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[IC] Confessions {Sihphae & illirica}
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Post by Sihphae » Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:47 pm
At the other side of the lavish estate, down a winding path of crinkled leaves and mangled branches, was a dreary, old hamlet and a smelly market street in the midst of it, seemingly out of place for the wood that had built the stalls and the shops was young. He'd allowed for Cantrill to tread the ground first, he'd spied him approaching the town's artificer. There was good sense in him in preparing for what may come next, he thought, but there was no time to ogle after him. He had a feeling Islesbury's thief predicament had a bit of a story behind it and he had some inclinations towards digging it up. Although, at the moment, his inclinations craved some ale. Any good gossip eventually strayed into the local tavern, after all.
Past the half-empty fruit stalls plagued by rot and fruit flies, merchants who'd opened their poorly supplied carts, a handful of people skittering about their faces heavy with brood and toil, urchins plotting after an apple or two, beggars urging the passers-by for a wee bit of clinking compassion, was a shabby-looking tavern with a half-hinged sign hanging above the door. 'The Belching Boar'.
"The names keep gettin' more cloddish," he remarked pushing the door open as a pungent smell flared up his nostrils. The smell was worse inside – the 'boar' did more than just belch. He spied a young boy mopping the corner floor covered in vomit. The interior of the tavern was a single large room with fires burning on either end, the floors hardwood and the walls covered in white plaster. In the middle of the wall farthest from the door was the bar tended by a lone woman, aged and brooding like the rest of the townsfolk but with a stern look and a furrowed forehead. There weren't many patrons around, a group of men skulking in the corner drinking away whatever sorrows plagued them.
Arhan placed himself at the bar reluctantly having been given the stink eye by the barmaid as soon as she spotted him. She still, however, asked after what he wanted to drink.
"Whatever's the crappiest," he shot at it, grinning. As she was pouring him their stinkiest, warmest ale, she was kind enough to point out that the inn next door wasn't providing overnight lodging for travelers, signaling all too well that he wasn't wanted. He told her he wasn't planning on sticking around, but she was hardly convinced. When he told her he was there to help, she burst out laughing.
"What could a washed up brat like ye do fer us?" She said, arching her hip aggressively as she placed her fist on it. He told her he was a snake-charmer, a travelling jester, an ale-tester. She laughed harder at each attempt, less and less derisively. "There ain't no savin' this town." She remarked once the laughter had subsided. She spoke of poverty, apathy, how their latest problem, the thief, was just that… the latest, but when he tried to pry open that topic, she simply poured him some more ale and focused on rearranging the shelves.
Meanwhile, the group of men in the corner had grown livelier once they'd liquored up. They were playing some card game Arhan was unfamiliar with but having expressed genuine interest, hoping the ale hadn't made them violent just yet, only chatty, they offered to show him the ropes. They were ordinary folk. One said he was a miller, others were farmers, and one said he was a fisherman. One of them, however, said he was nothing. The look in his eyes said the same thing. Arhan noticed some scarred skin below his neck, running down his right arm. He was burned, he concluded, recalling that one of the three women he'd seen in the mansion had looked similar, but it was her face that had been scarred.
When Arhan asked him what was keeping his spirits down, the man merely grumbled but the lot around them laughed and told him to cheer up. They mentioned a fire that had burnt down the old town square and marketplace, how the man had barely been pulled out of it having been crazy enough to jump in to save his goods. The man's scowl deepened and he chugged down on the last of his drink and left their company. Arhan thought he was disapproving of the story but when he wanted to sneak away and ask him himself, he was pulled into another round of the confusing card game, losing three times but earning some complementary ale just for participating. They had told him of the fire, how no one knew how it had started, and that at some point the Knights had strolled into town to investigate, called upon by the Lord, but soon enough, all talk had stopped and people were discouraged from wondering what it could have been. Most of them then agreed that it had to have been accidental. But when Arhan asked if anything else as strange had happened, they went back to beating his ass at cards.
He wanted to continue the fun, but he knew if he had any more, he wouldn't be able to pass the next day headache-free. So, feeling woozy and definitely a few steps away from wasted, he left the tavern noticing only then that midday had already long passed. Night would come soon.
As the street vendors and shop owners were preparing to close down for the day, Arhan nonchalantly picked after what wasn't in their line of sight. He'd got some fresh and dried fruits, dried macarel, some stale bread, and a bottle of something questionable he intended to share with his companion and headed for the shed where Cantrill would surely think Arhan had been idling at the tavern all day judging by the smell of alcohol that was wafting after him.
When he entered the shed, he almost tripped over his own feet, but he smiled it away.
"Monster-slayer, ye in?" he exclaimed, "I come bearin' gifts!"
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Post by illirica » Tue Jun 02, 2020 6:11 pm
The smell arrived first. There was nothing quite like the pungent reek of too much bad ale. It drifted around barriers, seeping through cracks with a resolution more mighty than any of the gods' own warriors. Arhan's voice arrived next, equally tainted, boisterous and overbearing and far too excited for all the wrong reasons. He'd nearly tripped over his own decisions at the doorway.
Cantrill sighed, getting up from the blanket where he'd been sitting, oiling his blades with care - even the cheap pot-metal ones he'd picked up for emergencies. If anything, a bad blade needed more care than a good one. The blades didn't need any more care than he'd already given them - indeed, they'd not needed more care for about the past hour, but there was a certain meditative quality to doing the same repetitive tasks over and over that Cantrill found settled his mind, especially at times like these, when battle was likely on the horizon.
He only wished he knew which horizon it would appear upon.
He didn't bother asking Arhan where he'd been - there was no need to. The scent of it was a more honest answer than the man was likely to give, in any case. It would have only been wasted words. Let him talk, if he felt like talking. Cantrill moved to stow the weaponry, taking care that as much of it as possible would be within arm's reach. He didn't trust the night to see them through. While he thought Islebury would make his move later, upon their return, it was still possible that the Lord would have decided these two were more trouble than they were worth, and arrange an accident so he could hire someone more to his liking.
Of course, if Islebury wanted people to his liking, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to choose them in the first place.
Cantrill gave his erstwhile partner a look up in down, judgmental in the way only the gods' own followers could manage. For all the evident drinking, it seemed that Arhan had at least managed to acquire some small contribution to their supplies. Cantrill stowed the last of the blades and unwound enough to offer what might have been half a smile, with the right incentive. "What ales you?"
No doubt his wit would go unappreciated. Men like him weren't hired for the edge upon their tongues.
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Post by Sihphae » Tue Jul 14, 2020 9:48 pm
He wasn't a known sot or a winebibber although he often found comfort in the wooziness of bad ale. It was, after all, the drink of the petty and he felt petty as such as of late. The stench that wafted around him didn't invite any inquiries past the usual drunkard remarks and for a thief that was the best kind of invisibility. He welcomed it.
The shed was poorly built and poorly lit. It smelled of hay, dung, and burnt candle. He shuffled across the uneven ground to a straw mattress in the corner dropping the provisions he'd swiped on it. He noticed that Cantrill had been more than preparing for tomorrow's quest and realized that perhaps he was coming across as too leisurely. He plopped down on the uncomfortable bedding and groaned in relief. Cantrill's half-hearted wordplay made him breathe out a light chuckle. He thought he ought to be more worried about tomorrow's crusade – twas how the Lord had made it seem – for he had been feeling much too at ease even before the few cups of ale he'd chugged down. But he knew once he was faced with the task, his mind would set on it and the feelings of worry as well as thrill would kick in.
"I thin' sum locals jus' swindled me outta few coppers." he hiccoughed, swallowing the consonants hurriedly, ending in laughter. "Thought I'd played 'em cards before," he murmured to himself, standing up to sit cross-legged, tilting his head Cantrill's way as he reached for the bottle of questionable content he'd brought with him, casually tossing it over to him.
