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Climate outlook for January to April
Climate outlook overview
- Drier than average January to March 2020 likely for eastern Australia, but wetter for parts of Western Australia.
- January to March 2020 daytime temperatures are very likely to be above average across Australia.
- January to March 2020 nights very likely to be warmer than average apart from the southeast.
- Climate influences—the currently strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) will weaken, while a negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM) may influence the first half of January before returning to neutral levels.
Drier than average likely for the east, wetter for Western Australia
- While the remainder of December is likely to be drier than average for most locations other than Tasmania, the rainfall outlook for January to March 2020 suggests drier conditions are likely in the east, and wetter than average conditions are possible in parts of WA. Eastern Australia is most likely to be drier than average in January, with chances of dry reducing somewhat in February.
- Much of WA is forecast to receive average to above average rainfall for January to March, with northern WA predicted to have the highest chance of above average rain. The far north of the NT and northern Cape York Peninsula in Queensand is predicted to have average to above average rainfall throughout the outlook period.
- While outlooks for drier than average conditions may ease for some areas heading into 2020, several months of above average rainfall would be needed to see a recovery from current long-term rainfall deficiencies.
Warmer days and nights likely for January to March
- Daytime temperatures for January to March 2020 are very likely to be warmer than average for Australia, except for western Tasmania and parts of the northwest. The chances of above-average daytime temperatures reduces slightly for much of Australia during February.
- Warmer nights are likely for most of the country for January to March. However, Tasmania and southern Victoria have roughly equal chances of warmer or cooler than average nights.
- The strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) currently influencing Australia's weather will ease over the season, returning to neutral levels by February. Typically, a positive IOD means below average rainfall for much of central and southern Australia, and warmer than average temperatures for the southern two thirds of Australia. This is broadly consistent with the current outlook.
- It is very unusual for the IOD to persist into January, as it normally breaks down when the monsoon moves into the southern hemisphere in late spring or early summer.
- The late retreat of the monsoon from India and its slow movement south, plus a forecast weaking of the Madden-Julian Oscillation pattern, which can trigger enhanced monsoon development, means the Australian monsoon could potentially be several weeks late.
- A negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is expected to continue into early January. A negative SAM in summer tends to bring drier conditions to parts of eastern Australia, but wetter conditions to western Tasmania.
- While tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures are likely to stay warmer than average, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is expected to remain neutral until at least early 2020, and therefore will have a reduced influence on Australian climate.
- In addition to the natural drivers such as ENSO and the IOD, Australian climate patterns are being influenced by the long-term increasing trend in global air and ocean temperatures.
Product code: IDCKOATCO2


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Researchers reveal violent deaths of medieval dead at Stirling Castle
26 May 2011
New exhibition will bring visitors face to face with knight and lady excavated from lost royal chapel.
Scientific research has revealed that at least five of the medieval people whose skeletons were discovered at Stirling Castle suffered brutally violent deaths.
The discovery offers an extraordinarily rare insight into medieval warfare.
One man, aged 26-35, endured some 44 skull fractures from repeated blows with a blunt object, and up to 60 more across the rest of his body.
The skeletons were buried beneath a lost 12th-century royal chapel which was excavated as part of Historic Scotland's project to refurbish the castle's 16th century palace, which stands nearby.
Historic Scotland has created 3D facial reconstructions of two of the people – visitors to the grand opening of the palace will be able to see them for the first time on 4 and 5 June.
They will be on display as part of a new exhibition of the castle's history in the Queen Anne Casemates overlooked by the palace block.
Radio carbon dates indicate that the people probably died in a series of incidents between the 13th century and around 1450.
Some, or all, may have been killed in sieges, skirmishes or battles round Stirling during the Wars of Independence,
Richard Strachan, Historic Scotland's Senior Archaeologist, said: "The skeletons were a remarkable find and provided an incredibly rare opportunity to learn more about life and death in medieval Scotland.
"The new research has brought some quite incredible results.
"It was unusual for people to be buried under the floor of a royal chapel and we suspected that they must have been pretty important people who died during periods of emergency – perhaps during the many sieges which took place.
"The fact that five of the skeletons suffered broken bones, consistent with beatings or battle trauma, suggests this could be what happened."
The research builds on the findings of earlier investigations into two of the skeletons, the results of which were featured last year on BBC2's History Cold Case series.
These attracted worldwide headlines, with one of the skeletons being identified as a knight – perhaps Sir John de Stricheley who died in 1341 – and the other probably belonging to a high-born lady, whose skull had twice been pierced by a weapon.
Both of these skeletons were among the nine sent to the University of Bradford for further investigations.
The 3D models are of the knight and the lady's faces.
The model of the lady was created by the Bradford University team and the one of the knight was made at the University of Dundee.
Bradford used a traditional clay modelling approach, while the one from Dundee was created using the latest digital scanning and replication techniques and painted by a medical artist.
Professor Caroline Wilkinson, at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, University of Dundee, said: "This 3D facial model depicts a strong muscular man with a healed wound across his forehead and rugged features.
"This reconstruction was produced using anatomical standards and the latest digital 3D technology, and allows us to come face to face with this medieval knight."
The Bradford experts say the lady had 10 fractures to the right side of her skull, resulting from two heavy blows.
Neat, square holes through the top of her skull suggest she may then have fallen and been killed with a weapon such as a war hammer.
Dr Jo Buckberry, biological anthropology lecturer and experimental officer at the University of Bradford's Biological Anthropology Research Centre, said: "What we discovered from this research is enormously exciting and has far-reaching implications for our understanding of medieval warfare.
"At least five of these people had their bones broken with blunt and heavy objects, such as clubs, which is very different from soldiers that have been studied who died in open battle and were killed with swords or halberds."
One set of remains, known as Skeleton 190, were from a young man of 16-20, showed signs of a stab wound in the chest.
Yet the major damage came when he was struck on the base of his skull, on the jaw, the collarbone and ribs.
The stabbing points to death by violence, rather than an accidental fall from the castle walls.
Stirling Castle changed hands several times in the Wars of Independence, sometimes being held by the Scots, sometimes by the English and their Scots allies.
It is not certain where the deceased were from, or who they were fighting for, though tests so far are consistent with at least some of them being from the Stirling or Edinburgh area.
To be buried beneath the floor of a royal chapel was very unusual and suggests that these were people of considerable importance.
Bodies would normally be buried in a kirkyard, which suggests that the people were killed at times when it was too dangerous to venture beyond the castle walls.
The new exhibition
- The facial reconstructions will be on display in the Queen Anne Casemates exhibition, which tells the story of the castle from the earliest times to the 19th century. One room in the exhibition will be devoted to the Stirling skeletons, and the facial reconstructions will be key exhibits.
- Other important exhibition themes will include the story of the castle under siege, the Renaissance royal palace of James V, and the castle's later years as an army base. The exhibition will feature a series of interactive displays and has been designed to explore the castle's past in a way that is engaging and family-friendly.
- The new-look exhibition is part of a wider £12 million project to offer an even better visitor experience. The centrepiece is the return of six apartments in the royal palace to how they may have looked in the mid-16th century.
Matthew Shelley 07786 704299
Ellen Drummond-Ferroni 07801 820757
Nicola McCrae 01786 431325
Lesley Brown 0131 _PHONE_
Free to use pictures
A selection of free to use pictures are available showing Dr Buckberry with the skeletons, the skeletons being excavated and the new facial reconstructions. Log on using the details below then search using the word 'Stirling'.
Notes for editors:
For all the latest on the palace project, and everything else that happening at Stirling Castle, visit our website at _URL_ and sign up for our free e-newsletter.
- Stirling Castle is at the top of Stirling Old Town off the M9 at junction 9 or 10. Call 01786 450000
- Historic Scotland has 345 historic properties and sites in its care. These include some of the leading tourism attractions in the country, including Edinburgh, Stirling, and Urquhart Castles, Fort George, Linlithgow Palace, the Border Abbeys, and Skara Brae. For further details visit: _URL_
- Historic Scotland's Mission is to safeguard Scotland's historic environment and to promote its understanding and enjoyment.
- Historic Scotland around the web: _URL_ _URL_ _URL_ and _URL_

