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Live at Brookline Booksmith! Ogi Ogas with Lisa Feldman Barrett
Thu Mar 10 2022 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm UTC-05:00
Brookline Booksmith | Brookline
Publisher/HostBrookline Booksmith
Read on for important details for this live, in person Brookline Booksmith event celebrating "JOURNEY OF THE MIND."
Live and in person at Brookline Booksmith! Celebrate the release of Journey of the Mind with author Ogi Ogas, in conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett.Register for the event!
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Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos
Two neuroscientists trace a sweeping new vision of consciousness across eighteen increasingly intelligent minds, from microbes to humankind and beyond.
Why do minds exist? How did mud and stone develop into beings that can experience longing, regret, love, and compassion—beings that are aware of their own experience? Until recently, science offered few answers to these existential questions. Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, the Self, and civilization emerged incrementally out of chaos.
The journey begins three billion years ago with the emergence of the simplest possible mind, a nanoscopic archeon, then ascends through amoebas, worms, frogs, birds, monkeys, and AI, examining successively smarter ways of thinking. The authors explain the mathematical principles generating conscious experience and show, through vivid illustrations and accessible prose, how these principles led cities and democratic nations to develop new forms of consciousness—the self-aware "superminds." Journey of the Mind concludes by contemplating a higher stage of consciousness already emerging—and the ultimate fate of all minds in the universe.
Ogi Ogas, PhD, was a research fellow at the Harvard School of Education. He coauthored Dark Horse and Shrinks. He lives in Boston.
Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She received a National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award for her groundbreaking research on emotion in the brain, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada. Barrett is among the top 1% most-cited scientists for her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. She is the author of How Emotions are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.
About Brookline Booksmith
We are one of New England's premier independent bookstores, family-owned and locally run since 1961. We offer an extensive selection of new, used, and bargain books; unique, beautiful gifts; award-winning events series; and specialty foods. Every day, we strive to foster community through the written word, represent a diverse range of voices and histories, and inspire conversations that enrich our lives. Find more at brooklinebooksmith.com!
EVENT ACCESSIBILITY
This event will take place in Brookline Booksmith's Used Book Cellar, which is only accessible by stair. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to Facebook. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!
IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID & IN-PERSON EVENTS:
Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a Webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets & registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation.
At this time masks are required at Brookline Booksmith.
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It's hard to believe that over ten years have passed since Graham Slee Projects launched the Era Gold V phono preamplifier. With its small size, restriction to moving-magnet cartridges, wall-wart power supply, and unassumingly pedestrian appearance, the Era Gold V won over both vinyl enthusiasts and reviewers alike. Steady improvements in the Era Gold V's cosmetics and sound have kept it at or near the top of the $1000 phono preamp category.
That wasn't enough to satisfy Graham Slee. He's introduced a plethora of phono stages in the decade since, including two based on the Era Gold V: the Jazz Club, which boasts a choice of equalization curves for non-RIAA records; and the Reflex, a super-tuned upgrade.
Slee eventually saw fit to combine the Jazz Club's selectable EQ and the Reflex's superior sound in one tidy little chassis. The result is the Graham Slee Revelation phono preamplifier ($1599 USD).
GSP produces two versions of the Revelation: the M, for moving-magnet cartridges, and the C, for moving-coils. They differ in the amount of gain they produce for their respective cartridge types. An MC head amp, the Elevator, is also available, should you start with an MM cartridge but later move to an MC.
For most folks, the availability of two versions won't be the Revelation's most notable feature. That honor goes to its adjustable, non-RIAA EQ curves, a feature that, as far as I'm aware, isn't available in any other comparably priced, current-production phono preamp. Three front-panel toggle switches select among various combinations of turnover and rolloff frequencies to produce a total of 15 replay curves. The Revelation's manual includes EQ tables listing the correct switch positions for various labels and standards, such as Decca/London, HMV, and NAB. And the correct switch positions for RIAA playback are clearly labeled on the front panel -- a nice touch.
One feature of the Revelation that's common to all GSP phono preamps is its use of active equalization. Most modern phono preamps use an RC or LCR network to achieve various levels of attenuation across the audioband to arrive at the proper RIAA curve. Commonly known as passive EQ, these networks can be found inside phono preamps across a wide range of price and quality.
With active equalization, however, the frequency response is contoured to fit the RIAA curve's profile by varying the negative feedback brought back to the input. On GSP's website, Slee touts active EQ's many virtues, including consistent overload margins, naturally attenuated LP pops and ticks, and the ability to use smaller capacitors with higher voltage ratings for better frequency linearity. The proof is in the listening, however.
The Revelation M has some other unique features that revolve around what Slee calls their ultralinear, fast-active technology. This includes favoring ultrawide bandwidth, carefully selecting ICs, rejection of bipolar transistors, and trying to achieve symmetrical small- and large-signal slew rates. Slee claims that the result marries tubes' traditional sonic benefits to the reliability of solid-state.
The Revelation M also has, on its rear panel, a Mono/Stereo toggle switch -- an indispensable feature, in my opinion. The middle position provides stereo listening, while the up and down positions sum to mono. Since a good chunk of my classical and jazz LPs (not to mention a lot of my Beatles records) were recorded in mono, it's nice to have the solid, locked-in center image that a mono switch can provide.
For MC cartridges, GSP suggests partnering the Revelation M with the Elevator head amp. In their view, this will give the best sound the company offers for low-output cartridges. Though I was tempted to request a sample of the Elevator for review, I decided to evaluate the Revelation M with my own custom-made Sowter 9570 step-up transformer, for the sake of familiarity.
The Revelation M sounded a little rough fresh out of the box. Per Graham Slee's recommendation, I decided to let it break in for at least 500 hours before doing any serious listening. My patience was rewarded: When those 500 hours were done, I immediately knew that the Revelation M was something special. This unassuming little phono preamp impressed me with its wide bandwidth, excellent timing, and overall smooth tonal balance. When I spun Radiohead's epochal Kid A (EMI 529590), the Revelation M reproduced with equal aplomb the full spectrum of deep, resonating synth bass in "Everything in Its Right Place" and the clean, delicate cymbals of "In Limbo." In fact, the Graham Slee's treble extension and smoothness were some of the best I've heard from a reasonably priced phono stage.
Once the tempo picked up a bit, as it does in "Idioteque," also from Kid A, the Revelation M displayed its fine sense of timing. The beat was more rhythmically nimble and propulsive, making for a solid foundation for this tune's dance-friendly vibe. From hip-hop to house to hypnotic electronica, the Revelation M's uncanny lock on the music's timing made for highly enjoyable long-term listening.
Voices through the GSP also sounded detailed, clear, and distinct -- following Thom Yorke's often subtly syncopated phrasing in Kid A was effortless through the Revelation M. But it wasn't till I played Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter's Reckless Burning (Devil in the Woods 085) that I was able to hear just how detailed and refined the Revelation M could be through the midrange. Sykes's complex voice is full of richness and power, with a whisper-like subtlety and rasp, all at the same time. The M completely nailed Sykes's vocals, delivering her sound in a way that approached hearing her in concert.
Since there's more to music than rock'n'roll, I played many classical and jazz records as well, including Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony's recording of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade (RCA Living Stereo/Classic LSC-2446), to find out how well the Revelation M handled more complex and challenging fare. The GSP had the sort of pleasingly rich, well-developed tonal character I usually associate with good tubed gear. Woodwinds and strings had all of their attack, sustain, and decay intact and were reproduced in their full measures, the Revelation M doing a fine job with the more delicate instrumental timbres.
It was while listening to the Scheherazade that I became aware of a couple of the Revelation M's less obvious strengths: its wide dynamic range and its composure in complex passages. In the final movement, Festival in Baghdad; The Sea; Shipwreck, the Revelation M tracked both micro- and macrodynamic changes with ease. While some other, considerably more expensive phono stages can do better still, the Slee never left me wanting more in this regard. Even through the loudest climaxes, individual instrumental lines remained audible, and the GSP delivered the movement's dynamic impact as can few others in its price range. And when it came to reproducing smaller-scale changes, such as those in the second movement, The Story of the Kalander Prince, the Slee has almost no peers.
So far, all of my comments regarding the Revelation M's sound have to do with its reproduction of recordings made with the RIAA curve -- but what about those other curves? After all, it's the Revelation M's adjustable EQ that sets it apart from its competitors. I began by listening to Tommy Dorsey's All Time Hits, a 10" LP from 1951 (RCA Victor LPT-15), adjusting the Revelation M's turnover and rolloff switches until I heard the flattest frequency response possible.
Immediately, this record sounded noticeably more open in the midrange, with much less congestion and chestiness in Frank Sinatra's voice. His subtle vibrato and lithe phrasing from those early Dorsey days came through clean and clear, with previously unheard details intact. Brass, too, had significantly better bite and extension, and double bass sounded much less humpy and thumpy than it had before I adjusted the EQ. I could now follow the bassist's tuneful, articulate lines with an effortlessness not experienced before the Revelation M.
After that I played as many pre-RIAA records in my collection as I could, including a good selection of old swing and classical LPs. What became abundantly clear with the Revelation M in the chain was just how much music I'd been missing from these old records, and how much more enjoyable they could be. Having the ability to balance the sound as best as possible for some of my oldest and most treasured records has added so much to my listening experience that I can't see ever going back to an RIAA-only phono stage.
Though the Revelation M is unique, that doesn't mean it's completely without competition. The Juicy Music Tercel II with LOMC transformer option ($999 factory direct when last available), which I used to own, is an excellent value in its own right. The Tercel II is a three-tube, zero-feedback, passive RIAA design with one 12AX7 and two 12AT7 tubes, and Jensen step-up transformers for MC gain. It served as my reference phono stage for quite a few years, thanks to its relatively extended and neutral spectral balance, huge soundstage, and overall more modern take on tube sound.
In comparison, tonalities sounded slightly less saturated through the Revelation M than through the Tercel II, and the Graham Slee's bass was somewhat less fulsome than the tubed unit's. But the Revelation wasn't missing anything in the bass, and I strongly preferred its greater agility, articulation, and speed in that region. In fact, I've come to think of the Tercel's bass as being slightly bloated and just a bit too chunky in comparison; and the GSP's speed and timing ability made the Tercel II sound slightly slow.
The Tercel II's soundstage was noticeably bigger than the Revelation M's, but the latter countered with more sharply defined, more holographic imaging. Listening to Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love (Rounder/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFSL1-284), it was much easier to picture the musicians performing right in front of me, with a reach-out-and-touch quality that even the tubed Tercel couldn't match. The overall effect made for a more complete listening experience.
These are two highly competitive models, each an excellent value in its way. While I enjoyed some of the added tonal richness the Tercel II brought to my records, ultimately I preferred the more complete sonic picture the Graham Slee painted in terms of the detail it extracted and its outstanding timing. Plus, the selectable EQ curves were a huge bonus for extracting everything possible from the oldest records in my collection.
The Graham Slee Revelation M is a honey of a phono preamplifier that goes about its business in the most musical and musically honest way I've yet heard from a ca. $1500 model. It effortlessly serves up a captivating mix of tube-like tonality, wide bandwidth, foot-tapping timing, class-leading imaging, and reproduction of microdynamics.
I've been living with the Revelation M for well over a year now and can't come up with a single caveat -- and I've tried my damnedest. Yes, you can undoubtedly do better if you spend more. But regardless of what cartridge, turntable, and/or amplification I partnered the Revelation M with, the little wonder was always up to the challenge, consistently delivering a complete and eminently enjoyable music experience from any record in my collection.


