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Bundanon
Kupka's Piano has just spent a week the artist residency at the Bundanon Trust's incredible Riversdale property – a property once belonging to artist Arthur Boyd that has been turned into a beautiful retreat for all kinds of artists to delve deeply into their work away from the commitments and distractions of modern city life. There we rehearsed intensively in preparation for our debut studio recording project, which we're diving into today (back in Brisbane)! The residency was made possible thanks to support from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Bundanon Trust, and our recording is officially funded by all of YOU, thanks to our successful Australian Cultural Fund crowdfunding campaign. We are so terribly grateful to each and every one of you who has contributed, as well as to these major supporters. Thanks to your generosity we have been able to take on this very ambitious project, one that will have a lasting output that we will share and cherish for many years to come. Before we lock ourselves in the studio for three days of recording funtimes, Hannah hounded everyone to give a brief reflection on our week at Riversdale. Below are quotes from all of us and photos of the incredible building, landscape, Boyd paintings, and our rehearsals.
Alex (piano):
I find that it's often tricky to blend productivity and calmness when you're in the midst of preparations for an ambitious and challenging project, such as the upcoming KP recording. Having the luxury of spending a whole week of music-making at a rehearsal retreat such the Bundanon Trust was a really magical way to make it seem as easy as it can be!
Liam (guitar, composer, conductor!):
We don't live in a society that encourages concentration, and certainly not one that encourages a high degree of concentration on artistic creation. Usually Kupka's Piano steals time where we can to rehearse for upcoming concerts, each member making sacrifices here and there and often racing between various commitments—teaching, other gigs, night shifts, family—and we manage to pull off some amazing stuff, despite the constraints.
At Bundanon, however, we really got the chance to let the music sink into our minds and bodies a little more. We had the time to see past the dizzying rush of notes in many of the works we have performed and draw out more defined shapes, characters, and concepts. This was particularly obvious to me in Chris Dench's flux, which at first seemed like a series of impenetrable musical blocks, but as we rehearsed across the week, turned into a subtle conversation of instrumental lines, with perfectly-hewn gem-like moments emerging fleetingly from dense walls of sound. That's what a week of rehearsals will do.
There were of course shenanigans of all sorts, appalling karaoke (ask Mac for a rendition of 'Ridin Dirty' next time you see him), wombat hunts (no wombats were injured), purge towns (we all survived), a creek walk that had no creek (I think we went the wrong way), and others which I won't go into, but we also did a huge amount of planning for 2017 and dreaming and scheming for 2018. Something about the country around the Bundanon Trust and the company of great musicians for a week inspires you to want to go on, despite the difficulties that inevitably emerge along the way.
Jodie (flute):
It took returning to city life to fully realise the importance of a place like Bundanon. The dull and annoying buzz of the city, people scurrying around in cars, and the distractions of everyday life seemed so far away during our residency. We only had to worry ourselves with rehearsals, musical details, and wombat spotting.
Mac (clarinet):
Bundanon was certainly an artistically rewarding experience for me. Aside from being a fantastic opportunity to rehearse, it also gave our group the chance to develop closer bonds with each other, which made the residency that little bit more fulfilling.
Angus (percussion):
The epic task of getting all the percussion gear to Bundanon was dwarfed by the company, food, scenery, and happy times!
Hannah (flute, conductor, composer):
What a week! Perfect in almost every way, with the possible exception of the temperature (one day got to 37ºC, two days later it was a top of 18ºC), and the sighting of a (presumed) funnel web spider in the toilet by Lachlan. But rehearsing under the shadow of a huge Arthur Boyd masterpiece, in the magnificent Boyd Education Centre overlooking the Shoalhaven river, to the sounds of bellbirds (which sounded suspiciously like a clicktrack on occasion), kookaburras and galahs, was such an awe-inspiring experience that we could just wipe the sweat away, close the toilet door, and get to work.
Katherine (cello):
A whole week for all of the things I never get the time to do: I did lots of admin, lots of practice and detailed rehearsing, plus it was so nice to hang out as a group, the wombats were cute, and we saw a lyrebird!
Lachlan (guest violin):
It was an incredible privilege to be invited to tag along with Kupka's Piano for their residency at the Bundanon estate last week — what a special, awe-inspiring place! It's not often that I'm given an opportunity to spend a whole week working intensively on a single project like this, let alone in such a beautiful, peaceful setting. It's quite amazing how productive one can be when the circumstances are just right! As a guest musician who doesn't regularly perform with Kupka's Piano, this residency was a wonderful way for me to get to know everyone in the ensemble and find out what makes them tick. These guys are all super passionate about their work and it has been such a pleasure to collaborate and share musical ideas with them. I've come away from the residency feeling confident that this recording is going to be something very special and I can't wait to share it with everyone in 2017! Big thanks must go to the Bundanon Trust for hosting us, the Australia Council for the Arts for supporting the residency, and to the whole KP crew for having me on board for this project!
Blog post, The ensembleHannah Reardon-Smith 20 December 2016 Australia Council for the Arts, Australian music, Bundanon TrustComment
Politics, Detention and Dance - Michael Mathieson-Sandars discusses 'For Reza Berati'
Below is a little piece about a new collaborative work I've been part of as part of The Human Detained, a project by Kupka's Piano and MakeShift Dance Collective, which will be given its full showing at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane at 7:30pm on October 30th. You can get tickets here.
Reading back into my emails, it seems like it was some time mid last year that, in discussions between KP and MakeShift, we settled on The Human Detained as a theme which could unite our collaborative project. We felt it was open and deep enough for our collaborative sub-groups to determine their own interpretative paths. It was bubbling with possibilities; both abstract enough to approach musically and visceral enough to explore in movement. Part of the reason we settled on The Human Detained above other themes, however, was that we felt it would be particularly pertinent and socially resonant given Australia's policy to imprison asylum seekers in offshore detention camps. While the other groups have taken this theme in a number of exciting directions to create a fascinating array of unique works, I was always enthusiastic to explore the The Human Detained as an explicitly political topic.
In the past twelve to eighteen months, it has been greatly saddening that the situation for refugees has only intensified, with further abuses coming to light at home and anti-refugee rhetoric escalating abroad. In the face of this, however, it has been greatly encouraging to see that the spirit of protest is alive and well, and even more so when considering that the tone of protest has been an uncompromising demand for compassion. It is in this spirit that my group's new work for The Human Detained, For Reza Berati, was first conceived.
Reza Berati, an Iranian asylum seeker, was twenty-three years old when he was killed during an attack on the Australian-operated detention centre on Manus Island in February last year. But how has this translated to music and choreography? Such a tragic death - the result of such arbitrary cruelty designed to divide us as much at home as it is to separate 'us' from 'them' - could certainly lead to a negative artworld. Modern art can often be permitted only to say what is lost or what is alienated; a kind of anguish that what we once had is gone, and we can never have it back. With this work, and in deference to this topic, however, it seemed appropriate to aim for something a little different. Since his death, Berati's image has become a symbol in protest movements around the country: in this context his death has become a demand for all to be treated with dignity and justice, with an absolute respect for life. This is the approach we have tried to take with the piece; we wanted to explore the oppression, alienation, and violence in this situation, but to also demonstrate that there is, in resistance to the situation, long-reaching solidarity and a vision for real and positive change.
The basic structure of the work reflects the process of coming together. For the two musicians, violinist Alethea Coombe and flautist Jodie Rottle, this happens in a couple of ways. Firstly, there is their physical orientation: the performers begin facing away from one another, but across the work they come to face one another in order to play "together." Secondly, there is a progression in what is musically asked of the performers. There are three broad sections in the work: in the first Alethea and Jodie are improvising with very limited specific musical direction; the second they perform notated excerpts and are asked to improvise from one to the next so that each player maintains a loose relation with the other; the third section is fully notated and detailed in what they must perform. The aim is to represent a change from alienated individuals, playing at the same time but not together, to two individuals who must work together as chamber musicians, in communication with one another to organise towards a common goal; a coming together to play music as a coming together to protest.
The notated music, meanwhile, can be seen as a "working through" of the tension between the lines towards an arrival point. Each line of musical material is based, very abstractly, on repetitions of the chant "No prisons! No Fear! Refugees are welcome here!" in varied tempos and interpretations. Spoken (whispered and yelled) excerpts of the text are also drawn into the music, transforming from an isolated "prison!" or "no!" to the whole chant. Apart from the symbolism of this linguistic inversion, the chant is included along with marching stomps to capture some of the essence of a refugee rally; a certain kind of sadness turned into positively-charged anger and loud defiance. It can also be seen as the process of being drawn from a situation of turmoil into action to make a change.
The role of our wonderful dancer/choreographer, Courtney Scheu, is perhaps a little more complicated, especially in her relationship with the musicians. At times, Courtney represents the oppressed, and the musicians the oppressors; at the other times her actions are more abstract and allusive, or more reinforcing the music. We were particularly careful to explore possible readings of Courtney's and the musicians' movement. Because of the explicit political content in the work, we wanted to avoid creating a reading where Courtney would be seen as an asylum seeker, with Jodie and Alethea as both the oppressors and the (western, imperial) saviours – a misleading idea given how active asylum seekers have been in organising resistance to their incarceration. We have aimed instead for the choreography of the work (especially Courtney's movements, but those of Alethea and Jodie, too) to depict the oppressive framework that's been established, offer solidarity to those who are detained, reinforce the overall narrative of isolation to collective engagement, and provide a direct human connection to the work itself. While that seems like a very difficult line to tread, I hope we have been successful in this!
For me personally, it has been a great pleasure to work towards this piece with Alethea, Jodie, and Courtney (who's also put in a great deal of work on co-ordinating the rest of the show!), and quite an eye-opening experience for me as a composer. It has been at times difficult to engage with such a heavy topic, but I am extremely proud of what we have managed to accomplish. I look forward to coming up to Brisbane to finish the work off and (lucky me as a composer) getting to see the whole show. Hope to see you there!
Blog postMichael Mathieson-Sandars 4 October 2015 Michael Mathieson-Sandars Composer, Reza Berati, The Human DetainedComment
Mixed feelings: returning home
Flutist and co-founder of Kupka's Piano, Hannah Reardon-Smith, has been living in Brussels for the past year while undertaking an Advanced Masters in Contemporary Music Performance Practice. She returns to Australia just for the month of July this year, and will join KP in their Wynnum concert at the Imperial Room.
I've got mixed feelings about coming back to Australia.
That said, I've had mixed feelings about living and studying in Belgium too. I've had (and in the next year will have) some incredible opportunities, learning with and playing alongside some of my heroes, making contact with many of the composers whose work I'm most interested in, and realising how small (if widely spread) the global community of musicians playing la musique contemporaine really is. I've been mentored by members of Ictus and Ensemble musikFabrik, two of Europe's leading new music ensembles, and have performed extensively in Belgium, England, Germany and Austria. I've met peers from all over the world who are studying and performing here. But being over here has made clear to me just how incredible a group Kupka's Piano really is, and I miss them like crazy!
So coming home to KP is something I am really looking forward to, not to mention catching up with friends and family and enjoying a bit of Brisbane winter (not all that different to the Belgian summer I'm leaving ... only Brisbane will probably have a bit more sun).
But I can't help but feel how bittersweet it is. The current Australian government is taking a swipe at independent and emerging artists and small to medium arts organisations by quarantining funding previously available to them through a rigorous system of grant application and peer review, putting it instead into a fund that will in all likelihood support only conservative classical institutions handpicked by the arts minister George Brandis himself.
Kupka's Piano is one of a select group of Australian ensembles dedicated to playing newer art music, which by definition makes it one of the few ensembles in the country with a strong focus on Australian composition (Australian works are included in every program). Not only that, but KP plays a vital role bringing the new music of Europe, the Americas, and Asia to Australian shores, offering audiences in Brisbane the opportunity to hear music to which they otherwise have no access. Kupka's has a special focus on young composers at home and abroad, and it's rare to see a program without a world premiere (or two, or three...). Several young composers are directly tied to the ensemble, allowing the performers and composers to develop in tandem - a fascinating process for an audience to witness!
Furthermore, I believe KP to be quite unique in an international context. Due to limitations on touring (in comparison to Australia, European cities are really close together, and also very well connected by affordable and high-speed rail travel), Kupka's plays a great many concerts in their home city, which has also forced them to learn great swathes of repertoire from the beginning. The identity of the ensemble has developed without restriction to a single style, something that has been possible due the small number of ensembles playing similar repertoire, which is unlike Europe where young ensembles often feel the need to carve out a niche before they really know what they want to do, in order to set themselves apart and avoid treading on others' toes.
The result is that Kupka's Piano has developed an excellent rapport, a very high standard of performance, and a loyal following*, something I've watched with increasing admiration from afar (it's always so gratifying to see others step into your empty shoes, and at this point I have to offer the highest praise especially to flutist Jodie Rottle, pianist Alex Raineri, and percussionist Angus Wilson for all their incredible hard work). Such a following is rare in Europe, and difficult to cultivate.
There are two particular sources of outside support which need to be mentioned when discussing KP's success: the Judith Wright Centre, which has given the ensemble a home and extensive marketing support, and the Australia Council for the Arts, which recognised very early on the potential of this ensemble, and supported us through a series of small grant programs from emerging artists through to young professionals. Without both of these government funded institutions, Kupka's Piano would likely not exist, and certainly would not be as strong as it is today.
The ramifications of the changes to arts funding in Australia not only endanger ensembles like Kupka's, they rule out the opportunity for younger groups of similarly adventurous musicians to emerge. The JUMP mentorship program and the ArtStart program, two important grants for emerging artists from which our ensemble members have benefitted, have been completely scrapped. The funding available in future to KP and other groups will be greatly reduced. Particularly in Queensland, where arts funding is yet to recover from the previous LNP government's brutal attacks, there are few alternatives to turn to when it comes to paying the basic expenses that make a concert possible.
I'm really looking forward to coming home to play with Kupka's Piano. But I also hope that when I finish my degree this time next year I can return to continuing opportunity for my ensemble in Australia. And I hope that other young musicians can afford to be adventurous in the future.
*I'm not the only one saying this!
Blog post, The ensembleHannah Reardon-Smith 29 June 2015 arts funding, Australia, Australia Council for the Arts, Australian music, contemporary art music, emerging artists, Europe, Hannah Reardon-Smith, Kupka's Piano, OzCo Comment


