Please click here to return to the paper on US politics.
(Translated by Ed.) The rich world worked long and hard, through terrible centuries, in order to create its wealth base. Once it felt itself wealthy, however, settled down to consumption as a life goal. This happened some decades ago. It began to build a new consensus, a social consensus around indirect consumption, giving a 'decent life' to every citizen. The highest luxuries of one decade became the basic features of a "decent life" in the next. In the period in which rich world GDP doubled, welfare expanded by a factor of ten.
A strong sense of social entitlement grew up with this. It says that if you are a citizen, then a vast range of things are due to you merely by virtue of your birth. "Society" is supposed to bring you into the world, educate you, find you a job, keep you safe and healthy and eventually bury you. If it cannot not find you a job, then it is to house and feed you, and generally to look after you.
In line with this, except in attractive activities such as sport or light entertainment, popular culture has abandoned the notion that striving after excellence is a fine thing in itself. The high culture of the time is to be the popular culture, as if alll that occurred in the Eighteenth century was bar songs and ballards. No Mozart for today, thank you. If something is simply too difficult to master in a few weeks, then the view is that you should not mind or be embarrassed by this, for such a thing is "elite" - not a part of "us" - and you can disregard it.
This may be a post-Humanist stance. It may celebrate our essential animalism and the pointlessness of existence, save as it is justified by the brief flashes of an enjoyable experience, and by the avoidance of too many low points. This is a stance that strives to be above all kind, to hurt the feelings of the smallest number, to treat the citizen as a child.
It may feel anti-authoritarian and free of constraint. It says that there is nothing you cannot do because you can safely stop wanting to do things before you hit the limits of your ability. in Catholic countries, these days that is a big plus.
But it will not serve for what is ahead. It does not apply elsewhere, and the rest of the world is coming to our door. They are not sleep-walking in a comfortable dream. The discipline and the striving that I see elsewhere in the world is not being mirrored in Europe.
In our Europe, there is little status given to scientists and technologists, whether it be social or financial reward. Rich people are regarded in a very negative way and the process of becoming rich is seen as being grubby and probably corrupt. Entrepreneurs are usually disliked unless they are charismatic and, ideally, young - then they are described as "surprisingly ordinary". Very few young people in Europe want to be entrepreneurs, as compared to other countries. When they are asked to describe an ideal career, it is to work in a company that will pay you enough to retire early, as banks used to be. Well, dream some more, children.
Look, I'm not proposing some cult of personality around economic and technical success, but I do suggest that we need to re-think our public priorities. The public mood since the crash has been that "those kind of guys" - wealth creators, elite groups - "did this to us. Ordinary people should protest to get it put back the way it was." I see these people in the streets here in Spain every day, waving placards. I hear teachers - a lot of teachers - arguing against an education that emphasises striving, work discipline, winning, success. That may make me an authoritarian old woman, but I know what made the rich countries rich, and it is not all being nice together.
Re morality: John Stuart Mill in Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism "… Nature cannot be a proper model for us to imitate. Either it is right that we should kill because nature kills; torture because nature tortures; ruin and devastate because nature does the like; or we ought not to consider what nature does, but what it is good to do."
One of the greatest steps our civilisation has taken in the past hundred years is to partially abandon Systems 1 in favour of Systems 2. If Mr (Professor?) Haidt cannot see that, then the worse for him.
Congratulations to the authors of the Comment 4, which has for me made many things much more clear. I think people might be interested in this figure, which was made by Gelfand et al AAAS Science 332 pp 1100-1104 (2011) They looked at what they called 'tight' and 'loose' cultures. Loose cultures have weak social norms and are tolerant of deviance - so like the "Liberal" list - and the tight ones are very like the conservative list. "Tight" respondents agree with comments like: "People in this country almost always comply with social norms".
The index shows responses from university students, which maybe understates the level of conservatism. The data show that the statistics are smooth within any of the countries and they are showing a clean difference between countries. The figure shows the result from 6800 interviews. Gelfand also found that it was strong the correlation with political forms (the chicken and the egg?) Also, it was good with environmental constraints like having desert, high population density, having suffered from a recent pandemic disease or a recent war.
This figures sets me asking two questions. One, if everyone is the same inside, why are we so different in a group, outside? It is the stories we learn, of course. What we are hearing when we are a child, what they expect from us when we are growing up, what our teenage heroes do. But second, Hungary has big neo-nazi movement. I don't think Venezuela is very liberal, and I have been there a lot. Is Federal Germany (FDR) more liberal than the UK? So I read the paper again. The authors say that the top Liberal countries are not so much "Liberal", but countries that have lost their way, they have no national identity at all. Netherlands is the top true liberal country. But Greece, Venezuela? But I feel very happy with the bottom of the figure. Maybe Singapore not so happy- look where Hong Kong go?
Amazing paper, Comment 4 about US politics. It seems to work really well here, as well.
"Here" is Holland, where we are supposed to be very liberal but where we have a lot of Calvin tucked in the back pocket. I really want to comment on the main paper and on Comment 1.
Look, I'm not going to pretend that everything is rosy, but to assume that it is the black spot which retards everything else in the world seems to me crazy. I see the European ideal as a bright spot in the world, something that is selfless and set up really to be better than what went before.
Well, I say that, but what is this "ideal"? Romney's running mate Ryan has said that America was built on "an idea". I searched Google for "America + US + ideal", verbatim, and I got around 120 million hits. But then I did the same thing for "Europe + EU + ideals" and I got slightly less than 300,000. Is the US 400 times more loquacious about its identity, or 400 times less secure? Let's get to that in a minute. I want to pursue this "European ideal"
Ed: What follows is another excellent but lengthy paper. I have therefore posted it as a supplementary text, which is available here.
I very much enjoyed the text about conservative and liberal psychologies. However, I have just come across a paper that suggests that you maybe have missed something. (It suggests to me that I have missed something about myself! Have a look here at the free on-line tests if you have similar doubts on reading this.) I explore why this matters in the last section.
The area that you may have missed is the "Libertarian" mind set. The following is lifted bleeding from Iyer et al in PloS One. This work was done on a vast data set that exists as a result of people taking the tests indicated above - in this case, the work used data from 11,994 self-identified libertarians, 45% of them female.
Presidential candidate Texas Congressman Ron Paul nicely sums it up: "The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren't infringing on their rights."
American political divisions and cultural references are reported as though they ran from one pole - liberal - to another, usually terms 'conservative'. The conservative insists that there is an objective moral truth, embodied in traditional social and state institutions. Liberals believe that moral truth is a work in progress, aimed at generating greater universal well-being. As reported in the earlier paper, it is possible to measure these views objectively.
AS measured by psychometrics, political conservativism is associated with a tolerance of inequality, greater conscientiousness, intolerance of novelty and greater sensitivity to disgust. Political liberals empathise more strongly, and are thus less tolerant of generic sources of unhappiness or yearning, and tend seek out novelty and new capabilities. Both have their morality rooted in what the earlier paper called System 1, the reflexive, emotional view that a course of action is "just right", or that a situation is innately "wrong". Let me get back to this very important distinction.
Then we encounter the Libertarians. John Locke wrote: "The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property", where 'property' was to include men's "content, lives, liberties, and estate." The US Founding Fathers were strongly Libertarian, as were most Enlightenment minds.
Libertarianism rejects the idea that the needs of one person impose a moral duty upon others. It retains Locke's and Mill's notions of liberty as being identical to freedom from interference, what the philosopher Isaiah Berlin later called "negative liberty" - that is, freedom "from" interference. For Libertarians liberty in both these senses supersedes all other moral considerations. Libertarians seem willing to reject both liberal concerns for social justice and conservative concerns to respect existing social structure when those concerns conflict with individual liberty. That extends to an indifference to the consequences of dropping these concerns.
How do Libertarians differ from Conservatives and Liberals?
Libertarians value liberty more strongly and consistently than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral concerns.
Libertarians rely upon emotion less – and on reason more – than will either liberals or conservatives. They will pursue logic to hard ends.
Libertarians are more individualistic and less collectivist as compared to both liberals and conservatives.
An imperative to avoid acts that cause or risk actual harm; a duty of care.
Reciprocity and fairness: unwritten rules of conduct that apply bidirectionally.
Loyalty to the in-group, giving preference to your family, close or distant affiliates.
Respect for authority, whatever its nature or objective strength.
Concern for bodily or spiritual purity, for the sanctity of nature, places, rites.
Libertarians view all but the first of these dimensions as essentially meaningless. They are odours they do not smell, notes they do not hear.
In general, however, the West "hears" the first two of these. It directly opposes in-group loyalty - nepotism, exclusion of people by virtue of class, religion or ethnicity - and is suspicious of notions of patriotism and religious triumphalism. The West does not revere sources of authority unless they have objective evidence to support them. What is seen as pomposity - 'dignity', elsewhere in the world - is subject to ruthless satire and erosion. The West has little time for notions of purity or sanctity.
These attitudes are broadly opposite to those held by the many billions who do not live in the Western tradition. Many of the young now hold views close to Libertarianism. Liberals will find the impact of these billions very difficult to accept. We return to this in the conclusion.