"Very good. Showed up on time, worked hard and did what was promised. "
Comment: Corner lot. Senior citizens....need yard mowed every other week.
Comment: Smallish lawn, looking for mowing, leaf removal in the fall, maybe snow removal come winter.
Comment: Mow multiple yards once a month.
Comment: Lawn mowing, trimming, edging. Trimming bushes.
Comment: Weekly (or as needed pending drought) mowing. Also trimming privet hedges every 5-6 weeks or more as needed .
Comment: The lawn is less than 5500 sq feet. We would require mowing, trimming, clean up of debris around lawn and driveway.
Comment: I would like to get an estimate for mowing.
Comment: I need a spring clean up. Mostly leaves from the fall. Small yard. Most of the work is in the back yard.


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Google Fiber is Coming to Millcreek, UT
While we love all of our Fiber locations equally, Utah has always been special to us.
Provo was one of the earliest Google Fiber cities — there, we built great relationships grounded in the city's vision to connect an entire community to high-speed internet. That experience led us north to Salt Lake City, where we've been building, in the more traditional sense, a from-scratch fiber network to deliver gigabit internet to homes and businesses across Utah's capital city.
As we finally near completion of construction in Salt Lake City, we're not ready to stop growing in Utah. So, we're excited to announce that we'll continue to build our network into the neighboring city of Millcreek.
We'd like to offer a tremendous thank you to Millcreek Mayor Jeff Silvestrini and the Millcreek City Council, which tonight approved a license agreement giving Google Fiber access to rights of way to begin construction in the city later this year. We're excited to work with the city of Millcreek under the leadership of Mayor Silvestrini to bring fast, reliable gigabit internet to residents in this first expansion along the Wasatch Front.
We still have a lot of work to do — we know there are still customers in Salt Lake City waiting for Google Fiber to reach their home. But tonight's vote allows us to continue the project into Millcreek without delay, with the goal of serving our first Millcreek customers in early 2021.
Anyone interested in staying updated on our progress and learning when Google Fiber will be available at their address can sign up for updates at google.com/fiber.
Posted by Jacob Brace, Government & Community Affairs Manager, Utah

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


You seem to be getting really excited about this. In your excitement you are elaborating on what I said in words as if I said it. I think you are protesting too much and avoiding the points I questioned.
The "agenda" spoken of appears to be an "education" of the Southern people. As I said, just because we don't say something is something doesn't mean we don't understand it to be something. Did you know, not that it would make any difference, that the building we remember as "Secession Hall" was before that great event named "St. Andrew's Hall?" That would be home for the St. Andrew's Society of Charleston. That would be in 1860.
"Lastly, Madaus is from Wisconsin. He also has a very sick sense of humor, which if you knew the guy, you would understand. We did not establish a dress code for the biographers on the Flags of the Confederacy website - and if you seek to denigrate the excellent information on that site simply because he is wearing that uniform, then you indeed do yourself a serious disservice as any type of flag historian!!!! The only other advice I would offer is not to look at his picture."
If that's humor, it's definitely sick, and I guess I just can't appreciate sick yankee humor in a field of which I hold such respect. I actually think you are underplaying the visuals of the photo in an attempt to underplay the agenda. I think that "Flags of the Confederacy" is a very thorough and well put together site, the best on the web regarding Confederate flags. You're putting bad words in my mouth in saying that I am denigrating the site. I only suspect the agendas of those who attempt to relegate the symbolism of the Confederate colours to mere abstractions that are designed with no other motive than making it visible on the battle field.
I'm going to bow out of this string now. You obviously have the adulation of the board members. I'm sorry I can't make it unanimous.


St. Mary's Dominican High School Senior High Choir members (from left), First Row: Lindsey Sellers, Paige McGaha, Veronica Smith, Kayla Goudeau, Rebecca Koenig, Elizabeth Champagne, and Celeste Maffei. Second Row: Molly Gaffney, Delanie Wheeler, Lili Cerise, Catherine Cerise, Ceci Bourg, Maggie Conrad, and Choir Director Ms. Brenda Castillo.
St. Mary's Dominican High School's Choir brought home honors at district competition hosted by the Louisiana Music Educators' Association (LMEA). The junior high school honor chorus performed under the direction of Dr. Susan Brumfield and the senior high chorus performed under Mr. Sean Ivory's direction. These clinicians are known internationally as outstanding composers, arrangers, authors, artistic directors and vocal educators. DHS Fine Arts Department Chair Ms. Brenda Castillo is director of the DHS choir.
St. Mary's Dominican High School Junior High Choir members (from left) Elise Bourg, Pelarr Edwards, and Sarah Rogers.
Junior High: Elise Bourg (Harahan), Pelarr Edwards (New Orleans), and Sarah Rogers (Metairie).
Soprano 1: Ceci Bourg (Harahan) and Paige McGaha (Metairie), Veronica Smith (New Orleans), and Madison Weber (Destrehan).
Soprano 2: Kayla Goudeau (Marrero), Rebecca Koenig (Metairie), and Molly Gaffney (Harahan).
Alto 1: Lili Cerise (Metairie) and Catherine Cerise (Metairie).
Alto 2: Veronica Stevens (New Orleans), Gillian Sudderth (River Ridge), Delanie Wheeler (Marrero), Lindsey Sellers (Metairie),Maggie Conrad (New Orleans), Elizabeth Champagne (Luling), and Celeste Maffei (Metairie).


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Leonardo DiCaprio's Pro Tips for Escaping Bad Conversations
Kenzie Bryant
Can Martin Scorsese Just Make a Movie with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio Already?
Hale and Hardy
Tom Hardy's Big Year: The Revenant, Mad Max, and 22 Oscar Nominations
Joanna Robinson
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio Reminisce About Their Growing Pains Days
Am I a Bet?
Leonardo DiCaprio's Tattoo Career Begins and Ends with Tom Hardy
To think that Hardy survived the filming of The Revenant only to do this.
By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.
Buckle in, reader, this is going to be a testosterone-fueled ride. In late 2015, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in The Revenant, a movie that involved a lot of surviving in both the story line and the behind-the-scenes filming process. What did we talk about in late 2015/early 2016 if not how hard The Revenant was to make? That was pretty much all we talked about! Tom Hardy, British actor, played DiCaprio's nemesis on the frontier. These two men received Oscar nominations for their efforts to make the movie that was about—spoilers!—eating raw meat, napping inside horse carcasses, and fur trading.
Hardy, it turns out, didn't think he would get the nod, and not in the "aw shucks, it's just an honor to work with such a talented team" kind of way. He believed so strongly that supporting-actor Oscar attention would elude him that he accepted a bet with his co-star, the eventual winner of Best Actor. The terms were extreme, spelled with an capital "X". Hardy told Esquire U.K. that if nominated, he would have to get a tattoo of DiCaprio's choosing.
Hardy is a man of his word, he says, and the tattoo will be joining an already fertile garden of skin ink. The only reason he hasn't permanently branded himself with Leo's self-satisfaction yet is because the design "sucks." Hardy explained, "He wrote, in this really shitty handwriting: 'Leo knows everything.' Ha! I was like, 'O.K., I'll get it done, but you have to write it properly.'"
Where exactly the improved design will forever reside on Hardy's body, though, remains a mystery. In keeping with the hardcore nature of this entire tale, however, our best guess is on the neck or the forehead or some unmentionable location. Imagine what Hardy would have to do if he had won that Oscar.
Leonardo DiCaprio in Vanity Fair
Photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the January 1998 issue.
vfh-leonardo-dicaprio-vanity-fair-ss04.png


