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Home / Science / Earliest Maya ceremonial and monumental structures found in Guatemala
This handcarved tunnel helped researchers identify the earliest ceremonial structures found in the Maya lowlands. The white floor that capped it can be seen on the walls of the tunnel that cuts through it. Image Courtesy: Takeshi Inomata
Another excavation at the structure that would become the oldest monumental construction in the Maya lowlands. Image Courtesy: Takeshi Inomata
This excavation revealed the oldest monumental construction in the Maya lowlands. Image Courtesy: Takeshi Inomata
Researchers also unearthed an early residential structure. Image Courtesy: Takeshi Inomata
Earliest Maya ceremonial and monumental structures found in Guatemala
Lee Flohr May 14, 2013	Science 597 Views
A hand carved tunnel and other excavations at the settlement of Ceibal in Guatemala, have helped an international team of researchers identify the earliest ceremonial and monumental structures.
A hand carved tunnel that plunges 29 meters into the core of a Maya pyramid – that's about as long as an NBA basketball court – and other excavations at the settlement of Ceibal in Guatemala, have helped an international team of researchers study some of the site's first ceremonial structures.
Buried in places by nearly 20 meters of expansion and renovation, radiocarbon dates also make them part of the earliest ceremonial compound in the region by roughly 200 years – findings that may even help researchers dig into the roots of Maya culture.
"I noticed a similarity in the arrangement of buildings to those at the sites in Chiapas and at the Olmec site of La Venta," Takeshi Inomata, study co-author and professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, told SciFare.com. "We thought that patterns in the map reflected early patterns of interaction that happened at the beginning of Maya civilization."
The earliest structures in the ceremonial compound were built by Ceibal's first residents – they also built the oldest monument in the Maya lowlands and other important structures – around 1,000 BC.
Before there were pyramids – they're really more like mounds of earth – researchers said a pair of platforms flanked a centralized limestone plaza.
"It's a setting for communal rituals and the platforms are something like a performance stage," Inomata said. "The rituals are mainly communal in this early period – people gathered together and then celebrated the ritual together."
On its west side, the tunnel revealed a foundation carved from the decaying limestone bedrock – it's technically known as marl – before it was built up to a height of two metres with black soil, clay and capped with a white floor.
Over the next century it would be filled and expanded before the first pyramid was erected sometime between 850 and 800 BC – by 700 BC, the pyramid would grow to as much as eight metres tall – and researchers said the structure underwent at least 11 different renovations.
"Pyramids are much more restricted places," Inomata said. "Only a few people, probably, could go up to the top of the building."
Eventually, they'd be controlled by the royal families and even became their final resting places.
On the plaza's east side, the researchers uncovered a rectangular stage that was at least 40 metres long – it could have been as much as 55 metres from end-to-end though. By 700 BC, the limestone carved platform would be filled in and rebuilt a little further east, so the plaza could be expanded.
"This formalized pattern appears over and over again at various sites," Inomata said. "That means the first people shared a common idea of how the ceremonial centre should look and how the rituals should go."
They would eventually evolve into complexes that contained towering pyramids and sprawling plazas that still dot sites in the Maya lowlands.
Artifacts recovered from the excavations tell their own unique and important story too – the ceramics, for example, provided researchers with the framework necessary to sync the radiocarbon dates with the layers of soil that have preserved them.
"The emergence of ceramics was part of a very large social change," Inomata said. "At the beginning, there were different people interacting in a very complex and diverse way."
As we know them, the Maya culture was very young still – before 1,000 BC, they were still a bunch of fragmented groups.
"Later in time we're seeing the emergence of a more unified Maya culture that's reflected in the ceramics," he added.
Many changes like that mark the beginning of the Middle Preclassic time period in Maya history – the ceremonial compound is just one of the new ideas popping up.
"There's a unique process happening at Ceibal that's different from the rest of the Maya area," Inomata said.
A re-analysis of isotope data from one of Ceibal's early residents also found that freshwater stock like shellfish, at most, accounted for ten per cent of their diet.
"From that point, people started to rely more heavily on maize production and then their agriculture and settlement patterns possibly changed," Inomata said.
The fragmented Mayan groups would start coming together in the Maya lowlands, they'd abandon their mobile way of life and would eventually become the Maya civilization.
"Once maize became productive, the Maya lowlands became an important area that could support a larger population and civilization," Inomata said.
The researchers said that political conditions were also right for Ceibal's rise – it was an interesting time in Mesoamerican history. Before it existed, the Olmec power-centre was a site called San Lorenzo – for a time, it was the largest too.
They may have carved colossal heads out of stone there, but, the site didn't have a ceremonial compound – known technically as an E-Group assemblage. The researchers said it started to decline about 150 years before Ceibal sprung up.
La Venta would eventually replace San Lorenzo and had a ceremonial compound. After re-analyzing radiocarbon dates obtained by another research team, they found Ceibal was thriving for about 200 years before La Venta was even large enough to exert its influence on them.
"There's this period of about 300 years or so where we don't have very dominant Olmec centres," Inomata said. "In this power vacuum, the different groups started to interact more freely, more intensively and then they started to experiment with various new ideas."
That complicates things because theories about the roots of the Maya civilization focus on whether or not the Olmec people played a role in shaping them – 'it's complicated' isn't even an option.
"We need to see how those smaller units of people interacted," Inomata said. "Major renovations took place, not in the political centres, but through the interactions of relatively small groups of people, across potential cultural boundaries."
The research was published in the journal, Science.
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Students will learn about sustainable living and how it makes an impact on people's lives. Unit I focuses on how the local government assists the state toward living sustainably. Unit II covers how students have the ability to assist any country to be self-sustaining. Ultimately, students will be able to recognize different types of jobs that are available for them to continue helping people be success to survive beyond sustainable living.
Students will learn about sustainable living and the different ways people can survive using various forms of sustainability. Unit I will focus on family sustainability: how composting and group cooperation can be beneficial to the success of sustainable living. Unit II will focus on community sustainability: ways that people have contributed to encourage sustainability within the local community. The ultimate goal is for students to deduce ways in which they can positively contribute within their family and in the community. Ultimately they should take steps that encourage sustainability.


Advice to solopreneurs tends to assume that we have to become like extroverts. It doesn't take into account the profoundly different brain wiring of introverts and extroverts.
You have to get used to living outside your Comfort Zone.
You might be an introvert, but you need to figure out how to act like an extrovert.
You need to hone your presentation skills so you can at least give the impression you're enjoying yourself.
Bottom line: learn to do your business "while scared"!
If these "rules" for solopreneurs don't make you shrink back into your tortoiseshell, I don't know what will!
Let's take each one of those points and flip it to the truth for introverts.
Extroverts, being wired for taking action in the world, are inside their Comfort Zone most of the time. The introvert's Comfort Zone is the interior world — the mind. We all need to get out of our Complacency Zone and operate from our zone of genius, which is related to our authentic nature.
When extroverts say they feel "scared silly," they're really saying they're super excited. They're wired for taking action fueled by adrenaline (which creates the dopamine their brain needs). That same adrenaline tends to make introverts feel paralyzing anxiety, not action-promoting excitement. That's because introverts are wired through the "rest & digest" parasympathetic nervous system. We do our best functioning when we're relaxed. Yes, a mild challenge is a positive stimulant, but being "scared silly" is paralyzing.
Why should introverts have to "act like an extrovert"? What's the payoff? Consider the difference between acting and being yourself. When you're acting, you're off-center and inauthentic. That's an unpleasant way to be. And you may not realize it, but other people can sense when you're being inauthentic, and they won't trust you. And if they don't trust you, they won't do business with you. So it's a yucky feeling for both you and other people.
I announce that I use my notes because I'm liable to get brain freeze and "forget why I'm even in the room!" The audience laughs and relaxes.
I also play "host" and meet as many people as possible before the event to bond with them and help them meet each other. This makes both them and me more comfortable.
Bottom line: Introverts aren't wired for optimal functioning while scared. Our home base, where we function optimally, is the "rest & digest" parasympathetic nervous system. Operating from the extrovert's home base of the reactive "fight or flight" sympathetic nervous system takes a negative physical and psychological toll on introverts.
Yes, we live in a world that favors the extrovert way of being, but we can achieve our goals in ways that work with our authentic being — which includes how we're naturally wired.
We can use our gifts of thinking and planning to figure out creative approaches that'll work for us.
Isn't it a good feeling to know that you no longer have to feel shame when you come across well-meaning advice that fails to take into account introvert brain wiring?
If you think you might need strategy coaching "someday, not now," let's talk now in a free connection call and get you moving forward. If you're reading this, you're part of my community, and I'm here to support you in all the ways I can — even if we never work together formally. Sign up for a chat and let's get you going where you want to be. Click HERE to schedule an exploratory consult.