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A connected farm is an architectural design common in the New England Region of the United States, and England and Wales in the United Kingdom. North American connected farms date back to the 17th century, their British counterparts have also existed for several centuries. New England connected farms are characterized by a farm house, kitchen, barn, or other structures connected in a rambling fashion. This style evolved from carrying out farm work while remaining sheltered from winter weather. In the United Kingdom there are four distinct types of connected farmsteads, all dissimilar to the New England style.
New England connected farm
The typical New England connected farm complex consists of the "big house", which acts as the standard family living quarters, connected to the Big House is the "little house", which contains the kitchen area. Next to it is the "back house", which was traditionally a carriage or wagon house. Connected to the back house is a standard livestock barn. This style was banned in many areas due to fire concerns, but the bans were lifted in the 18th century. Originally, all four buildings would have parallel roof lines. In later years (post-1800), when kitchens became more of a room of the house, the Little House became an ell off the Big House.
Connected barns describe the type of barn integrated into other structures on a farm in the New England region of the United States. The New England connected farmstead, as many architectural historians have termed the style, consisted of numerous farm buildings all connected into one continuous structure. Houses, ells, sheds, barns, and other outbuildings all were combined to form one long building. Architectural styles varied, from Greek to Gothic Revival. The connected farmstead is unique in not only its connection of house to barn to shed, and so forth, but also because the architectural style of the home was often used on the other structures, including barns, connected to it.
Noted historian and architect Thomas Hubka commented in his 1984 book, Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn, that:
"those who built connected farms changed their farms by extending the architectural style and order of the house to their barns. This was a truly radical development by New England farmers, and it is this characteristic, more than that of house and barn connection itself, that is one of the unique aspects of New England connected farm architecture."
Wilbur Zelinsky, an American geographer, undertook a survey of existing connected farmsteads in New England in 1958. Through his travels and survey he was able to determine, to some level of accuracy, the distribution of connected barns and farmsteads in New England. Zelinsky found that the connected farm was most frequently found in specific parts of New England. Namely in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, where connected barns frequently occurred almost over the entire states. Indeed, the style still persists in popular American architecture. Connected farms were also frequently observed by Zelinsky in southern Maine, eastern Vermont, and portions of northern Connecticut.
In the United Kingdom
Connected farm buildings are not confined to North America, connected structures have existed in England and Wales for centuries. The architectural historian Ronald Brunskill identified four key types of connected farm structures found in England and Wales. The longhouse is generally two connected buildings which result from the addition of more and more partitions, thus subdividing the structure, or from the outright construction of a new building adjacent to the original. Longhouses usually have cross passages and communication flows freely through the structures. The laithe house confines the family and the farm building under the same roof. However, there are no cross passages and no intercommunication between structures. Typical configurations include farm buildings used for both livestock and grain/hay storage. The bastle house is an arrangement which places the living quarters above the farm building and, usually, the farm animals. This type of connected farm was common as a defensive arrangement; living quarters were located high above for security reasons. In what Brunskill called the "simply connected arrangement" the domestic structure is connected to any type of farm building.
|This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008)|
- Zelinsky, Wilbur Fraser (October 1958), "The New England Connecting Barn", Geographical Review 48 (4): 274–293, ISSN 0016-7428, JSTOR.
- Hubka, Thomas C. "The New England Farmhouse Ell: Fact and Symbol of Nineteenth-Century Farm Improvement," (in Elements and Forms of Vernacular Buildings), Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 2. (1986), pp. 161–166. Retrieved 1 April 2007.
- Chase-Harrell, Pauline. Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England, Book Review, (JSTOR), The New England Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 3. September, 1985, pp. 477–479. Retrieved 10 February 2007.
- Lowry, Bates. Built in Maine, Blueprints Magazine, Summer 1985, p. 10, National Building Museum. Retrieved 10 February 2007.
- Liebman, Lisa. The Carlisle Project, Project Overview, This Old House. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
- Brunskill, R.W. "Houses and Attached Farm Buildings in England and Wales," (JSTOR), Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 1. (1982), pp. 159–165, 167–168. Retrieved 1 April 2007.
Further reading
- Hubka, Thomas C., Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England, University Press of New England, Hanover NH 1984, ISBN 0-87451-310-3

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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The Siege of Vellore was an intermittent series of sieges and blockades conducted during the Second Anglo-Mysore War by forces of the Kingdom of Mysore against a British East India Company garrison holding the fortress at Vellore, located in the present-day Indian state of Tamil Nadu. First besieged in 1780, Mysore's ruler Hyder Ali eventually reduced the siege to a blockade due the need for troops elsewhere. The blockade was ineffectively maintained until 1782 before being abandoned. The British successfully resupplied the garrison of Colonel Ross Lang four times.
References[edit | edit source]


Top 5 Things You Should Know About the Great Smoky Mountains
April 9, 2020
If you have ever stayed with us before, you have probably visited the Great Smoky Mountains. This national park is one of the most visited parks in the country, and we want to share some things you should know about it! Check out these top 5 things you should know about the Great Smoky Mountains:
1. There are 1,500 bears in the national park.
black bear in the smoky mountainsBlack bears are kind of a mascot in the Smokies. Experts estimate there are about 1,500 black bears in the national park. That equals about 2 black bears per square mile! The top places you are likely to see a black bear are Cades Cove and out on a hiking trail. If you do happen to see a black bear while you are visiting the national park, do not get within 50 yards of it. This safe distance keeps bears and people safe.
2. It is the salamander capital of the world.
One thing many people don't know about the Great Smoky Mountains is it is considered the salamander capital of the world. There are more species of salamanders in this area than anywhere else. About 30 different species live in the national park, and 26 of them are lungless. Instead of using lungs to breathe, these salamanders take in oxygen and put out carbon dioxide through their skin. You would probably see salamanders near creeks, waterfalls, and in other damp places.
3. There are over 800 miles of hiking trails in the Great Smoky Mountains.
laurel falls in the smoky mountains in winterThe most popular activity in the national park is hiking. With over 800 miles of hiking trails, there are definitely a ton to choose from! If you've never been hiking before, there are plenty of easy trails for you to try. There are quite a few nature walks that are under a mile, and some trails where you can see pretty cool features, like Laurel Falls. There are a ton of moderate hiking trails, as well as difficult trails, which are great for avid hikers.
4. You can visit the park for free.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the only national parks you don't have to pay to get in. Almost every other national park in the United States charges an entrance fee. Why do the Smokies not have one? When the national park was first being established, the government wanted a road that went through the national park. A few years before, North Carolina and Tennessee came together to build Newfound Gap Road. When the government asked to buy the road, North Carolina ceded immediately while Tennessee created a clause, saying they could never impose a toll on people to use the road. This translated into the national park not having an entrance fee!
5. There are multiple entrances to get in the national park.
great smoky mountains national park signMost people know about the main entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains, which is the Sugarland entrance. To get to this entrance, you have to go through Gatlinburg. Another way to get into the national park is through Townsend, Tennessee. This entrance is used significantly less, and it actually puts you closer to Newfound Gap and Cades Cove. A scenic entrance into the national park is through Wears Valley if you really want to take in the sights.
Now you know a little more about the Great Smoky Mountains! You're probably ready to come back and spend more time in the mountains. Look through our condos in Gatlinburg and book one for your next trip today!


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Many circuit functions can now be realized using digital rather than analog techniques. The application of digital signal processing (DSP) technology for the implementation of the feedback control loop of a scanning tunneling microscope is discussed. A system that utilizes a commercially available PC AT‐compatible plug‐in card based on the Texas Instruments TMS320 series of digital processing chips to implement a loop controller of the proportional‐integral‐differential type is described. The advantages afforded by DSP in comparison to analog systems include greater flexibility in the choice of the signal processing algorithm and greater ease of control of loop parameters by the host computer.


How to load parquet file in Power BI?
Table of Contents
Parquet file is a popular file format used for storing large, complex data. It is an open-source file format that is available in a project in the Hadoop ecosystem. Data is stored in the flat columnar format which is considered to be more efficient than row-based files such as CSV.
Previously, We have to use ADLS (Azure Data Lake) for loading parqueting files in Power BI. So before, in order to connect to any parquet file, it was important to store the file in the Azure Data Lake.
How to load Parquet File in Power BI? In the Power BI February 2021 Update, the Parquet file connector has been provided to the Power BI Desktop. Earlier there were two options, one was to store the file in the Azure Data Lake and then connect Data Lake to the Power BI using the Azure Data Lake Connector. The second option is to use Power BI Dataflow as the Parquet file connector is available in the Power BI Dataflow.
Why to use Parquet File Format?
Parquet file format has become popular in recent days mainly in the Hadoop ecosystem where big data and complex data need to be processed. It's important to why we should use parquet file format and what is the advantage of using parquet file over other formats such as CSV, TSV, Avro, etc.
Some of the benefits of Parquet file format are:
 1. Columnar format
 2. Language-Independent
 3. Self Describing
Difference between Parquet and CSV?
The major difference between Parquet and CSV file format is that data in Parquet is stored in the columnar format while data in CSV is stored in Record based format.
Let's see the difference between CSV and Parquet with the help of an Example. When a CSV file converted to Parquet in Amazon S3, See the details below in the table.
Dataset Size on Amazon S3 Query Runtime Data Scanned Cost
Data stored as CSV file
236 seconds
Data Stored in Apache Parquet format
6.78 Seconds
87% less when using Parquet
34x faster
99% less data scanned
99.7% savings
You can see in the above table that there is a great advantage of using parquet file format while handling big data. Size has been reduced by 87% in comparison to the CSV file. Query runtime is 34x faster than the CSV file. 99 % less data has been scanned, that's amazing. and 99.7% savings in cost.
What is the difference between Avro and Parquet file format?
Both Avro and Parquet file is the file format which is widely used in Hadoop ecosystem. Avro file format is a row-based storage format for Hadoop while Parquet is a column-based file format for Hadoop.
If there is a scenario all the fields need to be scanned in a row then using Avro is the best choice. Please find below points related to Avro file format:
 1. Since it's a row-based file format so it's better to use it when all the fields are being accessed.
 2. File support block compression and are splittable.
 3. can be used with streaming data.
 4. suitable for write-intensive operation.
If there is a scenario where there are various columns but your use case requires the use of a subset of that column then storing data in the parquet file is the best choice.
 1. Since it's a column-based format, it's better to use when you only need to access specific fields
 2. Each data file contains the values for a set of rows
 3. Can't be written from streaming data since it needs to wait for blocks to get finished. However, this will work using micro-batch (eg Apache Spark).
 4. Suitable for data exploration — read-intensive, complex or analytical querying, low latency data.
While going through the article you must have understood the importance of parquet file format in the Hadoop ecosystem. Also, earlier we have to use Power BI Dataflow for connecting the parquet file with Power BI which requires a premium subscription or we need to store the parquet file in Azure Data lake and then connect ADLS for accessing the parquet file in Power BI. Now with the recent update, we can connect to the parquet file directly using the Parquet file connector available in Power BI Desktop.
I believe you must have found this article informative. Please let me know your views in the comment box below.
Power BI Desktop
Kaushlendra Mishra
How to create a report quickly in Power BI Service?
Do you want to create a quick report in Power BI? The latest Power BI version has made it possible to create a quick report using data from the web and existing published datasets in Power BI Service. So, now you do need to download the Power BI Desktop software into your PC and directly make a report using the Power BI service.
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Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) was modelled in rabbits using pulmonary lavage to remove surfactant. The stability of the resulting pressure-volume hysteresis of the lungs in vivo was studied with the aid of whole-body plethysmography during apnoeic oxygenation made possible by total extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal. Systemic oxygen delivery was measured as a function of the constant airway pressure during apnoea. In 6 subjects a single brief inflation of the lungs to 3.5 kPa resulted in a doubling of both expired lung volume (volume above functional residual capacity) and arterial oxygen partial pressure at an airway pressure of 0.65 kPa. These rises were well maintained for 40 min following the inflation. In a further 6 subjects with RDS single inflations permitted optimum systemic oxygen transport to occur at the low airway pressure of 0.3 kPa, similar to the optimum airway pressure in 6 healthy control subjects. Where pressure-volume hysteresis is present in RDS it can be exploited during apnoeic oxygenation, and probably during high frequency ventilation, to improve oxygenation by the use of infrequent single inflations of the lungs.
Original publication
Journal article
Intensive Care Med
Publication Date
469 - 474
Animals, Carbon Dioxide, Cardiac Output, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, Functional Residual Capacity, Lung, Oxygen, Rabbits, Respiratory Distress Syndrome


