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Enterprise Excellence
Q&A with Jeffrey Liker Part II: How to achieve Lean leadership and culture and the role of AI
Written by Jeffrey Liker
Best Selling Author and Award-Winning Professor of Lean Leadership
Q: What is the impact of the new ways of reducing hierarchy to be more agile on Leaders?
The idea of the lack of hierarchy is not something new. The agile leadership model was promoted by Lee Iaccoca who set up the Iaccoca Institute at Lehigh University in 1988. When I was in college back in the 1970s, there was a big movement of self-managing work teams. Volvo, for example, is very famous for having about three levels of hierarchy and they organized a plant around shops, each shop would make a part of the car like an engine or body or paint and they would be given targets for the day. They would be told make this number of cars and you figure out how to do it. That particular plant went out of business after about a year or two because the product wasn't selling. It wasn't because of the organization approach but there have been studies that showed that Toyota's system that has hierarchy is more effective and how the Toyota structure was far more productive than this plant.
Since the self-managing team movement, many companies then tried to go without hierarchy. One of them is Scania Truck in Sweden, the truck maker, and they were very proud of the fact that they had flat management. A supervisor might have 50 people reporting to them and then they started learning the Toyota Production System and they started to see that a key to Toyota's success is that they had a lot of layers of leadership and these leaders were accountable. They were leading Improvement and had a vision for what the process should look like and we're leading the group toward that vision and they're continually improving, and they were much better trained in problem-solving than the normal production worker. Toyota's ideal structure is that every leader only supports four, five people. They have a coaching role, they're building the team, they're developing those people. So, when you have a leader for each four or five people, you end up with a taller hierarchy. As Scania progressed with their version of the Toyota Production System, they saw the need for the team leader role and a smaller span of control. They adopted this, trained the team leaders in problem-solving, and all their key performance indicators went up. They have not looked back.
Personally, I don't believe it's a good idea to have a structure without a hierarchy, often popular in software development. And even then, there's a lot of structure needed to make that kind of system work and there's a lot of strong leadership needed. So, I think the notion that you let people do what they want and they'll do the right thing, I don't think that's very realistic if you need to get high levels of productivity. If you're depending upon producing something or a service that's repetitive then you care about efficiency, you care about on-time delivery and quality and you care about safety. I believe the best thing to do in that context is to have leaders who act as coaches and facilitators and are very effective leaders. In fact, you could say the ultimate agile organization is a culture of continuous improvement.
Q: What are the limitations you see to a continuous feedback system—emotional and technical?
If you look at systems theory, generally the faster the feedback the better. There's a rule for example if you want to punish somebody called Hot Stove Rule. When you were a child you might have touched a hot stove and you got instant feedback: this hurts and your tendency is not to want to touch that stove again. It's also impersonal. It's not your mother yelling at you. It's something that comes from the environment, it's not useful to get mad at the stove. The key characteristics: it's impersonal, the feedback is rapid and severe for punishment. In case of rewards, the feedback should include some personal touch and should also be immediate, as close to the behaviour as possible and the longer the gap between the behaviour and the feedback the less effective the feedback will be. The problem is that humans can only respond to a very limited amount of feedback at a given time.
Behaviour is very complicated and even within a few seconds a lot is going through my mind and I'm doing a lot. If you try to give me a big batch of feedback amongst everything, I'm doing it's basically worthless. You have to be very selective and intuitive in what feedback you're going to give me and when.
In Toyota, for example, they have a process that you might have heard of called hoshin kanri or Policy Deployment where they identify the critical few items that they're going to have a special focus on this year. They will always focus on cost, quality, productivity and safety, and morale but they will have a few areas that they are specifically focusing on. They have a general visual board for KPIs, but they may have another board that has a special focus on quality and they'll pull out key information on whether your process is causing defects and you'll be able to see that as the day goes on. Being selective and prioritizing is critical.
The problem that we often see these days with computers is that it's relatively easy to give lots and lots of feedback. Maybe there are 15 KPIs and in real-time I could see how I'm doing on 15 things. But seeing how I'm doing on 15 things in real-time might be no better than getting no feedback at all because I just can't focus. I can't process that much information in real-time. One quick example that I wrote about in the Toyota Way to lean leadership was about a former Toyota executive who took a job as COO of a parts supplier. He observed in one plant that they loved computers and they loved having nice displays by every process in the shop floor so you can see in real-time how you're doing on many indicators. And it was very clear to him that there was too much information. Everybody had heard through the grapevine that Toyota guys don't like computers, which is not really true. But that was their impression. They were afraid that he was going to take the computers away. He came in and he said I'm not taking computers away. In fact, I'm going to buy you the best displays on the market. But I'm also going to put a whiteboard next to the computer with markers. And what I want you to do is to pick two or three key indicators that you're focusing on every day. Pick the most important two or three indicators for your process and I want you to write on a whiteboard whether they're green with an arrow going up or red with an arrow going down or yellow where you are not making progress. When I come to visit, I'm only going to look at what's on the whiteboard. I'm not going to look at the computer, only the KPIs on the whiteboard, whether they're going up or down and how you are responding. After that, the KPIs, which had been stagnant, increased sharply. The combination of focus, and personal attention when he visited motivated people.
Q: Are there any examples of industries other than automotive where TPS doesn't work so well?
There are many examples where leaders try to force-fit particular Toyota solutions that do not work well in their environment. There are a lot of differences across different Industries in what lean looks like. I'm working now with a steel company and it's big machines and you can't make a one-piece flow little cell and it's naturally a batch process. You can't really do the kinds of things you often do with lean, starting with value stream mapping and then you create a cell and you create a pull system, those sorts of changes. On a big-picture level, it may eventually make sense, but it might require rebuilding the whole plant.
One of the areas that we focus a lot on is standard work which looks at how people monitor the equipment, how they respond to the equipment, how they do changeovers and how they clean the equipment. Those are all critical to the high performance of the equipment. They might be able to influence 30 to 40 percent of the throughput based on how they respond to the automation, how they maintain and how they operate the equipment. So there's a lot of discretion involved and poor decisions can lead to various problems, including quality problems, that then lead to a lot of manual rework and that can be dramatically improved. They also have test operations, which in some cases becomes a bottleneck, and that's a fairly manual operation. Standard work, visual management, 5S, teaching problem solving are the most critical things that we're working on. I've worked in Iron ore mining that's outdoors, not going into a mine. They were blasting and then trucks picked up the pieces and they were sieving out the different size pieces through machines that crush and so on-going on for miles.
I've also worked in Iron ore mining that's outdoors, not going into a mine. They were blasting and then trucks picked up the pieces and they were sieving out the different size pieces through machines that crush and so on-going on for miles.
And again, we did not shift to small teams of people working in a cell, but we focused on equipment maintenance and how to figure out where to blast at the right time and cleaning the equipment that sifts through the material. There was a lot of work that had to be planned on a day to day basis and they built a visual planning center and held daily meetings and all these changes made a huge difference in how the mine operated dramatically increasing throughput. So, you have to be sophisticated enough to understand the principles of lean and apply them in an effective way to this process and not simply try to copy Toyota and make it look like their plant. (This case is described in detail in The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement.)
Q: How can a leader find a balance when he or she has a shared position between two countries when one has hierarchical culture and the other has zero hierarchal culture?
What you want is to put them in a blender and mix and match (laughs). One of the principles that Toyota has is respect for people and under respect for people, one of the principles is to honour the customs and norms of each country where they do business, Toyota has plants in many countries with very different cultures such as Russia, Indonesia, England, France the United States, and India. There are many operations throughout the world, and they believe that they need to adapt to that culture. At the same time, they believe that there's a core philosophy and a core way of thinking that they call the Toyota way and the Toyota Production System that's not negotiable. So, the concept of one-piece flow is not negotiable, the concept of continuous improvement and learning problem solving, the concept of respect for people and investing in developing people are not negotiable. The idea that management should be leaders who are creating a safe and secure environment and then within that developing people to achieve very challenging goals, that's not negotiable. But there are specific human resource practices that are negotiable in some countries and they need to adapt to that culture. They worked hard to identify the critical features that are not negotiable, and they've managed to teach the Toyota Production System and make it part of the culture in every place they operate, even though it will be more or less hierarchical in different places. Interestingly Japanese culture is very hierarchical.
Some places require more seasoned Toyota leaders, say from Japan, running the plant until the plant within the country becomes more self-sustaining. They also have what they call a mother plant system where every plant has a more mature plant that is its mother that has the responsibility to teach it TPS sending lots of leaders over, sometimes for years. Originally the mother plants were always in Japan, but more recently local plants have developed enough to act as mothers. In America, for example, the Georgetown Kentucky plant is the oldest plant and they could act as mother plant to another American plant and in Europe the UK plant is very mature and can act as a mother plant and they have a lot of activities where they send people across plants to spend time working and learning within that plant. It takes years, not weeks, and it probably is not the case that the country that's very hierarchical is going to look exactly like the country that's not hierarchical. You need to move the command and control plants closer to the middle, I think.
Q: How do you see lean leadership role changing in the face of automation and AI wave? Will leadership trickle down to process managers (like designing their own processes assisted by machines) or will it centralise more to top management removing intermediary leadership positions?
From the point of view of a high control-oriented executive, or a manager who feels that they have a great need for control, the ideal image is automation that works at the push of a button so he can sit at home in front of a computer, see the status of the operation and then take corrective action and maybe ask an engineer to use a computer to fix the problem. The ideal image is to take all the people out of the system because people are the most uncertain part of the system. You never know what people are going to do. But a robot that is properly programmed as well as maintained will do what it's supposed to do. It won't talk back. It will not show up to work drunk. It will do repetitively what it's programmed to do. The problem is that, firstly, with today's technology the more complicated the robot is, the more likely it will breakdown and therefore somebody has to fix the robot. So far we don't have robots that can fix other robots. That requires people. Secondly, the robot has to be trained. It's only going to do what it's programmed to do.