text:
Melanochyla bullata är en sumakväxtart som beskrevs av Ding Hou. Melanochyla bullata ingår i släktet Melanochyla och familjen sumakväxter. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Sumakväxter
bullata

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Immortal Redneck Review
Kyle Payne July 2, 2018 Featured, Nintendo, Reviews
Immortal Redneck is a fast-paced nostalgia-fueled FPS from developer Crema. Set in Egypt, you take on the role of a redneck who, for reasons, takes on an onslaught of enemies. In a genre that's flooded, can Crema craft a standout? Can games that feel inspired by older eras like the N64 find success in 2018? Let's find out.
Approximate size: 1.9 GB
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developed by CremaGames
Published by CremaGames
Reviewed On: Nintendo Switch; Also Available On Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC
Don't expect an academy award worthy plot, this wasn't written by a phenomenal author like, say, Nicole Pierman. Expect a simple plot designed to set the foundation for what you'll be doing. This is one of those games where the story isn't important or a major focus, instead, it was reserved for the gameplay. The premise of the game is that, while on vacation, a foul-mouthed Redneck desired to ride his buggy in the desert. Whether it was carelessness or mysterious divine intervention, the Redneck crashes the buggy and seemingly loses his life. His corpse is altered by devout Egyptian religious beings or the Egyptian gods themselves and is resurrected as a Redneck mummy. Not much else is given nor is it ever truly explained why you enter the pyramids themselves. In this instance, if you ever find yourself wondering why, your imagination becomes a tool to fill in the blanks.
Some games don't need a plot and some games feel as if they can get away with having a poorly constructed one. This game is the former. Immortal Redneck didn't need to have any story elements to justify why it is you are in the predicament you're in but I can appreciate them implementing a nice foundation for how you became Immortal. In explanation, a quick line or two of text would have been nice to have. The drawings used to represent the story are wonderfully drawn and presented.
Immortal Redneck, at its core, is a retro-inspired and feeling first-person shooter. Essentially what you'll be doing is clearing randomly generated rooms of enemies and then proceeding to the next room. You do all of this to climb up to higher floors in the pyramid and on the third and seventh floors, you'll encounter boss fights. The goal is to clear three pyramids. With the foundation set, let's talk more about these floors. These levels are open with different levels of elevation and come across as mini dungeons rather than simple rooms. They are sprawling spaces with various secrets and enemies scattered abroad. The level design in this game is pretty spectacular and allows the player to attack enemies in dynamic ways with the option to take advantage of movement. It's very rare for two rooms to play similarly back to back. One moment the goal of the room might be to maneuver through it without taking damage to receive a reward and then the very next room might have you fighting more enemies than you could have predicted. Great level design, truly, and it helps that the platforming is implemented well and is all fluid.
Speaking of fluidity, the character you play as controls wonderfully. The controls are responsive as you move across the map and combat is great. This is very much a retro shooter with the inability to use iron sights and general gameplay is very much like an old PC shooter. Gone are the tropes that now dominate the genre, gone are health regeneration, breaking reload animations to switch weapons, and gone are heavily scripted events. The only real issues I encountered with the movement of the game was the gyro controls. The gyro controls work very well, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't find how to turn them off. They aren't intrusive or anything like that, they are just present and when you tilt the controller slightly for whatever reason, they can work against you. Other than this simple issue, you'll be hard-pressed to find a game that allows the player to move this fast and traverse the environment with ease. The best modern comparison has to be 2016's near-perfect Doom.
As you are moving across the screen, you are given plenty of weaponry at your disposal to fight enemies off with. All your traditional weapons are present such as pistols, machine guns, shotguns, rocket and grenade launchers, and you have some more bizarre weapons such as swords and other mystical weapons. Shooting works great in this game; regardless of the type of weapon, and the recoil and impact are satisfying, especially with Nintendo's HD rumble. Together, with the movement, you have a truly great FPS that can compete with modern games despite looking like it has come from several generations ago. As you take out enemies with these weapons, they will drop several things such as currency, health, and weapons. Each one critical to the game. Enemies are challenging and taking them down to get these items isn't always an easy task. The developers did a great job at making these enemies a force to be reckoned with. The variety and the combinations in which you encounter them is unpredictable and always forces the player to change his strategy or to adapt. Who do you take out first? The enemies that teleport when you fire at them? The hulking brutes that head straight for you? Or maybe the ones perched above firing at you? Placing the player in precarious predictions and forcing a strategy on the fly is a sign of great game design.
Over the course of fighting enemies and solving puzzles, you'll eventually be pushed to your limit and experience death. Death in this game is handled uniquely. What happens is that over the course of playing, you'll gather currency and when you die you are essentially respawned outside of the pyramid and have two options. You can run back into the pyramid but you must give up all your money to do so or you can spend some of it on a skill tree and use the leftover money to pay admission back into the pyramid. What this does is balance the game and creates some challenge. Yes, your goal is to reach the top but maybe you allow yourself to get killed because you have enough for an upgrade you need or want. Likewise, maybe you almost have enough for an upgrade you need and are killed. It's an interesting dynamic that can affect your play style. I noticed that in the beginning I was more careless but once the currency started building, I forced myself to be more cautious. The upgrades will become a must in higher floors because enemies do more damage the higher you get.
Now the upgrades themselves are also very intriguing. You have your typical ones that increase your health and defense but then you have some that embody you with the power of Egyptian gods. Yes, it's as cool as you think. Once this upgrade has been unlocked and you die again, upon respawning you'll be given a choice on if you want to start as the default Redneck or with some godly influence. Each god powered infused version of the Redneck plays differently and adds another layer to the gameplay. These abilities cater to a players play style and can aid you in playing how you want as they have their own stats. One might give you more health, higher defense, tesla gun, energy sword, and/or a hook shot like ability. I found these variations of your main character an interesting addition that adds more dynamic gameplay, more experimentation, and encourages more playthroughs.
Now, with all the toys and abilities the game gives you and with the challenging enemies that populate the levels, you know I have to mention boss fights. That's a must in my reviews. The boss fights encapsulate the same retro feel as the rest of the game. They all have their powers and techniques, they all require their own strategies, and they all offer their own challenges. Depending on what you have equipped or what powers you are using, it can make the encounter easier or harder. You may find yourself dying a couple of times before you figure it all out but once you complete them, there is that satisfaction from accomplishment. Every choice you make can aid you or lead to your demise and this isn't just with enemies but also with the game's scrolls. Scrolls are random in discovery and they can either help you by, say, increasing the amount of currency you get from defeated enemies or they can make matters worse by, say, taking away your ability to jump. I've experienced great joy from them, hoarding excess about of currency that was dropped from evil Egyptian foes. I have also, however, received some pretty horrendous conditions. I had one where I couldn't reload or couldn't jump and this reduction in abilities made it much worse. One situation, in particular, had me lose the jump button and have to restart because the ledge I fell from had the only exit from what I could tell.
Immortal Redneck is a fantastic little game that I think everyone should play, especially those who love first-person shooters. The game offers a lot of freedom in terms of mobility and how you want to play. The game is full of enemies, challenges, secrets, and utilizes a unique mechanic when you die. The only time the game feels unfair is when you get a random scroll that can ruin your playthrough because it puts you at a disadvantage which could lead to an impossible situation. The gyro controls work and are a blessing to those who like that way to play but for those, like me, who like a little more traditional play style will find them as an inconvenience. Those are the only blemishes on an otherwise stellar experience. The game is a blast to play, it really is, and it's an absolute joy of immense fun to play.
If you ever wanted to play a modern game that has the speed of 2016's Doom and the look and feel of classic N64 inspired games, well, look no further than here. Immortal Redneck captures the spirit of that N64 era while adding its own flair on top of it, as well as an Egyptian aesthetic on it. The outside of the levels, the hub world like element where you reenter the pyramids or level up, looks better than the levels you'll be playing through. The levels fit well within the world of the game, but they can feel bland and repetitive after seeing them over and over again. There is a lack of visual variety in them that could have benefited them. Yes, there are some that offer different uses of colors and designs, but they ultimately feel the same. Some of the ones that use a different color scheme all together are the ones that stick out as being great, but I feel as if they are far and few in between.
The highlight of the game's graphics, to me, would have to be in its enemy and boss designs. The game has a healthy variety of enemies and they all look unique to one another. Everything can kill you and the spectrum is broad and ranges from flying flaming skulls that look as if they were painted at a rave to mountain dew green colored frogs. It's very visually appealing. It almost feels as if they felt that instead of being able to have diverse, colorful, environments that they would take those unused colors and apply them to the game's enemies. It works well and when taking it all as a whole, the enemies and world's compliment one another nicely. The bosses themselves have been designed to intimidate you with their designs and attacks and, once again, the team did great here. Whether you are fighting a giant Egyptian face with floating hands that unleash plague like sandstorm at you or dodging laser beams that come at every angle by a tower Egyptian behemoth, the game makes it all visually appealing.
The weapons are also nicely designed. Some of the more modern weapons look as you imagine they would in this world and with this art style but it's the more obscure ones that really shine. One that stick out almost immediately is the sword weapon that is reminiscent of Raiden's sword from Metal Gear Rising. Even the energy that flies from an attack is great looking. The items, gold, and scrolls all fit the with the world from a design standpoint and nothing really comes to mind as to sticking out negatively. Even the menu and UI is handed nicely. I do want to give a special shout out to the game's final area. In this section the developers went all out, and it is the best looking section in all of the game and I wish there was more of it.
Besides looking great and how one would expect, the weapons all sound great as well. The audio in the game truly fits the accompanying visuals. The guns pack a punch as they fire with a nice sounding bass and all of the sound effects work well, like doors opening for example. The main theme of the game, the music that plays upon start up, continues for the duration of the entire game. A bass fueled Egyptian rhythm of beats as you traverse through the game slaughtering enemies and it sounds great but my problem with it is that it lacks variety. The game relies only on this song and, maybe, there is some variety to it but then that would mean that it sounds so similar that it's indistinguishable. The music does pick up a little when your encountering enemies but little changes. Thankfully the boss fights offer more thunderous sounds that add another layer to the fight, raising the adrenaline and making it more epic. The voice of the foul mouthed vulgar Redneck isn't that great either. Giving how over the top the game is, I would have thought they would have made him more authentic and come across as a real Redneck. Instead, the voice comes across at times as a man playing the role of a Redneck, a cheap imitation. Now, it's possible this was by design and if it was they nailed it but, for me, it doesn't work.
My recommendation, despite the game's small flaws, is to pick up a copy of Immortal Redneck. Especially if you love frantic, fast paced and chaotic, first person shooters. The game is so, so, fun. Ridiculously fun and addicting. There was a lot of times where I just wanted to keep playing and never wanted to stop. Even pulling myself away to write the review, or take notes, was incredibly difficult. It's very cool to play a N64-esque game in 2018 and one that manages to capture that spirit wonderfully. In an era where microtransactions and loot boxes are an epidemic in FPS games and with companies and developers looking for as many opportunities as possible to nickel and dime gamers, it's nice to play a fun FPS game that focuses solely on making sure the player is enjoying himself. Immortal Redneck is a fantastic shooter and a great experience, it isn't perfect but it is worth purchasing.
Immortal Redneck
Fun & Exciting Gameplay
Deity Weapons & Abilities
Enemies & Bosses
Rogue Like Elements
The Music Design, Lack Of Variety
Environments Could Use More Colors Or Variety
Gyro Controls Cannot Be Switched Off
Buy Immortal Redneck On Switch
Buy Immortal Redneck On Xbox One
Tags: Crema Games, DOOM, duke nukem, First Person Shooter, fps, immortal, metal gear rising, N64, Old School, Raiden, redneck, Review, RPG
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Born and raised in Atlanta, Christian Clark began his dance training at the age of eight under the direction of Robert Barnett. Clark is a co-founder and dancer in Atlanta dance company, Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre. His dance career has spanned fifteen years, working as a principal artist with the Atlanta Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and various other companies. Clark has performed leading roles in iconic ballets like Swan Lake, Giselle, Romeo et Juliette, and Dracula to name a few. He has danced works by world renowned choreographers such as Twyla Tharp, Ohad Naharin, Alex Eckman, Liam Scarlett, Yuri Possokhov, Jorma Elo, Stanton Welch, Wayne MacGregor, and Jiri Kylian. In 2013 Clark starred in the film adaptation of Moulin Rouge the ballet led by Jorden Morris and Grammy and Emmy-winning directors Pierre and Franois Lamoureux. Along with dancing, he has shared his knowledge of dance with many schools around the country. Clark has been a guest instructor at the Greater Atlanta Christian School, Agnes Scott College, and Kennesaw State University, as well as a co-director of Atlanta Ballet's professional summer intensive.


