The weight-loss industry is booming in the United States, and probably will continue to grow as the nation experiences what the Surgeon General has deemed an "obesity epidemic." As a result, drug makers are constantly seeking to develop and market that lucrative "magic pill" that will facilitate weight loss. In fact, drug companies have been marketing diet pills in various forms for more than twenty-five years, and desperate patients have been more than willing to try them, often with tragic consequences. Sadly, in a quest to become healthier, unwitting users have subjected themselves to dangerous diet drugs, experiencing not an improvement in health, but rather serious health problems and even death.
In 1992, for instance, pharmaceutical companies marketed two diet pills called Fenfluramine ("Fen") and Phentermine ("Phen"), to be used in combination and therefore dubbed "Fen-Phen." Unfortunately, tens of thousands of Americans have suffered very serious injuries from taking these diet drugs and similar ones. These injuries include heart valve damage and potentially fatal primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH). It is unclear how many deaths have been directly attributed to extended use of fenfluramine but in 2004 a Texas jury awarded $1 billion to the estate of a deceased woman after finding that Fen-Phen caused her death. Many Fen-Phen users face heart valve replacement surgery, and countless others now live in fear because they do not know what will happen if their disease progresses. Thousands of others remain unaware of their injuries because they have not yet had the medical testing required for proper diagnosis-often an echocardiogram, which is, in essence, a noninvasive and painless ultrasound examination of the heart.
The Fen-Phen combination is not the only diet drug or combination thereof to give rise to litigation. Meridia has also been the subject of recent lawsuits, with claims ranging from less serious side effects to death, and even over-the-counter diet aids and herbal supplements have come under legal scrutiny after users suffered ill consequences, again including death. One particularly problematic ingredient is ephedrine, which has been linked with death in multiple cases.
All diet drug users should consult with their physicians about the risks of taking any prescribed or over-the-counter weight-loss medications and submit to any recommended follow-up testing. If ill effects are experienced or discovered through examination and testing, the victim must act immediately to protect his or her legal rights as well. If you have suffered damages as a result of a diet drug, it would be prudent to seek legal counsel right away. When seeking an attorney to represent you, be sure to investigate his or her background in products liability law, especially with regard to drugs and pharmaceuticals. Inquire about his or her track record so that you can make an informed decision about whether this is the right person to steadfastly stand up against a big pharmaceutical company that has many more resources than you do to fight the charges against it. Only with an experienced advocate on your side can you be sure to achieve an outcome that best compensates you for your losses.


text:
Former Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti Pellow to play in Aberdeen later this year
The Crooner from Clydebank will take to the stage in November at the Tivoli Theatre
Marti Pellow spent a total of 28 years as the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet. (Image: Marti Pellow)
Former Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow will be visiting the Granite City later this year as part of a solo tour of the UK
He will perform at the Tivoli Theatre on November 2 with tickets going on sale on Friday, January 28 at 10am.
The Aberdeen venue will be one stop on his Pellow Talk tour, which will see him play across the UK this autumn.
The Scot performed with Wet Wet Wet throughout the late 1980s and much of the 90s, before the band split up in 1997.
They reformed in 2004 and Pellow remained a member in 2017, when he quit the group to focus on his career as a solo artist.
Love is All Around and Goodnight Girl are some of the most famous hits Pellow has featured on as a member of the band.
Aberdeen City Centre
Events18th-Century Aberdeenshire hotel to host special wedding weekend Thainstone House based in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire is getting ready to host a wedding venue fayre spread across two dates in February to give couples an insight into their venue
'Chaos and mayhem' expected at Fawlty Towers-themed Aberdeen dinner event
Taking place at the city's Station Hotel on March 25 at 7pm, the Fawlty Towers Dinner Show is set to combine fine food with classic comedy involving the classic characters of the hit 1970s sitcom.
Comedian Lucy Belmont heading to Aberdeen as part of nation-wide tour
Lucy Beaumont has had a long career across stage and TV. She will play at Aberdeen's Music Hall on November, 16 as part of her nation-wide The Trouble and Strife tour.
Still Game actor Paul Riley to host series of shows across north-east
Best known for his role as Winston in the hit comedy series, the actor is set to perform on 12 dates across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in an evening not to be missed.
BrewDog CEO James Watt reveals he is autistic after diagnosis at 40
The Ellon beer giant's co-founder and CEO was told he had autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) after seeking out help when he was described as 'semi-autistic' by a journalist.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Displaying items by tag: The Hidden Fortress
Kurosawa Goes Wide: Remembering "The Hidden Fortress" on its 60th Anniversary
"The Hidden Fortress is an irresistible blend of grand comic adventure with Kurosawa's emblematic humanism and innovative craftsmanship." — Stuart Galbraith, author of The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 60th anniversary of the release of The Hidden Fortress, Akira Kurosawa's influential jidai-geki and starring long-time Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo).
The popular Kurosawa film turns sixty this year, and for the occasion, The Bits features a Q&A with film historian and Japanese cinema authority Stuart Galbraith. [Read on here...]
Published in History, Legacy & Showmanship
History Legacy & Showmanship
The Hidden Fortress
Toshiro Mifune
Stuart Galbraith
The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
Criterion March, new Twilight Time and a digital cautionary tale from Amazon & Disney
Morning, folks!
Criterion has just announced their March Dual Format BD/DVD release slate, and here's what's coming: David Gordon Green's George Washington (Cat #152 – due 3/11), Errol Morris' A Brief History of Time (Cat #699 – 3/18), Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (Cat #116 – 3/18), Paul Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (Cat #702 – 3/25), Ingmar Bergman's Persona (Cat #701 – 3/25) and Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's The Freshman (Cat #703 – 3/25). [Read on here…]
Bluray Disc
Criterion March Dual Format release slate
A Brief History of Time
Twilight Time
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
Amazon Instant Video streaming service
Prep & Landing 2
pulled access to purchased digital titles


Testing is important on any platform, but the need to assure that your code is bulletproof is amplified in mobile apps. Through the megaphone of negative app store reviews and the impact bugs can have on someone depending on your app, the cost of shipping any kind of broken code is higher than ever. You're probably familiar with concepts like unit testing and Inversion of Control from building for other platforms, but now there is no excuse for leaving these tools behind when developing mobile apps!
In this session, we'll walk through how to build your applications to allow for targeting multiple platforms while still being able to rely on the safety net of test coverage. We will cover some best practices on application architecture, testing strategies, sharing tests across multiple platforms, common pitfalls, and even how testing can help speed up development. This session is all about practical approaches to testing while rapidly developing applications across platforms. We'll also take a look at Xamarin's Test Cloud, which offers the ability quickly and easily to test your apps across a large set of iOS and Android devices.
Greg Shackles (http://twitter.com/gshackles) is a Senior Software Engineer at Olo (http://olo.com). Greg is a Xamarin MVP, host of the Gone Mobile (http://gonemobile.io) podcast, organizer of the NYC Mobile .NET Developers Group (http://nycmobiledev.net/), author of Mobile Development with C# (http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Development-Building-Android-Applications/dp/1449320236), co-author of a monthly Visual Studio Magazine column (http://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/List/Mono-for-Android.aspx), and is a regular speaker at many user groups and developer events. Outside of technology, Greg is obsessed with heavy metal, baseball, and craft beer, sometimes in combination, and is also an aspiring homebrewer.


text:
Q: C:/altera/15.0/work/ethernet_frame generator.vhd(153): (vcom-1339) Case statement choices cover only 4 out of 81 cases Modelsim displaysCase statement choices cover only 4 out of 81 cases for my ethernet frame generation code I am getting this error after execution of my very long program in VHDL.It comprises of many case statements and case within case statements as well and of course many WHEN statements.However its said that When others => can be used only at the last statement of the code to avoid this particular error however there are many when statements used in the program.How to solve this issue?

A: When others => can be used at the last statement of each CASE statement, NOT just at the end of the code.
As Jeff says, without seeing your code there's not a whole lot more to say.
However, since you are covering 2 ** 2 cases out of 9 ** 2 I could make a wild guess you are covering all the '0' and '1' cases of a 2-bit std_logic_vector and ignoring all the metavalues. In which case you could replace
case my_slv is

with
case to_01(my_slv) is ...

and guarantee the metavalues are resolved to '0' or '1', but this sweeps all sorts of errors under the rug.
Far better to write an explicit test for any metavalues in the case statement. This will bring your simulations to a halt until you fix the real problem.
case my_slv is
when "00" => ...
...
when "11" => ...
when others => report "Unreachable!" severity FAILURE;
end case;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Well I am always a lady Archie, always a lady. I did not do anything vulgar. I simply removed his right eye with my left claw. And the next floor flusher who mentions marriage to me, I may lose my temper and slice him from gahena to duodenum!!
It is hard to imagine anyone more full with life wisdom than Rosalie Sorrels. The pictures of her face, the whine of her voice, and her worldly songs of sorrow and peace and resignation and joy, she seems to have been through all ways and all things. She is also a noted collector and preserver of traditional American folk songs. Now we are listening to her sardonic humor, a riff on Don Marquis' tales of Archie the literary cockroach and Mehitabel the alley cat.
Rosalie Sorrels, "Mehitabel's Theme," no publisher (1979). From Rosalie Sorrels, Always a Lady, Philo Records, PH 1029 (1979). Album Design – Margot Zalkind-Schur; Photography – Marion Ettlinger.
I had the good fortune to meet Ms. Sorrels. My name is Sorrels. My wife's name was Rosalie Sorrels. We met her when she was performing at Mayfest in Tulsa Oklahoma. My wife and I were sitting on a bench on Main Street after Ms. Sorrels' performance and she walked toward us. My Rosalie stood up and introduced herself to Ms. Sorrels who promptly sat and talked with us for nearly half an hour. We found no relatives in common. The lady made our day.


