text:
\section{Introduction}
Evolutionary Robotics (ER) aims at designing
robust autonomous robots, and in particular robust robot controllers \cite{Nolfi:Floreano:Book00}.
The success of ER critically depends on the optimization objective (or fitness
function) \cite{Nelson}. For the sake of computational and experimental convenience,
the ER literature mostly considers
simulation-based approaches,
where the
controller fitness is computed by simulating the robot behaviour. The price to
pay for this convenience is that the controller behaviour suffers from the so-called
reality gap, i.e. its performance might dramatically decrease when ported on-board \cite{LipsonLegged}.
While Embedded Evolutionary Robotics \cite{Bredeche-Haasdijk-Eiben-2009} sidesteps the
reality gap as evolutionary computation is achieved on-board, the challenge is
to design some fitness either based on environmental cues (e.g. about the
target location), or not requiring any ground truth at all, i.e.,
self-driven fitness.

Developmental Robotics \cite{PfeiferEtAl07} also
aims at principled ways of building intelligent agents.
The vision, strongly inspired from Brooks' \cite{Brooks1991Intelligence-Wi},
states that (i) the world is its best model and the robot representations
must be grounded in its physical perceptions; (ii) robots must be
``autonomous, self-sufficient, embodied, and situated''
(Complete Agent principle).
The search for self-driven objectives, leading the robot to
explore its world and gradually learn new skills, thus is at the core of Developmental
Robotics \cite{Oudeyer2}.

The present work, at the crossroad of Developmental and Embedded ER,
focuses on self-driven fitness functions. An original approach,  amenable to on-board evolutionary optimization and rooted in
Information Theory, is presented as an Intrinsic Motivation Systems \cite{Oudeyer2}.
This approach defines a ``curiosity'' instinct, which enforces the exploration by the robot of
its environment. Both approaches exploit the robotic log recording for each time
step the sensor and motor values, or Sensori-Motor Stream (SMS).
The difference is twofold. On the one hand, the presented approach relies on
(computationally frugal) unsupervised learning \cite{Duda2001} whereas \cite{Oudeyer2} uses
supervised ML to build a forward model. On the other hand, it defines a representation
of the robot world: a set of sensori-motor states (sms), built from the SMS, supports the
computation of the SMS entropy; the higher the entropy, the richer and the more diversified
the world seen by the current controller.
Maximizing the SMS entropy thus defines an efficient, self-driven, ``curiosity instinct'' enforcing the exploration of
the world.

The second contribution of the paper is another self-driven fitness function dubbed ``discovery instinct''.
It exploits the fact that sensori-motor states (sms) can be transmitted
from parents to offspring, thus enabling some cultural evolution mode \cite{curran2007,GuzsXX}. Formally,
the discovery fitness computes the cumulative entropy defined from the visits of all robots
to all sms, until the current individual; it thus rewards individuals that
discover sensori-motor states {\em which have not yet been visited} (or rarely visited)
by its ancestors.
Discovery fitness might be thought of as a fitness sharing mechanism, except for the fact that
it rewards individuals which differ from their ancestors, as opposed to, their peers.

The merits of the two self-driven fitness functions, implemented within an embedded (1+1)-Evolution Strategy
\cite{Bredeche-Haasdijk-Eiben-2009}, are comparatively assessed on the benchmark problems
defined by Lehman and Stanley \cite{Lehman}, in terms of their patrolling activity (visiting the various places of
the arena, and visiting the chambers farthest apart from the starting point). The main limitation
of the approach is to require a stimulating interaction between the
environment and the robot sensors, conducive to diversified sensory experiences:
if located in the middle of nowhere, or endowed with too poor sensors,
the robot can only experience a few sensori-motor states and entropy provides no incentive
for exploration.

The paper is organized as follows. Related work is briefly reviewed and discussed in section
\ref{SoA}. An overview of the curiosity and discovery fitnesses is presented in section
\ref{instinct} and section \ref{expe} reports on the experimental results. The paper concludes with a
discussion and some perspectives for further research.

\section{Related work}\label{SoA}
The state of the art in ER and fitness design can be structured in different ways \cite{Watson02,Nelson}, depending
on the designer's criteria. The perspective presented in \cite{Nelson}
focuses on the amount of human effort and prior knowledge required
 to overcome bootstrap problems. Such problems can be illustrated from
the hard and medium arenas due to \cite{Lehman}
(Fig. \ref{fig:leh}), where the goal is to reach the chamber farthest apart from the
starting point
without any ground truth being available; note that providing the robot with its
bird eye's distance to the target location will get it trapped in many local optima.

Among the various heuristics investigated to address the bootstrap problem is the
staged fitness approach pioneered by \cite{Harvey} (e.g. learning to walk before learning to run).
Among the early and still widely used\footnote{Other possibilities, outside the
scope of this paper, are to inject competent individuals in the initial population, or to use
co-evolution.}
approaches to bootstrap avoidance are
fitness-sharing and diversity enforcing \cite{Lehman,Gomez}.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centerline{\begin{tabular}{cc}
\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{Medium.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{Hard.ps}\\
\end{tabular}}
\caption{From (Lehman \& Stanley, 08): medium (left) and hard (right) arenas.
Starting in the upper left corner, the goal is to reach the farthest apart region.
}
\label{fig:leh}
\end{figure}

Diversity enforcing heuristics in ER mostly rely on the genotypic \cite{NEAT} or phenotypic
\cite{Gomez,Lehman} distances between the robot controllers. Some genotypic distances
have been defined on structured controller spaces such as neural nets \cite{NEAT}.
Phenotypic distances usually rely on prior knowledge. For instance
Lehman and Stanley associate to a controller the
end point of the robot trajectory; the novelty of a controller w.r.t. the population
is then assessed from the average distance of its end point to that of its $k$-nearest neighbours \cite{Lehman}.
A general phenotypic distance between robot trajectories has been proposed by Gomez, relying on the compression-based distance inspired from
Kolmogorov complexity \cite{Gomez}. Setting the fitness function to the controller phenotypic diversity leads
evolution to construct a fair sample of the robot behavioural space.
In this sample, the designer eventually selects the individual best fitting
the task at hand, which reportedly gives satisfying solutions.
Another way of enforcing diversity is based on multi-objective evolutionary optimization,
considering diversity as an additional objective besides
the actual robotic objective \cite{Mouret09}.

Another influential line of research is Embodied Statistical Learning (ESL)
 \cite{PfeiferEtAl07}, aimed at a principled way of addressing the reality gap issue
through perceptual and behavioural learning. While perceptual
learning is concerned with building a grounded representation of the environment and
the robot itself, behavioural learning aims at achieving the target tasks.
Regarding perceptual learning, ESL advocates the use
of the ''information self-structuring`` principle, stating that the
robot should take advantage of statistical regularities induced by its
interactions with the world, and mentions ''adaptive compression``
as a possible approach \cite{Lungarella-08}.

\section{Information Theory-based Robotic Instincts}\label{instinct}
This section presents two self-driven fitness functions, referred to as Curiosity
and Discovery instincts, simultaneously enforcing the
exploration of the environment and the behavioural diversity of the controllers.
These functions, also rooted in the information self-structuring principle, are
based on unsupervised statistical learning.

\subsection{Unsupervised Learning from the Sensori-Motor Stream}
Some information the robot gets for free lies in its sensor and motor values. Let the sequence of sensori-motor value vectors along time,
referred to as Sensori-Motor Stream (SMS), be denoted ${\cal X} = \{x_t ; x_t \in {\rm I\hspace{-0.50ex}R}^d,
t=1, \ldots, T\}$, where vector $x_t$ stores the $d$ values of the sensors plus motors at time $t$, and $T$ is the
number of time steps of the robot lifetime. The SMS ${\cal X}$ of course depends on the controller of the robot when it is gathered.
Our claim is that
{\em interesting controllers result in a high sensori-motor diversity} (subject to
requirements discussed in section \ref{s:efdiscu}).
After Information Theory principles,
it thus comes naturally to assess the controller from the entropy
of the SMS. Noting $(c_i)_{i = 1, \ldots, p}$ the $p$ states (sensori-motor vectors) visited by
the robot and $n_i$ the number of times $c_i$ has been visited, it comes:

\begin{equation}
 {\cal F}({\cal X}) = - \sum_{i=1}^p \frac{n_i}{\sum_{j=1}^p n_j} \log{ \frac{n_i}{\sum_{j=1}^p n_j} }
 \label{eqf}
\end{equation}
Sensori-motor states should however achieve some abstraction or generalization
relatively to the sensori-motor vectors. Otherwise, since $x_t$ is a real-valued vector
in a possibly high dimension space, for most visited states $n_i = 1$  and most trajectories
over $T$ time steps get the same trivial fitness value $\log(T)$.
Unsupervised learning (clustering), is applied to the robotic log to form clusters
using Euclidean distance.
While many clustering algorithms have been designed in the literature, only the simple,
computationally linear $k$-means and $\epsilon$-means will be considered in the
rest of this paper (Fig. \ref{alg-k}, left); the interested reader is referred to \cite{Duda2001} for a more comprehensive
introduction. The $k$-means algorithm is parametrized from the number $k$ of clusters
while $\epsilon$-means is parametrized from the maximal radius $\epsilon$  of each cluster.

