text:
Pliny the Elder.
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) online
Online Library → Pliny the Elder → The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) → online text (page 40 of 57)
mentioned.
[1943] The "mountaineers." Some editions read here "Appuani," so called
from the town of Appua, now Pontremoli.
[1944] The Vagienni, and the Capillati Ligures, or "Long-haired
Ligurians," have been previously mentioned in Chap. 7.
[1945] The trophy or triumphal arch which bore this inscription is that
which was still to be seen at Torbia near Nicæa in Illyria, in the time
of Gruter, who has given that portion of the inscription which remained
unobliterated, down to "gentes Alpinæ," "the Alpine nations." Hardouin
speaks of another triumphal arch in honour of Augustus at Segusio or
Susa in Piedmont, which appears to have commenced in a somewhat similar
manner, but only the first twelve words were remaining in 1671.
[1946] Adopted son of his great uncle Julius Cæsar.
[1947] Most of the MSS. omit the figures XVII here, but it is evidently
an accident; if indeed they were omitted in the original.
[1948] They are supposed to have occupied the Val Venosco, at the
sources of the Adige. The Isarci dwelt in the Val de Sarra or Sarcha,
near Val Camonica; and the Breuni in the Val Brounia or Bregna, at the
source of the Tessino.
[1949] D'Anville thinks that they inhabited the Val d'Agno, near
Trento, between Lake Como and the Adige. He also detects the name of
the Focunates in the village of Vogogna.
[1950] They inhabited the banks of the river Lech, their town being,
according to Strabo, Damasia, afterwards Augusta Vindelicorum, now
Augsburg.
[1951] Probably the Sarunetes, already mentioned. The Brixentes
inhabited the modern Brixen in the Tyrol. The Lepontii have been
previously mentioned. The Seduni occupied the present Sion, the capital
of the Valais. The Salassi have been already mentioned. According to
Bouche, the Medulli occupied the modern Maurienne in Savoy. The Varagri
dwelt in Le Chablais.
[1952] The Uceni, according to Hardouin, occupied Le Bourg d'Oysans in
the modern Graisivaudan; the Caturiges, the modern Chorges according to
Ansart; the Brigiani, probably Briançon, and the Nemaloni, as Hardouin
thinks, the place called Miolans.
[1953] They probably dwelt in the Ville de Seyne, in Embrun; the
Esubiani near the river Hubaye, in the Vallée de Barcelone in Savoy;
the Veamini in Senez, the Triulatti at the village of Alloz, the Ecdini
near the river Tinea, and the Vergunni in the vicinity of the district
of Vergons.
[1954] The Eguituri probably dwelt near the modern town of Guillaumes,
the Oratelli at the place now called Le Puget de Théniers, and the
Velauni near the modern Bueil.
[1955] Or subjects of Cottius, previously mentioned.
[1956] A mistake for L. Æmilius Papus. He and C. Regulus were Consuls
in B.C. 225. They successfully opposed the Cisalpine Gauls, who invaded
Italy; but Regulus was slain in the engagement.
[1957] It is difficult to say what is the exact force of "parci" here;
whether in fact it means that Italy shall be wholly exempted from such
treatment, as an indignity offered to her soil, or whether her minerals
were to be strictly kept in reserve as a last resource. Ajasson, in his
Translation, seems to take the former view, Littré the latter.
[1958] From the river now called the Arsa to that called the Kerka.
[1959] Hardouin thinks that "Ismeni" is the proper reading here; but
all the MSS. seem to be against him.
[1960] Mentioned in the next Chapter.
[1961] Their town was Aluus or Aloüs.
[1962] Their town was Flanona, which gave name to the Sinus Flanaticus
or Golfo di Quarnero. The chief town of the Lopsi was Lopsica, and of
the Varvarini, Varvaria.
[1963] The island of Fertina is supposed to have been the modern
Berwitch or Parvich. Curicta is now called Karek or Veglia. The
Illyrian snails mentioned by our author, B. ix. c. 56, are very
numerous here. Caius Antonius, the brother of Marcus, acting under
Julius Cæsar, was besieged here by Libo. See the interesting account in
Lucan's Pharsalia, B. iv. l. 402-464.
[1964] The places on their sites are now called Albona, Fianona,
Tersact or Tersat near Fiume, Segna, Lopsico, Ortopia, and Veza.
[1965] Now Carin. Ænona is now called Nona, and the Tedanius is the
modern Zermagna.
[1966] The whole of this group of islands were sometimes called the
Absyrtides, from Absyrtus, the brother of Medea, who according to
tradition was slain there. See the last Chapter, p. 266. Ovid, however,
in his "Tristia," states that, this took place at Tomi, on the Pontus
Euxinus or Black Sea, the place of his banishment.
[1967] Said by D'Anville to be now called Arbe, and Crexa to be the
modern Cherso. Gissa is thought to have been the modern Pago.
[1968] It was the capital of Liburnia. The city of Zara or Zara Vecchia
stands on its site. There are but little remains of the ancient city.
[1969] Supposed to be the present Mortero.
[1970] The Titus or Kerka. Scardona still retains its name.
[1971] Now called the Cabo di San Nicolo.
[1972] This measurement would make it appear that the present
Sabioncello is meant, but that it ought to come below, after Narona. He
probably means the quasi peninsula upon which the town of Tragurium,
now Trau Vecchio, was situate; but its circumference is hardly fifty
miles. So, if Sicum is the same as the modern Sebenico, it ought to
have been mentioned previously to Tragurium.
[1973] Spalatro, the retreat of Diocletian, was in the vicinity of
Salona. Its ancient name was Spolatum, and at the village of Dioclea
near it, that emperor was born. On the ruins of the once important city
of Salona, rose the modern Spalato or Spalatro.
[1974] Its site is unknown, though D'Anville thinks that it was
probably that of the modern Tain.
[1975] Clissa is supposed to occupy its site. Tribulium is probably the
modern Ugliane.
[1976] The people of the island of Issa, now Lissa, off the coast of
Liburnia. It was originally peopled by a Parian or a Syracusan colony.
It was famous for its wine, and the beaked ships "Lembi Issaici,"
rendered the Romans good service in the war with Philip of Macedon.
[1977] The modern Almissa stands on its site; and on that of Rataneum,
Mucarisca.
[1978] Now called Narenta; the river having the same name.
[1979] The localities of all these peoples are unknown.
[1980] Or Epidaurus. It is not noticed in history till the civil war
between Pompey and Cæsar, when, having declared in favour of the
latter, it was besieged by M. Octavius. The site of it is known as
Ragusa Vecchia, or Old Ragusa, but in the Illyric language it is called
Zaptal. Upon its destruction, its inhabitants moved to Rausium, the
present Ragusa. There are no remains extant of the old town.
[1981] It still retains the name of Risine, upon the Golfo di Cattaro,
the ancient Sinus Rhizonicus.
[1982] In the former editions called "Ascrivium." The modern Cattaro is
supposed to occupy its site. Butua is the modern Budua, and Olcinium,
Dulcigno. It is probable that the derivation of the name of this last
place, as suggested by Pliny, is only fanciful.
[1983] Now called Drin and Drino.
[1984] Now called Scutari or Scodar, the capital of the province called
by the Turks Sangiac de Scodar.
[1985] According to Hardouin, the modern Endero stands on the site of
their capital.
[1986] Grabia, mentioned by Pouqueville, in his "Voyage de la Grèce,"
seems to retain the name of this tribe.
[1987] Pouqueville is of opinion that they occupied the district now
known as Musaché.
[1988] Dalechamp thinks that the two words "Retinet nomen" do not
belong to the text, but have crept in from being the gloss of some more
recent commentator. They certainly appear to be out of place. This
promontory is now called Cabo Rodoni.
[1989] The modern Albania.
[1990] Pouqueville is of opinion that they inhabited the district about
the present village of Presa, seven leagues N.E. of Durazzo.
[1991] From Ptolemy we learn that Lychnidus was their town; the site
of which, according to Pouqueville, is still pointed out at a spot
about four leagues south of Ochrida, on the eastern bank of the Lake of
Ochrida.
[1992] Now called El Bassan; though Pouqueville says Tomoros or
De Caulonias. Commencing in Epirus, they separated Illyricum from
Macedonia. See Lucan's Pharsalia, B. vi. l. 331.
[1993] The Romans are said to have changed its Greek name Epidamnum,
from an idea that it was inauspicious, as implying "damnum" or "ruin."
It has been asserted that they gave it the name of Durrhachium or
Dyrrhachium, from "durum," rugged, on account of the ruggedness of
its locality. This however cannot be the case, as the word, like its
predecessor, is of Greek origin. Its unfortunate name, "Epidamnus," is
the subject of several puns and witticisms in that most amusing perhaps
of all the plays of Plautus, the Menæchmi. It was of Corcyræan origin,
and after playing a distinguished part in the civil wars between Pompey
and Cæsar, was granted by Augustus to his veteran troops. The modern
Durazzo stands on its site.
[1994] Now called the Voioussa.
[1995] The monastery of Pollina stands on its site. It was founded by
the Corinthians and Corcyræans. There are scarcely any vestiges of it
remaining.
[1996] See further mention of this spot in B. ii. c. 110.
[1997] Pouqueville states that the ruins of Amantia are to be seen near
the village of Nivitza, on the right bank of the river Suchista. The
remains of Bullis, the chief town of the Buliones, according to the
same traveller, are to be seen at a place called Gradista, four miles
from the sea.
[1998] The same writer states that Oricum was situate on the present
Gulf De la Vallona or d'Avlona, and that its port was the place now
called by the Greeks Porto Raguseo, and by the Turks Liman Padisha.
[1999] The "Heights of Thunder." They were so called from the frequent
thunderstorms with which they were visited. The range however was more
properly called the "Ceraunii Montes," and the promontory terminating
it "Acroceraunii" or "Acroceraunia," meaning "the end of the Ceraunii."
The range is now called the Mountains of Khimara, and the promontory,
Glossa, or in Italian, Linguetta, meaning "the Tongue."
[2000] In C. 15 of the present Book.
[2001] About 70 English miles is the distance.
[2002] The Donau or Danube.
[2003] Noricum corresponded to the greater part of the present Styria
and Carinthia, and a part of Austria, Bavaria, and Salzburg.
[2004] According to D'Anville the modern Wolk-Markt, on the river Drau
or Drave. Celeia is the modern Cilley in Carniola. Teurnia, according
to Mannert, is the Lurnfelde, near the small town of Spital.
[2005] According to Mannert it was situate near the modern town of
Innichen, near the sources of the Drave.
[2006] Supposed to be the same as the Vindobona or Vindomona of other
authors, standing on the site of the modern city of Vienna.
[2007] According to Cluver, it stood on the site of the modern Clausen
in Bavaria.
[2008] Mannert says that this place was the same with the modern
Solfeld, near Klagenfurt.
[2009] D'Anville and other writers think that this is the Neusiedler
See, not far from Vienna. Mannert, however, is of opinion that the name
ought to be written Pelso, and that the modern Balaton or Platten See
is meant.
[2010] The mountainous and woody tract in the vicinity of the Lake
Balaton, on the confines of ancient Noricum and Pannonia.
[2011] Now Sarvar on the river Raab, on the confines of Austria and
[2012] According to Hardouin, the modern Sopron or Œdenburg.
[2013] This province corresponded to the eastern part of Austria,
Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the whole of Hungary between the Danube
and Saave, Slavonia, and part of Croatia and Bosnia. It was reduced by
Tiberius, acting under the orders of Augustus.
[2014] Now Laybach, previously mentioned in c. 22. Sissia has been
succeeded by the modern Sissek on the Saave.
[2015] The modern Draave or Drau.
[2016] Now the Sau or Saave.
[2017] According to Hardouin the Serretes and the Serrapilli inhabited
the modern Carinthia on both sides of the Draave. The sites of the
other nations here mentioned are unknown.
[2018] So called from the river Colapis. The other tribes are unknown.
[2019] Probably the same as the mountain range near Warasdin on the
Draave. The nations mentioned here dwelt on the western and eastern
slopes of this range.
[2020] Now known as Zagrabia.
[2021] Now the Culpa.
[2022] Dion Cassius, B. xix., says that the river Colapis or Colops
flowed past the walls of the town of Siscia, but that Tiberius Cæsar
caused a trench to be dug round the town, and so drew the river round
it, leading it back on the other side into its channel. He calls the
island Segetica.
[2023] Now the Bossut. Sirmium occupied the site of the present Sirmich.
[2024] The modern Tzeruinka, according to D'Anville and Brotier.
[2025] Now the Walpo and the Sarroiez, according to Hardouin; or the
Bosna and the Verbas, according to Brotier and Mannert.
[2026] Corresponding to the present Servia and Bulgaria.
[2027] Of the Danube with the Saave or Savus just mentioned.
[2028] Now the Morava, which runs through Servia into the Danube. The
Pingus is probably the Bek, which joins the Danube near Gradistic. The