So you've found a fixer-upper for a GREAT price! It's in a decent neighborhood, but it needs a lot of work. No problem, you can deal with that. How much work is too much work, though? You don't want to buy into a project that will turn into a money and time sink. Nobody gets into real estate to lose money! So, how you decide what repairs are worth the investment, and which ones you should pass up, no matter what the price tag says?
First, you need to decide your goal with this fixer-upper. Are you buying it to fix and flip for a profit? Are you looking for a home to repair and rent? Which goal you're pursuing will affect the amount of work and money you put in, and should be considered carefully during your calculations!
Fix and flip properties will require a larger investment because you're tailoring someone's dream home. These properties will require more extensive repairs and updates because a buyer will be much pickier than a renter.
You'll want to replace major home systems if they're damaged or aging, refinish hardwood floors, repaint inside and out, replace the flooring and carpet, modernize the bathrooms and kitchens, and update the fixtures, hardware, and appliances. This will represent a substantial investment, but if you purchase the property at the right price, these updates could return a nice profit!
Repairing a property for rent won't require as thorough of updates because renters are typically less picky about fixtures, cabinet colors, tile, and appliances than a buyer would be. Also, you can adjust the rent for less updating completed, and increase it for more custom upgrades. Your goal will be to make the property attractive and safe for your future tenants without dumping a bunch of money into a home that will take months or years to return your investment!
For rentals, you'll want to check the major home systems and replace any that are close to failure, just to save yourself the stress and 3 AM maintenance requests. Exploding water heaters will cause additional damage that could be avoided by replacing it ahead of time!
Replacing worn out carpet, repainting the walls a neutral color, updating hardware or fixtures, and exchanging damaged appliances are all perfectly reasonable investments in a rental property.
What's the average property value of the area? Calculate the estimated costs of all your repairs and deduct them from the average property price in the neighborhood. For rentals, you will also need to allocate a percentage for vacancy and maintenance. For flips, don't forget to calculate commissions, insurance and carrying costs!
What does the area have to offer? This is important for both flips and rental properties. Excellent amenities will make a home much easier to sell or rent! Consider the local schools and businesses, job availability, entertainment and dining options, shopping, hospitals, and future construction.
What's the age of the home? This number will help you determine all sorts of things, from how desperately appliances will need replacing to whether you should anticipate code compliance issues or structural problems.
What type of permits will you need? This is an important one that most folks fail to factor into their initial estimates! You know the home will need cosmetic work, but what kind of permits will the city and inspectors require you to have? How much will they cost? What paperwork do you need, and what are the time requirements for applications and approval?
What Does the Property Need?
Remember that these prices are estimates designed to give you an idea of the future expenses and will vary based on the quality of items that you choose. If you already have specific brands in mind, use those prices when making your calculations.
Don't forget installation fees and any additional costs, such as pads or removal!
Hardwood costs up to three times as much as carpet! Refinishing is less expensive, and usually, a good option unless the floors desperately need replacement.
Time: Typically two days. You want to allow for several hours of drying time between coats! If you're installing new floors, you'll need to buy hardwood at least a week before installation and let the woods acclimate to the new surroundings. This is not a joke – wood fluctuates tremendously due to moisture!
Calculate the square footage by tile price, and don't forget the subfloor will need to be assessed before laying any new flooring. Plywood typically costs $20-25 per 4'x8' sheet!
Cost: For tile, it can be as little as $5 to as high as $35 per square foot, including installation. Vinyl flooring typically runs between $3-$5 per square foot.
Time: Bathrooms typically take a day, kitchens can take anywhere from 1-3 days.
Replacing fixtures will include lights, fans, chandeliers, door handles, faucets, and cabinet hardware.
Time: Allow yourself a full day to change everything out.
These can significantly impact the curb appeal of a home and might also be necessary to meet code requirements or make the home more energy efficient.
Cost: Exterior doors can run anywhere from $300-$1,200 depending on the quality and construction. These ranges reflect the door itself, necessary hardware or lockset and installation. Window replacement will depend on the type, size, and number of windows, as well as materials used and any necessary repairs. Homeowners, on average, can expect to spend around $5,000 for 5-10 windows.
Time: Door replacement typically takes a few hours. Window replacement usually takes an hour or two per window.
This category includes hot water heaters, refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers.
Cost: Hot water heaters run between $800-$1,200. Refrigerators can run you from between $400 all the way up to $2,000. Basic stoves will cost you from $350 -$500, though pricey models can run well up into the thousands. A decent microwave will cost around $100. Dishwashers run from $200-$500. Washing machines and dryers can be picked up for $300-$500 apiece. Don't forget to bargain shop and scour for gently used appliances to save money!
Time: Allow yourself 2-3 hours for each appliance, and don't forget to arrange disposal for the old units.
Kitchens are a huge selling point in a home. If you can get away with just repainting the cabinets in a neutral color, great! Refinishing and refacing are also cost-efficient options to consider. Replacing cabinets is an expensive undertaking, but sometimes necessary.
Cost: Several thousand dollars, depending on construction and quality. Rentals can get away with standard cabinets, a home you plan to sell might benefit from custom work. Your budget will determine the route you take.
Time: 4-5 days, which includes demolition, installation, finishing and cleanup.
Interior – Calculate paintable square footage by price per gallon. Don't forget tape, paint brushes/rollers/drop cloths!
Cost: On average, $1-$3 per square foot. This generally does not include texturing or scraping popcorn.
Time: This depends on the size of the house, available manpower, the extent of prep work, and the number of colors you're working with. Allow yourself a week to do it properly, as the process will include trim, doors, and molding.
Exterior – Multiply square footage by the price of exterior paint. Calculate preparation times, such as scraping old paint off and prepping the surface. If the paint is lead-based, you'll need to hire a painter or contractor who is licensed to remove the old product.
Cost: Pricing will depend on the size of the home (square footage and number of stories) but on average, expect to spend between $2,000-$3,000 for a professional. To do it yourself, expect to pay between $30-$70 per gallon. Double up, because you'll need two coats.
Time: Allow yourself a week, and watch the weather closely!
These are best left to a licensed professional!
Cost: A professional electrician will cost between $50-$100 per hour for labor, plus the cost of any supplies and service call fees. Installing outlets or additional fans can cost a few hundred dollars. Rewiring an entire home can cost upwards of $10,000.
Time: This will depend on the complexity of your project and can be estimated by hiring a professional for a quote.
Cost: Professional plumbers can cost you anywhere from $50-$150 per hour.
Time: Jobs like installing toilets and dishwashers or fixing plumbing leaks typically take a day. If you have more complex requirements, such as slab leaks or plumbing new additions, you'll want to get a quote.
If you suspect the home has foundation issues, call a structural engineer in to assess the damage BEFORE you call a repair company! You want to know exactly what you're dealing with so the work estimate can be as precise as possible!
Cost: Simple repairs for minor cracks run as low as $500 while complex work such as major foundation repair can include replacement of every pier. This varies per geographic area, but often runs $175-$400 per pier. Pricing will depend on the type of foundation. Also, consider the structural damage that happens inside the home as a result of foundation issues and the resulting expense of those repairs.
Time: When it comes to foundation repair, you want correct work, not quick work. Expect anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Again, this is definitely something you'll want to get a quote for.
Anything beyond simple repairs is best left to a licensed professional! Repair costs will depend on the extent of damage and type of roof you have.
Cost: Between $100 and $1,000 for minor repairs such as patching or replacing flashing. Shingle installation varies and decking replacement may be separate!
Time: A few hours, for simple repairs, up to a couple days for a complete replacement.
Now that you've crunched your numbers, how does everything come out in the wash?
Is it a good investment? Awesome! And now you've got a checklist already drawn up for the repairs you need, how much it'll cost you, and how long it should take! Isn't that handy? Good luck and get to work!
Or is it not such a good investment? Sorry. We know that's frustrating, but at least you have concrete reasons why it's not a good idea and avoided spending money on something that would ultimately be a time-sink and financial loss.
Whitestone Acquisitions specializes in buying fixer-uppers AS-IS! If you have a property in your portfolio that's losing money or you want to sell your home without dealing with repairs and updates, we can help. Our process is quick and easy! Most sales are completed in as little as three weeks. Sound like something you're interested in? Give us a call or shoot Allison an email to get the process started!


So the challenges of my Dementia continues to increase.
The foggy head since before Christmas is now compounded by increased tiredness and fatigue.
A side effect of this has been the increasing challenge to write these articles.
Normally ideas would come along and gradually over days form into an article but there may be nothing there but silence.
I peer into my thoughts and find nothing but the whiteness of the fog all around a bit like being in a soundproof room and shutting the door.
There was a time when thoughts and music would be running round in my head incessantly but for now there is silence.
Information goes in but disappears through the fog quickly forgotten.
If I don't write it down, it is soon forgotten.
I try not to look and act like I have Dementia.
To ward off the stigma and maintain my self esteem.
To reassure family and delay the time when my Dementia will severely impact on them.
Yet there is still a lack of understanding of a diagnosis of Dementia at an earlier stage.
Still there is the stigma.
Still there is the ignorance.
Still there is the questioning.
People receiving a diagnosis of Cancer do not all get diagnosed at stage 4.
People with Heart Failure do not continually have Heart Attacks.
Many people, following a Stroke, continue to live their lives within reduced limits.
How can someone from Old Age Psychiatry question the diagnosis of people under 65.
There is a big difference between the early stage and Palliative stage.
The younger Doctors understand the difference, older ones are stuck with 40 year old attitudes.
I am not hunched over, drooling and chemically restrained yet.
To travel takes a lot of planning with technology as my aid.
Assistance from the organisation I am travelling to.
It is my right to do so.
I have the right to make mistakes, even if they have negative consequences.
I have the right to take part in public and political life.
I refuse to sit by and watch the rights of people with Dementia and other disabilities being eroded.
I'm damned if I am going to sit at home, sat in the corner, hunched over and drooling, deteriorating and becoming a burden to my loved ones and society.
I'm damned if the discrimination, defamation, libel and slander of others is going to submit me to a life of rightsless abuse.
I am a human being, diagnosed not by guess work or Munchausen, but by a Neurologist and Neuropsychologist, evidenced by an MRI and SPECT Scan which clearly shows my Dementia.