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Don Roberto & Me
A blog about Scotland and being Scottish
As the YES campaign gathered momentum, I became aware of a presence, a figure who had been biding his time in the shadows, patiently waiting for me to notice him …
I grew up in a resolutely Tory household at a time when the Union, had anyone given it even a moment's thought, would have seemed as immutable as the hills around us.
My father, an advocate, later QC and eventually Lord of Appeal, was more concerned with the law than politics, but his instincts were small-c conservative. When not at the bar or on the bench, he was a countryman, at home on the river or grouse moor with his landowning neighbours, whose sons and daughters were my childhood friends and some of whom remain my friends to this day. Both he and my mother were from once-landed Scottish families. Her father was an admiral, one of her grandfathers a courtier to Edward VII, the other a director of the Bank of England. We embodied a particular version of the Establishment.
Politics were seldom discussed. It was a given of our class that the Tories were right and everyone else, except possibly a few Liberals—Jo Grimond, David Steele for example—was not only wrong but also dangerous. Scot Nats were simply bearded loonies.
In the 1963 Kinross and West Perthshire by-election, members of the then Prime Minister, Alec Douglas-Home's campaign team, including a young speechwriter by name of Nigel Lawson, were billeted on my parents at our family home. A decade later, my mother's second husband, my stepfather, a prominent banker and hereditary peer, served briefly as Minister of State for Scotland in the dying days of the Ted Heath government.
Our Perthshire home, a former manse, was a mile from the nearest village and, to all intents and purposes, a million miles from the community, with whom our contact was largely limited to shopkeepers and tradesmen. I was sent to boarding school from the age of eight, at first in East Lothian, later in Berkshire. Socialising during the holidays tended to be in the houses—mostly much larger than ours—of a network of similarly privileged families around the country, from Inverness to the Borders.
The fact that my brother and I had a band, for which a decommissioned Glasgow Corporation double-decker bus served as rehearsal room, lent us a certain air of intrigue perhaps, but essentially we were the products of our class and upbringing. We didn't sound like ordinary Scottish people and I very much doubt that we thought like them either.
By the end of my secondary education I could count on the fingers of one hand the things I had been taught about Scottish history and culture. Three years at Aberdeen University did little to change that although, in retrospect, the study of Scots Law was at least an introduction to the notion that Scotland and England differ in certain fundamental respects.
But if there was a hotbed of nationalist sentiment in Aberdeen in 1968 I never found it—not that I was looking. The folk club was the only place I brushed with dissent of any kind. The closest I came to activism was when the Springboks rugby tour came to Aberdeen and a small group of friends went along to protest. The police bundled them into vans, drove them five miles up the coast, booted them out and told them to walk home again.
The Scotland I returned to in 1990, after twenty years, was a much-changed place. I experienced this in many ways, one of which was music …
Equipped with a law degree, I headed for London. Following a brief and disagreeable encounter with the City, six months in a West End bookshop, and a year travelling in South America, I settled down for a couple of decades of journalism, publishing and music. I became one of the Independent-reading, Lib-Dem voting, South London-dwelling, family-raising middle classes. But Scotland, for all my rarefied experience of it, continued to whisper in my ear. By the time I was approaching forty and recently married for the second time, the whisper was becoming too loud to ignore.
The Scotland I returned to in 1990, after twenty years, was a much-changed place. I experienced this in many ways, one of which was music. In my teens I had played in a Scottish Country Dance band. At the time I left Aberdeen for London, it was still the strict tempo fiddle-and-accordion sounds of Jimmy Shand, Ian Powrie and Bobby MacLeod that rang from the radio and around the village halls. I loved that music. As a homesick small boy at boarding school I had consoled myself by standing as close as I could to the big bakelite set in the main classroom for the Scottish Home Service's twice-weekly Scottish Dance Music programme. Its signature tune, the jaunty Kate Dalrymple, still makes my heart race.
But now a different kind of player, younger and more adventurous, had taken hold of the music and turned it into something else, something more contemporary, less rigid, more exhilarating. Scottish music was no longer the preserve of middle-aged men in tartan tuxedos. Brilliant young multi-instrumentalists such as Martyn Bennett, boundary-bending bands such as Shooglenifty, and sharply observant songwriters such as Michael Marra, were finding a new sense of identity through their music, bringing a new energy and pride to their cultural heritage as they claimed it for themselves.
I was lucky enough to find myself washed along in that carrying stream, through pub sessions and subsequent collaborations with musicians I had come to know, and to experience a new connection with what it meant to be Scottish through the music we played together and were moved by.
Then there were the distinctively Scottish voices that were being raised in the literary world—James Kelman and Irvine Welsh, to name but two. Again, I was lucky enough to hitch a ride on the cultural wagon as chairman of the Society of Authors in Scotland, a member of the then Scottish Arts Council's literature committee, and later as a long-serving board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
There is no better way of gauging the morale of a nation than through its literary voices, and throughout the 1990s I turned avidly to the new wave of literary novelists such as Janice Galloway and James Robertson, crime writers such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, and poets such as Kathleen Jamie and Jackie Kay, Robert Crawford and Carol Ann Duffy, who were overturning the old assumptions left, right and centre.
I was interested in these reforms. They made me think about the ownership of the land over which I had so often unthinkingly walked as a boy with a gun.
And in the background, a glimmer in the constitutional murk, was the approaching Devolution Referendum of 1997. Two years after that Scotland had a parliament again for the first time in almost three centuries, albeit one with certain key powers withheld. One area in which power was fully devolved was land reform. Here Donald Dewar, as First Minister, set out to make his mark with a programme that included the right of access to the countryside, abolition of the feudal system of land tenure, and support for communities that wished to buy the land they lived on.
I was interested in these reforms. They made me think about the ownership of the land over which I had so often unthinkingly walked as a boy with a gun. I interviewed the campaigner Andy Wightman who underlined for me the imbalance in Scottish land ownership, an imbalance unique in the world. Whereas the Napoleonic system of inheritance had long ago caused most of Europe's large private landholdings to be split up, primogeniture in the UK still permits extensive acreages to be passed intact from one generation to the next. In Scotland those private acreages of often marginal land can be vast.
It seemed that there was something out of kilter here. If landownership is a manifestation of wealth and influence, what did it do for Scotland's sense of national identity that so much of its land, its most precious resource, was in such a very small number of private hands, many of them foreign at that? I later explored this theme in a novel, The Witness, which had as its backdrop an independent Scotland of the near future in which a One-Acre Act, restricting private landownership to a single acre, had led indirectly to armed insurrection in the Highlands—a kind of reverse Clearances.
I was coming to see Scotland, and my place in it, in a very different light to the country I had grown up in and which had still been, to all intents and purposes, North Britain, an appendage of England and more particularly of Westminster where the deals were done. Post-war austerity, industrial decline, militant trade unionism, sectarianism, poor housing and worse health, along with a cloying shortbread-and-tartan culture and consistent sporting failure, all conspired to leave ordinary Scots with very little sense of national self-esteem.
Now change was in the air. On the one hand I listened to people talking bitterly about the Poll Tax, the nuclear submarines at Faslane, the oil revenues used to fund the building of the M25, the padlocked gates on Highland estates. But on the other I talked to people in the worlds of the arts, business and government who spoke of Scotland's potential with a new confidence, a sense that it was no longer fanciful to aspire to the dignity and vitality conferred by true, sovereign nationhood.
In 2011 I saw the SNP come to a majority at Holyrood—despite the deliberate weighting of the voting system against such an eventuality—and realised that it felt good to have a government that was pursuing a wholly Scottish agenda, rather than, at best, some vaguely Scotified version of a set of English policies. It served to underline for me the sense that Scotland was much more different from its southern neighbour than I had realised, but that at the same time it was hamstrung in important respects such as tax-raising and welfare.
The moment I began to think about it, it struck me like a blow. This was so obvious. Scotland was another country, different in almost every respect from its southern neighbour.
A year later the election mandate was fulfilled with the announcement that there would be an Independence Referendum. The moment I began to think about it, it struck me like a blow. This was so obvious. Scotland was another country, different in almost every respect from its southern neighbour. We were a nation, and it is normal for nations to run their own affairs. Of course we should have control of our own destiny. Of course we would make better decisions about our future in Edinburgh than Westminster ever could or would. And the idea that one of the most resourceful, inventive and determined small nations on earth couldn't make a go of it seemed preposterous.
As the YES campaign gathered momentum, I started to become aware of a presence, a figure who had been biding his time in the shadows, patiently waiting for me to notice him. He was my great-great uncle, RB Cunninghame Graham, writer, politician, horseman, adventurer—and co-founder with Keir Hardie of the Scottish Labour Party, later founding president of the Scottish National Party.
I knew about him, of course, quite a lot about him—but my mother, his great-niece, literary executor and biographer, had bagged him for herself early on and I had been happy to leave her to it. Furthermore, perhaps for reasons of her own political conviction, she had always maintained that his nationalism was mere posturing, the affectation of a lifelong contrarian.
I began to read him, and about him, and quickly realised that nothing could have been further from the truth. He was a passionate nationalist, though not out of any misty-eyed longing for some ideal of pre-Union Scottishness, not out of any feelings of antagonism towards England or the English, not out of a wish for blood-and-soil connection with his forefathers and their land. No. He believed in Scotland running its own affairs in order to be a better country, to be free to cure the prevailing social ills of his day, to be a forward and outward-looking modern nation, for he also believed that nationalism was a necessary step towards internationalism, and that it was the duty of any nation, no matter how small, to participate in the business of the great global family of nations.
He believed in Scotland running its own affairs in order to be a better country, to be free to cure the prevailing social ills of his day, to be a forward- and outward-looking modern nation …
I had waited more than sixty years to 'discover' him and the more I came to know about him, the more his ideas resonated with me. For all his many extraordinary accomplishments, what I most admired was his humanity, his concern for the disadvantaged, not only of Scotland but also of the many other countries in which he had travelled throughout his long and adventurous life. During his brief years in Parliament he fought tirelessly for the rights of factory workers; he wrote polemically about the evils of imperialism and the plight of oppressed peoples such as the First Nation Americans; he championed universal suffrage and an eight-hour working day; and he raged at the living conditions of the poor in Scotland. Almost everything he wrote or spoke about seemed to have some contemporary resonance.
It was reassuring to have come spontaneously to a position of support for independence, only to find that he had been there all along with ideas and beliefs that chimed so strongly with my own.