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text:
Sensing Our Planet
Repatterning the world
LP DAAC SEDAC
2011 Sensing Our Planet
Once more into the storm
Volatile trees
Looking for mud
Hidden carbon
Baja's fault
The un-ice age
The time of cholera
Waiting for Gojal
A black cloud over Cairo
The feather followers
Growing Jamaica
Sensing Our Planet books (PDF)
2017 Sensing Our Planet - PDF
As wildlands shrink, scientists study the ecologies that people have tamed.
by Jane Beitler
About the data used
About SEDAC
About LP DAAC
Flood waters were rising near the small farming village in China where ecologist Erle Ellis was staying. He scrubbed his research project and evacuated, but he would return. Ellis had been studying the ecology of the Yangtze Delta since the early 1990s, yet he was often surprised by how its people and ecology overturned his assumptions.
Neither flood nor repeated famines have managed to wipe out the people who have lived here for thousands of years. Long ago, they reshaped the landscape to grow rice in swampy paddies in the vast plains of the Yangtze and up into the hillsides. Houses settled on the valley floor, ringed with gardens and trees. Generations farmed the still-thriving land.
It is strange to find an ecologist studying land settled by people. Historically, ecologists have studied wild places. But Ellis thinks it is time for ecologists to pay more attention to landscapes with people, and he is using Earth science data to prove the point.
The complete cycle
The Yangtze Delta is home to more than eighty million people in an area only a little larger than the state of Indiana. How does the land support this much agriculture and so many people, and can it continue to thrive? It is a question that continues to intrigue Ellis, and that may teach our teeming numbers to wisely manage the lands that feed us.
When he first came to China, Ellis expected to see older forms of agriculture persisting. He wanted to study small farms, and talk to farmers who still worked them by hand. He expected to be wading knee-deep in rice fields fertilized by manure. Ellis felt it would be vastly different from most farms in the United States that worked more like factories, using machinery and chemicals to grow food on a large scale. "We think of agriculture as being something out there far away with big machines," he said. "In most of the world that is not the case."
Chinese farms did look traditional at first glance; people worked the rice paddies by hand, sometimes using water buffalo instead of tractors. Up close, Ellis saw modern ways arising from agricultural science, such as the heavy use of chemical fertilizers. "Today about a third of the world's fertilizer is used in China—but almost all of that is applied by hand," he said. In spite of some residue of older practices, Ellis thinks that traditional systems, which rely on local knowledge and natural resources, are almost completely gone.
Like other nations around the world, China is using technologies like fertilizer and pesticides to boost production and feed its population. "It is quite a rare thing now to have a highly productive traditional agriculture, because there is not much desirable about it," Ellis said. "Famines were common." Before the 1970s, Chinese scholars over a thousand years recorded large numbers of famines every year across the country. Although crop failures and food shortages are not the only factors in famine, growing and storing a surplus of food can help avert famine. The high nitrogen content in chemical fertilizers can double and triple crops, compared to fertilizers like manure. "In China that is not a trivial thing," he said. "If you cut their yields in half, without massive imports, people would starve."
Ironically, while other countries are taking up industrial-style farming, many in the United States are calling for more local and organic farming, thinking that it is more environmentally friendly. Chemical fertilizer can pollute groundwater and surface water, especially when it reaches coastal waters. Too much nitrogen in soils can even reduce plant growth. Heavy doses of fertilizer added to the soil can break down and wind up as more nitrogen in the atmosphere. Nitrogen oxides, which are ozone-depleting chemicals and greenhouse gases, contribute to global warming, along with carbon emissions from heavy machinery and long-distance transportation of food. "Humans have doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen in the nitrogen cycle globally," Ellis said.
So small changes in little villages, added together, can matter in a big way. But few ecologists seemed to be studying places that people live.
I produce, therefore I am
After his years in China, Ellis thought the landscapes people use, and their large-scale impacts, were poorly understood. Part of the reason was how ecologists viewed the Earth. "If you open atlases or global change textbooks, you see maps of biomes of the world. This is how you depict what the world looks like," said Navin Ramakutty, at McGill University.
Ecologists use biomes to classify the global patterns of ecology on land, based on vegetation types that correspond to global patterns in climate. The different biomes—lush tropical forests, hot arid deserts, grasslands, or cold, arid tundra—can each support unique kinds and amounts of life. They also make different contributions to the global carbon cycle.
Like other modern sciences, ecology strives for objectivity by reducing the complexity of the systems they study. One way to do this has traditionally been to isolate human influence from observations, by studying areas presumed to be wild. The lands that we influence, such as croplands and cities, tend to be excluded from consideration, or squeezed into just a few land classifications, where they were largely ignored by ecologists until recently.
But almost seven billion people live on Earth today. "We know instinctively that this is not what the world looks like any more," Ramankutty said. Ramankutty and Ellis are among a growing number of ecologists who think the classic focus on wildlands does not match the state of the Earth today.
Ellis noted, "What is the ecology that people create and sustain over a long period of time? In the past, this was a very marginal subject for ecologists. If you have people in your ecosystem it's not really ecology. It's a degraded thing, an unimportant ruined thing. For me that was always very frustrating."
People in the map
Ellis thought that data could show how much of the Earth is under human influence. "I wanted to quantify and express in a powerful way to ecologists the significance of anthropogenic ecosystems," he said.
He proposed to Ramankutty, who had been using global data to study patterns of land use for agriculture, that they look at population and land use statistics. Ramankutty said, "The sheer number of people affects ecosystem processes in the village landscapes that Erle had been studying. He thought of extending this idea to a global scale."
As they melded global data sets on population, land use, and land cover, patterns emerged. Ellis said, "There was no obvious method for determining the big categories of the anthrome system, so we did a statistical approach that figured out the global patterns in these data." The researchers saw a new biome system, with human-dominated ecosystems that they called anthropogenic biomes, or anthromes for short.
The analysis produced two major insights. Ramankutty said, "First, an astonishing amount of the world's landscape, up to 77 percent, is an anthrome." People have taken over most places on Earth that can support human life. Some wildlands remain in rainforests, but most are in cold, arid, northern areas. "Second, we usually think of people living in cities between forests, or between forests practicing agriculture," Ramankutty said. "We think of our influence as being small. That's not the way the world works anymore. We currently have human systems within which natural systems are embedded."
The data also showed more human-influenced categories than just the classic cropland or urban area biomes. Ellis said, "There's this incredible richness of systems and ecosystems that we create and sustain. For example, in the temperate zone you see trees. Just about every system, urban or agricultural, has trees. We create mosaics; we hardly ever create one thing. When you look at the Earth from space—when you look out of the airplane—you can see it."
The ecologies of these mosaics were a question mark for researchers. Ramankutty said, "We think that you can have valuable ecosystems in places where humans live. There can be valuable carbon stored in trees in urban landscapes. There are more trees in cropland anthromes than in wildland anthromes. We should measure those things as well."
The result of their analysis is now published as a data set at NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Users can obtain mapped data on anthropogenic biomes, for the globe or for one or more of six regions. In all, the analysis defines twenty-one classifications of biomes; only three are wild.
The researchers think the data and the new classifications show that the field of ecology can no longer ignore human influence. While classic biome systems are by no means obsolete, Ramankutty said, "We shouldn't always be jaunting off to the middle of the rainforests to study how ecosystems work. We should be studying ecosystems in places where people live and manage land."
To know that humans dominate Earth can be unsettling. Ellis said, "The way we value nature is challenged in some way by the idea that most of the planet has been transformed into human systems already." Humans need to understand and manage the lands they use and live in, now and for the future.
Ramankutty added, "You start by talking about the negative—that humans are really in control of ecosystems around the planet. Compared to other species we have been extremely successful, and we have had an impact on a global scale."
"But the positive thing is, that same story tells us humans are extremely capable. If we set our minds to it, we should be able to find new solutions to continue to flourish on this planet."
Ellis, E. C. and N. Ramankutty. 2008. Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6(8): 439-447.
NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
Environmental Sustainability—Anthropogenic Biomes Version 1
Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology
About the remote sensing data used
Satellite Terra
Sensor Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
Data sets Anthropogenic Biomes Version 1 MODIS Land Cover Type
Resolutions Raster cell sizes are 5" or 0.08333 degree decimal (about 10 kilometers at the equator) 15 arc second
Parameters Anthropogenic biomes Land cover
DAACs NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applicaitons Center (SEDAC) NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
Photograph in title graphic shows rice terraces in Longji, China. (Courtesy E. Bell)
Last Updated: Jan 14, 2020 at 10:11 AM EST

