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Definitions for "Abbe Condenser"
Keywords: iris, microscope, condenser, magnification, specimen
Related Terms: Refracting telescope, Prime focus, Telephoto lens, Close-up lens, Mirror lens, Diaphragm, Teleconverter, Condenser lens, Focuser, Barlow lens, Zoom lens, Back focus, Parfocal, Telephoto, Fixed focal length, Macro lens, Varifocal lens, Eyepiece, Objective lens, Pinhole lens, Long lens, Micro lens, Focal length, Extension tube, Kellner, Focusing, Magnifying glass, Manual iris, Wide-angle lens, Extension tubes, Fixed focus, Slr camera, Tlr, Aperture, Slr, Rangefinder camera, Objective, Focal ratio, Wide angle lens, Manual focus, Normal lens, Schmidt camera, Focalize, Diopter adjustment, Prime lens, Fresnel lens, Fixed lens, Autofocus, Telecentric lens, Back focal length
see condenser
aim-co.net
An advanced microscope lighting system which uses a lens under the stage. Consists of an adjustable iris to control the diameter of the light prior to entering the lens. Usually found on more advanced microscopes.
themicroscopesite.com
an advanced illumination system which uses a lens under the stage that would typically move in the vertical direction. It would usually also have an adjustable iris to control the beam diameter of the light prior to entering the lens. By adjusting the iris opening and the lens distance from the target, the user has very good control over the amount of light and its focal point. Usually found on the more advanced microscope systems and very useful at higher magnifications (400X and above). BACK
cti-vtek.com
a condenser having 2 or 3 lenses with wide aperture for use in microscopes
A specially designed lens that mounts under the stage and is usually movable in the vertical direction. The abbe condenser has an iris type aperture to control the diameter of the light that enters the lens system. By changing the size of the iris and moving the lens toward or away from the stage, the diameter and focal point of the cone of light that goes through the specimen can be controlled. Abbe condensers become more useful at magnifications above 400x. The condenser lens system should have a numerical aperture equal to or greater than the N.A. of the objective lens being used. All of our microscopes that have 1000x magnification use Abbe condensers with a 1.25 N.A. There are two types of condensers - one is a spiral type that you turn to move it up or down and the other is on a rack and pinion system and is controlled with a condenser focusing knob.
microscopeworld.com
An Abbe condenser is a component of a microscope. It is mounted below the stage of the microscope, and concentrates and controls the light that passes through the specimen and enters the objective. It has two controls, one which moves the Abbe condenser closer to or further from the stage, and another, the iris type diaphragm, which controls the diameter of the beam of light.


When High Sierra mountain air is still, water becomes a reflective mirror. By looking upon such a scene, my spirit becomes still for a moment. That silent stillness that comes over me remains inside as I continue down the trail. Thankful for reflective blessings along the trail!
This entry was tagged https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/reflecting/, Wordpress Photo Challenge: Reflecting. Bookmark the permalink.
Both photos are from last summer's 23-day backpacking trip on the John Muir Trail. The second photo is Wanda Lake. Can't remember the first photo lake name. Thanks for following my blog.


Crystal Candy Makeup Blog - Review and Swatches: January Favorites 2014!
January is officially over, it's time to reveal my favorites of the month! As usual, you can click on each product name to read the full review (and see the swatches!).
I love to wear this medium shimmery taupey brown all over the lid, or smudged on the lashline, or even in the crease! It glides easily on the skin and it's very pigmented. This eyeliner is waterproof, it last all day without budging, flaking or smudging.
Peach is a pale peachy coral pink with a beautiful lit-from-within glow. It's sheer but still buildable, blends easily and isn't greasy at all. This shade is sooooo pretty and I can't rave enough about the glow it gives my cheeks!
A gorgeous reddish coral with a semi-matte finish that will be perfect for this summer! This shade is highly pigmented and the staying power is great : It last more than 5 hours on my lips without feathering and it never look cakey. I'm in love with this lipstick!
Autoerotique is a medium warm rose with a satin finish. The color payoff is great and the texture is silky smooth and easy to blend. I like the sheen it gives my cheeks without being too sparkly!
I got Our Secret because of your swatches, it looked so beautiful on your eyes that I wanted to try it and I LOOOVE it! Beautiful colour and the quality is awsome.


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Police fine U.K. PM Rishi Sunak for failing to wear a seatbelt in Instagram video
LONDON — Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was fined by police Friday, for failing to wear a seatbelt whilst filming a clip for social media in a moving vehicle.
Sunak became only the second prime minister in history to be hit with a police fine while in the U.K.'s top job after his predecessor Boris Johnson, who was given a fixed penalty notice after it emerged that he had flouted England's Covid restriction rules during the "partygate" scandal.
It is also the second fixed penalty notice Sunak has received in less a year. He also paid £50 ($62) when he was serving as finance minister for attending a gathering to celebrate Johnson's birthday in breach of lockdown rules.
It was one of several lawbreaking social events that took place in his home at No. 10 Downing St at a time when members of the public were prevented from seeing family and friends at risk of criminal prosecution.
Filmed in the backseat of car, Sunak uploaded the video to Instagram on Thursday during a visit to Lancashire in the north-west of England, where he was raising awareness of government schemes to boost local investment.
His lack of seatbelt was quickly spotted by eagle-eyed viewers and Lancashire Constabulary said Friday it was fining Sunak.
The force did not say how much the fine was but in the U.K., a person can be fined up to £500 ($619) if they fail to wear a seatbelt unless there is an exception, such as for emergency services, in a taxi, or if a driver is reversing.
A spokesperson for Sunak described this as a "a brief error of judgment," according to Reuters. "He fully accepts this was a mistake and apologises," they told reporters.
Cat Smith, a member of parliament with the U.K.'s main opposition Labour Party whose seat is in Lancashire, thanked police on Twitter for "road safety campaigning all year round" and "also, reminding us that no one is above the law."
The Labour Party's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner was less forgiving, tweeting Friday that Sunak, who pledged "integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level," when he took office in October, was a "liability."
The fine caps a difficult week for the prime minister who this week faced criticism for traveling across the U.K. on army jets instead of using public transportation.
However, members of Sunak's Conservative Party have defended their leader after his brush with the law.
"Of course it shouldn't have happened," Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told British broadcaster Sky News Saturday. "But I think, with these things, what people expect most of all is, you know, the individual concerned, whoever it may be, put their hand up, be honest about it, accept the mistake, pay the fine." (Sky News is owned by Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.)
"I don't think it's something which would result in his resignation," Raab added.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


How to Maintain Requests with cmms Software?
In a world of technology, why not avail one?
With thousands of human hands already working on numerous things, multitasking and managing so much, it is high time to tone down the pressure a bit. With the coming of innovative technology, humans can work on other areas, leaving the technical work to be dealt with by computers and machines.
Several different software has come into the picture to ease the entire process of management of requests, keeping a track record of data, and getting notified when the task is dealt with maximum efficiency.
One such software is the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). A software, which can be installed in computers of the companies, and can be utilized to keep a database of the company's maintenance tendencies, of the mechanical devices, machines, malfunctioned parts, etc.
This software can also be used to manage requests for maintenance, including multiple requests, identical requests sent by the same person belonging to a particular organization.
With minimal cost and maximum efficiency, CMMS software is being widely used by organizations. The most important reason why this software has become universally accepted is that of its utility in various fields and sectors. Not just companies, but institutions and organizations like hospitals, sports centers, and many more utilize CMMS as a tool to deal with maintenance work that can be easily circumvented by humans and dealt with machines.
How does it help to maintenance request?
CMMS allows the customers to make a maintenance request and let the requester select the maintenance tasks and locations on their own.
Customers can submit the maintenance request easily through an email or a web interface.
By welcoming CMMS software in your work life, you can get an alert of the work requests through a mail or a text. It will allow you to respond to the urgent request promptly without any unnecessary delay.
CMMS allows you the review of the work request so that you can analyze and decide accordingly. There are high chances for a request to be duplicate or submission of the same request by several people. You can review these requests and close out all the duplicate request with CMMS.
Much CMMS software comes along with a feature that allows the registers to check the status of their requests. You can update the status of the request automatically without contacting every single individual.
As soon as the work gets done, it is essential to get the report of all the requests, which are received and processed. There might be some possibilities of having a pending request. CMMS will help you to track the pending request so that you can handle them and ensure that they are closed.
The head of an organization always gets concerned about the safety issues of the employees and the employees too want to work with machines that are safe and are in good condition. Therefore, regular repairing possible with the CMMS software helps to maintain, if not preserve the parts in a proper condition. Accidental risks seem to occur on a less likely basis, and it also reduces the cost of getting it repaired every time.
One important asset of using this software is the accessibility of information at one particular place. The records are easily kept in one place, and space is properly optimized. Information can be accessed at one click of a button or one touch of a finger, with clear-cut boundaries within which the records are maintained.
The greatest benefit that any particular organization or industry which uses the software gets is that it is based on preventive tendencies. No company or industry wants to bear the high costs of irreparable parts and machines, which have become extremely damaged with time and negligence. But, with the coming of the CMMS software, delays and negligences in repairing the damaged parts have become minimal.
Now, most companies feel the need to employ the software, so that the organization doesn't work with parts that have been ruined and ultimately be able to benefit in the long run.