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\parbox{.5\linewidth}
{\footnotesize
\begin{tabular}{l}
 {\bf $k$-means Algorithm}\\
 ${\cal C} = {c_1 \ldots c_k}$ random training points \\
 repeat\\
 \hspace*{.1in}   for t = 1\ldots T, \\
 \hspace*{.1in} \hspace*{.1in} $i(t) = \, argmin_{j=1\ldots k} \{ d(x_t,c_j) \}$\\
 \hspace*{.1in}   for i = 1 \ldots k  \\
 \hspace*{.1in} \hspace*{.1in} $c_i = \frac{\sum_{t/ i(t) = i} x_t}{\sum_{t/ i(t) = i}1}$\\
 until $\cal C$ does not change
\end{tabular}}
&
\parbox{.45\linewidth}
{\footnotesize
\begin{tabular}{l}
 {\bf $\epsilon$-means Algorithm }\\
 ${\cal C} = \emptyset$\\
 for t = 1..T\\
 \hspace*{.1in} $ i(t) = \, argmin_{c_j \in {\cal C}} \{ d(x_t,c_j) \}$\\
 \hspace*{.1in} if ($d(x_t,c_i) > \epsilon$)
 \hspace*{.1in} \hspace*{.1in} ${\cal C} \leftarrow {\cal C} \bigcup (x_t,1)$\\
 \hspace*{.1in}   else $n_i++$\\
\end{tabular}}
\end{tabular}

\caption{$k$-means and $\epsilon$-means clustering algorithms.
}
\label{alg-k}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Curiosity and Discovery Instincts}\label{s:cul}
Let $X$ be a controller. The rest of the paper does not depend on the actual representation
of $X$ (its genotype), and only considers its phenotype ${\cal X} = \{ x_1\ldots x_T\}$,
defined as its SMS in the
environment. Stream $\cal X$ is processed using $k$-means
or $\epsilon$-means (Fig. \ref{alg-k}), yielding the set of $p$ sensori-motor states $c_i$
together with their number $n_i$ of occurrences in the stream.
The curiosity fitness ${\cal F}_c$ is defined as
the entropy of the trajectory (Eq. (\ref{eqf})).
An individual gets a high curiosity fitness if it equally shares its time among the
visited sms ($k$-means clustering, $p = k$), or it visits many sms
($\epsilon$-means clustering).
The maximization of the curiosity fitness is achieved using a $(1+1)$-Evolution Strategy with random
restart (Section \ref{expe}).

As will be discussed in Section \ref{s:efdiscu}, the number $p$ of sensori-motor states
must be kept below a few hundreds for the sake of efficiency. This makes it feasible
to store the corresponding set of sms on-board, and to transmit it from the parent to the offspring.
Another self-driven fitness function dubbed ``discovery instinct'' can thus be defined. Informally,
the idea is that the offspring will be rewarded for visiting sensori-motor states {\em which have
not been visited} (or rarely visited) by its ancestors.

Formally, the discovery fitness ${\cal F}_d$
is defined along the same equation as the curiosity fitness. The only difference is
that the $\epsilon$-means algorithm uses the
set of sms $c_i$ visited by ancestors, where $n_i$ stands for the total number of visits paid to state $c_i$
along the generations, to initialize $\cal C$; $\cal C$ is updated from the current trajectory, incrementing the
counters of visited states and possibly adding new sensori-motor states discovered by the
current individual.
Ultimately, the discovery fitness ${\cal F}_d$ is computed from the entropy of $\cal C$ (Eq.
(\ref{eqf})).

The discovery fitness thus implements a dynamic evolution schedule: the
worth of any given behaviour depends on its novelty, pushing evolution toward the collective exploration
of the sensori-motor space. Typically, an individual controller will get a good discovery fitness iff
it discovers new sms, or if it visits sufficiently many rare sms, where novelty and rarity are
measured from the current robot-kind experience. As already noted, discovery can thus be viewed
in terms of fitness sharing, as the worth of visiting a sensori-motor state depends
on how many individuals visited it. The difference compared with standard fitness sharing is
that sharing usually takes place among all individuals in a same generation, whereas discovery
considers all generations up to the current one\footnote{Discovery fitness can thus also
be thought of in terms of Cultural Evolution. However, the knowledge gained in the previous
generations only modifies the individual assessment in the proposed scheme, contrasting with modifying
the individual behaviour in standard Cultural Evolution (see e.g. \cite{curran2007,GuzsXX}).}.

\subsection{Discussion}\label{s:efdiscu}
The main limitation of the proposed approach is as follows. The entropy of the
robot trajectory depends on the richness of both the environment and the robot sensors.
If the robot is in the middle of an empty area, there is nothing to be curious about and nothing
to be discovered; whatever its sensors, the robot will experiment a single state:
nothing in sight\footnote{
The implicit assumption done in the paper being that the controller is deterministic.}.
Likewise, if the robot is endowed with a single boolean touch sensor, whatever the richness of
the environment the robot can
only experience two states: I can touch something, or I can't. The presented entropy-based
approach thus only makes sense if the environment mediated by the robot sensors offers sufficient
stimulation.

Another critical aspect is the calibration of the clustering algorithm (parameters $k$ or $\epsilon$,
Fig. \ref{alg-k}). At one extreme (too fine-grained) all sensori-motor vectors belong to
different clusters; at the other extreme (too coarse), all belong to the same cluster; in
both cases, the entropy is trivial and does not provide any indication to evolution.
Along the same lines, rich robotic sensors (e.g. a camera) could hinder the approach
due to the curse of dimensionality, and the fact that Euclidean distance in ${\rm I\hspace{-0.50ex}R}^D$ is not
much informative for high $D$ values. A preliminary dimensionality reduction step, mapping ${\rm I\hspace{-0.50ex}R}^D$ onto ${\rm I\hspace{-0.50ex}R}^d, d << D$, would thus be required, and could be obtained by careful sensor fusion. It must
however be noted that, provided that the dimensionality reduction can be done online, its
calibration (e.g. using Principal Component Analysis or non-linear approaches) can be
optimized off-line; the approach thus remains tractable in the context of embedded evolution.

The Curiosity fitness can possibly reward some degenerate behaviours, like dancing in front of
a wall or in a corner; more generally, a periodic trajectory in a stimulating environment would
get a high Curiosity fitness. The Discovery fitness is less prone to degenerate behaviours
since it essentially rewards new behaviours.

Conditionally to a stimulating environment and a reasonably calibrated clustering algorithm
(in practice, a few hundred sensori-motor states),
the Curiosity and Discovery fitnesses display interesting properties.
First of all, they meet the on-board evolution requirements (bounded computational
and memory resources, no ground truth required). Secondly, they are robust w.r.t
sensor and motor noises; introducing outliers in the SMS would result in creating sms that are very rarely visited, with little impact on the entropy.
Thirdly, these fitnesses penalize inaction and favour the exploration of the sensori-motor
space (not moving leads the robot to experience a single sensori-motor state).

\section{Experimental validation}\label{expe}
The main two questions investigated in this section are (i) whether
the curiosity and discovery fitnesses are actually compatible with on-board evolution, overcoming
the reality gap issue; and (ii) whether they are conducive to the discovery of ``interesting''
behaviours, measured from the exploration of sufficiently complex arenas.
Other questions of interest, regarding the sensitivity of the approach w.r.t.  the clustering parameters, will not be addressed here due to space limitations: only the $\epsilon$-clustering, with $\epsilon = .2$ for Curiosity and $\epsilon = .4$ for Discovery,
will be presented below.

The experimental setting
is based on the home-made Roborobo 2D simulator, simulating a Cortex-M3 with eight infra-red sensors and two motors:
Following \cite{Bredeche-Haasdijk-Eiben-2009}, the robot supports an on-board (1+1)-Evolution Strategy using the $1/5^{th}$ rule, with restart after 30 fitness evaluations with no improvement;
each run stops after 2,000 fitness evaluations. The controller space is that of multi-layer perceptrons with 8 inputs, 2 outputs, and 10 hidden neurons. The 112 weights are initially randomly drawn following a normal distribution with mean $0$ and variance $0.1$. The isotropic Gaussian mutation has an initial step-size of $0.2$. In both settings, the sensori-motor stream is clustered online
using $\epsilon$-means, with $\cal C$ initialized to the empty set for Curiosity, and, for Discovery, to the inherited set, easily stored on the Cortex board. The entropy of $\cal C$ is computed after $T=2000$ time steps.

The robot environment is set to one of the arenas defined in
\cite{Lehman} (Fig. \ref{fig:leh}).
The performances of Curiosity and Discovery fitnesses are compared, with same
experimental setting, to both the
baseline fitness for displacement with obstacle avoidance originally proposed by Floreano and Mondada (and described, with references, in  \cite{Nolfi:Floreano:Book00})
(legend {\em {F \& M}}),
and the Novelty fitness proposed by Lehman and Stanley \cite{Lehman} (see Section \ref{SoA}, legend {\em {L \& S}}). The performance indicators measure the patrolling
ability, that is the percentage of $p(\ell)$ of squares in the arena that have been
visited at least $\ell$ times. Another performance indicator is whether the
robot can explore the chambers farthest apart (avoiding obstacles) from the starting point.
All robots start from the same point, in order to reliably assess the robustness of the algorithm w.r.t. the distance to the starting point.
All results are averaged over 11 independent runs.