David Hilbert embarked on an enormous enterprise: the reduction of the whole of mathematics to a set of axiomatic systems. Clearly these systems must have been interrelated in many ways in order to determine and guarantee their mutual consistency. We can distinguish each axiomatic system by their different axioms. In addition, in order to move from these axioms to theorems, we must utilise something that is shared with logic: the rules of inference. Again like logic, one such rule of inference is the well-known modus ponens. This shared interest in the rules of inference is partly accounted for by the fact that "they are properties of reasoning as such". That is, both logic and mathematics must use the inferences which belong to every rational mind and even every thought or act of reasoning. They were, therefore, as foundational and fundamental as Aristotle's 'laws of thought'.
However, there must be some things, other than numbers, which distinguish mathematics from logic. For example, a prime candidate for this difference is the nature of the axioms in mathematics. They are different because they describe space, time and measurement in all its forms. These applications, to space, time and measurement clearly distinguish mathematics from logic, at least from pure formal logic but not, for example, quantificational logic.
Hilbert was a Platonist. He didn't reject numbers in his systems. We cannot "eliminate the idea of number from the axioms". They are, then, fundamental to maths precisely because they are used in its many axioms. Hilbert expressed his Platonism in an even more platonistic way. Like Plato himself, "we must therefore suppose that numerical expressions stand for objects, which have a reality independent of our calculations". He was clearly not, therefore, a mathematical constructivist or a mathematical Wittgensteinian, and neither was he a mathematical Kantian. In addition, although these number-objects are "known to us through proof, but which are entities over and above the proofs by which we discover them". So Hilbert accepts that they are only known to us through proof, which is an operation and perhaps a psychological operation, these number-objects do not need us in order to exist. The numbers can then be called evidence-transcendent, at least in the case of those numbers and operations that can never be known, or are not known now. They are also mind-independent objects, even though they can be 'known' by minds.
In some cases, then, some object-numbers and operations may never be known as a matter of necessity. Take 'Golbach's theorem' which cannot be proved (see Kripke's 1971). These positions seem very counterintuitive to many minds, not only non-philosophical minds. Indeed they seem even stranger in the context of that branch of mathematical constructivism known as intuitionism. In the case of intuitionists, if a mathematical statement has not been proved or disproved it is, in fact, neither true nor false, mind-independently or otherwise. In fact, unproven statements have another 'truth-value': indeterminate. Incidentally, this is also the case with 'future contingents' – statements about the future. They too are neither false nor true, but they are indeterminate instead. Perhaps this is because a future-statement cannot be proved either, almost by definition.
In addition, being constructivists, intuitionists do not believe that numbers are objects either, whether abstract or concrete. We 'construct' numbers by the operations we carry out on them. They are not found, either, via platonic 'intuition' or Husserl's 'direct insight'. If there were no minds, there would be no numbers and no mathematical operations on these numbers.


text:
Prof. Dr. Jaqueline BERNDT
Since 1991, when I first became an EAJS member, my engagement as presenter and convenor has been mainly in the Visual Arts section. Initially dedicated to the discipline of Art History, this section has come to embrace visual culture in the broader sense, including other than strictly visual art forms and also critical issues of cross-sectional relevance, for example, intersectionality (as the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, gender, age, and disability), aesthetic materiality, interpersonal networks, and institutional platforms. During my first period as council member I hoped to effectuate change in the EAJS's traditional sectioning in order to facilitate research papers that tend to fall through the established disciplinary cracks (as manifesting, for example, in the way convenors are appointed and play the role of gatekeepers). But such change necessitates respective decisions at the General Assembly, as I have learned. During my next tenure, I intend to prepare a motion for the next Assembly in 2021, based on input by colleagues who, like me, find the sectional boundaries between Visual and Performing Arts, sociological/anthropological Media Studies and aesthetically accentuated Media Studies (including Film and Moving Image Studies), or Philosophy/History of Thought and more recent critical theory (including, for example, Posthumanism) at least in part problematic with regard to contemporary research.
Employment History (tenured positions only):
2016–present Professor in 'Japanese Language and Culture', Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies
2009–16 Professor in Manga/Comics Theory, Kyoto Seika University (KSU), Faculty and Graduate School of Manga Studies
2001–09 Associate Professor in Art and Media Studies, Yokohama National
University, Faculty of Education and Human Sciences, Department of Multimedia Culture
1995–2001 Associate Professor in Art Sociology, Ritsumeikan University Kyoto, Faculty of Social Sciences
1994–95 Associate Professor in German, Ritsumeikan University Kyoto, Faculty of Law
Education/qualifications:
1991 Dr. phil. in Ästhetik/Kunstwissenschaft, Humboldt Universität Berlin
1987 DDR-Hochschuldiplom in Japanologie Humboldt Universität Berlin
List of selected publications
2020_ "Design als Konzept? Zum Sinn und Zweck von Manga-Ausstellungen," in "Ran an die Wand, rein in die Vitrine?" Internationale Positionen zum Ausstellen von Comics in der pädagogischen und musealen Praxis, edited by Anna Maria Loffredo and Barbara M. Eggert, München: kopaed, pp. 98–108.
2019_ Shōjo Across Media, co-edited with Kazumi Nagaike and Fusami Ogi, "Introduction: Shōjo Mediations" [individually authored], Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–24.
2019_ [review] Interpreting Anime by Christopher Bolton, The Journal of Japanese Studies, 45(2), 471–475.
2018_ [guest-edited special issue] "Manga, Comics, and Japan: Area Studies as Media Studies," Orientaliska Studier 156; https://orientaliskastudier.se/okategoriserade-en/156/ [Open Access].
2018_ "Anime in Academia: Representative Object, Media Form, and Japanese Studies", Arts 7(4), 56, 1–13; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040056 [Open Access].


text:
/**
 * @param {string} name the uniform variable that describes the texture
 * @constructor
 */
function TextureReader(name, expr, modifs, api) {
    this.expr = expr;
    this.api = api;
    this.modifs = modifs;

    this.name = name;
    this.code = [
        'uniform sampler2D _sampler', name, ';',
        'uniform float _ratio', name, ';',
        'uniform vec2 _cropfact', name, ';',
        'uniform bool _repeat', name, ';',
        'uniform bool _mipmap', name, ';',
        'vec4 _imagergba', name, '(vec2 A, vec2 B, vec2 p) {',
        'p -= A; B -= A;',
        //'B.y *= _ratio', name,';',
        //'p.y *= _ratio', name,';',
        'float b = dot(B,B);',
        'p = vec2(dot(p,B),_ratio', name, '*dot(p,vec2(-B.y,B.x)))/b;',

        'if(_repeat', name, ') p = mod(p, vec2(1.));',

        'if(_repeat', name, ' && _mipmap', name, ') {', //Use modified 4-tap trick from https://0fps.net/2013/07/09/texture-atlases-wrapping-and-mip-mapping/
        'vec4 color = vec4(0.);',
        'float totalWeight = 0.;',
        /* classical 4-tap trick
            'for(int dx=0; dx<2; dx++) { for(int dy=0; dy<2; dy++) {',
            'vec2 tc = mod(p + vec2(dx,dy),vec2(2.))*_cropfact', name, ';',
            //'tc = mod(tc, _cropfact', name, ');',
            //Weight sample based on distance to boundary
            'float w = max(0.,min(min(1.-tc.x,tc.x),min(1.-tc.y,tc.y)));',

            //'float w = 1.;',
            //Sample and accumulate
            'color += w * texture2D(_sampler', name, ', tc);',
            'totalWeight += w;',
          '}}',
        */
        'for(int dx=0; dx<2; dx++) for(int dy=0; dy<2; dy++) {', //iterate over the 2 rectengular maps of atlas for the Torus
        'vec2 delta = .5*vec2(dx, dy);',
        'vec2 center = delta+vec2(.5);', //center of map
        'vec2 tc = fract(p-delta)+delta;', //texture coordinate
        'float dst = dot(abs(tc-center),vec2(1.));', //manhatten distance to center of map of atlas
        'float w = max(.5-dst,0.);', //Weight based on distance to center of map of atlas
        'w=w*w;',
        //Sample and accumulate
        'color += w * texture2D(_sampler', name, ', tc*_cropfact', name, ');',
        'totalWeight += w;',
        '}',
        'return color/totalWeight;',
        '}',

        'if(0. <= p.x && p.x <= 1. && 0. <= p.y && p.y <= 1.)',
        'return texture2D(_sampler', name, ', p*_cropfact', name, ');',
        'else return vec4(0.);',
        '}'
    ].join('');
}

/**
 * GLSL name of texture
 * @type {string}
 */
TextureReader.prototype.name;

/**
 * glsl code of the texture reader (vec 4_imagergba_NAME(vec2 A, vec2 B, vec2 p) {...})
 * @type {string}
 */
TextureReader.prototype.code;

/**
 * The expression that is encoded by the the uniform
 */
TextureReader.prototype.expr;

/**
 * The API
 */
TextureReader.prototype.api;