So, if you switch to technologies and software like CMMS to reduce man labor, you'll immediately realize the effectiveness of the software, and will ultimately find out how the deployment of it, has helped your organization to maintain records, to complete work orders, to make the repairing process cost-effective, and to take your organization to greater heights.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Reversal of Fortune · FiM Short Story · 22 Jan 2019
Twilight looked at her niece, staring through the telescope. The girl had come so far from that chubby, winged ball of destruction she'd been as an infant. She had her mother's long legs and neck, but had gotten Shiny's more stubby horn and heavy hooves. What really stood out though, was the—apparently recessive—shaggy, northern coat. Cadance, being heir to the Crystal Empire, obviously had ancestors from the north, and while Night Light had said his family had ties to the old Empire as well—and Shiny did get a bit of the stocky build from there, she supposed—Twilight couldn't think of any direct relatives who had the heavy, winter-ready coats of the true north.
Until Flurry Heart.
The girl was, to put it mildly, "well insulated." To put it less mildly, she weighed less than Fluttershy but looked as bulky as Big Mac. Though, come to think of it, Twilight never really had weighed Big Mac. Maybe if you shaved him, she pondered, he'd be no bigger than Cadance. She snickered at the thought.
"What's so funny, Aunt T?"
"What?" Twilight stammered, coming out of her reverie before waving a hoof dismissively. "Oh, nothing, just admiring how much you've grown."
"Blech!" Flurry stuck out her tongue as she turned away from the telescope and her illustrations. "Everyone's always saying stuff like that to me." Flurry Heart put on her best Celestia voice. "Oh my, haven't you grown into a handsome young mare!" Then Luna "Thou dost remindeth me of thy mother's own youthful countenance."
Twilight moved close and gave a gentle hug with her wings. "You know it's because we love you, right?"
Flurry rolled her eyes and sighed before returning the hug. "Yeah, I know. But does everyone always have to point out what I look like? Like, can't I just be me without having to be compared to my mom, or your cousin, or that friend's sister's mother's aunt whoever?"
"Of course you can," Twilight said. "But you'll also always be our little Floofy."
"Ugh," Flurry ran a hoof down her face. "You're doing it again, Aunt T. Just because I couldn't say my own name until I was three, doesn't mean it's still funny. I'm not a little kid anymore!"
The last bit—while not quite yelled—made Twilight pause. "I'm sorry, Flurry. I... It's just because..."
Flurry glared, daring her to finish the sentence without being condescending.
Just before she could open her mouth to try, Twilight heard the doors to the study bang open.
"Who... wants... Cooookies!" Pinkie Pie bounced into the room, while somehow also balancing a tray of treats on her back.
Twilight had initially been planning to come alone to the Empire, and spend some time with her niece while Cadance and Shiny took a much needed vacation for their anniversary. But somehow, Pinkie had heard about some ancient baking techniques being rediscovered, and insisted she had to try out the "refractive solar ovens" being rebuilt by the crystal ponies.
At first, Twilight had been hesitant to let her come, looking forward to a mellow holiday herself, but Pinkie, ever determined, had something to say in negotiation. Specifically, she had said: "I. can. Bake. Literal. Rainbows. Into. Cooooookies!" More specifically, she'd said it with that look in her eyes that could be felt by everything in a hundred mile radius with more sense than a nematode.
So, Pinkie had come on the trip.
Flurry gave one last side-eye at Twilight, before her countenance brightened and focused on the bearer of the baked goods. "Pinkie, you look..."
Twilight saw it too. Her friend was... Well, half her normally poofy mane was singed to a crisp. One eye was twitching, seemingly of its own accord, and her bright pink coat looked to be nearly fifty percent soot by volume.
Over the past few days since they'd arrived, Twilight had barely heard a thing from Pinkie. At least, not since the initial disappointment when she'd learned the "ovens" in questions were more like "kilns" or "forges" and designed for creating magic artifacts and weapons at thousands of degrees. Apparently that had not stopped her though.
Approaching Pinkie a bit like one would a skittish animal, Flurry gave a sniff. "They, ah, smell good, Aunt P."
Twilight walked over and surveyed the tray of... items, several of which seemed to be slightly melted into the metal of the tray itself. "Yes, and they look..." The normally eloquent part of her brain reached for words, but came back only with: "Done."
"Heheheh..." Pinkie laughed in an only slightly disturbing way. "Yes, finally! Took me for-ev-er to get the recipe right!"
Pinkie's head swiveled back and forth between the other two. "Well," she said. "Come on, dig in! Lemme know how scrum-didly-delicious they are!"
Levitating a "cookie" from the tray, Twilight examined it. It had an outer surface that looked more like glazed pottery than any normal icing. The weight was also about ten times what she'd expect for a treat that size. In any other circumstance, she'd want to run the thing through a mass spectrometer before touching it, much less eating it, but Pinkie Pie was right there, staring at her with those big, sad, and very, very manic eyes! So she took a bite.
It was... not entirely unlike gingerbread. If gingerbread had a molecular weight on par with the middle layers of a neutron star.
"The secret," Pinkie excitedly explained. "Was to get juuust the right ratio of asbestos to lead in the icing, so it evaporates right as the beams are at maximum dispersal!" She hung her head a tad and her remaining hair, singed as it was, nevertheless seemed to find a way to slump too. "Of course, you only have about one eighth of a second to pull them out of the oven at that point, so it took me like a hundred and eleventy tries to get it right."
Twilight, having stopped chewing somewhere around the word "asbestos" took the break in eye contact as a chance to levitate the bite out of her mouth and stash it in a nearby planter for later analysis. The rest of the cookie went back on the tray as she made a show of "swallowing" the bite she'd taken.
"So?" Pinkie asked nervously.
"I... think they need work," Twilight said.
"I kinda sorta maybe thought that," said Pinkie, slightly dejected. "I mean, I'm getting all the colors of the rainbow, but it's still missing something."
"How about we go downstairs and get some dinner for now, and you can make another try at desert again later?"
"Righty-o, dinner ho!" Pinkie said, now cheering up a bit. "But I'll leave these here in case you want to feed the hamsters later!"
As the other two left the study, Twilight turned and cast a quick warding spell around the tray Pinkie had left on the table. Not that anything with a nose would likely even try to touch them, but... well, Flurry was probably too old to believe yet another one of her hamsters had gone to a farm up country.
"I think she's just uncertain about her place in the world," Cadance said, her form ethereal and tiny upon the desk.
Twilight leaned back, confident the sending spell would keep her framed regardless of position. "She just seemed so... upset today when I used her old nickname."
Cadance laughed, "Twilight, how awkward were you at that age?"
"Mmm... pretty awkward, I guess."
"And you were just a normal unicorn, around other unicorns. Nearly all the children Flurry's age are crystal ponies there, and absolutely none of them are alicorns. She wants to fit in, but has no way to do so."
"So, every time we point out how she looks..." Twilight leaned forward again, sighing. "It's reminding her of how different she is."
"And worse, the only ponies she can compare herself to are literally princesses basically worshiped by the entire populace."
"I wouldn't say we're worshiped at such, more of—"
"Because you don't like that part either, but you know that's how everypony looks at us. Flurry knows her aunts all cast a long shadow, and—"
"And she hates being reminded of it every time we compare her to others."
Cadance nodded. "I've been trying to get through to her, but she's a teenager, sometimes the last pony they want to talk to is their mother. I'm hoping maybe you'll have better luck."
"I'll try." Twilight smiled, "Good night, Cadance."
"Good night, Twil—
"'Night Twiley!" Shining Armor interjected from off screen, just as the spell was cut.
The next morning, Twilight found herself in the castle's study well before dawn. It was spring, and she'd agreed to take over celestial duties, managing the sun and moon for the season while the elder princesses went on a grand diplomatic tour. She'd gotten used to waking—or at least, still being awake—for dawn and dusk each day, but tonight she'd just had things weighing on her mind.
Candles lit, she paced through the study where she'd been informally tutoring Flurry Heart over the past few days. The filly had shown interest in both astronomy and optics, and after Twilight had shown her how different crystals could diffract light in ways that let one study the distant stars, she'd begged to see more.
Pacing, Twilight came to the illustrations near the telescope. The folio was still open to the sketches Flurry had been making of the sun's corona, as seen through the heavily smoked glass of the telescope. She flipped backwards, reviewing the spectral lines Flurry had dutifully copied, showing the hydrogen and helium lines in the sun, as well as other spectra they'd captured from a candle's flame, a vial of pure oxygen, and several gems, before returning the book to the coronal sketch.
She's good, Twilight thought, running a hoof gently over the arcs of solar plasma drawn in exquisite detail. Really good! Might be we'll soon have a cutie mark in the family for art!
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hooves clinking ever-so-gently on crystal floors.
Flurry Heart, horn lit with a soft light spell, poked her head into the room. "Oh, sorry," she said, upon seeing the room occupied. "I didn't..." She paused, seemingly frozen in thought.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Twilight said, doing her best to give a warm smile.
Posture softening, Flurry moved into the study. "No, not really, I guess."
The two ponies stood in awkward silence for a moment.
"It's just—"
"No, you go first," Twilight insisted.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Flurry began. "I'm sorry for snapping at you yesterday. I know you didn't mean anything by what you said, it's just..."
"No," Twilight interrupted. "I'm sorry. You were right, you're not a child any more, and sometimes I forget that. You deserve to just be yourself, not my—or anypony else's—version of how we see you."