Timachus is the modern Timoch, and the Œscus is the Iscar in Bulgaria.
[2029] Now called the Vid, the Osma, and the Jantra, rising in the
Balkan chain.
[2030] Ajasson remarks here that the name of Illyricum was very
vaguely used by the ancients, and that at different periods, different
countries were so designated. In Pliny's time that region comprised
the country between the Arsia and the mouth of the Drilo, bounding it
on the side of Macedonia. It would thus comprehend a part of modern
Carniola, with part of Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Upper Albania. In
later times this name was extended to Noricum, Pannonia, Mœsia, Dacia,
Macedonia, Thessalia, Achaia, Epirus, and even the Isle of Crete.
[2031] Here meaning that part of the Mediterranean which lies between
Italy and Greece south of the Adriatic. In more ancient times the
Adriatic was included in the Ionian Sea, which was probably so called
from the Ionian colonies which settled in Cephallenia and the other
islands on the western coast of Greece.
[2032] More properly "Diomedeæ," being a group of small islands off
the coast of Apulia now called Isole di Tremiti, about eighteen miles
from the mouth of the Fortore. They were so called from the fable that
here the companions of Diomedes were changed into birds. A species of
sea-fowl (which Pliny mentions in B. x. c. 44) were said to be the
descendants of these Greek sailors, and to show a great partiality for
such persons as were of kindred extraction. See Ovid's Metamorphoses,
B. xiv. l. 500. The real number of these islands was a matter of
dispute with the ancients, but it seems that there are but three,
and some mere rocks. The largest of the group is the island of San
Domenico, and the others are San Nicola and Caprara. The small island
of Pianosa, eleven miles N.E., is not considered one of the group, but
is not improbably the Teutria of Pliny. San Domenico was the place of
banishment of Julia, the licentious daughter of Augustus.
[2033] Now called the Bagni di Monte Falcone. See B. ii. c. 106.
[2034] Now called Cherso and Osero, off the Illyrian coast. Ptolemy
mentions only one, Apsorrus, on which he places a town of that name and
another called Crepsa. The Pullaria are now called Li Brioni, in the
Sinus Flanaticus, opposite the city of Pola.
[2035] See p. 258.
[2036] In B. xxxvii. c. 11, he again mentions this circumstance, and
states that some writers have placed them in the Adriatic opposite
the mouths of the Padus. Scymnus of Chios makes mention of them in
conjunction with the Absyrtides. This confusion probably arose from
the fact previously noted that the more ancient writers had a confused
idea that the Ister communicated with the Adriatic, at the same time
mistaking it probably for the Vistula, which flows into the Baltic.
At the mouth of this last-mentioned river, there were Electrides or
"amber-bearing" islands.
[2037] "Vanitatis."
[2038] Crexa, Grissa, and Colentum, in c. 25.
[2039] According to Brotier, these are situate between the islands of
Zuri and Sebenico, and are now called Kasvan, Capri, Smolan, Tihat,
Sestre, Parvich, Zlarin, &c. Some writers however suggest that there
were no islands called Celadussæ, and that the name in Pliny is a
corruption of Dyscelados in Pomponius Mela; which in its turn is
supposed to have been invented from what was really an epithet of Issa,
in a line of Apollonius Rhodius, B. iv. l. 565. Ἰσσά τε δυσκέλαδος,
"and inauspicious Issa." See Brunck's remarks on the passage.
[2040] Now Brazza. According to Brotier the island is still celebrated
for the delicate flavour of the flesh of its goats and lambs. Issa is
now called Lissa, and Pharia is the modern Lesina. Baro, now Bua, lies
off the coast of Dalmatia, and was used as a place of banishment under
the emperors.
[2041] Now Curzola, or, in the Sclavonic, Karkar. It obtained its name
of Nigra or Melæna, "black," from the dark colour of its pine woods.
Sir G. Wilkinson describes it in his "Dalmatia and Montenegro," vol. i.
[2042] Now called Meleda or Zapuntello. It is more generally to the
other island of Melita or Malta that the origin of the "Melitæi" or
Maltese dogs is ascribed. Some writers are of opinion that it was upon
this island that St. Paul was shipwrecked, and not the larger Melita.
[2043] So called from their resemblance to a stag, ἔλαφος, of which the
modern Giupan formed the head, Ruda the neck, Mezzo the body, Calamotta
the haunches, and the rock of Grebini or Pettini the tail. They produce
excellent wine and oil, and are looked upon as the most valuable part
of the Ragusan territory.
[2044] Still known as Sasino. It is ten miles from Ragusa, the port of
Oricum, according to Pouqueville.
[2045] The original numbers are lost.
[2046] He was a Spaniard by birth, a native of Mellaria in Hispania
Bætica. He is mentioned by Cicero as a man of great learning, and
is probably the same person that is mentioned by Ovid in his Pontic
Epistles, B. iv. ep. xvi. l. 29, as a distinguished tragic writer.
[2047] See end of B. ii.
[2049] M. Porcius Cato, or Cato the Elder; famous as a statesman, a
patriot, and a philosopher. He wrote "De Re Rustica," a work which
still survives, and "Letters of Instruction to his Son," of which
only some fragments remain. He also wrote a historical work called
"Origines," of which Pliny makes considerable use. Of this also only a
few fragments are left. His life has been written by Cornelius Nepos,
Plutarch, and Aurelius Victor.
[2050] M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the distinguished partisan of Augustus,
to whose niece Marcella he was married, but he afterwards divorced her
for Julia, the daughter of Augustus by Scribonia, and the widow of
Marcellus. He distinguished himself in Gaul, at Actium, and in Illyria.
He constructed many public works at Rome, and among them the Pantheon;
he also built the splendid aqueduct at Nismes. He died suddenly in
his 51st year. His body was buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus, who
pronounced his funeral oration. He wrote memoirs of his own life. Pliny
often refers to the "Commentarii" of Agrippa, by which are meant, it is
supposed, certain official lists drawn up by him in the measurement of
the Roman world under Augustus. His map of the world is also mentioned
by Pliny in c. 3 of the present Book.
[2052] From Servius, Suetonius and Plutarch we learn that Augustus
wrote Memoirs of his Life, in thirteen books; from Suetonius, that he
composed a Summary of the Empire (which was probably that referred to
in the above note on Agrippa); and from Quintilian, Aulus Gellius,
and Pliny, B. xviii. c. 38, that he published Letters written to his
grandson Caius.
[2053] P. Terentius Varro, surnamed Atacinus, from the Atax, a river
of Gallia Narbonensis, in which province he was born, B.C. 82. Of his
"Argonautica," his "Cosmographia" (probably the same with his "Iter"),
his "Navales Libri," and his Heroic and Amatory Poems, only a few
fragments now exist. Of his life nothing whatever is known.
[2054] Valerias Antias. See end of B. ii.
[2055] C. Julius Hyginus, a native of Spain, and freedman of Augustus,
by whom he was placed at the Palatine Library. He lived upon terms of
intimacy with Ovid. He wrote works on the sites of the cities of Italy,
the Nature of the Gods, an account of the Penates, an account of Virgil
(probably the same as the work called "Commentaries on Virgil"), on the
Families of Trojan descent, on Agriculture, the "Propempticon Cinnæ,"
the Lives of Illustrious Men (quoted by John of Salisbury in his
"Polycraticon"), a book of Examples, and a work on the Art of War, also
mentioned by John of Salisbury. A book of Fables, and an Astronomical
Poem, in four books, are ascribed to him, but they are probably
productions of a later age.
[2056] L. Antistius Vetus, Consul with Nero, A.D. 55. While commanding
in Germany he formed the project of connecting the Moselle and the
Saone by a canal, thus establishing a communication between the
Mediterranean and the Northern Ocean. Nero having resolved on his
death, he anticipated his sentence by opening his veins in a warm bath.
His mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollentia, in a similar
manner perished with him.
[2057] He was born, it is supposed, at Tingentera, or Cingentera, on
the bay of Algesiras, and probably flourished in the reign of Claudius.
He was the first Roman author who wrote a treatise on Geography. It is
still extant, and bears marks of great care, while it is written in
pure and unaffected language.
[2058] C. Scribonius Curio, the third known of that name. He was the
first Roman general who advanced as far as the Danube. Like his son
of the same name, he was a violent opponent of Julius Cæsar. He was
eloquent as an orator, but ignorant and uncultivated. His orations were
published, as also an invective against Cæsar, in form of a dialogue,
in which his son was introduced as one of the interlocutors. He died
B.C. 53.
[2059] L. Cælius Antipater. See end of B. ii.
[2060] L. Arruntius, Consul, A.D. 6. Augustus declared in his last
illness that he was worthy of the empire. This, with his riches and
talents, rendered him an object of suspicion to Tiberius. Being charged
as an accomplice in the crimes of Albucilla, he put himself to death
by opening his veins. It appears not to be certain whether it was this
person or his father who wrote a history of the first Punic war, in
which he imitated the style of Sallust.
[2061] Statius Sebosus. See end of B. ii.
[2062] Licinius Crassus Mucianus. See end of B. ii.
[2063] Of this writer no particulars whatever are known.
[2064] In most editions this name appears as L. Ateius Capito, but
Sillig separates them, and with propriety it would appear, as the name
of Capito the great legist was not Lucius. Ateius here mentioned was
probably the person surnamed Prætextatus, and Philologus, a freedman
of the jurist Ateius Capito. For Sallust the historian he composed an
Abstract of Roman History, and for Asinius Pollio he compiled precepts
on the Art of Writing. His Commentaries were numerous, but a few only
were surviving in the time of Suetonius.
[2065] C. Ateius Capito, one of the most famous of the Roman legists,
and a zealous partisan of Augustus, who had him elevated to the
Consulship A.D. 5. He was the rival of Labeo, the republican jurist.
His legal works were very voluminous, and extracts from them are to be
found in the Digest. He also wrote a work on the Pontifical Rights and
the Law of Sacrifices.
[2066] A distinguished grammarian of the latter part of the first
century B.C. He was entrusted by Augustus with the education of his
grandsons Caius and Lucius Cæsar. He died at an advanced age in the
reign of Tiberius. He wrote upon antiquities, history, and philosophy:
among his numerous works a History of the Etruscans is mentioned, also
a treatise on Orthography. Pliny quotes him very frequently.
[2068] He is mentioned in c. 17, but nothing more is known of him.
[2069] Nothing is known of him. The younger Pliny addressed three
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The 2019 NASPA student pre-conference workshop is a half-day workshop focused on "How to be Civically Engaged on Campus." Three main topics will be covered during this workshop including volunteerism, action, and ethos. The goal of this workshop is to inspire students to become more civically involved on campus and how they can inspire other students on their campus to take civic action.
This pre-conference workshop will last from 9:00 a.m. to Noon and will provide students with an opportunity for students to network, build leadership skills, inspire discussion, and to learn more about volunteerism, action, and ethos.
This pre-conference focuses on providing tools for campuses to facilitate and moderate dialogue and democratic deliberation on divisive and salient issues. The participants will learn how to moderate, practice their moderation skills, and develop capacity to train others in moderation. This workshop includes high participation from attendees in practicing these civic skills through the newly released NIFI issue guide, "A House Divided: What would have to give up to get the political system we want?" In conclusion of this workshop, participants will be prepared and confident to engage in democratic dialogue and deliberation on their campuses and in their respective organizations.
All campus participants who received the Voter Friendly Campus (VFC) designation in 2019 and those that are interested in participating in the next iteration of the program. This session will include an overview of the VFC process and next steps for campuses that received the designation. Participants can anticipate active participation in the planning for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years.
Be sure to register by May 1st for our best rates and book your hotel room by May 14 at our special group rate!
NASPA Foundation Professional Development Scholarship by April 14, 2019 - Apply here.
Early bird registration, May 1 - Register here.
Hoteling booking deadline, May 14 - Book your hotel room here.
Regular registration deadline, May 31 - Register here.