The data that have been collected by this study are shown in the figure. Liberals and Libertarians run together on several of the fundamental dimensions: they both deprecate preference for the in-group, dislike 'underserved' respect for authority and ignore issues of purity. Libertarians and conservatives are, however, very similar - that is to say, largely uninterested in - issues of fairness and reciprocity.
Looking at the vertical scale, liberals are concerned with life-style liberty above all, but with a strong need for with a safe and what they see as a fair society. Conservatives feel strongly about almost every category, but most strongly of all about economic liberty - keeping what they earn - and life style liberty, meaning the freedom to choose a way of living which they may also choose to impose on others. Libertarians are most motivated by economic and social liberty, and a reciprocity which in essence says 'hands off what is mine and my hands off anything to do with you'.
Libertarians who were tested showed lower levels of emotional responsiveness to issues of innate disgust - 'some things are just wrong, some things are dirty' - and they were low on empathy to the sufferings or otherwise of others. It is possible to divide people into those who react chiefly by means of empathy into human issues and responses and those who "systematise", who try to understand events - human or no - as to how they relate to the world of inanimate objects and nature. Libertarians score the highest of any group in respect of "systemizing". They are attracted to "how it is" rather than "how it should be". They revere evidence, science, facts, engineering and hard truths. In place of a system of morality deriving from emotion, libertarians have explicitly sought a "rational ethics." Indeed, as compared to liberals and conservatives, Libertarians are less likely to see moral traits as being important to their core identity.
In general, they score low on emotional reactivity. However, they do display high scores on one measure of emotional reactivity, the Reactance scale, which is a strong rejection of attempts by others to impose on their liberty, either through moral prescriptions or through legal or other means. Libertarians tend to be close to nature, but have an instinctive and general aversion to environmentalists, precisely because the latter are brim-full of prescriptions, normative values and authoritarian personalities who must tell people how to behave. This is at least one reason why Libertarians also prefer a small state. The want a minimal claim on an individual by the community. Libertarians believe as a deep moral truth that a person has to make their own way, and that only those harmed by circumstance beyond their control are due sympathy. Quote from the paper: "Libertarians do indeed reject this morality, as well as all other moralities based on ideas of obligation to other people, groups, traditions, and authorities. Libertarians scored relatively high on just one moral concern: liberty."
The chart shown above looks at the attitudes of Liberals, Conservatives and Libertarians to social groups at three scales. On the left, we have the notion of a universal society, the concept of there being implicit and reciprocal obligations between humans. In the centre, we see attitudes to the real social connections that a person may have to the local community, to those at work and so forth. On the right, we find attitude to the narrow in-group and to the family.
Liberals tend to lie around the centre line, because the liberal outlook has been the zeitgeist of the past generation, an official set of truths as powerful as were Nation, Queen, Empire and muscular Christianity to the Britain of 1900. Conservative groups are not keen on broad community claims upon them, and extremely strong in their bonds to the narrow community of class and family. Libertarians do not like other people at all, but feel a bit better in absolute terms about their immediate group than do conservatives about the broad community.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Libertarians tend to be against Big Government. This is why many are now embedded in the US Republican party. However, their opposition to, for example, high taxes is not just an economic position: it is a moral position as well.
As I said at the beginning of this piece, there is a loud voice in US politics that is repressed through the lack of a political platform. It found something of a voice in the Tea Party movement, but that was hijacked by other interests. It is equally strongly present in European society, but talked down by - amongst others - the media. Public Europe is not comfortable with such views. In the developing world, however, the older generation of the middle classes tends to be extremely conservative and the younger, perhaps in reaction to this, Libertarian. Their flavour of this is essentially pragmatic in respect of economic activities, not much interested in social issues, extremely keen to avoid being told what to do by others and disrespectful of authority, family and other sources from which such orders tend to come. We may need to become used to the Libertarian voice.
It is, of course, our original triangle, but with the Libertarian axis added to it. What is interesting is what happens when you connect it all up, as shown by the lines.
Top right are all those who see something wrong with contemporary social and economics dynamics, and want to put it right through rational means. "Why won't they listen?" is their theme song.
Top left is the uncomfortable cohabitation between conservatives and the sometime ultra Libertarians: chiefly a locus of economic dialogue, perhaps.
The traditional, now very tired Western dialogue runs across the middle, with both Liberals and Conservatives re-locating themselves up or down the figure. That is why the traditional parties find it so hard to locate a candidate, and so hard to produce anything but "somethings for everyone, offend nobody" mush.
Social conservatives and the religious live lower left. The caring, sharing, welfare and revolution group sit at the lower right.
An interesting axis is the vertical one, between the politics of dispossession and the Libertarians. There are supposed to be six million people who are actually living as survivalists in the US, with many multiples of that broadly in sympathy, adherents to assorted conspiracy theories in which elites manipulate things from the background, politicians are puppets and government a fake.
Most emerging economies and virtually all poor countries are (probably) located on the lower left. To the extent that they use the language of the left, then tend to drift into the terrain of conspiracies and plots. Of course there are other voices, but the social conservative and the dispossessed fight out battles as old as history in countries where the institutions have yet to mature.
Pew publish social surveys. Their 2012 finding is that over the last four years, US citizens self-identifying as "lower class" has risen from a quarter to a third of the population. The greatest growth is amongst young whites, with black respondents remaining unchanged. A full 40% of Hispanics see themselves in this way. Politically, the main rise has been amongst Republican supporters and Independents, although Democrats report the largest proportion of lower class identity. Independents have shown the greatest downward mobility, as have those with a conservative outlook. Liberals have, by contrast, barely changed in their self-identification, although like the Democrats, they are the highest group numerically in the lower class. When asked which party stood for the poor, all social classes agreed with almost the same numbers that it was the Democrats. Only 10% of the sample thought that the Republicans stood for the lower classes.
Inter-generational social mobility suggest that the lower class is difficult to leave, and that the upper class undergoes extreme churning: its members were equally born across the social spectrum. The middle class gets sprayed across the social spectrum. Four in ten US citizens have experienced net downward social mobility during their life times.
All classes agree that it is harder to get ahead now than ten years ago. However, attitudes to the future vary sharply across the classes. The lower classes say that they are in wore financial shape than before the recession, that they are less secure, that they are very pessimistic about the future and about their own retirement. None of that is true of the upper classes. The lower classes are equally split as to whether hard work brings success, whilst three quarters of upper classes - and two thirds of the middle class - agree that it does.
This said, overall life satisfaction remains high in all classes but lowest in the lower classes, between 20 and 25% of whom are unhappy with their education, family situation and housing. (Sixty percent are unhappy with their financial situation.) The upper classes are 90+% happy with everything but money, and 85% of them are happy with that. The middle classes have similar but slightly lower scores, with 72% happy with their financial situation.
Within the lower classes, the groups reporting the most extreme pressures tend to be young, black, ill-educated, living in rented accommodation and unmarried. Women are mildly less happy than men. Eighty percent report significant health problems versus a half of the upper classes. only 13% did not see themselves as stressed, versus a third of the upper classes: choosing the flower arrangements, presumably. Only 10% of the upper classes said that they were failing to make career progress, as against 39% of the lower classes. Only 7% of the upper classes disliked their jobs, versus 28% of the lower classes.
Movement has occurred across much of the scale. The primary flow has been middle class into lower middle class (here a part of "lower class") and from upper middle into middle. The 2% who score as upper class have not changed. As expected, the flows reflect educational status: 12% of college graduates self-identified as lower class in 2008, which rose to 17% in 2012. Middle skills changed from 24 to 36% and low skills from 32 to 41%.
Remarks on the diagram in Comment 16: Frankly I find it a bit simplistic that positive change is only in the upper right. My first concern would be that the abandonment of community values leds to less trust in the Fukuyama sense, thus less division of labor et al. For the vertial axis, deprivation values are indeed problematic, but it largely depends on whether the group identify with is currently or historically powerful or not.
Have you noticed that having any ideology, left or right, liberal or conservative, is the luxury of those nations that tend to win wars and not lose (or not much) territory and population to conquering neighbors? The rest hardly has any other choice but bitter, paranoid nationalism without much ideology (lower center, kind of), the ressentiment and fear factor being so strong. We can easily agree that being in the upper half breeds success, but also on the other hand, success and power and thus national or other group-level self-confidence is the prerequisite of getting in the upper half, as in, having good reasons for not being afraid, not feeling like a besieged town, is the prerequisite of going in the upper half. You have to feel that your group is so strong that it can easily defend its share of the pie, so you can focus your efforts in growing the common pie. Otherwise, it is the zero-sum (negative-sum) scramble of the lower half.


