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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5637 | overview Announced
Announced Announced
February 2006
Learn more about the newest digital cameras.
Compared To Compared to recent compacts
Out of 7 recent compacts, 7 have (significantly) better announced than the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100
February 2006
February 2019
July 2018
January 2018 |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5655 | Kids AlphabetsEducation
An educational app for kids which helps them quickly learn ABC Alphabets.
My First ABC is a must have app for preschool kids to start learning ABC alphabets.
how can we help you?
Contact us by calling or submit a business inquiry online. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5665 | Mourning Has Broken on iTunes
Valentine’s Day has come early at SubProd as the critically acclaimed feature Mourning Has Broken is now available on iTunes in 47 countries! Now is your opportunity to watch what Unsung Films called a “simultaneously entertaining and profoundly moving” film and Marked Movies gave 4 STARS to while calling Mourning Has Broken “intimate and hysterical”.
CLICK HERE for the iTunes link and thanks for the support! |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5667 | SUPERFAMILY 1.75 HMM library and genome assignments server
Domain combinations for _gap_,51419,50621 superfamilies in Bacillus thuringiensis str. Al Hakam
51419 - PLP-binding barrel
50621 - Alanine racemase C-terminal domain-like
Phylogenetic distribution
Other domain architectures with a similar genomic distribution.
See the phylogenetic distribution for this domain architecture.
Domain combination graphics and links
1 sequences contain the _gap_,51419,50621 domain architecture in Bacillus thuringiensis str. Al Hakam.
Add higher domain architectures which include the chosen architecture.
Click on a domain architecture to see the domain assignment details. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5668 | Accessing the media player tool
To upload a video using the media player first, Select your 'course' after logging in to Moodle for which you are authorized to make changes.
Click on the 'Turn Editing On' button on the top right hand side corner and follow the steps demonstrated below to upload an image resource.
Once you have turned the editing 'ON' for your course page, navigate to the 'Add a Resource' drop-down for your desired week and select the Media Player resource from the drop-down list.
Once you select the tool from the drop-down as shown in the previous step you will be directed to the activity information page:
1. Enter a suitable title and description for the image resource in the 'Activity Name' and 'Activity Description' fields.
2. Click on 'Save and Display' once you have finished entering the above two fields.
Uploading a new image file and sharing it in the course
To begin uploading new media content, select the upload image option from the interface.
A brief description of the options available is provided below:
Source : The source tab allows the user to specify where the system should pick up the image file from.
• Upload from device: Users can upload a image file from their computers, tablets and phones using this option. To begin uploading a file, click on the 'Select a file' option. Additionally if the device browser supports HTML5, users can also drag and drop a file into the highlighted area to initiate the upload. Please do not close the browser tab till the upload process is completed.
*Only when the device browser supports HTML 5. Not valid for Internet Explorer version 9
• Enter URLUsers can also upload an image file using an HTTP/FTP link that points to the file.
• Using the FTP Browser: Click on the 'FTP Browser' link. A dialog box will open where the user can specify the host and other information of the FTP server. Click on 'Connect' to connect to the FTP server. A list of files in the FTP server will be shown. Navigate to the directory/folder and select the image file to upload.
Title: Enter a suitable title for the uploaded image resource. The default title is obtained from the activity name that was provided.
Abstract / Summary: This text box allows the user to provide a image description and related information.
Collection InformationUsers who have been provided permissions to upload in a specific collection or collections in illumira can choose a collection here. The collections a user can upload in illumira are automatically detected and displayed in the drop-down list. However if the user is a new user then the uploaded image resources are automatically deposited in the institutions default collection. The default collection is specified by the institution's illumira administrator.
Send email notifications when media is available to view: Sends out an email to all specified email addresses notifying the availability of the uploaded resource.
Importing a previously uploaded image resource
Faculty/Administrators can use the 'Pick Media' option to select image resources which are available for them and add them into the course.
In addition to any image resources listed under 'My Media', users also have the option to pick and choose files from other sources such as any bookmarked resources, shared image resources etc.
The 'Select a source' option displays the collections and available media that can be added. Users can choose from:
· My Media (default view): This option lists all the media and image resources uploaded by the user or that to which the user is assigned as a 'co-owner' from the resource permissions page.
· My Favorites: This option lists all the media and image resources that have been bookmarked by the user as a 'Favorite'
· Pick a Collection: Users can click on this option to browse through institutional collections displayed as a hierarchical structure. The collections option lists all the institutional collections, containing media and all image resources that are shared with the entire institution. In addition instructors can also see listed any hidden/unlisted collections as long as they have access to (i.e. shared with) at least one media object or image resource in that collection.
Using Search Functionality
Users can utilize the available search functionality to search for a image resource within the selected category item.
Linking to an existing image resource using its illumira URL
Users can specify the URL of any illumira image resource that is is accessible by them to upload them to the course for the students to view.
Such titles may include image resources shared with them by another user as well as any illumira media or image resource that is publicly accessible.
Copy paste the media link into the text-box and click 'Submit'. The title will be added to the media list in the course.
Managing uploaded image resources
An image resource uploaded into a course section can be removed using the "Remove Media" option available under the Action drop-down. Click and confirm to remove a resource from within the course and upload a new file.
Instructors also have the option to get the image resource URL by using the Copy URL option available within the interface. This allows easy access of the resource URL to link it into a different course if required. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5670 |
Statistic Relays
From SpacialAudio
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
(In-Depth Statistic Relay Addition)
Line 28: Line 28:
* '''[[Adding a SHOUTcast Statistic Relay]]'''
* '''[[Adding a MediaPoint Manager Statistic Relay]]''': ''For Windows Media streaming''
* '''[[Adding a MediaPoint Manager Statistic Relay|Adding a MediaPoint Manager (Windows Media) Statistic Relay]]'''
Revision as of 14:16, 30 October 2007
The Statistic relays window provides a quick overview of the status of all inserted streaming servers and an interface to add, modify or remove streaming servers/relays. This is the same on SAM Broadcaster, SOS and Simplecast.
Note: In this section, a relay server and a streaming server are exactly the same and used interchangeably.
Statistic Relays Control
Statistic Relay on SAM Broadcaster v4
Statistic Relay on SAM Broadcaster v4
1. Dropdown menu provides the same options available from the rest of the toolbar buttons.
2. Plus ("+") button will add a new relay. Pressing the button will launch the relay plugin selection window, and you can follow the process as described below in the In-Depth area.
3. Configure button will present the details of the currently selected relay.
4. Minus ("-") button will delete the selected relay from the list.
5. Force update button will force all relays to update their status.
• Note: The update might not be instant and can take a few seconds to complete (especially if you have a lot of relays).
6. Checkbox specifies if the relay will be shown inside the Statistic relays graph.
7. The Color-code box chooses which color that relay will show as.
8. Relay (#) number box shows the ascending order.
9. Viewers shows you how many listeners are and have been on your station in Current viewers/Max viewers fashion.
10. High shows peak viewers since the program started.
11. File Format tells you which kind of stream is on that line.
12. Streaming Bitrate tells you at what kbp/s your stream is streaming at.
13. Server type shows you the type the relay is.
14. Status explains if the stream is streaming, idle or erroed out.
15. Details gives the details of the status line.
In-Depth Statistic Relay Addition
Please follow these links on how to add a statistic relay:
Personal tools |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5674 | Algorithm 583: LSQR: Sparse Linear Equations and Least Squares Problems. An iterative method is given for solving Ax = b and min|| Ax - b||2 , where the matrix A is large and sparse. The method is based on the bidiagonalization procedure of Golub and Kahan. It is analytically equivalent to the standard method of conjugate gradients, but possesses more favorable numerical properties. Reliable stopping criteria are derived, along with estimates of standard errors for x and the condition number of A. These are used in the FORTRAN implementation of the method, subroutine LSQR. Numerical tests are described comparing LSQR with several other conjugate-gradient algorithms, indicating that LSQR is the most reliable algorithm when A is ill-conditioned.
This software is also peer reviewed by journal TOMS.
References in zbMATH (referenced in 323 articles , 1 standard article )
Showing results 1 to 20 of 323.
Sorted by year (citations)
1 2 3 ... 15 16 17 next
1. Asgari, Z.; Toutounian, F.; Babolian, E.; Tohidi, E.: LSMR iterative method for solving one- and two-dimensional linear Fredholm integral equations (2019)
2. Berger, Peter; Gröchenig, Karlheinz; Matz, Gerald: Sampling and reconstruction in distinct subspaces using oblique projections (2019)
3. Boiveau, Thomas; Ehrlacher, Virginie; Ern, Alexandre; Nouy, Anthony: Low-rank approximation of linear parabolic equations by space-time tensor Galerkin methods (2019)
4. Buttari, Alfredo; Orban, Dominique; Ruiz, Daniel; Titley-Peloquin, David: A tridiagonalization method for symmetric saddle-point systems (2019)
5. Chung, Julianne; Gazzola, Silvia: Flexible Krylov methods for (\ell_p) regularization (2019)
6. Dahito, Marie-Ange; Orban, Dominique: The conjugate residual method in linesearch and trust-region methods (2019)
7. Estrin, Ron; Orban, Dominique; Saunders, Michael A.: LNLQ: an iterative method for least-norm problems with an error minimization property (2019)
8. Estrin, Ron; Orban, Dominique; Saunders, Michael A.: LSLQ: an iterative method for linear least-squares with an error minimization property (2019)
9. Gazzola, Silvia; Noschese, Silvia; Novati, Paolo; Reichel, Lothar: Arnoldi decomposition, GMRES, and preconditioning for linear discrete ill-posed problems (2019)
10. Gazzola, Silvia; Sabaté Landman, Malena: Flexible GMRES for total variation regularization (2019)
11. Jozi, Meisam; Karimi, Saeed; Salkuyeh, Davod Khojasteh: An iterative method to compute minimum norm solutions of ill-posed problems in Hilbert spaces (2019)
12. Karimi, Saeed; Jozi, Meisam: Weighted conjugate gradient-type methods for solving quadrature discretization of Fredholm integral equations of the first kind (2019)
13. Matteo Ravasi, Ivan Vasconcelos: PyLops - A Linear-Operator Python Library for large scale optimization (2019) arXiv
14. Paige, Christopher C.: Accuracy of the Lanczos process for the eigenproblem and solution of equations (2019)
15. Pestana, J.: Preconditioners for symmetrized Toeplitz and multilevel Toeplitz matrices (2019)
16. Scott, Jennifer A.; Tůma, Miroslav: Sparse stretching for solving sparse-dense linear least-squares problems (2019)
17. Slagel, J. Tanner; Chung, Julianne; Chung, Matthias; Kozak, David; Tenorio, Luis: Sampled Tikhonov regularization for large linear inverse problems (2019)
18. Tibaut, Jan; Ravnik, Jure: Fast boundary-domain integral method for heat transfer simulations (2019)
19. Akbari, Amir; Barton, Paul I.: An improved multi-parametric programming algorithm for flux balance analysis of metabolic networks (2018)
20. Arreckx, Sylvain; Orban, Dominique: A regularized factorization-free method for equality-constrained optimization (2018)
1 2 3 ... 15 16 17 next |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5675 | Autism Autism Spectrum Autism Understanding Behaviour Communication Community Let's Talk About Supports
Let’s Talk About: Scripting
If you’ve read yesterday’s post, I’m sure you can see the connection – the whole going over and over in your mind what you want to say, and what you expect the responses to be.
It’s something that I suspect all humans do, whether consciously or not (after all, what is the “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine, what about you?” “I’m fine too.” but a social script?), but the need for it tends to be more obvious for autistics. And introverts, as it happens – introverts have slightly different brain wiring that extroverts, in terms of responding to communications, that means it can take introverts up to a minute to respond to something that an extrovert might respond to immediately. When you’ve got both the autism – making it difficult to choose words, to know how other people will react, sometimes to even physically form the words – and introversion (because not all autistics are introverts – take a look at Diary of a Mom’s Brooke, who from all descriptions seems to be very much an extrovert), it can make things even harder.
So, the usual result of that sort of uncertainty of how things will happen in a social situation is to script out what you plan to say, or various possible things to say. I go over them in my head (thus the Thinking, Overthinking, and Brooding), but I know of others who will recite them out loud (see links below).
Assuming all goes well, your script will help keep you afloat on the seas of the confusion of social interaction. Of course, if what you’re scripting for is a presentation of some sort, you’re even better off, because that way there’s not as much actual interaction to worry about.
Unfortunately, scripts don’t always work. (For an example, see the first post from Musings of an Aspie below.) Whether it’s because someone says something unexpected, or the conversation in general gets redirected, or the topic you thought that you were going to be discussing just doesn’t get raised, sometimes even having a script can end up leaving you “high and dry” (to continue my sea of social interaction analogy).
For me, when that happens, I turn into a “wallflower”. I usually leave the group and go sit (or stand) somewhere else, usually alone but sometimes if I’ve got a close friend who’s attending, or a family member, I’ll go hover around them. Rather than continue my scripts which aren’t working, I tend to shut down. But I think that’s partly because I don’t usually script (consciously, at least) for minor interactions – those are something that I learned the “social rules for” when I was younger. When I’m scripting something consciously, it’s generally “bigger” than that: an attempt at self advocacy, or pointing something out to someone, or asking for help, or trying to describe an issue I’m having – things like that.
What do you tend to use scripting for, and what happens if it fails – or suceeds? Let’s talk about it!
Some links to other posts about scripting, all types:
😉 tagAught
By tagÂûght
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5692 | Jaynes hosts Greek Wine Tasting, Sunday Mothers Day
Looking for something special to do on Mother's Day? Mamma mia!
Taste 8 Greek wines with Jaynes Gastropub's favorite wine blogger, Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D.
Sunday, May 9
Mother's Day
$15 per person
5-7 pm
@Jaynes Gastropub
4677 30th Street @ Adams
(619) 563-1011 for reservations. Tickets also available at the door
Do you know your Moschofilero (MOHS-koh-FEE-leh-roh) from your Xinomavro (zee-NOH-mah-vroh)? There is no wine in the world that can transport you to the mysteries and beauty of Greece like her delicious wines. Come explore the lip-smacking, food-friendly flavors and aromas of Greek wines at Jaynes this Sunday, with 8 wines by the Boutari family of Greek wineries.
The Boutari estate group is the oldest winery in Greece and was the first to bottle, label, and ship the noble Xinomavro grape — the savory red grape of Greece — after Greece won its independence from the Ottoman empire in the nineteenth century. Today, its Moschofilero is the country's most popular white wine and its Naoussa, made from Xinomavro, regularly wins high praise from European and American wine critics alike.
Mamma mia! Treat mom to a voyage to Greece in a glass, this Mother's Day at Jaynes.
8 wines from 6 different Greek wineries. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5693 | The Year in Film—Mysteries of 2019 edition
1. Who thought a live remake of Aladdin was needed? Bonus question: Who ever told Will Smith that he could sing?
2. Which is the worse example of moneygrubbing—the endless stream of comic book movies that constitute the MCU, or Julian Fellowes and company cranking out a lame Downton Abbey movie when he clearly ran out of plot well before the television series finished its run? Bonus question—Why did Fellowes abandon the theme of the series, which was all about time marching on and the need to adapt or be left in the dust, for a retro-values plot about royalty coming to visit?
3. What possessed Tom Hooper to make a CGI-heavy version of a Broadway musical and cast it primarily with big name non-dancers? Bonus question: Will this big-budget flop land Hooper in director jail? (Most likely answer—he’s a straight white dude, so no.)
4. How many ways did the film version of The Goldfinch get it wrong? Bonus question: What do people find appealing about Ansel Elgort?
5. How did For Sama make the Oscars documentary shortlist and The Cave did not? Bonus question: do the Oscar voters simply not have room in their brains for two documentaries about Syrian women in the same year? | Sarah Boslaugh
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5704 | #11 – Busting Out
A new episode of the Lawndale Lowdown is out, and all the rules and regulations in the world can’t stop that! We don’t think Jefferson said that, but in any case, for this episode, we discuss the 10th episode of season 1, ‘The Big House’, where Quinn is overdramatic, Mr DeMartino might have another heart attack, and everyone really needs to stop being a geek.
Also, we discuss a woman who really, really likes Marmite.
The theme music is a cover of “You’re Standing On My Neck” performed by unouomedude. You can download it for free by clicking here.
You can download the episode MP3 directly by clicking here.
You can also find us on iTunes by clicking here.
Or you can subscribe to the RSS feed and get each new episode automatically by clicking here.
Voice over work courtesy of Robb Moreira. Find out more about his work at www.robbmoreira.com
Woman Loves Marmite So Much She Eats It As A Pasta Sauce – http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/02/woman-loves-marmite-so-much-she-eats-it-as-a-pasta-sauce-6609756/
About the Author
Just some weirdo blogger who likes Daria, video games, quiz shows and other such things. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5733 | Twisted cookware is now a thing! Shop the collection
7 common foods that can have seriously weird effects on your body
7 common foods that can have seriously weird effects on your body
Order from Twisted London now!
It makes sense that what we put in our bodies can have a dramatic impact. As delicious as junk food may be, it’s no mystery that it can leave you feeling both guilty and really ill. But food can do much more than leave you with a lingering sense of shame and a stomach ache. It turns out that some of our favourite ingredients can produce a variety of bizarre and unexpected side effects. These can sometimes be subtle, but there’s no mistaking them once you know they are there. Here are seven common foods that can have seriously weird effects on your body.
Stomach ache Credit: Pixabay
1. Spicy food
The various after effects of an ill-advised curry can be as painful as they are NSFW, but something that sometimes slips under the radar is how spice can affect your sleep. Scientists have found evidence that eating spicy food can lead to bizzare dreams and even nightmares, as a result of our digestion interfering with sleep continuity. Some have even suggested that seeking out dairy to ease the pain of fiery food can also increase the likelihood of weird dreams.
spicy food Credit: Pixabay
2. Soy
Veganism and lactose intolerance have both helped soy’s popularity to explode. Unfortunately for future generations, this may not be a good thing. Several studies have pointed out the correlation between soy consumption and male fertility, with the bean appearing to adversely affect sperm count.
soybeans Credit: Pixabay
3. Garlic
It might be one of the most delicious ingredients on the planet, but garlic has a hidden dark side. For the hygiene conscious, it’s important to note that garlic can have a dramatic impact on your body odour. Thanks to an amino acid known as allicin, a compound that produces a sulphur-like smell, eating raw garlic can cause your sweat to smell much more strongly than usual.
garlic cloves Credit: Garlic
4. Asparagus
The single most popular asparagus fact is definitely what it does to your pee. However, why these vegetables should make your urine smell so strange is actually a much debated and little understood mystery. Though we know that the presence of sulphur-like asparagusic acid is probably responsible for the smell, scientists are unable to explain why only around half the population are able to detect it.
asparagus on a plate Credit: Pixabay
5. Meat
For many of us, giving up on red meat would be like taking a vow of celibacy. Unfortunately, it turns out that continuing to eat it might have much the same effect. A Czech study showed that women found that men who ate no meat had a far more attractive smell than those who ate it every day, meaning that we might have a decision to make between steak and finding a partner.
Steak on a board Credit: Pixabay
6. Carrots
They might not help you see in the dark, but carrots aren’t incapable of having an interesting effect on the body. As unbelievable as it may seem, eating too many can actually cause your skin to change colour to a yellowy-orange. The transformation is a direct result of the chemical beta-carotene, which is also found in veggies such as squash and sweet potatoes.
Carrots Credit: Pixabay
7. Beetroot
It turns out asparagus isn’t alone in playing havoc with our pee. Despite being packed full of nutrients and health benefits, beets can cause an alarming physical condition known as beeturia. Affecting around 14% of the population, beeturia causes both urine and stools to stain pink or purple - which can be alarming to anyone not knowing what to expect.
beetroot Credit: Pixabay
Our bodies are strange things. Food that might seem perfectly innocent can cause seemingly dramatic changes to take place - some of which can seem extremely shocking. At least now, the next time you produce a purple poo or someone complains about your smell, you’ll know exactly what to blame.
Twisted Cookbook Banner |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5741 | Elvish Scout
Although the equines bred by the wood elves are much faster and far more agile than regular horses, they tend to be more fickle and harder to master. It takes many years to train an Elven pony, but once tamed, they are among the most loyal and devoted mounts. These unique horses allow Elvish horsemen to ride at extreme speeds through thick forests with nary a scratch and outpace most other cavalry on open ground. Though these riders possess some skill in wielding swords and bows, their greatest effectiveness comes from their ability to scout and outmaneuver enemy forces rather than engage in combat directly. Elvish scouts are most often used as messengers and support units and are adept at quickly transferring information between patrols and skirmish groups, whom they also reinforce when necessary.
Advances from:
Advances to: Elvish Rider
Cost: 18
HP: 32
Moves: 9
XP: 32
Level: 1
Alignment: neutral
Id: Elvish Scout
Attacks (damage × count)
(image)sword(blade attack) blade4 × 3(melee attack) melee
(image)bow(pierce attack) pierce6 × 2(ranged attack) ranged
(icon) blade0% (icon) pierce-20%
(icon) impact0% (icon) fire0%
(icon) cold0% (icon) arcane-10%
TerrainMovement CostDefense
(icon) Castle160%
(icon) Cave330%
(icon) Coastal Reef230%
(icon) Deep Water0%
(icon) Fake Shroud0%
(icon) Flat140%
(icon) Forest160%
(icon) Frozen230%
(icon) Fungus250%
(icon) Hills250%
(icon) Mountains360%
(icon) Sand230%
(icon) Shallow Water320%
(icon) Swamp230%
(icon) Unwalkable0%
(icon) Village140%
Last updated on Fri Dec 27 23:44:54 2019. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5763 | African Mango and Cellan Diet
Native to the West Africa, African Mango is known as Irvingia or Irvingia gabonensis in the botanical world. Natives have been using African Mango for many centuries to thicken soup and other dishes. Research found that edible seed in African Mango contains an incredible amount of leptin, an ingredient closely associated with improving metabolism and help to suppress appetite. Native would have recognized this effect of the fruit for many centuries before. Dr. provides some good articles about African Mango & Cellan Diet.
Cellan also known as Cellan Diet contains African Mango as its main ingredient and therefore, the pill carries the benefit of leptin. These benefits have been enhanced by adding other ingredients to the Cellan Diet. These other ingredients include 100 percent green tea extract, Vitamins C and B3, and an exclusive berry blend. Green tea is closely associated with high level of EGCG. Vitamins C and B3 provides minerals that needed in your body for proper functioning and metabolism. The berry blend act as an antioxidant. Together, the Cellan Diet helps you to fight fat production in the body and improve metabolism. In order to receive desired benefits, use the pill as directed by the manufacturer.
You may also like... |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5769 | Difference between revisions of "Code Completion Design"
From CodeBlocks
Jump to: navigation, search
m (Usefull Links: add a link to forum explanation of CodeLite's CC design pattern)
m (Debug Log output: add wxString Debug output code)
Line 248: Line 248:
==UI issue==
==UI issue==
===Debug Log output===
===Debug Log output===
If you want to debug your plug-in, you may need to Logout the debug information. Mostly, here is the code
wxString name;
wxString args;
wxString m_Str;
Also, you need start the codeblocks with the command line argument. For example in windows.
'''codeblocks.exe --debug-log'''
'''codeblocks.exe --debug-log'''
Revision as of 07:18, 18 March 2009
How to build
Get the source code
See a screen shot of these code opened in code::blocks under windows below.
Code completion source tree opened in code::blocks
Build the code completion plug in
Code completion build target option in code::blocks
Note, you should use "update.bat" to copy the new generated dll to the destination and strip the debug information. Here is the modified bat file which only update CodeCompletion.DLL.
@echo off
echo Creating output directory tree
set CB_DEVEL_RESDIR=devel\share\CodeBlocks
set CB_OUTPUT_RESDIR=output\share\CodeBlocks
set ZIPCMD=zip
xcopy /D /y %CB_DEVEL_RESDIR%\plugins\codecompletion.dll %CB_OUTPUT_RESDIR%\plugins\codecompletion.dll
echo Stripping debug info from output tree
strip %CB_OUTPUT_RESDIR%\plugins\codecompletion.dll
see Installing_Code::Blocks_from_source_on_Windows for more information.
Low level parser(Lexical analysis)
For someone haven't heard what does "Token" and "Tokenize" means, you should read the wikibooks article A brief explain of what does a parser do and Tokenize on wikipedia. Shortly, a parser treats your C++ or C code as a large array of characters, then this big string was divided to small atomic strings(these string has a unique meanings and can't divided into sub-strings, such as symbols, identifiers, keywords, digital numbers), meanwhile "spaces" and "comments" were ignored.
for a simple c++ program like below
int main()
return 0;
After tokenizing, it should give these 15 tokens
1 = string "int"
2 = string "main"
3 = opening parenthesis
4 = closing parenthesis
5 = opening brace
6 = string "std"
7 = namespace operator
8 = string "cout"
9 = << operator
10 = string ""hello world""
11 = string "endl"
12 = semicolon
13 = string "return"
14 = number 0
15 = closing brace
Tokenizer class
A class named "Tokenizer" was introduced in "tokenizer.cpp" and "tokenizer.cpp". There are several steps to running the Tokenizer class. It can just return a unicode wxString as a token.
parser thread
A thread must be created to parse a source file. see parserthread.cpp and Parserthread.h
Read a source file
Open the source file and convert the file buff to Unicode mode.(since we are all using Unicode build of code::blocks, and ANSI mode is outdated and deprecated).
Get or Peek a token
The class contains file position indicator(see File Open In C language ) pointing to the current position of the character(m_TokenIndex), you can Get or Peek to get the correct token you desired.
//Get the current Token and increase the Tokenindex
wxString GetToken();
//Peak the current and NOT increase the index
wxString PeekToken();
For example, if the Tokenizer was parsing the example code above.
• After initialize the Tokenizer, call the GetToken() function will return a wxString "int" and increase the token index to pointing to "int".
• Then, call the PeekToken() will return a wxString "main", but the tokenindex was still pointing to "main".
• If you call the GetToken() again, then it will return a "main" immediately and increase the file pointer to "main".
Note: Internally, the Tokenizer class use a "undo and peek cache" to do this trick. Once a token is peeked, it will be saved in the m_Peek member, so, calling GetToken() will quickly return saved value without calling the "DoGetToken()" procedure again.
Cb token cache.png
Nested Value
This value was keep to indicate your are in the correct brace pair.If the Tokenizer meets a {, it will increase the nestValue, and if it meets a }, it will decrease the m_NestLeve. See the pseudo code in Tokenizer.cpp below.
if (CurrentChar() == '{')
else if (CurrentChar() == '}')
SkipUnwanted tokens
There is a member function in Tokenizer class to skip comments, assignments, preprocessor etc.
For example, if there is a statement below:
a = b + c;
if SkipUnwanted() meet the "=" symbol, it will skip everything until it meets "," or ";" or "}", this means this statement will be omitted by the Tokenizer if m_SkipUnwantedTokens == true.
Sometimes, this behavior becomes a nightmare to parse the statement like default argument in template.
template<class T = int>
class abc {
T m_a;
if the Tokenizer find that a "=", it will skip any characters until it meets a "}", so, the class declaration will totally be skipped. So, at this time, we should manually disable this functionality by setting m_SkipUnwantedTokens = false to parse these statements correctly. That's why you will see many situations when you enter a function, you should save the m_SkipUnwantedTokens and disabled it, when you leave a function, you should manually restore it.(Seefunction implementation in ParseThread.cpp)
Return a correct token
Cc std replacement.png
inline const wxString& ThisOrReplacement(const wxString& str) const
if (it != s_Replacements.end())
return it->second;
return str;
Code completion build target option in code::blocks
Note: CodeCompletion plugin is not a preprocessor, so it is difficult to deal with the source mixed with many macro, or some strange marcos. This is something like Ctags' replacement options "−I identifier−list" in ctags option detial or CodeCompletion macro FAQ
High level parser(Syntax Analysis)
Basically, we can say, the low level parser(Tokenizer) moves its pointer character by character, and return a wxString(token) to feed the high level parser(Syntax analyzer). A Token(note: it as a capital means it's class type) class was introduced to describe its character.
Token class
class Token : public BlockAllocated<Token, 10000>
wxString m_Name;
wxString m_Args;
wxString m_AncestorsString; // all ancestors comma-separated list
unsigned int m_File;
unsigned int m_Line;
unsigned int m_ImplFile;
unsigned int m_ImplLine; // where the token was met
TokenScope m_Scope;
TokenKind m_TokenKind;
bool m_IsOperator;
bool m_IsLocal; // found in a local file?
int m_ParentIndex;
TokenIdxSet m_Children;
TokenIdxSet m_Ancestors;
TokenIdxSet m_DirectAncestors;
TokenIdxSet m_Descendants;
Basically, you can see the Token class contains the information for locating. For example, in the previous source code. A Token for "main" should contains it's name (obviously , m_Name="main" ), then m_File will record which file dose this Token exist. m_Line will give the line number of "main" in this source file, and so on.
BlockAllocated class
Operator new overloading for fast allocate in the heap
return result;
When a specific Token is identified( whether it's a global variable, a class declaration, a class member function, and so on), it will be recorded in a database(TokenTree), also, for fast string matching, a compact Patricia tree(see the wikipedia Patricia tree on wikipedia) is build to keep their names.
For example, If you add three item to the TokenTree.
The Tree structure will show as
- "" (0)
\- "p" (4)
+- "hysi" (2)
| +- "cs" (1)
| \- "ology" (3)
\- "sychic" (5)
Search Tree Node Depth
Depth of Search Tree Node is defined by the string length from the root tree. See a depth of each node on the search tree below. For example, the Node of "hysi" has a m_Depth = 5 ("" + "p" + "hysi" = 5).
Cb node depth tree.png
Search Tree Node Lable
For example, the node ""hysi" (2) has two children, they are "cs" (1) and "ology" (3), show below.
Cb tree node lable.png
flow of Token
This the a belief view of the Token flow chart. The parser collect the token information, and record them in the TokenSearchTree, the GUI function can query words from the database to show function tips or do a convenient navigation.
UI issue
Debug Log output
wxString name;
wxString args;
wxString m_Str;
codeblocks.exe --debug-log
Debug Log output panel
Usefull Links
svn co https://vcfbuilder.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vcfbuilder vcfbuilder |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5771 | Personal tools
Priors and biomedical source separation
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Title Priors in the biomedical source separation problems
Speaker Phlypo Ronald
Institution UNSA/CNRS
Date 2008/06/27
Time 14:30
Location Anfiteatro do IEETA
Country Portugal
The focus of this talk will be on the inclusion of priors into the framework of Blind Source Separation (BSS). Including priors allows for the permutation ambiguity inherent to the BSS-based models to be (partially) alleviated. Solving the permutation ambiguity is highly usefull for registrations in high dimensional spaces (such as EEG/MEG), since the computational load can be limited to the estimation of a component/subspace instead of the estimation of a basis for the complete space with subsequent posterior component selection. Fixing the order in which the sources are estimated is also useful in deflation based approaches, where sources are estimated one after another and the estimation error is known to propagate. We will also show that with the right choice of priors and under slightly restrictive conditions, the maxima of some contrast functions can be found algebraically.
To illustrate the use of the contrasts, clinical data will be used, including cerebral and cardiac noninvasive measurements. We will show that by choosing an appropriate contrast in function of the priors, the algorithms are able to eliminate ocular artefacts from the electro-encephalographic (EEG) recordings and to focus on the atrial activity in electro-cardiographic (ECG) recordings. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5780 | World Library
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Lempira (department)
Lempira is one of the 18 departments of Honduras, Central America, located in the western part of the country with borders with El Salvador. It was named Gracias department until 1943, and the departmental capital is Gracias.
In colonial times, Gracias was an early important administrative center for the Spaniards. It eventually lost importance to Antigua, in Guatemala.
Lempira is a rugged department, and it is relatively isolated from the rest of the country. The highest mountain peak in Honduras, Cerro las Minas, is in Lempira. The department was named after Lempira, a local chieftain of the Lenca people who fought against the Spanish conquistadores in the early 16th century. Opals are mined near the town of Opatoro.
The department covers a total surface area of 4,290 km² and, in 2005, had an estimated population of 277,910.
1. Belén
2. Candelaria
3. Cololaca
4. Erandique
5. Gracias
6. Gualcince
7. Guarita
8. La Campa
9. La Iguala
10. Las Flores
11. La Unión
12. La Virtud
13. Lepaera
14. Mapulaca
15. Piraera
16. San Andrés
17. San Francisco
18. San Juan Guarita
19. San Manuel Colohete
20. San Marcos de Caiquín
21. San Rafael
22. San Sebastián
23. Santa Cruz
24. Talgua
25. Tambla
26. Tomalá
27. Valladolid
28. Virginia
Coordinates: 14°35′N 88°35′W / 14.583°N 88.583°W / 14.583; -88.583
|
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5793 | Back to CPD Events
Accompanying the treatment of breast cancer with acupuncture and tongue diagnosis
Date(s): 28 April 2016
Time: 10am - 5pm
Eligibility: Acupuncture graduates & 2nd year students
Venue: College of Integrated Chinese Medicine, Reading
Gain greater confidence in evaluating the different tongue signs with Barbara Kirschbaum
An introduction to the pathology of breast cancer and the effects of chemotherapy from the point of view of Chinese medicine. Typical tongue signs in relation to the disease and treatment will be shown as well as a discussion of treatment strategies and acupuncture protocols.
Barbara Kirschbaum is a member of British Acupuncture Council and FMRCHM. She qualified in 1980 at ICOM; East Grinstead, England. She studied with Giovanni Maciocia, Ted Kaptchuk and Dan Bensky from 1978-1990 and from 1991 and 1997/98 in various internships at Chinese hospitals in Kunming, Tianjin and Chengdu. She is the author of the Atlas of Chinese Tongue Diagnosis, Volume 1 and 2, and author and publisher of several articles published in Germany. She has been in practice for over 30 years years and has specialized in the treatment of cancer, gynecology and gastrointestinal diseases. Currently she is the director of the TCM-clinic in the Jerusalem-Hospital in Hamburg
Please contact us directly if you require items to be shipped outside of the UK. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5810 | Film Corner: Alien Resurrection
Alien Resurrection
Alone in confinement, she notices a tattoo that says "8". They call her that, too: Number 8. While under examination, she attacks a doctor and tries to kill him. They have to shock her to save him. She regresses to "little girl" motions, twisting childishly in chairs and tilting her head at people. There's some gibberish as to why she has fragmented memories; we get an emotional reaction from her when she's shown a little girl who looks a little like Newt.
In the mess hall, Ripley warns the scientist that the alien is a queen. "She'll breed. You'll die. Everyone in the company will die." There's a joke that Weyland-Yutani was bought out by Wal-mart. I don't know if I like that angle; on the one hand, the later movies (*looks at Prometheus*) get a little silly about Weyland-Yutani being the source of all evil in the world. It makes sense to have a new antagonist that just... exists. Because mankind seeks to destroy itself. On the other hand, if Weyland-Yutani really is gone then that's a bit of an "end of an era" feeling.
Either way, we have a new theme that mankind meddles as a feature of the species rather than because of rampant capitalism. I preferred the capitalism angle. (Then again, there does come a natural point where audiences were questioning how Weyland-Yutani was justifying all this to the board of directors.) The scientist tells her that the creature will be useful once it has been tamed. "You can't teach it tricks," Ripley warns. "Why not?" he asks. "We're teaching *you*."
A proto-Firefly team (thank you @ScottMadin) approaches the facility. It's full of morally questionable characters, Winona Ryder, and a man who sexually harasses her on the job but it's supposed to be okay because he's disabled. (It's not okay.) The crew board the scientist vessel--which seems a strange fit for such an obvious outside-the-law sort of gang--and are searched for weapons. (We will later see that the wheelchair is used to smuggle in weapons, which is one of my least favorite tropes because it leads to ableds treating mobility devices with suspicion.)
It's not really well explained why a cargo of disposable people are "hard to come by", nor why the military would need to pay Firefly smugglers to bring them people, nor why they would need to pay exorbitant amounts, but apparently the future has fewer missing persons? It would work better, I think, if the scientists wanted a very specific type of person (O-negative blood or something) and couldn't just requisition 8 drifters for egg-implantation.
Anyway, the "cargo" wake up just in time to see the eggs opening and I'm left wondering why they were allowed to wake up at all. Maybe the facehuggers require a conscious host? Would explain why Ripley and Newt weren't implanted in their sleep, but would be a problem for A3.
Ron Perlman aka Proto Jayne tries to flirt with Ripley by playing basketball with her, but she turns violent and this crew of violent murderers seems to take exception to that, which seems a wee bit hypocritical. God, I would happily watch 2 hours of just Sigourney Weaver beating up men. This is the future liberals want, etc. Anyway, sorry, the scientists are very proud of the fact that Ripley can beat up a man with a basketball. She wipes away a nosebleed and it acid-burns the floor.
Here follows the sexiest movie scene ever and it involves a foot massage. Damn, I could go for a foot massage.
@seandehey. sorry if spammy i l o v e this movie. if you havent seen ron perlman's reaction to sigourney weaver nailing that trick shot, here it is.
Yes, this is beautiful.
While the Firefly crew enjoys their downtime, we see how the scientists keep the aliens in line: they have weaponized cryo freeze gas. Really, that's how you think this is going to work, scientists? This isn't just hubris; it's outright bad animal training! They don't have any treat-reinforcement for behavior they want to encourage, they just have punishment!
Winona gets drunk and stumbles around the ship only it's a RUSE because she wants in Ripley's room. Some stolen biometrics later and she's in Ripley's chamber with a knife. She's horrified to learn that the queen isn't inside Ripley anymore. "Ellen Ripley dies 200 years ago," Call tells her sadly. "You're not her." Ripley's face falls as she absorbs what she already knew.
Ripley warns that they're looking for Call. She leaves and is caught by guards; the Firefly crew is rounded up for execution. The Firefly crew quickly demonstrate that they're more capable and trained than the military. It really is funny how much this crew just IS Firefly but with different actors and a very few changes in role assignments. Whedon really loves the idea that experience makes a crew more deadly than training, and they go overboard here to the point where they can calculate bullet ricochet angles with deadly accuracy. I'd like this better if they didn't turn instantly useless when the horror starts.
The aliens take advantage of the distraction to kill one of their own (why were they housed together?) and the massive outpouring of acid instantly eats through the deck. They *knew* the aliens bleed acid, and they're IN SPACE. They don't have a way to neutralize the acid quickly in case of an accidental bleed out? Forget tactical suicide, what if one of them was sick? Injured? YOU'RE IN SPACE. If a single alien had a vomiting fit, they'd instantly breach the hull and everyone would die. These people are not qualified to run a bath.
The Firefly crew decide, wisely, to evacuate while all the soldiers die. Proto Malcolm Reynolds is picked off first, the aliens laying a clever trap for him by leaving a gun to tempt him. Ripley then uses the dead body as a trap to shoot the alien, which now does not seem to have any acid in him at all. This movie is not about scientific consistency! It is about FIREFLY and MOTHERHOOD. Ripley and Call can magically tell that the ship is moving even though that should be impossible. The ship is programmed to return to earth in case of emergency. What a great protocol!
Ripley and Jayne have a great conversation. "I heard you ran into these things before. What did you do?" / "I died."
Passing a suspicious room, Ripley investigates to find other versions of herself; some in terrible pain. A Ripley on a table begs for release. "Kill me." Crying, Ripley complies. This arc, at least, is revisited: that death can be a release. Though I remember liking Resurrection in the past, it must be said that it is paced very badly. After Suspicious Room #1 we come to Suspicious Room #2, where an infected survivor is located. He's confused and unaware; he was in cryo on his way to a job.
Honestly, god bless Weaver for her acting skills; she's really carrying this one on her shoulders.