Catch Me If You Can. Disguise your self as a friendly airline pilot when you wear this Pilot Hat. Wear this hat with a pilot costume and change your name. People will never know your real identity when you don this navy blue pilot cap with wings and golf embellished detail.


1. Mow, clear, plant vegetation, or otherwise use as desired if not in conflict with the terms of rights acquired by the government.
2. Sell or lease the land to others, subject to all restrictions contained in the flowage easement instrument.
3. Construct a wire fence to or along the Government boundary line.
1. Construct or maintain any structure for human habitation, permanent or temporary, on the flowage easement land.
2. Place or construct any other structure or appurtenances to existing structures on the flowage easement land without prior written approval of the District Engineer. "Other structures" are construed to mean any kind of structure including but not limited to buildings, ramps, ditches, channels, dams, dikes, wells, earthen tanks, ponds, roads, utility lines, and tramways.
With approval, almost any type of structure that does not reduce flood storage capacity or is not designed or intended to be used for human habitation may be constructed on the flowage easement land. With respect to construction of water wells, sewer lines, or septic systems, each case will be examined to ensure that pollution of the lake or interference with the operation of the reservoir will not occur. All proposed sewer line and septic system construction must be approved by the appropriate health departments and all septic systems must be located a minimum of 75 feet in horizontal distance from the contour line of 258.6 feet above mean sea level.
2. A description of the structure or activity requested and a description of the intended use of the structure.
3. Detailed design plans of the proposed work including elevations at the proposed site.
4. A map showing the location of the proposed action and the relationship with the U.S. boundary line.
5. Written approval of the appropriate agencies.
We are engaged in preserving, maintaining and improving the resources at Wright Patman Lake, both natural and developed. Your participation and assistance in these efforts is very much appreciated.
Please address all permit applications or other correspondence to: Project Manager, Wright Patman Lake,Clear Springs Park, Texarkana, Texas 75501. If you have any questions, you can reach us at (903) 838-8781, or email the real property POC. . Any correspondence should include a complete return address and phone number.