"Anyone else's."
"Excuse me?"
"You said "anypony" but that's speciest. You should say "anyone" or "anybeing" instead."
Ever the grammarian, the correction really threw Twilight's mind for a loop, almost as much as the unexpected confidence with which it was delivered. When her brain caught up with itself, and she'd remembered to close her jaw, she realized, well, she's not wrong. She looked at her niece. "I guess I never realized that."
"I know, which is why I didn't say anything, but... well, you said it several times, and I know it's just how you've always said things, but how would you feel if you were a griffin or a minotaur or some other species and heard that all the time?"
Twilight nodded. "Point taken. I guess I just never meant it that way, so..."
"I know, Aunt T, and I know you never meant anything mean in calling me Floofy either. But it..." Flurry blushed and lowered her ears a bit.
"But," Twilight finished for her. "It feels a bit like a tease when you're the only one growing a winter coat."
Flurry nodded, but kept her eyes downcast, trying to hide her blush still.
"Flurry, please, look at me." Twilight gently lifted her chin with a hoof. "I know this is a tough time for you. It is for every filly at your age. I know it's harder on you being unique as you are, but believe me, everypony—I mean everyone thinks you are amazing. Just because no one else looks like you doesn't mean you aren't beautiful."
Fighting back tears, Flurry stammered. "Everyone always says that but... But thank you, Aunt T."
The two hugged for a moment, before Twilight reluctantly broke the embrace. The sun should've been up several minutes ago, but she had an idea. "You know one of the best parts about being an alicorn?"
Flurry smiled. "Eating all you want and never getting fat?"
"No dear," Twilight said. "That's not an alicorn power, that's a teenage power." Twilight gestured for Flurry to follow her out onto the balcony. "The best part is raising the sun!"
Flurry Heart looked at her uncertainly, hesitating on the threshold.
"I know it's cold out," Twilight said, surveying the patches of snow still covering some of the more shaded rooftops and alleyways.
"Is it?" Flurry said.
Twilight chuckled. Of course the floofball didn't feel it! "Okay, so what's the problem?"
"It's just... I've seen Aunt C and Luna both do that a bunch."
Twilight turned around. "I'm not asking you to watch, I'm offering you a chance to try it for yourself!"
Flurry pawed a bit at the floor with a forehoof, a nervous tick Twilight had seen Cadance do as well when nervous. "What's wrong?" Twilight asked.
"It's just... I don't know that I'm ready, or that I can..."
"It's okay, Flurry. I'll be right here with you. Trust me, it's just a little bit of practice is all. No pony—Sorry, no one will know but us. Just give it a try."
Hesitantly, Flurry stepped out onto the balcony. The two ponies stood, gazing over the city and to the snow-capped peaks beyond it.
"Okay," Twilight began. "Close your eyes, and think of all the warmest things you can. Think of the sunlight on your face in the summer, of sun-drenched earth, and the warmth in all life. Find that feeling, and follow it out, out farther than you ever thought you could."
Flurry closed her eyes and opened her mind, doing her best to follow the instructions, her face making, objectively, the cutest scrunched up expression Twilight had ever seen.
Avoiding any outburst of auntly "d'aww"ing though, Twilight started her own monitoring spell. Sensing and waiting for the tendrils of spellwork Flurry was attempting to form. She found them, and saw them vaguely reaching toward the horizon, but they were disorganized, temporal at best. So she reached out, her own spell gently coaxing Flurry's into a more coherent form, guiding it imperceptibly toward the sun.
"A little harder, and a little further," Twilight instructed. "You're almost there!"
Flurry pumped more energy into her spell, and then, with a shock, her eyes popped open. "I feel it!"
Twilight smiled at her. "Good! Now, feel it for a minute. Get a sense of the thing, of the place, of the energies."
"I... I'll try." Flurry closed her eyes again.
"Remember what you were drawing yesterday? The flares and arcs, the spots and the whorls? Find those, find what they look like on the inside."
Twilight watched, proud as both an Aunt and a teacher.
"Oh wow," Flurry said. "I can... It's like... It smells like summer, but too loud!"
That was a new one, Twilight thought. Sure, every unicorn had their own synesthetic way of describing the magic sense in terms of the more mundane ones, but "the sun smells too loudly of summer" was one of the more bizarre. Yet, she knew, that surely indicated Flurry had made a solid connection.
"Okay," Twilight said. "Now raise it, slowly."
"What?" Flurry opened her eyes. "It's so big, I could never move something that large!"
Twilight could sense the filly's spell slipping. "No, it's not a levitation spell. Just relax. Remember those feelings of warmth and light?"
Flurry took a few deep breaths. "Okay, I feel it again."
"Right, so you don't move the sun yourself. You coax it into moving for you."
"How do I do that?"
"The sun is light, and warmth, and life, and all of those things. But all those things are also in you. Send your own heat and light to it, as light seeks light."
Flurry wrinkled her brow, but kept her eyes closed, a good sign, Twilight thought. She observed as the magic tendrils strengthened as Flurry sent energy toward the horizon. She'd need a lot more than that, so Twilight gave her a minute, but the output didn't increase.
"You need to try harder, Flurry."
"I... I'm afraid. I don't know what I'm doing, maybe we should just stop."
Twilight put a wing over her shoulder. "There's nothing to be afraid of, you're doing great, you just need to put more energy into it."
"I... I'm trying, Aunt T, but..."
Flurry made a visible show of effort, brow scrunching even more. Yet Twilight sensed no more energy on the magical side of things. What was the problem? She knew her niece had it within her to do this. Even as an infant she'd had more magical power than anypony she'd ever seen.
"Flurry," Twilight said, her voice more serious. "Take a break for a minute."
Flurry opened one eye, and saw the stern look on her aunt's face, then let the spellforms drop.
"Tell me," Twilight said. "What's wrong? Why won't you give it your all?"
It took a moment, but eventually Flurry responded. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"That I'll... over do it. That I'll break it."
Twilight waited for her to continue.
"Remember when I was eight, and I set the tablecloth on fire at that restaurant?"
Twilight nodded as she thought back. She hadn't been there, but Cadance had given her the recap. They'd managed to put out the fire quickly enough that nopony got hurt, but...
"I'd just been trying to warm up my soup. But it... I lost control and nearly burned down a restaurant."
"Oh!" Twilight said, realization connecting. "I don't think I ever realized what's why it happened." But of course it made sense. That's about the point where Flurry suddenly seemed to get her power under control. But maybe... "But you've been afraid to really push yourself ever since, haven't you?"
Flurry nodded, visibly shaking, though Twilight couldn't quite tell if it was relief at admitting the problem, or at the fear she still faced.
Twilight wrapped her up in huge hug, wings and all, as determined as an aunt to could be wring the sadness right out of her.
After the gurgling started, she relaxed a bit.
"Oh Flurry," Twilight said after taking a moment to clear her own sniffles. "You were eight! Nopony has control of their magic at that age. I mean, I turned my own parents into plants on accident when I was even younger!"
"I know, Aunt T, but... Aunt C was there to help you calm down and control your spell. I'm an alicorn. If I have an accident, it might really hurt someone, and no unicorn is going to be able to contain my magic."
Oh my, Twilight thought, seeing the genuine fear and sadness in her niece's eyes. The poor dear! "Flurry, you're not eight anymore. You're a young mare in your own right. You've haven't had an outburst in years, and you've learned so much since then."
"But... What if I..." Flurry said, through sniffles. "What if I haven't? What if I mess up and really hurt someone?"
Twilight wasn't sure what more she could say. Facts and statistics weren't going to help fight an irrational fear, any more than they would convince a child there's no monster under the bed. Heck, Twilight thought, I did my own statistics on that and it still didn't help when I was... Then it dawned on her.
"Hang on, Flurry, wait here a minute, and I'll be right back."
"Where are you—"
"Just wait here. Five minutes tops, I promise!"
Twilight headed inside and looked at the table of various gems and crystals they'd been working with. No good, Flurry would recognize any of those. So she galloped off toward the guestroom she'd been staying in, before digging into her box of trinkets. It wasn't much, as she wasn't a very sentimental mare, but Twilight Sparkle still kept a small box of mementos from various adventures. Nothing big, nothing gaudy, just small, seemingly useless things that mattered only for the story they were connect to.
Most of the items were too mundane to work. She needed something that could pass for being magical, and protective, the way Smarty Pants had protected her from the monsters. Various quills, small rocks, a bent spoon, a chemistry pipette, a tangled string... No good. But there, yes. That'd do. A small bit of sunstone, not much different than quartz to a casual observer, but in the sun...
Twilight came trotting back into the study and returned to the balcony where Flurry was patiently still waiting. "Sorry about running off like that," she said. "But I found it." She held the stone out to Flurry, who took it in her own aura.
"What is it?" Flurry asked, turning the vaguely translucent rock over in her field.
"It's an ancient relic to help with sun magic."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Actually," Twilight said, improvising, "Luna gave it to me not long after I became an alicorn, back when I was having trouble raising the sun myself."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Twilight said, doubling down. "And she told me Celestia gave it to her when they were young, and Celestia was first teaching her to control the sun herself."
Flurry's eyes lit up at that. As much as she might regret standing out as an alicorn, she also felt relief that this stone was maybe something that had helped others like her in that regard. "How does it work?"