TextureReader.prototype.returnCanvaswrapper = function(properties) {
    let nameorimageobject = this.api.evaluateAndVal(this.expr)['value'];
    let imageobject = (typeof nameorimageobject === "string") ? this.api.getImage(nameorimageobject, true) : nameorimageobject;

    if (imageobject == null) {
        console.error("Could not find image " + nameorimageobject + ".");
        return nada;
    }

    return generateReadCanvasWrapperIfRequired(imageobject, this.api, properties);
}

/**
 * Either takes original name of the image or generates a new unique name for the image for nameless imageobjects.
 * @type {CindyJS.image|string} image
 */
function getNameFromImage(image) {
    if (typeof image === "string") {
        return image;
    } else {
        if (!image.hasOwnProperty('name')) image['name'] = generateUniqueHelperString();
        return image['name'];
    }
}

function generateTextureReaderIfRequired(uname, modifs, codebuilder) {
    if (!codebuilder.texturereaders.hasOwnProperty(uname)) {
        codebuilder.texturereaders[uname] = [];
    }

    let idx = codebuilder.texturereaders[uname].length;
    for (let i in codebuilder.texturereaders[uname])
        if (idx == codebuilder.texturereaders[uname].length) {
            let othermodifs = codebuilder.texturereaders[uname][i].modifs;
            let iscandidate = true;
            for (let prop in ["interpolation", "mipmap", "repeat"])
                if (iscandidate) {
                    if (!expressionsAreEqual(othermodifs, modifs)) iscandidate = false;
                }
            if (iscandidate) idx = i;
        }

    let tname = uname + '_' + idx; //the glsl name of the texture having the uname as image and a set of modifs

    if (idx == codebuilder.texturereaders[uname].length) {
        codebuilder.texturereaders[uname].push(new TextureReader(tname, codebuilder.uniforms[uname].expr, modifs, codebuilder.api));
    }

    return tname;
}

function useimagergba4(args, modifs, codebuilder) {
    return ['_imagergba', generateTextureReaderIfRequired(args[2], modifs, codebuilder), '(', args[0], ',', args[1], ',', args[3], ')'].join('');
}

function useimagergb4(args, modifs, codebuilder) {
    return ['(_imagergba', generateTextureReaderIfRequired(args[2], modifs, codebuilder), '(', args[0], ',', args[1], ',', args[3], ').rgb)'].join('');
}

function useimagergba2(args, modifs, codebuilder) {
    let a = computeLowerLeftCorner(codebuilder.api);
    let b = computeLowerRightCorner(codebuilder.api);
    return ['_imagergba', generateTextureReaderIfRequired(args[0], modifs, codebuilder), '(vec2(', a.x, ',', a.y, '),vec2(', b.x, ',', b.y, '), ', args[1], ')'].join('');
}

function useimagergb2(args, modifs, codebuilder) {
    let a = computeLowerLeftCorner(codebuilder.api);
    let b = computeLowerRightCorner(codebuilder.api);
    return ['(_imagergba', generateTextureReaderIfRequired(args[0], modifs, codebuilder), '(vec2(', a.x, ',', a.y, '),vec2(', b.x, ',', b.y, '), ', args[1], ').rgb)'].join('');
}

function generateHeaderOfTextureReaders(codebuilder) {
    let ans = '';
    for (let t in codebuilder.texturereaders)
        for (let i in codebuilder.texturereaders[t]) {
            ans += codebuilder.texturereaders[t][i].code + '\n';
        }
    return ans;
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Let The Rioting Begin! #NoJustice4Trayvon
Last week here, I suggested that the aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial would likely result in social media outrage, but no actual looting in the streets. I was at www.topbettingaction.com putting wagers on the likelihood of this not happening. Yeah, so much for that.
Protesters ran through Los Angeles streets Monday night, breaking windows, attacking people on sidewalks and at one point raiding a Wal-Mart store, while others blocked a major freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area in the third night of demonstrations in California over George Zimmerman's Florida acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Thirteen people were arrested after multiple acts of vandalism and several assaults in Los Angeles' Crenshaw District, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference.
More than 300 officers were called to the scene and were at first slow to directly engage protesters in an attempt to allow a peaceful end to the demonstration, Beck said. But the chief said police would take a much stricter posture in the coming nights.
Several hundred mostly peaceful protesters gathered Monday night at Leimert Park southwest of downtown LA, many of them chanting, praying and singing.
But a smaller group of between 100 and 150 people splintered off and began blocking traffic on nearby Crenshaw Boulevard, some of them jumping on cars and breaking windows at liquor stores and fast food outlets.
Several protesters ran into a Wal-Mart store, where they knocked down displays before store security chased them out, and police began guarding the door.
Let's be real here: these looters (they're not rioters) have nothing to do with #Justice4Trayvon. These are opportunists who saw an open window to procure a few free bottles of Loopys[1] and a PS3 for their "suffering". These Negroes deserve whatever lumps the LAPD doles out. And while we're at it, how about this latest "kewl Internets meme" ?!?
Trends come and go on social media, here's hoping this one goes quickly.
People have taken to posting pictures of themselves online imitating the picture of Trayvon Martin's dead body aired on live TV Friday during coverage of George Zimmerman's murder trial.
Done by teens, most of whom are white, Trayvoning involves people lying motionless on the ground with Skittles and an iced tea, often while wearing a hoodie.
'I don't think it's very appropriate to do,' one woman told Fox 40. 'It hurts me, and it's not my son,' James Shelby, president of the Greater Sacramento Urban League, told the station, adding 'We need more conversations in homes about how we can all get along better. In turn, our kids are educated in things we shouldn't do.'
I can has visit from George Zimmerman?!?
Assholes.
Question: What's up with these kids?
[1] What ya'll know bout' that?!?
Tags Popped: Don't Drop The Soap, Drive-By Activism, I Feel Sorry For Your Mother, It's Human Nature, Knee-Grow Please, Negro Nonsense, What A DoucheBag


text:
PAC – Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
March 19 – June 18, 2011
The PAC, the Pavilion of Contemporary Art of Milan, presents the TONY OURSLER. Open Obscura exhibition, curated by Gianni Mercurio and Demetrio Paparoni, promoted by the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Milan and produced by the PAC, 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo 24 ORE and MiArt; the exhibition project is by Madeinart.
The exhibition features a rich selection of works, including some large installations created by Oursler during the past five years. This Milan exhibition – which is opened together with the MiArt 2011 edition – is one of the largest anthological exhibitions dedicated to the renowned American artist, who is considered by the critics worldwide as a leading figure in recent history of video art, and is referred to as the initiator of video sculpture. His works are included in the collections of the most important museums of international modern and contemporary art, from the MOMA in New York to the Tate in London.
Tony Oursler is one of the most innovative and experimental artists among those who use the video as a means of expression, being convinced that moving images – more than the static ones – are extremely representative of our contemporary culture. Thanks to him, video art has freed itself from the limitations of the television screen and the image projected on a uniform surface, creating an original interaction with the sculpture itself and the public. Oursler's art does not just express itself through the video image in a strict sense, but uses and overlaps sculpture, design, installation and performance.
"Oursler plays with the signs and symbols of the society of images. He turns them upside down, he questions them, he gives them new meanings," said Massimiliano Finazzer Flory, Municipal Councillor for Culture. "As a metaphor of vision, the eyes created by Tony Oursler give life to a geometry of exchanges and interactions with the work itself and the public. Questions, wrongfooting, dreamlike suggestions plunge visitors into a visionary and restless atmosphere from the very beginning."
The work of the artist, since the beginning of his career, has been dominated by themes such as violence, the relationship with media, drugs, mental illnesses, pop culture, consumerist compulsion, sex, pollution. Ourlser's analysis is focused on how all those things affect man's corporeity and social and interpersonal relations.
During the Nineties, his installations included sculpture-screens (projections on sculptures): disfigured faces spouting monologues with intimist and somehow delirious implications were projected onto irregular volumes, but also onto dolls, trees or clouds of steam. This series, called Talking Heads, has then evolved into the Eyes series (which will be presented at the PAC in a customized version, composed of ten "eyes"), in which the artist projects eyes onto spheres scattered along the exhibition space. These eyes – showing dilating pupils, iris reflection and blinking eyelids – seem to stare into space or observe the visitor. This disquieting exchange of looks between the work itself and the public, the symbolic reduction of man to eye, is one of the central themes of the American artist's work, focused on the relation between the individual and a virtual dimension where the boundaries between reality and fiction become blurred.
The issues Tony Oursler deals with are shared by artists who are close to him, Mike Kelley above all. With him, Oursler started the punk-rock band called The Poetics and shared the wish to "make a breakdown in the aesthetic culture." Eclectic and versatile artist, called by David Bowie for his performance of the 50th Birthday Bash concert at the Madison Square Garden in 1997, Oursler has shown since the beginning his interest for the music and the possible interactions with this expressive means through the screen. Some significant collaborations will be featured in the exhibition, with videos by the artist and David Bowie, Sonic Youth and others.
At the PAC, a series of installations inspired by the exploration of the cosmic space related to the imagination of popular culture (Cosmic Cloud and Purple Dust), and the mental troubles represented from a super-pop viewpoint (such as Frog, Crunch, Snake) will be featured as well. Among the large 2009 installations, there will be Stochastic Mask, Stone-cold Loop, Endorphic Vessel and Gaze Heuristic, which share the unusual ability to get the public involved. Together with these works, very recent ones will be exhibited as well. The first is a project that Oursler created for the Adobe Virtual Museum (The Valley, 2010 visible on www.adobemuseum.com). Thanks to some multimedia stations, the public will have the chance to interact with the digital exhibition with which the artist opened the Adobe virtual museum. The second is the Peak series (2010), micro-sculptures made up of projections onto assemblages of objects and raw materials such as glass, metals and clay. Again, in this recent series the artist carries on his research on the way technology affects human psyche.
The exhibitions at the PAC are held thanks to the support of TOD'S; the didactic activities for the public, created and organized by M-ARTE, are carried out with the contribution of Gruppo COOP Lombardia.
The catalogue is published by 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo 24 ORE.