text:
Q: Error de validación por culpa de setCustomValidity() La función que llamo desde mi HTML es ésta:
//Input HTMl
<input type="text" id="nameField" name="nameField" placeholder="Escriba su nombre." pattern="alex|juan|ana|pedro|Ana|Juan|Alex|Pedro|ANA|JUAN|PEDRO|ALEX" required>

//Código JS
function validacionNombre() {
    nameField = document.getElementById("nameField");

    if(!nameField.checkValidity()) {
        alert("El usuario introducido no existe.");
        //nameField.setCustomValidity('El usuario introducido no existe.');
    }

}

El problema viene cuando uso el método 'setCustomValidity()'. Al usar éste método me detecta cualquier valor de la entrada de texto como error, mientras que con el Alert no.
Muchas gracias! Perdón si no he editado el post demasiado bien, es mi primera vez.

Como veis, usando el .setCustomValidity() me detecta esos nombres como error, sin embargo, usando un alert no los imprime por consola porque son válidos.

A: Bueno, pues ya he encontrado la solución. Resulta que se necesitaba 'limpiar' el .setCustomValidity.
function iniciar() {
nameField.addEventListener("input", validacionNombre, false);
}

function validacionNombre() {
nameField.setCustomValidity('');
nameField = document.getElementById("nameField");
nameInput = nameField.value;

if(!nameField.checkValidity()) {
    //alert("El usuario introducido no existe.");
    console.log(nameInput);
    nameField.setCustomValidity('El usuario introducido no existe.');
 }
}

window.addEventListener("load", iniciar, false);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I am from a dysfunctional background. My life has had lots of stress in the past. When my sister got sick, I lost the attention from both of my parents and family. I got hooked on marijuana. I was smoking it like it was going out of style.
Months later, when I went back to school, I lost all of the things I have learned over the years, I went to the doctor, he referred me to a psychologist, she said the reason why I have issues with my ability to learn and the ability to function, and my anxiety disorder is because from the past drug use.
I have been addicted to THC for almost 3 years. Now look what happened, I don't have a high school education, inability to learn new things. They say that you can't get addicted to marijuana, and yes you can, I learned the hard way.
My brain is damaged and burnt out. My advice to anyone who is reading this is. When you see someone smoking marijuana and they are trying to force you to, DON'T DO IT!
You are falling for problems.
If you are doing it, do yourself a favor and quit now!


