but finds its Catholicism too weak and otherworldly, and the smoke-free retreat proves to be “a mistake from the beginning.”
His second return to Paris, which is prospering peacefully from Arab oil and North African efforts to join the European Union, draws the narrator back to academic life. With help from a publisher who wants him to edit a new edition of Huysmans, he is drawn by a former professor, who has become a Muslim and an administrator at the Sorbonne, to consider returning to university life and possibly converting to Islam. Like the administrator, the narrator is attracted by this offer, partly because of his religious search but primarily because of the high salary and polygamous family life. The novel ends with the narrator accepting the job and foreseeing a “submission” to “a second life.”
Like the narrators in many satirical novels by Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh and others, François is a conflicted and unlikeable narrator, with several contradictory traits, including misogynism, cynicism and secularism mixed with pursuit of women, conservative idealism and bursts of religiosity. The only consistent values he displays are his dedication to literature and to a religious quest. He seems to model his life on Huysmans but never achieves his literary hero’s artistic achievements or later spiritual sincerity. The main question for readers remains unsettled: How much of the author Houellebecq can we find in the narrator François? According to a long interview in The Paris Review that appeared at the time of the publication of the novel, Houellebecq sharply distinguishes himself from his narrator, as he had from narrators of his previous novels. He asserts that he began this novel as a response to the deaths of family and friends, a response that first took the form of an agnostic’s search for religion in Catholicism similar to that of Huysmans’s.
When this earlier novel did not work out, he revised it radically, including some satiric dimension with regard to politics and journalists, but affirming a serious spiritual journey of a greatly flawed narrator. As Houellebecq said in the interview, “I think there is a real need for God and that the return of religion is not a slogan but a reality, and that it is very much on the rise.... I don’t believe that society can survive without religion.” When asked about the improbability of a large conversion to Islam in France, the author admitted that the novel was not meant to be realistic, but part of its sensational side as a social critique includes “scare tactics.” What he is critiquing, however, is not religion or immigration but what he calls “the philosophy handed down by the Enlightenment, which no longer makes sense to anyone, or to very few people.” Thus, as a critique of contemporary secularism and decadence, the novel affirms the worldwide return of religion, whether in the Islamic world or the Western world of Catholicism under Pope Francis (the latter, according to Houellebecq, “is doing rather well”).
The main themes of the novel have been clarified by later reviewers of the English translation, including one by the Scandinavian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard (The New York Times Book Review, 11/8/15). He calls the plot unlikely but possible, and its thematic target “an entire culture’s enormous loss of meaning, its lack of, or highly depleted, faith, a culture in which the ties of community are dissolving.” For this reviewer, the satire is aimed at “the intellectual classes, among whom no trace is found of idealism, and not a shadow of will to defend any set of values, only pragmatism pure and simple.” The basic question the novel raises, as the author and late reviewer seem to agree, is: “What does it mean to be a human being without faith?” The novel’s narrator is on a search “directed beyond the human to the divine, the truly sacred.”
A further dimension of the novel that few of the reviewers have mentioned is the quasi-political values that the Islamic government tries to put into place in the last section of the novel. These two values are distributism and subsidiarity, the latter of which has been at the heart of Catholic social teaching since the 1930s. G. K. Chesterton was one of the proponents of distributism, as what the novel calls “a third way” between capitalism and socialism, a way that combined capital and labor by promoting worker-owned small businesses. Subsidiarity also became part of social change in the novel by means of the Muslim prime minister’s promotion of local and regional government and economy, similar to that proposed by the papal encyclical letter “Quadragesimo Anno” in 1930.
The lack of realism in the details of the politics and reforms described in the novel should not distract readers from seeing in the novel what one critic calls “a dystopian conversion tale.” It portrays an unlikely scenario of a Muslim political takeover in France but is a much more plausible critique of Western secularism and hedonism. However, the recent surge of immigration from Syria and North Africa into Europe since the appearance of this novel only make more complex the political future of the European Union. Although France is predicted to become 10 percent Muslim by 2030, some cities in Europe are already 20 to 25 percent immigrants from the Middle East, including Amsterdam, Birmingham and Marseilles. Although the media focus primarily on the social conflicts in Europe that have resulted this past year in terrorism and violence, little mention has been made of the spiritual influence of the cultural changes caused by religious movements on the continent. Interreligious conflict can also be the opportunity for interreligious dialogue and harmony. More significant for readers is the main point of Submission, the need for a retrieval of religious and spiritual values in Western society.
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“The American narrative of a hard-luck individual working hard, doing the right thing, and finding success for it is so deep in me, my life story so tempting as potential evidence for that narrative’s validity,” Sarah Smarsh writes of her own upwardly mobile economic and intellectual trajectory, “
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How Does Personal Understanding Expand “Book Learning?”
Learning about life from books helps us to “get knowledge,” but our own life experiences and personal knowledge make our book-learning even more meaningful.
Take Tom Sawyer, for example, as he appears in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. If we didn't know anything about Tom—because we'd never read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—what can we learn about Tom from the second chapter of Huck Finn ?
What happens when Tom doesn't know the whole story—or the real meaning—about what he reads in books?
When Tom tries to explain his position—but can't because he doesn't really understand what he's read—how does he handle what could become an embarrassing situation for him?
In your opinion, what is the best example of Tom Sawyer’s lack of ability to translate what he reads in books into what is possible in real life?
What is Mark Twain telling us when he has Huck—who isn’t really educated at all—effectively cross-examining Tom—his more-educated friend—to reveal the flaws in Tom’s understanding of the stories he reads?
Awesome Stories Silver or Gold Membership Required
Awesome Stories Silver or Gold Membership Required
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Branson Bigfoot’s Yeti Fun Zone & Monkey Jump™
Branson Bigfoot on the Strip’s Yeti Fun Zone & Monkey Jump™ is an outdoor adventure fun for all ages with multiple levels of excitement for everyone!
While navigating through the maze panels on the main level, you will discover underground tunnels, swirly slides, climbing nets, rope swings, access to Bigfoot’s Treehouse and several climbing towers that offer an aerial view of the park and the city of Branson!
Kids can get lost in here for hours running through the maze and exploring all of the different activities within the Yeti Zone!
To exit the Yeti Fun Zone you can choose between the “chicken exit” OR, for the more adventurous, the Monkey Jump™ Tower. Climb up the 10 foot Monkey Jump Tower™, cross the bridge and leap into a massive inflated air bag!
The Monkey Jump™ offers unlimited amounts of jumps – so if you’re ready to take the plunge, it’s open for business!
Hours of fun for all ages! There is even a covered, elevated observation deck above the Yeti Zone for spectators!
Bigfoot Branson Yet Fun Zone and Monkey Jump Bigfoot Fun Park
Bigfoot Fun Park Regular Pricing
Regular Pricing:
• $12.95 per person
Family Pass:
• $40.95 per person
• Group of 4 people paying together, additional people are $10.95 each
Adventure Pass:
Book online now!
Bigfoot Branson Yet Fun Zone and Monkey Jump Bigfoot Fun Park
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Bitmovin provides adaptive streaming infrastructure for video publishers and integrators. Fastest cloud encoding and HTML5 Player. Play Video Anywhere.
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Bitmovin Security and Compliance
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Share a Workspace
Share any Workspace with other Bloomberg Law users at your organization. Invite users when you first create a Workspace, or you can invite/share the workspace them later. Invited members are restricted in that they cannot delete a resource, only view and comment. The Workspace creator receives notifications of any activity by the invited users, but not for his/her activity.
You can invite a user to share a Workspace when you create a new workspace, or at any time thereafter.
How to Share a Workspace
From the Bloomberg Law menu bar click My Work History, and select Workspaces. The list of Workspace activity automatically displays with the Manage Your Workspaces link at the bottom of the list.
* When you first view the Workspaces screen, a single default Workspace with your user name displays.
* You cannot delete the default Workspace.
Select the Workspace you seek to share.
Select the Settings tab. Enter letters in the Invite New Member(s) text box and select from the auto-complete list displaying the names of valid users. Only users with Bloomberg Law accounts at your organization are displayed. Select the member and click Invite. Repeat for each additional users.
* The List of Members table updates and includes the status of the invite.
* If you accidentally choose the wrong user, click the red X next to the users name to remove the user from the invite.
Invite New Members
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How men can beat anger
Dominic Cadden 17, 20165:00pm
We've all enjoyed watching Tony Soprano shoot a rival gangster, but do TV shows such as The Sopranos and Underbelly and violent console games send the message to men that a violent expression of rage is okay? Dr Kara-Jane Lombard, author of a Curtin University study on new media and youth extremism, points out it is futile to deny that what we see and hear in the media affects us, since the entire advertising industry is based on this premise.
Lombard's research suggests that men with angry or violent dispositions are likely to seek out TV shows or games that strengthen these tendencies, while when women feel angry, they are more likely to choose entertainment that prevents aggression, such as comedies or feel-good movies or TV shows."It's widely recognised that the active nature of media such as games and the internet have many features that facilitate aggression or violence - active involvement, identification with violent characters and the reinforcement of violent acts," Lombard says.
Fight or flight
Of course, not every bloke who watches the odd bit of gangster drama is violent by nature. Men might not be incited to violence by the vicious ways anger is dealt with on screen, but it can affect how they deal with anger in other ways. "Some men see these scenes and think, 'I better not get angry in case I blow my top like that',"psychologist Dr Elizabeth Celi says.
"People make out that anger is such a negative thing, but it's a normal human emotion - it's what we do with it that counts." The problem for men is that often they've never been shown how to express their feelings and emotions. David Nugent, who runs Heavy METAL, a Victorian counselling service that helps men control anger, says: "Men get stuck in a habit of either turning to fight or flight - one is very aggressive, the other is extremely passive. You have to find a middle ground."
The upside of anger
In the absence of any positive examples of coping with anger, men can be more prone to the influence of what they see on TV- but usually, when a male character gets angry, something gets broken or someone gets hurt. Between rage and a state of suppressed fury, there is a productive expression of anger that Dr Celi says can be a "gateway" to deeper feelings. "Expressing anger opens a door to talking about frustration, hurt, sadness and disappointment, then processing these underlying emotions in a healthy way."
Dr Celi says healthy anger requires you to be in control of yourself and emotionally aware so that you can express your needs without hurting others. When anger hits, men should stop, take five deep breaths and acknowledge that the anger is there, rather than trying to suppress it - going silent and bottling up your feelings usually doesn't help in the long run.
"Ask yourself what the feeling is specifically related to so that you can develop a productive response. That could involve verbalising something in an assertive manner or walking away from a situation; it could mean discussing what got you upset or rectifying a wrong, such as a misjudgment or a misinterpretation of something that you said or did."
Actions vs words
Frustrations can surface between a man and a woman when dealing with a challenging issue. Dr Celi points out that while men tend to want to express themselves physically, by doing something or fixing a problem, women often want to express themselves emotionally."But all that talking can make men feel like they're caught in a verbal loop, which makes them even more agitated - often they'd be better off going for a walk until they feel better and then talking about the problem," Dr Celi says.
Just as men prefer actions to words, your average guy doesn't want to watch drug lords and crooked cops calmly talking through their differences. But will watching violent shows or playing violent games make men more violent? Dr Lombard says innate aggression or a history of family violence are much more likely to produce a man who is violent when angry than exposure to violent TV shows, films and console games, but her concern is that such media portrays and encourages a behaviour where violence through anger is seen as the norm.
The key, Dr Celi says, is that men need to acknowledge that the world of organised crime and controller-operated carjackers doesn't show the full range of ways to deal with anger. "Everything's shown as black or white - you're either not angry or you're aggressive and violent, but there's a whole spectrum in the middle where men can express anger in a way that contributes to reducing mental health problems."
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Hindu mythology
Learn about this topic in these articles:
• In rakshasa
Pūtanā, a female demon, is well known for her attempt to kill the infant Krishna by offering him milk from her poisoned breast; she was, however, sucked to death by the god.
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What is a softphone?
A softphone is a computer program used to make phone calls over the internet from any device with a speaker and mic, including computers and mobile devices. A softphone allows users to make telephone calls without an actual, physical telephone.
How do businesses use softphones?
Many businesses choose to use softphones instead of traditional phones to save money. Since softphones are software applications that can be added to existing devices, there’s no need for an additional telephone hardware investment. Softphones are therefore seen as more scalable than other communication options. According to SearchUnifiedCommunications.com, “A desk phone is a relatively pricy piece of hardware that requires a company to pull additional cables to cubicles, and desk phones come with a certain amount of operational overhead for support and maintenance.”
Being able to install a software and get started almost right away seems like a much faster and less expensive onboarding process as opposed to the more manual setup of the “hardphone.” This is a big deal for small businesses that are growing quickly as well as medium and large businesses who save time by not keeping track of physical telephones.
Another benefit of the softphone is that it can move where the person who needs it goes. More workplaces are becoming remote or telecommute friendly. Having a softphone attached to an employee’s laptop means he or she can take calls at the office, while traveling, or working from home. Similarly, softphones give users a single phone number to take calls regardless of the device he or she is using. No more giving out personal cell phone numbers to customers. These benefits can make life much easier on businesses as small as single entrepreneurs to large companies with global locations.
Are there drawbacks to softphones?
While you do not need traditional telephone hardware to use a softphone, you might need a headset type of device with a microphone and headphones. Most softphones offer a speakerphone option, but not everyone wants to talk to their computers on speakerphone every time they take a phone call.
As softphones are reliant on an existing device and an internet connection, if either of those fails, users will be left with no way to make calls. If your laptop crashes or you lose internet connection, you’ll have to resort to a traditional phone device. There are softphone apps that use a smart device as the telephone, but constant use (as with any app) can run down a device’s battery quickly.
What is VoIP?
VoIP technology is required for softphones. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Technology like email and instant messaging help revolutionize internet communication and pave the way for VoIP technology. Initially developed around 1995 by AT&T, VoIP was created to avoid the expenses surrounding long distance and international calling.
VoIP technology works by essentially breaking voice information down into small pieces of data to transmit them to the final destination. There, they are reassembled into the phone calls we hear. Once developed, Skype became the VoIP king of sorts, allowing users to call others in real time with voice and image technology.
The success of VoIP, Skype, and similar technology and products paved the way for the softphones we use today in business and at home. Softphones allow computers or smart devices to function as telephones.
How do softphones work with call tracking software?
CallRail’s Softphone technology integrates with our call tracking and analytics platform to provide SDRs and AEs with actionable data. Your agents can know the marketing source and location of the caller before they pick up the softphone. The softphone with CallRail also allows for real-time call monitoring for training and quality assurance. Users can take notes and add tags while on the call to give sales and marketing the information they need to do their jobs better.
Learn more about how call analytics can improve your business–request your no obligation demo of CallRail, or go ahead and start your 14 Day Free Trial, no credit card needed.
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Liz Torres
Liz Torres
Born Sep 27, 1947
• Comedian, Singer, Actor
Elizabeth "Liz" Torres is an American actress, singer, and comedienne of Puerto Rican descent.
Liz Torres Stats
: Elizabeth Torres, Liz, Elizabeth "Liz" Torres
: Comedian, Singer, Actor
: United States of America
Date of Birth
: Sep 27, 1947 (71 years old)
Place of Birth
: The Bronx
Liz Torres Film Roles
1. A Million to Juan
2. Sweet 15
Sweet 15
3. Bloodfist IV: Die Trying
Bloodfist IV: Die Trying
4. Taylor
Teri Richards
5. King Rikki
6. Lena's Holiday
Cabbie's Wife
Lena's Holiday
7. Permanent Midnight
8. Maid for Each Other
Maid for Each Other
9. The Odd Couple II
10. Pinocchio
Liz Torres TV Starring Roles
1. Gilmore Girls
Miss Patty
2. The John Larroquette Show
3. City
4. Checking In
5. Over the Top
6. Ben Vereen... Comin' at Ya
7. Phyllis
8. All in the Family
9. The New Odd Couple
Liz Torres TV Guest Roles
1. The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton
2. Court Date
3. I'm Okay, You're Crazy
4. Lies
5. The All-American Boy - Not!
6. Run Away, Little Boy
7. Crime And Punishment
8. It's Just Like Riding a Bike
9. The Long Flight
10. The Boarder Patrol
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The equation \(x^3+3x-4=0\) has exactly one real root.
Hint: Try differentiating. Is the function monotonic?
Note that cubic equation has at least one real root (fundamental theorem of algebra provides for three roots counting repetitions, real or complex; for equations with real coefficients, the complex roots appear in conjugate pairs. Hence a cubic equation with real coefficients must have at least one real root).
Now differentiating \( P(x) = x^3 + 3x – 4 \) we have the following: $$ \frac {d} {dx} P(x) = 3x^2 + 3 $$
What can you say about this derivative?
Clearly it is always positive (perfect square plus three is at least three or more).
Hence P(x) is monotonically increasing. It will ‘cut’ the x-axis only at one point.
Therefore P(x) has exactly one real root.
In this problem, first we established P(x) has at least one real root. Then we proved it has exactly one. Both steps are crucial.
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Template: Truong Thi Binh ⋆ Children of Vietnam
Truong Thi Binh
Ms. Binh graduated from HCMC Open University with English and Accounting Degrees. She is responsible for income and expense accounting and reporting, and disbursements to beneficiaries. Ms. Binh is also responsible for program implementation and reporting. Ms. Binh has been employed with COV since 2004.
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global_01_local_1_shard_00001926_processed.jsonl/56620
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EasyShift takes on GigWalk with new task marketplace
Help make sure retailers are doing what they're supposed to with the products they're selling, and earn a few bucks for your trouble.
PALOS VERDES, Calif.--Focus. EasyShift has it. This new service, launching today at the D10 conference from Quri, is a crowdsource labor system, most reminiscent of GigWalk, but with a uniquely narrow purpose: it helps consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies make sure their in-store displays and programs are running they way they should.
Users who want to make extra money can accept "shifts" to check that, for example, a baby food display is set up right. The app might ask the user to photograph the product and its display surroundings in a store, count the number of items displayed, and enter the price marked. For this, the user might earn from $2 to perhaps $20; funds are sent to users' PayPal accounts daily.
James Joaquin of Catamount Ventures, one of the backers of Quri, walked me through the app and the business. "Customers are the brands," he was clear to say. CPG companies pay Quri for the privilege of being able to pay consumers to do compliance checking for in-store "trade spend" programs, and to check on other retail-related factors.
Quick way to earn a few bucks. Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET
These customers can get a real-time dashboard of how retailers are displaying products, if they're using marketing materials correctly, and what price-points they're using. Joaquin told me that one customer found that a retail program had only 30 percent compliance. The EasyShift app helped them identify which stores were not using the retail materials correctly -- which the CPG company had paid the store chain to use. But the resolution was good for everyone, Joaquin said. "The client was happy; they got a 100 percent refund and ran the program again. And the retailer was happy, too. They can use this product to help train or keep up with their employees. Ultimately, everyone just wants sell-through."
The mobile app is location-aware. It will highlight tasks for users that are nearby. But it's not yet ambient: It won't run in the background and buzz the user when he or she is near a shift. That may come in the future.
EasyShift's closest competitor is GigWalk, which also has a focus on business-to-consumer shift work and spot checks. Other companies in this space include TaskRabbit and Zaarly, but they have large numbers of consumer-to-consumer tasks and don't offer the same hirer's dashbaord that EasyShift does.
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Sponsorship Opportunties
The Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management Program (HPM) and the Healthcare Industry Association (HCIA) are grateful to all of our sponsors and partners who helped make the conference such a memorable event. Their support and contributions are truly appreciated.