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The mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of a 35,000-year-old Homo sapiens found in the Pestera Muierii cave of Romania is presented in a paper in Scientific Reports. The study suggests that this human (PM1) belongs to a genetic population who share a common ancestor (haplogroup) called U6 basal*, which has not previously been identified in any ancient or present-day humans. The findings support the hypothesis of an Early Upper Palaeolithic (starting approximately 45,000 years ago) migration back to North Africa from Western Asia.
Analyses of present-day human mitogenomes suggest that, in conjunction with the Eurasian expansion approximately 45,000 - 40,000 years ago, some populations initiated a migration back to North Africa. However, the scarcity of remains in North Africa has prevented researchers from obtaining direct evidence of such a migratory phenomenon during the Palaeolithic period.
By extracting DNA from two of the teeth of PM1, Concepcion de-la-Rua and colleagues analysed and sequenced the mitogenome. The authors propose that the newly identified U6 basal* haplogroup has a Eurasian origin, from which haplotypes predominantly found in present-day North-Western African populations are derived. The authors suggest that the PM1 lineage may have been an offshoot to South-East Europe during the Early Upper Palaeolithic migration from Western Asia to Africa.


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There's a new threat to privacy lurking in our midst: potato-chip bags, which scientists can watch closely to figure out what you're saying in conversations.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Microsoft and Adobe can reconstruct intelligible audio of speech by videotaping and analyzing the tiny vibrations of objects — like potato-chip bags — thanks to a new algorithm they've developed.
"When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate," said Abe Davis, an MIT graduate student and the first author of a paper that presents the findings, in a statement. "The motion of this vibration creates a very subtle visual signal that's usually invisible to the naked eye. People didn't realize that this information was there."
In one experiment, researchers were able to reconstruct audio by filming the potato-chip bag from behind soundproof glass 15 ft. away. In another experiment, they were able to gather helpful audio by studying the vibrations of other substances, such as plant leaves, aluminum foil and a glass of water.
The researchers' methods, which typically require high-speed cameras that can take several thousand frames per second, can gather information about the number of speakers in a room, the gender of the speakers and the identity of the speakers, assuming they are given prior information about speakers' voices.
Once you pop, the spying don't stop.


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During the First Era, King Rourken led his clan away from their Dwemer brothers, because the rest of the Dwemer had allied themselves with the Chimer and formed the First Council. After throwing his ceremonial hammer known as Volendrung, which is also a Dwemer artifact and a Daedric artifact which landed in modern-day Hammerfell, he and his clan marched to what would be their new home. Along the way, they encountered Shalidor, and a battle ensued, which would come to be known as the Battle of Rourken-Shalidor. During this battle, King Rourken used Spellbreaker against Shalidor.
This means the shield cannot be improved past flawless quality without boosting the Smithing skill over 100. This can be achieved by using enchanted items and/or blacksmithing potions to fortify Smithing.
Blocking with this shield grants the following bonus:
The effect refreshes itself every second that the user is blocking, though it takes a small amount of time to get the ward to charge up (about a second). The ward remains active a few seconds after blocking is ceased.
As Spellbreaker is a unique shield, it cannot be disenchanted to learn its effect.
The Spellbreaker Ward effect is extremely useful in fighting dragons, as it blocks all breath attacks. The ward also protects against any other types of shouts that draugr may use. Wielding Dragonbane and Spellbreaker is one of the best ways to fight dragons, due to the extra damage to dragons and ability to block their breath attacks.
As a ward
Combined with the Elemental Protection perk the shield renders most enemy-casted Destruction magic useless, as the perk halves the incoming damage, and the ward typically takes care of the rest. The shield seems more effective against spells that "spray," such as Sparks and Flames. When the ward is broken, the shield drops, meaning the shield cannot be used to block physical blows. Spellbreaker benefits from the Restoration perk, Ward Absorb.
- The ward generated by Spellbreaker provides 50 points of Magic Resistance, 10 more than a Lesser Ward (40) and 10 less than a Steadfast Ward (60), so it could be considered a "middle ground" between these wards. However, unlike these wards, it does not increase Armor Rating, because it is a piece of armor already.
- Though it functions like a shield, Spellbreaker counts as a Heavy Armor piece. Blocking with it raises the Heavy Armor and the Block skills.
- Guards will comment on this shield if it's equipped, saying, "Your shield, it's Dwarf made isn't it? But it seems so much...more." and "Ah! That's a fine shield! And not mere Dwarven, is it?"
- Although it is Dwarven in nature, it is made mostly of a white material, perhaps ivory.
- The Elder Scrolls: Arena
- The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim


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Will Wichita Falls Weather Bring Another Dry, Scorching Summer?
If you were in Texoma last summer you know it was hot, really hot. In fact, the summer heat last year shattered all sorts temperature records as it put our afternoon nights in the 100′s for over 80 consecutive days.
Since the winter has come come and gone giving us generally pretty mild and comfortable weather. This led me to worry: Could last years heat and the mild winter mean this summer will be as hot or hotter than the last? Texas' State climatologist John Nielson-Gammon thinks this will not be the case. In fact, he's almost certain a somewhat cooler summer is on the way.
"The rain we've had is a good start," Nielson-Gammon, said in an interview this week. "It means it won't be as hot this summer no matter what else happens."
How exactly does rain help curb the heat you ask? Nielson-Gammon described this process further in his interview. "When the sun's solar energy hits the ground there are two things that can happen to it. It can cause the ground temperature to increase, or some of that energy can be used to evaporate water. So if there's no water to evaporate, all of that energy has to go into heating, there's no alternative," he said.
Nielson-Gammon also suggest that a new scientific theory about the Atlantic Ocean could suggest a cooler summer for us if it proves true.
"There's been some recent research that says when the Atlantic Ocean is warm the Southern United States tend to be dry, and when the Atlantic is cool we tend to be wet, because when the Atlantic is warm that's where all the thunder storms take place and it essentially draws the moisture away from us," Neilson-Gammon said, "So this summer will be a test of that."
Overall the thing to remember is that we are still in North Texas, and cool here can still be pretty darn hot! Nielson-Gammon also warns that just a month or two without rain would be enough to put us in a vicious cycle of hot weather fending off moisture and breeding more hot weather. All of that aside, it's pretty encouraging news for all of us that had more than our fill of the triple-digit heat last summer.


