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diaphania - Page 3
18h00 10 March 2009
In the garden today
Spring will soon be here.
Permalink Categories: Local life Tags: hellebores, spring 1 comment
Hair affairs
From the site Strange Maps comes this record from Die Zeit of the popularity of awful puns in the names of German hairdressing salons. The most popular is 'Haarmonie'. The others uphold that unfortunate line about the missing Germanic funny bone: Haareszeiten puns on Jahreszeiten - which means seasons - and Haargenau just means 'exactly' in the sense of 'to a hair'.
Enertaining whimsy, including the menacing hairy outer darkness surrounding Germany, but not very effective map-making. I wanted the map to be dynamic, revealing photos of shop signs, much like the ones featured in the Hairdressers With Funny Names Pool on Flickr.
The predeliction of English salons for this kind of linguistic tomfoolery is so great that they made up a good part of a Guy Swillingham's Shop horror: the best of the worst in British shop names. If you can excuse a comment about one map which is made up of 'mere typography' Strange Maps has many other gems, including a description of the Guardian's April 1977 feature on San Seriffe
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: maps, typography 0 comments
Not the place but the activity. Rita Carter presented a one hour programme on BBC Four that could easily have been a series.
This was a terrifically fudged programme. Rita Carter is an experienced science writer, with a special interest in the workings of the brain but she skirted some of the big issues, failed to come to a serious conclusion beyond confirming the validity of the programme's big idea and let drop such solecisms as 'the brain was designed'.
None of these points were made by the programme:
more money is now made from computer games than books
public libraries are closing across the country
boys in particular continue to read less and less
Some of the most interesting points were in the first half of the programme:
reading requires multiple brain zones, which have adapted from other functions and which continue to develop when you read
because of its difficult structure, reading English requires more mental effort than other languages – which may have developmental significance for the brain as a whole
Some interesting ideas were floated but remained unsubstantiated:
computer games may require less empathetic involvement than reading (no hint at the wider social implication of a whole generation of adolescents now more likely to walk by on the other side)
There was no attempt to pick up on the differences between reading a novel and reading the web, or between reading plain text or text with images, or even listening to a book being read and reading it.
There wasn't any sense of where UK Government policy is on the issue.
But yes, reading books is a precious thing.
Permalink Categories: Books Tags: reading, books 0 comments
01h34 23 January 2009
Mind the breaks
Sign spotted by James Wallis in King's College Hospital, and posted to Flickr.
Some of the best sign-related groups on that site are collections of fading wall advertising, like these two examples. Besides the visual appeal, the lettering is social history. Our local corn merchants is now a Chinese restaurant. There'll be no more bicycle deliveries for the fruiter's boy. Fruit and veg is so much better travelled these days and we are all the richer for year-round strawberries, aren't we?
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: signs 0 comments
Cheesed off by isolationism
Just as President Bush was 'deeply mourning' the death of Andrew Wyeth, his administration was being derided for one of its last balmy acts. A 300% tariff is being imposed on one particular French cheese. Whilst the rest escape with a mere 100% penalty in retailation for French refusal to accept US hormone-treated beef, only Roquefort rejoices in the distinction of being placed firmly beyond the reach of American consumers. Whether or not US goat's cheese makers are celebrating their new found commercial advantage is hard to say, but French farmers are telling a very different story. Last time they were punished in this way they burnt down a Mcdonalds. But a reprieve may be imminent. In the hope that he will wake up and smell the fromage, President Elect Obama has been sent a sample of the blue-veined product.
Permalink Categories: Speculation Tags: food 3 comments
Entire of itself
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne, Meditation XVII, 1624
The painter Andrew Wyeth died yesterday, reminding me of the first time I saw 'Christina's World'. I was about 8 and there was a tiny reproduction of the painting in my father's Reader's Digest art book. I felt for the girl so far from her scary looking home. What was her expression? Was she worried or was she happy? In fact Wyeth's subject (if not his model) was a young woman called Christina Olson (1893-1968) who may have had polio. The Olsons were friends of Wyeth's wife, and for 30 years he had a studio in their house in Cushing, Maine.
Christina lived there all her life, shunning medical intervention, and refusing the description of 'crippled' which people tried to apply to her. Wyeth painted her with what may now seem like mawkish poignancy, crawling back from a visit to the family cemetery where she herself is now buried. Wyeth's wish for pathetic effect shows in his sketch for the painting.
Andrew Wyeth was part of a dynasty of artists: he was taught by his father and his son is a successful artist. The Reader's Digest text describes Wyeth as 'financially the most successful painter working in America now'. A review in Time describes 'Wyeth's problematic legacy'. Like the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano Wyeth is a little too popular and certainly much too meticulously figurative to meet with mainstream critical approval.
What strikes me now about 'Christina's World' is Wyeth's ability to evoke a sense of place. But it's a place that is edgy, disturbing, unreal, unattainable. The same emptiness and isolation is in his later work, but without the hard-edged light and luridness of Edward Hopper's art with which Wyeth's paintings have so often been compared.
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: painting, hopper 0 comments
Iced over
A favourite spot for outdoor swimming looked less than inviting today. Freezing temperatures didn't stop thousands of hardier souls taking to the water on Boxing Day, nor will it deter participants at the UK Cold Water Swimming Championships, at the unheated Tooting Bec Lido on 24 January.
Counter-culture doesn't just mean hippies or punks. A growing community of mildly rebellious people with a healthy disrespect for 'elfensafety' swim in lakes, rivers, tidal pools and 'water-holes'. A raft of sites and forums promote wild swimming, inspired by Roger Deakin's Waterlog, which is a magnificent celebration of bathing all year round in Welsh mountain pools, Cornish holy wells, trout streams and lidos. Deakin died in 2006. There are photographs of his idiosyncratic living arrangements at the house he built at Walnut Tree Farm (including the moat that inspired him to write).
Deakin had a natural gift for the most economical prose. His description of a kingfisher '"streaking by in an afterburn of blue" took me back to a swim below the weir here. As I bobbed in the water midstream, a pair of kingfishers flashed before me, tugging at either end of a twig.
'Sweet water' perfectly describes the sensation of immersion in inland waters. Even outdoor chlorinated pools will give you asthma, salt stings, but fresh water has an earthy softness like nothing else.
Permalink Categories: Local life Tags: swimming, local life 0 comments
Waiting at midnight
In Yeats' 'Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)' his concern was Ireland's struggle:
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
In our village church on Christmas Eve the candles were lit, every window ledge decorated, every pew filled and there was an expectant buzz of chat just before the lights went down: the familiar, lilting solo of the first verse of 'Once in Royal David's City', then the congregation of 400 or more swelled the sound, familiar incantations that span me back to a dozen or more fortunate Christmasses before. You can find stables round here, sheltering not oxen but ponies, much-loved mounts of Cressidas or Saras. Our cattle sheds will set you back around £1m. These days they've all been converted to executive homes for the less than poor or mean or lowly.
From the priest's welcome to the final blessing, the service runs like clockwork. The same carols, in the same order, latecomers pushing in from the pub, the brisk filing up to the communion rail, busy white gowned servers administering bread and wine, then back down the north aisle, faces respectfully downcast, expressions of assumed solemnity.
The sermon quotes Betjeman, not the bible.
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
(from Christmas by John Betjeman)
In my own heart hope and doubt mingle equally.
Pope Benedict was widely reported just before Christmas as saying 'that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction' (Irish Times). His actual words are far less simplistic, but what kind of Christmas message was this? When dogma collides so catastrophically with the secret God of the heart (the God that knows all and accepts that which is meant to be), where is the good in organised religion?
Soon after Christmas on Radio 3's 'Belief' Cambridge academic Tim Winter (Abdal Hakim) was questioned with gentle persistence by Joan Bakewell about his conversion to Islam:
I always wanted to have the person of Jesus who I was brought up with and who is an extraordinary world figure... as part of my religious vision of the world. Islam is the only non-Christian religion where He's really important, but actually comes closer to you in a strange kind of way, because in the orthodox Christian understanding, He is man but also God. And I couldn't figure out how you can actually be human if you're also God. So in a strange kind of way I felt that one of the consequences of becoming Muslim was to become much closer empathetically, humanly, to the person of Jesus than I'd ever managed as an Anglican.
His answers are revealing when he is held to account on September 11, on women and democracy in Islam. He ends with his struggle to conform:
...you go through the door, and then the reality of religion is before you, which is ultimately about loving and adoring God, loving and adoring His creation, which is endlessly brilliant, beautiful, rigorous, difficult, fascinating. And trying to represent in one's own life a conformity to how God wants His servants to be. And that's difficult. Learning how to pray is easy, but actually conforming in the depths of one's being to what the divine, benign nature wants us to be - that's the real challenge. And I'm still working on that.
The 'little town of Bethlehem' is now, like the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory. There's been less dreamless sleep for the Gazans since the Israeli invasion this Christmas. One religion-dominated community is yet again beating the hell out of another. What hope now for the bi-national solution imagined by humanist Edward Said?
Are met in thee tonight
Our Lord Emmanuel
Permalink Categories: Local life Tags: religion, home life 0 comments
A psychotronic new year
If it's low budget, scary or a bit brutal then it's psychotronic. The term was dreamt up by Michael Weldon after he reviewed hundreds of quirky and obscure films including the 1980 Chicago cult sci-fi title The Pscychotronic Man. The sometimes brilliantly expressive hand-rendered titles are probaby the highlights. They run from 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai' to 'Zontar: the Thing from Venus' and include spaghetti westerns, horror and exploitation films, made for a quick profit with little thought for merit.
These images are from a collection made by Mr. Bali Hai. Lettering has never been scarier. See also the title sequence for Le Souffleur at The Art of the Title: one of the few recent examples on this site where the lettering is more important than the underlying images.
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: film, film titles, sci-fi 0 comments
Shadows on the allotment shed wall
Once upon a time almost everyone could rent a patch at their local allotment garden – a haven of tranquillity where you could grow healthy food and enjoying working alongside your neighbours. In 1943 there were 1.4 million allotments in the UK but by 1993 there were just 300,000. In London today just 30,000 people have an allotment, and in some districts waiting lists are decades long.
The Allotment Act is 100 years old. After being decimated by opportunistic developers and greedy councils, these little Edens are suddenly a hot topic, with a debate in Parliament this summer and a slew of active websites campaigning for them. In spite of all that few councils are likely to respond to the Act's obligation to provide an allotment garden at the request of "six registered parliamentary electors or ratepayers".
Locally at least, allotments are thriving. Today (and for the first time in her parliamentary career) Theresa May MP opened some sheds. Not your average tumbledown shack where something nasty lurks in the shadows, but listed, oak-beamed and tile-hung allotment sheds, carefully restored by a bunch of energetic volunteers in memory of a lecturer and enthusiastic allotment-holder called David Penny.
Nor were followers of Ms May's footwear disappointed, since she sported not green wellies but fetching knee-high black leather boots.
Permalink Categories: Campaigns, Local life Tags: local life 0 comments
23h00 16 November 2008
Following the diagram in Lisbon
In Lisbon I much enjoyed the metro system, which is full of art and something of which the city is clearly proud. Its diagram uses Metrolis, a custom font from The Foundry. The lines are called seagull, sunflower, caravelle and orient: they have over-fussy graphics that don't quite fit the clean diagram. On the trains themselves the maps can get interesting too. I'm not colour blind but couldn't quite work out why the linear maps seem to turn in on themselves so much. Metrobits.org has a page which lists the fonts used in some 17 metro systems and (if you're listening Santa) I now have to add Metro Maps of the World (new edition, Mark Ovenden) to my Christmas list.
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: maps, typography 1 comment
On the up: a vertical pier for Brighton
The designers of the London Eye, architects Marks & Barfield, are confident that their upwardly mobile replacement for the wrecked West Pier will be open by 2011. Work has already begun on the i360 project which has already been dubbed an 'iSore' by its critics. It will consist of a 100-person fibreglass pod which will gently rise up a 144 yard tall steel cylinder, giving unmatched views of the city, sea and downs.
Marks & Barfield place their design in the tradition of other south coast examples of pioneering architecture (presumably such as the modernist De La Warr Pavilion). The seaside attraction will be topped by wind turbines which will provide some of the power needed to operate it. The West Pier Trust still hopes it will eventually rebuild the elegant pier which was the star of Ken Russell's 'Oh what a lovely war!' as well as featuring in several of the 'Carry On' films.
Permalink Categories: Art & design Tags: architecture, brighton 0 comments