Lil Country Librarian: Dicy McCullough Autographed Books Giveaway Winners!!!
Dicy McCullough Autographed Books Giveaway Winners!!!
Congratulations to Shar, Lori and Barbara! They were winners in my Dicy McCullough Autographed Books Giveaway. Thank you to everyone who entered!
The winners have been emailed and have 72 hours to respond with their mailing addresses. I'm extending the response time a bit since they might be away for the July 4th holiday. :) If after 72 hours they have not claimed their prizes, another winner will be chosen.
Thank you very much, Marlana! This is author is new to me so I'm thrilled to be a winner.


We would all agree that the reputation of globalisation has seen better days. As nationalist movements emerge in more and more countries, there is mounting scepticism towards global professionals whose cultural affiliations cut across borders, even continents.
However, global business is here to stay, whether proud nationalists like it or not. There are simply too many opportunities to be captured outside the corporate home base. And the technology that enables our increasingly networked world is only becoming more advanced and accessible.
As I explore in my new book, The Global Cosmopolitan Mindset, professionals versed in several cultures – whom I call "Global Cosmopolitans" – possess a rare, tremendously valuable perspective. Well-practiced at integrating ideas and behavioural norms from their various home cultures, they are natural learners and opportunity-spotters.
Global Cosmopolitans are also proficient at building bridges between contexts, which includes helping organisations adapt to new markets. But even after they have slaked their wanderlust and decided to settle down in one place, the learning-oriented mindset they have developed will serve them (and their organisations) in good stead.
This is because their life and work experiences, played out against a backdrop of uncommon complexity and change, have left them with an array of highly applicable skills. Their skillset, or "toolkit", acts as an ideal complement to the mindset mentioned above. The mindset directs their attention and orientation to problems; the skillset defines their problem-solving approach.
Below, I list ten of the most characteristic skills in the Global Cosmopolitan toolkit. Keep in mind that it is not a checklist: Capacities will vary in proportion from person to person and very few professionals will have all of them. Further, I am not arguing that these skills are restricted to Global Cosmopolitans. But Global Cosmopolitans are more likely to excel at one or several of them than the average monocultural professional.
Research in neuroscience supports the idea that operating in different languages and cultures increases cognitive complexity. This is key to generate creative solutions to challenging problems.
Global Cosmopolitans have greater cognitive flexibility, which allows them to alter their previous beliefs, thoughts or habits to address radically changing situations. Their ability to draw on knowledge learnt in a different context enables them to see new patterns and solutions and to develop strategies in the face of new and unexpected conditions. In short, they understand that truth is not an absolute; it changes depending on the cultural context.
Global Cosmopolitans have a better understanding of their own resilience. Having been through major transitions, they develop the ability to adapt. They trust their own competence in turning a crisis into an opportunity.
The danger here, particularly for those who started their global journey very young, is that the process of adapting to new environments becomes too seamless. When this happens, they may fail to see or articulate what they have learnt so others can benefit. They may also become so reliant on their power of adaptation that they downplay their uniqueness.
While Global Cosmopolitans understand how destabilising change can be, they become skilled at assessing what they know, what they thought they knew but no longer do and what they need to find out. This capacity is invaluable not only for personal development, but also for helping others cope with uncertainty.
When managing multiple cross-country networks, Global Cosmopolitans learn to collaborate and maintain relationships with diverse people in different time zones and cultures. They pick up the art of nurturing remote relationships – and know when a phone call, email, Skype session or in-person visit is needed.
As they mature and their cross-border skills develop, they become better able to admit when they need help, which is often the key to success.
People who live global lives learn to grasp the invisible rules and norms that govern relationships across cultures. They develop the ability to show humility and empathy and become highly observant. This relational awareness and competence help them forge successful relationships with diverse sets of people.
Global Cosmopolitans have the ability to view people, organisations and issues from a wider angle. This 'peripheral' vision allows them to assess situations from different viewpoints and incorporate the broader context into their understanding.
Their kaleidoscopic vision also enables them to view change as an opportunity. They know how a small change can fundamentally alter an issue.
Being simultaneously insiders and outsiders, Global Cosmopolitans learn to fully engage in a given context while retaining the ability to step back and observe the situation in a dispassionate manner.
In the workplace, they interpret – literally and figuratively – the needs of both home and foreign operations. They know whom to ask to get answers and master the finer points of doing business. This dual vision is becoming more significant as organisations recognise the important role these 'boundary spanners' play in global organisations.
Global Cosmopolitans are risk takers. Their experiences give them greater confidence in their capacity to cope with and understand any situation. Their optimism overcomes their sense of fear, which allows them to look at change through the lens of possibility rather than challenge.
Having led lives of uncommon complexity and built a CV full of international professional experiences, Global Cosmopolitans can make difficult decisions and manage circumstances of great uncertainty.
Again, the above list is not meant to be comprehensive. It is a mere sampling of the skills Global Cosmopolitans use to navigate the challenges that they so often transform into personal and professional opportunities.
A difficulty arises, however, when they are called upon to verbalise their strengths, as their skillset has become as much a part of them as the experiences that formed it. That is why Global Cosmopolitans are not always the best at telling their story. They often need well-networked mentors and advocates to aid their climb within the organisation. Companies that make this effort will be better able to retain Global Cosmopolitans and benefit from their immensely valuable gifts.
Linda Brimm is an INSEAD Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour and the author of Global Cosmopolitans and The Global Cosmopolitan Mindset: Lessons From the New Global Leaders. You can follow her on Twitter @lindabrimm.


The nominations process for 2019 is now open. You can submit your nominations online here.
Or, if you prefer, you can download the nomination form here in PDF format.
APGA recognizes municipal gas systems and employees who have achieved high-level contributions to various aspects of our industry.
Criteria: Recipient has made substantial contributions to the public gas industry, maintains an unusual devotion to duty, exemplifies the highest ideals and finest traditions in the management of publicly owned natural gas systems, and has made contributions to the betterment of the community. Nominee holds a management position with an APGA public gas system member and has been active in APGA for at least five years.
Criteria: Recipient has made substantial contributions toward the goals of APGA and the natural gas industry. Nominee is not an employee of an APGA public gas system member.
Criteria: Recipient has made substantial contributions toward the goals of APGA and the natural gas industry. Nominee is an employee of an APGA public gas system member.
Criteria: Recipient is an APGA public gas system member whose performance is widely recognized in the public gas industry, has made substantial contributions to the community, other utilities and the goals of APGA. The system has expressed a willingness to exchange ideas and technology with others to ensure the gas industry will be the safest and most knowledgeable of all utilities. The system has been an active member of APGA for at least five years.
Criteria: Individuals who are retiring after serving 25 years in the gas service business and have participated as an APGA member system representative or a retiring APGA Charter Member.
This award is given to an APGA member system that consistently operates at the highest levels, clearly establishing the system as an achiever of excellence in the field of Safety Management.
The Marketing & Sales Award is an annual award to recognize APGA public natural gas systems who have worked hard to market natural gas this past year. Systems of all sizes are encouraged to submit their innovative and successful marketing programs, branding initiatives or customer service campaigns for consideration and recognition. For any questions about the Marketing & Sales Awards, please contact Audrey Anderson at aanderson@apga.org.
Click here to view past winners.
Public gas systems take great pride in their ability to deliver natural gas safely and efficiently to over 5 million customers in 37 states. APGA is pleased to announce the System Operational Achievement Recognition (SOAR) to recognize those public gas systems that have achieved excellence in the operation of their natural gas utility. This award is open for applications on January 1 every year and closes at the end of March.