If you would like information on how your company can partner with us this year, please Download the Sponsor Packet or contact [email protected] if you have any questions.
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Red Sonja/Conan
Red Sonja and Conan are reunited as captains of mercenary companies who team to fight the forces of an evil sorcerer. Little do they realize that a shadow of the past has returned, something of dire peril from their previous adventures together. It's the Cimmerian and Sonja reunited for more bloody swordplay!
comiXology Unlimited
Collected Editions
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Understanding the Concept of Domain & Page Popularity – Part VII
Previously, we have learned quite a lot about On-page SEO – the intricate concepts of it, how it works and how you can make the most of it and harness the true power of on-page SEO. But on-page SEO is just the “tip of the iceberg”, as the most important and powerful aspect of SEO is still hidden under water.
Today, in this article we will start digging deep into the concepts of Off-page SEO and understand how it rules almost everything of search engine optimization. We will also learn to master our skills in the art of Off-page SEO and beat the ever-increasing super-tough competition in the SERPs, but before everything all you need to do is thoroughly understand the deep concepts of it.
Without a thorough and in-depth understanding of the most basic and fundamental concepts of Off-page SEO, it will be immensely difficult for you to excel in learning SEO properly.
The Origin of the Concept of Popularity
(Image Source: websiteincite.com)
But before going into the depths of “popularity”, let us first understand what it actually is. It’s not something much different from the popularity of Leonardo Di Caprio as an actor or Lady Gaga as a singer. The idea is same in the world of World Wide Web, Marketing and SEO too. The more popular, trusted and authoritative you are, more will your importance rise in the eyes of the search engines.
But why did the search engines fell in love with the concept of “popularity” all of a sudden? They can rank web pages easily by judging the quality (in terms of information and resourcefulness), so why the sudden heck about popularity? The primary reason for the search engines to take the help of “popularity” is its limitation in “truly and perfectly” understanding the quality, usefulness and resourcefulness of a certain webpage or document.
As I had previously mentioned, that the search engines are nothing more than computer programs which work on a set of human-written codes to analyze a particular webpage or document and understand how good it can prove to be for the real humans and rank them on that basis. Though they are quite intelligent, smart and sophisticated, but still they are incapable of understanding what the humans would actually like or what can be truly helpful for them.
So, indirectly it is the humans who need to help the search engines to determine what is actually good and what is not.
Search Engines Seeking Human Help
(Image Source: elearningonlinetraining.com)
Though the search engines are getting better and more sophisticated day-by-day, still they can never surpass the power of the human brain in reading, understanding, analyzing and then judging the quality of a particular document over the other. It is the humans who have created the search engines and it is us who again need to help them in performing their job better.
Suppose your friend Mr. Dumb needs to complete a science project and has got 10 books in hand about “Space-Time Parallax”, but he is unable to understand which one is the best and which one should he mainly rely on. So he gives all of those books to you to help him.
Now what you can do is read all of them and tell which one is the best among all and can also sort (or arrange) the book on the basis of their quality and usefulness, for your friend Mr Dumb. Basically, you have made use of your intelligence, prior knowledge and sense of judgment to analyze and reflect your thoughts on which books is the best among all.
Similar is the scenario about the search engines too. Obviously they are not dumb like Mr Dumb but still these computer generated programs are way behind the human sense of understanding and judgment. So they need to make the extra effort of understanding how popular the webpages or documents are among the real readers and how much talked about are they.
Illustration with a Real Life Scenario
Suppose a company wants to hire a programmer on “Android Development” and organizes an interview for that. Three candidates John, Peter and Dan appear for the interview. All of them are proficient and almost equally skilled in android programming and have almost equal grades in their mark sheets.
Now the situation gets very difficult for the interviewer to select the one and only one, who can be given the job. He asks them some tricky questions to make the elimination process easier, but still all of them stands out to be nearly equally skilled. Now the interviewer asks for some references, if they have any. Dan doesn’t have any reputed personality referencing him and gets eliminated at the first chance.
John shows 3 references from 3 of his childhood teachers who have taught him programming for years. This makes a good impression about John in the eyes of the interviewer and proves his consistency in programming thereby making his chances of getting the job better. Now the interviewer asks for Peter’s references but he is able to show only a single reference from the Director of the most reputed college of their state. The interview session ends and guess who is selected for the job?
It’s Peter who gets the job. Though he shows only a single reference, yet he manages to overpower and win over the 3 references of John as the one and the only one reference Peter had was more powerful, authoritative and trustworthy than John’s 3 references.
The Idea of Domain & Page Popularity
If you have read the example in the previous paragraph, then you must have got a clear idea of the concept of “popularity” and how the search engine use this concept in the World Wide Web to rank webpages. Now let us dig deeper into this concept by understanding the idea of Domain and Page Popularity.
To say in short, Domain Popularity is the authority and trustworthiness that a certain domain name have got in the eyes of the search engines, while Page Popularity imparts the same idea on individual pages of a website (and not the entire site). Practically, a certain webpage may be more popular than the entire domain, or vice-versa. But the search engines consider both of them while ranking pages.
Another Real Life Illustrative Example
Suppose an author have written and published 10 different books on “web designing”. The first 4 books were tremendously successful back-to-back, which means that the individual popularity of the books (compare with Page Popularity) were immense which in turn helps in building up the entire popularity of the author (compare with Domain Popularity).
So the next few books automatically gets a huge boost at the time of their release, just because of the popularity that the author have gained through the first 4 books. Even though the next few books are not as good as the previous ones or the current competition, still they perform well in the market just because of the trust and authority that the author have gained.
But the average (and not-so-satisfactory) quality of the next 4 books slowly work on bringing down the entire popularity that the author had gained before. And the last two books don’t get the initial push that he had got before. Though the last two books bring back the quality he once had but still needs a tough marketing attempt to get good sales, just because he has slowly lost the trust and popularity he had once gained.
Another Web-based Example
Now the previous example is enough to help you understand the concept of Domain Popularity and Page Popularity, but let us illustrate this idea even more deeply with a web-based example.
Suppose you search for “android rooting”, the first site that pops up in the SERPs is that of Wikipedia, even when there are some sites which provide dedicated information about android rooting and provide much more useful and resourceful information than just a single Wikipedia page, still the Wiki giant stays at the top with grace and the primary reason for this is Domain Popularity. Wikipedia has got a very strong track record of providing thousands of highly informative and resourceful content for a long time. Readers almost always get exactly what they want after landing on a Wikipedia page. So the search engines trust the entire domain of Wikipedia much more than the other competitors on that particular SERP.
The search engines have gotten a feeling that whatever Wikipedia will produce will be good and this is what forms the basis of preferentially putting Wikipedia at the top spots. But this isn’t always the case as there are many situations when a quite new and less popular website, gets one of its pages at the top spots of the SERPs competing with much stronger and authoritative websites with the sole reason of having a strong Page Popularity.
Final Thoughts
Domain Popularity and Page Popularity both are almost equally essential in ranking pages in the SERPs and it is really very difficult to tell which one holds more power and importance but various tests, experiments and expert experiences conclude Domain Popularity to hold slightly more importance than Page Popularity.
So our target should be to focus on both of Domain and Page Authority while the former can be achieved if we work on achieving the latter. But how to be more popular, gain more trust and authority? The question is simple but the answer to this question is a bit more involving and will be discussed in detail in the upcoming articles.
So, stay tuned for the next articles coming up in this series which will make you learn how to build trust, authority and popularity in the eyes of the search engines and conquer the top spots in the search results page.
Aritra Roy
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Hey people,
I don'r know much about PHP so I think you can help me on this one.
I have a email form and the action says:
<form id="contato" method="post" action="contact.php">
The php is placed as follows:
$to = "[email protected]";
$subject = "Site Contact" ;
$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$message = "Name: ".nl2br($_POST["name"]. "\r\n");
$message .= "Email: ".nl2br($_POST["email"]. "\r\n");
$message .= "Message: ".nl2br($_POST["message"]);
$headers = "From: $email";
$headers .= "\nContent-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8";
$headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0";
{print "Your mail was sent successfully"; }
The thing is, I want that the user stay in the same page after submitting, with no redirects and no reloads!
I've tried also to put the {php with the html form} all together and call it from a javascript like
<script type="text/javascript" src="contact.php"></script>
In this way the php don't need to perform in another page, but doing that the form disapeared from the layout.
Can someone help me??
Member Avatar
If you don't want a reload, you'll need to use ajax. The submit button will need to have a onclick attribute, or you could have an onsubmit attribute for the form. This should contain a reference to a js function. The js function will then take all the form field data and pass them to a php script (does all the processing). On success, you could have an update tag on the form to show that the form has been sent successfully. Tip - if you're new to Ajax, perhaps using jQuery or Prototype will take out the sting.
Thank you for the tip, I tried the JQuery and it's working perfectly!!
King regards!
jquery is good option. PHP need to submit page.
Member Avatar
OK mark as solved please.
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Orange-Glazed Steak
We marinated the beef in a soy and garlic mixture, then brushed it with orange marmalade on the grill. Serve with Peach Salsa on the side.
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Cal/Serv: 400
Yields: 6
Cook Time: 0 hours 5 mins
Total Time: 0 hours 30 mins
1/4 c. soy sauce
2 clove garlic
1 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
1 top round steak
c. orange marmalade
1. In a 13-inch by 9-inch glass baking dish, mix soy sauce, garlic, and pepper. Trim fat from round steak; add steak to soy sauce mixture, turning to coat. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes, turning once.
2. Place steak on grill over medium heat; spoon remaining marinade over steak. Cook steak 25 minutes for medium-rare or until of desired doneness, brushing with orange marmalade during last 10 minutes of cooking, turning steak occasionally.
Getty Images/StockDisc
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Mythology of Animals
by Joseph P. Muszynski, Ph.D
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The possibility exists that animals may have their own myths. Evolutionary biology tells us that non-human and human animals are biologically related, including similarities in brain function. Both see images. Depth psychology is rich in discussion of how we create myth from images. This opens the possibility that animals can also do so. Many questions arise. Are images all that are needed to “know” myth? If the archetypal images we see are related to instincts, would such images really be a uniquely human phenomenon? If other animals do have these archetypal, instinctual images within them, are they enough to lead to myths? The question of whether non-human animals are aware and conscious would be an a priori condition to believe this to be possible. Or, do we need speech for myth? A myth may only be a myth if it is told, somehow shared with others. We do know other animals communicate, both with each other and with us to the degree that we are receptive, but are they capable of sharing myths?
Myths are narratives through which we can know archetypes, but could they be purely visual narratives? Images are the structures allowing metaphors to emerge into human consciousness, suggesting the possibility that images allow metaphors to emerge into non-human animal consciousness as well. If they did, the conscious non-human animal mind would contain archetypes similar to humans’, producing similar metaphors. Could they also form the basis for non-human animal myths? Even if someone does not know what a metaphor is, they still have metaphorical thoughts. Is there reason to believe that non-human animals are incapable of image-based metaphors?
Animal Consciousness
First, we need to consider whether non-human animals are conscious and self-aware. Tom Regan’s seminal work, The Case for Animal Rights, uses evolutionary theory to part “company with Descartes and attributing consciousness — a mind, a mental life — to certain animals” (28). Descartes believed animals have no reasoning consciousness, clearly stating in Discourse on Method that the lack of language similar to human language in non-human animals, “attests not merely to the fact that beasts have less reason than men but that they have none at all” (32). He believed animals to be machines, lacking emotion and any ability to feel pain. Descartes’ perspective adequately serves human needs. However, such philosophy allows humans to describe non-human animals in strictly material terms, i.e., financial, considering actual animals only as a number in a cost analysis between species loss and human’s lost economic growth (Simon, 182).
Humans value themselves highly. In The Flight To Objectivity, Susan R. Bordo suggests that through Descartes the human mind came to be valued above all. Non-human animals became “understood as purely a reflection of how we feel about them, having nothing to do with their ‘objective’ qualities” (99). With human desires as the main focus of human life, the natural world became easily manipulated for fulfilling those desires. Arguing against this perspective, Regan notes that, “Because the relevant animal behavior resembles human behavior, […] there is a strong presumptive reason for viewing these animal experiences as being like their human counterparts” (66-67). With similar behaviors noted, it becomes apparent the non-human animal is conscious. Regan then argues for proof of beliefs in animals. He professes:
A holistic view of animal behavior allows us to decide when to attribute beliefs to animals, what beliefs to attribute, and whether the beliefs we have reason to attribute at one time, in one set of circumstances, are the same or different from those we have reason to attribute at another time, in another set of circumstances. (72)
If we accept non-human animal awareness, we can then imagine what their awareness entails. Further, we can speculate mythopoetically on what their beliefs may be.
In The Literary Mind, Mark Turner demonstrates that for humans, “narrative imagining, often thought of as literary and optional, appears instead to be inseparable from our evolutionary past and our necessary personal experience” (25). Narrative imagining is constant, mental, and visual. Turner suggests, “Story precedes grammar” (168), and even language. Our own mental and visual stories are common and further evidence that non-human animals could have similar mental and visual narratives. Do myths evolve from our inner narratives? If so, it seems possible the same could be possible for non-human animals.
Evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff believes dismissing anthropomorphism to be a waste of time. He writes in The Animal Manifesto that:
Our fellow animals not only think, but they feel — deeply. Animals live and move through the world with likes and dislikes and preferences just like we do. This is not being anthropomorphic. We’re not inserting something human into them that they don’t have. It doesn’t matter whether their thoughts and emotions are exactly the same as our thoughts and emotions. Both their feelings and ours are essential for a meaningful life. (76)
He then points out the hypocrisy of human dismissal of anthropomorphizing non-human animals when he reports about a real-world situation: “The same zoo officials who accuse activists of being anthropomorphic when they call a captive elephant unhappy turn around and freely describe the same elephant as perfectly happy” (77). By using mythopoesis we are able to discuss the parallels between the human animal and non-human animal minds. Animals’ thoughts and feelings may be similar to ours or they may perceive in completely different ways. Accepting non-human animal consciousness means that, “In this new trans-species world, dolphins have culture, crows use tools, sheep empathize, and snakes play. Fish subjected to electrical shocks retreat into dissociative rocking as a means of coping with pain, much as human victims of torture might” (Bradshaw, Elephants 6). Behaviors are similar among many animals, including humans.
Though he believes that non-human animals are moral, Bekoff does not think this means they have religion, stating that, “Religion…invokes supernatural explanations for why certain behaviors are prohibited or required. It seems likely that morality (with manners as a subset) is really the only category that applies to nonhuman animals” (Wild, 15). However, he also throws out the assumption “that morality in other species will look just like human morality” so that we should “proceed with an open mind and view each species on its own terms” (Wild, 20). Most myths are not religious, but they are usually concerned with values and thus with morals. Bekoff notes that, “Animals form friendships, are caught lying or stealing and lose face in the community, they flirt, their sexual advances are sometimes embraced and sometimes rejected, they fight and make up, they love, and they experience loss. There are saints and sinners, bad apples and good citizens” (Wild, 45), clearly similar to situations to which an archetypal psychologist looks to discover the presence of archetypal myth in human behaviors. The psychologist gets to myths by beginning with images.
Depth Psychology and Archetypal Images
“Archetype” and “image” are integral terms for mythology, whether grounded in depth psychology or not. The ways in which images relate to myths are important for connecting consciousness to the creativity of the collective unconscious. C. G. Jung writes that dream “imagery frequently makes use of motifs analogous to or even identical with those of mythology. I call these structures archetypes because they function in a way similar to instinctual patterns of behavior” (CW 3: 254). These dream motifs are structural elements of the unconscious as well as of myth. Jung relates these elements to instincts. He defines the collective unconscious “as the ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation […] not individual but common to all men, and perhaps even to all animals, and is the true basis of the individual psyche” (CW 8: 152). Jung raises the possibility that archetypes found in the collective unconscious of the human might also be found in non-human animals (connected to the same ancestral collective unconscious).
Jung accepted non-human animals as living in unconsciousness. In Jung’s time, it was generally accepted that animal minds processed information through pure instinct. Thus, instinctual archetypes of the collective unconscious are present in instinctual animal minds. However, when found in our dreams, these archetypes are not clear to conscious human understanding. As Jung explains:
Our consciousness performs a selective function and is itself the product of selection, whereas the collective unconscious is simply Nature — and since Nature contains everything it also contains the unknown. […] In my opinion the collective unconscious is the preconscious aspect of things on the ‘animal’ or instinctive level of the psyche. (Letters Vol. 2, 540)
Defining the collective unconscious as “animal” or “instinctive” makes less sense if we accept that animals are conscious and aware.
Jung also writes that when compared with humans, “it is highly probable that animals have similar or even the same archetypes” (Letters Vol. 1, 540), and yet, “an animal has no consciousness” (Visions, 154). However, he paradoxically writes that the archetype of:
the wise old man is a big ape really, which explains his peculiar fascination. The ape is naturally in possession of the wisdom of nature, like any animal or plant, but the wisdom is represented by a being that is not conscious of itself, and therefore it cannot be called wisdom. (Nietzsche’s, 1393)
We now know that apes are conscious and aware of themselves. Current ethological data provides evidence of individual personalities found in non-human animals. What sort of wisdom and recognizance of archetype could a “big ape” actually understand?
Jung believes that images lead to actions in animals, writing:
the lowest layers of our psyche still have an animal character. Hence it is highly probable that animals have similar or even the same archetypes. That they do have archetypes is certain in so far as the animal-plant symbioses clearly demonstrate that there must be an inherited image in the animal which drives it to specific instinctive actions. (Letters Vol. 1, 427)
This implies similar behavior in the human, as perhaps the same archetypal and unconscious image releases energy to our consciousness and “drives it” to human behavior. These powerful images are found in our myths. Can a myth be metaphoric images only, formed into a simple narrative in our thoughts?
Writing more directly about our understanding of these images is archetypal psychologist James Hillman. He writes, “Mythic metaphor is the correct way of speaking about the archetypes” (Re-Visioning, 157). We understand archetypal images to varying degrees and only indirectly through metaphor. Our understanding of archetypes is “indirectly, metaphorically, mythically” (157). Hillman suggests human mythology is powerful because you do not know myth; you encounter myth in images. Each of us is able to get to know any myth in a multitude of different ways, beginning powerfully with an image.
Animals would seem to have images similar to ours within them. However, when depth psychology notices animals it is usually in the context of how the human animal uses non-human animals. The non-human animal is often seen as a spiritual guide to be found within human dreams. In Animal Guides, representative of depth psychology’s perspective, Jungian analyst Neil Russack writes that his “book is a map tracing journeys in which people are guided by animals into a richer humanity. Animals break down barriers and bring a healing presence into our lives” (10). Non-human animals guide humans toward enrichment or become present to heal us. G.A. Bradshaw, the originator of trans-species psychology, notes, “By dissociating the symbolic, spiritual and ‘real’ physical animals, current engagement with myth, image, and dream has remained an anthropocentrically driven exercise. The pervasiveness of anthropocentrism and animals-as-objects-in-service is subtle” (Elephant Trauma, 18). The non-human animal is rarely appreciated as an individual with its own existence.