Henri G. Blaisdell, an accomplished musician of Concord, N.H., was born in Dorchester, N.H., October 23, 1850, son of Pettingill and Laurette (Lillis) Blaisdell. He is originally of Scotch descent. His paternal grandfather was Sanborn Blaisdell, who was long a resident, and presumably a native, of Dorchester, in which town he was engaged in farming and where he spent his last years. He married Mehitable Sanborn.
Pettingill Blaisdell, father of Henri G., was born in Dorchester in 1824. He received his education in the district schools and subsequently engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling lumber, for many years conducting a large saw-mill on Baker's River. He was Postmaster of Dorchester for a long time, and still resides on his farm in that town. He and his wife, Laurette Lillis Blaisdell, reared three children-Henri G., Pettingill S., and Ella Mabel. Pettingill S. Blaisdell, a young man of marked musical ability, entered into business with his father and met his death by accident in the mill. Ella Mabel studied music, became a skilled violinist, and travelled extensively throughout the country in company with her brother Henri. She became the wife of Dr. Charles E. Fowler, of Bristol, and died April 19, 1882.
Henri G. Blaisdell obtained his general education in the district schools of his native town and at the academies at Wentworth and Keene. When but nine years old he manifested a decided talent for music, and not long after began its systematic study. That he might become proficient as a violinist, he was placed under the instruction and guidance of Carl Schultze and other well-known masters of the violin, and in course of time, by hard, conscientious work, did full credit to his teachers. Since reaching the age of fourteen, he has followed music as a profession, having travelled extensively through the United States and conducted orchestras, in connection with musical festivals and operatic presentations, in all the leading cities. He was the first to give to the people of New Hampshire an efficient orchestra, organized especially with a view to the performance of symphonies and other high-class musical works, and which he has himself conducted on various important occasions. Mr. Blaisdell has a well-established reputation as a capable and very successful teacher of the violin, and his knowledge of voice culture has caused his advice to be sought by singers from many parts of the country. He is also well versed in the history of music, has an intimate acquaintance with the works of the great masters, and is a frequent contributor to the leading magazines of the country on this and kindred topics. For ten years he was concert-master of the Handel and Haydn Society, under the management of Carl Zerrahn. The conductorship of Gilmore's concert chorus was offered to him for the three years immediately preceding Mr. Gilmore's death, but his strong attachment Concord. He has devoted some time to composition, but subordinates his practice in that branch of musical art to his work as teacher and conductor. He has a large acquaintance among the leading musicians of the country, many of whom are his warm friends.
In 1869 Mr. Blaisdell was united in marriage with Lilly D. Leonard, of Glover, Vt. He and his wife are the parents of two promising boys: Carlysle, who has already given evidence of having inherited much of his father's musical talent; and Victor J. Mr. Blaisdell is a Republican politically. Like all true artists, he loves nature, and in summer he spends much of his time at his beautiful country seat on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee and in navigating its waters in his steam yacht. He is a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church at Concord.


Our friend Ella (the daughter of a Red Sox fan) just celebrated her first birthday. To mark the event we decided to make her this doll.
Mike made the card using the socks as the "L's" in Ella's name. The Sox logo on the doll's chest is an embroidered iron-on patch Mike found on ebay. I used a damp press cloth and an iron to adhere the patch. It worked great.
Ella had a wonderful birthday and I was lucky enough to get to hang out with her for a little while at her party.
The Ella doll turned out the be both cute and timely. Shortly after we gave Ella the doll the Sox won the World Series.
Go Ella and go Sox!
Humanity can be divided into two groups of people. Those who use sponges to wash their dishes and those who use dishcloths. My mother-in-law uses a sponge. My mother uses a dishcloth. The sponge vs. dishcloth debate has gone on for generations. There are arguments for and against both, but being my mother's daughter I come down on the side of the dishcloth. I enjoy making my own so I was happy to hear that Susan Lowman has released a new pattern booklet entitled Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths.
The booklet is published by Annie's and available here. It includes photos, instructions and charts for 6 beautiful wiggly crochet dishcloth projects. The patterns are well-written and easy-to-follow. I would expect nothing less from Susan, a talented designer, superb crochet technical editor, my mentor and my friend.
I decided to start with Susan's Four Square pattern. Like all of the dishcloths in the booklet, you begin this dishcloth by making a crochet grid (sort of like filet crochet). Once you finish your grid you fill in some of the squares with crochet stitches that stand up and look, well, wiggly!
The effect is amazing but it's really not hard to do. Once you get the hang of the technique you can design patterns of your own. For my second dishcloth I made a basic chevron pattern.
For these dishcloths I used Omega Sinfonia yarn, a light worsted weight cotton recommended by the pattern. It was easy to work with and the colors are lovely.
If you'd like a chance at winning a signed copy of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths, just leave a comment on Susan's blog. Even if you don't think you're lucky enough to win the booklet, I recommend you check out Susan's blog anyway. It's filled with interesting posts and has a lot more information about this fun, pretty technique of wiggly crochet.
I challenge you sponge people to try making just one wiggly crochet dishcloth. I think it might convince you come over to our side.
I made this sweater for our friends Lisa and Jesse who are expecting a baby girl in a couple of weeks.
I bought the yarn and buttons at Purl Soho and used their baby girl fair isle cardigan pattern.
While the sweater was blocking Mike got busy and designed a card. He printed out a bunch of different color combos to see which one matched the sweater the best.
We didn't have any wrapping paper but the roll of paper we've been using to cover the floors during construction was the perfect shade of pink.
We used it to wrap the gift.
(Jesse is a Red Sox fan so we made a little pink Boston "B" - for baby - to seal the tissue paper).
We also used the pink paper to fold up an envelope for the card. I sewed one of the extra buttons from the sweater onto the card to tie the whole thing together.
I hope the sweet new baby enjoys wearing her sweater as much as I enjoyed making it.
Baby Ella is here!!!!! Her wonderful parents sent me this photo of the beautiful baby wearing her sweater. Could this baby be any cuter?
Today is the anniversary of both the birth and the death of Akira Yoshizawa.
Yoshizawa is credited with raising origami from a craft to an art form. He created more than 50,000 models and wrote 18 books. He also pioneered many techniques like wet folding. Last summer I learned more about Yoshizawa when I did some wet folding at the Origami USA annual conference held in NYC.
This is the wet-folded luna moth I made in one of my classes.
We followed a pattern by Michael LaFosse and we got to use LaFosse's handmade Origamido paper - what a treat!
During the conference I also made a cactus and a mouse.
The "Cactus in a Pot" by David Petty was a very clever design folded out of one sheet of silver paper. We laminated green tissue paper to the "cactus" area before folding.
The mouse is by Masashi Tanaka. If you want to make a mouse of your own, the directions are here.
I thought my origami skills were looking great until I went to the exhibition space where some real masters had works on display.
I was wowed by these amazing insects and spiders by the great Robert J. Lang.
I was impressed with this beautiful grasshopper by Brian Chan (see Brian folding the grasshopper here).
And I fell in love with the work of Beth Johnson. Beth's models have a sculptural element that is so appealing. It was like nothing else at the exhibition. You can see more of Beth's work here.
Thank you Akira Yoshizawa for your amazing contribution to this wonderful art form we call origami.
Steve Jobs died last week. The world lost a true visionary and design genius.
With Steve at the helm, Apple designed revolutionary products that we have come to know and love like the iPhone, iPod, iPad and iMac.
However, one product that hasn't received much attention is the product our cats consider Apple's greatest technological advancement - the iPurr cat bed.
These portable, heated cat beds come in three sizes (13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch) for small, medium and large cats. The beds have an adjustable LED back support panel and a sleeping surface made of individual "keys" that depress to cradle your cat in comfort - much like a coil-spring mattress. Every bed has a battery that heats up and keeps your cat warm, and an internal fan that makes a gentle hum to lull your cat to sleep. The beds are made of aluminum which won't irritate kitty's coat and is easy to wipe clean. Sure they're a little more expensive than other cat beds (new models start at $1,199.00 on Apple's website). But if you love your cat, it's worth it. As you can see, our cat "sleeps different."
What do abstract artist Mark Rothko and former letter turner Vanna White have in common? Probably not much but I've managed to unite them in my latest crochet project - a rug based on a painting by Mark Rothko made out of Vanna White's acrylic yarn. Rothko's painting sold for $72.84 million at Sotheby's. Vanna's yarn sells for $3.99 at Michael's Crafts.
To make this rug I used a technique called wiggly crochet that I learned from Susan Lowman. If you're interested in learning how to make a wiggly crochet rug of your own I suggest you order this excellent booklet written by Susan.
This rug is so pretty I may just hang it on the wall (and someday sell it for either $72.84 million or $3.99).