In January 2019, we visited a Lexus plant as part of my "Leading the Toyota Way Japan" Masterclass and they were showing us the painting process which is all robots. And it has been almost all robots for about 35 years. It's not a new idea. Lexus believes in perfection and they had master painters who could reach every nook and cranny and distribute paint across the body perfectly. They wanted those master craftsmen teaching the robots with the idea that a master painter can program the robot to work at a high level like a master craftsman. Even who programs the technology can make a big difference, so people don't ever leave the system, there are just fewer people doing the repetitive tasks, but you still have to set up the process and it could be set up in batch mode or could be set up in one-piece flow. What Toyota's view is, first figure out how to do the process manually, then when you work out the bugs in the process, then bring in the computers and then have very knowledgeable people who are maintaining, programming and operating the computer system who are there on the ground and could respond immediately to problems. The IT ideal kind of vision where the elite, the manager is sitting in front of a computer and there's nobody in the plant and you don't need lighting because robots don't care about lighting. That hasn't been proven to work on a widespread basis so far. If you are familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's book, Player Piano, you have an idea of how bad the world could be if computers ran all our workplaces.
Q: Could you give some advice on the management application of Plan-Do-Check-Act with shop floor team members?
You can think of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) in two ways, one in a top-down command and control environment, where you tend to look at it mechanistically like it's a tool that you plug in, or you can look at it, as Toyota does, as a way of thinking. For Toyota, PDCA is the essence of what they call problem-solving and it's a mindset of continuous learning, continuous testing, continuous experimenting. Let's say that I was asked to lead a team to reduce the cost of making batteries in half, which is a big priority right now because batteries are the most expensive part of electric cars.. My natural tendency at Toyota is going to be to study and deeply understand battery technology and whatever better technology there is in the world, then come up with ideas for improving the process of making the batteries or redesigning the batteries and then run a lot of experiments, trying a lot of things, and learning from each experiment. The faster you can run the tests, the faster you get feedback, the faster you can learn. There is a big emphasis on doing, not just thinking of ideas. If I can find a cheap way to test my idea that's very encouraged. Every time I test an idea I'm doing PDCA. I have a clear hypothesis, I run the experiment, then check to see what happens and then I ask myself: What did I learn from that and based on what I've learned, what would be the next experiment to run? So PDCA could be happening multiple times in a day and certainly should be happening every day, at some level. It really becomes part of the culture.
As mentioned by Mike Rother in his Toyota Kata approach, what he's trying to teach is scientific thinking, which is based on rapid PDCA. He argues that PDCA thinking is not natural and needs to be taught through practice, ideally daily, with a coach. It is only through repetition that we can rewire our brains to approach our goals scientifically. The only practical way to do this is if every manager, supervisor, team leader learns PDCA and learns to coach it, which takes many years.
Q: How do you suggest conducting experiments when we need to improve some difficult practice?
I recommend involving the people who are doing that practice. It's one thing to work out offline a best practice and then teach it to those people. It's another thing to get them to figure out the best practice and learn from the experience of trying to run experiments and learning some things work better than others. Part of the problem with complex processes is that usually a small number of people have native knowledge. They figured out how to make it work, but they don't really even know what they do, let alone how to teach other people and they may not be very good at learning from other people because they think they know best. The goal is to work together on developing the current best practice we call standardized work. It's always better to work with those people involved in the practice, not to just ask them to come up with the best way. They also need guidance. They need leadership to figure out a good process for doing PDCA and learning the best way they can today, and then continue improving on it. Ideally whoever is responsible for that process is also being taught scientific thinking so they can continuously Improve.
Q: How to address organizational silos?
I mentioned the process of hoshin kanri. Toyota has an annual cycle where for three months they're developing their targets for the year and they develop an initial plan for how to achieve the targets. The plan is not solutions, but it's areas they're going to focus on. Some of those problems are cross-functional and some of those problems are within a function. Obviously, the ones within a function that has hierarchy are easier to manage than cross-functional ones. However, one of the things that Toyota believes very strongly in is horizontal leadership, which is learning to lead not only people below you but also your peers or maybe even those above you. In that hoshin kanri process, Toyota will assign somebody to be the lead.
For example, as head of manufacturing for North America for Toyota my co-author, Gary Convis was given the challenge to reduce warranty costs by 60 percent over a six-year period and warranty costs come about mainly because of design issues. They come from the engineers who work in America in the Toyota Technical Center. They also come from production engineers who are working in Japan and America, and a lot of them come from suppliers.
Gary was the head of North American manufacturing, so for him to do his job effectively, he had to pull together a team of the head of R&D in the United States, the head of manufacturing in Canada, the head of quality, purchasing heads, and some key leaders in Japan and he had to lead that team. That was horizontal leadership and he had to break down the barriers of the functional silos. He was at a high enough level that he knew all these people and they had great respect for him. So, they weren't necessarily breaking down rigid silos, they were helping Gary achieve his challenge which came from the very top of the company so they knew it was very important and they needed to bring their organisation to support him. It looks more like a matrix organization where there is one person who's responsible and other people might not have a direct reporting relationship to that person, it may be more like a dotted line reporting relationship. In part, they gave Gary that assignment to further his development. They were saying, you've achieved this very high-level position because you have great leadership within the manufacturing function. We need to further develop your skills at leading horizontally, which is the true test of leadership. Leading horizontally is maybe the most critical part of breaking down the silos. You can do various things by rewriting the organizational chart, but ultimately it comes down to people leading across organizations.
Q: If Toyota wouldn't exist at all, which other systems you know would be a good benchmark for management?
There's a lot of good systems. If you go to one of Jim Collins books where he talks about great companies, they all are good at something. Walmart had their great leader, McDonald's had their great leader, so did Amazon and Apple. According to Collins leaders of Great Companies have some common characteristics including they know their business, not business in general, they are humble, they put the company before their own egos, and building the company is their life's work.
The challenge is that, when you have a start-up like an Apple or Google or an Amazon, and then a leader like Jeff Bezos of Amazon, he gets to a certain point when the company gets so large that it becomes difficult for him to influence the culture among hundreds of thousands of people in so many countries. He's delegating to a lot of other people major responsibilities and they may or may not have his vision for leadership and skills.
One thing that has been unique about Toyota is that that they have had the same lineage of leadership going back to the founder of the company over a hundred years ago and the principles of the Toyota Way can be traced back to principles of Sakichi Toyoda when he started the original loom company. Their philosophy grows from within, so the current Vice President probably hired into Toyota working in production or working as a junior engineer and they spent 30- 35 years with Toyota. That has allowed Toyota to continue to reproduce their culture and maintain a very clear focus and very clear set of values and rules of how they operate and work. That's interesting about Toyota. If you try to copy Toyota, at a point in time you're trying to speed up the process that's taken a hundred years. In that sense, maybe there's some good in picking your favourite company, whether it's Amazon or Google, or maybe there's a smaller company. There are always companies that are considered best places to work, they might only have a few hundred people working for them, and they may be an interesting model for you. There are lots of great companies, small, medium and large that have demonstrated the power of having a good philosophy, a good model of leadership and sustaining that over time and growing from within, as Jim Collins has identified. His concluding characteristic of great companies is that leaders are building a company that can last and they're developing the leaders who then succeed them.
Hope you found the answers useful. For more information on building a sustainable culture of continuous improvement and how to become a Lean leader, attend Jeff's "Leading the Toyota Way" Masterclass.
This entry was posted in Enterprise Excellence and tagged Lean Leadership, Lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, hoshin kanri, pdca, TPS, Artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Liker Toyota Way on August 08, 2019 by Jeffrey Liker
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Swan Hotel, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
Picture source: Hania Franek
The Swan Hotel was situated at 10 High Street. This pub closed in 1990. It is now in residential use except for the bar area which is in commercial use. The Swan was recorded on this site in the mid-16th century and was a hotel and coaching house. The current building is Grade II Listed dating from the mid-18th and early 19th centuries; the interior was re-modelled in the 20th century.
Listed building details:
Two retail units, former hotel and coaching house. Mid C18 and early C19. Flemish bond brickwork, rendering, slate roofs. PLAN: in 2 parts, the earlier, formerly with central carriageway, to the right, and the later, to the left. The ground floor, in channelled rendering, is carried across both parts. EXTERIOR: To the left is a 3-window unit, with 3 storeys, attic, and basement, with 3 dormers to the mansard roof, behind a parapet; 4-pane paired sashes with moulded architrave and mullion boxes. Second floor has 12-pane sashes (4 panes wide), and at first and second floors are 16-pane sashes, all to good rubbed brick voussoirs and on stone cills. The ground floor, in channelled rendering has 2 large square late C20 shop windows inserted to left, wide segmental-headed doorway inserted to right with window above. Moulded stone cornice, blocking course and coped parapet. There is a large brick stack to each gable. The earlier section, to the right, is in 3 storeys with basement, 5-windowed, the central bay brought forward one half-brick depth. 9-pane sashes at second floor, 12-pane at first floor, all to brick voussoirs and stone cills, and with exposed boxes. Ground floor has large segmental-headed opening under late C20 flat hood with glazed doors (replacing original carriage entry) and late C20 shop windows to left. At first floor the centre unit is a Palladian window with brick arch and a triple keystone, with paired pilasters to entablature, supported by swept splayed sides. The central light with radial bars is above a door opening to a small balcony with wrought-iron balustrade. Moulded stone cornice, blocking course and coped parapet; the roof not visible from the street. INTERIOR remodelled C20 with no features of interest noted.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: A better formula for derivative of determinant I need to evaluate the derivative of the function $X \mapsto \operatorname{det}X$, where $X$ is an $n\times n$ real matrix. I already proved that if $f: \mathbb{R}^{n}\times \cdots \times \mathbb{R}^{n} \to \mathbb{R}^{m}$ is a $p$-linear map, then:
$$f'(x_{1},...,x_{p})(h_{1},...,h_{p}) = \sum_{i=1}^{n}f(x_{1},...,x_{i-1},h_{i},x_{i+1},...,x_{p}).$$
Since $\operatorname{det}X$ is an $n$-linear map of its rows $\varphi_{1},...,\varphi_{n}$, $\varphi_{i}\in \mathbb{R}^{n}$, it follows immediately from the last expression that, if $f(X) = \operatorname{det}X$ and $H$ is some $n\times n$ real matrix with rows $h_{1},...,h_{n}$:
$$f'(X)H = \sum_{i=1}^{n}\operatorname{det}(X|_{h_{i}})$$
where I denoted by $X|_{h_{i}}$ the $X$ matrix with the $i$-th row replaced by $h_{i}$.
So, my question is: is there another way to express $f'(X)H$? I think there must be some nicer way to express it, so to get some sort of formula.