Even ecopsychology is still broadly human-focused and lacks specific consideration for non-human animals. When Theodore Roszak defined the sub-discipline, he aimed to “generate a new, legally actionable, environmentally based criterion of mental health” (15). The field remains firmly grounded in depth psychology and the focus on how environmental conditions affect the human psyche. Nevertheless, ecopsychology attempts to move beyond human priority. When Stephen Aizenstat suggests, “Special care would be taken to listen in ways that allowed the voices of Earth’s inhabitants to be heard in the full range of their sound” (99), he comes closer to recognizing and imagining the lives of actual non-human animals. Bradshaw understands that we need to open a pathway to “begin from what is known to be held in common […] and then explore what is different, what are things that make each person and elephant unique” (Elephants, 18). Imagining is a pathway through which understanding animals’ myths could deepen our relationships with them and give us insight into their perspectives on the world we share. Myths reflect a view of the world and animals’ views may be different from ours in important ways.
The Polyphonic Voice of Mythology
The problem of whether mythology must be shared to be mythology also needs to be considered. In Re-Visioning Psychology, Hillman writes, “Without speech we lose soul, and human being assumes the fantasy being of animals” (217-218), suggesting speech is needed to understand archetypes. Hillman focuses on images; the images hold fictions; these fictions are stories for the soul; these stories aid our souls to heal from neuroses and psychopathologies. In Healing Fiction he defines archetypal psychology as, “reflection upon the subjective fantasy factors going on all the time, recognition of the images and their ongoing operation in all our realities” (75). This is human reflection on internal imaging. Paying attention to internal archetypal images allows them to rise from the unconscious to assist in healing us. However, here there is no mention of the need for language to understand these images as he professes, “Know Thyself is the self-reflexive moment, a psychological a priori within all moments, that laugh of self recognition glimpsed in the images of one’s selves in all things” (78). Hillman leaves clear the path for allowing the other into human psychology. To step through that door is to step into myth. Recognition of an image, which Turner suggested comes in the form of at least a simple narrative, may be all that is needed for myth to be present.
Each image has personal meaning for whoever sees the image. Personal context becomes important in the contemplative discovery of one’s relation to any image because no image has only one meaning. Hillman states that, “By definition, an image is a particular and brings with it the criteria and internal relations by which it can be understood” (The Dream, 142). An image holds everything it needs to be understood in a myriad of ways, though more than one person may find similar understanding in an image. The lack of universal meaning in an image is because, “The depth of even the simplest image is truly fathomless” (The Dream, 200). If Jung is correct and non-human animals have similar images that come forth from the same collective unconscious shared with the human animal, these images’ “fathomless” depth should be enough to provide non-human animals with some meaning. If there is meaning, some sort of myth may place that meaning into the context of his or her life. A self-aware, non-human animal should have some ability to interpret images from the unconscious
Perhaps the biggest barrier to the possibility of non-human myth is our openness to the idea. Human myths of oral tradition may aid in providing a mythopoetic path toward changing our perspective. Writing down myths serves to concretize the narrative and the wisdom within. However, as Sean Kane aptly suggests in Wisdom of the Mythtellers, “What the mythtellers and the oral poets know is that truth cannot be captured in a solitary idea. It is alive and uncatchable. It tumbles about in the polyphonic stories told by the animals and birds and mountains and rivers and trees” (255). Kane responds to the dominant use of our own psychological perspective in the analysis of myth. He reminds us that myths also hold and convey the narrative wisdom of cultures whose relationships with their local landscapes are of utmost importance to their survival. These myths are told in the polyphonic voice:
an echo in human expression of a world in which everything has intelligence, everything has personality, everything has voice. Polyphony assumes that these various beings are not just communicating individually and directly to human beings; rather, they are in networks of communication with each other, the human listener being simply a part of that network. (191-192)
These myths give voice and animated purpose to human and non-human animals alike. Trans-species courtesy allows communication between beings and aids in the survival of both.
Kane suggests polyphony shapes myth with patterns, “rendered in such a way as to preserve a place whole and sacred, safe from human meddling” (50). The absence of meddling, understood to be improper human behavior, maintains a balanced way of life. The human able to understand the value of the mythic patterns and share the mythic song of place is the mythteller; the mythic song contains the wisdom of maintaining the proper place. In a polyphonic world, the danger exists that most humans have stopped listening to other voices.
Even literary myth often begins in polyphony, as in the beginning of the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala:
The cold recited me a lay, the rain kept bringing me songs.
The winds brought another song, the waves of the sea drove some to me.
The birds added songs, the treetops magic sayings. (Lonnrot, 4)
Myth is gathered from every corner of the natural world, voiced by birds and heard by a human. However, as in The Kalevala, though a narrator can begin in polyphony, our myths often proceed toward the singular human voice. A loss of polyphony parallels a rising human population and a landscape gradually reflecting more human influence. In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram suggests we can regain parts of the human soul by coming to a new understanding of the speech of non-human animals and landscapes. When he points out, “Our obliviousness to nonhuman nature is today held in place by ways of speaking that simply deny intelligence to other species and to nature in general” (28), it is the mythologist’s task to identify new ways of speaking. Can simple images be used to understand new myths that explore, explain, and acknowledge the intelligence of non-human animals?
It is important to consider our need for a deeper awareness of animals’ own myths of their worlds. Such understanding may instill a new sense of trans-species courtesy, in which humans understand how human dominance has led to non-human animal loss. When we lose a non-human animal species, we may be losing entire mythologies. This already happens in part when a human language goes extinct. Mythology can function as a natural magic, in which we rediscover how the language of human animals belongs to the greater category of animal expression. Abram points out how human language “does not set us outside of the animate landscape but — whether or not we are aware of it — inscribes us more fully in its chattering, whispering, soundful depths” (80). We can better understand how non-human animals live in this world if we could place ourselves more firmly in their world.
We might also discover a better understanding of ourselves. Jung wrote that, “through continuous commerce with animals a man assimilates the truth of the natural mind to such an extent that it alienates him from the cultural or spiritual mind” (Visions, 133). However, the end result of Jung’s individuation process is basically a negotiated unification of consciousness with the unconscious. A progression toward unification has the goal of reunification with the “natural,” or animal, mind. Jung offers the possibility that “the animal — we don’t know — may have a better knowledge of the deity than man, but of course an unconscious knowledge” (Visions, 134). But if other animals are conscious, perhaps their knowledge is of the natural world as a deity, a knowledge that we seem to have tried to distance ourselves from. Maybe Jung is metaphorically correct when he writes, “from our standpoint, an animal has no consciousness, it is exactly what we call unconsciousness” (Visions, 154), but only because animals might live consciously with myth as their natural language. If other animals live in myth, or “still” live in myth (which implies that we have left that state of understanding), their thoughts would constantly be of the creative power of the natural world. As our myths are so often about creation, non-human animal myths might hold important knowledge for us.
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Aizenstat, Stephen. “Jungian Psychology and the World Unconscious.” Ecopsychology. Ed. Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995. 92-100.
Bekoff, Marc. The Animal Manifesto. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010.
—-. Wild Justice. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009.
Bordo, Susan R. The Flight to Objectivity. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1987.
Bradshaw, G.A. “Elephant Trauma and Recovery: From Human Violence to Liberation Ecopsychology.” Diss. Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2005.
—-. Elephants on the Edge. New Haven, CT: Yale U P, 2009.
Descartes, René. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Transl. by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998.
Hillman, James. Healing Fiction. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications, 1983.
—-. Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: HarperCollins, 1976.
—-. The Dream and the Underworld. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
Jung, Carl Gustave. Letters Vol. 1: 1906-1950. Ed. Gerhard Adler. Trans. R.F.C. Hull.
Bollingen Series XCV. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1973.
—-. Letters Vol. 2: 1951-1961. Ed. Gerhard Adler. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XCV. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1975.
—-. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1934-1939 By C.G. Jung. Ed. James L. Jarrett. 2 Volumes. Bollingen Series XCIX. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1988.
—-. “Recent Thoughts on Schizophrenia.” The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 3.
Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982, 250-255.
—-. “The Structure of the Psyche.” The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Vol. 8. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1981, 139-158.
—-. Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930-1934. Vol. 1. Ed. Claire Douglas.
Bollingen Series XCIX. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1997.
Kane, Sean. Wisdom of the Mythtellers. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 1998.
Lonnrot, Elias. The Kalevala or Poems of the Kaleva District. Transl. Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. Harvard U P: Cambridge, MA, 1963.
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.
Roszak, Theodore. “Where Psyche Meets Gaia.” In Ecopsychology. Ed. Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995. 1-17.
Russack, Neil. Animal Guides. Toronto: Inner City Books, 2002.
Simon, Julian L., and Aaron Wildavsky. “On Species Loss, The Absence of Data,and Risks to Humanity.” The Resourceful Earth. Ed. Julian L. Simon and Herman Kahn. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. 171-183.
Turner, Mark. The Literary Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Joseph P. Muszynski, Ph.D., is a writer and mythologist, holding degrees in Mythology, Film, and Anthropology. He currently edits for The American Naturalist journal, while also working on multiple projects, including a book on comics and myth. He also hopes to expand his work on animal’s myths.
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"What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?"
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Neuroscientist, Stanford University, Author, A Primate's Memoir
Well, of course, it is tempting to go for something like, "That the wheel, agriculture, and the Macarena were all actually invented by yetis." Or to do the sophomoric pseudo-ironic logic twist of, "That every truth can eventually be proven." Or to get up my hackles, draw up to my full height and intone, "Sir, we scientists believe in nothing that cannot be proven by the whetstone of science, verily our faith is our lack of faith," and then go off in a lab coat and a huff.
The first two aren't worth the words, and the third just isn't so. No matter how many times we read Arrowsmith, scientists are subjective humans operating in an ostensibly objective business, so there 's probably lots of things we take on faith.
So mine would be a fairly simple, straightforward case of an unjustifiable belief, namely that there is no god(s) or such a thing as a soul (whatever the religiously inclined of the right persuasion mean by that word). I'm very impressed, moved, by one approach of people on the other side of the fence. These are the believers who argue that it would be a disaster, would be the very work of Beelzebub, for it to be proven that god exists. What good would religiosity be if it came with a transparently clear contract, instead of requiring the leap of faith into an unknowable void?
Finally, just to undo any semblance of logic here, I might even continue to believe there is no god, even if it was proven that there is one. A religious friend of mine once said to me that the concept of god is very useful, so that you can berate god during the bad times. But it is clear to me that I don't need to believe that there is a god in order to berate him.
Physicist, Institute of Advanced Study, Author, Disturbing the Universe
Since I am a mathematician, I give a precise answer to this question. Thanks to Kurt Gödel, we know that there are true mathematical statements that cannot be proved. But I want a little more than this. I want a statement that is true, unprovable, and simple enough to be understood by people who are not mathematicians. Here it is.
Numbers that are exact powers of two are 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and so on. Numbers that are exact powers of five are 5, 25, 125, 625 and so on. Given any number such as 131072 (which happens to be a power of two), the reverse of it is 270131, with the same digits taken in the opposite order. Now my statement is: it never happens that the reverse of a power of two is a power of five.
The digits in a big power of two seem to occur in a random way without any regular pattern. If it ever happened that the reverse of a power of two was a power of five, this would be an unlikely accident, and the chance of it happening grows rapidly smaller as the numbers grow bigger. If we assume that the digits occur at random, then the chance of the accident happening for any power of two greater than a billion is less than one in a billion. It is easy to check that it does not happen for powers of two smaller than a billion. So the chance that it ever happens at all is less than one in a billion. That is why I believe the statement is true.
But the assumption that digits in a big power of two occur at random also implies that the statement is unprovable. Any proof of the statement would have to be based on some non-random property of the digits. The assumption of randomness means that the statement is true just because the odds are in its favor. It cannot be proved because there is no deep mathematical reason why it has to be true. (Note for experts: this argument does not work if we use powers of three instead of powers of five. In that case the statement is easy to prove because the reverse of a number divisible by three is also divisible by three. Divisibility by three happens to be a non-random property of the digits).
It is easy to find other examples of statements that are likely to be true but unprovable. The essential trick is to find an infinite sequence of events, each of which might happen by accident, but with a small total probability for even one of them happening. Then the statement that none of the events ever happens is probably true but cannot be proved.
Linguist, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute; Author, Doing Our Own Thing
This year, researching the languages of Indonesia for an upcoming book, I happened to find out about a few very obscure languages spoken on one island that are much simpler than one would expect.
Most languages are much, much more complicated than they need to be. They take on needless baggage over the millennia simply because they can. So, for instance, most languages of Indonesia have a good number of prefixes and/or suffixes. Their grammars often force the speaker to attend to nuances of difference between active and passive much more than a European languages does, etc.
But here were a few languages that had no prefixes or suffixes at all. Nor do they have any tones, like many languages in the world. For one thing, languages that have been around forever that have no prefixes, suffixes, or tones are very rare worldwide. But then, where we do find them, they are whole little subfamilies, related variations on one another. Here, though, is a handful of small languages that contrast bizarrely with hundreds of surrounding relatives.
One school of thought in how language changes says that this kind of thing just happens by chance. But my work has been showing me that contrasts like this are due to sociohistory. Saying that naked languages like this are spoken alongside ones as bedecked as Italian is rather like saying that kiwis are flightless just "because," rather than because their environment divested them of the need to fly.
But for months I scratched my head over these languages. Why just them? Why there?
So isn't it interesting that the island these languages is spoken on is none other than Flores, which has had its fifteen minutes of fame this year as the site where skeletons of the "little people" were found. Anthropologists have hypothesized that this was a different species of Homo. While the skeletons date back 13,000 years ago or more, local legend recalls "little people" living alongside modern humans, ones who had some kind of language of their own and could "repeat back" in modern humans' language.
The legends suggest that the little people only had primitive language abilities, but we can't be sure here: to the untutored layman who hasn't taken any twentieth-century anthropology or linguistics classes, it is easy to suppose that an incomprehensible language is merely babbling.
Now, I can only venture this highly tentatively now. But what I "know" but cannot prove this year is: the reason languages like Keo and Ngada are so strangely streamlined on Flores is that an earlier ancestor of these languages, just as complex as its family members tend to be, was used as second language by these other people and simplified. Just as our classroom French and Spanish avoids or streamlines a lot of the "hard stuff," people who learn a language as adults usually do not master it entirely.
Specifically, I would hypothesize that the little people were gradually incorporated into modern human society over time—perhaps subordinated in some way—such that modern human children were hearing the little people's rendition of the language as much as a native one.
This kind of process is why, for example, Afrikaans is a slightly simplified version of Dutch. Dutch colonists took on Bushmen as herders and nurses, and their children often heard second-language Dutch as much as their parents. Pretty soon, this new kind of Dutch was everyone's everyday language, and Afrikaans was born.
Much has been made over the parallels between the evolution of languages and the evolution of animals and plants. However, I believe that one important difference is that while animals and plants can evolve towards simplicity as well as complexity depending on conditions, languages do not evolve towards simplicity in any significant, overall sense—unless there is some sociohistorical factor that puts a spoke in the wheel.
So normally, languages are always drifting into being like Russian or Chinese or Navajo. They only become like Keo and Ngada—or Afrikaans, or creole languages like Papiamentu and Haitian, or even, I believe, English—because of the intervention of factors like forced labor and population relocation. Just maybe, we can now add interspecies contact to the list!
Psychologist, University of Pennsylvania, Author, Authentic Happiness
The "rotten-to-the-core" assumption about human nature espoused so widely in the social sciences and the humanities is wrong. This premise has its origins in the religious dogma of original sin and was dragged into the secular twentieth century by Freud, reinforced by two world wars, the Great Depression, the cold war, and genocides too numerous to list. The premise holds that virtue, nobility, meaning, and positive human motivation generally are reducible to, parasitic upon, and compensations for what is really authentic about human nature: selfishness, greed, indifference, corruption and savagery. The only reason that I am sitting in front of this computer typing away rather than running out to rape and kill is that I am "compensated," zipped up, and successfully defending myself against these fundamental underlying impulses.
In spite of its widespread acceptance in the religious and academic world, there is not a shred of evidence, not an iota of data, which compels us to believe that nobility and virtue are somehow derived from negative motivation. On the contrary, I believe that evolution has favored both positive and negative traits, and many niches have selected for morality, co-operation, altruism, and goodness, just as many have also selected for murder, theft, self-seeking, and terrorism.
More plausible than the rotten-to-the-core theory of human nature is the dual aspect theory that the strengths and the virtues are just as basic to human nature as the negative traits: that negative motivation and emotion have been selected for by zero-sum-game survival struggles, while virtue and positive emotion have been selected for by positive sum game sexual selection. These two overarching systems sit side by side in our central nervous system ready to be activated by privation and thwarting, on the one hand, or by abundance and the prospect of success, on the other.
Psychologist, UC-Berkeley; Coauthor, The Scientist In the Crib
Similarly, as adults when we need to learn something new, say when we learn to skydive, or work out a new scientific idea, or even deal with a new computer, we become vividly, even painfully, conscious of what we are doing—we need, as we say, to pay attention. As we become expert we need less and less attention, and we experience the actual movements and thoughts and keystrokes less and less. We sometimes say that adults are better at paying attention than children, but really we mean just the opposite. Adults are better at not paying attention. They're better at screening out everything else and restricting their consciousness to a single focus. Again there is a certain amount of brain evidence for this. Some brain areas, like the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, consistently light up for adults when they are deeply engaged in learning something new. But for more everyday tasks, these areas light up much less. For children, though the pattern is different—these areas light up even for mundane tasks.
I think that, for babies, every day is first love in Paris. Every wobbly step is skydiving, every game of hide and seek is Einstein in 1905.
The astute reader will note that this is just the opposite of what Dan Dennett believes but cannot prove. And this brings me to a second thing I believe but cannot prove. I believe that the problem of capital-C Consciousness will disappear in psychology just as the problem of Life disappeared in biology. Instead we'll develop much more complex, fine-grained and theoretically driven accounts of the connections between particular types of phenomenological experience and particular functional and neurological phenomena. The vividness and intensity of our attentive awareness, for example, may be completely divorced from our experience of a constant first-person I. Babies may be more conscious in one way and less in the other. The consciousness of pain may be entirely different from the consciousness of red which may be entirely different from the babbling stream of Joyce and Woolf.
Psychologist, Harvard University; Author, The Blank Slate
In 1974, Marvin Minsky wrote that "there is room in the anatomy and genetics of the brain for much more mechanism than anyone today is prepared to propose." Today, many advocates of evolutionary and domain-specific psychology are in fact willing to propose the richness of mechanism that Minsky called for thirty years ago. For example, I believe that the mind is organized into cognitive systems specialized for reasoning about object, space, numbers, living things, and other minds; that we are equipped with emotions triggered by other people (sympathy, guilt, anger, gratitude) and by the physical world (fear, disgust, awe); that we have different ways for thinking and feeling about people in different kinds of relationships to us (parents, siblings, other kin, friends, spouses, lovers, allies, rivals, enemies); and several peripheral drivers for communicating with others (language, gesture, facial expression).
When I say I believe this but cannot prove it, I don't mean that it's a matter of raw faith or even an idiosyncratic hunch. In each case I can provide reasons for my belief, both empirical and theoretical. But I certainly can't prove it, or even demonstrate it in the way that molecular biologists demonstrate their claims, namely in a form so persuasive that skeptics can't reasonably attack it, and a consensus is rapidly achieved. The idea of a richly endowed human nature is still unpersuasive to many reasonable people, who often point to certain aspects of neuroanatomy, genetics, and evolution that appear to speak against it. I believe, but cannot prove, that these objections will be met as the sciences progress.