text:
MNN.com > Tech > Research & Innovations
People choose friends who are genetically similar to themselves, study finds
Do we choose our friends because they share our genes? Controversial study finds that our friends are more related to us than random strangers are.
Bryan Nelson
Photo: Fernando de Sousa/Wiki Commons
For many of us, good friends are the next closest thing to family-- but you might be surprised to learn just how literal this simple truth is. According to a new controversial study, good friends actually are the next closest thing to family, genetically speaking.
A pair of U.S. researchers have found that we are more genetically similar to our friends than we are to random strangers, suggesting that genetics may factor in to how we choose our friends, reports the BBC.
The study looked at the genetic profiles of nearly 2,000 people, who were recruited from a small U.S. town as part of a larger heart study. Nearly 500,000 single-letter markers from across the genomes were analyzed, revealing that friends share about 0.1 percent more DNA, on average, than strangers do. While that might not sound like much, it's actually roughly equivalent to the genetic similarity of forth cousins.
"It's as if they shared a great-great-great-grandparent in common," explained James Fowler of the University of California at San Diego, one of the study's authors.
Aside from providing DNA samples, participants in the study were also asked who their closest friends were. Because all of the participants hailed from such a small community, there was a lot of crossover between friendship networks and study participation, making this sample population particularly ideal for such a study.
But the fact that all of the samples derived from such a small, tight-knit community has also prompted skepticism. Friendships in small communities might be more likely to be genetically related because such communities have less genetic diversity in general.
"I wonder whether [the methods used in the study can fully account for] factors known to drive friendships, like church membership, sports or other cultural affinities, that would also lead to a correlation with genotype," said Oxford's Dr. Rory Bowden, who was not involved in the study.
Nevertheless, the study's authors remain confident. "Most people don't even know who their fourth cousins are!" said co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis from Yale University. "Yet we are somehow, among a myriad of possibilities, managing to select as friends the people who resemble our kin."
One interesting finding from the study is that some of the genes that friends were most likely to have in common involve smell. In other words, it seems that the smells we are drawn toward may also facilitate how we gather together socially. This, in turn, may influence how we meet friends.
"You may really love the smell of coffee. And you're drawn to a place where other people have been drawn to who also love the smell of coffee," Fowler explained. "And so that might be the opportunity space for you to make friends. You're all there together because you love coffee and you make friends because you all love coffee."
Related on MNN:
Best friends aren't forever -- at least not for women
Few friends or many?
16 unlikely animal friendships
Bryan Nelson ( @@brynelson ) writes about everything from environmental problems here on Earth to big questions in space.
Related topics: Family Activities, Research & Innovation
Boost your meals with compound butters

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Provide adaptive sizing for the IHOP (InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent) value.
If the user sets it too low, and let G1 start marking too early compromises throughput as then G1 will not make use of available Java heap memory to delay the marking cycle which requires some CPU usage. Given the current default value of 45, this means that G1 will start marking if 45% of the old generation is full, and start space reclamation slightly later. This means that up to around 50% of heap will be effectively unused. In case the average live set size of the application is larger than 45, G1 will start the marking right after space reclamation all the time.
Setting the InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent value too high means that G1 will not finish marking and will not start space reclamation before free space in the old generation runs out, potentially leading to time consuming full collections.
Let G1 by default determine the current optimal value of InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent given allocation rates and the time it takes to perform liveness analysis.
There are two new switches to control adaptive sizing of InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent: G1AdaptiveIHOPNumInitialSamples (experimental, default: 3): The number of samples for allocation rate and marking cycle length after which G1 will start adaptively sizing the InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent variable. If there are less than this amount of samples available, use the value of InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent directly for starting marking cycles. G1UseAdaptiveIHOP (product, default true): Enable adaptive sizing of the InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent (IHOP).
"Adaptively adjust the initiating heap occupancy from the "
"initial value of InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent. The policy "
"attempts to start marking in time based on application "
"How many completed time periods from initial mark to first "
"mixed gc are required to use the input values for prediction "


text:
/*
 * @author: Jean Lazarou
 * @date: March 31, 2004
 */
package com.ap.store.fixtures;

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;

import com.ap.store.Store;
import com.ap.store.Content;
import com.ap.store.MemoryStore;

import com.ap.store.conformance.*;

public class ContentProviderFixture implements StoreFixture, Content {

	public void setUp() throws Exception {
	}

	public void tearDown() throws Exception {

		theStore = null;
		created = false;

		if (content != null) content.reset();
	}

	public String getStoreName() {
		return "MemoryStoreWithContentProvider";
	}

	public Store newTestStore() {

		if (theStore == null) {
			theStore = new MemoryStore("one.txt", this);
		}

		return theStore;

	}

	//----- Content interface -------------

	public long size() {
		return content.size();
	}

	public void create() {
		created = true;
	}

	public boolean exists() {
		return created;
	}

	public OutputStream output() {

		if (!created) return null;

		content = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

		return content;
	}

	public InputStream input() {

		if (!created) return null;

		return new ByteArrayInputStream(content.toByteArray());

	}

	MemoryStore theStore;

	boolean created;
	ByteArrayOutputStream content;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tag: Max Mosley
F1 – Flavio Suing for Driver Contracts
January 18, 2010 January 18, 2010 mike
The FIA may be in for a rude awakening. Flavio Briatore has started legal proceedings against the FIA in Geneva, Switzerland to recover damages from the FIA for forcing drivers to cancel their management contracts with Flavio's company. This is on the heels of Flavio's successful lawsuit against the FIA for banning him from involvement from FIA sanctioned motorsport indefinitely and for declaring that no driver who held a management contract with Flavio's company would be granted a superlicense. The French court previously found that the FIA had acted against French law when Max Mosley presided over…
Featured, Formula 1Appeal, FIA, Flavio Briatore, Max Mosley, Nelson Piquet Jr., Pat Symonds, World Motorsport Council2 Comments
F1 – Back to the Brink
July 8, 2009 July 8, 2009 mike
It is all very silly now. We thought we had seen the conclusion of the FOTA/FIA war, but it would appear that Max Mosley still thinks he has a point to prove. At a planned meeting today between the FIA and the 13 teams that are entered for the 2010 championship, the 8 FOTA teams walked out of the proceedings. Max Mosley promptly issued a press release deriding the teams. "The eight FOTA teams were invited to attend the meeting to discuss their further proposals for 2010. Unfortunately no discussion…
Featured, Formula 12009, F1, FIA, FOTA, Max Mosley, open, paddock
F1 – Peace Deal Brokered
June 24, 2009 June 24, 2009 mike
Yesterday, Max Mosley sent out a letter describing in detail why he felt it was in the FIA's best interest that he stand for re-election when his 4th term as FIA president ends in the fall. This despite his spankgate pledge to stand down from his position when his term expired. However, it looks like Mosley has again reconsidered. According to Autosport's sources, Mosley, Luca Di Montezemelo and Bernie Ecclestone last night had meetings which have resulted in a deal. At this point, it sounds like the following has been…
Featured, Formula 12009, Bernie Ecclestone, F1, FIA, Formula 1, FOTA, Luca Di Montezemolo, Max Mosley, open, paddock, peace
F1 – Is F1 Viable Without FOTA?
First we have to ask if Ferrari, RBR & STR will be part of both F1 and FOTA1 since they will most likely still be listed on the entry list when it comes out today. Look for these three teams to file breach of contract lawsuits against the FIA immediately after the entry list is posted. But let's assume that all 8 FOTA teams will be exclusive to the new breakaway series. Lola and N Technologies have withdrawn their entries from consideration which may be the start of a disturbing…
Featured, Formula 12009, Bernie Ecclestone, breakaway, CVC, F1, Formula 1, FOTA, Max Mosley, open, paddock1 Comment
F1 – FOTA's Gambit
We here at Open Paddock have been pretty shy about jumping on the F1 media train for the last couple months since the politics of F1 have overshadowed the racing. But this situation has finally come to a head, so let's discuss. Is this a page out of Max's handbook of extreme bargaining tactics, or is that FOTA's final word? Max has become a broken record when it comes to negotiations. He comes out with a monstrously extreme position that is only intended to make the other bargaining party enter…
Featured, Formula 12009, Bernie Ecclestone, breakaway, CVC, F1, FIA, Formula 1, FOTA, Max Mosley, open, paddock


Thanks for the link Tero , this is an amazing clip , I love FZ played on acoustic guitar.
all performed to perfection .
Will look that up. I have only one track on CD, the Michael Hedges one. It's a good artangement overall, but lacks something at the very beginning.
My only other worthwhile ones, not on guitar, are by Reinecke Trio and Ensemble Ambrosius .
You can never have too many Sofas.
You can take a listen to Duo Sonare on Spotify .
OK, there was 5 min on youtube as well.
^^^ Been meaning to check that one out.
Love the Ambrosius cover album, really an astonishing read, and I love what Ed Palermo does, but my favorite will always be The Persuasions album. Really one of a kind. Their Lumpy Gravy alone is a must hear.
That's great Tero ,thanks for posting .
This is amazing also .
Well! I've been (mentally) pronouncing it wrong all these years.
Ed Palermo Big Band - several albums worth of Mr. Palermo's excellent arrangements of Zappa tunes.
Meridian Arts Ensemble - "Classical" brass quintet + drummer, several Zappa & Beefheart tunes.
Bobby Sanabria, "Big Band Urban Folk Tales", cover of Grand Wazoo.
Finally youtube filter is fixed.