\begin{table}[ht!]
\centerline{\footnotesize
  \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c||c|c|c|}\hline
 & \multicolumn{3}{|c||}{Medium Arena} & \multicolumn{3}{|c|}{Hard Arena} \\ \hline
 & 2 visits & 5 visits & 10 visits & 2 visits & 5 visits & 10 visits \\ \hline
 \multicolumn{7}{|c|}{100 best individuals in 2000 generations run } \\ \hline
Curiosity & $ 35.78  (9.04)$  &$ 22.01  (7.39)$  &$ 13.0  (4.47)$ & $ 50.18  (6.7)$  &$ 30.31  (5.79)$  &$ 14.79  (3.16)$  \\ \hline
Discovery & $ 21.99  (9.24)$  &$ 12.82  (5.85)$  &$ 8.12  (3.15)$ & $ 16.28  (6.27)$  &$ 10.11  (3.19)$  &$ 7.26  (1.83)$  \\ \hline
{F \& M} & $ 25.78  (1.77)$  &$ 22.3  (1.96)$  &$ 18.12  (1.86)$  & $ 44.9  (10.51)$  &$ 28.22  (6.2)$  &$ 18.99  (3.79)$  \\ \hline
{L \& S} & $ 53.99  (2.75)$  &$ 36.32  (2.26)$  &$ 21.03  (1.61)$ & $ 55.35  (4.66)$  &$ 35.87  (3.35)$  &$ 19.78  (2.0)$  \\ \hline
\hline
  \multicolumn{7}{|c|}{All individuals in 2000 generations run } \\ \hline
Curiosity &$ 69.67  (2.62)$  &$ 61.56  (2.87)$  &$ 54.95  (3.36)$  & $ 78.29  (5.12)$  &$ 68.32  (5.58)$  &$ 58.09  (4.47)$  \\ \hline
Discovery &$ 62.08  (3.47)$  &$ 53.0  (4.59)$  &$ 45.54  (5.81)$ & $ 65.23  (4.98)$  &$ 52.4  (5.59)$  &$ 42.27  (4.97)$  \\ \hline
{F \& M} &$ 72.36  (2.23)$  &$ 61.06  (3.59)$  &$ 50.92  (1.8)$  & $ 78.48  (3.93)$  &$ 64.98  (5.24)$  &$ 52.63  (3.68)$  \\ \hline
{L \& S} &$ 64.82  (1.81)$  &$ 55.68  (1.76)$  &$ 49.23  (1.67)$  & $ 66.37  (5.08)$  &$ 55.31  (4.53)$  &$ 47.24  (3.75)$  \\ \hline
\end{tabular}   }
\caption{Patrolling performances for 2000 time steps: average (std. dev.) over 11 runs.}
\label{tab:patrol}
\end{table}

\begin{figure}[b!]
\centerline{\begin{tabular}{cccc}
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Curiosity_hard_10HL_log_100_best_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Discovery_hard_10HL_log_100_best_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Floreano_hard_10HL_log_100_best_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Novelty_hard_10HL_log_100_best_10V.ps}\\
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Curiosity_hard_10HL_log_all_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Discovery_hard_10HL_log_all_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Floreano_hard_10HL_log_all_10V.ps} &
\includegraphics[width=1.1in]{pdf/Novelty_hard_10HL_log_all_10V.ps} \\
Curiosity & Discovery & {F \& M} & {L \& S} \\
\end{tabular}}
\caption{Hard  Arena: points visited 10 times or more by the 100 best individuals (top) or the whole population (bottom) over the 11 runs,}
\label{fig:aren}
\end{figure}

The average patrolling abilities for both arenas and the 4 algorithms are reported in Table \ref{tab:patrol}: for the 100 best individuals that were evolved during the 11 runs (top), and all the individuals that appeared during those runs (bottom), Table \ref{tab:patrol} gives the percentage of the arena that has been visited at least 2, 5 or 10 times. Fig. \ref{fig:aren} displays a typical case: the points that have been visited at least 10 times in the Hard arena setting (the Medium arena shows similar trends).

When considering the 100 best individuals that appeared during the 11 runs, Novelty is clearly outperforming the other approaches in terms of patrolling  the Medium arena, while Curiosity (and, to a lesser extend, Displacement) catch up in the co-called Hard arena. Indeed, and almost paradoxically, the Hard arena offers in fact a high sensor diversity, exhibiting zones that look rather different, while the Medium arena somehow repeats the same motif several times, generating less diverse sensor input combinations. Furthermore, looking at the plots of Fig. \ref{fig:aren}, the Novelty runs tends to also explore the interior regions of the maze, while the Curiosity runs stay along the walls: the empty zones always generates the same sensor values, and hence cannot contribute to increase the entropy. However, as can be seen on Fig. \ref{fig:aren}, and is confirmed by looking at the maximum distance from the starting position reached by the individuals of different generations (results not shown here), far chambers from the starting points are more densely visited by the Curiosity runs than by the Novelty ones (the first wall from bottom up is more clearly marked in the Curiosity plot).\\
Finally, the Discovery fitness performs poorly when considering the 100 best individuals. Indeed, those individuals essentially correspond to the 100 last individuals, visiting sensori-motor states which have not been visited by the ancestors, hence basically exploring only the corners of the arena.

When considering all individuals ever produced by evolution during the 11 runs (bottoms half of Table \ref{tab:patrol} and bottom row of Fig. \ref{fig:aren}), the picture changes dramatically. The best performing fitness now is Curiosity, and again this is even clearer on the Hard arena. The Displacement fitness now also reaches better performances than Novelty, again more clearly on the Hard arena. Finally, the performance of Discovery is almost as good as the other ones, and the plot of the 10-times visits is even denser toward the far end of the arena with respect to the starting point, i.e., close to the bottom wall: because of the inherited information from parents to offspring, Discovery should indeed only be assessed by looking at complete lineages. \\
The success of Curiosity compared to Novelty is somewhat unexpected, as Novelty actually relies on a significant amount of prior knowledge, requiring for instance the robot to always know its position, and, from the archive, where all other robots ended up their trajectories. On the opposite, the Curiosity fitness is built up from scratch by each robot -- or by the lineage of robot in the case of the Discovery fitness.

\section{Discussion and Perspectives}
The paper pioneers the use of statistical unsupervised learning to define self-driven
fitness functions for on-board ER. Information Theory is then used to push the robot toward unknown parts of the sensori-motor space, hopefully leading to interesting behaviors in the physical space.

The priority here is to enable the robot to merely discover
its sensori-motor space, as opposed to maximize the predictive information in the sensori-motor loop
(as in \cite{Zahedi2010} and references therein). The rationale for this priority is twofold. Firstly, the presented approach is extremely frugal computationally speaking, compared to e.g. \cite{Zahedi2010}, as the target application here concerns swarm robotics. Secondly, recent trends in Machine Learning suggest that changing the representation of the problem domain, as done through unsupervised learning, can dramatically facilitate further supervised learning tasks.

Compared to the standard
Evolutionary Robotics framework pioneered by Floreano and Mondada, the robot is rewarded here for what it gets (a rich sensori-motor experience) and not for what it does (going fast and circling infrequently).
As mentioned earlier on, such a fitness function is only efficient in ``interesting environments'';
under-stimulation results in a evolutionary bootstrap problem. Interestingly, over-stimulation is also
detrimental to the efficiency of the curiosity and discovery instincts.

Compared to the Novelty approach by Lehman and Stanley \cite{Lehman}, no external information is needed here to assess the novelty of a behaviour. Furthermore, almost independently of the context, and the goal (though Novelty search can be totally goal-less, it can also be constrained toward a loosely defined goal), the computational cost of the proposed approaches remains tractable, as only sensori-motor states need to be stored.\\
Compared to Embodied Statistical Learning and Intrinsic Motivation \cite{Oudeyer2}, beside being computationally light learning algorithms amenable to on-board evolution, the proposed approaches rely on the discovery of sensori-motor states, amenable
to the direct inspection of the designer. Typically, relating visited sms to some instants of the
trajectory would lead to interpreting them, thus allowing the designer
to enforce some preferences, e.g., a safety policy in critical situations.

Further study will of course concern experiments in richer behavioral spaces, and also the collective and dynamic adjustment of the
clustering granularity $\epsilon$, depending on the current context.  Another perspective is related to
coupling self-driven fitnesses with interactive optimization, asking the designer's preferences
among the available behaviours.

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The City of Willis Economic Development Corporation is pleased to offer a business development grant program to promote the development and expansion of business enterprises within the City by increasing the aesthetic and architectural value of the city's façades with matching grants for facade improvements. Click here to learn more about this new program.
Willis became a community when The Great Northern Railroad decided to run a track from Houston to Chicago, and the Willis brothers donated their land in 1870 to the railroad.