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Home » Search Center » Results: Jeff Coffin
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Jeff Coffin
Jeff Coffin is an internationally recognized saxophonist, bandleader, composer and educator and has been traveling the globe since the late 20th Century. He is a 3x Grammy Award winner from Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and played with them from 1997-2010. In July 2008, Jeff began touring with Dave Matthews Band, and officially joined the group in 2009 following the tragic passing of founding member LeRoi Moore. When not on the road with DMB, Coffin fronts his own group, Jeff Coffin & the Mu'tet. Some of the artists Coffin has shared the stage and the recording studio include a "who's who" of musicians such as Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Dave Matthews Band, Branford Marsalis, Bob Mintzer, DJ Logic, New Orleans Social Club, Maceo Parker, McCoy Tyner, Baaba Maal, Phish, Mike Clark's Prescription Trio, Galactic, Kirk Whalum, My Morning Jacket, Widespread Panic, Chris Thile, Willie Nelson, Chester Thompson, Garth Brooks, Van Morrison, J.D
NEWS: EDUCATION October 6, 2020
Jazz Education Nonprofit Partners With World-Renowned Jazz Musicians
Jazz Empowers, a national nonprofit bringing jazz programs to students in underserved schools, announced the founding of their advisory board. The advisory board is comprised of some of the top jazz musicians in the world and will provide expert advice to Jazz Empowers staff as they continue to develop best practices in teaching students jazz. The ...
ARTICLE: TAKE FIVE WITH... September 1, 2020
Take Five with Jeff Reed
By JEFF REED
Meet Jeff Reed Jeff Reed is an acoustic bassist, electric bassist, composer, and educator residing in jny: Baltimore, MD. One of the most in-demand sidemen in the area, Jeff has performed extensively throughout the United States and throughout the world. As a sideman, Reed frequently works with bass vibraphonist Warren Wolf, trumpeter Sean Jones, and bass ...
ARTICLE: RADIO June 12, 2019
OGJB Quartet & The Last Poets
By MAURICE HOGUE
There's no way to use geographical borders to define this music called jazz. For instance, the Freequestra from Slovenia: led by acclaimed guitarist Samo Salamon— the ensemble wends its way with power and emotion through Salamon's new Free Sessions Vol.2, a rollicking excursion through the avant-garde. Or in the case of OGJB, a quartet of four ...
ARTICLE: RADIO May 7, 2019
Bob Dorough: NEA Jazz Master & More
By MARC COHN
We salute the late Bob Dorough, play a game, celebrate Newk with Miles from 1954, and have Tatum and Bud face off on "Yesterdays." There's recent music and a few gems from the vault, too. Enjoy the show. Playlist Carl Allen, Rodney Whitaker "What's Going On" from Work To Do (Mack Avenue) 00:00 Jeff ...
ARTICLE: ALBUM REVIEW April 9, 2019
Dave Liebman: On the Corner Live!
By MIKE JURKOVIC
Saxophonist/flautist and 2011 NEA Jazz Master David Liebman knows of what he speaks when he speaks of Miles Davis. He was part of the pack stirring the rock/jazz/electronic/funk fusion cauldron, first working with Elvin Jones and then running with Davis in the studio--first appearing on the original On The Corner, (Columbia, 1972)--and on tour from 1972 ...
ARTICLE: RADIO April 3, 2019
David Liebman & Jeff Coffin, Acamar Trio & More
Danish percussionist and drummer Marilyn Mazur has worked with some of the greats--Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Gil Evans, Jan Garbarek--but her latest project is unlike anything previously. She's assembled an ensemble of top women musicians from Scandinavia for her new Shamania release. It's a highlight of this episode of One Man's Jazz, and so is the ...
ARTICLE: ALBUM REVIEW March 11, 2019
The idea is easy to dismiss at first glance. This is roughly the 127th Miles Davis homage to come along since tribute recordings became a widespread thing. It took a long time for the original On the Corner (Columbia, 1972) to gain acceptance with its thick relentless jungle-funk and lack of conventional melody, but it gradually ...
ARTICLE: ALBUM REVIEW March 5, 2019
When the Miles Davis album On the Corner (Columbia, 1972) was released, Davis had already begun to engage in electronic instrumentation and jazz fusion with soon to be revered recordings: In A Silent Way (Columbia, 1969), Bitch's Brew (Columbia, 1970) and Jack Johnson (Columbia, 1971). On the Corner, however, was so experimental and funky that it ...
ARTICLE: ALBUM REVIEW February 4, 2019
In Orbit: in Orbit
By ANYA WASSENBERG
In Orbit--the group, the song and the album--have a groovy 70s retro kind of feel, crashing chords, melody and dissonance, all to a disco beat. High on energy, with an emphasis on danceable grooves, In Orbit is a cross-border group with a core of Canadian guitarist Michael Occhipinti and American saxophonist Jeff Coffin, who ...
John Vanore

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Ryan Reed, President of
fleet modernization
solutions, VTG
Ryan Reed, President of Fleet Modernization Solutions at VTG
https://potomacofficersclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ryan-reed-president-of-fleet.mp3
Ryan Reed is the president of fleet modernization solutions at VTG, a provider of force modernization and digital transformation solutions.
Reed is in charge of a business unit that integrates advanced command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems into afloat and ashore naval platforms.
He was promoted to his current role following a one-year stint as the director of VTG's East Coast Operations.
Before joining VTG, Reed spent nearly 11 years with the U.S. Navy, according to his LinkedIn profile.
One of his roles in the Navy was serving as a nuclear submarine officer/combat systems engineer. During that time, he supervised the operation, maintenance, testing and repair of the nuclear power plant and weapons systems. He was also involved in efforts to transition cruisers from shipyard to at-sea operations.
Additionally, he had served as an engineering duty officer for the Naval Sea Systems Command. In that role, he updated the Norfolk Naval Shipyard Ship Safety Manual and produced weekly admiral presentations for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and NAVSEA containing analysis of shipyard schedule, resources, earned value and performance metrics.
Reed graduated from Villanova University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He went on to complete a master's degree in mechanical and systems engineering from Old Dominion University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of South Carolina.
Tags: Executive Profiles Fleet Modernization Solutions LinkedIn maritime systems naval systems NAVSEA Ryan Reed US Navy VTG Defense
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text:
Q: Deserialize list of JSON strings to find the correct model This is quite annoying and I only need to run this code ONCE. After that, all will get deleted (it's migration code)
I have a List<string> of JSON strings. They contain various different formats of JSON objects, which can look like this:
{
    "id": 123
}

{
    "id": "7521b497-abb7-46b8-bddc-177a6fd9f974",
    "folderId": 123
}

{
    "folderId": 123
}

and so on. I need to get the 123, which can be in the properties id and folderId. If I simply do:
class IdModel {
    public int Id { get; set; }
}

//inside a function
var model = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IdModel>(json);

it will fail when it gets to the second JSON, because id is a GUID. Instead, it would need to look for FolderId, which means I can do something like this:
class IdModel {
    public int Id { get; set; }
}

class FolderIdModel {
    public int FolderId { get; set; }
}

//inside a function
int folderId;

try {
    var model = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<FolderIdModel>(json);
    folderId = model.FolderId;
} catch {
    var model = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IdModel>(json);
    folderId = model.Id;
}

That would be "fine" for this scenario, but I probably have 10 different JSON objects, that all look different. FolderId > Id, because I always know FolderId is the correct one, unless it has no FolderId, in which case it MIGHT have an Id (should explode if neither FolderId or Id is correct).
My question is: Is there a smart way to deserialize to different models, without looking at the JSON? Remember Id can both be a GUID and an integer, depending on the JSON objects.
I know this is really bad and I'm sorry.