Summer is upon us and May sweeps are soon to be a thing of the past. The Bulls and Blackhawks have crapped their respective beds and the Cubs began playing for next year fourteen months ago. The Bears have promise but they don't setup the goalposts in Bourbonnais until July 30th. Basically I'm lost on an island where TV has abandoned me and I'll admit that I'm a little nervous.
It was a short eight months ago that I bid farewell to my favorite summer TV escapes when both "Entourage" and "Rescue Me" opted to call it a wrap at the end of summer 2011. But now as I look ahead to the warm months before me, and the moments when The Baby forces me to stay inside due to the heat, I have no idea where my entertainment will come from (let's be honest, the siren song of the AC is a stronger pull than The Baby's needs, but I need a place to dump the blame and she can't fight back yet).
Just this weekend, at the end of "Mad Men" they announced that there are only three episodes left in their season. It feels like it just got started. I think I'm still recovering my LSD trip three weeks ago as I have a little game I play on Sunday nights where I ingest whatever Roger Sterling does and see what comes of it. How can the end be so near? That leaves me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' delightful "Veep" on Sundays along with Lena Dunham's creepy 21st century "Degrassi High" knockoff "Girls", and that's seriously about it.
Before moving on, please allow me a quick tangent on "Girls." I know that it's the darling of the TV critics and entertainment circles this spring, but am I going to be ostracized if I say that I don't really like it? It's a twenty-two minute mess of unattractive young adults bumping uglies between dealing with high school problems. If you follow Twitter and the "right" circles on the inter-web it's damn near blasphemy to speak poorly of young Ms. Dunham's project, and for the record, no I did not have an HBO development deal at the age of 24, so yes there are a good deal of sour grapes in this tirade. I thought The Wife & I were alone in this sentiment (The Wife hates the show with passion rarely seen) until I came across Tess Lynch's piece on Grantland.com on the subject. It's is like she stole the thoughts from my head and recorded them via digital pixels. Because of this I won't get into the matter any further, just read the piece and you'll know how I feel.
Sure "The Bachelorette" just started (and who wouldn't want to watch Emily for an hour each week? Sha-wing!), but as noted previously "The Bachelor" is the better version of the franchise if given the option. Otherwise I'm running on empty for the foreseeable future, there's no definition to what will be beamed at me in High Definition for the next few months. "Modern Family" & "Parks & Recreation" have finished strong, while "The Office" went out with a whimper. "30 Rock" is headed into it's final season next fall and "Community" might as well be. Even "saturday Night Live" pulled the plug until next fall with a fantastic send off for Kristen Wiig. Beyond that there's really nothing out there. I'll admit it, it's a little bit frightening. I feel so alone.
This entry was posted by Chi-Guy on May 22, 2012 at 9:37 pm, and is filed under TV & Film. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I thought my addiction to USA Network's White Collar was a little strange and induced my too much time spent bored in hotels until I started talking about it out loud and discovered that pretty much everyone I know loves it just as much as I do. Season 4 starts early July. Seasons 1-2 are on Netflix and I'm sure season 3 will be there soon.


If so, you are not alone. These are common complaints from owners and managers in retail furniture store operations. "People management" is the number one challenge in retail today. I've heard this from those in our performance groups, from my consulting clients and I've seen it in survey results. Many small business owners out there firmly believe that there is a big issue with the available talent pool. Are they correct that it's an external problem businesses face?
Clearly the minority of businesses say these kinds of things.
I do not think it is a coincidence that those that have this issue lean more toward chaos management than those that don't. First, this article will look at why some organizations do better than others in people management. Then we will take a close look at what you can do to overcome this challenge in 2017 .
My theory of management is that managers should lead – not manage their people. Instead, they should focus their attention on managing efficient systems and processes.
It is almost impossible to train someone to act as if they were a different person. Personalities, attitudes, habits and beliefs are what make people unique. These are not attributes that can be easily and directly managed or molded to conform to your personal or corporate belief or stereotype, so don't try.
So, if you are a manager who doesn't manage your people, what do you do? As mentioned above, you lead. Think of leading as a high-level people-related activity and management as a detailed process-related activity. Showing an employee how an activity should be executed is leadership. Reviewing whether the activity is being delivered properly and getting the desired results is management.
Furniture operations with less chaos seem to perform better because their employees have solid, well-defined systems that were set up for them to follow. These employees, therefore, tend to get their jobs done better. They know what they need to do, how to do it and when to do it. There is no confusion. The result is that once efficient systems are in place, managers have more time to lead. They don't need to waste time individually micro-managing their employees. Employees should not be making up their own ways of getting a job done. And, they should not be allowed to use their own personal systems, some of which work well and others poorly. Simply put: Systems define outcomes. Good systems, when managed well, produce good outcomes. Bad systems that go unmanaged or the absence of defined systems altogether will waste time and produce chaos. Good leadership sets the direction, sets an example and sets the "tone" of the organization. True leadership instills belief. Employees know the processes being executed day-in and day-out are just.
Here is a basic process that management can use to develop systems that will lead their people to consistently producing more desired outcomes.
1. Define the system. A system is a way of doing things. Don't confuse it with computer IT. A system contains ALL practices and ALL actions to accomplish a desired result. Every position should have a defined system in which to perform the job. The system needs to be documented and visually flow-charted. Verbal systems are lost in translation. As in the game of "Telephone" verbal messages that describe systems get garbled as they are passed along. Systems should be both efficient and effective. Efficient means the task is being performed in the right way. Effective means that it is the right task to achieve the desired result. I've seen many people waste a ton of time and money doing things efficiently but without any positive effect on the business. Top systems are a critical first step.
2. Train in the system. It is not enough to just give people a documented system with a flowchart and expect them to follow it and make it work. If they do read it, they will likely forget about it. A manager who is a good leader continuously demonstrates the system and practices it with the team. To be really successful, an organization must champion its systems and embrace the value. Constantly complaining about shortcomings is detrimental. If you have an issue with internal complaining, there is likely a leadership or culture issue other than just poor systems. Remember though, after you have your system defined there is only one way to mastery of it: continual practice doing the right things the right way.
3. Execute the system. All employees (managers and non-managers) should know: There are defined systems, procedures, and processes to follow. It is everyone's job to execute the system. If they do not wish to execute it, make suggestions to improve it for everyone. If someone comes to you with a problem in your system, ask them to bring you a solution. Don't make ad hoc changes for individual employees. Hold firm to this or you will end up with malfunctioning systems and a chaotic environment, producing sub-optimal results.
4. Manage the system. A sales manager should manage the selling and CRM systems. A delivery manager should manage the outgoing delivery system. A warehouse manager should manage the inventory control and transfer system. A marketing manager should mange the marketing system. An office manager should manage the AP, AR and cash receipts systems. An operation manager or GM should manage the entire business system. All employees under the manager are responsible for managing and executing their systems. All managers should have a weekly operations meeting to review and ensure the various systems are functioning correctly together.
5. Refine the system. Things change. It you ever think that you have the perfect operation you are opening yourself up to lost opportunities and possible big problems. It is a fact that there will always be constraints, or weak links that are under-performing. Operators who achieve great results NEVER consider themselves perfect. The best operators are those that consistently improve the management of their systems. It is their growth enabler. A good way of doing things today may not be a good way of doing things tomorrow. Always seek to locate areas that can be improved and your overall results will also improve.
If you think I'm wrong here with regards to the role of managers, google the word Holacracy. It is a movement that has been adopted by companies like Zappos with positive results. Holacracy eliminates the traditional role of management. I recently visited Zappos, an Amazon company, to witness this first hand. Zappos has created work-circles which are responsible for managing certain job functions. There is a leader but no formal manager. Together, they work to improve their processes and get the particular job done better. They do not have a manager directing the people to do things. In fact, founder Tony Hirsch, still works in the same environment as everyone else, open room, small desk, no office. Zappos believes that this organization structure is best for what they value most – their culture. It takes about two months to bring a new hire on-board, as Zappos wants to be confident in the fit, and if someone wants to leave their organization, they will pay one months' salary no questions asked to leave immediately. A takeaway from this: all employees in an organization should fit together and work together toward a common mission, while sharing a common culture.
I think that some well-run businesses and good managers out there are actually embracing a type of Holacracy subconsciously within their organization, they just don't call it that or realize it's happening. In today's world, businesses are becoming flatter. To me this means that traditional layers of management are focusing more on task accomplishment rather than people-management. In the end, the people in a business get closer to the ultimate decision maker – the customer.
Whether Holacracy will flourish or not, the future of work is changing. It is advisable for business people to be aware of what people now expect and desire in a workplace.
I would bet on a purpose-driven organization with leaders of people and managers of systems winning customers over a competitor, any day.