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Crowdfunding Platform Gives Approval To ICOs
By bitcoinnews December 13, 2017 - 8:37 pm
Crowdfunding giant Indiegogo has given its approval for ICOs to be listed on its platform for the first time, in a move that will provide a significant boost to issuers.
The decision means companies raising capital through ICOs will now be able to access Indiegogo's services for the first time, to utilize to one of the leading online crowdfunding platforms.
Thanks to an arrangement with collaborators MicroVentures, Indiegogo will allow organizations using the blockchain funding model to purchase Simple Agreement for Future Tokens, or SAFTs – a type of instrument that has been used successfully in a number of ICOs to date.
SAFTs allow ICO issuers to sell agreements in the first instance, for delivery of tokens at a later date, and has been used as a more flexible model for raising finance via the blockchain funding model.
According to MicroVentures, some $915,000 has already been raised from an initial listing on the crowdfunding platform, for the Fan Controlled Football League, a self-styled 'disruptive model' for American football.
The launch of an ICO on the platform for the first time is significant, given the prominence of Indiegogo in the crowdfunding space. It follows as the latest innovation at Indiegogo, only a year after a the platform diversified to allow equity funding models to list.
Some commentators have suggested this could be a beneficial move for Indiegogo, in helping establish its platform as a standard solution for those raising capital through ICOs.
ICOs, or initial coin offerings, have exploded in popularity in 2017, raising well in excess of $2 billion. While many have come in for criticism, and the sector drawn warnings from regulators, central banks and governments, the model has proved successful in matching companies with investors and utility tokens.
An Indiegogo spokesperson said the move to accept ICO listings was a natural continuation of their core business.
"For us, this is simply another way of doing what we've been working on for the past decade. … We're ready to become the go-to platform for selling and investing in digital tokens and blockchain-based assets, and we can't wait for you to join us."
Bitcoin, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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From Murder to Verzuz: The Evolution of Gucci Mane and Jeezy's Relationship
Gucci Mane and Jeezy to agree to do a Verzuz battle after Guwop said he wouldn't do it "unless they got a million dollars." But it's actually happening for real and it's a better matchup than the original T.I. and Jeezy battle.
While many fans are excited for the popular virtual series to return, older Hip Hop fans are shook for these two to be in the same building, knowing the deep-rooted beef they share.
This ain't one of them little Internet rap beefs. This bochinche involves multiple diss tracks, physical altercations, a $10K bounty on a chain, and the death of one of Jeezy's homies.
Let's go on a deep dive inside of the evolution of Jeezy and Gucci Mane's relationship.
Young Jeezy and Gucci Mane began their working relationship with the song "Black Tee," which was a flip to Dem Franchise Boyz's hit single, "White Tee." In his autobiography, Gucci compared Jeezy to a "poor man's Trick Daddy," and in true Gucci fashion, he opened doors for his fellow ATLien.
The beef all started over the track "So Icy" which Jeezy wanted his debut album, Thug Motivation 101. But instead, it was on Gucci's Trap House.
"So Icy" went on to peak at No. 46 on Billboard's Hip Hop/R&B charts and had a huge impact in the South. Of course, Jeezy feeling like he missed out was big mad and later claimed that he wasn't even paid for his appearance.
That same month, Jeezy also known as Snow Man at the time, dropped the Gucci diss record called "Stay Strapped" and put a bounty on his chain.
Guwop clearly caught wind of Jeezy's song and quickly responded with the song, "Round 1." Gucci prepared himself for one of Hip Hop's long-standing cold wars when he said, "This is round one of Gucci Mane vs. Jeezy."
Their war of words turned violent shortly after they traded diss tracks.
Gucci was trying to get some cuddy in May 2005 when four men broke into his home and began assaulting him. After they threatened to shoot him, Gucci jumped into survival mode and started shooting first. He ended up hitting Jeezy's man and artist, Pookie Loc, who was found dead at a nearby elementary school.
A warrant was issued for Gucci's arrest and he turned himself in. Murder was the case that they gave him but got off after claiming self-defense.
Gucci accused Jeezy of trying to kill him and spoke about their strained relationship in an old interview.
Even though Pookie Loc was signed to Jeezy's label, he denied having any involvement in the mix-up.
He claimed Gucci was using the situation as leverage to sell his records, but the situation honestly sold itself.
Nine months after being charged with murder, Gucci was acquitted after maintaining that he acted in self-defense and a witness supported his claims. Prosecutors had no evidence of a murder case and let the rapper walk away.
Things were calm for five months after the acquittal until Gucci released "745" from left-field. He continued to defend retaliating against his attackers and continued claiming that Jeezy put the hit out.
Fast forward to the late 2000s mixtape era. DJ Drama was one of the hottest things out and he frequently collaborated with Young Jeezy. But clearly he didn't have any loyalty to him because in 2008 DJ Drama collaborated with Gucci Mane for The Movie Gangster Grillz mixtape.
About four months later at the screening for Notorious, members from Jeezy's crew got into a physical fight with Drama and his company. Jeezy later called the DJ the b-word and a "cornball" in an XXL Magazine.
Quality Control's Coach K was no longer managing Jeezy by 2007, and assisted Gucci with his upcoming project, The State vs. Radric Davis, which went on to be his most successful project at the time.
Tension rebuilt between the two and Jeezy dropped another song called "24, 23" and he took another swipe at Gucci and OJ Da Juiceman.
The following month Gucci graced the cover of XXL for their second annual Hood 2 Hood cover alongside Shawty Lo, OJ, and Soulja Boy. In the cover story, the Atlanta rappers were asked about the possibility of reuniting with their former rivals.
Gucci started off saying he didn't have an answer and acknowledged that beef is bad for business. But made it clear that he's not tryna be "played for no pussy."
Although Jeezy probably wasn't feeling Gucci's new team with members of his old circle, he called a truce in their beef live on DJ Drama's radio show.
Gucci Mane was doing a six-month sentence at Fulton County Jail for a probation violation, but he announced that he'll be collaborating with Jeezy again, and it seemed like things were taking a positive turn.
Until Waka Flocka and Gucci's entourage got into a brawl with Jeezy's crew outside of an Atlanta clothing store. Waka's security discharged weapons during the altercation and Slick Pulla blacked the "Oh Let's Do It" rapper's eye. Gucci or Jeezy weren't present during the incident but there was no talks of their possible collaboration again.
In fact, Gucci backpedaled and said he'd never work with Jeezy again but acknowledged that their beef was squashed on Sway's Rap Fix Live.
A few months after, Jeezy also spoke to Sway and said their feud was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, he secretly had throat surgery and was unable to do a live performance of "So Icey" with Gucci and things went left from there.
It sounds like there's more to the story because why couldn't Jeezy just say he was on bed rest? We'll probably learn more during the Verzuz.
It seemed like their beef was water under the bridge until Gucci appeared on The Breakfast Club and spoke about Rick Ross' altercation with Jeezy at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards.
Jeezy responded days later clowning Gucci for his notorious ice cream face tattoo and called him "retarded."
Gucci hopped in the booth and dropped one of the biggest songs to come out of the beef, "Truth." In the song, Gucci referenced when he killed Pookie Loc in 2005. That same day, La Flare hopped on Twitter and bet $100K that he can beat Jeezy up.
A year later, Gucci Mane's infamous Twitter moment when he called out the "Top 3 pussiest rappers tweeting, "Your Top 3 Pussy ass rappers? Mines? Jeezy, Yo gotti & Tip. No brainer. But there are 100s more….Go… #ww3."
Jeezy didn't respond to the diss track or additional commentary. It sounded like he was ready to move on from his last response. But he did open up about his friend's death on his Church in These Streets album cut, "Forgive Me." He denied any involvement in the incident once again rapping, ""Rest in peace to Pookie Loc, blame it on me never snitching/ Lord knows I ain't send the homie on no dummy mission."
Gucci Mane was released from jail in May 2016 and was in rare form. Some even believe this crazy conspiracy theory that he was cloned. There's no proof that there's any truth to that but he's definitely a new, more calm Gucci.
In an interview, the late Hip Hop podcast pioneer Combat Jack asked Jeezy if he planned to speak to Gucci and he said I'm good luv, enjoy. "Imma tell you like N.O.R.E. I'm just focused on me, man" Jeezy offered. "Me and mine. If it got something to do with that. If it doesn't. honest man I'm grown."
Now it's 2020 and we're bracing for a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. This year has been a movie and Gucci and Jeezy being in the same room is very on-brand for 2020.
We thought we'd never see the day but honestly, with all the constant grieving that the Hip Hop community has been feeling since the year started, it'll do us some good to see two evolved Black powerful figures public move past over a decade of serious beef.
Gucci shared a meme that made fun of Jeezy's friend's death and that got me scared from home. These men got me feeling like I can forgive anybody and I hope you receive it positively as well.
Posted In Feature StoriesTagged In gucci mane, jeezy, verzuz
Nicki Minaj Announces Virtual Celebration in Honor of 'Pink Friday' 10 Year Anniversary
Mo'nique Demands Public Apology From Tyler Perry After Will Smith and Janet Hubert Make Amends


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Home » Crypto job openings surge 395% in a year, with Miami, Austin and Denver emerging as new hubs – MarketWatch
Crypto job openings surge 395% in a year, with Miami, Austin and Denver emerging as new hubs – MarketWatch
The crypto space has been experiencing a hiring frenzy, and the trend likely is set to continue.
Crypto-related job postings in the U.S. surged 395% in 2021 from a year before, a sign of the industry's expansion, according to a recent analysis by LinkedIn. Companies that range from tech giants Meta
+1.66%,
TWTR,
-0.67%,
AMZN,
to Wall Street firms JP Morgan
JPM,
and Fidelity have all posted open spots for crypto talents in 2021.
The growth rate of crypto hiring has outpaced that of the broad tech industry, which saw a 98% increase in job postings in 2021, according to LinkedIn.
Jason Lau, chief operating officer at crypto exchange Okcoin, told MarketWatch that "we're hiring quite a bit. At last count, I think we had something like 50 open positions."
"And it's going to be continued hiring. I can't understate how we and other companies are still trying to expand in this space," Lau said.
Crypto hubs
San Francisco (Bay Area), Austin, New York City, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, and Denver saw the most crypto job postings in 2021, as a variety of crypto companies settled in such cities, LinkedIn told MarketWatch in a follow up.
Miami, host of the annual bitcoin conference, has its own cryptocurrency MiamiCoin, while Austin boasts a vibrant crypto culture. Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York City and a bitcoin enthusiast, vowed to make big apple "the center of the cryptocurrency industry."
In 2020, the top five areas with most crypto job listings were San Francisco (Bay Area), New York City, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area, Greater Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Demand in engineering
Companies have been hiring for engineering roles most aggressively, as job titles containing blockchain developer and blockchain engineer take up 15.6% of the total crypto-related job listings, according to LinkedIn's analysis.
Though the majority of the hiring comes in software and finance roles, other sectors, such as accounting, consulting, staffing and computer hardware also saw demands of crypto talent, the study shows.
Developers that are participating in the creation of Web 3, which enthusiasts refer to as the next generation of Internet, reached an all-time high in January, with more than 18,000 monthly active developers committing code in open source crypto and Web 3 projects, according to a report by crypto venture capital firm Electric Capital. 65% of active developers in Web3 joined in 2021, the report shows.
The average base salary for a blockchain developer in the U.S. is $154,550 per year, higher than the average salary for web developer of $75,073 per year, according to ZipRecruiter.
Hear from these amazing investors and founders on TechCrunch Live this February – TechCrunch
Liz Truss tells voters 'move on' from Partygate as Boris Johnson 'delivered Brexit'
Global Bitcoin-Mining Machine Market recently added in-depth market research to Global Bitcoin-Mining Machine Market – Discovery Sports Media – Discovery Sports Media
Global Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency ATM Market recently added in-depth market research to Global Bit coin and Cryptocurrency ATM Market – Discovery Sports Media – Discovery Sports Media
Dollar Consolidates After Jumping in Line With Bond Yields; GBP Hurt by CPI


