text:
Back in Sol Again: Part 7
October 6, 2017 January 6, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan
The Colloquial Human
The few people aware of the anti-Humanist development were on-edge, Simon among them. Something about knowing utter chaos is poised to break out makes one absolutely paranoid. This is yet another example of universal phenomena. Every sound was an attack. Every light-flicker an assault. Every shadow an assailant.
Were it not for occasional trips to the break-room, and seeing Lina there, Simon might've lost his mind. She fared more or less normally. He grew worse over time, internally and otherwise. His feelings became mirrored, first by rumpled clothing and dishelved hair. Then, in a grease-slick face and wide, red-veined eyes.
Ultimately, Niala had been right; hours could pass as quietly as needed, but even five minutes before contact was enough it to a mockery. Simon still remembered confronting Josie– or whom he assumed to be her– and having his throat cut. Things had gone from zero-to-bloody carnage in a blink.
Lina didn't quite understand that. She was an innocent, in her way. While he wouldn't recommend near-death experiences– or rather, near-murdered ones– blissful ignorance made it impossible to relate. Then again, she wasn't entirely ignorant, just in disbelief of her own vulnerability. At least, she treated it as such.
Despite his gratitude for her reassurances, she simply couldn't make things better. Danger turned him to rubber. Until forced to become stone or become dead, he was useless. He'd done well with the stone part in the past, but his wasn't an on-off switch engaged at will like Niala's.
He was tense. So were many others. Like Lina with him, the whole ship felt it even if most didn't know why. Sleep was restless, difficult. Lina felt it too–
And materialized unexpectedly at Simon's apartment.
He'd zoned out on his couch, staring at a Vidscreen. Nowadays most people had dual, inbuilt Vidscreen/holoprojectors, but given the cabin's circumstances, vidscreens alone would do. As spacious as the state-rooms were, space was at a premium. Yet another con to add to the ever-spooling list. Simon didn't care. In fact, the movie he was currently watching was older than anyone or anything ship-board.
On-screen, the 1000ft tall lizard, played by Haruo Nakajima in a heavy rubber-suit, stomped out and belched atomic breath across Japan. The metaphorical atom bomb Godzilla represented seemed the perfect fit to Simon's circumstances. Much like the atom bomb, no-one really knew what to do in the event of this new species being met. Everyone had their theories, their protocols to be adhered to, (or discarded) but no-one really knew how to act.
Nor could they. Not until the moment had passed and they could benefit from hindsight.
Much like them, Simon was indecisive, uncertain. He'd inherit enough of the chaos sure to overwhelm Homer's crew when, if ever, it descended. He currently preparing for that possibility by imbibing as much down-time as manageable. Though something was bound to come and ruin it eventually, he felt the knock on the door premature.
Then the door opened, and there was Lina.
The first thing Simon thought was to check his watch: Despite being more light years from home than most of his species could manage, everyone aboard Homer still went by Zulu Standard time. That is to say, Earth-standard 24 hour day whose zero-hour aligned with the zero hour of an arbitrary line drawn upon a map of "Earth, Sol system" somewhere far far away.
Consequently, the debate of time's existence and effects is a long, heated one which most often descends into fecal flinging no matter one's location in the universe.
His first thought was answered by his digital Casio, which gave the time as 02:30.
His second thought was spoken aloud, went, "Lina? What're you doing here?"
Her eyes fluttered, brighter than she'd have liked. The air around her said she was wired. Simon sympathized, but for once it wasn't his reason for remaining awake. He'd simply become used to sleeping a certain way aboard Homer. Given the last week was their first aboard, he saw no reason to break the habit yet.
Lina replied to his question with an involuntary sigh. "Can I come in?"
He thought of what happened the last time she'd entered his stately hell-hole and realized he was once again in his underwear. She pushed past for the couch and vid-screen, took in the screaming, atomized breath of Godzilla.
"Old monster flicks? I had no idea."
He eyed his exposed lower-half, its tightie-whities persisting despite their generations of unflattering fashion, and shrugged. He shut the door and sat beside her on the couch, only then noticing she was clad in a robe, with little more than boy-short panties, slippers, and a dark, see-through tank-top on beneath.
"Y-yeah," he stammered. "So… is everything alright?"
She nodded, eyes glued to the screen. "Just can't sleep. Too much work. S'like running on I-V adrenaline."
He did his best to be at ease with things that otherwise made him feel nervous. Perhaps that was Lina's plan; arrive as relaxed as possible and catch him in a similar state.
She leaned her head against his shoulder and his eyes fell to her, then beyond to spy the hint of pink peering from beneath her bra-less, tank-top. Panic shifted his attention to his tightie-whities that tented swiftly despite his will.
He squirmed in terror. The heart attack sure to come was fed by the path he found himself on and a dark primal desire. The path was one of real, deep love for Lina. The desire was a hot, slobbering, myopic beast that sought nothing but another of its kind.
The cause, unfortunately for Earth descendants like Simon, Lina, and every other creature hailing from Sol, was the very thing they owed their existence to. An act of bonding between two halves of genetic data in formation of one, new one. This act, known as conception, was an incident (or more oft-times, accident) stemming from succumbing to one or another's love, lust, or simple boredom driven by that primal, beastly desire.
Early in Solsian history, the goal of this desire was building a genomic legacy that, in the grander scheme of things, was as self-serving and pointless as all other activities life engaged in. Despite never receiving an answer as to its purpose, life was not dissuaded in its attempts to carry on. In parlance, this process was done through "having sex," "doing it," "fucking."
In reality, there was no purpose to life. As evidenced across Sol, the Milky Way, or indeed the known universe. For, in order for it to bear purpose it required one assigning said purpose, a reality with even less evidence than a "life's-purpose" itself. Like everything, life merely existed. Reasoning was an abstract side-effect of intellect and sentience, just as it seemed, was making an ass of oneself. Believing otherwise was the result of imagination, ego, and the need to belong, to understand.
If one required a meaning for life, in an effort to fulfill some facetious need, they must first recognize that need was no more necessary than life's existence itself. One would then need recognize "purpose" was merely their own desire to have purpose. Only then could any purpose be ascribed. Thus one must recognize all of the preceding as moot; as unnecessary as anything could be.
If one managed thus, and was not turned away from pursuing the result entirely due to existential dread or elsewise, the following could then and only then, be regarded as life's purpose– as evidenced by its own commitment to one, inherently adhered to principal; to persist.
The only purpose life, known and unknown, might be said to have was that which coincided with empirical evidence. From the vacuum of space, to the molten core of Earth, and beyond it entirely to the volcanic world of G876-d, and beyond it still, life had done nothing but attempt to, and ultimately succeed in, persisting. In doing so, it had made possible adaptation through the process of evolution.
And thus, it reinforced the idea of persistence as a means of course. That purpose, in its way, was so grand yet simple it seems the greatest rationale as any might find, especially where science is concerned. Grand as it was in its attempt to persist, Nature; the conglomerate of living things and forces acting upon them, had thus imbued the varying species and races with implements to continue persisting.
For Sol, these methods of persistence, fucking, were carried out via the concept of attraction. The bridging force of spaces between two beings capable of mating, attraction, led colloquially, to fucking. As all things regarding evolution, fucking required primers be engaged before the act could be carried out– no matted how satisfied or not the effected parties found themselves after.
For most, Solsian males (and Human males in particular) one of these priming events was the inward flowing of blood to the male sex organ, officially known as the penis, colloquially known as The Rod, Dick, Cock, etc. The blood, then kept from flowing out again and forced to pool, filled The Rod's spongy, internal tissues. The experienced erection, or "hardening" of The Rod, continued until it more or less stood freely of its own accord. (Other Solsian males, most often politicians, merely found themselves a few inches taller.)
Life's intent and success at persistence had imbued itself, and Simon specifically, with this tightie-whitie tenting capacity. Blood cells had arrived, and as a family at picnic on a breezy summer's day, had pitched a tent as large and wide as they could muster. Some were shamelessly proud of it.
Contrary to logical deductions and life's own "purpose," this was absolutely the last thing in all the universe Simon wanted to happen.
Or so he thought. For the actual last thing was what came next.
Lina giggled. "Happy to see me?"
He tried to hide it by crossing his legs with an obviously desperate chuckle. Instead, he thrust it forward and grunted. (Recall the male propensity for grunting.) Lina snickered. Before he realized it, she was atop him, straddling The Rod in all its hard glory.
"Lina, I–"
She shut him up with a kiss. Then another.
And a third.
Like their male counterparts, Human females too, had ways of preparing for the act of mating– fucking. It involved a series of secretions released within the reproductive organ, (officially termed Vagina, but also known as pussy, snatch, satin pouch, etc) that lubricated it for The Rod's reception whilst signaling arousal. (Personally, Lina preferred "pussy," but like The Rod, there were equally as infinite an amount of names.)
Lina's body had been worked to a near frenzy before ever arriving at Simon's door. Admittedly, her intentions had never been to straddle him, but as they were both rather enjoying it now, she saw no harm in it. Rather, it was a reaction to seeing that, like her, he found himself involuntarily aroused by their combined presence.
The near-frenzy she'd achieved before her arrival was the result of her inability to sleep. Temporary insomnia had been a problem of Lina's since she was a young girl living outside Sussex and dreaming of bigger, more amazing things than England's southern grasses.
It had taken quite a few years to master her bouts of temporary insomnia, but most of the time, could be done with a single act. If however, that act failed, as it could from time to time, she would be forced to toss and turn restlessly until sleep came far too late and far too short– unlike her.
Incidentally, that act of stress relief was meant to also temper the lust of Solsian creatures. An act that, as a result of Solsian life's evolved methods for persisting, required essentially fucking oneself somehow. Literally.
Lina had used masturbation as much as a tool for relaxation as for relieving pent-up sexual tension. Since her early youth, when insomnia attempted to rear its ugly head, she skirted and explored her own southern, English grasses until climax left her writhing like a drooling, drugged psych-patient.
From a youth experiencing it for the first time, through restless post-adolescence and adulthood's nights of grad school, and now to her place on the first expedition outside Sol, Lina's use of the act had varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, as then with now, failure meant not only failing to achieve sleep but also the intended climax– cumming, and largely the only conscious reason for any creature to attempt fucking, alone or with others.
Lina had failed to sleep, failed to cum, and failed to relieve herself of the growing tension within. Instead of wallowing, she felt it best to visit Simon, hoping to spend her restless night in the company of a warm and familiar embrace, if nothing else. What she did not realize, nor could Simon have anticipated in a million years, was the sudden, unconscious drive that would seize Lina at seeing The Rod so proudly supporting the raised tent.
She wanted to fuck.
And Bad.
Thus, the pair found themselves half-clothed, fully aroused, and headed for "the next level."
The painful confinement of Simon's tighty-whities suddenly gave way to sexually-heated air between his and Lina's groins. In a breath, that too gave way to a welcome, constricting wetness. After minutes of astoundingly extreme physicality, the pair collapsed on the floor beside the couch, pleasure trickling through them.
Neither could help wanting more, nor receiving.
Events repeated in prolonged fashion until they once more found themselves on the floor, propped on pillows, with Lina's robe across them for warmth. Simon was still a ways from it himself, but Lina quickly fell into sleep, her head on his chest and her body against his.
There was no doubt this would prove only the first of many such encounters. They'd already established that desire and more in one another's minds. Thus, such fucking undoubtedly led to that most highly-regarded of delusions, love. And though Simon could only vouch for himself thus far, he was perfectly fine with it. As other, omnipotent forces could relay however, Lina felt exactly the same.
Unfortunately, things can get much more complicated before settling for any protracted period. For Simon, Lina, and others prepared to board the temporary outpost over G876-d, that time was roughly… now.
Posted in Fiction, Serials (outmoded)	Back in Sol AgainComedyEvolutionLoveSci-FIScienceSexSpace
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The Dragon Gate School of Taoism is a nearly 800 yr old system of Chinese philosophy, martial arts, meditation, magic and mysticism. Those lucky enough to discover its teachings find a unique path to health, wealth, and spiritual fulfillment. "Secrets of the Dragon Gate," reveals the essence of the Dragon Gate system, from simple breathing exercises that make you feel healthier and more alive to advanced sexual yoga, dream yoga and magical divination techniques.


