I have had difficulty with standardized tests all of my life. I did well in other aspects of my studies. The written boards have been a challenge for me. I have read the basic science series, taken review courses, used provision series, used mass eye and ear board review- yet have not been successful. I have recently found ophthoquestions.com. Can you please recommend study strategies to pass the written boards? Responses would be greatly appreciated.
Obviously, we are very biased to the questions on OphthoQuestions. These questions have been repeatedly modified, augmented, and critiqued for the past 7 years. There is a wealth of information in our question bank along with years worth of comments by other users. These two components make it an invaluable resource. There is a reason that >90% of residents and fellows use our website to prepare for their board exams.
- "Review of Ophthalmology" (Neil Friedman) This is a great outline with all of the bullet points for all the high-yield topics on board exams.
- "Last Minute Optics" (Connie West) This is basically all you need to understand the essential Optics problems that are on the boards. Trust me, I'm terrible at Optics and somehow did stellar just using this book.
I would strongly discourage you from having too many textbooks from which to study. Doing so will overwhelm and lower your morale. Just do the questions here, read "Review of Ophthalmology", and work through the problems in "Last Minute Optics." I think that's the highest yield approach to passing your boards.
If someone agrees with the following ideas please share your comments and ideas on how to make it happen.
1- Can the WQE be offered twice a year?
This will facilitate people to get over this pain faster fresh out from residency (if 1st attempt) or if someone fails, they can retry in 6 months and avoid waiting another year.
2- Can the examination results be available in less than 2 weeks?
The current waiting period of EIGHT weeks is too long. TWO MONTHS of agony waiting. If you fail, then you have wasted 2 months of preparation for next attempt.
3- Can the period of 5-years to pass the boards start after one is done with fellowship?
Let me know your thoughts and ideas on how to propose this. I know ABO could come up with explanations for keeping this process like as it is. CHANGE will require effort and I am wondering how can we make the ABO know that there should be changes. Anyways. That is my opinion. Let me know yours.
Thank you for your advice. I am in the office/OR 4 days a week. So my approach this time was to study 8 hrs a day the 3 days that I am not working. I was going to use 3/4 or the time on ophthoquestions and 1/4 doing book review as you mentioned above on those segments that i identify as weak points from ophthoquestions. I have both books you mentioned so i will use those per your recommendation- if something is unclear i will seek out the information in other sources. Does that seem like a winning strategy? Any additional recommendations would be appreciated.
Also i have to do the MOC submission of practice improvement to be able to take the test again - any recommendations in that would be appreciated as well.
Sorry I added the Board certification process improvements comment. I realized was better to start a new thread (and I did). Regardless of that I do think some of my points apply to you. Obviously, you work hard and study hard but despite that you have failed the WQE. Its OK to fail but wouldn't you think the process could be better for all of us keeping the same standards? What I am proposing doesn't affect the knowledge tested but just the bureaucratic aspect of board certification.
Can't you just do the "Quarterly Questions" for the MOC portion? That's what I'm doing. The MOC quarterly question are very clinical and easy.
No. when you run out of time to take the boards - they have a new rule now. You need 3 letters of recommendation, 25 cme ( i have way more) , and you have to do a 3 month practice improvement project with a data analysis. No problem i will do all that.
How about the first part of my question regarding 3/4 time spent on ophtho questions and 1/4 time spent on books like the ones you mentioned. I feel my problem with these tests is that i am a poor standardized test taker rather than a knowledge issue. do you know of any people or agencies that help in this regard? kind of like evaluation and tutoring in the testing arena? advice is quite appreciated.
I think 2/3 time on OphthoQuestions and 1/3 of time on Friedman is a good approach. The same topics and question-types get tested over-and-over again. Many questions come in the form of "second order level of thinking." For example, they will show you a photograph. But instead of just asking you "What is the diagnosis?"...they will ask a 2nd-level-of-thinking question like "What is the preferred management of the entity depicted above?"
I don't know of any agencies that offer the type of personalized tutoring that you are seeking. Like I mentioned before, if you get to the stage where you need help passing the oral boards, then I may offer you my services if you want. I say "may" because it does take a lot of time!
thank you for your advice. i will work with diligence in the mentioned technique. i have now added quizlet as a add on to make flash cards off of the ophthoquestion answers that are pure memorization like which gene codes for juvenile glaucoma, etc. hopefully this will pan out. putting in 18 hrs per week of study time- just because of work/family constraints.
do you think if i use primarily ophtho questions and quizlet and last minute optics it will get me the pass?- how important is friedman?
Again no financial interest, but I do think Friedman is a nice outline of everything you need to know to pass the WQE. That's what I used 8 years ago, and it continues to be a popular option.
Do you know what % of residents use ophthoquestions for OKAP preparation?
In the range of 90% :-) Take care.
im preparing for part 2 frcophth and my current plan is to be consistent. do 10 - 30 questions (with review answers at the same time). copy and paste them onto word and then go through each topic with oxford handbook review.
When I was preparing for exams, I used ophthoquestions.com. It is a lot of information, and also it is described very accessible and clear. If I did not find something there, I searched various blogs on the Internet. For example: nyulangone.org/press-releases/factor-preserve-dna-integrity-in-bacteria-despite-assault-from-antibiotics. In such blogs, everything was described on a specific topic, as well as any alternatives. I hope I could help you with something.


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It was this show that inspired my post on tonal languages, but I couldn't neglect the main focus of the show: the dance. According to the hosts, many of the world's flips and tumbles were invented by ancient Chinese dancers, and that piqued my curiosity.
Here is a video that will give you a taste of what I saw, including a history lesson about why they perform around the world but not in China.