The article presents a schedule of events for executives in the chemical industry in 2006. The 10th ICIS-LOR World Base Oils Conference will be conducted in London, England on February 16-17. The 10th Asian Chlor-Alkali Conference organised by ICIS and Tecnon Orbichem will be held in Singapore in June. The 2nd ICIS-LOR Pan-American Base Oils Conference will be held in New York in December.
Reports on the message delivered by Chris Forsdyke of Comstratos before the Tecnon OrbiChem's Petchem 2003 conference. Absence of innovation in the chemical industry; Remarks from Charles Fryer of Tecnon on the issue; Reason for the cost-cutting in the industry.
Cites the prediction of chemical company Tecnon OrbiChem that China is likely to become the world's leading soda-ash producer by end-2003, overtaking the U.S. Production volume of soda-ash in the U.S.; Chinese demand for soda-ash; Total exports of soda-ash by China.
Reports on the decline in demand for acrylic acid in Europe as of August 2005. Views of Tecnon OrbiChem executive Monica Bianchi on the status of acrylic acid market despite the decline in demand; Price per tonne of acrylic acid contracts.


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Filter by region: Central Asia, South of Sahara
Filter by programs: Climate-Resilient Food Systems, Global Health
Central Asia x
Rapid Research Fund for Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks 4matches
Reducing vulnerabilities of West and Central African communities to pandemic threats through a research and capacity strengthening initiative
Recent outbreaks of the highly infectious and dangerous Ebola virus in West and Central Africa underscore the importance of rapid diagnostics and surveillance infrastructure, evidence-driven health communications and community engagement activities, and an effective and well-coordinated emergency response to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable populations in the face of emerging pandemic threats.
Strengthening and scaling up medical simulation-based interventions to save lives in Africa
Neonatal and maternal mortality remain major challenges in sub-Saharan Africa.
Strengthening the ethics of clinical research for participants in Ebola affected countries
As confirmed by the WHO's guidelines on risk communication and community engagement issued for the 2018 Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), research is a critical component to both outbreak control measures and future preparedness activities.
Ebola virus in the DRC and community mental health evaluation, prevention, and psychosocial intervention
This project aims to reduce the risk of Ebola virus infection and the impact of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries and regions affected by the virus.
Improving the response to Ebola crises with improved access to routine health information.
The 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone claimed thousands of lives and cost these countries at least $2 billion in lost GDP.
The Role of Social Cultural and Environmental Factors in Improving Ebola Virus Disease Response and Resilience
The 2013-2015 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) was unprecedented, resulting in more than 11,000 human deaths with an estimated total cost of US$4.
Addressing climate- and water-driven migration and conflict interlinkages to build Community Resilience in the Congo Basin
The Congo Basin holds approximately 40% of African water discharge and is critical to continental and local water security.


1. Go to https://www.visa.go.kr/. The default language is in Korean. You can change it by clicking your desired language in the upper right of the website.
2. Hover to Check Application Status. Then click Check Application Status & Print.
3. Fill up with your info. Click search.
4. Application status will display.


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Business Accelerator Program | Growth for a Purpose
Wednesday 22nd June at 7:00am - 9:00am
Business, Community Organisations
Click here to secure your space
How to start planning now for Succession and Business Sale
Presenters: Andrew Bradley & Brett Buckley
Andrew will cover Family Succession in considerable detail. Specifically, he will investigate…
Opportunities for families to prepare
Hidden factors driving wealth transfer failures
The importance of education
Family "issues" and governance plans
The role of family council
Brett will identify exactly what to look for when you are considering either selling or acquiring a business. Amongst other things, Brett will provide clarity and understanding regarding…
Key systems and procedures
Transferability
Andrew Bradley
Andrew is a Family Office Senior Advisor, Wealth Advisory at William Buck.
A highly experienced executive and financial advisor, Andrew brings invaluable expertise having worked in one of Australia's leading Family Offices.
As a key member of William Buck's bespoke Family Office team, Andrew provides high level advice to select individuals and families with significant assets that require a more sophisticated and tailored approach for managing their assets including investment, philanthropy, family governance and family office advisory services.
His ability to create unique and integrated financial and investment solutions has been honed during a successful career working in various senior roles within family office, accounting firms, private and investment banking as well as broking firms.
Andrew provides clear and actionable advice to his clients which include multi-generational families, entrepreneurs, inheritors of wealth, single family offices, executives, philanthropists, sporting and entertainment identities, and not-for-profit organisations.
It's this premium approach and reputation for reliability that Andrew's clients have come to count on especially during times of economic uncertainty.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Queensland, a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and is an Ambassador for Time for Kids Charity.
Brett Buckley
Brett is the Principal - Ray White Business Sales SA/NT.
He embraces the values and culture developed over 118 years of family ownership. Having a clear focus and a reputation for fair, friendly, and honest dealings, Ray White Business Sales SA/NT has established itself as the industry leader in South Australia. Today, Ray White is the largest real estate business in Australia, selling more than $45 billion worth of property in 2019/20.
Brett Buckley has a long established record of success in leading and managing organisations within the sectors of large private organisations, publicly listed organisations and local government. Further, Brett has experience in managing and leading start-up enterprises and has on three occasions been an owner operator of a small to medium enterprise (SME).
Additionally, Brett has a strong history in mergers and acquisitions in multiple industries and act as a business broker and buyers advocate. His skill sets include developing exit strategies for business owners wanting to maximise outcomes on their business sale. Brett's senior leadership experience spans seven industries over three decades.
Brett's qualifications include a Master of Business Administration (MBA), a Graduate Diploma in Management, Diploma in Property Services, Diploma of Project Management, Diploma of Marketing and is a Certified Practicing Marketer (CPM) and a Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute (FAMI). When combined with well-established leadership experience and commercial acumen, these qualifications have allowed Brett to develop as a very effective business broker and buyers advocate.
The Program consists of seven workshops:
Growth for a Purpose: How to Start Planning Now for Succession and Business Sale
Market-Led Growth: How to Develop New Markets, Customers, Products
Accelerating Sales Growth: Through Customer Service, Account Management, Sales and Business Development
Growth from Marketing; How to Build your Brand, Communications, Social and Digital Media
Growth from Government: How to Win Tenders and Access Grants
People-Led Growth: How to Lead, Recruit, Build Culture and Capability
Systemising Growth: How to build ICT, Operations, Logistics, Supply-Chain and Inventory Systems.
Event code: #EVENT204
Get directions to Stretton Centre
Northern NDIS Provider Networking
Thu 23rd Feb at 5:00pm - 7:00pm
The City of Playford's Stretton Centre in Munno Para has established a series of networking opportunities designed to help NDIS industry professionals share information and connect with like-minded businesses.


Find out the myths and stories associated with Birthstones and Superstitions. There are stories and ancient beliefs for each birthstone that have been passed down through the ages. Here is your guide to what these stories are. Regardless of whether you are superstitious or not, know the qualities associated with each birthstone can be edifying and carry an aesthetic significance.
These birthstones and superstitions are those I have heard so far; there may be many more. Leave a comment if you know of more.


