Cucurbit powdery mildew is a fungal infection with a couple of culprits. It affects any type of cucurbit, but is less common in melons and cucumbers. The characteristic white, powdery mold is pretty easy to spot, but management and prevention of the disease requires several steps.
Powdery mildew that infects cucurbit is caused by one of two fungal species: more commonly Erysiphe cichoracearum and less commonly Sphaerotheca fuliginea. While any kind of cucurbit could be susceptible to these fungi, most varieties of cucumbers and watermelons are now resistant.
Unlike some other types of fungal infections on plants, powdery mildew does not require standing water. The most favorable conditions for an infection are medium-high humidity and temperatures between 68 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 27 Celsius). The infection is also more likely when foliage is dense and little light penetrates through the leaves.
Cucurbits with powdery mildew can be identified by a white powdery substance on the leaves and stems. The infection will likely begin on leaves that are shaded and on older leaves, so check these for earlier signs of mildew. In some cases, you may see the powder on fruit as they develop.
In commercial growing, this disease has been known to reduce harvests by up to 50 percent. There are steps you can take to avoid this kind of destruction in your garden so you don't have to sacrifice half your cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and melons.
Start with resistant varieties if you can find them. Melons and cucumbers that resist powdery mildew are common enough. Space your plants out adequately to prevent leaves from being shaded and becoming susceptible to infection. Spacing will also keep humidity around plants lower.
Keep your garden clean by regularly removing plant debris and weeds that could spread the fungus. Crop rotation does not help control this disease because the fungus doesn't survive in the soil.
Fungicides to control cucurbit powdery mildew are not usually necessary for home gardeners. But, if you have a bad infection, find an appropriate chemical at your local nursery or extension office. To control powdery mildew, these are typically applied early to treat and prevent further spread of the disease.


Later this month most of us will gather with family and friends for a Thanksgiving meal, enjoying the company of our loved ones and an abundance of turkey and other foods. But, while the holiday is called Thanksgiving, few of us probably stop to really think about what we are being thankful for, either in the context of the holiday or with respect to our daily lives.
An alternative reading in Mishkan T'fillah (our new prayer book!) expands on these sentiments saying that we give thanks, "for the gift of life, wonder beyond words; for the awareness of soul, our light within; for the world around us, so filled with beauty…" This reading gives insight into the things for which we should be grateful in our lives.
When we thank God for "our lives which are in Your hands," we are recognizing that life itself is a miracle, a mystery we so often take for granted until we are at risk of losing it. We should always relish our lives, appreciating every moment as we live it and trying to make each day a day filled with meaning in which we make a difference. God gave us our lives, it is our duty to make our lives matter and make the lives of others better through our being in the world.
When we thank God "for our souls which are in your care," we thank God for the "light within," the spark of the divine that drives us to good and gives us hope. Our tradition is filled with spiritual and ethical wisdom that can light a flame in our lives, that can shine the light of truth and goodness into the darkness of the world and bring us hope.
And when we thank God "for Your miracles that we experience every day," we thank God "for the world around us, so filled with beauty." We open our eyes to the daily miracles that are all around us but that we so often fail to see as we hurry about our busy lives.
As we sit around the Thanksgiving table, faced with so much abundance and surrounded by loved ones, may we be grateful to God for all we have. May we encourage all with whom we share our meal to live with gratitude for the many blessings in our lives. And may we understand that being grateful does not mean only accepting the world as it is but also acting to change the world for the better so that we, and all around us, will always have more for which to be grateful.
In his book "All I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten" Robert Fulgham explains (as the title suggests!) that all the basic truths were learned in kindergarten: Share everything; play fair; don't hit people; put things back where you found them; clean up your own mess; say you're sorry when you hurt somebody; when you go out in the world, watch out for traffic; hold hands and stick together.
As I discovered during my week at Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, TX and previously at Camp George in Ontario, the same is true of Jewish summer camp. Many, if not all, the same lessons can be learned there as well as some new ones like: you never know if you like something until you try it; it's good to be who you really are and not who everyone tells you should be; you have to fall off the waterskis a lot before you get it right and that's part of the fun!
Growing up in the UK we didn't have the same kind of amazing camp experiences (Jewish or otherwise!) as we do here. It has been a revelation seeing how wonderful these camps can be, both as a member of faculty, teaching Judaism to the kids as part of the camp experience, and as a parent, watching my own daughter be inspired by Jewish summer camp.
Why is Jewish Summer camp so important? Jewish summer camp has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to form Jewish identity in Jewish youth. In part it is because it is a great place to form good values. The values of friendship, respect and community were among the Jewish values we focused on during my week at Greene Family Camp, and giving the campers the opportunity to connect Jewish values to their camp experiences and to their lives at home.
More importantly, in a world where involvement in Jewish life comes from a feeling of engagement rather than from a sense of obligation, Jewish summer camp is a great way of showing young Jews that Judaism is fun, meaningful, and inspiring. It helps to show them that this is something to love and cherish and not just something they do because their parents tell them they must. They learn to be inspired by a love of Judaism and to make it a significant part of their daily lives. This, perhaps, more than any other reason is why Greene Family Camp calls itself a camp for Living Judaism. Indeed, Greene Family camp has recently been made a hub for youth engagement in the region, and will be creating programs to reach out to youth throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
And these are lessons that are as important for adult Jews as they are for our youth. Judaism has a long and proud history, but we must also ensure that it has a long and proud future. We can learn from the experience of Jewish summer camp - the enthusiasm, the passion, the sense of fun - that inspire our youth at camp, and be inspired by them also. Just as Greene Family Camp is a hub for Living Judaism among the youth of Texas and Oklahoma, we can strive to make that spirt of Living Judaism a central part of our own congregational life and ensure that CBI continues to be a vibrant hub for Jewish life in Corpus Christi for many years to come.
These beautiful words of praise are traditionally recited as we enter the sanctuary and appear in the opening section of the morning service. They are all the more beautiful because they were uttered by a man, Balaam, who was intending to curse the Israelites rather than bless them.
The story of Balaam, that we will read the first Shabbat of July, is one of those stories that, if it were not in the Bible, it would be more likely classed as ancient farce than spiritual lore. The story tells of Balak, king of Moab, and Balaam, a unique example of a non-Jewish prophet in the Hebrew bible. Concerned by the Israelites' victory over the Amorites, Balak sends for Balaam and instructs him to curse the Israelites. Not only is Balaam initially obstructed in his path to curse the Israelites by a talking donkey, but every time he opens his mouth to speak the curse he blurts out a blessing instead, despite the rising and somewhat comical anger of Balak. Included among these blessings is the first line of the Mah Tovu prayer.
The Rabbis understand this blessing to be a prophetic reference to the study houses and synagogues that were to be such a central aspect of Jewish communal life. In looking over the ancient tents of the Israelites Balaam saw not the physical beauty of the tents but the spiritual and ethical beauty of synagogue communities. And the fact that Balaam's words are turned from curses to blessings, sheds light on an important aspect of synagogue community - our words of prayer, our spiritual experience in the synagogue, and our acts of loving kindness in the context of congregational life, can and should have a transformative effect. Having come to curse Israel, Balaam observes their places of worship and his words of condemnation were turned to words of praise. Many of us may walk through the door of the synagogue with the burdens and concerns of our daily lives; the anger and frustration at friends, family and work colleagues that we all feel at times; the anxieties, pains and difficulties that life throws at us and that fill our hearts and minds from day to day. The synagogue is the place where we can turn our curses to blessings, our anger to calm, our anxieties to contentment, through the presence of the divine and the support of our community.
Judaism has always understood the synagogue as a Beit K'nesset, a place of meeting. It is a place in which we meet one another and God, and in which we learn how Judaism teaches us to meet the world. In the consumerist society in which we live, the synagogue community reminds us that the primary business of religion is people. It is a place where we find community and the kind of deep personal connections that only a congregation can provide.
As part of a congregational family we can be transformed for the better through our relationships with each other, with our tradition and with God. Those relationships are created and deepened as we share our stories and the stories of our people, as we create connections with each other, and as we engage with the many activities of congregational life that help us to create shared experiences and shared stories. This, perhaps, was what Balaam saw so many years ago as he looked over the tents of a People who truly cared for each other and built our Jewish tradition that values relationships so highly.
As your new rabbi I have already experienced the great warmth of the CBI welcome and begun to create relationships with the wonderful people who make up this community. I know that the depth of communal and spiritual relationships is a significant part of what makes CBI great. And I hope to build on that great strength in the coming years as I get to know everyone and build relationships with all of you.
Unless some extraordinary circumstances intervene, this will be the last Newsletter column I shall write. Next month's issue will be headlined by the words of Rabbi Emanuel.
I've thought long and hard about what theme I should address with you in these closing remarks, and I have decided that I ought to focus my comments on the topic of SPIRITUALITY.
The term was hardly ever used in Jewish circles until the 1960s. Then, it became the buzz-word of the decade. In a caricature portrait, the spiritual Jew was wrapped in an oversized tallit, adorned by kippah and even tefilliin, rapt in meditative davening and prayer, chanting a niggun (a syllabic melody without words) and swooning to the warm and fuzzy insights of the human potential movement while he or she desperately sought to recapture a lost personal identity. The extreme manifestation of this style was the "JewBu," who combined Jewish intellectualism and Buddhist meditation in a creative synthesis. People who could not adopt the new-age forms of Jewish spirituality were told they were not "spiritual," which was always meant as a detraction and put-down.
Pendulums have a striking tendency to swing. The movement of Jewish spirituality was a swing away from the ultra-rationalism of earlier days. For Reform Jews whose religious style emerged from the 1920s and 1930s, religion was exclusively from the neck up. Even during the Aleinu which counsels us to bow the head and bend the knee, the prayer books of the previous ages either made this into a universal and non-physical affirmation or suggested that we simply "bow our heads." One did not sway or otherwise use bodily movement in worship. There was no ritual garb; I have even heard ushers tell men to remove their hats. And the congregation did not dare sing along with the professional choir who, after all, possessed exceptional voices. If one even thought to join in with the singing, other congregants would turn and glare until the offender slinked down in silent compliance in the pew. But this era has ended and, in the 1960s the pendulum swung vigorously in the other direction.
These were days of experimentation and individual styles of worship. Small havurot and minyanim sprang up across the country in which small groups of like-minded Jews gathered to express the full and free range of their unique passion. Intellect was deemed passe; what now counted was the full-bodied emotionalism with which they approached their religious involvements. Yet this pendulum swing also contained its own self-correction, and that's where we are today.
Simon the Righteous…[said]: The world stands on three things: study of the Torah, worship and doing loving acts of kindness.
May you be favored with a spiritual life that embodies all of these virtues and may God bless each and every one of you.