"Are ye a bettin' man?" He grinned as he posed the question, adding, "I dunno whut it is," he nodded at the bottle, "but if ye chug it down, I'll throw sum coppers yer way too." Needless to say, Arhan was a betting man – he liked to take risks. The bottle was plain, square-shaped, dark glass, with a half torn, half burnt label the words on which weren't of their tongue. There could be ale inside of it, there could be poison, there could be something sweet or something bitter… there was only one way to tell.
Post by illirica » Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:47 pm
Arhan managed to find his way to a bedroll without the help of a map, which was more than Cantrill had been prepared to give him credit for. The fact that the man managed to sit up once more was another surprise - he was made of sterner stuff than he seemed to be. His regaling of his escapades, on the other hand, was no surprise at all... but the bottle he tossed over was a curiosity, and Cantrill caught it with the natural grace of someone used to being fully aware of his surroundings, and what was happening in them.
"A betting man?" Cantrill inquired, holding up the square bottle and looking it over. If there were any indications of its contents, they weren't immediately discernable to him, not even when he held the bottle to the light. "No, I'm not a betting man, Arhan." His hand moved before the bottle, a gesture that was obviously a benediction, or an invocation.
"I am-" he began to add, popping the stopper from the top, and holding the bottle up in salute - not to Arhan, but to the heavens. "-A man of faith." He placed the bottle to his lips and threw his head back, drinking off a generous swallow and letting it find its way down before speaking once more. "And the gods are known to work in mysterious ways."
He held the bottle out to his companion. "Want some? Tastes like shit."
Post by Sihphae » Mon Jul 20, 2020 12:13 am
The tightly-fit, straw-riddled shed was in a twirl, he was certain, the few blurred candle lights burst into many. Everything was twofold now even the men before him who both managed to catch the bottle with trained facility. It had been a giddy sit up. He had to blink several times to make one Cantrill go away and to grab firmly onto the hard bedding to force the room to stop making him feel so sickish. But the man's talk of faith was making it difficult keeping down the ale. He was an uncomfortable believer, but a believer nonetheless.
"Pres—presuming," he struggled with the word, slurring the syllables. "they like ye." His grin widened. When he reached for the bottle, for there wasn't a chance he'd refuse a swig, the blood rushed to his head and he lost his footing, falling to the side onto a bale of hay. His laugh was coarse and his curses a plenty but it was all light-hearted. He'd long accepted the gods' ambivalence and he shamelessly crawled over to grab the bottle.
"Livin' a life of faith means takin' risks, don' it?" It was a crisply drunk remark. He downed the drink in a rapid swing and felt his face contort into a disgusted grimace. He tasted shit, and this was worse, a strong mix of sharp and sour over fermentation, perhaps even a hint of animal carcass but definitely a strange feeling of familiarity.
"Damn," he grunted, blinking over the inscription on the label as he was giving the bottle another look-over. He struggled over the word he thought he had seen. The letters had jumbled back too quickly, but he could bet on it he had seen 'potion' fading out. "The gods must be fumblin' in the dark with this one. 'Nother one?" He raised the bottle to Cantrill, adding with a tinge of emphasis, "believer."
Post by illirica » Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:41 pm
Perhaps Cantrill should have felt worse about offering the bottle, when his companion was obviously too drunk to think for himself. On the other hand, he'd been the one to decide to go drinking in the first place, so Cantrill's sympathy was somewhat lacking. Arhan crawled over to accept the bottle, attempting to make a statement, failing both the words and the intent, as Cantrill merely raised his eyebrow at the presumption of whether or not the gods 'liked him.'
"They do." He didn't raise his voice, nor even add particularly much emphasis to the statement, but it resounded nonetheless: Faith. Whatever else he may have been, Cantrill was a true believer. If Arhan was deserving of any penance, it was no doubt given to him full-fold in the taste of the vile concoction he'd brought back. Cantrill didn't quite hide an amused grin at the expression on the man's face as he subjected himself to it. Well - he could hardly say Cantrill hadn't warned him about the flavoring.
Offering the bottle back was a bit of backstabbing that Cantrill wasn't pleased by, certainly - he'd rather hoped to be rid of the foul substance after one swallow, but the words came with a challenge, and Cantrill wasn't going to turn away from it. He reached out, swiping the bottle and giving it a sideways glance. Naught could make him question his faith... but sometimes things certainly did make him question his sanity.
He tossed off another draught anyway, shaking his head with a mutter that sounded rather suspiciously like "Gods bless the maker of this beverage with exactly what he deserves," before holding it out again, the neck of the bottle between his thumb and forefinger, the bottle itself swinging below in a taunt.
"Your go, gambler."
Post by Sihphae » Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:17 pm
Arhan found the polished naivety with which Cantrill spoke so convincingly of the gods' orientations charming, not because he knew better of their ways, but because he believed no one was truly deserving of their caring. He'd conversed with many makeshift gods in plenty a drunken stupor but he could never quite so get their attention as much as he'd attracted creatures of nightmares and devilish ballads. He believed, all right, he just never thought belief was fair.
"What—" He struggled through a jerky hiccough, rapidly continuing, "do ye deserve?" He pointed a straightforward gaze at Cantrill and shot a straight-from-the-shoulder query. "An' are the gods in agree—hiccough—ment?" He reached for the bottle as if his life depended on it, perhaps with a mind of meeting a deity at the bottom of the bottle they were sharing. And if such a daft thing were to occur, he reckoned, it wouldn't be worth it to ask what tomorrow's quest might bring them. It would be worth it to make them notice.
He snatched the bottle away from Cantrill and ventured another swig quite gullibly, closing his eyes and wrinkling his forehead as his throat stiffened in expectance of the foul taste. This time, however, the vile concoction burnt his mouth. He winced in pain, whimpered a little, but he still swallowed, perhaps even out of spite. His throat tore into a sore, hissy cough and he shook his head violently to sharpen his senses. Was that their way of letting him know they had noticed? Or was it just a nasty mind trick?
He swayed the bottle back Cantrill's way, saying, "One last sip," His grin bordered on devilish teasing.
Post by illirica » Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:21 pm
"I'm sure the gods know what I deserve, but they've not seen fit to inform me of the matter." A year ago, Cantrill would have said he knew what he deserved with certainty - but a year ago, he had still been with the Church. It had been easier, then. Easier to see what was all around him, easier to build his life within those walls. If he ever questioned, there were always priests who had answers - and he'd not had so many questions, then. The gods had seemed closer, their wills more sure.
And now he was in a shed, sharing a bottle of destiny with a drunkard. No, it was fairly much a given by now that Cantrill had no idea what the gods were doing. He supposed that was their prerogative - it wasn't theirs to tell their whims to a mere mortal, least of all a disgraced Paladin - but if he couldn't begrudge them the knowledge, he still found himself missing the certainty.
Arhan seemed to be having some difficulty with the drink. Cantrill took the bottle back, giving him a skeptical look. "If you're going to vomit it back up, do it outside. This place smells bad enough as it is." His words might have been glib, but there was a hint of something under them that might have been concern - well, Arhan had reacted badly to that last swallow, and Cantrill had never been much for seeing men in pain.
Not that he hadn't put plenty of them there, in his time, but this seemed different, somehow. He raised the bottle to the gods, and drank the rest of it down in noble sacrifice. Somehow, it wouldn't have been right to pass it back, after that last. "Well." A grimace, and a shudder. "That was certainly unexpected. If you have any other questionable food or drink, I think I'll be asking you to save it till the morning."