Having done several rooms with talking, it's time to start picking people off as rapidly as possible. The crew has to swim through a flooded corridor because "the cooling tanks" have enough liquid to flood an entire ship level. Sure. I feel like here is where you could explore how *unlikely* it is that probably-space-born space-hoppers would even know how to swim, let alone be as good at it as they are here. The aliens swim excellently, though, so that's nice; I like when they're allowed to be elegant.
The aliens have booby-trapped the other end of the pool with membrane and eggs, which is an unexpectedly tactical deployment of the facehugger concept. Not sure how I feel about the trap; seems like if the facehugger gets you while you're swimming, you sink and die. Even if it keeps you alive by turning water into oxygen to pump down your throat, it dies and falls off and THEN you drown.
The wheelchair user had to abandon his chair before the pool--a plot point that I have never liked--and he is now dead weight to slow the guy carrying him. I really hate that so much. Anyway, the Evil Scientist shoots Call and she falls into the pool. Despite never having evidenced this ability before that I can remember, the aliens can spit acid. Christie unlatches himself from Vriess and falls to his death after being acided. This is the death I hate the most, I think. I liked Christie.
They're trapped but the door opens and a wounded Call is on the other side. She lives! Ripley gives her a Look. She's an android. "I should've known. No human being is that humane." It's a neat little full circle that Ripley has come, from fearing androids to considering them an improvement over humanity. Ripley instantly becomes protective and maternal because there was an existing theme of motherhood in these movies and we're going to run with it, dammit.
"I can't make critical mass. I can't blow it." / "Then crash it." Ripley, both you AND the alien survived the last crash. This seems like a bad idea. Why not just turn it around? You're not caught in a gravity well or anything! You just need to override the GPS. (You can see why the fanbase has basically declared the entire movie off-canon.)
Ripley and Call talk about nihilism. Ripley asks why Call cares. "Because I'm programmed to," she says tearfully. It's a shame the movie isn't better, because the scene has a lot of potential for exploring why we keep trying when times are hard. Like, Ripley really is an amazing case study. She keeps going despite the fact that her life is a nightmare of horrors that never end. Why? What motivates her? She's cycled from wanting to protect people to raw survival instinct.
Then MOTHERHOOD kicks in and Ripley feels sorrow for the nearby queen, who is in pain. Why? I honestly do not know except that Whedon has fucked up ideas about what MOTHERHOOD does to women? I mean, I guess you could handwave that this experience has made Ripley lose any real distinction between "human girl" in need of protection and "alien queen" in need of protection, but if that's the case then she's kinda lost the one defining thing that made her Ripley. Her whole thing isn't just "protect weak things", it's been "protect them FROM the aliens". But something something MOTHERHOOD and womanly hormones. That's SCIENCE.
Evil Scientist and Infected Victim take each other out in a rapid thinning of the cast.
Back at the alien nest, a scientist explains that just as the alien biology changed Ripley, so too did Ripley change the queen: she's got a human womb now and instead of eggs she's giving vaginal birth. MOTHERHOOD. (I blame Joss Whedon for this.) Hybrid Alien is born and kills the queen because she doesn't smell like mommy. That's gratitude for you, isn't it, ladies. Amiright? Motherhood, etc. Ripley does smell like mommy, but she has apparently gotten over whatever made her feel sympathy for the aliens and she makes a strategic decision to get the fuck out of Dodge.
The Firefly crew seems very confused about flying their own ship, and I understand that they're down several crew members but I feel like you'd train everyone in basic procedures like "how to take off". Despite dying 200 years ago, Ripley decides to fly the machine. "This piece of shit is even older than I am." It's silly but it's the kind of silly that I actually like, so I'll allow this silliness. (Science Fiction Writers Have No Sense of Scale, though, seriously. 200 years ago we were riding around in buggies.)
The Hybrid is on the ship (no, it makes no sense) and he closes the hatch so they can take off (that makes no sense either) and now he's chasing Call (which makes the least amount of sense) but just go with it, okay, because the ABORTION METAPHOR is coming. Apparently flying is no longer really important because Ripley runs off to go find Call, only to find that the Hybrid is on-board and trying to fondle Call to death. "Put it down!" Ripley orders, and the Hybrid does so. (Jayne takes the wheel back in the cockpit.) You see, he instinctively obeys her because MOTHERHOOD. Science.
Ripley flicks a drop of her own blood on a nearby window so that the acid will make a hole, and the Hybrid goes ripping out through the hole in an abortion metaphor that angered at least one conservative Christian blog I read one day while I was bored. I'm not even joking. Ripley feels sorrow as the Hybrid dies because MOTHERHOOD means that aborting the alien baby who would definitely kill you makes you a hormonal weepy mess. I want to know why the buckets of acidic blood he's hemorrhaging aren't widening that hole.
Anyway, that was Alien Resurrection. Is it a good movie to eat popcorn to? Yes, sure. Is it the weakest of the original Alien Quadrology? Yes, my god. My ranking of films so far:
- Aliens
- Alien
- Alien 3
- Alien Resurrection
If I have a beef with Resurrection, and I do, it's that the themes of motherhood were grossly mishandled. Ripley 1-3 loves and protects the weak because of her humanity, not because estrogen made her weepy. It reminds me a little of a similar mis-step they made with that awful Metroid reboot, actually. The only thing that really saves Resurrection from the dustbin is that there are some genuinely good quips--mostly given to Weaver and Perlman, as goddess intended--and the Firefly crew trope is inherently interesting because pirates are cool.
Several of you have asked if I'll keep going. The answer is yes, but not tonight. I will probably do Prometheus and Covenant next, but I also want to get in the first Predator v. Aliens (which was unexpectedly good for reasons I want to gush about) and maaaybe Predators.
I will add that in the Alien series books, Earth gets completely fucked up by aliens and I can see Resurrection wanting to tie in with that? Because I honestly can't think of any other good reason to CRASH the damn ship rather than just turn it around. Or fire on it. Like, you cannot convince me that a Firefly ship wouldn't have SOME kind of ship to ship weapon. Even if it's just the Guardian of the Galaxy solution of "open the bay door and fire with a regular gun".
Realistically, though, the ship should've been toast as soon as 1-5 gallons of alien blood were spilled in the initial alien escape. That should've eaten through the hull no matter how far away it was. But this was not about SCIENCE, it was about WOMB MAGIC.
I woke up this morning thinking how it's not the alien which causes Ripley to break down crying, it's the Company's betrayal and honestly that's a relatable mood. She gave her whole life to the Company and all she asked was that Weyland-Yutani be half as loyal to her as she was to them. But in the end, they were all "crew expendable". And it hurts her so much more than merely knowing monsters exist.
Open Thread: An old sunset
Film Corner: Alien 3
Alien 3
We'll go Special Edition again, because we can.
Back in the medical bay, Ripley wakes up and Clemens (the pretty boy who found her) explains she's at a "Weyland-Yutani work prison". Ripley's face when she learns she's the only survivor is just pure pain. Sigourney Weaver is an amazing actress. It used to be a 5,000 convict facility but it's been reduced to a custodial staff of 25. They make iron sheets for toxic waste containers. I don't know how this can be profitable but...Capitalism?
Alien 3 is grim because of all the deaths but I like it because it's honestly a natural continuation of a theme: Ripley tries to save people but they die. She can't triumph over death except temporarily. She saved Hicks and Newt for a little while, but their time came. And we see her increasing nihilism in her decreased concern for social niceties. (We'll see even more of that in Resurrection.) Like, love the series or hate it, I believe Weaver put a tremendous amount of effort into portraying a cogent character who realistically changes over a series of devastating disappointments.
Anyway, she sees an acid burn and realizes there was an alien on the ship. She demands to see the bodies and starts examining Newt for a chestburster. I don't think she thinks they're in danger; I think her sole concern is that the company NOT get an alien to play with. So Ripley is now trying to protect all of earth. Ripley demands an autopsy because she says Newt may have had cholera. "There hasn't been a case of cholera in 200 years." I like this because she's been asleep for most of that time and genuinely doesn't know.
Newt has no alien in her. The nice medical officer asks Ripley what they're really looking for, but they're interrupted by the head guy. Clemens covers for Ripley, saying he had to autopsy for cholera. Ripley demands a cremation and Clemens backs her again because he is an Ally, dammit.
Elsewhere on Planet Grimy, two prisoners mull over the mystery of a cow that died suddenly and the weird dead facehugger thing they've found. (The theatrical version had a dog, not a cow. The cow was a better choice.) The cremation service occurs, during which the cow erupts with an alien. Ripley cries and her nose bleeds. The eulogy is lovely. The alien baby is very CGI, but not in a bad way.
Sigourney Weaver showers over the sound of men grumbling about the corruptive power of her sexuality and it feels almost too on the nose for 2019. Ripley thanks the prisoners for their eulogy and she gets a crash course on their apocalyptic religion. Then she takes Clemens to bed so he'll stop asking why she wanted an autopsy. Again, I feel like this fits with her character arc: she's becoming more cynical in her attempts to eradicate the aliens. If that means fucking a cute boy, well, life is short and the last one died before she got to spend any time with him. Carpe diem.
Clemens is called away because of a dead prisoner. It looks like an industrial accident but...there's an acid spot. And now I pause for the night. While Clemens does official medical officer stuff, Ripley goes dumpster diving for the broken android (Bishop).
I'm informed by @liminalfruitbat that an early draft had this planet as a monastery / cult retreat, which fits the religion stuff much better. I'm not sure why they changed it to a prison, but I suspect they did so for the rape scene which now occurs. Which... sigh. Ripley is grabbed by 4 men and is about to be raped when the cult leader saves her. Again, we have a scene of sexual violence in which Ripley is saved from white men by a Black man (the first scene being in Alien) which for 1993 was a pretty deliberate statement.
I didn't mind the Ash scene because it was in service to a deeper company goal: what appears to be sexual assault is instead a cover-up. I would have preferred something like that here, but no, it's just the rape attempt it appears to be. It feels unnecessary, I guess is the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't add to her characterization. If it adds anything, it's that the cult leader is a better guy than you thought (despite being a prisoner and, he claims, guilty) but...was this scene needed for that? Idk.
Ripley repairs Bishop and he confirms there was an alien on the ship. He begs her to disconnect him rather than let him be repaired. Continuing her arc of being an angel of mercy (theme: death can be a release), she 'kills' him. Ripley approaches a huddled conference in which a man is accused of murder but swears it was a dragon. Ripley says he's telling the truth, but the head jailer tells her to sod off.
She tells the jailer about aliens, the cat already being out of the bag as it were. (Bishop informs her that the flight recorder transmitted all data back home.) We get the wonderful "we have no weapons here -- we're on the honor system" line. The prisoners are kept in line largely through fear and isolation -- since they can't leave the planet, rebellion would just end with them cut off and dead. Mind you, I don't think that would stop a really dedicated separatist, but I guess they need supplies.
Ultimately, he doesn't believe her and confines her to the infirmary. Wearily, she tells Clemens she has a sore throat and pained stomach. FORESHADOWING. Clemens tells his tragic backstory and Ripley gives him an affectionate look, so yeah, he's done for. An alien skewers him. Ripley, cornered, prepares to die but the creature sniffs her and withdraws.
Ripley breaks into the latest meeting to gasp "it's here!" The head jailer orders her sent back to the infirmary but then is dragged up into the ceiling by the alien--an effective piece of evidence for everyone to see. It's nice to see Ripley acknowledged as an expert for once. This is a high point in her own arc: she's gone from equally in the dark as everyone else (Alien), to an ignored expert (Aliens), to a veteran with people pleading for her knowledge.
The prisoners derisively call the junior jailer "85" and Ripley asks why; it's supposed to be his IQ. We're back to another theme from Alien with the lower-wage workers there: the company exploits the most vulnerable members of society, but Ripley works with them. (I still maintain that Gorman from Aliens fits into this category as well; he's played as not just inexperienced but genuinely the 1990s vision of someone neurodivergent.)
Ripley explains her "herd the alien into the smelter" plan and the cult leader asks "why should we put our ass on the line for you" so she can say "your ass is already on the line" like a badass. Shit gets fucked over, but they manage to trap the alien. Ripley and Junior Jailer phone Weyland-Yutani and she asks "permission to kill it", to see what they say. (They don't have the necessary weapons, regardless.) The computer spits back NO NO NO.
Then we undo all our good work with neurodivergence by having the most "crazy" prisoner assault his best friend because he wants to see the "dragon" again. Ugh.
While they try to decide what to do about the escaped alien, Ripley goes to the spaceship's medical pod scanner thingy. Junior Jailer offers to help her. There's an alien inside her chest. So we need to talk about this. A lot of fans dislike Alien 3 because it doesn't follow the "rules". Ripley doesn't die within hours of the facehugger coming off (like Kane did), and the alien from the cow/dog looks and behaves differently than the ones in Alien and Aliens.
But I actually like this because we're seeing the aliens' greatest strength which is their sheer adaptability. Aliens from human tissue look different from aliens which gestated in cow/dog tissue. It makes sense. Presumably they would look different from another species. Etc. And it makes sense that a queen might take longer to grow in a host than a drone would. OR that Ripley's body grew the queen more slowly than Kane did because of the very serious trauma she sustained in the crash.
We really don't even know whether Kane's chestburst was unusually fast or not; the colonists had been cocooned for a seemingly LONG time when the marines showed up, yet one was still alive to chestburst at them. (Hell, you could even speculate that Ash did something to speed up the process for Kane, but I don't think that's as plausible just because they knew so little about the species at the time.) In order for aliens to be the universe-spanning terror that they are, they would NEED to be able to adapt to whatever they could use as a host. That means a certain degree of flexibility. So honestly I like that the "rules" are broken here.
Ripley's scan is sent to the Company and the Junior Jailer is informed that it's of the absolute highest priority that she be quarantined. And, you know, I like this. Because it really is a mystery at this stage whether they mean that in a "good" way or "bad". Ripley suspects they want to capture an alien to study, but she really doesn't know that. She's cynical and nihilistic now, having lost everything she loved. Maybe they're really just trying to do the right thing and NOT have a queen running around killing people. All we've really seen of the Company wanting these creatures, after all, is Burke being a greedy shit. He might not be representative of the actual Company at large. It's a nice touch.
Ripley goes to hunt the creature, hoping it will kill her; it refuses, so she goes to find herself a killer to do the job for her. He refuses, too; he can't go back to what he was before. He really does an amazing job in this scene; his face shows so much emotion. He says she has to help him destroy the alien first. "If it won't kill you, maybe that helps us fight it."
Ripley gives a stirring speech about the way the Company declared both crew and marines expendable, and prisoners won't be worth more to them than that. After two movies of people being brutally picked off like popcorn, there's a certain catharsis in watching the prisoners go full olly-olly-oxen-free and just run around pell-mell trapping the alien in retro future corridors. Like, again, I can see why the movie isn't what the fanbase expected or wanted at the time--there's a certain silliness to it--but as the third installment in a movie marathon, it *works*. Humans can only live with abject terror for so long before, yeah, we tend to get a little silly about it. If I'm gonna die anyway, if I'm doomed, you bet your ass I'm going out Leroy Jenkins style.
God, it's really painful (in the right ways) to see Ripley have the occasional pain spasms. Something a lesser movie wouldn't remember to do with its "infected" hero. She's not able to herd it the way she wanted, which honestly makes sense -- it would be silly if the aliens were powerless in the face of an infected host. BUT, the cult leader picks her up and she screams and the alien reacts, which again *makes sense*. She can't magically herd it (because that would be a huge evolutionary disadvantage for this perfect species), but she CAN be used as bait. It follows to protect her. Ripley wants to stay but Dillon refuses to let her and he stays behind instead. He isn't the person he used to be. He holds the alien while they pour hot lead into the smelter onto them both.
Having "Bishop" show up at the end is so emotional. "The company sent me here to show you a friendly face." And there's so much contrast between the android who protected her and the human who can lie to her face. Sigourney Weaver's anguished face during the temptation is everything. She is an amazing actress. Bishop utterly fails to convince Ripley by yelling "IT'S A MAGNIFICENT SPECIMEN" at her, but I think it works here because he's human and irrational.
Ripley falls backwards, arms spread wide, jesus dying to save us all. The special edition doesn't have the chestburster coming out and her holding it in, which is a shame because I liked that scene, but it probably wasn't medically possible. The sun rises and the company men leave, shutting the facility behind them.
I'll do Resurrection in another thread; this one is getting long.
Open Thread: Leaves Turn
● Game of Thrones
Film Corner: Aliens
No one at the inquest believes Ripley which is honestly not as sinister as I think audiences tend to take it; she's either witnessed something right out of a horror movie OR she's mentally ill and possibly murdered her entire crew. They don't prosecute her or try to hold her responsible for the cargo; she's basically dumped into a second class citizen status where she can get low-class work but nothing prestigious. Lots of class politics here again.
She demands to know why they don't investigate the planet, but it's already populated by terraformers and they're fine. How many? "Maybe 60 or 70 families." Ripley pales. On DEATH PLANET, a beleaguered man is asked whether a salvage team's claim will be honored if they find something at a grid reference he sent them out to. He says he doesn't even know *why* they were sent out there, but sure whatever fine.
The sheer fucking TERROR when the mom rips open the vehicle door, the winds howl in, she grabs the radio in a panic, and Newt sees the facehugger on her father and begins SCREAMING.
Burke arrives at Ripley's apartment with Colonial Marine Gorman in tow. It's later suggested that Gorman is neurodivergent in some way and not considered up to snuff by the brass; I do wonder if Burke hand-selected him in the hopes that his own...actions would not be discovered. Burke tries to pressure Ripley into coming along as a consultant; she tells him to fuck off, but the nightmares don't stop. She promises to go IF the plan is to "destroy them. Not to study, not to bring back. But to wipe them out."
Ripley wakes up in her underwear with a number of marines. A lesser movie would've had her ogled by one or more of the men in an attempt to establish them as jackasses; this one does not. They're still jackasses, of course; they talk smack to the girl marines and about girl colonists and are just generally childish and unprepared for what is coming. Ripley watches all this with big eyes and tries to hope that everything will be okay.
Ripley is alarmed when one of the crew members turns out to be an android. He tells her it is impossible for him to harm her, but she orders him to stay away from her. Ripley tries to brief the marines but no one is interested in listening to her (except the one quiet, cute boy). Everyone else is laughing, talking, and playing. They're given punishing prep assignments and everyone groans.
I like this a lot from a filmmaking standpoint because the audience feels Ripley's unease. Are these people confident because they got this thing in the bag, or are they confident because they have no idea how bad shit is about to get? She doesn't know and neither do we. A horror movie that lets you share in the protagonist's dread as they worry about the future is a neat trick to pull off and not easy.
In extremely good foreshadowing, Ripley asks if she can help out and volunteers to drive the loader machine. "I have a Class 2 rating." The cute boy grins. It's nice seeing Ripley acknowledged as sexy and powerful for her machine competence. We cut to gun porn as Vasquez is sexy and powerful in similar yet very different ways.
It's addressed more in the book, but I do like how Vasquez and Drake have a very clear buddy vibe with each other and aren't lovers; it would have been easy to go that route, but instead they're really good friends and I like that.
Gorman, the lieutenant, looks pale as they drop to the planet. Ripley asks how many times he's done this before and this is only his second. The plane drops off the marines and dusts back off to park at a safe distance. (If they had only stayed airborne forever the movie would've gone very differently, lolsob.)
There's a lot of silent hallways and nothing movie and it's incredibly tense and when they do find something moving it's a hamster. Gorman calls the area secure ("It's not secure!" Ripley protests) and says they're coming in. Outside in the rain, Ripley hesitates. "You okay?" asks cute boy Hicks. She's not but she goes in anyway. So much of Aliens (and Alien, to a certain extent, but lesser) is about foreseeing that something VERY BAD is going to happen and Ripley knows this but she's powerless to prevent it because of the men in charge who refuse to listen to her.
A smol child appears. Ripley holds her into submission: "It's going to be okay!" I like the recurring themes of Ripley as a mother and protector, and of Ripley projecting herself onto weaker creatures because she shares their fear. Newt joins the horror genre tradition of little girls saying terrifying things. "These people are soldiers." / "It won't make any difference."
The marines locate the colonists' GPS trackers (essentially) and they're all in a single location that now looks... really weird. It's noteworthy that the Alien scene where Ripley found and euthanized Captain Dallas was added later (for the Director's Cut) and that rather changes *this* scene, because whether it did/didn't happen affects whether all this looks and feels familiar to Ripley. That said, I find it plausible that Ripley says she "doesn't know" what this place is / why it looks the way it does, because these changes are significantly more extensive than what the first alien did to the Nostromo.
Ripley points out that the weapons the team is using risk rupturing the cooling system and then a nuclear explosion happens, no biggie. Instead of pulling the team back to reconsider, Gorman just tells them not to fire on anything. This is probably the second big mistake (with the first being "going in the facility when it wasn't properly cleared to begin with") because they should've pulled back and sent in maybe one scout (or, better, a camera on a little roomba). Gorman doesn't listen to Ripley until Burke says she's right, which has a whole dissertation of gender experiences in it.
As things start getting scary, Ripley tells Newt to go sit up front away from the cameras. The marines find a live colonist, cocooned to the wall, and she begs them to kill her before dying from a chestburster. There's a terrifying moment of quiet and then... beeping. "Multiple signals -- readings in front and behind!"
Aliens start grabbing marines and Gorman panics when this doesn't behave like a simulation. The communications cut and Ripley screams "Do something!" before running up to take the wheel of the armored car they're in. She actually straps Newt in first, which I love. They're about to die, but SEAT BELTS. Ripley protects, first and foremost.
It's a small detail, but I love that Hicks either notices or guesses that it's Ripley driving the car. He tells her when everyone is inside and to haul ass, then helps calm her when they're clear and the axle is shot. Everyone assesses the damage and there's a noticeable shift in the marines' willingness to listen to (now-calm) Ripley.
They argue nerve gas and whether it'll affect the aliens and Ripley does her (excellent! wonderful!) "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit" quote. Burke freaks out and starts talking about the dollar value of the colony. (The marines are all instantly hard and/or wet because I mean, honestly, it's SUCH a great line.) Ripley tells Burke that Hicks is in charge now, since it's a military operation. Hicks tells the plane to come pick them up so they can "take off, nuke the site from orbit". The echo of Ripley's words is so good because he's clearly giving her credit rather than stealing.
Unfortunately, there are aliens *in* the plane because they weren't smart enough to not land nearby the infested colony. "We better get back coz it'll be dark soon and they mostly come at night. Mostly."
Ripley has the marines pull down maps of the complex so they can seal themselves off and can only be reached from a few number of corridors. (This will blow up in their face later when they forget about the ceiling ducts, which feels unfair. Like, Ripley specifically asks for floorplans including subbasements and whatnot; you'd think "overhead access panels" would be included in that!)
While the marines secure their area, Ripley insists that Newt take a nap because it's been a hell of a day. Newt continues her adorable creepy act: "My mommy always said there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are."
Ripley visits Bishop in the lab and they talk about the alien biology. She orders him to destroy the specimens when he's done, but he says Burke wants to take them back. Ripley (foolishly) confronts Burke in private and tells him SHE knows he sent the colonists to the ship. She promises to nail him to the wall, then (foolishly) goes off to sleep with Newt without telling anyone what she knows. I forgive this act of foolishness because it just wouldn't occur to Ripley to *murder* someone to cover up a secret like this.
I do feel like they forget the "acid for blood" thing when the robot guns are slaughtering the aliens by the dozens in Hallway B or whatever it is. Getting in that way (acid opening a new pathway) seems more realistic than "whoops we forgot the air conditioning ducts". Oh, and in other news: the colony is about to go thermonuclear and someone needs to go patch into the extra ship and pilot it down manually. Bishop volunteers to crawl through a claustrophobic duct and pilot the ship down on remote. (AGH, I get claustrophobic just watching him crawl nope nope nope nope nope.)
Vasquez really does not get enough credit for being strong under the strain. She's the only marine, besides Hicks, who doesn't crack.
Ripley wakes up, startled by a noise, only to realize there's a live facehugger in their room. No one is watching the camera (Burke turned it off) and the glass is noise-proof. This marvelous bitch first tries to break the glass, then sets the fire alarm off with her lighter--and that's something you can't do now that they've practically banned smoking in movies.
NO SORRY THERE ARE TWO FACEHUGGERS IN THERE. And one of them has its tail around Ripley's throat. It takes THREE marines to peel the damn thing off Ripley, and Hicks and Vasquez do a really cool game of skeet shoot where he's like "OVER THERE" and she's all "YEAH" and he throws and she shoots. God fucking bless Ripley for gasping "IT WAS BURKE" for her first words because fuck that little bastard. (Fun fact: the actor's mom *cheered* in theaters when he died. He did a great job in that role.)
ANYWAY, aliens come in through the ceiling which (as previously noted) feels somewhat unfair. Burke dies dishonorably. Vasquez and Gorman die with honor. Newt falls down a duct. Ripley gets Hicks (wounded) back to the ship, then suits up with ALL THE GUNS so she can go get Newt. After LOTS OF FIRE, Ripley comes back up with Newt and there's that heart-pounding moment where the ship is gone and it looks like the android betrayed her. The queen is coming up, all is lost, and then there it is!
Ahh, it's so good and such a good subversion of expectations after the first one and the whole "crew expendable" order. ...which is why it is such an incredible kick in the chest when Bishop is suddenly dismembered by the Alien Queen, like, holy shit.
Ripley does the power loader thing which is so very very good and then everyone gets tucked into bed and they all live happily ever after until Alien 3 and the failure to re-sign the original cast. We'll start Alien 3 tonight but I might need to bed soon. I actually liked Alien 3 at the time and was surprised to find out afterwards that the fanbase generally did not.
Open Thread: Web of Light
● Game of Thrones
Film Corner: Alien
We get a lot of slow pans around the ship, which is lovely and retro, then we see everyone sleeping in their underwear. Kane wakes up slowly while I think about how vulnerable the entire configuration makes me feel. I'm extremely comfortable with nudity as long as I'm awake; if I'm asleep, I want a bathrobe or something. I don't know why. I just do.
Everyone eats food after waking up and two of the workers (a Black man and a white man who seems neurodivergent) point out they get paid less than everyone. The captain receives a "for your eyes only" message from the ship, Mother. Meanwhile, everyone files onto the bridge. "Where's earth?" one woman asks. "It's not our system," Ripley notes.
Captain gathers everyone back in the mess hall and tells them they're only halfway home. They were woken to investigate a nearby beacon of unknown origin. If they refuse, they don't get paid. Capitalism. The beacon is coming from a planet that has decent gravity and whatnot. They decide to land, but the landing is rough and they take some damage.
Ripley goes down to the repair area to talk to the workers. They banter at her in a way she doesn't love and she tells them to "fuck off". Captain, Kane, and Lambert go exploring for the beacon. Kane tells Lambert to quit griping. "I like griping," she says, earning my eternal love and devotion.
The alien craft is *gorgeous* on the director's cut.
We see the dead alien with the collapsed hole in its chest. It's so much bigger than the humans beside it, which is alarming in its own way. Humanoid-ish, but giant. And dead.
Back at the ship, Ripley is troubled; the beacon has been partially deciphered and looks like a warning instead of an SOS. She wants to go after the away team but Ash says it's pointless; she won't reach them in time to change whatever happens.
"There's a layer of mist just covering the eggs which reacts when broken." OK, Kane does not get enough credit for being too genre-unsavvy to live. Dude. Like, yes, scientific curiosity but on the other hand you could just NOT touch the reactive mist-covered eggs.
Captain returns to the ship and tells Ripley to open the doors. "We're clean, let us in." Ripley points out that she can't let in Kane if he has an ALIEN LIFEFORM attached to his face--the entire ship could be infected. This movie should be called "people refuse to listen to Ripley."
Ash, the medical officer, overrides Ripley's command and lets everyone in against company regulation and policy. Kane is rushed to the medical bay. Lambert slaps Ripley and the Captain yells at her. The other crew members point out that she has a point and the order was illegal. Captain orders the alien cut off Kane, but it instantly bleeds acid that threatens to cut through the ship hull. It's interesting that it's the underpaid, marginalized workers who are on Ripley's side about the monster. They don't have any illusions about being loved by or taken care of by the Company.
Ripley confronts Ash about the fact that she was the ranking officer on-board the ship and he disregarded her orders. Ash is dismissively "my bad". The alien disappears from Kane's face and apparently dies. Ripley doesn't want to keep the corpse but Ash says it has to go back. The captain says to take off and did the remaining repairs.
Kane starts choking during a meal. It's interesting that Ash, medical officier, is the only one neither surprised nor reacting. Everyone else is trying to help him; Ash just sits and watches. Ash doesn't get involved until Parker grabs a knife; then Ash is there yelling "don't touch it!" Every time Ash talks, he just *drips* with contempt for Ripley.
I find it noteworthy that it's the marginalized crew members (the under-paid + Ripley) who are risking their lives hunting the monster. The neurodivergent crew mate is taken. Lambert alone considers that he might still be alive. Now everyone is trying to herd the creature to an airlock.
The captain is taken. Lambert has an emotional breakdown (understandable). Ash is uncooperative. Ripley says she'll get what she needs from Mother, information-wise, since she's the captain now. Ripley digs into the computer and finds an order for the science officer's eyes only. The order says that the crew is expendable in service to getting the alien back for the company. This is the start of the series' thematic arc concerning Company vs. innocent lives.
Weyland-Yutani is so steeped in capitalism at this point in the future that they have put a dollar value on their crew, compared it to the dollar value of the alien, and the alien wins. "There is an explanation you know," Ash says, appearing at her elbow. Ripley pushes him away, struggles with a bout of tears, and storms out to warn the others. Ash traps her.
Ash tries to kill Ripley and she's saved by Lambert and Parker. The optics of being saved from a sexual violence-esque scene by a woman and a Black man are noteworthy. The white men have been a neurodivergent victim, an ineffective buffoon of a captain whose desire to be obeyed above all else endangered his crew, and a violent villain. Something to remember when dudes are like "I like Alien so I'm not a misogynist". I firmly believe that the guys brigading, like, Ghostbusters and Fury Road would HATE Alien if it weren't for the nostalgia factor and the fact that they probably haven't seen it in 20 years (if at all).
@McNutcase. Don't forget the guy who was too curious for anyone's good, because he thought nothing would actually harm him!
Whoops, yes, and Kane. Too genre-unsavvy to survive.
Ripley and the others prep the ship to explode but she remembers that Jones, the cat, is still onboard. She goes searching for it. I am sympathetic to the contrast between Ripley and the corporation--SHE cares about innocent life, even as THEY do not--but also, RIPLEY.
Lambert gets herself and Parker killed and honestly the less said about that, the better. There were some icky...things said and implied about that scene which I don't feel a desire to dwell on, but it's one reason this film isn't my favorite of the series. (I have a lot of discomfort re: Lambert and the way she's portrayed, which is one reason why I can't get as excited as I'd like to when folks speculate on whether the character is trans. But ymmv!)
Ripley locates the alien's nest and finds her crew mates cocooned there. Captain begs her to kill him and she understands and complies. Another running theme of the series: death can be a release from worser things. There's FIRE and SWEAT and PANTING but Ripley and the cat get to the escape pod with seconds to spare.
Ripley strips down to her underwear but oh no there is an alien on the escape pod with her. She suits up and blasts it out of the airlock while singing lullabies to it, in a manner that will be revisited in many ways in Alien: Resurrection. (Yes, I have seen all your clever jokes about the Alien series being only 1-2 movies long. You may not wish to follow this thread!)
That was Alien. A lot of suspense which holds up well only if you specifically like that sort of thing, I think; I remember the first time I watched it being a little frustrated at the pretty scenes that just expected you to be patient while panning over scenery happened.
Open Thread: Wrinkles
*double checks the day of the week*
● Game of Thrones
● Avengers: Endgame
● Captain Marvel
October Newsletter (2019)
I want to write another Narnia post. I miss those.
Moving on:
October Stuff:
- D&D handouts for Curse of Strahd!
An index to the deconstructions on my blog is here.
My Twitter account @DivorceKittens with stories and pictures is here.
Writings: Alberta
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5834 | Image Image Image Image Image
Transaxle setup detail.
Todd over at has started the build of the hybrid, reverse pinion transaxle. According to Todd,
The hybrid is the best and strongest combo of new factory subaru parts and will give years of good service. I have sold plenty of these to 300hp turbo owners.
“The WRX/STi is the factory gearset and ratios for that engine. The hybrid uses slightly different gearing and post treatment to achieve maximum strength.”
We also decided to add a Torsen Limited Slip Differential. If we’re going to lay down rubber, might as well have two lines. ;)
Traction graph:
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2 Responses
1. Awesome spreadsheet! Oh hang on, I wrote that :D
You’ll probably need to bump up the weight of the car (which includes the driver). My V6 VW Baja is now around 1100kg.
2. basil
Wes, Yes – thank you for writing that tool! It’s awesome. I will update the numbers this week and re-post the output.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5839 | The Unwelcome Guest
To the rich man's bright lodges
I ride in this wind
On my good horse, I call you
My shiny black Bess
To the playhouse of fortune
To take the bright silver
And gold you have taken
From somebody else
And as we go riding
In the damp foggy midnight
You snort, my good pony
And you give me your best
For you know and I know
Good horse 'mongst the rich ones
How oftimes we go there
An unwelcome guest
I never took food
From the widows and orphans
And never a hardworking man I oppressed
So take your pace easy
For home soon like lightning
We soon will be riding
My shiny black Bess
No fat rich man's pony
Can ever overtake you
And there's not a rider
From the east to the west
Could hold you a light
In this dark mist and midnight
When the potbellied thieves
Chase the unwelcome guest
I don't know, good horse
As we trot in this dark here
That robbing the rich
Is for worse or for best
They take it by stealing
And lying and gambling
And I take it my way
My shiny black Bess
I treat horses good
And I'm friendly to strangers
I ride and your running
Makes my guns talk the best
And the rangers and deputies
Are hired by the rich man
To catch me and hang me
My shining Black Bess
Yes, they'll catch me napping one day
And they'll kill me
And then I'll be gone
But that won't be my end
For my guns and my saddle
Will always be filled
By unwelcome travelers
And other brave men
And they'll take the money
And spread it out equal
Just like the Bible
And the prophets suggest
But men that go riding
To help these poor workers
The rich will cut down
Like an unwelcome guest
found on: Mermaid Avenue
words: Woody Guthrie
debuted/last played: performance history
back to the Wilco rebel song archive |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5847 | Sense and sensitivity
“So a tran walks into a bar…”
I went to a comedy show last night, and the comedian didn’t make any jokes about trans people. I knew he wouldn’t – the comic, Jimeoin, doesn’t do that kind of joke – so I felt safe enough to go as me.
By “as me” I mean as Carrie, rather than in disguise. I should probably describe what that means in case you’re imagining some kind of Cupid Stunt or Lily Savage creature. When I’m out as me, I generally try to imitate what ordinary fortysomething women wear and dial it back a notch. Think of it like a golf handicap: because I’m trans (not to mention taller and heavier than most women) I stand out much more, so I need to be a little more sober in my presentation.
So for example last night I was in jeans, casual boot/shoes, a top and a cardigan. That’s about as dramatic as I get. Makeup-wise I go for the “hide my horrible skin” approach rather than smoky eyes and ruby lips; on top of my head the hair is simple, just short of shoulder length and undramatically blonde.
That doesn’t mean I don’t stand out, though. Last night’s show was in the new auditorium of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The bar area is notable for being incredibly brightly lit, incredibly spacious and incredibly short of anywhere for people to sit. The few seats around the edges and every bit of wall space were already occupied, so my pre-gig G&T was sipped while standing in the middle of the room.
You know that dream where you’re doing something in front of an audience – in the school assembly hall, maybe, or at a big work conference – and for no good reason you have to do it in your underwear?
That’s my social life.
Everybody looks. Everybody. Some do it subtly. Most don’t. And they look in different ways. Younger women generally do the “oh, trans” look and get on with whatever they were doing. Older ones often double-take and then get on with whatever they’re doing or give you a really hard stare before getting on with whatever they’re doing. The oldest women couldn’t care less; they’ve seen it all before.
Men are different. Some look at you with open disgust. Some stare so hard you fear they’re actually going to dent your skull with sheer stare power. Some look at you in a threatening way, making it clear that they know they’re making you uncomfortable and that’s the point. And a few – bookish types, usually – give you the “oh, trans” look.
It’s an odd thing to experience when you don’t want to stand out. Bono from U2 famously and stupidly said that being famous meant he knew what it felt like to be a girl; but to be trans in a brightly lit public room gives you a pretty good idea what it might be like to be Bono.
You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
You say it best when you say nothing at all
I can’t say I particularly enjoy it, but it’s part of the territory. As is misgendering, which is when you’re called sir when you’re presenting as madam or madam when you’re presenting as sir.
Misgendering is a common tactic of anti-trans trolls, who delight in saying “you’re a MAN!” to trans women in the apparent belief that they’ve never been yelled at before. It’s background noise on the internet but when it happens from strangers in real life it’s surprisingly powerful.
I’m under no illusions that I pass as a cis woman. I’m 6’3” in my favourite casual shoes and I have a voice that makes Barry White seem awfully squeaky. But I’m still taken aback when, as last night, I hand over my concert ticket and the woman tells me where my seat is and calls me “sir”.
It’s hardly the bucket of blood in the film Carrie, I know. But it still knocks the wind out of your sails: it’s a reminder that the two lots of shaving, the agonising over what to wear, the carefully applied makeup, the three-times-attempted nail polish, the expensive wig and all the rest of it was completely and utterly pointless. You’re a heifer in heels, a dude in drag.
I’m not offended or outraged or overreacting, just thinking out loud in a blog post, but it strikes me that this is a matter of simple sensitivity.
I try not to use words or phrases that might make other people feel awkward – for example by assuming that they’re straight, or that they’re not religious, or that they share my political views – and if somebody in front of you is clearly presenting in a female way then surely common sense suggests that they might not want to be called “sir”. In such cases, surely it’s better not to use any term than to accidentally use the wrong one.
No offence
Getting it wrong, intentionally or otherwise, is what’s known as a micro-aggression. It’s a term feminists and trans people have borrowed from people of colour: Columbia professor Derald Sue used the phrase to describe “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of colour.”
When a commenter notes that a working class black man is articulate when the same wouldn’t be said about a white graduate, that’s a micro-aggression. If someone says an African woman’s name is too difficult to pronounce, that’s a micro-aggression. If you use the word normal as an antonym of gay, that’s a micro-aggression. If you tell a woman that you want to see the manager because you assume she isn’t the manager, that’s a micro-aggression. If you misgender a trans person, that’s a micro-aggression.
Individually, micro-aggressions don’t do much. But they’re like drops of water. It’s what they do cumulatively that matters. It wasn’t the individual drops that drove victims of Chinese water torture insane. It was that the drops just kept on coming.
Asking people to consider the words they use often results in people railing against “snowflakes”, especially in the columns of right-wing newspapers. Apparently asking people to be respectful to other people is a step too far. It’s political correctness gone mad.
As another comedian, Stewart Lee, said a long time ago:
The kind of people that say “political correctness gone mad” are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with… [they’re] like those people who turn around and go, “you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men.” You’re a bunch of idiots.
Everybody makes assumptions, including me, and the language we use often reveals those assumptions: we may be unconsciously making assumptions based on people’s race, class, sex, gender, accent or any one of a myriad other things. Questioning those assumptions doesn’t cost us anything, and might just help make the world a slightly better place. None of us is perfect, but we can try to be a little bit better.