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Cinnabar, or mercury sulphide (HgS) is a highly toxic, naturally occurring form of mercury mineral, which was used in the ancient past for producing a bright orange (vermillion) pigment on ceramics, murals, tattoos, and in religious ceremonies.
The primary prehistoric use of the mineral was grinding it to create vermillion, and its earliest use known use for this purpose is at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey (7000-8000 BC), where wall paintings included cinnabar's vermillion.
Recent investigations in the Iberian peninsula at the Casa Montero flint mine, and burials at La Pijotilla and Montelirio, suggest the use of cinnabar as a pigment beginnning ~5300 BC. Lead isotope analysis identified the provenance of these cinnabar pigments as coming from the Almaden district deposits. (see Consuegra et al. 2011).
In China, the earliest known use of cinnabar is the Yangshao culture (~4000-3500 BC). At several sites, cinnabar covered the walls and floors in buildings used for ritual ceremonies. Cinnabar was among a range of minerals used used to paint Yangshao ceramics, and, at Taosi village, cinnabar was sprinkled into elite burials.
Vinca Culture (Serbia)
The Neolithic Vinca culture (4800-3500 BC), located in the Balkans and including the Serbian sites of Plocnik, Belo Brdo, and Bubanj, among others, were early users of cinnabar, likely mined from the Suplja Stena mine on Mount Avala, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Vinca. Cinnabar occurs in this mine in quartz veins; Neolithic quarrying activities are attested here by the presence of stone tools and ceramic vessels near ancient mine shafts.
Micro-XRF studies reported in 2012 (Gajic-Kvašcev et al.) revealed that paint on ceramic vessels and figurines from the Plocnik site contained a mixture of minerals, including high purity cinnabar. A red powder filling a ceramic vessel discovered at Plocnik in 1927 was also found to include a high percentage of cinnabar, likely but not definitively mined from Suplja Stena.
Huancavelica is the name of the largest mercury source in the Americas, located on the eastern slope of the Cordillera Occidental mountains of central Peru. Mercury deposits here are the result of Cenozoic magma intrusions into sedimentary rock. Vermillion was used to paint ceramics, figurines and murals and to decorate elite status burials in Peru in a range of cultures including Chavín culture [400-200 BC], Moche, Sican and the Inca empire. At least two segments of the Inca Road lead to Huacavelica.
Scholars (Cooke et al.) report that mercury accumulations in nearby lake sediments began rising about 1400 BC, probably the result of the dust from cinnabar mining. The main historic and prehistoric mine at Huancavelica is the Santa Barbára mine, nicknamed the "mina de la muerte" (mine of death), and it was both the single largest supplier of mercury to the colonial silver mines, and the major source of pollution in the Andes even today. Known to have been exploited by the Andean empires, large-scale mercury mining began here during the colonial period after the introduction of mercury amalgamation associated with the extraction of silver from low-grade ores.
Amalgamation of poor quality silver ores using cinnabar was begun in Mexico by Bartolomé de Medina in 1554. This process involved smelting the ore in grass-fired, clay-lined retorts until vaporization yielded gaseous mercury. Some of the gas was trapped in a crude condenser, and cooled, yielding liquid mercury. Polluting emissions from this process included both the dust from the original mining, and the gases released into the atmosphere during smelting.
Theophrastus and Cinnabar
Classical Greek and Roman mentions of cinnabar include that of Theophrastus of Eresus (371-286 BC), a student of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Theophrastus wrote the earliest surviving scientific book on minerals, "De Lapidibus", in which he described an extraction method method to get quicksilver from cinnabar. Later references to the quicksilver process appear in Vitruvius (1st century BC) and Pliny the Elder (1st century AD). See Takaks et al. for additional information.
Cinnabar was the most expensive pigment used by the Romans for extensive wall paintings on public and private buildings (~100 BC-300 AD). A recent study (Mazzocchin et al. 2008) on cinnabar samples taken from several villas in Italy and Spain were identified using lead isotope concentrations, and compared with source material in Slovenia (the Idria mine), Tuscany (Monte Amiata, Grosseto), Spain (Almaden) and as a control, from China. In some cases, such as at Pompeii, the cinnabar seems to have come from a specific local source, but in others, the cinnabar used in the murals was blended from several different regions.
One use of cinnabar not attested in archaeological evidence to date, but which may have been the case prehistorically is as traditional medication or ritual ingestion. Cinnabar has been used for at least 2,000 years as part of Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicines. Although it may have some beneficial effect on some illnesses, human ingestion of mercury is now known to produce toxic damage to kidney, brain, liver, the reproductive systems and other organs.
Cinnabar is still used in at least 46 traditional Chinese patent medicines today, making up between 11-13% of Zhu-Sha-An-Shen-Wan, a popular over-the-counter traditional medicine for insomnia, anxiety and depression. That is about 110,000 times higher than allowable cinnabar dose levels according to the European Drug and Food Standards: in a study on rats, Shi et al. found that ingestion of this level of cinnabar does create physical damage.
Consuegra S, Díaz-del-Río P, Hunt Ortiz MA, Hurtado V, and Montero Ruiz I. 2011. Neolithic and Chalcolithic--VI to III millennia BC--use of cinnabar (HgS) in the Iberian Peninsula: analytical identification and lead isotope data for an early mineral exploitation of the Almadén (Ciudad Real, Spain) mining district. In: Ortiz JE, Puche O, Rabano I, and Mazadiego LF, editors. History of Research in Mineral Resources. Madrid: Instituto Geológico y Minero de España. p 3-13.
Contreras DA. 2011. How far to Conchucos? A GIS approach to assessing the implications of exotic materials at Chavín de Huántar. World Archaeology 43(3):380-397.
Cooke CA, Balcom PH, Biester H, and Wolfe AP. 2009. Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(22):8830-8834.
Gajic-Kvašcev M, Stojanovic MM, Šmit Ž, Kantarelou V, Karydas AG, Šljivar D, Milovanovic D, and Andric V. 2012. New evidence for the use of cinnabar as a colouring pigment in the Vinca culture. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(4):_PHONE_.
Mazzocchin GA, Baraldi P, and Barbante C. 2008. Isotopic analysis of lead present in the cinnabar of Roman wall paintings from the Xth Regio "(Venetia et Histria)" by ICP-MS. Talanta 74(4):690-693.
Shi J-Z, Kang F, Wu Q, Lu Y-F, Liu J, and Kang YJ. 2011. Nephrotoxicity of mercuric chloride, methylmercury and cinnabar-containing Zhu-Sha-An-Shen-Wan in rats. Toxicology Letters 200(3):194-200.
Svensson M, Düker A, and Allard B. 2006. Formation of cinnabar—estimation of favourable conditions in a proposed Swedish repository. Journal of Hazardous Materials 136(3):830-836.
Takacs L. 2000. Quicksilver from cinnabar: The first documented mechanochemical reaction? JOM Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society 52(1):12-13.


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With 193 member states who contribute personnel, equipment and funds, the United Nations' global peacekeeping mission has almost 120,000 peacekeepers serving in 17 missions in some of the world's most volatile and dangerous environments currently.
Commemorating the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement: "Today we honour the memory of the more than 2,900 peacekeepers who have lost their lives in the line of duty over the years, and we pledge to carry on their work to bring stability to war-ravaged countries."
In 2011, 112 men and women died with another 27 peacekeepers losing their lives in the first four months of this year. Since 1948, when the first UN peacekeeping mission named the "United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation", began operations in Palestine, nearly 3,000 "Blue Helmets" have died devoting their lives to peace.
"I am deeply grateful for every contribution of troops and police, as well as for the financial and material resources that make peacekeeping possible. I also thank all countries that provide political support and leadership," he said.
As of April 30, Pakistan is contributing 9,401 police, UN military experts on mission and troops — the second largest number of peacekeepers in the UN missions after Bangladesh.
Currently, Pakistan has 766 police officials, 97 military experts on mission and 8,538 troops serving as peacekeepers around the globe — making it the largest contributor of troops by a single country by 2012.
In terms of personnel, Bangladesh remains the biggest contributor with 9,949 personnel followed by Pakistan, India (8,133) and Ethiopia (6,315). In terms of providers of assessed financial contributions to UN peacekeeping operations from 2010–2012, the United States remained the highest contributor with a 27.14% share, followed by Japan (12.53%) and the United Kingdom (8.15%).
The UN peacekeeping has a global logistics operation with almost 46 airplanes, 12 ships, 147 helicopters, 33,437 vehicles, 22 hospitals and 252 medical clinics operating all over the world, a UN official told The Express Tribune.
"The ultimate goal of any UN peacekeeping mission is to no longer be necessary. Until we reach that objective, we make every effort for peacekeeping to be as effective and efficient as possible," said Ban.
Since its formation in 1948, the UN peacekeeping mission has conducted 67 peacekeeping operations worldwide and currently 16 operations are under way in different parts of the world — with the largest UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur with almost 27,892 personnel.
In his concluding remarks, the secretary general said: "On this day, let us remember the sacrifice of those who have served, and let us pledge to strengthen the global partnerships that make our blue helmets a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world."
Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2012.
More in PakistanAnnan tells Syria of horror after massacre


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Adolphe CrémieuxArticle Free Pass
Adolphe Crémieux, original name Isaäc Moïse (born April 30, 1796, Nîmes, Fr.—died Feb. 10, 1880, Paris), French political figure and Jewish leader active in the Revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune (1871).
After a distinguished legal career in Nîmes, he was appointed advocate of the Court of Appeals in Paris (1830), where he gained further renown for his legal skill and oratory.
In 1842 Crémieux was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from the Indre-et-Loire département and quickly emerged as a leading member of the radical left. He played a prominent role in the revolutionary movements of 1848 and served as minister of justice in the provisional government of 1848–49. He voted for the presidential candidacy of Louis-Napoléon, but, when he withdrew his support, he was imprisoned. After his release, he returned to the bar and left-wing politics. He returned to the Chamber in 1869, representing a Parisian district, and, when the Second Empire collapsed, he joined the Government of National Defense (1870–71) as minister of justice. Subsequently, he served as a deputy from Algiers (1871–75) and then senator (1875–80).
Crémieux was an important leader of the French Jewish community. He lent his prestige and political influence to numerous campaigns for the normalization of Jewish life in France and Algeria, backing the enfranchisement of North African Jews. He was a founder of the influential Universal Israelite Alliance and was its president from 1863 to 1880.
What made you want to look up "Adolphe Cremieux"? Please share what surprised you most...


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The modality of open education is being adopted strategically to reduce the deficit of teaching personnel in different areas, including chemistry. Because of this, educational materials were developed that aim to collaborate with the General Chemistry courses for Teaching Certificates in Chemistry, to be offered through the System of the Brazilian Open University (BOU). For this purpose, the situation of Education at a Distance (EaD) in some other countries was initially examined, to evaluate the dynamics of this teaching modality in universities considered as references in EaD and to present case studies involving chemistry. A survey was then carried out for Brazil with detailed research involving the BOU, where its situation, from its initial proposal (justification, target public, process of selection of the courses, etc.) up to the dynamics of the Centers of Actual Support of Education where the experimental lessons of chemistry, physics, biology, etc., would be given. Some studies of cases involving courses of chemistry in Brazilian universities have also been presented. However, the majority of the important government approved institutions that offer courses in this modality of education still do not make available complete information, such as curricular planning, course descriptions, the dynamics of the actual sessions, etc. Thus, as a strategy for the present work, we opted to utilize classical General Chemistry experiments (already known in some form) where it was possible to present the theoretical concepts and to provide them on the Internet as supporting material (at _URL_). All the content was written in a way that the student have an ample vision of the subject, not limited to the experimental description of the practical activities that would be carried out in the Teaching Laboratories.
Text in Portuguese
João Carlos de Andrade


What is leasehold ownership of a property
Owning a leasehold property means you only own the property itself and not the rest of the building around it or the land it sits on. The building and the land are owned by the landlord. Leases are also usually only for a limited amount of time, for example 99 years, and you will likely have restrictions on what you can do with your property during that time.