"Well," Twilight wasn't great at lying, but she did know what the stone actually did, so... "Let me show you." She also realized the sunrise as at least a half hour late at this point. "I'm going to bring the sun up, just a bit, to the horizon." She closed her eyes and did so, reveling in the warmth she felt every time she connected with the faraway orb.
As roosters began to crow in the distance, Twilight took the stone and held it in front of herself and Flurry. "See how the sun is hidden behind those clouds? Well, if you take this relic, and look through it, you can see how the color and brightness changes depending on how you turn it, right?" She demonstrated, then let Flurry take the stone and do the same.
Twilight realized this lie wouldn't have worked even two days from now. Sunstones were literally on day five of her lesson plan about diffraction. But for now, maybe it'd be enough... if she could convincingly lie.
"So you see," Twilight said, fib primed. "The relic is connected to the sun, and always finds it. It focuses your spells and keeps them controlled. All you have to do is hold this while you cast your spell and you can't miss!"
Fluffing her wings and rolling her shoulders to stretch, flurry turned to face the sun. "If you're sure, Aunt T."
"It worked for Celestia, it worked for Luna, and it worked for me!"
Twilight let Flurry take the lead this time, giving advice only sparingly as the young mare again made initial contact with the sun. Once the bond was strong, it was time to really begin.
"Okay Flurry, now like before, I want you to take your own light and warmth, and pour it into the connection."
Flurry did so, putting more energy in than she had before by a fair amount, but still far short of what was needed.
"Relax and let yourself go," Twilight encouraged. "You're holding the relic, so everything is fine."
Flurry poured more energy into the connection still, and Twilight could feel the sun responding every so slightly.
"That's it! You're almost there." Twilight moved around to stand in front of Flurry, her voice guiding her toward the sun. "You can do it. I believe in you. You just have to believe in yourself! Give it all you've got!"
A smile spread across Flurry's face, even as tiny drops of tear formed in the corners of her eyes. Twilight smiled in return, seeing the dawn sun glint off of them. Then with a heave of determination, Flurry's horn burst with a light so bright Twilight had to turn her head away.
When she'd finished blinking the spots out of her eyes, she felt the warmth on her back of a midday sun!
"You did it!" Twilight cried, hugging her star pupil.
Flurry opened her eyes, tears running down her cheeks as she looked around at the bright daylight, causing the entire city to glimmer and shine. "I did, didn't I? Though maybe it's a tad too high?"
"Yes," Twilight said, then chuckled at the noon-day light. "A tad. But you did wonderfully! I knew you could!"
"That relic you had really helped too! Thank you for that!"
"I... Yeah." Later, Twilight thought. For now... "You're welcome. I'll show you more later, but for now, how about some breakfast?"
"Now that you mention it, I'm starving!"
Twilight grinned. "That kind of magic really takes it out of you!"
After the meal, Twilight retreated to her own room and, after responding to several panicked scrolls from the other princesses wondering if Discord got ahold of the sun again, she took a nap.
Some time after lunch—hard to tell with the sun a bit wonky—she woke and headed up to the study. As she entered, Twilight found Flurry heart pacing frantically back and forth, her mane and coat frazzled and a look of sheer panic in her eyes.
"Flurry Heart, what's wrong?" Twilight said, rushing into the room. "You look awful."
"I did it, Aunt T. I told you it'd happen, and now... now it did. That, that relic you gave me. I, it... it made me break the sun."
Putting on her best educator voice, Twilight tried to clam her. "Slow down, Flurry. What happened."
"Maybe it was the relic. You said it was Luna's, right? Maybe some of it got in there and now it's in me. Now I've done it! I broke it!"
"What's in you? What are you talking about."
"The Nightmare!" Flurry practically screamed. "I finally let go, and opened myself up, and maybe it got in me from the relic somehow, and now it's in the sun."
"Whatever would make you think that?" Twilight asked, doing her best to sound reassuring, though knowing her incredulity was showing as well.
"Just look, look at the sun!" Flurry gesticulated wildly toward the telescope. "I was going to sketch some more and..." She trailed off in a series of manic half laughs.
Going to the telescope, Twilight saw it was still set up with the dark, smoked glass for solar viewing, so aimed it at the sun and looked. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, then she saw it. It looked... a bit like the mare in the moon had, during Luna's banishment, but... on the sun? That wasn't possible."
"See, see it?" Flurry said. "I let the Nightmare get to the sun!"
Okay, now Twilight herself was getting a tad worried. She cast her sun-bonding spell out toward the sun, though much more slowly than usual, ready to close the connection in an instant if she sensed anything evil.
As the first tendrils made contact, it felt just like the warm, summer day she'd expect. She let more of a connection flow, and continued to sense nothing but love and light and warmth... though there was something slightly different than before. Twilight smiled.
"Flurry, it's okay!" She shouted, as Flurry had paced to the far end of the room. "Come over here, and let me show you something."
Flurry came to her side.
"See this?" Twilight held up the relic. "It's just a sunstone. It's not magic, just crystal."
"But you said it was..."
"Flurry, I am so very sorry, but I lied."
"But if it's not magic, then... the Nightmare is in me!"
Twilight grabbed Flurry with a field and physically pressed to keep her from nervously stamping her hooves. "I don't think anything is wrong, Flurry. There is no Nightmare."
"But that... it's the mare in the moon, but... but in the sun!"
"No, just because it may look like that, doesn't mean it's the same."
"So if it's not the Nightmare, then what is it?" Flurry asked. "Do you know?"
"Not quite, but I have a hunch. No, wait..." Twilight grinned. This would be a learning opportunity. "I have a theory!"
Twilight Sparkle spent the next few minutes directly Flurry through the minutia of setting up the spectrograph. Even though she could do it herself in half the time. From there, she has the young mare direct the scope at the sun, and as it projected the spectral lines on the paper, Flurry was instructed to copy it down.
Once done, she had Flurry find the spectra she'd recorded from the sun a few days prior, and look for any differences. There, at the far octarine end of the spectrum, were three bright, new lines.
"So," Twilight explained. "That's what was added to the sun since last we observed. Correct?"
"So that's the Nightmare?" Flurry asked. "Those lines?"
"That's what's new but we don't know for sure what it is. I don't think it's the Nightmare at all. But we should check all possibilities to be sure. Let's start with the other spectra we already have. Do any of them have those same lines?"
Flurry started looking through the folio, and quickly found several. "Oh no, it's everywhere!"
"Not everywhere," Twilight was quick to point out. "Just, so far, in this room, and on the sun. And these other spectra don't have the same lines at all. So the question is, what do the ones that do have them have in common?"
"What?" Flurry asked.
Twilight laughed. "No dear, I'm asking you. I want you to figure this out."
Flurry, though still nervous, was gradually calming by osmosis, as Twilight had hoped. It's hard to remain panicked during the mundane slog of research. "Umm... there are mostly rocks, but this one is a vial of water."
"And the ones that don't have the lines."
"Well, except for the sun, they're mostly far away, like clouds or stars, or the sky itself. But the first two are also rocks."
"Very good, and when we tested those, did you remember how we did it?"
"Well, you... you were holding them up over the flame while I used a mirror to shine light through the vapors."
"And the later ones?"
"Well, she'd mounted the mirror and things, so I just held them up myself..."
"So what does that tell you?"
"I don't know, Aunt T. Just tell me!"
"One more test, then I promise."
Flurry nodded.
"Okay, this is very simple. Just cast a small light spell in front of the spectrograph and tell me what you see."
Twilight was pleased to see the gears click even before Flurry had performed the final experiment, as the young alicorn seemed to visibly relax as she cast the final spell. Sure enough, exactly as Twilight expected, Flurry's own aura cast three bright lines, right where they'd appeared in all the samples she'd been levitating, and which now appeared in the sun.
"But I don't get it, Aunt T." Flurry said, after reaching the same conclusion. "I understand it's my magic that did changed the spectra, but what about the dark figure? Is that me? Something inside me?"
Twilight turned and manipulated the telescope, letting it project the image of the sun onto a blank part of the table. There, though inverted, was the image of a horned mare, in silhouette on the face of the sun.
Twilight turned back to Flurry heart. "Does that look like you?"
Squinting, Flurry Heart leaned closer to the table. "Kind of, I think. It's a stubby horn like mine."
"Uh huh," Twilight rolled her eyes toward her own horn, which clearly ran in the family, but feared the gesture was lost. "But otherwise, the mane, the muzzle, remind you of anyone?"
"Yeah," Flurry said, a bit exasperated. "Me!"
"You seriously think that mane and face is fluffy enough to be you?"
Flurry looked up, confused, but starting to relax a bit more.
"It's me, silly!" Twilight said. "I was standing right between you and the sun when you cast the spell."
"So... I'm not... I'm not the Nightmare?"
"No, you silly Floof!" Twilight wrapped her up in another big hug, and beginning to cry. "You're not the Nightmare. You're the exact opposite!"
"What do you mean."
Twilight felt tears running down her cheeks, full of pride in her wonderful, amazing niece. "That image up there. It's not a dimming or an infection. It just a shadow!"
Flurry gave her a look, as if to ask what exactly that meant, and Twilight laughed again. "It's wonderful, that's what it means. It means your inner warmth and love and light, and all those things you were projecting—That light in you is so bright that it literally cast a shadow on the sun!"
Meanwhile, at the solar forge-cum-oven:
"Guys! Guys! It worked! Everypony, it worked! The cookies are a success! The missing component in the spectrum was love!"