And as for political correctness gone mad… you really shouldn’t use the word mad either. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5859 | @article { author = {Dayer, Mohammad Reza and Dayer, Mohammad Saaid and Taheri, Bahador}, title = {New Sequential Model for Human Hemoglobin: Alpha Subunit as Cooperativity Inducer}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {148-153}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {Hemoglobin is a tetrameric oxygen transport protein in animal bodies. However, there is a paucity of information regarding differences between alpha and beta subunits of hemoglobin in terms of oxygen affinity. The sequential model of Koshland, Nemthy and Filmer (KNF model) has attributed similar affinities to both alpha and beta subunits. The main purpose of the present study is to construct a new sequential model for hemoglobin oxygenation based on higher oxygen affinities for alpha subunits. To this end, coordinate files of 19 oxy and 41 deoxy hemoglobin structures were used as starting structures. These files were processed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS software in order to calculate Euclidean distances between each pair of proximal and distal histidine Fe2+ as well as other pairs of atoms of interest. The calculated distances were then compared for either set of hemoglobin conformations, i.e. oxy and deoxy conformations. Our results showed that α2 subunit show higher structural changes that could be related to oxygen affinity. This subunit could be introduced as initiator of hemoglobin oxygenation and cooperativity. Subunit α2 in our sequential model induces relaxed conformation in α1, β2 and β1 respectively. The order of oxygen affinity in our model is as follow: α2 > α1 > β1 > β2.}, keywords = {hemoglobin,Tens,Relax,Conformation,Cooperativity}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18574.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18574_70c9c5f368d3ad0059092913e75ff6cc.pdf} } @article { author = {Mohseni-Shahri, Fatemeh and Housaindokht, Mohammad and Bozorgmehr, Mohammad and Moosavi-Movahedi, Ali}, title = {Studies of Interaction between Propranolol and Human Serum Albumin in the Presence of DMMP by Molecular Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics Simulation}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {154-166}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {The interaction between propranolol (PROP) and human serum albumin (HSA) was studied in the presence of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP). DMMP is usually considered as a simulant for chemical warfare agents (CWAs). For this purpose fluorescence quenching, resonance light scattering (RLS), synchronous, three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation were employed under physiological conditions. Fluorescence spectroscopy showed that DMMP could quench, and PROP increased intensity of the HSA fluorescence spectra. The presence of DMMP remarkably decreased binding constant of PROP to HSA. Therefore, by decreasing the amount of drugs transported to its target, the free drug concentration of the target would be raised, increasing the efficacy of the drug. The results of synchronous fluorescence and three-dimensional fluorescence spectra showed that the binding of PROP and DMMP to HSA induced conformational changes of HSA. According to molecular dynamics simulation results proposed that these ligands could interact with the HSA, with affecting the secondary structure of protein and with a modification of its tertiary structure.}, keywords = {Human Serum Albumin,Dimethyl methylphosphonate,Propranolol,Molecular Dynamics Simulation,Flourescence quenching}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18578.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18578_c0c8a85ab26d8abd1cfb4e5ee3c4f7f3.pdf} } @article { author = {Rahimizadeh, Parastou and Najavand, Saeed and Pazhang, Mohammad}, title = {A Comparative Study of Activity and Stability of the Free and the Immobilized Endoglucanase from Alicyclobacillus Acidocaldarius}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {167-176}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {AaCel9A [β-1,4-endoglucanase, (E.C:], was immobilized onto glutaraldehyde activated chitosan macrosphere by covalent attachment. The properties of the immobilized AaCel9A were investigated by determining the optimum pH and optimum temperature for activity, thermal stability, and kinetic parameters. The immobilization process shifted the enzyme’s optimum temperature from 65 °C for the free enzyme towards a wider temperature range from 60-80 °C by the immobilized enzyme. The optimum pH of immobilized AaCel9A shifted to basic pH (pH 8) relative to free AaCel9A (pH 6.5). The immobilization on chitosan macrosphere enhanced half-life of AaCel9A enzyme. After 60 min, the immobilized and the free enzyme retained 75% and 40% their activity at 65 °C, respectively. The immobilized enzyme showed higher thermal stability than the free form. Km value of immobilized AaCel9A (17.05 mg ml-1) was higher than free AaCel9A (7.75 mg ml-1). Also, CMC hydrolysis by immobilized and free AaCel9A in the presence of SDS detergent was investigated. The results showed that the immobilized enzyme maintained its activity more than the free form in different concentrations of SDS.}, keywords = {AaCel9A,Immobilization,Chitosan,thermal stability}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18599.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18599_7ed111c98c75b42a3d31cf755e530ee0.pdf} } @article { author = {Hashemnia, Sedigheh and Nourmohammad, Fatemeh}, title = {Selective Determination of Dopamine in the Presence of Ascorbic Acid and Uric Acid at Neutral pH Using a Silver Nanoparticles-modified Carbon Paste Electrode}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {177-186}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {Developing simple, sensitive and selective sensing systems for dopamine is important due to its biological significance. In this work, a silver nanoparticles-modified carbon paste electrode (AgNPs-CPE) has been constructed and used to detect of dopamine (DA) in the simultaneous presence of ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA) at neutral pH 7.0 by cyclic voltammetry. The modified electrode showed good performance toward the oxidation and determination of DA in the presence of AA and UA. In a mixture of the three compounds, DA showed a pair of redox peaks at about 182.0 and 116.0 mV for anodic and cathodic peaks potential, respectively, while AA and UA exhibited an oxidation peak at about 320.0 mV. Under these circumstances DA more easily oxidized than AA and UA at the surface of modified electrode and precisely determined by differential pulse voltammetry. A sensitivity of 0.074 μA/μM with a wide linear range of 12.5-300.0 μM and detection limit of 0.61 μM were obtained. The modified electrode was applied successfully for DA quantification in dopamine hydrochloride injection sample in the presence of AA and UA (100 μM).}, keywords = {Dopamine,Ascorbic acid,Uric acid,Silver nanoparticles,Carbon paste electrode}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18649.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18649_6d9cd431be12a139036c7dc9ee7f15c6.pdf} } @article { author = {Banaei, Aghdas and Ghorchian, Hedayatollah and Faraji Dana, Reza and Moosavi Movahedi, Ali Akbar and Naghavi, H and Saviz, S.M. and Amjadi, R and Hosseinzadeh, R}, title = {Change in Oxygen Absorption of Human Adult and Fetal Hemoglobin Due to 940 MHz Electromagnetic Field Radiation Exposure}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {187-195}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {The effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) radiation at the frequency of 940 MHz on the structure and function of human adult and fetal hemoglobin (HbA and HbF) were studied. After extraction and purification of HbA and HbF, the oxygen absorption values for exposed and unexposed HbA and HbF to EMF were compared. The slope of oxygen absorption curve for exposed HbA was increased while that for HbF was decreased compare to those before EMF exposing. Furthermore, the oxygen absorption saturation values were changed from 3.4-5.1 and from 5.1-3.1 mg l-1, respectively for HbA and HbF after exposing to EMF. The UV-Vis, circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy confirmed the quaternary structural changes of both proteins after EMF exposure. So that, the structural transition of HbA from tense to relaxed state caused an increasing in oxygen absorption; whilst in HbF, transition from relaxed to tense state was occurred and therefore oxygen absorption was decreased.}, keywords = {Electromagnetic fields radiation,Fetal hemoglobin,Conformational changes,Structural transition}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18650.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18650_8ceedbb5ee08be3be09b0fa59d737d02.pdf} } @article { author = {Molaeirad, Ahmad and Besharati Vineh, Monireh and Alijanianzadeh, Mahdi and Khayati, Maryam}, title = {Evaluation of Immobilized Bacteriorhodopsin’s Function by Laser Irridiation}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {196-203}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {Bacteriorhodopsin (BR) is a retinal protein that is a light-driven proton pump and has an important role in photosynthesis in archaebacterium Halobacterium salinarum. The BR molecule absorbs light and photochemical changes occur in it, and different intermediates will be produced in its photochemical cycle that some of them like P and Q intermediates have a long half-life. There have been many efforts to immobilize BR for constructing data storage devices. In this study the BR suspension-contained film has been immobilized on a polycarbonate and the effects of green and red lasers on it (in different times and temperatures) have been investigated by UV spectrophotometer method, The modified surfaces were characterized by ATR-FTIR and AFM techniques. The results show that with used condition for immobilization of BR on polycarbonate, the 0 and 1 bite that relate to BR and P, Q intermediate, are formed. The red and green lasers convert BR to O and, P or Q intermediates respectively that could be used instead of 0 and 1 bites in popular compact disks. }, keywords = {Bacteriorhodopsin,Polycarbonate,Laser,Immobilization}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18686.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18686_7b7ef4a7c1f8ac46fd50402035681c8a.pdf} } @article { author = {Ghalandari, Behafarid and Divsalar, Adeleh and Komeili, Ali and Eslami-Moghadam, Mahbube and Saboury, Ali Akbar and Parivar, Kazem}, title = {Mathematical Analysis of Drug Release for Gastrointestinal Targeted Delivery Using β-Lactoglobulin Nanoparticle}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {204-211}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {To answer challenge of targeted and controlled drug release in oral delivery various materials were studied by different methods. In the present paper, controlled metal based drug (Pd(II) complex) release manner of β‑Lactoglobulin (β-LG) nanoparticles was investigated using mathematical drug release model in order to design and production of a new oral drug delivery system for gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The β-LG nanoparticles containing Pd(II) complex were fabricated in the presence of low methoxyl pectin (LMP) at different conditions. Characterization of β-LG nanoparticles using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were performed. The in vitro drug release studies were carried out at 37 °C during 8 h in the simulation conditions of GI fluid. The obtained results were fitted in various kinetically release models. The Korsmeyer-Peppas model was evaluated the best describe of each simulation conditions such results indicated an anomalous diffusion manner for drug release. The release data were fitted to the Kopcha model; then, using statistically evaluation revealed that β-LG nanoparticles-LMP complex contain Pd(II) complex dramatically sensitive to pH. In addition, results indicated that for drug release from β-LG nanoparticles delivery system erosion is predominate. So, the erosion-controlled is drug release mechanism of this delivery system. We concluded that β-LG nanoparticles complex with LMP based on mathematical drug release model would be a targeted and practical promising device for GI drug delivery.}, keywords = {β‑LG nanoparticle,Drug release,Gastrointestinal tract,mathematical modelling,Kopcha model}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18687.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18687_34b7ee1c9e2e9ecbbc30f843db18b45c.pdf} } @article { author = {Habibi Rezaei, Mehran and Bakhti, Mostafa and Moosavi-Movahedi, Ali Akbar and Zargar, Seyed Jalal and Ghorchian, Hedayatollah}, title = {Fructation Induces Hemin Degradation in Methemoglobin}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {212-219}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {Under prolonged diabetic conditions, HbA1c is produced from normal hemoglobin (HbA0) through a non-enzymatic glycosylation or glycation, a process which enhances the hemoglobin susceptibility to be auto-oxidized to methemoglobin (metHb). Here we are reporting that the non-enzymatic reaction between fructose and metHb (metHb fructation) induces significant changes in the globin structure and degrades the hemin moiety. Moreover, glycation of metHb by fructose brings about the extensive hypochromic effect and a small bathochromic effect in the Soret region. The products of hemin degradation were shown to be dialyzable species. Cathodic peaks of the cyclic voltammogram (CV) of methemoglobin during incubation with fructose resulted positive potential shift and the declined current at the peaks due to a decrease in the number of metHb molecules with the preserved hemin groups. Moreover, we found a significant increase in the hemin oxidation products such as ferryl/oxoferryl-Hb upon fructation of metHb. The production of such species during metHb fructation and hemin degradation might have a key role not only in the induction of hypoxic stress, but also in the reduced protective function of neural hemoproteins in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).}, keywords = {Hemin,Fructation,Reactive Oxygen Species,Methemoglobin,Cyclic voltammetry,HbA1c}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18688.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_18688_1a5f8160b2ca56b4c0609562a8210cca.pdf} } @article { author = {Heidarzadeh, Alemeh and Ahadi, Ali Mohammad and Panahi, Alireza and Sadeghizadeh, Majid}, title = {Tumor Suppressor p53 Can Protect Normal Cells Against Dendrosomal Curcumin-Induced Apoptosis}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {220-229}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = { Curcumin is a natural substance with anti-cancerous properties without many disadvantages of currently-used anticancer drugs. Its toxicity is significantly higher in tumor cells compared with normal cells. We hypothesized the difference of p53 function between normal and tumor cells as one of the presumable causes of this phenomenon. We knocked down the expression of p53 in normal fibroblasts using anti-p53 siRNA and subsequently explored the effects caused by dendrosomal curcumin- a novel nanoformulation of curcumin- on these cells in terms of apoptosis induction and gene expression analysis. The results of MTT assay demonstrated dendrosomal curcumin is selectively cytotoxic for melanoma cancer cells without any considerable effects on normal fibroblasts. Knocking-down of p53 in normal fibroblast cells caused increase of NF-κB1 and decrease of p21 expression level. Treating p53-suppressed normal fibroblast cells with dendrosomal curcumin led to a robust increase in apoptosis rate of the cells. Taken together, these results imply the fact that p53 can protect normal cells from dendrosomal curcumin-induced apoptosis.Therefore, dendrosomal curcumin- in addition to being a chemotherapeutic compound-represents potential capacities to be used as an effective chemopreventive agent.}, keywords = {Cancer,Dendrosomal curcumin,Normal fibroblast,p53,Knockdown,Apoptosis}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_14417.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_14417_c71df3935574ea9a5597499dc998e17d.pdf} } @article { author = {Mahmoodabadi, Najmeh and Ajloo, Davood}, title = {Molecular Dynamics and Molecular Docking Studies on the Interaction between Four Tetrahydroxy Derivatives of Polyphenyls and Beta Amyloid}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {230-241}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {Interactions of 3,3',4,4'-tetrahydroxybiphenyl (BPT) and three isomeric 3,3",4,4"-tetrahydroxyterphenyls (OTT, MTT, PTT) with Alzheimer’s amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) were studied by molecular dynamics simulation and molecular docking. Structural parameters such as Root-mean-square derivations (RMSD), radial distribution function (RDF), helix percentage and other physical parameters were obtained. These inhibitors have been evaluated and compared for their activity against aggregation of Aβ. The results showed that all four compounds successfully inhibit association of Aβ and reduce aggregation of protein. For the tetrahydroxyterphenyls efficacy varies with linker geometry: the ortho-position affords the most successful inhibition and the para-geometry the least perhaps due to differing abilities of these inhibitors to bind amyloid-β peptide. Of the four small inhibitors studied 3,3',4,4'-tetrahydroxybiphenyl (BPT) is the most effective inhibitor. Molecular docking studies have been done to confirm the simulation results. Investigation of binding site and free energy confirmed that the efficiency of interaction with Aβ depends on differing abilities of these inhibitors to bind amyloid-β peptide. Binding energy of BPT is more negative than the other and it significantly decreases for PTT. Self-aggregation of this inhibitor decreases in comparison with BPT; therefore Aβ aggregation in the presence of biphenyl form is higher than terphenyls.}, keywords = {Amyloid-β,inhibitors,Molecular Dynamics Simulation,Molecular Docking}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_19161.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_19161_2ab512ec351980abadd1228ef7710696.pdf} } @article { author = {Shahraki, Somaye and Mansouri-Torshizi, Hassan and Sadeghi, Maryam and Divsalar, Adeleh and Saboury, Ali-Akbar}, title = {Novel Pt(II) Complex and Its Pd(II) Aanalogue. Synthesis, Characterization, Cytotoxicity and DNA-interaction}, journal = {Biomacromolecular Journal}, volume = {1}, number = {2}, pages = {242-253}, year = {2015}, publisher = {Iran Society of Biophysical Chemistry (ISOBC)}, issn = {}, eissn = {}, doi = {}, abstract = {The ability of small molecules to perturb the natural structure and dynamics of nucleic acids is intriguing and has potential applications in cancer therapeutics. This work reports the synthesis, characterization, cytotoxicity and DNA-binding studies of two cytotoxic and intercalative [M(bpy)(pyrr-dtc)]NO3 complexes (where M = Pt(II) and Pd(II), bpy = 2,2´-bipyridine and pyrr-dtc = pyrrolidinedithio-carbamate). Binding interaction of these complexes with calf thymus DNA (CT-DNA) was investigated by spectrophotometric, spectrofluorometric and gel filtration techniques. Gel filtration studies indicate that the binding of these complexes with CT-DNA is strong enough not to readily break. The binding constant and the thermodynamic parameters have been determined using absorption measurements. The fluorescence studies indicate that the two complexes bind to CT-DNA through an intercalative mode. The cytotoxic activity of these metal complexes has been tested against chronic myelocytic leukemia K562 cell lines and revealed much lower 50% cytotoxic concentration (Cc50) than that of cisplatin. We hope that such spectroscopic studies to be indeed helpful in studying the pharmacological response of drugs and design of dosage forms.}, keywords = {Platinum(II)/palladium(II) complexes,DNA-binding,Intercalation,Cytotoxicity}, url = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_19297.html}, eprint = {http://www.bmmj.org/article_19297_72aa424aa9951185d608a2ba20be8098.pdf} } |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5876 | A Certified B Corporation.
A Certified B Corporation.
Between the Sheets became a Certified B Corporation in 2016.
Between the Sheets was certified by the non-profit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. We've evaluated how our practices impact our employees, our community, the environment, and our customers.
Today, there are over 1,888 Certified B Corps around the globe, including Warby Parker, Ben and Jerry's, and Etsy. We are proud to join them in redefining success in business, so that one day everyone uses business as a force for good.
to visit our B corp profile click here
Read more about our decision to become a B Corporation on BTS Blog
B Corp - What it Means & Why it Matters |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5878 | Super Wash
Yes / No 0 like / 0 dislike
Tags: Arcade, Kids, Mouse, Water, Webgl,
New Games and Hot Games
Super Wash Game
Super Wash You can play Super Wash free online games at It has 18 total plays and has been rated 80/100(from 0 ratings), (0 like and 0 dislike), find the fun and happy day. If you want to play more games, we find some of the game: Super Dino Fighter, Super Buddy Kick 2, Super Drift 2 and Super Mario Crossover 2. To play other games, go to the arcade games or kids games page.
Play Super Wash online games, Fun and Happy. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5879 | Eat your way into skinny jeans with the sirtfood diet
Site: Lucie Clark
Foods that switch on the skinny gene? Sounds genius to us.
When it comes to genetic make up, the code your parents dealt you may not translate to the body you want (thanks for the stumpy legs, Dad). As a result, the health industry is a veritable goldmine with everything from the 5:2 diet to intermittent fasting to the Twinkie diet (truly) on offer. But what if eating certain foods could switch on a gene that mimics the effects of fasting and exercise?
Sounds amazing, right? This is the premise behind the hot new diet devised by nutritionists Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten. These two have tapped certain foods called 'sirtfoods', that can allegedly switch on your 'skinny' gene. According to Goggins and Matten, sirtfoods contain chemicals called polyphenols which activate the sirtuin gene responsible for ramping up metabolism and flipping the fat burning switch on. Sirtuins basically make us the fitter, leaner, Victoria's Secret version of ourselves. So far, so healthful.
But is this a legit long-term body changing strategy? While the jury is still out as to whether eating the quantity of sirtfoods will be meaningful enough to switch on the sirtuin, the diet is less fad-ish than you think. The approved foods like kale, cocoa, blueberries, and capers are actually healthy and delicious, so it's a win-win either way. The diet itself starts off with three green juices and one main meal rich in sirtfoods for days one to three. Days four to seven are two juices plus two meals, then it's a maintenance version for the next 14 days.
Scroll through the gallery above for 15 sirtfoods to add to your plate now.
Eat your way into skinny jeans with the sirtfood diet (фото 1)
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5881 | Words of Sympathy -
Comfort and Encourage Family & Friends
Words of Sympathy are extended in a variety of ways - as poems, letters, phrases, poetry, etc.; and serve to overcome feelings of sadness, depression, grieving, loneliness and disappointment.
Has anyone you ever dearly loved die suddenly and unexpectedly, catching you totally off guard? Or, perhaps you know someone who was the picture of health who suddenly became ill and bedridden.
If so you know how depressed, lonely and alone you can feel. Were condolences and other expressions words of comfort and sympathy helpful? Probably. So, wouldn't it be nice to pay things forward by offering them words of comfort? Try these!
Words of Sympathy - Sample Sayings
Words of Sympathy and Encouragement. These phrases will empower you to offer comforting support with little worry about saying something inappropriate and/or insensitive. Plus, there's a surprise or two that will have you saying..."what a great idea!"
Sympathy Words of Comfort."She may be gone, but she left behind more than a lifetime's worth of love for each and everyone of us, and it's a love we will keep with us and cherish as our own" is one of ten sympathy sayings and/or verses. Read the other nine now.
Inspirational Words of Sympathy. This small collection of sayings serves up some sympathy wording that is off the beaten track. You might like some of it and then again you might not. Still, they're worth checking out.
More Sympathy Sayings and Words To Consider
You probably thought that I was done, but here are some more words and sayings to consider.
Sympathy Card Messages
Sympathy Card Messages. There is no relationship as special as the one between mother and child. Even in the absence of one or the other, the bond …
Sympathy Quotes
Sympathy Quotes. Below are sample sympathy sayings ready to be used in letters, notes, cards and email and text messages. Links at the bottom of …
Sympathy Messages
Need Sympathy Messages? When death comes, as it does to all of us, we sometimes struggle to convey meaningful words that effectively console friends …
Words of Comfort For Sympathy
The following Words of Comfort For Sympathy, a poem, are at once deep and full of heartfelt loss for the life of a person passed... and a celebration …
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5889 | Do cats bite?
Dogs have strong teeth…cats have razor sharp claws. Dogs bite and cats scratch. However, many cat owners have been at the end of the pet’s pointy teeth. Cat owners have complained about the pet’s inclination to bite. Do cats really bite? Unfortunately, yes! What is quite perplexing with this behavior is the fact that cats would even bite the owner’s petting hand.
Biting ranks second among the behavioral problems of cats. Cats are natural predators. These animals would pounce at anything that moves. Aside from mice, cats would scurry after lizards, would lunge at birds and insects. Cats, especially young ones would be very playful and curious of their environment. Cats enjoy leaping and catching make believe prey. Guess what would happen if the attention of the cat was caught by the wriggling foot of the owner? Yeoww! The cat has bitten the owner’s toe. This behavior is more common in kittens. Because the kitten is a well loved pet… one that is treated as the baby of the family, the bite would be ignored. Dogs are famed for being biters but a dog will never bite the hand that pets them. This is not so with cats. Cats are not as affectionate as dogs but these animals, like dogs, love being petted too. The only difference is that cats have the tendency to turn around and bite the petting hand. Cats are intensely territorial. A resident cat would let out a distinctive protesting cry if another cat has ventured into its claimed territory. The territory based aggression will cause the cat to bite the intruder. If the intruding cat has escaped the cat would redirect its aggression to the other pets and even to the members of its human family.
The playful biting of the pet can get out of hand until it becomes a serious concern. A cat that has the inclination to use its teeth while at play can develop an aggressive behavior. Cat bites can seriously injure people. Cat bites can get infected as well. Cat owners would have to deal with the pet’s biting tendencies. To resolve this concern, owners have to understand the reasons for the cat’s behavioral problem.
Nature intended cats to have sharp claws and teeth. Biting and clawing is the only defense cats have against predators. The teeth and the claws are cat’s invaluable hunting tools. During the learning period, kittens would play hunt. Kittens would bite and scratch each other. The queen would always intervene if the play biting gets too rough. Scientists associate a cat’s propensity to bite to being parted from the mother cat before it is ready to be weaned. Unlike a mother cat that would put a stop to a play biting that has gone too rough, pet parents would actually find the kitten’s nipping fun. Biting can be triggered by petting-induced aggression. Cats are less social animals as compared to dogs. Cats would allow being petted. At first the pet may even enjoy the attention given by the owner but the petting can be irritating and once the sensitivity threshold is reached, the cat would bite the petting hand. It is also possible that the cat that was lulled to sleep by the owner’s petting would suddenly wake up and the disorientation would cause the cat to bite. Repetitive petting causes static electricity and the pain the cat suffers from would trigger an aggressive behavior that would lead to biting.
Biting is one of the personality quirks that make cats interesting pets. The personality of the cat cannot be changed but it can be modified. A cat owner has to be perceptive to the needs of the pet to minimize its inclination to bite. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5932 | Ptolemy Theorem - Proof Without Words
In a cyclic ABCD quadrilateral with sides a, b, c, d, and diagonals e and f, the product of diagonals equals the sum of the products of the opposite sides:
Ptolemy Theorem - proof without words
1. W. Derrick, J. Herstein, Proof Without Words: Ptolemy's Theorem, The College Mathematics Journal, v 43, n 5, November 2012, p 386
Ptolemy's Theorem
1. Ptolemy's Theorem
2. Sine, Cosine, and Ptolemy's Theorem
3. Useful Identities Among Complex Numbers
4. Ptolemy on Hinges
5. Thébault's Problem III
6. Van Schooten's and Pompeiu's Theorems
7. Ptolemy by Inversion
8. Brahmagupta-Mahavira Identities
9. Casey's Theorem
10. Three Points Casey's Theorem
11. Ptolemy via Cross-Ratio
12. Ptolemy Theorem - Proof Without Word
13. Carnot's Theorem from Ptolemy's Theorem
Copyright © 1996-2018 Alexander Bogomolny |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5934 | Other Projects
I also enjoy open source software and Linux computers. My blog about that is here: Linux for Poets.com
Notes about this Web Site:
This web site was hand coded in HTML and CSS, with a teeny splash of PHP thrown in. In earlier days, before becoming a silk painter, I worked in web development. While I'm not a programmer, I do enjoy twiddling with computers, and I think that minimal, fast web sites are the way to go. They load quickly, and don't harvest a bunch of data about you when you look at them.
I also am a long-time Linux user, in part because it's a really good operating system, and in part because the philosophy of Linux and Open Source and Free Software is what I'd like the entire computer world to look like. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5936 | Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Prayer, Fasting and Demonic Influence
By St. Nikolai Velimirovich
"This kind can come out by nothing, but prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29).
This is the saving prescription of the greatest Physician of human souls. This is the remedy tried and proved. Another remedy for lunacy, there is not. What kind of sickness is that? That is the presence and dominance of an evil spirit in a man, a dangerous evil spirit who labors to eventually destroy the body and soul of man. The boy whom our Lord freed from an evil spirit; this evil spirit that had hurled him at times in the fire, at times in the water just in order to destroy him.
Friday, February 24, 2017
What is Fortune Telling?
By St. Nikolai Velimirovich
What is fortune telling? There are three kinds of belief, which have their origin in fortune telling: belief in blind chance, belief in things and belief in the almighty power of the spirits of darkness. Through fortune telling, events are prophesied, the power of things differentiated and an oath is sworn to the spirits of darkness.
Not any faith so decisively condemned and rejected fortune telling as did the Christian faith. Not any faith, except Christianity is free and pure of fortune telling. Other faiths are, more or less, fortune telling and some consist only of fortune telling.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Aspects of Demonology in the text “On The Belly-Myther” of Endor by St. Eustathius of Antioch
By Daniel Buda
This article tries to identify and analyse the demonological elements contained in the text “On the Belly-Myther” of St. Eustathius of Antioch. St. Eustathius demonology is primarily based on the Bible and is developed mainly as a consequence of his exegesis on 1 Kingdoms 28. Apart from the Bible, Eustathius appeals massively to logic while formulating statements about the demon and his power over human beings, the relationship between demons power in the world and God’s power, the possibility for demons to express the truth etc. St. Eustathius demonology is rather “intellectual” and might be different in its approach from the so-called “monastic demonology” which can be found by St. Athanasius of Alexandria or Evagrius Ponticus.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Saint Leo of Catania and the Sorcerer Heliodoros
By Agapios the Cretan
On the island of Sicily, a diviner and sorcerer, named Heliodoros, wrought signs and marvels by demonic cooperation. His satanic activities and powers surpassed the wickedness of Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8) and Simon Magus (Acts 8:9), since he had all diabolical energy working in him. Now he was the son of noble Christian parentage; his mother was the patrician Barbara. All assumed Heliodoros was a Christian. But from his childhood he showed himself to be arrogant, insolent, audacious, rash and proud. In time, he aspired to become prefect of the city [of Catania], not that he might be of service to the people, but rather that he might commit with impunity his shameless misdeeds according to his will and pleasure. It was, however, not the will of God that the unworthy Heliodoros, with his overweening pride, should attain to that high dignity. That vile and perverse man, thereafter, turned his steps in the direction of the occult.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
When St. Parthenios of Lampsakos Invited a Demon to Possess Him
St. Parthenios the Wonderworker (Feast Day - February 7)
Once there came to Bishop Parthenios of Lampsakos a man who was possessed by a most malicious demon, and no one knew of it, not even the possessed one himself. The Saint, however, recognized the demonic possession, because he was inspired and enlightened by God. When that man greeted him, the holy one offered no response but kept silent as if he were mute. The demon was angered at the bishop's conduct. The demon then, with haughtiness and pride, addressed the meek Parthenios in a wrathful tone:
Thursday, February 2, 2017
The Fathers of the Church and the Evil Eye
By Matthew W. Dickie
Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how difficult even the most highly educated and sophisticated Christians of the late fourth and early fifth centuries found it to rid themselves of the idea that envy lends a malign power to men’s eyes. The idea at issue is that the eyes of envious men are able, unaided, to inflict injury at a distance. This is the belief called the “evil eye” by speakers of English and other modem European languages, though that significantly is not the way in which most men in pagan and Christian antiquity would have referred to it. The difficulty that such fathers of the church as Basil, Jerome, and John Chrysostom had with freeing themselves from the idea is some indication of how deep-seated it must have been in the general population. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5961 | World Library
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Lieber Code
The Lieber Code of April 24, 1863, also known as Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Order № 100,[1] or Lieber Instructions, was an instruction signed by President Abraham Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States during the American Civil War that dictated how soldiers should conduct themselves in wartime. Its name reflects its author, the German-American legal scholar and political philosopher Franz Lieber.
• Historical background 1
• Main provisions 2
• Ethical treatment 2.1
• Slavery and black prisoners of war 2.2
• Sterner measures 2.3
• Legacy 3
• In the Civil War 3.1
• In Europe 3.2
• Philippine-American War 3.3
• See also 4
• References 5
• External links 6
Historical background
Lieber had fought for Prussia in the Napoleonic Wars and had been wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. He had lived and taught for two decades in South Carolina, and he saw the effects of and opposed slavery. Beginning in October 1861, as professor of history and political science at what became Columbia University, Lieber delivered a series of lectures at the new Law School entitled “The Laws and Usages of War." He believed the methods used in war needed to align with the goals and that the means had to justify the ends, and he published the lectures as “International Law, or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War.”[2]
During the American Civil War, soldiers were faced with a number of ethical dilemmas. Lieber knew about some from his own European wartime experiences, as well as through his sons (two of whom fought for the Union, and another died fighting for the Confederacy near Williamsburg). While in St. Louis searching for one of his sons, who had been wounded at Fort Donelson, Lieber met Union General Henry Halleck, who had been a lawyer in civilian life. As the war dragged on, the treatment of spies, guerrilla warriors and civilian sympathizers became especially troublesome. So too was the treatment of escaped slaves, who were forbidden to return to their owners by an order of March 13, 1862. After Halleck became general-in-chief in July, 1862, he solicited Lieber's views. The professor responded with a report, “Guerilla Parties Considered With Reference to the Laws and Usages of War," and Halleck ordered 5000 copies printed.[3] That same summer, Lieber advised Secretary of War Edwin Stanton concerning the "military use of colored persons."
By year's end, Halleck and Stanton invited Lieber to Washington to revise the 1806 Articles of War. Other members of the revision committee included Major Generals John Henry Martindale, but essentially Lieber was left to draft instructions for Union soldiers facing these situations. Halleck edited them to ensure nothing conflicted with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Then Lincoln issued them in April, 1863.[2]
Main provisions
The main sections concerned martial law, military jurisdiction, and the treatment of spies, deserters and prisoners of war.
Ethical treatment
The document insisted upon the humane, ethical treatment of populations in occupied areas. It was the first expressly codified law that expressly forbade giving "no quarter" to the enemy (i.e., killing prisoners of war), except in such cases when the survival of the unit that held these prisoners was threatened. It forbade the use of poisons, stating that use of such puts any force who uses them entirely outside the pale of the civilized nations and peoples; it forbade the use of torture to extract confessions; it described the rights and duties of prisoners of war and of capturing forces. It described the state of war, the state of occupied territories, the ends of war, and discusses permissible and impermissible means to attain those ends; it discussed the nature of states and sovereignties, and insurrections, rebellions, and wars. As such, it is widely considered to be the first written recital of the customary law of war, in force between the civilized nations and peoples since time immemorial, and the precursor to the Hague Regulations of 1907, the treaty-based restatement of the customary law of war.
Slavery and black prisoners of war
The Lieber Code was probably commissioned by the Lincoln Administration to deal with the crisis touched off by the Emancipation Proclamation, which the Confederate States of America insisted was in violation of the customary rules of warfare. Moreover, Confederate officials such as Jefferson Davis had announced that the South would treat black Union soldiers as criminals, not as soldiers, subject to execution and re-enslavement upon capture.
The Lieber Code defended the lawfulness of Emancipation under the laws of war and insisted that those same laws prohibited discrimination on the basis of color among combatants.[4]
One recent author says that the Code's association with Emancipation and the problem of black Union soldiers was so close that it ought to be called not Lieber's Code but Lincoln's Code since it was part and parcel of the most important decision of Lincoln's presidency.[5]
Sterner measures
Both the Lieber Code and the Hague Convention of 1907, which took much of the Lieber Code and wrote it into the international treaty law, included practices that would be considered illegal or extremely questionable by today's standards. In the event of the violation of the laws of war by an enemy, the Code permitted reprisal (by musketry) against the enemy's recently captured POWs; it permitted the summary execution (by musketry) of spies, saboteurs, francs-tireurs, and guerrilla forces, if caught in the act of carrying out their missions. (These allowable practices were later abolished by the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949, following the Second World War, which saw these practices in the hands of totalitarian states used as the rule rather than the exception to such.)
Such terms reflected Lieber's deep interest in the ideas of Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz. They also arose out of one of the Code's central aims, which was not merely to limit the war, but to legitimate its expansion in the move to Emancipation and a more aggressive war effort.[6]
However, the code envisioned a reciprocal relationship between the population and the Army. As long as the population did not resist military authority, it was to be treated well. Should the inhabitants violate this compact by taking up arms and supporting guerrilla movements, then they were open to sterner measures. Among these were the imposition of fines, the confiscation and/or destruction of property, the imprisonment and/or expulsion of civilians who aided guerrillas, the relocation of populations, the taking of hostages, and the possible execution of guerrillas who failed to abide by the laws of war.[7] It authorized the shooting on sight of all persons not in uniform acting as soldiers and those committing, or seeking to commit, sabotage.[8]
In the Civil War
Historians have often dismissed the role of the Code in the war effort. While it is true that commanders such as William Tecumseh Sherman rarely, if ever, consulted the Code in making combat decisions, the Code played a significant role nonetheless in the war's last two years. It provided a blueprint for hundreds of military commissions charging law of war violations. Also, its provisions on black soldiers bolstered the Union's unpopular decision to cease prisoner exchanges so long as the South refused to exchange black prisoners on equal terms with white ones.[9]
In Europe
European jurists and treaty negotiators picked up Lieber's text and used it as the basis for negotiations that ultimately formed the basis of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. These two large peace conferences set forth a series of multilateral treaties and declarations concerning the laws of land warfare. However, the third conference was postponed because of the start of the First World War. That war featured chemical warfare and mass slaughter to an extent not heretofore conceived, as did World War II. However, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, international jurists found that by 1939 the rules for international warfare, particularly implicating atrocities against prisoners and civilian casualties, had been recognized by all civilized nations and thus could apply to officials even of countries never signing the Hague Conventions. Other codifications cited by those jurists included the Covenant of the League of Nations which created a permanent International Court of Justice at the conclusion of World War I (which entered into force in 1920), and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. Some features of the Lieber Code are still evident in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.[10]
Philippine-American War
An abridged version of the Lieber Code was published in 1899 in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in 1899.[11] Lieber's son, Guido Norman Lieber was Judge Advocate General of the Army from 1895 until 1901, and advised President William McKinley during the Spanish-American War. Thus, the Lieber Code was used extensively during the Philippine-American War as a justification of (and later a defense for) actions against the native population (see J. Franklin Bell and Littleton Waller).
Numerous academics have questioned whether the acts of American forces, specifically the practice of reprisal by summary shooting of newly captured Filipino POWs, during the Philippine-American War, were, by the standards of the day, war crimes. Instead, these scholars suggest that many of the acts were the lawful exercise of the customary right of reprisal for war crimes and atrocities committed by Filipino insurrectionist forces against American POWs, and were conducted to demonstrate to the insurrectionist forces that failure to respect the rights of American POWs would result in reprisals against Filipino POWs. Credible allegations prompting American reprisals against Filipino forces included the roasting alive of American POWs over fires, as well as the burial of living American POWs to their neck in dirt, followed by use of insects (specifically fire-ants) as means of execution.[12][13][14][15]
Excesses by American forces in the carrying out of reprisals, such as extending them to non-combatants, were punished by court-martial. In addition, one unquestionable set of war crimes (under the Lieber Code and the later Hague Regulations of 1907) did take place during the Philippine-American War: the torture of certain Filipino insurrectionists, uncovered by the Lodge Committee. One particularly common means of torture was the use of what was then known as the water cure, by American forces, in one instance “ order to secure information of the murder of Private O'Herne of Company I, who had been not only killed, but roasted and otherwise tortured before death ensued.”[16]
See also
1. ^ The Lieber Code can be found in US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899), Series III, Volume 3, pp 148-164.
2. ^ a b Beard, Rick. The Lieber Codes New York Times, April 24, 2013.
3. ^
4. ^ John Fabian Witt, Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History (Free Press, 2012)
5. ^ Witt, Lincoln's Code, p. 8.
6. ^ See Witt, Lincoln's Code, ch. 6-8.
7. ^ Birtle, Andrew J. (April 1997). "The U.S. Army's Pacification of Marinduque, Philippine Islands, April 1900 – April 1901". The Journal of Military History (Society for Military History) 61 (2): 255–282.
8. ^ Nebrida, Victor; ed. Hector Santos (1997-06-15). "The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even". Philippine Centennial Series. Retrieved 2006-03-04.
9. ^ See Witt, Lincoln's Code, ch. 9.
10. ^ Witt, Lincoln's Code, ch. 11.
11. ^ United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 2. Vol. 5. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1899, pp. 671-682.
12. ^ Worcester 1914, p. 237 Ch.14
13. ^ Agoncillo 1990, pp. 227–231
14. ^ Boot 2003, p. 102
15. ^ Miller 1982, pp. 92–93
16. ^ "The water cure described.; Discharged Soldier Tells Senate Committee How and Why the Torture Was Inflicted" (PDF). The New York Times. May 4, 1902. p. 13. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
External links
• The full text of the Lieber Code
• The full text of the Lieber Code at the Yale Avalon Project
|
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5979 | Showing posts from March, 2010
A new week, a new letter...
I was anything but happy last week. No real reason, but I was just in a funk all week long. This week, I will NOT be Debbie Downer, even though the Cats lost so I won't be spending my spring break at the final four in Indianapolis.... I thought I'd start the week with another happiness letter to hopefully inspire a week of happiness!
Google- The best search engine. I <3 Google. And I'm somewhat of an Internet searching guru. Seriously. If it's out there, I'll find it. Friends of mine will sometimes call me up to see if I can find something online that they've been searching for FOREVER and it usually takes me about five minutes. I secretly think I should open up some kind of Private Investigating business... Grayson-Say what you want about it, I do hold a special place in my heart for my hometown. Yes, the gossip annoyed me, and yes, we hung out in a hardware store parking lot, but I wouldn't trade one day of my 18 years there.