A: Yes you can use the type dynamic where it will match the outcome of your Json object and then validate wheter the value type is a Guid or a int like so :
int folderId;
var model = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>(json);
folderId = model.id != null && model.id is int ? model.id : model.folderId;

If there are more possible outcomes you can break this ternary operator and validate them singulary.

A: I'd just deserialize both with the same class, then parse them according to the property values. For example:
public class IdModel
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string FolderId { get; set; }

    public int Value
    {
        get
        {
            if (int.TryParse(Id, out int value))
            {
                return value;
            }
            else if (int.TryParse(FolderId, out value))
            {
                return value;
            }
            else
            {
                throw new Exception("This model has no valid id");
            }
        }
    }
}

Usage:
string json1 = "{\"id\": 123}";
string json2 = "{\"id\": \"7521b497-abb7-46b8-bddc-177a6fd9f974\",\"folderId\": 123}";
string json3 = "{\"folderId\": 123}";

IdModel model1 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IdModel>(json1); // model1.Value = 123
IdModel model2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IdModel>(json2); // model2.Value = 123
IdModel model3 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IdModel>(json3); // model3.Value = 123

A: I would add an extra Property to the Model which gets the real id (FolderId or Id, depending on which is set correctly).
The model would look like this:
class Model
        {
            public string Id { get; set; }
            public int? FolderId { get; set; }
            public int RealFolderId
            {
                get
                {
                    if (FolderId != null)
                    {
                        return FolderId.Value;
                    }
                    int id;
                    if (int.TryParse(Id, out id))
                    {
                        return id;
                    }
                    throw new Exception("This explodes");
                }
            }
        }

The id is serialized as a string, so it will neither break when Id is a Guid nor when it is an int. The Exception is thrown when both, FolderId and Id have "incorrect values"; none is an int.
The rest of the code will be pretty simple:
var deserialized = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Model>(json);
int folderId = deserialized.RealFolderId;

A: You can try to use DeserializeAnonymousType method, something like that
var responseObject = JsonConvert.DeserializeAnonymousType(json, new { id = "" });

That convert it to required type (int or Guid) or use just object type

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Trust for Governors Island issued today a Request for Proposals for Seasonal Pop Up Café concepts on Governors Island. The Trust is seeking high quality and creative proposals for alcohol and food service from operators with a proven track record in the food and beverage industry, excellent customer service and a keen interest in improving the visitor experience on Governors Island. Two exclusive sites in Liggett Terrace, the Island's most highly trafficked area, will be offered to vendors proposing beer garden or wine bar style concepts for the 2017 season.
As Governors Island continues to grow in popularity during the summer months, so does the need to feed our visitors! The Trust hopes to expand and diversify its offerings for food and beverage and complement existing mobile food vendors with a beer garden or seated wine bar through vendors who share the spirit of the Island. Respondents may submit proposals for the operation of one or both locations offered through this RFP, and must include food service in addition to beverage.
For the RFP and more information, please click here. Proposals are due on February 10, 2017.