text:
heap-of-red-hot-chili-peppers-stockpack-adobe-stock
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience
Nobel Prize Medicine Win Solves a Mystery in Hot, Cold Sensing
Researchers discovered the exact path by which chili peppers feel "hot" and mints feel "cold" when the signals reach our brains.
The 2021 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to David Julius of the University of California, San Francisco, and Ardem Patapoutian of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, for "for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch."
It's been a longstanding mystery why chili peppers feel hot to the taste:
In order to truly appreciate Dr. Julius' discovery, a bit of context may be in order. Unless you build up tolerance, eating spicy foods is painful. Peppers and wasabi give off a strange sensation that your mouth is on fire, and for the longest time researchers simply couldn't figure out why this was the case. Failing to pinpoint any immediate benefits of this response, they speculated it must be the remnant of some distant evolutionary adaptation.
Dr. Julius answered this question by showing us what TRPV1 is responsible for: keeping our bodies safe from high temperatures. The channel responds not only to capsaicin, but also to temperatures that are greater than 110 degrees Fahrenheit. TRPV1 also acts up when we are injured or sunburned, causing damaged tissue to feel hot to the touch. In all cases, the channel transmits a signal that our brains turn into the sensation of heat.
Tim Brinkhof, "Beyond pain and pressure: 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine awards work on sensory perception" at Big Think (October 7, 2021)
To track the system at work, researchers needed to catch it responding to a false heat signal created by the receptor for capsaicin, the substance that makes the chili peppers taste painfully hot.
The receptor is an ion channel (a protein) called TRPV1: It "opens when heat is sensed: "
Julius got the idea to do his capsaicin experiments while shopping in a grocery store: "Walking through the supermarket aisle one day, seeing all these hot chili pepper sauces, et cetera, I was thinking, 'We really have to get this project done," he said in a press conference on Monday. "And my wife said, 'Well, then you should get on it!'"
Tanya Lewis, "2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Awarded for Discoveries in Sensing Temperature and Touch" at Scientific American (October 4, 2021)
The mystery they resolved is one of those "how, exactly?" problems, frequent in science. To use a system to our advantage, we must know how it works exactly, not just generally:
"Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival and underpins our interaction with the world around us," said the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet. "Prior to the discoveries of David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment still contained a fundamental unsolved question: how are temperature and mechanical stimuli converted into electrical impulses in the nervous system?"
Corryn Wetzel, "Scientists Studied Spicy Chili Peppers and Cool Menthol for Their Nobel Prize–Winning Research on Heat and Touch" at Smithsonian Magazine (October 4, 2021)
Meanwhile Papoutian and his team, along with Julius, discovered the process by which cold signals get translated as information in the brain by studying the receptors for menthol (as in peppermints, which are perceived as "cold":
Molecular biologist Patapoutian and his team at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, poked individual cells with a micropipette and observed their electric signals. Using this prodding technique, Patapoutian was able to identify the cellular mechanism and underlying gene that translates a mechanical force, like pressure on our skin, into an electrical signal in our nervous system. Working independently of each other, Julius and Patapoutian also used menthol to discover a receptor for sensing cold.
Plus, Patapoutian and colleagues identified Piezo1 and Piezo2, genes for proteins that sense touch and, in the case of Piezo2, help tell us where our limbs are at any given time (proprioception).
Now, what about chronic pain? In an interview with Scientific American in 2019, Julius explained how his research into capsaicin (as in chili peppers) might help shed light on sources of chronic pain. Normally, pain serves a protective function:
When you sprain your ankle, you need to know that you've done something bad so that you can protect it and allow it to heal. People who lack that ability—for example, people who have [a common complication of] diabetes or people who have leprosy [Hansen's disease]—they don't have sensation in their extremities. If they injure themselves, if they have an ulcerating sore in their foot and don't know it, they don't know to protect themselves, and so it becomes infected. So that whole enhancement to pain sensitivity, in its best form, is there to protect us and tell us that we have to guard the site. Of course, the problem is that sometimes it gets out of control. And then we have a persistent or chronic pain syndrome.
Tanya Lewis, "What Chili Peppers Can Teach Us about Pain" at Scientific American (September 6, 2019)
In short, the pain is real but its cause is an out-of-control receptor rather than illness or injury. Identifying the culprit precisely is essential for a targeted approach to the problem. Another hope for the new research is a targeted approach to non-opioid pain relief, a field where past research results have been disappointing.
This area of research is sometimes referred to as mechanobiology ("where biology and physics meet"). In light of the 2021 Nobel win, science writer Suzan Mazur has republished a 2018 interview with University of Michigan mechanobiologist Allen Liu on the mammalian ion channels Piezo1 and Piezo2 at her blog, Oscillations. He begins by explaining the mechanome, "the set of proteins or molecular entities that sense or respond to forces":
[Liu:] If you think about all the proteins that sense or respond to forces, one can argue that in principle all proteins are sensitive to forces. This is because proteins are folded into 3-dimensional structures by non-covalent interactions. And if you apply a force by grabbing onto a single molecule and extend it, the protein will unfold. So by their nature, all proteins are sensitive to forces.
The key thing the field is trying to understand now is that if a force is applied, how does it change the energy landscape of the molecular interactions. How does that force facilitate binding or unbinding to other molecular entities? We still don't know which proteins have cryptic sites that open upon physiological force applications. To a certain extent, we have not identified all the key molecular players in force transduction.
We learned only about eight years ago [in 2010], for example, of the existence of mammalian ion channels that are mechanically activated and are involved in touch and pain sensation. They are called Piezo1 and Piezo2.
Suzan Mazur, "ENCORE: Allen Liu on the Mechanome and Synthetic Cell Development" at Oscillations (November 6, 2018/October 7, 2021)
So researchers must take into account physics, as well as chemistry and biology, in order to address some problems with pain.
Mazur is also the author of Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology, an introduction to the topic in the form of interviews with researchers.
Theists vs. Atheists: Which Group Has the Burden of Proof?
A common refrain from those atheists who are willing to debate theists is that theists, not atheists, have the burden of proof in the debate over God's existence. Internet atheist Matt Dillahunty made this claim in our recent debate. Regrettably, it looks doubtful that Dillahunty and I will …
8. Does Morality Really Exist? If So, Does It Come From God?
In the "Does God exist?" debate between theist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and atheist broadcaster Matt Dillahunty (September 17, 2021), the debaters are now talking about where moral precepts come from. Readers may recall that the debate opened with Egnor explaining why, as former atheist, …


Blue Mountain offers free Christmas ecards in a variety of fun, attractive styles. cozy Christmas and a bright and happy New Year! Price 1 Customer Type free Path. Sending you lots of love and heartfelt wishes to have a wonderful Christmas and holiday cheer. Happy New Year! Family and friends we gather near to celebrate Christmas with carols and cheers.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year by Divine Creations. Next. New to Care2? Start Here. About Us; Care2 Team Blog. Free Greetings for the Planet ™. Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, New Year, Thanksgiving, Father's Day, Season's Greetings, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Diwali, Fourth of July, Boss's Day and lots of other events throughout the year. 123Greetings Connect Found 702 results related to paper greeting card christmas Tagged with: mother day pop up greeting cards, mothers days card free print out for freind, free musical ecards for mothers day, pop up musical mothers day cards, free greeting cards with music for mother day, Christmas Greetings | See more ideas about E cards, Ecards and Happy new year.
Spread the joys of Christmas among your loved ones with this beautiful ecard. Free online Merry Christmas 'N Happy New Year ecards on Christmas. Christmas and New Year wishes for peace and joy. Magical Christmas! A magical and delightful Christmas message. Christmas Hugs!
Send out loads of Christmas snowman hugs. Send free ecards from American Greetings quick and easy in minutes! Our online greeting cards are perfect for any occasion and a great way to show you care!. Stock up on your favorite greeting cards for any time of the year.
Category. Greeting Cards. New religious ecards worth sharing. The perfect ecards for when you can't find the. Send New Year's e-cards and invitations by email from the best greeting card sites. The Right Kind of Card for Your Kind of New Year. How do you like to welcome the new year? Mix - Christmas Video Greetings YouTube; Christmas Magic Video - Duration: E-christmas and new year greetings. Merry Christmas& Happy New Year 2016 Greetings, Best Wishes, Whatsapp Video message, E-card 22 - Duration: 0: 51.
Send Christmas cards, Merry Christmas wishes, quotes, images and ecards to spread lots of Christmas cheer. Make this.
Merry Christmas 'N Happy New Year. This card has optional greetings: Merry Christmas, Christmas Blessings, Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, Peace on Earth, Thinking of You, Thank You, Get Well Soon, You're Invited, Just Saying Hi, Happy Birthday, [No Caption] Sending Christmas greetings is also an appropriate way to share the spirit of the season with business.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. Send this beautiful Christmas greetings to your friends and family. Magical Christmas Greetings. Merry Christmas 'N Happy New Year! Spread the joys of Christmas among your loved ones with this beautiful ecard. Merry Christmas Holiday Season! It's Christmas! Time to make merry and share the joy with friends! Free 3D Christmas E-Cards for 2018, Christmas Cards, Christmas Greetings, Christmas Cards, 2019 3D Christmas Cards with realistic snow effect, holiday greetings, holiday cards, animated snow applet, christmascards new year, original-cards.
com Home - Send free online greeting cards, animated cards, ecards, postcards& egreetings with quotes for friends and family on special occasions: Birthdays, Love, Weddings, Thank You cards, Invitations, Anniversary ecards and much more. Nostalgic Christmas eCards. Send a beautiful Christmas greeting filled with charm and nostalgia!.
New Year eCards. holiday. Mother's Day. Christmas. Christmas, New Year and other occasions are all covered in our comprehensive e cards portfolio. Each design is animated to delight and deliver a positive impact to your brand.
Browse the examples below or check out our full portfolio of holiday ecards for business now. Checkout CardsDirect® newest Christmas greeting card designs for your home or business. New Year's; Thanksgiving; Shop By Style. These new Christmas cards. Do you hear what I hear, this most wonderful time of the year? Deck the halls with boughs of eCards and spread some holiday cheer! Start the new year off right by sending new year wishes to family and friends. Check out our New Years eCard selection today!
Send Christmas ecards and online greeting cards with E-christmas and new year greetings Christian message and beautiful pictures. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. it is truly the most. Many translated example sentences containing" Christmas and New Year greetings" – French-English dictionary and search engine for French translations.
But at Christmastime, it means "Season's Greetings, " and is the perfect holiday phrase to encompass all of the Christmas and New Year's holiday events, from Réveillon to the Fête des Rois (Three Kings' Day, a celebration in January that rings in the New Year with a cake and crowning of a "King" or a "Queen" within every family). Send New Year's e-cards and invitations by email from the best greeting card sites.
The Right Kind of Card for Your Kind of New Year. How do you like to welcome the new year? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year eCard. Send Christmas ecards and online greeting cards quickly and easily to friends and family at CrossCards. com! Christmas Cards / Winter Greetings.
Happy Holidays, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, Peace on Earth, Thinking of You, Thank You, Get Well Soon, You're Invited. Don't forget that you can also send other winter holiday ecards and New Year's ecards as well.
Keep sharing the joy of the season by sharing ecards with your friends and family to help them celebrate this magical time as well!