Gurnie-That's my dad…
You know how sometimes, you'll just need to talk about something? Just get it off your chest? But the person you're talking to either doesn't understand, doesn't really listen, or tries to just convince you that everything is bubble gum and rainbows, even though you know it's not? Yeah, that's what's happening to me these days...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I don't know if it's because there's nothing as interesting as that SEC Tourney Championship game, but I couldn't find anything to watch on TV. And maybe it's because I'm sick of reading books where the single girl (who thinks she's way past her prime at around 24) stumbles upon her Prince Charming and they live happily ever after, but I don't feel like reading. So tonight I climbed into my bed at about 9:20 (which my mother would argue is *really* 8:20, since the time changed today; then I'd counter with No, it's really 9:20 because the time *did* change, but I digress...) and I've just been laying here listening to the quiet of my house and wishing it was warm enough to open my windows... I really didn't have anything to say, but I thought maybe if I started writing, I'd come up with something. I can see that's not going to happen. I guess I'll try to go to sleep now.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5992 | Thursday, November 5, 2015
Adelie Penguins
Adélie penguins
Among the many penguin species found populating the coasts of Antarctica, the Adélie Penguin, , is one of the smallest, yet most interesting. The average Adélie penguin weighs only 8 to 9 lbs. (4 kilograms) and stands approximately 28 inches (70 cm.) tall. It has a rigid tail with extended feathers that drag behind it when it walks. The animal’s head and back are black while each bird has a white belly and white rings around each of its eyes. The small bird owes its name to Jules Dumont d'Urville, a French explorer active in Antarctica in the 1830s. He chose to immortalize his wife’s name with the species.
This flightless, aquatic bird both nests and breeds in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica, an area of rocky, ice-free beaches. Nearly a half million Adélies penguins live in this region. It breeds from October through February and generally lays two eggs during this period. These eggs are protected by sturdy stone nests crafted by the parents. During this developmental stage, the males keep the eggs warm while the female feeds for around three weeks. After this initial period, the parents rotate the roles of searching for food and incubating the eggs. They must maintain a constant warming presence on their unborn offspring. Even though the most prevalent breeding time for Adélies is December, the warmest month of the year (average -2°C), the eggs must be kept warm.
The young chicks soon hatch and molt, after twenty-two days in the nest, and take their first dip in the sea at around fifty days. As the chicks mature, the parents, returning with food, will often make their offspring chase them. They will not relinquish the coveted meal until the youngling catches up. They do this to strengthen the chick’s resourcefulness and prepare it for the struggle of feeding itself. Often, only one chick survives this growing period. The surviving chick, however, now finds itself conditioned to seek out, chase, and catch its own meals.
Although the Adélie Penguin is very social, nesting in large groups and foraging together in relative peace, it is very hostile in the defense of its nest. Upon witnessing another penguin stealing stones from its nest, an Adélie will react violently and confront the other bird. The Adélie can be very obstinate, firmly standing its ground against much larger, more powerful predators. In his book, titled The Worst Journey in the World , Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a survivor of Robert Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole, had this to say about the Adélie: “They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world, either like children or like old men, full of their own importance.”
The Adélie sustains itself on many Antarctic fish types, along with the readily available populations of krill and squid of the surrounding oceans. Instead of directly drinking water, the Adélie pulls moisture from the snow it eats. In order to filter the vast amounts of water it may accidently intake during the catching and eating of prey while submerged, the Adélie’s nose houses a gland that filters out salt.
The Adélie is known to travel vast distances, over eight thousand miles (13,000 km), from their breeding sites to feeding grounds and back again. They follow the sun on this trek. Adélie Penguin is a resilient species, a fascinating Antarctic creature, while not as famous as its Imperial cousin, that expunges a rich, intriguing relationship with the environment in which it lives.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/5997 | Math Homework Help: Where To Find Free Answers
If you want to find the answers to math problems online, you have a few options that you can choose from, you could use forums that have people on it that can answer them for you, use a problem solver website, or use a website that gives you the answers from your textbook. All of these options will give you the answers you will need to answer your math problems. I will give you so places that you can visit to get the answers for your math homework, check out all of the options and figure out which one is the best for you.
Where To Find Free Answers
Forums are more than a place where people can talk about a common interest, now they are used to answer homework questions and to interact with other that need help. If you are looking for forums to help you with your math homework, first check out Chegg, this is a forum that has experts in all kind of subject that are their to help you answer your questions. Another site that has experts answer your questions and problems is Wyzant. This site lets you submit your problem or question and you get an answer right away.
There are websites out there that will give you the answers to math problems and all you have to do is type it into a search box and click it. All of these sites will give you the answers to your math problems and show you the work to get the answer. These sites also have lessons that will help you learn the subject as well. Good sites that have these features are Web Math, Hot Math, Math Way, and Quick Math.
If you aren’t worried about the steps to get the answer or don’t have to show them then there are sites that gives you the answers that are in your textbook. Experts spend hours answer the questions in every textbook that is used in schools. Sites like Slader, Hot Math, and Math Help. These sites have complied all of the textbooks used in schools and give the answers to every problem in the books. You have to be careful with sites like this because some want a monthly fee or all of the answers might not be available yet because no one has answered them yet. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6030 | 1. CSS
2. Flash
3. HTML
4. Illustrator
5. Java
6. JavaScript
7. Maya
8. Photography
9. Photoshop
10. PHP
11. Ruby
12. Ruby on Rails
13. 3ds Max
JavaScript Tutorials
JavaScript » Dynamic HTML — almost 12 years ago
Part 2 of a series of tutorials, that'll teach different animation effects in JS. This one contains Pulsate DIV, that is used to get attention to a particular DIV element.
JavaScript » Dynamic HTML — almost 9 years ago
Create simple flickr style tooltip menu |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6043 | KtikZ – Editor for the TikZ language
Version 0.10 is released. This version is available as an Ubuntu package for Lucid, as a Debian package for Squeeze and as a Windows installer (a patch release 0.10.1 is available). For Linux there are two versions available: KtikZ and QtikZ. KtikZ is integrated with the KDE4 platform, whereas QtikZ has the traditional Qt-only interface. Thanks go to Glad Deschrijver, Agustin Martin and Stuart Prescott for their contributions.
KtikZ is a small application helping you to create TikZ (from the LaTeX pgf package) diagrams for your publications. It requires qt4, libpoppler, LaTeX (pdflatex), the LaTeX preview-latex-style package [1] and pgf itself [2]. For the eps export functionality you also need the poppler-utils package. If you’d like to improve this little tool just check it out from svn (svn://hackenberger.at/svnroot/ktikz/trunk) and send me patches. I’ll hand out SVN accounts upon request as well.
Ktikz 0.7
Source code on GitHub
Source code tarball for ktikz 0.10
KtikZ 0.10 binary package for Ubuntu Lucid
QtikZ 0.10 binary package for Ubuntu Lucid
KtikZ 0.10 binary package for Debian Squeeze
QtikZ 0.10 binary package for Debian Squeeze
QtikZ 0.10.1 Installer for Windows (Windows-only patch release)
If you need packages for a different Ubuntu or Debian version, you can compile the source package on your own machine using pbuilder. See the Ubuntu Packaging Howto. You can get the source package from http://www.hackenberger.at/ktikz/. Installation instructions are in INSTALL file within the source distribution tarball.
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/preview-latex.html
[2] http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/pgf/
Version 0.10 (2010-08-26):
– KDE integration (the possibility to compile Qt-only still exists)
– template files on remote machines can be used using KIO (only in the KDE
– TikZ source files on remote machines can be loaded, saved and exported
using KIO (only in the KDE version)
– error messages while generating the preview are shown in the preview
window itself
– zooming is done in a separate thread now, so the interface is not blocked
when zooming at large sizes
– a kpart is available that can be used to view TikZ source files in
konqueror (the kpart opens files having the text/x-pgf mimetype)
– update list of tikz commands
– remove bug which causes ktikz to hang (since Qt 4.6) when typesetting
a picture
– remove bug: cannot find TikZ documentation when selecting “TikZ Manual”
in the Help menu, even if configured correctly
– display description of a newly inserted tikz command (using command
completion or menu) in the statusbar, so that the user still sees the
usage of a command after it is inserted
– add option to compile the TikZ code only when pushing a “Build” button
– add reload button
– add shell script and ktikz template to the examples directory which can
be used to generate the preview with the latex; dvips; ps2pdf sequence
instead of pdflatex (the usage is described in the shell script code)
– check whether the file has changed when ktikz gets the focus (similar
to kwrite)
– in the kpart check for file changes and reload if there are any (similar
as in okular)
– the zoom percentage field is now displayed and edited in the user’s locale
– added documentation
– remove bug: when the error box is larger than the preview and the next
compilation does not give errors, the error box is still visible outside
the area covered by the preview
– try to find or use the default hard-coded (configurable in conf.pri and
CMakeLists.txt) path to the TikZ documentation when an empty path is
stored in the local settings (this is the case e.g. when ktikz is run
for the first time)
– when inserting code using code-completion, the arguments and options that
must be filled in are marked by a bullet, the bullets can be browsed with
the Tab-key
– now also an URL to an online version of the TikZ documentation can be
specified in the configuration dialog
– an icon for Windows and an NSIS Windows Installer script are now available
– the “Insert” menu is now also translated
Version 0.9 (2009-09-10):
– remove bug that on startup the item selected in the template combobox
did not correspond to the text in the lineedit of the combobox
– correct the height of the lineedits in the configuration dialog
– the path to the TikZ documentation must now be set in the configuration
– don’t wait one second before generating the preview when a file is
loaded, the template is changed or shell escaping is toggled
– only files are used now as a template file (previously directories
and everything with a valid path was used), otherwise the default
template is used
– if the replacement text is empty, then the default template is used
instead of giving non-informative errors
– when the commands dock is visible (instead of the menu), the code that
will be inserted is visible in the status bar on hovering the item in
the list
– clicking on an item in the commands dock only includes the corresponding
code once (instead of twice)
– added file name completion to the template line edit and the line edits
in the configuration dialog
– space and tab markers resize according to the font size of the main text
– the color of the space and tab markers can be changed in the
configuration dialog
– white space and tabulator settings are separate now
– scrolling in the text edit with the arrow keys is faster now
– better completion of \begin{… and \end{…
– allow to use the icons set in KDE4 when the appropriate variable in
conf.pri is set
– remove bug that the “Next Image” and “Previous Image” buttons remained
visible when emptying the code text area
– remove bug: statustip of the toggle view actions in the Settings menu is
not shown when a toolbar or sidebar is hidden on startup
– add support for session management (open windows will be reopened after
logging out and logging in again)
– added option in the config dialog to enable/disable completion of the
tikz commands
– trying to open a file from the “Open Recent” menu that does not exist
anymore does not cause an empty window to be opened anymore, furthermore
the file is removed from the “Open Recent” list
Version 0.8 (2009-03-29):
– allow text under icons in toolbar
– remove bug: when a second ktikz window is closed while typesetting,
the cursor is not restored from busy to normal
– remove bug: when the document is untitled and not yet saved, then
opening a file opens the file in the current window, destroying the
unsaved text
– added some tikz commands to the list of commands
– disable “Save” and “Save As” actions when the file in the text editor
is the same as on disk
– replace the “Replace this occurrence” dialog by a widget shown at the
bottom of the text editor
– added filter “PGF files” in “Open File” dialog
– the previously selected templates can now be selected from a combobox
– added “Clear” button to each line edit
– remove bug: the size of the default font did not change after setting
a new font size in the config dialog
– new way of writing the temporary latex and pgf files, this also solves
the bug in which the line numbers in the log window did not correspond
to the line numbers in the editor
– each time the template is changed a new QTemporaryFile is used, this
avoids the bug that if the template contains less characters, then the
bottom of the old template is still there in the file (luckily latex
stops parsing at the first \end{document}, so this bug was not visible)
– allow to use KDE4 file dialogs when the appropriate variable in conf.pri
is set
– remove bug (I hope) that caused ktikz to crash when zooming while ktikz
is typesetting
Version 0.7 (2008-08-26):
– disable previous image button if the first image is shown, disable
next image button if the last image is shown
– the first time that the End button is pressed the cursor is moved to
the end of the line (on screen), the second time the cursor is moved
to the end of the block (end of the line in the file)
– don’t run latex on startup when no document is loaded from the command
– adjust size of the viewport in which the preview is displayed when new
items are added to the tikz picture
– added completion of the tikz commands
– the tikz commands are now loaded from an XML file
– corrected the size of the colored background around the highlighted
– remove bug in ConfigDialog::selectFont() (replace “if (&ok)” by “if (ok)”)
– the command “New” in the “File” menu now opens a new empty window,
the commands “Open” and “Open Recent” open the selected file in a new
window, a “Close” command is added which empties the current window
– the (empty) document is not typesetted anymore when the “Close” command
(which has the same behavior as the old “New” command) is executed
– add the directory in which the template file is located to the
$TEXINPUTS environment variable (useful if the template \inputs other
– layout changes in the configuration dialog
Version 0.6:
– added find and replace
– added go to line
– added indent selected paragraph
– remove crash when first character of the document is ‘\’
– allow usage of -shell-escape, so that functions can be plotted using
gnuplot from within tikz
– added highlighting of the current line in code editor
– added show white spaces
– added show matching brackets
– allow scrolling of code editor without moving the cursor with Ctrl+Up
and Ctrl+Down
– added template support for the LaTeX file in which the PGF picture
is included
– updated the icons to the latest version of Oxygen (now available at
Version 0.5:
– removed memory leaks
– added Qt logo to the “About Qt” item in the Help menu
– zooming now keeps the same object in the center of the visible area
that was previously in the center (instead of scrolling to position
– the tikz commands can be inserted from either a menu or a dockwidget
– more tikz commands are added to the menu/dockwidget
– put the preview area in a dock widget which allows more flexibility
than a splitter
– added an item in the Help menu for opening the file pgfmanual.pdf in
the PDF viewer configured in the system (if that file is located
somewhere in the LaTeX texmf tree)
– switched to poppler version 0.6
– removed bug in the config dialog which caused the table items to
not be shown as disabled upon opening the config dialog when the
highlighting is set to standard
– added a What’s This button in the configuration dialog
– remove crash when zooming at startup before loading or editing tikz
– ktikz now remembers the zoom factor from the previous session
– the application icon is now also installed and is referred to in the
desktop file (so the icon also appears in the KMenu)
– the build files (*.o *.ui moc_* qrc_*) are now put in a separate build
directory (when building), leaving the source directory clean
Version 0.4:
– added German translation
– show status tip for the “Open Recent” and “Export” submenus
– it is now possible to have more than one image in one document: just
put the different tikzpictures one below the other in the code and
then press the “Show previous image” and “Show next image” button to
browse between the previews (but it is not possible to save or export
them separately)
– the previous picture is not displayed anymore in the preview when
the text edit becomes empty (or when the user starts a new document)
– the document modification status is shown correctly now in the title bar
– the preview can be scrolled by dragging the image
– added undo, redo and select all to the Edit menu and to the toolbar
– added comment/uncomment of the current line or selection
– the scrollbars will disappear if the image becomes smaller than the
view when zooming out
– added a menu with tikz commands
– a better highlighting of the tikz code is implemented based on the
contents of the tikz commands menu
– made an application icon (I just took the kate icon from oxygen and
added the text “KTikZ”, the text in the icon is in the Fertigo font
from http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/fertigo.html)
– added What’s This texts for most widgets and icons
– added a configuration dialog (the highlighting colors and fonts, the
number of entries in the “Open Recent” menu and the path to pdflatex
and pdftops can be set)
– messages on standard output are only shown when compiled in debug mode
– in the log box short messages are shown instead of the contents of the
log file; the contents of the log file can be viewed by pressing the
“View Log” button
– added an “Abort typesetting” button; for example, typesetting the
following code never exits:
\begin{tikzpicture}[x=1cm,y=1cm % note the missing ]
\draw[->] (0,0) — (4,0);
– added a context menu to the preview area
– more sensible default sizes for the different widgets in the main
window on first startup
Version 0.3:
– show in the statusbar the position of the cursor in the text edit
– the preview image (in PDF format) is displayed using poppler instead
of converting the PDF file to PNG first and displaying the PNG file
(poppler version 0.5.4 is used)
– added zooming of the image (using poppler)
– export to PNG is done directly in Qt now; as a consequence (of this
and of using poppler to display the preview image) ktikz no longer
depends on ImageMagick
– added “Open Recent” menu
– if ktikz is run on the command line, then it loads the first argument
(if it is a valid file name)
– the open/save file dialog remembers the last directory in which a
PGF source file was opened/saved
– loading of translations if available
– added French translation
– changed qmake files so that the files will be installed in the correct
place (the installation prefix can be configured in the file conf.pri)
– the wait cursor is displayed while typesetting the PGF picture to PDF
Version 0.2:
– replaced the icons in XPM format by icons in PNG format from KDE4’s
Oxygen theme (obtained from
– placed the text edit and the preview area in a splitter so that their
relative width can be changed by the user
– placed the log text edit in a dockwidget (which can be hidden)
– temporary files are now put in QDir::tempPath() + “/ktikz”
(on Linux this is /tmp/ktikz), so your working directory remains clean
– closing the application now removes all temporary files and stops the
– the first time that the thread (generating the output image) is
executed is not on startup anymore, but when the user actually
changes the text or loads a file
– images can now be exported to EPS, PDF and PNG
– for some standard actions, the standard key sequence is used (e.g.
QKeySequence::Open instead of Ctrl+O)
– the toolbars can be hidden
– corrected typo “TiKz” to “TikZ”
– a function runProcess is used which makes the code of generatePdfFile
and generatePngFile easier (in tikzpngpreviewer.cpp)
– made a better about dialog
10 thoughts on “KtikZ – Editor for the TikZ language
1. Pingback: tikz it | bok
2. Hi,
really nice software, I like these software. It is a useful tool to create tikz figures.
An *.svg export would be nice. Hopefully in version 0.12.
Best Regards,
1. Hi Daniel,
Nice that you appreciate it! As tikz is a latex tool, there’s no SVG output, so KTikz can’t really provide one either. But there’s the pdf2svg tool that might help you!
Best, Florian
Leave a Reply to Florian Hackenberger Cancel reply
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6075 | Polymorphism is simple if you know – Java In Bangla
Well, Anything is simple if you know, not only Polymorphism. The critical part of Polymorphism is not in coding. The critical part lies in Designing it. Rather, think like polymorphism is difficult. The idea of naming the same task with different form is difficult. I have explained enough (at least to my extent) in these videos. I know changing somebody in a thought process is little difficult than to make them do it. Humans are more trained to follow instructions. For that I have practicals to follow up with theory.
Sometimes it is not possible to listen once and understand the concept. So please go twice. Do not hurry up on these. These are fundamentals. See the practical and practice it twice. It needs your attention seriously.
Download your code here.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6088 | (Redirected from ISFDB FAQ)
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The ISFDB software supports all Unicode characters. Non-Latin characters are generally entered "as is" and do not present problems. Some ISFDB fields -- title, author name, legal name, publisher name, etc -- also have complementary "transliterated" fields which let editors enter one or more Romanized forms of Unicode titles/names.
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The reason for this difference is that "é" is part of Latin-1, so the database "knows" that it is related to "e". It is similar to the way the database handles uppercase and lowercase characters during searches: even if you enter an all-lowercase or an all-uppercase search string, the database will still find the right records because it "knows" that A/a, B/b, etc are the same for search purposes. The Polish letter "ł", on the other hand, is not a part of Latin-1 and the database doesn't "know" that it is related to "l". It also doesn't "know" that "ł" is the lowercase form of "Ł".
When entering data, the ISFDB software checks the entered record names for authors, publishers, series, and publication series against what's already on file. If it finds a match, the software will use the record that is already on file. For example, if you enter "MARY shelley", the software will use "Mary Shelley" instead since the latter is already on file. If you enter "philip jose farmer", it will use "Philip José Farmer" because the latter is already on file. However, if you enter "Stanislaw W. Czarnecki", it will treat it as a new name.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6091 | You are not logged in.
• "Faldegast" started this thread
Posts: 25
Date of registration: Oct 6th 2009
• Send private message
Wednesday, October 6th 2010, 10:54am
Time to make an commersial release?
I know that in the instant that there is a stable Jabaco i can start making money, and that means that i can pay for Jabaco licenses, support and services. This is possibly my most important point so i will move it to the top. This makes it a little out of context but you are developers so you should be able to read it. :D
There are a lot of fuss about switching from VB6 now so this is a good time to give the users an alternative.
I know that Jabaco is not perfect. However i have tested it a lot and it is the BEST tool for porting VB applications to another platform, so i will vote that its ready to be commercially released.
There are commercial tools out there that are a lot less sophisticated then Jabaco and very expensive. Jabaco offers a integration with a modern language (Java) that is unmatched by the competitors. It is also unmatched in the way most of the code just compiles and runs because of the close syntax compatibility. In this it offers the most painless way to move from VB6
My suggestion is that the development branch (the beta) is forked to 2.0 and only important patches is backported to 1.0. New features should not be added to 1.0 nor its fork of the framework after this point. Even if it contains incompatibilities with VB 6 such patches should only be introduced if they cannot interfere with existing Jabaco 1.0 code.
Perhaps a keyword to specify Jabaco 1.0 is useful. In 2.0 this keyword undo changes to language and framework that would break 1.0-compatibility. In such case this keyword should be automatically added to all files created by Jabaco 1.0.
C/C++ usually have a pragma or compiler option to specify such options, however having a language keyword is superior.
Not that i have also requested stuff like Linux compatibility. However commercial support is more urgent then any other feature i want.
To pin it down this is needed for me to create commercial Jabaco applications. I can not do that with a version of Jabaco that can have changes that breaks compatibility with existing applications.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6111 | Thursday, 12 January 2012
For my heart I go to Charlie Chaplin.
For my creativity I go to Bruce Springsteen.
For my happiness I go to New Orleans jazz.
For my heartbreaks I go to Counting Crows.
For my optimism I go to Ally McBeal.
For my artistic discipline I go to Woody Allen.
For my politics I go to The West Wing.
For my coolness I go to Ellen Page.
For my rhythm I go to Aaron Sorkin.
For my insomnia I go to Ryan Adams.
For the sweet and sour I go to Billy Wilder.
For my dreams I go to New York City.
Care to share?
1. Loved your "Me." I miss Ally McBeal. West Wing--best ever politics. NOLA jazz turns any bad day on its head.
This is, yet, another wonderful exercise in gratitude--to have so much that inspires, knowing where to turn for what you need and thanking the gods for that. Great list. :)
2. Hi Kid, it's nice to read your list of these. Interesting to know what inspires a blogger I admire. Cheers for this insight. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6113 | Monday, September 3, 2018
Cardboard Science: Calculate your chances... negative... negative... negative...
Somewhere between must-see surrealist psychothriller and complete Z-movie trash, I don't suppose there's any compelling reason why Robot Monster can't be both.
Directed by Phil Tucker
Written by Wyott Ordung
With Gregory Moffett (Johnny), Claudia Barrett (Alice), George Nader (Roy), John Mylong (The Professor), Selena Royle (Mother), Pamela Paulson (Carla), and George Barrows/John Brown (Ro-Man Extension XJ-2 and Great Guidance)
Spoiler alert: high; and likewise high for Invaders From Mars (1953)
Robot Monster is bad, of course. Yet it is, in its way, flawlessly bad. Practically every aspect of its production is some kind of Goddamn trainwreck—and, in good-bad movie tradition, practically every aspect of its production comes with some kind of fascinating anecdote to explain it, too. Each bad element is mutually supporting in its badness: from bad script to bad acting to bad camerawork to bad editing to bad special effects to legendarily bad monster, all tied together by a score so surprisingly decent, and of such startlingly good pedigree (Elmer Bernstein?!), that it feels more like a joke than anything else—just one more thing the movie can't be coherent about. And so it arrives in one single, dense package that runs (this being the most important part) only 63 minutes short. In some respects it's funnier as itself than it is as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation, though it's one of the jewels of MST3K's first season. But it really might be, even so: for when you watch it by itself, you're paying more attention to all the endless ways it's so incredibly fucked—cinematically, structurally, sexually, sartorially. Taken as a whole, the thing is as magnetic a bad movie as the 1950s produced.
Alien invaders had taken something of a vacation over the course of 1952, after a strong, studio-driven start in 1951 with The Thing From Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still. (In fact, though I know not why, cinematic sci-fi as a whole virtually ground to a halt in '52.) The subgenre was set to strike back hard later in 1953: Paramount was getting in on the game with their enormously-budgeted (if not enormously-good) adaptation of The War of the Worlds.
But before that would-be watershed, you got a pair of curious B-sides, first Fox's Invaders From Mars, which our friend Brennan Klein so ably reviewed at my behest some time ago (he didn't like it, nor should he have); and then Robot Monster, made for no obvious reason other than it could be, hailing from an outfit established specifically for the task, "Three Dimensional Pictures," a creature of Monster's own ill-fated producer-director, Phil Tucker. (As the name of Tucker's company implies, Monster was filmed and released in 3-D, during that fad's height; and, clearly enough, the biggest single fraction of Monster's $16,000 budget went to securing the necessary 3-D equipment, alongside the experienced cinematographer, Jack Greenhalgh, who knew how to use it. Unfortunately, in its present-day two-dimensional format, little else about the production suggests Greenhalgh even knew how to keep fellow members of the crew from bumping into his camera.)
I mention Invaders purposefully, however, for it shares with Monster a particular conceit; and, taken together, the two form one of those remarkable theatrical diptychs that so often crop up, with two films released one atop the other taking on the same basic subject. Apparently completely independently of one another, what both Invaders and Monster decided to do was layer upon their young subgenre an impenetrable layer of trippy metacommentary, years before that sort of thing could be recognized—let alone appreciated. Specifically, both Invaders and Monsters are movies that occur principally inside a small child's dreams, and both films serve, one supposes, as a reminder that dreams are the place where all stories occur, as well as a reminder that they're also where all stories come from before they're released into the world (albeit, usually, with slightly more polish to the raw dreamstuff of their construction).
It was much cooler when Ben Sisko did it.
In neither case does it actually make the experience of watching the movie significantly better. But it does explain some of what we've got here, even if "it was all a dream" still only explains about half of whatever the hell it is that's going on in Robot Monster—and, at some point, I probably ought to try to tell you what that is.
Our dreamer is Johnny. We first meet him awake, as he makes the aquaintance of an archaeologist and his assistant during a family outing with his widowed mother, his older sister Alice, and his younger, annoying sister Carla. After a picnic in the austere surroundings of Bronson Canyon (and why not?), Johnny naps, and when he arises, wanders off. (I am not sure, to be frank, whether Monster's straightforward honesty about its underlying premise helps it or not.) Presently, he finds a certain cave. Then everything goes absolutely mad. Time and space are flipped on their heads. Stock dinosaur footage ensues from One Million B.C. and Lost Continent, soon to be joined by even more stock footage from Invasion U.S.A., amongst other now-obscure sources. And ultimately Monster indulges in its own, homegrown "special" "effect," flipping back and forth between positive and negative images. This, it turns out, was actually the end of all we know; and, when this holocaust has concluded, Johnny wakes up (again) outside the cave, which is now occupied by the creature we shall learn is designated Extension XJ-2 of the collectivist Ro-Man civilization—a cosmic being typically referred to by his human (or "hu-man") enemies as simply "Ro-Man," for the sake of convenience.
This is Ro-Man, Slayer of Worlds. The resemblance to a gorilla in a diving helmet isn't coincidental so much as it is the natural result of most of your effects budget having been expended already by the rental of a Billion Bubble Machine, which receives an onscreen credit as prominent as any of the crew.
Ro-Man, in communication with his superior, Great Guidance, reports a successful extermination of humanity; Guidance corrects him with a new "estimate," informing him that eight humans remain. Johnny, retreating, finds four of them—his mother, his sisters, and his new dad, the archaeologist from earlier, now recast as a genius scientist, whose inventions have shielded them from Ro-Man's planet-scouring death ray, as well as Ro-Man's omniscient tracking systems. In time, we'll be reunited with this "Professor's" assistant, and Alice's paramour, Roy; we'll at least hear tell of those other two, and we'll even see (stock footage of) their attempt to link up with the garrison of humans still alive on some nation or other's orbiting space platform, in our race's desperate final bid to resist the Ro-Man. Ro-Men? Whatever.
Not for nothing, I guess, does Robot Monster begin with a title card (a damned well-designed title card, at that) that depicts a pile of mocked-up turn-of-the-decade science fiction magazines: Monster is pretty much built to be a feverish hallucination instigated by such fantasies. The plot circles around the last humans' defiance of Ro-Man's siege, and, honestly, it's hardly a bad basic conflict, albeit a somewhat-repetitive one that also never has much menace to it, given scenes like the one where Johnny sallies forth to taunt Ro-Man a second time, calls him a "pooped-out pinwheel," and runs away while the lumbering giant gesticulates at him. The story of Monster, however, is slightly more complicated, as it turns its eye toward that evergreen theme of mid-century horror (not to mention mid-century sci-fi posters), offering up in the process what I imagine must be the loest-fi rendition of a Beauty and the Beast fable they ever made, once Ro-Man, via his viewscreen, comes upon Alice, and, apropos of absolutely nothing at all, finds himself fascinated far beyond his ability to cope.
If Ro-Man is still alive, if wo-man can survive, they may find... they're in one more sci-fi/horror flick about a sympathetic rapist.
It gives us several amazing monologues memorializing Ro-Man's newfound inner conflict between his duty to kill and his desire to preserve, especially Monster's immortal answer to Hamlet, "I cannot, but I must! How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do 'must' and 'cannot' meet? Yet I must! But I cannot!" More than that, though, in conjunction with that all-a-dream narrative, it gives us a young boy's fantasy that appears to revolve almost exclusively around his hot grown-up sister getting fucked, though her partner alternates between a handsome leading man and the grotesque sex monster who (probably not coincidentally) popped his very first small boner whilst looking at Alice. (Gorilla penis being, ironically, pretty puny penis, as you likely already know; though I'm pretty sure nobody was thinking in precisely these terms when they "designed" Ro-Man.) Yet our dive into Johnny's deranged id goes even deeper than that, once we realize the only members of our principal cast whom Ro-Man successfully kills are Carla and Roy—the disfavored younger sister, who wants to play "house," and the competitor for Alice's attention, respectively—leaving Alice with only a Ro-Man (and on-camera Ro-sexual assault). In the end, however, even mighty Ro-Man cannot persevere, brought down by his dishonor and the Great Guidance he has disobeyed, at the very moment the beast has finally gotten his hands around Johnny's throat. "I cannot, but I must," indeed.
It's no wonder Wyatt Ordung has always bitterly denied his screenplay credit, blaming it successively upon Tucker, who came up with the concept after his ideas for a SF comedy were turned down, and then upon an unnamed furniture store owner, who (the story goes) discharged a debt owed him by co-producer Al Zimbalist in exchange for the opportunity to "write" a "real" "Hollywood" "movie." Either way, I wouldn't necessarily want to take credit for this script, either. Ed Wood may've made vehicles for his own fetishes, but even he never made a masterpiece-abomination of Freudian sublimation like this.
But this is just what makes the movie off-puttingly weird. Actually, it's what might make the movie even sort-of work as a functional object, at least if it had any particular interest in being a functional object. I mean, it clearly did; it's only the vanishing budget that gives it the appearance of having any other intention. But whether by human design or by destiny, it often plays a lot more like a post-modern, kitschy art installation made decades later out of mid-century pop detritus than the narrative film made in 1953 it actually is. As such, we find it absolutely beholden to its crazed stock footage montage to try to get across anything like the scope of the tale it wants to tell (and in incredibly strange ways, too, like Guidance releasing "prehistoric beasts" to finish the job), and chock-full of that aforementioned photonegative effect, representing Ro-Man's "calcinator death ray."
Yet even in the littler details, it's compellingly bizarre, feeling oddly deliberate in its brokenness, even though there's always some reasonable explanation for whatever it is that it's getting wrong: like the rather obvious way that every shot was done in one take, no matter how incompetently (film was expensive, 3-D film moreso); the long (runtime-padding) vistas of Ro-Man stalking across the eerie scrubland, accompanied by a Bernstein score that gives no hint that what you're watching isn't supposed to be epic; Roy and Alice's pantomimed conversation-turned-tryst in a hidden glade (you may suspect that nobody felt up to writing credible romantic dialogue, which they surely weren't); the roofless bunker set that sort of alludes to the idea of a post-apocalypse, without actually making sense of that idea (and presumably was only ever an abandoned cinderblock shack, found in situ and then marginally dressed). But then you have that Goddamn bubble machine, and whether it's a motif tying Johnny and Ro-man together or not, you still just have to wonder. Because nobody would do that without a sense of irony, right?
And, of course, there's Ro-Man himself, who's become synonymous with 50s tripe, an icon as big or bigger than any other monster of the era. Given life by George Barrows's tireless work sweeping his arms around while nobody much tried to match his gestures with radio personality John Brown's pompous "robot voice" baritone, this composite turn is, far and away, the best and liveliest performance in the film, earnestly, even passionately digging into all of Ro-Man's vaguely-mathematical-sounding dialogue and "must/cannot" dichotomies. (But even though Ro-Man is the star, the whole film is almost as fun even when he's not around, thanks in large part to every other performance—all equally declamatory and lousy and hilariously crippled by a loopy, silly, jokey script that could scarcely have allowed the other actors to pretend, even if they were capable of it, that they're actually grappling with the existential horror of being the last human beings alive. Upon being notified of Roy and Alice's engagement, the Professor declares, "And remember, it's the social event of the season!" I guess you gotta laugh. And the child performances, needless to say, are the absolute pits.)
But I was speaking of Ro-Man, perhaps the most inspired lunacy of a decade. It's almost a pity to know the facts, and understand that it was, once again, naught but industrial reality shaping Ro-Man's form. You see, Barrows was part of that peculiar phenomenon of "gorilla actors," and, coming at the low, low cost of $40 a day, Tucker modified his vision of robot invaders accordingly upon his realization that, with Barrows, he could get a monster who came with his own prop. And yet that space helmet was Tucker's contribution (why, he even gives noticeably different space helmets to Ro-Man and to Guidance! he was trying), turning this goofy idea into a—well, still a goofy idea, but an unforgettable one.
Robot Monster comes with a tale of tragedy, too. In the weeks following its release, Tucker spiraled into a depression, culminating in a failed suicide. You hear it said, sometimes, that Monster's status as an object of cult mockery is what did it—hey, print the legend. Yet this too was a more quotidian affair, though it comes with a reminder that Monster was enormously successful, somehow grossing somewhere around a million dollars—a million dollars that Tucker never saw a dime of, cheated out of his due by a distributor. And yet, truth is, it did little to burnish his reputation, either. It's occasionally reported that following the non-release of the director's second feature, The Cape Canaveral Monsters, he faded into nudie-cuties; interestingly, he also co-invented and patented a turbine engine, which also didn't get sold. Happily, he reestablished himself as an editor and post-production supervisor in the 60s, and worked, mostly for Dino De Laurentiis, pretty much until he died in 1985—of natural causes.
His legacy lives on chiefly in this film, however, a one-of-a-kind descent into good-bad delight that at least somewhat transcends its paltry limitations, a kludge of a movie that nevertheless contains imagination unwilling to be bound, plus the kind of innocent ineptitude that's rarer than diamonds. I shall attempt to give it the score I think it actually earns, on its merits; yet giving it any higher than a zero almost seems like a disservice to its achievement.
Score: 3/10
That which is indistinguishable from magic:
• Robot Monster is uniquely resilient to nitpicking its science, thanks to its two-times-removed conceit of a lad's weird sci-fi-inflected sex dream, and the fact that nothing in it is attempting even surface-level realism. But it did teach me a new word, and it turns out that "calcination" does not mean "reduced to calcium, i.e., bones," though it maybe would be cooler if it did.
The morality of the past, in the future!:
• A major part of the third (let's say "third") act involves Alice volunteering to surrender herself to Ro-Man's ro-lust in exchange for "integrat[ing]" her family into "the plan." Her family, including her beau, take exception to this, and tie her up despite her spirited resistance. When she gets out, and finds Ro-Man, he tears her top off. It's pretty gross regardless of which corner you investigate, then, but it is a ten year old's wet dream about his sister, so let's not be too harsh, nor lose perspective. On the other hand, grown men did write it... grown men who were more aware than we that the biggest sci-fi hit of the previous year, which evidently cleared the field, was a re-release of King Kong. Ah, yes; I see that glimmer of understanding in your eyes.
• Besides second-hand objectification of women, there's also Monster's second-hand cruelty to animals, and while it's easier to give it a pass than the films (namely One Million B.C.) that it's taking the stock footage of "dimetrodons" fighting in a pit from, it's still pretty awful.
• There is no actual sense of wonder to Robot Monster, but there is a sense of dislocation and disorientation, such as you rarely get from better-made and better-conceived films. I called it a "feverish hallucination" above, and, between the eye-popping no-budget sci-fi world-building and the heady stew of sexual frustrations that forms the "plot," that really is what you get. Whether that makes it worthwhile or not is, as always, up to you. Nevertheless, I don't see how it's any worse than A Quiet Place, and it's way, way shorter.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6121 | How to change your LinkedIn password
June 7, 2012
As you probably know by now 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were leaked. There’s a good chance that includes yours. CHANGE IT NOW! LinkedIn unfortunately has not made it easy to change your password. Here’s how.
1. Visit, and log-in with your usual details
2. Once logged-in, hover over your name in the top right-hand corner of the screen, and select ‘Settings‘ from the menu
3. You may be asked to log-in again at this point
4. On the next screen, click the ‘Account‘ button which is near the bottom of the page
5. Under the ‘Email & Password’ heading, you will find a link to change your password
UPDATE: If you want to find out if your password was 1 of the 6,5 million passwords leaked go here:
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6129 | 400 Title(s)
Fletcher 1 - What a Stinker!
Fletcher, the cleverest and coolest striped skunk in town by a long shot, has made his home in the back yard of the Wild Elk Restaurant-where he also enjoys many an alfresco dining experience - until the day Bode, the head chef and owner of the establishment, cottons on. As a result of this bad ...
Rights sold: Denmark, Romania, PR China, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic
Volume: 1
Wolf City
Janek wakes up - and finds himself alone. All the people have disappeared and the animals and plants seem to be gradually repossessing the city. Vacillating between excitement and panic, Janek wanders the streets with his missing neighbour's dog, walking in circles around his school over and ...
The Nameless Night
Nicki and Canon are meant for each other. So when Canon disappears, Nicki sets off on a quest to find him - and uncovers a dark secret in his life that leads her into totally alien territory. Running parallel to familiar reality there exists a world of flowing creatures: creatures that ...
Angel of Tears
16-year-old Flora is found by the lakeside, bleeding from multiple cuts. She claims to have no memory of what's happened to her. What's more, the different witness statements don't add up to any kind of coherent picture of events, leaving the police with no leads to follow.
Rights sold: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic
The Five Aces - Starting Shot
A Sports/Crime Adventure
Rights sold: Slovenia, Spain (cat.), Turkey
Volume: 1
Treasure Hunting in the Caribbean
dtv Tiger Eye - Treasure Hunt
Maxi and Mo - Love & Co.
Rights sold: Latvia, Bulgaria
Tim is in borstal - a twenty month sentence. Instead of the thrills of parties, mates and girls, his life consists of suspicion, loneliness, and monotony. On top of it all, he faces the daily struggle for acceptance by his fellow prisoners and continuous fear of violence and brutal assault. ...
Rights sold: Dutch language
Summer Storm
Rights sold: English World Rights
Maier’s Fabulous Mystery Tour
Rights sold: Czech Republic, Latvia, France, Italy
Wanda's Secret Notebook
With two-colour illustrations
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6172 | July 20, 2014
Just your average "how it's going" post...