The analysis::ownership module implements a pointer analysis for inferring ownership information in code using raw pointers. The goal is to take code that has been automatically translated from C, and thus uses only raw pointers, and infer which of those raw pointers should be changed to safe &, &mut, or Box pointers. Pointers can appear in a number of places in the input program, but this analysis focuses mainly on function signatures and struct field types.
The goal of the analysis is to assign to each raw pointer type constructor a permission value, one of READ, WRITE, and MOVE, corresponding to the Rust pointer types &, &mut, and Box. These permissions form a trivial lattice, where READ < WRITE < MOVE. The READ permission indicates that the pointed-to data may be read, the WRITE permission indicates that the pointed-to data may be modified, and the MOVE permission indicates that the pointed-to data may be "moved", or consumed in a linear-typed fashion. The MOVE permission also includes the ability to free the pointed-to data, which amouns to "moving to nowhere".
The element_ptr function presents an interesting case for analysis, because it is used polymorphically: in get, we would like element_ptr to take a READ *mut Array and return a READ *mut i32, whereas in set we would like the same function to take and return WRITE pointers. In strictly const-correct C code, get and set would respectively call separate const and non-const variants of element_ptr, but a great deal of C code is not const-correct.
The function has two permission parameters, s0 and s1, which are the permissions of the argument and return pointers respectively. The signature includes the constraint s1 <= s0, indicating that the output pointer's permission is no higher than that of the input pointer. The function is called in get with permission arguments s0 = s1 = READ and in set with s0 = s1 = WRITE.
Rust does not support any analogue of the permission polymorphism used in this analysis. To make the results useful in actual Rust code, the analysis includes a monomorphization step, which chooses a set of concrete instantiations for each polymorphic function, and selects an instantiation to use for each call site. In the example above, element_ptr would have both READ, READ and WRITE, WRITE instantiations, with the first being used for the callsite in get and the second at the callsite in set.
The analysis first computes a polymorphic signature for each function, then monomorphizes to produce functions that can be handled by Rust's type system.
Both parts of the analysis operate on constraint sets, which contain constraints of the form p1 <= p2. The permissions p1, p2 can be concrete permissions (READ, WRITE, MOVE), permission variables, or expressions of the form min(p1, p2) denoting the less-permissive of two permission values.
Permission variables appear on pointer type constructors in the types of static variables and struct fields ("static" variables), in the types within function signatures ("sig"), in the types of temporaries and local variables ("local"), and at callsites for instantiating a permission polymorphic function ("inst"). Variables are marked with their origin, as variable from different locations are handled in different phases of the analysis.
The overall goal of the analysis is to produce assignments to static and sig variables that satisfy all the relevant constraints (or multiple assignments, when monomorphizing polymorphic functions).
The permission variables of each function's polymorphic signature are easily determined: for simplicity, the analysis introduces one variable for each occurrence of a pointer type constructor in the function signature. Cases that might otherwise involve a single variable appearing at multiple locations in the signature are instead handled by adding constraints between the variables. The main task of the first part of the analysis is to compute the constraints over the signature variables of each function. This part of the analysis must also build an assignment of permission values to all static vars, which are not involved in any sort of polymorphism.
Constraints arise mainly at assignments and function call expressions.
At assignments, the main constraint is that, if the assigned value has a pointer type, the permission on the LHS pointer type must be no greater than the permission on the RHS pointer type (lhs <= rhs). In other words, an assignment of a pointer may downgrade the permission value of that pointer, but may never upgrade it. In non-pointer types, and in the pointed-to type of an outermost pointer type, all permission values occurring in the two types must be equal (lhs <= rhs and rhs <= lhs).
Assignments also introduce two additional constraints, both relating to path permissions. The path permission for an expression is the minimum of the permission values on all pointers dereferenced in the expression. For example, in *(*x).f, the path permission is the minimum of the permission on the local variable x and the permission on the struct field f. The calculation of path permissions reflects the transitive nature of access restrictions in Rust: for example, if a struct field x.f has type &mut T, but x is an immutable reference (&S), then only immutable access is allowed to *x.f.
The two additional constraints introduced by assigments are (1) the path permission of the LHS must be no lower than WRITE, and (2) the path permission of the RHS must be no lower than the permission of the LHS pointer type. Constraint (1) prevents writing through a READ pointer, or through any path containing a READ pointer. Constraint (2) prevents assigning a WRITE pointer accessed through a READ path (or a MOVE pointer accessed through a WRITE or READ path) to a WRITE pointer variable, which would allow bypassing the READ restriction.
Function calls require additional work. At each call site, the analysis copies in the callee's constraints, substituting a fresh "instantiation" ("inst") variable for each variable in the callee's signature. It then links the new inst variables to the surrounding locals by processing a "pseudo-assignment" from each argument expression to the corresponding formal parameter type in the substituted signature, and from the return type to the lvalue expression where the result is to be stored. The effect is to allow the analysis to "reason through" the function call, relating the (local) return value to the caller's argument expressions. Copying the constraints instead of relying on a concrete instantiation permits precise reasoning about polymorphic functions that call other polymorphic functions.
The final step for each function is to simplify the constraint set by eliminating "local", "inst", and "static" permission variables. Local variables have no connection to types outside the current function, and can be simplified away without consequence. Eliminating static and instantiation variables requires fixed-point iteration, which is described below. The result of the simplification is a set of constraints over only the function's sig variables, which is suitable for use as the constraint portion of the function signature.
Since each function's signature depends on the signatures of its callees, and functions may be recursive, a fixed-point iteration step is required to compute the final constraint set for each function. To simplify the implementation, the polymorphic signature construction part of the analysis is split into two phases. The intraprocedural phase visits every function once and generates constraints for that function, but doesn't copy in constraints from callees, which may not have been processed yet. This phase records details of each call site for later use. The intraprocedural phase eliminates local variables at the end of each function, but it does not have enough information to safely eliminate static and inst variables. The interprocedural phase updates each function in turn, substituting in callees' sig constraints and simplifying away static and inst variables to produce a new, more accurate set of sig constraints for the current function, and iterates until it reaches a fixed point. The interprocedural phase also computes an assignment of concrete permission values to static variables, during the process of removing static variables from functions' constraint sets.
The first part of the analysis infers a permission polymorphic signature for each function, but Rust does not support this form of polymorphism. To make the analysis results applicable to actual Rust code, the analysis must provide enough information to allow monomorphizing functions - that is, producing multiple copies of each function with different concrete instantiations of the permission variables.
The only output variable is s1, which appears in the return type. The monomorphization step will try each assignment to s1 that is allowed by the constraints. Since the only constraint is s1 <= s0, READ, WRITE, and MOVE are all valid. For each of these, it finds the least restrictive assignment to s0 that is compatible with the assignment to s0. For example, when s1 = MOVE, only s0 = MOVE is valid, so the analysis records MOVE, MOVE as a monomorphization for the element_ptr function. When s1 = WRITE, both s0 = MOVE and s0 = WRITE satisfy the constraints, but s0 = WRITE is less restrictive - it allows calling the function with both MOVE and WRITE pointers, while setting s0 = MOVE allows only MOVE pointers. So the analysis records arguments WRITE, WRITE as another monomorphization, and by similar logic records READ, READ as the final one.
For pointer permissions to line up properly, a monomorphic variant of f specialized to READ, READ will need to call a variant of g also specialized to READ, READ, and a variant of f specialized to WRITE, WRITE will need to call a WRITE, WRITE variant of g.
To infer this information, the analysis separately considers each monomorphic signature of each function. It performs a backtracking search to select, for each callsite in the function, a monomorphic signature of the callee, such that all of the calling function's constraints are satisfied, including constraints setting the caller's sig variables equal to the concrete permissions in the monomorphic signature. The table of callee monomorphization selections is included in the analysis results so that callsites can be updated appropriately when splitting functions for monomorphization.
The ownership analysis supports annotations to specify the permission types of functions and struct fields. These annotations serve two purposes. First, the user can annotate functions to provide custom signatures for functions on which the analysis produces inaccurate results. Signatures provided this way will be propagated throughout the analysis, so manually correcting a single wrongly-inferred function can fix the inference results for its callers as well. Second, the ownership system provides an ownership_annotate command that adds annotations to functions reflecting their inferred signatures. The user can then read the generated annotations to check the analysis results, and optionally edit them to improve precision, before proceeding with further code transformations.
There are four annotation types currently supported by the ownership system.
Here the outermost pointer will be given permission READ, the pointer to u8 will be given permission WRITE, and the pointer to u16 will be given permission MOVE.
#[ownership_mono(<suffix>, <perms>)] supplies a monomorphic signature to be used for the annotated function. The suffix argument is a quoted string, which (if non-empty) will be used when splitting polymorphic functions into monomorphic variants to construct a name for the monomorphized copy of the function. The perms argument is a comma-separated list of concrete permission tokens, giving the permissions to be used in the function signature in this monomorphization.
The ownership_mono annotation can appear multiple times on a single function to provide multiple monomorphic signatures. However, if it appears at all, monomorphization inference will be completely overriden for the annotated function, and only the provided signatures will be used in callee argument inference and later transformations.
This function will have two monomorphic variants, one where both pointers' permission values are WRITE and one where both are READ. When the ownership_split_variants command splits the function into its monomorphic variants, the WRITE variant will be named first_mut and the READ variant will keep the original name first.
#[ownership_variant_of(<name>)] is used to combine source-level functions into variant groups. See the section on variant groups for details.
The "variant group" mechanism allows combining several source-level functions into a single logical function for purposes of the analysis. This is useful for combining a function that was previously split into monomorphic variants back into a single logical function. This allows for a sort of "modular refactoring", in which the user focuses on one module at a time, analyzing, annotating, and splitting variants in only that module before moving on to another.
Note that, because there is still only one variant of f, the transformation must choose a single g variant for f to call. In this case, it chose the g_mut variant.
Later, the user works on f. If g and g_mut are treated as separate functions, then there are two possibilities. First, if the constraints on g_mut are set up (or inferred) to require WRITE permission for arr, then only a WRITE variant of f will be generated. Or second, if the constraints are relaxed, then f may get both READ and WRITE variants, but both will (wrongly) call g_mut.
The ownership_split_variants automatically annotates the split functions so they will be combined into a variant group during further analysis. Variant groups can also be constructed manually using the #[ownership_variant_of(<name>)] annotation, where name is an arbitrary quoted string. All source-level functions bearing an ownership_variant_of annotation with the same name will form a single variant group, which will be treated as a single function throughout the analysis. However, signature inference for the variants themselves is not well supported. Thus, each variant must have an ownership_mono annotation, and exactly one function in each variant group must also have an ownership_constraints annotation. Together, these provide enough information that inference is not required. Note that unlike non-variant functions, variants may not have multiple ownership_mono annotations, as each variant is expected to correspond to a single monomorphization of the original function.
The analysis as implemented includes a small adjustment (the "collection hack") to let it infer the correct signature for such methods.