We start our show with one of our Just Words segments. Just Words is a Peabody award-winning series featuring working people in our community. In this piece, we hear from Gloria Knight, a state-contracted daycare provider. She is unable to afford health insurance, but a bicycle accident left her with a $50,000 hospital bill.


Oh, well, couldn't resist... Before posting, a quick question: over in the US does 3G aka "UMTS" play role at all? I doubt it since the first iPhone didn't come with it... Some high end netbooks over here in Europe are equipped with a UMTS modem which at 3.6MB/s is more then fast enough for putty/ssh connections to servers.
> easy to have in a small padded sleeve in any bag.
Very similar here, but I am using a Toshiba R600. It's a 12.1 screen laptop with a proper (i.e. non Atom) processor. Weights less than 1 kg for us Europeans out there and has 2 cores powerful enough to do all work I ask it to. Screen is great even in sunlight on a train, but the keyboard is a bit flimsy. Also looked at a MacBook Air and IBMs ThinkPad X200S but both were too expensive. If money hadn't mattered I would have gone for the X200S-beautiful! The MacBook Air lacks connectivity IMO but is the most beautiful portable I have seen. As with the 10" netbooks your hands get tired after an hour or so of concentrated typing.
> warranty support transaction I've been through.
The R600 came at GBP 700 so not exactly cheap, but still cheaper than many of the 12.1 subnoteboooks on the market.
Next message: John Dunn: "oradiag_<user> directories"
Next in thread: John Piwowar: "Re: ot - laptop for dba"
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Maybe reply: Daniel Ignat: "Re: ot - laptop for dba"
Maybe reply: De DBA: "Re: ot - laptop for dba"


Giles Watling, Member of Parliament for Clacton, recently visited the Clacton Enterprise Centre. Giles met with William Roberts, proprietor of the centre and discussed how he went from tenant to landlord and his plans for the future of the site.
This remains a fluid situation and there are several possible outcomes to the current malaise that we are seeing in Parliament.
Giles Watling, MP for Clacton, has tabled an amendment to the Agriculture Bill to create mandatory labels for meat products, which will indicate the method of slaughter used, and whether the animal was stunned during the act of slaughter.
Thank you for putting me on the list, Sir Roger. It is lovely to be in a Chamber in which, for once, everybody is largely agreeing with each other. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on having introduced today's debate, and the hon.
You can read how I voted, and why, below. The previous round of voting can be viewed here.
Giles Watling, MP for Clacton, has welcomed the news that Essex Police are ahead of their target for police recruitment, with a range of good quality and enthusiastic people joining the force.
Giles Watling, MP for Clacton, recently attended an event alongside the Dementia Action Alliance (DAA) in Westminster, to discuss the ways in which we can raise awareness and increase understanding and accessibility for people living with Dementia.