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(2003). Sustainability indicators.
In: Neumayer, Eric ed.
Online Encyclopaedia of Ecological Economics (OEEE).
International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE).
Full text available as:
Imagine a situation where, after debating for years on what makes you happy, you finally decide that it is about time you start put these ideas into practice and effectively make yourself happy(ier). If you are really determined, you will be keen to stop convincing yourself that you are happy if you are not: you will want to check whether you are really making progress towards achieving your goals. You will have identified different components of your happiness and will assess some of them, progressing cautiously, step by step. You will also be aware of the links between these components, links that determine your overall state of happiness.
In the situation described above, now replace the term 'happiness' by that of'sustainability' - like concepts such as justice, truth, or happiness indeed, it is a desirable objective, albeit difficult to capture in a concise, shared, definition.
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What is XPCE?
XPCE is a toolkit for developing graphical applications in Prolog and other interactive and dynamically typed languages. XPCE follows a rather unique approach of for developing GUI applications, which we will try to summarise using the points below.
- Add object layer to Prolog
XPCE's kernel is a object-oriented engine that allows for the
definition of methods in multiple languages. The built-in graphics
are defined in C for speed as well as to define the
platform-independence layer. Applications, as well as some
application-oriented libraries are defined as XPCE-classes with
their methods defined in Prolog.
Prolog-defined methods can receive arguments in native Prolog data, native Prolog data may be associated with XPCE instance-variables and XPCE errors are (selectively) mapped to Prolog exceptions. These features make XPCE a natural extension to your Prolog program.
- High level of abstraction
- XPCE's graphical layer provides a high abstraction level, hiding details on event-handling, redraw-management and layout management from the application programmer, while still providing access to the primitives to deal with exceptional cases.
- Exploit rapid Prolog development cycle
- Your XPCE classes are defined in Prolog and the methods run naturally in Prolog. This implies you can easily cross the border between your application and the GUI-code inside the tracer. It also implies you can modify source-code and recompile while your application is running.
- Platform independent programs
- XPCE/Prolog code is fully platform-independent, making it feasible to develop on your platform of choice and deliver on the platform of choice of your users. As SWI-Prolog saved-states are machine-independent, applications can be delivered as a saved-state. Such states can be executed transparently using the development-environment to facilitate debugging or the runtime emulator for better speed and space-efficiency.
Links about motivation and impressions
- Why using XPCE for graphics in Prolog?
- Why no GUI-Builder?
- Some code fragments to get an impression
- Some screen dumps of applications
- The design of the XPCE/Prolog interface (Publication in Workshop on Logic Programming Environments, 2002)
For starters as well as for more experienced users who want to know how particular tasks are tackled using XPCE/Prolog, there is the XPCE UserGuide. The manual is also available a HTML-tar-archive and can be viewed online.
The reference documentation is available using a hypertext system defined in XPCE/Prolog. This tool exploits the XPCE-class descriptions as well as associated hypertext cards to provide various viewpoints and search mechanisms for browsing the reference material. The manual tools are started using the Prolog command manpce/0:
Finally, the development tools and libraries form a rich set of examples. Just browse through them and then use the Visual Hierarchy Tool to locate the relevant source-code.
On Unix installations, the manpages xpce.1 and xpce-client.1 provide documentation on the command-line options of these commands.


health and medicine question #151
Joan & Colleen, a 11 year old female from the Internet asks on March 16, 2000,
Are cats leftor right-pawed? What percentage are left pawed/right pawed? We are doing some research on this subject for a science fair project and would like to know your results.
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the answer
Barry Shell answered on March 16, 2000, A:
Cats do have a preference. Here's something I found about doing an experiment to determine which paw a cat prefers.
This is a good research question. Scientists have found that some animals really do have a preference for one hand over the other. Like humans, monkeys, apes, mice, and gerbils all have preferences for one hand. Even some fish seem to prefer a particular fin for certain behaviors. Here's how you might test your hypothesis: Cats often reach for an object that is placed just a bit in front of them. You can use this natural behavior to study whether cats tend to reach more often with their left or right paws. Try placing a stuffed mouse or catnip toy just out of reach of the cat. To make the cat reach at the toy, try slowly pulling the toy away from the cat just a bit. Cats love this! Next, record whether the cat reached with his left or right paw. Repeat this as many times as the cat will tolerate your teasing! You should try to get the cat to reach about 20-30 times so that you can accurately determine whether he has a preference.
You should try to test as many cats as you can. That way, you'll be able to begin to see whether cats as a group have a general tendency toward preferring right or left paws. Posted By: Lori Holt, Graduate (Ph.D.) Student, Psychology, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin Date: Thu Sep 11, 1997
From Cats International website: Out of every 100 cats approximately 40 are left-pawed, 20 are right-pawed, and 40 are ambidextrous. These findings contrast strikingly with the human situation where only 10 individuals are left-handed for every 90 who are right-handed.
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Transparency tools for all governements
While the world has 195 countries and governments – it doesn't need 195 different versions of technology to hold those countries' governments to account.
People Impacted
$ 122B
Potential Funding
I have this challenge
the problem
Nature and Context
By building a a global network who will together we can make and share the key components required for 21st century accountability. These digital democratic building blocks can be designed to be easy-to-use, open-source and importantly are interoperable, so they can adapt to individual political systems. Right now what we see is colossal amounts of time and money wasted as people in different countries create the same thing time and time again, in a field that isn't really rich enough to afford much waste. Sharing this tech can help save time and country for all countries and economies.
Ideas Description
SayIt is a free open source tool through which you can publish transcripts of Parliamentary and other national and local political meetings, and the Poplus suite also features prefab software on mapping jurisdictional boundaries, posting transcripts and statements, and contacting public officials.
Input Needed From Contributing Editors
(click on any tag to contribute)


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Let me back up.
DAO naming is hierarchical in nature, sort of like the DOS path. And like DOS, you can refer to an object using a fully qualified name or a semi-qualified name. In DOS, a fully qualified name would be like this:
If you are already in a folder, you can refer to the file by its semi-qualified name:
TEST.MDB In the same way, you can refer to an Access object by its fully qualified name:
or if you assume the default DBEngine (which we almost always do), the default Workspace, and default Database, you can refer to the table by its semi-qualified name:
If you look at the fully qualified name like this:
you can see the DAO hierarchy levels more easily and how the dot separates them. (Much like the "\" in DOS.)
The dot also serves to separate an object from its properties and methods, which can also be thought of as another level in the hierarchy. So I can refer to "TableDefs!Table1.RecordCount". RecordCount being a property of Table1.
The bang (!) separates objects from the collections which hold them, thus it separates "Table1" from the collection "TableDefs" and the object "c:\msoffice\access97\test.mdb" from its collection "Databases".
Since most objects are defined by you, and since levels of DAO hierarchy are defined by Access, we get the rule of thumb named earlier.
DAO Naming Rules:
- The dot serves to separate one level of the DAO hierarchy from another in a fully qualified object name.
- The dot also serves to separate an object from its methods and properties. (This, by the way, is the principle use for most people).
- The bang serves to separate an object from the collection in which it is contained.
But this isn't really the end of the story. When using class modules in Access (like Forms and Reports), the Bang and Dot behavior is slightly different. To find out more, read my post: Bang Vs. Dot in Forms.


The Situated-is-Incremental Fallacy
Silicon Valley style technology innovation is a brutal game, and certain strategic errors can get you kicked out of the game before you even start. One of the big errors which I often see talented young people without work experience commit, and which I've never personally seen experienced people commit, is what I call the situated-is-incremental fallacy. This suggests that this is a fatal, career-killing error. The fallacy is this: concluding that just because something is grounded in, and informed by, practical environmental realities and context, it cannot be technologically radical. Where experienced people separate the incremental/radical axis from the detached/situated axis, inexperienced people often conflate them. Getting past this fallacy is not even a strategic thinking skill. It is basic strategic literacy. Here's how to get literate and internalize the truth that just because something is practical, it does not mean it is not radical.
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Radical and Situated
1/ Modeling and adapting to a business context is boring and time-consuming. Chasing the aha! of disruptive strategic intuition is exciting.
2/ Business as usual and things working the way you're used to is boring. Radical results are exciting.
3/ This pair of boring/exciting perceptions leads to a fallacy: we think the magnitude of "interesting" in the effort must be proportionate to the magnitude of "interesting" in the outcome.
4/ The way technology is marketed doesn't help. By focusing on the novel, it tends to throw off our calibration of the degree to which the effort behind an innovation is _not _novel.
5/ When we read press coverage of the Oculus, CRISPR or the SpaceX barge-landing, all attention is on the novel, exciting elements. The part that is not being done differently is ignored.
6/ But from the inside of any major technology, 90% of the energy and money is invested in understanding existing context, and learning to do things the way they're already done elsewhere.
7/ This does NOT mean the outcome is incremental. The effort devoted to novelty may be marginal, but it is far more leveraged.
8/ Radical impact is usually the result of spending 90% of your energy arranging the boring stuff in the context, so that the 10% novel effort has big consequences.
9/ Strategy could be defined as situating yourself in the environment in a way that your incremental innovation effort produces radical differences in the outcome, via leverage.
10/ An example is SpaceX. 90% of what they do is standard rocket launching technology. But the 10% the do differently: welding technology, first-stage recovery, has a radical impact on the economics.
11/ People who succumb to the situated-is-incremental fallacy end up trying to do all 100% differently, rather than the smartly leveraged 10%.
12/ Often this is due to nothing more than a revulsion against the "ugliness" of COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) inputs available, or their lack of harmony when combined.
13/ Another reason is, in a complex environment full of legacy technology, reinventing the wheel is often far easier and more fun than sourcing and assembling existing tech.
14/ The small problem with reinvention is that it replaces 1 hour of annoying "buy" work with 10 hours of fun "build" work. The 10x bigger problem is that it creates pointless fit-into-context extra work. A sort of technological transaction cost.
15/ A wheel is not just an embodiment of abstract principles of geometry and the physics of rolling. It is also a 1000 details like standard bolt sizes, sheet metal thicknesses, and so forth.
16/ Every act of unnecessary invention means going against the technological environment in a 1000 tiny ways. Seeking internal harmony in what you build often means losing valuable potential for external harmony with the environment.
17/ Not-reinventing is boring and tedious. You have to learn and adapt to a 1000 arbitrary default details. But the reward is, what you make is 90% ready to fit efficiently into the environment. You won't even realize some of the value until later.
18/ These observations can be plotted on a neat 2x2, as shown above.
19/ Those who succumb to the radical-is-situated fallacy tend to give up either the 'radical' bit or the'situated' bit, or both.
20/ If you are practical, but unambitious, you ignore leverage in the environment and do incremental, situated things. They don't matter much, but they do fit.
21/ If you are impractical, but ambitious, you end up trying to reinvent 100% and failing. Often this is accompanied by utopianism (or pastoralism as I call it). This is like trying to mutate 100% of the genome of an idea.
22/ If you are both impractical and unambitious, you will do incremental, detached things that might as well be hobbies. They don't matter, and they don't fit.
23/ But if you are both practical and ambitious, you will scan the context for the the high-leverage opportunities, and invent or reinvent the minimum you have to.
24/ Some of you may be seeing shades of Clayton Christensen's disruption model, which makes a distinction between radical versus incremental technologies and disruptive versus sustaining business models.
25/ The biggest-bang technology innovations happen when radical technologies (a leveraged 10% of inputs being reinvented) are combined with disruptive business models.
26/ Without radical technology driving it, disruption tends to rearrange markets in largely zero-sum ways. But with radical technology, new markets can often be created in non-zero-sum ways.
27/ You can also, of course, have radical technology that creates new markets in non-disruptive ways, from the premium end of the market rather than low end for example (as in the case of the iPhone)
28/ But whether disruptive or not, radical technological innovation is almost always driven by the invention/reinvention of a leveraged 10%, and doing the other 90% in business-as-usual ways (ie imitation).
29/ Are there technologies where the invention-to-imitation ratio is much higher? Perhaps. If you can think of good examples, do share via reply to this email.
30/ But remember, the bar is higher than you think. Even the airplane was largely a matter of applying mature component technologies from things like bicycles, sails, and IC engines, which already existed.
31/ In Boydian theory, this principle is often called the snowmobile principle: innovation happens by breaking down and reassembling existing things in new ways.
32/ Bottomline: if the effort of being "practical" demotivates you and makes you feel like you're giving up the "big" vision, you need to improve your sensitivity to environmental leverage.
Copyright © 2016 Ribbonfarm Consulting, LLC, All rights reserved.