It's tradition that my family and I watch It's A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. Ever since I can remember (and even before I was ever thought of), my Dad's family would sit and watch this movie on Christmas Eve every year. When I was little, an old black and white movie never caught my interest. My cousin and I would normally just run upstairs, slip into our Christmas PJ's, and play while my family watched It's A Wonderful Life. In my teenage years I have grown to understand that this movie is not just a boring black and white movie. That there is a significance in watching this movie every year. And it's not just because it's a Christmas movie, because it's really not if you think about it. Every year we notice something different and this year trumped all previous years. All the pieces fell together as we noticed George Bailey's turning point and encouragement during the Great Depression. Let me set his character for those of you who haven't seen this classic. George Bailey is a selfless man, friend to everyone he meets, saved his brother's life when they were young, dreams of traveling the world and not being tied down to his hometown, Bedford Falls. I'm not going to ruin the entire movie for you, but there is a part I would like to discuss. As he thought he would lose his family's building and loan, he paced across the floor during the Great Depression, as a crowd of people rushed to get their money back. George Bailey had just gotten married and was on his way to travel the world with his new wife, just like he'd dreamed to. He had his life savings in hand and they were literally driving to their honeymoon as they passed people running toward the building and loan.
You can probably guess, George Bailey being the man he was, didn't go on his honey moon. Instead he stayed to see what was going on and how he could help. His turning point, was when he looked up to see a photo of his father, who passed in the beginning of the movie. Underneath the hanging portrait was a quote that read "All you can take with you is that which you've given away." He turned around, and gave away his life savings of $2,000. And of course, more happens in the film to prove this quote to be relevant. He ends up needing more money than he gave away. That's just how God works. Luke 6:38 says, Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." That's just what happened here. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over. You don't give to receive, or for some kind of reward. You give because you love and care for each other, receiving is just an unexpected bonus.
I encourage you this season to not worry. This movie helped me see that something as little as giving Christmas gifts shouldn't stress me out financially. My love language is giving gifts, and when I think I don't have enough to give, I get anxious. I'm not saying be stupid and give all your money away, however, when someone is in need, help them. Not just at Christmas, but everyday. My goal for 2018 is selflessness. In 2017 I focused on finding myself and working to better myself. Now that I'm confident in who I am, and in Who's I am, 2018 is a year I'm declaring to be intentionally focused on selflessness. It truly is A Wonderful Life, and I can't believe it took me this long to realize the true meaning of this movie and how impactful it really is.


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Q: Find elements that generate the group $\Omega$ Given the set $ \Omega = \{ e^{2k\pi i /(7^m)} : k \in \mathbb{Z} \}$, as $e$ is Euler number and $i^2 = -1$ forms a group under multiplication. The number $\omega \in \Omega$ such that $<\omega > = \Omega$ , in other word, the element $\omega$ generates all of elements in $\Omega$.
Here is my attempt.
I tried to expand what elements of $\Omega$ could have.
$\Omega = \{ \cdots e^{-2 \pi i /(7^m)},e^0, e^{2 \pi i /(7^m)} e^{4 \pi i /(7^m)}, e^{6 \pi i /(7^m)}, .. \} $
I did trial and error but I can't find any element generates $\Omega$ but I'm not sure for what I'm doing. Did I make a mistake? please help me

A: One useful observation is that multiplication by $k$ in the exponent corresponds to repeated addition $k$ times (as $k \in \mathbb{Z}$), and, speaking informally, addition 'upstairs' corresponds to multiplication 'downstairs'. More explicitly, $e^{a + b} = e^{a}e^{b}$ for any $a,b \in \mathbb{C}$. Working through examples with small $k$ if needed, how does this help you decompose arbitrary $e^{2 k \pi i /7^{m}}$ as a power of $e^{2 q \pi i /7^{m}}$ for some fixed $q \in \mathbb{Z}$? It may be useful to note that multiplication 'upstairs' corresponds to exponentiation 'downstairs', i.e. $e^{ab} = (e^{a})^{b}$ - the proof follows fairly directly from the previous fact about exponentials.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