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Featured: These Are The Cars That Showed Up To South America's Largest Classic Event Of The Year
These Are The Cars That Showed Up To South America's Largest Classic Event Of The Year
By Alvaro Colombiano
Photography by Alvaro Pinzón
The next time October rolls around on the calendar and you find yourself hankering for cars and travel, put Argentina and the weekend of AutoClásica on the top of your list.
As this is surely one of the largest vintage vehicle events in South America, I felt obligated to make the journey this year to bring back some coverage for Petrolicious. So, I packed light, charged my batteries, and took a flight down to Buenos Aires last month with some high expectations for what I'd find.
AutoClásica has been celebrated every annum since its inception in 1998, and this year the full weekend of the event drew over 1,000 cars to the San Isidro horse racing track in Buenos Aires. Though I could barely care less about prizes, the fact that the trophy categories spanned from Best European to Best Unrestored meant the automotive crowd would offer a diverse mix of metal, and from the first few steps past the entrance, that's exactly what I got.
The layout of the event was organized by club, with the cars from each marque more or less grouped together. Of these, the Ferrari turnout for the 70th anniversary of the brand was quite good, and featured a gorgeous 250 LM as the centerpiece of the collection. What was more interesting to me though was the 166/195 S Vignale Coupe wearing what looked to be its original paint and plenty of lovely patina. The 250 GT Boano pictured at the top with the Miura was another top car from the Ferrari section and the show as a whole.
Among the first groups that I saw in addition to the Ferrari display was a collection of racing cars from the Turismo Carretera (TC), the most important series in Argentina during the 1950s and the decades afterwards. In this group are cars like the Renault Torino and Ford Falcon, and they often featured some dramatic aerodynamic modifications over the regular road-going editions. The yellow Torino for instance, known as "La Liebre," was a design by Heriberto Pronello that was one of the most successful in the TC thanks to its advanced bodywork and suspension engineering.
There was another section nearby for builders, and here I got to take in the details of the wild aero-car creation from Pur Sang. The Argentinian company is best known for their faithful recreations of '20s and '30s racing cars like the Bugatti 35, but this unique build, called the Pur Sang Nicola Romeo, is something else entirely. With a wild cocoon-like cabin set behind a WWI aircraft engine (a 14.7-liter Isotta Fraschini six-cylinder with 250-horsepower), there was little else like it at the show, and it reminded me of Jay Leno's aircraft-powered Fiat Botafogo.
There were more standard-shaped cars of course, and they were equally deserving of attention. Take this silver Renault Torino for example; it was in absolutely mint condition, and provided a great contrast to the modified versions of the Torino that competed in the TC. It won the award fro the best car of American origin—it is derived from the the AMC Rambler—and besides the good looks of this example, the model was also known for having been driven in the 84-hour Marathon de la Route at the Nürburgring in 1969, driven by a team headed by Juan Fangio no less.
And speaking of vintage Grand Prix stars, there was also a Brabham BT16 in attendance (above), one of just 12 original cars produced for competition. Despite that car's rarity and so many other special entrants, the red Bugatti Type 57C Gangloff would take Best of Show for the automobiles, while a 1926 Coventry Eagle Flying 8 B160 won for the two-wheelers.
Tags Argentina/	AutoClásica/	Classic Car Event/	South America
Journal 5 Instagrammers Worth Following: November 10th Edition
Featured This Motor Show Welcomes Winter In England
Featured Before The Imports, The Argentinian-Made Lutteral Comahue Was The Coolest Car Money Could Buy In South America
Featured Restoration Versus Preservation: A Tale Of Two Bugattis
Featured How England's Classic Motor Hub Is Perfecting The Cars & Coffee Formula
Featured The Boston Cup Puts A Car Show In America's Oldest Public Park
Featured This Puma GTE Is Living A Second Life Racing Around Australia
Featured Pur Sang's John Bothwell On Building A Modern Bugatti Empire In Argentina
kaoce2000@yahoo.com
I wonder when they're doing it next year?
They're doing it in October, 2018_ exact date to be set in February '18.
Ronaldo Tato
October 12 every year.
Pablo Rodríguez
Thank You Petrolicious, and Mr. Colombiano, we are so proud of Autoclasica: It represents the cars culture ant the racing passion that there is in our country and others that comes to enjoy and display old cars, with rich history from the continent and others too, regards !
Facundo Castellano Dávila
Aguante el Torino 380w!!
ALRandall
I was not aware of this event, thank you. Some very nice pictures as well.
Guitar Slinger
Isn't it amazing albeit disgusting and vulgar how on a continent so riddled with abject poverty and less than 2% having 90% of the wealth that such a tasteless event in the display of conspicuous consumption to the detriment of one's fellow man can manage to weasel its way onto the pages of a website claiming to " Drive Tastefully "
Sigh …
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Dennis White
Ha! Well said comrade!
Matthew Lange
Is it any more vulgar to hold Pebble Beach or the Colorado Grand in the United States when it has the second highest rate of child poverty in the developed world and one of the largest gaps between rich and poor? The same could apply to Goodwood in the UK with our ever widening gap between rich and poor?
if anything these pictures are more likely to promote tourism to Argentina and even perhaps help develop and old car industry in that country which can only be a good thing for the economy?
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B Bop
What's even more amazing is that your disgusting and vulgar behavior managed to weasel its way onto a website claiming to "Drive Tastefully"
No, it isn't, Mr. Slinger. Albeit all the "abject poverty" , the antique/ classic car restoration industry feeds many families, in addition to the fundamental rescue and preservation of a huge portion of Argentine (not mentioned, or barely, in the report) and world car history. The Argentine-made car industry of the '60s and '70s was very fruitful and that alone is worthy of rescuing, preserving and divulging to the unaware, such as yourself. Have a nice life.
Diego Tellería
Argentina is not a poor country. Poverty is generated by us (Argentinians) due corruption and political managments that attemp agains ourselves. There is nothing to buy or sell in Autoclásica, and it is open to everybody, most of the visitors are working class people. Classic cars are a niche here, and wealthy people prefer other events such as Mil Millas. It is a joy for everybody to be able to see those beautiful vehicles. It is nothing disgusting or vulgar even to them that as me, arrived using public transport and own an old beaten car.
Rubens Florentino
Guitar Slinger your are just a looser with too much time on your hands. Do you do anything else in life other than coming here and bashing every single post?
What about finding a job? Or perhaps learning how to play that guitar?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Digimarc Recognized as Technology Leader
Published on: October 4, 2016 February 26, 2018 Author: Amelia Whitehart Comment: 0
Today Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC), inventor of the Digimarc Discover? platform featuring the imperceptible Digimarc Barcode, announced the company has been recognized for driving innovative solutions into the retail sector. Digimarc is named by ABI Research as a Smart Retail Hot Tech Innovator for 2017. The company was also recognized in IEEE Spectrum for its intellectual property, ranking third for its patent portfolio in the computer software category behind only Microsoft and VMWare, and ahead of software powerhouses including Adobe, Citrix, Oracle, SAP and Symantec.
"Our vision is to enrich everyday living through our patented technologies and applications such as Digimarc Barcode," said Bruce Davis, chief executive officer, Digimarc. "We have a long tradition of technology innovation and a computing platform that enables future application development and growth by our customers and partners. It's gratifying to see this recognition of our industry-leading innovation."
ABI Research identified solutions and innovative companies that are enabling a retail revolution. According to the firm, the selection criteria for "retail hot tech innovators" identified the companies that are the fastest growing in the retail technology industry based on the number of implementations internationally, and the amount of funds raised from capital investors that will continue to fuel their growth.
In "Patent Power 2017," IEEE Spectrum reports on intellectual property from leading companies. Its Pipeline Power rating ranks patent portfolios by number of U.S. patents granted in the most recent full year (2016) and quality, as measured by statistical assessment of important qualities such as growth, impact, originality and general applicability.
Additional information about Digimarc Barcode can be viewed here.
About Digimarc
Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) is a pioneer in the automatic identification of everyday objects such as product packaging and virtually any media, including print, images and audio. Based on the patented Intuitive Computing Platform (ICPT), Digimarc provides innovative and comprehensive automatic recognition technologies to simplify search, and transform information discovery through unparalleled reliability, efficiency and security. Digimarc has a global patent portfolio, which includes over 1,100 granted and pending patents. These innovations include state-of-the-art identification technology, Digimarc Barcode, as well as Digimarc Discover? software for barcode scanning and more. Digimarc is based in Beaverton, Oregon, with technologies deployed by major retailers and consumer brands, central banks, U.S. states, film companies and professional sports franchises, among others. Visit digimarc.com and follow us @digimarc to learn more about The Barcode of EverythingT.
SOURCE Digimarc Corporation
Category: Computers and tagged in: Computers, News, Tech
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text:
America's Satanic Panic Returns — This Time Through QAnon
By Noah Caldwell, Ari Shapiro, Patrick Jarenwattananon & Mia Venkat • May 18, 2021
David Reinert holds up a large "Q" sign that represents QAnon while waiting in line to see then-President Donald Trump at his rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Aug. 2, 2018.
Rick Loomis/Getty Images
Originally published on May 19, 2021 7:43 am
The first time sociologist Mary de Young heard about QAnon, she thought: "Here we go again."
De Young spent her career studying moral panics — specifically, what became known as the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s, when false accusations of the abuse of children in satanic rituals spread across the United States.
Decades later, echoes of that same fear had emerged in QAnon. The seemingly novel conspiracy theory has grown in far-right political circles since November 2017. Adherents of QAnon believe that a shadowy cabal kidnaps children, tortures them and uses their blood in satanic rituals. The alleged perpetrators in the QAnon conspiracy theory are Democratic politicians — not preschool teachers, as had been the case in the 1980s — but the accusations are eerily similar.
"Every moral panic has to have a folk devil," says de Young, the author of The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic. "It has to have a person — or more likely a group of people, whether real individuals or fantasized individuals — who are the devils in the middle of all of this."
One of the earliest bellwethers of the Satanic Panic came in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a memoir co-written by Canadian psychologist Lawrence Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith. The book graphically details abuse that Smith claimed to have suffered as a child at the hands of a satanic cult — abuse that she had allegedly forgotten but eventually recovered through her work with Pazder.
The book was a bestseller, and Pazder became the leading academic voice warning about the dangers of "ritual abuse." He also began to consult with prosecutors in criminal trials, including the case that would spread fears of satanic abuse even farther around the country: the McMartin Pre-School trial.
Left: May 27, 1990 — A plate bearing a pentagram that was found at the McMartin Pre-School. Parents said it could be part of a satanic ritual. Right: April 19, 1989 — Room B at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
Patrick Downs/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Lacy Atkins/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
"I thought it was the case of our times," says Danny Davis, attorney for defendant Ray Buckey. Buckey, a teacher at Virginia McMartin's preschool in Manhattan Beach, Calif., was accused of abusing one of his students in 1983. By the following spring, the accusations had grown to include hundreds of children, and rumors swirled that the students had been abused in satanic rituals at cemeteries and in tunnels underneath the school.
"Whatever it was that happened was social contagion, and it's that simple," says Davis.
Davis decided to study historical examples of witch hunts and allegations of satanic behavior in order to prepare his defense. "I saw clearly there's a process on a timeline that starts with some sort of scandal or change in the society that develops a very forceful, agreed-upon accusation against a target or scapegoat. And the scapegoat is then quickly destroyed," he says.
The McMartin Pre-School case became one of the longest and most expensive criminal cases ever tried in the United States. It ended when Buckey was acquitted of dozens of charges in 1990.
Attempts to find tunnels underneath the preschool failed, and since the trials, several of the students who accused Buckey of abuse have admitted their stories were fabricated.
Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Ray Buckey, listen to the opening statements in their trial for allegedly sexually abusing children at the preschool they operated. They were eventually acquitted years later.
But the lack of physical evidence in cases like the McMartin Pre-School trial didn't stop allegations of satanic ritual abuse from spreading during the 1980s. National broadcasts like 20/20 ran long specials featuring children claiming to have been abused by satanists. Academic conferences discussed recovered memory and satanic abuse, and psychologists like Pazder began to train law enforcement to recognize warning signs in their communities.