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Huber's M estimator for contaminated Gaussian noise Huber discussed in this seminal paper "Robust Estimation of a Location Parameter" link that if we have some observations $x_i$ as follows:
$$y_i = \theta + \nu_i, ~~i=1,\cdots,N, \tag{1}$$
where $\nu_i$ are given by the contaminated Gaussian distribution
$$g(\nu) = (1-\epsilon) \phi(\nu) + \epsilon h(\nu). \tag{2}$$
Specifically, $\phi(\nu)$ is a Gaussian distribution, i.e., $\phi(\nu) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}e^{-\nu^2/2}$ and $h(\nu)$ can be any arbitrary symmetric distribution. Then, the M-estimator $\hat\theta$ of $\theta$ is given by the solution of
$$\sum\limits_{i=1}^N \Psi(y_i - \theta) = 0, \tag{3}$$
where
$$
\Psi(x) = \left\{
\begin{array}{r@{\;\;}l}
&x, ~~~|x|\leq k\\
&k , ~~~x>k \\
&-k, ~~~x<-k
\end{array}
\right. \tag{4}$$
and $k$ is a given number depending on $\epsilon$.
However, I could not find in his paper how exactly we can get $\hat\theta$ by solving (3). It is just mentioned in the paper that it can be solved by using some modified Winsorized mean. But I need the detailed steps. For example, if $k=1, y=[1,1.5,1,1.3]$, what is $\hat\theta$?
Any suggestion or reference will be appreciated.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Guardians of the Galaxy Roller Coaster Ride Vehicle Concept Art Revealed
Tags epcot guardians of the galaxy
Speaking at the 2018 IAAPA Attractions Expo, Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products Chairman Bob Chapek revealed the Guardians of the Galaxy indoor coaster ride vehicle concept art. What will become one of the world's longest indoor roller coasters, the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction will feature some of the latest innovative technology in roller coaster ride vehicles.
Epcot's Guardians of the Galaxy coaster will feature a mix of traditional thrills blended together with immersive storytelling. "On most coasters, the vehicles point straight ahead throughout the ride," Bob explained. "But on this attraction, each individual cab will be programmed to direct your eye to the story happening around you. That means instead of whizzing by the action, you'll be fully immersed in the story from the minute you launch."
Epcot's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy indoor coaster, located in Future World, is currently in the construction phase of its development. The attraction is slated to be open in time for Walt Disney World's 50th anniversary in 2021.
Are you excited for this new attraction in Epcot?
Source/Photos: Disney Parks Blog and WDW Kingdom
JEANNETTE SANCHEZ
WDW Kingdom New Member
I can't wait to ride the Guardians of the Galaxy in 2021 for the 50th birthday for Walt Disney World Resort.
Magic Vacations Travel Planner
YES! I love Guardians! This will be such a fun addition to Epcot! Its enormous, I cannot wait to ride this!