It was February 2004. Lawrence Atlas, the oldest living descendant of King Atlas, Sr. (b. Bet 1809-1810, d. Bet 1891-1892) and the oldest living alumnus of Tuskegee (Institute) University, had died at the age of 97. Family, friends, and colleagues had gathered to say goodbye to this gentle and kind man. I thought I too had gathered to say goodbye to my grand uncle, but I later learned it was the beginning of a interesting genealogical journey.
In 1999, I had started AtlasFamily.Org and until 2004 or so, I had never really peered deeply into genealogy research. Soon, I was bit by the bug and trying to find out as much as I could about any and everyone who was related to the Atlas family. I was lucky to have a cousin and genealogist in the family, Marilyn E.P. White, who mentors me. In the words of my grandmother, she "had the good sense" to have a photographer and videographer at Uncle Lawrence's funeral services. At the time, it seemed odd, but being a decently seasoned researcher now, I am SO GLAD she did that. More on that later.
Marilyn unearthed a treat for me, my mother, and grandmother before we left for the services. In her possession was an old scrapbook that included photos of Uncle Lawrence and his siblings, including my grandmother. These are, to date, the youngest photos I have ever seen of my grandmother, her siblings, and their nieces and nephews. Their childhood home burned in the 1950s and everything was lost, including the family bible. I was able to see Uncle Lawrence as a young man (the picture at left was one of the photos in that album). The photographer cousin Marilyn hired took this three generation photo of my grandmother, mother, and me going through the scrapbook.
Left to right: Grannie, Mom, and Me going through Uncle Lawrence's scrapbook. February 2004.
The services went on without a hitch. Presentations by CA legislators, resolutions, words from attendees. Then, we made our way to Holy Cross Cemetery. While there, a cousin, E.R.Z., took the time to introduce us to another person she believed to be a family member we had never met before.
in February 2004. Leonard is standing off center, second from the right.
resemblance he bared to his second cousin Lawrence.
Through nothing short of genealogical serendipity, cousin E.R.Z. had encountered Leonard Atlas while she was at work based solely on his surname. Let's be honest, how many people do you know with the last name Atlas?!? As they talked, they discovered that they had a grandfather with the exact same name, William Atlas, and that their families were from the same town, Lake Providence, East Carroll, LA. E.R.Z. and Leonard kept in contact and later, she invited him to attend Uncle Lawrence's funeral.
Cousin E.R.Z. introduced us to Leonard while we were at the cemetery. At first, everyone was puzzled by the connection and at the time, no one could make heads or tails of it. Years later, I would discover that Leonard was also direct male descendant of King Atlas, Sr.. Leonard descended from King Sr.'s son William Steven Atlas, Sr. and Uncle Lawrence from King Sr.'s son, King Atlas, Jr. Leonard and Uncle Lawrence were SECOND COUSINS!
Defining a History for William Steven Atlas, Jr.
William Steven Atlas, Jr. was born between 1866-1875 in Carroll/East Carroll Parish, LA to Sarah Hewlett and William Steven Atlas, Sr.
Last, William Jr. married Indice Rudolph on March 3, 1937 in Phillips, AR. (2) There were no known children born to this union.
Between 1919 and 1922, William Jr. left the northeast Louisiana area and migrated to Hornor or what is now West Helena, Phillips, Arkansas. He later died there on February 3, 1938 (2). Due to this migration, family members lost contact and thus had to be reunited nearly 1,800 miles away in California.
"Help me find my brother."
Following the funeral, I was able to have several conversations with cousin Leonard about what he knew about our family history. One of the things he always told me was that he wanted me to help him find his brother Jesse. At first, I told Leonard that he had died in Chicago in 1927. He was adamant that I was wrong and that he didn't die at just two years of age.
He then relayed to me that he had a brother named Jesse who was younger than him, but was adopted by another family following the death of their mother during Jesse's childbirth. He knew his exact birth date. Aha, this would definitely be the reason why Jesse is not enumerated on the 1930 US Census (3, left) with Leonard and the rest of the family.
Leonard went on to say that Jesse had been adopted by Morris Sisson, the woman who had delivered him, and that he believed he may have taken her surname instead of the Atlas surname. From there, I searched the 1930 US Census for Jesse and found him listed as the adopted son of Morris and her husband, T.L. (4) I searched the SSDI over and over and had no viable leads. US Public Records, nada.
Unfortunately, by the time the 1940 US Census was released, Leonard had passed away. I didn't forget my promise to him though. I found Jesse still living in Phillips County, AR, only this time, he was going by the surname Atlas and not Sisson.(5) He was 14 years old. This was the last record I found for Jessie.
Let's Take a Trip to Helena!
With no other leads online, the next logical step was to take a gander at microfilm or take a trip to Phillips County, AR to see if I could find anything on Jesse. Luckily, I now lived only two hours drive from there. So, in September 2014, I took a trip to see if I could successfully locate Jesse.
marriage of William Jr. to Indice Rudolph.
info on Jesse and his whereabouts.
on the cost of copies in the long run.
I started my search at the Phillips County courthouse and came up empty handed when it came to new information. There was nothing on Jesse at all when it came to marriages, deeds/conveyances, court cases...you name it, I asked about it and searched it with both clerks. I imagine that this is an issue with anyone who has family who were not land owners or firmly established in a community. On a positive note, I did see the actual marriage license instead of just an index record for William Jr.'s marriage to his last wife and was able to add that as a source to our database.
As with all other research trips, the next logical step is to head to the county library or a local genealogical or historical society to see if they have any information. The county clerk notified me of a local society and told me that they had done a fair amount of work on African American genealogy in the area. Next, I drove to Marvell, AR to visit the Tri-County Genealogical Society.
Tri-County Genealogical Society Building, Marvell, AR.
Inside the Tri-County Genealogical Society in Marvell, AR.
With the help of one of the members/volunteers named Ms. Carrie, I was able to locate a book of burials in the county entitled Phillips County Cemetery Transcriptions by Carla Robinson. This book held transcriptions of African American burials in the area from various sources but mostly African American funeral home records in the area and canvassing of African American cemeteries. While it contained a notation for William Jr., there was nothing for Jesse. Rats! Regardless, the book is an excellent resource for those researching African American genealogy in Phillips County.
Next, I headed to the county library to see if there was a glimmer of hope there. Again, absolutely nothing.
While I have to admit it was disappointing not to find anything on Jesse, the trip and my efforts weren't a lost cause.
In this world we live in, we often want things to happen quickly or without delay. I've learned in my years of genealogy that most of the time this doesn't happen. It can take years to get just a single fact or add a single name to a branch of a family tree. The negative part is not in all the time it took, but it's in the very act of NOT making the effort to find the information that lead to discovering that single name. Our team can now stand on the fact that we did make an effort to find Jesse, and while we didn't find him now, eventually we will. Hopefully this post will aid in our efforts.
Phillips County, AR public library.
Madison Parish, LA Marriage Books, 1898-1900, Atlas, William to Elnora Doan, February 14, 1900. FHL Film # 311941.
"Arkansas, County Marriages, 1837-1957," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/N9M3-1MH : accessed 09 Sep 2014), Will Atlas and India Rudolph, 03 Mar 1937; citing , Phillips, Arkansas, United States; FHL microfilm 1002891.
"Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VJRK-CFX : accessed 16 Sep 2014), William Atlas, 03 Feb 1938; derived from "Arkansas, Death Index, 1914-1950," index and images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 2005); a multigenerational derivative citing Division of Vital Records, Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950 (Arkansas: Arkansas Genealogical Society).
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XMGM-FM4 : accessed 01 Oct 2014), Leonard Atlas in household of Wm Atlas, Hornor, Phillips, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0013, sheet 3B, family 66, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 87.
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XMGM-SWQ : accessed 01 Oct 2014), Jesse Sisson in household of T L Sisson, Hornor, Phillips, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0013, sheet 2A, family 35, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 87.
"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KQKG-FQZ : accessed 21 Jul 2014), Jessie Atlas in household of Liddel Cottrel, Hornor Township, Phillips, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 54-13, sheet 4A, family 2, NARA digital publication of T627, roll 160.


Alloy Wheels-7Jx17in 8 Spoke 205/40 R17, Frozen White Paint, Alarm, Heated Front Screen, ABS, Emergency Brake Assist, Air Conditioning - Manual, Bluetooth Hands Free Phone, Body Coloured Bumpers, Electrically - Operated Front Windows with One Shot Touch Up/Down, Electrically - Operated/Heated Door Mirrors with Integrated Side Indicators, Perimeter Alarm, Quickclear Heated Windscreen, Radio/CD, MP3 Compatible, Ford SYNC, Multi - Functional Matrix Display, AUX / USB Connection, Rake and Reach Adjustable Steering Column, Sports - Style Front Seats, Trip Computer, Upholstery Cloth, Voice Control System with Ford Emergency Assist.
Voice Control System with Ford Emergency Assist.
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INSIGHTS ON IVOR
Part Twenty Four
The year of 1951 also saw the Peak District being designated as Britain 's first National Park. This was followed in the same year by the Lake District and Snowdon receiving National Park status. The man who bought Radar – Radio, Detection and Ranging - to the world, Sir Robert Watson-Watt was, quite rightly, awarded fifty thousand pounds in 1951 by a grateful Government. The whole world owes a massive debt to this Scotsman born 1892 in Brechin and died 1973 in Inverness .
This was also the year when the Government abolished Identity Cards which for security reason had been introduced at the outbreak of the war in 1939. Cheese rationing was cut to one ounce per person per week but Tea rationing ended much to the delight of the whole nation. On July 5th Central London 's last tram made its final journey from Woolwich to New Cross. I remember when as a small boy, being taken by my parents, on the trams when visiting my Mothers sister and family in Peckham. Tram riding was a big novelty for me and my brothers on this noisy but reliable mode of transport.
A shock came when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskill, announced there would be a Prescription charge for Dentures and Spectacles. This charge, which was in contradiction of the National Health pledge of free medical treatment, was said to be due to the financial demands relevant at the time. This surprise act upset Aneurin Bevan, the man who introduced the National Health Service in 1948, so much that he resigned his post as Minister of Labour in protest.
Meanwhile in London's West End Agatha Christie's play 'The Mousetrap' starring husband and wife team Richard Attenborough (later Lord Attenborough – 1923-2014) and Sheila Sim (1922-2016) opened at the Ambassadors theatre on November 25th1951 It switched to St. Martin's theatre in 1974. Now, in 2017 over 66 years later, it is still running at St. Martins London, obviously not with the same actors and certainly not with the same cheese!
The next year, 1952 started with a shock when on February 6th King George VI died peacefully in his sleep. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip quickly returned from their holiday in Kenya . The much loved King, who reluctantly became King when his brother King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, was King throughout the Second World War, died from lung cancer aged 56 lay in state in Westminster Hall where thousands of the general public paid their respects. He was buried on February 15th in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle .
On March 28th 1952 the RAF decided the country could manage without me and I was duly released from my two years National Service and returned to Civvy Street .
My parents were delighted and somewhat proud of the fact that all of their five children had served the country in the armed forces. My father had of course served in the Army throughout the First World War and somehow survived the horrors of the Western front. My eldest brother Bert was next, serving with the Eighth Army at El Alamein in the Middle East in World War Two, my Sister Lily joined the ATS and helped defend London by assisting on the Ack Ack guns, also throughout WW2, my next brother Bernard, who as a member of the Parachute Regiment was sent to Palestine during the troubles there in 1947, my brother David, who despite hating most of his time in the Army, at least did his National Service duty and lastly it was my turn to leave mother and home to complete the circle. Lily, David and I were lucky in so much as at least we didn't get sent overseas to a war zone although I was extremely lucky not to be sent to Korea . I remember my Dad saying no one could say our family hadn't done their bit.
It was a bitter sweet moment when I was demobbed and had to leave all my friends at Northwood. You meet so many different characters and personalities, men and women from all sorts of backgrounds, with different standards and opinions, some not compatible with yours but others completely in harmony with your views. Of course this then makes it all the harder to say goodbye but there are many who you never really forget.
After a brief time at home I returned to my old job, shoe repairing at the Express Shoe Repairs shop in Greenford. I found it difficult to settle back to this life again. My experience was nothing compared to thousands, even millions of those who had been away fighting overseas, many coming home traumatized with injuries, physical and mental, from their experiences whether on battlefields or as prisoners of war. The hardships and agonies they and their families endured trying to readjust to their earlier lifestyle, had become something foreign and never to be quite the same again. It certainly made me realise how lucky I was. After a few weeks at the shop I spoke to my boss and told him how I felt. He said he fully understood my feelings and wouldn't try to dissuade me if I wanted to leave. He wished me luck for the future and I left the world of cobbling behind, although I must say my ability to repair shoes was useful in my early days of marriage when money was a bit tight.
The latter part of 1952 bought a series of disasters in Britain . In August the people of Devon suffered when heavy rain broke the banks of East and West Lyn rivers. The flood water hit the resort of Lynmouth killing 36 people and forcing many others to leave their homes. The next month another tragedy struck when 28 spectators died when a prototype jet plane crashed at the Farnborough Air Show. As if that wasn't enough the agony continued in October when 102 people died as a Perth to London express and a northbound train from Euston crashed into a stationary commuter train at Harrow and Wealdstone station. Finally in December we were subjected to dense fog which enveloped London . This 'smog' as it was called only lasted a few days but it was estimated that its noxious poisonous fumes indirectly killed around 4000 people, particularly the elderly.
---End of Part Twenty Four —