Suddenly, Tara has acquired a huge vocabulary in the past few days. Earlier, her vocabulary consisted of baba, mama, and aunnnnnnn (for auntie – courtesy the cook), and I'm not sure she knew the meanings of these. Everything else was ma or ka, or variations on these themes such as, amma, akka, mama, or kaka.
Later, she abandoned these words in favour of complete gibberish. Now, there seems to be a recognisable language emerging from the gibberish. Not, admittedly, a very easily recognisable language, but now her words are often accompanied by actions indicating what she means and also, more importantly, that she knows what she means.Here's a list of what I've managed to recognise so far – words that she's repeated often enough to rule out coincidence.
Impressive, don't you think? Considering she's been exposed to English (and Hindi) for only the past four months.
Mrini isn't saying much these days – at least, not anything that's recognisable that is. I suppose she'll unleash another flood of garbled words on us at some point. For now, she seems pretty happy to let Tara do the talking.
Although it tends to get overshadowed by my German exam, which looms large this weekend and contains horrors such as the spoken part of the test, I have not entirely forgotten that I am also studying Archaeology and that that course is also slowly nearing its end.
This does not flood me with the same kind of relief that the prospect of the end of my German class does. The German class has been great fun: once again I have enjoyed myself quite extraordinarily, despite frequently making an idiot of myself in front of 15 people (and laughing loudly when others do likewise). I liked our teacher quite a lot – she has a good sense of fun, and is quite capable of stepping out of herself and laughing at herself, at India, or at the coming together of the two in the most absurd fashion possible, going by what I understand of the events that she sometimes narrates to us (in her super fast, super fluent German, of course).
But, despite all the fun, it's quite horrible having to sacrifice 5-6 hours on both Saturday and Sunday every week for 16 weekends! This, my Archaeology course does not demand – an hour or two every weekday evening, four days a week seems to work just fine for that. That's why I've decided to take a break from my German course and continue with Archaeology, when common sense demands that I do it the other way round.
In the approaching German exam, lots of things are quite familiar. The exam consists largely of multiple choice answers, which test your understanding of given text and of the rules of grammar, sentence construction, parts of speech etc. That apart, there's a letter to be written, which smacks of English classes about 20 years ago. The spoken part is the most nervous-making, but even that reminds me of the viva voce sections of lab exams in school. So, in a sense, nothing is altogether unfamiliar about the entire examination process.
With the Archaeology course, it is a different story. I'm just not used to reading a subject for an exam and not having to memorize anything. I've never done this. I keep thinking as I read: how on earth am I going to remember all this? Then I realize: hey, I don't have to; if I need this, I can open the book and look it up. Then I feel massively guilty, as though that's cheating. But the way my Archaeology course is structured, it's just not. The assessment is based on an assignment, and that assignment is your answer to a question. The questions are provided to you along with the course materials, at the start of the course. You are expected to read the questions beforehand, and if you have an idea of which one you're going to work on, well and good. Then you're expected to keep your selected question(s) in mind as you read through the course material, so that you can make note of the relevant information as you go. This soooooooooo looks like cheating! I can't get used to the thought that it is not only ok, but expected and demanded that you should have your text books open as you write your "exam".
In the Indian education system I've been accustomed to, studying means learning what's in the text books and spewing it out as close to verbatim as possible. Diverging from the printed material is not encouraged and questioning it is tantamount to heresy. To my alarm, I find that in this "new" educations system, far from spewing out verbatim, even merely ingesting an idea and presenting it in your own words is considered plagiarism. To my greater shock, it is considered plagiarism even if you conscientiously and dedicatedly quote your sources from beginning to end. Measured by this yardstick, every exam I've ever given in my life, with the possible exception of German, has been based on plagiarism. Not because I wanted to plagiarise, but because I didn't know any other way. In fact, I didn't even so much as know that there was another way.
Apparently, there is. The other way, the way that allows you to open as many textbooks as you please while you write your "exam", tests not your memory or your understanding of what is in the textbooks, but rather, tests what you think about it. This, to me, is extraordinary. Me, think? Who ever allowed me to think? Why, when in school days I tried to think, I always came up with questions; and when I raised questions in class, I was told to shut up, or to go stand outside the class. Nobody wanted me to think, not even in thinking subjects like math, physics and chemistry, which I liked and I was good at. What my teachers couldn't understand was why on earth I would even need to think when all the thinking had already been done and set out in the textbook for me. In fact, most of the teachers had ceased to think years ago and had forgotten how.
I did try to think a bit, when I did my Bachelor's degree in English Literature. It was easier then, because I had already switched to distance learning by then, and hence I had no teachers to stop me from thinking. I did an absolutely unheard of thing and actually read all my set texts, straight from Chaucer, through Shakespeare and Milton, and all the way to Eliot. What's worse, I quite enjoyed it. Then I did the even more unheard of thing and went and read all the best, most famous, and most controversial critics. I even enrolled in the British Council Library just to get access to these books. I can't say I enjoyed reading the critics, but, perhaps for the first time, I found I had the freedom to think. I realized that I agreed with some of their views, disagreed with other views, and could defend my point of view quite satisfactorily – well, to myself at any rate.
I'm not quite sure why or how, but I passed that degree. Not surprisingly, though, I wouldn't say I scored very highly in it.
I didn't know it then, but I had taken a small step towards thinking. Only now do I realize what a tiny little first step that was. When I agreed or disagreed with the critics' points of view, I was, perhaps, still guilty of plagiarism, because, though I acknowledged that it was someone else's view, I did not take the next step and state my own view. (Probably just as well, or I might not even have passed!) I think that I sometimes had a view of my own, but it was not clear to me that it ought to be stated.
In this course, Archaeology, the Leicester University guidelines for assessing the assignment clearly state that presenting known views and supporting them with citations is not only not sufficient for a good grade, but is considered rank plagiarism. You have to have your own point of view, you have to present arguments for and against, but ultimately you have to take a stand that is your own. In other words, you have to think.
I had noticed this six months ago when I was yet again submerged in a sea of Bengali, during a trip to Calcutta to meet Amit's family.
By "this" I mean, I noticed that my language skills in Bengali had suddenly improved in something like a quantum leap. I still made mistakes, but at times entire sentences (mistakes and all) tripped off my tongue without my having consciously thought about them. After struggling sporadically for nine years to become coherent in a language I had acquired only as an adult, it was a pleasant surprise.
Unfortunately, it didn't last long and up to the current date I was back to stumbling along minus the quantum leap. I did wonder why it had happened and why it had stopped happening, but I put it down to good mood (we were on holiday), feelings of self-confidence (it was before the infertility business got going), practice (the Aunt had been staying with us briefly) or other such indefinable influences.
Now, I notice it's happening again.
One of those indefinable influences I had sort of vaguely attributed my improved Bengali language skills to, was my German language skills, which in those days were not too bad, all things considered. Now that I'm back to studying German, could it have again had a positive effect on my Bengali? Sounds strange, but perhaps it is not entirely unbelievable. After all, learning a language means forcing your brain to work in a vocabulary and grammar it is not used to. The way we're taught German, we're made to attempt to think in German, as opposed to thinking in English and trying to translate (which never works). So, once the brain is forced out of its comfort zone of English, could it be that it explores impartially pathways in Bengali and German?
I have read that people who learn languages as adults generally find it easier to pick up successive languages once they have mastered the first few. This is true even of entirely unrelated languages. It seems to work for me as well, because, though I am struggling a bit with German, it is nothing like the enduring battle of nine years that I've had with Bengali. It is particularly easy to tell the difference when I listen to native German or Bengali speakers. It's a bit like listening to the radio softly when you're driving in heavy traffic… you can hear the voice saying something, but unless you really focus on it, it just washes over you like so much background noise.
For many years, I had to pay 110% concentration to someone addressing me in Bengali, to pick out key words and try to make sense of what they were communicating. The trouble often was, I might catch the key words, but would not be sure about who was doing the action, whom it was done to or on, and other such crucial bits of information. The difference, for instance, between, "Did he tell you everything?" and "Did you tell him everything?" – Even if I catch "he" "you" "tell" and "everything" – which is a lot to catch in such a short sentence – I might still not be clear on what I'm being asked and how I should respond. It has led, times without number, to awkward situations.
In German, I have come to, and largely crossed, the same level of comprehension in a much shorter time. I still have to concentrate like hell when listening to the teacher (who seems to make no allowances for our relatively rudimentary language skills when she addresses us in 100% Deutsch) – but having done so, I do manage to pick out the key words and usually even manage to figure out who did what, and to whom. Sometimes, I end up translating long and complicated instructions for my table-mates – usually capturing the essence more-or-less accurately. Now, if only I could paraphrase in German instead of translating to English… (sigh) That, surprisingly enough, is something I can do in Bengali, even though I usually make a hash of it.
I do wonder sometimes whether my Bengali is better or my German. Right now, it's a bit of a toss-up – I think my fluency in Bengali is better, and perhaps my vocabulary, but I've never had any formal training in Bengali, so definitely my understanding of grammar is stronger in German. Then again, I can't really read Bengali. Perhaps, someday, I'll improve at that too. After all, if learning a second language as an adult makes the first language stronger, then learning a third language should make the first two stronger, right? Hmmmm… let's see – shall it be Spanish? Mandarin?? Greek???
It was like being thrown into a bucket of cold water. I walked into the room and was greeted by a flood of German. It passed over my head just as smoothly as water too – in all, I comprehended not a single word in the first five minutes.
For the next two hours, I concentrated very, very hard. I found that, by doing this, I could usually catch every fifth word or so, and inspired guesswork did the rest in making sense of the verbal onslaught. Occasionally, I got lucky and would catch an entire phrase.
After two hours, I was tired. It was so much easier to just let the language flow overhead without making any conscious effort and that way only about one word in two hundred would make any impact on the poor, sodden mind.
It's bad enough that, having spent eight months of weekends attending German class, I took a break of eight months, thus throwing down the drain about 80 % of what I'd spent the first eight months struggling to learn. Language, like any motor skill, once acquired does not really ever go away, though it might get rusty with neglect. But first, you must acquire it, and in eight months of weekend classes, I had only just begun to acquire it.
By the end of class on Saturday, my brain was reeling, spinning, and doing somersaults, all at once.
Sleep helped, as did the fact that Sunday classes are in the morning, as opposed to Saturday classes, which are in the afternoon. On Sunday, I relaxed the concentration effort a little and managed to catch a little more of the flood that assaulted me for four hours. That was good as far as it went, but it really didn't go very far.
The trouble with language is, it is not enough to understand it – one must be able to speak it as well. This is where I always have the greater difficulty. Inspired guesswork just doesn't help in stringing a meaningful sentence together. What usually happens is that both inspiration and guesswork fly out the window, leaving you blank and silent and thoroughly embarrassed. That's what happened to me when I tried to say: "she drinks a cup of coffee and reads the newspaper, as I do every morning." Perhaps the word for newspaper stuck in my throat because this was such a blatant lie – I never read the newspaper, least of all in the morning, except on a Sunday if I have time, and this Sunday I hadn't.
There was some small consolation in the fact that most of the others in the class struggled almost as much as I did. But it was small consolation indeed – I rate myself by where I want to be, not by where others are.
The good thing about a class is, it doesn't really matter how many mistakes you make, because after all you are there to learn. Of course, people will laugh – for instance, we were supposed to be speaking about our partners (I mean life partners, spouses) in class and two guys who were supposed to exchange views on their respective partners ended up inadvertently speaking about themselves as partners (actually a very understandable slip-up), which led to raised eyebrows, pointed questions, and – as the newspapers love to say – uproarious scenes.
So, it's ok to make mistakes in class, but it's more difficult when you're in an actual conversation and you want to say something and you don't know how. For instance, the teacher was telling me how the woman at the cafeteria was so rude to her and refused to serve her, and I wanted to look sympathetic and say: "ohhhhh – that's too bad," but I didn't, right at that moment, know how to express even this simple sentiment in German.
So I gave up eight months of weekends to learn basic German. That was from January through August 2006, with a brief two-weekend break in the middle. The tragedy was that the exam for the second "semester" was scheduled for precisely the weekend we were leaving for Ladakh. Faced with a choice of Himalayas or German exam, the choice (if one can call it that) was obvious.
It was possible to take the exam scheduled for the next semester, I was informed, but I was doubtful whether this would really work out. Four months later, would I remember ANYTHING? Would I even remember that exam time was coming up and that I needed to enroll? Would I even want to?
But I did and I did and I did.
Not that the "anything" I remembered amounted to much, but when I woke up to the fact that enrollment time was rolling around, there were still a good three weeks to go before the exam. So I opened up my textbooks and notebook and though I found I did remember, I was still at first quite doubtful whether I remembered "enough". Nevertheless, I plodded my way through it, making a proper plan and schedule and failing completely to stick to any part of it the way one does. I had scheduled days for writing sentences, practising adjectives, writing letters (10 marks!) and so on, and 90% of all this never happened. I did get carried away and download a couple of fairy tales from the Internet in German. Hansel and Gretel and Rumpfelstiltzchen (Rumpelstiltskin, I think, in English) – what horrible, sordid, depressing, morbid, grotesque, ghoulish tales! Who on earth ever thought they were fit content for little children?
Anyway, the most difficult part of this exam, as I had found in the first semester, is not the reading, understanding, or writing. It's the hearing and the speaking. So, I practised diligently, by listening to the audio CDs provided with the course material, and by speaking to myself whenever I could.
And finally, yesterday and today, I went and gave the exam. In the last few days, I had realized that I would pass – even though pass marks were 60% – I would most likely even pass the spoken, provided sheer nervousness didn't make a mess of me.
I think it all went off ok. There were a few hitches and glitches, here and there, but that's only to be expected. For someone who'd completely lost touch over four months, I think I did "passably" well.
But I still don't know. Not only do I not know the result, I don't even know when I will know the result. Sigh. Life is full of suspense.
When I was studying Psychology, I read of an experiment where some duffer kids were told that they were the best in the class, but, being late bloomers, their time had not yet come but soon they would outshine everyone else in a radius of 17 miles etc. So then, these kids, who naturally had low self esteem, slowly began believing in themselves, and, moreover, their teachers (who did not know this was an experiment) began believing in them and giving them more attention etc (rather than focusing on the bright kids) and lo and behold, several months later, the duffer kids were at the top of the class.
The point being, that if you believe in yourself, you can achieve much more than if you don't, and that it is much easier to believe in yourself if you have people around (particularly people whose judgment you respect, teachers, superiors, close family and friends) who believe in you.
On the flip side, I have often enough seen or heard of people who get discouraged and stop believing in themselves because just ONE PERSON – maybe not even a particularly important person – keeps telling them how worthless they are. It is so easy to wear down someone's belief in themselves by just being derogatory and scornful all the time.
This doesn't often happen to me, because I have a very stubborn conviction that I am good at most things. But, in music, that is an exceedingly tenuous belief, due partly to the fact that my teacher always used to run me down and scorn me. In some people that might bring out the best, but in most people it only turns them into failures, and so it almost did with me. Until one day, I decided that if playing in a group with my teacher and so many others was going to make me so miserable, if he was always going to snub me in front of everyone, and if I was really so much worse than everyone else, then I was just going to stop.
It was one of the most difficult things I ever did in my life. I hated and feared my teacher. I was young and significantly lacking in social confidence ( I hadn't started my working life then). I enjoyed music and I really did want to play and to be respected by the other players. I worked hard at that. I didn't want to quit. But I didn't want to be humiliated. So I called up my teacher and told him that, very quietly and firmly. I remember rehearsing my speech, and then forgetting it all, but getting the words out anyway.
To my surprise and embarrassment, my teacher apologised most humbly and begged forgiveness. This was strange! But it was nice. After that, he made sure he never said anything I could take as derogatory. Somehow, I felt good about myself. My playing improved too.
Tennis, now, is a different story. After playing with Amit for a few months more than a year ago, I haven't even touched my tennis racket. Then, I started tennis lessons, on 1 December. Surprisingly, I hadn't forgotten much. My teacher was impressed. Today was lesson number three, and he was most impressed. He kept saying "too good". 🙂 Is he the sort of teacher who says this to everyone to encourage them? I don't think so. For one thing, last time there were another two beginners with me, and he didn't say such things to them (though the girl was clearly not very good at all). For another thing, he says good when I know I've hit a good shot, and then too, not always. So he doesn't just say it all the time.
As though this were not enough, Amit surprised me the other day by saying a most unexpected thing. He said, I have talent!!! Me? Talented??? I could hardly believe it. I have NEVER thought of myself as talented at ANYTHING. I think I am most ordinary at everything.
Ok, I'm not asking for anyone to write in and tell me how talented I am…:-) I mean, it's just that my own concept of myself is not of a talented person.
I felt pleased as punch. I still haven't got over it. Me. Talented. At tennis, what's more. I mean, I have never been much of a sporty person. I play badminton abominably (though I love it) and I even swim only moderately well (though I learnt when I was 3).
So anyway, what with being so talented and my teacher being so pleased at my progress, I'm feeling positively gung-ho about tennis. I can't wait to get out on the court and get better. Why do I have tennis only three days a week??? I want to play tennis NOW!