For all we know, it may be there. It's not like you can check
« Prev 6 Next »
· 5 months and 2 weeks ago · >>Baal Bunny >>Xepher
Today's a snow day, so instead of going to work, I'm going to see if I can't read and comment on 33,000 words of fanfiction. The best plan, yes? Yes!
This was a fun, feel-good fic, and a great one to open with. There's a lot of very natural-feeling moments throughout--stuff like how Shiny is shouting into the 'telephone' from the background, for example--that give your story a pleasant sense of verisimilitude. Some of the Pinkie stuff does feel a little far afield of that (this is "personal preference" rather than "definitive advice," but I wouldn't have her give Twilight anything that constitutes a lethal poison; that strays a little bit from where I feel the rest of the fic's tone is), but not so much that it really broke my immersion. And Flurry's teen-portrayal (and the smart decision to physically other her in ways beyond "just" her alicornification, i.e. ways that can be read as not just "better than other ponies") is a genuine, relatable grounding to base a story on.
I did feel like Twilight and Flurry's testing ran a little long, and didn't have enough payoff. Or rather, went too long without payoff; there aren't any particularly enlightening-to-the-reader revelations until we get to the end, so everything between "I have a theory!" to "It's me, silly" is just buildup--and I it felt like too much, to me, unless you're going to have some meaningful-to-the-reader secondary revelations mixed in there to keep the audience's interest up. I think a little more could have been done to address Flurry's teen angst towards the end as well; as-is, that feels like the heart of the fic for the first two-thirds, then gets almost entirely sidelined (I did like the callback to Pinkie ending, though. Don't change that!).
But overall, a very solid entry, and one that I enjoyed reading. On to fic two!
Xepher
· 5 months and 2 weeks ago · >>Baal Bunny
Quick Takes:
Some fun turns of phrase in the Pinkie Pie section.
She's a teenager but doesn't have her cutie mark? Do alicorns age slower maybe?
Twilight being accidentally "speciest" is amusing.
A sunstone as Dumbo's feather?
Starting to get more typos here in the latter bits.
Okay, that ending... what a great visual metaphor!
Lots of little details in "teenage" Flurry to make her feel real.
Jokes/gags in the Pinkie bit were amusing.
The scientific approach to resolving things felt very Twilight.
The pinkie bit was a bit long for only being (really) a setup for post-credits stinger.
Lots of typos cropped up near the end. Definitely felt rushed.
The "research" bit at the end needed more clues (or more foreshadowing) to let the reader grasp things sooner. Or it just needed to be shorter. As it sits, we're as frustrated as Flurry in getting to the answer.
A very solid story with a great visual metaphor at the end, and bonus points for using the prompt image so directly. But things could be a bit more focused. The story feels a bit like it's torn between "scientific mystery" and "teen angst/family bonding." I can see how it's tying them together, but that needs to be done a bit more smoothly. Probably wouldn't hurt to see more from Flurry's perspective, to really get a sense of her self-doubt. Still though a really enjoyable read with a heartwarming payoff.
Baal Bunny
· 5 months and 2 weeks ago · >>Xepher
I'm going to:
Largely agree with >>Chris and >>Xepher. The heart of the story--teenage Flurry learns that she's not necessarily a monster--is very nice, but the spectral analysis stuff left me completely behind and the Pinkie stuff seems to come from nowhere and lead nowhere.
But I find myself full of questions. Has Flurry permanently altered the sun's radiation signature? And if these three lines appear on the other readings Flurry took herself but not on the ones she took with Twilight's help, how is it that Twilight hasn't noticed them before? I'm guessing that whatever substances they're testing have been through this spectrographic process before, so wouldn't these extraneous lines have stood out as not normal? Does Twilight have her own detectable radiation signature? Or is Flurry unique in this way, too?
There's a lot here to work with, author--maybe Pinkie's continued failures to make something edible could be a lesson for Flurry in perserverance? And I hope you'll keep working with it!
scifipony
Before I start, this is a critique of what one reader understood reading what you wrote. I have not read anyone else's critiques, and won't until after voting ends. Take what I say if it proves helpful or ignore it; your choice.
First off, I can see that this is not a first-draft. Most of it is written expertly, but you didn't catch everything and those road apples really irked me because all were obvious... to me, but proofing one's own writing is the worst! Right? May I suggest that you either read your stories aloud when you think you're done, or have your phone/tablet/computer read it to you? This is what I do.
The story contains many delights. I actually rated it pretty high. Unlike others who struggled to get a full story up, you produced a cornucopia of content! While this has probably happened to me before, nobody has given me this specific advice I have heard told others. Once you've started writing, look for where the story actually begins. (Usually, this is a recipe for getting over blank-page-can't-start-writing syndrome, specifically, just write whatever until you find the actual beginning of your story, but I digress.)
Your story is an onion. Your real story is a gem, and I'm not saying this to humor you.
The real story is Twilight helping her OP niece overcome her fears to raise the sun, and handling the aftermath together. I found it moving (no pun intended). If you start where Flurry finds Twilight not being able to sleep and ends with the meaning of the mare on the sun, you've got a winner. I would suggest you clean it up and publish it on FimFiction, stat.
The next layer of the onion is Flurry being furious about growing up a teenage alicorn. While this is also quite interesting, it's just deep background. None of it, other than being an alicorn teenager with angst matters to the core story, and in the core a sentence or two will suffice. The machinations you went through to explain Flurry being fluffy doesn't jibe with canon. What does that even bring to the whole story or even to this layer except extra words. As cute as the holo spell-phone connection (from The Movie, right?) is, I found it disorienting. With a little cleanup, it might serve to introduce the core story by setting Twilight taking care of Flurry, but the story could just as well happen at the Friendship Castle on an overnight visit. In other words, this middle layer kind of works, but doesn't really flow.
The outer layer of the onion is Pinkie. She is unnecessary to the story in the beginning and her presence in the end distracts from the unmitigated solar warmth of the "shadow" revelation toward the end. What does Pinkie add? Ask yourself that.
In summary, I suggest you look in the work, and possibly your others, and cut the unnecessary fluff (pun intended). Find where the story starts.
Good job on the central core, though. I mean, yeah, upvote!
· 5 months and 1 week ago · >>scifipony >>Chris
>>Chris
>>Baal Bunny
>>scifipony
Thank you all for the feedback. I definitely need to refine the pacing (especially the ending "research" bit.)
I wasn't nearly clear enough in the story, as I'd originally meant to have a bigger bit with Pinkie at the end, but of course she would never poison anyone! If you read carefully, she says the lead/asbestos mixture evaporates! The idea was that Pinky was actually smarter than Twilight was giving her credit for, and basically (since the ovens are so hot) creating ablative shielding that boiled away at just the right speed so not only did the cookie inside bake just right, but also so that the last of it boiled away and exposed the cookie to the beam at full dispersal, (where it can only last like 1/8th second) just enough to imbue it with the same spectral powers they were originally meant to imbue into armor, weapons, and other stuff.
Now, as to why my brain came up with that many details about baking cookies when I was on a very tight time crunch for this story? Well, my brain hates me sometimes. :-)
Baal, to answer your questions: My headcanon is spells leave signatures, so while it's not "permanent" the sun will have an "afterglow" for a while. The lines appeared in all the samples because her aura was literally glowing in/around them as she levitated them. That is to say, her aura's glow was entering the spectrograph. Any/all unicorn magic would have spectral signatures as unique as fingerprints, so yes, other unicorns would have signature lines if they cast a spell in front of a spectrograph. Not all of them could literally leave a lasting mark on the sun, however!
Lastly, scifipony
First off, I can see that this is not a first-draft.
That's possibly the best compliment I've ever had. Not only IS this a first draft, it was actually a very rushed one, written end-to-end in one go, starting about six hours before the deadline. I did make one INCREDIBLY rushed attempt to edit when there was about 10 minutes remaining, but mostly just got to fix typos in the first 1/3 of the thing. I swear, if I could ever stop doing the "last possible minute" thing and actually edit/revise...
That said, yes, I need to clean up the extraneous stuff and get to the "core" of the story. I didn't even know what the story was until it happened while I was writing though. The Pinkie bit got away from me because writing Pinkie is fun, but I agree it doesn't really serve the story (as seen.) The solar ovens were meant to be more of a clue/connection to what happened than they ended up being. Basically "the secret ingredient is love" in baking, so I was trying to double-down on my metaphors.
Flurry being overly fuzzy is meant to be one of the body-image issues surrounding her teen angst. To me, that is important, as little "odd" details like that are what tend to sell me on stories and bring characters to life beyond canon, and keep things like "teen angst" from feeling so generic. It also ensures that the silhouette at the end looks demonstrably different from what Flurry's would (proving it's not her.) I'll see if I can integrate it a bit more naturally when I revise though.
Holo-spell was just "phone call" in Equestria for me... I don't know if it was in the movie or not. Mostly that was a short cut to speed things up as I ran low on time. Cadance gets to directly TELL Twilight (or rather, the reader) some things I didn't have time to properly show.
· 5 months and 1 week ago
>>Xepher
Regardless, the part of the story I pointed out was my favorite for the event. I hope you chose that edit (I'm biased), and I'd love to pre-read for pub on FimFiction.


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text:
A Christmas Memory: A John Lennon Memoir — 1969
One of his causes was peace for the world and in this season of giving and peace, let's remember him.