OneNote for Mac: Hot (1422 ideas) – Welcome to OneNote and Sticky Notes Suggestion Portal!
You really need to add the same options that the PC version has. Not knowing where one page ends and the next start is a huge pain when you wanting to print things on one page!.
OneNote for Mac should be equivalent to OneNote for PC IN ALL ASPECTS!! Otherwise, we don't get what we paid for.
Move the tabs back to the top, do it now.
Now when I insert PDF printout on macs, the resolution of the pdf is heavily reduced.
In the latest Version 16.23 - when you click on the typing screen, the tabs remain but the grey bar with a search button and icon with "books" remains....I far preferred the old way which had a better layout of the notebook tabs and when you started typing the tabs would go. The grey bar is pointless and irritating since it is permanently there, takes up space (yes it matters when you are on a split screen a lot of the time!)....the previous interface was really great and this version has gone back a step. Please please please take my feedback onboard. Thank you.
OneNote needs a better system of export in PDF !! Where you can choose the size of "print"
Please allow us to export/download/transfer notebooks to our personal computer or another account. I'm going to lose my notes because we have to switch accounts for storage and I can't transfer my notes.
Exporting OneNote for Mac notes to Word would add so much flexibility to the OneNote application...and to the Office "ecosystem" in general.
Before version 16.24 the navigation screen would disappear...now i need to click to minimise the screen and you are still left with the grey bar which serves no purpose. Please go back to how it was as this is not good.
OneNote for Mac does have the feature to turn off auto sync. Repeated sync failure make One Note unusable.
HY CANT I DOUBLE SPACE. TO MAKE A SPACE BETWEEN LINES THAT IS NOT THE SAME SIZE AS THE FONT I'M USING, I HAVE TO PRESS ENTER, CHANGE THE FONT TO SIZE 8, PRESS ENTER, THEN CHANGE THE FONT SIZE TO 14. TOO MUCH WORK.
Of the new experimental features is the sections tabs moving to the side of the page instead of displaying at the top. This kills screen space as it takes a huge chunk or horizontal space for people who work with two windows side by side. If the feature is coming, please leave an option to revert back to displaying these tabs at the top of the notebook.
OneNote for iOS has a great Recent Notes section with the ability to pin notes. It is fantastic for shared notebooks and for users with many notebooks/pages. Please add this useful feature to the MacOS Desktop version.
We NEED to be able to edit a file (eg Word, Excel or Powerpoint) that has been dragged into OneNote from within OneNote. Being limited to Read-Only if we open the file from within OneNote is utterly useless. It works in Windows, so why not in MacOS. This missing feature is a deal breaker.
Allow shortcut to symbols (--> leading to →) etc.
Vote for this if you'd like keyboard shortcuts available in Word to also be available in OneNote.
Hi, I have been using OneNote 2016 and it has become my favorite program for organizing everything. I have tried many other notebooks and note-keeping programs/apps; I have found that the layout of OneNote 2016 works the best for me. It is formatted as close to a physical notebook as I have found and that has helped me transition from a disorganized paper mess to a consolidated location for information. I am now trying to switch to OneNote for Windows 10. I have spent time with the program and adjusted to almost all of the changes, the new features are great and I definitely want to use this newer version of OneNote. BUT I can't use this program with the section tabs on the left side. Having the notebooks, sections, and pages all on the same left side is not at all similar to notebooks and binders. The clear separation was very helpful and having the sections across the top displayed as actual binder tabs is fantastic. I also liked how the page index would is the same color as the section tab. This helps with organizing everything.
These simple features in how the notebooks, sections, section groups, and pages are displayed truly set the OneNote program apart from every other program I have tried to use. When will we be getting an update to customize locations for these things? Again, I want to use the new version of OneNote, but I will not use it with the current layout.