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Home/Style/Taiwanese rock band Mayday to play at National Stadium in August
Taiwanese rock band Mayday to play at National Stadium in August
SINGAPORE – Taiwanese rock band Mayday will return for a concert at the National Stadium on August 30. They had previously performed at the same venue in 2018.
The upcoming show is part of the band's Mayday Just Rock It!!! Blue tour, which draws inspiration from its first three albums – Mayday's First Album (1999), Viva Love (2000) and People Life, Ocean Wild (2001) – all of which have a blue cover.
The tour aims to bring fans back to the days when the group first burst onto the music scene in 1999, with hits such as Peter And Mary, Crazy World and I Love You, Hopeless.
Consisting of lead vocalist Ashin, guitarists Stone and Monster, bassist Masa and drummer Guan You, the quintet has released nine studio albums so far and won several Golden Melody Awards. Over the last two decades, they have become one of the biggest bands in the Mandopop world, winning both popular and critical acclaim.
Mayday first performed in Singapore at a music festival at Sentosa in 1999 and held their first ticketed full concert here in 2001.
Tickets for their upcoming concert go on sale at noon on Sunday (Jan 19). Singtel mobile customers can enjoy priority sales from 10am to 11.59pm on Friday (Jan 17). There is also a pre-sale for Live Nation members from 10am to 11.59pm on Saturday (Jan 18).
BOOK IT/MAYDAY 2020 JUST ROCK IT!!! BLUE IN SINRead More – Source
straitstimes
Chinese music meets silent films
Europes no-moon-shot space program
Four women leaders in Singapore's arts and culture sector talk about their plans

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The Board may seem only a little confusing Euro to dollar trends initially but those lenders are specifically for measuring one currency for the following and also can answer questions.
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Showbox App Download Showbox on Android is one of the best movie streaming apps you could find on the market.


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Category: Politics- London Mayor and Greater London Assembly
The feature coverage of politics concerning the Mayor for London and the Greater London Assembly. This is effectively 'regional' government for London.
Cyclist killed at Millbank named as Moira Gemmill- a leading figure in the world of art and design
Tributes and obituaries have been paid to 55 year old Moira Gemmill who died in a collision with a lorry at the junction of Horseferry Road and the Millbank roundabout yesterday morning. […]
London's cyclists to hold vigil and mass 'die-in' after fifth cyclist dies in collision with Heavy Goods Vehicle in London this year
The death of a 55 year old woman cyclist on the Millbank roundabout at the junction of Horseferry Road this morning has sparked outrage from London's cyclists. Commuters, motorists and pedestrians who […]
Could this man be the next Mayor for London?
The Sunday Times newspaper is speculating that three times Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg may be persuaded to stand for the Tories as Mayor for London in 2016. Mr Bloomberg […]
The General Election 2015: A Breakdown of the First of Four Live TV Debates
By sstansall on April 2, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )
By Scarlett Stansall and David Kelly The first of the live debates held for the General Election has been aired by ITV, but it is the only one in which all the leaders […]
Election campaign begins in Uxbridge and South Ruislip- Boris Johnson hopes to be its MP
By watersdavid on March 31, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )
Interest in the campaigning going on in Uxbridge and South Ruislip is intensified by the fact that Mayor of London Boris Johnson is hoping to return to Parliament as its Conservative candidate on […]
Thousands take part in central London People's Climate March
By tomglasser on March 8, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )
Images and video by Tom Glasser More than 5,000 demonstrated in the People's Climate March in central London on Saturday and called on the Government to take stronger action on climate change. […]
Rail inspectors launch inquiry into London Bridge crush as commuters protest on social media
By LMMNews on March 6, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )
Rail inspectors have launched an inquiry into the crush conditions at London Bridge station on Tuesday as commuters protest on social media about the growing sense of delays and over-crowding throughout the […]
Tricolore shines on London landmarks in support of Charlie Hebdo rally
By LMMNews on January 11, 2015 • ( Leave a comment )
By Katie Callin The Tricolore has lit up Trafalgar Square, County Hall opposite the Westminster Parliament and Tower Bridge in support of the rally for unity in Paris. Thousands of Londoners also […]
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Take home the perfect momento after your game of golf. Black Mountain shirts and hats are a wonderful way to remember your visit. We always carry a complete line of accessories, apparel and other golf merchandise to compliment your game of golf.
Our Practice Facility offers a complete approach to your golfing needs. We have a members only tee area and a public area. 100% Real, Natural Grass. Our 5000 square foot chipping green with huge bunker will get your short game sharp. We also boast one of the largest putting greens in the valley.
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Harrying of the North
The Black Death
The War of the Roses
Spanish Armada
English Reformation
Stuarts
The French Revolution
Edwardians
The Welfare State
Vesak
Hajj Pilgrimage
Atom States
Dr Thomas Barnado
Mary Seacole
Pablo Picasso was an artist. Picasso is known for a wide variety of artistic styles, including constructed sculptures and the collage. He went through several "periods" of work throughout his life, each of which had a particular style that was present throughout the work he produced during that time.
Pablo Picasso was born on 25th October 1881 at 11.15pm in Málaga, Spain. From when he was a young child, he was passionate about drawing. His mum said that his first words were Spanish for "pencil".
Picasso's artwork
Like many artists, Pablo went through several phases in his work throughout his life. These phases are, with examples:
Blue Period (1901 – 1904)
An example of Picasso's work from the "Blue Period". With the exception of the guitar, the colour palette of the painting is mostly blue.
Rose Period (1904 – 1906)
An example of Picasso's work from the "Rose Period". As the name suggests, lots of red colours are used in his work during this period.
African art and primitivism (1907 – 1909)
One of Picasso's paintings done in the style of African art and primitivism.
Analytic cubism (1909 – 1912)
Synthetic cubism (1912 – 1919)
Picasso in front one of his paintings done in the synthetic cubism style.
Neoclassicism and surrealism (1919 – 1929)
One of Picasso's paintings, which is done in the neoclassicism (notice how the clothes he is wearing is similar to those worn in the Tudor/Stuart era) and surrealism (the hat he is wearing and the colours on the clothing are surreal.)
The Great Depression (1930 – 1939)
One of Picasso's most famous artworks, which shows how he felt about the Spanish Civil War that was taking place at the time.
Second World War and late 1940s (1939 – 1949)
Final years (1949 – 1973)
Pablo Picasso died on 8th April 1973 in Mougins, France from heart failure.
Homework Help For Kids
Homework Help For Kids is a website that provides information to help you with your piles of homework. We've been doing this since 2013, with this website and an app created in 2016.
Oh, and did we tell you we have an app? App store links below:
Microsoft Amazon Get APK
All content within the app is available offline, no matter where you download the app from.
You're more than welcome to use any of our content for research purposes, but please give us credit if you can.
About, Adverts, App, Books, Copyright, Cyberbullying, Exercise, Famous People, Fascinating Facts, Food, Geography, Healthy Eating, History, Maths, Mr Red Blob, Nature, News, Privacy Policy, RE, Report a problem, Science, Search, Secondary School, Sitemap, SPAG, Staying Safe Online, Suggest New Content, Test the Adultz


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Q: Can GCM be used as a two way communication? Can GCM (Google Cloud Messaging) be used as a two way communication between the device and the server?
Please Help with the links.