Post by Sihphae » Sat Aug 15, 2020 7:15 pm
The dark of the matter was neither had the privilege to unriddle the gods' plans or aspire to play a bigger role in any of them. Such was the fortune of the down-trodden, whether self-made or imposed he could not even begin to understand. He smothered a laugh instead, taking it all in dry humor. He wondered what Cantrill thought about such musings but could not bring himself to pry further. He wanted to but the ale had opposed and muddied his mind.
"Fret not," he exclaimed and settled back on the hardwood floor staring the thatched ceiling down as it spun uncontrollably overhead. "The ale stays down." The burning sensation had become a lingering one but the drink had borne hard on his senses. He closed his eyes to banish the queasiness but found it difficult to open them again. They were too heavy and the air too light. He hadn't seen whether Cantrill had gone for the last few drops of the mysterious concoction, but he hoped he might have taken it in good faith to avoid another swallow. He wasn't one to derive pleasure from other's suffering, although it would have been nice to know whether the gods had anything to add.
"Questionable food, questionable ale…" he repeated in a low tone of voice as a heavy, pulling feeling started to weigh down on him, akin to falling into quicksand – viscous. He couldn't tell what was pulling him off into a deep sleep – the ale he had drunk with the townsfolk or the booze he had shared with Cantrill or both – but it was impossible to fight it. His lips pulled into a smirk as he added almost unnoticeably, "questionable town." The last fleeting thought buzzing in his mind was the urge to remember to inform Cantrill of the town's quirkiness, that and the idea of how great it would be if he could crawl back onto the straw bedding but there was no feeling left in his body for that final task. "Till the morning..." He whispered and heard himself snore away into a darkened, dreamless space while the outside world dampened and faded away.
Post by illirica » Wed Aug 19, 2020 9:32 pm
The gods seemed to listen to their disgraced at least enough to hear the prayer in Cantrill's words - if Arhan had challenged him to another round of concocted drinking, he didn't know if his stomach would have been strong enough not to disgrace the gods even further. The gods gave him a refuge better than sleep, though - namely, letting the other sorry bastard get some rest, leaving Cantrill alone with his thoughts. He sat back against the wall of the shed, testing it carefully with his weight, not trusting that leaning in the wrong place wouldn't just bring the whole misbegotten building down on top of them. The gods were kinder to goats than they were to men, though, and the building remained stable.
Arhan's snores drowned out much of the night, and Cantrill let his head bow forward and closed his eyes - in prayer, or dozing half-alert. One was much like the other, many a night, waiting alone to see if this would be the time when the monster came back for the kill. He'd slept like that often enough, waiting with patience. The gods had been with him, then. It was easier to wait, with that knowledge. Alone, sleep came hard, and troubled, and like a beast was quick to turn in anger. Often, even in sleep, there was no rest to be found.
He looked to the addled drunkard, and rested his sword across his knees. So. If he could not protect everyone, perhaps he could at least protect this one man, for this one night. As goals went, it wasn't particularly lofty, but it was enough to set Cantrill's mind into the routine, to listen for the little changes that might mean an intruder or an attack was incoming. He dozed, occasionally, on and off, never deep enough to dream.
That, too, was a blessing.
A new dawn eventually crept its way over the same old horizon, weak and shuddering like a drunken thing, unwilling to offer much light. Cantrill let his eyes drift open to acknowledge it, giving it time to get its bearings without speaking. It would seem he was to survive one more night without dying a messy "hero's death," after all.
Better luck next time.
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From the Heart of Europe
Tag Archives: history: wwi
November 12, 2004 fromtheheartofeurope	42 Comments
My grandfather was born in 1880, the seventh of nine sons, four of whom lived long enough to serve in the first world war, and all four survived it (though one of them by less than a year). Last summer I found a letter he'd written an old friend, presumably his former regimental chaplain, from the Holy Land in January 1918, when he would have been 37, the same age that I am now. (I never met him; he dropped dead at Mass one day in 1949, his 20-year-old son standing beside him.)
It's the sort of letter you would expect of an Irish Catholic who was also a British lieutenant-colonel, who had survived Gallipoli and (much earlier) the Boer War, and who went on to run a rubber plantation in Malaya before retiring to impoverished gentility in Northern Ireland. I don't agree with a number of the sentiments expressed; but I think it's appropriate at this time of year to post it here
history: wwilife: family
September Books 4) The Tale of the Next Great War
September 11, 2004 fromtheheartofeurope
4) The Tale of the Next Great War, 1871-1914, ed. I.F. Clarke
Worthy, but to be honest, a little dull. Clarke has written a couple of the key works on sf of this period, and this collection brings together 14 short stories anticipating developments in warfare between the Franco-Prussian war and Sarajevo 1914. Some of the best known works of the period are omitted, I suppose because Clarke has already collected them elsewhere. A couple of familiar names crop up here unexpectedly – Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, A.A. Milne (this last a short parody of the genre).
With relatively journalistic material like this, I tend to rate the stories (pebhaps unfairly) on their predictive ability. Jack London's tale of the Yellow Peril, wiped out by germ warfare, does not impress on this count. Conan Doyle's piece about submarines and Gustaf Janson's reflections on warplanes score well, but for me the standout story was an early one, the anonymous "Der Ruhm; or the Wreck of German Unity", published in Macmillan's in July 1871 shortly after the proclamation of the German Empire. The author correctly predicts the humiliation and collapse of Germany as a result of militarist overstretch. Of course it was rather less immediate than he anticipated, but it nonetheless happened not once but twice in the following seventy-five years.
The story in this genre I'm still looking out for is The Next Generation, by J.F. Maguire (Liberal MP for Dungarvan and later for Cork City in the 19th century). Published in 1871, it is set in an 1891 where "the UK has been much improved by steam-powered balloons and the granting of women's suffrage; romance and the explication of other meliorist reforms just this side of utopia take up the remainder of a very long book" (according to John Clute in the Encyclopedia of science Fiction). It seems rather rare though.
bookblog 2004history: wwi
July Books 1) Saki
July 2, 2004 fromtheheartofeurope
1) Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro, with six short stories never before collected, by A. J. Langguth.
H.H. Munro was born in 1870 and killed in the first world war in 1916. It´s striking that his best work was produced in a concentrated period between 1909 and 1913. (Unlike Douglas Adams, whose best stuff was written before he turned 30). The great short stories, "Tobermory", "The Open Window", "The Lumber Room", "The Story-Teller", and the two not-quite-so-great novels, The Unbearable Bassington and When William Came (set in a German-occupied England of the near future, say 1915 or so) all date from those years.
But Munro did a lot of other things too. He first achieved fame as a parliamentary sketch writer, poking fun at the Boer War, the Iraq of its day. But I'm obviously most interested in his two years as a Balkan correspondent from 1902 to 1904. He filed his first ever report from the town of Vučitrn, about the riots in Mitrovica, in October 1902. Oddly enough the first report I saw through to completion in my current job in June 2002 was also about riots in Mitrovica, and I expect to be in Vučitrn next Wednesday.
He doesn't just cover the Balkans, but also Warsaw, St Petersburg and Paris, but I think it's not just projecting my own sympathies to say that he liked the Balkans most. He liked Uskub, a very different place then from the Skopje I know and love and will be in again on Thursday. He got overwhelmed by the sheer wealth of intricate political information he was getting, to the point where he was unable to construct a coherent narrative; he became excessively reliant on official sources that took him into his confidence; he wasn´t so good on the graphic details or deeper social commentary. Of course I have always been immune from any such faults myself. Of course.