At the level of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, critics have pointed to the apparent homogeneity of the cerebral cortex and of the seeming interchangeability of cortical tissue in experiments in which patches of cortex are rewired or transplanted in animals. I believe that the homogeneity is an illusion, owing to the fact that the brain is a system for information processing. Just as all books look the same to someone who does not understand the language in which they are written (since they are all composed of different arrangements of the same alphanumeric characters), and the DVD's of all movies look the same under a microscope, the cortex may look homogeneous to the eye but nonetheless contain different patterns of connectivity and synaptic biases that allow it to compute very different functions. I believe this these differences will be revealed in different patterns of gene expression in the developing cortex. I also believe that the apparent interchangeability of cortex occurs only in early stages of sensory systems that happen to have similar computational demands, such as isolating sharp signal transitions in time and space.
At the level of genetics, critics have pointed to the small number of genes in the human genome (now thought to be less than 25,000) and to their similarity to those of other animals. I believe that geneticists will find that there is a large store of information in the noncoding regions of the genome (the so-called junk DNA), whose size, spacing, and composition could have large effects on how genes are expressed. That is, the genes themselves may code largely for the meat and juices of the organism, which are pretty much the same across species, whereas how they are sculpted into brain circuits may depend on a much larger body of genetic information. I also believe that many examples of what we call "the same genes" in different species may differ in tiny ways at the sequence level that have large consequences for how the organism is put together.
And at the level of evolution, critics have pointed to how difficult it is to establish the adaptive function of a psychological trait. I believe this will change as we come to understand the genetic basis of psychological traits in more detail. New techniques in genomic analysis, which look for statistical fingerprints of selection in the genome, will show that many genes involved in cognition and emotion were specifically selected for in the primate, and in many cases the human, lineage.
Physicist, Columbia University; Author, How The Universe Got Its Spots
I believe there is an external reality and you are not all figments of my imagination. My friend asks me through the steam he blows off the surface of his coffee, how I can trust the laws of physics back to the origins of the universe. I ask him how he can trust the laws of physics down to his cup of coffee. He shows every confidence that the scalding liquid will not spontaneously defy gravity and fly up in his eyes. He lives with this confidence born of his empirical experience of the world. His experiments with gravity, heat, and light began in childhood when he palpated the world to test its materials. Now he has a refined and well-developed theory of physics, whether expressed in equations or not.
I simultaneously believe more and less than he does. It is rational to believe what all of my empirical and logical tests of the world confirm—that there is a reality that exists independent of me. That the coffee will not fly upwards. But it is a belief nonetheless. Once I've gone that far, why stop at the perimeter of mundane experience? Just as we can test the temperature of a hot beverage with a tongue, or a thermometer, we can test the temperature of the primordial light left over from the big bang. One is no less real than the other simply because it is remarkable.
But how do I really know? If I measure the temperature of boiling water, all I really know is that mercury climbs a glass tube. Not even that, all I really know is that I see mercury climb a glass tube. But maybe the image in my mind's eye isn't real. Maybe nothing is real, not the mercury, not the glass, not the coffee, not my friend. They are all products of a florid imagination. There is no external reality, just me. Einstein? My creation. Picasso? My mind's forgery. But this solopsism is ugly and arrogant. How can I know that mathematics and the laws of physics can be reasoned down to the moment of creation of time, space, the entire universe? In the very same way that my friend believes in the reality of the second double cappuccino he orders. In formulating our beliefs, we are honest and critical and able to admit when we are wrong—and these are the cornerstones of truth.
When I leave the café, I believe the room of couches and tables is still on the block at 122nd Street, that it is still full of people, and that they haven't evaporated when my attention drifts away. But if I am wrong and there is no external reality, then not only is this essay my invention, but so is the web, edge.org, all of its participants and their ingenious ideas. And if you are reading this, I have created you too. But if I am wrong and there is no external reality, then maybe it is me who is a figment of your imagination and the cosmos outside your door is your magnificent creation.
Physicist, former President, Weizmann Institute of Science
The electron has been with us for over a century, laying the foundations to the electronic revolution and all of information technology. It is believed to be a point-like, elementary and indivisible particle. Is it?
The neutrino, more than a million times lighter than the electron, was predicted in the 1920's and discovered in the 1950's. It plays a crucial role in the creation of the stars, the sun and the heavy elements. It is elusive, invisible and weakly interacting. It is also considered fundamental and indivisible. Is it?
Quarks do not exist as free objects, except at extremely tiny distances, deep within the confines of the particles which are constructed from them. Since the 1960's we believe that they are the most fundamental indivisible building blocks of protons, neutrons and nuclei. Are they?
Nature has created two additional, totally unexplained, replicas of the electron, the neutrino and the most abundant quarks, u and d, forming three "generations" of fundamental particles. Each "generation" of particles is identical to the other two in all properties, except that the particle masses are radically different. Since each "generation" includes four fundamental particles, we end up with 12 different particles, which are allegedly indivisible, point-like and elementary. Are they?
The Atom, the nucleus and the proton, each in its own time, were considered elementary and indivisible, only to be replaced later by smaller objects as the fundamental building blocks. How can we be so arrogant as to exclude the possibility that this will happen again? Why would nature arbitrarily produce 12 different objects, with a very orderly pattern of electric charges and "color forces", with simple charge ratios between seemingly unrelated particles (such as the electron and the quark) and with a pattern of masses, which appears to be taken from the results of a lottery? Doesn't this "smell" again of further sub-particle structure?
There is absolutely no experimental evidence for a further substructure within all of these particles. There is no completely satisfactory theory which might explain how such light and tiny particles can contain objects moving with enormous energies, a requirement of quantum mechanics. This is, presumably, why the accepted "party line" of particle physicists is to assume that we already have reached the most fundamental level of the structure of matter.
For over twenty years, the hope has been that the rich spectrum of so-called fundamental particles will be explained as various modes of string vibrations and excitations. The astonishingly tiny string or membrane, rather than the point-like object, is allegedly at the bottom of the ladder describing the structure of matter. However, in spite of absolutely brilliant and ingenious mathematical work, not one experimental number has been explained in more than twenty years, on the basis of the string hypothesis.
Based on common sense and on an observation of the pattern of the known particles, without any experimental evidence and without any comprehensive theory, I have believed for many years, and I continue to believe, that the electron, the neutrino and the quarks are divisible. They are presumably made of different combinations of the same small number (two?) of more fundamental sub-particles. The latter may or may not have the string structure, and may or may not be themselves composites.
Will we live to see the components of the electron?
Physicist, Macquarie University, Sydney; Author, How to Build a Time Machine
One of the biggest of the Big Questions of existence is, Are we alone in the universe? Science has provided no convincing evidence one way or the other. It is certainly possible that life began with a bizarre quirk of chemistry, an accident so improbable that it happened only once in the entire observable universe—and we are it. On the other hand, maybe life gets going wherever there are earthlike planets. We just don't know, because we have a sample of only one. However, no known scientific principle suggests an inbuilt drive from matter to life. No known law of physics or chemistry favors the emergence of the living state over other states. Physics and chemistry are, as far as we can tell, "life blind."
Yet I don't believe that life is a freak event. I think the universe is teeming with it. I can't prove it; indeed, it could be that mankind will never know the answer for sure. If we find life in our solar system, it most likely got there from Earth (or vice versa) in rocks kicked off planets by comet impacts. And to go beyond the solar system is the stuff of dreams. The best hope is that we develop instruments sensitive enough to detect life on extra-solar planets from Earth orbit. But, whilst not impossible, this is a formidable technical challenge.
So why do I think we are not alone, when we have no evidence for life beyond Earth? Not for the fallacious popular reason: "the universe is so big there must be life out there somewhere." Simple statistics shows this argument to be bogus. If life is in fact a freak chemical event, it would be so unlikely to occur that it wouldn't happen twice among a trillion trillion trillion planets. Rather, I believe we are not alone because life seems to be a fundamental, and not merely an incidental, property of nature. It is built into the great cosmic scheme at the deepest level, and therefore likely to be pervasive. I make this sweeping claim because life has produced mind, and through mind, beings who do not merely observe the universe, but have come to understand it through science, mathematics and reasoning. This is hardly an insignificant embellishment on the cosmic drama, but a stunning and unexpected bonus. Somehow life is able to link up with the basic workings of the cosmos, resonating with the hidden mathematical order that makes it tick. And that's a quirk too far for me.
Editor-At-Large, Wired; Author, New Rules for the New Economy
The orthodoxy in biology states that every cell in your body shares exactly the same DNA. It's your identity, your indelible fingerprint, and since all the cells in your body have been duplicated from your initial unique stem cell these zillion of offspring cells all maintain your singular DNA sequence. It follows then that when you submit a tissue sample for genetic analysis it doesn't matter where it comes from. Normally technicians grab some from the easily accessible pars of your mouth, but they could just as well take some from your big toe, or your liver, or eyelash and get the same results.
I believe, but cannot prove, that the DNA in your body (and all bodies) varies from part to part. I make this prediction based on what we know about biology, which is that natures abhors uniformity. No where else in nature do we see identity maintained to such exactness. No where else is there such fixity.
I do not expect intra-soma variation to diverge very much. Indeed the genetic variation among individual humans is already relatively mild, among the least of all animals, so the diversity within a human body is unlikely to be greater than among human bodies—although that may be possible. More likely, intra-soma variation will be less than racial diversity but greater than zero.
Biologists already know (even if the public doesn't) that the full sequence of DNA in your cells changes over time as your chromosomes are shorten each time they divide in growth. Because of a bug in the system, DNA is unable to duplicate itself when it gets to the very very tip of its chain, so at each division it winds up a few hundred bases short. This slight reduction after each of the cell's scores of divisions is currently seen as the chief culprit in cell death and thus your own death. But the variation I believe is happening is more fundamental. My guess is that DNA mutates in a population of the cells in your body much as it does in a population of bodies.
The consequences are more than just curious. At the trivial end, if my belief were true, it would matter where you selected to sample your DNA from. And it might also affect when you get it, as this variation could change over time. If true, this variation might have some effect on locating the correct seminal cells for growing replacement organs and tissues.
While I have no evidence for my belief right now, it is a provable assertion. It will be shown to be true or false as soon as we have ubiquitous cheap full-genome sequences at discount mall prices. That is, pretty soon. I believe that once we have a constant reading of our individual full DNA (many times over our lives) we will have no end of surprises. I would not be surprised to discover that pet owners accumulate some tiny fragments of their pet's DNA,which has somehow been laterally transferred via viruses to their own cellular DNA. Or that diary farmers amass noticeable fragments of bovine DNA. Or that the DNA in our limbs somehow drift genetically in a "limby" way, distinct from the variation in the cells in our nervous systems.
But I consider all this minor compared to a possible major breakthrough in understanding. We have a pretty good idea of how the "selection" in natural selection works: less fit organisms die. But when it comes to understanding how variation arises in Darwinian evolution all we can say is "random mutation" which is another way of saying "we don't know exactly." If there were intra-somatic variation and if we could easily observe it via massive constant full-genome sequencing then we might be able to figure out exactly how a mutation occurs, and whether there are patterns to those mutations, and to what extant such variation is induced or influenced by the body or the environment—all ideas which currently challenge the Darwinian wisdom that the body does not directly influence the genetic makeup of a cell. Monitoring genetic drift within a body may be a window into the origins of mutation itself.
Even if these larger ideas don't pan out, the simple fact that DNA in each cell of your body is not 100% identical would be worth investigating. Such a fact would be a surprise, except to me.
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John Brockman, Editor and Publisher
Russell Weinberger, Associate Publisher
contact: [email protected]
Copyright © 2005 by
Edge Foundation, Inc
All Rights Reserved.
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Why would a prop firm do its own clearing?
Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by NegativePips, Mar 5, 2012.
1. I'm looking at a prop firm that's relatively well known in my area but was surprised to hear they do their own clearing. Is this normal? I started wondering about it after I stumbled on this link listing things to look for in prop firms and they mention having a reputable clearing firm. Why would a prop firm do their own clearing? Is this reason for concern?
2. So they can take the other side of your trades.
3. Maverick74
No. No reason for concern. They earn a fatter margin if they self clear. It's much better for you because you'll most likely get better rates.
4. rmorse
rmorse Sponsor
Which firm?
If a prop firm is self clearing, they can have larger margins if they are big enough to pay for the infrastructure. Sometimes, they outsource some functions like stock loan if they can't handle it. Remember, as a member of a broker dealer, you're not protected by SIPC. If your prop firm is taking the added risk of being the prime broker, that may not be in your best interest.
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Your Core -- Part 2
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The first part of the articles dealing with your core addressed the primary muscles in the frontal plane of one’s body (the front). These are the Rectus Abdominus and the Transeverse Abdominus. This article is going to discuss the other major muscles of the abdomen such as the first, but this one will deal with the muscles that run along the side of one’s body the external and internal oblique. This article will also look at the primary muscles in the hips the hip flexors and hip adductors.
*External Obliques - located on the side and front of the abdomen. These will be targeted when doing a twisting movement, such as: bicycle kicks, crossing one leg over and crunching and twisting, torso twist, etc…
* Internal Obliques - located under the external obliques. Targeted in the same manner.
*Hip Flexors – located in the front of the pelvis and upper thigh. Includes the Iliopsoas, rectus femoris, and tensor fascia lata. You engage your hip flexors when you pull your knees to your chest and when doing a squatting movement. Raising your leg in any direction will also work the hip flexors.
* Hip Adductors – located inner thigh. Your adductors are worked when doing a plie squat (feet and toes out), brining your knees together, squeezing your inner thigh, etc.
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Famous Last Words
If you've found yourself uttering any of these statements, your business could be in trouble.
4 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The following are statements I've heard companies make as they are going down the tubes. Find out why they can spell disaster for your business.
1."Our only problem is traffic."
Slow traffic is a symptom, not a disease. Look for its cause. Why is traffic slow? Is it because the public doesn't know about you, or is it because they do? Is the problem with your advertising, or is there something wrong inside your business?
2."That's not our customer."
The businessperson who says, "Our customer doesn't care about price," is usually surprised by how quickly he runs out of prospects. Are there customers out there who don't care about price? Sure there are. But what percentage of the population do you think it is?
3."Our advertising is reaching the wrong people."
I've never seen a company fail because they were reaching the wrong people, but I've seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things. Do your ads speak to the felt needs of your customers, or are you answering questions no one is asking?
4."I don't worry about what the competition is doing; I only worry about what we're doing."
Is there a game that rewards a player for ignoring the moves of his opponent? If there is, I've never heard of it. Business is competitive, and you're not the only player in the game. Like it or not, you're being compared to competitors by your customers.
5."There's enough business out there for all of us."
A limited number of dollars are going to be spent in your business category this year. Are your competitors going to make sure you get your fair share?
6."We can't compete with the internet."
The idea that the internet is a low-overhead business environment is a myth. Other than cost of occupancy (rent), the costs of doing business online are the same as for brick-and-mortar businesses. The average brick-and-mortar retail store spends less than 5 percent of its annual sales on rent. If online companies had no offices, no shipping facilities, no warehouses or other physical presence, they could still offer only a 5 percent price advantage to your customer. If you're not competitive with the internet, you need to take a close look at how you're buying. You need to comb through your payroll, your miscellaneous expenses, and your general and administrative expenses. Your problem is inside your own house.
7."Our secret is our people. No one provides as warm a customer experience as we do."
In 30 years as a consultant, I've known dozens of business owners who have convinced themselves that having "better people" was their store's primary advantage. In every instance, the store's prices were high, their merchandise was unremarkable and their people were average. Even if your staff is exceptional, the worst thing you can advertise is remarkable customer service. These ads make you sound like your prices are high and you know it, so you're trying to cover it up by talking about how wonderfully you treat your customers. Worse, the expectations of the public will be raised to impossible levels. Promise magical service, and you'll hear endless complaints. I've made this mistake more than once.
How Did You Score?
You're average if you've heard yourself say just one or two of these things. Hopefully, you've recovered from your wrong-headed thinking and are on the road to right action.
You've got a problem if you're guilty of saying three of these things. If you want to recover, you need to start associating with people who will smack you when you start talking nonsense.
You're in real trouble if you say and believe four of these things. It's like a drug habit. You say these things to reduce your anxiety and ease the pain of failure, much the same way an addict pops a perspective-altering pill to help him make it through the day. Rehab is going to be tough, but you can survive if you dig deep and awaken the tiger within you.
You're not going to make it if you're saying five of the statements above. Can you hear the fat lady singing? I don't mean to be harsh, but you really ought to take a hard look and decide if this is what you should be doing.
If you're not saying any of these things, then excellent. The world is yours for the taking.
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12 Things You Should Know About Diamond Drill Bits
Disclaimer. Using rotary tools near water has never been, to the best of our knowledge, endorsed by any of the rotary tool manufacturers. If you do choose to drill near water or with attachments under water connected to your drill then you do so at your own risk. Please be aware that mixing electricity and water can be very dangerous.
1. What Materials Can I Use My Diamond Drill Bits On?
Diamond drill bits are perfect for drilling holes through hard materials such as these:
• Glass, sea glass, beach glass, fused glass
• Stone, gemstones, rock, pebbles
• Ceramic, porcelain, tiles, glazed pottery, plates
• Shell, antler, bone, fossil
• Very hard wood
For jewellery making purposes and precision holes in precious stone we recommend using the small diamond drill bits which have a solid, flat end, or tip. These are available in sizes as small as 0.75mm.
For drilling holes in plates, glass, fused glass and sea glass we recommend using a small diamond core drill. These are available in sizes from as small as 1mm.
Diamond Tipped Drill Bits
DO NOT use diamond drill bits on metal, soft wood, plaster or soft plastic. These materials are too soft and will cause the diamonds on your drill bit to clog up. When drilling holes in soft metals, plastics and wood use High Speed Steel drill bits (HSS) and for drilling holes in hard metals use Carbide Drill Bits
See our complete selection of diamond drill bits
2. What Are Diamond Core Drills?
Diamond Hole Saws
Diamond core drills are hollow.
As with all diamond drill bits you should use water as a lubricant and coolant. Being hollow, allows the water to flow up inside and around the inner core of these drill bits as you are drilling, helping to keep the drill bit cool and removing the debris. These are the best drill bits for rock.
Diamond core drills are available in sizes 1mm - 3mm and 3.5mm - 60mm and larger.
They also come in a range with a 2.35mm shank
As you drill, the water swirls around inside the core. This helps prolong the life of your drill bit and helps to prevent any cracking or shattering of the material you're drilling.
Small Diamond Drill Bits or Small Diamond Core Drills - Which should I use?
Small Diamond Drill Bits have a solid end and therefore a larger surface area so they last longer than the small diamond core drills, but may take longer to drill a hole. They are more robust and therefore ideal for very tough, dense pieces of sea glass, very hard stone, precious stone, gemstones, hard shell, bone and antler.
Small Diamond Core Drills will drill a hole quicker than the small diamond drill bits, but will not last as long because they have a smaller surface area. These drill bits are ideal for glass, sea glass, pebbles, stone, slate, ceramic, plates and shell.
If you're a regular user of diamond drill bits it is worth having a combination of both small diamond drill bits and small diamond core drills in your tool box as sometimes you don't know if you have a very tough material until you start drilling!
Debris stuck inside the core?
Drilling in an up and down motion will allow water to swirl around inside the core of the drill bit and in turn allow space for the debris to fall out. However, if you already have debris stuck inside the core and need to dislodge it you can try a few of these things:
• Drill your next piece of material and this usually dislodges it.
• Use a wire brush to dislodge the stubborn core.
• Each core drill from sizes 3mm and upwards has a hole in the side of the drill bit, push a pin through the hole to try and dislodge the core.
Water is ideal to use as your lubricant when drilling. There are oil based lubricants out there but it's not necessary to go to the expense of buying these, we've tried and tested many over the years and water is still the winner!