A: Yes it can. That's what GCM CCS (Cloud Connection Server) is all about. It enables you to use GCM both both cloud to device and device to cloud messaging. The older version of GCM (the HTTP version) only supports messages from the server to the device (cloud to device).

A: Yes you can use XMPP and HTTP to complete what you are looking for.  GCM offers both services.  You can find a great starter tut here http://www.grokkingandroid.com/xmpp-server-google-cloud-messaging/
The google documentation isn't bad either.  https://developer.android.com/google/gcm/server.html
The Smack API is what you will use to get XMPP working on the server side.  You can find that here http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/smack/
We also use Retrofit http://square.github.io/retrofit/ which is great for handing off objects via http.
Good luck, be sure to ask questions, figuring it all out in the beginning is a bit painful but worth it in the end.  Also checkout RabitMQ http://www.rabbitmq.com/, it's similar to GCM


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"It's Coming": CDC Director Warns COVID-19 to Be Widespread Throughout US, "Probably Beyond 2020"
Posted by John Titor | Feb 14, 2020 |
The extremely virulent coronavirus which is sweeping through China's Hubei province like wildfire will eventually gain a foothold in the United States – becoming a 'community virus' this year or next, according to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield.
"We don't know a lot about this virus," Redfield told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we will get community-based transmission."
"Right now we're in an aggressive containment mode," said Redfield.
As of Thursday, 15 cases have been confirmed in seven states; eight in California, two in Illinois and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Texas, according to CNN.
Community Virus
Redfield says that while more research is needed, the CDC is focused on containment strategies to isolate and slow the progressionof the novel coronavirus, buying time to develop a vaccine and antiviral drugs.
"The containment phase is really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some point in time, this year or next year," said Redfield. "We don't have any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we're basing those conclusions based on data."
"The containment strategy refers to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003, during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died, according to the CDC." – CNN
Controversial Travel Restrictions
While the World Health Organization has argued that travel restrictions on foreign nationals could backfire (on several industries?), the Trump administration has enacted travel restrictions which block foreign nationals who have visited China in the last 14 days from entering the United States. Anyone who has been to Hubei province within two weeks of their return will be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ahanom Ghebreyesus opposed travel restrictions last week, saying "We reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit."
So – According to Tedros, travel restrictions might lead to panic and racism.
The CDC's Redfield couldn't disagree more.
"Frankly, some people criticized when we decided that we wanted to temporarily suspend travel into the United States from individuals who were not Americans or permanent residents who had been in the hot zone in the last 14 days. Some people didn't think that that was what they would do," Redfield told Gupta on Thursday.
"Well, we felt very strongly that our obligation was to do all we can to protect the American public," he added. "I would rather be criticized for over-protecting America than under-protecting America at this stage."
Gupta then asked a very CNN question; "Obviously, Dr. Redfield, the virus doesn't discriminate based on race. Why do we?"
Redfield, who didn't take the bait, replied: "The issue here was first a strong commitment to take care of the Americans that are going to come back, whether they happen to potentially have this virus or not — and you saw that with the over 800 individuals that the State Department has repatriated and we've assisted in that."
Asymptomatic Transmission is Highly Concerning
One of the more concerning aspects of the hyper-virulent coronavirus is that a person can transmit it to others while showing no symptoms.
"There's been good communication with our colleagues to confirm asymptomatic infection, to confirm asymptomatic transmission, to be able to get a better handle on the clinical spectrum of illness in China. What we don't know though is how much of the asymptomatic cases are driving transmission," said Redfield.
"What I've learned in the last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was originally presented. There's much more asymptomatic illness," he added. "A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just presented with a little sore throat."
Meanwhile, CNN notes that while the outbreak has been affecting China since at least December, the CDC has not been invited into the country to help despite offering assistance six weeks ago.
"There's a lot of information we don't know — that's why I offered to provide assistance, direct assistance, and send our CDC folks over there back on January 6 to really help them gather that information and also to help us see the information first hand that we need to help make the right public health recommendations for our nation," said Redfield.
"That letter has not been responded to yet by the official Chinese government," he added. "We do believe that we're the best in the world in this space and we're ready to help and assist them, but they're an independent nation that has to make that decision that they're going to invite us in."
Republished from ZeroHedge.com with permission
John Titor


February « 2013 « Paul Shih – Toy Designer, Illustrator & Artist.
Posted in ART, OTHER, WORK IN PROCESS | Comments Off on ROTTEY Trailer!
so i've been working on the short film for awhile, 90% of the claymation are done, and now i'm taking on the audio part!
….and me recording sound of flapping leafs!


My family lives in Kansas near the Missouri border and my cousin is getting married tomorrow, so we drove up on Thursday (through terrible storms and tornado warnings) for this momentous occasion.
My sister and I planned to do a bit of shopping Friday since the outlet malls are literally a five minute drive from my aunts house. I had heard that Eleve, a dancewear company, had one shop and it was in downtown Kansas City, so I brought it up to her. I wasn't 100% sure we would get to go, but she made it happen.
The website is really great about having details on how to get to their shop. They tell you the address, as well as where their parking lot is. There are signs showing you you're in the right place, but even if there weren't, the directions online are enough to get you there.
The store front is actually a furniture store of some kind, and Eleve is off to the back part on the side street. There's a sign there instructing you to press the buzzer on the left and if it didn't open the door to call them and someone would answer and let you in.
It felt like we were in some super fancy fashion district or something.
You open the door and ta-da! You've entered heaven.
We were greeted by a nice lady who showed us where everything was. On the right is all the leotards. She showed us what was the kids section, and on the left is the longer skirts and specialty things.
After taking a second to realize this is reality, I got to looking.
I was nervous that they might not have much in my size already made. I often get nervous going into big named dance places, afraid I'll be judged as I don't look like a dancer. When I confessed this to a friend she told me, "be a swan, not a chicken!" I held to that and went for it. Obviously I'm grateful I did.
On the right side, they had a row of mediums on top, a row of large on bottom, a top and bottom row of skirts–patterned then solid–a top and bottom row of smalls, and then a top and bottom of kids sized leotards and skirts.
On the left side was the men's section, along with the longer skirts and other various things.
I found two leotards I really loved and decided to try them on. I was still nervous they wouldn't quite fit. The measurements are perfect everywhere but my hips, which fluctuate anyway. I held my breath and went for it.
And they were perfect. And I was so happy.
I tried on a skirt, since they're similar styles to the ones that are currently all the rage at my studio. Super cute, but they way they're cut made me too nervous that they'd make my hips look worse to take the risk and spend the money on one. I was right. It fit, but when it inevitably found its way to my waist instead of hips, it looks awkward. Which was great to know! I'll stick to wrap skirts. But these would be super cute on my friends. And they're a great price and coordinate with the leotards.
The lady that helped us came forward coincidentally at the perfect time.
The way the layout works, the sewing machines are behind the front wall, if you will, and behind the stand alone wall is where they keep all the fabrics in organized bins. It's also where they cut all the fabrics.
She introduced herself as Jessica, the one who had responded to my email asking if they were closed for Memorial Day, and was shocked that I was ready so quickly. I told her I had creeped the website and knew was I was looking for.
She was really nice and rang me up, then told me about the 10% off they were offering currently. I told her I was from Texas and my aunt lives close so we came by and she told us how she loved when people came from out of town, especially how they'd post somewhere about it and all their friends would be jealous. (Hey friends 😉) I told her about my blog and how I definitely had loads of friends who wished they were also there. She told me that if I wanted to make a custom order, doing so in store cuts productions time to two weeks instead of six weeks if you were to order online. So of course I wanted to. She showed me where the different fabrics were and told me to take a look around.
Emily was back there, working on a few things, and was also nice as can be. They were focused. And it made me feel at home.
On top and a lipstick pink on bottom.
Jessica finished ringing us up, and told me I'd also qualify for tax free (I don't know how but I'll take it) (I think that's what she said at least. Anyway, it was a slick discount) on top of 10% off and free shipping. I was on cloud nine.
She wrapped it all up for me, gave me their card, and I was so elated I almost went into a bathroom instead of the exit door.
I posted about it on Instagram, to which they liked and commented.
They're such an incredible company, and the quality of their leotards is top notch. Plus the fit is fabulous. I'm so happy, y'all.
I'm at my aunt's house which essentially is like a Jane Austen novel come to life.
I also took this picture, which I had taken before in September of 2014.
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There are people that don't look you directly in the eye. Call it vibes if you want but I believe we are given a sense about the people with whom we come in contact. Some people actually make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. On the other end of the spectrum there are those people that we know we can be totally ourselves and curl up in the security of their very being.
Thank goodness I've met a few of those too.
I've met people that say all sorts of interesting things to you but you can feel it almost physically and know that it's not the truth. Your body reacts and if you listen to it you can learn a great deal about people. We have a sixth sense that we should let come through. Is it a perception of a fleeting expression that we didn't even know we noticed?
Intuition comes from deep within us. Is it just our brain rapidly going through our internal file cabinet and then reaching a decision based on something or someone in our past that gave us a similar reaction? Do we really have understanding or do we just feel the emotion?
I've been feeling so isolated lately. I feel like I've just been punched in the stomach and the twins (pain and fatigue) have reacted accordingly. It seems all I do anymore is yawn and sleep. I just can't seem to get it together. It's been a major crash extraordinaire and even as I type this I know I'm going to have to shut everything down and go to sleep.
I thought that if I finished this when I woke up I'd be a little more clear-headed.
I'm still feeling somewhat muddled.
I'm just so glad that I've got people around me that make me feel, well, like me again. One person I've known for 32 years and I appreciate his quiet strength and friendship so much. He's got his own battles and no matter what happens I would always be there if he needed me and I know that he'd do the same for me.
We should all have a friend like that.
I just know that people always tell us who they are. They ALWAYS tell us who they are. We just don't choose to listen. We overlook the red flags that are out there and convince ourselves it just couldn't happen to us. Red flags are the symbol to tell us that there is danger. It is the symbol that tells us to stay out of the water. We ignore the red flags because we really want to be in a relationship. We see the flags but we still go into the water not believing that we could drown. No matter what we do we will taste the sand on the ocean floor.
Sometimes we just don't listen.
If we would we could save ourselves from all sorts of problems.
It could simply just save us.