John Lennon, Toronto, early 1970s
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, aka The Beatles, have recorded a new hit song with a man who has been dead for 15 years. If that doesn't smack of high-tech, nothing does. The release of the new song and the new-found interest in The Beatles led me to thinking about the time I had an unexpected private interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
For those of you who missed this three years ago, I'm publishing it again and this time, it includes something really special — a contact sheet of photos of me, John Lennon and Yoko Ono during our interview in Toronto, Canada.
Once upon another lifetime, I worked for a major US publishing magazine and I decided that we weren't giving enough attention to the publishers to the north of us; the Canadians. I began attending a yearly meeting of Canadian publishers and on one of my first visits I was booked into the same hotel as John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Lennon had just published a book and I thought it might be fun to get an interview for the magazine. How do you get an interview with a rock superstar when everyone in Toronto is clamoring for five minutes with them.
It's Not What You Know, It's WHO You Know
Well, if you're inordinately lucky, you have a relative who is a very good friend of a close friend of theirs. Follow? Then you take a large measure of chutzpah, pen an anything-but-memorable note which states that your relative, friend of so-and-so, says hello. You leave it with the clerk at the desk and go to your room.
A few hours later, the phone rang and a man with a strong British accent asked, "Would you like to come up to the suite to talk to John?" Could there have been any questions?
They decided that I could come up later in the afternoon and I grabbed for a Toronto yellow pages to look up photographers. I can't imagine what the photographer I called thought when I told him that I had an exclusive interview with John Lennon, wanted him to meet me in the lobby, and not to tell anyone. He agreed and an hour later I met someone I didn't know and had no idea whether he could use a camera or not and we went up to the suite.
I knew the popularity of The Beatles, but I wasn't prepared for what met us when the elevator door opened on the floor where Lennon had his suite. Wall to wall screaming girls, who couldn't have been any older than 12 or 13, packed the hall and we literally had to wade our way through as they begged for us to take them in with us.
The Door Is Opened
The door was opened by someone, I don't know who, and then the fellow who had called, Derek Taylor, introduced himself and led us into a room where a table, complete with a white tablecloth, had been set up.
On top of it were bottles of Coke and a pot of tea. Over in the corner, near the windows, stood a man in a dreadful dark green silk suit (Alan Klein?) who looked at us with all the enthusiasm of a sated turtle.
We sat, the photographer fiddled with his equipment and the man still stood sullenly in the corner, looking out the window and occasionally looking around at us. A camera crew with a mini-cam began filming and Derek explained that they were filming everything on this trip. John was thinking of making a film of it all.
So, I was immortalized in a film with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the gang and God knows where it's lying today. Probably in someone's trunk waiting to be rediscovered by someone looking for something else. Clear on that one?
John Enters Quietly and Introduces Himself
Without any notice, like trumpets or an announcement or something, John stepped into the room, followed by Yoko. I looked at him with his long hair and round glasses and impeccable white pants and shirt and all I could think was, "He's not tall. He's very thin and not tall".
I didn't know what he'd be like and, not being a Beatles fan, I thought the worst. He faked me out. Coming over, he said, "How do you do. So nice of you to come".
Then he offered me a Coke or some tea and I found I wasn't prepared for this interview. Somehow, I thought it would flow, that he would talk and talk as everyone always did and all I would have to do is take some really good quotes down.
He waited and as he did; I noticed how attentive he was to Yoko. How he touched her hair — that explosion of hair that seemed to stand out from her head. Where did that woman get all that hair spray?
He seemed so enamored of her. He was really head over heels in love with this woman. She, on the other hand, seemed somewhat cool and distant, as though she expected it from him.
He turned. Looking at me and speaking to Yoko, he asked, "Doesn't she look like Shirley MacLaine? I think she looks like Shirley MacLaine." She agreed somewhat quietly, and I made some forgettable retort.
The two photographers kept clicking off shots and shooting videotape while I fumbled for something to ask. What about his book, his writing, what?
He was pleasant and shortly, Derek signaled that the interview had to end because Jacqueline Susann was coming up for a chat with John and Yoko.
A large, muscular man came to the room. A little Oriental girl, perhaps four or five, was brought in and the man took her hand. She was going for a walk with a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Couldn't want a more reliable child walker, if you wanted one.
The little girl was Yoko's daughter by a previous marriage. Many years later, while in New York, I would see her horsing around on Fifth Avenue with Sean Lennon, her half-brother. That was light-years before that fatal night on Central Park West how many years ago?
The interview was over. John thanked me for coming and I left. The memories remain as does the single proof sheet of black-and-white photos from the shoot. I keep it framed on the wall in my living room.
Toronto, Canada, unknown photographer
When I met him, he floored me because I was expecting a brash rock & roller and he wasn't anything like that. I found him to be extremely polite, quiet, thoughtful, and devoted to his wife.
I came away with a very different opinion of him and I expect that he must have affected other people the same way. I think that he was quite bright and was really interested in helping the cause of world peace.
As I recall, that Christmas or soon thereafter, he took out a huge billboard on Broadway to wish everyone a Happy Christmas (the usual British greeting).
For sure, John Lennon, we lost you way too soon.
I was desperate for new music about three years ago.
Neil Frawley
The Question Behind Taylor Swift's Battle
Douglas Giles, PhD in Data Driven Investor
My journey with the music of the 2010s
Raunaq Nambiar in Cultivate
There's Never An In-Between
Solomon Hillfleet in An Injustice!
Elvis Presley Covers: 10 Surprising Songs By The King
uDiscover Music in uDiscover Music
"Games and Music Go Hand in Hand"
Gino Sorcinelli in Micro-Chop
Tom Waits vs. Captain Beefheart in the Battle for my Soul
Preacher Boy
I've Been Sleeping on Future, I Apologize


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Carol Forte represented a woman with a lump in her breast but whose mammogram showed nothing. Despite the presence of the lump and the negative findings of the mammogram, the defendants failed to recommend and/or perform a timely diagnostic ultrasound and biopsy of the suspect area. This failure to test resulted in a delay of the diagnosis of the woman's cancer and a progression of the disease process to a stage where her prognosis for recovery was worsened.


As I sit by my father's bedside in Australia, holding his hand and watching him lose his fight with cancer, I'm reminded of the way death is always present in Turkey. In the West we hide from it, but in Turkey it is part of life. It's not just the immediacy of loss, the presence of an empty green council truck waiting to collect a full coffin from a building down the street, or the mourning rituals being performed outside the building next door, but the way death is incorporated into Turkish social life as a celebration, where the memory of the deceased lives on in the family and friends who mourn them.
The first time I really came face to face with death in Turkey I was living in central Turkey. Known to tourists as Cappadocia, the area is more famous for its magically surreal fairy chimneys than for the trading town of Kayseri where I lived. Kayseri was and is the provincial capital, and was then very conservative. In order to let our hair down and break free from the social restrictions of the town we often spent weekends in the little village of Göreme, just over one hundred kilometres away. We didn't usually go every weekend but it was Ramazan and time was dragging in Kayseri, where all the cafes and restaurants shut during the day and everyone staying at home and fasted. At least in Göreme we could go out for lunch and drink tea and smoke as we pleased.
After repeatedly visiting and staying in the village for over ten years, we had a well established routine of who we would visit. So, first of all, we popped into the Ihlamur Carpet Gallery to say hello, and found all the family gathered around, even the wives, looking very subdued.
Offering our condolences we left them to their grief and went to see Ibo. I'd first worked at Ibo's pension back in 1990, and had seen him marry, have a daughter and divorce. I knew his parents and his sister, her husband and her children. Whenever we went to Göreme we stayed with him so a visit when we came over for the day was the norm. As usual, he was sitting in the courtyard, soaking up the sun, smoking and doing the crossword.
Ibo seemed unaffected by the death but we were devastated. Happy, sunny Ibrahim who always greeted us with tea and had such big plans, was dead. It was so sudden and such a waste. We immediately raced down to the bus station to see if we could find his father, who we knew well. He wasn't at the office but another villager called Kara Mehmet. He offered us to take us to the house that night to pay our respects, so we decided to stay overnight so we could go. Back at Ihlamur's Murat told us Ibrahim had been visiting relatives and there had been five passengers in the taxi. The driver was doing 140km an hour and was struck by a truck at a notorious intersection. We knew it well and had seen how no one stopped at the traffic light after dark if the road seemed empty. Murat showed us the police report that clearly showed the taxi had right of way and how the truck had accelerated. The taxi driver tried to swerve but it was too late. None of them had been wearing seatbelts, and Ibrahim died instantly. The others were still in hospital.
That night we met Kara Mehmet and followed him through the winding cobblestone streets of the village, well away from the tourist haunts. We came to a sizeable courtyard and stopped at the gate. Inside there were large groups of women and children gathered around cooking fires, others in the kitchen washing up, and men huddled together smoking and talking. They all turned when we entered the yard, so we watched them watching us while Kara Mehmet went to talk to two of the older women. I was quickly ushered up some stairs while Kim went back around the corner to another part of the house.
"Do you have a car?" and another woman commented how helpful it would be for shopping.
"No we don't have a car. I can't drive. And driving is sometimes dangerous." They all agreed, and I felt awful.