So not only does the molded pate work as a star on a table of munchies, it can also do heavy lifting in a supporting role for a main dish. It works on sandwiches and begs to be crumbled into a salad. If you're in the mood to gild a lily, there should be no reason you can't knead crumbles into biscuit dough before baking.
For a simple way to really highlight this luscious spread, serve it on a bagel or as a tartine topped with herbs and veg for an any-day lunch worth lingering over.
Or expand that idea just slightly for something you can serve to guests by whipping up a tart crust and spreading the pate down before topping with herbs and any lovely thing you can grab—sauteed mushrooms, grilled asparagus or broccolini, or oven-dried tomatoes. Bake it off, pour some wine, and you're entertaining with ease.
Similarly, it makes great pizza.
It's fabulous to be able to mold the pate and serve it on a plate, but the good news is, if you don't need the firmer texture or an impressive presentation, you can skip chilling the pate before baking. That means no planning ahead. Blend, spoon into a ramekin, bake, and it's ready to go.
That works particularly well for this greens pie. Mixing the softer pate fresh from the oven into a mix of baby spinach and baby arugula allows the heat from the spread to wilt the greens just a bit before spreading the whole gorgeous shebang on pizza dough.
If green things on pizza don't work in your house, rest assured that topping a generous layer of pate (about a quarter-batch per 10-inch pie) with canned fire-roasted tomatoes and herbs makes a beautifully rich, salty, satisfying pie. And just imagine what substituting fresh tomatoes will do for the whole thing this summer.
Blend all ingredients with an immersion blender until smooth.
For a softer spread, divide evenly between two 10-oz ramekins. Bake 40 minutes, until puffed and golden brown on top. The spread can be used immediately as a pizza or tart base before baking, or let cool before serving on a tartine or crackers.
Alternately, to mold, line two 10-oz ramekins with a double layer of cheesecloth. Divide the mixture evenly between the ramekins, fold cheesecloth over, and chill for at least 3 hours, or up to overnight. (In a pinch, chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.) Use the cheesecloth to lift the pate from the ramekins, carefully transfer to an oiled baking sheet (without cheesecloth), and bake for 40 minutes, until golden. Let cool thoroughly before serving.


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Motivational Quotes: Martin Luther King
Life Areas | Authors
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
"Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest."
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring"
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."
"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. "
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."


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Home World US 'Sex and the City' reboot shocks fans by killing off major character...
'Sex and the City' reboot shocks fans by killing off major character in first episode
The reboot of HBO's hit show "Sex and the City" returned to the screen with a long-awaited reunion on Thursday. HBO Max, which like CNN is part of WarnerMedia
The show picked back up with characters, Carrie Bradshaw [Sarah Jessica Parker], Miranda Hobbes [Cynthia Nixon] and Charlotte York [Kristin Davis], minus Samantha Jones [Kim Cattrall], who opted not to return.
Also back were fan favorites Mr. Big [Chris Noth], Evan Handler, David Eigenberg, Mario Cantone and the late Willie Garson, who died in September.
But shockingly, Mr. Big's character was killed off in the first episode. He's seen riding his Peloton, and then he suffers a heart attack. Many viewers were distraught, taking to social media to blast the show for such a tragic way to kick off the reboot.
A Peloton representative even responded to the unexpected storyline in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
"'SATC' fans, like me, are saddened by the news that Mr. Big dies of a heart attack," Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a member of Peloton's health and wellness advisory council and a preventative cardiologist told the LA Times. "Mr. Big lived what many would call an extravagant lifestyle — including cocktails, cigars, and big steaks — and was at serious risk as he had a previous cardiac event in Season 6."
"These lifestyle choices and perhaps even his family history, which often is a significant factor, were the likely cause of his death. Riding his Peloton Bike may have even helped delay his cardiac event," Steinbaum added.
"Sex and the City" premiered in 1998, based off of the book written by Candace Bushnell and ran for six seasons. It spawned two films and a prequel TV show called "The Carrie Diaries."
"And Just Like That" will consist of 10 episodes.
'Sex and the City' reboot shocks fans by killing off major character in first episode - CNN
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The Cambridge Building Society has been recognised in the What Mortgage Awards for the fourth year in a row picking up Highly Commended in the Best Regional Building Society category.
The awards are voted for by customers and provide a stamp of approval, recognising and rewarding the best businesses in the UK's mortgage and associated personal finance markets.
The Cambridge won the award for the previous three years but this year missed out on the top honour in the highly competitive category.
The What Mortgage Awards, now in their 24th year, are unique as they are driven entirely by the votes of customers. For six weeks, banks and building societies were nominated across a range of categories.
Andy Lucas, Chief Operating Officer at The Cambridge, said: "It's always an honour to be recognised in these independent and prestigious awards.
"We constantly keep in mind the needs of our customers and make sure we provide a personal service to support them along their mortgage journey. We are not afraid to innovate and constantly look at how we do things and what we do with a view to improving what we provide wherever we can.


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Leonard Cohen Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, December 4
By Scott Tavener
With obvious similarities, porkpie hats and fedoras fall into the same genus. Nevertheless, they're worlds apart. While the former exudes a certain gallant roguishness (see Popeye Doyle), the latter, if worn in earnest (i.e., not you, Joey Jeremiah), radiates class and sophistication (see Leonard Cohen).
Earlier this year, Cohen turned 78 years old. He is not your buddy; he's your man. He exists in rarefied air, and he looks damn natural in a gentleman's hat. Despite the years logged — or perhaps because of them — his shows are marathons. Fittingly, he jogged out to start the first of a two-night ACC engagement. He wouldn't say goodnight for more than three hours.
Long-distance endurance is largely about pace and Cohen and co. managed theirs expertly. Wading in with a laid-back, Euro cabaret-indebted take on "Dance Me to the End of Love," things began slowly, notwithstanding the incisive fiddle. Similarly, the rhythm section stayed in first gear for "The Future" before a one-two punch of "Bird on the Wire" and "Everybody Knows" picked up the energy level.
Backed by an extraordinary nine-piece band, Cohen was a generous leader, frequently recognizing players by name and doling out deserved compliments. Whether going ominous on "Everybody Knows" or jaunty on "Darkness," the rhythm section was integral.
Also, bravura turns came from an amazing Javier Mas on the laud and bandurria (think modern lutes), and Alexandru Bublitchi on violin. Throughout, backup singers, the Webb Sisters and longtime collaborator Sharon Robinson deftly buoyed Cohen's singular rasp.
Across two sets and two encores, highlights abounded, from a spoken word "A Thousand Kisses Deep" and a Nick Cave-style "Tower of Song" to a jazzed-up "Anyhow" and a Celtic-inspired "Come Healing."
Naturally, hits like "Suzanne," "Hallelujah" and "So Long, Marianne" culled sing-alongs, and other standouts included a tango-inflected "I'm Your Man," a grand "Take This Waltz" and apropos closer "Closing Time."
Eloquent, elegant and altogether charming, Cohen delivered a ceaselessly engaging show that profited from its extended runtime. And he'll do it again, fedora and all.
More Leonard Cohen
Listen to Leonard Cohen's New Album 'Thanks for the Dance'
Leonard Cohen's posthumous new album is here, and you can listen to all of Thanks for the Dance now. The record was produced by Cohen's s...
Leonard Cohen Thanks for the Dance
Some legends don't get a final encore, one last chance to leave it all on record for the world to hear. For the ones that do, however, it's...
HAIM Are Covering Leonard Cohen for the 'Hanukkah+' Compilation
HAIM, Yo La Tengo and the Flaming Lips are just some of the artists that appear on a new holiday album dubbed Hanukkuh+. It's due out Novemb...
Exclaim!'s 50 Best Canadian Songs of the 2010s
With the takeover of streaming platforms and playlists, not to mention the shrinking of our collective attention spans, a single track has n...
Exclaim!'s 50 Best Canadian Albums of the 2010s
After the CanRock explosion of the 1990s and indelible contributions to the 2000s golden age of indie, Canadians' musical output at-large to...


BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Steyr Arms announced today it will invest $2.9 million to add a manufacturing component to its Alabama facility, a key assembly and distribution hub for the firearms maker. The project will create up to 10 jobs, according to the Birmingham Business Alliance.
The company's Jefferson County location is its only U.S. subsidiary that imports, distributes and assembles Steyr firearms, as well as some firearms from Merkel. Steyr plans to relocate the manufacturing of its products for U.S. sales from Austria to the Bessemer facility.
"This expansion represents a great deal of trust in our operations in Bessemer, on behalf of our parent company," said Scott O'Brien, president of Steyr Arms.
"Our operations and workforce here are world-class, and we are proud to be able to serve our U.S. customers in a new and efficient way," he added.
The investment will mainly include the purchase of new equipment to process components used in the production of firearms and final assembly. The project is expected to be fully completed in June 2019, though manufacturing is expected to start on-site by the end of this year.
Steyr Arms is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious firearms manufacturers. It produces comprehensive lines of premium hunting rifles and precision sporting and tactical firearms.
In 2013, the company invested $1.7 million to move its local operations from Trussville to Bessemer and has since doubled its workforce. It currently employs 15 people in Bessemer.
"Steyr Arms' decision to add a manufacturing component to its operation in Bessemer shows that Alabama provides an ideal environment for firearms makers, along with many other manufacturing businesses," said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce.
"In addition, every time a company expands in Alabama, it transmits a vote of confidence to the world that the state is a place where success can be found," he added.
Steyr Arms worked with the City of Bessemer, Jefferson County and the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) to receive abatements for the expansion.
"The entire Commission is excited that Steyr Arms Inc. has decided to expand its operations in Jefferson County," Jefferson County Commissioner David Carrington said.
Foreign direct investment in the region remains strong because of companies like Steyr, said Jeff Traywick, senior project manager for the BBA, who is working with the company on the expansion.
"We are excited to see this prominent company, with a history going back more than 150 years, continuing their investment in Bessemer," Traywick said. "The location of Steyr's facility has been an asset to their wholesale distribution activities and we look forward to seeing production added at this location.


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package io.trydent.stp.tax;

import io.trydent.stp.item.TaxedItem;