He notably drops the ball twice: when the King and Queen of Serbia are murdered in their bedroom, and their naked corpses flung out the palace window, he is in the next door country and only reaches Belgrade when it´s all over. (He can only report that people are still pointing out the window in question – as indeed they still do today.) Then on 31 July 1903 he decides that nothing much is happening in Macedonia, and goes on holiday. On 2 August the Ilinden rising begins, ending with the death of Goce Delčev in a blaze of glory and the crystallisation of Macedonian nationalism. Clearly his links with the local revolutionaries were not particularly good.
I remember hearing about this book when it was first published in 1981. It´s rather coy about Munro's homosexuality, though I suspect it was probably rather daring for its time (immediately post Jeremy Thorpe). The biographer is fair I think to the two awful aunts who brought up Saki and his elder brother and sister after their mother was killed by a stampeding cow (in Devon, in 1872). I was also interested in the Irish connection – his brother Charles ended up as the governor of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin until 1922, and they used to have family holidays near Portstewart. And the biographer also manages to explain convincingly why someone of his particular talents and character should enlist in the army during the first world war and also resist promotion to the status of officer. His last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!" Then a German sniper shot him.
The six new short stories are OK though not spectacular.
bookblog 2004bookblog: biographyhistory: wwiwriter: saki
February books 4) The Daily Telegraph Book of Military Obituaries
February 14, 2004 fromtheheartofeurope	7 Comments
4) The Daily Telegraph Book of Military Obituaries, ed. David Twiston Davies. A rather surprising addition to my bookshelves, since I am a typical lefty liberal whose gut instinct is against war (though Kosovo and Afghanistan were special cases) and indeed my day job is with an organisation devoted to preventing conflict. But it was given to me last month as a thank-you from the Daily Telegraph's chief leader writer in return for picking my brains on Northern Ireland elections for his forthcoming biography of David Trimble, and I've been gradually going through it over the last week.
It's a collection of 100 obituaries of soldiers, sailors and airmen, published between 1987 and 2002. They are printed in order of publication, which is understandable but also a little confusing – it would actually have made a more interesting read to put them in chronological order of birth, to tell the story of the wars of the last century in sequence. (I am intrigued by the occasional mentions of the Waziristan campaign, for instance, but never found out when or why it was fought.) As it is, the last two entries in the book were born in 1920 (claim to fame: parachuting mules behind enemy lines in Burma in 1944) and 1896 (claim to fame: taking command of his company in 1915 after all the officers were killed).
There are some very interesting stories here: Colonel Merrylees and his successful dowsing for water; Major Pringle, who escaped six times from POW camps; Sir Walter Walker, who attempted to organise against civil disorder in the 1970s. There are also a couple of authors whose books I have at least leafed through, General Sir John Hackett and Lord Carver. But the overall impression I was left with was quite a different one: how easy it is for one's whole life to be defined (and afterwards remembered) by a crucial period of a day, an hour, or even five minutes in which you are put to the test. Thank God, I am unlikely to have to make decisions in a situation where lives depend on my choice.
Of course, even for us lefty liberal types, the military are not very far away. My father, born in 1928, was just old enough to have done National Service, though he rarely talked about it; his father, born in 1880, was a younger son of faded gentry stock, and had "no option" but to join the army. He fought in the Boer War, survived Gallipoli in 1915, won a medal from the Serbs for the Macedonia campaign later that year, moved to Malaya to try (and fail) to make a living as a rubber planter, and finally dropped dead beside my father in church one day in 1949. Reading this book has made me feel closer to the man I never knew, who gave me a quarter of my genes and my surname. But I must finish up now, as his great-grandson wants another turn at the computer.
bookblog 2004deathshistory: wwi
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Zunheboto is een district van de Indiase staat Nagaland. Het district telt 154.909 inwoners (2001) en heeft een oppervlakte van 1255 km².

District van Nagaland

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Aurora do Tocantins este un oraș în Tocantins (TO), Brazilia.

Aurora do Tocantins


Printable poker hands pdf In Texas Holdem poker players construct hands of five cards. one-page chart of poker hand rankings.Poker Hand. Ace, King,.Poker Hand Ranking Chart. Poker hands ranked from best to worst. Royal Flush An ace high straight flush. Straight Flush Five consecutive cards in the same suit.Poker hand ranking chart for beginner poker players to practice memorizing poker hand rankings. This is not true for Texas Hold em.Deeper look into texas holdem starting hands or. Basics Poker Hands Ranking Texas Holdem Rules Beginners Strategy. folding and waiting for the next hand.Sklansky Starting Hand Groups. The table is a general ranking of hands in Texas Hold'em. see the odds charts page from the Texas Hold'em tools section.
Types of Starting Hands. by Rich McComas (updated Feb 6, 2004) Below, I have categorized thirteen types of starting hands, in order of their value.Texas Holdem Beginners. Texas Hold'em Starting Hands Cheat Sheet. Share:. So based on the hand you spoke of if the 6 or 2 were instead higher than your kicker,.Example: You are sitting as player 6 to the left of the dealer button and you have a king of spades and a 7 of spades.The chart shows how many hands you are supposed to play depending on which position you sit in at the table.
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What is true is that 45s IMPROVES more (percentagewise) with more opponents.poker hand ranking chart, this supple will ticket for endurable agreed cephalhematomas, and we whaped directions to pechanga casino upon this texas holdem poker hand.All 169 holdem hands ranked by. Is ace-two offsuit an okay hand? No, it is crap! Out of the 169 Texas holdem. (rank: 117). This chart ranks holdem hands from.
Having such a memorization mechanism that allows you to have a decent starting hand chart in your head is only going to help you in very very early stages of learning the game.
Card Values and Hand Rankings The rank of each card used in Texas Hold'em when forming a fivecard high poker hand-, in order of highest to lowest rank,.Poker Cheat Sheet For Beginners: Learn Hand Rankings And Rules You Need To Understand To Play Texas Holdem On A Single Sheet in 2018.Player Rankings; WSOP. On Starting Hand Charts Ranking the. So we get rid of all of those redundant hands and say that in Texas hold'em there are 169. Poker Games; Texas Holdem; Omaha;. Three-of-a-Kind is the next poker hand down on the poker rankings. The following Texas Hold'em 9-Max hand chart by position.
Texas Holdem – Top 10 Starting Hands. Hand Rank Hand Name Nickname. AKs – The best non-paired hand in Texas Hold'em,.Texas Holdem Poker Hands Ranking and Charts!. but you still need to decide the winner of a particular poker hand. Poker Hands Ranking And Charts.Three of a kind, also known as trips. such as Texas hold 'em, three of a kind is called a set only when it comprises a pocket. Two pair is a poker hand.An overview of starting hands in Limit Texas Hold'em. Fundamentals of Poker - Limit Texas Hold'em Mason. A pair of tens and higher is an excellent starting hand.
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This auction has ended. It collected 57 volunteer hours.
Dinner will be held at Eaton House at 6:45pm on 23 April.
Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent Shai Oster is the Asia bureau chief of The Information, named one of Fast Company magazine's most innovative media companies. He previously worked at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Shai Oster is the Asia bureau chief for The Information, based in Hong Kong, where he covers technology companies in Asia. Over nearly two decades as a journalist in China, Europe, and the U.S., he has covered a broad range of economic, business and social issues. Oster was previously reporter-at-large for Bloomberg News in Asia. In 2013, he won his second Asia Society Osborn Elliott Journalism Prize and George Polk Award for his role in Bloomberg's groundbreaking coverage that for the first time documented the fortunes amassed by China's leaders. Before joining Bloomberg, Oster was a Beijing and Hong Kong-based correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, covering energy and the environment.