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Date Added: Aug 2010
Jamming attacks have been recently studied as wireless security threats disrupting reliable RF communication in a wireless network. Recently, spread spectrum techniques have been proposed as promising countermeasures to avoid the jamming attacks. However, these solutions require a secure pre-key establishment phase before data transmission, which takes considerable time and thus provides limited functionality. In order to solve the problem, this paper proposes a novel Frequency Quorum Rendezvous (FQR) scheme. Nodes hop over random frequencies independently during the phase, supporting anti-jamming communications. By using a quorum system, nodes are guaranteed to meet, which could reduce time latency. The authors validate the proposed scheme via extensive simulations.


Query Responses
Showing 1-1 of 1 result
Indonesia: 1. Please provide relevant information about Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), including its history and the development of the movement. What is the situation for GAM members or supporters now? 2. What is the Komite Peralihan Aceh (KPA)? 3. Please provide relevant information about Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI). 4. Please provide relevant information about Indonesian intelligence. For example, are they known to monitor or spy on Acehnese, including vocal anti-MoU Acehnese living in Malaysia? 5. Can Malaysian permanent residents become citizens of Malaysia? If, yes, what are the qualification requirements? 6. Is Malaysia a signatory to the Refugee Convention? 7. Is it plausible that the UNHCR in Malaysia has stopped providing such assistance to Acehnese separationists? The relevant time period is March 2010. 8. Is Singapore a signatory to the Refugee Convention? 9. How would a vocal anti-MoU Acehnese be treated by the Indonesian authorities in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia? 10. Is there evidence of Indonesian authorities targeting Indonesians including Acehnese Indonesians in Malaysia who are anti-MoU - and who are vocal and open about this position? 11. Is it plausible that the Malaysian security agencies including the police would refuse protection to Malaysian permanent residents who are at risk of serious harm (including getting killed, kidnapped, and/or assaulted) at the hands of Indonesians - including Indonesians of Acehnese background living in Malaysia or visiting Malaysia from Indonesia? 12. Can a person in Indonesia openly advocate for an independent Aceh without being at risk of harm from Indonesian authorities?
4 March 2011 | Publisher: Australia: Refugee Review Tribunal | Document type: Query Responses
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Wondering why there was a thick layer of fog over the city this morning and afternoon?
This fog is called advection fog. It forms as a warm, moist air mass settles over the cooler Lake Michigan waters. Hot and humid air (temps in the 90s, dew points in the 70s) just west of Chicago comes over the cool Lake Michigan waters (60s and low 70s) and forms fog. The near-surface air is cooled to the high dew point (in the 70s) and fog forms. Then, the lake breeze transports the fog from the lake back onto land.
The fog is concentrated at very low levels of the atmosphere, with the tops of the taller buildings likely experiencing temperatures in the 90s above the fog layer, because the relatively cool air off of Lake Michigan is quite shallow, the temperature is cooled to the dew point only at near-surface levels. Given the strength of the sun and mixing of higher temperatures just above the ground, the air temperatures even near Lake Michigan should slowly rise above the dew point and the fog will dissipate.
What does that mean? Even if you got a break from the heat from the fog…you will start to warm up again very soon.


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The modification of data that is already in the database is referred to as updating. You can update individual rows, all the rows in a table, or a subset of all rows. Each column can be updated separately; the other columns are not affected.
To perform an update, you need three pieces of information:
The name of the table and column to update,
The new value of the column,
Which row(s) to update.
Recall from Chapter 5 that SQL does not, in general, provide a unique identifier for rows. Therefore it is not necessarily possible to directly specify which row to update. Instead, you specify which conditions a row must meet in order to be updated. Only if you have a primary key in the table (no matter whether you declared it or not) can you reliably address individual rows, by choosing a condition that matches the primary key. Graphical database access tools rely on this fact to allow you to update rows individually.
For example, this command updates all products that have a price of 5 to have a price of 10:
UPDATE products SET price = 10 WHERE price = 5;
This may cause zero, one, or many rows to be updated. It is not an error to attempt an update that does not match any rows.
Let's look at that command in detail. First is the key word UPDATE followed by the table name. As usual, the table name may be schema-qualified, otherwise it is looked up in the path. Next is the key word SET followed by the column name, an equals sign and the new column value. The new column value can be any scalar expression, not just a constant. For example, if you want to raise the price of all products by 10% you could use:
UPDATE products SET price = price * 1.10;
As you see, the expression for the new value can refer to the existing value(s) in the row. We also left out the WHERE clause. If it is omitted, it means that all rows in the table are updated. If it is present, only those rows that match the WHERE condition are updated. Note that the equals sign in the SET clause is an assignment while the one in the WHERE clause is a comparison, but this does not create any ambiguity. Of course, the WHERE condition does not have to be an equality test. Many other operators are available (see Chapter 9). But the expression needs to evaluate to a Boolean result.
You can update more than one column in an UPDATE command by listing more than one assignment in the SET clause. For example:
UPDATE mytable SET a = 5, b = 3, c = 1 WHERE a > 0;


Classical Splendor Painted Furniture for a Grand Philadelphia House Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, Peggy A. Olley, Jeffrey A. Cohen
Publication date:
03 Jan 2017
Yale University Press
160 pages: 254 x 279mm
170 color + 22 b-w illus.
Sales territories:
This handsome book explores in depth a group of stunning painted and gilded furniture designed by the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820), best known for originating the plans for the United States Capitol. The furniture was made in Philadelphia for one of the city's finest houses—the home of William and Mary Wilcocks Waln, which Latrobe also designed. Drawing on a multiyear conservation and research project, Classical Splendor reveals new insights into the patrons, makers, and history behind these extraordinary pieces. In addition to extensively documenting each item, the book attests to Latrobe's significant contributions to American furniture design—his pieces for the Waln house introduced, and served as exemplars of, a classical style rooted in ancient Greek and Roman design.
Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley is the Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts and Peggy A. Olley is the associate conservator of furniture and woodwork, both at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Jeffrey A. Cohen is senior lecturer and chair of the Growth and Structure of Cities Program at Bryn Mawr College.


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Navigate the topics on the left to learn more about various aspects of using Flickr.
Flickr is a convenient way to share both promotional and educational materials with your web audience. Some ways University units can use Flickr:
- Keep group photo albums on record to re-purpose with other social media.
- Supplement educational content with photo albums and visual resources.
- Use a Flickr World map to create virtual field trips, recording events and providing visual content in a geographic format.
- Create scientific diagrams by labeling hotspots in your photos with more information.
Tools for Uploading Photos
Flickr provides a useful uploading tool called Uploadr. It allows users to add titles, tags and descriptions, add stuff to sets and reorder things directly in the Uploadr before they are sent to Flickr. Uploadr may be helpful to University units who are submitting large numbers of photos to Flickr.


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Recently, I was lucky enough to be present when the Lion Saltworks acquired a 'salt ship' for their collection. These are quite rare objects. At Christmas time and other festive occasions, the saltworkers would make wooden objects like ships, dip them in the concentrated brine in the saltworks, and put them to dry in the warm stove rooms (where lump salt was dried out.) As the brine evaporated out, a beautiful coating of salt crystals appeared, as on the ship (see image, left.) Sometimes the workers would dip tree boughs in the brine and dry them out to make Christmas decorations for their houses. A pretty effect, isn't it?
Image © Sue Wilkes.