In the paragliding cup, that took place from 2016/5/28-29 to Plataies, Giannis won easily and with big difference the first place among the best pilots in Greece. Conditions were really good, pilots good high enough to enjoy the views from Corinthian golf at the west side of mountain Kithaironas.
In the Greek championship of 2016, that took place at mt. Kamvounia close to Deskati, in June from 19-26 Giannis won the first place. Was the 4th time that won the Greek championship since 2012 he won his first in Drama. There were pilots from many countries. Pilots flew five tasks and one task was started from mt. Olympus. Second place took the very experienced pilot from Korfou Haris Lepesis and third the also very good pilot Stefan Younger from South Africa.


Matanzas the province of the famous and beautiful white sandy Varadero beaches and resorts, the city of Cardenas, The Bay of Pigs and Cayo Largo.
Matanzas is called the Athens of Cuba because of its active cultural institutions, known for many as the city of the bridges and the rivers.
Matanzas is a city with a virgorous artistic, musical and literary movement, plus buildings of great archtectural and historic value.
Better known as the area of Playa Giron, Playa larga and the Bay of Pigs the historical area because of the invasion in 1961.
It is a beautiful eco area and very popular for scuba diving and nature enthousiastics.


text:
NDSU cancels international travel due to COVID-19 concerns
North Dakota State University is canceling all University-funded and sponsored international travel leaving the United States, amid concerns over the quickly spreading Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
On Wednesday, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said, "WHO has been assessing this outbreak around-the-clock, and we're deeply concerned, both by the alarming levels of spread and severity." He later characterized COVID-19 as a "pandemic". WHO officials had been reluctant to make the characterization.
At NDSU, the changes in travel are in place until March 31. Officials will monitor the situation to determine if the date needs to be modified.
University students, staff and faculty already abroad are encouraged to consider returning home. Anyone experiencing symptoms are asked to refrain from returning to campus and contact their medical provider.
Minnesota COVID-19 positivity rate falls below ten percent
Fri, Feb 18th, 2022 - 9:11am
COVID vaccines available for youngest kids
Tue, Jun 21st, 2022 - 7:11am
NDSU to offer new, in-demand software engineering major
Wed, Nov 2nd, 2022 - 9:43am
FPS likely to pause COVID-19 updates in school board meetings


text:
McMillan, James E. "The Potential of Computerized Court Case Management to Battle Judicial Corruption." E-Justice: Using Information Communication Technologies in the Court System. IGI Global, 2009. 57-64. Web. 23 Jan. 2020. doi:10.4018/978-1-59904-998-4.ch004
McMillan, J. E. (2009). The Potential of Computerized Court Case Management to Battle Judicial Corruption. In A. Martínez, & P. Abat (Eds.), E-Justice: Using Information Communication Technologies in the Court System (pp. 57-64). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-59904-998-4.ch004
McMillan, James E. "The Potential of Computerized Court Case Management to Battle Judicial Corruption." In E-Justice: Using Information Communication Technologies in the Court System, ed. Agustí Cerrillo i Martínez and Pere Fabra i Abat, 57-64 (2009), accessed January 23, 2020. doi:10.4018/978-1-59904-998-4.ch004
Transformative Tools and Social Advocacy
InfoSci-Government and Law
The Potential of Computerized Court Case Management to Battle Judicial Corruption
James E. McMillan (National Center for State Courts, USA)
Source Title: E-Justice: Using Information Communication Technologies in the Court System
Copyright: © 2009 |Pages: 8
Automated court case management systems present opportunities to develop processes and procedures that can battle corruption. This chapter provides information on the development of such a system for the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and looks toward future potential developments in this area. Computerized court case management systems (CCMS) can be used to help the judiciary manage complete their daily work. These systems can also be used to prevent data corruption and allow data "mining," that identifies potential corruption activities. This chapter briefly discusses the issue of judicial corruption and describes automated system functions that can be used to eliminate and potentially indicate corrupt practices.
Corruption in judicial systems is not a single country issue. While it is recognized as motivation for many international reform projects, corruption is an ancient worldwide issue without discrimination between developing and developed nations. The United Nations adopted the Convention against Corruption resolution 58/4 on October 31, 2003 that detailed both the concerns and actions for prevention, criminalization, international cooperation, and asset recovery that governments should enact.1 The United Nations also supports the Judicial Integrity Group that is "an association composed of Chief Justices and senior judges, in the development of standards and policies to strengthen judicial integrity and capacity."2 This organization created the Bangalore Principles3 in 2002 that detail "standards of ethical conduct of judges."
Presently, government corruption as an issue has risen to the level where an entire organization, Transparency International,4 is devoted to combating it. The Hon. Huguette Labelle, Chair, Transparency International, stated on release of the Global Corruption Report 2007 at the London School of Economics on May 24, 20075:
Justice with a price tag is no justice at all. Real justice is priceless.
Corrupt courts deny victims and the accused the basic human right to a fair and impartial trial, sometimes even to a trial at all. Those who cannot or will not pay are locked out. Legal instruments such as contracts—the fabric of business and commerce—are meaningless. Criminals go unpunished, destroying effective governance and democratic participation. Trade, investment and economic growth are diminished.
Four general areas identified for potential judicial corruption defined by the report6 are:
Judicial appointments: Failure to appoint judges on merit can lead to the selection of pliant, corruptible judges.
Terms and conditions: Poor salaries and insecure working conditions, including unfair processes for promotion and transfer, as well as a lack of continuous training for judges, lead to judges and other court personnel being vulnerable to bribery.
Accountability and discipline: Unfair or ineffective processes for the discipline and removal of corrupt judges can often lead to the removal of independent judges for reasons of political expediency.
Transparency: Opaque court processes that prevent the media and civil society from monitoring court activity and exposing judicial corruption.
This chapter attempts to partially address the third and fourth causes, accountability and discipline as well as transparency, via the application of a computerized court case management system in the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
The courts in BiH were fertile ground for developing and testing a new generation of court case management systems for several reasons. First, the 1992–1995 war resulted in destruction of the existing governmental institutions. As a result, completely new political boundaries and governmental organizations were created. In May 2004, the BiH Parliament passed a law creating the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council7 (HJPC) as an independent body to oversee the judiciary and prosecution. The law also prescribed removal of all seated judges and prosecutors in the country and creation of a screening process and re-appointment of those officials who passed examination. The HJPC is also charged with additional administrative and oversight duties in operating the courts. It is in this environment of rapid change and innovation in the BiH judicial system that the design, development, and implementation of the CCMS was created (described in the rest of this chapter). It allowed the designers and implementers to explore methods used in the past by a corrupt system. With the support of the BiH judiciary and the HJPC, it provides a way to address some of the problems.