text:
Sword Coast weather and climate
To the point:
What is the climate of the Sword Coast like?
What real world climate region would it fit into best?
The more relevant the answer to the 5e FR, the better. If there's no 5e information available, good guesstimates based on earlier editions and 5e events that may affect the weather are also OK. (Thanks for the heads up in the comments, @Miniman.)
dnd-5e campaign-development forgotten-realms weather
V2Blast♦
OpaCitiZenOpaCitiZen
5e: Direct information on climate is limited and scattered
Currently the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is the best source of 5e information on the sword coast. Unfortunately (for our purpose anyway) its focus is on political groups and mentions of the climate in a given area are rare. The island realm of Evermeet is mentioned as being, "the island paradise of the elves", and since most of its population is sun elves perhaps we can assume it's pretty nice? We also find out The Cold Lands are , "...in the cold, dry environs of the northeast", which is great but sadly not actually on the sword coast.
There are a couple of maps in the SCAG that we can use to infer about climate. The map of the coast shows areas near the sea of swords to be (mostly) grasslands, a couple of marshes as you move further out, and then the desert of Anauroch even further out. From this we could conclude that a fair bit of rain comes in off the sea and fades out before getting too far inland. The second map is of the north and shows that it is, shockingly, cold.
Alright well how about Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The adventure takes us north along the sword coast so we can look for references to the climate in the areas we pass through. The first mention of bad weather is around the Mere of Dead Men is, "...cold, muddy...", which is great news! The Mere of Dead Men is located north of waterdeed, right on the coast, and hemed in by mountains. Its waterlogged status fits our theory that rain from the sea is a dominant force (being held back by the mountains the rain would be very heavy in this area). Also since up to this point it has been nice enough to mention it being cold we can assume that south of here it's at least mild.
3e: There's a whole book on it
If you're interested in information from other editions then you are in luck! The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting from 3rd edition has reams of geographic and climate info. A sidebar on page 78 about Waterdeep's climate info discusses its latitude, the nearby oceans moderating aspects on its weather, and the annual arrival of arctic winds. The level of detail available is great and you can easily find information the climate of any specific area you're interested in.
CeribiaCeribia
\$\begingroup\$ If you go back two 2e there's a whole book just about the Sword Coast, and it's entirely fluff. Aside: the Anauroch is desert (and expanding) principally due to a magical curse, and was previously verdant hills and grasslands, though for all I know that curse may have been fixed since the editions I know best. So that confounds its use as a clue to natural weather patterns. \$\endgroup\$ – SevenSidedDie Feb 6 '16 at 20:23
This is what I managed to find from the creator or the Realms and Waterdeep, although it only refers to Waterdeep. From a Candlekeep forum thread from 2014 on the climate of Waterdeep:
A warm current and winds both make Waterdeep more balmy than it would otherwise be. And Mount Waterdeep shelters much of the city from the direct force of storms blowing ashore.
However, these same "from sea to land" prevailing weather patterns make much of Waterdeep a damp, misty place when the full sun isn't beating down.
And things are definitely warming up, in Waterdeep's vicinity (i.e. the winters in the late 1200s DR and the first half of the 1300s DR were far more severe, with the harbor freezing up, etc., than they are now).
Richard YoungRichard Young
I'm not vouching for its authenticity, but there is a guide to the climate of Faerûn, as well as a weather generator, available at realmshelps.net. It's specifically based on pre-4e lore, but I'm using it for my 5e campaign until someone tells me that the weather is drastically different in 1481 D.R. than it was in 1374 D.R.
CalionCalion
\$\begingroup\$ I would love, however, for someone to tell me just what settings I should use on that Weather Generator for various parts of the North Sword Coast. \$\endgroup\$ – Calion Aug 5 '17 at 21:27
\$\begingroup\$ After examining the climate guide referenced above, I've determined that everywhere south of Luskan and north of, say, Waterdeep, except in the near vicinity of Neverwinter and much of the Neverwinter Wood is "subarctic." Which is something of an issue, as the "subarctic plains" option doesn't work. Also, the weather seems somewhat less wet than it should be when using that setting. Please correct me if you think I'm looking at this wrong. \$\endgroup\$ – Calion Aug 16 '17 at 18:42
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged dnd-5e campaign-development forgotten-realms weather or ask your own question.
Any mechanics out there for developing and maintaining a spy/information network?
Neverwinter & Sword Coast adventures
"Empty" areas for me to add in an adventuring hub near the Sword Coast?
List of canon material for 5e Baldur's Gate
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Are elves native to Faerun/Toril, or are they immigrants from elsewhere (like the Feywild)
Is there an official Forgotten Realms map for D&D 5e?
History/Lore about areas other than the Sword Coast
Is there a Forgotten Realms campaign setting book for D&D 5e?
Sourcebook for Forgotten Realms in D&D 5e?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For most Americans, losing weight is a hard-fought battle that is rarely won. A major obstacle to success is that it can feel too much like work, which is why many of us avoid things like diet and exercise.
The problem is one of perspective.
First and foremost, you need to change your mindset when it comes to losing weight. Instead of treating it as something that you have to do, turn it into something that you want to do. One of the best ways to adjust your thinking is to take up an activity that is fun and engaging that has a side effect of weight loss.
This way, you want to continue to exercise without feeling like it's work. Here are some great ideas to help you get started.
If you've ever been to a gym, you've probably heard or seen the zumba craze. Regardless of your thoughts on zumba, the fact is that it can be a lot of fun while also helping you get into shape. For most people, it's a way to relieve stress and socialize with others, so it feels less like a workout and more like a fun activity.
If you don't like the idea of sweating to fast-tempo songs with other people in a class, then there are other forms of dancing that are just as engaging. Any type of dance increases your movement while helping you get in better shape. Each form of dance has different effects on your body, but each one can create fun workout routines depending on your preferred style.
Why not take in the great outdoors while pedaling around on a bicycle? Whether you live in a city or the country, riding a bike can help you explore your surroundings while also providing incredible weight loss results. Bike riding is one of the best fun exercises to lose weight at home because you have total freedom.
There are a couple of different ways that you can incorporate biking into your regular routine. First, you can plan various routes around your neighborhood or city that will allow you to explore. This makes every workout unique and different. Consider low-traffic streets or roadways that have designated bicycle lanes. Second, you can start riding instead of driving whenever possible. Consider a trip to the store and then perhaps even bike for your work commute provided that the distance is not prohibitive.
While hitting the roads on a bike can be a rewarding experience, sometimes it's not practical. Perhaps you don't live in a bicycle-friendly area or maybe you have no room to store one when you're not riding. Regardless, if you are going to ride at the gym the best way to go about it is to sign up for a spin class. Spin class helps motivate you to push yourself harder so that you can reach your full potential. Spin class lets you meet other people who can help you on your path to a thinner, healthier you.
No matter what, the more you can get out and be active the better your results will be. One fun activity that requires minimal planning or effort is to take a walk, plus you can turn it into fun exercises to lose weight at home. If you live nearby a park or other green spaces, we highly recommend that you start there. The fresh air and natural surroundings give you a peaceful sense of calm that can help boost your mood and make the walk even more enjoyable. Start with a light stroll and then move up to longer walks that take you around the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the peaceful surroundings let your thoughts drift away to imagining a better you.
Swimming is a fantastic way to get exercise without putting any pressure on your body. If you have aching joints or bones, then you need something that is low impact. Swimming is about as good as it can get as the buoyancy takes pressure off of your bones and joints while strengthening your muscles. Plus, being in the water can be refreshing and rewarding all on its own.
When most people think of exercise, they don't immediately jump to video games. However, there are a lot of great options out there that can help you get into shape while making it a fun activity to do at home. Here are some of the best titles to get you started. The best part is that these games represent fun exercises at home. Some of them even incorporate fun sports to lose weight, only these don't require you to go anywhere or invest in sporting equipment.
Regardless of your skill level or weight loss requirements, these games can help you achieve your fitness goals.
By now, you're ready to start your weight loss journey. How can you be sure to get the best results without overworking yourself or doing damage? Follow some general guidelines, especially if you are starting from a sedentary lifestyle.
Limit workouts to three to five times per week.
If you do anything related to strength training that causes sore muscles, then space them out to every other day so that your muscles can recuperate. Each workout can be as little as 20 minutes or up to about an hour or so, but don't go for too long. Otherwise, you can do more harm than good.
Eat healthy as well as exercise.
If you are still consuming greasy foods or junk food while doing these activities, you could wind up with little weight loss to show for it. Exercise is beneficial regardless of any lost weight, so we highly recommend that you keep up the good work even if the pounds are not being cooperative.
Stay hydrated while you work out.
You're going to lose a lot of fluids during your exercise routine, so be sure to replace them as much as necessary. Water or sports drinks are your best option, as long as they don't have a lot of sugar. Never follow up a workout with soda or juice.
In the end, have fun! The more enjoyable your activities are, the better chance you have of long-term success. Don't expect to lose the weight overnight. Instead, focus on improving your skills in the activity and the pounds will shed themselves over time. Overall, if you enjoy the process of losing weight, then you are guaranteed to reach your destination.


The shores of the ice-free Panikva River near the Alpha Radon have long been chosen by mallards and swans, and recently a pair of large white herons settled here in the Red Book. Sanatorium guests often feed birds. The environmental service reminds of the need to use special food, because bread and crackers from our table harm the health of birds. Now special food can be purchased at Alfa Radone.


text:
Say It Ain't So, Tulsi
Vegan Diets Make Children Dumb
But, He Has Awful Table Manners
The Backlash to #MeToo
The Case of the Revenant Boyfriend
Anti-Semitism in Brooklyn
The Rogue Federal Reserve Official
The Moral Panic about Sexual Assault
A Politicized Federal Reserve
Are MAGA Caps the New Kippahs?
Dumbing Down Education in New York
Don't Be on Time. Be Early.
How to Lose the STEM Wars
Crazed Psychiatrist Denounces Trump
Relationship Troubles
Married While Feminist
Is Donald Trump Making America Crazy?
Underperforming Schoolchildren in New York
The Question of Jewish Loyalty
The Truth about Greenland
Meanwhile, Back in Denmark
The Donald Doesn't Do Denmark
More from the Battle of Hong Kong
How Capitalism Ends
Why Socialism?
The Battle of Hong Kong
The Girls Are Not Alright
Israel Bans Anti-Semitic Congresswomen
The Mental Health Factor in Mass Shootings
The War Against Revenge Porn
How Not to Deal with a Bully
New York's Crime-Ridden Public Schools
Bill Clinton in a Blue Dress, Part Deux
Bill Clinton in a Blue Dress
The End of the Cosmopolitan Dream?
A Loneliness Epidemic
America's Colleges As Indoctrination Mills
Anglophonia
San Francisco, Third World City
Problems at Britain's National Health Service
The Preemptive Apology
Judging the Boomer Generation
Health Care, Canadian Style
America's First Jewish President
The Cost of Renewable Energy
The Absolute Worst
The Joy of Private Shaming
Hate and Ideology
Hating Hate
Another Biden Flub
America's Declining Big Cities
So Long, Marianne
Bad Grammar Makes You Stupid
Physician Mothers Work Less
Exodus from Gaza
America's Campus Revolution
David Brooks Needs an Intervention
Hunkering Down in the Multicultural Paradise
The Cost of Free Health Care
The State of Therapy Today
The Migrant Crisis in Germany
Democrats Embrace Al Sharpton
A New Treatment for Depression
Of course, mad Bernie and tin-eared Lizzie believe fervently that we can have Medicare for all… and that we will have exactly the same health care, paid for by billionaire plutocrats who will happily fork over their income to pay for it all. No one has guessed that anyone who is that rich can easily find ways to avoid taxes… duh! Besides, there isn't enough money, or, more accurately, assets to fund the folly.
Anyway, to remind us of the folly behind it all, Mona Charen reminds us of the reality of the Canadian health care system, the one that leftist Democrats are dying to emulate.
She points out that Canadians receive rationed and delayed health care. If you receive the care in Canada you might have to wait and to wait and to wait. One result, wealthy Canadians travel to the United States and pay out of pocket. Thus, two-tiered health care, one system for the rich and one for the rest.
Anyway, here's Charen's reality check on Canadian style health care:
It's true that all Canadian citizens and legal residents (though not illegal immigrants) get "free" health care, but only in the sense that you don't get a bill after seeing a doctor or visiting a hospital. Medical care is subsidized by taxes, but the price comes in another form as well — rationing. A 2018 report from the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, found that wait times between seeing a general practitioner and a specialist average 19.8 weeks. That's the average. There are variations among specialties. Those waiting to see an orthopedist wait an average of 39 weeks, while those seeking an oncologist wait about 3.8 weeks.
Canada has the same modern medical technology that the U.S. offers, but Canadians must wait more than a month for a CT scan, more than ten weeks for an MRI, and almost a month for an ultrasound.
Imagine the anxiety of learning that you need an MRI to find out whether the mass in your breast is anything to worry about and then being told that the next available appointment is in ten weeks. In addition to the psychic price, Canadians who had to wait for treatment expended an average of $1,972.00 out of pocket last year, owing to lost wages and other costs. The Fraser Institute also calculated the value of the lost productivity of those waiting for treatment — nearly $5,600 per patient, totaling $5.8 billion nationally. Wait times to see physicians in the U.S. have been creeping up in recent years — perhaps in response to increased demand following Obamacare — but remain much shorter than those in Canada or other OECD countries with nationalized health services.
When there's an artificial shortage of a good or service, a black market usually follows. I have heard from several Canadians that paying doctors bribes to jump the line is not uncommon. But Canada has another pressure reliever: 90 percent of Canadians live within 90 miles of the U.S. border, and medical centers in Buffalo, Chicago, Rochester, and elsewhere receive tens of thousands of Canadian patients every year.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. And there is no such thing as free health care. You might not pay a co-pay or even an insurance premium, but you might just end up paying with your health.
And then there's Britain's National Health "Service".