It's going GREAT. My life is quite mundane. I enjoy it, but I'm sure many people would poke their eyeballs out from the overall monotony. For me, there are hidden treasures in each and every day. Lately I've been finding lots of these treasures and so do not feel compelled to search for snarkable bullshit on other people's blogs. Perhaps I can provide shitty content for others to mock? It's anyone's guess...
Since I got back from our last camping trip, saw fireworks and wrote a blog post, I've been busy...
1) Using my VITAMIX...
Margaritas are a SPECIAL kind of smoothie.
2) Getting FREE SLURPEES...
Slurpees are a kind of smoothie, too.
And they're free on 7-11 every year.
Worth noting in your calendar.
3) Managing 3 different drop-offs and pick-ups for my kids' camps every weekday...
Extremely cool place to have soccer camp...especially when your 9 years old.
Other side of the hills...a world away...
rowing on the reservoir.
Back to the other side of the hills (see them in the distance?)...
Right on the San Francisco Bay.
Pretty sweet place to have camp when you're any age.
I spend about 3+ hours in the car on average on any given day. The last two weeks have gone something like this:
• out the door at 8:15
• arrive at Camp #1 at 8:45
• arrive at Camp #2 at 9:00
• drive home to fetch 3rd camper and oldest non-camper arriving at 9:30
• leave home at 10:00
• arrive at Camp #3 at 10:30
• arrive at hiking venue at 11:00 to give non-camper and myself something camp-like to do (because what's summer without camp?)
• finish short hike and head home or do long hike and immediately begin camp pick-ups
• leave hiking venue at 1:00
• arrive at Camp #3 at 1:30
• drive home arriving at 2:00
• eat something
• leave home at 2:30
• arrive at Camp #1 at 3:00
• spend 30 minutes farting around
• arrive at Camp #2 at 3:45 and leave at 4:10
• drive home arriving at 5:00 (traffic is always horrible going home)
• make and eat dinner
• leave home at 6:00 for swimming lessons (I forgot to mention swimming lessons)
• arrive at 6:20
• leave swimming lessons at 7:15
• arrive home at 7:30
• collapse on my bed and realize why I need to get my oil changed every 6 weeks
The school year isn't as crazy because all of the kids save one go to the same school...but it's a 40-minute drive in heavy traffic to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. The drive is only 15 minutes when there is no traffic which actually does happen and is the norm for the reverse commute.
You can go ahead and give me massive amounts of grief for my seemingly huge carbon footprint...lots of kids, lots of driving...but our car runs on recycled garbage and our kids are all geniuses working on sustainability projects. No. That's a lie. The truth is we live in a really expensive region of the country and have to live far away from cool things like camps, movie theaters, swimming lessons, grocery stores and good schools in order to afford pleasant housing. You might suggest that we move, but my husband's business makes that extremely difficult.
4) Coping with lice...which is really the most fun there is in the world. Really...it doesn't get any funner than this...
I found them on his head so we shaved him.
None of the other kids (including the girls with long, curly-ish hair)
had it...nor did my husband. But...I did. No, I didn't shave my head.
I went to a professional de-louser and got the full "spa" treatment.
5) Getting test results back that confirm my gastrointestinal situation is worse than I knew and researching how to heal it...
Plain, bland, chicken soup is good for the soul.
Or something.
A year ago I posted about losing a ton of weight unintentionally and then gaining it (and more) back really quickly. Since then (and actually way before then), I've had some weird and significant GI issues...constipation being one. One doctor said, "IBS." Another doctor said, "Maybe it's SIBO?" So we decided to test for SIBO. While the test came back negative in terms of the numbers, the graph showed a textbook picture of what one would see for someone with a positive result. Hence, we are treating me for SIBO.
What is SIBO?
If you didn't click the link to Wikipedia provided above and really can't summon the energy to move the cursor up to do it now, here's a little quote:
SIBO is the accumulation of excessive amount of gut bacteria in the small intestine. Any condition which impairs the normal transit or motion of the small intestine can predispose it to SIBO.Crohn's disease and previous abdominal surgery are among the risk factors for the development of SIBO.
I did this recommended, crazy, X-treeeeme elemental diet last week to try to kill of the bad gut bacteria who've taken up residence. It kicked my ass. Plain chicken soup, plain hamburger patties, puréed carrots, grape gelatin AND THAT'S IT for 3 days. It worked. The bloating completely subsided. I wasn't constipated. I felt better once the 3 days were over. The during part was pure hell. I actually didn't eat the third day because I felt so sick. I started getting really depressed on that day because the thought of restricting my diet any further was...depressing. I cried.
Then on Friday I saw a new doctor. Apparently my ileocecal valve doesn't work. And not only am I sensitive/intolerant to dairy, gluten, eggs, fish, and potato but Vitamin A, B complex vitamins, minerals and ... CARBS (rice, grains,...). WTF? So this guy is some kind of "wizard" who can fix my ileocecal valve AND resolve most, if not all, of my sensitivities/intolerances. I cannot fucking wait.
6) Hiking...
Last Monday's hike...
4.2 miles on a trail we've done before.
Last Tuesday's hike...
7.5 miles on a new trail.
We got totally lost for a little while and my son lost his shit.
This is the part where he was losing his shit.
Last Wednesday's hike...
9.2 miles in out-and-back format.
It was far easier than the previous day's mostly due to the
smaller hills and lack of scary cows.
Last Friday's hike...
we did a double of our normal 3-mile loop.
It felt pretty easy primarily because of familiarity.
We took the weekend off logging 26+ miles M-F and then started this past week off with a 4.2 and a 6-miler, intending to work up to a big 1-0. Then my bacterial die-off rendered me indisposed and cowering in my bed :( We're hoping to get there this coming week.
See what I did there?
Not only did I use bullet-point posting TWICE, but I plugged VitaMix, gave random life information, described my medical condition AND showed you #trailporn... ALL IN ONE POST!
I probably should enter the Runners' World Cover Contest so I can annoy the living shit out of everyone grubbing for votes, but I hate having my picture taken. And I've already done that "beg for votes from everyone you know on all avenues of social media to the point that they all fucking hate your guts" thing before...more than once. The prize wasn't worth the nuisance obtaining it caused.
Who did you vote for in the Runners' World Popularity Contest?
Did you ever enter a grub-for-votes contest? Was it worth it?
Did you workout at all last week? Tell me about it so I can live vicariously!
Do you drive a lot in your daily life? Do you like driving?
Do you have a big carbon footprint? Do you judge people by the size of theirs?
Was this post informative? Do you feel like you know me better? How much of your life do you share on your blog?
1. I'm on my phone and can't be bothered to scroll up and down 37 times trying to read all your goddamn questions. But I did want to let you know that I read this. You're welcome. <3 <3 <3 #ursopopular
1. This was the longest fucking post ever. I can only imagine how much of a challenge phone-reading it must've been. I'll bet the other three readers will just open it and go "whoa...scrolling...fuck this." I appreciate your support and engagement. And #cleavageselfies. More please.
2. I will never complain about my drop offs again. I totaled probably 75 minutes in the car daily with two different camps and it was driving me crazy. Huge props to you for swim that late also. I hate leaving the house after dinner. It's exhausting!
I love that you admitted having lice. I remember having it in elementary school and was scarred for life. Everytime we get one of those notes from school "A child in your child's class...." I get paranoid. I actually bought anti-lice spray for my daughters long hair! I am sure it's a scam but so far so good. Thanks for making it seem easy to deal with and less scary for us.
1. I still get paranoid when those notes come home! That anti-lice spray works. In fact, www.fairytaleshaircare.com has GREAT products. The only times we've ever had lice in the house have been when we've run out of their prevention products. The nice thing about late swimming lessons is they've had dinner and then put on jammies when they get out of the pool and go to bed shortly after we get home...nice and tired. At least that was the idea...
3. 1. I refuse to vote in that Runner's World contest. Runner's World is dumb. And why the fuck isn't it called Runners' World?!
2. I re-tweeted something once to get entered in a free shoe contest. I didn't win.
3. I ran! Hiked! Swam! Water skied! Knee boarded! Tubed! Those last three things weren't working out but they left bruises all over my body so I'm counting them.
4. I love road trips and don't mind driving around town, but getting stuck in traffic is the worst. I don't really drive that much these days (I spend the vast majority of my time at school), but now that I'm on SUMMER VACATION I'm making a lot of plans that involve driving. I'm really trying to work on increasing my carbon footprint.
5. This post was informative. Thank you.
I kind of feel like I deserve an award for answering all the rainbow questions.
1. Email me your address and I'll send you something AWESOME. You definitely win a prize for rainbow question answering :)
4. I too had lice as a child. Hell hath no furry like seeing my mother clean like a wild banshee. I still remember her vacuuming errything.
1. I cried the first time my kids got it. So many heads, too little time...
I've since learned that you don't need to do a lot of the traditional things like vacuum everything, bag everything up for 2 weeks, etc. You just need to keep heads nit and adult free. Which is hard and time-consuming in and of itself.
5. Best use of the Vitamix I've seen yet!
I thought about entering the Runner's World contest, but I really don't have the time or desire to post multiple times per day asking people to vote for me. I'd hate myself after a day.
I am quite jealous of the trail porn...maybe not so much of all that time in the car! (I don't own a car! MADNESS.)
The mention of the ileocecal valve made my little nurse heart flutter. I hope it functions properly soon!
1. I'm very medical terminology knowledgeable for a non-medical professional :) My new doctor was describing the ileocecal valve without naming it, and I said, "you mean the ileocecal valve." He stopped mid sentence, his jaw dropped, and his eyes bugged out. Like, who in the fuck KNOWS that? But I know stuff like that I've had a spontaneous pneumothorax and the resulting procedures were a pleurectomy and a thoracotomy. And I know that my epidermis is showing.
6. I wanted to vote for something, but it said: Database Error, so I left it!
Don't know id you want to know about my training... I still run every day, but it's slow and on the road I'm still injured! I've taken to doing hills as they are slow and I can run slow!!! 4 hill sessions last week!!!
The schools are back today here in SA, so the traffic was bad, but I ride a motobike, so no worries.
carbon footprint? have no clue, but we do things to save money and that helps.
I know this isn't in order, but I do like road trips and driving... but most of them are to races and I'm not running many of them at the moment!
1. I just read up on your...injury...I can hardly bring myself to even think the word in relation to you. Take care of it. Let it heal. Please. I want you to be able to push the pain in that "hurts so good" way instead of the horrible way.
7. I did not vote in that God-forsaken contest because I couldn't care less who gets on the damn cover.
I am in schlepping kids hell too, except I don't go as far as you.
Ugh to the intolerances and bacteria already. Maybe up your kombucha consumption and rally those good bacteria. If only it were that simple, right?
1. That would be such an awesome cure! I keep wishing the good bacteria thrived on chocolate as well :)
8. Did you see a regular gastroenterologist? Because that is a pretty awesome diagnosis...usually if you don't have crohns or UC, they just brush you off. My experience, anyways.
And no, I didn't vote for anyone in the RW cover contest. I think RW should just randomly pick someone. The begging for votes is starting to get to me!
1. Within my health plan they brushed me off with the IBS diagnosis. I went out of plan and out of pocket to get REAL answers. It was pretty frustrating but I'm used to that. I had to do the same when I properly self-diagnosed adrenal fatigue.
9. Your kids all need licences and cars. I don't care if they're too young - fake their birth certificates. Then you can reclaim a good few hours of each day. I know - I'm a genius!
10. That 3-day diet sounded like hell. I think it's awesome if this doc can fix you but I'm sure you are not looking forward to more medical intervention at this point!
I have cut way back on camps this year b/c I have found that if my kids are not in the same ones, all the driving kind of defeats my purpose of carving out time for me to work. So they've done one, together, and then next week they are going to my inlaws for a few days. And that's all she wrote for working time for me this summer!
We haven't had lice yet, but I'm sure the days are numbered.
Good to catch up and see the photo dump!
11. Oh thank god i'm not the one who is sick to the point of vomit of the Runners World cover contest! Being out of high school & everything I'm pretty much now at the point where I only vote for people who are running for elected office.
I always wonder how accurate the allergy tests are & how easily they get thrown off by what happens to be in your body on that particular day. I was having a bad skin rash about four years ago & the allergist sent me for allergy testing, & the results said I was allergic to eggs, nuts, dairy, gluten/wheat, & about 10 other things, none of which I've ever had any problem with. The doctor was like, "Eh, we'll just give you a big steroid shot & call it good."
12. That diet sounds like it would be enough to kill anything off! Ugh. Kudos to you for making it through though. Hopefully this new quack will be able to fix you up :)
13. If they fixed your hip and gut all in one year....wow, now wouldn't that be cool?!
14. I voted for Zooey Deschanel cuz I heard she hates running. That way if she wins she's super confused. I mean, Elf was good but she's not that rad otherwise.
I don't know what grubbing is.
I worked out so hard that I crashed the Interwebs when I tried to load my shit on to Daily Mile.
I like driving my mom's Corolla with the Windows down blasting NWA in Compton. Kind of like the opening scene to "Office Space" but more gnarly.
I take a jet helicopter to the airport and then switch to the most fuel inefficient plane that is flying to where I need to go.
15. What a fun and unique blog. Gosh, I remember those days with the kids' schedules...busy, but wonderful ~
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Snapshot or Checkpoint in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V?
If you’ve been playing around with Hyper-V hypervisor, you will know about a feature called “Snapshot”. Snapshot allow you capture the state, data, and hardware configuration of a running virtual machine. It allow us to easily revert the virtual machine to a previous state. Most of the time we use snapshot during development or test environment. I should just remind again as recently few of my customer are having the same issue due to snapshot. Now why snapshot is not recommended in production environment?
The reason are
1. Snapshot will create a temporary file with an extension .avhd. This temporary file will consume storage space and will grow. User will not realize that suddenly all the virtual machine which located in the same volume is in “Paused” state. This because snapshot has occupied the entire storage space.
2. Snapshot will degrade the disk performance of the virtual machine.
3. Snapshot is not supported to use on VM hosting Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service role in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Domain Services (2000 / 2003).
Let back to our topic. According to my testing on Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview , snapshot name has changed to “Checkpoint”. Finally Hyper-V and VMM has standardize on using the same name: “Checkpoint”. The step is still similar as previous version. On the VM, just right click and select Checkpoint.
Checkpoint still a useful feature even it has it own limitation. My advise is
1. Don’t leave snapshot for quite a long time
2. Do remember to remove the checkpoint.
3. If you’ve using Hyper-V 2008 or 2008 R2, do remember to shutdown the VM in order for merging process to take over. The temporary file (.avhd) is still remain on the volume. Once turn off, please wait till the merging process is complete before turn on the VM.
If you’re using Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2, you can safely delete the checkpoint while the VM is running. It will performing merging at the background.
1 comment:
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6196 | Weird Vibes Ep. #13: World's #1 Music Blogger
Weird Vibes Ep. #13: World's #1 Music Blogger
On a dewy summer’s eve roughly three years ago, one fearless man took it upon himself to lead a revolution in music journalism. He wanted to do it differently. With a few bold clicks, he registered his domain at, and Geoffrey Dicker (AKA “G”) began to build a music empire, allegedly rising to #1 in the blogosphere. has been heralded as the “#1 music and art blog on the planet” by He also knows a lot of famous people.
This episode of Weird Vibes is an all-access look at the life of G, the world’s #1 blogger, as he navigates the streets of New York City during CMJ Music Festival 2012 in search of buzz, vibes and exclusive mp3s to premiere on his site. Catch his fascinating interviews with Mac Demarco, DIIV, Paul Banks (Interpol), Unicorn Kid, Kitty Pryde, and Blood Orange, and appearances by Flying Lotus, Pictureplane, Mykki Blanco, Merchandise, Thieves Like Us, Hot Sugar, Twerps, Madeline Follin of Cults, Class Actress,Tao Lin, and more. Plus, G keeps his ear to the ground and checks out events by Fader, Pitchfork, KEXP, Ad Hoc at 285 Kent, NPR at Le Poisson Rogue, and a seapunk party at Glasslands.
Music videos in this episode include Tame Imapala “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” TEEN “Electric,”Ultrademon & DJ Kiff "Yr So Wet 3.0," and Antwon “Living Every Dream.”
For more episodes, go to
Weird Vibes Episodes |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6211 | This section contains the home sites of all the individual departments that make up the organization of the City of North Kansas City.
Please select from the items below or the menu at left.
City Hall
2010 Howell St
North Kansas City, MO 64116
Phone 816-274-6000
Regular Hours:
Monday - Friday
8am to 5pm
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6217 | Thursday, February 28, 2013
sponsor highlight + giveaway ((featuring shelby from the brandon & shelby blog))
Hello Oh, Sweet Joy! readers! Thanks so much Kim for having me here!
First off, there are three things you don't know about me.
1. Who I am? umm... I'm Shelby Osmond (big hug), but you can call me shelby, or shelbs, or ... that girl who's posting on this blog...
2. Where am I from? Well, right now I'm a guest at Oh, Sweet Joy! - its quite nice here. But I normally stay at my home in Boston, and occasionally like to show up at the door at my digital home:
3. What do I like? i like what I like. And you like what you like, and maybe what you like is what I like. But if you're reading this blog then we both know we like something similar... so you should come over and see if you still like, what I like.
So now that we've been introduced, lets do a giveaway.
The winner will receive a
$30 gift certificate to Ruche-
and... receive this print below in "8x10". My husband is an Art Director in advertising and does great graphic design, so I should thank him for this beauty.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
1. I found your blog through the mom style link up and have followed ever since!
2. I pinned this post!
3. She sounds great! Can't wait to check out her blog.
The Hartungs Blog
4. I checked out her blog- it's nice! Beautiful pictures & lovely giveaway.
5. I love your blog (and hers)
Thank you both for such a great giveaway- woo!
6. Hi, Shelby! I am following her now =)
7. I really enjoy your blog. Here is my pin--
comments are fun. leave one if it's nice. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6222 | Jessica de Koninck
Entry from the Handbook of General Regrets
When was the last time someone
asked what you would like
for breakfast or woke you
with the scent of scones baking
or buttermilk biscuits and read
you the headlines, while
you were already engrossed
reading something else,
and poured you a second cup
of coffee and said, rushing out
the door, See you later, love you, bye?
Jessica de Koninck is the author of Cutting Room (Terrapin Books) and the chapbook, Repairs Her poems appear in a variety of journals and anthologies including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, US 1 Worksheets, Lips and The Ledge. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6224 | You are here
Culture as a Major Aspect of HRM Overseas
19 January, 2016 - 15:28
Culture is a key component to managing HRM on a global scale. Understanding culture but also appreciating cultural differences can help the HRM strategy be successful in any country. Geert Hofstede, a researcher in the area of culture, developed a list of five cultural dimensions that can help define how cultures are different. 1
The first dimension of culture is individualism-collectivism. In this dimension, Hofstede describes the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. For example, in the United States, we are an individualist society; that is, each person looks after him- or herself and immediate family. There is more focus on individual accomplishments as opposed to group accomplishments. In a collective society, societies are based on cohesive groups, whether it be family groups or work groups. As a result, the focus is on the good of the group, rather than the individual.
Power distance, Hofstede’s second dimension, refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept that power is not distributed equally. For example, some societies may seek to eliminate differences in power and wealth, while others prefer a higher power distance. From an HRM perspective, these differences may become clear when employees are asked to work in cross-functional teams. A Danish manager may have no problem taking advice from employees because of the low power distance of his culture, but a Saudi Arabian manager may have issues with an informal relationship with employees, because of the high power distance.
Uncertainty avoidance refers to how a society tolerates uncertainty. Countries that focus more on avoidance tend to minimize the uncertainty and therefore have stricter laws, rules, and other safety measures. Countries that are more tolerant of uncertainty tend to be more easygoing and relaxed. Consider the situation in which a company in the United States decides to apply the same HRM strategy to its operations in Peru. The United States has an uncertainty avoidance score of 46, which means the society is more comfortable with uncertainty. Peru has a high uncertainty avoidance, with a score of 87, indicating the society’s low level of tolerance for uncertainty. Let’s suppose a major part of the pay structure is bonuses. Would it make sense to implement this same compensation plan in international operations? Probably not.
Masculinity and femininity refers to the distribution of emotional roles between genders, and which gender norms are accepted by society. For example, in countries that are focused on femininity, traditional “female” values such as caring are more important than, say, showing off. The implications to HRM are huge. For example, Sweden has a more feminine culture, which is demonstrated in its management practices. A major component in managers’ performance appraisals is to provide mentoring to employees. A manager coming from a more masculine culture may not be able to perform this aspect of the job as well, or he or she may take more practice to be able to do it.
The last dimension is long-term–short-term orientation, which refers to the society’s time horizons. A long-term orientation would focus on future rewards for work now, persistence, and ordering of relationships by status. A short-term orientation may focus on values related to the past and present such as national pride or fulfillment of current obligations. We can see HRM dimensions with this orientation in succession planning, for example. In China the person getting promoted might be the person who has been with the company the longest, whereas in short-term orientation countries like the United States, promotion is usually based on merit. An American working for a Chinese company may get upset to see someone promoted who doesn’t do as good of a job, just because they have been there longer, and vice versa.
Based on Hofstede’s dimensions, you can see the importance of culture to development of an international HRM strategy. To utilize a transnational strategy, all these components should be factored into all decisions such as hiring, compensation, and training. Since culture is a key component in HRM, it is important now to define some other elements of culture.
Table 14.3 Examples of Countries and Hofstede’s Dimensions
Power Distance
Uncertainty Avoidance
Long/Short Term Orientation
New Zealand
United States
(this dimension was only studied in 23 countries)
Power distance: Refers to the comfort level of power differences among society members. A lower score shows greater equality among levels of society, such as New Zealand.
Individualism/collectivism: A high ranking here, such as the United States, means there is more concern for the individualistic aspects of society as opposed to collectivism. Countries with high scores on individualism means the people tend to be more self-reliant.
Masculinity/femininity: A lower score may indicate lower levels of differentiation between genders. A lower score, such as Chile, may also indicate a more openly nurturing society.
Uncertainty avoidance: Refers to the tolerance for uncertainty. A high score, such as Japan’s, means there is lower tolerance for uncertainty, so rules, laws, policies, and regulations are implemented.
Long/short term orientation: Refers to thrift and perseverance, overcoming obstacles with time (long-term orientation), such as China, versus tradition, social obligations.
Culture refers to the socially accepted ways of life within a society. Some of these components might include language, norms, values, rituals, andmaterial culture such as art, music, and tools used in that culture. Language is perhaps one of the most obvious parts of culture. Often language can define a culture and of course is necessary to be able to do business. HRM considerations for language might include something as simple as what language (the home country or host country) will documents be sent in? Is there a standard language the company should use within its communications?
Fortune 500 Focus
For anyone who has traveled, seeing a McDonald’s overseas is common, owing to the need to expand markets. McDonald’s is perhaps one of the best examples of using cultural sensitivity in setting up its operations despite criticism for aggressive globalization. Since food is usually a large part of culture, McDonald’s knew that when globalizing, it had to take culture into consideration to be successful. For example, when McDonald’s decided to enter the Indian market in 2009, it knew it needed a vegetarian product. After several hundred versions, local McDonald’s executives finally decided on the McSpicy Paneer as the main menu item. The spicy Paneer is made from curd cheese and reflects the values and norms of the culture. 2
In Japan, McDonald’s developed the Teriyaki Burger and started selling green tea ice cream. When McDonald’s first started competing in Japan, there really was no competition at all, but not for the reason you might think. Japanese people looked at McDonald’s as a snack rather than a meal because of their cultural values. Japanese people believe that meals should be shared, which can be difficult with McDonald’s food. Second, the meal did not consist of rice, and a real Japanese meal includes rice—a part of the national identity 3 and values. Most recently, McDonald’s introduced the McBaguette in France to align with French cultural values. 4The McBaguettes will be produced in France and come with a variety of jams, a traditional French breakfast. Just like in product development, HRM must understand the differences between cultures to create the best HRM systems that work for the individual culture.
Norms are shared expectations about what is considered correct and normal behavior. Norms allow a society to predict the expected behavior and be able to act in this manner. For many companies operating in the United States, a norm might be to dress down for work, no suit required. But if doing business overseas, that country’s norm might be to wear a suit. Not understanding the norms of a culture can offend potential clients, customers, and colleagues.
Values, another part of culture, classify things as good or bad within a society. Values can evoke strong emotional feelings from a person or a society. For example, burning of the American flag results in strong emotions because values (love of country and the symbols that represent it) are a key component of how people view themselves, and how a culture views society. In April 2011, a pastor in Florida burned a holy book, the Koran, which sparked outrage from the Muslim community all over the world. This is an example of a strongly held value that when challenged can result in community rage. 5
Rituals are scripted ways of interacting that usually result in a specific series of events. Consider a wedding in the United States, for example. The basic wedding rituals (first dance, cutting of cake, speech from best man and bridesmaid) are practiced throughout society. Besides the more formalized rituals within a society, such as weddings or funerals, daily rituals, such as asking someone “How are you?” (when you really don’t want to know the answer) are part of culture, too. Even bonding rituals such as how business cards are exchanged and the amount of eye contact given in a social situation can all be rituals as well.
The material items a culture holds important, such as artwork, technology, and architecture, can be considered material culture. Material culture can range from symbolic items, such as a crucifix, or everyday items, such as a Crockpot or juicer. Understanding the material importance of certain items to a country can result in a better understanding of culture overall.
Human Resource Recall
Which component of culture do you think is the most important in HRM? Why?
Key Takeaways
• Offshoring is when a business relocates or moves part of its operations to a country different from the one it currently operates in.
• Outsourcing is when a company contracts with another company to do some work for another. This can occur domestically or in an offshoring situation.
• Domestic market means that a product is sold only within the country that the business operates in.
• An international market means that an organization is selling products in other countries, while a multinational one means that not only are products being sold in a country, but operations are set up and run in a country other than where the business began.
• The goal of any HRM strategy is to be transnational, which consists of three components. First, the transnational scope involves the ability to make decisions on a global level rather than a domestic one. Transnational representation means that managers from all countries in which the business operates are involved in business decisions. Finally, a transnational process means that the organization can involve a variety of perspectives, rather than only a domestic one.
• Part of understanding HRM internationally is to understand culture. Hofstede developed five dimensions of culture. First, there is the individualism-collectivismaspect, which refers to the tendency of a country to focus on individuals versus the good of the group.
• The second Hofstede dimension is power distance, that is, how willing people are to accept unequal distributions of power.
• The third is uncertainty avoidance, which means how willing the culture is to accept not knowing future outcomes.
• A masculine-feminine dimension refers to the acceptance of traditional male and female characteristics.
• Finally, Hofstede focused on a country’s long-term orientation versus short-term orientation in decision making.
• Other aspects of culture include norms, values, rituals, and material culture.Norms are the generally accepted way of doing things, and values are those things the culture finds important. Every country has its own set of rituals for ceremonies but also for everyday interactions. Material culture refers to the material goods, such as art, the culture finds important.
• Other HRM aspects to consider when entering a foreign market are the economics, the law, and the level of education and skill level of the human capital in that country.
1. Visit and view the cultural dimensions of three countries. Then write a paragraph comparing and contrasting all three. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6232 | halloween diagramme miyuki title (1) Halloween is coming and I have prepared a few Miyuki beading grids for you to celebrate.
As I am not a big fan of monsters or anything scary, I preferred making kawai versions of classic Halloween themes instead.
But kawai (or kawaii), what is it? It is an adjective used to qualify anything that is cute or adorable in the context of Japanese culture.
To follow these grids, use the brick stitch technique. You will find all the details for this technique in my previous post by clicking here.
miyuki halloween chauve-souris kawai 2As usual, all my grids are registered with Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 and cannot be used for any commercial purpose.
1. Halloween Kawai Pumpkin Grid
Halloween grids CITROUILLE
For this grid, I have actually used the following references corresponding to the picture taken below:
Halloween kawai CITROUILLE
2. Halloween Kawai Bat Grid
Halloween grids BAT
And here are the corresponding Miyuki beads references:
miyuki halloween chauve-souris kawai
2. Halloween Kawai Ghost Grid
Halloween grids GHOST
You can use the same list of beads as for the bat.
You can find many ideas on what to do with your Miyuki beadworks in this post:
Title uses of miyuki beadworks
I hope you enjoyed these grids and they will inspire you for your Halloween designs!
You may also like:
Happy bead weaving!
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I am also happy to read your comments so do not hesitate to leave me a few words below if you found here some useful info. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6236 | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
31 Things I Know To Be True
I turn 31 years old today. And while that is neither a milestone birthday nor even a particularly high number of a birthday, it's still 31 years of me being a living, breathing, human on this planet. And I realized that over this little lifetime of mine I've picked up a few nuggets of wisdom. From waitressing, stage managing, parents, strangers, visiting a few dozen countries, working on way more than a few dozen shows, and simply seeing 2am too many times, this list represents some of the more important (and hard-learned) life lessons I've learned over the years. Granted, I'm not in expert in anything and I'm certainly not done learning and failing and learning from those failures, but in honor of my birthday I share with you 31 bits of knowledge. Here's to (at least) 31 more.
31 Thins I Know To Be True
1). A lady should always know where her underwear is.
2.) Everything in moderation. Except ketchup.
3.) When you're at the tattoo parlor at 2am, it's time to go home.
4.) Never put your own money into a show.
5.) Seven vodka crans are usually three too many.
6.) Everything is funnier without pants.
7.) If you have to jump a turnstile, do it in heels. You'll feel like a badass.
8.) Try that new recipe. If you don't like it, order out.
9.) Never underestimate the power of a thank you.
10.) There's a reason that empty subway car is empty. Aim for the full one.
11.) No task is insurmountable if you break it down into manageable chunks and focus on one thing at a time.
12.) Before you say anything, check to make sure the monitors are not on.
13.) Sometimes life is a marathon, other times it's a sprint. Know which race you're running and plan accordingly.
14.) Hangry is a real emotion. Avoid it at all costs.
15.) If fishes had wishes they wouldn't be on dishes.
16.) There's more than one way to spike a rocking chair. Pick the best way for now.
17.) Hot coffee is best served in a ceramic mug.
18.) One shoe is not better than no shoe at all. It's actually way more frustrating.
19.) If you detect an accent, add gratuity.
20.) Never share comb, car, or husband,
21.) When in doubt, throw a wet noodle at a map and go where it lands.
22.) Rules for Small Talk: 1.) Praise. 2.) Inquiry. 3.) Self-deprecation.
23.) The key to success is wearing the right underwear.
24.) If you sell someone a slide whistle in Act I, you'd better hear that slide whistle in Act II.
25.) There is no "I" in "team," but there is one in "cocktail."
26.) Same bed, different blankets.
27.) Whether critique or compliment, simply accept it, process it, and move on.
28.) If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, try to fix it. If you can't fix it, ask yourself if you can live without it. If the answer is no, then (and only then) get a new one.
29.) Just because you have the technology doesn't mean you have to use the technology.
30.) The curtain will go up whether you're ready or not. So just do you job, focus on the preset, and make the show happen.
31.) Skill and ambition will only get you so far. Kindness will take you the rest of the way.
Monday, March 2, 2015
month in objects: February
headest: because some girls get flowers and chocolates, others get brand new featherweights / country living: ...thanks mom / Hedwig ticket stub: because it was magical and perfect / hello kitty: because working a 16-hour day on Valentine's Day is made (slightly) better when your boss hands out temporary tattoos / cork: most people drink beer while watching the Super Bowl. my friends and I drink champagne / rar bar: because brunch is a thing that needs to happen / spike tape: because how else will you know where the furniture goes / ftbit: because sometimes a girl needs a teal-colored wristband
month in objects is my documentation system for 2015 - each month I create and photograph a collage of items that represent that month - and then toss most of the actual items in the trash. By the end of the year, I'll have 12 photographs and (hopefully) a lot less clutter. read january's story and the origin of this project here |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6241 | Al Franken as Mick Jagger
This one has been making the rounds recently and is not to be missed: If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. What a fantastically talented guy — comedian, singer, author, asshole. And now, Senator! |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6264 | The USA: Most linguistically diverse country on the planet?
When asked to name a linguistically diverse place, I would have said Papua New Guinea, and if asked to name a stereotypically monolingual country, I would have named the USA. However, this recent report from the New York Times suggests that, due to its large immigrant population, New York harbours more endangered languages than anywhere else on Earth (tipped off from Edinburgh University’s Lang Soc Blog). From a field linguists’ point of view this may make discovery of and access to minority languages much easier (although may mean the end of exotic holidays). From a cultural evolution point of view, a more global community may mean a radically different kind of competition between languages. Nice video below:
Linguistic diversity and traffic accidents
Continue reading “Linguistic diversity and traffic accidents”
The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?
Just a quick post in case folks haven’t heard about this already, I got a copy for Christmas.
‘The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?’ by Padgett Powell – A book composed entirely of interrogative sentences, or rather, questions.
It has been hailed as a pioneering yet risky step in the author’s somewhat turbulent writing career, but has received praise from a puzzled many people who have found an unexpected enjoyment and intrigue in its pages, for example:
‘How this book works is beyond me, but, miraculously, it does’ (Village Voice)
‘It is a wondrous strange… a hydra-headed reflection of life as it experienced, and of thought as it is felt’ (New York Times Book Review)
The book is not the first of its kind – ‘Gold Fools’ by fellow American novelist Gilbert Sorrentino is also completely written in interrogative sentences, and tells a Western adventure story whilst challenging and questioning genre-specific stereotypes and contemporary linguistic convention.
Even so, Powell’s book is still unique because it was written to achieve a different objective. Unlike ‘Gold Fools’ there is no chronological story to this ‘novel’ – Powell calls upon every sentence forming configuration in English to dispense vast stores of accrued knowledge, factual information, tantalising and mysterious hints about himself, his memories, and his life. Some interrogatives are curt and challenging, where as others span the length of paragraphs and pages thanks to some pretty serious sentence embedding. Through an agreeable barrage of dos, ifs, ares and all the WH-words, Powell not only covertly feeds us information about himself, but forces us to think deep into the worlds of ourselves and those around us. He presents the reader with moral dilemmas interspersed with comparably routine queries, encouraging us to consider how we might behave faced with a variety of arbitrary and significant choices, highlighting both humorous and perturbing inconsistencies in every arena of life.
Direction and premeditated structure is not immediately apparent in the novel (something to be examined, maybe?) and this works as a selling point. The reader is engaged by Powell’s gentle and inquisitive bullying which encourages self examination, reflection, and increased time spent on Wikipedia trying to source some obscure reference or fact.
A warning though – reading this book hijacks the internal narrative, forcing you to think almost entirely in interrogatives for a good few hours afterwards.
Animal Signalling Theory 101 – The Handicap Principle
One of the most important concepts in animal signalling theory, proposed by Amotz Zahavi in a seminal 1975 paper and in later works (Zahavi 1977; Zahavi & Zahavi 1997), is the handicap principle. A general definition is that females have evolved mating preferences for males who display exaggerated ornaments or behaviours that are costly to maintain and develop, and that this cost ensures an ‘honest’ signal of male genetic quality.
As a student I found it quite difficult to identify a working definition for this important type of signal mainly due to the apparent ‘coining fest’ that has taken place over the years since Zahavi outlined his original idea in 1975. For this reason, I have decided to provide a brief outline of the terminological and conceptual differences that exist in relation to the handicap principle in an attempt to help anyone who might be struggling to navigate the literature.
As Zahavi did not define the handicap principle mathematically, a number of interpretations can be found in the key literature due to scholars disagreeing as to the true nature of his original idea. Until John Maynard Smith and Harper simplified and clarified things wonderfully in their 2003 publication Animal Signals, to my knowledge at least four different interpretations of the handicap were being used and explored empirically and through mathematical modelling, each with distinct differences that aren’t all that obvious to grasp without delving into the maths.
Continue reading “Animal Signalling Theory 101 – The Handicap Principle”
Wintz wrote that he planned on writing
So here we go:
Marc Hauser investigated for scientific misconduct
The Boston Globe reported today that Marc Hauser is on leave due to scientific misconduct . The Great Beyond summarises the article as follows:
The trouble centers on a 2002 paper published in the journal Cognition (subscription required). Hauser was the first author on the paper, which found that cotton-top tamarins are able to learn patterns – previously thought to be an important step in language acquisition. The paper has been retracted, for reasons which are reportedly unclear even to the journal’s editor, Gerry Altmann.
Two other papers, a 2007 article in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and a 2007 Science paper, were also flagged for investigation. A correction has been published on the first, and Science is now looking into concerns about the second. And the Globe article highlights other controversies, including a 2001 paper in the American Journal of Primatology, which has not been retracted although Hauser himself later said he was unable to replicate the results. Findings in a 1995 PNAS paper were also questioned by an outside researcher, Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York at Albany, who reviewed the original data and said he found “not a thread of compelling evidence” to support the paper’s conclusions.
Hauser has taken a year-long leave from the university.
Continue reading “Marc Hauser investigated for scientific misconduct”
Time Travel, Dreams and The Origin of Knowledge
I’ve been attending a weekly seminar on the Metaphysics of Time Travel, given by Alasdair Richmond. Yesterday, he was talking about the way knowledge arises in causal chains. Popper (1972 and various others) argues that “Knowledge comes into existence only by evolutionary, rational processes” (quoted from Paul Nahin, ‘Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics and Science Fiction, New York, American Institute of Physics, 1999: 312). Good news for us scholars of Cultural Evolution. However, Richmond also talked about the work of David Lewis on the nature of causality. There are three ways that causal chains can be set up:
The first is an infinite sequence of events each caused by the previous one. For example, I’m typing this blog because my PhD work is boring, I’m doing a PhD because I was priced in by funding, I applied for funding because everyone else did … all the way back past my parents meeting and humans evolving etc.
The second option is for a finite sequence of events – like the first option, but with an initial event that caused all the others, like the big-bang.
The third option is a circular sequence of events. In this, A is caused by B which is caused by A. For instance, I’m writing doing a PhD because I got funding and I got funding because I’m doing a PhD, because I got funding. There is no initial cause, the states just are. This third option seems really odd, not least because it involves time-travel. Where do the states come from? However, argues Lewis, they are no more odd than any of the other two options. Option one has a state with no cause and option two has a cause for every event but no original cause. So, how on earth can we get at the origin of knowledge if there is no logical possibility of determining the origin of any sequence of events?
One answer is just to stop caring after a certain point. Us linguists are unlikely to get to the point where we’re studying vowel shifts in the first few seconds of the big bang.
The other answer is noise. Richmond suggested that ‘Eureka’ moments triggered by random occurrences, for instance (Nicholas J. J. Smith, ‘Bananas Enough for Time Travel?’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 48, 1997: 363-89). mishearing someone or a strange dream, could create information without prior cause.
Spookily, the idea I submitted for my PhD application came to me in a dream.
What Makes Humans Unique? (II): Six Candidates for What Makes Human Cognition Uniquely Human
ResearchBlogging.orgWhat makes humans unique? This never-ending debate has sparked a long list of proposals and counter-arguments and, to quote from a recent article on this topic,
“a similar fate most likely awaits some of the claims presented here. However such demarcations simply have to be drawn once and again. They focus our attention, make us wonder, and direct and stimulate research, exactly because they provoke and challenge other researchers to take up the glove and prove us wrong.” (Høgh-Olesen 2010: 60)
In this post, I’ll focus on six candidates that might play a part in constituting what makes human cognition unique, though there are countless others (see, for example, here).
One of the key candidates for what makes human cognition unique is of course language and symbolic thought. We are “the articulate mammal” (Aitchison 1998) and an “animal symbolicum” (Cassirer 2006: 31). And if one defining feature truly fits our nature, it is that we are the “symbolic species” (Deacon 1998). But as evolutionary anthropologists Michael Tomasello and his colleagues argue,
“saying that only humans have language is like saying that only humans build skyscrapers, when the fact is that only humans (among primates) build freestanding shelters at all” (Tomasello et al. 2005: 690).