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text:
IMAFO - INSTITUT FÜR
MITTELALTERFORSCHUNG
Byzanzforschung
Editionsunternehmen & Quellenforschung/MIR
Historische Identitätsforschung
Schrift- & Buchwesen
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Dienstag, 02. Juli 2019, 15:25
Egypt in Italy: Lay devotion to the Desert Father and hermit Onuphrius in Late Medieval Italy
The Thebaid fresco in the Pisan Camposanto. Onuphrius is in the middle band on the right shown talking to Paphnutius. © Manu Radhakrishnan
Onuphrius painted on the wall of the Schlosskapelle at Blutenburg, Munich. © Manu Radhakrishnan
Manu Radhakrishnan
July 1, 2019 | Manu Radhakrishnan | HI Research Blog |
All medievalists have heard of saint Anthony and of the sensation caused in the West when Evagrius's Latin translation of Athanasius's Greek Life made its appearance sometime before 386 C.E. Augustine while in Milan was informed of the monk and his biography by Ponticianus and it proved to be a turning point in his spiritual crisis and his conversion. Fewer medievalists have heard of the Egyptian hermit and Desert Father Onuphrius who appeared suddenly and silently onto the religious landscape of the Latin West and began to compete with Anthony and give him a run for his money. Onuphrius was, so to speak, the hermits' hermit. He was, like Jerome's St Paul, a solitary who unlike Anthony did not require the assistance of humans for his food. In Italy in the fourteenth century, he suddenly became the focus of lay piety. How did he leap from the narrow confines of the hermitage to the open spaces of the piazza? This blog entry will examine the late medieval lay reception of a late antique ascetic figure.
Onuphrius was, like his model St Paul the First Hermit, an imaginary saint. Nevertheless, there is evidence for devotion to him in Egypt as early as the sixth century. His life is the central part of the Peregrinatio Paphnutii, a tripartite travel account of a monk named Paphnutius who left his monastery to go into the Egyptian desert in search of solitaries. In the first part Paphnutius enters the desert and encounters the hermit Timothy who relates how he became a solitary. When his food runs out, he is miraculously nourished by his guardian angel. He eventually sees a wild hairy beast that he runs away from fearing it will devour him. This turns out to be Onuphrius whose hair had replaced the clothing that had long ago fallen off him. In part two, Onuphrius relates his Life, denies Paphnutius's request to stay, and orders him instead to return to Egypt and inform the monastic brethren about him and the other solitaries serving God in the desert. He dies the following morning. Paphnutius buries him and finds that his disobedient wish to stay in Onuphrius's hut is foiled by its collapse along with the palm tree that provided food. In part three, on his way out of the desert he meets four old men and four young men who live as lavriotes. They are solitaries during the week but come together during the weekend to celebrate the Eucharist brought by angels. Paphnutius experiences this with the four young men. Denied permission to stay but reassured by the angel who brings them communion that he is among the saved, Paphnutius reluctantly gives up his aspirations to become a solitary and returns to fulfilling his mission to inform the oecumene, the known world, about the solitaries in the desert. He arrives in Scete and stays with the brethren who write down his account of his travels and distribute it to the churches of the monastic settlements.
This Late Antique account, which resembles a tryptych in which the central and most prominent panel is Onuphrius, is preserved both in Coptic and in Greek manuscripts. It very likely travelled from Egypt to Constantinople before the Islamic conquests and spread from there to the entire Byzantine Commonwealth. It also travelled up the Nile to Lower Nubia where the cathedral at Faras had a fresco depicting him and further south to Ethiopia where it was translated into Ethiopic.
The length of the text made it unwieldy and there are shorter Greek versions of parts one and two and of two alone. The earliest Latin manuscripts of the three-part Peregrinatio Paphnutiana (BHL 6334a) are in Beneventan script from the eleventh century suggesting that the translation was done and initially circulated in southern Italy where there were Greek-speaking monks and where the cult of Onuphrius was already established. It then spread to central and northern Italy where he was unknown and from Italy north of the Alps to Germany and west to Catalonia. MS 433 of the Austrian National Library is a vitas patrum manuscript from south-western Germany dated to the first half of the eleventh century. This contains the shorter version of his Life (BHL 6336) as the very last text. This version would eventually be published in a Nuremberg incunable and then in Rosweyde's Vitae patrum sive historiae eremiticae libri decem published in Antwerp in 1615. The third edition of 1628 is in Migne's Patrologia Latina. BHL 6334a remains unedited although I have edited the central portion the Vita Onuphrii from a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript NY, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.626, in an appendix to my article in Aevum 2018/2.
In the 1330s, the first monumental depiction of Onuphrius and the Desert Parents of Late Antique Egypt appeared in the lands around the Mediterranean. This was in the Camposanto, the Pisan cemetery next to the cathedral. The Thebaid was part of three scenes depicting as well the Last Judgment and the Triumph of Date. The artist has been, too hastily in my opinion, attributed to Buonamico Buffalmacco. There is no surviving documentation for this unusual indeed unique commission but the Archbishop Simone Saltarelli was a Dominican who naturally had close ties with the Dominican convent of St Catherine of Alexandria. Surviving archival documents show that one of Saltarelli's collaborators was Domenico Cavalca, OP (d. 1341) who was the most important translator of Latin religious texts into the vernacular for an audience of devout laity in all of medieval Italy. Among these texts was the most extensive and most successful translation into a European vernacular of the Liber Vitaspatrum collection of hagiography from the Late Antique Egyptian desert. Cavalca's Vita dei santi padri (VSP) was a "best-seller" and survives in 191 copies ranging from partial to complete. All the other vernacular translations had exiguous reception histories and survive in single digits. The popularity of the Italian translation was therefore exceptional.
The Thebaid fresco of the Camposanto, which incorporated inscriptions and verse in the vernacular and thus assumed a lay viewership showed various scenes that could be traced to Cavalca's VSP. Art historians have therefore concluded that this Dominican was the "auctor intellectualis" of the iconography, the "concepteur" who in conversations with the artist selected the scenes, which the artist then executed. This role had to have been assigned to him by the Archbishop and the cathedral chapter for the Dominicans themselves had no legal rights to make commissions in the Camposanto.
Alessandra Malquori while studying a late fourteenth century fresco depicting Onuphrius at the Dominican convent of S. Maria Novella in Florence (visible on the ceiling of what is now the Tourist Office) noted that its predecessor was Onuphrius in the Camposanto. She raised the problem with the historiography of the Camposanto frescos. If Cavalca's VSP was the text behind the iconography of the Thebaid fresco, why was Onuphrius there and occupying so much real estate when according to Carlo Delcorno the edition of reference were volumes 1 and 2 of DM Manni's edition of the Florentine version of the VSP published in 1731 and 1732 which did not contain Onuphrius? Volumes 3 and 4 of 1734 and 1734 did contain Onuphrius but they were not to be attributed to Cavalca.
Delcorno's 2009 edition of the Pisan form of the text was based on the only fourteenth century manuscript in Pisan to contain all four books of the VSP. This is Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense MS 422 [=RC] dated on the basis of watermarks to 1326. The Life of Onuphrius [=VSO] is present as the last text in book IV of this manuscript and also appears in the Index. Yet it was left out by Delcorno with no explanation for his omission. This manuscript is unusual in that it contains the books in the following order: 3, 4, 1, and 2. The explicit for book IV qui finisce lo qurto libbro de vita padri appears after Onuphrius on f. 127ra at the bottom of column a and book I begins at the top of column b of the same page. In his edition, Delcorno omitted Onuphrius and moved this explicit to the end of the text that preceded Onuphrius. This was the Life of Patrick. Only a reader interested in variants of paratext and curious about the wording of this explicit in other manuscripts will see that in the critical apparatus Delcorno informs us that in RC it actually appears after Onuphrius and not after Patrick. This is the only indication in the edition that the base manuscript contains Onuphrius.
A codicological analysis shows the following. The entry in the index for the VSO was made at the same time and in the same ink as the preceding entry for Patrick. The colour of the ink for the index entries for book I is different showing that it arrived later. The VSO is in the middle of quire IV of RC and therefore cannot be an interloper added later. Its decorated initial F is very similar to other decorated Fs in RC. The beginning and end of book IV are handled in the same way as in book III. Thus a close physical examination of the manuscript shows no signs that the VSO was added later.
An examination of the text of the VSO shows that it stands out in the landscape of vernacular manuscripts detailed and classified by Anna Maria Fagnoni. Of her four groups three have translations of all three parts of the Peregrinatio Paphnutii. The VSO omits part I and provides a highly summarised version of part III. It thus focuses on Onuphrius. These cuts are consistent with Cavalca's statements on omission in his prologue to the VSP and in the prologues of two of his three other known translations. Fagnoni had somehow missed RC in her list of vernacular Onuphrius manuscripts. It turns out that her group II, which has the largest number of manuscripts compared to groups I, III, and IV , represents the text present in the VSO. They also reflect a telling change in the incipit. Whereas the VSO in RC began Fue uno sancto abbate ch'ebbe nome Pannutio these begin with Leggesi in vita patrum or Leggesi nella vita dei santi padri. The best explanation for this change is that when Cavalca decided to include it in his VSP, he also sent it as an independent text to his confreres at Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The incipit that made sense in RC no longer made sense for a text that would be copied independently. The Dominicans in Florence therefore changed Cavalca's original incipit to explain that the VSO was part of the Vita patrum collection.
Finally, the VSO bears stylistic evidence of Cavalca's quirky praxis as a translator. He prefers adverbial forms and also adds adverbs such as humilmente and patientemente in his vernacular translations even though humiliter and patienter are absent in the Latin originals. He translated "Hec et hijs similia apud sancti patres cum didicissem, ego humillimus Onufrius, multo magis mente et corde recipiens," as "Quando io Heunofrio molto humilemente ebbi udite queste et simiglianti chose da isti padri, molto malgiolmente li receuetti nella mente et nel chuore." A comparison with translations from manuscripts in other groups shows that the adverbial form is only present in the VSO and its copies in Group II. This was a tic, one that reveals Cavalca's stylistic DNA.
Thus codicological, philological, comparative, and artistic evidence all combine to point in one direction. Cavalca was the author of the VSO and it was therefore wrongly left out of Delcorno's 2009 edition of the Pisan VSP. If RC is the most important witness to Cavalca's translation of the VSP, the physical evidence of the manuscript alone would necessitate the inclusion of the VSO in the VSP. At the very least omitting a text present in the base manuscript of your edition requires informing the reader and providing ones reasons for the omission. Silence is not really acceptable.
A subsequent analysis will show in detail the Florentine reception of Cavalca's Vita di sant Onofrio. The Dominicans at S. Maria Novella edited and circulated the text among the Florentine laity thus familiarising them with this hitherto unknown Egyptian desert father. In the 1330s when the Florentine Dyers were seeking a patron saint, their neighbours and spiritual directors the Franciscans at Santa Croce proposed Onuphrius who is presented as a powerful intercessor in the Peregrinatio. Their acceptance heralded the arrival of Onuphrius from the cloister and into the piazza. But it all began with Cavalca's translation.
Domenico Cavalca, Vite dei Santi Padri, ed. C. DELCORNO, Firenze 2009 (Archivio Romanzo, 15).
A. M. FAGNONI, Volgarizzamenti italiani della Vita Onufrii. Prime linee di ricerca, in Studi vari di lingua e letteratura italiana in onore di Giuseppe Velli, Milano 2000 (Quaderni di Acme, 41), I, 25-62.
A. MALQUORI, Storie dei padri del deserto nel convento di Santa Maria Novella a Firenze, in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, ser. 4, 1/2 (1996), 79-93.
Manu RADHAKRISHNAN, An Egyptian Hermit and Italian Laity: Domenico Cavalca, OP (d. 1341) and the Cult of the Desert Father Onuphrius, in Aevum 98.2 (2018), 309-392.
Scriptures in Transition
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text:
Wild turkeys, the official game bird of Massachusetts, thrive in a variety of habitats across the Commonwealth, including urban areas.
Wild turkeys in Massachusetts
At the time of colonial settlement, the wild turkey was widespread in Massachusetts. Due to habitat loss, turkeys were extirpated from the state and the last known native bird was killed in 1851. In the 1970s, MassWildlife biologists trapped 37 turkeys in New York and released them in the Berkshires. The new flock grew in what was an ideal mix of agricultural and forested lands, and by the fall of 1978 the estimated population was about 1,000 birds. With birds also moving in from adjacent states, turkeys soon ranged throughout most parts of Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River. In-state transplants of the birds, conducted until 1996, continued to expand their range into the central, northeastern, and southeastern parts of the state. In 1991, the wild turkey was named the state's official game bird. The estimated population now between 30,000 and 35,000 birds! Under careful management, the future looks bright for turkeys; sportsmen, naturalists, and other wildlife enthusiasts welcome their return.
Wild turkeys are an important natural resource in Massachusetts. They are classified as game birds, for which a management program and regulated hunting seasons have been established.
Find tips for preventing conflicts with turkeys and what to do with aggressive turkeys here.
The wild turkey is a strikingly handsome bird; black to blackish-bronze with white wing bars, blackish-brown tail feathers and a blueish-gray to red head. "Toms" or male wild turkeys weigh about 16–25 pounds. They sport a hairlike "beard" which protrudes from the breast bone. When a tom is strutting, its head turns bright red, pale white, or vibrant shades of blue. Females, called hens, are smaller, about 9–12 pounds, and are generally less conspicuous, typically dull brown with a blueish-gray head.
Life history
Wild turkeys are active during the day; roosting in large trees at night to avoid predators. In residential areas, it is not uncommon for turkeys to roost on railings, roofs, or sometimes on vehicles. Gobbling, during breeding season, usually starts in March and can last through May. This is when the males puff out their feathers, fan their tails and "strut their stuff." Hens lay eggs after the first mating. The nest is a shallow, leaf-lined depression on the ground, and contains 12 to 15 eggs. Hatching occurs after an incubation period of 28 days. Broods usually appear in the first week of June. The young poults are active as soon as they hatch. Predators such as foxes and hawks may take a few young turkeys, and cold spring rains can easily chill the poorly-feathered young birds. Young turkeys remain with their mother for at least 4 to 5 months. Turkeys learn from each other, often by imitation, and by associating with older, more experienced birds. They remember the layout of their home ranges and the location of various foods.
Food, habits, and habitats
Wild turkeys seasonally exploit a diversity of food items, including plant material, seeds, nuts, berries, insects, and invertebrates. In the fall, they feed on acorns, beech nuts, hickory nuts, and seeds. In the winter, turkeys avoid areas with deep, fluffy snow. During the summer, turkey poults rely on insects that are extremely protein rich, which enables the small poults to grow and mature quickly. Turkeys scratch the ground searching for food.
Wild turkeys are habitat generalists and thrive in a variety of environments in Massachusetts. They utilize agricultural lands, forests, and suburban and urban habitats. Areas with many different types of habitat types are probably the most productive for turkeys because they provide an optimal mix of food and cover across the range of seasons experienced in Massachusetts. Turkeys in suburban and urban areas rely heavily on bird seed located in and around bird feeders and can become quite habituated to specific locations.
Wild turkeys live in flocks organized by "pecking order." Each bird is dominant over or "pecks on" birds of lesser social status. Turkeys may attempt to dominate or attack people that they view as subordinates. This behavior is observed most often during breeding season. Once bold behavior is established, it can be very difficult to change.
Open file for Prevent conflicts with turkeys
Living with turkeys fact sheet


Not really called "Z+A" we just made that up, don't get mad. But if you are mad, turn that frown when you listen to the first teases of what is sure to be a fairly dramatic and capacious duo between FADER cover star Zomby and the incredible Actress, who Heal Yourself and Move recently celebrated. Both of these short tracks are of the more night and rainfall spectrum of both artists' wide electronic genre sweeps, rattled percussion and crinkle synth—looking forward to more, hopefully as easily as this was released, on the Werk Twitter.
Download: Zomby and Actress, "untitled"
Download: Zomby and Actress, "untitled 2"


Zampa di Gallina is in fact the symbol of what we would like to enhance: â traditionnal craftmanship with a lot of real handmade work. The zampa di Gallina sewing technique can only be made by hand. There is no machine able to achieve this level of work, at least for the moment.