I've been teaching yoga for a long time. Almost two decades.
I've been practicing yoga an even longer time. I started before the era of $100, even $200, yoga pants. I attended my first yoga classes wearing T-shirts and sweatpants. I remember buying my first "yoga tank top". It had a shelf bra, and Chinese calligraphy splashed across its maroon chest. Wearing it made me feel like a legit yogi.
I was in my twenties; and young and beautiful in that way that all young people are beautiful. I had a complicated relationship with my body; in that way that most women have complicated relationships with their body.
Through yoga I learned that my body contained the detritus of stars, that every cell was sentient and brimming with intelligence. My yoga practice taught me that my body had value other that the way it looked; it could be strong and capable; soft and vulnerable.
I learned to stand on my head, and to do the elusive Crow Pose—after falling face-first into the precarious tower of pillows literally hundreds of times. Sticking those poses that had eluded me for so long felt great!
Until I bumped against the limits of my physical proficiency which, as I later learned on Instagram, turned out to be a pretty low bar. Also, pushing to achieve ever more advanced poses hurt my body.
Eventually I realized that measuring my worth on the yardstick of fancy yoga poses I could—and more often could not—accomplish was also a fairly limiting benchmark.
I'm not going to lie and say that today my relationship with my body today is perfectly uncomplicated. Nope. Like every little girl who loved fairytales about beautiful princesses, I received powerful messaging—subliminal and overt—reinforcing society's memorandum that a women's value is her physical appearance. Full stop.
Loving my body is a practice. In the same way that I practice unaggressive yoga poses today, I practice becoming more proficient at loving myself. Some days are better than others.
At Stamford Yoga we're dedicated to Body Positivity. That means we're emphatic that your body—yes, yours—is sacred. At every size. In every shape. You do not have to be skinny or acrobatic to be worthy of love, or to be welcome in this studio. You do not need $100 yoga pants (but, hey—if they make you feel good then enjoy them and god bless).
None of our instructors are going to sit at the front of the room patting invisible tummies, saying, "I had a second helping at dinner yesterday so today we're doing ab work and detoxifying poses."
Want to enjoy simple forms of movement? Great! Want to play with challenging poses? Great!
We celebrate you. We celebrate diversity, and the diversity and evolutions of your choices. We're committed to feeling more comfortable in the skin we're in, and to championing you to do the same.
We practice yoga at StamYo because we want to be strong and healthy. We're here because our bodies (and yours) were made for movement. We're here to marvel in the miracle of our human bodies, to find relief from the stresses of modern life, and because we longed for a community of like-minded people.
Are you one of those people? Join us! Don't wait for some unknowable date in the future when you'll look like a yoga person. (Whatever that would mean.) It may never come and it would be a shame to miss out on enjoying your body while you're actually living in it.
If you want to know what a yoga person looks like, just look in the mirror.


text:
Jenny McCarthy now on the Cubs bandwagon
By Chris Kuc
Jenny McCarthy poses in front of the Wrigley Field marquee before Game 3 of the World Series on Oct. o28, 2016. (Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images for SiriusXM)
She's from the south suburbs, but actress Jenny McCarthy is all in on the Cubs these days.
The Evergreen Park native and Mother McAuley High School alumnus was on the field with her sister, Lynette, dancing to music while the Cubs took batting practice before Game 3 of the World Series on Friday night.
Jenny McCarthy hasn't been shy of her fandom for the White Sox, but she was wearing a white Cubs jersey Friday and gushed about the team playing in its first World Series since 1945.
"I could not be more proud," said McCarthy, who was broadcasting her "Jenny McCarthy Show" SiriusXM radio program from Wrigley Field. "I mean, it's been a long time — 71 years since the last time they were here. Woo!"
And as far as that whole White Sox flirtation?
"I'm a Cubs fan," she said. "The (Sox are) a solid team, but if you are from Chicago and you are not here supporting the Cubs, shame on you is what I say.
"To see these 90-year-olds here and them thinking, 'Oh, my God, I'm actually going to possibly be here for the Cubs to win,' that makes me go, 'Wow!'"
Latest Chicago Cubs
What moves have the Cubs and White Sox made this offseason? And what about their competition? Keeping tabs on the AL and NL Central.
With Jose Quintana leaving, 4 of the 5 pitchers who entered last spring in the Chicago Cubs rotation are now gone
Column: ESPN makes clear how it views 'Sunday Night Baseball' by bringing back Alex Rodriguez and Matt Vasgersian. Just be grateful for the clarity.

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text:
Introduction to the Raspberry Pi GPIO and Physical Computing
Contributors: asassy
GPIO Pins Overview
Okay, so we've hooked up the necessary hardware to the Raspberry Pi, and you're itching to start using it as a general-purpose PC for web surfing and Youtube watching and looking at cat memes. But where the Pi really shines is with its 40-pin GPIO (General Purpose Input & Output). The GPIO enables you to switch devices on and off (output) or receive data from sensors and switches (input). What this really means is that you can connect the Raspberry Pi to everything from a smart mirror to a weather station, to an asset tracking robot that displays its coordinates on a web server. Let's take a deeper dive into what's possible with the GPIO header! We can reference the GPIO Pinout Diagram provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation below as a visual guide for understanding the pins:
Power Pins
Let's start with the power pins, which include both 3.3V and 5V. These pins transmit power as output to power attached peripherals.
And if we're going to be rigging up electrical circuits here with power, then we'll need a ground. You'll find plenty of grounds within the pins as well.
Standard GPIO Pins
Take out the power and ground pins, and you'll be left with the pins that are dedicated to sending output and receiving input. All of these can be used for straightforward input/output tasks!
Chatty Cathy Pins
Some of the standard GPIO pins are used for communication purposes. Here's a quick overview of these communication protocols!
SPI pins – The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a communication protocol used to transfer data between micro-computers like the Raspberry Pi and peripheral devices. The MISO pin receives data, and the MOSI pin sends data from the Raspberry Pi. Furthermore, the serial clock pin sends pulses at a regular frequency between the Raspberry Pi and the SPI device at the same speed in which the devices to transfer data to each other.
UART pins – UART stands for universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter, which is a physical circuit designed to send and recieve data.
PWM pins – PWM means "pulse width modulation," which is a communication protocol best used with stuff that moves and lights up: motors, LEDs, and so on.
I2C pins – I2C is short for inter-integrated circuit (two "inters" or I"squared"C). It works similarly to SPI, but it doesn't force you to use nearly so many pins.
Identifying Pins
There are two ways to identify GPIO pins...the first is by its physical position on the board, or its BOARD name. It also has a Broadcom SOC channel (BCM) name. By opening the terminal and running pinout as a command, it will return a map of the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins and their names based on the Broadcom chip on board.
Map for the Raspberry Pi 4 based on the pinout command.
If you really want to get deep into the Raspberry Pi GPIO pinout, there is an incredibly thorough Raspberry Pi GPIO pinout guide that is interactive and steps through each type of pin on-board. This general overview outlined above should be enough to get us started on our project though!
Operating System Setup
Hardware Overview and Hookup
Pages Introduction Hardware Overview and Hookup GPIO Pins Overview Operating System Setup Python Overview and Reading in Sensor Data


text:
Q: Magento 2 does not load local language settings I am having issues with the local settings for magento 2.2.4. Suddenly my locale settings are not applied anymore. For example I have a store with the dutch language, the langague files are installed, the locale settings are set to dutch and I have done the composer update, setup upgrade, static files, varnish cache clean, normal cache etc etc. But nothing helps. It always stays in english. Very annoying. Anybody?
and when I deploy my static files he only deploys en_US. Don't think that's correct

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In a new study from Dr. Andrew Nicholson (left) and Dr. Ruth Lanius (right), brain imaging is shown to be a promising tool for early diagnosis of psychiatric illness.
Brains scans and machine learning were combined to classify PTSD with 92 per cent accuracy.
Objective biomarkers hold promise for transforming psychiatric medicine.