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Examples of Recursion
Problem : Write the reverse() function recursively. This function takes a string and the length of the string as arguments and returns the same string with its characters in the reverse order.
Problem : Challenge: You're given a piece of memory containing characters divided into two sections, section a and section b, that follow each other in memory, b after a. You are also supplied with the lengths of a and b. Write a function that uses your reverse() function from above to swap the two sections such that the a section follows the b section. This does not require recursion.
Problem : Write a function count_spaces(char *s) that counts the number of whitespace characters that appear in a string. Characters are whitespace as defined by the isspace() function in the ctype library. Write this function recursively.
Problem : Why would a programmer most likely not use recursion for an implementation of the string library?
Problem : Write the function strrchr() iteratively and recursively.
Problem : A palindrome is a sequence of characters or numbers that looks the same forwards and backwards. For example, "Madam, I'm Adam" is a palindrome because it is spelled the same reading it from front to back as from back to front. The number 12321 is a numerical palindrome. Write a function that takes a string and its length as arguments and recursively determines whether the string is a palindrome: int ispalindrome(char *s, int len);
Problem : Write a recursive function void replace(char *s, char from, char to); that changes all occurrences of from in s to to. For example, if s were "steve", and from == 'e' and to == 'a', s would become "stava".


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In art, a pose which is asymmetrical in that the figure is twisted around its vertical axis. The hips and legs, shoulders, and head are in somewhat different planes. It is also called "weight shift". It gives a naturalistic look to a human pose, and famous examples are the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David. It is seen in painting as well as sculpture.
It is strikingly absent from archaic sculpture, such as Egyptian and Cycladic. Its discovery is one of the many excellences that mark out classic Greek art.
The Italian for 'opposed', 'compared', or more literally "counterposed": past participle of the verb contrapporre. The spelling with one P is seen, but not correct.
The contrapposto figure is one of the most important developments in European sculpture.
First of all, to understand what contrapposto is, you have to understand what it isn't. Take, for example, the artwork of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians, though they were incredible stoneworkers, viewed sculpture as only a foreboding extension of their wall carvings and architecture, built to form with the structures around it and best viewed from only certain vantage points. Like their paintings-- so many of which were dominated by figures shown in severe profile instead of natural perspective-- a lot of their sculpture also had a kind of two-dimensionality to it, lacking in any real motion or depth.
In the earliest Greek sculpture, from the 5th and 6th centuries BCE, you can clearly see the heavy influence of the archaic Egyptian style. However, starting in the late-5th century BC and culminating in the Classical Greek period of 4th, the cunning Athenians discover contrapposto and everything changes.
Now, portraying the human form in a natural posture is probably something you'd take for granted. It's actually a lot more complicated than you might think. Sculpting contrapposto figures requires an intricate understanding of geometry and anatomy. Their mastery of the technique was perhaps the most visible sign of the tremendous advancement of Greek civilization over the Assyrians and Egyptians.
At the same time, contrapposto posing changed the way the medium itself was viewed. It put forward the concept of "sculpting in the round", where each sculpture is designed as a free-standing and independent work of art, to be admired for its own balance and beauty. The subtle twisting of the form encourages viewers to walk around the piece and enjoy it from many angles (a trend that can be traced directly into our post-modern styles of "installation art").
Notably, though it was lost somewhat in the "Dark Ages" of Europe's medieval era, the Italians brought back the contrapposto style with a vengeance during the Renaissance, as part of their new-found interests in naturalism and ancient cultures.
One obvious example of contrapposto be Michelangelo's David. An even better one, perhaps, would be the Niches of Or San Michele in Florence.
These 14 niches were commissioned by the most powerful trade guilds in 15th-century Italy, then constructed in the years _PHONE_ by dozens of the best Florentine artists that money could buy, including the likes of Donatello di Betto Bardi, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Nanni Di Banco. Amazingly, despite it being quite early-on in terms of the Renaissance, each of the massive, carved-marble figures shows a common and fairly advanced form of contrapposto positioning.
Di Banco's niche, one of the first completed, shows four saints who were martyred during the days of the Roman Empire, comfortably standing in an open half-circle as if engaged in an animated discussion and waiting for you to butt in. Definitely a huge departure from the austere and sanctimonious style of the previous era.
Donatello's statue of St. Mark, for the Weavers' Guild, is even better. The old master sculpts Mark into an exaggerated contrapposto posture, leaning heavily on his right leg, his book tucked under his arm and staring off into space. The pose is unbelievably honest. It makes it seem like the saint is almost bored, as if at any moment he's about to say "Dammit, Donatello! Are we almost done here? I've been standing on this fricking pedestal all day, and I've got a whole pile of important, saintly stuff I should be doing right now."
And, at least to me, that is what contrapposto is all about.


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People grieve in different ways. Some experience waves of anger or sadness, some feel sick, and some might sit and think about the memories they made with that person. I grieved over buttered toast and chocolate milk. They reminded me of her.
In Emotions Session 4, preteens will study 1 Samuel 20:18-24,35-42 and 2 Samuel 1. David twice experienced the loss of his friend Jonathan: once by separation and once by death. David's reaction to Jonathan's death is not unusual for a grieving person: He cried, he tore his clothes, he fasted, and he sang a song in tribute of his friend.
Preteens experience grief too—sometimes due to death, sometimes due to other losses such as moving, break-ups, or divorce. Use FLYTE this week to help preteens understand that grieving is a process that takes time and that Christians can trust in a God who cares.