In 2008, he was the recipient of both the George Polk Award for environmental reporting and Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Award for a series of stories exposing environmental problems linked to China's Three Gorges Dam project. He was also part of a team of Wall Street Journal reporters that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for International Reporting on China for reports on the adverse impact of China's growth. Previously, he covered OPEC for Dow Jones Newswires in London and served as Beijing bureau chief for Asiaweek magazine. His first job in China was as a copy editor at China Daily, the official English-language newspaper in Beijing. A graduate of the Columbia University Journalism School, Oster was born in Jerusalem and speaks Hebrew, French and Chinese.
All volunteer hours must be completed from 10 November 2017 to 10 April 2018.
Dinner will be held at Eaton House from 6:45pm-9pm on 23 April 2018.
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Can I train at the Athletic Centre?
Yes, the track and its facilities are open to the public for General Training, visit General Training for details including costs and timetable of operating hours.
Is there equipment available to use during General Training?
Yes, there is limited equipment available for all standard athletic disciplines except for Steeple Chase.
Where can I find an athletics coach to train me?
Contact Athletics NSW or Little Athletics for information about coaching and competitions.


Discussion in 'NorCal Scene' started by b.hoop10, Mar 28, 2017.
There has been so much on the drama at De Anza Force all over the forum that I thought this drama deserves and new thread.
Lets talk about Force then and now. First off having multiple kids I have been around long enough to have seen Force teams pre-Deza and where they are now. So lets talk Pre-Deza on the girls side. Force was the laughing stalk of Norcal leagues. There wasn't any true development happening. Their philosophy was we will just recruit players instead of spending the resources to develop them. Which is fine if that's what you want to do.
Deza came in with is showcase 98G and started to change the development culture. He brought in Juan Parras to help him, then Luciano, then Mikey Varas. They assembled one of the best group of technical coaches in the Country. Andres build up the program with the help of some greats no doubt. Without Deza Force girls program will crumble. You can try and sell how Brandi and others with little technical development knowledge can come in and save the program you are sorely mistaken. The top players can see the difference. You can try and sell Albert will help coaches to coach girls, but lets face it. Albert is there for what another year at most and sources I have talked say it will be much sooner once Deza departs.
What are your thoughts on the Rise and Fall of De Anza Force?
This thread should be titled, "The rise and potential fall of DeAnza Force"--or, to keep with the forum custom, "Trouble in DeAnza?"
Changes are afoot, but we don't know what will happen. Some clubs recover well from turnover like Force is seeing, some don't.
Totally predictable. Feel bad for the u14-U16 kids in this mass exodus. Well now the 2nd team De Anza kids will be ecnl. So they will be happy.
I'm not sure anyone comes out happy from this mess. I can't imagine that if the NPL players magically become ecnl players that the teams will have any success. Doesn't sound very happy to me.
So why did Deza leave?
Where's kicking and screaming? MVLA tryouts?
Do you want complete speculation and conjecture? Here's mine: force tried to have their cake and eat it too by sending B teams at the older ages to Thorns and keeping Deza's ECNL teams at Force with Deza. Either USSF or ECNL caught wind and balked, and when the option was to stay with the less talented kids Deza said no thanks. Which was best for everyone at that point - struggling/not super confident players would not be well served by his blunt, sometimes painful, tough love style of coaching. Or maybe couldn't even execute his vision of play.
That is completely a guess, based on nothing. Would love to know the real story.
The De Anza Soccer Club is a proud member of the ECNL, and it looks forward to having its top players and teams participate in the ECNL 2017-2018 season, as the Club's top competitive platform for female soccer players. The De Anza Soccer Club supports the ECNL's mission and programs, as the ECNL continues to be the top competitive and developmental program for youth female soccer players in the United States.
The De Anza Soccer Club has no ownership of or other contractual relationship with the Thorns FC program and the Club's current ECNL coaches will not be coaching any teams at Thorns FC.
Sounds like trying to batten down hatches to prevent migration to Quakes GDA.
So if you had WNT experience you are a good coach? CHastain is good at taking off her shirt while sliding. She has no track record close to Deza and it would utter stupidity for any elite De Anza player to make the move to thorns and risk a stunt in their daughter's development.
MVLA is the benefactor here.
So if you had WNT experience you are a good coach?
Deza's kids will follow him to a GDA, but that wouldn't be thorns, but most likely Quakes, as was posted here a month ago. I don't see MVLA benefitting in a direct way, at least not 01 and olders, where it's too late for GDA to be effective. Depends on a year by year basis, how many drink his koolaid.
Does he have coaching credentials GDA mandates? or supposedly mandates? Maybe they will make an exception. Not even sure Brandi does but no clue honestly. While I don't think it should be mandated(many talented coaches don't have a A or B from us soccer) it's what US soccer does. Mandates everywhere! I agree it's on a year by year basis. 01 MVLA is quality but 02 not nearly as strong as Force for example.
Baicher and Deza never have seen eye to eye on the philosophy of how to roll things out with Force. Deza is more possession based and his trainings are the proof in the pudding. Baicher tried to play that style but his practices (the ones i've seen) have been mostly scrimmage, flying changes and spending 20-30 minutes of setting up stupid set plays.
When the idea of GDA rolled out and Force was probably gonna get it, Deza thought that he would be moving over with his coaches and ECNL teams to the GDA. Baicher basically said you can have only one team. Porras took a DOC job, Fusco is at UCLA, and left Deza by himself. So Andres said he'd consider it, and worst case scenario, he'd stay one more year and coach the ECNL team.
This decision was based on a poor working enviornment created by the powers that be at Force that basically left Deza no choice but to look at other options. Now you have a bunch of flunkies that will be taking over the ECNL teams starting after Phoenix...with Deza being phased at the end of ECNL league play. Baicher coaching 01, Lloyd coaching 02 and can't remember who's coaching the 03 team. Also, they hired McAllister from Santa Clara to help with being the director of recruiting (kind of counter since he's the recruiter for Santa Clara).
All Force is trying to do is put all their fingers in the damn to help from emploding. Kids that are players 16-30 will probably stay because of the cool-aid that's being poured. Those that know what Deza can do for their career, will leave without blinking. What does this do to the whole hirearchy? IF he goes to Earthquakes, they will immediatly have a competitive team. Force ECNL, will be nothing more than a poor ECNL team. Thorns, that has always been billed as being part of force is gonna get kids because of names (not coaching history) but also will be a poor team.
Interesting, and the explanation seems logical. Clearly something was up with the GDA/ECNL/Thorns stuff. With Deanzas weird release on their website, you have to figure that ECNL was pressing them on the relationship with the Thorns (something they didn't do to MVLA, San Juan, and Davis). And now the club's ECNL director steps down? You got to believe that De Anza's ECNL relationship is on the rocks.
De Anza has just a two year contract with ECNL. After that if GDA takes off (and I think it will if SoCal is putting their top kids in GDA) than I'd bet the Thorns relationship becomes financial and top Force kids go GDA and Force walks away from ECNL entirely. But who know if they'll have top players left by then.
Politics? Egos? In youth sports? Oh, no, you would never find people trying to live off of kids' soccer/sports, just doesn't exist I tell ya! When they ALL say, it's for the kids! You better believe them. That's why we don't have so many half-baked coaches trying run off and start new clubs and training businesses, and . . . oh wait . . .


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Ducking Autocorrect
Gideon Lewis-Kraus writing at Wired on the History of Autocorrect:
Given how successful autocorrect is, how indispensable it has become, why do we stay so fixated on the errors? It's not just because they represent unsolicited intrusions of nonsense into our glassy corporate memoranda. It goes beyond that. The possibility of linguistic communication is grounded in the fact of what some philosophers of language have called the principle of charity: The first step in a successful interpretation of an utterance is the belief that it somehow accords with the universe as we understand it. This means that we have a propensity to take a sort of ownership over even our errors, hoping for the possibility of meaning in even the most perverse string of letters. We feel honored to have a companion like autocorrect who trusts that, despite surface clumsiness or nonsense, inside us always smiles an articulate truth.