A: Using the formula you got, for $X = I_n$ the identity, you get :
$$\text df(I_n)H = \operatorname{Tr}( H)$$
Then, for $X$ an invertible matrix, you have :
\begin{align}
f(X+H) &= \det(X+H) \\
&= \det(X)\det(I_n+X^{-1}H) \\
&= \det(X) \Big( 1+\operatorname{Tr}(X^{-1}H) + o(\|H\|)\Big)
\end{align}
and therefore :
$$\text d f(X)H = \det(X)\operatorname{Tr}(X^{-1}H) = \operatorname{Tr}(\operatorname{Cof}(X)H)$$
where $\operatorname{Cof}(X)$ is the cofactor matrix of $X$. Since it is polynomial in the coefficient of $X$, the last formula extends by continuity to any matrix $X$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
(born February 21, 1944) is a Japanese actor. He had a regular role in the Otoko wa Tsurai yo films, beginning with the first in the series (1969), as Sakura's husband.

Filmography

Film
Otoko wa Tsurai yo series (1969–2019), Hiroshi Suwa
If You Were Young: Rage (1970), Asao
Where Spring Comes Late (1970), Kazami-ryoku
Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973), Koichi Shimada
Mount Hakkoda (1977), Saitō
Hometown (1983), Teacher Tani
Final Take (1986), Yuki's husband
No Worries on the Recruit Front (1991), Interviewer
Pride (1998), Sadao Akamatsu
Break Through! (2005), Motoki's father
The Floating Castle (2012), Tahee
Little Maestra (2012), Tatsuji Minatogawa
Midsummer's Equation (2013), Shigeharu Kawabata
R100 (2013), Kiichirō Sugiura
March Comes in Like a Lion (2017), Someji Kawamoto

Television
Three Outlaw Samurai (1968)
Mito Kōmon (1971–2011)
Ōoka Echizen (1971)
Ronin of the Wilderness (1972)
Hissatsu Shiokinin (1973), Danjōshōhitsu Hatakeyama
Tasukenin Hashiru (1974), Takichi
Edo no Kaze (1975–1976)
Taiyō ni Hoero! (1975)
A Woman and the Beancurd Soup (1976)
Edo no Uzu (1978)
Kinpachi-sensei (1988), Kazutomo Abe
Moeyo Ken (1990), Serizawa Kamo
Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari (1990–2017), Ryō Noda
Kōmyō ga Tsuji (2006)
Smile (2009), Sosuke Machimura
Nobunaga Concerto (2015), Village head
Massan (2014–2015), Masashi Kameyama
Naotora: The Lady Warlord (2017), Ii Naohira

References

External links

Japanese male actors
Living people
1944 births
Place of birth missing (living people)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: Working with a non-encodable mp4 tag name in utf-8 Python code For reasons that are not clear to me, some of the fields that mp4 files use as tag names contain non-printable characters, at least the way mutagen sees them. The one that's causing me trouble is '\xa9wrt', which is the tag name for the composer field (!?).
If I run '\xa9wrt'.encode('utf-8') from a Python console I get
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xa9 in position 0: invalid start byte

I'm trying to access this value from a Python file that uses some future-proofing, including:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals

I can't even figure out how to enter the string '\xa9wrt' into my code file, since everything in that file is interpreted as utf-8 and the string I'm interested in evidently cannot be written in utf-8. Also, when I get the string '\xa9wrt' into a variable (say, from mutagen), it's hard to work with. For example, "{}".format(the_variable) fails because "{}" is interpreted as u"{}", which once again tries to encode the string as utf-8.
Just naively entering '\xa9wrt' gives me u'\xa9wrt', which is not the same, and none of the other stuff I've tried has worked either:
>>> u'\xa9wrt' == '\xa9wrt'
False
>>> str(u'\xa9wrt')
'\xc2\xa9wrt'
>>> str(u'\xa9wrt') == '\xa9wrt'
False

Note this output is from the console, where it does seem that I can enter non-Unicode literals. I'm using Spyder on Mac OS, with sys.version = 2.7.6 |Anaconda 1.8.0 (x86_64)| (default, Nov 11 2013, 10:49:09)\n[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5493)].
How can I work with this string in a Unicode world? Is utf-8 incapable of doing so?
Update:
Thank you, @tsroten's, for the answer. It sharpened my understanding but I am still unable to achieve the effect I'm looking for. Here's a sharper form of the question: how could I reach the two lines with '??' on them without resorting to the kinds of tricks I'm using?
Note that the str that I'm working with is handed to me by a library. I have to accept it as that type
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals

tagname = 'a9777274'.decode('hex') # This value comes from a library as a str, not a unicode
if u'\xa9wrt' == tagname:
    # ??: What test could I run that would get me here without resorting to writing my string in hex?
    print("You found the tag you're looking for!")
else:
    print("Keep looking!")

print(str("This will work: {}").format(tagname))
try:
    print("This will throw an exception: {}".format(tagname))
    # ??: Can I reach this line without resorting to converting my format string to a str?
except UnicodeDecodeError:
    print("Threw exception")

Update 2:
I don't think that any of the strings that you (@tsroten) construct are equal to the one that I'm getting from mutagen. That string still seems to cause problems:
>>> u = u'\xa9wrt'
>>> s = u.encode('utf-8')
>>> s2 = '\xa9wrt'
>>> s3 = 'a9777274'.decode('hex')
>>> s2 == s
False
>>> s2 == s3
True
>>> match_tag(s)
We have a match! tagname == ©wrt
Look! We printed tagname and no exception was raised.
>>> match_tag(s2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xa9 in position 0: invalid start byte

A: \xa9 is the copyright symbol. See C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement from the Unicode Standard for more information.
Maybe the tag ©wrt means "Copyright" and not "Composer"?
When you run '\xa9wrt'.encode('utf-8'), the reason you are getting UnicodeDecodeError is because encode() expects unicode, but you gave it str. So, it first converts it to unicode, but assumes that the str encoding is 'ascii' (or some other default). That's why you get a decode error when you're encoding. This problem should be fixed by using unicode: u'\xa9wrt'.encode('utf-8').
In the Python interpreter, by default, type('') should return <type 'str'>. If, in the interpreter, you first type from __future__ import unicode_literals, then type('') should return <type 'unicode'>. You say, Just naively entering '\xa9wrt' gives me u'\xa9wrt', which is not the same. However, your statement is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Whether or not u'\xa9wrt' == '\xa9wrt' evaluates to True or False depends if you've imported unicode_literals.
Copy, paste, and save the following to a file (e.g. test.py), then run python test.py from the command-line.
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals

tag1 = u'\xa9wrt'
tag2 = '\xa9wrt'
print("tag1 = u'\\xa9wrt'")
print("tag2 = '\\xa9wrt'")
print("tag1: %s" % tag1)
print("tag2: %s" % tag1)
print("type(tag1): %s" % type(tag1))
print("type(tag2): %s" % type(tag2))
print("tag1 == tag2: %s" % (tag1 == tag2))
try:
    print("str(tag1): %s" % str(tag1))
except UnicodeEncodeError:
    print("str(tag1): raises UnicodeEncodeError")
print("tag1.encode('utf-8'): ".encode('utf-8') + tag1.encode('utf-8'))

After copying and pasting the above code into a file, then running it in Python 2.7, I got the following output:
tag1 = u'\xa9wrt'
tag2 = '\xa9wrt'
tag1: ©wrt
tag2: ©wrt
type(tag1): <type 'unicode'>
type(tag2): <type 'unicode'>
tag1 == tag2: True
str(tag1): raises UnicodeEncodeError
tag1.encode('utf-8'): ©wrt

EDIT:
Your life will be much easier if your code uses unicode internally. That means, when you receive input, you convert it to unicode, or when you output, you convert to str (if needed). So, when you receive a str tagname from somewhere, convert it to unicode first.
For example, here is test.py:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals

def match_tag(tagname):
    if isinstance(tagname, str):
        # tagname comes in as str, so let's convert it
        tagname = tagname.decode('utf-8')  # enter the correct encoding here

    # Now that we have a unicode tag, we can deal with it easily:
    if tagname == '\xa9wrt':
        print("We have a match! tagname == %s" % tagname)
        print("Look! We printed tagname and no exception was raised.")