I stayed for about two hours and during that time women kept coming in and out of the room, to bring food, to wash the widow's face, and to change her clothes and bedding. It had been one day since Ibrahim died, on a Friday afternoon, and although his body had already been buried, they told me there would be a service the following week. Consequently, the people bringing food and the crowds in the house would last seven days. Later, over dinner, Kim told me he'd been taken to an upstairs room where Ibrahim's father sat. He was smoking and clicking through his worry beads, tears running down his face. Male friends came and sat beside him, drank tea, spoke soft words and then left, only to be replaced by others.
It was a sombre and melancholy night, in some ways like visiting my father in palliative care every day. However, sad as it is, as Dad clings to life, his heart refusing to stop, I begin to see his life being celebrated too. Over the days and weeks old friends appear, men and women he's known for many years. One from his first job, whom he met fifty-three years ago, others he met later. Through them I get to know the man he was before I was born, the young man in the photos with the thick black hair and equally thick black-rimmed glasses. He's no longer the shrunken man twenty kilos lighter than normal who doesn't even remember I have been sitting by his bed. He's the dashing cricketer in the university eleven, the rugger bugger pushing through the scrum and the young advertising executive with his arms around his sweetheart and his eyes on the prize.
When he was awake I showed him pictures from his youth, when he was strong and quick, and I laughed at his stories. I reminded him how no matter where I have been in my travels, whether it was Istanbul, Dubrovnik or Bangkok, he was always there before me. When we travelled together in Turkey in 2007 one of the things he most wanted to do was to visit the Valens Aqueduct. Again. He first saw it 1975. Back then, as soon as he'd left his bags at the Hilton he grabbed a taxi and ordered the driver to take him along the walls of the old city. They cruised along Kennedy Caddesi and ended up in Fatih, where Dad got out to drink in the view. This time round he flew into Istanbul early in the morning and I met him at the airport. We'd been frantic in our attempts to find him a good hotel, on a budget of course, and by 10am it was clear he approved. We sat on a terrace looking out over the domes of the Blue Mosque, toasting his visit with champagne, while he just smiled broadly, uncharacteristically speechless with delight.
Istanbul beckoned and he was determined to explore everything. Although he complained about the traffic and the uneven pavements like a true Istanbullu, he enjoyed seeing the aqueduct just as much as he had thirty-two years before. As he dressed in shorts everyday I borrowed pants and shawls to make him decent to troop in and out of all the mosques between Eminönü and Beyazıt. He has very poor eyesight and no peripheral vision and I remember being annoyed with him when I had to save him from being run over by trams or assaulted by enraged passersby when he tapped them on the bottom absentmindedly, thinking it was me. Now I'm glad I indulged him. It was a rare treat to do something for him, this wonderful man who only ever wanted the best for me.
My heart breaks when I see him now. Time goes by achingly slowly and I want it to speed up but then I don't as that might bring the end. What consoles me is the realisation that we too, in our own way, celebrate life through death. Old friends now living all around Australia and overseas, former colleagues he stopped working with years ago each tell me how through numerous lunches, dinners, cards, phone calls, emails and endless bottles of wine, he has been a good friend, kind, generous and loyal. His strength and fortitude have helped so many, and as one of his friends wrote to me, "He's a lovely person ... but you don't need to be told that, having had the good fortune to have known him all your life," and I have indeed been fortunate, and privileged to know him. I now see where my best traits come from, and it makes me smile even as I cry, to know he'll live on through me.
*"You Are My Sunshine" is the song my father sang to me at night when I was a little girl, flat and off-key, but with love.


text:
On The Second Day Of Christmas, The Overbearing State Gave To Me…
…prosecution via hindsight:
… on Tuesday a judge told the jury to find Counsell, 51, not guilty after ruling the case against him was based on hindsight and there was no way he could have anticipated the conditions that were created that night.
That this case ever reached a court beggars belief.
The defendant, who has had his business disrupted and his reputation trashed, is understandably aggrieved:
"The prosecution case against me was based on the suggestion that I should have recognised the risk of something occurring which has never been shown to have happened before, which probably did not happen, and risk of which was not recognised by anyone else."
But wait, you say! 'Not recognised by anyone else'?
Yes. Indeed so.
"The current authoritative guidance from the Health and Safety Executive contains no reference to any risk posed by firework smoke, whether on its own or in combination with fog.
"The same applies to guidance produced by other official bodies and indeed current guidance provided by the Taunton Deane Borough Council.
"The prosecution experts spent two years investigating the possible causes of the crash, including the interaction between firework smoke and fog. There were unable to find a single example of a case in which firework smoke had previously been shown to pose a danger. "
And yet, incredibly, this didn't stop the prosecution…
Peter Blair QC, prosecuting, told the jury: "Essentially, the prosecution say they experienced a loss of visibility, generated, we say, by a plume of smoke created by Mr Counsell from his firework display which had built up.
"It was dispersed because of the lack of wind mixed with the humid air and drifted in the direction of the motorway.
"We say people were exposed to an appreciable risk to their personal safety that night as a consequence of the way Mr Counsell prepared for and then went about his business.
"We say that ensuring the safety of people using that motorway needed particular care if you were going to undertake a big firework display involving the use of a substantial volume of these hazardous explosives, which generated a lot of smoke.
"Smoke can have an appreciable effect on reducing visibility - that should be obvious. It didn't take long from the build-up of smoke to the dramatic loss of visibility.
"We say if he had adequately undertaken his health and safety properly, some or all of the consequences which unfolded on November 4 may have been avoided."
I can only assume Peter Blair QC doesn't possess a dictionary, and so is unaware of the meaning of the word 'appreciable'. Or 'obvious'.
Naturally, everyone involved in this is in CYA mode:
Barry Hughes, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South West, said: "This was an extremely complex case and we worked closely with Taunton Deane Borough Council and sought evidence from experts and many eye witnesses before making the decision to charge Geoffrey Counsell with breaching the Health and Safety Act.
"The burden falls on us to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge was not satisfied that the evidence available passed this high threshold and has directed the jury to acquit Mr Counsell. We accept this decision.
"Over the last few weeks the jury has heard from many of those present on the night of the incident. I would like to thank them for coming forward to give evidence as I know how hard it must have been to relive the events of that night.
"I would also like to thank Avon and Somerset police, who conducted a thorough and detailed investigation. "Our thoughts today are with all those involved in and affected by this tragic incident."
Are they with poor Mr Counsell?
A statement released by Taunton Deane Council just now reads as follows: The acquittal of Geoffrey Counsell, on the direction of the Hon Mr Justice Simon at his trial at Bristol Crown Court, marks the end of a lengthy investigation by Avon and Somerset Police and Taunton Deane Borough Council.
After the decision, Leader of the Council, Cllr John Williams, said: "I hope that the end of Crown Court proceedings brings some closure for the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives or suffered injury in the terrible events on November 4 2011.
"The Council is now seeking to work closely with the relevant authorities to see if the current guidance regarding large fireworks displays, such as the one at Taunton Rugby Club, is appropriate. We also pledge our support for any changes that may be deemed necessary.
"Our primary concern is to minimise the risks of this type of unimaginable incident happening again.
"On behalf of the Council, I would like to extend my deepest sympathy to the families of the bereaved and the families and friends of all those affected by these terrible events. "
Does that include poor Mr Counsell?
Also justice system intransigence.
Labels: the State is not your friend
SadButMadLad said...
Are the council and other nannying bodies of the state going to do some hindsight looking as well and realise that their actions delayed closure for the victims and cost the taxpayer.
Dick Puddlecote said...
A decent result for Mr Counsell in the end, happily. I'm surprised anyone volunteers to organise anything at all in this country these days, not worth the risk of state brutality.
Bucko The Moose said...
This sounds like one of those cases where the police expected the accused to roll over and plead guilty
…minimise the risks of this type of unimaginable incident…
This is taking doublespeak to new levels! If an incident is unimaginable, how can the risk of its occurrence be assessed?
My sympathies lie wholly and solely with Mr Counsell; I find it hard to believe that, on a "busy" motorway, the fog bank could have been invisible until the vehicle was in it. As one sensible person said on the BBC shortly after the event, it is obvious that the vehicles were not being driven at a speed suitable for the conditions (and so nicely shooting down the BBC interviewer's intervention that it could have been so much worse had the speed limit been raised to the then-recently mooted 80mph). If memory serves me right, it was forecast to be a foggy night, and there were several other fog patches in the motorway, if none quite so dense.
Radical Rodent
Furor Teutonicus said...
XX There were unable to find a single example of a case in which firework smoke had previously been shown to pose a danger.XX
Berlin, Silvester (New year) 1999 into 2000, all three Berlin airports were closed because of the low visibility due to firework smoke.
There is also the little part in British law that says, "If a police Constable (or other "law" enforcement agency which has jurisdiction) sees something which he thinks SHOULD be an offence, but is NOT. Then he can issue a summons and take it to trial to establish the fact." (Or words to that effect) As in this case it appears to be.
MTG said...
The Judge erred. The fact that current HSE guidance notes contain no reference to risks posed by firework smoke, is a red herring. It would be very unreasonable to expect all contingencies to be covered by voluminous procedural arrangements. Guidance notes demonstrate the principles and methods for arriving at risk assessments and the extent to which those responsible for creating risks, must mitigate them. This Organiser might just have well pleaded he was drunk at the time of planning the display and in the absence of specific directions requiring him to be sober, his incapable condition negated culpability.