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How KFC Keeps its Biggest Secret a Secret
April 30, 2015 Dan Lewis Uncategorized 0
In 1952, the owner of a chicken restaurant named Harlan Sanders began franchising out his brand to other restaurateurs throughout the country. Colonel Sanders' chain, then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken (and now KFC), spread quickly, and Sanders became a very wealthy man. The key to his success: a secret recipe. In 1940, Sanders perfected his "original recipe" of "11 herbs and spices" — a mix which gave his chicken its distinctive, sought-after taste. Sanders used this recipe as a core part of the franchise agreement; according to Wikipedia, "independent restaurants would pay four (later five) cents on each chicken as a franchise fee, in exchange for Sanders' 'secret blend of herbs and spices' and the right to feature his recipe on their menus and use his name and likeness for promotional purposes."
It would have been easier to simply give the franchisees the herb and spice recipe mix and prohibit its unauthorized use via contracts and patents. But KFC decided not to, believing that the recipe was their biggest point of differentiation. And the recipe remains a secret even today — in no small part because the company wants to keep it that way.
The secret recipe is hand-written on a piece of paper by Colonel Sanders himself; there are no known copies, digital or otherwise. In 2001, the New York Times reported that the recipe "is locked in a company safe and treated as a closely guarded trade secret. The ingredients are said to be known only to a handful of employees who have signed confidentiality pledges." And, according to a trade publication, "the executives are prohibited from traveling together due to security reasons." But most dramatically, even companies that make the spice mix for the chicken giant aren't given the recipe. Instead, KFC gets the spice mix from two different companies, according to Wikipedia (citing this Times of London story, but the Times story is behind a paywall), with neither company having all the information: "half of it is produced by Griffith Laboratories before it is given to McCormick, who add the second half." This makes it impossible for either to reproduce the entire mix of herbs and spices.
There's reason for KFC to take this cloak-and-dagger approach to the recipe — had Sanders (or, later, the company) patented it, the recipe and process would have been published as part of the patent application. That patent would have eventually expired, allowing anyone to copy it verbatim. And even before the patent expired, the publicly-published description of the ingredients and process could be modified slightly to avoid liability. The only way to protect the recipe, therefore, was via obscurity — if no one ever knows it, no one can copy it.
It seems impossible to keep such a thing a secret for so long, making many skeptical about the above. There are many who believe that that the entire "secret recipe" protection process isn't to protect the signature flavor of KFC, but to strengthen the brand's marketing efforts. The legend of the recipe is always good for a PR bump, as even moving it around it newsworthy. For example, in 2008, according to CNBC, the company "temporarily relocat[ed]" the prized document in order to "revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country's most famous corporate secrets." And as many have pointed out, the "secret recipe" likely changed over the years to account for the mass production of fried chicken required for the company's growth.
So take the secret with a grain of salt — and with some secret herbs and spices, too.
Bonus Fact: Colonel Sanders, as he got older, wasn't a fan of KFC. According to the Consumerist, in the 1970s, Sanders commented publicly that KFC's gravy reminded him of "sludge" and the mashed potatoes of "wallpaper paste." KFC ended up suing its founder for libel — but lost. Why? In part, because, as the court found, "the assertion that the chicken served by Kentucky Fried Chicken Corp. was not prepared exactly according to Sanders' original recipe was not defamatory. It is almost inevitable that at least slight deviations would occur. Indeed, prospective customers would expect that."
Take the Quiz!: From the items listed, can you choose those which are one of the seven deadly sins, one of the seven dwarves, or one of the Spice Girls? (Okay, this one is barely related to the story today — Spice Girls and spices — but I thank you in advance for your forgiveness.)
From the Archives: Doubting Thomas: How KFC and Wendy's are linked.
Related: A well-regarded KFC-inspired recipe book. It probably doesn't have the secret spice mix, but it probably has something very close.