text:
Conductors are "bullies" now!!
Post by Belle » Sat May 12, 2018 5:43 pm
I prefer "dictators" or "tyrants"!!!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/opin ... llies.html
Re: Conductors are "bullies" now!!
Post by Lance » Sun May 13, 2018 12:36 am
Wow. What a piece of writing! It certainly does make one think. Szell was called a tyrant (and worse), as was Toscanini, among others. Furtwangler didn't seem to be referred to that way; but look what ALL of them attained with their orchestras. I always think it is a matter of approach, respect, and encouragement to get the best from people. Maybe that's considered passé these days.
Post by barney » Sun May 13, 2018 3:08 am
Fascinating article. But I don't believe conductors can behave as Toscanini or Szell did any more. By and large relations between musicians and conductor have become more collaborative, though some still wield strong authority (I've heard Thielemann is one). I don't mind authority, but abuse is a different matter.
Post by lennygoran » Sun May 13, 2018 6:24 am
barney wrote: ↑
Barney this article made me think more about Trump and his supporters than about conductors although the recent harrassment cases involving Levine and Dutoit also come to mind. Regards, Len
Post by John F » Sun May 13, 2018 7:13 am
Brooks is a sociologist and the president of the American Enterprise Institute. He does have a little bit of experience as an orchestral player, three years in Barcelona 25 years ago. But compared with the behavior of Toscanini, Reiner, and others not so long ago, his one example involving a guest conductor is hardly enough to support his conclusion. Musicians' unions now protect players' jobs and provide a medium for complaints by the players; unless Catalonian musicians have no such protection, and the player who spoke up was not just dismissed from the rehearsal but was fired, as used to happen in the bad old days, his one example doesn't amount to much.
Conductors are held responsible by the public and critics not only for the quality of their interpretations but for the playing of the orchestras they conduct. With good reason: top conductors not only can get orchestras to play better than usual for them but to take on a sound identifiable as the conductor's. (Stokowski!) This puts the conductor under a lot of pressure, and if an orchestra can't or won't work him to play music his way, I should think he is likely to let them know it, and may not be gentle about it. Hardly worth a New York Times op-ed.
Post by maestrob » Sun May 13, 2018 11:04 am
Great conducting these days is a dying art. It takes energy and enthusiasm to bring out the best in an orchestra, and often these are mistaken for negative energy. Bernstein was often excoriated privately by his NY players, yet look at the results he produced consistently. Nowadays we have too many polite conductors, and they produce polite read-throughs (even on recordings) that disappoint. Enthusiasm is the key to musical enjoyment, and it's lacking in so many "paint-by-the-numbers" interpretations I'm hearing.
Power is corrupting. Absolute power is absolutely corrupting. Just take a long look at the MET. Then look at the consistently amazing performances Levine was able to produce, and wonder again.
Post by Ricordanza » Sun May 13, 2018 11:25 am
Just some more detail from Arthur Brooks' bio on the AEI website:
Professor of French Horn, Harid Conservatory of Music, Lynn University, 1992–95
French Hornist, City Orchestra of Barcelona, 1989–92
French Hornist, Annapolis Brass Quintet, 1983–89
I agree with those who have said that Brooks' generalization about conductors does not fit the music scene in the United States these days. For example, from what I've heard (and observed in one open rehearsal), the Philadelphia Orchestra's Yannick is no bully, although I am sure he is demanding in order to get the results he wants.
Totally agree, conductors today can never treat orchestral members like they did in the Toscanini era given union protection. Among the celebrated conductors of the past, I never hear anything about Pierre Monteux promoting these tyrant/dictatorial/bully attitudes and he certainly was one of the greats. Nor did I hear about Mitropoulos in this manner. Stokowski could be fanatical about his "sound" at times, but not usually in the manner of a Szell or Toscanini.
Post by Heck148 » Sun May 13, 2018 12:14 pm
Lance wrote: ↑
Monteux and Bruno Walter got great results without being tyrannical sobs - they were polite, courteous to their musicians...However, they knew exactly what they wanted, and how to get it...the outstanding musicianship was persuasive...Bud Herseth [long-time principal Trumpet of CSO] said that Monteux was his favorite conductor, and that of many other orchestra members...He said that the musicians might take advantage of his good nature in rehearsals, but when it came show time, everybody was putting out 100%...Mitropoulos was nice, probably too nice...the NYPO took advantage of him, tho they loved him as their conductor...
Reiner and Szell were notorious tyrants - and they were bullies as well - using their position of authority to belittle or abuse their underlings...they had the power, and they knew how to use it...
With these conductors, I think a parallel can be made between conductors and Major league coaches of sports teams....there have certainly been some tyrants in that arena - Bill Belichick and Vince Lombardi being but two examples...these are/were great coaches, who had tremendously successful records...absolutely tyrannical and demanding....Reiner and Szell are remarkably similar...the success is undeniable, the methods often brutal...but musicians, like athletes, like to play on "the winning team", so they will tolerate the abuse and tyranny from the head honcho, because the results achieved are superb...
Post by John F » Sun May 13, 2018 12:19 pm
With Mitropoulos it was the other way around - the players of the New York Philharmonic bullied him mercilessly, and he never retaliated. I never heard that "they loved him as their conductor," their behavior sometimes rose to contempt. But when conducting in Europe, especially Vienna, the musicians were evidently on his side.
Post by Heck148 » Sun May 13, 2018 5:49 pm
John F wrote: ↑
I can't speak for all of the NYPO musicians, but I studied with Bill Polisi, the principal bassoonist in those years; he loved Mitropoulos, loved playing for him, and said that many of his colleagues felt the same way...it's true that they got away with murder, and Mitropoulos just wasn't the personality type to bring them back in line.
Post by Belle » Sun May 13, 2018 5:52 pm
I remember Brigitte Fassbaender saying of Carlos Kleiber ("Traces to Nowhere").."Carlos Kleiber was a dictator through and through, but very human with it".
A strong personality is a pre-requisite for a successful conductor...you have to have it if you're going to get in front of 80 Heifetz/virtuoso wannabes, and tell them that they have to play the music the way YOU want it...
Strong personalities of course, can be expressed in many different ways. I've played under some conductors who were quite talented musically - good ear, clear sense of rhythm, good overall concept of what they wanted to do - but they were wimpy personalities..They simply couldn't control what was going on...they had no ability to assert their will over the collective ensemble.
Heck148 wrote: ↑
I remember reading about Robert Schumann's disastrous forays into conducting in Dusseldorf..."they don't seem to be able to play in time"!!! The man had 'issues', as we know, and leadership was a quality he definitely lacked.
Post by barney » Sun May 13, 2018 6:21 pm
True, but the better the orchestra the more they should respond to the musical ability of a fine conductor. Or is that naive? How did the NYPO make Mitropoulos' life a misery?
Any conductor needs a strong personality - the better the orchestra, the more the need for both musical ability and strength of personality. professional musicians have very strong convictions, they know how they want to play, and they do not suffer fools. They'll do all sorts of stuff to expose a phony - play wrong notes on rehearsal, transpose section parts just to see if the conductor notices...if a conductor comes in, knows what he/she is doing, makes their wishes known clearly, gets it to work, corrects what is wrong, musicians will develop a respect for that conductor..it's not easy - orchestras will challenge a conductor. the musicians really don't need to "like" the conductor - they need to respect him/her and to play their very best for them.
Post by Heck148 » Mon May 14, 2018 11:06 am
maestrob wrote: ↑
Maestro, I think you may be right - there is so much jet-setting, conduct-in-as-many-venues-as-possible mode now among conductors - they just aren't putting in the amount of time in rehearsal and concert that music directors of the past did...There are certainly some talented people around, who are giving fine performances and recordings, but not alot of individuality, chance-taking...is conducting all merging into a generally homogeneous "Bb" reality, like orchestral playing seems to be??
Post by maestrob » Mon May 14, 2018 11:09 am
Exactly right!
Post by barney » Tue May 15, 2018 9:25 pm
Yes, I get that, of course. It might be idealistic of me, but I feel that if a conductor lacks a driving personality but has all the other qualities - clear communication, sense of shape and line, sensitive interpretation etc - professional musicians should cut him or her some slack.
I suppose it's the same as many fields, including my own, that a certain ego and confidence is needed to progress far. Being shy and humble, as I am, obviously stopped me editing the New York Times!
Post by Heck148 » Sat May 19, 2018 8:32 am
It really doesn't work that way...musicians respect a conductor who has clear idea of what is to be achieved, can impress his/her ideas on the orchestra in a convincing fashion, and can rehearse efficiently. A weak, wimpy personality doesn't cut it...
Post by John F » Sat May 19, 2018 9:23 am
Some orchestras, maybe many, test their conductors' competence by making deliberate mistakes during rehearsals to see if the conductor can detect and correct them. If not, then the orchestra doesn't think much of him. To me this is unprofessional, orchestral players shouldn't make mistakes deliberately (or otherwise), but there it is.
Richard Horowitz, long-time timpanist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, told me once about rehearsals for "Elektra" in the early 1950s. Fritz Reiner was the conductor, and some of the players tested him in this way - and Reiner failed the test; he let the mistakes pass. The orchestration of "Elektra" is so thick, with many lines in the huge orchestration not really meant to be heard (Strauss said this of his own orchestration though not necessarily of "Elektra") that perhaps it wasn't a fair test. But Reiner being the kind of person he was, the orchestra probably felt he was asking for it.
On the other hand there have been conductors who caught and corrected mistakes printed in the players' parts which had been played unwittingly for years. Toscanini did so when rehearsing "Götterdämmerung" at the Met before World War I, and of course this won the players' respect.
Post by Heck148 » Sun May 20, 2018 10:15 am
Fudging notes in "Elektra" is not particularly brazen, or brave on the part of the musicians - the texture is very thick, bi-tonal, heavily chromatic and dissonant...one could play a wrong note here and there and Strauss himself would probably fail to pick it out...same with large works by Schoenberg, Berg or Varese - it's doubtful the composer would notice... a wrong note [unless in a prominent solo or exposed passage] would probably get by undetected....now, playing a wrong note in say, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, even Liszt or Wagner would/should be quickly detected.
In school, we played a trick on this one graduate conducting student, a South American guy who was pretty arrogant and condescending....Dvorak New World mvt II - opening chorale, we played it down a half-step...naturally, the strings sounded completely off when they entered...we re-started, again, total harmonic disaster....the conductor knew something was wrong, but didn't get it...the concertmistress is the one who got it - glared at the back rows - "WTH are you doing??!!"
Of course, we'd never have tried that with the regular faculty conductors [Walter] Hendl, Willis Page or [Laszlo] Halasz.
Post by John F » Sun May 20, 2018 11:14 am
I'm not saying that deliberately playing wrong notes to test the conductor is brave, but I would say it's pretty brazen. And there are those, such as Pierre Boulez, who have heard wrong notes in the most complex and dissonant modern scores, and corrected them. That's why the New York Philharmonic players called him the French Correction.
It may not be reasonable to blame Reiner for not hearing the heckelphone playing wrong notes in the middle of the full Strauss orchestra playing fortissimo, but given the kind of tyrant he was, I'd say he was fair game. Since Toscanini almost never conducted that kind of music, except when he did "Salome" at La Scala before World War I, it would have been harder to catch him out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the New York Philharmonic tried it. They're the orchestra whose first oboe Bruno Labate scolded Otto Klemperer, "Mista Klemps, you talka too much."
Depends upon what instrument, of course...a 2nd clarinet note in the middle of Berg "3 Pieces" fortissimo passage is not likely to be audible, let alone corrected...but you're right, audible mistakes will be heard and corrected - supposedly Solti did this in Schoenberg's "Moses and Aaron" -correcting an error in the 2nd flute part where the texture is quite thick...
There's a story about Richard Strauss - I heard from Willem Valkenier, former principal horn with BSO, who performed at the premiere of several of R. Strauss's later operas - the English horn player remained in the pit after end of rehearsal, feverishly working out some awkward not quite identifiable arpeggio passage, which was buried in a whole sweep of notes for woodwinds and strings....over and over he practiced it...Strauss heard the poor guy struggling with the awkward passage - came over to him - told him that <he needn't worry so much about the exact pitches in that particular part, it was part of a whole sweep of sound that was desired, let's not be too obsessed with each note>> or something to that effect...of course, that's Strauss, not Schoenberg, who was pretty exact regarding the pitches he wanted played.
Post by barney » Mon May 21, 2018 6:14 pm
It may be the child in me, but I find that story very funny. Thanks for sharing it.
Another lovely story. When, roughly, did that happen John? I never thought of Klemperer as a talker - both his person and his performances seemed carved from granite. Permanently serious face.
Post by John F » Tue May 22, 2018 9:34 am
Klemperer guest-conducted the New York Philharmonic in the 1934-5 and 1935-6 seasons in repertoire ranging from Bach to Berg's "Lulu" symphony. More specific than that I can't get.
An imposing Bruckner 9th from October 1934 was broadcast and has been recorded; naturally, it's on YouTube, in pretty awful sound. The first movement is 4 minutes shorter than OK's EMI recording with the New Philharmonia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9PVmLN-Wn4
This was Toscanini's NY Phil, then at its peak. I don't suppose Labate talked back to the maestro like that.
Post by Heck148 » Wed May 23, 2018 10:36 pm
John F wrote: They're the orchestra whose first oboe Bruno Labate scolded Otto Klemperer, "Mista Klemps, you talka too much."
That is a very famous story - in his earlier years Klemperer was known as quite a talker. What adds to the humor is the contrast in physical stature of each man - Klemperer was a giant, very tall and austere, Labate was tiny, they said when he sat in his chair, he was the same height as when he was standing!! OK could probably have swallowed him in one gulp.....
LOL!! No way!!
The NYPO did give Rodzinski a hard time tho - He was conducting Mahler's 1st Symphony - sometime in the 30s - rehearsal was not going well, and Rodzinski, he of the Vesuvian temper, was getting increasingly frustrated..... he says quite sarcastically <<Well, my esteemed friends, what might we do to improve the Mahler>>
from the back row - Harry Glantz [principal trumpet]: "Get Bruno Walter!!"
RebLem
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA 87112, 2 blocks west of the Breaking Bad carwash.
Contact RebLem
Post by RebLem » Wed May 23, 2018 10:53 pm
I never thought of Klemperer as a talker - both his person and his performances seemed carved from granite. Permanently serious face.
Per Wikipedia, "...after completing the 1939 Los Angeles Philharmonic summer season at the Hollywood Bowl, Klemperer was visiting Boston and was diagnosed with a brain tumor; the subsequent brain surgery to remove "a tumour the size of a small orange" left him partially paralyzed."
That had a lot to do with why he had such a stony face. Controversy persists as to whether the operation was even necessary. Some believe Klemperer was misdiagnosed and that he never had a tumor at all.
Don't drink and drive. You might spill it.--J. Eugene Baker, aka my late father
"We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."--Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S. Carolina.
"Racism is America's Original Sin."--Francis Cardinal George, former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago.
Post by maestrob » Thu May 24, 2018 9:42 am
Post by barney » Thu May 24, 2018 4:19 pm
RebLem wrote: ↑
I knew he had been paralysed. He conducted at the end from a wheelchair, though not a high-tech version like Levine's. My aunt sang in the chorus in a Mass in B Minor with OK and the Philharmonia in the late 1950s - a great privilege (the aunt who tripped over Artur Rubinstein's feet at a concert).