text:
Q: How to manage overlapping of dates in matplotlib I have a dataset- pandas dataframe. I am trying to plot a graph using matplotlib. For example

The data is sorted based on date from oldest to newest. The date is on x-axis and "Total_Repeats" is on y-axis.
I am using the following code to produce the graph
plt.plot(ts)

It can be seen that the dates in x-axis is overlapping a lot. I would like to see the dates properly. May be in month-wise format such as Jan-2018,Feb-2018,March-2018 etc. I am not sure how to format. Kindly share some thoughts.

A: if you have your data in a pd.DataFrame the easiest thing to do is to rotate the labels
dates = pd.date_range(start='1/1/2018', end='05/08/2018' )
values = np.random.rand(128)
df = pd.DataFrame(values, dates)
df.plot(rot=90)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
I-26 delay, corruption case show SC roads agency needs review, senator says
From all appearances, the indictments are an example of the sort of low-level corruption that occurs from time to time in any bureaucracy, public or private. They do not suggest that the agency is being run badly, or well. They do not suggest that the agency is wasteful, or frugal. They do not suggest that it is trustworthy, or not. What they suggest is that human beings, a certain portion of whom are dishonest, work at the agency.
If there's an overarching point here about the agency, it's that the people in charge now seem to oppose corruption: Commission Chairman Mike Wooten tells The Greenville News that it was agency management who alerted law enforcement to what officials thought might be illegal activities. If so, that's certainly encouraging. What it's not is surprising — or relevant to the question of what changes should or should not be made in how the agency is governed or even structured.
Although some of my fellow critics like to throw around words like corruption without any qualifiers, no one who has seriously considered the problems at the Transportation Department has concluded that the cause is corruption. That was a problem, a quarter century ago, when highway contractors were doling out gifts to high-level officials at the agency. But we got rid of the management, indicted the contractors and overhauled the governance structure (the first of three mini-steps in the right direction, the sum of which still don't put us where we need to be).
The corruption at the Transportation Department is political corruption — which is perfectly legal and which a lot of legislators and others believe is perfectly good. It is the corruption of parochialism, of horse-trading. The corruption that puts narrow interests ahead of the interests of the state as a whole.
Now, there will always be differences of opinion about what the state's road priorities should be.
Some believe decisions about road improvements should be strictly numbers driven: Plug them into a formula and figure out where most people are served the best.
Others believe we should focus on quality as well as quantity, and on equality as well as quality — on the idea that people who live in isolated communities have every bit as much right to expect good roads as those who live in dense urban areas. I don't agree with that, but it's a legitimate point of view, and the debate over which of those approaches is best is a legitimate debate.
How the SC Senate sold us a fraudulent reform
SC DOT audit underscores need to put governor in charge
What's not a legitimate point of view is the idea that we should maintain a system where people in charge are able to look out for their own narrow interests instead of the interests of the state as a whole, using whatever metric they use to determine the interests of the state as a whole. And again, I'm not talking about illegal self-interest; I'm talking about the narrow interest of using my position on the Transportation Commission to serve the needs of my community, rather than putting those needs in the context of the state's needs.
What's not a legitimate point of view is the idea that the priorities of the majority should be ignored. It's one thing for government to protect minority interests; it's another to ignore the interests of the majority — which is what too easily happens when commissioners aren't tasked with looking out for the good of the entire state.
It is this sort of corruption — which has absolutely nothing to do with low-level employees crossing the legal line when they try to game the system — that plagues the Transportation Department. It is this sort of corruption — which is not only legal but actually encouraged by state law and practice — that diverts significant amounts of money from our most pressing needs and sends them to … a back road in Florence County where the traffic is so light that you can lie down in the middle of the road at rush hour.
The attorney general and SLED and the courts can deal with the low-level criminal corruption that is alleged to have occurred at the Transportation Department, and that occurs in other agencies where human beings are employed.
What our Legislature and our governor need to fight is the legal sort of corruption at our roads agency that has always been a part of our political culture. And that starts with fixing the latest reform that claims to give the governor control over the commission but does not.
Ms. Scoppe writes editorials and columns for The State. Reach her at cscoppe@thestate.com or (803) 771-8571 or follow her on Twitter @CindiScoppe.


text:
Het Verdrag tot regeling der grens tusschen Suriname en Brazilië is een verdrag tussen Nederland en Brazilië uit 1906 dat sindsdien de zuidgrens bepaalt van Suriname met Brazilië. Het verdrag werd op 5 mei 1906 getekend en in 1908 in beide landen geratificeerd.

De grens werd neergelegd tussen Frans-Guyana naar Brits-Guyana; Brazilië kwam de grenslijnen met die twee kolonies ervoor overeen. De grens loopt tussen de waterscheiding van het Amazonebekken in het zuiden en de rivieren die naar de Atlantische Oceaan stromen in het noorden. De grens is na de Surinaamse onafhankelijkheid ongewijzigd van kracht gebleven.

De grens is niet afgebakend en loopt door nagenoeg ondoordringbaar oerwoud. Wel werden er door de grenscommissie 60 markeringen langs de grens aangebracht. In 1936 is met drie expedities de zuidgrens nader vastgelegd.

Zie ook
 Grenzen van Suriname

Grenzen van Suriname
Grenzen van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden
Braziliaans-Surinaamse betrekkingen
Geografie van Brazilië
Verdrag in de 20e eeuw

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Saudi Banks And Businesses Feel Effects Of High-Profile Detentions
The skyline of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
On the evening of Saturday, Nov. 4, the authorities in Saudi Arabia began rounding up dozens of businessmen, ministers and princes. It was a striking start to an anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by the young and powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Among those detained was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a multi-billionaire and the founder of a key Saudi investment firm, Kingdom Holding Company. Its interests include broadcasting and media, banking and telecommunications, and it has significant investments in major corporations around the world, including Citigroup, Twitter and Lyft.
By the time the stock market in Riyadh opened on Nov. 5, shares of KHC, worth 10.28 riyals ($2.74) before the crackdown, had started to tumble. Since then, the company has lost about 20 percent of its value, according to the Financial Times.
Alwaleed's personal net worth, which also includes vast real estate holdings, has also taken a hit since Nov. 4, according to Forbes, and fell by $2.8 billion to $15.9 billion.
The detention of Alwaleed, 62, an internationally known businessman and philanthropist, has led to speculation about the future of his company, in which he holds a 95 percent stake. No one has heard from Alwaleed, nor has the government said anything about his arrest.
The only communication from KHC has been a statement from CEO Talal Al Maiman, trying to reassure investors that things are business as normal. The government had "full confidence" in the company, the statement said, and KHC's "experienced and seasoned team of senior executives ... are focused on their unwavering responsibilities to KHC's shareholders and stakeholders."
There was no mention of Alwaleed.
The many prominent businessmen hauled in by the government last month include some of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest people.
The government has been negotiating with detainees in the hope of bringing in billions of dollars in settlements. It "could recover as much as $100 billion from the settlement deals," according to Bloomberg News.
Hassan Ammar / AFP/Getty Images
Prince Miteb bin Abdul Aziz, son of Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, shown here in Riyadh in 2008, reportedly paid $1 billion after being detained by Saudi authorities.
"Most detainees facing corruption allegations by the Committee agreed to a settlement," the government public prosecutor said in a statement on Dec. 5.
Some detainees have been released after paying their settlements, including Prince Miteb bin Abdullah — once seen as a contender to the throne — who reportedly paid $1 billion for his freedom. The government public prosecutor statement said 159 people are still being held.
Tom Rogers, associate director at Oxford Economics, a global economic forecasting company, says the immediate impact of the detentions has been felt by Saudi banks. With the accounts of some of their most important customers frozen, he says, liquidity has been crimped, affecting their ability to make loans.
But Rogers says the bigger impact is on the confidence of overseas companies doing business with key figures in Saudi Arabia.
"Unless you see swift resolution to the arrests," he says, "then the risk is that overseas companies will look at potential investments in Saudi Arabia and feel unsure about whether or not something like this might happen to the people they're dealing with further down the line." Many investors will wait and see how the situation turns out, he says, before making large investments in Saudi Arabia.
Rogers says the crown prince will need to maintain the confidence of the international business community if he wants to push through ambitious plans to wean the kingdom from its dependency on oil revenues and diversify its economy. Major projects such as Neom, an ambitious new economic zone and business hub envisioned to be bigger than Dubai, will require foreign investment, he says.
Tackling rampant corruption in Saudi Arabia is also critical to investor confidence, but so is the way anti-corruption measures are implemented. So far, there has been no transparency surrounding November's detentions, and no sense of due process.
Allison Wood, a Middle East specialist with the consultancy Control Risks, says this is creating a lot of uncertainty among Saudi Arabia's wealthiest people.
"There's a great deal of concern about protecting personal wealth," she says. "Many high-net worth individuals are seeking to move as many of their assets out of the country and into funds that are relatively untraceable to them."