Swedish Melodeath titans, Arch Enemy, just announced they're planning to present a new album in June! They released a good bit of information on this venture.
Three years after the release of Khaos Legions and their most successful world tour so far, the extreme metal icon, Arch Enemy, starts mixing their 9th studio album with Jens Bogren (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Kreator) at Fascination Street in Sweden.
Michael Amott (guitar): "We've been producing ourselves, as we did on Khaos Legions. We have a clear vision of what we want Arch Enemy to sound like and we can actually achieve it without the help of outside producers, we also have the advantage of having two talented sound engineers among our ranks in Daniel Erlandsson (drums) and Nick Cordle (guitar).
"We've been tracking at a few different studios here in Sweden, the drums at Fascination Street Studio and guitars and bass in another room. We just finished vocals in a third studio with engineer Staffan Karlsson (Khaos Legions) and the mix and mastering will done by Jens Bogren at his Fascination Street mixing facility.
Arch Enemy will debut new material on a short East European tour before the album comes out on June 10th (North America), this will be followed by an extensive run of European summer festivals including world famous Sweden Rock, Wacken and many more. North America will see the band in fall/winter 2014 for a full headline tour, as will Europe and the UK. Arch Enemy will once again tour nearly every corner of this world to spread the sound of War Eternal!
Stay tuned for more news from the headquarters.
And as per usual, here's some music to put on blast while you wait!


text:
package com.liferay.pushnotifications.model;

import com.liferay.portal.kernel.bean.AutoEscape;
import com.liferay.portal.kernel.exception.SystemException;
import com.liferay.portal.model.BaseModel;
import com.liferay.portal.model.CacheModel;
import com.liferay.portal.service.ServiceContext;

import com.liferay.portlet.expando.model.ExpandoBridge;

import java.io.Serializable;

import java.util.Date;

/**
 * The base model interface for the PushNotificationsDevice service. Represents a row in the "PushNotificationsDevice" database table, with each column mapped to a property of this class.
 *
 * <p>
 * This interface and its corresponding implementation {@link com.liferay.pushnotifications.model.impl.PushNotificationsDeviceModelImpl} exist only as a container for the default property accessors generated by ServiceBuilder. Helper methods and all application logic should be put in {@link com.liferay.pushnotifications.model.impl.PushNotificationsDeviceImpl}.
 * </p>
 *
 * @author Bruno Farache
 * @see PushNotificationsDevice
 * @see com.liferay.pushnotifications.model.impl.PushNotificationsDeviceImpl
 * @see com.liferay.pushnotifications.model.impl.PushNotificationsDeviceModelImpl
 * @generated
 */
public interface PushNotificationsDeviceModel extends BaseModel<PushNotificationsDevice> {
    /*
     * NOTE FOR DEVELOPERS:
     *
     * Never modify or reference this interface directly. All methods that expect a push notifications device model instance should use the {@link PushNotificationsDevice} interface instead.
     */

    /**
     * Returns the primary key of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the primary key of this push notifications device
     */
    public long getPrimaryKey();

    /**
     * Sets the primary key of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param primaryKey the primary key of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setPrimaryKey(long primaryKey);

    /**
     * Returns the push notifications device ID of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the push notifications device ID of this push notifications device
     */
    public long getPushNotificationsDeviceId();

    /**
     * Sets the push notifications device ID of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param pushNotificationsDeviceId the push notifications device ID of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setPushNotificationsDeviceId(long pushNotificationsDeviceId);

    /**
     * Returns the user ID of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the user ID of this push notifications device
     */
    public long getUserId();

    /**
     * Sets the user ID of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param userId the user ID of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setUserId(long userId);

    /**
     * Returns the user uuid of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the user uuid of this push notifications device
     * @throws SystemException if a system exception occurred
     */
    public String getUserUuid() throws SystemException;

    /**
     * Sets the user uuid of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param userUuid the user uuid of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setUserUuid(String userUuid);

    /**
     * Returns the create date of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the create date of this push notifications device
     */
    public Date getCreateDate();

    /**
     * Sets the create date of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param createDate the create date of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setCreateDate(Date createDate);

    /**
     * Returns the platform of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the platform of this push notifications device
     */
    @AutoEscape
    public String getPlatform();

    /**
     * Sets the platform of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param platform the platform of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setPlatform(String platform);

    /**
     * Returns the token of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the token of this push notifications device
     */
    @AutoEscape
    public String getToken();

    /**
     * Sets the token of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param token the token of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setToken(String token);

    /**
     * Returns the model of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the model of this push notifications device
     */
    @AutoEscape
    public String getModel();

    /**
     * Sets the model of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param model the model of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setModel(String model);

    /**
     * Returns the o s version of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @return the o s version of this push notifications device
     */
    @AutoEscape
    public String getOSVersion();

    /**
     * Sets the o s version of this push notifications device.
     *
     * @param OSVersion the o s version of this push notifications device
     */
    public void setOSVersion(String OSVersion);

    /**
     * Returns the app ID of this push notifications device.
     *
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    @Override
    public Object clone();

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}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Home Clean fuel USA: Sempra Natural Gas Q2 Earnings Up
USA: Sempra Natural Gas Q2 Earnings Up
Sempra Energy said that Sempra Natural Gas had earnings of $9 million in the second quarter 2013, compared with a loss of $193 million in the second quarter 2012, which included a $179 million impairment charge on the Rockies Express Pipeline.
The increase in 2013 was due primarily to improved earnings from liquefied natural gas and gas storage operations because of changes in natural gas prices.
For the first six months of 2013, Sempra Natural Gas had earnings of $62 million, compared with a loss of $192 million in the first half of 2012, which included last year's impairment charge on the Rockies Express Pipeline.
Earnings in the first six months of 2013 included a $44 million first-quarter gain on the sale of half of the Mesquite Power plant.
LNG World News Staff, August 6, 2013; Image: Sempra
View post tag: earnings
View post tag: natural gas
View post tag: q2
View post tag: Sempra
View post tag: up
View post tag: USA
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Skill Session: How to be an innovator
Wind Energy Webinar: Power-up wind farm safety and efficiency (powered by Brady EMEA)
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Lifestyle May 04, 2012 at 12:00 am
Game of Thrones Actor, Nonso Anozie, Speaks on Acting Opportunities for Black Actors in the U.S. and His Role on Game of Thrones
Chioma Obii-Obioha
Chioma Obii-Obioha May 04, 2012 at 12:00 am
May 04, 2012 at 12:00 am | Lifestyle
British Nigerian Filmmaker, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Makes Short Documentary on Transitioning to Natural Hair
Fast Company Names Five Africans in Its 2012 "100 Most Creative People in Business" Issue
Young, African and Living in New York City? MTV Base Wants You!
At 6'6, British-Nigerian actor, Nonso Anozie, is a giant of a man; but it seems that his physical size just might be eclipsed by his remarkable acting ability. The actor got his start on the British stage and has slowly but surely made a name for himself over the years. As the second black cast member of HBO's Emmy Award-winning show, Game of Thrones, Anozie is in an undoubtedly enviable position.
Speaking about his role in the hit show, opportunities for black actors in the UK and in the U.S. and a former teacher's discouragement of his acting dreams because of his race, this interview by The Root is an introduction to Nonso Anozie.
The Root: Is it easier to find work in England or America as a black actor?
They stopped working for stars like Diddy to start a restaurant business. Now they've made over $1M
Nonso Anozie: Many actors are coming to America to work. Idris Elba [who is British] was huge in America, and no one knew a thing about him in London until The Wire began airing in the U.K., which was after the final season's end. Then he became that black guy from The Wire for his character Stringer Bell … In America, once you get into the pool of black actors that are working, you're good. Then they gradually let more people into that pool — in England, there's not a pool yet.
TR: Game of Thrones has black and brown characters — Lucian Msamati's pirate Salladhor Saan and Jason Momoa's Drogo — where many fantasy films and television shows don't. Tell me about that.
NA: HBO really wanted to cast me in the first season, and I auditioned for a character but then I got another pilot. They loved my audition so much that when this character Xaro Xhoan Daxos came up, they called. He's richer than [villain] Tywin Lannister, so the black dude's the richest guy on the show. Xaro meets Daenerys Targaryen while she's wandering in the desert. She's got dragons, I'm really rich, let's see what we can do — and we start a friendship. It's really interesting what we get into for the rest of the season, but I can't say anymore because of how it all turns out. ….
TR: How did you get into acting?
NA: I was born in London, grew up in Camden. I got a taste for acting at 10 years old — my headmaster had me play the daddy in the Bible story of the prodigal son. I put on a big coat and glasses. People laughed at the end, and I got something from it that I never wanted to release. I got really into it at 18 and tried acting without going to university, and that was hard … I didn't come from a theater family, and when I told my careers adviser about acting, he suggested I look at something like plumbing, saying, "Even young, handsome white boys find it difficult acting — you're a 6-foot-6-inch black man."
Read the complete interview on The Root.
The controversial pyramid in Australia believed to have been built by Egyptians centuries ago


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This is a lovely family dish that's easy to prepare, and great for midweek meals. It's full of veggies and tender chicken breast. You could use boneless chicken thighs instead, which makes it even tastier, but just increase the cooking time a little.