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A second-grader has her mask adjusted before heading into school for the day. (Black Press Media file photo)
B.C. parents crowdsourcing COVID-19 school exposures in lieu of provincial information
Health ministry choosing to only publicly report outbreaks, clusters
A site run voluntarily by two B.C. moms has quickly become one of the only sources of information on COVID-19 exposures in schools this year, after the province announced it would only publicize information if it turned into a cluster or outbreak.
Kathy Marliss heads the BC School COVID Tracker, which crowdsources letters and emails sent to individual parents and publishes their exposure information in a mass 78-page online spreadsheet. The result is a semi-comprehensive look at COVID-19 exposures, clusters and outbreaks in schools across B.C., dating back to September 2020.
When the Richmond mom started the site a year ago, it was to create an accessible database for concerned parents, drawing on publicly-available health documents. This school year though, those documents are usually only being sent to the caregivers of students at the highest risk of having been exposed, leaving the rest of the school community in the dark.
"We're furious because that little bit of information we got was our only life line for making informed decisions," said Marliss, who has two children and an immunocompromised husband.
Marliss and a Vancouver Island mom now spend hours each every day collecting and verifying messages from parents and school administrators across the province, informing them of exposures in their schools. Of course, relying on voluntarily-submitted information means the BC School COVID Tracker will likely never capture the full picture.
READ ALSO: B.C. vaccine cards to soon match name on legal IDs after some mismatched
"Our database is only a fraction, a snapshot of what's truly going on in schools," Marliss said. Still, the site has reported more exposures in schools so far in September than in the entirety of the month last year. Overall, COVID-19 cases in the province are also far higher now than at the same time last year, with an average new daily caseload close to 700 so far this month, compared to 100 in September 2020.
In justifying its decision the Ministry of Health, in a statement to Black Press Media, said it heard from families last year that school-wide notifications were anxiety-inducing. It also stated increasing vaccination rates should protect students and staff and that there is a low risk of transmission in schools.
Marliss disagrees.
"The letters never caused anxiety. The vagueness, the lack of information in those letters is what did," she said, noting parents were never told what classes or grades were affected, only that there was a general school exposure. Now, Marliss said, the level of anxiety has only heightened.
Victoria parent Elizabete Costa said her worries extend beyond a lack of information to inadequate contact tracing, after her 10-year-old son tested positive for the virus in the first week of school. Costa said she informed her son's school about his COVID-like symptoms on Sept. 8, and the principal told her there was nothing they could do until public health directed them.
Two days later, on a Friday, Costa's son officially tested positive and Costa immediately informed the school. But, it wasn't until the following Monday that Costa said a public health letter was issued at the school, at which point she had no idea how many students could have spread the virus. The risk of transmission is notably lower for vaccinated people, but in a middle school such as Costa's son attends, the majority of students have not received their shots.
Costa also contracted COVID-19 as a result.
With more than 50,000 people following the BC School COVID Tracker page on Facebook, it would appear many others agree.
READ ALSO: Pregnant people need to get immunized as cases continue to end up in B.C.'s ICU: Henry
In an announcement Tuesday (Sept. 21), provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said after hearing from parents and educators across the province her team is now working on a new system to inform people of COVID-19 exposures in schools. It is expected to be in place by the weekend, Henry said.
Do you have a story tip? Email: jane.skrypnek@blackpress.ca.
British ColumbiaCoronavirusSchools
Concerns prompt B.C. to return to notifying schools, parents about COVID exposures
B.C. government to mandate items such as mattresses and EV batteries are recyclable by 2023


Big Broadband, Big Opportunities in Urbana-Champaign.
Some households can afford access to broadband and others can't. Some businesses are reaping the benefits of high-speed internet, and others aren't. A digital divide with far-reaching implications is widening with every new development in network technology. But in Urbana and Champaign, Illinois, a powerful and affordable infrastructure is working hard to close that gap, putting the local community at the forefront of state-of-the-art broadband development.
Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband (UC2B) began in 2009 with grant funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to the University of Illinois. During the grant period, UC2B laid the groundwork and literal foundation for fiber-optic cable, connected anchor institutions, and provided families with broadband services.
The results? 1,058 households connected. 294 community anchor institutions provided access. 220 businesses benefiting from high-speed internet. And that was just the beginning.
UC2B has evolved into a collaboration between the cities themselves, service provider i3 Broadband, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where the Center for Digital Inclusion provides an important perspective on the community impact of access to information technologies. UC2B provides broadband Internet access to residences and business in Urbana-Champaign, including many subscribers who were previously unserved or underserved.
Today, Urbana-Champaign is a Smart Gigabit Community, offering citizens improved access to health care, educational and recreational institutions, public safety and government agencies, and social service and religious organizations, as well as increased access to public computing centers. It's all thanks to the broadband infrastructure bringing everything together.
Not only are thousands of households in Urbana-Champaign provided access to gigabit fiber connections—they're also directly connected to the UIUC campus network and everything it has to offer, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the birthplace of the modern web browser. Talk about a great resource!