"This was a snail mail approach to spreading a moral panic," says de Young.
By contrast, the early rise of QAnon was entirely digital. In November 2017, an anonymous user named "Q Clearance Patriot" posted for the first time on the message board 4chan. An NBC News investigation later found that three other users initially promoted and spread those early posts, beginning the transformation of QAnon from an obscure online forum to an influential conspiracy theory taking root in far-right American politics.
As QAnon spread, so did the belief among its adherents that a Satan-worshipping cabal of elite politicians was ritually abusing children — and, specifically, draining them of a chemical compound called adrenochrome, which they believe is then ingested as a drug.
"These are the same kind of tropes that crop up again and again and again," says Eleanor Janega, a historian at the London School of Economics who has studied moral and religious panics over satanism throughout history. "This idea that there's this kind of shadowy realm of the people who control the world secretly and they're all getting together to plot out and really delight in this kind of torture and sacrifice."
There are, however, clear differences between QAnon and the Satanic Panic of the '80s, the biggest being the political nature of QAnon conspiracy theories, which target Democratic politicians and hold up former President Donald Trump as a savior.
But Lawrence Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote a book about the Satanic Panic, says there are still commonalities between the believers in each movement — even putting fears of satanism aside.
"They see themselves as heroic," says Wright. "And how can you be heroic in today's world? Well, you protect the children — you protect the children against this cabal that is out to turn them into sex slaves. How could there be anything more important than that?"
A woman wears a shirt promoting a QAnon conspiracy theory while waiting in line to attend a campaign rally with then-President Donald Trump on Oct. 28, 2020, in Goodyear, Arizona.
It's unclear how much support QAnon will continue to receive with Trump out of the White House — polling is mixed about the degree of favorability the conspiracy theory enjoys among the American electorate. But de Young believes that moral panics eventually fizzle as hard evidence of their claims fails to materialize.
"The best available weapon we have is to counter the information with facts, is to keep pressing for more information, because it's in the area of facts that moral panics tend to collapse," de Young says. "They just get ridiculous, except for maybe a very small number of true believers who can tolerate an enormous amount of dissonance."
When QAnon believers insist that Satanists are abusing children in secret rituals, their ideas may seem bizarre, confusing and dark, but they're not original. This mythology echoes stories we've heard before.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
OPRAH WINFREY: My next guest was used also in worshipping the devil, participated in human sacrifice rituals and cannibalism.
GERALDO RIVERA: Nationwide network of Satanic criminals exists.
CARL KASELL, BYLINE: Child molesting is a crime that most parents worry about at one time or another.
SHAPIRO: That was Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and from NPR's Morning Edition, the late Carl Kasell, all reporting in the 1980s on a wave of moral panic about satanic ritual abuse. Mary de Young is a retired sociology professor from Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
MARY DE YOUNG: My primary area of research was in moral panics, particularly the day care moral panic of the 1980s.
SHAPIRO: So as a person who's spent your life researching this, what was your first reaction to hearing about QAnon?
DE YOUNG: Here we go again.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Really?
DE YOUNG: Yeah, it was.
SHAPIRO: Right out of the gate, huh?
DE YOUNG: Right out of the gate.
SHAPIRO: Understanding what happened in the 1980s with that satanic panic can help us understand what's happening right now with QAnon. So let's go back in time almost 40 years to that Morning Edition report from 1984. Reporter Frank Browning described horrific allegations at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FRANK BROWNING: Prosecutors say teachers at McMartin school threatened the children with death and crushed live animals before them as warnings of what would happen if they talked.
SHAPIRO: That was the prosecutor's claim. The defense attorney was this guy.
DANNY DAVIS: I'm Danny Davis. I'm a criminal defense attorney of some 45 years in Beverly Hills, Calif.
SHAPIRO: Forty-five years and - what? - about six of those were spent on one high-profile trial?
DAVIS: Yeah, the McMartin case - somewhat like '84 to '91.
SHAPIRO: When it ended, newspapers describe the McMartin case as the longest and most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history.
DAVIS: I thought it was a case of our times.
SHAPIRO: Prosecutors charged seven employees of the McMartin day care center with more than a hundred counts of child molestation and conspiracy. After a trial that stretched on for years and cost $15 million, no one was convicted. The only real evidence was testimony from children who we now know answered leading questions from therapists. Here's the graphic description that one anonymous preschooler gave on the ABC program "20/20" in 1983.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "20/20")
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: He showed us pictures of bodies that were burned alive, and they said, this is what's going to happen to you and the rest of your family if you tell.
SHAPIRO: Kids testified that they were forced to dig up coffins and drink blood. They told their parents that rituals took place in tunnels under the McMartin preschool.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: And she said, this is where the tunnel was. There was no tunnel there. I didn't see any tunnel. I didn't see a break in the wall. I didn't see anything. But she said, this is where we went through the tunnel.
SHAPIRO: The FBI went looking for those tunnels. There were none. There were no animal corpses, no visible injuries on the kids, nothing to indicate that any of the children's claims were true. The preschoolers said one employee named Ray Buckey could fly. Danny Davis represented Buckey. Early on, Davis identified this as a case of what's called social contagion. He started researching earlier moral panics like this one.
DAVIS: And I saw clearly there's a process on a timeline that starts with some sort of scandal or change in a small society that develops a very forceful, agreed-upon accusation against a target or scapegoat.
SHAPIRO: The phrase social contagion implies that the idea catches on and grows, which is exactly what's happening with QAnon and what happened in the satanic panic of the 1980s. In 1988, Geraldo Rivera's program "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground" got the highest ratings ever to date for a TV documentary.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DEVIL WORSHIP: EXPOSING SATAN'S UNDERGROUND")
RIVERA: The other face of adult satanism is violent and fiendish, centered on sexual ritual and torture, frequently descending into the vilest crime of all - sexual abuse of children.
SHAPIRO: Since these stories got strong TV ratings, reporters did more of them. News reports that put a local angle on the story aired all over the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: In fact, in Massachusetts alone, currently, the Office for Children have started investigations and no less than 33 day care centers since September - startling.
SHAPIRO: The news stories and the criminal investigations amplified each other in a feedback loop. And that's one way the social contagion spread, even before the internet or social media platforms were around to help the stories go viral. In 1985, ABC News reported that police in every state in the U.S. were investigating claims of satanic ritual abuse.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Nationwide, we found that minor cases of satanic activity light up the map. Not a single state is unaffected, but even more frightening is the number of reported murders and suicides with satanic clues. All of them were in...
LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Bookstores had satanic ritual abuse sections, you know? And my book was in the SRA section. It was so big.
SHAPIRO: New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright wrote the book "Remembering Satan." It's about a case in Washington state from 1988 that shows how false memories and moral panic consumed a community and sent a man to prison for nearly 20 years over an imagined crime. Wright says one reason these fictions were so appealing was that they gave people a sense of purpose. They had a mission - to defend the innocent.
WRIGHT: They see themselves as heroic. And how can you be heroic in today's world? Well, you protect the children. You protect the children against this cabal that is out to turn them into sex slaves. Wow. How could there be anything more important than that?
SHAPIRO: In the 1980s, that mission was not just a fringe belief like QAnon today. It pulled in authority figures from prosecutors to therapists. Wright first heard about the phenomenon from therapists he trusted in Austin, Texas.
WRIGHT: They said that they were getting all these young women, mainly, who were having recovered memories about satanic abuse. And they told me that Satanists were responsible for 50 murders a year in Austin. Well, we've never had 50 murders in Austin.
SHAPIRO: The therapists told you that.
WRIGHT: Yeah, and I love these people. They're wonderful, intelligent, compassionate people. And then the police picked it up. And I went to a workshop given by this cop who was going around the country, talking to other policemen about satanic abuse. And he said that the Satanists were responsible for 50,000 murders a year in the United States - again, far higher than our actual murder rate. And these were cops.
SHAPIRO: There were law enforcement training videos, like this one, teaching police officers how to spot the signs of satanic ritual abuse.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Now, Satanists would reverse this star - or pentacle, as it's called - and have two points up. Those represent the horns of Baphomet and/or the horns of Satan. But now...
ELEANOR JANEGA: I think one of the reasons this has a real sticking point is that it's such a common trope. Like, it comes up over and over and over again.
SHAPIRO: These ideas were not original in the 1980s. Eleanor Janega is a medieval historian who specializes in apocalyptic thought. And she reaches all the way back to the 1100s to find similar themes in the blood libel conspiracies of Europe that claimed Jews were drinking children's blood in bizarre religious practices. Janega says it's no coincidence that two of the names that pop up often in QAnon mythology are Soros and Rothschild - both Jewish.
JANEGA: And so we're kind of prepped to hear it in a way. You know, even if you didn't necessarily ever sit down and learn about the idea of blood libel, it's something that's kind of there, floating around in the background of our culture. So when we hear ideas like, oh, yeah, there's a ring of people torturing children, we go, oh, yeah, that's something that's definitely been around for a long time. This is probably true.
SHAPIRO: Oh, yeah, I've heard of that. Yeah, that rings a bell.
JANEGA: Exactly. So it's sort of like, oh, yeah, definitely - definitely pedophile-like child torturing. Yeah, 100%.
SHAPIRO: Janega says part of what makes these narratives catch on is the hybrid of reality and fiction. Like today, QAnon supporters use the long-established hashtag #SaveTheChildren to promote their false ideas. And in the 1980s, police, therapists and journalists zeroed in on the real threat of child abuse to promote their bogus claims of satanic ritual abuse.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: We believe the children because once upon a time, we were the children.
JANEGA: There is this idea that there's always some kind of nefarious other that's going to come and torture your children, and it's all going to be awful, you know, the moment you let your guard down. And that's specifically tied to a kind of supernatural desire to do harm to the innocent.
SHAPIRO: Of course, with QAnon, there's more than just a moral panic going on. There's also a partisan political angle and a former president who's amplifying QAnon supporters in pursuit of his own political goals. But people who study these moments of moral panic have looked at what these time periods have in common, and they often find conspiracy theories taking hold in moments of cultural upheaval.
DE YOUNG: It has to be an absolutely exquisite matter of timing, I think, for moral panic to launch.
SHAPIRO: That's Mary de Young again, the retired sociology professor and author of the book "The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic." She says in the 1980s, the culture was shifting in ways that frightened people.
DE YOUNG: The family was changing. More women were working. The availability of good, quality, affordable day care was pretty limited across the United States. So here we end up taking this really innocuous, little social institution - the day care center - and putting it right in the middle of a brewing social conflict about the nature of the family.
SHAPIRO: Today, people are frightened by other changes in society, whether that's immigration, technology or a pandemic that's killed millions of people around the world.
DE YOUNG: There are contextual factors. They can be ideological. They can be social. They certainly can be a mixture of all of those kinds of factors.
SHAPIRO: I'm thinking about, like, in cheesy B-horror movies, there's always the retired scholar who actually...
DE YOUNG: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: ...Knows how to fight this kind of a monster. And you're that retired scholar now. So how do we fight this kind of a monster?
DE YOUNG: (Laughter) You know, I wish I knew that. I really do. I've spent a long time studying world panics, but I must say that my confidence in how we deal with these effectively has not increased over the decades.
SHAPIRO: She says the best available weapon is to counter bad information with facts because as moral panics grow, her research shows they also become more ridiculous, far-fetched and absurd until, she says, they eventually tend to collapse under their own weight.