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The Low-Ball Technique
How the low-ball technique is used in sales scenarios to persuade customers to purchase products, and in other situations as a compliance-gaining strategy.
The low-ball technique is a compliance strategy which is used to persuade a person to agree to a request. A person using the technique will present an attractive offer at first. The offer will be attractive enough for the other party to it. Then, before finalising the agreement, the person will then change the offer. The resulting request will be less favorable than the initial offer. Having committed to the agreement, the other person will often feel obliged to extend their compliance to the second request.
Compliance Techniques
Foot-in-the-Door as a Persuasive Technique
Ingratiation as a Persuasive Strategy
Norm of Reciprocity and Persuasion
The Door-in-the-Face Technique as a Compliance Strategy
This compliance-gaining method is often used as a sale strategy. Sellers offer a product at a lower price, which their customer agrees to, then they increase the price before they complete the sale. Having already agreed to the sale, customers reluctantly accept this higher price.
For example, a car salesman offers a shopper a car at the bargain price of $6,000, which the person agrees to. The two parties then head to an office to complete the sale. There, the salesman tells the buyer that their colleague priced the car in error. In fact, the correct price should be $7,000. The customer then agrees to complete the sale at the higher price.
In another situation, a travel agent may show a holidaymaker a package a five-star hotel deal at a low price. The traveller sees this as an attractive offer and agrees to buy it. The travel agent then tells the customer that the hotel is fully-booked. But they are in luck! The agent can book them into a three-star hotel instead for the same price. Having committed to the sale, the customer consents to this less attractive offer.
Like the foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face techniques, low-balling is a sequential-request method. Users of sequential requests make two or more similar requests. However, they change the terms of each request, expecting their subject to agree to the final question.
The low-ball technique may seem identical to the foot-in-the-door technique. But they differ in the way that they each aim to gain compliance. Foot-in-the-door requests involve asking a person to complete a small task. Then, the person is asked to agree to a larger task, in the hope that the gradual escalation of the scale of the request will be acceptable to the subject. By contrast, the low-ball technique aims to persuade a person to commit to a small action, but this action is never completed. The subject is expected to continue their commitment as the request changes.
For the low-ball technique to be effective, the initial offer must be attractive enough (e.g. a low price) for a person to agree to. The person should give their consent to the offer and be faithfully committed to it. In a French compliance study, Guégen and Pascual (2000) found that the impression of free will affected agreement in such situations. In other words, the buyer should not feel pressured into agreeing to the sale.
Once two parties have committed to an agreement, they create a relationship between one another. The subject feels an obligation to see the action they have agreed to through to its completion .
The second request is then made shortly before the commitment is fulfilled (e.g. prior to a customer signing a contract). The second request includes a higher demand, such as a higher sale price.
The success of the low-ball technique has been observed beyond the realm of sales. Psychologist Robert Cialdini conducted a study in which he asked college students to take part in an experiment. Participants would be expected to arrive early, as the experiment which would take place early in the morning. Cialdini informed one group of the start time before they were asked to agree to participate. Meanwhile, he asked a second group to agree to take part in the experiment, but only told the them start time after they had agreed to take part. Cialdini obtained more compliance from the second group. His findings support the efficacy of the low-ball technique in obtaining compliance (Cialdini et al, 1978).
The low-ball technique has also been observed to be effective in charitable situations. Richard Brownstein and Richard Katzev (1985) found the technique to be more effective than the door-in-the-face method in soliciting higher donations from people (Brownstein and Katzev, 1985).
Why does low-balling work?
Why is this technique so effective at persuading people to agree to requests? As with other sequential-request compliance methods, the low-ball technique relies upon the sense of commitment that the smaller request creates. Even though the terms of the request change, the subject still feels obliged to be consistent in their behavior. They feel that they should agree to the latter request in order to fulfill their side of the bargain (Pascual, Carpenter, Guégen and Girandola, 2016).
The low-ball technique also relies on our desire for favorable self-presentation. According to this theory, people want to be viewed in a positive light by their peers. People are constantly seeking to gain or preserve this positive perception of themselves. When the terms of a request are changed, we are reluctant to be seen as fickle by refusing to continue with the deal (when in reality, the it is a different deal entirely) and consent to the new demand as a way of maintaining our 'reputation' with the seller (Burger and Caputo, 2015).
Share: ShareTweetStumble UponPin It+1Citations
Guégen, N. and Pascual, A. (2000). Evocation of Freedom and Compliance: The "But you are free of..." Technique. Current Research in Social Psychology. 5(18). 264-270.
Cialdini, R.B., Cacioppo, J.T., Bassett, R. and Miller, J.A. (1978). Low-Ball Procedure for Producing Compliance: Commitment then Cost. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 36(5). 463-476.
Brownstein, R.J. and Katzev, R.D. (1985). The Relative Effectiveness of Three Compliance Techniques in Eliciting Donations to a Cultural Organization. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 15(6). 564-574.
Pascual, A., Carpenter, C.J., Guégen, N. and Girandola, F. (2016). A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of the low-ball compliance-gaining procedure. European Review of Applied Psychology. 66(5). 261-267.
Burger, J. and Caputo, D. (2015). The low-ball compliance procedure: a meta-analysis. Social Influence. 10(4).
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JVP founder launches Margalit Startup City as Israel prepares for second lockdown
Speaking to CTech ahead of the launch, Erel Margalit urges Israel to follow the European, not American pandemic exit strategy
Erel Margalit
JVP
Margalit Startup City
Despite Israel being on the verge of a second lockdown due to Covid-19, Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) founder and chairman Erel Margalit on Monday announced plans to expand the Margalit JVP Startup City by more than 50,000 square meters. In an event streamed live due to social distancing restrictions, he was joined by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon as they celebrated Israel's technological and cultural institutions.
The new complex will be a high-tech center that is expected to focus on four main areas of Israeli innovation: foodtech, cybersecurity, media, and healthcare. During the event, Margalit toured the premises where he spoke with startups that each represent a particular part of the ecosystem and share a direct connection to JVP and Magalit Startup City.
Erel Margalit speaking at the launch event in Jerusalem. Photo: Calcalist
"In Jerusalem, you have the Jewish quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Armenian Quarter - this is the creative quarter," said Margalit speaking with CTech ahead of the event. "This is the project engulfing creativity, new technology companies, new artistic creators, a new dynamic creative quarter."
The extension of the Margalit Startup City comes at a time where countries around the world are starting to open up their economies, and companies are eager to return to work after global lockdowns. Always a critic of national lockdowns as a method to contain Covid-19, Margalit believes that the country should take a more European approach to focus on opening up businesses to get people financially and emotionally healthy again.
"The countries that are winning around the world are the countries that are acting in a different manner and not taking the entire country as one lump or region," he explained. "I think that everything needs to open. You don't open 100% but you open."
The comments come a few days before Israel prepares for its second national lockdown over the Jewish High Holidays of September. While Startup Nation finds ways to use big data technologies to track and isolate heavy cases of Covid-19 for other countries, Margalit likened the return to lockdown life for Israelis to a cobbler going barefoot.
As well as the Jerusalem center for startups, Margalit is also helping New York City establish a tech ecosystem similar to the ones coming out of communities in Israel. While he said New Yorkers were particularly affected by the Coronavirus, it's time to open up again and get people back to work there, too.
Putting Israel back on lockdown would spell an economic disaster, says JVP founder in letter to politicians
ThetaRay appoints JVP's Erel Margalit to its Board of Directors
JVP Portfolio Companies Raise $200 Million During Covid-19 Pandemic
"The business leaders in New York and on the West Coast need a wakeup call," said Margalit. "People that are successful... it's lovely that they're in the Hamptons, or Connecticut, or upstate, but the communities within the cities need them and they need to be more present."
The Margalit Startup City Center fully intends to be as present as possible while still abiding by social distancing rules and regulations. In fact, 70 meters below the center is the second station for the high rail train that connects to Tel Aviv - making it easy for employees and visitors to remain engaged in business and cultural activities.
Margalit hopes that Israel will eventually take a European approach to the fluctuation of Covid-19 cases seen over time. He described the leaders as more transparent about their past mistakes and more willing to "differentiate between politics and professional dealings."
"Europe is finding a good path to go back to work and has to support their small business and their individuals. They have a good system of welfare and business support… I think leadership in general around the world is now doing a little bit of a refresh where leaders are more attentive, what I would call 'civil leaders'," he added.
Israel awards nearly $6 million in grants to space tech startups
The Israeli startup using spatial biology to provide better cancer treatment
Israeli companies send nanotechnology cancer treatment experiment to space aboard SpaceX


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D97 steht für:
 HMS Biter (D97), britischer Geleitflugzeugträger
 HMS Corunna (D97), britischer Zerstörer
 HMS Edinburgh (D97), britischer Zerstörer
 Hydra (D97), griechischer Zerstörer der Kountouriotis-Klasse, siehe Dardo-Klasse #Exportbauten
 ASTM-Standard D97 für Erdölerzeugnisse, siehe Pourpoint #Methoden
 Prins-Variante (ECO-Schlüssel) der Grünfeld-Indischen Verteidigung im Schachspiel

D97

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Pour Bacardi onto pineapple slices and leave to chill until ready to serve, then add your wine and juice and you're ready to go. It'd be best if all the ingredients were already chilled. And leave eating the pineapple to last, it tends to ferment the alcohol. Enjoy!