Drilling part the way into your material but don't want to go all the way through?
This is known as a blind hole.
If you are looking to make something such as a slate or stone candle holder, you will need to use a diamond core drill and drill only part the way through your material rather than making a hole. This is called a 'Blind Hole'
To do this, have a read of our article 'How to Make A Beautiful Stone Tea Light Candle Holder in 4 Easy Steps'
If you are looking to insert an object such as a bead or gemstone into your material and require the bead to be sitting flush in the stone, then it is better to use a diamond core drill that is slightly smaller in diameter than the hole you wish to make. You can then grind away the edges with a diamond burr so that your bead sits flush in the hole.
Bottle Neck Diamond Core Drills with a 2.35mm shank (3/32")
Normally the shank (the end that goes into your drill) on larger sized core drills (4mm and upwards) is too big to fit into a hobby type rotary tool such as a Dremel. This means having to use a big heavy handed regular household drill. However, Bottle Neck Diamond Core drills as seen below are larger sized core drills but with a shank that fits into your pendant drill, Dremel or Foredom type drill
Bottle Neck Diamond Core Drills for use in your Dremel type drill
"I love this tool - it makes it so easy to drill a hole in ceramic, and is one of my most used tools"
3. What is the difference between sintered and electroplated or coated diamond drill bits and burrs?
Electroplated, or coated diamonds are bonded to the drill bit using nickel in a single layer, and although won’t last as long as sintered they are a cheaper alternative.
Sintered diamond has been bonded to the matrix at very high temperatures and therefore has several layers of diamonds which by dressing or cleaning with an aluminium oxide stone will help maintain the life of your drill bit or burr revealing a new layer of diamonds each time.
Electroplated, or coated diamond drill bits as they're more commonly referred to, tell us that the diamonds are coated onto the steel shank in a single layer, therefore once this layer has worn away, the drill bit will need to be replaced. These are the most economical and popular type of drill bits.
Sintered diamond core drills and Sintered burrs have several layers of diamonds and therefore last a very long time but will also be more expensive than coated diamond drill bits.
Sintered diamond bits require cleaning or dressing before use and after each use with an aluminium oxide stone, thus revealing a fresh layer of diamonds each time.
Sintered core drills are popular with stone masons, and sintered burs with sculptors, glass engravers and stone carvers.
See our Sintered Diamond Core Drills
Sintered hole saws
4. How Long Will My Drill Bit Last? How Many Holes will One Drill Bit Make?
Your diamond drill bits lifetime will depend on many factors: speed, lubricant, pressure and the density of the material you're using.
Unfortunately this is a 'How-Long-Is-A-Piece-Of-String' type of question as we have no way of knowing what components make up your material.
If you're drilling through sea glass for instance these may be thousands of years old and we don't know the source of the glass. That said, some have achieved more than 250 holes in sea glass from just one bit!
The same applies for drilling holes in china plates, we can estimate you may be able to drill 15 holes with one drill bit, maybe more, but it's difficult to really know the answer.
Take a look at a chart of Mohs Mineral Scale of Hardness to see the comparisons between different materials. Be aware that drilling through hard gemstones can take a long time, be patient, you'll get there in the end.
If you're drilling though pebbles, they can often be made up of various minerals and some pebbles have flint or quartz flecks in them. These will be incredibly tough to drill through so when picking your beach pebbles try to go for stones without any white or speckled bits in them. More on drilling through pebbles can be found in our article 'How To Drill Pebbles'
To gain maximum life from your drill bit and to prevent your material from cracking ensure you use little to no pressure, keep the speed on the slowest setting of your drill and always keep your material and drill bit cool with plenty of water.
5. How Do I Attach Diamond Drill Bits to My Drill? Will They Fit my Drill?
Very small diamond drill bits ranging in sizes between 0.75mm - 3mm won't fit into a rotary drill or DIY drill without the appropriate collet or chuck to hold them.
Dremel do a couple of attachments which will fix to your drill: The Dremel Collet Nut Kit and the Dremel Multi Chuck.
A set such as the Diamond Drill Bits Set for your Dremel Tool includes the Dremel multi chuck along with two small diamond drill bits and two small core drills - well worth it if you're just starting out and want to test both types of diamond drill bits.
Roughly about half of the diamond drill bit shank should be in your drill, leaving half of the working end of your drill bit exposed.
Bottle Neck Diamond Core Drills as mentioned in the above section on 'What Are Diamond Core Drills?' have a 2.35mm shank and are therefore suitable to use in your Dremel type drill if you have a collet or Multi chuck with which to hold them. These are very popular with cold-working glass artists.
6. Problems with Overheating, Speed, Pressure or Diamonds Coming Away?
If you smell burning, back off! Either your speed is too high or the pressure you're applying is too much. You're drill bit should never be hot to the touch, not even warm.
Start your speed off on the lowest speed setting of your drill. Begin slow and increase as the drill bit goes through your material. However, ideally keep a consistently low speed.
If the speed is too high this will cause the drill bit to overheat and your material to crack. Plus the drill bit will become dull quicker, therefore shortening the life of the drill bit.
If the diamonds chip away or fall away from the shank it is probably due to too much pressure - let the drill do the work and apply very little pressure.
Feel your way through your material. If in doubt, practice on a scrap piece of glass or a garden pebble until you get used to the technique.
The general rule is the smaller the diameter of your drill bit, the faster drill speed you can use. The harder your material, the slower drill speed you should use.
• Slowest speed
• Coolant
• Minimum pressure
If the drill bit snaps then too much pressure is being applied. The shanks are made of hardened steel and will only break or snap under too much pressure.
7. Is It Safe To Use Water Near My Drill?
It goes without saying that extreme care should be taken when using your drill near water.
When drilling any kind of material you should always wear goggles and protective wear to prevent any flying bits of debris from causing injury. The same amount of care should be applied when using water near your drill.
Water can either be fed onto your material via a pump, a running tap, a drip feed or you can immerse your material in the water ensuring about 1cm covers the material you are going to drill.
If you're drilling large pieces of glass or stone you can create a putty ring which will act as a well for your water.
There are oil lubricants out there but in our many years of experience we have found water works just as well, and of course is much cheaper! The viscosity of washing up liquid can help, add just a couple of drops to the water though, you don't want suds!
The below image is a piece of beach pottery we drilled. The trough is a plastic takeaway food tray and the material the pottery is resting on is a DIY abrasive sanding block. We then filled the trough so the water just covers the piece of china being drilled, and just covers the tip of the drill bit.
Usind your Dremel drill with a diamond drill bit in a water trough to drill holes through glass, stone, shell and ceramic
8. How to Start Drilling a Hole in Glass, Stone, Ceramic...
If you're using a drill press or bench press this won't apply as you won't be able to angle the drill, but can hold your material in place with a vice, but if you're using a hand held Dremel type drill, flex shaft, pendant drill or hand held rotary tool read on...
If you have problems with the drill bit skittering across the surface of your material angle your drill to start off the drilling. Once the initial hole is made you can drill from a vertical position. This mainly applies to those drilling holes through glass or smooth stone such as pebbles.
Another option is to use a small piece of masking tape on the area where you wish to start drilling, this will help the drill bit from sliding around, very useful for drilling holes through tile or glass bottles, but this really only applies if you're using a larger drill say 6mm upwards, not with drill bits as small as 0.75mm - 3mm for instance.
You may like to take a look at our Infographic on How To Drill Through Glass or How To Drill Sea Glass
Our blog has lots of easy to follow methods on drilling through sea glass, glass bottles, how to drill plates, tiles, ceramic, granite, mirror and drilling holes though pebbles, gemstones and rock. Take a look.
9. Opening Up and Enlarging Holes with Diamond Twist Drills
Diamond twist drills are intended to open up holes rather than create them. They are very popular with bead artists to increase the size of holes in beads and are ideal for increasing the size of holes in pearls.
Sizes range from 0.5mm to 3mm.
Tip: Also handy to prevent condensation build up in the windows of your house. If you're suffering with misted up double glazed windows you can use a 3mm twist drill to make a hole on the inside bottom corner window and the outside top corner window. Follow a suitable tutorial on this before attempting it.
Diamond Ball Burrs are intended for shaping, engraving, carving and grinding. There are video's available showing people using ball burrs to drill holes but they are not intended for this purpose and are not nearly as good as the small diamond drill bits we mention at the start of this article.
Shovel shaped and pointed drill bits are also available for drilling holes in hard materials but in our many years of experience these do not work very well.
Diamond Twist Drills for opening up holes in beads and pearls
10. Can I Drill Tempered Glass?
11. Core Drilling Bits. I Want A Core Rather than Drill A Hole, is This Possible?
Diamond core drills, despite their name, are intended to make a hole, not obtain a core. However, many artists and scientists use them to extract a core of fossil lets say for DNA testing, and do so with great success.
When buying core drills, the diameter size listed is the size of the hole you would achieve, therefore if you are using them to obtain a core you will usually need to order two sizes bigger, please check the technical information on the product page to double check. As an example, If you want a core of approximately 4mm, use a 6mm core drill.
Mosaic and stained glass artists also use core drills to extract a core, thereby leaving them with a circle of tile, china or glass with which to add to their designs. Jewellers use the core as beads. You can file away the underside with a diamond file to make the tile sit flat in your design or remove snags and rough edges if using for beading purposes.
Try making seed beads with the core you have left from a 4mm diamond core drill. Once you have the core, use a 1.25mm small diamond drill bit to drill another hole with which to thread your wire through.
12. What Speed Should I Use My Drill Bits At?
Use your diamond drill bits at slow speeds, especially when making the initial hole. This will prevent any breakages of your material and help maintain the life of your drill bit.
The lowest setting on your drill is advisable to use but if you are drilling a hole all the way through your material and you do speed up, take care to make sure you slow down when approaching the exit hole to prevent any cracks forming.
Maintaining a slow speed when drilling will help prevent damage to your material and help to make your drill bits last longer.
See our complete selection of diamond drill bits
Now you know what to do with your diamond drill bits and how to use them, you have no excuse not to start that project you've been meaning to. Enjoy!
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Review: Aferim!
(Radu Jude, Romania/Bulgaria/Czech Republic, 2015)
Along with its more obvious qualities, Aferim! is a portrait of people starved for conversation. The cascade of chatter begins with a constable named Costandin (Teodor Corban), who is riding along through the Wallachian countryside in the mid-1830s in the company of his teenage son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu). Costandin is a veritable fountain of bullshit, his torrent of dialogue peppered with folklore, aphorisms, riddles, poetry, and biblical quotations. The greenhorn Ionita occasionally gets a question in, but generally absorbs/endures his father’s jovial monologues during their journey on horseback through a mostly sunlit but somehow haunted landscape. The two are searching for an escaped Roma slave at the behest of a cruel nobleman.
I admit to a longstanding fondness for the narrative convention of a big talker paired with a silent sufferer; for further research, see Henry Fonda and James Stewart in The Cheyenne Social Club and Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare in Fargo. Costandin’s garrulousness is the bed upon which Aferim! works its strange magic; despite subject matter that involves slavery, torture, and relentless bigotry, the film is wildly, bitterly funny. The constable takes (and gives) bribes, he casually informs his son that he’ll drown him if he learns the lad is a sodomite, and he is resolute in playing his role in the oppression of the country’s gypsy people (“but with kindness,” he notes). Yet the Falstaffian largeness of the role—and Teodor Corban’s performance—makes this character almost likable in his evenhanded stupidity.
He’s not the only big talker. One of the movie’s early high points is an encounter with a priest whose wagon has broken down. Upon the repair of the cart, the priest lets rip with a litany of vile opinions about other ethnic groups, a shouted soliloquy so hilariously specific that it even gives Costandin pause. Eventually, when the searchers find their quarry, it turns out that the enslaved man, Carfin (Cuzin Toma), is also a discursive type. He tells tales of seeing Paris and Vienna, and of carnal knowledge with the eager wife of the nobleman—the transgression that prompted his flight.
Radu Jude (Best Director winner at the Berlin Film Festival) and co-writer Florin Lazarescu have surely embroidered these earthy conversations out of their imagination, but they also used historical research to build the film’s nasty and brutish world. Aferim! has a furiously felt reason for being, in part because Romanian cinema has almost never dealt with the enslavement of the Roma people (slavery lasted there until 1856). The rich humor begins to curdle when Ionita suggests that perhaps they might just let this amiable prisoner loose, instead of collecting the reward money; after all, what awaits Carfin at the hands of the nobleman is probably death, or possibly worse. (It’s worse.)
Knotted throughout the film is a sustained critique of ancient masculine codes and behavior, which, alas, don’t seem especially ancient. (Ergo the film’s sense of urgency as not merely a past-history lesson.) The movie has been called a Romanian Western, and yes, there is that, although the film is as close to The Seventh Seal as it is to The Magnificent Seven. At times it feels as though it’s taking place in the Middle Ages.
Jude’s decision to shoot in ultra-crisp widescreen black and white gives the film heft, and positions Costandin and Ionita not as the center-of-frame heroes but as figures in the empty sweep of landscape or the bustle of a traveling fair. Jude gets a thrilling visual flow going at times—check out the shot that includes a conversation held in the distant background and a large herd of goats passing in the foreground, a view that eventually pans with our riders to reveal another hilly vista and open trail. All right, that does look like a Western. But this Eastern Western is sick with irony and cruelty. Aferim is an Ottoman Turkish word meaning “Bravo,” a sardonic touch that rings with gallows laughter throughout this remarkable film.
Robert Horton is a writer based in Seattle.
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Allt an t-Seangain Memories
Read and share memories of Allt an t-Seangain
A couple at a laptop
So far you've shared 71,171 memories of 7,264 towns & villages, right across the UK!
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• How does it feature in your personal history?
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Week 2 summary
This Week you explored:
• How to search for and identify relevant information sources.
• Different techniques for reading widely, around a subject.
• The SQ3R technique for reading efficiently, making notes and recalling information to help you refer to your readings within an academic essay.
Next week you move onto the topic of paragraphs. You will look at why it is essential to write an academic essay in paragraphs and how to construct and link paragraphs to demonstrate your understanding of the topic and your wider reading. You are also invited to write a sample paragraph, so that you can consolidate what you have learnt so far and test some of your newly acquired skills.
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This article is from the free online course:
An Intermediate Guide to Writing in English for University Study
University of Reading
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Skip to 0 minutes and 5 secondsSo welcome back. Last week, we were looking very much at neurological or biological accounts of mental health issues. And while it's fair to say that neurologists understand that the brain responds to life events-- you'll remember John Quinn talking about how the brain is shaped by the events that happened to us-- it is true to say that neurobiological accounts, such as those of Eric Kandel, very much stress how differences between people in terms of their biological functioning affect their mental health. Not all psychologists or psychiatrists see it that way at all.
Skip to 0 minutes and 42 secondsAnd many psychologists and psychiatrists believe that it's by looking at the nurture side of the equation, by looking at differences between people in terms of the things that happened to them that we can start to explain mental health issues. In terms of whether genetics or the environment are primarily the causes of mental health problems later is undoubtedly just from the sheer weight of evidence. It's undoubtedly the psychosocial events which is the more powerful predictor. So clearly, there are some quite different views amongst very well-respected professionals and academics about what are the major causes of mental health problems.
Skip to 1 minute and 27 secondsSome people see this as a dispute between psychology and psychiatry, or even between psychologists and psychiatrists, but I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. Last week, I introduced you to the manifesto for biological psychiatry proposed by Nick Craddock and colleagues. In the very same journal, in the same editorial slot as the one used by Nick Craddock, another psychiatrist Pat Bracken and many of his colleagues, also proposed a manifesto, or viewpoint, for the future of psychiatry, but one that was very different from Nick Craddock's and very different from Eric Kandel's. Pat Bracken and his colleagues suggested we need to focus on those social and environmental factors that John Read has just mentioned to you.
Skip to 2 minutes and 18 secondsAnd I think it's worth, as well as reading Nick Craddock's manifesto, reading the complimentary piece by Pat Bracken. And the link to that is on the FutureLearn website.
Life events and mental health
In this week’s videos and papers we discuss the role of life events and environmental factors - nurture - in the development of mental health problems. This video introduces the topic of the week - the role of life events in mental health. We hear again from Professor John Read, who sets out his view that the best way to explain the origin of mental health problems - and especially differences between people - is by looking at life events and the different experiences we have in our lives.
Remember, again, that these videos are intended to introduce, not replace, the reading (the linked papers) we’ve recommended.
To understand a little more about these ideas, the papers and scientific journal articles are the main source of learning. The videos in total will last about 7 minutes, but we think it will take about an hour to read and digest the information in the papers. That should give you some time to engage in the discussions with your fellow learners on the course.
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This video is from the free online course:
Psychology and Mental Health: Beyond Nature and Nurture
University of Liverpool
Get a taste of this course
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Go Back
Luxembourg Radio Stations
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Luxembourg Radio Stations
Free online Luxembourg radio stations and music. Internet radio stations broadcasting in MP3 format quality (great for streaming). Can work on 3G and other mobile internet connections, but works best with faster connections like WIFI and 4G. If you are getting an error on a particular station, please take into consideration that some stations are available at different times of the day, and depend on the amount of listeners currently listening. Also errors can occur due to hardware bugs and incompatibility with stream formats which can vary from device to device. This is one reason why we have many stations so that there can be at least 1 stream that can work for everyone. If a station is consistently not working then please email support. So that we can review all stations and update from our servers. Click the circular refresh button at the top right to see changes to the stations list.
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Shooting Challenge: Gravity
Welcome to The Gizmodo Shooting Challenge, where Giz readers get to pit their photographic skills against each other for the admiration of their editors on a dedicated theme each week. This week’s challenge: Gravity. It's the force we can't escape — but representing it in image form opens up lots of possibilities.
Gravity is a fundamental force that you can't see, which might make it a bit on the tricky side to photograph directly. But that's not what we're after. Gravity makes things fall and changes our appreciation of perspective and depth. It could be a falling apple, a jumping child or things that seemingly defy gravity. That's the theme for this week's shooting challenge; find something that's shows gravity at work and take the best photo you can of it.
Please note that we've changed the submission rules a bit this week, so make sure you read through them carefully. Oh, and try to avoid falling off tall things. We might want you to photograph gravity at work, but we don't want you to hurt yourself doing so.
Image: Flickr users Ella's Dad Gloire Creative Commons some rights reserved.
So that's a pretty open-ended brief guys, looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Submit your best photo by Tuesday, November 22nd at 10am AEDT through the feedback form (select "Gizmodo Shooting Challenge" in the dropdown box). Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastnameGRAVITY.jpg naming convention. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email along with a story of the shot in a few sentences.
Need Inspiration? Check out the previous Gizmodo Shooting Challenges.
Trending Stories Right Now
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Kendall Jenner Looks Exactly Like Kris With This Pixie 'Cut'
PHOTO: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
"Like mother, like daughter" might be one of the world's biggest clichés, but at Tom Ford's New York Fashion Week show Wednesday night, the phrase got literal for Kendall Jenner. Walking in the week's first big show, the model came down the runway with a pixie cut that looks uncannily like her mother's signature hairstyle—sideswept bangs and all.
But unlike sister Kim Kardashian's new silver-blond color, Jenner's cut was a temporary situation—but could have been permanent if she was willing. According to Vogue, celebrity hairstylist Orlando Pita said Ford actually wanted his models to cut their hair off for the show. Given that it's the start of Fashion Week and these models likely have some strict contracts to keep their trademark looks intact, that didn't fly.