I've been fascinated by Autocorrect since I purchased my first iPhone in 2008. While I had used it for many years before that, it only became amusing once the feature made its way to the phone. For the first time, this article made me question why it took so long to become funny to me. I think I've got an answer.
While I've always been a fan of technology, no piece of technology had ever been as surprisingly useful and thus, me so surprisingly attached to it. Its been said many times that smartphones are the first truly personal computer and I agree.
We laugh at the crazy responses Siri gives us, both intentional and unintentional. This little slab of glass, metal and plastic we carry around in our pockets is our charm against boredom, our method of settling disputes and our tether to the rest of the world. When this device that means and does so much for us does something unexpected, then we tend to ascribe something more than just a random miscalculation. It takes on meaning, even if that meaning is mostly just humor.


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This page is dedicated to pre wedding photography in Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands / Holland. The old city of Amsterdam is often overlooked when couples are searching for their destination pre wedding photoshoot in Europe. Cities like London, Rome, Venice, Santorini, Prague and Barcelona are very popular and rightly so, but Amsterdam should not be underestimated if you are searching for a location for your engagement photoshoot. Amsterdam has it all, from old buidings all over the city, canals, bridges and stately palaces. On this page I will show you the diversity of Amsterdam to show you that this city makes for a perfect backdrop for your pre-wedding photoshoot.
Set in the middle of Amsterdam, the Dam square is a very big square adjacent to the classical Royal Palace, Paleis op de Dam. It's a busy, bustling square with magicians, mime-artists and more. It also is the place where quite some big streets come together, making it a hub for trams, bicycles, cars and pedestrians. The square is only a 5 minute walk from Amsterdam's central station and usually the starting or ending point for couples that have booked me for their prewedding photoshoot.
What's more iconic in Amsterdam than the canals? Used back in the days as the public sewer system, the canals in Amsterdam are now a place for people to ride their boats or to ice skate in the winter. There are many canals to chose from and we will walk around the city to capture you along the most beautiful canals for your photoshoot. In springtime, when all the trees are starting to blossom, the canals are coming back to life after the winter. In summer, all trees are in full bloom and the entire city is filled with green. During the fall, the leaves are starting to change color, giving the city a yellow and orange hue.
Set on the Museum square right in front of the iconic Rijksmuseum building is the world famous I-AMSTERDAM sign. These bright red and white letters have become a sensation on Instagram and are great to include in a pre wedding photoshoot when in Amsterdam.
The entire inner city of Amsterdam actually feels like one big open air museum. The houses along the canals are extremely well preserved and many buildings have a slightly different architecture and color, making it an interesting background for your photoshoot.
Interested in pre wedding photography in Amsterdam with me? Send me an email via my contact form and I will be in touch with you shortly! Looking forward hearing from you!


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A variety of chalcedonic quartz that is distinguished by the presence of color banding in curved or irregular patterns (Fig. 1). Most agate used for ornamental purposes is composed of two or more tones or intensities of brownish-red, often…
Albite
A sodium-rich plagioclase feldspar mineral whose composition extends over the range Ab100An0 to Ab90An10, where Ab (= albite) is NaAlSi3O8 and An (= anorthite) is CaAl2Si2O8 (see illustration). Albite occurs in crustal igneous rocks as a major…
Most commonly, a generic name for all fossil resins, although it has been restricted by some to refer only to succinite, the mineralogical species of fossil resin that includes most of the Baltic Coast deposits. The time necessary to transform resin…
Amblygonite
A lithium aluminum phosphate mineral of basic formula LiAl(PO4)(F). The structure of amblygonite consists of phosphate (PO4) groups of tetrahedra and AlO6 groups of octahedra. Each PO4 tetrahedron is connected to an AlO6 octahedron. Corner-sharing…
The transparent purple to violet variety of the mineral quartz. Although quartz is perhaps the commonest gem mineral known, amethyst (see illustration) is rare in the deep colors that characterize fine quality. Amethyst is usually colored unevenly…
Anthropocene extinction
An ongoing current event in which a large number of living species are threatened with extinction or are going extinct because of environmentally destructive human activities. The Earth is presently in the midst of a mass extinction event. In the…
Any of several leguminous plants, or their seeds, long utilized as food by humans or livestock. There are more than 40,000 varieties of beans, with only a small number of these being mass-produced for human or animal consumption. In particular,…
The response of corals to environmental stress in which they eject the single-cell algae that live within the transparent coral tissue, making the white coral skeleton visible. Corals (Fig. 1) are animals that live in a partnership (symbiosis) with…
A species translocated from one region or continent to another outside its normal range, particularly when the translocation is the result of human activity (intentional or otherwise). Many thousands of species, including animals, plants, fungi,…
Kaliophilite
A rare mineral tectosilicate found in volcanic rocks high in potassium and low in silica. Kaliophilite is one of three polymorphic forms of KAlSiO4; the others are the rare mineral kalsilite and an orthorhombic phase formed artificially at about…
Monotremata
A mammalian order containing the egg-laying platypus and echidnas. Members of the order Monotremata (monotremes) are egg-laying mammals belonging to the subclass Prototheria (in some alternative classifications, the monotremes have been assigned to…
An order of placental mammals containing the largest and most powerful living terrestrial mammals—the elephants. Proboscideans once had a wide distribution, reaching every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Although early forms lacked both…
Agricultural meteorology
A branch of meteorology that examines the effects and impacts of weather and climate on crops, rangeland, livestock, and various agricultural operations. Agricultural meteorology, or agrometeorology, addresses topics that often require an…
Natural and artificial substances in the atmosphere that affect human health or well-being, or the well-being of any other organisms in the environment. Air pollution also applies to situations in which contaminants affect structures and artifacts…
Allelopathy
A natural process in which harmful or beneficial effects are caused by secondary metabolites that spread from a donor organism to a recipient and are produced by plants, algae, bacteria, and fungi. Allelopathy is a key ecological process and has…
One of the major classes composing the superclass Tetrapoda of the subphylum Vertebrata, and including frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. Amphibians, that is, members of the class Amphibia, are tetrapod vertebrates. Modern amphibians number…
A discipline within the field of animal behavior that focuses on the reception and use of signals. Animal communication could well include all of animal behavior because a liberal definition of the term signal could encompass all stimuli perceived…
The group of primates most closely related to humans. The primates included in the ape group are the African great apes, the gorillas (Fig. 1) and chimpanzees; the Asian great apes, the orangutans; and the lesser apes from Asia, the gibbons. Humans…
A class of the asterozoan group of the phylum Echinodermata, often known as sea stars or starfish. Members of the class Asteroidea, that is, asteroids, are notable echinoderms with a star-shaped body plan (Fig. 1). Unlike members of their sister…
A weapon that consists of integral rocket propulsion, means of pointing or guiding the weapon's velocity vector to a prescribed orientation at the position and time of rocket engine shutoff or burnout, and a warhead. In certain applications, means…
Behavioral toxicology
The study of behavior change in response to drugs, chemicals, or other environmental conditions or agents. Behavioral toxicology investigates the effect of toxic exposure on organismal behavior. The toxic exposure can involve various chemicals,…
The destruction of organic compounds by microorganisms. Biodegradation is a process (carried out by microorganisms) that decomposes organic material into its constituent elements or new compounds. Microorganisms, particularly bacteria (and fungi to…
A microbial (often bacterial) community that is enveloped by an adhesive substance (the glycocalyx) at the interface of a liquid and a surface. Biofilms (see illustration) are defined as highly structured communities of microorganisms that are…
The study of the cycling of chemicals between organisms and the surface environment of the Earth. The chemicals either can be taken up by organisms and used for growth and synthesis of living matter or can be processed to obtain energy. The chemical…