Then, we run it:
>>> from test import match_tag
>>> u = u'\xa9wrt'
>>> s = u.encode('utf-8')
>>> type(u)
<type 'unicode'>
>>> type(s)
<type 'str'>
>>> match_tag(u)
We have a match! tagname == ©wrt
Look! We printed tagname and no exception was raised.
>>> match_tag(s)
We have a match! tagname == ©wrt
Look! We printed tagname and no exception was raised.

So, you need to find out what encoding your input string uses. Then, you'll be able to convert that str to unicode and your code can flow much better.
EDIT 2:
If you are simply trying to get s2 = '\xa9wrt' to work, then you need to decode it correctly first. s2 is a str with the default encoding (check sys.getdefaultencoding() to see which one -- probably ascii). But, \xa9 isn't an ASCII character, so Python automatically escapes it. That's the problem with s2. Try this when feeding it to match_tag():
>>> s2 = '\xa9wrt'
>>> s2_decoded = s2.decode('unicode_escape')
>>> type(s2_decoded)  # This is unicode, just like we want.
<type 'unicode'>
>>> match_tag(s2_decoded)
We have a match! tagname == ©wrt
Look! We printed tagname and no exception was raised.

A: The string is encoded in Latin-1, so if you want to store it in a UTF-8 file or compare it with a UTF-8 string, just do:
>>> '\xa9wrt'.decode('latin-1').encode('utf-8')
'\xc2\xa9wrt'

Or if you want to compare to a Unicode string:
>>> '\xa9wrt'.decode('latin-1') == u'©wrt'
True

A: I've finally found a way to express the string in question in a utf-8 file with unicode_literals. I convert the string to hex and then back. Specifically, in the console (which is apparently not in unicode_literals mode), I run
"".join(["{0:x}".format(ord(c)) for c in '\xa9wrt'])

and then in my source file I can create the string I want with
'a9777274'.decode('hex')

But this can't be the right way, can it? For one thing, if my console were running in full unicode I don't know that I could enter the string '\xa9wrt' in the first place to get Python to tell me the hex sequence that represents the byte string.


text:
Embattled tennis umpire Ramos 'good' despite US Open controversy
Rory Carroll
Umpire Carlos Ramos has made his first public statement since the U.S. Open, saying he was "good" despite the firestorm of controversy that followed his officiating of last weekend's women's final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.
The 47-year-old Portuguese handed out three code violations to runner-up Williams on Saturday, prompting a heated on-court argument with the 23-times Grand Slam champion and sparking a debate about sexism in tennis.
"I am good, under the circumstances," Ramos was quoted as saying in Portugal's Tribuna Expresso.
"It's an unhappy situation but a la carte refereeing doesn't exist.
"Don't you worry about me!"
Ramos, who told the newspaper that he had avoided walking the streets of New York on Sunday to avoid any "complicated situations," confirmed he would be back in the chair on Friday in Zadar, Croatia.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF), which on Monday issued a statement describing Ramos as one of the most respected umpires in tennis, has appointed him to officiate the semi-final of the Davis Cup, the international men's team event, between Croatia and the United States.
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA) both publicly backed the allegations of sexism leveled at Ramos after Saturday's match.
Williams was fined $17,000 and docked a point and a game for three code violations during the match, including breaking a racket and verbally abusing the umpire.
Billie Jean King, the former world number one who founded the WTA in the 1970s, said on Tuesday all sides shared blame for the incident, saying Williams was "out of line" but that Ramos could have prevented the controversy with more leniency and clearer communication.
Ramos was unable to defend himself in public in New York as the row escalated over the weekend as ITF rules prevent umpires from commenting on their matches.
The incident sparked another social media storm on Monday when a cartoon was published in an Australian newspaper depicting Williams with exaggerated features, which civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson among others described as "racist."
The Herald Sun, owned by News Corp, defied allegations of racism on Wednesday when it reprinted the cartoon on its front page, attempting to portray the controversy as a matter of freedom of speech.
Prosecutors convene grand jury in Trump hush money probe
10 wounded in 'targeted' Lakeland, Fla., shooting
Biden to end COVID-19 emergencies on May 11
Bengals player on blasting Joseph Ossai: 'I wasn't a great teammate'
Memphis fire department fires 3 employees in Tyre Nichols case
Report: 49ers QB Brock Purdy headed for surgery


1. Cash out of pension?
2. Store credit card as coupon?
I like to keep old newspapers in the garage. Wadded-up newspapers make for great packing material and I send out a few packages per month.
I also hang onto old shoeboxes. Our children often use them for art projects and they also work well for closet organization.
Saving stuff like that makes our garage look a little bit junky, but we're not wasting our money on packing peanuts or boxes for closet storage.
Q1: Cash out of pension?
My first job out of grad school in 1985 was with ARCO Oil and Gas. I didn't stay with them long (6 years) but I had a pension with them. This pension moved to British Petroleum when they bought Arco years later.
Fast forward to today. I received notice in the mail from BP that they were giving me an offer to cash out my pension now. It's for about 1/2 of what I would be entitled to in 11 years if I were to retire at 65. This offer alarms me. It smacks of BP trying to rid itself of the liability. I wonder if they're going to sell off their US operations and I fear losing the pension totally.
You're right in that BP wants to move your pension off of the books. They don't want that liability going forward.
The question is whether or not you should take the buyout. Taking that buyout means less cash, but it also means less risk. Like it or not, virtually every corporate pension has risk. If that company goes out of business or decides the risk of eating up their pension savings is worth it, they will cannibalize their pensions. Companies have done so in the past.
Unless taking the money would be completely disastrous for your future, I would take that money and bank every cent of it.
Q2: Store credit card as coupon?
I was purchasing a new washer and dryer at Sears and they asked me to sign up for their store credit card to get 15% off of the purchase. I decided to do it and I paid off the whole thing immediately. I basically used it as a coupon. Should I close it now?
Unless the card offers you further benefits, I would close it unless it is your only card, in which case I would open up a Visa or Mastercard that's tied to your preferred retailer and then close the Sears card.
Having a single credit card that you keep at a zero balance is useful for maintaining good credit. If it's tied to your preferred retailer and you use the card just at that retailer and keep it paid off, it will not only keep your credit healthy, it will also earn you some reward worth somewhere between 1% and 5% of your purchases. I consider that worthwhile.
I see no real reason to keep any other cards open. It's just a portal for identity theft and doesn't really help your credit in any significant way.
I have about $20,000 in my 401(k). Every day when I listen to the news and hear that the stock market went up and down 1%, I get a sick feeling in my gut because that means $200. That's a lot of money to lose in one day due to something out of your control. How do you deal with this when you save up even more?
Either you start ignoring it and you get used to it.
The thing to remember with stock investments in retirement is that you're really only worried about the returns over the course of decades, not days. All of the ups and downs, over a long period of time, average out to about +7% per year, but it's really hard to see that each day.
I usually ignore the up and down fluctuations because, like you've noticed, if you translate that daily fluctuation into what it means for your accounts, it's painful. If you have $100K in retirement, then a 1% fluctuation means $1,000. That's a lot more than many paychecks. I really just ignore it.
I just finished reading your "Building an Emergency Supply Kit" article and have a question. You mention that you have a few tubs of supplies. I live in a very expensive city and have a small condo with no storage (no attic, no basement, no garage); I have no room for numerous tubs. Do you suggest just having these items on hand around the house? I have most of those items, just not in one place.
I would keep a few core things in one place, like flashlights and a first aid kit, so that you can grab all of that at once.
Once you have that core stuff, you should be able to use it to locate the other stuff that you might need that might be spread around your apartment.
Just make sure that you actually have that stuff and haven't used it up.
I was laid off from my job in January. I am receiving unemployment benefits but money is really really tight. I am estimating that we are down to about $30 a week to feed our family of four. Any ideas on how to make this stretch?
My first suggestion is to utilize a local food pantry. It's basically intended for people in your situation. Don't feel ashamed or bothered by this – just view it as a "food loan" that you can repay when you get back on your feet.
Aside from that, focus on cheap staples. Beans are cheap. Rice is cheap. Eggs and whole chickens are relatively cheap. Whatever fresh produce that is on sale in a given week is also cheap.
Experiment with all of these things and see what you can make using them as the backbones of your meals along with what you get from the food pantry.
I've seen you mention many times that you should figure on using 4% of your retirement each year when retired. Where do you get that number?
If you use 4% of your retirement balance each year, then your retirement savings should last forever (or at least through the remainder of your life) while providing you enough to live on each year.
You certainly can withdraw more than that each year, but if you do so, you run the risk of emptying out the account before you pass away, which makes your final years quite miserable.
There is no magical formula that can tell you exactly how much you need to withdraw each year because you don't know when you'll retire or when you'll pass away.
I am a 66 year old female, and I began receiving Social Security (SS) after I was age 62.
I have been divorced for many, many years – and was married to my ex-husband for over 10 years. One of the policies with SS is "if you are divorced, and your spouse (of at least a ten-year marriage) is going to receive Social Security in an amount at least 1-1/2 times of what you will be receiving, you can qualify to receive off of his Social Security". That would automatically mean that I received more money in each monthly SS check.
I have worked in the Clerical profession and have never made over $25,000 per year. My ex-husband has been in sales and has also owned an Allstate Insurance Branch for about 15 years – and it would be a phenomenal amount for his monthly Social Security benefits.
He is 69 years old, and I don't know if he has started receiving his SS yet; but, if I learn can find out what he will be earning, and I think he will tell me if I ask (our relationship is on a friendly basis because we have a son and 2 grandchildren, and we see other several times a year at their birthday parties).
If I find out he is receiving, or going to receive 1-1/2 times what I receive each month, what approach do I make with the Social Security office to have them correct my monthly amount?
All you need to do is call them up. You'll need your ex-husband's Social Security number as well as your own.
I tried to find specific information on how the policy you describe actually works, but I couldn't find anything more specific than what you described.
Full retirement benefits start at age 70, so if he hasn't started yet, you'll actually get more starting next year than you would have if he had already started.
What are some fun cheap ideas for a summer vacation with three younger children?
Camping. Find a campground with a lot of fun things to do both on-site and nearby and you'll have a very fun and very cheap family vacation.
You can make all of your food at the campsite, the cost of the site will be pretty low, and if there are plenty of things nearby, you'll have more things to do than you think.
We try to fit in a camping trip each summer just because it's such a cheap way to do something fun with our family.
Just wanted to drop a line and suggest that if your readers want something to do on the weekends that doesn't cost anything and makes you feel good, try volunteering. Go read books at a retirement home or work on Habitat for Humanity houses or help out with a food pantry. These places can always use people and the only cost to you might be a little bit of gas and at the end you feel really good about yourself and the world because you made things just a little bit better.
I serve on two different community boards, helping charities get their papers in order. It can be boring work at times, but when I actually step back and think of the ways that my efforts have helped, it makes me feel really good. Plus, I've met a lot of people and built a few really good relationships.
Volunteer work is a great way to use some of your spare time. Almost every town has a variety of volunteer opportunities available and it gives you a chance to help others and try new things without emptying your wallet.
You might get these questions a lot, but I'm looking for an outside opinion on this. My wife and I are looking to buy our first home. We are in a small town (12,000 population) so the house we are looking at is about 3,000 sq ft for just under $100,000. We've calculated some worst case scenarios with credit scores, APR %, etc. and we can afford the monthly payments no problem.
Two part question. First, I've started looking up first time home buyer programs in Kansas. Everything seems so complicated. Do you have any resources or sites that are good for this type of information? Second, and probably the most important part. We plan on moving out of this town in about 2-3 years when my wife goes off to med school. The big reason we are thinking of buying and keeping the house is because there is a college right here in town. I attended, and there are always kids clawing and searching for houses to rent. This house has 5 bedrooms and we could charge a good amount for rent.
Before you shake your head with disappointment, I have done my homework. I've read almost every article I can find on your site and a few others about home buying. I can do a lot of repairs myself. We've looked into home owners insurance, PMI, closing costs, etc. From what I can tell, we can afford it. I'm just not sure if there is some small detail I have overlooked or haven't seen yet.
For first time homebuyer assistance in Kansas, I'd start here. For further questions, I'd contact the person listed on the page.
As for buying the home, you might be able to afford it right now, but your situation when you move may be different. You will have to find a second place to live in another area and if you have a huge amount of debt on this home, it may be difficult to find another loan for another home, meaning you may wind up renting while owning a rental property. Plus, you won't be able to take advantage of first time homebuyer options with your next home.
In other words, you can probably afford this house now, but you may find yourself "house poor" in a few years when you're ready to move, making it very difficult to move on without selling that house. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that your future is going to be golden.