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If they have the same multi then yeah it shouldn't make much of a difference at all.
I knew the e5450 was a 1333mhz cpu and the q6600 was a 1066, But if the multi is the same than they will reach the same speeds at the same fsb.
for some reason i assumed they both had the same stock speed which would have meant the q6600 had a higher multi. But for overclocking they are the same then.
the only issue i ever had overclocking a q6600 was the motherboard hitting a fsb wall.
Any way id bring the fsb down a bit on the board as said above. 433 444 or 450 its probably going to help stability a lot.
Good info there in my case im trying to find the max fsb speed before it falls on it face as i havent found it yet as i know the 4x 2gb will put a strain on the nb but i know the ram can go higher as i have tested it before i only ever seen a few e5450 overclocked between 4ghz to 4.5ghz range most on gigabyte board and a good few on asus p5q series even a video on youtube with 4.2ghz but no bios settings to compare so theres goes the guessing game.
Try different Strap setting or Transaction Booster.
Higher NB Voltage should help as well.
Highest I went on P45 with 8GB DDR2 was 512MHz FSB.
PS. That was on X3370.


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text:
DRAWING RACE
Greg Ruth
This is an article that has been a long time brewing. It's a spicy subject these days, particularly so delivered by someone like myself, but it also is an important topic to tackle for we who illustrate the covers, posters editorial articles and on in a growing and increasingly diverse landscape. This is a terrific change, and long overdue, but celebrating and honoring the now wider palette of types of people we can paint and draw means leaping outside of our usual knowledge of anatomy, heritage dress and character, and risking failure at doing it too. This isn't about discussing any political issues or social diversity in our thing, nor who has the right to do what when and where, this is merely to sit down and risk the needed myopia of the lesson and dig into what I personally have found to help me in my work as I have seen the range of racial characters explosively widen over the last fifteen or so years.
The first basic practical thing is to recognize where you come from, and its assumptions on how we depict others. We all of us naturally reflect our own selves in the work we create. It's just the absent minded vanity of any artist, that everyone else calls one's own "style". But when we get hired to create say, a cover for a book, this idle vanity needs to sit down. We have a task to complete and everything should be trained towards that resolution itself- anything not having to do with it is noise. We are artists here tasked with a job and we do our job regardless of our habits. A Vulcan seamstress, a shoe manufacturer from Venus, or an ancient Viking, an American slave, a migrant workers from El Salvador, a Zulu warrior or Maori sea captain… these all demand of us an ability o leap from our traditional understandings of form trappings and style to learn and absorb and reflect their own native selves to best express the work we are tasked with doing. The cornerstone of this after the initial principle is research. These are tips that I employ, which is to say not all the possible tools nor the best ones for you. These are merely mine that I utilize in my work with the hopes they help.
Look upon the subject as an alien to this world might.
That's it, really. It's the easiest first thing to do and doing it successfully means alienating yourself from your normal way of drawing a human figure, or portrait. It's a mental wiping of the chalkboard to leave open the new info you need to do your job, and that info comes from RESEARCH. If I'm tasked with drawing an ancient Sumerian priest, then I pick up the mantle of doing so by finding out through research, whatever I can about the subject as if I've never heard tell of them before. Oddly it can be even trickier when the subject is of your own heritage or tribal persuasion… being able to see the self clearly and coldly is harder than meeting a stranger with the same toolkit. It's much easier to make poor assumptions in this regard, so sometimes being from a different background can actually provide a unique asset to the situation. Use it.
If you cannot do any o this, my advice is to pass on the job and make room for someone who might be better suited. Better to avoid a likely crash that will cost your publisher, author and yourself than ignore red lights and warning signs going in. I'm a big fan of taking risks and getting outside the comfort zone, and personally I find this kind of work especially appealing for this reason alone- so I'm not discouraging the impulse to reach beyond here. Just be mindful of your own limits and swimming in waters over-deep if ever possible. I'm approached by many young artists feeling uncertain about these kinds of jobs and while nervousness is potentially an asset to force you forward, if it's an indication of something else as a warning, pay attention to that. But just make sure you are not letting in the outside noise of external social issues or politics buzz in your brain to distraction or worrying after who or how the work you've ben asked to do is received. As Ray Bradbury always deftly warned when writing- when this kind of stuff creeps into your head while working, get up, make coffee or go for a walk. Only come back when you're clear of mind so you can make yourself available to the job you have. Being an alien is a tool that can help you to this needed apex. The details matter and can be everything, and in a world where we all seem to hunt for any purchase to hang a fountain of negativity, give this impulse no purchase by making sure you've got all the small bits singing in harmony with the whole. If it works, then you win.
Most of my experience with this kind f thing, in contributing to a wider world of more diverse and racially rich cover and illustration jobs is supported by tons of research before the principle work not he job is begun. If you get a job to do a book cover based on a Mongolian period fantasy story, get out your research chops and get thee digging. The more the merrier. Even if it's a fantasy or sci-fi fi thing and exactitude of material from belt styles, pattern or clothing, hair… may be flexible depending upon the subject. Its always better to over research than not, and you'll find through the act of research that you will become inspired by new ways to attack the project. Make sure your sources of research are legit though, don't just dash over to wikipedia and run back feeling armed and ready. Do actual research and largely since we're talking about art making, visual research.
As with any illustration it's always keen to remember, this is never about you, or your politics or your personal experiences: you are here to fulfill a job and anything that isn't about doing that isn't necessarily helpful to that goal. Positive information and experience can, but should be checked at the door upon entry just to be safe. But anyone can and should be able to as an artist depict and draw anyone else in art. I'm not speaking of right or permission but of the mere mechanical ability here- it comes from understanding and learning, of checking the anatomy of how a Rwandan Tutsi woman's facial structure and skin tones differ wildly at times from a Rwandan Hutu woman. It helps one see the way a Mongolian differs from a Korean, or Vietnamese character, not just in dress and stylings but also in how they hold themselves, how they stand, greet, interact and basically and fundamentally ARE. The side effect of this kind of deep dive is that all of this is exactly the kind of thing that, if tasked say of drawing a portrait of a Sudanese albino woman, you can not only draft and honest picture of this form, you can express her character and make the piece you create more interactive and rewarding for the viewer.
The differences between peoples even within the arbitrary borders of countries, sometimes even within regional cutouts, can be vast and girded by long deep histories. Dig in and dive deep as much as you can into it. It will simply make you better at doing what you are asked to do and in the end, the goal is the piece succeeding in telling the story of the book your covering, not your own personality of heritage as the one who painted it. Luckily and in particularly to historical work, unless this is a story you yourself have written as was the case with INDEH that I wrote and drew with Ethan Hawke, you will get a brief from the your AD/editor/author. These briefs can sometimes be a little constraining and limiting but they can also be an essential wellspring of support in your adventures into new racial territory. I've done more than a dozen different cover pieces for Nnedi Okorafor's books and for each one her personal and deftly crafted briefs are crutches I lean on heavily. Her visual landscape means she already can see these women she writes in service of, and can offer all the essential details, tattooing, cybernetics, tribal jewelry… the whole panoply of detail that helps me to find the character she's already written, and show it to her in a painting or drawing. These kinds of internal relationships with the author are not common, and are often discouraged a bit by the publisher for reasons of flow and maintaining certain walls overseen by the process, so you'll most often be getting these either from the AD or editor. Wherever it comes from take it for the manna it is and see it as the opening salvo in the conversation. From wherever the brief came, there's more to glean so ask questions and don't be shy in that. A brief is never truly enough to gather what you need but it's an excellent starting place and can help narrow down the range of material you need to go hunt down and gather. If you're dealing with story that involves some sticky old conflicts- not all Apache say, were of the same unified being as there were many tribes and many different family lines that joined them- some of the tribal interactions among them, were cooperative and others combative for decades and on…. it's important in these areas to get a grip on those details because they can really help inform your duties in surprising and interesting ways. Your job is to speak both to a newbie audience but also be true and honoring of the audience from which this work is based. Both sides of the road must be built with equal success.
Knowing the pitfalls of racist depictions can help you avoid falling into them even if innocently and accidentally- I think a lot of art that fails to avoid this kind of trap does so out of blindness or accident rather than caprice. This is a reason, not an excuse, and if you are from a culture having been born into its dominant class, both your presumptive ignorance and inherent blindness can be particular acute for this kind of work. For example there was a children's picture book about a boy who got locked in a. museum or something and was then aided through his long night by native spirits or something from an exhibit of Navajo relics and a totem pole with a friendly dog at its top. The book created quite a firestorm not just for the use of a dog on a totem pole which is incorrect, but also from the more important failure to recognize navajos didn't DO totem poles. The editor, copyeditor, author, publisher and artist all missed it. And the blowback came hard and was largely carried publicly by the author and artist as the book was pulled to great cost and embarrassment all around. It was an avoidable catastrophe and since there was CLEARLY a failure in research here, unnecessarily so. And because you and the author are the front face of any project, you will also carry the target for the arrows as much as the praise so be ready, take your time and do your research. The author won't always get it right, not the overseeing editors. This incident I described showed a cascading failure across the board. If you as the artist come up against say, being asked to depict a Viking shooting a musket or a cover showing a Chin dynasty guard swinging a katana, for the love of all that's holy, SAY SOMETHING. Question it, and make sure this conflict is a conscious one and there's a story to backup the dynamic, as a purposeful; part of the story so you are likewise armed with this answer when potentially confronted with the question. Don't assume anything as fact necessarily, trust but verify. You're not going to catch everything and if you get a bad brief that's on your clients not you. Garbage in, garbage out as they say in tech.