Biological insect control
The use of parasitoids, predators, and pathogens to reduce injurious pest insect populations and consequently the damage that they cause. Biological insect control (or insect biocontrol) is the regulation of insect populations by biological means.…
One of the main extant classes in the phylum Mollusca. Members of the molluscan class Bivalvia (formerly, Pelecypoda) are known commonly as bivalves and include clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops. All bivalves are aquatic, living at all depths of…
An aquatic mammalian order comprising approximately 90 living species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises and their fossil relatives. Like all other mammals, members of the order Cetacea (cetaceans) nurse their young with milk produced by the mother,…
System behavior that depends so sensitively on the system's precise initial conditions that it is, in effect, unpredictable and cannot be distinguished from a random process, even though it is deterministic in a mathematical sense. This article…
An order of the class Reptilia, including the turtles, terrapins, and tortoises; also termed Testudines. The order Chelonia (often referred to as Testudines) comprises one of the oldest groups of reptiles on Earth. Members of the Chelonia…
The long-term records of precipitation, temperature, wind, and all other aspects of the Earth's climate. Climate, like the Earth itself, has a history extending over several billion years. Climatic changes have occurred at time scales ranging from…
Climate modeling
Construction of a mathematical model of the climate system of the Earth capable of simulating its behavior under present and altered conditions. The Earth's climate is continually changing over time scales ranging from hundreds of years to a few…
The scientific study of climate. Climate is the expected mean and variability of the weather conditions for a particular location, season, and time of day. The climate is often described in terms of the mean values of meteorological variables such…
Conservation of resources
Management of the human use of natural resources to provide the maximum benefit to current generations while maintaining capacity to meet the needs of future generations. Conservation includes both the protection and rational use of natural…
A calcarenite or clastic limestone whose detrital particles are chiefly fossils, whole or fragmented. The term coquina is most frequently used for an aggregate of large shells more or less cemented by calcite (see illustration). If the rock consists…
Coral diseases
Pathological conditions affecting the health of coral and causing its physiological dysfunction. Broadly defined, coral disease (Fig. 1) is any impairment to coral health resulting in physiological disturbance and breakdown. It usually involves…
Coral reef structural complexity
A measure of the three-dimensional structure of live coral communities on reefs. Coral reef structural complexity is an intrinsic element of coral reef ecosystems and quantitates the surface area of coral in relation to its linear area. The…
Coriolis acceleration
An acceleration which arises as a result of motion of a particle relative to a rotating system. Only the components of motion in a plane parallel to the equatorial plane are influenced. Coriolis accelerations are important to the circulation of…
A large, tawny brown wild cat, Puma concolor (family Felidae), once widespread over most of the Americas; also known as catamount, mountain lion, painter, and puma. The cougar (Puma concolor; see illustration) is a carnivorous member of the family…
An extremely diverse, species-rich group of arthropods that have inhabited marine environments since the beginning of the Cambrian Period. Crustacea is a notable taxon of invertebrates. Common members of the Crustacea, that is, crustaceans, are…
A vortex in which the sense of rotation of the wind about the local vertical is the same as that of the Earth's rotation. Thus, a cyclone rotates clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. In meteorology…
Cyclothem
A vertical sequence of several different kinds of distinctive sedimentary rock units that is repeated upward through the stratigraphic succession. Originally defined in the rock succession of Pennsylvanian age in the Illinois Basin in the 1930s, the…
The term (meaning terrible lizards) assigned to a group of certain large, ancient bipedal and quadrupedal reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era. The term Dinosauria [from the Greek deinos (fearful or terrible) and sauros (reptile or lizard)]…
The monoclinic pyroxene mineral which in pure form has the formula CaMgSi2O6. Its space group is C2/c. Pure diopside melts congruently at 1391°C (2536°F) at atmospheric pressure; the effect of pressure up to 50 kilobars (5 gigapascals) on its…
Skin diving, or diving without the aid of special equipment, is a technique to investigate underwater environments and to gather shellfish or other items of commercial importance. In breath-hold diving, fins and faceplate are usually employed to…
The carbonate mineral CaMg(CO3)2. Dolomite is a very common mineral, occurring in a variety of geologic settings. It is often found in ultrabasic igneous rocks, notably in carbonatites and serpentinites, in metamorphosed carbonate sediments, where…
Double diffusion
A type of convective transport in fluids that depends on the difference in diffusion rates of at least two density-affecting components. This phenomenon was discovered in 1960 in an oceanographic context, where the two components are heat and…
A nesosilicate mineral with composition Al7(BO)3(SiO4)3O3. Dumortierite crystallizes in the orthorhombic system but well-formed crystals are rare; the mineral usually occurs in parallel or radiating fibrous aggregates. There is one direction of poor…
Dune vegetation
Plants occupying sand dunes and the slacks, or swales, and flats between them. The density and diversity of dune vegetation are greater on coastal dunes than on desert dunes. Dune Plant geography Sand Zonation A zonation pattern is evident in the…
Dynamic instability
A state of fluid flow in which the distribution of mass and momentum is unstable. Fluid flows are subject to a variety of instabilities which generally cause the flow to become more complex and which often lead to turbulent, chaotic flow.…
Early modern humans
The earliest representatives of people anatomically similar to living humans that evolved from more archaic humans approximately 150,000–300,000 years ago. The general process by which early modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged from late archaic…


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of Self-Driving Cars
What the government's investigation of Tesla's autopilot system means for autonomous vehicles
Cory Ohlendorf
Illustration by
It seems like we've been on the verge of handing over the keys (and the gas pedal) for a while now. From joy rides and taxis to cargo, AI-led autonomous vehicles are the future. Right?
These driver-assistance systems will—in theory—make the roads a safer place and minimize the potential for driver error to cause harm. In practice, it isn't that simple. Suddenly, it's harder to make out the road ahead—pun mildly intended.
Car and Driver recently proved that driver-assist systems can be easily fooled and made it painfully clear that most have a number of limitations. And now, one of the highest-profile driver-assist systems is the subject of a federal investigation.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has initiated an investigation of Tesla's Autopilot system. The probe follows 11 crashes with parked first responder vehicles since 2018, which resulted in 17 injuries and one death. According to Engadget, they'll investigate how Tesla's Autopilot system studies the road and, more importantly, ensures drivers engage with what's going on.
Distracted driving can be deadly in any car. But safety experts say Autopilot may encourage distraction by lulling people into thinking that their cars are more capable than they are. And the New York Times, reporting on the system, found that it doesn't include safeguards to make sure drivers are paying attention to the road and can retake control if something goes wrong—unlike the systems used by GM or Ford.
We'll no doubt get there, but perhaps fully autonomous vehicles are further in the future than we'd originally thought. Waymo—formerly the Google self-driving car project—is 99% of the way there. But, according to Bloomberg, that last 1% has proven to be increasingly difficult and just out of grasp.
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How should autonomous cars make life-or-death decisions? In the best of worlds, they won't.
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For a third consecutive year, IKEA gathers journalists from around the world for its important Democratic Design Days event in the modest Swedish village Älmhult – headquarters of the furniture giant. Democratic design, in honor of which we are invited "in the middle of nowhere", as the hosts are allowed to joke, has been explained many times by his tireless preacher and design visionary Marcus Engman: "Excellent shape, function, quality, sustainability and accessibility, low price." Every item coming out of IKEA embodies these five ingredients – from the cheapest plastic bottle to the LISABO range bearer of the Red Dot Award for quality.