text:
Dead & Back Again by Marilyn Prever
Dead & Back Again
How Accounts of "Near-Death Experiences" Have Challenged My Faith
by Marilyn Prever
I might as well confess right now that I personally never had a "Near-Death Experience" (NDE), unless you count the time in the hospital when I kept passing out and thought the nurses and doctors around my bed had turned into demons. No floating up to the ceiling and looking down at my poor dead body; no trip through a dark tunnel; no angels or deceased relatives coming to greet me. I was not even clinically dead at the time. Some people have all the luck.
It sometimes seems as though almost everyone has had an NDE or at least knows someone who did. I myself know one woman whose heart stopped beating during surgery, and she told me she found herself at "the Gate." ("What gate?" " You know, the Gate.") She met Jesus there, she said, and he told her she could stay with him or go back. She wanted to stay, but decided to go back because her husband needed her—an act of heroic virtue if I ever saw one. But she didn't tell me any more details.
A classic Near-Death Experience (NDE) includes at least a few of the following: Your soul seems to be released from your critically injured or clinically dead body and finds itself going through a dark tunnel or some other transitional place between this world and the next. You may meet a "Being of Light" and experience deep feelings of peace, joy, and love. There may be a "life review," where your whole life (or much of it) is recalled and its meanings revealed. You may meet other beings, perhaps angels or the souls of people you knew who have died. There may be some kind of message given or questions asked and answered. The Being of Light (sometimes identified as God or Jesus) may send you back to this world, or give you a choice about going or staying.
Details vary, but the main outlines are often surprisingly similar, and so is the typical outcome: The subject is grateful for what he has received and resolves to be a better person because of it. Even when the experience is not heavenly but hellish—and that does happen—the fear and guilt usually end in the person's desire to amend his life.
There are many records all through history of things like this happening. They seem to be more common now, but that's probably because medical advances have made it possible for people to be revived after clinical death has occurred. Also, there have been cultural changes that make these stories safe to tell; people can reveal them without having to fear being called crazy or possessed.
Two Kinds of Worry
I'm fascinated by accounts of NDEs, and reading about them has, in general, strengthened my faith. But a few of them raise questions that have challenged my faith, and I wonder if other Christians have had the same trouble. I hope the story of how I've begun meeting these challenges might help others who are also fascinated but sometimes disturbed by these stories.
NDE stories have challenged me in two different ways: On the one hand, I worry that they might be true, and on the other, I worry that they might not be.
The first worry has to do with the content of a few of them: No censor librorum would give them a nihil obstat ("nothing stands in the way") because plenty stands in the way—in fact, if certain of these accounts are altogether accurate, something is wrong with my religion.
The second worry has to do with researchers who claim that all the elements of NDEs can be attributed to purely natural causes—electro-chemical changes in the brain, drugs, lack of oxygen, psychological needs, or even extreme stress. (Stress is a handy explanation for practically anything, life being made up mostly of stress alternating with boredom). Some researchers have even claimed that they can induce an NDE, or at least an apparent OBE ("Out-of-Body Experience") by sending an electric current into a particular area of the brain.
You don't have to be a twenty-first-century neurologist to doubt the supernatural origin of these experiences. When Marley's ghost asks Scrooge, "Why do you doubt your senses?" Scrooge sensibly replies,
Because . . . a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!
Not Easily Dismissed
If these researchers are right, that would dispose of my first problem, the apparent evidence against Christianity in some of the accounts. Heaven knows there is plenty of hokum in the world, and it would be convenient to just shovel this batch in with the rest and get on with life. After all, my Christian faith does not stand or fall on the veracity of anyone's private experience.
And yet . . . these stories, taken as a whole, are an impressive witness to the supernatural, to life after death, and to the transcendent importance of our moral choices. Some of the more excitable secularists are very nervous about the frequent appearance of this Being of Light, who knows all our secrets but loves us anyway. There have been conversions among unbelievers. Many of the accounts are too beautiful to dismiss outright (even physicists will tell you that beauty can be a signpost to truth). "The heart has its reasons. . . ."
Besides, there is a body of scientific evidence in favor of NDEs that can't easily be dismissed—for example, the accounts of people seeing and hearing things while they were clinically dead, things they could not have seen or heard from the place where their body was.
And if so many moving and life-changing experiences turn out to be nothing but the effect of electro-chemical events in the brain, how many more "spiritual" experiences will have to be thrown into the reductionist garbage bin? What if St. Teresa's "interior castle" is nothing but a sandcastle built on misfired neurons? What if St. Paul was knocked over on the road to Damascus by nothing more powerful than a disturbance of the ocular nerve? What if Pascal's "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not the philosophers and scholars" is, in the end, an illusion from regions well below the philosophers and scholars and nearer to the great apes?
Just Neuropathology?
Let's take the easiest challenge first—the claim that researchers have explained away the seemingly supernatural origin of NDEs, or soon will if we give them enough time.
The publicizing of NDEs and the discovery of how common they are have caused some distress among dogmatic materialists, similar to that experienced by many astronomers when evidence for the "Big Bang" first came out, suggesting that the universe had a beginning. Just so, a certain number of "true-believer" atheists in the scientific community have begun scurrying around for evidence that will place NDEs safely in the category of neuropathology. Judging by their results so far, however, they're going to have to keep scurrying for a long time.
For example, the debunkers are troubled by the fact that many NDEs take place while the patient has a flat EEG (electro-encephalogram)—in other words, when there are no detectable brain waves at all. Though it is difficult to see how a brain-dead patient can experience hallucinations, the debunkers have countered this argument with evidence that there can be activity deep inside the brain that is not registered by an EEG.
University of Toledo neuroscience researcher and EEG expert Dr. John Greenfield explains why this claim doesn't hold up:
It's very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs. Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can't be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them.
The will to believe is powerful on both sides. I expect most doctors and researchers are honest enough, but once the media get hold of a hot story, well, as Winston Churchill reportedly said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets a chance to put its pants on." Since most people who hear accounts of these debunkings are not interested enough to look past the soundbite or headline, they're left with a sort of vague idea that "science has disproved all that."
Bogus Debunkings
Some of the "evidence" against NDEs is just plain silly. I thought there was a serious challenge afoot when I saw a headline announcing that researchers had succeeded in "Simulating Near-Death Experiences." This one turned out to be a complete red herring. It was a "virtual reality" device that was programmed to simulate the visual effects that people with NDEs had described—just a fancy arcade game with lots of special effects. The inventors didn't seem to realize, or didn't care, that visual effects alone don't make an NDE; it's the interior experience that counts—not only the feelings of heavenly peace and joy (which can be dismissed as pathological euphoria) but the gain in knowledge and understanding of life and of oneself.
The latest serious challenge I've heard of came from a Dr. Olaf Blanke, a neurologist at the Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland. While performing surgery, he stimulated the patient's right angular gyrus (a small region in the brain's right hemisphere) with a mild electric current. This caused the patient to have what was later described in various reports as either an OBE or an NDE. Dr. Blanke, or rather the reporters, didn't seem to distinguish one from the other—which is like not distinguishing between taking off your clothes on the beach and going swimming in the ocean.
Some of the headlines were so enthusiastic that I almost got the impression that this patient had been "caught up into the Third Heaven" like St. Paul, and seen things it was "not lawful to describe"—and all because her doctor had zapped her with a bit of electricity. It sounded like the debunkers had won a gold medal in the Materialist Olympics.
But as it turned out, all she had experienced was a sort of bargain-basement OBE, wherein her soul was apparently stuck halfway out of her body—or at least she could only see part of her body lying on the operating table—and hovered somewhere above, watching to see what would happen next. When nothing in particular did, her soul or whatever it was zipped back into its normal place and that was that. Hardly a life-changing experience.
The woman was an epileptic, and epileptics do have strange experiences during seizures. Moreover, this OBE was not a planned experiment; it only happened once; there was no videotaped record of the event; and (last I heard) the surgeon didn't follow it up. So this one also was a dud. If this is what passes for scientific disproof of life after death, a new Dark Ages is upon us.
Helpful Debunkers
The whole controversy set me thinking about the role of healthy skepticism in the development of our faith. We know the call to believe is an essential part of Christianity. How often, and how sadly, Jesus accused his friends of being "slow to believe"! But if we are to be "wise as serpents," there is also a need to avoid credulousness. We live in a credulous age; there are people in your own neighborhood who believe things because they saw them on the Internet.
I was brought up an agnostic, and skepticism is still my default mode when I hear reports of the supernatural (outside of what is guaranteed by my Church). I had, and still have, a delight in books debunking seemingly preternatural phenomena by finding their natural causes. Philip J. Klass's UFO's Explained is one of my favorites, and I recommend it highly. By means of careful and often brilliant detective work, he shows how even the most dramatically "unexplainable" events can be explained when subjected to persistent investigation. His book is full of gems, such as his discovery that even trained observers, like scientists and airline pilots, will report seeing "rows of lighted windows" on a UFO that turns out to have been a meteor trail.
I also enjoy the books of "The Amazing Randi," a stage magician who has devoted a good part of his life to unmasking pretenders to supernatural powers, especially quack doctors who prey on the poor and desperate. He is especially good at answering gullible scientists who set up experiments to test for alleged ESP and similar psychic powers. His contention is that they are usually taken in because they are simply the wrong sort of expert. What is needed for these sorts of tests is stage magicians; scientists are too easy to trick because they are not used to their subjects trying to fool them.
Randi tells a revealing story about Uri Geller, who has convinced many people that he can bend spoons with pure mind-power. One day Geller was scheduled to perform before a large audience, and somebody warned him that the whole first row was occupied by stage magicians. He absolutely refused to go onstage; they had to make an excuse and cancel the performance.
Most of these debunkers are personally agnostic; some are anti-religious while others have respect for sincere religion and distinguish it from superstition. I don't consider people like that to be enemies of my faith, but rather friends who help me sort out the truly supernatural from illusion, self-deceit, and fakery, so that when we Christians speak of a true miracle, unbelievers won't be able to say, "Oh, those religious people will believe anything."
There's a lovely, idealized portrait of such a man in C. S. Lewis's novel, That Hideous Strength. The character of McFee is based on a teacher of his who taught him how to think rigorously, and so eventually helped Lewis become a Christian, though the teacher himself remained an atheist. In this gullible and sentimental age, when "signs and portents" are as common as junk mail, and grown-up human beings go to sleep with stuffed angels under their pillows for luck, we need a good dose of McFee's bracing, virile skepticism.
A Deeper Challenge
The second challenge to my faith goes deeper. It concerns those accounts of NDEs that sound authentic and yet seem to give evidence for doctrines that are contrary to Christianity, most commonly reincarnation, pantheism, universalism, and religious indifferentism. Reincarnation is a very popular idea these days, when so many people have, as they say, "issues with commitment" (what Jesus called "hardness of heart") and don't want to be rushed into anything irrevocable in the way of renouncing their favorite sins. ("Sure, I'm piling up bad karma, but I can always work it out in the next life.")
My breakthrough in answering this challenge was a very simple realization: Any kind of private revelation is subject to error. According to Catholic teaching, a private revelation includes anything beyond the Deposit of Faith once given to the apostles, and its interpretation under the authority of the Catholic magisterium. Even if a private revelation comes from God, it comes to and through a fallible human mind, and there will always be distortions. Even saints have made serious mistakes about private revelations, and some very holy mystics have contradicted each other.
As a Catholic, I enjoy the liberty of knowing that nobody is obliged to believe any private revelation at all, not even a Church-approved one such as Our Lady of Fatima. Even if the Church certifies that there is nothing in the revelation against the Faith, and allows churches to be named after it or a feast day to be set aside for it, we are still perfectly free to accept or reject it, in whole or in part. Many Catholics who are ignorant of this teaching make themselves unnecessarily confused.
More Possibilities
But of course, in the case of NDEs, it may not come to that. The receiver of the apparent revelation may simply be lying: Lots of people enjoy being the center of attention, and many of them are talented actors.
Or the materialists may be right about any particular claim to an NDE—it could have been a hallucination, or the effect of disease or drugs. Or it could have been a real experience that was later distorted or exaggerated, or just remembered wrong (many NDEs are not written down till a long while after the event). It might be a deception of the devil. Or it might be a money-making scheme. (I know of at least one man who claimed to have had an NDE and set himself up as a New Age spiritual guide, which brought him a comfortable income.)
Or (and I think this happens often) the experience might be from God, but the interpretation of it might not be, as, for instance, when someone feels deeply united with many different people and interprets the experience as "remembering" his own "past lives." I struggled with one NDE that sounded very authentic to me and included such an experience of union, and then one day it occurred to me that what the man had experienced might very well be what Christians call the Communion of Saints as it exists in heaven, when all the barriers that prevent mutual understanding are down.
Another thing to keep in mind is that even if an NDE is from God, it is not ordinarily given as a public service but as help and guidance to a single person. The imagery usually conforms (more or less) to the religious tradition of the one having the experience—God doesn't seem to be interested in using these revelations to tell people they chose the wrong religion, though a change of religion may eventually result.
The Vision Yet to Come
Then again, what the visionary sees doesn't have to be taken as showing "the way heaven looks." Certain realities are best communicated by means of symbols, such as my friend's "gate." We don't know how the saints in heaven perceive things.
Another important caveat is that, while the setting may be identified as "heaven," that doesn't mean it is heaven. Our records of NDEs are necessarily all from people who have come back to this world. If their souls departed from their bodies and experienced something of heaven, it was not as a final coming home: God knew they were not going past the point of no return. Some of them even report that there was a sort of cord connecting them to their body in this world, keeping them from advancing past a certain point—a cord that would not be cut unless they chose to stay. So even the most otherworldly of these experiences are not necessarily identical to what will happen after our souls leave this world for good.
In particular, no matter what the recipient of an NDE thinks he has seen, we know he has not experienced the Beatific Vision, which is reserved for permanent residents, not visitors. Whatever we may learn from these returnees from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, it remains true that "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men, what God has prepared for those who love him."
For accurate and objective information about NDEs, I recommend the website of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc., www.iands.org.
Marilyn Prever (marilyn.prever@myfairpoint.net) is a retired homeschool teacher, mother and grandmother of a large family, whose articles have appeared in Homiletic & Pastoral Review, New Oxford Review, Second Spring, and other publications. She lives in Claremont, New Hampshire, with her family, and they worship at St. Joseph's Catholic Church.
Health of the Nation
A Deathbed Reflection on Catholic Social Teaching & Our Future Prospects by Karl D. Stephan
28.2—March/April 2015
Man, Woman & the Mystery of Christ
by Russell D. Moore
Fatherhood Uprooted
A Sociologist Looks at Fatherlessness & Its Causes by David Blankenhorn