Language and Social Cognition
According to Tomasello and many other researchers, language and symbolic behaviour, although they certainly are crucial features of human cognition, are derived from human beings’ unique capacities in the social domain. As Willard van Orman Quine pointed out, language is essential a “social art” (Quine 1960: ix). Specifically, it builds on the foundations of infants’ capacities for joint attention, intention-reading, and cultural learning (Tomasello 2003: 58). Linguistic communication, on this view, is essentially a form of joint action rooted in common ground between speaker and hearer (Clark 1996: 3 & 12), in which they make “mutually manifest” relevant changes in their cognitive environment (Sperber & Wilson 1995). This is the precondition for the establishment and (co-)construction of symbolic spaces of meaning and shared perspectives (Graumann 2002, Verhagen 2007: 53f.). These abilities, then, had to evolve prior to language, however great language’s effect on cognition may be in general (Carruthers 2002), and if we look for the origins and defining features of human uniqueness we should probably look in the social domain first.
Corroborating evidence for this view comes from comparisons of brain size among primates. Firstly, there are significant positive correlations between group size and primate neocortex size (Dunbar & Shultz 2007). Secondly, there is also a positive correlation between technological innovation and tool use – which are both facilitated by social learning – on the one hand and brain size on the other (Reader and Laland 2002). Our brain, it seems, is essential a “social brain” that evolved to cope with the affordances of a primate social world that frequently got more complex (Dunbar & Shultz 2007, Lewin 2005: 220f.).
Thus, “although innovation, tool use, and technological invention may have played a crucial role in the evolution of ape and human brains, these skills were probably built upon mental computations that had their origins and foundations in social interactions” (Cheney & Seyfarth 2007: 283).
Continue reading “What Makes Humans Unique? (II): Six Candidates for What Makes Human Cognition Uniquely Human”
What Makes Humans Unique? (I): The Evolution of the Human Brain
Hello! This is my first post here at Replicated Typo and I thought I’d start with reposting a slightly modified version of a three-part series on the evolution of the human mind that I did last year over at my blog Shared Symbolic Storage.
So in this and my next posts I will have a look at how human cognition evolved from the perspective of cognitive science, especially ‘evolutionary linguistics,’ comparative psychology and developmental psychology.
In this post I’ll focus on the evolution of the human brain.
Human Evolution
We are evolved primates. (As are all other primates of course. So maybe it is better to say that we, like all other primates, are evolved beings with a unique set of specializations, adaptations and features. )
In our lineage, we share a common ancestor with orangutans (about 15 million years ago (mya)), gorillas (about 10mya), and most recently, chimpanzees and bonobos (5 to 7 mya). We not only share a significant amount of DNA with our primate cousins, but also major anatomical features (Gazzaniga 2008: 51f., Lewin 2005: 61) These include, for example, our basic skeletal anatomy, our facial muscles, or our fingernails (Lewin 2005: 218ff.).
What most distinguishes us as humans on an anatomical level are our bizarre hair distribution, our upright posture and the skeletal modifications necessary for it, including a propensity for endurance running, our opposable thumbs, fat deposits that are unusually extensive (Preuss 2004: 5), and an intestinal tract only 60% the size expected of primates our size (Gibbons 2007: 1558).
Finally, there is also a distinguishing feature that is a much more remarkable violation of expectations – a brain three times the size expected of a primate our size. This is all the more interesting as primates are already twice as encephalized as other mammals (Lewin 2005: 217). A direct comparison shows this difference in numbers: Whereas human brains have an average volume of 1251.8 cubic centimetres and weigh about 1300 gram, the brains of the other great apes only have an average volume of 316.7 cubic centimetres and weigh between 350-500 gram (Rilling 2006: 66, Preuss 2004: 8). In a human brain, there are approximately a hundred billion neurons, each of which is connected to about one thousand other neurons, comprising about one hundred trillion synaptic connections (Gazzaniga 2008: 291). If you would count all the connections in the napkin-sized cortex alone, you’d only be finished after 32 million years (Edelman 1992: 17).
Expensive Tissue
Consequently, if we want to understand the evolutionary trajectory that led to human cognition there is the problem that
“because the cost of maintaining a large brain is so great, it is intrinsically unlikely that large brains will evolve merely because they can. Large brains will evolve only when the selection factor in their favour is sufficient to overcome the steep cost gradient“ (Dunbar 1998: 179).
This is especially important for people who want to come up with an “adaptive story” of how our brain got so big: they have to come up with a strong enough selection pressure operative in the Pleistocene “environment of evolutionary adaptedness” that would have allowed such “expensive tissue” to evolve in the first place (Bickerton 2009: 165f.).
What About the Brain is Uniquely Human?
If we look to the brain for possible hints, we first find that presently, there is “no good evidence that humans do, in fact, possess uniquely human cortical areas” (although the jury is still out) (Preuss 2004: 9). In addition, we find that there are functions specific to humans which are represented in areas homologous to areas of other primates. Instead, it seems that in the course of human evolution some of the areas of the brain expanded disproportionally, “especially higher-order cortical areas, including the prefrontal cortex” (Preuss 2004: 9, Deacon 1998: 435-438). This means that humans are not simply ‘better’ at thinking than other animals, but that they think differently (Preuss 2004: 7). The expansion and apparent specializations of only certain kinds of neuronal areas could indicate a qualitative shift in neuronal activity brought about by re-organization of existing features, leading to a wholly different style of cognition (Deacon 1998: 435-438 Rilling 2006: 75).
This scenario squares well with what we know about the way evolution works, namely that it always has to work with the raw materials that are available, and constantly co-opts and tinkers with existing structures, at times producing haphazard, cobbled-together, but functional results (Gould & Lewontin 1979, Gould & Vrba 1982). Given the relatively short time span for the evolution of the “most complex structure in the know universe”, as it is sometimes referred to, we have to acknowledge how preciously little time the evolutionary process had for ‘debugging.’ It could well be that make the human mind is so unique because it is an imperfect ‘Kluge:’ “a clumsy or inelegant – yet surprisingly effective – solution to a problem,” like the Apollo 13 CO2 filter or an on-the-spot invention by MacGyver (Marcus 2008: 3f.). It may thus well turn out that what we think makes us so special is a mental “oddity of our species’ way of understanding” the world around us (Povinelli & Vonk 2003: 160). It is reasonable then to assume that human cognition did not just simply get better across the board, but that instead we owe our unique style of thinking to quite specific specializations of the human mind.
With this in mind, we can now ask the question how these neurological differences must translate into psychological differences. But this is where the problem starts: Which features really distinguish us as humans and which are more derivative than others? A true candidate for what got uniquely human cognition off the ground has to pass this test and solve the problem how such “expensive tissue” could evolve in the first place.
In my next post I will have a look at six candidates for what makes human cognition unique.
Aiello, L., & Wheeler, P. (1995). The Expensive-Tissue Hypothesis: The Brain and the Digestive System in Human and Primate Evolution Current Anthropology, 36 (2) DOI: 10.1086/204350
Aiello, L., & Wells, J. (2002). ENERGETICS AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE GENUS HOMO Annual Review of Anthropology, 31 (1), 323-338 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085403
Attwell, David and Simon B. Laughlin. (2001.) “An Energy Budget for Signaling in the Grey Matter of the Brain.” Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism 21:1133–1145.
Bickerton, Derek (2009): Adams Tongue: How Humans Made Language. How Language Made Humans. New York: Hill and Wang.
Deacon, Terrence William (1997). The Symbolic Species. The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. New York / London: W.W. Norton.
Dunbar, Robin I.M. (1998): “The Social Brain Hypothesis Evolutionary Anthropology 6: 178-190.
Dunbar, R., & Shultz, S. (2007). Evolution in the Social Brain Science, 317 (5843), 1344-1347 DOI: 10.1126/science.1145463
Edelman, Gerald Maurice (1992) Bright and Brilliant Fire: On the Matters of the Mind. New York: Basic Books
Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2008): Human: The Science of What Makes us Unique. New York: Harper-Collins.
Gibbons, Ann. (2007) “Food for Thought.” Science 316: 1558-1560.
Gould, Stephen Jay and Richard Lewontin (1979): “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme.” Proclamations of the Royal. Society of London B: Biological Sciences 205 (1161): 581–98.
Gould, Stephen Jay, and Elizabeth S. Vrba (1982), “Exaptation — a missing term in the science of form.” Paleobiology 8 (1): 4–15.
Lewin, Roger (2005): Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Marcus, Gary (2008): Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind. London: Faber and Faber.
Povinelli, Daniel J. and Jennifer Vonk (2003): “Chimpanzee minds: Suspiciously human?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7.4, 157–160.
Preuss Todd M. (2004): What is it like to be a human? In: Gazzaniga MS, editor. The Cognitive Neurosciences III, Third Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 5-22.
Rilling, J. (2006). Human and nonhuman primate brains: Are they allometrically scaled versions of the same design? Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 15 (2), 65-77 DOI: 10.1002/evan.20095
Some Links #11: Linguistic Diversity or Homogeneity?
Linguistic Diversity = Poverty. Razib Khan basically argues, correctly in my opinion, that linguistic homogeneity is good for economic development and general prosperity. From the perspective of a linguist, however, I do like the idea of really obscure linguistic communities, ready and waiting to be discovered and documented. On the flip side, it is selfish of me to want these small communities to remain in a bubble, free from the very same benefits I enjoy in belonging to a modern, post-industrialised society. Our goal, then, should probably be more focused on documenting, as opposed to saving, these languages. Razib has recently posted another, quite lengthy post on the topic: Knowledge is not value-free.
When did we first ‘Rock the Mic’? A meeting of my two favourite interests over at the New York Times: Linguistics and Hip Hop. Ben Zimmer writes:
In “Rapper’s Delight,” the M.C. Big Bank Hank raps, “I’m gonna rock the mic till you can’t resist,” using what was then a novel sense of rock, defined by the O.E.D. as “to handle effectively and impressively; to use or wield effectively, esp. with style or self-assurance.” To be sure, singers in the prerap era often used rock as a transitive verb, whether it was Bill Haley promising, “We’re gonna rock this joint tonight,” or the bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup more suggestively wailing, “Rock me, mama.” But the M.C.’s of early hip-hop took the verb in a new direction, transforming the microphone (abbreviated in rap circles as mic, not mike) into an emblem of stylish display. Later elaborations on the theme would allow clothes and other accessories to serve as the objects of rock, as when Kanye West boasted in a 2008 issue of Spin magazine, “I rock a bespoke suit and I go to Harold’s for fried chicken.”
It’d be nice to see more stuff on linguistics and hip hop, and, having said that, I might write a bit on the subject. In fact, I would go as far as to say that hip hop is part of reason why I fell into linguistics: the eloquent word play encouraged, and perhaps moulded, my fascination with language. To demonstrate why, here’s a track by Maryland rapper, Edan, who certainly knows how to rock the mic:
Edan — One Man Arsenal
Life without language. Neuroanthropology provides yet another great read. This time it’s on the topic of life without language — something that’s always crept into my thoughts, yet seems impossible to imagine (as I’m already so embedded within a language-using society). The post goes on to discuss Susan Schaller and the case of a profoundly deaf Mexican immigrant who did not learn sign language:
The man she would call, ‘Ildefonso,’ had figured out how to survive, in part by simply copying those around him, but he had no idea what language was. Schaller found that he observed people’s lips and mouth moving, unaware that they were making sound, unaware that there was sound, trying to figure out what was happening from the movements of the mouths. She felt that he was frustrated because he thought everyone else could figure things out from looking at each others’ moving mouths.
One problem for Schaller’s efforts was that Ildefonso’s survival strategy, imitation, actually got in the way of him learning how to sign because it short-circuited the possibility of conversation. As she puts, Ildefonso acted as if he had a kind of visual echolalia (we sometimes call it ‘echopraxia’), simply copying the actions he saw
One Man’s Take on the Facts of the Matter. Babel’s Dawn takes a look at Tecumseh Fitch’s book, The Evolution of Language, and concisely explains a clear departure between two camps in evolutionary linguistics:
One clear difference between the scenarios is in the role of the individual in relation to language. Language is somehow built into the brain in Chomsky’s thought-first scenario, while it is learned from others in the topics-first approach. Empiricists, like Morten Christiansen and Nicholas Chater, see language as ‘out there’ to be learned while nativists, like Fitch and Chomsky, say there is an internal, I-language, and the language out there is merely the sum of all those little I-languages. How to settle the dispute? Look for factual evidence. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6267 | Kylie Jenner may have some explaining to do after beauty influencer Makeup Shayla tried out her infamous $360 brush set.
Like most of the influencers who reviewed the brushes, Makeup Shayla was concerned about the price.
Shayla is known for her brush obsession, and a higher price tag won't stop deter her — *if* they're "good quality brushes."
It turns out, she actually loved how a few of the Kylie Cosmetics brushes blended out her makeup.
Shayla especially loved Kylie's brush #6, which she used to buff out a Kylie Cosmetics concealer she contoured with.
She was also digging the highlighter fan brush from the bundle.
"These seem to be pretty good as far as quality," she shared. "They’re not really shedding a lot."
The first thing she was super concerned about was that the brush bristles are white.
White brushes are way harder to clean than brushes with darker bristles.
The stained brushes ended up revealing another MAJOR problem with the Kylie Jenner brush set. THIS is how they looked after Shayla's first wash:
WTF. These brushes have SERIOUS case of bedhead.
"Something weird happened," Shayla said while picking up a single brush.
"I don’t know if it’s because I used soap," she continued. "It got a little frayed. Nothing really shed, but they do look a little messed up.”
Just no.
After drying, they looked only a tad better than before but still looked "a little cray cray," according to Shayla.
My heart...
A $360 brush set should not look like this after a single routine wash.
photo: Giphy
Whyyy though?
Below, I've included a friendly reminder of the Kylie Cosmetics return policy.
photo: Giphy
There isn't one. So if you've bought these brushes, there may be no exchange or returns allowed.
So, um...Kylie? We're waiting on an explanation!
photo: Giphy
She defended her brush set before but I can't imagine what her explanation could be for this. Let's hope she delivers a good one — and SOON.
Her reputation in the beauty world is *really* depending on it.
Watch Shayla's entire review right here — and prepare to scream. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6283 | Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sometimes life feels, well, oxymoronic. (if I just made that word up, you are very welcome.)
Like there are two currents.
The madness, sometimes good, sometimes bad, of a busy life, keeping occupied with the daily: the children fussing, the dishes and the cooking, the waking and sleeping, and the getting through the grey spots that threaten my otherwise happy little life.
The steady pace of eternity, that goes on, like breathing even when I am not aware, or (keep your shirt on) don't care. It's hard to pursuit....to exercise....to be diligent....oh heavens. I don't even know how to put it any more. "Find the Lord" is so overused in my experience. I think I'm gonna have to resort back to the old-school "pray" because it just sounds the truest right now.
Anyway. It's hard to pray to God, Whose corporate nature is so very real, when I'm alone. I really think that is the gist of it. It's not an excuse. It's not even a very good reason. It's just habit. Habit of practice and a habit of thinking.
Alan Knox posted about finding a community, and it got me to thinking. Am I actually ready to make the sacrifices that are needed to pursuit the Lord in a group setting? Really? . It just takes SO long, and it really is hard. I know the payoff is worth it. I KNOW it is.
The answer is "no" for right now. Like I said earlier, I am still learning to pray. Still learning to remember "the kind intention of His will" during the tricky bits of each day. It's like I've forgotten Language, and I'm learning, little by little, to speak and to listen. I'm ok with this.
Maybe when my ears and my mouth work better, the Lord will bring along some folks with whom I can listen and sing. I look forward to that day, but for now, I will wait.
Sheila said...
Now I know the song Shadowfeet! Hope I get to see Emma dance to it one day and I will shout: "Yes, oh yes Jesus!
jayjay said...
Hey, you know Brooke Fraser - she's a local girl! Yes, we'll all be found in Him. . .
and, I hear you, on all the rest. . . |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6311 | How wealthy, white women have turned motherhood into a piece of performance art
Lactivism, natural childbirth, attachment parenting. There’s a new moralism that defines motherhood to promote the personal preferences of a select group of women, wealthy, white women from first world countries. Mothering is now measured by a set of socially sanctioned “performances” at purported critical moments. Rebecca Kukla, a feminist scholar, has written a fascinating article in the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics entitled Measuring Motherhood examining the middle class penchant of evaluating other women’s mothering by signal moments.
As a culture, we have a tendency to measure motherhood in terms of a set of signal moments that have become the focus of special social attention and anxiety; we interpret these as emblematic summations of women’s mothering abilities. Women’s performances during these moments can seem to exhaust the story of mothering, and mothers often internalize these measures and evaluate their own mothering in terms of them. “Good” mothers are those who pass a series of tests — they bond properly during their routine ultrasound screening, they do not let a sip of alcohol cross their lips during pregnancy, they give birth vaginally without pain medication, they do not offer their child an artificial nipple during the first six months, they feed their children maximally nutritious meals with every bite, and so on…
In other words, mothering has been reduced to a set of achievement tests that can be that can be passed or failed. Among those achievement tests are birth and breastfeeding.
… [W]e have elevated the symbolic importance of birth to the point where it appears to serve as a make-or-break test of a woman’s mothering abilities. If she manages her birth “successfully,” making proper, risk-adverse, self-sacrificing choices, and maintaining both proper deference to doctors and control over her own body, then she proves her maternal bona fides and initiates a lifetime of proper mothering. If, on the other hand, she fails at these tasks during labor, she reveals herself as selfish or undisciplined and risks deforming her baby’s character, health, and emotional well-being, while putting her bond with her child in permanent jeopardy.
Yet these claims have no basis in fact:
…[R]eal risks and their sizes do not seem to be of interest to the lay critics of mothers’ birth choices, who appear quite content with hand-waving references to gains and harms… [I]t is hard not to conclude that the main normative standards at play are ideological, not medical: Our cultural insistence that women make “proper” birth choices and maintain control over their birth narratives is not about minimizing real risks; rather, it supports our desire to measure mothering in terms of women’s personal choices and of self-discipline exercised during signal moments. What is at stake is not the health of babies but an image of proper motherhood, combined with the idea that birth should function as a symbolic spectacle of such motherhood.
Lactivists also make claims that have no basis in scientific fact:
North American breast-feeding promotional materials consistently emphasize exclusive breast-feeding, as opposed to the more productive message that the more breast milk babies receive, the better. “Does one bottle of formula make that much difference? We wish we could say that it doesn’t,” states La Leche League, rather disingenuously, in their breast-feeding guide, “but we can’t”. According to this guide, a single bottle of formula can trigger life-threatening allergies, and any contact with artificial nipples (bottles or pacifiers) can cause nipple confusion, wherein the baby is no longer willing or able to latch onto a breast… there is no evidence for nipple confusion resulting from the occasional use of artificial nipples. A 1992 study found no difference in breast-feeding outcomes between newborn infants who were exclusively breast-fed and those who received one bottle daily. The pervasive fear of instant nipple confusion among new mothers … is itself indicative of the power of the logic of the single corrupting moment.
It is hardly a coincidence that these claims reflect the personal preferences of a small group of Western, white women who are relatively well off.
Thus to the extent that we take “proper” maternal performance during these key moments as a measure of mothering as a whole, we will re-inscribe social privilege. We will read a deficient maternal character into the bodies and actions of underprivileged and socially marginalized women, whereas privileged women with socially normative home and work lives will tend to serve as our models of proper maternal character.
The bottom line is that a small group of privileged women hold their own choices choices regarding birth and infant feeding up as standards to which all women should aspire. This is wrong on several levels: there is no objective evidence that the claims of “natural” childbirth advocates and lactivists are true; there is no objective evidence that single moments of motherhood determine the long term well being of a child or determine the strength of the mother-child bond; and insisting that the cultural rituals of a privileged group of women are the standards to which all other women should aspire reinforces existing cultural and economic prejudices. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6328 | Southern Belle in Training
April 15, 2014
Hi, my name isn't Miss ALK.
If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, chances are that you also follow me on social media, or have at least checked out my Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter. If you have, then you know that "Miss ALK" isn't my real name obviously. On my former blog I frequently shared what Miss ALK was and why I blogged under that name, but I haven't been as vocal about that here on Southern Belle in Training. Yet all the same, I continue to write under that and have never signed a post before with my real name, or even typed out my real name on my blog. That's about to change:
My name is Annaliese. My other two initials are LK. (I won't be sharing what those names are- a girl's gotta still have some privacy in the online world! ;-))
Why did it take me over three years to share that?!
Well for starters, when I first started blogging back on my old blog, Confessions of a Maine Teenager, I was still pretty young. 16 to be exact. When I told my parents that I had started a blog, they still weren't really sure what that meant, but all they knew was that it mean that I had a public website. They were really concerned about my identity and privacy online since I was a minor, so they didn't want me to blog under my name. I didn't want to come up with a weird blogging nickname that sounded more like a weird chatroom username, so I settled on my initials with "Miss" in front of them. So Miss ALK I became!
As blogging became a bigger part of my life, Miss ALK became the first nickname that I'd ever loved. As a kid, I was never really one for nicknames. I never liked being called "Anna" or "Lisa" or anything else that could be short for Annaliese. When I got my Lucy (my name for my car) during my senior year of high school, I got vanity license plates that said MISS ALK to tribute my love of blogging! And that's still before I even started Southern Belle in Training, this is still back when I was writing on my former blog. :-)
Back in high school when Lucy's license plates came in!
Fast forward to now: blogging is now such a huge part of my life that all of my real-life friends know about my blog, and many are regular readers and supporters which means a lot to me! Many of my friends jokingly refer to me as Miss ALK now and that's become their nickname for me, and I love it. My dear friend Katie even crafted me the most beautiful plaque for my 19th birthday that says Miss ALK on it with flowers surrounding it, and now it hangs in my dorm room. Miss ALK has become an identity for me, and a very positive one at that.
What many of you might not know is that when I started blogging I wasn't at a very good point in my life. It was the middle of my junior year of high school, and I was struggling with extreme anxiety and also some depression. I had recently gone through the loss of some friendships, and I barely had any self confidence. I dreamed of someday working in radio, but didn't think that I could ever make those dreams come true. I also never thought I could succeed at going to college out of state. Blogging has definitely helped me become a better version of myself. In the past three years, I have become more confident, happier and realized that I can make dreams and goals of mine come true! And my blogging name reminds me of that, which is why that even though I now share my real name in my social media accounts, I have continued to use my blogging name on my blog.
On a different note, sometimes people come up to me at gas stations when they see my license plates and ask if "MISS ALK" means that I was Miss Alaska, as in I won the Miss Alaska USA beauty pagaent. I politely tell them no (and wonder if they notice that my license plates clearly say MAINE). Some people... :-)
xoxo Annaliese // Miss ALK
1. My name is hard to pronounce to some people so I just shorten it sometimes. You are sooo darling!
2. Even as someone who has known your name for a really long time, I cannot deny that I was so excited to see you divulging this information! It feels like such a milestone! :)
Love you, darling girl; I'm so proud of you and your blog I can only eagerly await where life takes you, what directions you'll go, what adventures you'll be whisked away on, and how this blog will transform with you.
Miss Katie
3. I Love you so incredibly much! You are my best friend in the entire world. You have always been such an amazing person. I remember the first time that my mom met you (not knowing your interests) she said to me after you left, "That girl is going places, I can see her on tv, I think she will be famous someday." I have been so blessed to have you as friend, anyone who knows you is lucky to. You are going places girl!
Stay beautiful!
4. I remember when I first came across your blog (Maine Teenager), and you were extremely supportive of my new blog. It's really nice to hear that you are now comfortable sharing your name online!
5. I love the name Annaliese!
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6352 | Stomp-Head INTRO
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Stomp-Head Classic and Stomp-Head High Gain |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6361 | You might find that I'm kind of in love with sheer right now, I love playing with different textures under sheer pieces like this hot pink maxi and my trusty white sheer blouse. The dress definitely caught my eye while browsing, how fun would this be with a white or nude slip dress a la Carrie Bradshaw or dare I say it, Cher circa 1995 in Clueless.
But for now it's going to have to play with my maxis, giving them a little more color and oomph. Which is perfectly fine with me.
sheer maxi shirt c/o, bag and bangle h&m, shoes wild pair via bakers, dress target, belt h&m
Oh! And just in case you didn't notice The Frugalista Diaries got a makeover thanks to Silhouetted and is now! Easier to say and type, am I right? So, if you have any questions feel to free to email, tweet or facebook me, and I'd be happy to answer! Again, thanks for being the amazing readers that you are, xo. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6377 | A Look To The Heavens
I’ve enjoyed observing the night sky since a rather early age. There’s nothing like looking up into the vastness of space and realizing how small you really are. I’ve heard many express that in comparison of planet Earth it's as being a grain of sand on the beach. Which in the literal, physical, universal sense is true. Within the confines of the cosmos I'm not sure if our planet isn't comparatively even smaller than a grain of sand. And yet, the building blocks of all the material in this universe, the whole expanse is founded on something smaller than a grain of sand. Atoms. Something so small created from things so large... from the interior of stars. Created by the extreme gravity and mind boggling heat spewn outward into space by solar storms providing the foundation of all creation. Which is kind'a like how our brightest scientific minds explain how the universe began.
It was from an early age I became fascinated with the heavens. I grew up on a lakeside resort in the center of the lower peninsula of Michigan that was known as Sunset Haven. (My folks sold it about 10 years ago and is now known as Sunset Shores.) Many of my summer nights as a youth were spent on the beach with those that were renting my folks' cottages, our legs stretched out towards a pit-fire. A pit that I personally maintained. As my maner was, I was normally always the last one to turn in for the night. Yes, I had my daytime chores and they got done. Well, as I recall they did. Might have to confirm that one with my parents! But I remember this! I loved the last 30 minutes or so before turning in myself. This was my time. Alone with the universe. A boy with his thoughts. I loved fixing my eyes on the night sky observing the constellations with the enveloped darkness and the lake side sounds of the night such as bass jumping, crickets singing, frog's croaking in the background... wondering if there was something else out there, curious how it all began, wondering what it all means.
A neighbor of mine gave me a telescope a few summers ago. Nothing fancy really, but a telescope all the same. Said he had it for 5 years and couldn’t figure it out. We won’t tell you his reaction when he found out I had it working in less than an hour! I set it up on my deck the first night and pointed it towards the southern, darkened heavens at the brightest star out there. Can you imagine my reaction when I noticed there where 4 little “stars” around that star with my new “magnificationally advanced” eyesight! After a slight pause to think (really! It really didn’t take me too long!) I figured that I was gazing at Jupiter. Jupiter! A planet! Yeah, yeah I know! It’s been up there since…, well, forever! But I haven’t seen it like this before and was kind'a new at this. And it is pretty cool to see what Leonardo DaVinci first saw so long ago... The four moons of Jupiter. Just four. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto referred to as the Galilean satellites today. Apparently there are 63 moons orbiting Jupiter. Leonardo and have one thing in common... we could only see 4. Guess his telescope wasn’t that fancy either!
All it takes to see Jupiter and its four major moons today is a good pair of binoculars. It has normally been visible in the summer months the last 4 years located about 50 to maybe 60 degrees in the southern sky. (Use this sky chart to track Jupiter for the next 3 years.) The planet "moves" westward as the night goes on. You've probably seen it. Many times. You haven't been able to miss it as it is the brightest object as you scan the heavens. At night I should say. Venus is the brightest, being closer to earth... even when it's a crescent... but normally visible for a few hours before dawn. It's so bright you can still see it on a clear morning after dawn for a spell! The last "star" visible before the sunshine takes over for the day. I've had to put this in the past tense as I haven't been able to use my telescope the last coupl'a summers as I now live on the side of a mountain in the woods. Quite a bit cooler living in the woods during this summer heat we've been having but I'm not sure it's a good trade off for not being able to sit at my pit fires these days without being able to see the stars. However! I will remedy that just as soon as I can!
Wouldn't it just be too cool to be able to travel amongst the star systems? To explore strange, new worlds. To seek out new life and and new civilazations. To boldly go... OK! You know the line! 'Sides, we don't want'cha ya thinkin' ya stumbled into a Star Trek convention!
Alright! Back to planet earth! Seriously, don’t you just find it amazingly breath-taking how the darkness falls across the land as it has for uncounted generations to reveal a star spangled backdrop? And yet we are provided with this “lesser” light from all these uncovered stars at night so that we’re not totally blinded by the darkness after sunset. Ongoing since before this planet cooled off after forming.
Modern science explains the beginning of the physical universe as "The Big Bang" and still mystifies the scientists studying the cosmos today. No mystery to those of us that believe God's Word when it tells us... With God all things are possible. Just a Big Bang? Maybe. Guess I can even say... Sure. God operates within the laws he set up and science can monitor and track how the universe is expanding. And the snow on your TV when it's on an off-air frequency (channel) you don't receive a broadcasted signal on is the residual noise that is still reverberating today from that explosion. The explosion a matter of chance? I am confident there is a lot more to it than that!
Recommended Video Playlist: Nothing Becomes Everything - 2:05 Hubble's Revolution - 2:19, Cosmic Game Of Risk - 2:00 & Death Of The Universe - 1:58)
Related Links
The Naked Eye Planets in the Night Sky The Night Sky This Month
Sky And Telescope Nasa's Cosmicopia The Sky Is Falling!
Jupiter Events
- Published 07/13/2011 |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6385 | Skip to main content
I am here. Let the rocking begin.
It's my third day in Halifax and I've already blown a wheel. There's a lot of walking to do here, and I've hurt my right foot/ankle. Pity, too, 'cuz I signed the lease on a new apartment this morning and now have nothing to do but relax and see the city. And like I said, there's a lot of walking to do.
Nice place -- 2-bedroom, downtown, laundry on every floor, nice view, near mall and buses, across the street from the Metro Centre stadium.
It's a nice city so far! Hilly. Can't just hail a cab -- hafta call for them, but they arrive quickly and no ride anywhere has cost me more than $8. (To the airport is $50+, mind ya.)
Training starts next week at the new news experiment station. Lots of buzz over the hiring of ex-Mojo, ex-CFRB dude Andrew Krystal. I hear he's gooood. I hope he's the lead-in to my show, but I don't know much right now, other than that people have been talking me up well ahead of my arrival. Apparently I'm some kind of guru. Ooooo, we'll see. I know one thing: I wanna hear a lot of time checks during the news!
Time to go find some ice and aspirin and tell the guy in the next room with the glasses (sales, I think -- knows where the good restaurants are, apparently) about the Storm Centre. And I thought I'd escaped that! At least I won't be deliveringthe Storm Centre updates.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Pepsi, the Choice of a New Generation.
1. Hey, congrats on the new pad. When do we see photos? Y'know, before you turn it into an East Coast mirror of your Dunfield joint? [ducking]
Ibuprofin helps reduce swelling, by the way.
...nice Blog! Gonna keep the test entries, or wa?
2. "Y'know, before you turn it into an East Coast mirror of your Dunfield joint? [ducking]"
Ok...there is just NO way that I'll be letting that happen.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6392 | Movie Review
Far Harbor
The only thing more brutal than friendship is the truth.
Far Harbor Movie Poster
US Release Date: 11-22-1996
Directed by: John Huddles
• Jennifer Connelly
• Ellie
• Marcia Gay Harden
• Arabella
• Dan Futterman
• Brad
• Edward Atterton
• Frick
• Andrew Lauren
• Trey
• George Newbern
• Jordan
• Tracee Ellis Ross
• Kiki
• Jim True-Frost
• Ryland
Reviewed on: August 28th, 2010
Jennifer Connelly in Far Harbor.
Jennifer Connelly in Far Harbor.
Far Harbor is an independent movie from 1996 that feels more like a student film. It's badly written, features some bad and amateur acting from several of the leads, and is just generally dull and lifeless. It would be completely forgotten today, if it weren't for fans of Jennifer Connelly like me who seek it out so that we can say we've seen her entire filmography.
The plot, if you can call it that, is about a group of 7 people who get together at a house on Long Island and talk about things. They're all related or old friends or are dating one of the family or friends. They're also all god awful people and watching them in that house together and listening to them talk is bad enough, but if I had to actually be in that house with them, I'd probably want to kill myself. Despite there being 7 though, the movie really only focuses on three or four of them. The rest are given very, very brief moments, but we never really learn that much about them. They're just there to distract from the main characters.
Connelly plays Ellie, the hostess of the gathering. From the start it's clear that there's something not quite right with her and we soon learn that she's on antidepressents and the others treat her with kid gloves. Her husband, whose parents own the house they're staying in, is bored with his job with the family business and is looking for something to distract himself with. Marcia Gay Harden, plays Ellie's sister, who used to have a relationship with another guest, Frick, an actor whose career has taken a nosedive lately. Those are the main characters, but there are several others, including a gay couple and a doctor and his girlfriend, but as I said their storylines barely register in the film.
The script and and the male actors are so bland that it's actually hard to keep track of who's who in the first twenty minutes or so. Ellie's husband, the doctor and the gay friend even look somewhat similar and they all talk in the same self-involved pretentious manner.
Edward Atterton deserves to be singled out though as the absolute worst actor of the bunch. It doesn't help that he's given some horrible drivel to spout, but I'm not sure he could deliver even good lines well. I did find it ironic that the worst actor amongst the cast is playing an actor in the movie.
The women in the movie do come across better than the men. Both Connelly and Harden act circles around the rest of the cast. One scene in particular stands out where Harden's character is arguing with Ellie's husband. Harden seems so real and relaxed in her role, while the husband is stiff and awkward and could be reading out loud from the script.
For Connelly, this is a transitional role. Most of her movies before this one required her to simply play the pretty girl, but here, almost for the first time, she gets to stretch a bit as an actress in a serious part. It's a shame the script isn't better, but she does her best with what she's given, especially in one emotional scene where you learn what's been bothering her and why she's in the condition that she's in. It's just about the only twist (if you can call it that) in the whole movie, so I won't reveal it here. You'd think it's because the only people she seems to know are horrible, boring and rude, but it's more than that.
Reportedly the original title for this was Mr. Spielberg's Boat, because a yacht, owned by a famous film director, is anchored in the harbor by the house and plays a big part of the movie. Wisely though, Mr. Spielberg refused to allow his name to be used. Perhaps because he read the script.
The blame for this mess must be placed entirely upon writer/director/producer John Huddles. This was his first movie and clearly he wasn't up to the challenge. He only ever made one other and if that one was anywhere near as bad as this one, it's easy to see why. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6411 | NYC Educator Groups Rally in Solidarity to Support Hundreds Unfairly Fired Teachers
Fired for what reason? One asked for mentoring. Another asked for necessary curriculum. Another exposed that children weren’t being serviced properly. Many others raised concerns about violence in their schools. The stories keep pouring in with one being worse than the other. Read More
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6413 | Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Roman a cliff.
My effort to take some vacation time and write two hours a day did not crystallize my ambitions and drive them forward the way I hoped, but from the very start, the whole exercise was one of self-deception: If you give yourself only one week, at the holidays no less, to achieve some sort of major life turning point, you're probably going to fail, unless you commit a crime.
I did not commit a crime (legally speaking, that is; in terms of YouTube viewing choices and Target purchases, I probably needed to be scared straight). I did, more or less, write for two hours a day that week. When progress or inspiration on fiction items waned, I turned to this blog, and at one point managed to create an UncMo for myself, which is really going over the top because life provides plenty of them for me already.
I woke up at 4 a.m. one morning recently, came over to my laptop, and took down the most recent post that I had written about Thanksgiving and some of the people who were and were not there. The thought that propelled me was: "Do I really want that just hanging out there?" By "that" I mean snarky, negative feelings that served no one, including me. The only time it's a good idea to put feelings like that out there, in my opinion, is because they are either super funny or super touching and will turn crap into joy because you are speaking to some common crummy experience that we all share.
Or, you can do it because you're kind of bored with yourself and procrastinating on writing something that might be worthwhile, so you decide to dive into some stuff that's just kind of beside the point and not even that entertaining and doesn't even really have to do with you. I'm not doing that kind of b.s. on this blog anymore. For at least the rest of this year, maybe more.
So I deleted the post and realized what like every other author on the planet has already realized, which is that if you are going to get real personal and petty, it's far better to mask it as fiction and sell it for money.
However, I restore here from that deleted post the one bright spot, Tree 2.0, which is twice the size and joy as last year's tree, especially because Sir UncMo and I picked it out together (or perhaps he patiently waited for me to pick the one I really wanted and pretended to agree—hard to say).
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6447 | Online Classes
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tornados, Yellow Slickers and Blue Herons pass by this time tomorrow
I saw these fisherman dressed in their bright yellow raincoats right before a tornado rolled through just south of me. My kitty had been long gone hiding under the bed. In fact he is still there. Now this is what I call die-hard or crazy.... I'm not sure which but it sure made for a great shot.
Just before I came in I looked to the left of the point on my island and saw this heron. I now see right before a tornado must be great fishing weather....
1. I have a lone heron at my beach place. I like to just watch him ...
2. Ahhh so you got the storms too!! We had tornadoes last week, none really touched down, straight winds this week, tore up jack close by, your kitty sounds like a good animal to have around, my bichon normally isn't nervous from weather but the storm Monday night made him want me to DO something!
3. ~~~Thank you, all. This heron hangs out on my island and the smaller island next to mine, too. He is majestic and Jurasic Parkish all in the same way.... I don't know what I would do without my kitty or animals period.
4. Tornados!!!!... Big weather is faaar too scary for me! :-O
5. Don't tell Hubby I said this... Fishermen are crazy people! They hang out in the worst weather!
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6489 | Illegal pot growers have been hiding their Chronic Catnip plants by growing them in cornfields. Lately, the Franklin County Sheriff's Office has had great success finding these grows. Yes, the Hippie Lettuce may be hard to spot while you're just driving alongside a cornfield, but the Ganja is much easier to see from the air. I guess the Giggle Smoke growers didn't count on law enforcement using drones! |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6492 | Mini Travel Mountain Bike Led
• £2.99
9figures secured checkout
High brightness red LED lamp - Waterproof.
It can be installed. For the V type and C type brake brake
*. Using single CR1025 battery.
Single Use. The battery can be used continuously for 50 hours.
*. Size: H31mm x W16mm (excluding fixed screw) x L30mm
*. Weight: 5.5G (with battery)
Note: this brake light has no switch button; only when the brake is on will it shine!
1x brake mini bike light with battery
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6532 | Monty Python sang about spam. Campers eat spam. But when it comes to your website, spam is no laughing matter and when you get a ton of it, it’s pretty hard to digest.
How to identify spam on your WordPress business website
New WordPress business website owners invariably get some spam and wonder if it’s a real person commenting on their post or if it’s spam. They haven’t yet learned the trick of sniffing out illegitimate comments from the real deal. Fortunately, most spam is automated and it’s easy to tell from a legit comment.
Any comment that says nothing specific with regard to the post’s topic is probably spam. The spam will include phrases such as “your topic” or “the content”; it might even restate the post’s title, but it won’t say anything specific, such as: “Wow, Scott. That was a really helpful post about identifying spam. I feel hungry now.”
Since spam is a form of marketing, it almost always includes an email or URL that has a commercial element to it, either a product, company or service. Black hat SEO firms constantly use spam techniques to drum up business. They’ll send a message saying that your site ranks poorly, whether it does or doesn’t. Worried web masters then begin to doubt their SEO tactics and they get reeled in. A legitimate SEO company won’t use spam to get clients.
Another clue that indicates that a comment is spam is if the message makes no sense. Some spam engines generate nonsensical messages, spinning certain words to create variety. These messages always use awkward phrases and bizarre word choices.