text:
Liverpool in the Premier League Era: Part Four
December 23, 2015 Anthony Stanley
Part Four: Robbie and Michael.
By Anthony Stanley (TTT Subscriber BehindRafa).
'Robbie Fowler? He could have been the brother of any Liverpool fan.' – Eric Meijer.
'The 'problem' for (Michael) was he became an England legend before a Liverpool one. He won the hearts of the nation before he won those of the Kop.' – Jamie Carragher.
Two brilliant young strikers inherited by respective Liverpool managers from the youth system; two potentially world class forwards whose Liverpool career (in actual playing time) only briefly overlapped; one utterly embraced by the Kop but his best days were behind him by the age of twenty three, the other, while being admired, always viewed through a slight prism of suspicion and had won the European Player of the Year by the time he was twenty three.
Liverpool supporters are walking exponents of the Chinese curse about living in interesting times, and in the case of Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen we lived through a time that was – for all the shifting sands of change and turmoil – a great time to be a Red, even if it held more than a degree of pain.
There are only two years between the two players but their career trajectory was always going to be radically different. Fowler was viewed by the Kop as one of our own, warts and all, a character carved from the streets of Toxteth, a working class scally who looked slightly bewildered at all the fuss. Owen was a different animal altogether, hailing from a comfortable middle class background, groomed for stardom from a young age. The clean cut and handsome youngster was a marketing man's dream. It would not be exaggerating to claim that if a hypothetical Frankenstein sought to conjure the perfect modern footballer in a laboratory, then the chiselled and athletic visage of Owen would be the result. Robbie was different; Fowler was always different – less a modern Prometheus and more a Jabberwocky of outrageous goal scoring talent. And we absolutely adored him for it.
There was always the nagging feeling that we didn't actually own Owen. Was he more England's than Liverpool's? Was he finally going to make the long mooted move to one of Europe's giants? Everything about the young star smacked of transience in a red shirt. Given his exploits for Liverpool, there is no doubt that his subsequent tarnished reputation is slightly unfair but, well, the heart loves what the heart loves.
Fowler was the urchin, a Freudian projection onto a football pitch of all of our desires, our dreams of scoring in front of a heaving Kop made incarnate, a flawed but ultimately colourful and three dimensional character.
The rest of this article is for Subscribers only.
Premier League Tactical Preview: Leicester (H)
Tactical Analysis - Watford 3 Liverpool 0


Like Brother's app, this offering from Canon allows you to both scan and print wirelessly from your smart phone or tablet. It will automatically find compatible printers on your network and lets you scan either to a JPG picture file or a PDF document.
Beyond successful software installations — and mysterious failings "printer not available" after initially printing the test page or failing to print after several hours of successful hours of operation, there's the interesting phenomenon of an attempted install on a couple of machines in which after selecting the 'easy install' or appropriate options under the standard install, and then clicking 'install' — nothing happens. Click again. Nothing happens: no messaging, no installation, nothing. I find this inexplicable and suspect that most software/driver developers — with the evident exception of Epson — wouldn't allow a feature this flawed into release.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Square said customer feedback claimed that flat monthly fees inhibited growth. Although you could argue that, mathematically, limiting sales to avoid additional processing costs might make sense, depending on your business volume and margins, it's hard to imagine any entrepreneur passing on growth to game credit card fees.
Inland data networks quickly convey information between terminals and central banking systems, such that contactless payment limits may be monitored and managed. This may not be possible with use of such cards when abroad.


text:
Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs
Motoaki Saruwatari, Masa Aki Hashimoto
The effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the ignition of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium in a binary system have been investigated. The ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear explosion of a Type Ia supernova. We examine the cases of different accretion rates of helium and different initial masses of the white dwarf, which was studied in detail by Nomoto [K. Nomoto, Astrophys. J. 253 (1982), 798]. We find that for all cases from slow to intermediate accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers. As a consequence, carbon deflagration would be triggered for lower accretion rate than dM/dt ≃ 4 × 10-8 M⊙ yr-1 which has been believed to be the lower limit of the accretion rate for the deflagration supernova. Furthermore, off-center helium detonation should result for intermediate and slow accretion rates, and the region of carbon deflagration for slow accretion rates disappears.
Progress of Theoretical Physics
https://doi.org/10.1143/PTP.124.925
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
10.1143/PTP.124.925
Dive into the research topics of 'Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Accretion Physics 100%
Helium Physics 83%
Ignition Physics 50%
White Dwarf Physics 50%
Oxygen Physics 16%
Region Physics 16%
Combustion Physics 16%
Type Ia Supernovae Physics 16%
Saruwatari, M., & Hashimoto, M. A. (2010). Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs. Progress of Theoretical Physics, 124(5), 925-929. https://doi.org/10.1143/PTP.124.925
Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs. / Saruwatari, Motoaki; Hashimoto, Masa Aki.
In: Progress of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 124, No. 5, 11.2010, p. 925-929.
Saruwatari, M & Hashimoto, MA 2010, 'Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs', Progress of Theoretical Physics, vol. 124, no. 5, pp. 925-929. https://doi.org/10.1143/PTP.124.925
Saruwatari M, Hashimoto MA. Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs. Progress of Theoretical Physics. 2010 Nov;124(5):925-929. doi: 10.1143/PTP.124.925
Saruwatari, Motoaki ; Hashimoto, Masa Aki. / Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs. In: Progress of Theoretical Physics. 2010 ; Vol. 124, No. 5. pp. 925-929.
@article{4e8157de0b2d425e8adb3785e102c991,
title = "Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs",
abstract = "The effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the ignition of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium in a binary system have been investigated. The ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear explosion of a Type Ia supernova. We examine the cases of different accretion rates of helium and different initial masses of the white dwarf, which was studied in detail by Nomoto [K. Nomoto, Astrophys. J. 253 (1982), 798]. We find that for all cases from slow to intermediate accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers. As a consequence, carbon deflagration would be triggered for lower accretion rate than dM/dt ≃ 4 × 10-8 M⊙ yr-1 which has been believed to be the lower limit of the accretion rate for the deflagration supernova. Furthermore, off-center helium detonation should result for intermediate and slow accretion rates, and the region of carbon deflagration for slow accretion rates disappears.",
author = "Motoaki Saruwatari and Hashimoto, {Masa Aki}",
doi = "10.1143/PTP.124.925",
journal = "Progress of Theoretical Physics",
publisher = "Published for the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics by Physical Society of Japan",
T1 - Effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs
AU - Saruwatari, Motoaki
AU - Hashimoto, Masa Aki
N2 - The effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the ignition of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium in a binary system have been investigated. The ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear explosion of a Type Ia supernova. We examine the cases of different accretion rates of helium and different initial masses of the white dwarf, which was studied in detail by Nomoto [K. Nomoto, Astrophys. J. 253 (1982), 798]. We find that for all cases from slow to intermediate accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers. As a consequence, carbon deflagration would be triggered for lower accretion rate than dM/dt ≃ 4 × 10-8 M⊙ yr-1 which has been believed to be the lower limit of the accretion rate for the deflagration supernova. Furthermore, off-center helium detonation should result for intermediate and slow accretion rates, and the region of carbon deflagration for slow accretion rates disappears.
AB - The effects of a new triple-α reaction rate on the ignition of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium in a binary system have been investigated. The ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear explosion of a Type Ia supernova. We examine the cases of different accretion rates of helium and different initial masses of the white dwarf, which was studied in detail by Nomoto [K. Nomoto, Astrophys. J. 253 (1982), 798]. We find that for all cases from slow to intermediate accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers. As a consequence, carbon deflagration would be triggered for lower accretion rate than dM/dt ≃ 4 × 10-8 M⊙ yr-1 which has been believed to be the lower limit of the accretion rate for the deflagration supernova. Furthermore, off-center helium detonation should result for intermediate and slow accretion rates, and the region of carbon deflagration for slow accretion rates disappears.
U2 - 10.1143/PTP.124.925
DO - 10.1143/PTP.124.925
JO - Progress of Theoretical Physics
JF - Progress of Theoretical Physics