From the award-winning artist of Wascally Wee Willy's Freak-i-Leaks comes his latest triumph, the GaGaGooGooGoGo Gals. My, what intriguing thoughts enter the minds of these young party-goers on the way to their favorite club.
Please be advised that there is adult content in this imagery. As Wascally Wee Willy is known to say, "Perversity is in the Eye of the Beholder."


text:
Prime Video releases Homecoming season 2 trailer
14th April 2020 - StreamedTV
Amazon Prime Video has released the teaser trailer for Homecoming season 2. The show returns for its second season with a fresh new mystery and an exciting new star, Janelle Monáe (Moonlight), on 22nd May 2020.
Her character wakes in a rowboat adrift a lake, with no memory of how she got there — or even who she is. Her ensuing search for identity will lead her into the heart of the Geist Group, the unconventional wellness company behind the Homecoming Initiative.
The second season finds Stephan James (Race) reprising his role as Walter Cruz, who is trying to build a new life following the traumas of war and the Homecoming Initiative, when he begins to realise that there's an even more insidious version of the programme underway – if only he can remember.
Hong Chau (Watchmen) returns as Audrey Temple, an anonymous underling at Geist who finds herself thrust into unexpected positions at the top of the corporate ladder. Joining the cast for season 2 are Oscar-winner Chris Cooper (Breach) as Leonard Geist, the company's eccentric founder; and Emmy-winner Joan Cusack (Shameless) as Francine Bunda, an equally eccentric military woman.
Homecoming's co-showrunners and executive producers are Eli Horowitz (Homecoming) and Micah Bloomberg (All is Lost), who are also the creators of the Gimlet Media podcast upon which the show is based.


text:
Shop Species Tulip, Cretica Hilde and other Seeds at Harvesting History
Home / Shop / Flower Bulbs, Corms and Tubers / Bulbs for Fall Planting / Tulips / Species Tulips / Species Tulip, Cretica Hilde
Species Tulip, Cretica Hilde
Size Choose an option3pk5pk10pk25pk Clear
Categories: Flower Bulbs, Corms and Tubers, Bulbs for Fall Planting, Tulips, Species Tulips. Tags: Cretica Hilde, deer resistant, Heirloom, Naturalizer, NON-GMO, Pink Tips, Species Tulip, Tulip, white petals.
Cretica Hilde has not been available for decades. It was first introduced in 1853. Two years ago the growers in Holland decided to build a production crop and it became available in 2019 in limited supply. It was enough of a commercial success, that the growers have continued to produce the bulbs and you can see why. This is a beautiful, sweet, little Species Tulip that was originally native to Crete. It is tiny – reaching a maximum height of 4-8 inches. It should be planted in drifts of at least 10 bulbs.
Once the plant emerges from the soil, it produces narrow, sword shaped leaves. From the center of the leaf cluster, a blossom stem grows. The blossom is tiny and delicate, but a stunning shade of pink. A single bulb will generate up to 3 star-shaped flowers per garnet stem. Each night, the blossoms tighten and each morning they explode unveiling a beaming yellow center. The plants bloom early to mid-season. The bulbs are hardy from Hardiness Zone 3-8.
"For those of you who have deer, squirrels, bunnies, chipmunks and other critters that like to decimate the spring garden before it even sprouts, there are actually many bulbs that are critter resistant, in fact, there are tulips that are critter resistant. These tulips are known as Species Tulips. These are the original wild tulips collected from Persia, the Caucasus, Africa, Southern Europe, etc. Even today, wild species are still being discovered and cultivated for commercial sale. Understand, that after these wild species are collected and nurtured through professional cultivation, they often change dramatically. They can become taller, their blossoms can become larger, and their colors may be more vivid. That is OK, because even if you found them in the wild and brought them to your own gardens, these changes would take place. Loving care does that to most wild things.
Species Tulips originated in the mountains of Central Asia, like the Tien Shan mountains of Kazakhstan. In these rugged regions they populated hillsides and meadows in vast drifts often growing in elevations above 10,000 feet. From these regions, they were collected and carried west by enterprising travelers along the trade routes to the westernmost parts of the Ottoman Empire.
In the 16th century, these tulips made their way into Europe, smuggled out of Constantinople in the diplomatic pack of the Flemish ambassador, Ogier de Busbecq. Clusters of these tulips began showing up on the terraced vineyards and in the olive groves of France and Italy where they flourished in the much more hospitable environments.
Years ago when species tulips became available to the public, they were not very popular because they were very short (4-6 inches) with very delicate colors (pink, white, yellow). Because of their critter resistant qualities, interest has grown dramatically in species tulips and larger, more vividly colored species tulips have been collected from the wild and cultivated. Today, there are some taller, very dramatic species tulips available to the public.
Remember, the greatest feature about the species tulips is that for some reason, unknown to mankind, the deer are not interested in eating them and the moles and voles seem to leave them alone as well.
Planting Bulbs in the Fall for Glorious Spring Color
Bulbs are some of the easiest plants to grow. Fundamentally the process requires four steps.
1. Dig a hole.
2. Dust the hole with bonemeal.
3. Place the bulb in the hole.
4. Fill the hole with soil.
There are, however, some additional refinements which help produce even more lavish results and enhance protection from critters.
First, bulbs can and should be planted deeper than the instructions you receive on the package labels. An easy way to remember how deep to plant the bulb is to think of a quarter. If the bulb you are planting has the same diameter as a quarter or less, plant the bulb 4 inches deep. If the bulb is broader than a quarter, plant it 6-10 inches deep. Large bulbs like some alliums, camassias, standard tulips and fritillaries can easily be planted 10 inches deep. As the soil compacts days, weeks and months after planting, it produces a thinner layer of soil on top of the bulb. Planting bulbs deep helps with critter control. Moles, voles, chipmunks and squirrels are lazy little creatures, and they don't like doing a lot of digging to reach their food.
Second, bonemeal is a must. It is an excellent source of calcium and phosphorus which help the bulbs to form a strong root system and healthy stems. For large bulbs (those bigger than a quarter), use ¼ cup per bulb. For small bulbs, dust the entire surface or hole where the bulbs will reside.
Third, small bulbs should be planted in clusters of 10 or more – 1 inch apart. Large bulbs, like allium, can stand along, but create a much more pleasing presence in the garden when planted is clusters of 3-5. They should be separated by no more than 4-6 inches.
Fourth, bulbs usually multiply fairly quickly and once crowded will not produce blossoms. Plan to divide your bulbs in mid-summer to fall when the top growth has dried out.
These simple, easy, quick tasks are all that is required to produce a lovely bulb display year after year.
Planting Bulbs in Containers
If you live in Hardiness Zones 5 and higher all you need to do is mix some soil. . Check out the soil mix described in detail in our Harvesting History YouTube video. Do not use prepared soil mixes.
The Best Soil Mix for Containers
Always plant bulbs more densely in containers than in the ground. Pots as small as 6-inches in diameter can have a showy presence on a deck, porch or patio. You can use much larger pots and plant several kinds of bulbs.
Fill the pot half full, dust the soil surface with bonemeal, arrange the bulbs on top of the bone meal and fill the pot with the rest of the soil. Dust the surface of the soil with more bonemeal. Water thoroughly, but do not let the pot stand in a saucer of water.
If you live in Hardiness Zones 1-4, you must protect the pots by bringing them into an unheated garage or surrounding them with bales of straw. If you do not do this, the bulbs usually freeze and turn to mush.
Plant 6-8" deep and 6" apart. "
Humilis Alba Coerulea Oculata
M. Valerie Finnis
Clusiana var. Chrysantha
A. Karativiense
Saxatilis
Kolpakowskiana


text:
Champniers puede referirse a:

 Champniers, comuna francesa situada en Charente.
 Champniers, comuna francesa situada en Vienne.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Need access to an account? 3% of all web sites worldwide – ranging from personal blogs to corporate political government sites. I' d like to pull all lines with a given string from a word document. A short tenth season consisting of six episodes premiered on January 24 concluded on February 22 . Drupal provides a back- end framework for at least 2. Grep does this without a glitch.
Drupal / ˈ d r uː p əl / is a free open source content- management framework written in PHP distributed under the GNU General Public License. The original television series aired from September 10 1993 to May 19 on Fox.
If you are a new customer register now for access to product evaluations purchasing capabilities. Systems also use Drupal for knowledge management and for business ep in Microsoft Word? The X- Files is an American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter.
If your company has an existing Red Hat account, your organization administrator can grant you access. Windows is less than obvious for me.
The program spanned nine seasons, with 202 episodes. Database driven pdf files. Following the ratings success of this revival, Fox.
Drupal / ˈ d r uː p əl / is a free and open source content- management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides a back- end framework for at least 2.
3% of all web sites worldwide – ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and government sites.
Systems also use Drupal for knowledge management and for business collaboration. The advances in the internet technology, internet of things, cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence have profoundly impacted ep in Microsoft Word? I' d like to pull all lines with a given string from a word document.
grep does this without a glitch.
Windows is less than obvious for me. If you are a new customer, register now for access to product evaluations and purchasing capabilities. Need access to an account?
The database management system ( DBMS) is the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the fore you can start building your database- driven web presence, you must first ensure that you have the right tools for the job. In this first chapter, Kev will tell you where to obtain the two.