Best Buy was my last stop, I checked a few other places at the strip mall first...but they only had the kind with loose caps or in inconvenient styled units.
I had checked their website before visiting the store...and saw there would be three likely choices....the SanDisk Cruzer Titanium, SanDisk Cruzer Micro and Geek Squad. With the Titanium and Geek Squad ones topping out at 1GB, and the Micro being available up to 4GB. Though I was also looking for one under $100. So, it seemed I'd have to settle for 1GB.
At first I was scratching my head, wondering if it would be enough. Seems strange to think of that as a little space, when in the old days it was difficult to imagine having that much space. Had to remember that the files I wanted to store were measured in MB and the storage device I was looking at was in GB. Then, I felt reasonably sure that my short term needs could be met.
Later in the store, I couldn't locate the SanDisk Cruzer Titanium, but easily found the other two models. Though at first I couldn't locate the price for the SanDisk Cruzer Micro. But, when I did....I discovered that a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro was less than a 1GB Geek Squad unit, while the 4GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro was about 3 times the price of the 2GB one. (even more if you factored in that there was a $20 mail-in rebate, though I don't). Not sure why they would price a huge difference between doubling capacity, but I guess that's normal.
There are 18 years 8 months 29 days 5 hours 51 minutes and 11 seconds until the end of time.
And, it has been 6 years 3 months 29 days 8 hours 11 minutes and 45 seconds since The Doctor saved us all from the end of the World!


Learn more about Tennessee Craft .
Tennessee Craft champions the local fine craft movement by supporting growth and creative expression for all artists, building a platform for high-quality craftsmanship and reinforcing the importance of fine craft for the entire community. As a nonprofit, we rely on the help of our talented members, supportive donors, committed sponsors and selfless volunteers to serve creators and the community.
We take pride in Tennessee's craft heritage. Since 1965 we have preserved and advanced the rich history and tradition of Tennessee craft. Grounded in our state's handmade heritage, we offer multiple stages for today's makers to showcase their work to those engaged in the fine arts community. One-of-a-kind work shines at our spring and fall Craft Fairs, Biennial Exhibitions showcasing the best of Tennessee Craft, community demonstrations, professional development workshops, the Master Artist Apprentice Program and more.
Tennessee Craft is the premiere statewide resource for artists, businesses and the public to connect, form lasting relationships and identify opportunities to deliver Tennessee's fine craft pieces from a maker's hands to a patron's home. We encourage strong relationships between our members, offering opportunities for connection, mentorship and reunion throughout the year.
Tennessee Craft welcomes a range of talent to join our community—from hobbyists to master makers. We welcome individuals to develop their craft. There are many benefits associated with a Tennessee Craft membership and we welcome new members throughout the year. Patrons and collectors support our work as donors and volunteers. Whether a maker or supporter, we look forward to your participation in our community.


The designers of the Urban Life Building, like all self respecting Americans, had a robust disdain for aerobic activities. Hence the fact that the law school's upper floors are only accessible via elevator. This revolutionary feature is exceedingly convenient when exiting a 6th floor lecture hall with 90 of your closest friends. Pro tip: There is a semi-secret staircase connecting the first and second floors by the career services office.
If you have not noticed go check out one of the numerous bathrooms that call the Urban Life Building their domicile. Not only is the decor cold war chic, but also the acoustics are redolent of Atlanta Symphony Hall. Additionally, the bathrooms in the Urban Life Building make it easier to get closer to your classmates (physically at least) when navigating their narrow thoroughfares. Pro tip: I am pretty sure the sixth floor men's bathroom is haunted by a friendly ghost.
Probably the best features of the Urban Life Building are the random black holes that renders that device on which you play Candy Crush useless. This is especially helpful when you need a little extra motivation to pay attention in Civ Pro, or when you're seeking isolation on the second floor of the library from you non law school friends (who will never understand what you're going through).
There you have it, a short and rather incomplete list of the parts of the Urban Life Building I will miss the most. Luckily, there is still time to enjoy the idiosyncrasies. Comment below and tell me what you like about the Urban Life Building!


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San Miniato Free Original Walking Tour
Piazza del Duomo, 56028 San Miniato PI, Italy
Discover San Miniato, a charming hilltop town near Arno and between Florence and Pisa that has fought for it for centuries. Famous for the region's typical delicious white truffle, its origins date back to Etruscan-Roman times. Many important figures such as Frederic Barbarossa and Pope Gregory V. stayed in the castle for centuries.
San Miniato is a village in the Tuscan hills that is crossed by the Via Francigena and offers a stunning view of the surrounding area. This tour will take you on a walk through the historic center, full of history and curiosities, with a local Authorized Guide. The tour will begin in Piazza Dante with the Bucalossi Gardens, then proceed to the center, where there is the Loggetta del Fondo, Piazza del Seminario, Piazza del Duomo, the Duomo and the Second World War mine, the Garden of the Rocca, we will continue with a short stop to see the truffle, Piazza San Domenico, Cloisters of San Domenico, and Vicolo carbonaio with a breathtaking view of the San Miniato countryside.
Explore all that San Miniato has to offer, including its most significant and evocative sites
Visit the region's typical delicious white truffle, and learn about its origins date back to Etruscan-Roman times
Get to know significant figures such as Frederic Barbarossa and Pope Gregory V. who stayed in the castle for centuries
Witness San Miniato's the truffle, Piazza San Domenico, Cloisters of San Domenico, and Vicolo carbonaio
The Original Turin Free Walking Tour includes the city's most important and evocative sites, such as the Piazza Dante with the Bucalossi Gardens, then proceed to the center, where there is the Loggetta del Fondo, Piazza del Seminario, Piazza del Duomo, the Duomo and the Second World War mine, and the Garden of the Rocca. We will continue with a short stop to see the truffle, Piazza San Domenico, Cloisters of San Domenico, and Vicolo carbonaio with a breathtaking view of the San Miniato countryside.
✔ Professional guide
✘ Gratuities
✘ Food and drinks, unless specified
Departure Point: Piazza del Duomo, 56028 San Miniato PI, Italy
Return Details: Piazza del Duomo, 56028 San Miniato PI, Italy
Take a step back in time as you explore San Miniato's many layers of history, including visits to the city's most important and evocative sites, such as the Piazza Dante with the Bucalossi Gardens, then proceed to the center, where there is the Loggetta del Fondo, Piazza del Seminario, Piazza del Duomo, the Duomo and the Second World War mine, and the Garden of the Rocca. Begin your day by meeting your guide at Piazza del Duomo. Listen to an introductory overview of San Miniato's history and culture. We will continue with a short stop to see the truffle, Piazza San Domenico, Cloisters of San Domenico, and Vicolo carbonaio with a breathtaking view of the San Miniato countryside.
This experience requires good weather. If the tour is canceled because of poor weather, you'll be offered or you can also choose a different date.
This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. If the tour is canceled because the minimum numbers of participants aren't met, you'll be offered or you can also choose a different date.
Unfortunately we are closed at selected hours. Try different please.