Many of our clients often inquire about numerous forms of plumbing pipes that are available to them when exploring a repipe. You will find differences between the two primary choices with advantages and disadvantages of each variation. The majority of brand-new water pipes installed today to exchange old, corroded galvanized pipes are either Copper pipes or PEX pipes. A large number of home owners do not know what Copper or PEX piping is made of, exactly what each looks like, the price tag on each, the potential benefits to each form and the drawbacks. Unless a person is confronted with a scenario where they must repipe your bathrooms or full plumbing system through the household, it is challenging to be expected to be familiar with what repiping is and what it involves. It is important to learn enough information about Copper and PEX pipe to take full advantage of your options from Repipe Specialists. Not all the regions offer both repipe types.
As well as being adaptable and bendable, PEX pipes are very resilient, there is less probability of future leaks, they are silent, invulnerable to extreme high and low temps, efficient, provide fast flowing water, is able to reduce your water bills, are beneficial to our environment, and keep working for a lifetime! Repiping using PEX is less expensive than plumbing with copper because the material is at a lower cost and it demands a whole lot less work to implement a completely new plumbing system using PEX water pipes.
Others who live nearby in Kingsburg, CA have already experienced a leaking slab.
You will discover obvious differences between PEX pipes and Copper Pipes. Copper Plumbing pipe is resilient (lasting over a hundred years), weather resistant (can be installed outside the house as well as the interior), is oxidation resistant and does not burn in case of a home fire. Copper pipes cost more than PEX pipes simply because the copper material is higher in price. Setting up a whole new Copper Water System is also higher priced as it is more demanding and requires experience and expertise to ensure a strong long lasting final result. Repiping with Copper Pipes is costlier at first, however, with a full manufacturer guarantee, your all new copper pipes will last a life-time.
PEX Plumbing Pipes or Copper Plumbing Pipes? What do typical people in Kingsburg, CA decide upon?
– If you reside in a location where Copper theft is a likelihood, PEX should almost certainly be your choice.
– If you wish to use a water system outside of the house, Copper Repiping is your option.
Just what makes Repipe Specialists the number one repiping business in Kingsburg, CA?
– Total Specialists Completely licensed, insured and equipped for all your repipe needs. You may even decide to add additional options like new faucets and a tankless water heater.
– Up-Front Pricing: Our experts provide comprehensive pricing prior to when the job starts. There are no unknown fees or surprise charges afterwards.
– Cleanliness: Our professionals care for your residence, always wear shoe covers, put down work area covering and fully clean up any build up.
– Guaranteed for life: We believe passionately in the products used in our repipe solutions. We back this up with our one of a kind life time guarantee.
– 100 % 24/7 Customer support: Our repipe support center is available whenever needed, day or night. We're always open.
A repipe will offer you several years of maximum performance with your residential water system. Get in touch with Repipe Specialists to arrange a completely free in-home estimation. Repiping can be performed in as soon as a day and can cost less than 50% of what your local emergency plumber could charge.


text:
The infuriatingly-cute Slime Rancher has sold over 2 million copies
Monomi Park
March 4th, 2019 - 12:51pm
By Natalie Clayton, Staff Writer
Gooey alien farmer Slime Rancher has sold over two million copies to date.
Monomi park announced the sales milestone via Twitter (below). While Slime Rancher's official launch was in August 2017, the game had been in Early Access for around two years prior.
Slime Rancher hit the 1 million mark within a month of its full release in 2017. As before, it's not made entirely clear whether this figure includes a lengthy Early Access period, but it's more than likely it does.
Monomi Park's slimy farmer is currently lined up to be the next free game on the Epic Game Store, starting on March 7th.
Natalie Clayton
Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.
Slime Rancher has sold more than 3m copies
Slime Rancher has sold over 1m copies
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I can't imagine what it must be like to be a staffer for either presidential campaign right now, with less than a day to go before the general election on Tuesday — it must be a mix of exhausting chaos. For one Trump surrogate, someone needed a few extra hours of sleep as she made quite the gaffe live on CNN Sunday night. Speaking about Jay Z's 2012 music video "No Church in the Wild" — because that's totally relevant to this election — Republican pundit Scottie Nell Hughes called homemade thrown incendiary devices known as Molotov cocktails "Mazel Tov cocktails" instead. Oy vey. Sure it was a flub on live TV, it happens. But Hughes's Mazel Tov cocktail gaffe gets at something far more concerning — layers of anti-Semitism that has plagued the Republican party for years — and now its current presidential nominee.
First some context, because this is a bit convoluted: In a roundtable discussion on Sunday's CNN Tonight, the larger conversation was about how music artists Béyonce and Jay Z both vocally support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Over the course of Trump's "grab her by the p*ssy" fiasco, Trump surrogates tried to spin the backlash by saying Clinton was equally as offensive because she's supported by musicians who say "bad words" in their music. Wait... what? Moving on: Hughes tried to describe the Jay Z video and the "Mazel Tov cocktail" gaffe was born. CNN Host Don Lemon quickly corrected her.
I can totally blame Hughes's mishegas on being completely overtired and overworked as she stumps for Trump across TV networks. But the fact that, of all the ways that Molotov cocktail could have been butchered, she goes with "Mazel Tov" — a Hebrew phrase meaning "congratulations" or "good luck" — and it speaks to a much bigger issue among the Republican Party. While Hughes's remark in and of itself wasn't necessarily anti-Semitic, it came right after Trump's latest TV ad aired over the weekend that has been surrounded in controversy since then.
On Saturday, GOP candidate Donald Trump released his closing ad spot as his campaign comes down to the wire. At face value, it's a 2-minute thesis video on why Americans should vote for Trump on Tuesday. But as the video keeps going, it's evident something about its message just feels off. Multiple viewings only bring that "offness" into further clarity as you begin to realize that Trump's ad is anti-Semitic as anti-Semitism tropes parade one after another.
The [Anti-Defamation League] should focus on real anti-Semitism and hatred, and not try to find any where none exist. I am offended and concerned that an institution such as the ADL would involve itself in partisan politics instead of focusing on its important mission.
And yet, there have been plenty of anti-Semitic moments peppered throughout Trump's campaign, from retweeting anti-Semitic tweets to hiring Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as his campaign CEO. According to a report in the New York Daily News, Bannon reportedly called Jews "whiny brats" and didn't want his children going to school with them. His campaign has also given voice to the "alt right" — the new hip name for white supremacists — as some of Trump's most ardent supporters. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Romper's request for comment regarding the ad or other allegations of anti-Semitism against the campaign.
In a lot of ways, it's not surprising at all that Trump would invoke anti-Semitic overtones to close out his campaign. Let's not forget he announced his campaign run by calling Mexicans "drug dealers, criminals, and rapists" in his presidential announcement speech. He's the candidate who wants to ban all Muslims. If anything, I'm sure most of America's Jewry has been wondering just when Trump was going to go after them in his campaign built on fear-mongering and prejudice.
While Hughes's weekend "Mazel Tov cocktail" gaffe might seem like just another blip on the election radar, it's indicative of a bigger issue within the Republican party and its anti-Semitism problem — and how even something like a "Mazel Tov cocktail" could turn the Jewish vote against Trump at the polls on Tuesday.


It is not always easy to deal with a change of responsibility in your job - just as you feel like you know what you are supposed to be doing, your boss or line manager decides to move things around.
In order to stay on top of your game and a valued member of the team, you need to be able to adapt to change and utilise the opportunities it brings. The person who gets flustered and complains that 'it's not in my job description' is not the sort of person that companies like.
Another possibility is that the change in responsibility is over and above what you are capable of and you need some advice on how to handle it, so let's look at a few situations with tips on how to handle them.
If you have been asked to do something new that you feel you are capable of doing and are happy to do it, just get on with it. Don't make a big song and dance out of it or you will look petty and childish. If you are happy to do the task but are not quite sure what to do, ask the person that assigned you the task to explain it to you more thoroughly.
If you are not happy to complete the task because it is outside your remit, ask yourself if you are being too pedantic about your job description and could achieve more by being more flexible. If the task is over and above what is required of you, make sure you say to the person who assigned the task that you are not able t deal with it and perhaps they could either help you with it or assign it to someone else - it may be that they are pushing you too far.
When the company changes, a good employee will change with it, wherever possible. If you feel like the changes in your organisation do not suit you or your role is developing away from where you would like your career to be heading, then do not feel like you have to stay. If, however, the changes will just take a bit of getting used to but ultimately you still enjoy your job, then stick with it.
Try to get involved in the changes rather than just allow them to happen to - speak to your boss or line manager, ask what's going on, how you can help. Be clear about what is expected of you and deliver it - this behaviour is what gains pay rises and promotions as you will have proved not only your flexibility but also your loyalty and capacity to accept change.
If your role is changing because there has been a change in personnel, it is important to look at whether or not the changes are beneficial to you. It may be that, once you have given yourself time to get used to the idea, it is good for your career. If, say, someone more junior has been brought in below you and you are less required to complete admin tasks, you can get more involved in other aspects of your job.
If someone has been brought in above you, you may have the opportunity to attend meetings you may not otherwise have. However, they may expect you to run around after them, too - carefully and quietly set some acceptability ground rules and stick to them.


COMtrac Investigators notebook (iNB) is a mobile based application for use by investigators, inspectors or auditors which provides a secure and efficient environment where notes and exhibits (audio, photo, video) can be captured in a contemporaneous manner.
COMtrac iNB was designed and built to ensure it can be accessed and utilised on both desktop computers and mobile devices (Windows, IOS & Android).
COMtrac iNB includes the ability to record photographs, video and audio on mobile devices directly into the COMtrac application. All features of COMtrac can also be included as mobile applications, which are not dependent on Internet connectivity and can be readily synced to the primary database from the mobile applications.