Combining attributes of both jays and crows, the Clark's Nutcracker is widespread at high elevations in the West. In summer, the species nests near tree line. Some winters, nutcrackers irrupt well into the lowlands; other winters, they stay at fairly high elevations. Suitable climate space is forecast by Audubon's climate model to decrease by roughly equal amounts—around 70 percent—in both summer and winter, with only 16% of the current summer space remaining stable and 25% of winter space stable by 2080. Tied as this species is to the high western coniferous forests, it seems unlikely it will be able to adapt to any new shifting climate space.


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Centro Voices
Home » Centrovoices » Letras » Love War Stories: An Interview with Ivelisse Rodríguez on Her Debut Short Story Collection
Love War Stories: An Interview with Ivelisse Rodríguez on Her Debut Short Story Collection
by Néstor David Pastor
Last month saw the release of Love War Stories, the debut short story collection of Ivelisse Rodríguez. In it, the Arecibo-born, Holyoke-raised Rodríguez explores love in all its forms, for better or worse, as it relates to the premise that Puerto Rican women are conditioned, from an early age, to pursue romance through an idealized, almost fatalistic lens. However, as the title alludes to, love is paired with the consequences of this common thread, one which gives the author license to touch upon universal issues of intergenerational trauma, sexism, body image, violence, diaspora, and so on; within a distinctly Puerto Rican framework.
Below is a Q&A with the author in which she discusses the nine stories that compose her acclaimed collection; everything from the book's relationship to different settings, from New York to Holyoke to Puerto Rico and back; as well as the her literary and cultural influences, future projects, writing process, and more.
*This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Centro Voices (CV): Can you discuss the origins of Love War Stories, how the project evolved over time, and the process that led you to publication?
Ivelisse Rodríguez (IR): I started this collection twenty years ago, and I worked on it through graduate school. It developed in the sense that the stories were revised and revised, and even through August of 2017, I was still revising it as I had to submit final edits to my editor. My writing process is very messy—I start with a small idea, and then just start typing away to see what emerges, and somewhere in the middle of the process, I start to do an outline and a literary analysis (like a professor would do). And then I keep revising from there. For example, in "La Hija de Changó," it was in the 11th hour that I realized what the character really wanted. I sometimes need to step away from a story in order to get distance from it as I get blinded by the story I want to tell, which may not be the story the character is trying to tell.
In any case, for those writers out there, don't get daunted by the twenty years; I didn't write most of that time. Besides learning how to write, I also had to overcome the fear of writing, and learn how to take more pride in my work. Taking pride in my work meaning being meticulous and sending work out when I thought it was ready. So I wasted a lot of time focused on getting published versus being focused on writing the best prose I could write. Anyway, lessons learned, and I am a better writer for it.
CV: Representation is a large part of the media discourse in the United States, as well as the stories of women. Can you speak to both and how your collection of stories fits into this particular cultural moment, especially in regard to the visibilization Puerto Rican and Latina women?
IR: It's interesting because in the back of my mind, I always worried about whether anyone would care about the Puerto Rican girls and women in my book because they are Puerto Rican. I read Victorian literature, it's one of my preliminary exam areas for my PhD, so I can read global literature because I am coming from a very humanistic perspective. But people of color are so dehumanized and seen as such others that some non-POC readers feel like they can't connect.
"It's interesting because in the back of my mind, I always worried about whether anyone would care about the Puerto Rican girls and women in my book because they are Puerto Rican."
In terms of the cultural moment for women, I think the stories and themes of Love War Stories will endure beyond this moment as long as heterosexuality and gender norms are executed in the same way. Heterosexual women are indoctrinated to believe in and pursue love as the major accomplishment of their lives, and heterosexual men are socialized to elude love. What we need is for these two groups of people to be allowed and offered new narratives.
CV: Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the place where you were born; and Holyoke, MA, the place where you raised; are featured prominently throughout the collection, whether as the setting of a story or as a reference for a series of allusions. What does it mean to you to write about these two places and what were some of the essential qualities you hoped to convey?
IR: My first story is in Arecibo because I wanted to mimic the migration process, and I can't help but wonder what my life would have been like if I had been raised in Arecibo. Of course my version is idealized—I would have been raised in a world that was entirely Puerto Rican, and I wonder what it is like to not grow up in a country that dislikes you. And I just happen to really, really love Puerto Rico. I'm not being biased here; I also really love Turkey. There are just some places you go to and as soon as you land, love is in the air.
"Holyoke has given me something that few places have—a Puerto Rican world. And I wanted to put this enclave on the map as there is no other Puerto Rican literature that I am aware of set in Holyoke."
Placing stories in Holyoke, MA and other parts of Western Mass was imperative for me because I always get this bewildered look when I tell people outside of the area about the throngs of Puerto Ricans who inhabit this area. While I wonder what life would be like if I had been raised in Puerto Rico, I grew up in a very Puerto Rican world while I was still in Holyoke. And I lost that when I went to boarding school when I was 13. And then I regained it when I went to Columbia for undergrad. And then lost it again by moving to other cities, and even when I came back to NYC to teach, I had very few Puerto Rican students. So Holyoke has given me something that few places have—a Puerto Rican world. And I wanted to put this enclave on the map as there is no other Puerto Rican literature that I am aware of set in Holyoke.
CV: Were there any specific influences, literary or otherwise, that you feel were important for the writing of these stories?
IR: Absolutely, I love the poetic voice of Sandra Cisneros—as a college student, I loved how she made her own sentences and how indulgent her poetry was. The book Loose Woman really touched me and has always stayed with me, especially in regards to what Cisneros describes as love. Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas is hugely important to me as it was the first book by a Puerto Rican I read, and it always felt contemporary, no matter the decade I read it in. I also will forever love Drown by Junot Diaz. That book felt like it was written for me, one of many who came up from impoverished neighborhoods but ended up in higher education. I read it at the start of my MFA program, and it gave me a tiny bit of hope that a story like mine could be told.
CV: The short story is somewhat of an undervalued format in American literature. Can you discuss your approach to the short story and some of the aspects that you find most appealing as a fiction writer?
IR: I started writing short stories as I needed to learn how to write and that seemed like the logical place to start. And I figured that writing a novel would be like writing a longer short story (not true!). When I started writing these stories, short story collections were in, so it was only later that I learned that short stories are the underdog. But for most of us in MFA-land, that is what we are workshopping, and that is what we are trying to get published in literary journals. Though, I was just on a panel with two other debut authors of short story collections, and we all told an audience member to start a novel if she wanted an agent and a book deal. I think that realization really hits home about short stories after you finish your MFA program, not while you are in it.
CV: You dedicate a story to the Puerto Rican poet (and Latina feminist icon) Julia de Burgos. How did it occur to you to (re)interpret her life through the lens of fiction? And what is her connection to the overall theme of Love War Stories?
IR: I was reading Jack Agüeros compilation of Burgos' poems, The Song of the Simple Truth, and I was intrigued by his perception of her, which differed from all the other interpretations about her that I had read. As I state in my story, "The Simple Truth," Agüeros offers this interpretation of de Burgos where she is this strong woman who is not done in by her lover Dr. Jimenes Grullón. So that is what kicked off my story—the ways of seeing someone. Plus, I already had a deep love for de Burgos, and I wanted to highlight her—an amazing Puerto Rican writer and resurrect her like Agüeros does.
"If I could shake Julia de Burgos, I would tell her about her achievements and how they are so much more than this love she can't have."
Her connection to the overall theme of Love War Stories is that she, like so many of my girls and women, is hopeful to a detriment about love. And she can be so valiant in other phases of her life, but she fails in love and somehow this is the thing that some say does her in (a reason why she is an alcoholic). So if I could shake Julia de Burgos, I would tell her about her achievements and how they are so much more than this love she can't have.
CV: There are some allusions to your background as a scholar in Love War Stories. How was this an asset to your writing and in what ways did it complement your voice as a fiction writer?
IR: Being a scholar allowed me to read a variety of literature by Puerto Ricans and Latinxs in general; thus, I could easily trace the trajectory of Puerto Rican literature from the continental US. I could then see common themes in Puerto Rican literature and seriously think about where I wanted to situate myself. I think it is important as a writer to really have an understanding of the type of literature you are embarking on; otherwise, you may not be moving the literature forward in any way.
CV: You are in the process of working on a novel. Would you like to share any updates on that project and if there are any parallels to the subject matter of Love War Stories?
IR: Right now, the novel, The Last Salsa Singer, is about two friends who are members of a salsa band, and the salsa singer Vicente is dismayed that his best friend, Richie, is about to take responsibility for Lucy and her unborn child. Vicente and the orquesta decide to play this song that pokes fun at Richie's love story with Lucy. The song is meant to get Lucy out of their lives by humiliating both Richie and Lucy, but the song instead becomes their biggest hit; so in many ways, they can't shake Lucy off. So it's about sexism in salsa music, it's about friendship, and it's about failing in you artform.
Love War Stories
By Ivelisse Rodríguez
New York, NY: Feminist Press, 2018
200 pages; $13.95 [paperback]
To order the book from the publisher click here.
For reading groups, a guide with discussion questions is available for PDF download.
© Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Published in Centro Voices 21 August 2018.
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Robert I (), cunoscut popular ca Robert the Bruce (în limba scoțiană medievală: Roibert a Briuis; scoțiană modernă: Raibeart Brus; în limba normandă: Robert de Brus sau Robert de Bruys; latină: Robertus Brussius), a fost rege al scoțienilor din 1306 până la moartea sa în 1329. Robert a fost unul dintre cei mai faimoși războinici ai generației sale și, în cele din urmă, a condus Scoția în timpul Primului Război Scoțian de Independență împotriva Angliei. A luptat cu succes în timpul domniei sale pentru a recâștiga locul Scoției ca țară independentă și este în prezent venerat în Scoția ca erou național.