public interface SaleTax extends Tax<TaxedItem> {
  static SaleTax of(final Rate rate) {
    return new SaleTaxImpl(new TaxImpl(rate.value()));
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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I've never written a blogpost on the subject of bikes before: I've just written about 150 posts on cycling. So I thought I had better remedy this.
I've been spending a lot of time in bike shops lately: mostly Evans, but occasionally Halfords, Cycle Surgery, and others. I have no hesitation recommending Evans, by the way, as I've found their staff knowledgeable and helpful, and a big plus for them in my book is that they are helping fund the London Cycling Campaign's Space for Cycling campaign: exactly the kind of thing that the big bike firms in the UK should be getting involved with, in my view, for their own self-interest. (Brompton previously helped with the LCC's Go Dutch campaign for the 2012 Mayoral elections). Another plus for Evans is that they give a 10% discount for in-store purchases on presentation of an LCC membership card. They even allowed me to take an expensive bike out to test-ride it, for no charge, with only a credit card handed over and sight of a British Library card as proof of identity, and there was no sales pressure at all (I didn't buy it). The branch in question, my nearest one, was their huge shop in the most unpromising location imaginable, on the roaring A41 trunk road in Hendon, on the edge of a steep hill, in the Bikeless Borough of Barnet. I once said to them that I thought this was a terrible location for a bike shop, but they assured me, to my surprise, that they see quite a few commuters cycling past on the A41. In any case they usually seem to be busy, though I suspect most customers get there by car.
Anyway, my point is to make this observation, having spent some time looking at the bikes they stock in London bike shops: the bikes you see in shops are different to the bikes you see on the streets, predominantly. Put the other way round, if, you survey the bikes you see people using for practical tasks on the streets of London, they are untypical of the bikes the shops mostly seem to be trying to sell. This is not entirely true, of course. There is some overlap of the sets. But they are different sets, and that causes me to wonder why.
At Asda. Spot who hasn't learned to use the iPhone camera without their finger over the lens yet.
Here's a scene by the (terrible) bike-parking facility at my local Asda in Colindale. You don't see many people shopping by bike in these parts; I would guess it is a small fraction of one percent of the number of people driving (some people use buses and walk as well, of course). But I've been looking at the bikes people do use for shopping here. The nearest bike to the camera is one of mine. It is my lowest-quality bike. (I acquired it in Morocco on a tour that went wrong, after the bikes I and my friends had taken to Gatwick never turned up in North Africa. I kept it with the idea of leaving it at theft-prone locations like stations, but then I upgraded many components because they were annoying me, and now it is quite good, though still heavy.) It has a rack, mudguards, dynamo lights front and rear, a prop-stand, bell, and straightish, flattish handlebars, giving a fairly upright riding position, like all my bikes. It's my entirely unscientific observation that a high proportion of the bikes you see in London being used practically, on a day-to-day basis, have many of these attributes, which are clearly untypical of the bikes you see in shops, at least in the raw form in which they are sold.
The bike behind mine in the photo has the mudguards and rack, plus bungees, and bell, but battery, not dynamo, lights. It does however have some sort of chain-guard, a refinement which mine sadly lacks. The lady loading the bike at the back, which you can't really see, has both a wicker basket on the front and panniers on the rack.
My point, of course, is that the bikes you see in shops are not sold ready for use as practical machines. Everything you need to turn them into such is an extra in most cases, and in many cases the bike would not be very suitable for such utility use anyway. Go into any low-end warehouse like Halfords or Go Outdoors, and you will see rows and rows of samey, unispiring hybrid and mountain-style bikes, the vast majority with no mudguards, no rack, no incorporated means of carrying luggage of any kind, and no lights. This is in a country famous for its wet weather, and where we have 17 hours of darkness per day for part of the year. So any bike that is used at all is almost inevitably going to be have to used in the wet and the dark, but they don't give you mudguards or built-in lighting. Dynamo lighting systems, so common on the Continent, are almost unheard of in the big UK bike chains, and hub gears, so much better suited to stop-start urban cycling, and so much better for those who don't want to be bothered with bike maintenance, lubrication and cleaning, than the ubiquitous derailleurs front and rear, are rare indeed.
If you go into a store that sells higher-quality bikes, like Evans, or most small, independent shops, you'll see, more predominantly than the faceless mountain-style bikes, row upon row of alloy and carbon racing-style bikes with drop handlebars, derailleurs, and no accessories. Who buys these? I don't know. I don't see many of them actually ridden on urban roads. Here's a point to baffle most people outside biking culture: these bikes are called "road bikes" by everyone in the trade, and by cycling geeks. An ordinary member of the public I suspect, would expect the term "road bike" to mean a bike equipped for normal uses on normal roads, but of course you and I know it means a racing bike: always one with drop handlebars. What should be referred to as a "road bike" is called a "utility" or "town bike". But these are incredibly rare in our shops, so most people who go in to a shop looking for one of these will probably go out with a mountain-hybrid as the closest available thing, though it probably won't be very suitable at all, without a lot of changes that they have to make. Paradoxically, many so-called "mountain bikes" are actually closer to what is needed as a "road bike" for utility use than what is called a "road bike" is. This all puts a certain barrier between the bike trade and the non bike-enthusiast potential customer, I feel. Language is used confusingly; the categories are wrong.
Why is this called a "road bike"...
...rather than this? (Pictures nicked from Evans Cycles, who classify the red bike as a "hybrid", which it is not, it is a classic town bike design – nothing could be less "hybrid". There's a categorisation problem.)
So what is going on? If the general truth of my observations is accepted, why are the bikes that actually get used around town not the ones the shops sell? There are a number of possible explanations, and the truth is doubtless a combination of these. One explanation is that a high proportion of the bikes sold in the UK are indeed only sold for leisure and sports use. They are taken out of the city in cars and ridden in the countryside, or abroad, or people ride them from their homes in the London suburbs, early on Sunday mornings before I am about, and go on "club runs" and audaxes on them. Some of my friends do do this, and there is nothing wrong with it. Typically, these people don't ride during the week and don't do their shopping by bike. They aren't interested in cycle campaigning or in the concept of mass utility cycling. The people who ride these bikes are being sold the right bikes, and the shops are catering to them.
Another explanation is that lots of people are buying the bikes on offer and then rapidly giving up cycling after trying it in real UK conditions. The problem here is not primarily with the products the trade is offering, but with the lack of suitable infrastructure to cycle on in the UK: you can't cycle unless you can come to terms with, and deal with, constant threat, harassment and bullying from drivers, the lack of subjective safety David Hembrow bangs on about. Most people cannot do this, so the bikes they buy languish in garages, or rust away in gardens. The saddest possible explanation however is that many people are being mis-sold inappropriate machines, and that they fail to become regular cyclists when they might have done so had the products from the retailers been better suited to the tasks they needed a bike to perform. Under this explanation, those users who survive the winnowing out process due to hostile conditions mentioned above do so preferentially if they have been supplied with better bikes in the first place, or have had the determination to improve them themselves.
These are not new ideas of mine. I recall two decades ago Paul Gannon addressing a day-long conference at Camden Town Hall, organised jointly by Camden Cyclists and the council, and asking why the British bike trade did not offer more bikes better suited to utility purposes. He made the point that though the trade will just say they are responding to demand, and that because cycling is perceived largely as a leisure activity and a sport in the UK, that is what they cater to, in reality, the problem is that there is a marketing job which is not being done right. He commented that every successful product is marketed actively, so that people who didn't think they needed it at first become convinced that they do, and that the trade really does not try to market practical bikes as they should. They are, in other words, purely reactive, complacent and lethargic.
Since then, the situation does seem to have improved slightly. There are small, independent shops in London specialising in practical bikes, and Evans does stock a significant number of such machines. (I was able to get the picture of the red Pinnacle off their website). The big lacuna I still observe is the lack of bikes on sale with built-in lighting. This seems to me to be the biggest issue, bordering on scandal. It is as illegal for bikes to be used after dark without lights as it is cars, and rightly so. But how many motorists would have lights if their machines were not supplied with them built in, powered (indirectly) by the fuel they supply? How many would fiddle about to fit them themselves, with screwdrivers and plastic bands, or pay for the shop to fit them as an extra? Of course, this is a silly, childish point. The concept makes no sense. But that our bikes are sold without lights in this 17-hours of darkness country shows clearly the immaturity of our cycling culture.
The UK bike trade, I am told, anecdotally, has historically resisted legislation to make lights on bikes compulsory at point of sale. The have argued it does not make sense for a trade which is leisure and sports-driven. Their lobbying has been successful, to our detriment, and maybe their own, viewed long-term. For there is a big credibility problem for cycling with the majority of the British public, and much of this stems from the perceived problem of cyclists being lawbreakers. And part of this comes from the difficulty with lights. If quality, solid, reliable and theft-proof built-in lights are not normally supplied with new bikes, chances are that a significant proportion of bikes, inevitably, will be ridden at night without lights. The problem of being responsible for sorting the lighting is too great for many users. What is sold to them is too easily stolen, runs out of battery power, or falls off. Or they just convince themselves they won't ride in the dark, and then they find they have to.
The Germans seem to have solved the problem elegantly. The law there is that bikes over a certain weight must be sold with lights conforming to certain standards. The weight criterion serves to exclude high-end sports bikes. So basically all the bikes used on the streets in Germany have lights built-in. A side-effect is that Germany has developed the world's leading dynamo and bike light industry, and we import their products and use their standards. This legislation has had beneficial social, safety, environmental and economic effects for the country that enacted it. I'd support a similar approach here.
I think it's probably naive to expect the UK bike industry to make a big change on its own. This is a complex, factorially-interlinked, maybe circular, problem. The trade think they are supplying according to the demand. They perceive the main demand in this country as sporty. The demand for utility "Continental-style" machines won't increase until the government makes the infrastructure better, so a bigger mass of people feel safer engaging in slow, relaxed, routine utility cycling. Unfortunately, the character of the trade as it is at the moment creates problems for people trying to get into cycling, and we need those people to get into it to accelerate the change by experiencing the issues we face and joining the political lobby (though organisations such as the LCC).
The trade resists legislative change on lighting, though that change, arguably, might serve to regularise cycling into British society better, ultimately increasing their turnover. (They could certainly make a lot of money selling high-quality lights and dynamos, and better-quality fully-equipped bikes). The trade promotes certain other things quite a lot, like helmets and high-visibility clothing, that serve, arguably, to distance cycling as an activity even more from the mainstream public. The trade often seems unable to provide people with what they need, or tries to persuade them they need something different to that which they really need. It confuses customers, but that's inextricably linked to the rest of the cycling culture we have, which is shaped by a combination of history and current environment.
Dave Warnock commented on his blog 42 Bikes yesterday:
Also worth noting is that in the UK where cycling is not at all normal you find a much higher percentage of people who ride bikes are "bike geeks" compared to the Netherlands where bikes are just bikes for most people who ride them. That is a clear indicator of the amount of work to be done in the UK to get non bike geeks on bikes (work that I believe should be nearly all focused on safe and convenient infrastructure).
He's right. Though you can get here, or build up yourself, of course, highly practical bikes, we need a situation where those who aren't really interested in bikes don't have to do a lot of research and search high and low, and don't have to fiddle about themselves for hours, just to get easily what any ordinary non-enthusiast bike user would need. What they need should be in their face as soon as they step into a bike shop, as it would be in Denmark or the Netherlands.
In previous discussion of the bike trade in the UK versus that in the Netherlands, Carlton Reid, who is something of a spokesman for the UK trade, has assured me that the Dutch bike trade does not promote utility cycling much either, because most of their income comes not from the utilitarian mass of cyclists, but the sporting minority. This seems unlikely to me, though I suppose it is possible that there is more profit on one anodised stem than on 100 inner tubes. If true, it maybe indicates we can never expect much better from the trade, that it always follows a market environment determined by external conditions, and that it is never likely to be much of an ally for cycle campaigning. I think this could be too pessimistic a view. The actions of Brompton, Evans and other companies supporting LCC campaigning argues otherwise.
When I once commented in a tweet that the Dutch don't really care much about their bikes, they just regard them as "furniture", David Hembrow reacted indignantly, claiming that the "furniture" analogy was not right, and that many Dutch do in fact spend a lot of money on their bikes and regard a nice bike as a status symbol. This could also be true. But it doesn't really invalidate the "bike geek" point. In the UK, if you ride a bike you are probably in to messing about with bikes, adjusting them, maintaining them and optimising them, whether for speed, or usefulness. If you are Dutch or Danish or German, you just buy a bike and use it, and get it serviced when it needs it, like you would a car, or central heating, or a TV set. It's rather symptomatic of a mass culture of anything that most users don't know how to fix the gadget in question.
In summary, I think that to change both the culture of cycling in the UK, and the type of bikes we get, the primary requirement is for government at local and national level to work much harder to change the conditions. The trade could do far more, both in joining and supporting campaigners in ambitious lobbying, and in disseminating more widely an image of cycling that would appeal beyond the enthusiast, backing that up with more pro-active marketing of practical utility bikes, changing the language around them and clarifying the message. They should also be willing to accept sensible legislation on lighting at point of sale. But the situation we have at the moment with respect to these attitudes is a bit of a log-jam, and it's hard to see any part of this jigsaw moving without all the other parts moving first, which is where the basic problem lies. There's been a slow drift in the right direction since Paul Gannon spoke on this 20 years ago, but the fact is that a typical UK bike shop still looks very different to a Dutch one, and this is both a symptom of, and a contributory factor to, the big problem of promoting utility cycling in the UK.
Best wishes for 2014 to my readers.
Labels: bike shops, practical bikes
Monchberter 30 December 2013 at 14:06
I completely agree David, particularly on "bike geekiness". I used to ride a hybridised MTB on my commute, with all the attendant gear and clothing and a fair amount spent in time and money adapting the bike to my needs. I did this as yes, I was passionately interested in bicycles, their function and wore my ability to shape it to my needs as a badge of honour.