The legal test for the defendant was surely whether he acted reasonably in the light of current knowledge and if, as a Firework Display organiser, he knew or ought to have known, the potential for a professional display to compromise visibility on a motorway in close proximity.
Melvyn, I think we are along the same, or similar lines here.
The law grows and adapts with experience.
That is the whole point of the British, and many other, legal systems.
This case was thown out at what is referred to in legal circles as 'half time', i.e. at the close of the prosecution case. The prosecution case was so bad, the defendant didn't even have to mount a defence. The CPS must be manned by idiots.
Ian Hills said...
Peter Blair QC said the plume of smoke was dispersed, and drifted in the direction of the motorway. Doesn't dispersed mean dispersed, then?
Wish they'd just go take a hike for a few weeks and leave us alone.
Longrider said...
It is the responsibility of drivers to drive at a speed in which they can stop in what they can see to be clear - fog or smoke makes no difference. The crash happened because drivers failed to drive appropriately to the conditions.
As RR points out - this was predicted by weather forecasts, but even if it wasn't it was November for flying fuck's sake. Fog happens in November, drivers should be expecting it and adjust their driving when they encounter it.
"...and realise that their actions delayed closure for the victims and cost the taxpayer."
What do you think..?
"A decent result for Mr Counsell in the end, happily."
But that will follow him all his days. And I wouldn't bet on a coroner sticking his oar further in, would you?
"...where the police expected the accused to roll over and plead guilty"
"This is taking doublespeak to new levels! If an incident is unimaginable, how can the risk of its occurrence be assessed?"
Precisely!
"Then he can issue a summons and take it to trial to establish the fact.""
But didn't that go out the window when the CPS took over prosecution detail?
"It would be very unreasonable to expect all contingencies to be covered by voluminous procedural arrangements."
Unreasonable or not, that's the way we are heading.
"The CPS must be manned by idiots."
There's plenty of evidence for THAT, for sure...
" Doesn't dispersed mean dispersed, then?"
Beats me! Clearly 'unimaginable' doesn't mean what we all thought it meant either... ;)
"It is the responsibility of drivers to drive at a speed in which they can stop in what they can see to be clear - fog or smoke makes no difference. "
Interestingly, the local paper comment section is full of people pouring scorn on those who raise that very point, as 'disrespectful' to the victims...
XX Fog happens in November, drivers should be expecting it and adjust their driving when they encounter it.XX
Ach come ON L.R!
You are talking Britain here, where every one wets their nickers in excitement because it snows in winter! (See Express over the last couple of months for examples)
I'm quite happy to disrespect. I'm an equal opportunities disrespecter.
You can not, logically, disrespect something that has nothing about it to respect in the first place.
I can certainly try.
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text:
Volume 66 Masthead
Law Meets World
Dialectic
Past Symposia Topics
Patients' Racial Preferences and the Medical Culture of Accommodation
By Kimani Paul-Emile
One of medicine's open secrets is that patients routinely refuse or demand medical treatment based on the assigned physician's racial identity, and hospitals typically yield to patients' racial preferences. This widely practiced, if rarely acknowledged, phenomenon—about which there is new empirical evidence—poses a fundamental dilemma for law, medicine, and ethics. It also raises difficult questions about how we should think about race, health, and individual autonomy in this context. Informed consent rules and common law battery dictate that a competent patient has an almost-unqualified right to refuse medical care, including treatment provided by an unwanted physician. Yet the accommodation of patients' racial preferences with respect to their choice of physician in the hospital context appears to violate antidiscrimination principles. How should we reconcile this apparent conflict between respect for patient autonomy and accepted notions of racial equality? Moreover, is the accommodation of patients' racial preferences the type of invidious discrimination that civil rights laws were enacted to prevent?
This Article engages these questions through an evaluation of antidiscrimination norms, principles of medical ethics, and federal laws, including Titles II, VI, and VII of the Civil Rights Act. In so doing, the Article offers critical insights into why a form of discrimination that is prohibited in other contexts is tolerated in the hospital setting and draws important conclusions about the legal propriety and medical efficacy of this practice. The Article contends that the various titles of the Civil Rights Act offer no clear legal directive on this practice, and it makes the counterintuitive claim that although hospital
accommodation of patients' racial preferences appears to contravene antidiscrimination principles, it is not only consistent with our normative commitments to racial equality but, in fact, constitutes an effective means of alleviating race-based health disparities, improving health outcomes, and quite possibly, saving patients' lives.
Kimani Paul-Emile is Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law.
Aspiring Americans Thrown Out in the Cold: The Discriminatory Use of False Testimony Allegations to Deny Naturalization
This Article looks closely at the good moral character clause and its potential to enable individual and institutional bias through a subsection that allows United States Citizen and Immigration Service (USCIS) to deny a naturalization petition when...
By Nermeen Saba Arastu
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The Properties of Integration: Mixed-Income Housing as Discrimination Management
This Article argues that mixed- income housing is implemented as a surreptitious form of racial and economic integration that accommodates and replicates prevailing race and class assumptions detrimental to the needs and interests of low to moderate...
By Audrey G. McFarlane
Shoveling a Path After Star Athletica
This Article explains some of the challenges presented by the opinion of Star Athletica and argues that clearer attention to the differences between design patent and copyright could have helped—and might still be useful going forward.
By Rebecca Tushnet
Start With Trust: Utilizing Blockchain to Resolve the Third-Party Data Breach Problem
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Second Amendment Challenges to Student Housing Firearms Bans: The Strength of the Home Analogy
Not This Child: Constitutional Questions in Regulating Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis and Selective Abortion
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Balce is now an associate professor and undergraduate director at the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University.
"Because I grew up under a dictatorship, I'm very aware of what is happening in the Philippines," she said.
With all the conflicting information that exists, it's unclear how many thousands have died. The Philippine police estimate the number of deaths to be around 4,500. The Human Rights Watch, however, estimates the number of deaths to be more than 12,000. There is also reported to be over 22,000 homicides under investigation.
This is the topic of a recently launched online photo exhibit, "Dark Lens / Lente ng Karimlan: The Filipino Camera in Duterte's Republic." The website was co-curated by Balce, professor Pia Arboleda of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and Francine M. Marquez, founder of the Manilla Arts Alliance. The site has many contributors, including photographers, scholars, poets and artists from both the Philippines and North America.
The photos paint a dark image of the deaths happening in the country, with pictures capturing everything from battered corpses surrounded by crime scene equipment to mourning family members.
None of the Dark Lens photographers are over 25 years of age. They go into the slums when it's dark to take pictures. And they must do it quickly. The police come to ward off the media or cover the corpses so that no one can see anything questionable on them, such as marks of torture.
Despite the potential safety risks, those living in the Philippines who contributed to Dark Lens identify themselves on the website, and many have identified themselves elsewhere as well.
The fact that these photos of people killed under Duterte's administration are out in the open is something that contrasts from the Marcos administration.
One of Dark Lens' main sponsors is the SUNY Stony Brook's Center for the Study of Inequalities, Social Justice and Policy. Christopher Sellers is the center's director. Balce originally reached out to Sellers around August to ask if the center would be interested in sponsoring a talk by a leader in a labor organization from the Philippines, to which he enthusiastically agreed.
At the time, Dark Lens was still in planning. Balce told Sellers about wanting to put the Dark Lens project on an online archive and asked if the center would be interested in it. Again, he agreed.
Other sponsors include SUNY Stony Brook's Teaching, Learning and Technology (TLT) Lab: Paul St. Denis, Amanda Rehm and Gregory Lucci; and the editors at the Center for Art and Thought: Sarita Echavez See, Clare Counihan and mads le.
Part of Balce's research involves the culture of fascism and authoritarianism.
Some have likened the situation in the Philippines to a form of authoritarianism.
"There are some Filipinos who will not criticize him [Duterte] out of fear and then there are also those who are attracted to the power and they want to support the violence of the state," Balce said.
Their next project is to recover and preserve archives from when the Philippines was under martial law during the time of the Marcos administration in order to help counter attempts to erase history.
Arboleda also grew up during the time of martial law. She certainly remembers what it was like. She remembers having to be home before curfew, texts she could not study in school and things she could not say in the classroom.
Still, there are people like the Dark Lens contributors and many others who are standing up to the administration's oppression.
But while the human rights violations happening as part of this "drug war" are being committed by the Duterte administration, the country's relationship with the outside world is relevant to what is going on there; the Philippines and the U.S. have close ties.
The United States and the Philippines have a military relationship. In fact, the Philippine military said that they will increase their joint defense and security activities with U.S. forces next year, according to a report that was published by the Associated Press in September.
Balce says she would ideally like to see the military relationship between the U.S. and Philippines ended until the human rights violations committed by the Duterte Administration are investigated.
But as Balce points out, other countries have responded to the human rights violations in the Philippines. For instance, in February, Canada ordered a review of a multimillion-dollar deal to sell 16 helicopters to the Philippines over human rights concerns, which prompted Duterte to cancel the deal.
Midterm elections (which will not include the presidency) are also coming up in the Philippines next year.


Hello! Last week I started to build an IP PBXs in Visual Basic. I need it not just for Voip calls but also those of PSTN. Recently I've found a PBX link: windowspbxguru.com, where they give lots of information about basic implementation and background information but they do not mention Visual Basic. Is it still possible to develop it in VB? Thank you in advance.