Note

Vezi și
 Bătălia de la Bannockburn

Nașteri în 1274
Decese în 1329
Monarhi scoțieni
Casa de Bruce

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


A new rage or maybe a reaction to digital cameras is the rise of lomography. I really like the idea. The notion is to create an image using low tech means. A lot of folks use the toy camera called the Holga but I have a Diana F+ that my wife got me for Christmas.
You load film into these toy cameras, tape them up to reduce light leaks and shoot away. Like anything in art, this is just a tool that is a means to an end. One of my favorite lomo cameras is the iPhone. With the addition of a few apps and the fact the camera itself is pretty week you have a ready to go lomo camera on you at all times. You can get into "the look" of a lomo photo but it has to be more than that. Like anything in art there must be purpose and intent. One of the best photos I've done is a shot of my daughter Elizabeth at about age 5 at the Cape Cod National Seashore. I created a large mural and it was all done by using a cheap throw away camera. It isn't the tool it's the artist.
Personally I tend to capture an image at the highest quality level possible. Then I spend a lot of time degrading the image until it becomes what I saw when I took the photograph. I like a lot of options and using toy cameras limit your options. One thing they do is hold a bit of seridipitus nature. You never really know what you will get with a lomo camera.
I also have a lovely pin hole camera that is a work of art in itself. This photo today is one of many I'm working on. I have created lots of versions of this photo and the fun is searching for that exact image that you saw when it was created.


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Seducing Silverman
shedoesthecity July 22, 2009
When a male compatriot and I made our way to Massey Hall last Friday, for the Just For Laughs Gala hosted by Sarah Silverman, we had one goal in mind. Not comedy, seduction. Talking our way into the pants and hearts of Silverman and her balding associate, David Cross. We pocketed a small bottle of whiskey, to grease the wheels. Too bad Silverman admitted in her opening monologue that she doesn't drink. FOILED! Don't worry, Sarah, we'll do it for you.
Balancing through a fit of hysterical laughter on one of those Massey Hall chairs while Sarah plays guitar and talks about pussy is a supreme challenge, an occupational hazard in the art of comedian seducing. Other on-the-job obstacles include listening to cheesy pseudo-rock played live by an in-house band behind a screen, and having your heart broken when the comedian of your dreams (what's up, Mr. Cross) performs a half-assed set devoted to time-mugs, and other useless items you can buy through Sky Mall. But the beauty of a showcase, especially for the comedian-seducer, is that when one comic disappoints, there's another to take his place.
Cue John Mulaney, adorable SNL writer and man-child, who opened the evening riffing on Hyundais and being amazed anyone could fear him after dark. Could he be my stand-up stand-in? Or Emmy winner Louis C.K? I don't know-I'm not ready to take on the responsibility of dating a single parent. Plus, he's pretty convinced driving an Infiniti means he's going to hell-so it's not really worth a long term investment. Getting stoned at the Bata Shoe Museum with Arj Barker is much more my speed-and then I'd get Cheetos.
As the comics came out for their final bow, piggybacking each other and failing in an attempt to make a human pyramid, we saw our chance-one quick dash backstage, and the funny people would be ours! But alas, a stark stare-down from security, and the unfortunate realization that we'd shared too much whiskey between us to dash fast anywhere, meant our evening ended eating New York Fries in the basement of the Eaton Centre, instead of backstage smoking joints with the who's-who of popular comedy.
Whatever. My friend's no Jimmy Kimmel, and Haley Mulaney sounds pretty fucking stupid, anyway.
Tags: Arj Barker, David Cross, John Mulaney, Just For Laughs, Louis C.K., Massey Hall, Sarah Silverman, Theatre, Theatre Reviews, Toronto
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The 2017 Australian Football International Cup (also known as the AFL International Cup 2017 or IC07) was the sixth edition of the Australian Football International Cup, a triennial international Australian rules football competition run by the Australian Football League (AFL).

It was contested between 5–19 August 2017, with games played in Melbourne. All three previous men's tournament champions (Ireland, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea) participated in the tournament. Previous women's winners (Ireland and Canada) also competed in the tournament. Papua New Guinea achieved its 3rd men's title and Ireland achieved its 2nd women's title.

Background

Teams
The 2017 AFL International Cup was played in Melbourne from 5 to 19 August, with 18 men's teams and eight women's teams competing.

 Men's teams: Canada, China, Croatia,† Fiji, France, Germany,† Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Nauru, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Sri Lanka,† USA.
 Women's teams: Canada, European Crusaders,† Fiji, Great Britain,† Ireland, Pakistan,† Papua New Guinea,† USA.

† Team made their tournament debut

The European Crusaders was a combined team made up of women from Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Sweden.

In the table below, the numbers in parentheses refer to the team's Unofficial World Rankings by World Footy News prior to the competition.

Men's

Women's

Format
For the first time, the men's fixture was played across two divisions. Division One played four matches against other teams within the division and were ranked from one to ten, with finals to follow between the top two placed teams on the ladder, the third and fourth placed teams, and so on.

The men's Division Two competition and the women's competition saw teams split into two pools of four with each team playing matches against the three opponents in their pool before competing in semi-finals and grand finals based on finishing positions within the pool.

The women's grand final was played at Etihad Stadium as a curtain-raiser to the Round 22 clash between Carlton and Hawthorn. The men's grand final was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as a curtain-raiser to the Round 22 match between Collingwood and Geelong.

Venues
The majority of the matches were played at Royal Park in the Melbourne suburb of Parkville. The inclusion of a "Community Round" allowed matches to be played as curtain-raisers to local suburban, amateur and country matches. Additionally, the International Cup introduced a "School Round" to be played on 9 August, with games played at suburban and country schools.

Fixtures for the tournament were released by the AFL on 18 July 2017.

Men's tournament

Division 1

Ladder

Pool Play

Finals

Division II

Pool A

Pool B

Play-Offs

Final standings

Women's Tournament

  European Crusaders

Pool A

Pool B

Play-Offs

World Teams

Men's World Team

Women's World Team

See also
 Australian Football League
 Australian Football International Cup
 Australian rules football around the world

References

Australian Football International Cup
International


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Chromebook Laptops
Being stuck in Peru convinced me I need a Chromebook
By Sasha Lekach on April 21, 2020
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.
A Google Chromebook laptop comes in clutch when a pandemic hits during your vacation. Credit: Shutterstock / CC Photo Labs
> Tech > Laptops > Chromebook Laptops
When disaster strikes, it never hurts to have an extra Chromebook.
That's what I learned when I had a friend visit me in Lima, Peru, where I was working remotely for the month of March. We were planning to hike and camp in Cusco and the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. But instead of a bucket-list trip, a strict nationwide quarantine kept us cooped up in our apartment rental three days after she arrived. Suddenly my friend went from vacation mode to work-from-home mode, but she had only brought her iPhone.
So while I worked, she attempted to do as much as she could from her smartphone, which was mostly checking her email. If I took long-enough breaks she'd snag my work MacBook Air. Because U.S. government sites aren't very mobile-friendly, it was especially useful for registering for repatriation flights back to the United States.
She was here long enough that our lease ended on our apartment and we moved into a new place with an American couple who had brought an extra Chromebook. My friend happily accepted when they offered to loan her the device.
For the next two weeks, she gratefully used their 2019 Dell Inspiron Chromebook 11. She no longer had to listlessly stare at her phone while we clicked and clacked away at our keyboards, getting work done. She joined the crew that assembled every morning in the living-room-turned-coworking-space. (She eventually snagged a seat on a private charter flight after being in Peru for a full month.)
Working while stranded means you need a computer. Credit: KRISTINA VALENTI / MASHABLe
SEE ALSO: ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 Review: A flexible laptop for our stay-at-home lives
A Chromebook is very much what it sounds like: A computer that lets you run the Chrome web browser and other Google programs like Sheets and Docs. It's basic.
Any small, basic notebook computer would have pulled through in this situation, but with a Chromebook there wasn't any learning curve. My friend signed into her Google account and she was off and running.
Keep in mind, she could write emails, sign into Zoom calls, and, if she wanted, stream Netflix shows, but she wasn't able to run her heavy programming software or play any games that weren't an app on the Google Play store. She wasn't about to use the laptop forever, but for the moment it was a saving grace.
The Dell she was using is no longer available with the touchscreen, but similar models are still out there with 4GB of memory, 32GB of storage, and 10 hours of battery life, and a price tag below $500.
My friend's plight didn't directly affect me, but regardless, from now on I'm always traveling with a Chromebook. I saw firsthand how in bad situations having a back-up computer makes everything a little less stressful. Not just during a pandemic. What if your main laptop breaks on your next trip? Or gets stolen?
Packing a lightweight $300 gadget that can keep me, or a fellow stranded traveler, working, connected, and getting paid is entirely worth it.
Chromebooks are available from many different brands, many for a low starting price (even under $200). Here are some options:
Lenovo N23 (2.7 pounds, 32GB of storage and 4GB of RAM) — $179
Acer Chromebook 11 (2.43 pounds, 32GB of storage and 4GB of RAM)— $199
HP Chromebook 11 (2.4 pounds, 16GB of storage and 4GB of RAM)— $199
Samsung Chromebook 4 (3.7 pounds, 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM)—$229
Google's own Pixelbook Go (2.3 pounds with 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM) — $649
ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 (2.5 pounds, 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM)— $799
The difference between a Chromebook and a laptop
Not sure? Don't worry we've got you covered.
By Cecily Mauran
How to connect AirPods to Chromebook
AirPods and Chromebooks are a perfect match.
By Elena Cavender
Chromebooks are beating Macs, but which Chromebook's for you?
Finding the right Chromebook for you.
By Kellen Beck
Which hybrid tablet is best for the back-to-school crowd?
Hybrid tablets can save your life on campus, but which is right for you?
ASUS Chromebook Flip C436 Review: A flexible laptop for our stay-at-home lives
ASUS's pricey new Chromebook packs solid specs and versatility, but does it justify the high cost?
Air-fried cheese is delicious because crispy cheese is amazing
Crispy. Cheesy. Easy.


text:
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\bibliographystyle{siam}

\title{The neural basis of loss aversion in decision making under risk}
\author{
  Kong, Victor\\
  \texttt{VictorKong94}
  \and
  Li, Ce\\
  \texttt{karenceli}
  \and
  Liu, Anna\\
  \texttt{liuanna}
  \and
  Qin, Weidong\\
  \texttt{j170382276}
  \and
  Xia, Yunfei\\
  \texttt{yfxia}
}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

The Neural Basis of Loss Aversion in Decision-Making Under Risk
\cite{tom2007neural} investigated the neurobiology of decision-making in humans.
Certain areas of the brain are hypothesized to be sensitive to gain and others
sensitive to loss. The goal of this study was to determine whether loss aversion
reflects the engagement of distinct emotional processes when potential losses
are considered.