Instead, Pita pulled off the illusion by twisting the models' hair up, pinning it, and using a mega dose of his line's Climate Change Humidity Blocking Hairspray to create the convincingly tousled texture. Not quite a wig, but not yet a full-stop beauty transformation.
According to Pita, the intended effect was to show that yeah, you can pull off a pixie (examples like Gigi Hadid and Jenner might not be exactly how every cut will look IRL, but great inspiration). Also: How much does Hadid look like Yolanda Hadid, too? Such a Freaky Friday moment. (Plus, playing with pixies run in the Jenner fam: Kylie Jenner also tested out a similar Kris cut just over a month ago.)
PHOTO: Presley Ann
And as the beauty risk taker we know and love, Jenner says it actually did make her open to the thought of going shorter. So will a real-life crop be coming soon? “I never really thought about it until now,” Jenner said backstage. “But I do think I look a lot like my mother.”
Related Stories:
-Kendall Jenner's Bronzer Makeup Trick Is Low-Key Genius, and Totally Free
-Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid Are Basically Sharing Wigs Now
-Selena Gomez Just Gave Us a Rare Glimpse of Herself Without Her Hair and Makeup Done
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Menu Driver Sign-Up
Update of Code of Conduct regarding in-car cameras
Many driver-partners have installed in-car cameras which are inward facing. Please note that any inward-facing recording device (audio and / or video) is prohibited in the vehicle unless there is prior approval given by LTA instead.
Please refer to the following guidelines from LTA and PDPC for the appropriate usage of inward facing car cameras. We have also updated the GrabCar Code of Conduct to reflect these guidelines. Here is the specific change in the Code of Conduct (under 1(e)):
You should note that where you choose to use personal in-vehicle cameras for safety and security purposes, they are neither endorsed nor prohibited by the Company, and the Company does not collect, use or disclose any Personal Data of third parties from such in-vehicle recordings. The collection, use and disclosure of any such Personal Data is not conducted on behalf of the Company. As such, it is your sole responsibility to comply with local privacy laws and regulations, and you should obtain the consent of your passenger prior to using the personal in-vehicle cameras in such vehicles. Personal Data is defined in Grab’s Privacy Policy which can be viewed here.
Please remember to abide to all rules and regulation.
Thank you, and happy Grabbing!
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Algebra: A Combined Approach (4th Edition)
Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0321726391
ISBN 13: 978-0-32172-639-1
Chapter 6 - Section 6.1 - The Greatest Common Factor - Practice - Page 418: 11
$ (7x^2+3)(4x-1)$
Work Step by Step
$28x^3-7x^2 +12x-3= 7x^2(4x-1) + 3(4x-1)$ The binomial $(4x-1)$ is present in both terms and is the greatest common factor. We use the distributive property to factor out $(4x-1)$ $28x^3-7x^2 +12x-3= 7x^2(4x-1) + 3(4x-1) = (7x^2+3)(4x-1)$
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Precalculus (6th Edition)
Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 013421742X
ISBN 13: 978-0-13421-742-0
Chapter R - Review of Basic Concepts - R.2 Real Numbers and Their Properties - R.2 Exercises - Page 19: 2
Work Step by Step
RECALL: Integers are the number $0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...$ and $-1, -2, -3, ...$ The set of integers contains all the whole numbers and their negative counterparts. Thus, the missing expression in the given statement is $\underline{\text{integers}}$.
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The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project
A really nice and well-written blog entry about the analysis of bones and other material from ancient Dilmun [Bahrain], before we even knew where the civilization lay. Now in northern California, the material was excavated by an American in 1940, and left alone until, as author Alexis Boutin writes, "working with students from Sonoma State and UC Berkeley, we have determined that the Cornwall collection includes over 3,700 objects made from materials including metal, bone, ivory, pearl, shell, and alabaster, although stone and ceramic objects dominate. The datable objects derive mostly from the Early Dilmun period, ca. 2050-1800 BCE. This was a period of unprecedented political and economic prosperity in Dilmun, as suggested by fortified settlements, temple complexes, administrative seals, and imported goods."
This crest of development on the shores of the Arabian peninsula coincided with the decline of the ancient Indus, with whom the culture was closely linked.
Read on at These Bones of Mine.
Image: Cornwall’s team excavating a tumulus in Bahrain. Courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
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How to practice?
At this point, you've mastered the theoretical underpinnings of the Algorithm Design Canvas. This is a great achievement and you're already ahead of the majority of applicants.
The next fundamental question is how to most efficiently take what you just learned, and start applying it in practice. Where do you find practice problems, and how do you go about solving them as you're getting ready for your interview?
Read on.
Practice with HiredInTech
In the next sections you will find practice tasks ordered by topic with some learning materials for each topic. You can submit your code solutions and get instant feedback from our grader. Each task also has a solution that you can look at in case you feel stuck or need a hint.
Use online judges
Online judges such as TopCoder are an indispensable tool in your preparation arsenal. You can read as many books as you want or skim through the solutions to dozens of problems, but there's nothing like practicing getting a problem 100% correct.
Online judges automatically grade your solution (and support a large set of programming languages) with some pretty tough tests. They also act as problem banks, additional learning resources, a supportive community, etc.
Here are a few more sites where you can practice solving algorithmic tasks:
Always follow the Canvas
Many people feel tempted to skip certain areas of the Canvas during practice. Sometimes they do this because they think they're saving time, sometimes because they are overconfident and think the problem is too easy.
This is not a good idea. The Canvas is designed to build up all aspects of your interviewing chops, as you never know what your interviewer will want to focus on. By systematically thinking about all areas during practice, when the rubber hits the road you'll be a lot more confident and, ultimately, more successful.
Forget about your IDE
As we discussed in the Code section, writing code in your IDE is fundamentally different from coding outside of it. The only way to truly appreciate the difference and to overcome the related issues is to forget about your IDE.
That's why the "Code" section of the Canvas exists - just write your code there. Alternatively, if you're practicing using TopCoder (highly recommended), just use the "Code" box of the UI.
Read through your code
We all know people whose natural style is to write some code and then immediately try to run it and see if it works on some set of test cases. They spend about 20% writing the code, and then maybe 80% debugging it. While this may work well for them in real life, it simply does not work at interviews. You don't have the luxury of a debugger, nor the luxury of something automatically executing your code.
Instead, what you should do is to carefully think about the code you write, and then once you've written it, to spend some time reviewing it. If you're using TopCoder, make sure you are 100% confident that your code is going to compile AND run correctly on the tests before actually hitting "Compile" and "Run Tests". This practice of carefully inspecting your code is going to be priceless at interviews.
In this section, you learned several important tricks for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of your practice. Remember to:
• Sign up for an automated online judge like TopCoder.
• Always follow the Canvas, even on simpler problems.
• Not use your IDE so that you can train your interview coding skills.
• Read and review your code before compiling and running the automated tests on TopCoder.
What's next?
With these tips in mind let's turn to some algorithmic theory and practice. In the next sections of this course we cover the most important topics and suggest practice tasks that you can solve. Let's start practicing!
Also, in this section there is one last lesson suggesting one more way to practice, which we call the "blitz rounds". You can take a look at these once you feel confident in your task solving skills.
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I bought a Premium/Business hosting, how can I get my free domain?
Modificirano dana:
domain checker domain name domain domains free domain free domain registration
If you've chosen to purchase our Premium or Business package and You've decided you want to go for the 12 months or more Billing Plan, then you will be happy to know that we include a Free Domain Name registration together with your Package. This Domain Name has to be chosen at the very begging of Your Order.
However, if you've missed this when ordering your package, no worries, please contact us via our Helpdesk area and just give us the Domain Name you wish to register. Make sure to check out if the Domain is available for registration here.
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Paleoclimate – Learning from the Past
The future lies in the past. This statement may sound technically incorrect or, at best, like a paradox. For some scientists it is, however, one hundred percent accurate. They unlock insights from events that have already taken place in order to uncover what could happen to us in the future. These scientists include members of Dr Eduardo Zorita's "Paleoclimatology and Statistics" working group in the Department of Systems Analysis and Modelling at the Institute of Coastal Research. They investigate periods in the past to better understand the “here and now”.
But what exactly does “paleo” mean? What periods are we talking about? What conclusions can be drawn from the past? And was everything better in the past in regard to climate? Above all, what are paleoclimatologists working with exactly?
Awi Eiskern02 Hoerter Out P
Scientist working with ice cores. Much insight about past climate can be discovered from these ice cores. (Photo: Hans Oerter/AWI)
In 2016, the term “paleo” without the addition of “climate” provides search engine results mainly on the subject of nutrition, more specifically on the "paleo diet”. The fashionable trend for modern nutrition aiming to resemble that of “the past” is not addressed here, but the origin of the term’s meaning is investigated. “Paleo" is short for the Paleolithic, the Old Stone Age. It describes both the earliest and longest epoch of the Stone Age that begins between one and two million years ago, lasting until approximately twelve thousand years ago. According to our current understanding, a particular type of climate existed on Earth during each period. If we designate climate as a weather statistic over long time periods lasting at least thirty years, a constant change can be seen that is based on both natural and, in at least the last one hundred years or so, anthropogenic influences.
The Constantly Changing Climate
Highlight Thema Paläo Fotolia
Namibian Desert (Photo: cdca beckoetter/Fotolia)
Climate is therefore not a static condition, but always a process. Natural climate variability is thereby caused by interactions between the rather chaotic reacting atmosphere and the rather sluggishly responding ocean. Simply stated, climate changes in the long-term over hundreds of thousands or millions of years (for example, through variations of the Earth's orbit and the Earth's plate tectonics) just as it does over a few years to decades (through the solar cycle, volcanic eruptions or through the anthropogenic contribution of the greenhouse effect). What portions of these time periods typically belong to paleoclimatology?
While today weather records of temperature, precipitation and air pressure are mainly carried out using instruments in order to determine time series for climate statistics, paleoclimatology is involved with investigating climate during periods before the widespread availability of these recordings. Dr Sebastian Wagner from the working group “Paleoclimatology and Statistics” finds the last one thousand years of paleoclimate research particularly interesting “because the time period facilitates insights into climate before human influence on a global scale and the period is relatively well-covered by climate records—both in quantity and quality of the data.”
Reconstructing Climate Through Proxy and Model Data
Highlight Thema Paläo
Ice core layers. (Photo: Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 /GISP2)
Because the thermometer hadn't been invented yet and therefore no records of temperature from a thousand years ago exist, scientists under the leadership of Dr Eduardo Zorita must turn to other means. Past climate reconstruction is essentially undertaken in two ways:
> 1. The empirical reconstruction based on proxy data. These are provided, for example, by tree rings, ice cores, corals, stalactites/stalagmites and sea sediments. In addition – mainly for populated areas - historical records come into play. Such documents contain information about crop yields or distinctive flood marks. Ship logs are also consulted for analysis, serving as early weather diaries.
> 2. Reconstruction with the help of climate models. What is known as external forcing data is fed into the models pertaining, for example, to volcanic events, solar activity and information on green house gasses, which were, until the era of industrialisation, mostly of natural origin and barely influenced by anthropogenic activities. Models supply a spatially consistent image of potential climate changes of the past. The HZG scientists calculate global simulations (with the Earth system model MPI-ESM-P from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology) as well as regional studies (with the regional model COSMO-CCLM from the "Regional Atmospheric Modelling" working group at the Institute of Coastal Research).
Reconstructing Climate Through Proxy and Model Data
A Modelled Volcanic Eruption
It sounds complicated to place a highly complex world into a simplified model. This, however, is not so difficult using the most plausible theories and basing the model on physical assumptions. How does one, for example, explain a volcanic eruption with the help of a climate model?
Highlight Thema Paläo Optical Depth
The occurrence of aerosols in the atmosphere, caused by volcanic eruptions that change the optical density (aerosol optical depth). (Photo: GERICS)
In order to do so, certain parameters are “tinkered with”, similar to the way I would on a music mixer: If I want my musical instrument to sound more powerful and deeper, I alter the bass channels. If I wish to instead accentuate higher, more sensitive tones, I vary the influence of the tenor range. When a volcano erupts, you change what is known as the optical density (aerosol optical depth) in a climate model. In simple terms, this quantity describes the intensity of light shining through a medium.
More precisely: In the real world, the volcano causes an eruption in a specific location, while the resulting aerosols can be distributed around the world. In the model, the values for the change in optical density are therefore prescribed for a total of four latitudinal bands. Based on the measured sulphate quantity in the ice core, the character of the eruption can be assessed using an algorithm. Any reconstructed volcanic eruption can now be reproduced in this manner, taking its temporal progression into account. The substrate concentration, or more precisely, the pH value from the ice core enables us to draw conclusions on the strength of the eruption.
Highlight Thema Paläo Eiskern
An ice core in a core trough is reflected several times in the aluminium surfaces. (Photo: Sepp Kipfstuhl/HZG)
Researching past climate can be exciting and informative in all respects. Nevertheless, the question arises as to what extent this work leads to insights that are relevant for today or for the future. On the one hand, according to Dr Sebastian Wagner, the study of past climates is important for obtaining information about the breadth of variations under natural conditions. He says, “In addition, the current climate models offer us the opportunity to reflect findings derived from empirical data in climate epochs that are clearly different from the climate of today.”
Probabilities and Statistics
But how reliably can past events actually be determined? We must again remember the information that is fed into the climate models. For simulating the climate of the last one to two thousand years, the scientists integrate information into the climate model: changes in the Earth's orbital parameters, solar activity, volcanism and greenhouse gas concentrations as well as distinctive changes in land use. All parameters have a different relevance. “The most reliable reconstructions are of the Earth’s orbital parameters because they can be derived from celestial mechanics,” explains Dr Eduardo Zorita. Solar and volcanic activity, however, can only be determined with great uncertainty because they are derived from proxy data mentioned above, Zorita points out. Similarly difficult to examine are the land use changes because they must first be derived through model applications, which also are already based on certain approximations. On the other hand, researchers recognize the changes in greenhouse gas concentrations in the air relatively easily. For this purpose, the ice cores help them, which have stored the respective conditions quite well in the their air pockets.
Publications in Nature and Nature Geoscience
Highlight Thema Paläo Paper 2 Abb 2 Proxydaten
Occurrences of different proxy types in the northern hemisphere. This data makes it possible to draw conclusions about temperature. The figure refers to the cold wave study of the 6th century AD, which resulted in socio-cultural consequences.
The scientists in the Paleoclimatology and Statistics working group are currently focused on the climate of the last two thousand years. This era includes the Mediaeval Warm Period, around the year 1000, in which the average temperatures resembled those of the twentieth century. Immediately before and after this period, however, “small ice ages” prevailed. The causes for the temporary and considerably higher global temperatures are not yet well understood. Studies in this area could provide information on whether or how intensely our current climate system could possibly trigger substantial natural variations in a short period of time.
Highlight Thema Paläo Paper 2 Abb 1 quadr.
Reconstructed temperature variations in northern European summer months. The Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) began in 536 AD and emerged clearly here (blue shading). (Figure: Ulf Büntgen)
In the academic journal Natural Geoscience, scientists from six European countries and the United States, with the participation of Dr Sebastian Wagner, have detected a distinctive cold period in Eurasia around 600 AD which is also highlighted by extensive disease, mass migrations and political upheavals. The cold period in the 6th century is thus the most pronounced cooling in the northern hemisphere in the last two thousand years. The scientists attribute the cause to three large volcanic eruptions within eleven years, whose effect on the climate was prolonged due to the ocean’s delayed response and minimum solar activity. The results show a connection between climatic changes and their influence on cultural and historical events. This study can be downloaded in its original.
Within the context of large international projects such as Pages2K, climate model data is compared to empirical reconstructions. Likewise, the question arises as to what concrete conclusions can be made using climate simulations for a full glacial-interglacial period of the last 130000 years. Such answers are sought within the PALMOD project, supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Dr Eduardo Zorita’s working group participates in one of the sub-projects.
Highlight Thema Paläo Paper 1 Abb 1
Derived hydoclimate anomalies relative to the average for the millennium selected. Above: values from proxy data. Below: values from climate simulations.
In the scientific journal Nature, Zorita and his colleagues from Sweden and Switzerland reconstructed the hydroclimate (humidity and drought in connection with temperature) of the northern hemisphere for the last 1200 years based on proxy data. According to this reconstruction, the dry periods in the subtropics frequently coincided with considerably more humid phases in higher latitudes and vice versa. Regional dry events in the American Midwest, however, were not necessarily connected to high temperatures. The proxy data used for this study thus did not provide a clear connection between hydroclimate and temperature development. The scientists compared the statistics with model simulations. The conclusion was that there was strong agreement for the pre-industrial period which was not the case for the 20th century. Here the average hydroclimate anomalies from the simulations were not supported by the reconstruction using the proxy data. This study can also be read in its detailed original.
Highlight Thema Paläo Paper 3 Abb 3 Temp.-Verteilungen
Surface temperature deviations in European summer months (JJA) with regard to the average in the area. Left: Simulations with the MPI-ESM-P model Right: Simulations with the CCSM4 model.
Another paper was published just a few days ago in which HZG scientists participated. Zorita and his colleagues from Great Britain showed that the North Atlantic storm tracks over Europe are solely determined by what is known as internal climate variability. This includes natural processes within the climate system such as interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean or between the ground layers and the biosphere. One example is the El Niño phenomenon during which the surface temperatures in a portion of the Pacific significantly increases. This change in the sea surface temperatures subsequently effects the atmospheric circulation. Such events thus contribute to the fact that storm systems follow certain paths over northern Europe. External forcings such as greenhouse gases, solar radiation and volcanic eruptions or anthropogenic influences have played no part, at least not in the last centuries. This study was also published in the academic journal Nature Geoscience and can be accessed online.
Paleoclimatology is, for the most part, interdisciplinary. Empirical reconstructions are often carried out by geologists and biologists, while the climate simulations are frequently undertaken by physicists, computer scientists or mathematicians. Those who wish to study Earth climate of the past take courses in the classical fields of geosciences. Working in paleoclimatology also requires knowledge and interest in programming and statistics.
Scientific publications
Dr. Eduardo Zorita
Dr. Eduardo Zorita
Department of Paleoclimatology and Statistics
Phone: +49 (0)4152 87-1856
E-mail contact
Oliver Weiner
Oliver Weiner
Press and Public Relations
Phone: +49 (0)4152 87-2369
E-mail contact
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Android + Windows 8 = Windows Super-Frankenstein
Desperate times lead to desperate measures, and the PC makers' desperation has led them to a three-headed Franken-PC
Among the many complaints users have had with Windows 8, the biggest is its dual personality that grafts the Windows 8 Metro user interface to the traditional Windows Desktop, a combination my colleague J. Peter Bruzzese accurately labeled "Windows Frankenstein." As a result, PC sales accelerated their decline as users bought tablets instead and businesses bought Windows 7 PCs (which they can still easily buy, unlike home users) -- or nothing at all.
PC makers are watching their market shrivel, and after a year of hoping the anti-Windows 8 sentiment would blow over and people would dutifully buy whatever was on offer, they realized users aren't going to spend money on Windows 8 PCs. As a result, the big three PC makers -- Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo -- have all begun selling Android tablets. The problem is, they make less money from those tablets than they do the already-thin-margin Windows PCs their profit goals depend on. Intel is also pushing traditional PC makers to make Andoid tablets using its x86 version of Android, to make up for lost PC chip sales. For Intel too there's less money in x86-based Android tablets.
[ Digital Spotlight: Effective strategies for mobile enablement. | It's the end of the CIO as we know it -- and IT feels fine. | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Consumerization of IT newsletter today.]