That is a lovely photo. I can't find a wherry called Eagle listed in Roy Clark's Black Sailed Traders, but maybe she had her name changed.
She does indeed look like a converted trader and the ladies are sitting with their feet on what would have been the original height of the hatch covers. In this case it looks rather like a permanent conversion. The original ones could have the cabin furniture taken out in winter, and carried on hauling sugar beet in the off season. Must have needed a good clean out in the spring!
As promised - this is the rather magnificent Gladys from the 1880s photos I'm sorting out for Broadland Memories. Thoughts on this one please. I cannot work out if she was a converted trader or purpose built pleasure wherry. If she is a conversion then she has been done a little better than The Eagle was and has presumably had that counter stern added which, I believe, wasn't unheard of. The rear cabin is quite low compared to the rest of her which is possibly a sign that she started as a trader? The cabin sides do look a little rough and ready in places, although there is certainly a lot more glass than The Eagle had.
Gladys is listed in Roy Clark's Black Sailed Traders as a pleasure wherry but is not marked as having been built as one.
She looks to be sitting pretty low in the water to me?
The second photo is cropped down from another image of her and is interesting because it has what appears to be a portable chimney or some such on the rear cabin. It didn't appear in any of the other photos of her which means it must be detachable. When I first looked at the whole photo, I thought it was something on the bank behind, but studying closer I could see that the ropes pass behind it. Is it a chimney and, if so, was this sort of thing common?
Re 'chimblies', yes. There is even a 'wherry' term for them, only I can't remember what it is. Marsh, what's a wherry's chimbly called? She looks low in the water and the mast is either raked or leaning towards the camera, the latter would explain the reduced freeboard.
Arghh, a red ensign as the mast-head, it could have been worse had it been a flag! I wonder if the roof was painted orange?
Coburg, a wooden wedge shaped fairing which prevented the sheet blocks and sail from fouling the protruding part of the stove pipe, the wooden chimney fitted on top of this.
In my time, when my father had a bakery, little old ladies would come in and ask for a 'coburg' loaf of bread. Nowadays such a loaf is called a cobb.
Those are great photos, Carol, thank you for sharing them.
In both of these photos, the white lower part of the hold sides are permanent and are called the "standing right-ups". Above these are the "shifting right-ups" which can clearly be seen on Albion and Maud, and are removable for loading cargo. Wherries were originally converted for "pleasure" by replacing the shifting right-ups with higher ones (with windows) and then putting the hatch covers back on top.
In this case I can see no evidence of separate hatch covers and the cabin top appears to be permanent. On the other hand, in the second photo, the man seems to be sitting on the typical aft cabin top of a trading wherry.
Her sail is un-dressed (still white, not black or brown) which tends towards a pleasure wherry or wherry yacht and I notice that, although the "bonnet" is rigged, it still comes clear of the high cabin sides. This would indicate that the sail was made specially for the wherry in that condition. Not the sort of expense they would have gone to for a simple trading wherry conversion.
She is also fitted with stanchions and rope handrails on the foredeck and the counter stern. Again, not the sort of expense for a temporary conversion.
She appears a bit low in the water but then, if she was a permanent conversion the furniture would have been luxurious and therefore heavy. Including an upright piano in the saloon! On the hull I notice that the strakes amidships have battens below them, to protect the "lands" of the planking when in locks. So she probably cruised upstream of Coltishall, as far as Aylsham but might have been too big to go above Dilham towards North Walsham.
My guess would be that she comes somewhere between the original trading conversions and the deliberate building of pleasure wherries. In other words originally a trader, but with a complete and permanent conversion to pleasuring, which may also have meant the fitting of a counter stern. In which case, a very interesting piece of history.
not forgetting that the Death and Glories in Arthur Ransomes Big Six had a proper clay Chimbly pot.
That's great - thank you Vaughan. That confirms my (uneducated) thoughts on Gladys which means I must be learning something!
Thank you Peter too for the "chimbley" info.
I knew if she was a conversion that she is clearly a permanent one. Very interesting note that her sail must have been custom made for her though.
There are about 20 photographs in this set and yes, some quite rare and interesting images amongst them. I recognised their historic value when I saw them for sale. They were a pretty major purchase, in two lots as they came from a larger album which had been split apart by a dealer (a major bug bear of mine because in doing so they destroy the archaeology of that history). The album obviously included other subjects and places (including the Ducth and Beligian canals of which I have a couple of pics). I wanted to at least make sure that the two lots containing Broads pics were kept together and put out there as they were such an important record of Broads boating history.
Once again, I'll point out that I eventually intend that all of this material that I'm gathering goes to the county council records office - in the meantime, I'll gather it together online so that everyone can see it. I know that Broadland Memories is archived by the British Library (and possibly others) so I hope that it all assists in making sure these important photos, films and memories are preserved for the future.
The photos possibly cover more than one trip, so I believe they probably date from somewhere between 1885 and 1890.
I've got the photos cleaned up and laid out ready to caption for the website. I am supposed to doing further research today so that I can get that done and a blog post to accompany them written .... best crack on and stop getting distracted!
I would agree with Vaughan - it does have the look of as trader and perhaps this an early example to try and use the counter stern.
I cannot really logically see how you could just cut off the cuddy and stern and convert it to a counter stern as it would have not a lot of structural integrity as some big bits, such as the stern post and apron, would have gone too!! Sadly I doubt whether we shall ever find out the truth but it does look like a forerunner of these beautiful counters on the Wherry yachts. It may also, especially as there are no real records of the boat, mean it did not last long and quickly passed on to bank or staithe somewhere!
Chimbleys - not sure Pete that I know of another name, unless I forgot it, but you are correct about the coburg which protected the stub of the chimney and which would have prevented the mainsheet catching. The chimbley would have been in two parts, a steel tube to fit over the bit coming up from the stove , and Albion still has the square bit to fit over the inner - if you look at the picture , you will see that that this is square too. I am also equally sure that that they were not always unshipped when sailing as there are plenty of pictures around with chimblies smoking- my guess is that in a gentle breeze you may be able to flick the mainsheet over, to avoid catching it.
But we will never know and going back to a favourite hobby horse, it all just shows how vitally important it is to keep all the information of a bygone era!!
I agree with Marshman that a counter stern on an existing wherry would not have been a practical - or even possible - conversion. But would she have been built like that, originally as a trading wherry?
Perhaps we should reflect that from 1844 onwards, the railways came to Norfolk and set about killing the trade of the wherries. What came later (with tourists brought by the railways) were the pleasure wherry and the wherry yacht. But they did not just happen overnight - their design evolved, along with the tourist market.
So maybe the Gladys really represents a transitional stage in this evolution? Was she a converted trader, or was she actually a first try at something new?
As Marsh says, we will never know now, and that is what makes it even more fascinating.
I think you are right Vaughan - Roy Clark shows it as being built as a a trader and I can neither prove or disprove that! What you say is very logical and is probably true. We are unlikely to ever know!!
So you think it is more likely to have been an early attempt at building a pleasure wherry, built largely in the manner they would have been building traders in, but with features such as the counter stern for pleasuring?
Marshman - do you know whether there were ever and traders built with counter sterns. I ask, because there is a little nag at the back of my mind that tells me that I did read of one, but can't for the life of me remember where I would have read it ... or even indeed if I did. I can't see any practical purpose for one on a trading wherry other than aesthetics, which I can't see would really have been a priority on a working vessel.
"The absence of any other convenient deck space on a pleasure wherry was a disadvantage to the holidaymakers, so it is not surprising that one or two owners decided to have their wherries rebuilt with counter sterns. One rather remarkable conversion was the Zenobia, formerly the trading wherry Olive Branch, built by Allen of Coltishall; not only was she given a counter stern but also a mizzen sail and foresail, turning her into what was quaintly described in Lloyd's Register of Yachts as a 'wherry and yawl'."
He also mentions that the original Ecila (not the second Ecila which was a purpose built pleasure wherry and became Sundog) also had a counter stern added when she was converted from a trader.
So, it seems it did happen although, as you say, it's unlikely that we'll ever know the history behind Gladys. I'm pleased that she has at least been documented by this photograph and it's great to get some discussion going on here. This is why I passionately believe that this sort of history should be out there and not locked away in private collections or museum vaults.
Small jigsaw pieces in a very large puzzle.
Here are a couple of pics of Solace slipped at Lake Lothing in 2010. Nigel Royall got over thirty wheelbarrow loads of the dreaded fresh water mussels off her hull, which looks to my untutored eye like clinker-built, Clive.
On second thoughts, the first pic looks as if something has been smoothed out a bit round the side, so you could be right!!
That could be due to 'doubling-up', not an uncommon technique for repairs to clencher built hulls, especially where rubbing has taken place, where the hull rubs against the bank. It's not uncommon to tack a wherry by turning her against the reeds, indeed many years ago Albion needed much of her forward planking replaced and it was reckoned that it had been rubbed surprisingly thin in that manner.
First can I say that I apologise if some of this info is wrong, but I hope it is all fine and I have had a few words with a few 'ol boys to verify it all.
As far as I can gather, Solace as she now is, was how she was built. Its shown in several places that she was built half and half, or whatever the proportions are and as a result , I don't think anyone has taken a plane to her. Nor , as Pete suggested, did she have anything added. Apparently. Unusual granted, but it is well recorded thats how it was done!
Carol - I cannot really find any evidence one way or another, but realistically I can think of no reason why a trader would be built with a sunning platform! Perhaps the best thing to do is to try and imagine why, and I cannot think of a reason! It seems totally illogical to me - in that day and age they were not noted for doing something for the sake of it!
Going back to the Gladys, she seems to be something "new" to wherry history - just shows how these things crop up! Go on someone prove me wrong! Most people know about the Sundog which was converted to a counter stern and which ended her days in a field at Geldeston with the back end literally dropping off! Records also show another built as a trader but converted - built originally as Olive Branch she became the Zenobia - she too was fiddled with and there is a picture of her rigged as a yawl I think. Pete - I think you know about this one don't you??
And now we seem to have found Gladys!! I wonder what her name was before conversion? Anyone know that? Seems to be quite a find especially as i think I read Robert Malster knew of only two such boats.
Some post you made many many moons ago when Old Frank was posting on another side, said it was converted from the Olive Branch and indicated that that was confirmed by Bob Malster. All these good 'ol boys have their uses!!
Old Frank has an incredible library of Broads books, long time friend of Bob Malster too, absolute fund of useful information.
Pleased that I seem to have uncovered a possible previously unknown in Gladys though. Whilst The Eagle was only named in the captions, you can quite clearly See Gladys' name boards in a couple of photos. I should hopefully get the whole set up next week ... elderly mum allowing!
Many thanks for all your help on this.
I rather like this one! It shows a wherry probably holding the tide waiting for Lowestoft bridge to open, I suspect that the sail has been depowered to a point where the wherry is stationary. Could she have shot the bridge? Probably but that wouldn't have put a dumpling on the bridge keeper's plate!
Two wherries at the Wherry, Oulton Broad, 1920. Noting the horse & cart suggests that wherries loaded and unloaded at the Wherry, does that mean that it was a public staithe I wonder?
Evening Pete - couple of good pictures there - I will let you sort out the staithe issue!
Particularly like the Lowestoft picture, more particularly as I cannot quite see what he is doing with the sail! What looks a little odd is that the tack seems to be a long way off the deck and whilst he clearly has the peak lowered, it still seems as though the gaff jaws are almost up to the top of the mast!! The main sheet is obviously right out which is OK according to the smoke from the steamer but perhaps the tack really isn't off the deck and its an optical illusion.
The other odd thing is that there are so few people about - must be early in the morning - or late!!
Come on Vaughan - what do you think???
Thought that you might like that one, Marsh. Clearly the sail is scandalised and there appears to be a set of parrels about two fifths up the mast and I'm guessing that they belong with the gaff jaws and that would suggest that the peak is either low or the gaff is upright to the mast. There is no suggestion of the bulk along the foot that suggests a reef but maybe there is one tuck in hence the tack is high. Got to say that the detail is not clear but I think that there is no doubt that the skipper is holding the tide and that the sail is balanced accordingly.
Another wherry shot, this time along the New Cut. Not a good original but still worth a view.