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Q: Quadratic Equation with Matrix [Prove Invertible] The problem is:
"The  $2\times 2$ matrix A satisfies $A^2-4A-7I=0,$ where I is the $2\times 2$ identity matrix. Prove that A is invertible."
The hint given is:
"We are trying to a matrix that is the inverse of A."
I completed the square and was proceeding to take the square root of both sides when I realized the identity matrix has multiple square roots.

A: Check that $$ AB=BA=I$$
where $B=7^{-1}(A-4I)$.

A: Here your question is "Prove that $A$ is invertible". For this you have to show that $det (A) \neq 0$.
Now since $A$ is a $2× 2$ matrix, satisfies the polynomial equation $x^{2} − 4x - 7 = 0$ (as $A^2-4A-7I=0$ is given) which contains non-zero constant term $(-7)$, so $det (A) =-7 \neq 0$. Therefore $A$ is invertible. [Q.E.D]
** Now if you have to find $A^{-1}$, then you can proceed as follows
$ A^{2}-4 A-7 I=0 $ .......(1)
Since A has an inverse, so multiplying both side of equation (1) by $A^{-1}$ we have
$A^{-1} ( A^{2}-4 A-7 I ) = A^{-1}. 0 \implies A^{-1} . A^{2} -4 A^{-1}. A - 7 A^{-1} . I=0 \implies A - 4 I - 7 A^{-1}=0 \implies A^{-1} = \frac{1}{7} (A - 4 I) $

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Arctic vs Antarctic Comparison List
Choose your preferred destination – Arctic vs Antarctic. Ice cold data, facts and figures about both areas. Did you know the Arctic is home to the biggest desert on Earth? It's an ICE desert with an average ice thickness of over 2 km. Although that isn't a typical desert it does fulfill the official requirement which describes a desert as "any area with less than 5% covered by vegetation".
ADDucation Tips: Click the + icon to show any hidden columns. Set your browser to full screen to show as many columns as possible. Start typing in the Filter table box to find anything inside the arctic vs antarctic table.
Location Located around the North Pole, bordering on Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Finland and Russia. It is not a continent which constitutes its (major difference to Antarctica. It extends up to 60° degrees north Antarctica is a continent located around the South Pole. It extends up to 50° degrees south and is surrounded by the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean which was first created in 2000 by the International Hydrographic Organization
Discovery Possibly by Phoenician sailors around 320 BC. More reliably, the Viking sailor Gardar Svavarsson was the first person to sight Iceland Not discovered until 1820 by Captain Fabian von Bellingshausen under the Russian flag. However, there is some dispute as to whether others found it before him
First to reach Poles American explorer Robert Edwin Peary on 6 Apr 1909. This record is still controversial until today because Frederick Cook claimed to have been at the North Pole one year earlier In a race between Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen, Scott set off on 24 Oct 1911 (four days before Amundsen), but his route was about 37 miles (60 km) longer than the Norwegian's, who eventually won the race and reached the South Pole on 14 Dec 1911. The Briton, Scott, also got there (with 4 companions) on January 17, 1912 but they died of exhaustion on the way back just a few miles from their base camp
Origin of Name Named after the polar star arktos ("land of the big bear" in Greek). Being circumpolar it never disappears below the horizon. A fitting name because this is where polar bears are found Because of its location it was simply named Antarctica meaning "the opposite of the Arctic"
Size Land and sea area about 10.4 million sq. miles (27 million km2) About 5.4 million sq. miles (14 million km2)
Lowest temperatures In mid-February , temperatures in Greenland fall as low as -50°C Coldest place in the world: -93.2 degrees (measured at Dome Argus, Antarctica)
Generally in winter as low as -70°C
On average, it is 22°C colder than the Arctic
Highest temperatures Never warmer than 10°C Max. -20°C in summer.
Ice coverage Ca. 7.5 million sq. miles (19.5 m. km2). This was a new record in 2013. Icebergs drift at a speed of about 7.5 miles (12 km) a day and can have an area of up to 70 square miles (180 km2) Average sea ice of about 5.7 million sq. miles (14.8 m. km2). The ice is up to 15,000 feet (4600 m) thick in places. About 75% of all freshwater reserves are frozen in the ice sheet
Sunshine Virtually no sun for 182 days a year 6 months of daylight in summer and 6 months of darkness in winter
Typical animals in Arctic vs Antarctic Polar bears No land animals live in Antarctica but the surrounding seas have seal species such as Weddell, leopard, ross, crabeater, elephant and the Antarctic fur sea, penguin species like adelie, emperor and chinstrap and orcas (killer whales) and blue whales
Flora Mainly tundra and flowering plants Virtually no vegetation apart from lichens
How Weather Works | All US States
Related Arctic vs Antarctic Lists:
More Earthly extremes…
Highest Mountains on the planet…
Test your Mountains Quiz…
Free ADDucation online quizzes…
Compiled by A C, last updated 09 Dec 2019.
Arctic vs Antarctic Facts in German Arktis und Antarktis…
Do you have any interesting facts about Arctic vs Antarctic? Please add your comments below so we can improve list…
six + 14 =


Starting fall semester 2017, certain rigoourous STEM courses are eligible for a .5 GPA boost for students' HOPE average GPAs. Find out more about this program, as well as a directory of eligible courses HERE.
What is the CIP? The Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) provides a taxonomic scheme that supports the accurate tracking and reporting of fields of study and program completions activity. See U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website for more information.
UGA degrees/majors are assigned a CIP code.
To promote the creation, implementation, and assessment of effective STEM pedagogies that improve teaching and learning and help close the equity gap among STEM students.
To create an ecosystem of collaboration and cooperation with the University System of Georgia, the University of Georgia, P-12 educators, businesses, governmental agencies, and communities to prepare graduates to act in a complex world.
Aligning its activities with UGA's Complete College Georgia Plan and emphasizing the importance of the learning experience, the OSE will continue to support teaching innovations that focus on improved learning and student retention through mini-grant funding to faculty. As a complement to this support and to encourage scaling and sustaining successful innovations, the OSE will partner with Office of the Vice President for Research to expand faculty opportunities for external funding. Existing contracted servicesto assist faculty in research design and assessment will be expanded.
Expanding upon the existing learning communities, the OSE will facilitate connections between and among STEM Educators within and across departments, institutions, and educational sectors. Sample strategies that can be used to facilitate connections include webinars, discussion forums, and invited participation in state and national conversations on STEM topics.
The OSE will maintain current and develop new partnershipsthat improve STEM learning opportunities for students. Partners include institutions of higher education within the state and beyond, neighboring P-12 school districts, state and national educational agencies, and local businesses.
The OSE will aggregate and track data associated with STEM-related institutional goals on an annual basis looking for trends, improvements and areas for further investigation. Additionally, all programs and services offered through the OSE will be reviewed on an annual basis at a minimum for modification, elimination or expansion.
The OSE will expand its web presence to provide faculty key STEM related information on what is happening nationally, at the state level, and locally. Additionally, the OSE will disseminate instructionalsuccesses and important eventsthrough partnerships with other key faculty information resources on campus.
Sign up for the STEM Listserv by sending an email to tburg@uga.edu.