In response, at this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), PC makers are unveiling "PC Plus" systems -- Windows PCs that also run Android applications via emulation or virtualization -- reputedly from Intel. Here comes Windroid!
I can't begin to fathom how anyone at these companies thought it made sense to graft yet another head on to Windows 8. But I can see how they came to this cockeyed conclusion: "People aren't using touchscreens on Windows 8 PCs because there are so few Metro apps -- so what if we filled that gap with Android?" This approach would let them sell $800 Windroid PCs rather than $300 Android tablets.
But this logic ignores a very inconvenient truth: If the solution to the PC dilemma is Android, then users will buy Android devices, cutting out the complexity of dealing with Windows as well. We've already seen that behavior take root among iPad users. As for the purported convenience of one PC that does it all, remember that most U.S. households already have tablets despite the "inconvenience" of switching devices. In fact, tablets are more convenient than PCs because they weigh less, are easier to use on the couch and other nondesk locations, and have longer battery life. And they do most of what people do most of the time.
Then there's the Frankenstein problem: Users don't like having to mentally reset as they move from Windows Desktop to Metro on the same device. Sometimes the touchscreen works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes familiar shortcuts work, sometimes they don't. Now add Android, with its very different UI. It's clear people will make such mental switches when they move from one device to another, but they're not happy to do in the same physical context.
Especially when that same physical context isn't designed for the job. One of the big design flaws in Windows 8 touchscreen PCs is the use of a touchscreen that's vertical, requiring people to reach out and hold their arms in awkward positions that can cause physical damage over time. Metro apps can be controlled via a keyboard and mouse, though awkwardly, so users on a laptop or PC can avoid this problem. But Android apps are designed for an all-touch environment -- a horizontal touch environment, that is -- increasing the dissonance. So, in addition to the context shift to use Android apps on a Windroid PC, users face an anti-ergonomic user experience. (The Android-only PCs also announced at CES this week suffer this same fatal flaw.)
In other words, a Windroid PC is a bad Android tablet that does nothing to address Windows 8's failings. It only exacerbates them.
You might argue that such emulation is proven in the form of desktop virtualization tech that lets Macs run Windows and Linux. Yes, the technology is proven. But remember why Mac users use tools like Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion: as a transition aid from one desktop OS to another (Windows to OS X), as a safety net (for must-use apps available only in Windows), or for Web and application testing (one machine can run all versions of the site or app, a major convenience for developers). Most people use desktop virtualization tech to abandon Windows safely, but the goal of the PC Plus is to keep people in Windows -- adding Android won't do that, and it could even accelerate the switch away from PCs if people really do take to Android on their PCs and realize they don't need the PC part any more.
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Millennial Uprising Social Unrest Stress Test Scenario
This report is part of the Centre for Risk Studies’ suite of stress test scenario reports, developed to explore management processes for dealing with an extreme shock. It is not a prediction.
Social unrest is a growing issue for global businesses, posing a potential for disruption in many countries where international business operations are based.
This study provides a framework to understand social unrest, and the political instability that can result. It describes a hypothetical scenario of an extreme episode of social unrest that businesses can use as a stress test scenario to explore their own ability to manage a crisis of this type.
Key findings
• The economies of North America and Europe suffer from disruption and reduction in output from strikes and workforce absenteeism, a drop in imports and exports due to targeted trade disruption, and a loss of demand and consumption.
• The results and protests of the scenario result in many minor, and some major, incidences of property damage, vehicle destruction, looting, emergency response costs, and pay-outs for compensation.
• The estimated loss in global GDP output in the five years following the Millennial Uprising Scenario amounts to losses of $1.6 to $8 trillion, depending on the scenario variant in question.
• The scenario also impacts the markets and investment portfolios negatively. Eurozone and UK assets are substantially negatively impacted. US assets are less affected.
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Are dark circles under your eyes making you look tired?
dark_circles_under_your_eyes Kevin Brenner
Dark circles under your eyes can make you look more tired than you are
Do you have dark circles under your eyes?
Has your friend told you that you look tired because you have bags under your eyes?
Let’s face it. We all have busy lives and should probably be sleeping more hours than we do. Lack of sleep commonly accentuates the dark circles under your eyes that make you look more tired than you even feel. While some people with true bags under the eyes may require a surgical fix (lower blepharoplasty), many people with dark pigmentation can be treated with injections of Restylane (a soft tissue Hyalurnonic Acid filler) into the lower eyelids.
Placement of Restylane into the lower eyelids helps to restore lost volume to the lids. Restylane injections can also change the way ambient light hits your lower eyelids, and subsequently make the dark circles less apparent at conversational distance. This is a technique that is used more commonly these days…both for patients who are too young to have facial surgery and in conjunction with facelift surgery for some. Restylane placed properly into the lower eyelids typically lasts for about eight to twelve months.
If you think that you suffer from dark circles…and are tired of being told that you look tired…then do something about it. Restylane injection to the lower eyelids is a fairly simple procedure, and is perfomed quickly in our office.
Schedule Your Consultation Today
Contact our offices today to schedule a consultation so that you may get your questions answered and learn more about how Dr. Brenner can help you to achieve your cosmetic goals.
Call us at 424-230-7779 today or click here to schedule online
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Or, to be more specific, that small, sculpted models of said Space Vikings stop being depicted as wearing fur. Or, to be even more specific, PETA UK has written to Games Workshop, makers of Warhammer 40,000 and its myriad table-top gaming models, asking them to cease depicting imagery of its myriad characters wearing animal fur and make them "fur free".
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This is part of a series
Love is the Result of Inquality: Godwin’s Thoughts on Man
Our author puts forth a romanticized, mythologized version of history to defend the claim that love is the result of imagination, inequality, and difference.
Editor’s Note
Oddly enough, perhaps, given that Godwin was married to the famous early feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft, he argues throughout the following essay that “a passion of the mind” so strong as love depends upon “imagination”—the process of discovering that which is different or unequal to oneself. Expanding upon the subject matter of his last essay, our author presents the parent-child relationship as his first case study. He sees no parallel, no match for the intensity of feeling in any other social relationship. Parents are profoundly changed by their children and children have a perpetual hero and model in the parent. Yet, as most of us would no doubt agree, “No parent ever understood his child, and no child ever understood his parent.” Their love is possible only because of the incredible possibilities conjured into existence by this new relationship. Parents and children so strike each other’s imaginations that they leave one another in constant, exhausting, though entirely stimulating flux.
Godwin’s thoughts on the nature of familial love rest on the assumption that the relationship exists without exploitation. Parents especially may poison the natural well of filial love with physical, mental, emotional and other abuse. Children may affect the same by continual disobedience and sabotage of the parents’ interests. But what if exploitation from one side of the relationship produces a genuine feeling of love from the other nonetheless? To say the least, Godwin’s assumption of benevolence in the traditional family seems a romantic gesture. His treatment of the sexes is plagued with similar problems. He begins this section with the claim that “Nothing can be more certain, however we may seek to modify and abate it, than the inequality of the sexes.” As evidence, he offers the observation that men and women often argue and fight with one another, especially those in romantic relationships. Godwin then provides us a rosy portrait of High Medieval “courtly love” which is more caricature than history. The medieval period was so disorderly that “Each sex stood in need of the other; and the basis of their union was mutual esteem.” This new sort of benevolence replaced the simple slavery of women and “Equality fled and was no more [while] love, almighty, perdurable love, came to supply its place.” He concludes by reiterating his argument that love is a result of perceived inequality—which is to say that romance is much like any other market exchange. Both parties value the other enough to make certain sacrifices to maintain the relationship. While an economic analysis of love may indeed be apt, it must be admitted that Godwin’s arguments in this chapter are some of his very weakest, based as they are in simplified, romanticized, and problematic history and an odd muddling of biological and sociological concepts.
Anthony Comegna, PhD
Assistant Editor for Intellectual History
By William Godwin
Who is it that says, “There is no love but among equals?” Be it who it may, it is a saying universally known, and that is in every one’s mouth. The contrary is precisely the truth, and is the great secret of every thing that is admirable in our moral nature.
By love it is my intention here to understand, not a calm, tranquil, and, as it were, half-pronounced feeling, but a passion of the mind. We may doubtless entertain an approbation of other men, without adverting to the question how they stand in relation to ourselves, as equals or otherwise. But the sentiment I am here considering, is that where the person in whom it resides most strongly sympathises with the joys and sorrows of another, desires his gratification, hopes for his welfare, and shrinks from the anticipation of his being injured; in a word, is the sentiment which has most the spirit of sacrifice in it, and prepares the person in whom it dwells, to postpone his own advantage to the advantage of him who is the object of it.
Having placed love among the passions, which is no vehement assumption, I then say, there can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination. In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question. Whenever this sentiment prevails, I must have my attention fixed more on the absent than the present, more upon what I do not see than on what I do see. My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image. Sentiment is nothing, till you have arrived at a mystery and a veil, something that is seen obscurely, that is just hinted at in the distance, that has neither certain outline nor colour, but that is left for the mind to fill up according to its pleasure and in the best manner it is able.
The great model of the affection of love in human beings, is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children…
The original feature in this sentiment is the conscious feeling of the protector and the protected. Our passions cannot subsist in lazy indolence; passion and action must operate on each other; passion must produce action, and action give strength to the tide of passion. We do not vehemently desire, where we can do nothing. It is in a very faint way that I entertain a wish to possess the faculty of flying; and an ordinary man can scarcely be said to desire to be a king or an emperor. None but a madman, of plebeian rank, falls in love with a princess. But shew me a good thing within my reach; convince me that it is in my power to attain it; demonstrate to me that it is fit for me, and I am fit for it; then begins the career of passion…
What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child? The affection he bears and its counterpart are the ornaments of the world, and the spring of every thing that makes life worth having. Whatever besides has a tendency to illustrate and honour our nature, descends from these, or is copied from these, grows out of them as the branches of a tree from the trunk, or is formed upon them as a model, and derives from them its shape, its character, and its soul…
The love of the parent to his child is nursed and fostered by two plain considerations; first, that the subject is capable of receiving much, and secondly, that my power concerning it is great and extensive.
When an infant is presented to my observation, what a wide field of sentiment and reflection is opened to me! Few minds are industrious and ductile enough completely to compass this field, if the infant is only accidentally brought under their view…The Book of Fate lies open before me. This infant, powerless and almost impassive now, is reserved for many sorrows and many joys, and will one day possess a power, formidable and fearful to afflict those within its reach, or calculated to diffuse blessings, wisdom, virtue, happiness, to all around. I conceive all the various destinations of which man is susceptible; my fancy at least is free to select that which pleases me best; I unfold and pursue it in all its directions, observe the thorns and difficulties with which it is beset, and conjure up to my thoughts all that it can boast of inviting, delightful and honourable.
But if the infant that is near to me lays hold of my imagination and affections at the moment in which he falls under my observation, how much more do I become interested in him, as he advances from year to year!…Every lesson that the child leans, every comment that he makes upon it, every sport that he pursues, every choice that he exerts, the demeanour that he adopts to his playfellows, the modifications and character of his little fits of authority or submission, all make him more and more an individual to me, and open a wider field for my sagacity or my prophecy, as to what he promises to be, and what he may be made…
And there are men that say, that all this mystery, the most beautiful attitude of human nature, and the crown of its glory, is pure selfishness!
Let us now turn from the view of the parental, to that of the filial affection.
The great mistake that has been made on this subject, arises from the taking it nakedly and as a mere abstraction. It has been sagely remarked, that when my father did that which occasioned me to come into existence, he intended me no benefit, and therefore I owe him no thanks. And the inference which has been made from this wise position is, that the duty of children to parents is a mere imposture, a trick, employed by the old to defraud the young out of their services.
I grant most readily, that the mere material ligament that binds together the father and the child, by itself is worthless, and that he who owes nothing more than this to his father, owes him nothing. The natural, unanimated relationship is like the grain of mustard-seed in the discourses of Jesus Christ…
The hard and insensible man may know little of the debt he owes to his father; but he that is capable of calling up the past, and beholding the things that are not as if they now were, will see the matter in a very different light. Incalculable are the privations (in a great majority of instances), the toils, the pains, the anxieties, that every child imposes on his father from the first hour of his existence. If he could know the ceaseless cares, the tender and ardent feelings, the almost incredible efforts and exertions, that have accompanied him in his father’s breast through the whole period of his growth, instead of thinking that he owed his parent nothing, he would stand still and wonder that one human creature could do so much for another…
But even this is not the most agreeable point of view in which we may consider the filial affection. I come back to my first position, that where there is no imagination, there can be no passion, and by consequence no love. No parent ever understood his child, and no child ever understood his parent. We have seen that the affectionate parent considers his child like a flower in the bud, as a mine of power that is to be unfolded, as a creature that is to act and to pass through he knows not what, as a canvas that “gives ample room and verge enough,” for his prophetic soul to hang over in endless visions, and his intellectual pencil to fill up with various scenes and fortunes. And, if the parent does not understand his child, certainly as little does the child understand his parent. Wherever this relation subsists in its fairest form, the parent is as a God, a being qualified with supernatural powers, to his offspring. The child consults his father as an oracle; to him he proposes all his little questions; from him he learns his natural philosophy, his morals, his rules of conduct, his religion, and his creed. The boy is uninformed on every point; and the father is a vast Encyclopedia, not merely of sciences, but of feelings, of sagacity, of practical wisdom, and of justice, which the son consults on all occasions, and never consults in vain. Senseless and inexpert is that parent, who endeavours to govern the mind by authority, and to lay down rugged and peremptory dogmas to his child; the child is fully and unavoidably prepared to receive every thing with unbounded deference, and to place total reliance in the oracle which nature has assigned him. Habits, how beautiful! Inestimable benefit of nature, that has given me a prop against which to sustain my unripened strength, and has not turned me loose to wander with tottering steps amidst the vast desert of society!
But it is not merely for contemplative wisdom that the child honours his parent; he sees in him a vast fund of love, attachment and sympathy. That he cannot mistake; and it is all a mystery to him. He says, What am I, that I should be the object of this? and whence comes it? He sees neither the fountain from which it springs, nor the banks that confine it. To him it is an ocean, unfathomable, and without a shore.
To the bounty of its operations he trusts implicitly. The stores of judgment and knowledge he finds in his father, prompt him to trust it. In many instances where it appeared at first obscure and enigmatical, the event has taught him to acknowledge its soundness. The mutinousness of passion will sometimes excite a child to question the decrees of his parent; it is very long before his understanding, as such, comes to set up a separate system, and teaches him to controvert the decisions of his father.
Perhaps I ought earlier to have stated, that the filial connection we have here to consider, does not include those melancholy instances where some woful defect or utter worthlessness in the parent counteracts the natural course of the affections, but refers only to cases, where the character of father is on the whole sustained with honour, and the principle of the connection is left to its true operation. In such cases the child not only observes for himself the manifestations of wisdom and goodness in his parent, but is also accustomed to hear well of him from all around. There is a generous conspiracy in human nature, not to counteract the honour borne by the offspring to him from whom he sprung, and the wholsome principle of superiority and dependence which is almost indispensible between persons of different ages dwelling under the same roof. And, exclusively of this consideration, the men who are chiefly seen by the son are his father’s friends and associates; and it is the very bent, and, as it were, law of our nature, that we do not associate much, but with persons whom we favour, and who are prepared to mention us with kindness and honour.
Thus every way the child is deeply imbued with veneration for his parent, and forms the habit of regarding him as his book of wisdom, his philosopher and guide. He is accustomed to hear him spoken of as a true friend, an active ally, and a pattern of justice and honour; and he finds him so. Now these are the true objects of affection,—wisdom and beneficence; and the human heart loves this beneficence better when it is exercised towards him who loves, first, because inevitably in almost all instances we are best pleased with the good that is done to ourselves, and secondly, because it can scarcely happen but that we in that case understand it best, both in its operation and its effects.
The active principles of religion are all moulded upon this familiar and sensible relation of father and child: and to understand whet the human heart is capable to conceive on this subject, we have only to refer to the many eloquent and glowing treatises that have been written upon the love of God to his creatures, and the love that the creature in return owes to his God…
To proceed…Nothing can be more certain, however we may seek to modify and abate it, than the inequality of the sexes…
Thus it is painted to us as having been in Paradise; and with similar inequality have the sexes subsisted in all ages and nations since. If it were possible to take from the fair sex its softness and attractive grace, and endow it instead with audacious, masculine and military qualities, there is scarcely any one that does not perceive, with whatever advantages it might be attended in other respects, that it would be far from tending to cherish and increase the passion of love.
It is in reality obvious, that man and woman, as they come from the hands of nature, are so much upon a par with each other, as not to afford the best subjects between whom to graft a habit of entire, unalterable affection. In the scenes of vulgar and ordinary society, a permanent connection between persons of opposite sexes is too apt to degenerate into a scene of warfare, where each party is for ever engaged in a struggle for superiority, and neither will give way. A penetrating observer, with whom in former days I used intimately to converse, was accustomed to say, that there was generally more jarring and ill blood between the two parties in the first year of their marriage, than during all the remainder of their lives. It is at length found necessary, as between equally matched belligerents on the theatre of history, that they should come to terms, make a treaty of peace, or at least settle certain laws of warfare, that they may not waste their strength in idle hostilities.
The nations of antiquity had a way of settling this question in a very summary mode. As certain Oriental tribes have determined that women have no souls, and that nothing can be more proper than to shut them up, like singing birds in cages, so the Greeks and Romans for the most part excluded their females from the society of the more martial sex. Marriage with them was a convenience merely; and the husband and wife were in reality nothing more than the master and the slave. This point once settled as a matter of national law, there was certainly in most cases little danger of any vexatious rivalship and struggle for power.
But there is nothing in which the superiority of modern times over the ancient has been more conspicuous, than in our sentiments and practices on this subject. This superiority, as well as several other of our most valuable acquisitions, took its rise in what we call the dark ages. Chivalry was for the most part the invention of the eleventh century. Its principle was built upon a theory of the sexes, giving to each a relative importance, and assigning to both functions full of honour and grace. The knights (and every gentleman during that period in due time became a knight) were taught, as the main features of their vocation, the “love of God and the ladies.” The ladies in return were regarded as the genuine censors of the deeds of knighthood. From these principles arose a thousand lessons of humanity. The ladies regarded it as their glory to assist their champions to arm and to disarm, to perform for them even menial services, to attend them in sickness, and to dress their wounds. They bestowed on them their colours, and sent them forth to the field hallowed with their benedictions. The knights on the other hand considered any slight towards the fair sex as an indelible stain to their order; they contemplated the graceful patronesses of their valour with a feeling that partook of religious homage and veneration, and esteemed it as perhaps the first duty of their profession, to relieve the wrongs, and avenge the injuries of the less powerful sex.
This simple outline as to the relative position of the one sex and the other, gave a new face to the whole scheme and arrangements of civil society. It is like those admirable principles in the order of the material universe, or those grand discoveries brought to light from time to time by superior genius, so obvious and simple, that we wonder the most common understanding could have missed them, yet so pregnant with results, that they seem at once to put a new life and inspire a new character into every part of a mighty and all-comprehensive mass.
The passion between the sexes, in its grosser sense, is a momentary impulse merely; and there was danger that, when the fit and violence of the passion was over, the whole would subside into inconstancy and a roving disposition, or at least into indifference and almost brutal neglect. But the institutions of chivalry immediately gave a new face to this. Either sex conceived a deep and permanent interest in the other. In the unsettled state of society which characterised the period when these institutions arose, the defenceless were liable to assaults of multiplied kinds, and the fair perpetually stood in need of a protector and a champion. The knights on the other hand were taught to derive their fame and their honour from the suffrages of the ladies. Each sex stood in need of the other; and the basis of their union was mutual esteem.