However, I got tired of this approach towards the end of last year and after research invested in a folding bike appropriate for utility cycling. Looking back, although the folder (a Brompton) and luggage was initially more expensive, a rough calculation tells me that i have likely spent more on my adapted MTB and gear to the same ends.
Getting the choice right at the outset is a wise goal, and accessibility and appropriateness indeed vital for keeping new cyclists interested without frustrating them with yet another widget or piece of kit they feel obliged to bolt on to their bike.
Myself, I don't regret the time spent in teaching myself maintenance and the intricacies of gearing or setting up brakes, but then, as you imply, cycling remains a geeks choice.
Paul M 30 December 2013 at 16:40
I have been rummaging in my memory to think of any bikes I have ever bought in a multiple such as Evans or Halfords. I came up with one - a 20" wheel kiddie bike on which my kids first learnt to ride.
Apart from that it has always been either mail-order (4 bikes, of which one from Kettler, and two "town bikes" in a sale from Somerset specialist St John St Cycles) or local specialists.
That reflects on my choice of bikes - Brompton or Birdie folders which multiples generally don't stock, or town bikes with mudguards and hub gears. I dislike derailleurs for several reasons, particularly because if you don't concentrate and think ahead you always end up leaving changing down until it's too late as you hit the lights or a sharp increase in gradient.
In fact both Halfords and Evans stock town bikes, but when did you last see one on display in any of their branches? You have to browse online or go through their paper catalogue to find them, and you then have the classic British cultural issue - can I trouble them to get one in store so I can try it? (Would they even agree, or would they say no - you can place an order or nothing?)
And when it comes to the most celebrated models - Brompton, or Pashley, for example - their price is the same as an independent retailer, or perhaps more once you have factored in the discounts which the independents give to LCC members.
And finally, when they need repair or maintenance, the independent is much more accommodating. My favourite retailer operates a first-come, first-served no-booking arrangement, where if you drop in before 9am there is a good chance you will get it back by 7pm, or at worst the following day. When I once tried to book a bike into Evans for a service, I was quoted three weeks delay before they could take it. Not much use when you have that itchy feeling that something is going to give in a few days if you don't get it seen to.
There is one thing though which I think even the independents have yet to really step p to the plate on - e-bikes. Where I live, I think there are quite a few people who are put off cycling by the terrain, which is quite hilly. Most of them have never heard of e-bikes, but when you explain, they are quite enthused, only the nearest e-bike retailer is probably 20 or more miles away.
Jack Thurston 30 December 2013 at 16:52
Interesting post, and many good points. Road bikes are called road bikes because the design is derived from a design for racing on the road, as opposed to racing on the track. The history of cycling in Britain is largely a sporting, touring history. Utility cycling (which in the British context means cycling to and from work - and maybe through the morning mist to Holy Communion) is a distant, poorer, less glamorous relation.
On lighting, a good dynamo set will add at least £50 to the cost of a bike, more if it's a hub-driven dynamo and the lights have capacitors that keep them on when stationary. This is a big increment in a country where the average price of a bike is somewhere around £100. I think the Netherlands (or maybe Germany) comes top of the pile when it comes to average bike price, and this tells us a lot about how bikes are valued and the type of bike that is sold, perhaps also the accessories (like lights, mudguards etc) that are included in the basic price of the bike. It also tells us that bikes in the UK are regarded as toys, from bicycle shaped objects for kids to ten thousand pound carbon fibre boys' toys for middle aged men with more money than time to ride.
Personally, I've always thought that the classic British tourer makes for an excellent city bike for London. The Dawes Londoner was once sold by Covent Garden Bikes, and you still see many of them around. I have one still: http://thebikeshow.net/could-u-be-the-most-beautiful-bike-in-the-world/ Similar bikes were made by Claud Butler and Raleigh, based on a earlier touring design from the 50s.
The Raleigh Pioneer - the original 'hybrid' - was a decent attempt to update this classic machine, swapping the drop handlebars for flat bars, adding mountain bike style gears (though no hub gears).
The British bike industry has made practical bikes and I hope will continue to do so, but the current bike boom is very much sport and leisure driven, and bike sales and marketing reflect this. Bike companies in the US were the first to design a new generation of interesting machines that combine weekday utility with weekend leisure potential, bikes like the Surly Cross Check are good examples. In the UK some smaller brands like Genesis, Charge and Planet X (and others) have recently begun to makes bikes like this, increasingly specifying hub gears, which is encouraging. Hopefully we'll see them more in the shops and on the streets!
Denn 30 December 2013 at 17:08
I completely agree as well. I tried commuting with a high-end roadbike, with lots of carbon. It was light and fast. However, it was twitchy, lacked fenders (or mounts for fenders), and I had to carry any cargo in a messenger bag, that made my center of gravity very high. I ended up very crash-prone, and sore from the transmission of road vibration right up my spine. I ended up moving over to a 1971 french folding bike, with full fenders, two racks, dynamo lights. The trips are so much more relaxed, and I can carry huge amounts of stuff fairly easily, in a much more comfortable manner. Unfortunately, I'm unable to find a bike like this made today, without having one made custom, at great expense.
George Coulouris 30 December 2013 at 18:30
I agree with much of what you say David, especially the points about built-in lighting systems and hub gears. But I think there is a potentially large group of users who both use a bike for commuting, shopping and to go touring or fitness riding. Often they would like to do all of those things on a single bike, and some even manage to do so, but most have two or more bikes.
This presents a challenge that neither Bromptons nor Dutch utility bikes meet well. With modern components (e.g. 14-speed hub gears and low-mass super-efficient dynamo systems) and good understanding of bike design it is possible to do so. Such bikes aren't cheap. but perhaps one should compare their cost with two less 'all purpose bikes'. I think you know which bike I think meets that challenge (and it is British designed and built), but I won't mention a name in case I am accused of advertising.
I tend to agree the standard Dutch utility bike may not be the optimum machine for most British conditions. We have more severe gradients, worse surfaces and typically large distances between home and workplaces due to the layout of our cities. Dave Warnock has done an interesting post on what he considers the optimal machine to be. What he comes up with is extremely expensive, and doesn't even approximately correspond to anything that is produced as standard, but I think it should be possible to do something like it much cheaper, and I wish some British entrepreneur would.
I agree we could keep the all features and general shape of Dutch bikes but give them more gears, with the new generation of hubs, better brakes, hub dynamo lighting, and build them lighter but almost as strong, and still be in a moderate (not cheap) price bracket. I'd buy one.
(I'll end the mystery here by saying that George doesn't want to be accused of advertising Moulton bikes.)
greg byshenk 31 December 2013 at 05:33
I agree that the "standard Dutch utility bike" may not be the best for all purposes, but there are lots of other options in a similar configuration. There are Dutch bikes with aluminum frames and (relatively) lightweight components, but also fenders, dynamo lighting, and (8-speed) hub gears and brakes.
Adam Edwards 30 December 2013 at 21:18
You made me think about our five bikes and where we got them:
My Brompton came from Velorution: Velorution is one of those bikes as fashion item shops which (gasp shock horror) employs women as well as men to sell bikes, perhaps not such a daft idea when 51% of the population is female. I've yet to see a woman working in Evans, sadly. (This includes the branch you went to which is at the bottom of the hill from Middlesex University where I work.)
My teen daughter's Bobbins Birdie came from the now close Bobbins shop. It's a 3 speed hub classic design which she can waste the BMX boys on on the way to school. Evans now sell their bikes as does our local Hatfield Cycles, but that's a change in the past year or so. Does that mean someone has done some market research?
My son has an Islabike which came mail order. Prior to that we had a series of Pukys for both kids.
My partner has a Pashley Tri-1 tricyle with folding stem, vital to get it into the front of the house. This we had to get from our nearest dealer in north London, but which they delivered.
Finally my "mid life crisis sports car substitute" Helios tandem came direct from Circe Cycles. I bought this because it has small wheels, can fit in spaces other tandems cannot and is fitted with the Brompton luggage block, so all my Brompton bags fit, which is a dead easy way to swap over the tool kit.
Not one of these practial bikes came from one of the chain stores as my experience, like yours, is they don't have what ordinary cyclists want. The Bobbins' at Evans shows a bit of a shift in the right direction.
Andrea 30 December 2013 at 22:59
I am sure you all miss the old Velorution shop, which did more than anyone else to improve the standard of British bicycle stores ;-)
I ride everyday a Velorution Scorcher (yes with hub gears and hub dynamo), a bike of great comfort, speed and minimal maintenance. [I have also toured several thousand kilometres with it]
If you find one second hand, grab it and it will serve you for years.
Clark Nikolai 31 December 2013 at 07:58
The lack of choice in styles of bikes and in standard accessories was once very poor. I remember at one time the only bikes available were ten-speed racing bikes. The only style that all stores carried with no other types sold. I saw many people turn the handle bars upside down to be more comfortable.
Now, in many cities in Canada, other styles are available. In a city like Vancouver or Toronto, you can find some nice practical utility bikes. Good to see.
I am not happy with the selection of lights available here though. If I want to pick up a light at the local store, all there is to choose from are battery driven super bright LEDs. I can't blame the stores too much though as they likely can't even carry something that their distributors don't carry.
The thing that's different than a few decades ago is that if some product line isn't sold at all in a country, people there will still find out about its existence from foreign websites. For example if you go to philips.nl or philips.de you can see some nice bike lights available but if you go to philips.ca they aren't listing any bike lights at all. Why don't they sell them in Canada?
Dutch bike manufacturers and shops make a lot of profit with electric assist bikes.
Those are not cheap bikes, but are also not for sport since they only provide an assist until 25 km/h.
grey tape 3 January 2014 at 17:15
I've ben hearing these comments about bikes for decades. My routine bike is a Dawes Galaxy touring bike. I note that this year "touring bike" doesn't even seem to exist in articles describing the kinds of bikes one might buy.
Lack of accessories on bikes is because that makes the bike cheaper. Lowest sticker price is all that matters.
Regarding lights being included (as is legally required in NL, and I think D as well, and maybe more countries too) you have the same problem as with bike facilities: The minimum legally required is the maximum you ever actually get. There's never any point in gold plating. But I want better lights.
"Touring bikes" are no longer a category. "Road bikes" are a fairly new category, designed for people who want sporty bikes, but have no idea that there are different kinds, optimised for different purposes. What the ones in Evans ads are optimised for, who knows.
The only thing I've ever bought in Velorution has been a cardboard bike helmet. It's not for wearing - I don't wear bike helmets - but the idea that a cardboard helmet meets the standard appeals to me. When I bought it, just recently, they gave me a copy of their glossy catalogue. It has a good interview with Andrew Gilligan, London's bike Commissioner
Jeremy Parker
Danny Yee 4 January 2014 at 21:58
My first bike (bought four years ago) was an old-fashioned three-speed. Not a bad bike at all for getting around Oxford - it did at least have a kickstand, mudguards, chain guard, hub gears - but I had no idea what I was missing till I upgraded it six months ago, to a European-style city bike with an 8-speed hub, suspension forks, dynamo lights, a parking brake, etc. etc. See my write up about this at http://wanderingdanny.com/oxford/2013/07/kettler-spirit-city-bike-review/
I think you're spot on here. The shops aren't even meeting current demand.
I very often see people on bikes riding with shopping bags balanced on each handle – sometimes two or three bags on each handle! This is a frequent occurrence. It looks so dangerous to me, but I guess people feel it's a viable solution for them.
These people obviously wanted a bike with some carrying capacity – a rack and panniers, or a basket – but ended up with a standard mountain bike and are struggling with the compromises.
So I do believe there is *already* a market out there for bikes with practical fixtures. Maybe it's not a massive one yet, but it's definitely there.
More than once we've been stopped while out on our Dutch bikes, by people on foot asking what they're called and where we bought them. Unfortunately, we got them in Haarlem so it's a bit out of the way for most people. I'm not even sure that there's a word for them in English. Tell people to ask for a Dutch town bike.
Vittoria 15 January 2014 at 13:07
Totally agree and it is something which has been on my mind for a while (I am Italian and there is a large selection of utilities bikes there but it's too complicated to take one back!). I find it even worse for children where the choice is usually between heavy mountain-type bikes or Barbie-type pink things, often with no mudguards or rack. Several years ago we bought a bike (of a reasonable weight, with mudguards and back rack) in France for our 8 yrs old daughter and managed to take it back from holiday on the bike carrier of the car. for me, I have bought second-hand bikes from a German lady (3 speeds, mudguards, etc) and, the only new one, a Dawes Kalahari which I find quite good (but probably too many gears for my needs). having to add your own lights (and remember them each time) is a real pain and I wish the bikes here had dynamos!
CJ 24 January 2014 at 16:17
I must correct something. It is not illegal to sell bikes without lights in Germany, but for a long time, until very recently, it has been illegal to RIDE a bike (weighing more than 11kg), even in daylight, without a fitted dynamo lighting system. And Germans tend to be rather law-abiding so there's simply not much demand for bikes without lights. Fill your German bike shop with the same stock as you find in Evans, and you will not sell many bikes. This will probably change now they've permitted battery lights, we shall see.
It is always more attractive for the retailer to stock bikes without them. This is not so much because the bike may cost a bit less and thus be easier to sell (except in Germany), but because there is something like FIVE times as much profit to be made from selling lights as accessories, compared to a very much smaller margin on the very much smaller amount that lights add to the price of a bike when bought in bulk by a manufacturer. For an included dynamo lighting system does NOT necessarily add anything like £50 to the price of a bike.
Check out the Nework-5 from Decathlon - if you can find one in stock. This a rare importation of an economical European style trekking bike is only £280 complete with hub dynamo lighting, guards, luggage carrier, chainguard and 24-speeds. Derailleur I'm afraid, but not very afraid. Hub gears are a good idea only if the local shop is set up to service them - which is needed more often than you might expect - but ask for your two-year or 2000-mile (whichever comes first) hubgear service at a typical British bike shop and you'll be greeted by blank stares. So people just keep on riding them for about twice that long/far and then have to replace the whole thing for almost as much as they paid for the bike. Unfortunately derailleurs are all that most of our shops understand and they're pretty reliable these days.
Completely agree about the sporting bias, but Britain wasn't always like that. No other country has ever cycled as much as the Dutch, but from the 1920s and to the early 50s our cycling culture was not different from Denmark and Germany. We lost the everyday cycling plot from the 1950s onwards, when it became a deprecated poor-mans means of transport. Right up until the turn of the century, the only 'smart' way to cycle in an English-speaking country has been to at least adopt the style of bike used by an on or off-road racer - because it's better right? We are at last begining to realise that is wrong. But it will take a while.
A response to Westminster's Cycling Strategy
The Holborn trap
Policy progress in the LCC