Finally, flattery is often used as a spam tactic. The comment praises your post or your website, and then it asks if you’ll visit their site or reveal your secret about brilliant web design. What they really want is a link. Any spam comment wants you to approve it or visit their link or send an email. And even though some may have a hint of legitimacy about them, resist approving or linking.
What to do about spam
The first line of defense is to set your Discussion options so that no comment is published until it is approved by an admin-level user. Now it’s up to you to separate real comments from spam. In the Comments tab, you can review all comments and perform several actions, including marking comments as spam. This creates a spam folder that can be used to filter out comments from those comment authors. But the best way to stop most spam is by using a plugin that sets up an obstacle that automated spam can’t overcome. At AIM, we’ve tried quite a few different spam-catchers, and our favorite at this time is Spam Free WordPress. This plugin generates a password that needs to be copied and pasted into a field before a comment can be submitted. Only a human can figure this out, so it blocks automated spam. The main advantage this system has over the often-used captcha images is that you don’t have to decipher a squiggly image, which can be frustrating.
There you have it. Now you are well-armed in the ongoing struggle of goodness against spamness. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6540 | Ernesto "Che" Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.
"Che Mousevara"
4” x 6” Water Color.
Based on the iconic image of Che Guevara
from the photograph taken by Alberto Korda c.1960
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6550 | 5 Medical Symptoms Named After Literary Characters
Fairy tales may be full of charm and enchantment but they certainly provide valuable lessons. Identifying oneself with heroes from literary works is a healthy stage in one’s childhood as children’s imagination is one of the ways in which Mother Nature protects them from the harsh realities of daily life.
The tricky part arises when adults find themselves tied up to literature, whether they like it or not, as several physical and mental disorders are named after literary characters. Here’s a look at five of them:
1. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
Sleeping Beauty painting by Victor Gabriel Gilbert
Sleeping Beauty painting by Victor Gabriel Gilbert
This classic fairy tale, first told by Charles Perrault (17th century), retold by the Brothers Grimm (18th century) and made popular by Disney, is much loved by one generation after the other. The medical condition is also known as Rip Van Winkle Syndrome, after the title of a short story written by Washington Irving (19th century).
Without even going into the symbolism hidden inside this story and leaving aside the medical and hygienic implications of a human body asleep for 100 years, let’s just look into the neurological syndrome named after it. Also known as the Kleine-Levin syndrome (KLS), named after the medical doctors to have first mentioned and studied it, its first known case was reported in 1862.
This condition is characterised by frequent episodes of hypersomnia and behavioural disturbances. Individual episodes last more than a week, but less than a month. A normal lifestyle is out of the question as these patients tend to be bedridden. Patients experience approximately 20 recurrent episodes during more than a decade. Unlike the fairy tale that borrowed its name, the condition seems to affect predominantly male patients (68 percent) worldwide. It is a very rare disease, occurring one in a million. The onset of the condition seems to follow a viral infection. There is no known cure yet.
2. Munchausen Syndrome
The Baron Munchausen, illustrated by Gottfried Franz.
The Baron Munchausen, illustrated by Gottfried Franz.
One of my favourite stories as a child was that of The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe (1785), based on true stories of a real baron.
The medical condition itself has nothing to do with the social satire depicted in the fairy tale, but rather with a desperate call for sympathy. The patients suffering from Munchausen Syndrome are not sick, but fake the symptoms in front of family and doctors, often secretly injuring themselves to maintain the illusion of illness. The Munchausen Syndrome is a mental disorder caused by childhood trauma, poor self-esteem, emotional or personal disorders. More common in men than women, it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics because lying is very common with this illness.
3. Dorian Gray Syndrome (DGS)
Portrait Of Dorian Gray painting by Mercuralis
Portrait Of Dorian Gray painting by Mercuralis
This medical condition is named after the classical story by Oscar Wilde in which the main character sells his soul to keep his youthful appearance and beauty until the very last moment of his life. The patient suffering from this condition will be overly preoccupied with keeping his/her young look and a “perfect” appearance.
Dysmorphophobia, or excessive dislike of a part of one’s body, will often manifest, therefore these patients will abuse cosmetic surgery to the point where depression sets in. In addition, they will often abuse weight-loss products, mood enhancers and even their gym membership card. A sufferer of DGS shouldn’t be taken lightly. Although a lack of self-esteem or a narcissistic personality might be the cause, the syndrome itself often conducts to physical disorders as well as causing social and mental health issues (depression, even suicide).
4. Othello Syndrome
The_Return of Othello, from Othello,_Act_II,_Scene_ii painting by Thomas Stothard
Named after the main character in the Shakespeare tragedy ‘Othello”, the patient affected by this malady lives with the constant obsession that their life partner is cheating on them. Psychiatrists John Todd and Kenneth Dewhurst were the first to name and study this mental disorder in 1955.
Within limits, jealousy is a normal human feeling. But when it leads to repeated interrogations of one’s partner, searches for nonexistent evidence, stalking, even violence, it becomes a “dangerous form of psychosis” (Todd).
The Othello Syndrome is believed to be caused by a stroke, a tumour, or some other injury, especially to the right frontal lobe but also by substance abuse like dopamine prescribed in the treatment of Parkinson disease. Alcoholism and cocaine abuse can also lead to the onset of Othello Syndrome. Not to be taken lightly, this syndrome can affect both men and women and it can lead to disruption of marriage, homicide or suicide.
5. Peter Pan Syndrome
Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Named after the main character in the book with the same name by Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie, it was first made popular by Dr. Dan Kiley in 1983. This syndrome defines men who refuse to act like grown-ups and assume responsibilities. They prefer to live in a juvenile world, are enthusiastic and like to have fun, but never settle down in a relationship because they dislike restrictions. They lack decision making skills and the ability to assume responsibilities. To disguise this, they act overconfident and arrogant. Women found in the same situation are affected by the Wendy Syndrome.
These people, although having developed intellectually and having above average IQ’s, have not developed emotionally past adolescence. The main cause is, probably, a lack of affection during childhood. With the aid of psychotherapy these people can learn to overcome their fears, to assume responsibilities and lead a fulfilled, grown-up life. However, this is not a mental disorder. The Peter Pan Syndrome is closely linked to Carl Jung’s theory of “Puer Aeternus” (eternal boy).
A similar syndrome is the Huckleberry Finn Syndrome, named after the main character in the Mark Twain novel. Developing in children due to a feeling of being rejected by their parents, feeling inferior in school or due to depression, it seems to be a defense mechanism. It manifests by a desire to do anything but go to school; these children will waste their time on the streets or playing computer games. Moving into the grown-up stage of life, these children might be at risk of frequent job changing and absenteeism.
Initially written and published on the Huffington Post SA 28 June 2017
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6556 | Toronto, ON July 11, 2015
Creating Characters based on Ethnic Dysphoria
Growing up in a caucasian family, being adopted from the Philippines, made for some very interesting internal artistic conflicts.
No one was very aware, but mentally I did not view myself as a person of colour and my character designs reflected that. They would either be a weird mishmash of every ethnicity I could think of (and still look white), or very prominently white.
What didn't help - and eventually became very cool for me - was Final Fantasy games where the characters were clearly supposed to be caucasian but looked like people of colour with lighter skin. Characters who reflected the same physical aspirations I put on myself and my designs.
It took over twenty years for me to come to terms with the fact that I'm not like my parents and that's totally fine and my designs reflect a greater diversity, and I still love Final Fantasy. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6576 | Where did English come from?
English didn’t originate in England. In the 5th and 6th centuries, invaders and settlers came to England from what is not Germany and the Netherlands. These included people such as the Angles, Saxons and Frisians. They brought with them their own languages which we call the Anglo-Saxon Language or Old English Language. Written Old English is similar in vocabulary and grammar to other old Germanic languages such as Old High German and Old Norse, and completely unintelligible to modern English speakers.
England was conquered by the Normans in 1066. The Normans came from the north of France. They brought new words into the English Language. This produced a language we call the Anglo-Norman Language or Middle English. The European Renaissance saw many new words from Latin and Greek entering the language. Thus, English developed into a “borrowing” language with an enormously disparate vocabulary. By the 16th century, English had developed and we have Modern English – the language of Shakespeare and onwards – which we continue to use today, albeit with some minor changes.
What words in Chinese came from English?
Can you think of some words you know in Chinese that originally came from English?
What words in English came from Chinese?
Can you think of any English words you know that originally came from Chinese?
What is the longest word in English?
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch railway station sign
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch railway station sign is the longest place name in the UK.
There is some argument about the answer to this question. Some words have been coined (made up) just to have this record. Other words are technical or scientific words that are not in common use and not in any dictionary. Before you read the list below, have a game to see what long words you can think of.
‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’ is the longest word used by Shakespeare in his plays.
‘Antidisestablishmentarianism’ is the longest, non-coined, English word. That means the word was not just made up for the purpose of being the longest word.
‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ was created for a song in the musical Mary Poppins. It means – OK or Alright.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu in New Zealand
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu in New Zealand
‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ is the longest word found in a dictionary. However, it was deliberately made up so as to be the longest word. There is an alternative, shorter and more correct word.
‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ is the name of a village in Anglesey in north Wales.
‘Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu’ is a hill in New Zealand.
How many words are there in English?
This is a puzzle. How do you find the answer? Well I looked in the dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary is the largest dictionary of English words. It says the following:
“There is no single sensible answer to this question.”
WTF! There is no answer? Why? Well it goes on to say:
“It’s impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it’s so hard to decide what actually counts as a word.”
The dictionary gives some examples. Take for instance the word ‘dog’. You know this word. It is a four legged animal that people keep as pets. How about ‘dogs’ (more than one dog). Does adding the ‘s’ make it a different word or is it the plural form of the same word. It gets more complicated with you have the verb ‘dog’ meaning to follow someone closely. This time ‘dog’ has a very different meaning but is spelled the same. Do we have one word with two meanings or two words with the same spelling? Add on ‘dogging’, ‘dogged’, ‘doggedly’ and the who business get’s complicated.
Now look at another word ‘hotdog’. It can also be spelled ‘hot-dog’ and ‘hot dog’. Is this one word with three spellings or three words with the same meanings? The the last spelling, ‘hot dog’ is that really one word or is it two words together – ‘hot’ and ‘dog’?
Then there are regional variations. Americans write ‘color’ and English people write ‘colour’. Are these two words with the same meanings or two spellings for the same word?
What about words that came from foreign languages? The word ‘manga‘ is a Japanese word for a kind of cartoon. It is a new word that is not becoming commonly used in English but it isn’t an English word. Should it be counted in the number of English words? Ultimately many many English words are loanwords. Should we exclude all of them? How commonly used does a word have to be to get included?
And so you can see the difficulty in counting the number of words in English or indeed any other language.
The dictionary doesn’t say the the full 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary has entries for 171,476 words which are in current use today and 47,156 words which are now considered obsolete. |
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6590 | 20250 Exhaust Overheat Detector
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* Wet Exhaust Overheat Detector
The Exhaust Overheat Detector is a two terminal,non polarity, normally open detector that closes when wet exhaust temperature reaches 200°F and activates a visual and/or auldible device.
It has an adjustable band that will accomodate exhaust sizes from 2in to 8in. We provide 5ft of Marine Grade Tinned wire for connections. It is a multi voltage switch that can work with 12v, 24v, and 32v. |
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Spr b 3r 383.png Shiny back sprite of #083 Farfetch'd from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire Spr b 3r 382.png
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6594 | Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search results
World War, 1939-1945 -- Military intelligence -- Great Britain
Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Alan Pryce-Jones papers
Call Number: GEN MSS 513
Overview: The Alan Pryce-Jones papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts and printed versions of writings, family papers, diaries, financial papers, scrapbooks, photographs and other personal papers.Series I., Correspondence, includes letters from literary colleagues and acquaintances, family, and friends. It documents Pryce-Jones's career as a writer and editor, including many substantive letters from other writers and editors about their work. It also documents his family history, family...
Dates: 1857-2000, bulk 1915-1990 |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6600 | This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on my website. Learn More
Hi! I am Armin. I've been writing software applications since I was 15. Aside from my daytime job in software development, playing with new languages and frameworks is my hobby. I love to be involved with the tech community, especially get young people interested in coding.
Once a month I organize Toronto .NET Meetup and Metro Toronto .NET User Group with Ehsan, Luca, and Ali. We are over 2000 members and growing.
I also maintain Paradise Charity website on the side.
This blog is:
Armin Karimi has been writing software applications for about a decade in marketing, e-commerce, entertainment, health care, and financial services. He is co-organizer of Toronto .NET Meetup and Metro Toronto .NET User Groups. He is a published scholar, enjoys working on latest technologies for hobby, and is an early adopter of writing cloud based applications. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6619 | Third-party Content Synchronization with Drupal Migrate
Gabe Sullice
Sometimes you need to pull in content or data on an ongoing basis from a third-party product or website. Maybe you want to pull in a list of books from Amazon, or show some products from your Shopify store. You may need all the flexibility of nodes in Drupal, but you don’t want to copy content manually, and you don’t want to be forced to move away from those other systems that are already serving your needs.
Here’s a recipe for synchronizing content from outside websites or products – in our case, Eventbrite – using the Migrate module.
But First, A Few Alternatives
In our specific project, we considered a few alternatives before landing on Migrate. We could have reimplemented Eventbrite's functionality in Drupal. However, we didn’t want to abandon the product (Eventbrite) that was already meeting our client’s needs perfectly. We just needed to pull in the content itself, without having to manage it in multiple places. We also considered a client-side application like Vue.js or React to simply re-present their Eventbrite content on the site in a seamless manner. But with that approach, we would lose the flexibility of storing events as nodes and would need to reinvent many of the features which Drupal gives us for free, like clean URLs, Views, Search, fine-grained caching, and more.
What we really needed was a continuous content synchronization between Eventbrite and Drupal that would leverage Eventbrite for content entry and event management and Drupal for a seamless integration with the rest of their site. But, how to do it?
Enter the Migrate Module
But Migrate is just for moving old sites into new ones, right? The reality is Migrate comes with a plethora of excellent, built-in, plugins which makes importing content a breeze. Moreover, it has all the necessary concepts to run migrations on a schedule without importing anything that’s not new or updated. While it’s often overlooked, Migrate is a perfect tool for synchronization of content as much as it is a perfect tool for one-time migration of content.
In Drupal 7, the feeds module was often used for these kinds of tasks. Feeds isn’t as far along in Drupal 8 and Migrate is now a much more flexible platform on which to build these kinds of integrations.
Important Concepts
In order to understand how to use Migrate as a content synchronization tool, you’ll first need to understand a few important concepts about how Migrate is built. Migrate module makes liberal use of Drupal 8 plugins, making it incredibly flexible, but also a little hard to understand at first. Especially when coming directly from Drupal 7.
Migrations are about taking arbitrary data from one bucket of content and funneling it into a new Drupal-based bucket of content. In Migrate-speak, the first bucket of data is your data "source." Your Drupal site is then the "destination."
Between those two buckets – your source and your destination – you may need to manipulate or alter the data to make it compatible with your Drupal content types and fields. In Migrate, this is called a "processor." For example, you may need to transform a Unix timestamp from your source data into a formatted date, or make taxonomy terms out of a list of strings. Migrate lets you describe one or more "processing pipelines" for each field of the data you'll be importing.
These are the three key components we'll be working with:
1. "source" plugins (to fetch the data to import)
2. "process" plugins (to transform that data into something easier to use)
3. "destination" plugins (to create our Drupal nodes).
The "Source" Plugin
Migrate already comes with a few source plugins out-of-the-box. They can plug into generic data sources like a legacy SQL database, CSV, XML, or JSON files. However, what we needed for our client was to integrate with a somewhat non-standard JSON-based API. For that, you’ll need to write a custom source plugin.
Q: How? A: SourcePluginBase and MigrateSourceInterface.
When implementing a source plugin, you’ll need to extend from SourcePluginBase and implement all the methods required by MigrateSourceInterface.
SourcePluginBase does much of the heavy lifting for you, but there remains one essential method you must write yourself, and it is by far the most complicated step of this entire effort. You’ll need to implement the initializeIterator() method. This method must return something that implements PHP’s built-in \Iterator interface. In a custom migration, connecting to a custom API, you’ll need to write your own custom class which implements this interface. An iterator is an object which can be used in a foreach in place of a PHP array. In that respect, they’re very much the same. You can write:
foreach ($my_iterator as $key => $value) {
// $my_iterator might as well be an array, because it behaves the same here.
That’s where the similarity ends. You can’t assign values to an iterator, and you can’t arbitrarily look up a key. You can only loop over the iterator from beginning to end.
In the context of the Migrate module, the iterator is what provides each result row, or each piece of content, to be imported into your Drupal site. In the context of our Eventbrite implementation, our iterator is what made requests to the Eventbrite API.
There are five methods which every class that implements \Iterator must have:
1. current() - This returns the current row of data. Migrate expects this to return an array representing the data you’ll be importing. It should be raw and unprocessed. We can clean it up later.
2. key() - This returns the current ID of the data. Migrate expects this to be the source ID of the row to be imported.
3. next() - This advances the iterator one place. This will be called before current() is called. You should prepare your class to return the next row of data the next time current() is called. In the context of the Eventbrite API, this could mean advancing one item in the returned JSON response from the Eventbrite API. However, Eventbrite’s API is paginated, it was in this method that, when we had no more rows in the current page, we would make a new HTTP request for the next page of JSON data and set up our class to return the next row of data.
4. rewind() - This resets the Iterator so that it can be looped over anew. This clears out current data and sets up the next call to the current() method to return the first result row.
5. valid() - This indicates when the iteration is complete, i.e. when there are no more rows to return. This method returns TRUE until you’ve returned every result. When you have nothing left to return after a call to next(), you should return FALSE to tell Migrate that there is nothing left to import.
I’m not going to go into the specifics of each method here; it is highly variable and entirely dependent on the source of your migration. Is your third-party API JSON-based or XML-based, etc.? Plus, if you’re here for Eventbrite, I’ve already done all the hard work for you! I’ve made all the Eventbrite code I wrote public on Github.
Once you’ve built your iterator, the rest of it should be smooth sailing. You’ll still need to implement the remaining methods for MigrateSourceInterface, each of which is more extensively documented on
• fields() - A list of fields available for your source rows. This is usually the top-level keys of the array returned by your Iterator’s current() method
• getIds() - This returns the uniquely identifying fields and some schema information for your source data. E.g. user and user_id from some arbitrary data source
• __toString() - This is usually just a human-readable name for your Migration, something like, “My Custom Migration Source”
Once you have all this done, you’re ready to set up a migration YAML file and almost all your custom PHP is already written.
Much of the documentation about migrations that exist today tells you to install the Migrate Plus module at this point. Migrate Plus gives you some nice Drush commands and specifies how you should place and define your migrations. Honestly, I found it completely confusing and, for our use-case, entirely unnecessary. It’s a rabbit hole I wouldn’t go down. Migrate itself comes with everything we need.
To define a migration, i.e. the YAML which tells the Migrate module which plugins to use and how to map your source data into your destination content types, you’ll need to place a file in a custom module under a directory named migration_templates. For me, I named this file eventbrite.yml, but you may name it how you want. Just make sure that the id that you define in YAML matches the filename.
The five top-level keys you must define in this file are:
1. id: The machine ID for the migration, matching your filename
2. label: The human-readable name of the Migration, in my case, “Eventbrite”
3. source: This is where we tell the Migrate module to use our custom source plugin, more on that below
4. destination: This is the plugin that tells migrate which plugin to map your content into. Usually, this will be entity:node
5. process: This tells migrate how to map source data values into fields in your destination content. We’ll discuss that below as well
The source key tells the Migrate module which plugin will provide the source data that it needs to migrate or import. In our case, it looked like this:
plugin: eventbrite
Where the eventbrite string must match the plugin id defined by an annotation on our custom MigrateSourcePlugin. Ours looked like this:
* @MigrateSource(
* id = "eventbrite"
* )
class EventbriteSource extends SourcePluginBase … omitted ...
The process key is the third and last component of our custom migration. Briefly, you use this section to map your source fields into your destination fields. As a simple example, if your source data has a key like “name,” you might map that to “title” for a node. Of all the Migrate documentation, this section on process plugins is by far the most well-documented and I referenced it extensively.
The biggest misunderstanding I’ve seen about the process section is how powerful “pipelines” and ProcessPlugins can be. Do not worry about cleaning up and processing your data in your custom iterator. Instead, do it with ProcessPlugins and pipelines.
The documentation page for how to write a ProcessPlugin is incredibly short. That said, ProcessPlugins are incredibly easy to write. First, create a new class with a file named like: /src/Plugin/migrate/process/YourClassName.php. Your class should extend the ProcessPluginBase class. You only need to implement one method: transform().
The transform() method operates on each value, of each field, on a single result row. Thus, if your source data returns an array of strings for a field named “favorite_flavors” on a chef’s user profile, the transform method will be called once for each string in that array.
The idea is simple, the transform method takes $value as its first argument, does whatever changes it needs to, then returns the processed value. E.g., if you wanted to translate every occurrence of the word “umami” to a less pretentious word like “savory,” you would return the string “savory” every time $value was equal to “umami”.
By composing different processors and understanding what already comes free with the Migrate module (see the list of built-in processors), complicated migrations become much simpler to reason about as complexity grows.
The single biggest differentiating factor between using Migrate for a legacy site migration and using Migrate for content synchronization is that you’ll run your migrations continuously on a regular interval. Usually, something like every 30 minutes or every hour. In order to run your migration continuously, it’s important for your migration to know a few things:
• What has already been migrated
• What, if anything, has been updated since the last run
• What is new
When the Migrate module can answer these questions, it can optimize the migration so it only imports or updates what needs to be changed, i.e., it doesn’t import the same content over and over.
To do this, you need to specify one of two methods for answering these questions. You can either specify track_changes: “TRUE” under the source in your migration YAML, or you can specify a high_water_property. The former will hash each result row and compare it to a previously computed hash. If they match, Migrate will skip that row. The latter, will examine the property you specify and compare it to the same property from the previous migration. If the incoming high water property is higher, then Migrate knows it should import the row. Typically, you might use something like a “changed” or “updated” timestamp on the incoming content as your high water property.
Both methods work fine, sometimes you just might be unable to use one or the other. For example, if there are no available properties on your source data to act as a high water mark, then the track_changes method is your only option. You may be unable to use the high_water_property if there are fields on your source data that might change over time (thereby changing the hash of the content) but you do not want to trigger an update when those fields change.
The final piece of the puzzle is actually ensuring that your migration runs on a regular basis. To do that, you’ll want to write a little bit of code to run your migration on cron.
I found this tutorial on cron and the Drupal 8 Queue API to be very informative and helpful. I would recommend it if you’d like to learn more about Drupal’s Queue API. Here, we’re just going to go over the minimum required effort to get a migration importing regularly on cron.
First, you’ll need to implement hook_cron in a custom module. Put the following in that function:
* Implements hook_cron().
* Schedules a synchronization of my migration.
function mymodule_importer_cron() {
$queue = \Drupal::queue('mymodule_importer');
// We only ever need to be sure that we get the latest content once. Lining
// up multiple sync's in a row would be unnecessary and would just be a
// resource hog. We check the queue depth to prevent that.
$queue_depth = (integer) $queue->numberOfItems();
if ($queue_depth === 0) {
In the above, we’re loading a queue and adding an item to that queue. Below, we’ll implement a QueueWorker that will run your migration when there is an item in the queue. It’s possible that the migration might take longer than the amount of time you have between cron runs. In that case, items would start piling up and you would never empty the queue. Here, we just make sure we have one item in the queue. There’s no reason to let them pile up.
Next, in a file named like src/Plugin/QueueWorker/MyModuleImporterQueueWorker.php, we’ll write a class that extends QueueWorkerBase:
namespace Drupal\mymodule_importer\Plugin\QueueWorker;
use Drupal\Core\Plugin\ContainerFactoryPluginInterface;
use Drupal\Core\Queue\QueueWorkerBase;
use Drupal\Component\Plugin\PluginManagerInterface;
use Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerInterface;
use Drupal\migrate\MigrateExecutable;
use Drupal\migrate\MigrateExecutableInterface;
use Drupal\migrate\MigrateMessage;
* @QueueWorker(
* id = "mymodule_importer",
* title = @Translation("My Module Cron Importer"),
* cron = {
* "time" = 30,
* },
* )
class MyModuleImporterQueueWorker extends QueueWorkerBase implements ContainerFactoryPluginInterface {
… omitted ...
Notice that the id value in the annotation matches the name we put in our implementation of hook_cron. That is important. The “time” value is the maximum time that this run of your worker is allowed to take. If it does not complete in time, it will be killed and the item will remain in the queue and will be executed on the next cron run.
Within the class, we’ll inject the the migration plugin manager…
public function __construct(PluginManagerInterface $migration_manager) {
$this->migrationManager = $migration_manager;
return new static($container->get(‘plugin.manager.migration’));
public function processItem($item) {
$migration = $this->migrateManager->createInstance('your_migration');
$message = new MigrateMessage('Content Imported');
$executable = new MigrateExecutable($migration, $message);
I’ve left out a lot of code standards for clarity above (don’t judge). The key things to notice are that ‘your_migration’ must match the id of the migration in your migration YAML file. The rest of the processItem() method is just a little limbo to get your migration to a point where you can call import() without an error.
With all this written, your migration will be run every time cron is executed.
It took a lot of research to get this working the first time, but we still saved a lot of time by using as much as we could from the Migrate module to implement third-party content synchronization. Once I wrote this initial implementation, I’ve been able to simply tweak the Iterator and machine names in order to implement synchronization with another API on another project. Getting everything set up and working took about a day and will probably take less time in the future.
You can see the work in action at Museum of Contemporary Art Denver – just check out their events page.
I hope you’ll let me know if you give this a try, and what you did and didn’t find helpful! |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6627 | Phil Weinberg, whom I have never laid my eyes on, saved my son’s hide and my life, from 3,000 miles away. When I got the news that my son is in jail in Seattle, I knew we needed a good lawyer. I chose Phil because he looked trustworthy in the photo on the site of county lawyers. He returned my message immediately, got my son out of jail that same day and, for the next two months, worked hard to get my son exonerated. Phil was in touch with the prosecutor in the case numerous times, was at my son’s side in a number of hearings, pleaded his case and finally succeeded, even more than I hoped. My son’s case was dismissed completely and totally. Phil, you have my eternal gratitude.
– dknj k
(originally posted on Google) |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6654 | Bad Boys Blog
If We Can't Bail Them Out, NO ONE CAN!
Thug Life: Jail Experience by Gender
The jail experience, by its very nature, is not a pleasant one. Based on the regulations in most jails that have to be followed, the experience should be uniform for men and women. However, the jail experience differs between men and women. The rules and regulations are the same for both men and women but because men and women handle pressure and isolation in very different ways, so does the jail experience. Today, we're going to discuss the differences in how men and women experience the jail system.
Social Systems
Men, by their very nature, tend to internalize their emotions in order to not show weakness. This behavior is often amplified while in jail. This leads to more aggressive behavior and a sense of every man for himself. Bonds are created between inmates but they're often very fragile. Social groups that form in men's prisons tend to be more out of necessity than common interests or caring. This is why gangs are so prevalent in the prison system.
Women, on the other hand, are typically more nurturing by nature. This manifests itself in a strong community feeling in jail. Women tend to be more supportive of each other in order to make their time easier. Bonds between women that are made in jail are much more likely to last on the outside than the bonds made between men.
Interaction with Authority
When talking to a local guard for the county jail a few months back, I asked him "What's the biggest difference between being a guard for men vs women?"
His answer thoroughly surprised me. "If I tell a man to tuck in his shirt, 99% of the time, he'll tuck in his shirt without question. If I tell a woman to tuck in her shirt, first she asks why, then she lists every single other prisoner who doesn't have their shirt tucked in and wants to know why she has to."
Jail Experience Differs from Men to Women
Men tend to be more compliant in general, but are infinitely more likely to react violently when not in compliance.
Women are also compliant but tend to question authority more before complying with orders. However, when women don't comply, it's very rare for them to react violently.
Recidivism Rates
How likely are men to re-offend and become incarcerated again compared to women?
The answer is nearly double. In the first 2 years after release, men are almost twice as likely to re-offend than women. At around the 2-3 year mark these rates tend to even out for both men and women, with men maintaining a 10% higher rate than women throughout.
This can be linked to many things but the biggest indicators may come from the points that we talked about earlier. The social system for men encourages violent behavior and can cause men to become "institutionalized." This can cause men to have a very hard time adjusting to the freedom of the outside world and leads to them re-offending and becoming incarcerated once again.
Jail is never a positive experience, but that experience can differ greatly from person to person. This divide is even more apparent between men and women. Statistically, women are more supportive of each other, are less violent, and are less likely to end up back in jail than men.
Larry Nowak
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6686 | A project produces one type of output, either a dll, exe or another type of file(s).
When you look in the Solution Explorer task pane, projects are displayed in Bold.
Extensibility > Shared Add-in
Extensibility > Visual Studio Add-in (Visual Studio 2010)
He first created the application, published it with ClickOnce, then obfuscated the files and updated the manifests using the Mage tool. Using that procedure, he was able to publish the now obfuscated program via ClickOnce successfully.
Programs are organised into projects and solutions. A project os a group of related files. A solution is a group of projects that are combined to solve a developer's problem.
The title bar displays the name of the projects the prorgamming language, the mode of the IDE, the file being viewed and the mode of that file.
Visual Studio.Net supports two different interface modes for document windows: Multiple Document Interface (MDI) and Tabbed Documents. These can be changed from (Tools > Options)(General pane)
Certain menu items only appear in specific IDE modes
Project SaveAs
Visual Studio does not have the option to save a whole project to another location or folder
Clearing Recent Projects
Copy the following two lines into a file and save it with a .reg file extension
Then whenever you want to clear the list, just double click the file.
|
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6695 |
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6697 | An Ode to the Green Heron
My last blog, "An Ode to a City Park," was an ode not just to a single 11-acre city park in Chesapeake, VA, but really to all city parks (and by extension, all natural places that have been built/preserved/restored). These parks are critically important for wildlife and also for people—especially neighborhood people (see below!). Research … Continue reading An Ode to the Green Heron
Osprey Country
I attended a Jimmy Webb concert over the weekend in Harrisburg, PA. If a seasoned guy like me can still have an idol, well, Jimmy Webb is mine. Being in his presence and listening to him play piano and sing, I imagined myself being in the presence of Cole Porter or Irving Berlin—especially while listening … Continue reading Osprey Country
Meanwhile the Wild Geese
I recently posted a dual tribute to nature poet extraordinaire, Mary Oliver. I know, I know. I keep bringing her up. But we bring up our favorite poets much like we bring up our favorite composers, songwriters, and authors (and grandkids): over and over again. Ms. Oliver wrote a lovely poem entitled, "Wild Geese." Here … Continue reading Meanwhile the Wild Geese |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6716 | How many SpaceX rockets does it take to deorbit the Moon?
A few days ago, whilst gazing upon the midnight sky, a totally justified question crawled into my mind.
How many SpaceX rockets does it take to deorbit the Moon?
It went straight into one of those places where you can’t really ignore it or shake it off, you just have to know.
I could have probably just calculated the required Δv to reduce the periapsis (“lowest” point in orbit or closest approach) of the Moon enough for it to enter the atmosphere, but motivated by my need of a kinematics – gravity framework for a long standing project I decided to simulate the orbit of the Moon around the Earth in Python and brute-force the required amount of thrust (or number of rockets).
So here I am, registering domain names, configuring webservers and editing css stylesheets with the hope that my work will be helpful or educational to some, in an attempt to pay my long due obligation of giving back to the internet.
But enough of that, lets get to the point.
In order to model orbital motion, we need to be able to compute the position of a given body at each time step. This depends on its velocity which in turn depends on its acceleration, which is computed from the forces acting on it using Newton’s second law of motion:
\( \sum F=ma \\\)
Where F are the acting forces, m the mass of the body and a the acceleration.
Our first task is to create a class of an orbiting (or not) body, since this is meant to be reusable and not just a one night stand.
class Body(object):
def __init__(self, Pos0, Mass0, V0, A0, R0, F0=[0,0]):
self.Pos = Pos0
self.Mass = Mass0
self.V = V0
self.A = A0
self.R = R0
self.F = F0
def __call__(self):
print self.Pos, self.V, self.A, self.F
The attributes of the object consist of its position vector, mass, velocity vector, acceleration vector, radius and force vector. All the vectors are two dimensional since we assume that the Sun does not exist for the scope of this problem, so we don’t have to bother with orbital inclinations and another dimension (who needs the Sun and a third dimension anyway?).
When the object is called, some information about its state gets printed.
In order for a mass m to orbit around a central point, it has to have a sufficient velocity v orthogonal to the centripetal force Fg:
Orbit graph
At first, we need the gravity force vector, \(\vec{F_{g}}\), the magnitude of which is given to us by Newton’s law of universal gravitation:
\( |\vec{F_{g}}|=G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^{2}} \\\)
Where G is the universal gravitational constant (not to be confused with g), m1,2 the masses of the two bodies and r the distance between them. G and m1,2 are known so we need to compute r. To do so, we shall utilize the Pythagorean theorem:
\( r= \sqrt{(x_1 -x_2)^2 + (y_1- y_2)^2} \\\)
Where x1,2, y1,2 are the Cartesian coordinates of the two points (bodies). Now we can construct the functions DistBetween and FgravMag:
def DistBetween(body1, body2):
return math.sqrt((body1.Pos[0]-body2.Pos[0])**2+(body1.Pos[1]-body2.Pos[1])**2)
def FgravMag(body1, body2):
return G*body1.Mass*body2.Mass/(DistBetween(body1, body2)*10**3)**2
Note that the output of DistBetween is multiplied by 103 in FgravMag because the distance unit of choice is Km but we need the force in Newtons.
In order to turn our gravity force magnitude to a force vector, we need a unit vector (one that has a magnitude of 1) \(\vec{u}\) that points from body1 to body2. This is exactly what we are going to get if we grab a body1 centered vector that points to body2 by subtracting their coordinates and divide that by the distance between them:
direcion vector between two points
\( \vec{D}=(x_2 -x_1,y_2- y_1) \\ \vec{u}=\frac{\vec{D}}{|\vec{D}|} \\\)
Which is handled by the prosaically named function PosUnitDirVct:
def PosUnitDirVct(body1, body2):
return numpy.divide([body2.Pos[0]-body1.Pos[0], body2.Pos[1]-body1.Pos[1]], DistBetween(body1, body2))
By multiplying this direction vector with the magnitude of the gravitational pull we get the gravity force vector we sought for:
\(\vec{F_{g}} = \vec{u}|\vec{F_{g}}| \\\)
And the equivalent code:
def FgravVct(body1, body2):
return numpy.multiply(PosUnitDirVct(body1, body2), FgravMag(body1, body2))
We are half way there!
To reduce the periapsis of the Moon enough, in order to reach the atmosphere or crash into the earth, we need to apply a force in the retrograde direction, which means opposite to the direction of its velocity. This task is made a hell of a lot easier by the fact that the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth (orbital frequency same as rotational frequency, or why there is an album called The Dark Side of the Moon [sic]), so we can just park our boosters nose down on the “leading” point of the Moon that is always facing to the direction of its velocity (prograde) and fire them up at the apoapsis. To do so, we first employ a velocity direction vector (prograde vector) formulated in an orderly fashion, which we will later invert, resulting in a retrograde direction vector. By multiplying this new vector with the thrust of a Falcon9 v1.1 first stage booster (in Newtons!) and the count N of the boosters, we get our deorbiting force vector \( \vec{F_r} \):
def VelUnitDirVct(body):
return numpy.divide(body.V, math.sqrt(body.V[0]**2+body.V[1]**2)) # math.sqrt(V[0]**2+V[1]**2) is equivalent to numpy.linalg.norm(V)
Fr = numpy.multiply(VelUnitDirVct(Moon),-1) * F9thrust * N
Now we have both of our acting forces and we can proceed with the computation of the position at each step. Since we will be working with discrete time progression in the form of a modest for loop, this is only a matter of integrating the acceleration given to us by Newton’s second law of motion twice, without forgetting to add its previous velocity/position:
\vec{v}_{t+n} = \int_{t}^{t+n} \vec{a_t}dt + \vec{v}_{t}
\vec{x}_{t+n} = \int_{t}^{t+n} \vec{v_t}dt + \vec{x}_{t}\\\)
Where x the position, t is a given point in time and n our time step.
We can implement that directly as methods of our objects:
def updateAcc(self):
self.A = numpy.divide(self.F, self.Mass)/10**3
def updateVel(self, time):
self.V = [self.V[0] + self.A[0]*time, self.V[1] + self.A[1]*time]
def updatePos(self, time):
self.Pos = [self.Pos[0] + self.V[0]*time, self.Pos[1] + self.V[1]*time]
def Move(self, time):
I should also note at this point that this method of time discretization (Solving the differential equations using Euler method) has an inherent error when working with time varying quantities, directly related to the size of our step.
Finally it’s time to glue everything together. Okay but how do we do that?
First we should define the two bodies:
Earth = Body([0,0], 5.97237*10**24, [0,0], [0,0], 6371)
Moon = Body([0,405400], 7.341*10**22, [0,0], [0,0], 1737)
We place the Earth at 0,0 (how arrogant of us, casually placing the Earth) and the apoapsis of the Moon at the top of our coordinate system. Mass is in Kg and distance in Km. Every position of the Moon during our simulation will be placed in a list named Moonposplot (yeah I know).
The first stage of a Falcon9 has a burn duration of 180 seconds, so after that the only acting force will be Earth’s gravity:
for t in numpy.linspace(0,endtime,endtime/step):
if t >= 180:
Moon.F = FgravVct(Moon, Earth)
Moon.F = numpy.add(FgravVct(Moon, Earth), Fr)
And using matplotlib to output an animated plot:
Ecircle = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R, color='g')
Mcircle = plt.Circle((Moon.Pos[0], Moon.Pos[1]), Moon.R, color='grey')
Esphere = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R+10000, color=(0,0,0.5,0.1))
Thsphere = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R+700, color=(0,0,0.6,0.15))
Msphere = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R+80, color=(0,0,0.7,0.2))
Ssphere = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R+50, color=(0,0,0.8,0.25))
Trsphere = plt.Circle((Earth.Pos[0], Earth.Pos[1]), Earth.R+12, color=(0,0,0.9,0.3))
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.axes(xlim=(-415.4*10**3, 415.4*10**3),ylim=(-415.4*10**3, 415.4*10**3))
line, = ax.plot(map(list, zip(*Moonposplot))[0],map(list, zip(*Moonposplot))[1], lw=0.5)
def init():
return Mcircle, Esphere, Thsphere, Msphere, Ssphere, Trsphere, Ecircle, line
def anim(i): = (Moonposplot[i][0], Moonposplot[i][1])
ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, anim, init_func=init, frames=int(endtime/step), interval=30, blit=True)
And let’s test that for a second without any boosters…
Oh no! A premature crash!
That happened because we did not specify an initial velocity V0, and it is as if a stationary Moon just appeared and fell straight into the Earth.
The power of modern search engines immediately gives us 0.964 Km/s as the answer to the question “Moon minimum orbital velocity” (Minimum because at t=0 we are at the apoapsis). Isn’t that great? This power is readily available to everyone, yet some people choose to use the internet just to post photos of their meals.
Anyway, let’s initialize the Moon in a meaningful way now:
Moon = Body([0,405400], 7.341*10**22, [0.964,0], [0,0], 1737)
And we have achieved orbit!
A well respected and accurate verification can be performed using the cursor and the output of matplotlib’s figure to check out if the periapsis is where it should, which surprisingly enough it is! Another test that can be performed is playing with the duration of the simulation until exactly one revolution around the Earth is completed and then compare that to the orbital period of the Moon. Using a quick and dirty for loop to accomplish that, we verify that the found value is indeed really close to a sidereal month.