text:
Q: Cross validation of time series in Statsmodels I looked in the examples on stats models but I don't see many examples of applying cross-validation to time series.
Let's say I have something like this
`In [1]: from __future__ import print_function

In [2]: import numpy as np

In [3]: import statsmodels.api as sm
import pandas as pd
from statsmodels.tsa.arima_process import arma_generate_sample
np.random.seed(12345)

In [4]: import pandas as pd

In [5]: from statsmodels.tsa.arima_process import arma_generate_sample

In [6]: np.random.seed(12345)

In [7]: arparams = np.array([.75, -.25])

In [8]: maparams = np.array([.65, .35])

In [9]:

In [9]: arparams = np.r_[1, -arparams]

In [10]: maparam = np.r_[1, maparams]

In [11]: nobs = 250

In [12]: y = arma_generate_sample(arparams, maparams, nobs)

In [13]: dates = sm.tsa.datetools.dates_from_range('1980m1', length=nobs)

In [14]: y = pd.TimeSeries(y, index=dates)
/Users/pcoyle/anaconda3/bin/ipython:1: FutureWarning: TimeSeries is deprecated. Please use Series
  #!/bin/bash /Users/pcoyle/anaconda3/bin/python.app

In [15]: arma_mod = sm.tsa.ARMA(y, order=(2,2))

In [16]: arma_res = arma_mod.fit(trend='nc', disp=-1)

In [17]: print(arma_res.summary())
                              ARMA Model Results
==============================================================================
Dep. Variable:                      y   No. Observations:                  250
Model:                     ARMA(2, 2)   Log Likelihood                -245.887
Method:                       css-mle   S.D. of innovations              0.645
Date:                Mon, 01 Aug 2016   AIC                            501.773
Time:                        17:51:51   BIC                            519.381
Sample:                    01-31-1980   HQIC                           508.860
                         - 10-31-2000
==============================================================================
                 coef    std err          z      P>|z|      [95.0% Conf. Int.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ar.L1.y        0.8411      0.403      2.089      0.038         0.052     1.630
ar.L2.y       -0.2693      0.247     -1.092      0.276        -0.753     0.214
ma.L1.y        0.5352      0.412      1.299      0.195        -0.273     1.343
ma.L2.y        0.0157      0.306      0.051      0.959        -0.585     0.616
                                    Roots
=============================================================================
                 Real           Imaginary           Modulus         Frequency
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AR.1            1.5618           -1.1289j            1.9271           -0.0996
AR.2            1.5618           +1.1289j            1.9271            0.0996
MA.1           -1.9835           +0.0000j            1.9835            0.5000
MA.2          -32.1794           +0.0000j           32.1794            0.5000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------`

How do I move from that example to doing cross-validation. Ideally something like cross validation with time dependence.
Any suggestions?


text:
Today's Tipsheet
At the Bar
Past tipsheets
The Morning Hangover – Tuesday, December 21st
Português – Portugal
By: @KurtBardella from Arlington, VA
Eric Church: "Doing Life with Me" (studio video)
DVR ALERT
Maddie & Tae perform on Disney's Magical Christmas Celebration broadcast on ABC (12.25)
Brett Eldredge performs on the Today Show (Christmas Day)
Jimmie Allen will perform and Jessie James Decker will appear during ABC's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2021" (12.31)
Ingrid Andress will perform on The Late Late Show with James Corden (1.4)
Carrie Underwood: "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" (Official Audio Video)
John Legend + Carrie Underwood: "Hallelujah" (from Global Citizen Prize)
Brett Kissel: "Young Enough" (the music video)
Dylan Scott: "Nobody" (the music video)
Mickey Guyton: "O Holy Night" (from the TODAY Show)
Mickey Guyton: The Interview (from the TODAY Show)
Morgan Wallen: "Dangerous: The Double Album" (1.8.21)
Devin Dawson: "The Pink Slip" EP (1.15.21)
Florida Georgia Line: "Life Rolls On" (2.12.21)
Kip Moore: "Wild World Deluxe" (2.12.21)
Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley feat ERNEST: "Bottes Bout Dead" (the lyric video)
SAW IT
Runaway June: "Away in the Manger" (from Cracker Barrel's Sounds of the Seasons) — btw – congrats to Naomi on her recent engagement!
Drake White: "O Holy Night" (live from Whitewood Hollow)
Sara Evans: "Run Run Rudolph" (live performance)
Kylie Morgan: "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" (acoustic)
LJ: "Silent Night"
SONY MUSIC NASHVILLE'S WISH
Mitchell Tenpenny: Joy to the World" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Mitchell Tenpenny: "Neon Christmas" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Adam Doleac: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Rachel Wammack: "Winter Wonderland" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Niko Moon: "White Christmas" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Robert Counts: "Run Run Rudolph" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Hannah Dasher: "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (from The Salvation Army's Red Kettle Special)
Check out the Morning Hangover's "Country Christmas" playlist on Spotify feat your fav country music superstars bring holiday originals and Christmas classics to life!
LISTEN TO IT
Elvie Shane: "My Boy" (My Girls Version)
Chad Overstreet: "Water Into Wine"
Great New Yorker piece about "How MOragn Wallen Became the Most Wanted Man in Country" — "He rips off the sleeves of a plaid flannel shirt and shaves the sides of his long hair, transforming himself into an Everyman rock star: Bruce Springsteen meets Larry the Cable Guy, crowned with a glorious mullet. Through this process, Wallen became not just a singer but a character—and, in a development that seems to have surprised many Nashville professionals, a sex symbol, beloved by an army of fans who appear to be disproportionately female and thirsty. An innocuous photograph of him leaning against a truck recently drew nearly half a million likes on Instagram, and almost ten thousand comments"
Carrie Underwood + John Legend: "Hallelujah" (Official Music Video)
Sharing is caring! Forward the Morning Hangover to a friend.
Morning Hangover | [email protected] | Arlington, VA | 22201
Copyright © Morning Hangover 2016, All rights reserved.


text:
Калверт Бич-Лонг Бич () град је у америчкој савезној држави Мериленд.

Демографија
По попису из 2000. године број становника је 2.487.

Референце

Литература

Види још
 Списак градова у САД по броју становника
 Највећи градови у САД по деценијама

Спољашње везе

 -{United States Census Bureau}-

Проблеми
Градови у Мериленду
Википројект географија/Насеља у САД


Yes! Send Me Dental Hygienist Updates!
We know that calculus plays a role in periodontal disease and a significant one. This is best demonstrated by a patient who presented with an enormous piece of calculus distal to the third molar and the accompanying very severe periodontal defect. As you can see in the photographs, this may take the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest single piece of calculus in an individual.
Interestingly enough, he had calculus everywhere in his dentition resulting in very severe bone loss around Tooth #27. Upon extracting this tooth, the defect observed was extremely large. An implant was the best restoration to place but it required a great deal of bone regeneration which fortuitously was obtained.
A follow-up x-ray taken 7 years later shows the complete regeneration occurring with an implant in a stable state in a healthy mouth as seen in a photograph of the final restoration.
This gentleman was able to be turned around with a great deal of effort in terms of the effectiveness of his plaque control. Despite the severity of the pathology in a man in his early 60's, the disease was reversible and repairable once the debris was removed and the patient had a chance to regenerate such a large quantity of bone.
The take-away: many of our patients are extremely heavy calculus formers and are highly vulnerable to periodontal disease. Often it is difficult to remove all the calculus; certainly #17 and #27 would demonstrate this.
maintenance, the repair that we noted on Tooth #27 is possible.
As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Thirty plus years of experience and continued education have reinforced both my commitment and my skills and thus enable me to provide maximum patient outcomes in a compassionate and comfortable manner.