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← Dispatch from the corner store
Guy Pearse re-visions the quarry →
Bookblog #59: March is the launchiest month
Paula Shaw, Seven Seasons in Aurukun (Allen & Unwin 2009)
Cassandra Golds, The Museum of Mary Child (Penguin Australia 2009)
Ursula Dubosarsky, The Terrible Plop (Penguin Australia 2009)
Stephen Whiteside, Poems of 2008 (self published 2009)
Noelene Martin, Freda (self published 2009)
Here's a clutch of books I have more than a casual interest in.
I've told you about Paula's Seven Seasons more than once, and may well do so again. Now I've actually read it. While it's missing some of the juicier and possibly libellous moments of the early draft I read, it still offers plenty to chew on, and is also — Richard Aedy was right — a bit of a girl's own adventure. More than 30 years ago I spent six weeks in a remote Aboriginal community with the Fred Hollows Trachoma Prevention Program. Just those few weeks were enough to unsettle my sense of what it means to be Australian. One of the other Trachoma-ites put it well, if slightly hyperbolically: I used to think Australia was a European country, he said, but now I realise it's an Aboriginal country with a huge number of Europeans living around the edges. Paula spent a lot more than six weeks in Aurukun, and engaged in a way that shows up my stay at Willowra for the tourism it was. What's more, she took on the challenge of wrangling the experience into words. I hope the book provokes a productive conversation. I expect it will give pleasure to most readers. But don't take my word for it.
Early in the month, the publication of these books by former editorial staff members on The School Magazine was celebrated — nothing so grand as a launch — by a small lunch in town. I had the best gnocchi ever, the authors paid, and we enjoyed each other and the occasion in a way that might have been described as riotous if there had been more than a handful of us. But the pleasures of the lunch were pallid compared to those of the books. I hadn't seen The Terrible Plop before, but I hope to see much more of it as a result of giving it to very young acquaintances: it's a rhyming story of ridiculous terror in the forest that begs to be read repeatedly until it's known by heart. The Museum of Mary Child is another book I read in earlier incarnations, as a beta reader. As a rule I'm not drawn to horror as a genre, and this is at least marginally a horror book – marginal because there are no vampires, ghouls or zombies. But I just loved it. I haven't read the published version yet, but it's been highly praised in the Aust Child Lit Crit journal Magpies as a 'disturbing and quite terrifying' book that 'demands a special reader'.
This book slipped quietly into my mail box with a friendly note from the author. It turned out he'd used a quote from this blog as a back cover blurb, and I wasn't embarrassed to see myself thus quoted. Stephen evidently plans to produce two very slim vols a year to sell at his performances, and his brief introduction to this one implies that he produced a number of poems in 2008 that didn't make the cut. He's a member or ARVOs (Australian Rhyming Verse Orators), a group who meet of a Sunday, presumably in the afternoon, to celebrate their shared passion for bush poetry. Poems of 2008 begins with 'Triangular Cantaloupe' a smooth parody of/tribute to C J Denis's 'Triantiwontigongolope' and proceeds on its cheerful way for 40 pages. There's a touch of controversy in 'A Puzzle', which raises questions about euthanasia in a poem that an introductory note suggests might be for children. There's political comment, in 'Australia Spurns a Hero', about Peter Norman, the white Australian athlete who stood on the podium with the two African Americans who gave the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics:
Norman is a hero, now, throughout the USA.
October 9 has peen proclaimed as Peter Norman Day,
And in Australia's hist'ry a most sorry day is burned,
For Norman is the hero that his native country spurned.
You can get copies from the BookPod online bookstore or, while stocks last, wherever Stephen Whiteside is performing.
Freda is a self published book of a very different stripe, a biography of Freda Whitlam, launched this morning appropriately enough at the Whitlam Institute in the University of Western Sydney. Noelene Martin, the author, is a friend and neighbour of her subject, and I suspect she chose the self-publishing route to improve her chances of getting the book into print while Freda, now nearing 90, and her elder brother Gough were still around to enjoy it. Noelene is a veteran writer of non-fiction for children (much of it published in The School Magazine during my editorship, hence my interest in the project), and it shows here: while the meat of the story is in Freda's career as Principal of the prestigious Croydon Presbyterian Ladies College in Sydney, Moderator of the Uniting Church, force behind the establishment of the University of the Third Age in Sydney, and so on, it's the first hundred pages that really shine.
You can tell that, as well as sifting through piles of youthful correspondence, the author spent hours with her subject, listening to reminiscences. As she said today at the launch, the down side of seeing the book finally published is that all the secrets about Freda that she has held close to her heart are now general property. The little girl who knew the Greek alphabet, but not the English, before she started school; the teenager who walked seven miles from her tutor's place back to school and couldn't understand why the Principal made a fuss; the young woman at Yale on a Fulbright Scholarship who slept through a sermon by Eric Fromm; the beginning teacher on an excursion to Alice Springs who couldn't stand to see a tourist haggling with Albert Namatjira and interrupted to buy a painting at exactly the price the artist was asking: the book recounts these and a myriad other minutely recorded incidents that are steps on a journey to a significant contribution to public life. (As a bonus, we get to see Gough as a shadowy but brilliant big brother.)
The launch was an imposing affair. A handful of distinguished Whitlams, including Gough in a wheelchair, and a hundred or so other people, mostly a good bit older than me, gathered in a spacious hall with modern stained glass windows and were addresses by the Vice Chancellor, Barry Jones (the launcher, who proclaimed with reasonable confidence that he and Freda were the only two people in the room who had corresponded with Ezra Pound, and conceded that she won the competition by having actually met him in the asylum in Washington DC), Noelene and finally Freda herself. Much had been said about Freda's modesty (her entry in Who's Who is apparently terse to an extreme and she doesn't have a Wikipedia page at this moment). Her speech exemplified the trait: she hardly mentioned herself at all, but urged us to be glad at the publication of a book by someone from Western Sydney, about someone in western Sydney, when so many people think that 'out here we don't read'. Everyone has a story worth telling, she said, and it was good that one person's story was being told in this book. In other words, she found any number of ways of praising the book while directing attention away from herself.
You would probably have trouble finding this book, but if you're interested in Whitlamiana, in the history of the Uniting Church in New South Wales, the University of the Third Age, or the past as a fascinating other country, I recommend you contact the author-publisher at mrsmarty(at)aapt(dot)net(dot)au.
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Unlike the Z-Man multilingual edition, this edition uses only English on the board, cards, and back of the box.
With the room provided by the removal of the French and German text, the back of the box provides a list of contents, including "English rule and short rule" as the first item. Lastly, the gameplay image on the box back clearly shows an English-only board.


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Lock 7 Dam Overlook
30 Sunday Nov 2014
Stand at the Lock 7 Dam overlook at the foot of Sugar Hill Road. Can you visualize what this view must have looked like to native peoples? You would see Goat Island in the middle with rapids cascading down shale bedrock on either side of the island. Many of our present day town roads follow old trails used by native peoples. There is reason to believe that Riverview Road follows one of these pre-European historic trails west and Sugar Hill Road follows another north.
Glacial ice and meltwater played a major role in the geologic and landform development of the Mohawk Valley. Prior to the last glaciation, the Mohawk drained south from Schenectady and joined the Hudson River near Coeymans, NY. Following glaciation, this route was buried by glacial sediments and a much larger 'Iromohawk' river drained through the valley. For a period of a few hundred years, while the St. Lawrence Lowland was blocked with ice, the Iromohawk conveyed the drainage of the Great Lakes and the meltwater of the eastern Laurentide ice sheet through the valley. The Iromohawk cut wide channels across the Hudson-Mohawk Lowland, deposited cobble-sized gravels in many locations east of Little Falls, and eroded bedrock between Rexford and Cohoes, forming the route the modern river follows today. – The Mohawk River Action Agenda, NYSDEC, 2012
Under Chapter 532, Laws of 1922, the Superintendent of Public Works was authorized to develop the potential water power at the Barge Canal dams located at Crescent and Vischer Ferry. All Contract work at both plants was completed in 1925. The equipment at each plant includes two 2800 Kw, 0.8 power factor, 3 phase, 60 cycle, 2300 volt, 90 rpm vertical generators, each directly connected with a 4.000 hp, reaction-type, Francis turbine. The generators were furnished by General Electric. Both power plants were officially conveyed to the Power Authority of the State of New York on 13 March 1984 by the New York State Department of Transportation. In 1987 the Power Authority added 6,000 kilowatts of capacity to each plant, more than doubling their capacity. The additional electricity replaced about 3,200,000 gallons of oil annually. The vertical turbines were purchased from Voith Hydro of York, Pennsylvania. Both the Crescent and Vischer Ferry dams and powerhouses were rehabilitated at this time.