6/7/2017: Due to his demonstrated exceptional creativity, innovation and boldness in his science, and his strong group citizenship within the UCSF scientific community, Bo Huang was awarded the 2017 Byers Award. The award will span three years, and is intended solely to support his research.
5/31/2017: Brian Shoichet received an award from the National Institute of General Medical Science for his project entitled, "Development and Testing of New Computational Methods for Ligand Discovery and Mechanism." This project will be funded until 2022.
4/28/2017: Kevin Ka Ki Leung, a postdoc in the Wells lab, received an award from the Canadian Institutes of Health which will be funded for three years.


Showing results for tags '1st press'.
https://slightlystoopid.shopfirebrand.com/ looks like: /2500 Limited Edition 2 LP Set on Orange Vinyl Free album flat with first 500 preorders the only question now is.... what is an album flat?
Hi, I recently acquired a sabbath bloody sabbath vinyl from a relative. I have done some research and not too sure what to believe. I have a gate fold copy of sabbath bloody sabbath. The matrix numbers are ACB00166 1Y and 2Y on the back. The previous matrix numbers (which most are familiar with) WWA 005 have been scratched out on both sides. Sources have led me to believe this is due to a change in production as they switched to Phillips WEA, thus the need to cross the old matrix numbers out was vital. No where on the entire album sleeve, or vinyl does it mention Rick Wakeman also. I have been led to believe this is an extremely early copy of the album, and are wondering what your thoughts are?
Looking for a 1st pressing copy of Opus Eponymous (preferable clear) as well as a clear copy of Secular Haze. I know these are pretty tough to find these days, but maybe somebody's got a copy they'd sell. If you do, PM me with details.
47$ ppd, however the price is entirely negotiable. Just shoot me any offers or trade options with a PM.


text:
Simpatico Theatre and Jouska PlayWorks announces new play showcase, featuring all Black playwrights
PhiladelphiaRowHomeMagazine February 9, 2021 February 9, 2021 Coming Up, Music and Arts
-Courtesy of Bryan Buttler Media Relations, LLC
Simpatico Theatre and Jouska PlayWorks, an assembly of Black playwrights whose goal is to create theatre that enriches, entertains, empowers, and awakens the moral conscience, is proud to announce the first ever Jouska PlayWorks Virtual New Play Showcase, featuring excerpts from seven new plays created by Jouska artists. These pieces will be presented as Pay What You Decide (PWYD) digital readings with donations going to a variety of service organizations designated by the playwrights. Presentations begin February 11, 2021 and run through March 25, 2021, with a celebratory marathon weekend of all of the plays on March 27-28, 2021 to coincide with World Theatre Day.
The project will employ 27 actors, 3 directors and a project stage manager, all while providing the opportunity for Black artists to lead the development of their own work. The plays include:
504 or the Savior Play
By Josh A. Campbell
Thursday, February 11, 2021, 7PM
Directed by Katrina Shobe
Featuring James Whitfield, Elexis Morton, Amanda Robles, Alison Ormsby
Is there life after teaching in urban education? That's the question that haunts a group of teachers working in a middle school in 2018 as they grapple with district mandates, a toxic work environment, a pending teachers strike, influx of new bilingual students, traumatized students dealing with grief and each other.
The Return of the Sho-Gun
by Keenya Jackson
Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 7PM
Directed by Victoria Goins
Featuring, Abdul Sesay, SJ Hannah, Ebony Pullum
Saleem (13), and his mother Amina are working hard to navigate life after the death of Saleem's step-father. Saleem's biological father uses this as a chance to build a relationship with his only son. Saleem struggles to discover who he is and if he wants a relationship with a man who abandoned him.
Freud and His Negro
By Teresa Miller
Featuring Brian Anthony Wilson, Tasha Holmes, Charlie DelMarcelle
Freud and His Negro is the story of Nabal Price, an African American Psychologist in 1960s Harlem. A Harlem before the Civil Rights Act was signed. He has a struggling practice and he also struggles with being a supporter of Civil Rights. Nabal is a student and a zealous admirer of Sigmund Freud, so much so that he often visits and receives visits from a long-deceased Freud. At the advice of his loving wife Beth, a strong supporter of Civil Rights, and his colleague David, Nabal decides to host a dinner party for some of his wife's friends and other black "established" people in the neighborhood. The evening spins out of control when someone tells a racist joke at the party, a joke that originated from Sigmund Freud. All that Nabal thought he knew about himself and who he worshipped sends him into a tailspin which results in him almost losing his mind.
Twenty-Six
By Ang Bey
Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 7PM
Featuring Adaeze Nwoko, Carter O'Brien Ford, Mya Flood, Tanya Morgan
Identity, retribution, and reckoning. Twenty -Six is a Black, queer (self) love story. Senior-year at Swarthmore College is its own cruel layer of hell for Tasha Fields. She will stop being "she"… if the chest-binder fits nicely. She will fall in love… if Tyler gets his shit together. And, most importantly, she will die. Finally. Wait, is that too morbid? Fine. Tasha Fields will transfigure into a God… if Em falls off the face of the Earth. Em ain't going nowhere anytime soon. Maybe, at least, Tasha Fields will ace her thesis on race. Because she is SO secure in how to be Black. Believe her. Please. Believe her, so she can start herself.
GTFOH
By Nikki Brake-Sillá
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 7PM
Directed by Alexandra Espinoza
Featuring Fatima Nelson, SJ Hannah, Tai Velery, Victor Rodriguez Jr., Lindsay Smiling
GTFOH follows a couple in their therapist's office on the brink of the dissolution of their marriage. The work deals with the perception of truth and the gray area between what is said and what is heard.
By Megan Schumacher
Featuring Kishia Nixon, Satchel Williams, Emma Gordon, Tyler Elliot, Paul Harrold
It's Samira's 16th birthday, but her family, consumed by her sister's wedding, has forgotten. With the help of her friends, Samira works to create a birthday for the memory books while at the same time navigating the cliques, ignorance, and racism of her peers. This is a contemporary re-envisioning of John Hughes's Sixteen Candles.
If & When
By Quinn D. Eli
Featuring Michelle Pauls, Brandon Pierce, Alison Ormsby, José Raúl, Donovan Lockett
A real-life adventure is taking place inside of Damascus Comics, only there are no superheroes around to save the store's African-American owner, Ramir, when his oldest friend and only employee, a white woman named Beth, becomes front-page news because of a case caught live on video: Convinced two white children traveling with a black man are somehow in harm's way, Beth calls the police, setting off a series of events that endangers the store she runs with Ramir, threatens their relationship, and extracts in the end an enormous price for Living While Black.
The March 27-28, 2021 marathon weekend coincides with World Theatre Day, and will feature replays of all previous Jouska presentations, panel discussions, Q&A with the artists involved, and more; times and details will be announced at a later date. All presentations are Pay What You Decide. This model empowers Simpatico and Jouska audiences to invest in art and artists in accordance with their own abilities. After seeing one of our shows, guests are encouraged to make a contribution to continue to support our work.
Reservations for the showcase are required. For more information, or to reserve a spot, visit https://www.simpaticotheatre.org/jouska-playworks. To visit the ticketing link directly: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35118.
504 or the Savior Play, Freud and His Negro, GTFOH, If & When, jouska, Jouska PlayWorks, simpatico theatre, Sixteen, The Return of the Sho-Gun, Twenty-Six
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Moody Air Force Base is gearing up for exercise FT 19-04 here.
The five day exercise, scheduled to take place, April 15-19, will give base personnel an opportunity to experience contingency operations in a contested and degraded combat environment.
The exercise will focus on high operations tempo and the ability to survive and operate in a chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear environment (CBRN) to meet Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) and the Commander of Air Combat Command's intent for readiness.
During the exercise, personnel will be evaluated on how well they defend and recover the base from ground-opposition forces, as well as mortar and missile attacks, while donning mission oriented protective posture (MOPP) gear proving they can also protect themselves from any CBRN agents.
While the exercise will test the 23d Wing's ability to survive and operate in support of contingency operations, it will also give Airman the confidence needed to perform their jobs, should they face a similar real world scenario.