This study involved a single task in which subjects indicated
how likely (strongly accept, weakly accept, weakly reject, strongly reject) they
were to partake in a 50/50 chance gamble given certain monetary stakes, while
being monitored via fMRI. For incentive, participants were offered a stipend
beforehand and told that one decision from each of three scanning runs would be
applied to their total payout.

The uncompressed archive contains 2.03 GB of data, which comes from a total of
sixteen subjects, half of which are male and the other half female, all between
the ages of 19 and 28. The data for each subject is also further divided into
four subarchives: \texttt{BOLD} contains data that has already been processed
and cleaned as well as a previous analyst's complete results, \texttt{anatomy}
contains multiple collections of high-resolution fMRI data; \texttt{behav} the
parameters of each trial as well as the response given by the subject; and
\texttt{model} normalized data for trials' stakes and patient responses.

We propose to begin our investigation by corroborating Tom et al's study. Our
approach will involve first establishing baseline or mean levels of neural
activity over time for each spatial position and each subject studied in the
brain fMRIs. We then intend to compare subjects' neural activity levels to
these baseline values to determine the relative correlations between a different
trials' stakes and sites of increased or decreased activity. Next, we will
investigate whether individual differences in brain activity during decision-
making were related to individual differences in behavior, using whole-brain
analyses to identify regions where neural response to gain or loss was
correlated with behavioral loss aversion. We plan to make scatterplots of
correspondence between neural loss aversion and behavioral loss aversion in the
most activated brain regions. We will employ simple linear regression and
machine learning approaches in our analysis of these relationships.

Other ideas we would like to explore include how males and females differ in
their main sites of neural activity when prompted to make a decision (in
particular, we are interested in whether males and females weigh stakes
differently). We might also be interested in exploring whether or not subjects'
age correlated with their decision-making process (if older participants saw
stronger responses in certain areas as their brains, in particular their frontal
lobes, have had more time to develop).

\bibliography{proposal}

\end{document}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
China's proxy war in Syria: Revealing the role of Uighur fighters
Photos have emerged since last October purporting to show the Uighur militants fighting in Syria. (Photo: Twitter)
By Mohanad Hage Ali Special to Al Arabiya English Wednesday, 2 March 2016
A few months ago, in a remote town in Idlib province, northern Syria, an unusual foreign militant presence alarmed Syrian locals. The fighters were reportedly of the Muslim Uighur minority from Xinjiang province in Western China.
For a population which has grown used to the multinational nature of the militancy, two aspects of these new fighters struck them: their large numbers and their ethnicity. A year ago, they were barely hundreds of Uighur fighters, belonging to the Al-Nusra Front-allied Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). Today, according to several sources in the province, there are a few thousand Uighur fighters, and many of them arrived with their families after a long and treacherous journey from China and central Asia.
The Uighur are believed to have been seen in large numbers in disparate regions of Idlib, including the strategic town of Jisr al-Shoghur, Ariha, and the highlands of Jabal al-Zawiya. They have settled with their families in deserted Alawite towns in Jisr al-Shoghur, a local journalist told Al Arabiya English. Videos have emerged since last October purporting to show them fighting in al-Ghab plains in Hama's western countryside. And in Jib Al-Ahmar in Latakia Province, the propaganda material showcases a tank and U.S. made anti-armor Tow missiles.
The Uighur militants had reportedly moved into Syria following a Chinese-backed Pakistani campaign against their bases on the borders with Afghanistan. The Pakistani military claimed they had assassinated the group's leader, Abdul Haq, in 2010. The Pakistani Defense minister went further during a visit to China last year, to declare the al-Qaeda linked group members have either been killed, or have left Afghanistan somehow.
The Uighur's increasing presence is believed to be behind the string of reports about possible Chinese intervention alongside the Russian and Syrian regime forces.
Last December, the Chinese parliament passed a controversial counter terrorism law, which allows the red army to venture abroad. China started building its first overseas naval base in Djibouti, Africa, and conducted in January elite forces trainings for "desert operations" in "unfamiliar territory."
"There are weapons and technical supplies," a Syrian regime source said, and "the Chinese Embassy's security delegation has been expanded, suggesting preparations for a wider role, and a Chinese team of experts had arrived in Damascus's military airport."
The major question, the source continues, is whether the Chinese military would play a crucial role in the fight to regain Idlib. However, a Chinese ground intervention remains highly unlikely, according to Professor Steve Tsang, Associate fellow at Chatham House's Associate Program. Tsang told Al Arabiya English that he believes the Chinese government lacks both "the military capability and political will" to sustain such an engagement. "The Chinese government will support the Russians as they don't want to see Assad fall."
The cost of travelling to Syria
A Syrian militant source in close contact with Uighur fighters believes they are in Syria to stay. The Uighur fighters speak of a treacherous journey from their home province and the Pakistan-Afghan borders to Syria, according to the source, who cites conversations with the militants. "Their journey was very costly, an Uighur fighter told me he sold his house to afford the trip here with his family members. How could he think of returning?"
And unlike many other groups and foreign fighters, "they don't hide their faces, although this carries a huge risk back home. They don't plan to return," says the militant.
The Uighur families have allegedly settled in abandoned towns, previously inhabited by minorities, especially Alawites who fled in fear of persecution, according to two journalists from Idlib.
To help this process, the Turkistan Islamic Party, previously known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), printed an Arabic language magazine, Turkistan al-Islamiya, introducing the local population and other militant groups to their plight under China's Communist rule, especially the tensions with the Han settlers, whose immigration has been allegedly encouraged by the government to turn the Uighur into even more of a minority.
"We have been largely unaware of their plight, and their magazine has helped breed some sympathy for their cause," the Syrian militant said. However, he adds: "They remain largely poor in resources, usually aiming for free rides in transportation." Since they are latecomers, the Uighur fighters have missed on the great spoils of heavy weaponry from the regime forces.
Reliance on al-Nusra Front
This has reportedly left the Uighur militants totally reliant on Nusra. In fact, their relatively large number enforced the organization's previously dwindling ranks, as it had suffered in its fight against ISIS. The Uighur have allegedly played a crucial role in Nusra's recent gains in the Idlib province. Their military achievements and their abstinence from interfering in civilian issues, such as levying taxes or enforcing Sharia law, has rendered them popular among the population, according to sources in Idlib.
Their alliance with Nusra is believed to be a continuation of long ties with al-Qaeda, and their allegiance to the Taliban movement. Xinjiang borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their relationship with the Taliban extended beyond the Afghan war in 2001 until the summer of 2015. The party was quick to issue an obituary to the Taliban's founder, Mullah Omar. According to militant sources in contact with the TIP, their strained relations with ISIS, are partly due to the latter's tensions with the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Allegiance to Taliban's leader is of primary significance," a militant based in Idlib told Al Arabiya English, "they call ISIS 'Khawarij' for refusing to pledge allegiance to Taliban's leader," whom they consider the true Caliph.
The Uighur presence has wider implications on the prospects for Syria, according to a Syrian journalist based in Aleppo. "The regional and international communities want this conflict prolonged," he says. "This conflict is no longer about Syrians, it is the mother of many other conflicts."
Last Update: Wednesday, 2 March 2016 KSA 15:51 - GMT 12:51
AL-NUSRA FRONT
China calls Uighur leader's comments 'absurd,' says Xinjiang at peace
China on Tuesday condemned a top exiled Uighur leader for her "absurd" comments about Britain's lavish ...
China says kills 4 militants in crackdown on Uighurs leaving country
Police in the southwestern Chinese border province of Yunnan have shot dead four militants and found 553 people ...
China says repatriated Uighurs 'were on way to jihad'
China's security ministry said Saturday that 109 Uighurs repatriated by Thailand had been on their way to Turkey, ...
Erdogan says reported Uighurs mistreatment in China 'exploited'
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday that the reported mistreatment of a Turkic-speaking Muslim ...
Syrian opposition leader to visit Beijing: China
The leader of the main exile Syrian opposition group will visit China this week, Beijing said Monday, despite the ...
China denies its missiles being used by Middle East militants
China's Foreign Ministry denied on Friday that hand-held anti-aircraft weapons made in China had fallen into the ...
China says it may have citizens fighting in Iraq
Muslim extremists from China's far western region of Xinjiang have gone to the Middle East for training and some ...
China calls for transitional govt in Syria
Chinese President Xi Jinping repeated on Thursday a call for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis and his ...
A few months ago, in a remote town in Idlib province, northern Syria, an unusual foreign militant presence alarmed Syrian locals