The effect of this was to give a hue of imagination to all their intercourse. A man was no longer merely a man, nor a woman merely a woman. They were taught mutual deference. The woman regarded her protector as something illustrious and admirable; and the man considered the smiles and approbation of beauty as the adequate reward of his toils and his dangers. These modes of thinking introduced a nameless grace into all the commerce of society. It was the poetry of life. Hence originated the delightful narratives and fictions of romance; and human existence was no longer the bare, naked train of vulgar incidents, which for so many ages of the world it had been accustomed to be. It was clothed in resplendent hues, and wore all the tints of the rainbow. Equality fled and was no more; and love, almighty, perdurable love, came to supply its place.
By means of this state of things the vulgar impulse of the sexes towards each other, which alone was known to the former ages of the world, was transformed into somewhat of a totally different nature. It became a kind of worship. The fair sex looked upon their protectors, their fathers, their husbands, and the whole train of their chivalry, as something more than human. There was a grace in their motions, a gallantry in their bearing, and a generosity in their spirit of enterprise, that the softness of the female heart found irresistible. Nor less on the other hand did the knights regard the sex to whose service and defence they were sworn, as the objects of their perpetual deference. They approached them with a sort of gallant timidity, listened to their behests with submission, and thought the longest courtship and devotion nobly recompensed by the final acceptance of the fair.
The romance and exaggeration characteristic of these modes of thinking have gradually worn away in modern times; but much of what was most valuable in them has remained. Love has in later ages never been divested of the tenderness and consideration, which were thus rendered some of its most estimable features. A certain desire in each party to exalt the other, and regard it as worthy of admiration, became inextricably interwoven with the simple passion. A sense of the honour that was borne by the one to the other, had the happiest effect in qualifying the familiarity and unreserve in the communion of feelings and sentiments, without which the attachment of the sexes cannot subsist. It is something like what the mystic divines describe of the beatific vision, where entire wonder and adoration are not judged to be incompatible with the most ardent affection, and all meaner and selfish regards are annihilated.
From what has been thus drawn together and recapitulated it seems clearly to follow, as was stated in the beginning, that love cannot exist in its purest form and with a genuine ardour, where the parties are, and are felt by each other to be, on an equality; but that in all cases it is requisite there should be a mutual deference and submission, agreeably to the apostolic precept, “Likewise all of you be subject one to the other.” There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness; each party must feel that it stands in need of the other, and without the other cannot be complete; each party must be alike conscious of the power of receiving and conferring benefit; and there must be the anticipation of a distant future, that may every day enhance the good to be imparted and enjoyed, and cause the individuals thus united perpetually to become more sensible of the fortunate event which gave them to each other, and has thus entailed upon each a thousand advantages in which they could otherwise never have shared.
This is part of a series
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tagSci-Fi & FantasyThree Square Meals Ch. 073
Three Square Meals Ch. 073
Matriarch Tsarra Perfaren nibbled apprehensively on her thumbnail as she stared at the holo-map projection of House Perfaren territory. Biting her nails was an unfortunate new nervous habit she'd acquired, but considering the stress she was under, such weakness was understandable. She had bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, and her exhausted dark green orbs flickered over the holographic images, darting from one enemy fleet insignia to another. Large fleets from Houses Valaden, Loraleth, Aeberos, and Naestina, still held position along her border, poised to strike at any moment into House Perfaren Space.
"It's been nearly two weeks! Why don't they get this over with?!" she finally blurted out, as she whirled on her Fleet Commander. "You're supposed to be my most senior military advisor, give me some useful advice!"
Aadya flinched at her matriarch's desperate plea, but she shook her head as she replied regretfully, "I've no idea, Matriarch. Delaying their assault makes no sense at all." She let out a weary sigh, equally as fatigued as Tsarra, and pointed at the territory map as she continued, "Any two of those fleets would be a match for our own forces, but we don't stand a chance against all four. Even the most amateurish Fleet Commander could simply attack with all their forces, and we'd be powerless to repel them from our borders. With our fleets destroyed, they could annex all our worlds at will."
"Maybe their alliance isn't as strong as I feared!" Tsarra exclaimed, clutching at straws. "Perhaps they don't trust each other to attack, as they fear betrayal from the other Houses?"
"I'm afraid our sensor probes don't support that conclusion, Matriarch," Aadya replied, reluctant to quash Tsarra's wildly optimistic theory. She pointed to the crossed-blades insignia of the House Valaden fleet, and added, "We've seen supply ships from House Loraleth docking with the Valaden fleet, as well as personnel shuttles travelling between those forces. That kind of inter-fleet co-operation makes me believe Loraleth and Valaden are firm allies, and we already know that Aeberos and Naestina have been in league with each other for years."
"This is agonising!" Tsarra gasped, slumping in her chair. "Are they just trying to drive me mad with worry?!"
Aadya studied her youthful matriarch for a moment, and asked quietly, "Have you attempted to make contact with any of the Matriarchs? Perhaps we could try and broker some kind of treaty?"
Tsarra grimaced as she snapped, "Of course I've tried, do you take me for an imbecile?!"
"I'm sorry, Matriarch, I meant no offence," Aadya quickly apologised.
The young House Perfaren Matriarch took a deep, shuddering breath, then gave the other woman a sad apologetic smile, and said, "Please forgive me, Aadya, I didn't mean to snap at you." Her haunted eyes flicked to the map again, and she added, "I've tried making contact with all of them, but they're refusing to take my calls."
It was deathly silent in the Invictus' Galley as they stared at the slowly-rotating technical schematics, the intricate blueprints illuminated by an eerie violet glow, cast from Irillith's eyes.
"That's the Progenitor's ship..." John finally managed to mutter, as he stared in astonishment at the technical readouts of the huge vessel.
There was no mistaking the sinister-looking profile of the vessel, which they'd only seen in brief glimpses up until this point. The ship was tall in the stern while relatively narrow across the beam, and the long, angular superstructure swept forward, until it split about one-fifth of the way to the aft. From there, the lower section formed the sharp point of the prow, with the upper section set back slightly.
"It's over two kilometres long," Dana said in a hushed voice, her eyes wide in awe.
Rachel turned to look at her, and asked, "How do you know that?"
"All those weird symbols... they're Progenitor runes," John replied for her, and Dana nodded her agreement.
"What about gun batteries?!" Calara asked urgently. "Have you got blueprints for the Progenitor's weapons?"
Dana shook her head, and replied, "No, but we can see all the weapon hardpoints. That fucker's armed to the teeth!"
"How about the engines, or manoeuvring thrusters?" Jade asked, glancing warily at the ferocious-looking vessel that loomed above them. "Can you tell anything about its flight capabilities?"
Dana's sky-blue eyes darted over the holograph studying it in detail, as she replied, "The Tachyon Drive, Power Cores, Power relays - I can see where everything should be, but all the juicy details are missing..." She paused a moment, then pointed at the lower levels near the rear of the ship, "Holy fuck! That's the Drive Room for the Wormhole Generator!"
"You were right," Alyssa said, glancing at the redhead. "The Progenitor is definitely opening wormholes to get around!"
Having already memorised the schematic, Dana glanced at Irillith with concern, and reluctantly let go of her hand. Just like that, the schematics for the Progenitor ship winked out in a violet flash, and Irillith blinked slowly, as she massaged her temples.
"I'm really sorry about that," Dana apologised to the Maliri girl, remembering how that kind of projection had left her with a pounding headache. She gave her a worried frown, and asked sympathetically, "Are you alright?"
Irillith looked pleasantly surprised as she smiled back at the redhead, and replied, "My eyes tingle a bit, but there wasn't any pain!"
John was greatly relieved to see she hadn't been hurt like last time, and said, "Athena said you weren't ready before, but you've definitely grown more powerful since then. I guess this confirms it."
Rachel had been staring at Irillith thoughtfully, and she laughed then, shaking her head in amusement. They all turned to look at her, wondering what she'd found so funny.
"What is it?" Dana asked, turning to look at her lover curiously.
The brunette smiled at her, and replied, "Do you remember how stressed-out you were about Irillith coming aboard? You thought she was going to steal all our tech. It's no wonder John's Progenitor-side couldn't care less, though, he had far more advanced schematics locked away in his mind already. It must all be there in John's mind - everything a new Progenitor needs, to get himself started on a life of galactic conquest."
"So if he keeps loading me up, we'll get the whole lot?" Dana asked, with an acquisitive gleam in her eyes. "All the badass tech the Progenitor has?"
Alyssa shook her head, then darted a quick glance at John, and replied, "Your Progenitor side..."
John nodded glumly, and said, "He must be stopping me from unlocking everything. I'm going to have to confront him to claim the rest of it."
Sakura shook her head, and looking thoughtful she said, "Not necessarily. I was able to help you harness psychic speed, which was an ability your Progenitor-side used. Perhaps if you're given just the right encouragement, you'll be able to reveal more technology?"
Rachel's face brightened, as she said, "I think you're right! John's prepared Dana as a proxy for all these schematics, and when we've actually seen Progenitor hardware, it's been the catalyst for her to discover something new."
Dana grinned as she said, "Yeah, that's true! We got the Progenitor Power Core and Tachyon Drive from the Ashanath's ripped-off versions, and then looking at the crashed Progenitor ship gave us the schematics for the whole thing."
"We need to pay a visit to the Ashanath, see what else they might have found," John said, nodding his agreement.
"Don't forget the crashed ship on Arcadia!" Calara said enthusiastically. "If it's still there, that could be a real treasure trove of tech upgrades!"
Alyssa looked at John then, and asked, "So does this change our plans? Do you want to bother refitting the Invictus if we can just build a copy of the Progenitor's ship?"
He thought about it for a moment, then asked Dana, "How long would it take to construct our own version?"
"Several months, but I'm not sure it's worth it. At least, not yet," she replied with a sigh. "We'd have to fit it out with all our own tech for power couplings, Terran shield emitters, all that kind of stuff. Until we can acquire all the upgrades to properly equip the ship, it wouldn't be as powerful as the one the Progenitor is using. We'd get creamed trying to go toe-to-toe with him."
Alyssa looked apprehensively at the redhead sitting beside her, as she asked, "It's bad enough trying to plate the Invictus in Crystal Alyssium, let alone something that huge!" She paused for a second, then added with a frown, "Have we even got the materials to build something that big?"
Dana shook her head as she replied, "No, we don't have enough Onyxium for that, and it's not an element I can manufacture. It's a really good point though: If we do think about constructing a completely new ship, we should definitely use Crystal Alyssium for the superstructure, and not just the armour plating. At the moment, the Invictus is like an egg; tough on the outside, squishy on the inside."
"We'll stick with the current plan," John said, after considering their options. "Upgrade the Invictus, then try and secure some more tech schematics. There's no guarantee we'll even find anything we need with the Ashanath, and for all we know, they only found the Tachyon Drive and Power Core. As for Arcadia, it's deep in Kirrix Space, so it makes sense to upgrade the Invictus before we try and reach it."
"Sounds sensible to me," Alyssa said, nodding her agreement.
John looked around the table, and saw similar gestures of approval from the rest of the girls, agreeing with the path he'd chosen. "Alright, let's clean up after dinner, then go and get ready. We'll be arriving at Genthalas soon," he said, smiling at the thought of being reunited with Edraele.
"We're just crossing the border between House Ghilwen and House Loraleth territory, Matriarch," the image of Fleet Commander Nymaleth said, her voice pleasant and respectful.
"That's excellent to hear, thank you Nymaleth," Matriarch Leena Ghilwen replied, delighted by the startling change in demeanour in her most senior officer.
Nymaleth smiled at her, and with a far-away look in her blue eyes, she replied wistfully, "I should be thanking you for your wonderful gift, Matriarch. Meeting John Blake was the greatest experience of my life, I've never met anyone quite so amazing..." She paused, then looked abashed as she continued, "I'm so sorry for the way I behaved towards you before; to question your orders was unconscionable."
Leena smiled at her, and said, "Don't worry about that, it's all in the past now."
"Edraele has been explaining your plans to me, and I want you to know that you have my absolute loyalty, I swear it," Nymaleth said, her voice fierce in its sincerity.
Leena paused for a moment, shocked by her Fleet Commander's earnest reply. She gave the older woman a grateful smile, and said, "Thank you, that's wonderful to hear."
Edraele stepped into view beside the young House Ghilwen Matriarch, and said in a kind voice, "We would've liked to explain our objectives to you in person, but I hope you understand that we had to move quickly to apply pressure on the Ghilwen border with House Holaris."
Nymaleth's eyes went wide, and she gasped as she saw the House Valaden Matriarch for the first time. "You're so beautiful!" she finally managed to murmur, entranced by Edraele's flowing white hair.
"Thank you, that's very kind of you to say, Nymaleth," Edraele replied, inclining her head politely. She studied her for a couple of seconds before she added, "Your new colouring is very becoming, too."
Nymaleth blushed a dark-blue, and her hand reached up to her short snowy-white hair. "I'm planning to grow it out, just as you suggested, Matriarch," she replied, now quite comfortable with an idea she had previously thought to be utterly scandalous.
"You'll look stunning, and John will love it," Edraele said, with an indulgent smile.
The Ghilwen Fleet Commander let out a happy sigh, then bowed her head respectfully to Leena, as she said, "I'll inform you when we safely deliver the Terran females to Genkiri Station, Matriarch."
Leena smiled at her in acknowledgement, then replied, "I look forward to speaking to you again. Have a safe journey, Nymaleth." With that, she closed the comm channel and sank back in her chair, looking up at Edraele in amazement. Her voice belied her shock as she said, "She seems like a completely different person! All the distrust and suspicion towards me, it's like they've been wiped away..."
The House Valaden Matriach sank gracefully to her knees beside the stunned young woman, and gave her a warm smile as she said, "This is why our plans are so important. Can you see now, why we must do everything we can to support John?"
Nodding and looking at her wide-eyed, Leena replied, "You're so wise, Edraele. I believed you before, but to see it for myself was astonishing." She flushed as she added, "I can't wait to meet him."
Edraele smiled at her fondly, and then pulled her in for a hug as she said, "You're such a good girl, he's going to adore you. I'll arrange for you to meet him tomorrow."
Leena let out a happy sigh, and hugged her friend tightly, her heart filled with gratitude.
There was a purple flash in the Medical Bay and Faye blinked into existence, then called out, "Tashana, it's only me. Are you awake?"
"Yes, what is it?" Tashana replied testily, from where she lay on the hospital bed in the farthest corner of the room. She sat upright and pulled on her mask, narrowing her eyes as she glared at the irritating purple construct. Despite being scared, she'd been trying to get some rest while she could, knowing that soon she'd have to be sharp and alert, if she was going to be able to convince Edraele of the terrible danger they were facing.
The insipid AI put on one of those big smiles, no doubt designed to lull the unwary into a false sense of security, and said chirpily, "We'll be arriving at Genthalas Station in ten minutes! I just wanted to let you know, as we'll all be disembarking then."
"Alright," Tashana replied, feeling a shiver of fear run up her spine. "What does that mean for me?"
"If you leave too, you can see your mother again if you like, she'll be there on Genthalas. After that, you can get a shuttle down to Valaden if you want to return home," Faye suggested, her kind smile no doubt masking some insidious plot.
Tashana knew she'd have to act fast to try and get to her mother before the Progenitor could enthrall her, just like he'd turned Irillith into a slave. She rose to her feet, and said curtly, "Alright, show me to the airlock, I'm eager to see my mother the moment we land."
The AI looked delighted, and replied, "Of course! I'd be happy to help. If you just follow me, I'll lead you down there."
The door to the Medical Bay opened, and the purple sprite pranced over there, with her ridiculous wings vibrating all the while. Tashana grimaced at the saccharine sweetness of the AI's beaming grin as she beckoned her over, and reluctantly walked across the Medical Bay to follow after her. When she reached the corridor, she poked her head out and checked both ways, then prowled after the fluttering construct.
There was no sight of the Progenitor and his thralls, but she was in the lair of the beast, and knew they were all lurking around nearby. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle with goosebumps as she walked warily after the AI's holographic image. All her senses felt on high alert, and her pointed ears listened intently for the slightest sound as she walked down the corridor. When she reached the end, there were two glowing fields, one red, one blue, and when she edged closer and glanced downwards, saw that there was at least a ten-metre drop to the bottom of the shaft.
"It's an anti-gravity field," the AI explained, her wide smile no doubt meant to be reassuring. "Just step into the red side, and you'll float harmlessly to the bottom."
Tashana balked at the thought of trusting her, but then she heard the sounds of cheerful laughter drifting down from the upper levels. Her pupils flared, and she realised how close to danger she actually was. Terror of the Progenitor overcame her fear of the lift shaft, and she stumbled into the red glow, bracing herself for a terminal fall. Surprisingly, the AI had been telling the truth, and she was cushioned by the anti-gravity field, and gently lowered to the lowest level.
Faye was waiting for her outside the grav-tube in the corridor beyond, and said, "The airlock's just this way. We'll be docking shortly."
She nodded and made a shooing motion at the AI, which skipped away down the corridor towards what was obviously an airlock at the end. There was a window beside the airlock door, and she could see the golden spires and crystal domes of Genthalas as the ship made its final approach. The lush greens and vibrant blues of her homeworld, Valaden, provided a spectacular backdrop to the glorious Maliri architecture of the huge space station, and her heart ached at the beautiful sight.
Tashana stumbled towards the door, feeling a riotous swirl of emotions. There was a fierce yearning to see her home once again, but it was mixed with trepidation about being reunited with her cruel, heartless mother. She despised Edraele for believing Irillith's lies and having her banished, but she was her only hope of repelling the Progenitor before it was too late. As much as she was thrilled about being back in Maliri Space once again, she felt a deep-seated horror at the thought of a Progenitor so close to her homeworld. The damage he could do when unleashed on the unsuspecting populace below...
"Are you happy about coming home?" Faye asked quietly, from where she stood just beside her.
Jumping out of her skin at the unexpected sound of the AI's voice, Tashana turned to stare at her, trying to recall what she'd just asked: "Are you happy?" She managed to choke back near hysterical laughter, and just nodded to shut the sprite up. Sadly her plan failed.
The AI grinned at her in delight, and said, "That's all everybody wants! We just want to try and make sure you're okay. John will be delighted to hear you're happy to be home."
Tashana turned back towards the airlock, knowing that those last few minutes were going to drag interminably. John... it was such an innocuous sounding name, not like Mael'nerak, which literally meant 'evil enslaver' in ancient Maliri. Perhaps the Progenitors had grown more subtle since Mael'nerak's time, and decided not to announce their nature with their very name.
"Yeah, I'm practically jumping for joy," she muttered sarcastically to the purple construct.
Faye's programming was oblivious to Tashana's sarcasm, so she clapped with glee, and exclaimed, "I'm so glad! John and the others will be here in a minute, they'd love to speak with you!"
Tashana's heart started pounding harder in her chest, and she shivered with fear. She turned back towards the grav-tube and heard the sound of animated chatter coming from the upper levels. The ominous sound of the mindless thralls laughing happily reached her sharp ears, and she quailed at the thought of being exposed to them again. Whirling around to look through the airlock window, she saw the telltale sight of golden arches, which meant they'd already landed in one of Genthalas' docking bays. She blinked in surprise, having not even felt a tremor when they'd touched down, but forced herself to shrug it off.
"Open the airlock!" she said sharply to the AI.
"But the others will be here in a minute," Faye protested, giving her a cautious and optimistic smile.
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