Chestnut Wall Lamp by Viso. The Chestnut decorative metal plate light fixture comes in organic shape in a sweet hand brushed champagne finish. Don't roast it and eat it. You will create a short.
Instead, specify the Chesnut decorative metal light fixture plate to create unique installations on walls and ceilings in projects like hotels, restaurants, offices, airports, govenement and residences.
The plates come in sets of quadruplets (4), sextuplets (6), nonuplets (9), and undecaplets (11) whose abundant energey has been diffused. Obviously, our designers were busy, wink, wink. You can also customize your own set.
Decorative Art or light, we think this decorative metal light fixture is both and more. Attach them to a singular j-box, and BAM!, you have yourself a mind-blowing custom cluster that no one else has. Chestnut Wall Lamp by Viso are designed by Viso Design Studio.


text:
package net.sourceforge.pebble.web.view.impl;

import net.sourceforge.pebble.web.view.HtmlView;

/**
 * Represents the login page.
 *
 * @author    Simon Brown
 */
public class LoginPageView extends HtmlView {

  public void prepare() {
    getModel().put("isLoginPage", "true");
  }

  /**
   * Gets the name of the theme to use.
   *
   * @return the theme name as a String
   */
  protected String getTheme() {
    return SYSTEM_THEME;
  }

  /**
   * Gets the title of this view.
   *
   * @return the title as a String
   */
  public String getTitle() {
    return getLocalizedString("login.title");
  }

  /**
   * Gets the URI that this view represents.
   *
   * @return the URI as a String
   */
  public String getUri() {
    return "/WEB-INF/jsp/login.jsp";
  }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


7 Healthy Skin Benefits Of Sandalwood – Why Am I Unhealthy?
Sandalwood is a unique type of wood from the genus Santalum. These trees are aromatic and are mainly found in India. However, fewer of them can be found in South Asia, Australia and Indonesia.
Sandalwood is best known of its aroma and its wonderful healing properties. It has been used for a long time during meditation and rituals.
Ladies, are you in need of a daily body spray that will have you smelling wonderful throughout the day? Not to worry, this is where Sothys steps in, with its Vanilla and Sandalwood Escape Nourishing Body Elixir. This excellent smelling formula is the solution to your needs. This nourishing oil offers different minerals and extracts to have you smelling delicately scented and fresh throughout the day.
Combined with its several health benefits, Sandalwood is known to benefit the skin in many ways. This woody plant is often processed as a fragrant oil, aromatic extract and perfumed medicinal soap.
It has ample of uses and healthy benefits especially on the skin. It has obvious and consistent, lasting, smooth and woody scent. Sandalwood enhances the volatility of perfume to spread the fragrance faster and longer. It is widely used as aromatic oil in altering and nourishing the health of the skin.
This majestic wood is popularly recognized because of its disinfectant and antimicrobial characteristics which efficiently heals and restores the health of the skin.
Sandalwood is well known to combat skin dryness by moisturizing, it is a key ingredient in lotions and creams that aim at reducing skin dryness. It increases the activity of the skin cells which enables them to draw more moisture which in turn is used to moisturize the skin giving it that young, smooth and shiny look. Sandalwood moisturize skin without causing acne. It has natural emollient that acts as moisturizer.
Fellas, grab your sandalwood eShave Travel Kit for the perfect vacation. It has everything you need for a close and comfortable shave on-the-go. I use mine even when I'm not on vacation, it's the best stuff we've found for our sensitive skin.
Sandalwood acts as an anti-inflammatory agent that increases blood circulation in regions of your skin, this means that your skin is nourished with enough nutrient and metabolic waste products deposited near it are also removed. Further, it acts as an antioxidant and scavenges on the free radicals that cause wrinkles on your skin.
The overall effect is that your skin stays healthy and looks young. It acts as tightening agent on the skin, which is an effective technique to restore the flexibility of the skin. You can totally apply it not just on your face but all over the body including legs and hands. It eliminates seated oil and dirt on skin. It increases the elasticity of your skin. It guarantees you a skin that is supple and flawless.
Powder made of Sandalwood has been used for a long time to treat acne in teenagers and adults whose skin is fond of zit eruption. Traditionally it was crushed and added to turmeric and it proved to be very effective in reducing zit eruption. It is a good recommendation for those people who have regular pimple breakouts.
Sandalwood paste proves to work very well in promoting an even skin tone. Continued use of Sandalwood paste also prevents tans from forming in your skin. The mild components of Sandalwood extensively work to inhibit keloid formation on skin. Sandalwood as Disinfectant This majestic wood is popularly recognized because of its disinfectant and antimicrobial characteristics which efficiently heals and restores the health of the skin.
Many people are faced with the problem of an itchy skin; this makes them keep scrubbing their skin every now and then. The aftereffect is that the skin gets damaged. Sandalwood paste or oil has a calming effect on the skin and reduces itchiness. If your skin is inflamed, it helps relax it and can also be applied after an insect bite to reduce the degree of itchiness. It lessens the redness and swelling of the skin faster than other treatments. It acts as gentle sealant that instantly closes the tear or cut on the skin.
Sandalwood helps restore sun burnt skin back to its original tone. Many people do suffer sunburns if their skin is exposed to sunlight for a long time when applied prior to sunbathing, sandalwood acts as a sunscreen and prevents possible sun burns. When applied after sunburns, it helps the skin to heal quickly.
If you ever desire to have that healthy, bright, flawless and clean skin it is time you start regular application of Sandalwood oil or paste. It heals all the ugly scars and blemishes on your skin and rejuvenate your skin. Sandalwood as Astringent One of the best benefits that this perfume plant can offer is its tender touch on skin.
Noelle Page is a Passionate blogger. She works on behalf of Ehic. She has been writing contents on the web professionally since 2009. As an avid reader and blogger she shares her experience through her articles on Health, Beauty and Fitness.
My grandmother has been preaching Sandalwood for years.


text:
St. Luke's may refer to:

Places
St Luke's, London, a district of London, UK
St Luke's, Old Street, church of the above parish
St Luke's Campus, part of the University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, England
St Luke's railway station, Southport, Merseyside, UK

Others
St. Luke's University Health Network, a hospital/health network in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
Saint Luke's Health System, a health care system and affiliated hospitals around Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Saint Luke's Home for Destitute and Aged Women, in Middletown, Connecticut, USA

See also
Westfield St Lukes, a shopping mall in Auckland, New Zealand
St. Luke's Church (disambiguation)
St Luke's Hospital (disambiguation)
St. Luke's School (disambiguation)
St Luke's University (disambiguation)
Saint Luke (disambiguation)
Saint-Luc (disambiguation)


Available in well over 41 configurations, the 3I Series of waterproof cases are the perfect solution for storing and transporting your delicate electronics, A/V equipment, microphones, mixers, cables, computers or percussion and music accessories. Most sizes are available with a variety of interiors to accommodate the needs of the traveling musician. Interior options on most models include cubed foam, layered foam, padded dividers, or an empty interior.


Dremels are versatile wood-carving tools.
Dremels are good tools for carving wood spirits.
Use the tungsten steel cutting wheels to carve busts.
Making dollhouse furniture requires a delicate engraving tool.


(e) raising funds needed to achieve the stated objectives.
We are delighted to be able to work with the Greetings Card Company. Through their fantastic website we can offer our supporters an excellent range of Christmas and everyday cards. All purchases made through the website will help Thyroid UK to support those with thyroid disease. Thank You.