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Surviving Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) July 6, 2020
Surviving C-19
I must register my abject disgust at this time. I am disgusted by Fox news, no longer irritated by its outright right/conservative slant as a news provider. That is disingenuous on its face and sadly not well understood by my fellow Americans. News is meant to inform the public of things which affect their lives, ignoring the Virus loose in our midst does not serve the people, but the politics of the networks owner.
MSNBC is not much better, it does the very same thing on the left. Quick to point out every foible of Trump as Fox was to point out every Foible of Obama. Reality is all humans have good and bad aspects to them, and though I find none of merit in Trump does not mean news ought to ignore the things he did do, nor should they, as the POTUS insists, praise him for what he did do while ignoring what he did not do. Both of those presentations are not actually news, and Fox ignoring our modern plague, playing that down for political reasons? That is disgusting and likely will be seen as criminal in history.
That is disgusting. People, American People, are suffering and dying from C-19. 50,000 a day on average are diagnosed, Trump says for 99% of them it's "totally harmless". That is a plain lie. For about 20-40% of them it is asymptomatic, not harmless, but undetected and infecting their loved ones, friends and coworkers. Another 40% are sick, like really sick, think worst flu, worst food poisoning in your recall, for weeks, and for some for months. These are the non-hospitalized patients. The last 20% are in hospital suffering as the others, with high fever and lack of O2. Going on the Vent means your odds of survival just dropped to 20%, but you can linger on the vent for weeks and weeks. So far about 130,000 of us Americans have died from this Bug.
That is not "totally harmless".
Vietnam had a total of 58,220 deaths in 11 years, in six months Donald Trump has doubled that. If the Viet Cong had killed Americans as efficiently as C-19 they would have killed 130,000 in the first six months of an 11 year conflict. So if C-19 is "totally harmless" then by comparison the VC were pacifists and all our war dead accidents. WW2 is so tragic as to be unmeasurable. It is estimated that at least 400,000 Americans died in the conflict. The Civil was around 665,000 total deaths. At this pace we will outpace both of those.
When the Nam was happening it too was a TV event, and not real for a lot of folks, at first. As the years wore on the populace gradually saw that every block housed the lost and the maimed, every third house had such a personal loss in my area, so everyone had meat in the game. The society objected because the draft forced the burden of war onto all Americans equally, not only on those willing to risk life and limb for 'God and Country'. An all-volunteer force took all the steam out of the antiwar movements because now not everyone had meat in the game.
C-19's game includes all meat on planet Earth. Donald Trump is calling it harmless to most, which is a blatant falsehood and a danger to the nation and our national security. Most people pull through with low symptomology, but we have no clue about any long term effects, and many survivors of C-19 in hospital are maimed for life, with liver, kidney, heart and lung issues. If we all get sick and overflow the hospitals we become a ripe target for other hostile powers. A nation divided against itself cannot stand.
""A house divided against itself, cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."-Abraham Lincoln
This is the exact lever Trump is pushing on, championing Confederate Statues and conflating them with the Founding Fathers because both held slaves. He is calling those who want to hold to the old traditions true Americans, and anyone American who differs therefore is not a real American, but an imposter who wants to destroy America. He wants to ratchet up racial and cultural tensions and divisiveness during a Pandemic for political ends. I see that as an assault upon our nation at war with the Virus, by its leader.
At best it is dereliction of duty, at worst it is a treasonous attempt to re-brand America as Trumpism, and non Trumpists as enemies of America. Fox news is promoting this and the Trump blame game. Navvaro came out the other day with an unsupported allegation that China willfully sent hundreds of thousands of infected Chinese to America to infect us intentionally, as we send aircraft carriers into the South China Sea.
All these deaths rest firmly upon the head of Donald Trump, who could have locked the nation down, suspended the stock market, mandated testing and contact tracing and beat the bug. Trump did none of those things and instead divided the nation into 50 pieces by the lack of a national response creating a house divided against itself, intentionally. To avoid personal responsibility he shifted the burden of response to each, separate, state. He actually said "we're backup". He continues to do this as our nation sickens and dies.
Again this screams the basic military tactic of divide and conquer, so whom is conquering us? Trump and the Trumpets?
To reach herd immunity we need 70% plus of the nation infected, either by the disease which kills and maims or by a vaccine. 70% of 328,000,000; that is 229,600,000 infections, we have 2.5 million or so and the hospitals are overtaxed. Trump either does not see this basic math, or does not care and thinks it will kill off the poor, the blacks, the Latinos; and the dead, as we all know, do not vote.
I never thought I would view my own POTUS in the same fashion as a Dr. No type character, but he is either willfully blind or uncaring, is in an amazing denial of reality, or thinks he can manipulate a virus for political ends, which is magical thinking in extremis. Since he chooses to dog whistle to the racists in his base it is hard not to consider the Dr. No scenario a possibility. Holding a Rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth and then claiming he never heard of it? Another rally at Rushmore, which is an insult to the Lakota and Dakota peoples as well as all Native peoples.
Who does such things that is not, at heart, a Dr. No type character?
Rushmore is a vibrant reminder that they were conquered by our ancestors who did not consider them human; who tore their families apart and sent their children to Christian schools where they were stripped of their culture and language and abused regularly. Conquered by White Christians who engraved their heroes onto the Lakota people's own 'Notre Dame', their sanctified and holy space. Their religious freedom counted for nothing in our first amendment. Only White Men had rights under our constitution, others were seen as less than human, not fully human, and unable to care for themselves.
A vaccine is likely years away despite the high hopes of many. If we get one early as Fauci seems to believe, I do not see how its efficacy is actually tested. I suspect they fear bad vaccine results less than the virus running amok and its actual efficacy will be tested upon us all. There has simply not been enough time to adequately test efficacy in humans, no long term effects could be known because no one has used it long term. We are shooting at black cats in a dark room here.
This is Donald Trump's July 3rd speech. This is not a unifying speech, it is a rallying of the troops against a foreign enemy speech. So who are the troops, Trumps base? The rest being any citizen who does not line up with Trump?
"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they're doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.
One of their political weapons is cancel culture, driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.
This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation's children from this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It's not going to happen to us.
Make no mistake. This left-wing Cultural Revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.
Not on my watch."
In this speech Donald Trump is declaring the majority of Americans as anti-american, as enemies of America itself out to destroy America. In reality it is a part of America insisting that they too get an equal chance at 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Donald Trump has declared most of America itself as enemies of America. As my response to this I am labeling deaths from here on out as Trump's kills of Americans, as his inaction is killing us as he seeks to divide us.
The speech reeks of fear.
"The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition."—Donald Trump July 3rd, 2020
Reality is many Americans have grown up and realized that what we were spoon fed as children in school was slanted, a half-truth which ignores a large swath of our society. That the noblest of those ideals, which Trump himself touts in the opening of his speech, have never been equally available to all Americans.
"They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they said; ""All men are created equal." These immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom." Donald Trump July 3rd, 2020
The POTUS fails to realize that the march of freedom has never stopped, it led from the revolution to the Civil war, where men talked like Trump too. Where they said that the Union was out to destroy America, and their only action was to leave America as they did not want to evolve beyond slavery.
This is the hill Donald Trump chooses to die on? The GOP has now branded itself as the Confederacy, with Trump at the herald, and the hypocrisy of calling yourself 'traditional America" remains unseen by those spouting it.
Legacy Media Headlines
Spanish antibody study shows 5% of population exposed to coronavirus
Coronavirus: Australia to close Victoria-New South Wales border
China detains professor who criticized Xi over coronavirus
India COVID-19 tally surpasses Russia; third worst-affected country now
Covid-19 may not have originated in China, Oxford University expert believes
Trump to hold outdoor rally in New Hampshire on Saturday
Chinese city sounds alert after it records suspected case of bubonic plague
Man in famous 9/11 photo dies from coronavirus in Florida
Iran records highest daily death toll from COVID-19
FDA commissioner declines to back Trump assertion on 'harmless' coronavirus cases
Broadway star Nick Cordero dies
Restaurants, pubs packed with customers in UK
'Wishful thinking is neither good economic (nor) … public health policy'
'I can't predict when a vaccine will be available': Dr. Stephen Hahn
Coronavirus cases soar as U.S. celebrates July 4th holiday weekend
Local Matters: Boston faces pandemic-induced eviction crisis
Childhood immunizations down as coronavirus pandemic sweeps globe
People in England flock to pubs, bars and restaurants as they reopen
Trump falsely claims 99% of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless"
How the ballet world is adjusting to the coronavirus pandemic
Pandemic takes toll on seasonal workers, small businesses
Masking America's fears: How do we get people to take COVID-19 seriously?
Trump delivers divisive July 4th speech and downplays pandemic
Analysis: EU countries using Covid-19 as excuse to keep out migrants
Australian state hit by second wave of virus
Spain shuts parts of northwest after Covid-19 surge
Australia shuts internal border after Melbourne case spike
Italy to take in 180 migrants rescued at sea
Mona Lisa Has Something To Smile About As Louvre Reopens
COVID-19 Deaths Reach A Grim Milestone In The U.S.
Trump Goes After Left, Blames China For Coronavirus in July 4th Speech
Broadway star Nick Cordero dies of coronavirus at 41
After Trump downplays coronavirus danger, officials call for national measures to stop rising spread
Stores and shoppers look to a shopping new normal
Coronavirus: India overtakes Russia in Covid-19 cases
Doctors warn coronavirus spreads more easily than first thought
FDA commissioner refuses to defend Trump claim
Fareed: Coronavirus won't be a death knell for big cities. Here's why
Florida Gov DeSantis to discuss state COVID-19 numbers
Florida, South Carolina Hit New Coronavirus Records As Cases Surge Nationwide
Giridharadas: Trump Is Doubling Down During A Pandemic
Comedian D.L. Hughley On COVID-19 Diagnosis, New Book
"Coronavirus may have lain dormant across the world and emerged when environmental conditions were right for it to thrive – rather than starting in China, an Oxford University expert believes. Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), at Oxford, and visiting professor at Newcastle University, argues that there is growing evidence that the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia.
Last week, Spanish virologists announced they had found traces of the disease in samples of waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the coronavirus disease was seen in China. Italian scientists have also found evidence of coronavirus in sewage samples in Milan and Turin, in mid-December, many weeks before the first case was detected, while experts have found traces in Brazil in November. Dr Jefferson believes that many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favorable. "–Telegraph
4:00 PM–Numbers time
Global Infected 11,317,637 11,520,461
Trump's Coronavirus Body Count
Trump CBC 129,718 130,101
Trump CBC increase 117 383
Infected in ME 3,415 3,423
Increase in ME 18 8
Increase Maine deaths 0 4
and Climate Change Keeps on Truckin . . .
Is Climate Change Now Turning Alps' Ice Pink in Italy? Scientists Investigate Mystery
Whilst I did this in isolation another 3,770 of my fellow humans died of C-19, of those 383 were my fellow Americans, and 4 of them my fellow Mainers.
And the Trump Body Count grew to 130,101
← Surviving Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) July 5, 2020
Surviving Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) July 7, 2020 →