Welcome to the Employee Rights Wisconsin blog. The blog provides information to employees about their legal rights, and information to attorneys and others who are interested in employee rights and legal issues.
My name is Michael Brown, and I am an attorney at the law firm of DVG Law Partner LLC. DVG helps clients who have legal disputes with large organizations.
I practice in the areas of Employee Rights, Contract Rights and Fraud Victim Rights. My legal practice includes representing workers within my home State (Wisconsin), as well as workers in other States, for individual and class action cases. At any given time, I will usually have a number of Federal court cases pending across the U.S., particularly for wage-, visa-, and discrimination- related cases and class actions.
I have represented hundreds of employees with diverse jobs, backgrounds, and nationalities, and have helped them achieve positive results. This includes work in many legal forums, spanning from administrative hearings to federal trial and appellate work.
I have served as board chair of the State Bar's Civil Rights and Liberties section. For several years I practiced law in Milwaukee before returning to the Fox Valley in Wisconsin (where I grew up) to practice law and ultimately start the law firm DVG Law Partner. I'm able to live in a great place for my family, and to practice law across Wisconsin and the U.S., with cutting-edge employment law issues that have at times received major media coverage.
For more information about my practice, please visit www.dvglawpartner.com.


text:
NYAB Event - LoVid "Roots No Shoots"
LoVid "Roots No Shoots"
Smack Mellon
"Roots No Shoots" is a media-bricolage installation with visceral compositions of video, audio, and discarded electronic devices. In this new work we continue our ongoing exploration of raw electrical signals as a material for artistic production as well as a symbol for biological, social, and environmental signals. The installation premiers a swarm of video recordings from our 2011 residency at the Experimental TV Center. We were the last residents of ETC's program, marking the end of a 40-year era that began with a generation of artists/engineers exploring image processing and video production.
Our own video practice begins with the production of our audio/video synthesizer instruments. With these, we record abstract, colorful, and noisy audiovisuals. The patterns and colors are created with archaic analog technology without the use of cameras or digital tools. This process-based practice is a reflection on craft in the mediated era as well as notions of progress and ownership.
The audiovisual compositions in "Roots No Shoots" are displayed on multiple video monitors of different sizes, and from different technological eras; from cathode ray tubes to plasma screens and projections. The shimmering installation of rescued endangered media surfaces takes an experimental approach to our cultural fascination with moving images. The installation celebrates occurrences when technological chaos takes place with glitches, hacks, and crashes. When we lose control of our devices, we are reminded of our own fragility."
LoVid's collaboration began with audiovisual performances and has expanded to include a wide range of media, from prints to App-Art. They have performed at the Museum of the Moving Image (NY), Graham Foundation (Chicago), Eyebeam (NY), MoMA (NY), FACT (UK), PS1 (NY) and The Kitchen (NY), among many others. LoVid's videos have been screened in galleries, festivals, and events worldwide including Modern Art Oxford (UK), Art in General (NY), Siskel Theater (Chicago), International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), and NY Underground Film Festival (NY). Their installations and objects have been included in solo and group exhibitions worldwide including The Neuberger Museum (NY), Netherlands Media Art Institute (Netherlands), Science Museum Jerusalem (Israel), CAM Raleigh (NC), Real Art Ways (CT), Science Gallery (Ireland), The Jewish Museum (NY), and New Museum (NY). In addition, LoVid creates large-scale interdisciplinary projects that combine new technology with social interventions and public spaces. These have been supported by and produced in collaboration with Rhizome, Franklin Furnace, Elastic City, free103point9, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Experimental TV Center, and LMCC. They have received additional awards from NYSCA, NYFA, Foundation for Contemporary Art, and Greenwall Foundation. LoVid has participated in residencies with STEIM (Netherlands), Harvestworks, Eyebeam, Smack Mellon, and Cue Art Foundation.
ADVERTISE ON NYAB
from November 23, 2013 to January 05, 2014
Reception For The Artist on 2013-11-23 from 17:00 to 20:00
LoVid


The Boss is a gangster-themed game. Players place cubes on city cards and the player with the most cubes on each city card at the end of each round gains a reward; however, what reward will be gained each city's winner is only revealed during the round. The rewards are revealed because each city has a fixed set of possible rewards and players take turns placing cards next to each city which show which rewards are not the one that will be gained by the city's winning player. So, the game's a sort of are control game but the reward to be won is a process of elimination. Some of the rewards are actually bad things like one of your men (cubes) is killed or out of the game for a turn.
It sounds relatively simple but quite inventive and with a deductive element. Sounds like calculating when to strike and take control of a city will be important. I'm hoping it has enough meat to it but the game mechanic appeals to me that I will definitely give it a try.


text:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Geologists-protest-bill-to-remove-state-rock-3258944.php
Geologists protest bill to remove state rock
LEGISLATION Senator, scientists argue over asbestos in serpentine
By Peter Fimrite
Published 4:00 am PDT, Friday, July 16, 2010
Garry Hayes, Professor of Geology at Modesto Junior College, holds a sample of solid serpentine, found along Del Puerto Canyon Road, 20 miles west of Patterson, Ca. on Thursday July 15, 2010. A bill to remove serpentine as California's official state rock was working its way through the state legislature until geologists heard about it and are now taking offense to the proposal.The bill sponsored by a woman whose husband died of asbestos poisoning is supposed to be a symbolic gesture given that serpentine is the source of asbestos. less
Garry Hayes, Professor of Geology at Modesto Junior College, holds a sample of solid serpentine, found along Del Puerto Canyon Road, 20 miles west of Patterson, Ca. on Thursday July 15, 2010. A bill to remove ... more
It takes real effort to impugn the reputation of an inanimate object, but there is a movement gaining traction in Sacramento to strip the California state rock of its lofty title for what geologists say is a trifling offense: It contains asbestos.
The stone in question, serpentine, has been the state rock since 1965, but a group led by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-East Los Angeles, wants it removed from the symbols list because it often contains the carcinogen linked to 2,500 deaths a year in the United States.
Romero has introduced SB624, which would strip the olive green stone of its title, but she is now running up against a gaggle of geologists and natural history buffs who have removed their spectacles, thrown down their lab coats and are rallying to the rock's defense.
Serpentine, they say, is intricately linked to California's tumultuous geologic history, was closely associated with gold deposits during the Gold Rush, provides habitat for rare plants and insects and, last but not least, is beautiful.
"It's a wonderful state rock because it has got this great natural, social and scientific history in California," said Jon Christensen, an environmental historian who is the executive director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. "It is found all over the world, but it is especially associated with continental margins where tectonic forces and subduction have been strongest, like California."
The spat over the stone turned surly this past week as accusations of shady partisan backroom dealing were tossed around the state Capitol. The rock flinging even overshadowed budget mudslinging.
Campaign formation
The "drop the rock" campaign was actually started two years ago by Linda Reinstein, the co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. Her husband, Alan, died in 2006 of mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused by asbestos.
"My husband is dead," Reinstein said. "I just want to do something positive with the loss of his life for California."
Romero sponsored the bill - which would eliminate not only serpentine, but the entire state rock category - because, she said, California has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths in the nation and it is inappropriate to celebrate the source of that disease.
"This isn't against serpentine. It's about asbestos," Romero said. "Why in a health-conscious state like California do we have a state rock that is related to asbestos? This is a teachable moment. It's time to be sensitive to the fact that people suffer and die from this substance. It's time to drop the rock as a symbol."
Serpentine is a metamorphic rock that forms underneath the ocean, where it is squeezed by colliding continental plates and forced upward. It can be found in the Sierra Nevada foothills and in 42 of California's 58 counties. It was often found by miners near gold deposits.
Rare habitat
It was named from the Latin serpentinus, meaning serpent rock, because of its jade color and often smooth surface. As such, it is sometimes associated with magic and the occult. Its chemical composition is such that only uniquely adapted native plants grow in serpentine soil and, thus, rare insects like the threatened checkerspot butterfly are associated with those outcroppings.
Fire-resistant chrysotile asbestos is one of 20 minerals that can often be found within the rock. Considered a wonder substance in the 1960s, asbestos was mined extensively for use in building construction, household appliances and for insulation. In 1965, lobbyists for the makers of asbestos products were among those who urged state legislators to recognize serpentine as the state rock.
Health authorities have since found that asbestos can cause cancer and other diseases when the fibers are inhaled. It is no longer mined in the United States.
Twitter gets involved
The proposed bill, approved by the state Senate, is now working its way through the Assembly. But it went pretty much unnoticed until June when it was mentioned on Twitter, then in blogs. Pretty soon a lively discussion had erupted between geologists and environmental scientists, many of whom are now crusading against the bill.
They claim Romero's bill wrongly states that all serpentine contains cancer-causing chrysotile asbestos. In fact, naturally occurring asbestos that remains undisturbed in the ground presents no risk, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"I start my California geology class talking about the state symbols and, out of all of those, serpentine is the most emblematic of what California is," said Garry Hayes, a Modesto Community College geology teacher who was among the first to protest the bill online. "It has educational value, and if it remains our state rock, people are going to learn about it, including its connection with asbestos."
Politics being what they are, other agendas have somehow slipped their way into the debate. John Sullivan, the president of the Civil Justice Association of California, has accused trial lawyers of hatching a fiendish plot to file more asbestos lawsuits by ruining the reputation of the state's stone.
Absurd allegations
"Lawyers are suing everybody they can find, listing every possible culprit sometimes from decades past, when they have a client who is sick from asbestos," Sullivan said. "With this bill, it is conceivable that if someone went to elementary school and played soccer in Placerville where there is serpentine in the hills, that the school district could be sued, so I don't think our concern that this would foment more litigation is misplaced at all."
The Consumer Attorneys of California, whose political action committee has donated nearly $15,000 to Romero's political campaigns over the past decade, recently expressed support for the bill. Nevertheless, J.G. Preston, the press secretary for the consumer attorneys, said the allegations are absurd.
"They have created this out of whole cloth," said Preston, pointing out that asbestos litigation invariably relates to problems associated with building materials and construction, not naturally occurring elements. "There is no nefarious lawsuit craze behind this. In fact, there is nothing in SB624 that would have any implications for litigation at all."
Ultimately, the effort by politicians to oust the state rock may be the best thing that could have happened to science, said Christensen, whose research at Stanford focuses on serpentine grasslands.
"Now there is a wonderful, vigorous conversation going on online about a rock," Christensen said. "It's been fun to see it erupt, particularly among geologists and mineral collectors and fans of natural history."
California state symbols
Bird: California quail
Freshwater fish: Golden trout
Saltwater fish: Garibaldi
Flower: Golden poppy
Gemstone: Benitoite
Grass: Purple needlegrass
Insect: California dogface butterfly
Mammal: Grizzly bear
Marine mammal: Gray whale
Mineral: Gold
Reptile: Desert tortoise
Tree: Sequoia