text:
Cops bust sex racket run from house, 4 men, 2 girls held
Kanpur: Police on Sunday claimed to have busted a sex racket operated from a house in Meharban Singh Ka Purwa in South City.
The police, after conducting a raid at the house, arrested four men, including the kingpin of the racket. Two call girls were also arrested. Objectionable material, PAN cards, ATM cards, IDs of a news portal and eight mobile phones were recovered from the house after the raid.
The Barra police said the sex racket was being run in the house in the garb of operating a news website. The girls involved in the racket were booked by the clients through WhatsApp, the police added.
"They (girls) were supplied to the clients after confirmation on WhatsApp. They were also sent with the clients from the house after the payment was made. A total of six people were involved in this racket including two women and the state head of a news website", said inspector Barra Satish Singh.
The raid, he said, was conducted on a tip-off at a house in Raipurwa area of Meherban Singh Ka Purwa under Barra police. The profiles of the girls were sent to the probable clients on WhatsApp and then girls were sent to them after payment was received.
Also, many a time, half payment was taken as advance, and the remaining amount was recovered from the client later, the cop said. An investigation is going on after which more details are likely to emerge, he added.


text:
Mountain View Whisman School District » About » Communications » News & Events » Our diversity. Our strength.
* Board of Trustees support Dreamers: DACA resolution
The MVWSD Board of Trustees unanimously approved on Sept. 21, 2017, a resolution calling on United States Congress, including all members of the California delegation, to work with President Trump to enact legislation prior to March 2018 that would, at a minimum, continue the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and provide DACA recipients with a pathway to permanent residence and eventually to U.S. Citizenship.
For the full resolution, click here.
* MVWSD is a "safe haven" district
Committed to the health of its diverse community, the Board of Trustees approved on Feb. 2, 2017 a resolution discouraging any potential immigration enforcement activities around schools that could create a pervasive climate of fear, conflict and stress for all students.
Citing that all children in the U.S. are entitled to equal access to a public elementary and secondary education, regardless of their or their parents' citizenship, or immigration status, the Board pledged to use its discretion authorized by law to ensure the security of all of its students.
Questions and worries about immigration affects all students; children who have a status as well as those whose family members, friends, or schoolmates do not, and students who are themselves undocumented.
Letter from the Superintendent, Sept. 12, 2017
One of the hallmarks of our District is our diversity. Our varied experiences, backgrounds and orientations are strengths of our community, and a big reason I chose to come to Mountain View. Our diversity enriches our lives and the educational experiences of our students.
Our students speak 49 different languages. They come from all parts of the U.S. and the world. With recent announcement of the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Act, it's more important than ever that we recognize the value of every single person. Last year, our Board of Trustees took a stand to designate MVWSD as a sanctuary school district. In the wake of DACA decision, I want to reaffirm our beliefs. We are here to serve our families; regardless of ethnicity, religion, or what flag they were born under.
A significant portion of our student body, almost 40%, is Hispanic. I encourage everyone to take a moment to recognize the contributions and achievements of Latino members of our community during Hispanic Heritage Month beginning Sept. 15. This month is an opportunity to delve more deeply into the history of the U.S. and California and the important role Latinos, among other groups, have played. When our students see their own faces reflected in the history of our nation, they grow up proud of and motivated to make a difference in the world.
Our varied cultures enrich us, and we have all had obstacles to overcome making us the stronger for it. I encourage us all to celebrate our diversity while recognizing our common denominator; wanting the best for all of our children.
Ayindé Rudolph, Ed.D.