SUMMARY: Whether it's date night with your partner, or going with a group a friends, the movies offer us a perfect two hour break from the real world. However, even if you are maintaining a healthy oral care routine, bad breath might accompany all of the delicious, sugary, buttery, cheesy munchies you can purchase at the concession stand.
Whether it's date night with your partner, or going with a group a friends, the movies offer us a perfect two hour break from the real world. However, even if you are maintaining a healthy oral care routine, bad breath might accompany all of the delicious, sugary, buttery, cheesy munchies you can purchase at the concession stand. We suggest packing some TheraBreath French Kiss Gum or Dry Mouth Lozenges to help combat funky breath after you're done with the popcorn. Or better yet, be proactive with probiotics and try TheraBreath's Aktiv-K12 Probiotics which actually remove and then replace the undesirable anaerobic bacteria that cause bad breath. Bad breath is very common and for many, a part of daily life (because they haven't tried TheraBreath products yet). We can find references to halitosis on both the big and small screen. Here are a few you might have seen: Gone with the Wind - as we have discussed in another article, Clark Gable was known for his foul breath. It was so bad that Gable's co-star Viven Leigh often complained about it. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone – as avid Harry Potter fans already know, the twelfth use of dragon's blood is as a treatment for stinky breath. Animal House – this classic opens with Kent "Flounder" Dorffman checking his breath before the big rush party. Flounder's breath isn't the only thing that keeps people away from him. Princess Bride – Inigo Montoya's breath reeks so strongly of alcohol and foulness that it almost knocks over Andre the Giant. Alcoholic drinks often lead to dry mouth, which often causes offensive breath. Glee – Emma Pilsbury "a girl who knows her solvents" warns Kurt that his breath smells like rubbing alcohol. Family Guy – Stewie is told that his breath smells like kitty litter, to which he replies "I was curious!" So while bad breath is often used as an insult or for a laugh in the movies and on television, make sure you aren't a victim of halitosis by using TheraBreath products daily.


§ 413. Only one chapter remains to be added to the foregoing treatise on the pronunciation of modern Irish. In every language, there are words which are not pronounced according to the ordinary rule, and in Irish, a language which ahs been spoken without much change for so many centuries, there are of course exceptional words. Considering that Irish has been, for some two centuries at least, spoken by a people untrained to read and write the language, the wonder is that so few words are irregular.
Instead of giving here all the irregular words of the language, we will indicate an arrangement of irregular words to which we can easily refer in subsequent lessons, and the irregular words can thus be learned by degrees and with comparatively little trouble. We will divide the words irregularly pronounced into classes, and we can afterwards refer to these are Irreg. A, B,C, and D, etc.
Some words are irregular in pronunciation because they are unduly shortened in rapid pronunciation. We have already given examples (§343) of one class of words, in which, for the purpose of avoiding hiatus, contraction takes place.
(I) Thus — bliadhain, a year, is pronounced not blee'-ă-ĕn but blee'-ăn.
termination full pron. shortened pron.
In Munster, these words are accented on the last syllable.