Experience makes you better at your job, but you don't require a job to get this kind of experience
If you've not been hired on to start flexing your difference muscles yet, do it on your own time and for your own portfolio. Self assign projects to build on this and grow. Strip away presumptions that say an elf must always be white and blonde and fashion a different approach. Make yourself familiar with the reality that skin color is the least significant detail when it comes to physical variances where bone and muscle and build can inform. It can mean a lot but it's not the only thing that matters, and changing the skin color of a person with Swedish features just aint gonna cut it. Samoans for example tend to have a very common set of physical traits in the same way a Tlingit Indian might or native Brazilian native may. Mexicans can look be extremely Mayan in their structure and also lighter and more Spanish. An Italian from the south will look very different from one hailing from the north. It's a huge wide immersive toolkit to dive into. There's just a lot of variables to consider not just in the facial structures and clothing but in build and how they carry themselves. This is where studying these details like an alien learning it for the first time is your best ally. The more you do this the more the experience of having done it makes you swifter to getting where you need to go, and smarter at the effort.
Outside perspectives offer insight too
Because our interactive nature, even here in a country that boasts itself a melting pot, can be plagued by enormous, cultural and historical imbalances and abuses that echo and even remain hundreds of years on. While most of this article is ignoring the outside context of a more diversely recognized landscape, at a certain point you have to take that reality in and make of it what you can.
I've done a lot of work for Walter Mosely's short stories and his novels and many of them deal head on with seriously deep, powerful and potentially dangerous racial issues. I navigate these using these techniques, and have managed to swim through these potentially treacherous channels successfully. I've audaciously co-written and drawn a graphic novel about the Apaches, a number of samurai subjects, transgender ancient Peruvian warrior stories, Chinese wuxia films, and Norwegian fairly tales. I love the range of material and light in each one personally, and never forget what a gift they are and what a responsibility they bring. Being of the same resource as the subject doesn't;t necessarily guarantee you're automatically the best artist for the job and sometimes no amount of research performed by an outside can make up for the lack of inherent experience. Neither negate the other or the ability to rise to the occasion of the job you have to tell the story you want to tell. Thinking and speaking to these issues in this way is an expression of my personal privilege to do this at all, and while I try not to use that as cover to hide from the responsibility that necessitates going an extra mile or two, it doesn't Forstall me failing at it. We all have our blind spots, and I have many that I still can't see- why they call them blind spots. Share interact show and tell and lean on the support of your community, peers and editorial overlords. This can help us personally outside of the realm of art in how we see racial differences- I know it has grown mine by miles- and we are blessed with this opportunity in my opinion. So while it's not necessarily the straightest path its a more rewarding one. Try to evolve and step forward into this new world, see these opportunities as the gifts they can be to grow your palette of work and styles, and take great joy and pride in working in a medium that is inherently diverse when accessed in its purest form. Art describes form, in whatever form it takes- the outside presumptions and bigotries can hang. Delight int he form, expand your ability to be a part of and an instrument of this change, and the rest will take care of itself. Be ready to be wrong, to not retreat from that mistake and use it to be better, to grow better and top your job better. I think It's better to charge forward and fumble than to hide in a safe entrenchment.
Art, Education, Greg Ruth, Inspiration, process
Posted by Greg Ruth | Friday, December 24th, 2021
Greg Ruth has been working in comics since 1993 and has published work for The New York Times, DC Comics, Fantagraphics Books, Dark Horse Comics, Harper Collins, Hyperion, Macmillan and Simon and Schuster amongst many others. He has shown his paintings in New York, Houston, and Baltimore, and exhibited a series of murals at New York's Grand Central Terminal. He has also helped craft music videos for Rob Thomas, and Prince, and has illustrated children's pictures books including; Our Enduring Spirit (with President Barack Obama), A Pirate's Guide to First Grade (with James Preller) and Red Kite, Blue Kite (with Ji Li Jiang), as well as many illustrated novels. Greg currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.
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Francis Vallejo	on December 26, 2021 at 10:47 am
Wonderful article Greg!
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Seven pieces of good advice that stayed with me
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Ever wondered what it's like to take a CAA/PfCO course? Then we are on hand to help you out. The PfCO "licence" is a key tool for commercial enterprises who want to take their drone business to the next level.
We spoke to Adam Watkin who recently passed one of our CAA courses, and is a frequent flyer of DJI drones. Read on to find out more about Adam, and his experience with the COPTRZ CAA training course.
Adam's passion for the hobby grew off the back of a love of film. As he ventured from land-based models into flying models.
He started out with gliders, before quickly moving over to nitro helicopters, starting with a Khalt Baron 30 then moving to a Raptor after that.
Now, Adam gets sent race drones and DJI accessories to test and review. Over the last few years, he has upgraded many times, sticking with DJI and also building a number racing drones.
Why is CAA training important?
To operate a drone commercially in the UK you need to gain a Permission for Commercial Operations from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The COPTRZ CAA Drone Training Course will allow you to gain the full up-to-date package of skills, knowledge and experience needed to apply for your Permission for Commercial Operations (PfCO) from the CAA.
Click here to inquire about our CAA/PfCO Drone Training Courses.
Carry on reading to see our interview with Adam about his use of drones. As well as his time on the CAA course and beyond.
Please tell us about how you use drones and your PfCO licence?
Since gaining my PfCO I almost instantly secured jobs and recovered the costs involved.
I use my drones for marketing media for a large building company. They want progress footage and shots made into short showreels to be shared on social media and in presentations. I have also filmed several dance videos for my other business (dance studio).
Recently I have been training with COPTRZ to be part of the PfCO training team and a flight test examiner. I hope to continue this training and take this career far as I can.
I have night permissions and would like the opportunity to get involved with the MCA with regards to long-range EvLOS and BvLOS search and rescue tasks. As jobs often dictate what drone is appropriate to use, I fly a DJI Mavic Air, DJI Inspire 1 and a DJI S1000.
What are your future plans for using your drone and your PfCO licence?
In the future, I would like to further this career by taking on more complex jobs. As well as learning and using Pix4D as it would fit very well into the work I am currently doing.
The opportunity to develop my passion for film and media by using drones and ground-based cameras is high on the 'to do' list.
I would also love to be more involved with hands-on pilot training and examining.
How was your experience with COPTRZ on the CAA course?
My first point of contact for the COPTRZ PfCO course was the website. All the information I needed was easily found. I called the office and Sam took me through the complete process and booked me onto the course location that was closest to me.
I printed off the pre-course information and read through it several times prior to the course. By doing this I was fully aware what the course was all about and what to expect from the classroom sessions, exam and flight test.
The course was expertly and confidently conducted by Simon Adams. The way everything was explained and presented was exceptional. I entered the exam with confidence and was thrilled with my 97% grade.
During the day of the flight test, Simon put me at ease and was again exceptional at being both the hypothetical client and examiner. I passed the flight test and have never looked back. Really happy I chose the right team to train with.
What location did you use?
The New House Hotel in Cardiff South Wales. It made a great training site with its classroom environment and open grounds for flying. The overall experience has been amazing.
Click here to view the full list of PfCO locations.
How did you find the operations manual review service?
The final stage of the COPTRZ PfCO journey was to submit my operations manual for review.
I had already completed this prior to attending the course. This obviously put me in a great place for a fast submission. I sent the manual to the office and had a reply with a few changes the very next day after my course.
With a few phone calls and emails, I had my COPTRZ recommendation through. My personal experience with COPTRZ during this whole process has been nothing short of exceptional and I would recommend the team to anyone and everyone.
The commercial drone industry is growing at a rapid rate as UAV technology improves. As a result, there is a growing demand for skilled, CAA approved drone pilots like Adam.
Attending a CAA PfCO course is a pre-requisite to obtaining your permission for commercial operations, a must-have for any drone pilot looking to step into the commercial drone industry.
We hope you enjoyed our interview with Adam. If you would like to find out more about becoming a CAA approved drone operator yourself, please contact the COPTRZ team or call 0330 111 7177.
COPTRZ are an approved NQE (National Qualification Examination) provider of a PfCO (Permission for Commercial Operations) course. They are also the first business to be able to separately provide you with an academically registered qualification under OFQUAL (Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation) as a Level 4 award.