Missing a day of school from time to time won't necessarily ruin the program. However, missing over a month and a half is going to have a seriously negative impact.
I knew this, which is why I was tempted to enroll my eight children in public school.
After my youngest son died, getting through the day was difficult enough. Homeschooling seemed almost impossible. I struggled with even getting out of bed.
When I did, it was very difficult staying focused, educating with positive enthusiasm, or motivating my children.
Everyone said it was reasonable for me to take the time I needed to grieve. How much time is that exactly?
Weeks passed without any educational structure. My critical inner voice frequently suggested that the children should be enrolled in a public school so they could get some sort of education. Of course, this self-criticism only made me feel more depressed.
My children were grieving too, I'd remind myself. It definitely wouldn't be healthy to send them away to an institution during their time of need.
The choice was before me. Send them for government education so I could sleep my life away, or get up and go through the lesson plans.
Honestly, I don't think I could have ever put my children in public school. But, my logical mind was faced with an ultimatum, and that forced me to start teaching again.
Homeschooling actually saved me. If my kids had been in public school, I might have slept all day, every day from then on. But, they weren't, and as much as I didn't want the responsibility then, I wasn't about to add more stress to the lives of my children by changing their environment.
Motivating myself wasn't easy though. Even after I mentally recommitted myself to homeschooling, it took several days to get back into practice. I would read a little with one child and help another with math, but afterward, I would be exhausted and felt no satisfaction from completing homeschool tasks.
This little effort, however, is what started the momentum. Just a couple hours each day, unstructured, whenever I felt energetic, is all it took to get the ball rolling again.
During this time, it occurred to me that I needed to reevaluate why I homeschool. That is when I realized how truly blessed we are as a homeschool family.
My children were able to struggle and grieve in the security of our home. We could take our school vacation whenever we needed it—and we needed it then.
We were able to ease back into school, and I understood why they were struggling and was patient with them. They were able to complete schoolwork in their pajamas while sipping hot chocolate. I was their grief counselor and they were my comfort. What at first seemed to be a tremendous burden was actually the grace of God.
How different things might have turned out had my children been in public school. Likely, they would have struggled emotionally and academically. And I would have had the time I wanted to sleep, to do nothing but wallow in my grief. Thank God, that didn't happen.
Certainly, I was grieving and needed time to myself. But, I also needed to learn how to check my grief and manage it. There were many situations where my children would say something funny or do something adorable.
At first, I felt I was supposed to be sober and was ashamed to smile. The most important advice I can give is when that urge to smile happens, don't resist it. Let it happen with all its simplicity and power. It's okay to smile. You deserve to be happy even when you have a reason to be sad.
The consoling thoughts of St. Francis gave me the courage I needed to continue and helped me understand how to order my thoughts and emotions. It was important for me to focus on the positive blessings in my life. Being able to homeschool is one of those blessings.
Instead of doing our lessons in the depressing dark basement, we went out on the lawn. The warm spring sun pressed against our backs, while the cool air refreshed us. The scent of hyacinths flitted on the air, providing us with mental stimulation.
It felt wonderful to be outside. So, we decided to spend the rest of an early week studying botany.
God in His goodness already knew what scientists have recently discovered. That is, soil microorganisms contain anti-anxiety properties. No wonder I felt so positive transplanting purple petunias.
If you don't have a garden space, buy a potted plant and a new ceramic planter. Look at the creation of God! Here is a flower that the good God created just to make you smile.
2. Go on a field trip.
That's what we did next. Keep it simple, but go somewhere new or to your favorite hiking place. Teach your children to observe wildlife and try to identify birds. Field guides are extremely helpful on nature hikes. Try to help your children identify as many plants as you can. This will get you close to nature and observing the beauty of our world, which is a reminder of all we have to be thankful for.
3. Bring a quilt and a picnic.
There is something extremely enjoyable about eating outdoors on a blanket. It is the little things in life that make it so wonderful, and we should hold onto those little things with determination.
After a long, tiring day exercising in nature, give yourself a hot bath with lavender Epsom salt or sip some chamomile tea. Treat yourself the way you deserve to be treated and don't feel you have to make an excuse for yourself or wait for someone else to treat you kindly. Buy yourself flowers, create a space in your home where you feel comfortable and then make a list of what you want to accomplish the next day.
Work on school for an hour, then take 15 minutes to file your nails. Read to your children for 30 minutes, then finish that chore you've been putting off.
School doesn't have to be done all in the morning. It may be accomplished throughout the day. Use a timer so you don't obsess over a subject. If you and your child have been struggling with a subject for more than an hour, stop. Move onto the next subject with renewed enthusiasm.
6. Every hour, use a timer and give yourself 10 minutes.
Check your email, play a game of candy crush, or make a phone call. Don't martyr yourself. If you become ill because you don't care for yourself, who is going to care for your children?
Your first obligation is to keep yourself healthy and sane so you can care for them.
Sarah has been homeschooling for twelve years and has nine busy children. She teaches leadership and public speaking workshops for homeschool youth in Great Falls, Montana. As a freelance writer, she focuses on Montana culture and history, homesteading and hobby farms. She is a motivational public speaker and has her own blog: WritingTheWind.com.


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The mundane driving offences that can now land you £70 fines
Councils have been given more powers to fine motorists
Rebecca CookSenior Reporter
Councils have been given powers to levy fines for traffic offences (Image: Artur Lesniak)
A number of offences can now land motorists with a £70 charge after councils were given additional powers to issue fines last week.
These fines can now be levied over "minor" driving offences, such as wrong turns and stopping in box junctions.
The 'moving traffic offences' came into force as of last Wednesday (December 1) - although are not likely to be enforced until next year - and give councils the power to levy fines as opposed to just the police, The Express reports.
READ MORE: Yeovil resident slams inconsiderate drivers who travel at 50mph along 20mph road
The moving traffic offences include:
Banned right or left turns
Driving in a "no entry" zone
Stopping in a box junction
Driving the wrong way on a one-way street
Illegal U-turns
Driving in cycle lanes
Failing to give way to oncoming traffic
Councils in London and Cardiff already had the power to fine motorists for driving misdemeanours and research from RAC found that authorities in both cities levied almost £60 million in fines from traffic offences from 2018 to 2019.
One yellow box junction earns a council in West London a reported £1.7 million in fines each year.
Councils will have to apply to use the new powers to fine motorists for moving traffic offences.
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Transport minister Baroness Vere said of the changes: "Local authorities will need the tools to manage roads in the way that best serves local needs, which may vary in different parts of the country, and it is this ethos of localism that lies behind our decision to give more powers to local authorities under the Traffic Management Act.
"They will be expected to use these powers to improve connectivity, boost active travel, and increase air quality by reducing congestion."
RAC spokesman Simon Williams raised concerns over the planned changes, stating that some authorities may be "over-enthusiastic in using their new powers for revenue-raising reasons" and that this would be "to the detriment of drivers".
Mr Williams said: "While the government has pledged to give councils advice on how best to let drivers know enforcement is taking place, what's really needed is clear guidance on making sure enforcement is always carried out fairly.
"Drivers who blatantly ignore signage or highway rules should expect penalties, but there are instances which are not always clear-cut.
"For example, large yellow box junctions can be particularly problematic to get across without stopping, often due to their design, so its important common sense is applied rather than instantly issuing penalties to drivers.
"The first thing councils should do is review the road layout at these junctions to make sure drivers can negotiate them at all times, but especially at busy periods."
Do you have a tip or a story to tell? Email me through rebecca.cook@reachplc.com to get in touch.
The festive Somerset pub that's open for punters on Christmas Day
The new deli bringing 'the heart of the Amalfi coast' to Somerset town