text:
TORONTO '08 | "Still Walking," "Goodbye Solo," "The Wrestler" Tops With TIFF Critics, Bloggers
TORONTO '08 | "Still Walking," "Goodbye Solo," "The Wrestler" Tops With TIFF Critics, Bloggers
Eugene Hernandez
@@eug
Hirokazu Kore-Eda's "Still Walking," from Japan, was selected as the best film at the Toronto International Film Festival in a poll of film critics and bloggers conducted this weekend by indieWIRE. The story of a family coming together on the anniversary of a son's passing, the film is Kore-Eda's latest after the acclaimed "Nobody Knows." "Still Walking" edged out Ramin Bahrani's "Goodbye Solo" and Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," two new American films produced and financed independently. More than 30 writers – ranging from AO Scott and Roger Ebert to B Ruby Rich and Karina Longworth, were surveyed. The group singled out "The Wrestler" star Mickey Rourke as the best actor by wide margin, while Agnes Varda's "Les Plages d'Agnes" was chosen as the best documentary at the festival.
While Kore-Eda's acclaimed "Still Walking" and Bahrani's "Goodbye Solo" remained without U.S. distribution as the festival came to a close, Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last week, was acquired by Fox Searchlight hours after buyers got their first look at the film in Toronto. The list of eight films that round out the top ten were not far behind the two leaders. They include Claire Denis' latest, "35 Rhums," Olivier Assayas's "Summer Hours," Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker," and So Yong Kim's "Treeless Mountain."
In comments about the festival and its films, critics and bloggers offered often contradictory assessments. "Great year," noted blogger and festival programmer Tom Hall, noting, "This festival is best when it gives voice to the smaller films, the quality movies, and there were a TON of really good movies at Toronto. I saw over 30 films – and liked 90% of what I saw." Continuing, he added, "It's now clear that the market can no longer be considered an accurate judge if the festival's quality; there is great work that may not be purchased, but the programming was some of the best I've seen at the fest."
Frequent indieWIRE writer Anthony Kaufman noted, "This year's fest was actually one of the better that I can remember. The fest's premieres usually don't hold a candle to Cannes', and while I can't say anything was utterly transformative, I saw a solid batch of films. Even those that tested my patience."
a scene from Ramin Bahrani's "Goodbye Solo." Photo courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival.
"I was more than happy with the ratio of good to bad that I saw here, but it's telling that I first saw the film I named as my absolute favorite of the fest in the market at Cannes four months ago," noted Karina Longworth from Spout.com. "Of the three films that seemed to monopolize conversations during the fest — 'The Wrestler,' 'The Hurt Locker,' and 'Rachel Getting Married' — all premiered first in Venice." And citing a lack of new would be Oscar contenders in Toronto, she added, "If the professional prognosticators aren't going to pick their horses here, where will they find them? Has the mystery "There Will Be Blood" slot at Fantastic Fest suddenly become that much more important?"
"I usually try to steer away from films with distribution and aim to discover those foreign gems that'll never get released in the States," explained Peter Debruge from Variety. "This year, my instincts failed me — or maybe the offerings were just more disappointing. At any rate, I didn't come away from Toronto feeling like I'd seen anything transcendental, whereas, on a good year, I can expect to have that reaction two or three times during the fest."
"A good year, not a great one," said Peter Howell from The Toronto Star. "TIFF is a festival in transition that needs to reexamine its misson."
"Overall a perfectly fine festival, I thought," concluded A.O. Scott from The New York Times, "I don't quite get why people seem to be complaining about it. As always, I found it a good mix of high-profile stuff I'll have to see anyway and smaller movies it would be a shame to miss."
TIFF '08 SURVEY RESULTS:
"Still Walking," directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda (16 points)
"Goodbye Solo," directed by Ramin Bahrani (13)
"The Wrestler," directed by Darren Aronofsky (13)
"35 Rhums, directed by Claire Denis (11)
"Summer Hours," directed by Olivier Assayas (10)
"The Hurt Locker," directed by Kathryn Bigelow (10)
"Treeless Mountain," directed by So Yong Kim (10)
"Slumdog Millionaire," directed by Danny Boyle (9)
"Rachel Getting Married," directed by Jonathan Demme (9)
"Hunger," directed by Steve McQueen (8)
BEST PERFORMANCE
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" (29)
Christian McKay in "Me and Orson Welles" (18)
Souleymane Sy Savane in "Goodbye Solo" (15)
Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" (10)
Jeremy Renner in "The Hurt Locker" (10)
"Les Plages d'Agnes," directed by Agnes Varda (14)
"Soul Power," directed by Jeffrey Levi-Hinte (13)
"Of Time and the City," directed by Terence Davies (11)
"Every Little Step," directed by Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern (10)
"Waltz with Bashir," directed by Ari Folman (9)
"A Time to Stir," directed by Paul Cronin (9)
CRITERIA: Critics and bloggers were asked to list their top three choices in each category — best film, best performance and best documentary. First choice selections were given three points, second choice received two points and third choice received one point.
SURVEY PARTICIPANTS:
Thelma Adams | John Anderson | Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York | David Ansen, Newsweek | Sean Axmaker, website | Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle | Peter Debruge, Variety | Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times | Cheryl Eddy, San Francisco Bay Guardian | Howard Feinstein | Scott Foundas, LA Weekly | Pam Grady | Tom Hall, The Back Row Manifesto | Eugene Hernandez, indieWIRE | Peter Howell, Toronto Star | Anthony Kaufman, indieWIRE | Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out Chicago | Peter Knegt, indieWIRE | Eric Kohn, indieWIRE | Michael Koresky, Reverse Shot | Gary Kramer | Eric Lavallee, Ion Cinema) | Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source | Michael Lerman, indieWIRE | Karina Longworth, Spout | Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine | Steve Ramos, indieWIRE | B. Ruby Rich, SF360 | Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York | AO Scott, New York Times | Ella Taylor, LA Weekly | Keith Uhlich, The House Next Door | Kim Voynar, Cinematical
This Article is related to: Festivals and tagged Features, Festival Dispatch


text:
Q: Hunting cheaters in a voting competition Currently we are running a competition which proceeds very well. Unfortunately we have all those cheaters back in business who are running scripts which automatically vote for their entries. We already saw some cheaters by looking at the database entries by hand - 5 Star ratings with same browser exactly all 70 minutes for example.  Now as the userbase grows up it gets harder and harder to identify them.
What we do until now:

*

*We store the IP and the browser and block that combination to a one hour timeframe. Cookies won't help against these guys.

*We are also using a Captcha, which has been broken

Does anyone know how we could find patterns in our database with a PHP script or how we could block them more efficiently?
Any help would be very appreciated...

A: Direct feedback elimination
This is more of a general strategy that can be combined with many of the other methods. Don't let the spammer know if he succeeds.
You can either hide the current results altogether, only show percentages without absolute number of votes or delay the display of the votes.

*

*Pro: good against all methods

*Con: if the fraud is massive, percentage display and delay won't be effective

Vote flagging
Also a general strategy. If you have some reason to assume that the vote is by a spammer,  count their vote and mark it as invalid and delete the invalid votes at the end.

*

*Pro: good against all detectable spam attacks

*Con: skews the vote, harder to set up, false positives

Captcha
Use a CAPTCHA. If your Captcha is broken, use a better one.

*

*Pro: good against all automated scripts.

*Con: useless against pharygulation
IP checking
Limit the number of votes an IP address can cast in a timespan.

*

*Pro: Good against random dudes who constantly hit F5 in their browser

*Pro: Easy to implement

*Con: Useless against Pharyngulation and elaborate scripts which use proxy servers.

*Con: An IP address sometimes maps to many different users

Referrer checking
If you assume that one user maps one IP address, you can limit the number if votes by that IP address. However this assumption usually only holds true for private households.

*

*Pro: Easy to implement

*Pro: Good against simple pharyngulation to some extent

*Con: Very easy to circumvent by automated scripts

Email Confirmation
Use Email confirmation and only allow one vote per Email. Check your database manually to see if they are using throwaway-emails.
Note that you can add +foo to your username in an email address. username@example.com and username+foo@example.com will both deliver the mail to the same account, so remember that when checking if somebody has already voted.

*

*Pro: good against simple spam scripts

*Con: harder to implement

*Con: Some users won't like it

HTML Form Randomization
Randomize the order of choices. This might take a while for them to find out.

*

*Pro: nice to have anyways

*Con: once detected, very easy to circumvent

HTTPS
One method of vote faking is to capture the http request from a valid browser like Firefox and mimic it with a script, this doesn't work as easy when you use encryption.

*

*Pro: nice to have anyway

*Pro: good against very simple scripts

*Con: more difficult to set up

Proxy checking
If the spammer votes via proxy, you can check for the X-Forwarded-For header.

*

*Pro: good against more advanced scripts that use proxies

*Con: some legitimate users can be affected

Cache checking
Try to see if the client loads all the uncached resources.
Many spambots don't do this. I never tried this, I just know that this isn't checked usually by voting sites.
An example would be embedding <img src="a.gif" /> in your html, with a.gif being some 1x1 pixel image. Then you have to set the http header for the request GET /a.gif with Cache-Control "no-cache, must-revalidate". You can set the http headers in Apache with your .htaccess file like this. (thanks Jacco)

*

*Pro: uncommon method as far as I know

*Con: slightly harder to set up

[Edit 2010-09-22]
Evercookie

*

*A so-called evercookie can be useful to track browser-based spammers

A: Have you tried to do browser fingerprinting?
Check this open source from EFF:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Could be used to identify one person similar to  500-1500 in the world (!).