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Response to Wilkinson
On January 19, 2016 By nathansnowIn Uncategorized
Will Wilkinson's criticism of Karl Hess's dictum, as often attributed to Barry Goldwater, is clever and for the most part correct. But I'll point out a few flaws, and a better way forward.
Wilkinson thinks that the first half of the statement "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" in plainly a violation of the Aristotilian understanding of virtues. Quite right, if one takes Aristotle as an authority, as Wilkinson confesses. Hess made the mistake of framing the statement in terms of virtues and vices, so working within that system is defensible. But I will claim that virtue ethics are insufficient for and unnecessary to do-ing justice.
The porridge of virtue may always be just right, but that must be in reference to something, viz. the status quo. Moderation cannot get us out of a system of injustice or a transitional gains trap.
But Wilkinson is right that extremism leads typically to violence. He then identifies Malcom X as embodying the ethic of extremism. X was known to reject the aid of white sympathizers. Under extremism they only get in the way. X saw the Civil Rights movement as blacks stepping up to claim equality as "within their rights" and when rights talk gets started, "any means necessary" quickly follows.
That white supremacy required some sort of exogenous shock to be broken is granted. We shall see what sort of shock actually worked.
"Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue"
It is important to Wilkinson that "We're talking about how to go about defending liberty and pursuing justice as a practical matter." Me too. Do-ing justice is what we should be about, but whether it can be done by a "we" is doubtful. Wilkinson prefers persuasion, as do I, but he limits his mechanism of persuasion to rhetoric. He claims a "sound persuasive argument" is "obviously virtuous."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is Wilkinson's second example, after Milton Friedman, both masters of rhetoric, or sound persuasive argument. Wilkinson then claims that "the virtue of the tactics" employed by King determined the success of the bus boycott and the civil rights movement. But that is not enough. King openly accepted, and I will claim relied upon, the help of whites, in contrast to X.
The vehicle for success was less the distinction between extremes and moderation than the composition of individuals that were involved. King succeeded because he captured the sympathy of a sufficient number of whites. Those whites got involved and supported his movement. White people marched with King, supported his movement, and openly advocated for it.
Sympathy works (roughly) like this: The class that I consider "other" is at a social distance far enough from me that I don't sympathize with their suffering. I sympathize with people who are like myself. When someone whom I consider alike to myself, someone with whom I sympathize, demonstrates sympathy with those I consider "other" I am forced into making a decision. Either I also extend my sympathy toward the others, or I must push the one whom I considered alike into the other category. Extension of sympathy is very costly. It requires a kind of abdication from the privileges I enjoy under the status quo. The loss of sympathy with a member of my community is also potentially costly. I may lose a friendship, or choose not to do business with such a traitor, and thus lose some surplus from exchange.
The sympathizing of the traitor has forced me into a corner. I will lose something either way, especially in the short run. The question is whether I can see the potential long run gains from the extension of sympathy. Many cannot.
Again, Wilkinson frames his discussion in terms of compromise and rhetoric, "moderation in principle means hammering out workable compromises with people who hold to different principles. If that's a vice, we're all in big trouble." Indeed. But compromises only work when there are mutual gains.
With patterns of injustice, there are not always Pareto opportunities such that all will benefit, especially given heterogeneity of discount rates. Many people were harmed materially and psychically by the outcome of the Civil Rights movement. If we include Johnson's welfare programs as among the outcomes of the Civil Rights movement there are many who will claim that even blacks were harmed.
Wilkinson identifies two large parties, those that started thinking seriously about politics by reading Ayn Rand, and those that started by reading Karl Marx or Noam Chomsky. I belong to a minority that got started with Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder. The Hauerwasian mafia, as they are sometimes identified, similarly start from a position of non-violence.
An economist who gets started here will read Murray Rothbard at some point and find some purchase in the Non-Aggression Principle. So I did. Rand and Chomsky came later for me, and then Aristotle and finally Adam Smith. I am certain that I misunderstand all of these.
The one option that economists and political theorists tend not to consider is simple charity. The way out of a transitional gains trap must be compensated for, but by whom? I maintain that it must be paid for by those who sympathize.
Dr. King's movement was not successful because of moderation, extremism, or complacency. That movement worked because sympathizers gave. White people abdicated privileges, and made willing sacrifices for the sake of blacks.
Oppressed minorities are incapable of rising up to positions of equality in any other way. There is nothing about a bus boycott or a sit in or a march on Washington DC that can succeed unless some whites sympathize.
The advent of television made much of this possible. Sympathy is aroused by spectatorship. Until northern whites saw for themselves blacks and whites being sprayed by fire hoses on TV they were free from ever thinking about the problems of Jim Crow. Wilkinson rightly says that "if you want to get anything done in politics, on any issue, you need allies. In order to win reliable allies, you need other groups, other factions, to trust your faction and feel that, at least, you don't disrespect them."
Libertarians are cavalier about transitional gains traps. They say Kaldor-Hicks improvements are the best we can hope for in the real world. Systemically this is true. Bryan Caplan will say it is true even about wristwatches. But abdication and charity, sacrificial altruism as I have called it, is the only approach that has effected praiseworthy reforms. My only complaint is that we typically don't have the patience or the fortitude to follow an ethic of sacrificial altruism all the way through a reform.
I can't expect the oppressed to wait. Birmingham jail proved that to us. But that only means that I need to get moving faster.
Ancient Wisdom and Modern Toolkits: A Review of Economics and the Virtues
Can I Possess Knowledge That I Disbelieve?