The media event is short (only a day and a half), tight and impressively rich with information to make the ones crossing oceans from Asia, America and Australia experience great satisfaction from the content they are provided. The organizers have reached new levels of impressive programming by producing a set design and on stage performance for a magnificent and memorable show. The podium is a stunning, photogenic and rotating insight of visions, videos, lights, and live streaming from NASA's base in the California Desert.
The show's hosts – Marcus Engman (Lead Designer) and Paris Amyri (an attractive Swedish TV anchor) – have nicely prepared themselves in terms of wording and gestures. The star designers are invited on stage one after the other. They are the dreamed references in their spheres – from architecture and product design to fashion and music. Journalists are greeted with a glamorous interpretation of the popular FRAKTA bag, tangled with recycled materials in Egypt by Reform design. In it we find a book of 12 stories that stylishly and meticulously demonstrate the concept of democratic design. The examples are colorful – the creation of a recycled materials chair (in collaboration with the famous Swedish studio Form Us With Love), the use of renewable natural resources, improvements in fittings, fiascos in experimentations so that we learn by our faults and others.
There is more after the end of the show: walks through the collections, personal conversations with some of the star designers present there, and transport to a lush green meadow with a barn, long tables with white tablecloths, field flowers and the best of the Nordic cuisine. The day ends late with a drizzle and the feeling of a dizzying inspiration fuelled by the belief of a better and more meaningful world.
The need for all this? IKEA offers more than easily assembled boards and lightweight filling, more than blue-yellow halls with evenly arranged shelves and more than comforting budget choices for furnishing. For the organizers, the Democratic Design Days are a reason to uncover some of IKEA's backstage spells with their dreams, riots, heroes, discoveries, crazy approaches and sometimes failures. To show the tremendous curiosity that drives their work, the interesting people who collaborate with them, the scale of the investment and the stakes. Consumers rarely get to the stories "from the kitchen". How, for example, they apply some of the toughest regulations on production, environmental protection, fair trade and working conditions. Or how networks of collaborations with global organizations and training institutions are maintained for innovative approaches to prototyping and technological efficiency. Or the social causes the company has been involved with (their temporary home – shelter for refugees and areas affected by disasters won the prestigious Design of the Year award for 2016) through work with minority and ethnic communities and vulnerable social groups.
The absence of the Danes – Mete and Rolf Hay – from the event in Älmhult was forgiven immediately after a first look and touch with the results of their collaboration with IKEA. YPPERLIG is a logical interpretation of HAY's philosophy – Scandinavian design, perfect shapes and clean northern style to the last detail. When: October 2017; Range: furniture, lighting fixtures, accessories and textiles.
The co-operations below were only hinted at and are expected to be available from 2019 onwards.
COLETTE AND DARCEL DISAPPOINTS – the presence of a sofa with the COLETTE logo and the smiling with a French carelessness founder of the Parisian concept boutique Sara Andelman were among the pleasant surprises at the event.
Among the brightest performances on stage was the announcement of the collaboration with NASA & Lund University. In direct live video chat from the Mars living simulator in the California Desert, IKEA team was preparing to enter and start working on a curious collection with the focus on answering what is needed for a three-year trip to Mars, what makes home a home even if it is on the Red planet, and how the findings of the study will be applied to the Earth's home environment.
The founder of Off-White fashion brand, Virginie Ablou, came out on top of the scene. His study of the habits of young people around the world in their first independent home will serve as a basis for the experimental collection of furniture and accessories.
The high-end perfume brand Byredo is invited to work on "invisible design" for home-made scents. We expect a lot and certainly not in the form of a candle or a diffuser.
The show ends with a musical performance by the four founders of Teenage Engineering, dressed in white overalls. The famous designers of electronic music tools and plug-ins are already working on the FREKVENS collection, which focuses on home entertainment, party entertainment, and spontaneous gathering with friends.


Research: Offline file sharing and the development of personal portable libraries, and the exploration of the implications and affordances of this technology, especially lensed through various digital practices.
Publications: Radical Tactics of the Offline Library (2014) published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.
Creative practice: Something Borrowed CD, Something Old + Something New CD, both published by Auricular Records (2014), CODE.X. book (Kether Crown Productions, 2013), Datafield installation (2013) and Radical Tactics video (2014).


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Home » Where to Go » Our Top 5 Up-and-Coming Attractions in New York City
Our Top 5 Up-and-Coming Attractions in New York City
Here's our chance to view some of the most riveting up-and-coming attractions in New York City for students.
Posted by The Dean in Where to Go
Luna Park.
Planning the perfect student trip can be a challenging task. More than anything, you do not want your students to be bored of unoriginal exhibits or dull attractions. Fortunately, New York City is jam-packed with enjoyable and groundbreaking new attractions that will leave your students more than satisfied with their trip. Here are our top five up-and-coming attractions for students in New York City.
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Arrive in Armenia
The Met Breuer. Credit.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's newest location, The Met Breuer, opened in 2016 and features over 5,000 years of inspiring modern and contemporary artwork. An upcoming exhibition running from September 22 to January 13, Armenia!, will be the first if its kind to highlight the noteworthy artistic and cultural masterpieces of Armenians over 14 centuries. The exhibition uses around 140 objects including rare textiles, lavish gilded reliquaries, informative manuscripts, precious church models and more to tell the story of how Armenians created their own distinct Christian identity that joined together their widespread communities over time. Don't miss the opportunity to view these one-of-a-kind works of art, some of which are even on display in the United States for the first time.
Free Fridays at the Whitney
Whitney Museum of American Art. Credit.
An overcrowded museum can be an extreme turnoff for visitors, but you can have the chance to stop by the deluxe Whitney Museum of American Art on Fridays for free. You'll be able to see the rotating contemporary American art galleries on Friday evenings and maybe even enjoy a bite at the museum's gourmet restaurant. Also, don't miss the Whitney's exhibition Andy Warhol— From A to B and Back Again running through March 31, 2019, which spotlights Warhol's career as a continuous cultural representation of remarkable icons and profound effects of the times. This is the largest monographic exhibition at the Whitney's new location, and features more than 350 works of art that have been assembled together for the first time.
Find Fun at Victorian Gardens Amusement Park
Do you have any truck-lovers or aspiring engineers in your student group? Luckily, Victorian Gardens Amusement Park's new attraction, the Rainbowheel, which features a vibrant "Fiesta Balloon" ferris wheel. The style emphasizes the physical beauty of the carefully crafted gondolas, which are themed as multicolored hot-air balloons. Just one of the many unique aspects of the design is that the shape of the ride is hexagonal, unlike a classic Ferris wheel. This premier attraction is a classic Panoramic Wheel with six gondolas equipped with four seats each.
Maneuver Around the Museum of the Moving Image
Museum of the Moving Image. Credit.
Give your student-athletes the chance to look at sports through a new lenses at the Museum of the Moving Image at the exhibition It's a Whole Different Ball Game: Playing Through 60 Years of Sports Video Games. This innovative exhibit from September 14 through March 10, 2019 will give new insight into more than 30 playable sports video games from the past six decades. The display will dissect the intricate relationship between video games, sports, media and culture. This creative endeavor also recognizes how video games have developed into sports themselves, as they have created communities of gamers who compete for bragging rights and to share a passion for sporting video games.
Coney Island's New Course, Log Flume Ride and More
Luna Park. Credit.
Coney Island is preparing for some future imaginative attractions, such as a new large-scale water ride, a public plaza with a restaurant and arcade area and an adventure park, utilizing 150,000 square feet of city-owned land. The developing area will be run by Luna Park, and will feature the up-and-coming log flume and adventure park with a ropes course and boardwalk overlooking the breathtaking ocean. Though the log flume ride will not be open until 2020, the adventure park will have its opening next year.
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