text:
Mamelodi Sundowns thrown CAF Champions League lifeline
Fresh from being crowned Absa Premier Soccer League Champions, Mamelodi Sundowns have been thrown a CAF Champions League lifeline by the continental body when they threw out AS Vita Club after the Congo side were found to have fielded defaulters in their encounters with the Tshwane side.
CAF has advised South African Football Association that they would be re-instated in the Champions League, and would be included in the Group Stages Draw which takes place in Cairo this afternoon. (Tuesday).
Sundowns lost their tie against the Congo side on the away goal rule when they beat the Congo side 2 – 1 after losing 1 – 0 in Congo.
The breakthrough for Sundowns means that they will be back at work preparing for the Champions League instead of going away on a break following a tough PSL season, which ended at the weekend.


Julian is a singer-songwriter and a confident musician who knows how to navigate the complex moods of love and connection.
"Footprints in the Sand" wryly explores a lover who's cast a spell, several miles out of town, no one around, beating heart the only sound. I could swear you're an angel but there are footprints in the sand. Piano harmony and confident arpeggio chords sustain the mood and keep this story moving along.
"Oliver" - Circle picking on acoustic guitar creates steady movement for an unsteady relationship. Oliver, a pet, is witness to a relationship that's in trouble. Was it pride, was it fear, was it hoping you would hear, was it hoping you wouldn't look away? If only that were yesterday. It's a lovely reprise of a difficult episode.


text:
Q: Psychopy how to solve TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for *: 'NoneType' and 'int' OS (e.g. Win10): macOS 10.15.7
PsychoPy version (e.g. 1.84.x): 21.1.2
Standard Standalone? (y/n) y
What are you trying to achieve?:
I'm a beginner in programming so I'm using a builder to create the online experiment, Magnitude estimation of lightness between two circles, through psychopy.
What did you try to make it work?:
magnitude estimation of lightness between reference stimulus(white) and random order test stimulus.
What specifically went wrong when you tried that?:
Experiment stop at the random point during the 27inch routine. When I made multiple loops it stopped at the first loop when I made a single loop, it didn't move to the next routine, it stopped at a random point in the routine.
And show the same error all the time. I can't figure out the reason. Please help me :(
    Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/woojaejung/Desktop/Pilot_experiment/Psychopy/capstonePilot_lastrun.py", line 596, in <module>
    win.flip()
  File "/Applications/PsychoPy.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.6/psychopy/visual/window.py", line 1044, in flip
    thisStim.draw()
  File "/Applications/PsychoPy.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.6/psychopy/visual/shape.py", line 394, in draw
    GL.glColor4f(*self._fillColor.render('rgba1'))
  File "/Applications/PsychoPy.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.6/psychopy/colors.py", line 346, in render
    adj = np.clip(self.rgb * self.contrast, -1, 1)
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for *: 'NoneType' and 'int'


Please only book an individual consultation if you are a current client who is returning, or if you have already spoken with me and are attending for reasons other than a gut disorder.
All other clients should be booking for the Happy Inside Program which has a specialised booking system below.
It is strongly suggested that all 6 appointments for the Happy Inside Program be booked upfront, and within a period of 10 weeks. This is to ensure you can secure availabilities. Payments are made at each consultation.
BOOKING STEPS ARE OUTLINED BELOW.
> Select "Add Next Appointment"
Reschedules and cancellations cannot be completed online less than 48 hours prior to your appointment. If under 48 hours notice, you will be required to contact the clinic for any cancellations, and a cancellation fee of 100% of the consultation fee will be payable prior to your next appointment.


text:
India Foundation for the Arts
India Foundation for the Arts [IFA] is an independent, nationwide philanthropy, professionally managed, and dedicated to strengthening the arts in India. Established as a public trust in 1993, IFA is headquartered in Bangalore. Its founder-director, Anmol Vellani, previously worked for the Ford Foundation. IFA's mission is to enrich the practice, knowledge, public access to, and experience of the arts in India, by providing strategic support for innovative projects and capacity building across all the arts.
Moving beyond existing support for the presentation of Indian artistic expression, IFA gives focused and consistent attention to strengthening underlying artistic processes, overcoming constraints on creativity, seeding innovation, addressing systemic issues in the arts sector, and connecting the arts to other fields of human endeavour.
IFA believes that philanthropy is a complex activity that requires expert and professional attention. Constituted on a national basis, the Board of Trustees is closely involved in determining IFA's management policies and professional goals. The Executive Director, Anmol Vellani, is an experienced professional in arts management and organized philanthropy.
The concern for professional involvement is also reflected in IFA's staff composition. Programme staff, drawn from different cultural environments and artistic disciplines, take independent responsibility for developing grant-making ideas and initiatives, and are encouraged to be responsive to unfolding needs and new influences in the arts.
IFA's grant programmes variously respond to existing demand for assistance, while also giving encouragement to new perspectives and directions in the arts. Our support encompasses all forms of cultural expression, while accommodating work that falls outside specific domains of art, blurs disciplinary boundaries or anticipates new modes of artistic production and presentation. IFA has so far made over 190 grants across 17 states.
Currently IFA offers support under four programmes:
"The arts research and documentation programme" supports research by arts scholars and practitioners. TheAttention is given to research into the construction of cultural traditions and the development of new methodolgies for studying the contemporary arts. Our support also encourages archiving, research and writing in the local languages.
"The arts education programme" is concerned to enhance the role of the arts in education. Priority is given to projects that create material resources, build infrastructure and strengthen advocacy for arts education. Grants currently support independent arts initiatives in learning contexts, the introduction of arts curricula in schools, and efforts to make the arts more meaningful to the wider public.
"The extending arts practice" supports artists and art groups with an interest in extending, building upon or interrogating their existing work in different ways. Artists willing to experiment with an untried form, develop their practice through exchange and collaboration, work with new materials, try out a fresh style or idiom, or evolve new modes of artistic production are funded under this programme.
"The new performance programme" commissions productions in theatre, music, dance or other forms of performance art. These productions could straddle different performance genres, explore multilingualism in performance, use new media in innovative ways, or address subjects that have not been widely explored in performance.
IFA also offers "special grants" for initiatives that do not fit within the framework of any of our other funding programmes. These grants are available, for example, for non-profit art organizations to work towards becoming more self-reliant; for the formation of collectives or alliances to address the interest of specific art forms or the field of the arts in general; for artists to work in difficult or unusual environments or in response to challenging new social or political developments; and for projects concerned with community art practices that address issues of livelihood, revitalization and sustenance.
IFA has established a strong presence not only as a funding agency but also as a resource for the arts and grant-making sector at large. Grantees are given information and advice on expertise and materials relevant to their work, and alternative avenues of support for their projects. New philanthropic initiatives have drawn on our experience in strategic grant making, fundraising and institution building. We have also been appreciated for our role in facilitating the work of other grant makers, cultural organizations, universities, festival authorities and networks, both in India and abroad.
Rashmi Poddar, "Art History, Aesthetics", "Mumbai"Chairperson
Francis Wacziarg, "Commerce, Heritage Conservation, New Delhi" Githa Hariharan, "Literature, New Delhi"Jitish Kallat, "Visual Arts, Mumbai" Jerry Rao, "Industry, Bangalore"Lalit Bhasin, "Law, New Delhi" M. V. Subbiah, "Industry, Chennai"Mani Narayanswami, "Civil Service, Industry, Bangalore"N S Raghavan, "Finance, Bangalore"Priya Paul, "Industry, New Delhi"Nandita Palchoudhuri, "Crafts, Kolkata"Ravi Nedungadi, "Finance, Bangalore"Romi Khosla, "Architecture, New Delhi"Shyam Benegal, "Cinema, Mumbai"Simone Tata, "Industry, Mumbai"
IFA's Patrons
Amitav Ghosh, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ebrahim Alkazi, Padmabhushan Sri Lalgudi G Jayaraman, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Naseeruddin Shah, Shekhar Kapur, Syed Haider Raza, Raja Syed Muzaffar Ali
* [http://www.indiaifa.org/ IFA website]
* [http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/03/25/stories/2002032501310100.htm "Collaborating, the artistic way", The Hindu, Mar 25, 2002]
* [http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/08/28/stories/2003082800920200.htm "The shah of screen and stage", The Hindu, Aug 28, 2003] ]
* http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/12/08/stories/2003120801660100.htm "The art of grants", The Hindu, Dec 08, 2003] ] [ [http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2215/stories/20050729000206500.htm A treasure trove from Assam ] ] [ [http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2003/12/08/stories/2003120800030100.htm The Hindu Business Line : Mixing business with ... spirituality ] ]
* [http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070614/asp/calcutta/story_7918081.asp]
* [http://www.indiaifa.org/grantprofiles.asp?inputtypebreadcrumb=grant+profile]
Hassingham
Texas Cyclone (film)
Childline India Foundation — is a non profit organization that function as a nodal agency for CHILDLINEs across India. The goal of CIF is to reach out to marginalised children in need of care and protection. CHILDLINE 1098 is a 24 hour, free, emergency phone service for… … Wikipedia
National Museum of Women in the Arts — This article is about a museum in Washington, D.C. For other uses, see NMWA (disambiguation). Masonic Temple U.S. National Register of Historic Places … Wikipedia
Manila Christian Computer Institute for the Deaf — College of Technology, Inc. Motto God, Education, Technology, Life Established 1993/2008 Type … Wikipedia
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians — The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is a non profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil … Wikipedia
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — Kennedy Center redirects here. For the spaceport, see Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Center … Wikipedia
Responsibility for the September 11 attacks — Soon after the September 11 attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to identify the 19 hijackers [cite press release |url=http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/092701hjpic.htm |title=The FBI releases 19 photographs of individuals… … Wikipedia
Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences — Motto Favent astra Be favorable to star[1] Formation June 28, 1816 Extinction 1837 Pu … Wikipedia
Dr. M. G. R. Home and Higher Secondary School for the Speech and Hearing Impaired — Hard Work Earns Eminence Location Tamil Nadu … Wikipedia
Arts council — An arts council is a government or private, non profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad. They are often arms length from the government to… … Wikipedia
The Irish (in Countries Other Than Ireland) — The Irish (in countries other than Ireland) † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Irish (in countries other than Ireland) I. IN THE UNITED STATES Who were the first Irish to land on the American continent and the time of their arrival are … Catholic encyclopedia