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Juanita Kretschmar
A fox has all sorts of built-in equipment it can use or techniques for survival it can apply in case of emergency. It may not be "right" for us, but it works for him!
It is not by accident that a fox has body odor and, even if it could, should not buy deodorant... Nor should it take an extra bath to get rid of it! That "bad smell" is a smell of protection given it by its Creator not by accident for its defense! The fox has scentjjlands not only at the base of its tail, but evenj)n itsjace and feet. That may seem unpleasant to us, but other than at DreedirTg time,"aTox"seems to enjoy solitude anyway—so they must not mind! And they do give off such a dose of bad odor to a pursuing creature that the would-be predator turns and runs from this lightest-weight member of the dog family—just as they would if trying to avoid a mouthful of skunk!
Another interesting design specialty given the fox is their long legs and their small tummies. That is the design for speed. Notice humans who take up running: You won't see a belly paunch on a successful long-distance runner in the human family. A fox has the ability to run steadily 30 miles an hour. It's another not-by-accident gift when a fox is chasing one of its favorite menu items like a rabbit that can run in spurts about 35 mph, making almost instant U-turns. The hungry fox would be defeated, except its steady speed at 30 mph wins out in the long chase. Speed, agility and endurance is the name of the game. Link that with their nighttime hunting where their eyes which were vertical slits like a cat in the daytime not by accident at night also have been given special layers that help collect the light, and are able to widen to absorb even the least illumination. Also, again not by accident, foxes have whiskers with tips so sensitive they are able to maneuver around in pitch darkness when seeking a meal. There is another skill among these dogged predators closing in on a meal. Not by accident the fox is as capable as any house cat in waiting until they have pinpointed the exact location of their prey (perhaps hiding under a pile of leaves). With hearing, sight and even their bushy tail all involved in preparation for the well-aimed pounce, the fox, like the cat, will freeze and then launch itself often at a 45° angle and land exactly upon its victim! The meal was almost guaranteed because its huge tail was maneuvered like a rudder and not by accident gave the fox deadly accuracy! But some researchers have observed an interesting side note. The fox at times seems to prefer eating fruit as much as rats or rabbit, and will even choose fruit over meat, when both are available!
The fox involved in a chase can move its ears to catch the slightest noise made by its potential prey. But depending on where the fox lives, its ears come in a variety of sizes and shapes. It's all part of its not-by-accident equipment design. One fascinating example of Creative design can be seen in the tiny kit fox of the desert. Now if you as a human lived in a desert as does the tiny kit fox, you'd probably want adequate air conditioning equipment, right? But the desert fox can no more buy a portable a.c. then can a fox with a bad smell purchase deodorant! BUT, not by accident, God, their Designer, took pity on the kit fox of the desert and attached an air conditioning unit onto their heads! But it does not look like our a.c. units! It's their ears, which are just enormous when compared to the size of the rest of its body. (If a six-foot-tall human had ears in proportion to its body as are the size of the ears of the desert kit fox, the human's ears would probably hang down around his waist! That would seem pretty strange to us, wouldn't it?) The reason the ears of a desert fox are so large is because that is where the Creator placed the cooling system for the little fox. The heat that builds up in its body escapes through it's big ears! So that is why we're calling its ears an "attached a.c. unit." It's a convenient survival solution only a loving Creator would dream up for those tiny animals. And the little kit fox of the desert also has been given fur on its feet that helps keep it cool and comfortable for scampering across scorching desert sand! It is truly a rare mammal that can survive year-round in the desert, but God gave it instincts that help it to know how to obtain water from the meat of the bodies of little animals and insects it catches, as well as from the plants it consumes. Not by accident, that fox is built to survive where it lives!
Perhaps one of the most attractive parts of the body of a red fox, and in fact all foxes, are their full and furry tails. The ength of their tail is equal to half again the length of their head and body together. It is truly beautiful to watch when they are signaling or using their tail as a wrap-around keeping out the arctic chill, or positioning their body for an accurate launch while in full predator mode. Incidentally, remember what good runners they are with their long legs and tiny tummies? That tiny tummy is part of a motivation plan for the fox to have frequent meals. That way these usually solitary creatures with the bad odor don't stay in one spot long. They are often on the prowl seeking their next meal, not realizing they are aiding humans in destroying the rat population. The list at times seems endless about their unique dietary habits and not-by-accident appointed characteristics and instincts. (The fact that there are some foxes that are even known to store food for emergencies just tells us once again how their Creator is not caught by surprise in matters relating to His creation!
The Creator is ours as well, and we can ask Him to help us when we need a creative solution to our problems. Logically, if He loved the fox that He created enough to put within some of them wisdom to store food ahead of time for emergency use, won't He let us know what to do if we ask Him for wisdom when we have an emergency? After all, He loved humanity enough to become one of us, to save us when we were hopeless and helpless. He'll surely help us individually, even before we are hopeless, and He comes up with some pretty amazing solutions for us too—even ways to escape when we see no way at all. We just need to
Picture originally found here
More from Geneses
Are There Simple, Single-Cell Life Forms in ...
"The great God who formed everything gives the fool his hire and the transgressor his wages."
"For the Lord will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in it, Thanksgiving and the voice of melody."
"He who walks with the wise will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."
"He who earnestly seeks good winds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil."
"Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a faithful ambassador brings health."


text:
Le ligament stylo-hyoïdien est une des deux fleurs blanches du bouquet de Riolan.

Structure
Le ligament stylo-hyoïdien relie la petite corne de l'os hyoïde au processus styloïde de l'os temporal.

C'est un reliquat embryonnaire du cartilage de Reichert.

Aspect clinique
Le ligament stylo-hyoïdien contient fréquemment un peu de cartilage en son centre. Celui-ci peut s'ossifier, allonger l'apophyse styloïde et entraîner un syndrome d'Eagle.

Anatomie comparée
Chez de nombreux animaux, l'épiphyal est un os distinct au centre du ligament stylo-hyoïdien qui est similaire à celui observé lors de l'ossification du ligament.

Notes et références

Galerie

stylo-hyoïdien
Tête et cou humains

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Gorham, NY (March 24, 2019) – Around 7:00 a.m. today, police arrested one individual following a drunk driving crash. Ontario County sheriffs were called to the scene of the crash.
The driver was quickly identified as 38-year-old Joshua Lyons. Lyons had been driving northbound on Route 247 when he was involved in the accident, before leaving the road, entering a ditch, and crashing into a utility pole. Lyons was subsequently ejected from the vehicle.
Mercy Flight transported Lyons to the hospital with a variety of injuries to the back, arms, and legs.
Lyons' vehicle was allegedly destroyed in the accident. He has since been charged with driving while intoxicated and ticketed for failure to keep right and not wearing a seatbelt. Police continue to investigate at this time.
First and foremost, we would like to take a moment to offer our heartfelt prayers and sympathies to those involved in this accident, and we wish Lyons a complete recovery, despite his reckless behavior. These accidents happen more frequently than many others on our roads and tend to cause the most harm, according to statistics taken on New York accidents every year. Many people do not understand that there are many consequences when they make the decision to get behind the wheel of their car and drive drunk. Our New York car accident attorneys can assist you if you have been injured at the hands of a negligent party.
Our accident attorneys at Hach & Rose are adamant about offering their support to you during your time of need. If you have been injured in an accident that you know is not your fault, we want to extend a helping hand to you when you need it most. Our kindhearted and well-informed accident attorneys pride themselves on easing this difficult process for you. Please contact us at 212-779-0057 to find out what we can do for you.


text:
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