text:
Stephen Nicklous Benson
Lieutenant, United States Navy
Submitted By: Shawn Matthew Smith, Captain, United States Navy (Retired):
LIEUTENANT STEPHEN NICKLOUS BENSON, USNR
January 1, 1976 - October 18, 2002
Photo By Shawn Matthew Smith
Lieutenant Benson was a native of Virginia Beach, Virginia and a 1998 graduate of Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, with a degree in General Business. He received his commission on September 11, 1998 after completing the Naval Officer Candidate School program in Pensacola, Florida.
Following graduation, Lieutenant Benson attended Naval Aviation Schools Command and was designated a Naval Flight Officer. He continued his aviation training at Fighter Squadron One Zero One in the F-14 Tomcat, and upon completion transferred to Fighter Squadron Four One, attached to Carrier Air Wing Eight. While assigned, Fighter Squadron Four One participated in operations SOUTHERN WATCH and ENDURING FREEDOM. Lieutenant Benson then transitioned from Fighter Squadron Four One as they reestablished as Strike Fighter Squadron Four One in the Navy's newest strike-fighter aircraft, the F/A-18 F Super Hornet.
During his career Lieutenant Benson amassed more than 632 total flight hours, 26 combat hours and 114 arrested carrier landings. His awards included the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat "V," Navy Unit Commendation, Meritorious Unit Commendation, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and Sea Service Deployment Ribbon.
On October 18, 2002, Lieutenant Benson was killed when two F/A-18 F Super Hornets collided over the Pacific 80 miles southwest of Monterey, California. Both aircraft were assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron Four One stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore. The other aviators lost in the mishap were Lieutenant Joel A. Korkowski, 30, a pilot from Phoenix, Arizona; Lieutenant Stephen R. Nevarez, 31, a weapons officer from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Lieutenant Matthew S. Shubzda, 27, a pilot from Dallas, Texas. Lieutenant Stephen N. Benson was 26 years old. The fatalities were the first in an F/A-18 F Super Hornet since the Navy began flying the new combat aircraft in 1999.
Memorial services were held at Naval Air Station Lemoore for all four aviators where about 800 relatives, friends and troops packed the chapel to bid farewell to the two pilots and two weapons operators who were flying in two F/A-18F Super Hornets. Four fellow members of the Black Aces squadron eulogized their fallen comrades at the service. A missing man formation flew overhead, with one jet breaking away from the diamond formation and soaring toward the heavens.
In addition, services were also held at the Chapel of the Good Shepard at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia on October 29, 2002 where Lieutenant Benson grew up and had his first operational assignment. Approximately twelve hundred relatives, friends, "Shipmates," and fellow aviators attended this service requiring two outdoor tents to be erected to accommodate the chapel overflow. Lieutenant Benson was eulogized by his sister Katherine Naeher, his brother Captain Garrett Benson, USMC, and his father, Captain Eric Benson, USN (R). Following the service, a ceremony took place and the American flag was presented to the family with rounds included from the twenty-one gun salute. A missing man formation was also conducted at Oceana with two F-14 Tomcats and one F/A-18 Hornet in a wedge formation with the missing aircraft from the number three position.
The final service and internment were held for Lieutenant "Nick" Benson on 30 October, 2002 at the Old Fort Chapel at Arlington National Cemetery. Many senior officials and Flag Officers, both active duty and retired, were in attendance including the Secretary of the Navy, The Honorable Gordon R. England. The ceremonial American Flag was presented to the Benson family by Admiral William J. Fallon, Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Once again, the capacity of the chapel was exceeded. Lieutenant Benson was third generation military and his father a retired Navy Captain who also flew the F-14 Tomcat. Lieutenant Benson's father was the Commanding Officer of Fighter Squadron Four One when Lieutenant Benson was still in High School. Captain Benson also commanded the Naval Air Station at Oceana from June 1996 through July 1999. Captain Benson was retired from the Navy and working in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. as the Acting Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs at the time of the mishap.
In every case, Lieutenant "Nick" Benson, call sign 'FREAK', was remembered for his compassion, sense of humor, devoted professionalism and courage to both the Navy and his country. He was also remembered for his size, wearing a 50 long flight suit, and a heart that seemed larger than the man himself. Lieutenant Benson did not have a long Naval career. However, his impact on lives both professional and nonprofessional will long be remembered. He was extremely close to his family, whose grief was only exceeded by their pride in their son and brother.
Lieutenant Steven "Nick" Benson is survived by his father and mother, Captain Eric and Mrs. Barbara Benson, USN, brother and sister-in-law Captain Garrett and Mrs. Kristen Benson, USMC, and brother-in-law and sister Mr. Matt and Mrs. Katherine Naeher.
"On behalf of a grateful people, Godspeed Lieutenant."
Navy jet collision blamed on pilots
Four Lemoore aviators died when two Super Hornets crashed Oct. 18.
By Kerri Ginis
(Published Saturday, September 20, 2003
A Navy investigation found that pilot error caused a midair collision between two fighter jets that killed four aviators from Lemoore Naval Air Station last October. It took almost a year to compile the 669-page report signed by three-star Navy Admiral M.D. Malone on August 28, 2003. The overriding conclusion of the investigation is that the accident "was the result of indecision and the failure to act by the two pilots operating the aircraft."
Killed in the Oct. 18, 2002, crash were Lieutenant Stephen R. Nevarez, 31, of New Orleans; Lieutenant Joel A. Korkowski, 30, of Phoenix; Lieutenant Matthew S. Shubzda, 27, of Dallas; and Lieutenant Stephen N. Benson, 26, of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Korkowski and Shubzda were pilots; Nevarez and Benson were weapons systems officers on the F/A-18F Super Hornets. They were part of Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-41, known as the Black Aces.
Retired Navy Captain Eric Benson lost his son Stephen, or "Nick" as he was known to family and friends. The elder Benson, a 28-year veteran aviator, said he wasn't surprised by the report's findings.
"Clearly, it's pilot error," said Benson, who lives in Virginia Beach. "I flew for 28 years, and you don't collide, even accidentally, without someone making an error."
But Benson also points out that despite the conclusions drawn in the report, no one will ever really know what happened that October morning.
"They didn't recover any of the airplanes, any of the crew or any of the hard evidence," he said. "What you really have is a skeletal report that is based on presumed evidence."
Navy officials were unavailable to comment Friday on the findings.
The report points out that the 9:30 a.m. crash occurred during a training mission off the coast of California about 70 miles west of Big Sur. Eight aircraft were in the air conducting four-on-four air-combat maneuvering.
The jets were divided into opposing forces of blue and red. The blue force was "friendly" and used the same tactics and weapons that are flown in combat.
The red force was "hostile" and simulated enemy aircraft and tactics.
An investigator states that the two Super Hornets -- one piloted by Korkowski and the other by Shubzda -- collided while attempting to pass each another. It was described as a "center of mass to center of mass" crash at a very high rate of speed.
The impact caused "a tremendous fireball" that destroyed both aircraft instantly.
After conducting hundreds of interviews, reviewing maintenance records and evaluating safety procedures, the investigator concluded that there were two direct causes of the accident.
The first was that both pilots failed to say which direction they were going to pass -- a critical training rule violation, according to the report.
The other is that the pilots didn't ensure safe separation between their aircraft.
It's believed that one of the pilots was trying to make a right-to-right pass while the other was attempting to make a left-to-left pass. Neither communicated his direction or was able to maneuver his jet in time to avoid the collision.
"Although it would be very easy to attribute this accident to system or design failures, training or programmatic failures, I have had quite some time to review various reports and I firmly believe these issues were not factors," the investigator stated in the report.
"The aircrew did not purposely violate any rule or any procedure. Neither called the direction of pass and for reasons we'll never know, neither maneuvered his aircraft to affect safe separation."
Other pilots who witnessed the crash provided descriptions of the impact. One said he saw one jet smash into the second jet just behind where the pilot and weapons system operator were sitting.
He said there was an "enormous fireball, surrounded everywhere by debris fragments." He said all the debris seemed to suddenly stop and hang momentarily before falling directly down.
Another pilot stated he thought he saw what might have been a small movement by one of the pilots just before the collision, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was. He also said he didn't see any evidence of ejection, but did see what looked like a piece of "dental floss with green on top" drifting down toward the ocean.
After the crash, other pilots made repeated low passes over the water to look for survivors. But all they observed was an oil slick, a sea dye marker and a small amount of floating debris.
A headstone that describes Lieutenant Benson as "a courageous son and brother" now sits at the Old Fort Chapel at Arlington National Cemetery.
The elder Benson said every day since the crash has been difficult.
He doesn't know how he will handle the upcoming year anniversary of his son's death.
"I wish I had a good answer for how to deal with something like this," he said. "You endure it and you build several defenses. I guess you just try to deal with it day to day."
Four Navy Aviators Mourned
Lemoore, California –– Four Navy aviators presumed dead after their planes collided over the Pacific Ocean in a training exercise were mourned Wednesday in a private service at their air base.
About 800 relatives, friends and troops packed the chapel at Lemoore Naval Air Station to bid farewell to the two pilots and two weapons operators who were flying in two F/A-18F Super Hornets that crashed Friday.
The four aviators were participating in dogfighting exercises when the jets collided. Searchers recovered wreckage but no bodies.
Four fellow members of the Black Aces squadron eulogized their fallen comrades at the service. A so-called missing man formation flew overhead, with one jet breaking away from the diamond shape and soaring toward the heavens.
The fatalities were the first in a Super Hornet since the Navy began flying the new combat jet in 1999.
The aviators were Lieutenant Stephen N. Benson, 26, a weapons system officer from Virginia Beach, Virginia; Lieutenant Joel A. Korkowski, 30, a pilot from Phoenix, Arizona; Lieutenant Stephen R. Nevarez, 31, a weapons officer from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Lieutenant Matthew S. Shubzda, 27, a pilot from Dallas, Texas.
Search Ends for Four Navy Fliers
POINT SUR, Calif. –– The U.S. Coast Guard called off its search Saturday for four U.S. Navy officers missing since their two fighter jets collided during a combat exercise Friday.
The search ended at 6:30 p.m. because of sea and weather conditions, and because about 33 hours had passed since the pilots were reported missing, according to Coast Guard spokesman Matt Juillerat.