HorrifiedHeartlander had the most liked content!
Regardless as to how many in the Republican Party hate him, Mr. Trump opted to stand as the Party's leader, He would have welcomed the support among those in the ranks who dislike him. That makes him a Republican. We have no reason to believe he disdains the party platform. That is just wishful thinking, far from hard evidence. The fact that Tony Perkins now has effectively withdrawn his support of Trump is what is irrelevant. The fact remains the presumptive candidate, whether for political or policy reasons was willing to allow a widely acknowledged bigot to influence the composition of the party platform. This speaks volumes about the character and judgement of Donald Trump. Most of all, it would seem The Aggravator chooses to ignore the central point of my post. Are we to assume that the background and standing of the running mate, and ostensibly an important player in the populist movement is to be ignored? Is that a sensible and astute way of evaluating an upcoming election and a way of casting our votes? He claims the video I embedded will not redeem my argument. But he chooses not to consider the underlying assertions. Governor Pence embraces religious dogma at the expense of science literacy and civil rights. Maybe this is a matter of little import. I hardly thinks so. Look up the RIFRA legislation in several states and learn what the governor did to support this reprehensible policy in Indiana. Of course we all are revolted by the depths of corruption in the other party of our demented duopoly. Does the opportunity to bring some measure of justice for its calumnies, likely politically motivated, mean we must assent through our vote the denial of reproductive rights to millions of women, support policy that would notably undermine separation from church and state freedoms, continue and advance economic policies with prospects of dubious success except to those who already prosper the most, encourage popular affiliation with religious dogma at the expense of science literacy? Are we to affirm policies with our vote that favor industries that threaten environmental sustainability to the point future generations could experience the extinction of many species including our own ? , You may think that worth your while, but I will vote my conscience by voting for candidates of conscience, thank you.


Don't be Caught in a Pickle - Enjoy the St. Joe Pickle Festival!
Don't be Caught in a Pickle - Enjoy the St. Joe Pickle Festival!
Posted on July 12, 2015 at 5:01:00 am by Katie R.
I've never met a pickle I didn't like - true story. If I had to rate pickles they would definitely fall in my top 5 favorite foods! I like them sliced, diced, dilly, garlicky, sweet, spicy and every way in-between! I blame this on my godmother, Monya, who cans her own pickles each year and recruited me from a very young age to help her. In fact, I developed such a love for these pickles and the pickling process that she named her famous pickled "Katie's Pickles" after me, and she still gives me a fresh jar of them anytime a birthday, holiday or special occasion rolls around.
For those who are just as enthusiastic as I am about pickles, there is a festival in northern Indiana just for us - the St. Joe Pickle Festival! The St. Joe Pickle Festival takes place each year in Saint Joe, Indiana, home of Sechler's Pickles. The three day festival celebrates all things pickles, with events like the Pickle Derby, the Pickle Pepper Poker Walk, Pickle Fest Cruise, pickle decorating - and more! There are also free tours of Sechler's Pickles given throughout the festival, and food vendors serving up their best pickle creations. Not convinced that you need to check this unique festival out yet? It was named one of the Food Network's "All American Festivals"!
The St. Joe Pickle Festival also has much more to do than just things related to pickles! There are tons of events going on that are fun for all ages including face painting, a bake sale, the art tent, inflatables for kids, a finale fireworks show - and more! Not only does the St. Joe Pickle Festival celebrate delicious pickles and pickled products, it also celebrates a great community and invites visitors to join in on the fun!
The St. Joe Pickle Festival takes place from Thursday, July 23 to Saturday, July 25. Hours run Thursday from 4pm-9pm, Friday from 10am-10pm and Saturday from 6:30am-10pm. You'll find the Pickle Festival at 6127 SR 1, St. Joe, IN. For more information go to Visit Fort Wayne, or the St. Joe Pickle Festival website!
Enjoy a pickle for me!


With up to 37,000 shops specialicing in a wide range of goods, the Ariaria International Market has become valued for its versatility in leather works and clothes making, and according to experts deserved improved infrastructure.
It was however not for long when the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) set up its Energising Economies Initiative (EEI) to bring succour to the traders.
The REA identified and took up Ariaria as a potential beneficiary in the programme which was planned to within one year provide electricity to over 80,000 shops; empower over 340,000 micro, small and medium enterprises as well as create over 2,500 jobs through the first 16 economic clusters chosen.
"To date, almost 10,000 shops have been electrified as part of the Energising Economies Initiative within Ariaira Market in Abia, Sabon Gari Market in Kano, Sura Market complex and Iponri market in Lagos, Isikan market in Ondo.
"It is therefore very clear that, this administration is committed to ensuring that Nigerian businesses are given the ability to thrive and thus boost economic activity in a conducive and healthy environment," Ogunbiyi, stated during the Ariaria commissioning.
Even though there was an outcry against REA's decision to step into Ariaria and provide electricity to the market, while a legal battle between Geometric and the Enugu Disco continued, the agency and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) felt it was right and in public interest to carve out again and allow Ariaria Market Energy Solutions Limited (AMES) – a privately-funded special purpose vehicle (SPV), to set up a 9.5MW power system for the sole purpose of solving the electricity problems of the huge market.
Inagurated the system which according to REA already has 4,000 out of the market's 37,000 shops connected to clean, affordable and stable electricity generated from it.
The other shops, the agency said would subsequently be connected to the power system one after the other, until they are all connected in 2019.
It said the Ariaria power system consisted of a gas-fired power plant; an extensive distribution network; and robust metering systems for each shop, adding that 15,000 SMEs in the first 4000 shops connected now run their operations with affordable and constant power from the system.
According to the REA, 250 direct jobs and 370 indirect jobs have already been created in the market by the 4,000 connected shops.
"Reliable power supply is critical to ease of doing business. We are heading towards moving our economy further.


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