Randy Jackson slipped into New York last night to pick up a lifetime achievement award from the TJ Martell Foundation. This is the record industry's highly esteemed charity for cancer and AIDS research. It was founded by Columbia Records' Tony Martell over 30 years ago in memory of his son, TJ, who died thirty seven years ago at age 19. No parent has ever been so devoted to a child's memory and to finding a cure for what took his life. Last night TJ Martell raised millions, with memorable performances by Graham Nash and David Crosby, BeBe Winans, Grace Potter, and Little Big Town.
The honorees included Randy, Russell Simmons, BMI chief Del Bryant, and producer/philanthropist Ed Walson, whose father pretty much invented cable TV in the Pittsburgh area. Tony Martell, who has snow white hair after all these years, also introduced the audience to several cancer survivors helped by the Foundation.
Randy is looking relaxed now that all the deals at "American Idol" are done. Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj are on opposite coasts. Publicists are in their corners, dreaming up new schemes. Randy is working on Mariah's album and some surprising new projects.
In the audience: everyone from Motown legends Berry Gordy and Lamont Dozier to Woody Allen (who stopped in briefly to support Walson with wife Soon Yi), Regis and Joy Philbin, Susan Lucci and husband Helmut Huber, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, TVcaster son Greg and banker son Jim; a large group from HSN for Randy Jackson (his watches have sold like hotcakes). various record company executives like Tom Corson of RCA and music biz attorney Joel Katz.
All the speeches were great, from Ed Walson reminiscing about saving up his money at age 10 to buy jazz records to Del Bryant recalling his famous songwriter parents, Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, who wrote the Everly Brothers' hits like "Wake up Little Susie" and "Bye Bye Love." There was much talk all night our departed friend, Frances Preston, who ran BMI years and was loved by all.
Randy Jackson was introduced with videos made by Ryan Seacrest and Mariah Carey. Ryan tried some lame jokes, but the audience didn't bite.
Russell Simmons, who hasn't seen a charity he didn't like, talked about living a life of service.
Tony Martell, who is getting older now, still has incredible energy. He ended his remarks by asking the well heeled guests to make sure the organization lives on. There's no doubt that it will.


Patna | The Communist Party of India on Wednesday charged the BJP and the Sangh Parivar with having falsely implicated former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar in criminal cases lodged here and in his native district of Begusarai in the past few days.
Addressing a press conference, CPI leaders Jabbar Alam and Ram Naresh Pandey alleged that Kumar faced a threat to his life from the BJP-RSS combine which was miffed by the enormous public support the young leader is receiving everywhere and urged the Bihar government to provide adequate security to the former JNUSU president.
Kanhaiya Kumar was prevented from meeting a friend admitted at AIIMS, Patna on Sunday by doctors sympathetic towards the BJP who called him anti-national. They later on levelled false charges against him and got an FIR registered.
The state health minister Mangal Pandey stoked the fire by his own remarks," the CPI leaders alleged.
An FIR was lodged at the Phulwarisharif police station on Monday by doctors who alleged that Kumar and his supporters had thrashed an intern on the previous night and snatched his mobile besides beating up a security guard who tried to intervene.
Pandey, who is a BJP leader, had said that he has sought a detailed report on the incident from the Director of AIIMS, Patna and remarked Bihar is not JNU where you can get away with anything.
Two years ago, while he was the JNUSU president, Kanhaiya Kumar was slapped with sedition charges and sent to jail for taking part in a demonstration staged on the varsity premises where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
The CPI leaders also alleged that the Begusarai residents who clashed with Kumar's supporters on Monday night were supporters of the BJP, the RSS and the Bajrang Dal.
Police had said that the clash that erupted in Bhagwanpur police station area of Begusarai had resulted in injuries to two local residents and damage to a number of vehicles belonging to Kumar's supporters who were accompanying him while he was returning home after addressing a public meeting.
An FIR was lodged at Bhagwanpur against Kumar and his supporters in connection with the incident on Tuesday while a counter FIR was lodged at Barauni by the former student leader, associated with the Left-affiliated AISF, along with his supporters.
Ever since Kumar has embarked on holding rallies titled Bhaajpa Harao Desh Bachao (defeat the BJP and save the country), his life has become imperiled. Given the vindictive character of the Sangh Parivar, the Centre and the state government should take serious note, provide the young leader with adequate security and immediately withdraw all the false cases lodged against him, the CPI leaders said.
The Left parties, which would contest the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar unitedly and possibly have an electoral understanding with the Congress-RJD alliance, have indicated that Kumar may be fielded from Begusarai, which had been a CPI stronghold till the 1990s.


text:
JBL Bar 5.1 soundbar transforms into a wireless surround cinema speaker system
By Gerald Lynch 2017-08-31T13:00:47.242Z Home cinema
All the channels without the mess of cables
Ever fancied getting in on the whole 'cinema sound in your home' experience, but been put off by the mess of cables that inevitably comes with dotting a load of speakers around your living room? The JBL Bar 5.1 system might be the answer.
Launching at IFA 2017, it looks initially like a standard soundbar / subwoofer combo, but comes with a neat trick up its sleeve. The ends of the soundbar can be detached to act as standalone, rechargeable satellite speakers, effectively transforming the whole thing into a 5.1 surround sound system (if you count the soundbar as two distinct channels).
The speakers charge when they're docked to the soundbar, and will give you wireless audio for about 10 hours, which is just about enough for a marathon of the (good) Star Wars films.
Connections include HDMI and HDMI ARC inputs, while audiophiles are covered with optical and AUX wired connections. Three 4K HDMI pass-through inputs are onboard too, letting you hook up Blu-ray decks and games consoles, while JBL's SoundShift technology lets you jump between other audio sources on the fly.
As for output, there's 510W of power overall out of the system, with the subwoofer a 10-inch wireless number.
Sound as a pound
If you're after something a bit simpler, the JBL Bar line includes three other models with slightly varying feature sets, depending on price.
The JBL Bar 3.1 ditches the detachable modules, offering 450W output from its three-channel soundbar and 10-inch wireless sub combo. It too offers three 4K HDMI pass-through ports.
Next up is the JBL Bar 2.1, which has a max 300W output, again comes with a wireless sub (this time a 6.5-inch model), but drops the 4K output for a standard HDMI-out port.
Finally, the Bar Studio is a straightforward 2-channel soundbar, with a built-in bass port making up for the lack of a dedicated subwoofer.
In terms of price and availability, for the Bar 5.1 you're looking at an October launch and £649.99 (about $840 / AU$1060). The Bar 3.1 will arrive in September for £399.99 ($515/ AU$650), along with the Bar 2.1 at £299.99 ($385 / AU$490), while the Bar Studio will be available in October for £149.99 ($190 / AU$245).
IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced.
See more Home cinema news
Best phone in the US for 2019: the top 15 smartphones we've tested


We wanted to create a device which could work as a visual sign-language translator. On the fingertips of a glove we placed 4 different color leds. These leds can be recognized by an OpenGL code.
We wanted to create a device which could work as a sign-language translator. On the fingertips of a glove we placed 4 different color leds. These leds can be recognized by an OpenGL code. So we can connect commands to the colors recognized by the OpenGL system. We connected speech-synthesis to the different led-colors.
When implemented properly it could be used as a realtime translator, so a smooth conversation between a hearing-impaired person(with more handiness in sign-language) and non-hearing impaired person is possible. But that's not all the handLed can be used to control any device you want: sending midi-data to your synth, or commanding your OS are some of many possibilities.
The main challenge was to get the openGL system to recognize the different LED-color, as these colors vary with the change of light outside. Also colors from clothes can interfere with the "color grabbing".


Essex National Heritage Area Photo Safaris provide the perfect blend of inspired exploration with modern-day digital photography advances! Sponsored by major camera equipment companies and New England's largest photography retailer, Hunt's Photo & Video of Melrose, MA, photographers of all levels are invited to expand their skills and broaden their horizons with unlimited use of high-quality photo equipment during visits to incredibly beautiful locations in our Heritage Area.
Tickets: Photo Safaris are ticketed events; participants must be registered to attend. Tickets cost: $35 for Members; $45 for Non-Members. Registered participants will receive an event reminder before the safari. Availability: Photo Safaris are limited to 35 attendees each session. If a Photo Safari session sells out, call Essex Heritage at (978) 740-0444 to be placed on a wait-list.
Equipment Loans: Equipment will be loaned on a first-come, first-served basis. Try out one camera and/or lens and then exchange it for a second camera and/or lens as needed (based upon availability)! In order to use the available equipment, you MUST have registered and paid, MUST be 18 years or older or accompanied by an adult, and you MUST leave your drivers license and a credit card with Essex Heritage at check-in. Participants are responsible for any and all damage to the equipment.
Weather: Photo Safaris are held rain or shine. Please dress accordingly! Should Essex Heritage and Hunt's Photo & Video need to cancel the event due to unsafe weather conditions or another unforeseen cause, registrants will receive a full refund for their tickets.
Event Cancellation & Refund Policy: Individual cancellations must be received 3 business days prior to the safari date to be eligible to receive a refund. The ticket will be refunded less the cost of electronic ticketing fees associated with credit card purchases. Those tickets purchased by check will receive a full refund. Cancellations received after this deadline will not be eligible for a refund. Cancellations will be accepted only via email OR by phone call to Essex Heritage at 978-740-0444 and must be received before the cancellation deadline.
Essex Heritage relies on your participation and active engagement to fulfill our mission, support our partners and encourage stewardship of our treasured resources. Essex Heritage's Photo Safari program and Photo Contest costs are generously underwritten by Hunt's Photo & Video.