The Navy identified the missing officers as Lieutenant Stephen R. Nevarez, 31, a weapons systems officer from New Orleans; Lieutenant Joel A. Korkowski, 30, a pilot from Phoenix; Lieutenant Matthew S. Shubzda, 27, a pilot from Dallas; and Lieutenant Stephen N. Benson, 26, a weapons system officer from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
The four were members of Strike Fighter Squadron 41, based at Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno.
Two cutters, an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter and three commercial fishing vessels helped search the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean 80 miles southwest of Monterey, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Veronica Bandrowski said. The Coast Guard also used computer-aided search programs, which calculate sea changes, wind and other factors, to help guide searchers over about 40 square miles where the pilots may have drifted.
The two F/A-18F jets that took off from Lemoore collided during a training exercise with six other fighter jets, said Lemoore spokesman Dennis McGrath. The two Super Hornets were not carrying any weapons.
The officers were all experienced aviators who had flown F-14 Tomcats over Afghanistan, said McGrath. Their families have been notified.
F/A-18F jets, which seat two aviators, are designed for traditional strike operations and close air support. F/A-class fighter jets commonly are equipped with Vulcan 20mm cannons and can carry bombs, mines and rockets.
The Navy is the only branch of the military that uses Super Hornets, McGrath said.
It was the first crash involving a Super Hornet since the Navy launched the fighter jets in 1999. All squadrons of the jets are based at Lemoore, but recently the base deployed a squadron aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, which is at sea in the Middle East, McGrath said.
Each Super Hornet costs $57 million, weighs 33 tons and has a combat flight range of 1,275 nautical miles, according to the Navy Web site.
When McDonnell Douglas – now owned by Boeing – was building Super Hornets in the 1990s, the jets suffered from what is called "wing drop phenomenon," which would cause the aircraft to drop to one side during certain dogfight maneuvers, Marcus Corbin, senior analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Corbin said during "wing drop" a pilot may not be able to discern the location of near-flying planes, and he was skeptical that redesigns fixed the problem.
The "wing drop" problem was supposed to have been fixed, McGrath said, noting such problems are usually addressed in the Navy's testing and evaluation stages, which happened before the jets ever got to Lemoore.
"By the time they're here, they've normally resolved all of the difficulties," McGrath said.
Courtesy of Oklahoma State University: Tuesday, October 22, 2002
OSU graduate among those missing in military plane crash
A friendly young man who could make people laugh is how family members remember an Oklahoma State University alum who is missing in a military plane crash off the coast of California. The Coast Guard officially ended the search Saturday night for Lieutenant Stephen "Nick" Benson, 26, and three others because of sea and weather conditions and the time that had passed since Friday's accident.
Stephen Benson graduated in 1998 from OSU, his father, Eric Benson, said Monday evening.
Benson and the three other Navy officers were members of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 based at Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno, California, who flew F/A-18 Super Hornets.
Two of the two-seater airplanes collided in an exercise Friday off the Big Sur coast.
Stephen Benson was a weapons system operator who would have been seated in the rear seat of the Super Hornet.
A memorial service for those missing is scheduled for Wednesday at the California naval base, said Eric Benson, who is retired from the Navy and lives in Virginia City, Virginia.
Relatives and friends have called offering condolences, the elder Benson said.
''We have been getting numerous calls from people who were friends of Nick, who are encouraging us to pick up the pieces this horrible nightmare has left us,'' said Eric Benson, who also is an OSU graduate.
His son stood 6-foot-4, weighed 240 pounds and sported a personality just as big, Eric Benson said.
Stephen Benson was friendly and had a talent for cheering people up, Eric Benson said.
''He was good at making you laugh.''
Greg Gungoll, 27, of Alva knew Stephen Benson while they were OSU students and concurred that soldier's persona matched his size.
''To say Nick was larger than life is a correct statement,'' Gungoll said. ''He had a very large heart. Everyone really liked him ... he enjoyed life to the fullest.''
The military has been a ''family business, but the tragedy is still hard to take,'' said Eric Benson, whose father also was in the service.
''We're trying to keep everyone focused on the life that he lived and not the life that was dimmed,'' Eric Benson said.
Stephen Benson also is survived by a brother and a sister.
Courtesy of the Virginia Pilot:
Lieutenant Stephen ``Nick'' Benson was looking forward to coming home.
He was born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, and played football for First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach. He became a fighter pilot, and flew F-14 Tomcats out of Oceana Naval Air Station.
After being among the first F-14 crews to fly into Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Benson's Black Aces squadron switched over to the new F/A-18 Super Hornets and was moved to California.
But Benson did not expect to be gone too long. He was engaged to be married, and the Black Aces were scheduled to be among the first Super Hornets stationed at Oceana, sometime in 2004.
When the Black Aces do return to Oceana, they will do so with a heavy heart. Benson, 26, and three other Navy aviators were killed Friday off the California coast in a midair collision between two F/A-18F Super Hornets.
The Navy has released little information about the accident, the first involving Super Hornets. There had been up to eight aircraft participating in training maneuvers just before the accident occurred, according to Eric Benson, Nick's father.
"Maybe we'll never know what happened,'' Benson said Monday from his Virginia Beach home. "Maybe we don't want to know.''
Eric Benson, a retired Navy Captain, commanded the Oceana air station from 1996 to 1999. He takes some consolation in knowing that Nick died doing what he loved -- flying jets.
"They were four brave young Americans, out there sharpening their swords to do the nation's bidding, and circumstances put them in the same piece of sky,'' Benson said.
Nick Benson was a weapons system officer in the back seat of the aircraft. Also lost were weapons system officer Lieutenant Stephen Nevarez, 31, of New Orleans, and pilots Lieutenant Joel Korkowski, 30, of Phoenix and Lieutenant Matthew Shubzda, 27, of Dallas. All were believed to have had earlier assignments at Oceana.
"This is not just about the Benson family,'' Eric Benson said. "There is a widow who has been married for three months. There is a widow who is pregnant with her first child, and then there is a widow with two orphans under the age of 5.
"The tragedy touched just about the full spectrum.''
Nick Benson graduated from First Colonial in 1994 and from Oklahoma State in 1998. He was commissioned a naval officer that same year through the Officer Candidate Program.
When Nick told his parents he wanted to fly jets in the Navy, it "kind of stunned us because it was something he always professed lacking an interest in,'' Eric Benson said. "But when he committed to it, he was 100 percent and made us very proud.''
The year Eric Benson was named the "Black Ace of the Century'' by VF-41 was the year Nick began flying for the same squadron.
"He wanted to fly in the F-14 because it was a legacy thing, but more importantly because he wanted to be stationed at Oceana,'' Eric Benson said.
Nick's call sign was "Freak,'' a named he was tagged with by the squadron's Ready Room. His father said Nick liked the name.
"It was a lot better than 'Son of Buster,' '' Eric Benson said of the name that had been proposed; Eric Benson's call sign was "Sodbuster.''
Eric Benson said Nick wanted to write his own story, that "he didn't want to live in anybody's shadow.'' He also gave his wife, Barbara, credit for producing "as good a young man as there is in uniform, because I was at sea when that young man was raised, and she kept him committed and straight and made him morally right.''
During Nick's time in Afghanistan, when his squadron was flying from the carrier Enterprise, Benson asked Nick to bring him back arming wires, which are removed from bombs when they are armed before a mission. Eric Benson wanted to give the wires to the wife of a good friend killed in the World Trade Center attacks a year ago.
"Nick brought me back a bunch of arming wires from a load of ordnance he dropped on a tank column,'' Benson said.
Nick Benson's brother also is a combat veteran. Garrett Benson, 29, is a Marine Corps Captain and artillery officer stationed at Quantico Marine Corps Station in Northern Virginia. Garrett saw action in Bosnia.
His sister, Katherine Naeher, 22, lives in Houston, Texas. She was married a month ago.
A memorial service for Nick Benson will be held October 29, 2002, at the Oceana base chapel at 10 a.m. An interment ceremony will be at Arlington National Cemetery on October 30.
Eric Benson took a new civilian job this year in Washington, serving as Acting Undersecretary for Memorial Affairs for the Veterans Administration.
"I run the national cemetery administration, except for Arlington, which is still an Army unit.
"But the irony has not been lost on us.''
BENSON, STEPHEN NICKLOUS
LT US NAVY
BURIED AT: SECTION MF SITE 6-1
Note1:
An "In Memory of" stone was placed in Arlington National Cemetery on 30 October 2002. Lieutenant Benson's remains were not recovered.
NOTE 2:
VA Names Acting Head for Memorial Affairs
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi has appointed S. Eric Benson as acting Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs. Benson had been the senior advisor to Deputy Secretary Leo S. Mackay, Jr., since May 2001. He replaces Robin L. Higgins, who recently resigned.
As acting under secretary for one of the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) three administrations, Benson directs the operation and maintenance of 120 national cemeteries and oversees other memorial-related programs. These include the distribution of headstones and markers for veterans' graves worldwide and a grants program to establish state veterans cemeteries.
In his previous job as senior advisor, Benson oversaw the development of policy and operating procedures for the full range of VA's programs and services. He was appointed by the White House and selected for the Senior Executive Service.
Benson retired as a Navy Captain in 2001 after serving 28 years with extensive leadership and combat experience. He logged more than 5,000 hours flying fighter aircraft and made over 1,000 carrier landings. Benson flew 44 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. He commanded Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., the world's largest tactical air base.
A graduate of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Benson was selected as a distinguished alumnus in 2000. He earned a master's degree in international relations at Salve Regina College, Newport, R.I., and another master's degree in international security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. He also attended the Naval War College.
Benson is a life member of several national veterans organizations
Webmaster: Michael Robert Patterson
Posted: 30 October 2002 Updated: 5 November 2002 Updated: 8 November 2002 Updated: 11 December 2002 Updated: 20 March 2003 Updated: 20 September 2003
Updated: 17 September 2005