Getting the answer to the initial question is only a matter of applying a force that is a multiple of 5885 kN (Falcon9 1.1 stage 1 thrust) until the Moon reaches the exosphere! (Then orbital decay will take over.) This can be achieved with another for loop that modifies the multiplier N until the distance between the two bodies is sufficiently small.
Periapsis in exosphere
…Well as it turns out we need 5*1016 Falcon9 stage 1 boosters so that’s not happening any time soon.
Such a significant amount of boosters adds enough mass to our body to play an important role in our calculations. It is trivial to account for that, but if we decide to be that precise (let me remind you that we ignored the Sun) we would also need to take in account the reduction of the boosters’ mass, something we could do because SpaceX was kind enough to provide us with the specific impulse of Falcon9’s stage 1. So we shall deem our previous answer satisfactory.
By developing the program in such way, it is now trivial to demonstrate multi-body situations such as the two body problem (because nothing is really stationary):
Two body demonstration
or a binary system:
Two body example2
Well, I can now consider my question answered!
Thank you for reading this, and if you want to check out the complete code, it is on Github.
Todo: Implement a higher order symplectic & time-reversible integrator such as JANUS.
Hello world?
This is a blog! Yay.
The purpose of this blog is.. I guess it only exists because I wanted to try out installing WP on a virtual machine. Debian wiki instructions unclear, dick stuck in /dev/null.
If I continue to publish content here, it will probably be about electronics, linux, random thoughts etc. How uncommon eh? |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6728 | 6 Ways Your Website Design Impacts SEO
An illustration showing a man wearing glasses standing behind a desk with a laptop displaying SEO terms. There is also an enlarged webpage off to his left.
Raise your hand if, as a marketer, you’ve been handed a fully-designed website and asked to “do SEO” to it.
It’s safe to say that the person who tasked you with making some SEO magic was probably operating under the assumption that search engine optimization is only about keywords and backlinks, rather than about how the site is designed.
In reality, while including keywords in your website copy and earning links to your site from high-quality domains are both really important, there are more factors that matter in SEO - many of which have to do with the design of your website.
Here are six elements of your web design that can affect your organic search performance, and how to optimize each:
1. Navigation
Your website’s information architecture plays a crucial part in your user experience. How quickly and easily your users can find the information or functionality they’re looking for is reflected in metrics such as your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave without viewing any other pages on your website).
If you have a high bounce rate, it could be due to the way users can (or cannot) navigate to relevant content or complete a desired action.
Besides causing you to lose out on potentially relevant leads, your bounce rate has a direct impact on your rankings. Search engines interpret a high bounce rate as a sign that your website isn’t meeting the expectations and needs of their users, and your rankings for important keywords will be impacted accordingly.
Related content: What Data Can Tell You About Your User Experience
Having a clear, hierarchical website infrastructure also makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website and determine how the content on your website should rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines rank web content based on “expertise, authoritativeness, and trust,” meaning the more you can address a topic that is relevant to your business, the more likely you are to rank higher in search engines for that topic.
By creating categories and subcategories of your content, you’re not only helping your users find what they need, but you’re also sending a signal to search engines that you’re the best resource to address what their users are searching for.
2. Images and videos
It can be tempting, given all of the great camera and video technology that’s out there, to add as many of the most beautiful, high resolution photos and videos to your website as possible. Unfortunately, huge image and video files can take a long time to load if they’re not optimized properly.
Unsurprisingly, search engines take site speed (and page speed) into account when determining a website’s ranking on results pages. Again, their ultimate goal is to provide a positive experience for their users, so they don’t want to send them to a website that takes too long to load.
How long is “too long?” According to research conducted by Google in 2018, 53% of visitors will leave a page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Moreover, a one second delay in load time equates to a 7% drop in conversions, an 11% decrease in page views, and a 16% reduction in customer satisfaction, on average.
There are a number of free tools out there that help marketers and developers understand their desktop and mobile site speed. One of those tools, Google PageSpeed Insights, analyzes your site content and provides recommendations, in priority order, to bring your page speed within an acceptable range.
When optimized for web and mobile viewing, images and videos can increase engagement and drive conversions. Monitoring how new and existing graphics impact your page speed will help ensure your organic search performance isn’t being affected by them being there.
3. Fonts
If you’re worried that Google will judge your font choice and rank you accordingly, you can relax; your choice of font type will not directly impact your organic search rankings. That being said, your font choices do impact your user experience, which (you guessed it) does have implications for SEO.
Using too many different fonts, fonts that are difficult to read, or font sizes that are too small (or too big) to be read easily all decrease the quality of your user experience. That’s something that search engines take into account.
When performing a font audit, make sure (a) your fonts are legible on all devices and (b) consistent with your brand across all properties. A cohesive, coherent experience will keep your bounce rate low and send a positive signal to search engines.
Related content: Custom Fonts in iOS Made Simple, Yet Powerful
4. Mobile responsiveness
In today’s world, having a responsive website is non-negotiable. In a lot of organizations, however, the mobile experience is still deprioritized, relative to the desktop experience.
Why might that be the case?
Over 50% of all website traffic was generated on mobile devices in 2018, but not all industries reflect that global average. Most B2B companies, for instance, whose buyers surf during the day, report a significantly higher percentage of desktop traffic than mobile.
So why does mobile still need to come first?
In March of 2018, Google announced that they will index the mobile version of a page first, “to better help our - primarily mobile - users find what they’re looking for.” That means your mobile content needs to load quickly and be optimized for consumption on a smaller screen, regardless of whether or not a majority of your site sessions take place on a desktop computer.
Google has a “Mobile-Friendly Test,” which, in addition to a mobile-friendliness rating, provides mobile usability reports and resources that can support all of your mobile content initiatives.
5. Header hierarchy
Today’s online readers expect to find the information they’re looking for faster than ever: only 16% of users read website content word-for-word.
Related content: Why Your Website Project Needs a Content Strategy
Headers provide structure and help give visitors an idea of the content you cover on any given page, which makes them less likely to bounce before reading more.
Furthermore, while the importance of including keywords in header tags (H1 through H6) has come into question, 80% of first-page results on Google use an H1 header. Not having one is like publishing a story without a title; the reader has no idea if the story will be relevant to them or not, so they’re pretty unlikely to dive in.
To get an idea about how headings are used on your website and find opportunities to improve, use a solution such as SEMRush’s Audit Tool or Screaming Frog.
6. Layout consistency
HubSpot recently conducted a test on the impact of changing their content layout on SEO. After a year of plateauing organic search traffic, they wanted to uncover (a) how they could rank for more featured snippets and (b) how to start increasing their rankings for important keywords.
While their actions were part of a multi-step process, one of the changes they made was to standardize the layout of their blog posts to make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl their content.
The idea to change the design of their content came from the success of Wikipedia, which owns the highest percentage of featured snippets on the web (11.2%). The layout of every article is the same, with the first paragraph showing up most often in featured snippets and voice search results.
Related content: The Importance of Beauty in Your Web or App Design
One of the biggest changes HubSpot made to their content was adding a simple, standalone list of the content covered in the article to the top of every post:
The results of their tests indicate that there’s a lot to be said for reconsidering how your content is presented on a page. They won 8-12% of the featured snippets they optimized for, up from just 1-2% previously.
The lesson learned is this: How easy you make it for users to understand the relevance of your content will mirror how easy it will be for search engines to crawl your site. What’s good for users will be good for your organic search performance, too.
Related content: Do You Need an SEO Audit?
In Conclusion
We’ll practice what we preach and sum up our review of how design factors impact SEO with this simple list:
What Elements of Your Web Design Impact SEO?
1. Website navigation
2. Images and videos
3. Font choices
4. Mobile responsiveness
5. Header hierarchy
6. Layout consistency
Our team of marketing experts starts every project with a review of your website for SEO opportunities. Want to start optimizing your website? Drop us a line today. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6729 | Try Mural
How to Choose the Right Touchscreen Display
Imagine using digital screens in your sessions that basically work like giant iPads. Wouldn't meetings and working sessions be much more engaging than with an 'old school' projector or TV screen? And wouldn't your workshops be much more engaging and up to modern standards than with physical..
Wout Hermans
in productivity tools, remote work,
Read More
Things You Should Know: 5 Skills for Getting Started with MURAL
MURAL is a visual workspace to help you design together. Think of it as a large, shared wall for mapping out content and organizing your thoughts..
Jim Kalbach
in essential skills, how to,
Weekly Notes that Stick |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6751 | Panel 1: Russia, Ukraine and 'the West': Rethinking our mental cartography?
Since the Russian-Ukrainian-conflict we have witnessed a half-forgotten antagonism in Europe: "The West" vs. Russia is becoming a more and more common perception in European societies. So in Panel 1 the necessity to rethink our mental cartography of the alleged irreconcilable Russia, Ukraine and "The West" was obvious.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6767 | In the second edition of A Study in Emerald, Fenians have a one-use benefit that allows you to have agents count as two Bomb points instead of one. They also have a Bomb point on them.
The rules for assassination say:
Each card that you play that has symbols on is worth Bomb points equal to the number of such symbols on the card.
Since you are playing the Fenians card to use their benefit at this time, does it also add its own Bomb point, or do cards played for Bomb points have to be played exclusively as such?
• Could you please add a tag wiki to [a-study-in-emerald]? That will prevent it from getting auto-purged in about 6 months. – Thunderforge Jul 1 '16 at 22:52
Page 6 of the English rulebook states under the sub-heading "A Short Interlude About Cards" that,
In all circumstances a card can only ever be played for one type of symbol on it or the text effect described in the text box
When played for their ability, Fenians double all bomb points of cards you played to gain bomb points. If you had two Fenians cards, you could play one for bombs and one as a doubler.
Hope this helps!
Your Answer
|
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6768 | I had not played Catan in a long time, but I recently played in a friendly tournament and am wondering (1) if there was a rule change , (2) if the rule they used is correct, or (3) if the rule I thought was correct was correct.
Player A's turn
Player A has 9 points on the board.
Player B has 6 points on the board.
Player C has 7 points on the board.
Player D has 9 points on the board.
Player A builds a city and reaches 10 points
Player B then reveals 2 VP cards
Does Player B end the game with a score of 6 VP or 8 VP? (in 4th place or 3rd place (moving ahead of C)?)
Looking at the rules, on page 5, it states
You must keep Victory Point Cards hidden. You may only reveal them during your turn and when you are sure that you have 10 victory points—that is, to win the game. Of course, you can reveal them after the end of the game when someone else wins. You may play any number of Victory Point Cards during your turn, even during the turn you purchase them
Based on the wording "after the end of the game", I would assume they don't count.
Also, it's not directly answered but it seems to be mentioned here that they don't count. See related here. See also BGG link.
• I don't have the rules to hand right now, but I believe the is "a winner" and everyone else - determining 2nd, 3rd etc is not covered. – Philip Kendall Jan 13 '17 at 7:06
• 3
I think this is not covered in standard rules but must be covered in the tournament rules. In a standard game it is irrelevant and that is why the rules are not clear on that point.. – D Tagliaferri Jan 13 '17 at 8:41
• 4
Looks like tournaments normally let you sit on VP cards and count them in your score (boardgamegeek.com/thread/30522/victory-point-cards) – virmaior Jan 13 '17 at 8:48
• 1
@virmaior You should take the information you found and turn it into a real answer so people can vote on it. – diego Jan 13 '17 at 16:16
The cards count, so 8 VP.
From the Victory Point Cards entry of the rules:
Each victory point card is worth 1 victory point. You only reveal your victory point cards when you or someone else wins the game.
The winner only reveals their VP cards after they win the game, so VP cards are worth points even before they are revealed.
Furthermore, the non-winning players are instructed to reveal their VP cards when the game ends. There would be no point in doing so if they didn't count.
Finally, a player by the name Daniel Wilson claims the following on the BoardGameGeek message boards:
I've played in the Mayfair Settlers of Catan World/North American Championship Qualifiers the last few years running at Origins, and this situation has occurred multiple times in the games I've been in.
The way this situation was officially scored is exactly the way you described. The points are there and still count, whether revealed or not.
• Where is that quote from? The rules directly? – GendoIkari Jan 13 '17 at 19:14
• @GendoIkari, Yes, from the passage on VP cards. – ikegami Jan 13 '17 at 19:26
Your Answer
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6783 | Page images
copy of Hearne’s edition,* nor need he make a pilgrimage
to Oxford to satisfy himself with a sight of the Rawlinson _
MS., for another and a preferable manuscript has come to light during the present century, which seems to have been overlooked for a long time, during which its history is unknown, but its known history commences with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when it was in the possession of \Villiam Cecil, the great Lord Burghley, the Queen’s High Treasurer and Her Majesty’s most highly trusted Councillor. Lord Burghley justly set a high value on this manuscript, and his signature is at the beginning of the volume. It passed from his hands into those of Sir Robert Cotton, a diligent collector at this time of rare MSS., and it is now preserved in the British Museum amidst the Cotton MSS. in a volume which is entitled Julius A. XI. On examining this MS. it would appear that Sir Robert Cotton carefully read and marked the manuscript, and has written on the margin of fol. 29 of the volume in which the manuscript is bound, and where Benedict’s work commences, the title ‘t Benedictus Abbas de Vita Henrici II. In explanation of this fact I may mention that Benedict’s Chronicle was originally anonymous, as was the condition of most Chronicles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and as in those days copyright was unknown, if the authorship of a Chronicle was thought worth usurping, the MS. was copied without a word of acknowledgment, and the text was re-issued, so to say, under the copier's name. It has thus happened, not to mention other instances, that a text of Benedict’s Chronicle appears to have been copied for a work, of which a manuscript is preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and is entitled “ Annales
* Professor Stubbs had a difficulty in procuring a sight of a copy.
T The Bishop of Oxford (Professor Stubbs) holds that Lord Burghley wrote this title, but high living authorities in the British Museum attribute it to C0ttOII. ’
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Angliae per Walterum Coventrensem,” and it is numbered MS. CLXXV. in the College Catalogue. The pirated work in this particular case has also been discovered in another MS. under the pseudonym of Memoriale Walteri Coventrensis. In an analogous manner the Vitellius MS., E. XVII., which is in the Cotton Collection in the British Museum, and which, if I mistake not, is a remote ancestor of a MS. which Hearne consulted in preparing his edition of Benedict's Chronicle in 1735, was regarded in the Middle Ages as a continuation of the Chronicle of Simeon of Durham, and it was known under that name when it was presented by William Camden Clarencieux, King of Arms, to Sir Robert Cotton. The Julius manuscript, on the other hand, has maintained its identity down to the present day, but it remained a long time in obscurity, having been superseded, so to say, by a text which is preserved in the great compilation of Master Roger, of Hoveden, and which contains a record of the Spanish Arbitration that may be regarded as of rival authority with the contemporary record generally attributed to Benedict of Peterborough. Benedict was probably present at the King's Court, in which the proceedings of the Arbitration were carried on. He was at that time the Chancellor of Archbishop Richard of Canterbury, whose name stands at the head of the list of members of the Curia Regis, whom Benedict enumerates as being present, and it was the duty of the Chancellor to be in attendance on the Archbishop on such an occasion. Roger, of Hoveden, on the other hand, was a Royal Clerk or Secretary, who had been frequently employed by the King on diplomatic missions abroad and on delicate negotiations at home, who would probably be in attendance on the King himself at Westminster during the sittings of the King's High Court. Such a person would have had little difficulty in obtaining access to any official Court paper of the period, and Hoveden's
text of the Court papers of the Spanish Arbitration has all the appearance of being as authentic a record as that of Benedict himself. We need not therefore be surprised to find that several learned French scholars in the eighteenth century have thought more highly of Hoveden’s text of the Arbitration than of the text which Hearne had followed in his edition of Benedict’s Chronicle in 1735, and to which I have already briefly alluded. Professor Stubbs, now Lord Bishop of Oxford, who, as Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, has edited in 1867, in the Rolls Series, the Chronicle commonly known under the name of Benedict of Peterborough, has prefixed to the first volume of his edition a most interesting preface, in which he alludes to the fact that a considerable portion of Benedict's Chronicle has been reprinted from Hearne’s edition, and has been incorporated into the 13th volume of the Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et dc la France,* and further that in the 17th volume of the same Recueil the editor has impugned the soundness of the text, which has been adopted by Hearne, and has framed a new text of Benedict’s work from a collation with Hoveden’s text. That process, however, need not be repeated in the present day, as we have now access to the Cecil manuscript, the author of which we know to have been the Archbishop’s Chancellor, and the penmanship of which has been pronounced by experts to be of the same period as the Arbitration itself. ‘
It has been suggested by several critics, who have briefly noticed the Spanish Arbitration, that the text of the official
* This work is more generally known under the title of Gallicarum (rt Franciscarum Rerum Scriptures, par Dom Martin Bouquet, under which title it appears in the catalogue of the London Library. It will be found under the name of Bouquet (Dom Martin) in the catalogues of Lincoln’s Inn and of the Athenaeum Club. Ihave to thank Sir E. Thompson, K.C.B., and Mr. G. F. Warner, of the British Museum, for a clue to the correct title of this work.
There are, however, some matters within the region of sober fact which may interest the reader, and which are amongst the circumstances which account for the preservation of a formal record of the proceedings of King Henry’s Court on this occasion. It would appear from the Chronicle of Benedict, of Peterborough, that the Kings of Sevile and of Navarre sent each of them envoys of high rank to attend the King’s Court at such time and place as the King should appoint, and that the envoys first appeared before the King at Windsor on 8th March, I177, where they submitted to the King a Convention signed by the two Spanish monarchs on 28th August, 1176, in which they
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It is a. happy circumstance that on this occasion the official text of the King’s judgment has been preservedgin addition to the official text of the pleadings in the case, as the King’s judgment brings to our notice the names of the individual members of the Curia Regis, who attested the King’s judgment as witnesses, the signature of Archbishop Richard, of Canterbury being at the head of the Bishops, that of Geoffrey, the King's son, Earl of Brittany, at the head of the Earls, and that of Richard de Luci, the Great Justiciar of England, at the head of the Barons. It will thus be seen that the Chief of the King’s justices, the prototype, if I may use such a term, of the magistrate
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6808 | Using “cbind” and “as.vector”: Computationally intensive commands
for(j in c(1:200)){
for(j in c(1:200)){
Programming, Statistics
Ordering and structuring text in STATA
Like most researchers, I have difficulty finding data. On occasion, when I manage to find data, it comes in a useless or meaningless format. For example, a local police department offered to print out all of its police reports for me for the last 15 years at $0.25 a page… which I would have to enter by hand. I politely declined. Here’s an example of sorting out city titles from a poorly formatted document- a short version of that document can be found here.
The first and most important thing is to have your data loaded.
clear all
use "location", clear
This loads the data and clears any extra junk STATA may have floating around. The next thing to do is identify any sort of regular pattern. The first identifiable patterns were that titles for cities began every 64 lines, and sometimes went for between 3 or 4 lines, before having another 64 lines of regular income reports (useless at this point) are posted. The second pattern is that they all are either villages, cities, or towns. Below are some attempts at accomplishing this goal via making some sort of indicator every 64 lines (didn’t work), or marking every area that starts with CITY (inefficient). Don’t forget to put strings in quotation marks!
*Marks every line with a list that counts 0...63. I thought the 63rd would be useful, but because of the irregular length of the header, it's worthless.
*gen city_titles=mod(_n-1,64)
*Is the line saying city? If so, give it a mark, literally.
*gen mark=cond(var1=="CITY","mark",".",".")
Notice that using (*) comments out the line in STATA, and (.) is STATA’s version of NA. Here is a more successful attempt:
*Identify if it's probably a title
gen mark=1 if var1=="CITY"
replace mark=1 if var1=="TOWN"
replace mark=1 if var1=="VILLAGE"
Don’t forget the double equals! In STATA, all if statements I have observed are followed by (==) instead of (=), and I still manage to forget them often! Next, I will create 3 more indicators, aptly labeled mark_1 to mark_3, all showing if it follows the indicator above by 1, 2, or 3 variables. In programming, it is better to give clear, boring, brief names rather than unclear mess. I would rather have a long object name than an unclear short one, since you never know who is going to have to read your code:
*Is it following a title?
gen mark_1=mark[_n-1]
gen mark_2=mark[_n-2]
gen mark_3=mark[_n-3]
In retrospect, I could have perhaps consolidated those more efficiently. Does anyone else see how I could have done that in a single variable (mark) instead of having multiple indicators (mark_1…mark_3)? Either way, I have some extra chaff I have to eliminate. having (.)’s in my data set is agitating. Let’s set those all as 0’s, and sum the remaining columns together in something called “total”, so I know if they have an indicator (1 or more) or not (0). Then we can drop everything we don’t want!
*Eliminate non-numerical entries as numeric.
replace mark=0 if mark==.
replace mark_1=0 if mark_1==.
replace mark_2=0 if mark_2==.
replace mark_3=0 if mark_3==.
*Is it marked?
gen total=mark+mark_1+mark_2+mark_3
drop if total!=1
Bam! Much better. We dropped somewhere around 80% of our unwanted junk right there! We still could never compile this all by hand, though. Here, we want it to concatenate all our variables 1…11 in a downward direction. So we make a local marco list called to_combine, since that’s what we’ll be doing with them.
local to_combine var1 var2 var3 var4 var5 var6 var7 var8 var9 var10 var11
Below is a STATA style do-loop, a common element in meaningful programming everywhere. We want to repeat for each and every variable in the “to_combine” list a series of operations designed to deal with a few regular problems we observed. Firstly, we want to fix an issue with names. You may notice “FOND DU LAC” takes up 3 columns rather than the intended 1, being as that is the name of a city/town/village/county in Wisconsin. This is the first thing we fix, by dropping the spaces with “DU” and “LAC” and replacing all “FOND” entries with “FOND DU LAC”. Such a procedure is repeated for other problems we noted. There are 300+ problems we found, so this is not a perfect fix yet, (as noted by entry v9/2 in the “after” image below), but it’s much better. The second thing we fix is putting “COUNTY” horizontally under “TOTAL”, since in the original document (pdf), we know that after an entry says “TOTAL”, it always says the total for the county, not for any other grouping. Lastly, we want it to concatenate horizontally but stop before it hits any part of the income sheet. Stata uses & for “and” and | for “or”. You may use both in long chains for a single if statement. This last was done by a bit of trial and error to make sure I got it right. That’s fine, since computers are cheap and thinking hurts. It stops at the line containing every end of line indicator I could think of, like “TAXES”, “POPULATION”, or “REVENUES”, which are clearly not city titles.
foreach var in `to_combine'{
*We have a space problem (Part 1)
replace `var'="" if `var'=="DU"
replace `var'="LA CROSSE" if `var'=="LA"
*Puts county under total. It's a mandatory identifier visible in the pdf. (Part 2)
replace `var'="" if `var'=="COUNTY"
replace `var'="COUNTY" if `var'[_n-2]=="TOTAL"
*Concatenates appropriately, stopping if it hits anything
replace `var'=`var'[_n-1]+"."+`var' if var2[_n-1]!="POPULATION" & var1[_n-1]!="REVENUES" & var1[_n-1]!="TAXES" & mark_3[_n-1]!=1 & var2!="POPULATION" & var1!="REVENUES" & var1!="TAXES"
Now, let’s just drop the stuff we don’t need, and we’re looking at a much much cleaner worksheet, giving us the before/after image shown below:
*Drops excess rows or columns.
drop if mark==1
drop if mark_1==1
drop if mark_2==1
drop if var2=="POPULATION"
drop if var1=="REVENUES"
drop if var1=="TAXES" |
global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6840 |
So how do you win? At the end of the first quarter, halftime, third quarter, and final score whatever the score is will be awarded to the person who owns that square. If the score is 17-10 at the half with the home team winning, the person with the squares of 7 and 0 would win that portion of the game. Having the squares 0 and 7 would not help because it would be assigned to the wrong teams. Usually the total money is divided by 5, and is paid out as follows. 1st quarter, Halftime, and 3rd quarter all get a 1/5 of the total bank and the Final Score doubles this to 2/5. So if you were involved on a $5 dollar pool and all 100 squares were filled that would be $500 to be paid out. With that number you would get paid $200 for final score and $100 for all other scores.
There are many ways that you can bet on football and I will go over all of the different options below. The first and most common bet is the straight bet, which simply means the team wagered on must win by the point spread given at the time of the wager. Most of the time the odds on a straight bet is -110, which means for every $110 bet, you win a $100 back. An example of a straight bet is if the team you bet on is a 6 point (-6) favorite, also known as giving up 6 points. Then in order for you to win, the team taken in the wager must win by more than 6 points in order to collect your winnings. If they win by 6, then this will be called a push and your original bet will be refunded to you. You can also bet on the totals, which is also known as the over/under bet. The totals bet is The combined score of both teams for games wagered on, all totals pay out at -110, which is $110 dollar bet makes you $100, no matter if you bet on the over or the under. If the total score equals the line, then the bet is a push and you get your original bet back. Another type of bet is the money line bet. This bet is simply that team wagered on just has to win the game. The odds on these games vary depending on the disparity between the favorite and the underdog. You obviously will win more betting on the underdog; however there is a reason why these bets pay more because the odds of the underdog winning are decreased. Although betting the moneyline can sometimes return a big sum, it is wise to know that the bookmakers hold percentage is much larger than a typical straight bet on the side or total of a game. A classic straight wager on the point spread is almost always dealt at -110 on both sides which is 20 cents of vigorish. Compare that to a double digit favorite in college football with a money line of -600/+450 and you can see the extra 130 cents of vig added in.
Firstly you really need to understand the basics of what sports betting is all about, and what's involved with placing wagers. These basics are relatively straightforward, so thankfully it doesn't take long to get up to speed. It's definitely advisable to familiarize yourself with them though. Our beginner's guide to sports betting is the perfect resource for this. Here's a selection of some of the topics it covers.
Before I go on, let me clarify some terminology. Despite it being probably the most popular way to bet, there is no particular term for a bet against the spread. Many people call this a "straight bet." However, this term can also be used, and is printed on tickets for, money line bets, total bets, and any other bet involving just one game. For purposes of this page, I call such bets a "point spread" bet, and invite the rest of the world to adopt this terminology.
Sports betting has been around since 1000 B.C in China, where betting on animal fights was commonplace. In ancient Rome, one could wager on the Gladiatorial games. The idea of betting on sports is as old as organized sport itself. But up until the 1940s, bettors were fairly limited in what kind of bets they could make. The standard system of odds would allow bets on, for example, the 3-1 odds that the Steelers would beat the Browns.
The most important takeaway is the actual pointspread, which is seven points in this example. The plus sign is always in front of the spread for the underdog and the minus sign is used to signify the favorite. Next to the pointspread in this example is (-110). This number reflects the actual commission (or juice) that the sportsbook is charging to book this bet. If you wager $100 on New England as the favorite and the Patriots go on to win my more than seven points, you would win $100. If they won by fewer than seven points or lost the game outright, you would owe this betting outlet $110. If New England wins by exactly seven points, the bet is considered to be a PUSH and no money exchanges hands. You only pay the 10 percent commission on losing bets.
If bettors were quick to jump on the Atlanta line at +4.5 when it first came out, they would have a distinct advantage over those who waited closer to kick off and were stuck with +2.5. The opposite holds true for Carolina. Bettors that were quick to pull the trigger are now laying two more points than they would if they were patient and saw the line movement before making their move.
A favorite (e.g. Patriots -280) on the money line works just like our bet price example above. In our new example, the Patriots are listed at -280, meaning you would need to risk $280 for a return of $100 on them. It follows that a winning bet on the Pats pays $100 (plus your initial investment of $280 back). This added risk is why betting the spread is usually more popular, especially on favorites.
As you can see, there’s another number in our example above. The –110 in parentheses refers to the juice; this figure is expressed in the same fashion as moneyline odds, with either a negative or positive sign in front of the number. In this case, in order to place a wager on either side, you would have bet $110 to win $100. If the juice on Kansas City had been +110, you would have bet $100 to win $110. Most NFL game lines ask you to pay the standard –110 vigorish. If you don’t see any particular figure attached to the spread, the usual –110 vig applies. |
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winter climbing conditions
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I know the conditions suck, but I want to get out there anyway! I live in Des Moines (in washington) and I swing cobras. send me a message if your interested
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what did you have in mind i'm up for almost anything. planned on some skiing with girlfriend and a couple of friends at snoquolomie around chair basin but whatever. got a couple of cobras but the nearest we might get to ice is the chevron pop machine at snoqualomie pass.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6860 | Thread: That's really harrassing
1. #1
Join Date
Apr 2015
That's really harrassing
Hi salem and others OP ; I don't know really how that's salem thinking but he thinks that I posted the same problem twice, I deeply believe he's wrong and he's just coming with his comments in an opposite to me for not helping me at all.
I have posted the concept of substring from string over here:
Removing subString from String
but that's a moron think it's the same problem that I already posted before on year:
Slicing's string concept.
it's totally different, I don't know what he thinks or actually I guess he's just keep tracking on my posts not for helping just giving his opposite opinion on my threads
thanks !
2. #2
Join Date
Apr 2015
here Removing subString from String I'm asking about getting substring from other string
in the other thread I've asked how to slice the string
I dont know how that two problems are the same? omg salem!!!!
3. #3
C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
Join Date
Oct 2003
No sympathy from me. I'm okay with treating you as a genuine member who just has some very bad posting habits as long as you're sticking to your own topics, but you went to venture rubbish on someone else's topic.
You've been jumping around different topics in programming and computer science at such speed that it is clear you aren't really learning anything. You ask questions without having tested your ideas yourself, like for that substring removal post. You repeatedly ask questions so foundational that an introductory book or other structured material would have answered them. Then you do things like insist that people misread your posts and present a different question, or you ignore what people wrote (like 2/3s of my reply to your substring removal post).
No, you're not going to get the pleasure of replying to this post. If you're for real, go get yourself a couple of introductory books on the topics you're interested in and slowly work through them one by one, chapter by chapter. Achieve some level of proficiency in a topic before moving to another one. Write programs to test your newly acquired knowledge, and actually test them. Post here maybe once a week when you really absolutely run into a wall that you cannot overcome. Don't post here everyday with half-baked questions, and definitely don't reply to other people's topics with rubbish.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6892 | Asparagus Agonistes: Dark Phoenix (2019)
A little lesson in comic book nerdery (comic book nerds, feel free to skip over what you know.)
These are the D’Bari.
See the source image
They are a race of cute, peaceful ‘asparagus people’ from the D’Bari solar system. They are a part of the Shi’Ar Empire, an intergalactic star spanning imperium familiar to readers of X-Men, most notably because the wheelchair bound telepath who founded the X-Men, Charles Xavier, was the lover of the empire’s queen, Lilandra
Why do I start this blog post with this fact? Because about the only thing that made 2019’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix worth watching was the fact that SPOILER:
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global_01_local_0_shard_00002368_processed.jsonl/6895 | Storm vs. Heron – Part 2 – Why Heron? A developer’s view
This article is part 2 of an upcoming article series, Storm vs. Heron. Follow me on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss the next part!
In the last part of the series, we looked at how to transform your existing Storm topologies to Twitter’s new distributed streaming- and analytics-framework, Heron. In this part of the series, we will actually see why you would want to do this. This part will see Storm from a developer’s view, whereas the next part will focus on operations & maintenance.
Why Storm leaves stuff to be desired
First off, let me start with stating that Apache Storm surely is great and flexible framework, but often doesn’t quite satisfy all the requirements an enterprise-ready Big Data component should fulfil. Its weaknesses show in both architecture and the way an enterprise can handle Storm development, testing, deployment and maintenance.
The things one could objectively criticize about Storm boil down to the following points:
• Unified resource assumption & performance (Developers)
• Insufficient resilience features (Developers)
• Insufficient debugging abilities (Operations)
• Insufficient monitoring abilities (Operations)
Naturally, these all depend on your businesses’ specific requirements for the use cases you want to build – but generally speaking, these points should affect the majority of users.
Some points might be simplified for the sake of accessibility to the topic.
Unified resource assumption & performance
First, let’s have a look at how Storm structures its minions:
Storm worker architecture
The top-level hierarchy consists of one (< Storm 1.x) or multiple, high-available (>= Storm 1.x) so-called Nimbus servers which coordinate your topologies. These Nimbus servers communicate with your second level, the supervisor nodes executing your code. An optional UI node as well as an optional log viewer process can be deployed as well.
Every supervisor runs multiple JVMs (in so-called workers), which then again execute your actual code fragments in their respective executors. And here’s the actual big first issue with this design – you have absolutely no ability to properly control your resource usage. In your respective topologies, you can freely set different numbers of executor processes for your bolts and spouts, but have no ability to control where your process will end up1. It is possible that a long-running, complex part of your topology shares a JVM with a simple calculation component. It becomes almost impossible to isolate- and profile these tasks separately (I actually once wound up writing a rather complex parser written in R, iterating over JVM-dumps, logs etc. for that task).
Also, if one of the more complex bolts crashes (e.g. an uncaught exception), it takes down completely unrelated tasks with it!
Storm JVM architecture
Furthermore, all JVMs have a fixed memory setting – depending on the most RAM-intensive component currently running. The resources this JVM holds are not linked with any other Hadoop scheduling component, such as YARN or Mesos, making it almost impossible to use shared nodes (e.g. Storm supervisors + HDFS datanodes) if you care about resource allocation2.
In reality, this basically forces you to think about deploying entirely separate Storm clusters per topology. This may sound drastic, but makes sense if you think about it.
Imagine a topology with two main parts – a spout taking up 10GB of memory and a bolt that needs 5GB to do its job. If you now run 1 spout and 3 bolts, you will effectively need to allocate 30GB, as one of the JVMs will need at least 15GB (one spout and one bolt). This effectively wastes 5GB of memory (1*10+3*5=25). And yes, this is blatantly taken from this paper (which I highly recommend reading).
Now, there’s more “under the hood” stuff that Storm isn’t exactly smart about, for instance…
• A lack of backpressure
• Overly harsh load on Zookeeper by filling it with heartbeats and states
• A lot of useless threads for sending and receiving tuples
• A lot of GC action
• Merged log files per worker
Now, Heron is a lot smarter about basically all of this.
Heron Architecture
Heron uses Aurora, a framework atop of Mesos, to schedule its topologies. This solves your dilemma of Storm allocating its resources independently. YARN is also an option for existing setups.
Heron runs user code and its managers (used for coordinating the topology’s components) in a so called container. If you’ve ever worked with YARN / M/R2, you know the general idea.
Within these containers, Heron Instances run the user code in separate JVMs. With this approach, dedicated resource allocation, profiling and debugging is possible. It also enables us to have dedicated logs and access these JVMs in the UI.
A Stream Manager now efficiently manages the tuple communication and backpressure and a Topology Master communicates metadata with Zookeeper.
Metadata is kept in Zookeeper; not all heartbeats and transactions like in Storm.
Naturally, this has an impact on performance as well. Heron claims to be “up to x14 faster” than Storm. And who am I do doubt them?
Well, personally, I don’t fall for marketing that aims to throw big numbers at me – performance in real-life scenarios is limited by hundreds of factors, for instance I/O implementations and limits, network throughput, API limits and so on and so forth.
But still, running my example topology from Part 1 in single node mode (i.e. locally), without Mesos, with a limited Twitter API and a horrible HDF implementation on a single AWS r3.xlarge (Intel Xeon E5-2670 4 vCores, 30GiB Ram) instance gave me 60% more throughput – which makes me believe Twitter’s “x14” claim (for WordCount) much more.
So, if you activate Aurora, run it in an actual distributed mode and optimize the known bottlenecks (HDFS, Twitter API), I can see this thing performing much better.
And even if it doesn’t – without Heron, I would barely be able to even think about profiling my bolts, because everything is mushed into an unreadable, nasty array of JVMs.
Heron: 1. Storm: 0.
Insufficient resilience features
Resilience is a term many enterprises love to use and can mean many things. For some businesses, it translates to “stateful processing”, in others to “stateful & exactly-once processing”. Some just refer to the architecture of the framework and cluster setup (what happens if a node breaks down or is not available?). In the end, it means that our topologies need to produce results – data – that the business can use and usually that it manages errors. And you, as an engineer, need to think about how to do that with the framework at hand.
System failures
Storm manages some of these requirements fairly well – as long as you give it enough supervisor machines to play with. If one of these machines stops sending heartbeats via Zookeeper, it stops being available for your topologies. Storm (read: the nimbus) re-allocates the resources to the existing machines. As soon as the machine becomes available again, Storm will make it part of its supervisor network again. And if you use a Storm version >= 1.0.x, you can also remove the SPoF of the nimbus.
Stateful processing with Trident or Storm
Stateful processing, however, is a whole different story. Usually, a tuple is stateless and its lifetime is managed by the acknowledgement mechanism you chose to implement. Let me be blunt and quote from the official documentation:
“There’s two things you have to do as a user to benefit from Storm’s reliability capabilities. First, you need to tell Storm whenever you’re creating a new link in the tree of tuples. Second, you need to tell Storm when you have finished processing an individual tuple. By doing both these things, Storm can detect when the tree of tuples is fully processed and can ack or fail the spout tuple appropriately. Storm’s API provides a concise way of doing both of these tasks. Specifying a link in the tuple tree is called anchoring”
In other words, you rely on your queue (Kafka, JMS, Kestrel, Twitter…) for managing your resilience. If something fails – and stuff will fail eventually – you need to re-process the entire tuple-tree. Technically speaking, this process is still stateless, but more secure than just hoping your topology won’t mess something up.
To actually achieve stateful processing, i.e. storing information about the progress and status of a tuple, you have two options left: Storm’s new Stateful API or Trident. Trident offers you many great features, but is another layer atop of Storm you will need to manage and understand. See this article from the documentation for further reference.
Storm’s stateful API is pretty new and relies on a KeyValueStore and a persistence layer of your choice (currently, that would boil down to redis). If your worker crashes, Storm can than go ahead, read from said store and re-process the tuples.
All of these mechanisms require you to put quite a lot of thought into your design. If you compare this with the way SparkStreaming3 handles this – by supplying a checkpoint directory on HDFS – you quickly notice why one might be sceptical about Storm’s way of doing things.
Now, here’s the deal with Heron – while it aims to improve many things “under the hood” compared to Storm (architecture, performance, monitoring, debugging …), it still is fully compatible to Apache Storm (see Part 1 of this series). While arguably this is a huge benefit for corporations using Storm right now, it does not actually impact the development model too much – in other words, resilience will be still a topic you have to think about yourself. Now, if I’m the one who missed a killer feature that Heron introduced for this, let me know!
So, what can we take away from this as developers? First of all, we need to acknowledge (no pun intended) that Heron is built for using Storm code – with all its up- and downsides. While the basic programming model of Storm is fairly simple, it quickly gets complicated when we need to throw catchphrases like “states”, “WAL” or “exactly once” into the discussion.
However: Just executing the existing code renders many benefits. We get better performance even in extremely simplified setups, we utilize our machine’s resources much better than Storm ever could (saving $$ in the process!) and potentially save ourselves several headaches when it comes to crashing JVMs and other fun-failures you encounter on any Big Data Cluster.
In the next part, the benefits will get even more obvious – when we take a detailed look how you can actually operate, monitor and eventually debug a Storm vs. Heron cluster in production environments.
1. Not entirely true per se – you can look into things like the isolation scheduler, but that is basically working around a core issue in the software’s design.
2. Storm on Yarn is possible, for instance via Hortonwork’s Big Data distribution, albeit not out of the box.
3. I don’t see SparkStreaming as a “holy grail” of frameworks. Yes, it receives more updates, yes, it seems more mature in many ways, but it is far from being an alternative for Storm/Heron/Flink/Samza for any case. But this would require me to rant in another article.
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