Researchers offer the first evidence that DNA damage can lead to the regulation of inflammatory responses, the body's reaction to injury. The proteins involved in the regulation help protect the body from infection.
The study, performed by scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, is one of the first studies to come out of the recently established NIEHS Clinical Research Unit (CRU) (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/clinical/join/durham/index.cfm).
Appearing in the March 31 issue of PLoS Genetics, the research suggests that an injury to chromosomes alters the expression of a family of genes known as Toll-like receptors (TLRs). TLRs are proteins that play a role in the immune system by defending the body from infection. Following damage, the TLRs interact with the tumor suppressor gene p53 to regulate the amount of inflammation. The NIEHS investigators also establish that the integration of p53 and inflammation only occurs in primates.
Healthy volunteers with informed consent donated their blood cells for the study. The scientists separated white blood cells from the samples and exposed the cells to anti-cancer agents to activate p53. They then examined the expression of TLR genes. The team detected large variations among individuals, but found that p53 generally led to the activation of several TLR genes in patients' cells. They also found that TLR activation could be prevented by adding the p53 inhibitor pifithrin.
Stavros Garantziotis, M.D., a principal investigator in the Laboratory of Respiratory Biology (LRB) and the medical director for the CRU, is a co-author on the article. He said that the publication had two main findings: humans evolved an inflammatory response when subjected to DNA damage, and the variation in TLR activity among humans suggests that some people are more prone to inflammation following DNA damage, for example, after receiving cancer therapy.
"Physicians don't have this information now, but understanding who would likely benefit from anti-inflammatory treatment after chemotherapy would greatly increase a doctor's ability to help his or her patient in the future," Garantziotis continued.
As a physician and co-author of the publication, LRB principal investigator Michael Fessler, M.D., went a step further in his explanation of how stimulating the human immune system could treat infection, and autoimmune and environmental diseases.
Now, the researchers are taking advantage of another NIEHS translational program, the Environmental Polymorphisms Registry (EPR) (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/clinical/join/epr/index.cfm), an ongoing study to collect DNA samples from nearly 20,000 North Carolinians. The EPR study will allow scientists to look for genes linked to disease. The study is a collaborative effort between NIEHS and the General Clinical Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health. For more information on environmental health topics, visit www.niehs.nih.gov(http://www.niehs.nih.gov/). Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov(http://www.nih.gov) .
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text:
Q: get results of form on the next page I am using this form to geocode addresses onto a map. Im trying to move the form to a separate page that on submit goes to the page with the map.
I dont know how to get these seperated...any advice on how to separate the form from the map?

     <form  action="map" method="post">
     Zip Code:
     <input type = "text" id="address" placeholder = "orange county" autofocus></input>
     <input type="button" value="Submit" onclick="codeAddress();" ></input>
     </form>

A: The easiest way to do this is passing geocode address result via URI,for example:
the URI of the page with map is: http://exmaple.com/map/   when you return this page, add result with URI,so the URI becomes: http://example.com/map/?address=result and then parse the URI.
Another way, you can use Cross Document Message,when you geocoding address,send message to the parent window.

A: First, you need to set a name for the field you want to pass to the next page:
<input type = "text" id="address" name="address" placeholder = "orange county" autofocus></input>

You would need some server code to receive form data. The exact code would depend on your choice of language for this code.
e.g. for PHP the code to use this on the page that receives it (the one in the action of the form) would be
<?php
$address=isset($_POST['address'])?$_POST['address']:'';
?>

And then you can use the $address variable in this page.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
MAN at a glance
#SimplyMyTruck
Exposed to stringent tests
A new truck has a long way to go before it is ready for series production. An essential part in its development is played by the test drivers at MAN. They test the functionality of each component and expose the vehicle to extreme conditions. In Munichthe truck has to prove what it can achieve on the test track. A visit to the site.
Coordination of all components The driving behaviour of the new MAN truck was investigated on the test track in Munich, even on steep gradients.
The truck comes to a stop with squealing tires. It leaves black marks on the asphalt. The driver smiles. It worked out. The emergency brake assist has successfully brought the 40-ton vehicle to a standstill. The black-and-white patterned camouflage film reveals that this truck is a very special vehicle. What does it hide? The new TGX from MAN, the 2020 truck generation.
Rainer Miksch, test manager for trucks and buses, and his staff are working at the test track in Munich to prepare products for series production. They have been testing the new TG in all model variants for four years. Over 100 test drivers and test engineers have covered nearly five million kilometres with 60 test vehicles to ensure the new generation meets all customer requirements. "We've done that," test manager Miksch says with certainty.
But the trial teams have to conduct numerous tests to proceed from prototype to finished product. Mechanics like Manfred Leopold and engineers like Christian Horn collaborate closely to achieve this. Their tasks are clearly distributed: Leopold, who is already accompanying the third generation of trucks on the test track, prepares the trial vehicles for the tests and equips them with the specific measuring technology. There can be up to 250 measuring points per vehicle.
Horn, in turn, evaluates the collated data to identify potential vulnerabilities and then derive appropriate measures. His speciality is the powertrain, longitudinal dynamics systems and consumption-related functions. The test drivers always check the interaction of a component with the entire vehicle whilst they are driving. "The interaction of all systems has to function when full, partially loaded and empty," says Horn.
Experienced test drivers Test mechanics Manfred Leopold (left) and test engineer Christian Horn (right) travelled thousands of kilometres with the new truck and conducted numerous measurements.
The team therefore tests each individual feature during a trial. And in different test scenarios. While the test site in Munich offers the opportunity to test the vehicle in the early prototype stage, tests on public roads help to simulate the customers' working conditions. The test drivers then demand the maximum from the new TG in summer and winter tests. This involves them being on site for several months in Spain and Sweden to test the vehicle under extreme conditions.
During these summer and winter tests, the Management Board reviews the vehicles' degree of development maturity. This gives Management Board members the opportunity to sit behind the wheel themselves and get a feel for the truck. The board members experienced the new truck generation for the first time during the summer test in 2017. "The ability to demonstrate the vehicles' maturity level to the Management Board and discuss possible optimisation is an essential part of the development process," explains Miksch.
Customer needs take priority
The ability to offer customers the best possible vehicle requires customer requirements to be the focus of development and testing right from the start. "I'm the first customer for my staff," states Rainer Miksch. This involves the test manager switching into different roles. Sometimes he is a driver travelling in long-distance traffic, sometimes a customer from the distribution sector. But the customers themselves are also involved in bodies such as the Expert Advisory Board. Some of them test individual features in their daily work – like MAN EfficientCruise, a GPS-controlled cruise control system. This enables MAN to address any improvement requests and make adjustments before the official launch.
and test engineers participated in testing the new generation of trucks.
were covered by the new MAN truck during test drives prior to market launch.
test vehicles
were used. Many were camouflaged as they journeyed on the streets.
Undercover mission A new MAN-truck driving through Munich with form concealing camouflage to prevent it being recognised prior to market launch.
Cosy Christian Horn occasionally spent the night in the new truck after his tours as a test driver and enjoyed the comfortable rest section of the new cab.
Miksch and his team check every detail, whether it relates to technical or structural aspects. "We decide how the customer will subsequently experience the vehicle," says Miksch. Different viewpoints come together during the tests. "We discussed at one point whether drivers needed a place to store their mobile phone, newspaper or glasses right by the bed, or whether next to the dashboard was sufficient," he relates. As banal as this detail sounds, it's crucial to the driver's comfort. In addition to more efficient and safer working, the new TG will enable a significant improvement in driving and living comfort within the cab. "The structure of the cab, its storage space and operating concept have been massively optimised," says test mechanic Manfred Leopold.
Now the driver can move more freely in the cab, which is particularly noticeable during long tours. "You can also adjust the seat and steering column to a perfect fit, and you can feel this difference immediately," explains Leopold. This means the driver can now concentrate even more fully on the traffic. This is made possible by the newly designed display concept and the optimised door mirror system.
The team has also had a direct influence on the assistance systems. They were involved in the development of turn assist, for example, which finally closes a central truck safety gap: the blind spot. Development of this system was a challenge, relates Manfred Leopold looking back. The system should only warn the driver if a pedestrian or cyclist is within the blind spot, but not if it involves static objects, such as an advertising column. Correct calibration of the radar sensors was decisive here. It included the testers appraising this by placing themselves next to the trucks at different distances. When the system was operational, they tested it in real-world situations – across Europe. "The system also has to cope with road markings in Slovenia, Italy and England," explains Leopold. For Miksch and his employees, the result is more than satisfactory after four years of work. "The driving experience is agile and dynamic," says Miksch. "We also introduced many modern approaches to the vehicle and created a perfect mix of old and new."
Text Tanita Hecking
Photos Dirk Bruniecki
#Truck
Dealership Search
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The vehicles and products displayed on this website may differ in terms of shape, design, colour and scope of supply. Some of the images may include special equipment, accessories and decorative elements which are subject to an additional charge. The technical features and equipment of the vehicles described are merely examples and may differ, in particular on a country-specific basis. Subject to any change without notice.