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- Futurity.org - _URL_ -
On sale! But does inexpensive mean cheap?
Posted By Amy Wolf-Vanderbilt On November 27, 2012 @ 10:32 am In Society & Culture | No Comments
VANDERBILT (US) — The holidays usher in the biggest shopping season of the year, but sellers need to beware: sale prices can mean different things to different consumers.
New research shows that consumers often make inferences to fill in gaps in knowledge when they don't have complete information regarding products. To some, price denotes quality. For others, a low price means a good value.
New research by Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management professor Steve Posavac and his co-authors finds that in some consumers' minds, price denotes quality. For others, low price leads a consumer to believe he or she is getting a good value.
"The bottom line of our research is that people can hold two opposing beliefs about a product. In the case of price, most people simultaneously believe that low prices mean good value and that low prices mean low quality. But these two beliefs are not equally present in consumers' minds all the time," says Steve Posavac, professor in marketing at Vanderbilt University.
Published in a forthcoming Journal of Consumer Research, the study finds that consumers use a series of theories when considering value and price. And how they size up a possible purchase depends on what's on their mind when they're thinking about a given product.
"Consumers rarely have complete information and use various strategies to fill the gaps in their knowledge as they consider and choose products. One of these strategies involves using naive theories: informal, common sense, explanations that consumers use to make sense of their environment," write Posavac and his co-authors Hélène Deval, Susan P. Mantel, and Frank R. Kardes.
For example, consumers may believe that popular products that are well advertised are high in quality while also believing that scarce or rarely heard of products are high in quality.
Price vs. quality
The researchers conducted eight experiments that tested marketing techniques that leaned toward price or quality. In one experiment, consumers were shown an ad for a bottle of wine with either a high or low price. When subtly reminded of quality, consumers evaluated the expensive wine more favorably than the cheap wine. However, when subtly reminded of value, they rated the cheap wine more favorably.
When marketing backfires
Sales promotions succeed when consumers perceive that they are getting a good deal, but they can also backfire if consumers perceive that lower prices indicate poor quality. Posavac uses department store J.C. Penney as an example.
"A company may implement an everyday low-pricing strategy that manages to reduce brand value and alienate consumers if many of them believe that low prices equal low quality. Over the years, J.C. Penney customers had become so used to sales that they no longer believed they were getting a good deal," says Posavac.
Because consumers use multiple "naïve theories" when analyzing a product, a company's subtle marketing tactics toward price or quality may attract one consumer while easily turning another consumer off.
"[Companies] design a strategy by assuming that a certain naive theory is going to drive consumer evaluation and choice when, in fact, several naive theories are available to the consumer," the authors conclude.
Source: Vanderbilt University
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What kind of flowers do hummingbirds like best?
What kind of hanging basket flowers do hummingbirds like?
The most natural way to satisfy hummingbirds' thirst for nectar is to grow flowers they love. Three hummingbird favorites — fuchsias, geraniums and mini-petunias — thrive when planted together in hanging baskets. But there's plenty of other flowers that hummingbirds and other pollinators love, too.
What kind of flowers do ruby throated hummingbirds like?
What flowers do hummingbirds not like?
Flowers Hummingbirds Don't Like
 - Crocuses.
 - Daffodils.
 - Dianthus.
 - Forget-me-nots.
 - Gardenias.
 - Irises.
 - Lilacs.
 - Lily of the valley.
What potted flowers attract hummingbirds?
Hanging baskets and window boxes filled with petunias, fuchsias, or nasturtiums create a cascade of flowers for hungry hummingbirds and butterflies. Large pots, old wheelbarrows, whiskey barrels or any container brimming with impatiens, begonias, snapdragons and salvia become a hummingbird hangout.
How can you tell the difference between a male and female hummingbird?
Male and female hummingbirds can be identified simply based on the color of their feathers. … Unlike males, female hummingbirds have no bright feathers to display. Females are often brown or dull green in color. Immature male hummingbirds typically resemble females in that they have no bright feathers.
How can I attract more hummingbirds?
How to Attract Hummingbirds
 2. Supply a water source.
 3. Plant trees or tall shrubs as perches.
 5. Hang more feeders to attract more hummingbirds.
 6. Create distance between feeders to establish more territories.
You might be interested: What flowers can guinea pigs eat?
Do geraniums attract hummingbirds?
Do hummingbirds like hydrangeas?
Other Favorites of Hummingbirds
Do marigolds attract hummingbirds?
However, plants with large red or orange blossoms but little nectar, such as roses, marigolds, and geraniums, may initially attract hummingbirds, but will be quickly abandoned as the levels of nectar produced by these flowers is insufficient.
Why are hummingbirds banned in Hawaii?
It was the pineapple industry that kept hummingbirds out of Hawaii. Hummingbirds are pollinators of pineapple. If pineapple gets pollinated, it sets seed. The very hard seeds get in the way of people eating pineapple, so the plantation owners led to hummingbirds being banned and quarantined.
Where's the best place to hang a hummingbird feeder?
 - In a flowerbed filled with nectar-rich flowers. …
 - From an overhead gutter, awning or roofline.
6 мая 2019 г.
What plants do bees like the most?
You might be interested: What causes flowers to bloom?
Do hummingbirds like sun or shade?
Hummingbird feeders should be placed primarily in the shade. Hummingbird nectar can go bad more quickly if the feeder is hanging in the sun all day. However, there are also good reasons for placing your hummingbird feeder so that it does get some sun during the day.
What flowers do hummingbirds and butterflies like?
 - Agastache 'Ava' Unexpected Dinner Guest. …
 - Mexican Sunflowers. …
 - Milkweed. …
 - Brazilian Verbena. …
 - Dwarf Butterfly Bushes. …
 - Callistemon spp.
27 мая 2017 г.
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What to know about vegetable beans.
BEANS: THE PRINCIPAL TYPES
Full Details of How to Grow These Nutritious Vegetables
Beans as a group constitute one of the largest of the vegetable food crops; their culture is extensive and widespread. They mature crops quickly when used as green vegetables, thrive successfully in most temperate and warm climates and are valuable items in the diets of many peoples, especially when the seeds are used in the dry state. Of considerable importance is the fact that the pods and the seeds in the green stage are well adapted to preservation by freezing at low temperatures. The general classification of Beans for marketing purposes is as follows: String or Snap Beans, Shell Beans, Lima Beans, Soy Beans and Broad or Fava Beans. Most Beans belong in the genus Phaseolus. Exceptions are the Soy or Soja Bean, Glycine hispida, and the Broad Bean, Vicia Faba.
Snap, String or French Beans
The green-podded varieties are represented by both dwarf or bush kinds and climbing types.
The number of varieties listed for sale is large and varies in different localities. Recent years have seen the introduction of many of the stringless varieties which are superseding the slender, long-podded kinds formerly favored and grown as exhibition specimens. Popular now, but not necessarily new ones, are Bountiful, Stringless Greenpod, Tendergreen, Valentine and Dwarf Horticultural; the last named may be used as a Snap Bean in the young stage, as a green Shell
is Bean when partly mature, and later as a dried Shell Bean.
Climbing varieties include Kentucky Wonder, excellent as a Snap Bean and of wonderful flavor, which crops for a long period provided the beans are not allowed to mature; Horticultural Pole is the climbing counterpart of Dwarf Horticultural and may be used in a similar manner. The Scarlet Runner, a favorite and standby in Europe, prolific and of excellent quality, is grown to some extent in the United States but not in any appreciable quantity.
Wax Podded or Butter Beans. These are varieties of the Snap or String Beans, described above, that have yellow pods. While in some demand as a "green" vegetable, they a.re not grown to the extent that the green kinds are; from these the Wax Beans differ slightly in flavor. Both bush and climbing varieties are cultivated and are represented by Golden Wax, Pencil Wax, Brittle Wax among the bush varieties and by Golden Cluster Wax and Kentucky Wonder Wax among the climbers.
Methods of Cultivation. Beans of the Snap types are tender subjects and consequently should not be sown until danger from frost is past. They respond to good cultivation and succeed in most soils; a light, friable, loamy medium is best suited to their requirements. Acid soils should be brought to a neutral or slightly alkaline condition by liming. Preparation of the ground should begin during the fall or winter season by plowing or digging to a depth of 1012 in., if possible, and by incorporating with the soil well-rotted manure and bone meal or superphosphate to ensure good fertility. The seedbed should be prepared in spring when the soil is in good workable condition by discing or light cultivation, drills being made for the seeds 24-36 in. apart. The seeds should be dropped in the rows from 3-6 in. apart (the closer distance for the earlier season planting) and be covered with 1-1 1/2 in. of pulverized soil. A side dressing of fertilizer, applied at this time, will benefit the growing plants if it is cultivated into the soil at the first operation. Beans of the climbing varieties need supports to which to attach themselves. Suitable support may be afforded by strong brushwood, by poles arranged as a fence, or by strings. Cultivation to control weeds and conserve moisture should be carried out methodically and periodically. Successive sowing every ten days or so to ensure a continuous supply of Beans throughout the season should be made until it is too late to sow with fair expectation of the crop's maturing before frost. Under no circumstances should one walk or work among Snap Beans when their foliage is wet; to do so encourages the spread of disease.
These are an important food crop and are grown in many sections. They require a longer growing season than Snap Beans, some 80-90 days. Rather more tender and susceptible to injury from cool or excessively rainy weather than Snap Beans, Lima Beans are a decidedly warm-weather crop. Many varieties, both of Bush Limas and of the climbing types or Pole Limas, are offered by the trade. The Bush or Dwarf Lima is favored for early sowings, germinating more reliably and also maturing quicker than the Pole kinds. The Pole Limas are heavier croppers, however, and have a more extended season. Fordhook Bush, Henderson's Bush and Burpee's Bush are grown extensively and are all excellent. Leviathan and King of the Garden are standard Pole kinds. The Caroline or Sieva Bean is a small-seeded Lima Bean favored by many people and is popular for canning and freezing. It is a wonderful cropper, stands rainy weather better than do the large sorts, and is less liable to suffer from mildew. It may be had both in Bush and Pole varieties.
Methods of Cultivation. It is entirely impractical to sow seeds of Lima Beans until all danger of frost has passed and the weather has become warm and really settled. Soil preparation may follow that advised for String Beans. Good ground is necessary and, in order to facilitate germination of the seeds by providing as warm a seedbed as possible, sowings of the Pole varieties are usually made in hills (groups of a few seeds spaced at wide intervals), except in the warmest sections. Single poles, some 7 ft. or so of which should be above ground, are set 3 ft. apart in rows, the rows being not less than 4-5 ft. apart. Hills are drawn about the poles with a hoe, or may be plowed in ridges and then formed about the pole, a sprinkling of fertilizer is worked into the hill and 5 or 6 beans are sown at a depth of 1 in. or so. Later, should all the seeds germinate, they may be thinned out so that 3 or 4 plants remain. In the warmest and most congenial parts of the country, where climbing Limas are grown in quantity as field crops, no supports are provided; the vines are permitted to trail on the ground. In order to grow Limas successfully by this method, care must be taken to keep the growth within limits until the plants are well advanced, so that weeds can be controlled by cultivation. A favorable climate is also necessary for this method of Bean culture.
Other Shell Beans
Under this heading are grouped those Beans grown exclusively for use as dried Beans. These are mostly of the String Bean type. They form valuable articles of diet and are grown in great quantities as field crops. Navy or Pea Bean, Yellow Eye and the Kidney varieties, particularly Red Kidney, are standard sorts.
Soy or Soja Beans
This Bean, which was mildly popular both as a Green Bean and Shell Bean some few years ago, has not taken its place as a major vegetable. The variety Bansei is the one generally grown for this purpose. The Soy Bean is a valuable article of food and is used considerably in the preparation of oils, flour, seasoning and sauces. The flour prepared from it is widely used with other flours and food mixtures. It is cultivated in the same way as are Lima Beans.
Broad or Fava Beans
Popular in Europe, the Broad Bean occupies a place in the diet there somewhat approaching that of the Lima Bean in America. It does not compare in quality and flavor, however, with the Lima Bean, but is valuable because it withstands much colder and damper climatic conditions, and comes into bearing early. Fava Beans grow some 3-4 ft. in height, carry many pods, each 6-7 in. long, and vary considerably in minor characteristics according to variety. Windsor and Longpod are staple varieties.
The Fava Bean needs cool weather for its development. When grown in the East it is very essential that the seeds be sown just as soon in the spring as the ground can be worked. They should be set 8 in. apart in double drills (8 in. between drills) with each set of double drills spaced 3 ft. from the next. Alternatively, they may be sown the same distance between seeds in single drills spaced 2 ft. apart. The soil should be rich and deeply prepared.
When the lower trusses of flowers have faded and set their pods, the tip of each plant should be pinched out. This encourages the development of earlier and finer pods and serves to some extent to discourage black aphids, which are a serious pest of this vegetable.
Fava Beans thrive in the Canadian Maritime Provinces, in British Columbia and in Washington and Oregon. In California and some other parts of the South they may be grown in winter.


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The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS, produced by the Energy Information Agency in the U.S. Department of Energy) collects information on various housing characteristics, including the age of the structures. Although the actual energy consumption data has not yet been released, a RECS data set containing a considerable amount of ancillary, related information is available. For example, answers are available to a subjective RECS question asking occupants if their homes are "well," "adequately" or "poorly" insulated (homes with no insulation at all are a separate, but rarely checked category).
Tabulating the results shows that, overall, 38.6 percent of households in single-family detached homes judge their homes to be well insulated. However, as you might expect, the results vary depending on how old the homes are. Among occupants of single-family detached homes built before 1960, the well-insulated share is under 30 percent. After that, the share increases regularly as the homes get newer until it reaches 67 percent for homes built after 2004.
The RECS also asks occupants if their homes are too drafty during the winter. Here, the choices are "never," "some of the time," "most of the time" and "all of the time." Because perception of winter draftiness is likely to depend on the climate, the chart below is based only on single-family detached homes built in the colder climates—defined here as areas with at least 5,500 heating degree days heating degree days, which captures the two coldest of the five climate zones specified in the RECS data.
Overall, 52.0 percent of occupants report that single-family detached homes built in these climates are never too drafty. Once again, there is a substantial difference between newer and older homes. The "never drafty" share is roughly 37 percent for homes built before 1940, climbs to round 55 percent in the 1960s where it remains relatively stable until the 1990s. The "never drafty" share is about two-thirds for homes built from 1990 to 2004, and then jumps to 81.4 percent for homes built more recently than that.