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AKL Solicitors has offices in Luton and Harrow and represents clients in Milton Keynes, Watford, and throughout North West London, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and Middlesex.
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text:
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In a Town Haunted by Oka, Nobody Is 'Canadian'
Sean Gordon, Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 8, 2009
The precious cargo arrived in a nondescript blue rental car, unadorned by the usual travelling fanfare that surrounds its every movement.
Typically, the Olympic flame is accompanied by a phalanx of Mounties, and preceded and followed by heavily branded Vancouver Organizing Committee vehicles.
But Kahnawake is anything but a typical stop on the Olympic Torch Relay. By prior arrangement, and after lengthy negotiations–which dragged late into Monday evening–the RCMP stayed off tribal land, and so did the rest of the torch road show.
They did so with good reason: The lessons of recent history are still painful in this community, which sits across the St. Lawrence from Montreal.
Put simply, since the Oka crisis, everything has changed in Kahnawake, and nothing has changed.
The Mohawk community has become a huge global player in the online gaming industry and is clearly thriving. Yet it remains beset by continuing problems with poverty, addiction and crime, and then there's the small matter of the continuing political stalemate between the band and the governments that would control it. Kahnawake is a place where the word Canadian is often set in quotation marks.
"If you go to any man, woman or child in this community, no one would tell you they're Canadian," said Michael Delisle Jr., grand chief of the Kahnawake Mohawk Council, who nevertheless said the torch is "a beacon of hope" to his community and that it was "a great day."
And so the torch's passage illustrates a mostly unspoken dichotomy: The Olympic ideal is held up as a symbol of hope and achievement to young people in aboriginal communities, but in Kahnawake that inspiration has little to no connection with the national celebration the 2010 Games organizers envision.
"You have a persisting disaffection with the federal government, and the claims to federal authority over Kahnawake. That hasn't evolved much or at all since Oka . . . the Mohawk conception of national sovereignty is completely at variance with Canada's or Quebec's or with that of most of the Canadian population," said Ronald Niezen, a native affairs expert who teaches anthropology at McGill University.
Though the 1990 Oka crisis primarily involved a dispute at Kanesatake, a Mohawk reserve northwest of Montreal, members of Kahnawake blockaded a bridge linking their community to the city in solidarity.
Those roadblocks prompted construction on what would become Highway 30, the proposed extension of which is currently being contested by the Mohawks.
The situation today is nothing like the simmering tensions of the summer and fall of 1990, but the political positions remain intractable.
Indeed, the RCMP and Sûreté du Quebec provincial police are not welcome in Kahnawake unless they seek permission and co-operation from the community's police force, and the relay organizers were willing to make allowances to get the torch there, including shortening the original route.
"The goal, and we had the full support of the RCMP, is to find a way to make it all work. And there are a lot of very happy young kids today because we did it, and we're very happy," VANOC head John Furlong said. In the event, a crowd of several hundred school children and residents gathered under dazzling blue skies to cheer the relay.
Just before noon, the canister holding the flame–by then surreptitiously transferred into a Mohawk Peacekeepers squad car–was brought out to light a torch held by Kahnawake's own Alwyn Morris.
The 52-year-old, one of two medal-winning Olympians to hail from the community of about 7,500, said "the torch relay is about unity, it's about peace, it's about bringing together family and friends and uniting the country." He also expressed hope the day would help clear up a few misconceptions about his community.
"Unfortunately [the reserve] is given some very unappealing stereotypes. I was at the Olympic Games, I represented Canada at those Olympic Games, it didn't take anything away from Canada and I'm also a Mohawk. It's not something to be afraid of."
The two-time Olympian is a fitting exemplar of his community for more than athletic prowess. After winning two kayaking medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games–a gold and a bronze–he returned home to work in addiction counselling and as a senior adviser to the band council.
In 2007, he quit that post to found a company in the reserve's booming industry, online gaming.
Kahnawake's computer servers are home to more than 500 Internet casinos, an activity that is technically illegal under Canadian law (as is much of the community's robust discount tobacco trade). But the gaming business has created hundreds of jobs and despite hefty federal funding for education and health, the general perception is Kahnawake has been left to its own devices.
"There's so many things that are happening in the community in terms of economic development. A lot of it, unfortunately, is in spite of what comes in by virtue of governmental support," Mr. Morris said.
Coincidentally, the first day the flame wasn't escorted by Mounties was also the first day on which a protester was arrested. As Mr. Morris alternately walked and jogged the few hundred metres between a gas station on Kahnawake's main drag and a school, a protester ran up and tried to hand him a stack of tracts. The protester was grabbed by a couple of burly Peacekeepers and after a brief scuffle was shepherded into the back of a squad car.
Just down the road, a traditionalist Mohawk group held a protest that comprised a handful of people holding bedsheets painted with slogans such as, "Remove the poison, remove the torch." Demonstrators grumbled Mr. Morris was trying to drum up attention for his business interests, while passing band members replied with insults aimed at the protest. A few children even booed.
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Tribeca Designs by Timeless Treasures in 100% cotton. Pattern features vivid pink background with fl..
Harmony by Chong A. Hwang for Timeless Treasurers. This fabric is gorgeous. Hyrdrangea petals have..
Wild Flowers by Judy and Judel Niemeyer for Timeless Treasurers. Squirrels and/or chipmunks are pos..
Rae Ritchie for Dear Stella. Floral multi-colored print on a flat violet background. 100% Cotton. ..


Super Green Revitalizing Shampoo leaves the hair healthy-looking, shiny and manageable. Suitable for all hair types, Revitalizing Shampoo is sulphate free and paraben-free to meet the latest important consumer trends for more natural and safer products. This product contains 70% organic content.
Super Green Revitalizing Shampoo leaves the hair healthy-looking, shiny and manageable. Suitable for all hair types, Revitalizing Shampoo is sulphate free and paraben-free to meet the latest important consumer trends for more natural and safer products. Plus, the product has been enriched with a combination of vitamins and certified organic extracts of chamomile, aloe vera, and olive leaf extract for added moisturizing and conditioning benefits.
We stock a nice but limited choice of packaging options out of the multitude of possible packaging containers available. Some clients provide their own packaging components from their chosen packaging supplier. Minimums start at around 500 units when we fill our products into client provided packaging.
If one of our stock formulas does not quite suit your requirements, we specialize in developing customized products. Many times we can make some simple modifications to one of our stock formulas to develop a customized product. This saves time and reduces the cost of research and development. Minimums are around 1000 units for a customized product.
Apply a generous amount of shampoo to wet hair, massage thoroughly and rinse. Repeat if necessary.
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OMG! I read this book in one day. I could not put it down…well I did to change a diaper or feed my children, but other than that…well the house is still dirty.
I loved Faith. She came out of her shell, knowing that she had to save the next victim from the visions she was seeing. She was strong, overcoming the conditioning, Silence, the Psy places on all within the PsyNet.
Vaughn…swoon! He was the dominant male you want to see in every book. He could eat his the cupcakes I give this story anywhere he wants. Preferably off of Faith's body.
The only thing I didn't like…well they spent so much time on this serial murderer only to not delve much into neutralizing him. It just seemed to happen and move on to other things. Now, I felt the other things were important too, but it was almost anti-climatic.
All things said, I loved this book…moving onto book 3 now.


text:
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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - Square Pictures
Understanding The Uncanny Valley
TinTin – Paramount Pictures
A concept many filmmakers and game-makers alike must deal with when creating animated portrayals of humans is something called the "uncanny valley." In fact, for many animators, being successful in the animation industry means having a thorough understanding of what the uncanny valley is, how to avoid its effects, and even how to use the effects of the uncanny valley to your advantage under the right circumstances.
Understanding the 'Uncanny Valley.'
If you're unfamiliar with the phrase "uncanny valley," you still might be familiar with the concept. Have you ever noticed a "human" in a movie or video game that doesn't look quite right? Have you wondered, "what is wrong with that face?" or thought "this person looks so creepy?" These reactions could be caused by the uncanny valley, which is essentially our mind's way of telling us that a portrayal of a human looks almost realistic – but not quite. When there's something "just off" about the look of a human on the screen, the uncanny valley is the hypothesis that says humans will experience negative reactions when faced with anything that looks "wrong" compared to their typical image of humankind. These negative feelings are typically an uneasiness or revulsion toward the inhuman humanoid you're seeing.
What is the 'Uncanny Valley?'
The Polar Express – Castle Rock Entertainment
The uncanny valley is a principle that's been studied fairly extensively, especially in light of more recent breakthroughs in animation, and researchers and psychologists have begun to understand just what it is about inhuman humans that gives us all the creeps. First developed in 1970 by Dr. Masahiro Mori, a Professor of Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology, the uncanny valley hypothesis depends on the understanding that as a robot (or animated human) becomes more and more similar in likeness to a human, the more affinity we feel toward that robot. However, at a certain point – before a robot can be perfected to look exactly human – we stop responding positively to the similarities we see between ourselves and these robot likenesses because we also see dissimilar features that look like mistakes and imperfections.
To hear the "uncanny valley" explained in terms of CGI, check out the video below:
How to Avoid the Uncanny Valley?
For many animators, avoiding the uncanny valley is best, as in many instances, it's advisable to not repulse your audience. (Wouldn't you agree?) But how exactly do you avoid the uncanny valley? It's a thin line to tread, especially for new animators trying their hand at creating human likenesses, but the best way to avoid this valley is to not try to create something that's "as human as possible" – often times, it won't be quite human enough. If you're looking to avoid the effects of the uncanny valley when creating animated characters, think of them more as a likeness of humanity than a replica, and you'll likely be able to create an animation that's close enough for your audience to identify with and understand as human but far enough away to avoid those negative reactions you're looking to prevent.
The Incredibles – Disney Pixar
Using the Uncanny Valley to Your Advantage
One of the benefits of the uncanny valley is that if you can create a near-perfect human-like animation, you have an almost sure-fire way of creating a feeling of unease in your audience. If you're looking to evoke those negative feelings that the uncanny valley is so adept at creating – and particularly if you want a specific animated character to create those feelings – then you can use the principle of the uncanny valley to your advantage. Simply using what you know about how humans respond to near-perfect humans will help you to exploit those responses to suit any creepy visions you may have for your animations.
Want some examples of the "uncanny valley?" Check out these articles and videos below:
•	The Uncanny Valley: The Original Essay by Masahiro Mori
•	10 Creepy Examples of the Uncanny Valley
•	Avoiding the Uncanny Valley
At the Los Angeles Film School, animation students in our visual effects, game art, and computer animation learn how to use and avoid the uncanny valley and how the effects of the uncanny valley can cause animation to be poorly received in spite of – and because of – advances in CGI special effect capabilities.
Tags:cgicomputer animationmasahiro morirealismthe polar expresstintinuncanny valley
Film & Game Releases: Week of July 21
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