A: You may add captcha to voting form. Also requiring e-mail confirmation will be useful

A: If you're really worried about it then you have to do something like email verification, which might be sufficient to block most cheaters.
Also it depends whether multiple people behind a NAT are likely to want to vote for the same option (e.g. favourite school).
Any scheme you create can be gamed.
EDIT: As everyone else has suggested, you can use a CAPTCHA such as reCAPTCHA to block automated bots, and make humans less likely to repeat vote. At the cost of making humans less likely to vote at all.

A: The Vote to Promote pattern (you may be aware of it) has a section on how to mitigate against gaming - but it is a tricky one to avoid altogether.  Given your actions to date I would consider using weighting, for example consider a reasonable level of voting over a time period, say 10 votes per ting per hour (just an example not a guide) and for surplus votes weight the next 10 at 90% (ie only count 9), the next 10 at 80% and so on.  This is Yahoo's advice on gaming within this pattern:

Community voting systems do present a
  number of challenges. Particularly the
  possibility that members of the
  community may try to game the system,
  out of any number of motivations:

*

*malice - perhaps against another member of the community and that
  member's contributions.

*gain - to realize some reward, monetary or otherwise, from
  influencing the placement of certain
  items in the pool)

*or an overarching agenda - always promoting certain viewpoints or
  political statements, with little
  regard for the actual quality of the
  content being voted for.
There are a number of ways to attempt
  to safeguard against this type of
  abuse. Though nothing can stop gaming
  altogether. Here are some ways to
  minimize or hinder abusers in their
  efforts:

*

*Vote for things, not people. In keeping with Yahoo's general strategy,
  don't offer users the ability to
  directly vote on another user: their
  looks, their likeability,
  intelligence, or anything else. It's
  OK for the community to vote on a
  person's contributions, but not on the
  quality of their character.

*

*Consider rate-limiting of votes.
  o Only allow the user a certain number of votes within a given
  time-period.
  o Limit the number of times (or the rate at which) a user votes
  down a particular user's content. (To
  prevent ad-hominem attacks.)

*Weigh other factors besides just the number of votes. Digg, for
  instance, does not calculate their
  Digg-score solely on the number of
  votes a submission receives. Their
  algorithm also considers: "story
  source (is it a blog repost, or the
  original story), user history, traffic
  levels of the category the story falls
  under, and user reports." They update
  this algorithm frequently. Consider
  keeping the exact algorithm a secret
  from the community, or only discuss
  the factored inputs in general terms.

*If relationship information is available consider weighting user
  votes accordingly. Perhaps prohibit
  users with formal relationships from
  voting for each other's submissions.
While this is currently a popular
  pattern on the Web, it is important to
  consider the contexts in which we use
  it. Very active and popular
  communities (Digg is an excellent
  example) that enable community-voting
  can also engender a certain negativity
  of spirit (mean comments, opinionated
  cliques, group attacks on 'outlier'
  viewpoints).

A: Check out Asirra: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/asirra/
It's still in beta, but it's pretty cool.

A: To prevent the bots from voting you can use CAPTCHA.

A: The only thing that comes to mind is using a Captcha. Either an elaborate one with pictures and noise like the ReCaptcha service, or a very simple and unobtrusive one like "What is seven plus three?" or (If you're located in the US), "What is the last name of our President", simple common sense questions everybody can answer. If you change them often enough, this could even be more effective than a classic image-based CAPTCHA.

A: CAPTCHA's aren't a silver bullet, the user could have their script display the CAPTCHA to them and solve them manually for at least several votes per minute.
You need to use them in combination with other techniques mentioned here.

A: You could add a honeypot field like in Django. Most likely, this will not protect you from cheaters who deliberately want to change your competition, but at least you will have lesser 'drive-by' spammers to additionally take care of.

A: Sorry for the double post, but I wasn't allowed to post two URLs in the same post...
If you're looking at building your own tracking, maybe this link might provide some inspiration: https://panopticlick.eff.org/
Turns out that a lot of browsers can be uniquely identified, even without any form of tracking cookies. I'm guessing a vote-bot might give a very specific fingerprint?

A: So if everyone ever wants to make a competition where people can win something and wanna use a community driven rating system... here i share some experiences:
The bad:
1) First it cant be made secure for 100%
2) to reach a mass of users which filters out all the nonsense ratings is very hard
3) Forget about star ratings in that case... their is always either 5 Stars or 1 Star
The good
1) Dont give them orientation about where they stand... We replaced the "Order by place" view with a random presentation of the TOP 100 (only the top 30 wll win a price)... This really helped because a lot of users lost their interest as soon as they didnt see where they stood.
2) Don't allow votings like: 1x5_Stars 40x1_Star... Just allow users which vote in a fair way...
3) Most of them act a little bit stupid... You'll see them in your logs and can trace down who votes fair and who unfair... Search for patterns...
**GOOD LUCK ;-) **

A: CAPTCHA is always good, might be "disturbing" for some users though.
reCAPTCHA is a fairly used service

A: How about only allow users who logged in with openid and with reCaptcha before submitting the vote, and monitering the submitter list with same ip address.

A: We use a combination of CAPTCHA and email. The user receive a link with a GUID by mail.
This one must be unique for each user that try to vote.
www.votesite.com/vote.aspx?guid=.....
By using this link the vote is confirmed or not. In database we check the combination of email address and GUID to be unique.

A: I use a combination of CAPTCHA, IP verification and LSO (Flash Local Shared Objects, hard to find and delete for common people).

A: 1.Use recaptcha
2. Yes randomize your voting options but not like this:
             -> from vote_id_1 to asdsasd_1, grdsgsdg_2,
                Instead use session variables to set a mask from vote_id_1 to asgjdas87th2ad in the vote form.

A: What about some post hoc stochastic analysis, like time series analysis - looking for periodicity in events of particular (ip, browser, vote)? You could then assign probability to each such group of events that it belongs to 1 person and either discard all such groups of events beyond some probability level, or use some kind of weighting to lower the weight according to the probability.
Look in R, it contains A LOT of useful analysis packages.

A: Check the domain details of the email they are using. I had the same problem and found that all of them were registered to the same registrant. I wrote it up here: http://tincan.co.uk/659/news/competition-spammers.html
Now, I filter on the DNS information for the email used in the registration.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
/// Copyright (c) 2012 Ecma International.  All rights reserved.
/**
 * @path ch15/15.4/15.4.4/15.4.4.15/15.4.4.15-4-7.js
 * @description Array.prototype.lastIndexOf returns -1 if 'length' is 0 ( length is object overridden with obj w/o valueOf (toString))
 */

function testcase() {
  foo.prototype = new Array(1, 2, 3);
  function foo() {}
  var f = new foo();

  var o = { toString: function () { return '0';}};
  f.length = o;

  // objects inherit the default valueOf method of the Object object;
  // that simply returns the itself. Since the default valueOf() method
  // does not return a primitive value, ES next tries to convert the object
  // to a number by calling its toString() method and converting the
  // resulting string to a number.
 var i = Array.prototype.lastIndexOf.call({length: { toString: function () { return '0';}}}, 1);

  if (i === -1) {
    return true;
  }
 }
runTestCase(testcase);


text:
Alburnus demiri är en fiskart som beskrevs av Özulug och Jörg Freyhof 2008. Alburnus demiri ingår i släktet Alburnus och familjen karpfiskar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Karpfiskar
demiri

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This page serves as a working list of people who may reach supercentenarian status. The purpose of this list is so that the WikiProject members can prepare to include any living supercentenarians into the existing list of living supercentenarians after finding a source generally accepted as reliable that confirms that the person has made it to their reported 110th birthday.
Kewal Parsad Bisnauthsing  M 10 Oct 1909? 109 years, 192 days?
Bibikhal Uzbeki  F 9 Nov 1910? 108 years, 162 days?


This week's highlighted resource is a project profile on copper ore drums.
Agglomeration drums (aka copper ore drums) are used in the heap leaching process to agglomerate ore fines so that the leaching agent can more effectively percolate through the heap, maximizing metal recovery. FEECO is a preferred provider of agglomeration drums for the mining industry, whether it be for copper, gold, silver, or otherwise. This project profile highlights the copper ore drums we provided to one of the world's largest and most environmentally advanced copper mines.


Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP, has warned of a 'dangerous rise' in foreign tourists entering Britain. Farage, currently serving as vice chairman of the Leave Means Leave organisation said non-British visitors were putting a 'horrendous' strain on British restaurants and hotels.
"The political elite and liberal establishment have allowed Britain to be overrun by hordes of foreigners on a yearly basis. Many of these tourists are young men and are returning to visit Britain with their families year after year.
Farage stressed it was important Britain protects its borders from tourism in the post-Brexit era.
"Of course we want tourism, but we need to agree on the right type of tourism. I think we could have a system where we means test any tourist planning to take a holiday in Britain.


Last year, Pushpa Paudel had a memorable Dashain experience for all the wrong reasons. After a long struggle for bus tickets to Jhapa from Kathmandu, she finally managed a cabin seat—but only up to Itahari. A trip that had already begun with frustrations because of an uncomfortable seat on the long journey soon turned worse."The driver knew there would be heavy traffic along the regular Muglin route, so he took the shorter route via Tribhuvan Highway.
Are you a visual or an auditory learner?
Am I a lawn mower parent?