Mostly I play chess, but I know how to play some other games, and I'm sort of generally interested in games in general.
Game theory was much discussed from a mathematical angle when I was in college, but what interests me more is the thoughts and feelings of game players, which are usually far from mathematical.
"Black is now in desparate need of a good idea. Or, to put it standard chess notation, +-"


text:
myCourses Help and Resources
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text:
Sentence Stretchers: An Easy Way to Sound More Fluent in Your Target Language
by Holly Keenan
Most beginner language learners I know are keen to pick up new vocabulary, so they're ready for real conversations in their new language.
And it's true that learning a wide variety of vocabulary is essential to having conversations about a lot of different subjects.
But there's a group of words and phrases that never seem to make their way into most beginner students' flash cards or vocab lists. I call this group of words "sentence stretchers".
What is a Sentence Stretcher?
Sentence stretchers give you everything you need to expand short, basic phrases into far more expressive, natural-sounding sentences. With sentence stretchers, you'll sound more like a native speaker, and have much more interesting conversations.
In grammar speak, sentence stretchers may be adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions or determiners. The point is that they help you create longer, more complex sentences, and take your language skills to the next level.
With sentence stretchers, you'll sound more like a native speaker even if you still don't know a whole lot of vocab or verb tenses. They also make it much easier to say what you want without performing complicated mental gymnastics as you build your sentences. This in turn will boost your confidence.
Think about it this way. How hard would it be to have even a short conversation in English without using words like "without", "anyway", "maybe", "so", "as much as", "until", or "almost"?
Yet few language learners put any special effort early on into learning these seemingly minor words. The longer you put off learning sentence stretchers, the more time you'll spend having stunted, overly-simple conversations.
How Sentence Stretchers Work
Consider the following exchange you're likely to have when you first start speaking a new language:
Them: "Why do you want to study this language?"
You: "I want to travel to your country someday, so it's a good idea to learn some of the language before I go, even if I don't learn it fluently."
Now imagine trying to answer their question without using "someday", "so", "some", "before" or "even if". It's quite a bit harder!
"I want to travel to your country. It's a good idea to learn the language. If I don't learn it fluently, it's OK."
Doesn't sound too natural, does it? The rest of the vocab in the sentence – "travel", "country", "good", "idea" "learn", "language", "fluently" – are probably words that you'll learn fairly early in your studies. But you may not learn those "sentence stretchers" until much later, and so you'll miss out on a chance to improve your speaking skills early on.
Don't get me wrong. It's crucial to speak from day 1 and talk with native speakers as much as possible no matter how many mistakes you make.
But if you want to get comfortable speaking your target language as quickly as possible, sentence stretchers will help get you there.
Sentence Stretchers: The Basic List
Here's a list of the most common sentence stretchers.
For each one, I've included a sentence that sounds more natural when the word is included. The earlier you learn these words in your target language, the better.
except: "I study French every day. I do not study French on Friday" could become "I study French every day except Friday."
only: "I study Spanish two days per week. It is not a lot" could become "I only study Spanish two days per week."
someday: "I want to travel to your country, but I don't know when" could become "I want to travel to your country someday."
even though: "I bought it. It was expensive" could become "I bought it even though it was expensive."
anyway: "I can't speak German fluently, but I will speak it" becomes "I can't speak German fluently, but I will speak it anyway."
might: "I don't know, but I think he's hungry" becomes "He might be hungry."
sometimes: "Studying Spanish can be easy. But it can feel difficult too" could become "Studying Spanish is easy, but sometimes it feels difficult."
always: "I order the same meal when I eat here" could become "I always order the same meal when I eat here."
often: "I wonder a lot if I made the right choice" becomes "I often wonder if I made the right choice."
so/therefore: "I have more energy in the morning. That's when I exercise" becomes "I have more energy in the morning, so that's when I exercise."
already: "I started studying English three weeks ago. I can say a lot" becomes "I started studying English three weeks ago, and I can already say a lot."
without: "I want to study the language. But I don't want to read or write" becomes "I want to study the language without reading or writing."
both: "Will you and you come to the party tonight?" becomes "Will you both come to the party tonight?"
until: "I want to study Cantonese. I will stop when I'm fluent" becomes "I want to study Cantonese until I'm fluent."
since: "I've wanted to travel to Australia for a long time. I wanted to when I was nine" becomes "I've wanted to travel to Australia since I was nine."
still: "I'm not young, but I enjoy learning new things" becomes "I'm not young, but I still enjoy learning new things."
enough: "The pan is hot now. You can add the bacon" becomes "The pan is hot enough now to add the bacon."
instead of: "We were going to eat Italian food. But do you want to eat sushi now?" can become "Do you want to eat sushi instead of Italian food?"
throughout: "There are many festivals here in the year" becomes "There are many festivals here throughout the year."
including: "All languages can be easy to learn. Tonal languages too" becomes "All languages can be easy to learn, including tonal languages."
in case: "Take my umbrella. It might rain" becomes "Take my umbrella in case it rains."
even if: "I want to travel. It's OK if it's for a short time" becomes "I want to travel, even if it's for a short time."
What sentence stretchers do you use in your target language? Are there any other hacks you use to build complex sentences in your new language? Let me know in the comments!
Holly Keenan
Speaks: English, French, Thai, Portuguese
Canadian language lover and software developer who's also into music, baking, and travelling to warm places.
View all posts by Holly Keenan
Spanish Accent Marks: The Ultimate Guide
Spanish accents can be confusing – and I'm not just talking about the way they pronounce things in Chile. What about the written accent marks that go above Spanish letters? In Spanish, accent marks are important. More often than not, an accent (or lack of it) completely changes the meaning of a word. For example, [...]
How to achieve the impossible
One of the most important things I've learned in my first year of blogging about my 3 month language missions has probably been discovering that achieving the "impossible" is actually easy. It turns out that several people that I've come across or read about have achieved the impossible several times over each. Taking their lead, [...]
Conversational French: 25 Ways to Start a French Conversation
When you're learning French, what are some good ways to start a French conversation? Whether you've just been introduced to someone new, find yourself sitting next to a French-speaker on the bus, or end up walking beside a French tourist while visiting an attraction, I've got a French conversation starter for you. Before we dig [...]
What will I talk about when my language level is so basic?
One of the biggest questions I get when I encourage people to just speak, no matter how bad your grammar is and how few words you know, is "What will I talk about?? They'll just get bored and angry with me!" This attitude is quite strange because it presumes a level of rudeness of foreign [...]
First weeks in the Philippines & video tour of my beach cottage
Time for a mission update! Last time I updated was after a few days in Manila when I had decided to go down south. I made it to Cebu, and went straight to the very south of that island (around Moalboal) to get some time by the sea (I hadn't been by the sea for [...]


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Our urban refuge offers you a safe, supportive, gentle, and deeply engaging learning environment that allows you to seek, explore, inquire, and gently connect with yourself.
Build personal foundation of practice: grounding in mindfulness; embodying the teachings; & prioritizing self-care.
Receive 7.5 CEU's (MN Board of MFT CE: 2016-061)– OR – Earn 8 hours of Group Supervision towards LMFT, LPC, & LPCC licensure.
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