In episode #856, we discuss how to create a marketing plan for 2019. Tune in to hear what things you should think about to help you create a plan.
[00:48] Traction is a great resource to use and live by.
[01;05] Use each quarter to plan for the next one.
[01:55] Use Zoom to meet with your remote team.
[02:10] Scale up everything that worked.
[02:35] Think about how to increase lifetime value of customers.
[03:45] Think about something extreme you can do.
[03:53] Take something that is working and double down on it.
[04:07] Think about what to eliminate.
[04:31] What ideas can you use from other industries and apply it to your business?
[04:56] What can you steal from competitors?
[05:12] That's it for today!
[05:49] Go here to see how many downloads the show is getting. Also rate and review to help us meet our goal of 1 Million downloads per month. Hopefully, we'll see you at the live event in L.A.!


Drying mining equipment also called flour dryer is widely used in the industries of building construction, metallurgy, chemical and cement, which is applied to dry the materials such as limestone, pulverized coal, slag and clay.
The drying equipment which is also named drying machine is made up of body of revolution, material plate, driving device, supporting device and sealing ring. The advantages of the flour dryer are the following such as the simple structure, easy operation, low cost and large output.


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With the movie that came out last fall, Tintin has become a popular character here in the U.S., but he's not new like many people think. In fact, Tintin's first appearance, in the comic section of a French newspaper, was in 1929. That makes Tintin just a year younger than Mickey Mouse, five years older than Donald Duck, and nine years older than Superman and Bugs Bunny. Just for good measure, that also makes Tintin old enough to be Charlie Brown's dad (debuted in 1950), and Calvin's (from Calvin and Hobbes) grandfather (Calving started in 1985).
Actually, the animated movie that everyone reading this should see, is the 6th Tintin story to be released as a movie. The other ones aren't very good, and aren't in English, so I can't recommend them.
I was first introduced to Tintin almost by mistake. I run a program called Minooka TAP, a group of teachers that takes 8th grade student on summer trips to foreign countries to study history and culture. We prepare each group for almost two years before we actually travel, and a lot of that prep work is done by reading all sorts of stories, poems, articles, and websites to get an much information crammed into our brains as we can. Last year, our group traveled to Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, and Morocco. We read some books set in each of those countries, but I was having a hard time finding anything set in Morocco. Finally, I found a book called The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws. Part of that story took its hero, Tintin, through a marketplace in Morocco as part of a wild chase scene. Since we were going to spend some time in one of those marketplaces (a medina) and the book had some great illustrations of one, I bought it.
That day in Morocco was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, but I felt a little better prepared, because of Tintin. On top of that, it was a fun, action packed story (with a lot of comedy thrown in).
I've been meaning to read more Tintin books (there are 24 all together) ever since, but I finally found some time to this week.
The first one I read, Tintin in America wasn't great. It was different from the other Tintin book I read, but I couldn't quite figure out why. Then I realized that a lot of supporting characters that I loved were missing. This was only the third Tintin book, so the author, Herge, hadn't figured everything out quite yet. On top of that, all the American characters were kind of stereotypes and a little racist. There was a Chicago gangster, a tribe of Native Americans, and an evil businessman. Also, the story felt disconnected, as if a whole bunch of unrelated things kept happening to Tintin and they didn't fit together. If you like Tintin a lot, I recommend it, because you can catch glimpses of who the character became, but if you're not a big fan, just skip the early books.
Next, I read Cigars of the Pharaoh, which I liked a lot more. It was full of action, and introduced some of the characters like Thomson and Thompson, that became regulars throughout the rest of the series. You can tell that Herge did a lot of research on the settings (India and Egypt) to make the story as realistic as possible. This one is a lot of fun.
That story continues into The Blue Lotus, which is set during a time right before WWII, when Japan was trying to take control of China. Tintin finds himself in the middle of some political problems between the Japanese and Chinese. Some of the bad guys from Cigars of the Pharaoh carry over into this book too. I really enjoyed most of this book. It's only 62 pages, but that's a little to long for the story. I enjoyed the first 50 pages and the last 3 pages a lot. There were about 10 pages there near the end that just didn't work for me. Overall, thought, it's well worth reading.
I've already reserved the next three Tintin books at my local library.
These three books put me at 27 books for the summer. I'm trying to read 90 books in the 90 days of vacation.
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Categories : 90 books in 90 days, graphic novels


WELCOME TO THE SECOND EDITION OF SOPHIE'S MUSIC CLUB!
On August 6, 2012, Curiosity, the largest Mars rover ever launched landed on Mars assisted by a rocket powered sky crane for the first time in history. Man has demonstrated his curiosity of the Red Planet through film, cartoons, books and of course, music. This month release your inner martian by listening to the music list below titled, MUSIC AND...MARS.
On the first day of each month 5 pieces connecting music to a part of our lives will be suggested on a listening list.
This month's music has been added to our very own AltoProductionsAus channel on YouTube.
So share your thoughts on YouTube or join us and comment on Facebook.
All these years I thought this work was about planets. Turns out it was, but from an astrological perspective, rather than solely from an astronomical one. Back in 1914 -1916 while Holst was composing this piece, he was reading the book, What is a Horoscope? Turns out he himself was a Virgo. This movement evokes Mars' astrological identity traits of confidence, self-assertion, energy, strength, stamina and passionate impulsiveness through the massive scoring of brass and militarian rhythmic figures heard on the snare drum. The repetition of the percussion motive is unrelenting. Not to mention the ending, which sounds like an aggressive climax of death. Scary stuff.
My sincerest apology to Holst; he evidently disliked incomplete performances of The Planets.
When I hear the name, Vangelis, an image of running in slow motion on a beach suddenly appears in my head and the electronic sounds of Chariots of Fire suddenly fill my ears. The problem is, that music will often continue to fill my ears, invading my sleep at 2am, as I suspect it will tonight, now that I've been thinking about it. I didn't know Mythodea at all. Clearly the history of this piece reflects how everything at NASA is about planning for the long term. The piece was composed for the launch of 2001 Mars Odyssey, which is a robotic space craft designed to orbit Mars. But Mythodea premiered in 1993. Mars Odyssey was launched from Earth on April 7, 2001. The opening is eerie and lingers in the one realm of sound, transporting us into the calm stillness of space. Then towering over the orchestra enters the stunning sound of the human voice.
"Mars aint the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it's cold as hell"
Bernie Taupin's lyrics of this song communicate the inner thoughts of a human being pursuing one of our world's newest professions. The empathy we feel for the down to Earth feelings of someone who we perceive as fearless and strong, is reflected perfectly in the music and lyrics. I do wonder how long it will be before man will land on Mars, and, who will compose a song about it.
Well I did say there would often be one song always from a lateral perspective on the month's topic- well this is it!
If it's true according to Christopher Guest in Red, White and Blaine (see Waiting for Guffman reference in this month's blog article) that Nothing Ever Happens on Mars, then Curiosity can afford to be as lazy as he likes. Truth is, I love this song.
The song, Rocket Man, makes me think of Neil Armstrong who passed away on 25 August. This man represented true courage, bravery and sacrifice to me. I was stunned to find out that as a child he suffered from motion sickness! Isn't this normally the reason why people avoid pursuits such as flying, especially into space? Anyway when I look at the Moon, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be on the Moon, looking back at the Earth. Surely, life would never be the same again.
I remember the news bulletin back in May, about an Australian accountant achieving the impossible, by securing an interview with the astronaut turned recluse, Neil Armstrong. Armstrong's words are music to my ears. Don't miss the thoughts and words of this incredible human being. Thanks Neil. RIP.
This month share your thoughts and suggest your favourite music related to Mars.
To read more about Music and...Mars, visit http://www.altoproductions.com.au/blog/thoughts-and-philosophies-on-life-and-music for this month's blog edition.


How important is brushing and flossing?
Dental exams give us the opportunity to evaluate your current methods of dental care and provide suggestions for future care in order to protect you from complications such as cavities, gum disease and broken teeth. They also allow us to detect problems early so they can be fixed quickly and easily. We also do a thorough oral cancer screening exam, as well as checking the health of your jaw's joints and muscles. Finally, we use a digital intraoral camera to educate you further about your dental health.
What can I expect from a dental hygiene appointment?
At a typical hygiene appointment, our team will thoroughly clean your teeth, removing any surface stains or deposits, called tartar or calculus, that are more difficult to remove than plaque and require the assistance of professional dental instruments. We will also check for signs of decay or gum disease. An X-ray may be performed to provide a more detailed summary of your oral health and to more closely identify any problems. We will ask you questions about your current methods of dental care, such as how often you brush your teeth, and floss, as well as whether you use a toothpaste with fluoride. With this information in mind, we will demonstrate proper dental care and provide suggestions on how to improve your habits to promote optimal oral health.
We also routinely screen your blood pressure at every hygiene appointment.
How can you prepare for a dental hygiene appointment?
The best way to prepare for this appointment is to practice good dental care. Brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing at least once a day is recommended. Be sure to clean your teeth before you arrive at your appointment. Our team will be cleaning your teeth for you, but it is helpful to remove food and plaque beforehand so we can focus on the more difficult-to-clean areas. You also want to make sure you are prepared to share pertinent information such as your medical history, insurance coverage and current dental care methods with us. Don't be embarrassed to be honest about your oral health habits – our team is not here to judge you, but to work with you to improve your habits and ensure dental health! Lastly, be prepared to schedule a follow-up appointment or future check-up at the end of your dental exam.
For more information about Marigold Family Dentistry or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Hoekstra, call our office in Holland, MI at Marigold Family Dentistry Phone Number 616-288-4777.