text:
Medialunas
For any visitor to Buenos Aires, the first thing to address is the breakfast medialunas issue. These delightful creations (like croissants, but sweeter and more doughy) are placed in front of you, or find a way of leaping onto your plate – accompanied by an individual portion of dulce de leche – and they look so innocent and appetising. Surely one won't do any harm. And to be sure, one probably doesn't. The problem, as with so many things in life, is sticking at one.
Returning to the city at the end of winter, or what passes for winter here – in the high teens celsius, but dropping to around 8 at night – I am struck by what can only be described as a strange melancholy, a vague sense of nostalgia that has been written about peerlessly by Borges in the early poems, and in countless blogs by awestruck visitors in relation to smoky tango bars, the flowering of the jacaranda trees in springtime or the ghostly deserted summer streets; but I was not expecting it last night, as Andy drove us – Jorge, Carlos and me – on a drive from Palermo around the city centre and back again – taking in Belgrano, Recoleta, Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada, en route. There was a light drizzle in the air and it seemed that nearly everyone had decided to stay in, the streets around the centre, usually gridlocked, were practically empty. Where was everyone?
On our return to the apartment, there was an electricity cut, so my friends were unable to cook an evening meal. We set out on the streets again, in what seemed, to me at least, an even more melancholic mood – maybe I was just jet-lagged, having only arrived from Heathrow at eight o'clock in the morning – until we found a friendly parrilla, La Popular de Soho, and were served platefuls of grilled meat, including glands from somewhere on the beast which I didn't know it had, and perhaps would rather not know. Vegetables, needless to say, are something of a rarity in these parts, but you can't really criticise a place for something it doesn't set out to do . . .
Posted on September 5, 2017 by richardgwyn
Buenos Aires, Travel
Buenos Aires, medialunas, Palermo
Patagonian People
Driving with Hans Schulz towards the Alerces National Park on Monday, we passed this gaucho, who allowed us to take his photo. He was accompanied by four large dogs, who sniffed me respectfully but, like the horse, knew exactly who was boss. He gave his name as Muñoz, and looked after cattle belonging to a landowner from Bariloche.
Luned González, above, great-granddaughter of one of the original Welsh settlers, EdwinRoberts. A formidable personage, and the individual who got the machinery into gear for our visits to Trelew and Gaiman.
I met this market stallholder, who gave his name as Azdin, in the Andean town of El Bolsón, a town colonised as a hippy settlement in the 1970s, and still carrying a distinctly alternative flavour. Azdin came to Argentina as a refugee from the Algerian civil war and was 'adopted' by a Welsh family in Trelew. He sold herbal remedies for ailments ranging from constipation to madness, but refused to accept payment because, he said, he loved the Welsh people, who had taken him in and looked after him when he first arrived in the country.
Argentine anthropologist and writer Hans Schulz, pictured above, a ridiculous optimist, and all-round good egg. Hans drove us all the way across Patagonia with incorrigible good humour, was a wonderful source of stories and useful information, as well as somehow managing to negotiate free board and lodging for all eight members of the Writers Chain expedition at one of the world's most exclusive hotels, the Llao Llao, near Bariloche.
And, as further evidence of our intrepid journey to the heart of all things:
Blanco working undercover as a wax model, with a simulacrum of Famous Argentine author in La Biela Café, Buenos Aires.
Karen 'Chuckie' Owen considers the copulatory behaviour of the Ballena Franca (Southern Right) Whale at the Peninsula Valdes Information Centre.
Billionaire fashion guru Mererid Hopwood poses for the press at Llao Llao Hotel, Bariloche.
Presidential candidate Natasha Atkhinovich in the Eisenhower suite at Llao Llao Hotel.
International cultural events coordinator Nia Davies pondering the exchange rate, El Bolsón.
Verónica Zondek endures the interminable wait for coffee, somewhere in Patagonia.
Explorer and secret agent Jorge Aulicino with entrepreneur extraordinaire Jorge Fondebrider, prepared for penultimate leg of Patagonian trip in Casa de Piedra, Trevelin.
Buenos Aires, Everyday Stuff, Patagonia, Travel
Andes, Argentina, Hans Schulz, Jorge Luis Borges, Llao Llao Hotel, Patagonia, San Carlos de Bariloche, Trelew, Trevelin
Forgetting Chatwin
Day five of the Wales Writers Chain tour of Argentina and Chile. We began in Buenos Aires on Monday, at the Spanish Cultural Centre, where Mererid Hopwood and I gave lectures on, respectively, the Welsh and English literary traditions of Wales. On the Tuesday, Tiffany Atkinson and myself launched new collections in Spanish, published by the innovative and excellent imprint Gog y Magog – at what might well be my favourite bookshop in the world, Eterna Cadencia. We flew south on Wednesday, to Puerto Madryn, where the first Welsh settlers arrived on the Mimosa in July 1865, and were ourselves received by a small delegation of the Argentine Welsh community, where we were served soft white bread sandwiches, Malbec wine, teisen and tarts in a little hall used for Welsh and cookery classes. Incredibly hospitable and welcoming people.
Puerto Madryn reception
The tour was organised by the Argentine poet, critic and translator, Jorge Fondebrider along with Sioned Puw Rowlands, and sponsored by various city councils in Patagonia, the ministry of culture of the city of Buenos Aires, Wales Arts International and Wales Literature Exchange. Jorge has christened the tour 'Forgetting Chatwin' in refutation of the English author's semi-fictitious account of Patagonia.
In spite of a heavy schedule of readings, lectures, translation workshops, informal talks, school visits etc, we were able yesterday to have an excursion. Puerto Madryn happens to be very close to the natural reserve of the Valdes Peninsula, so yesterday we travelled along the isthmus to Puerto Pirámide – a charming and dilapidated frontier settlement on the beach – and took a boat trip to see the whales (all of them are the Southern Right Whale, called 'right' because of the ease of hunting them in the days of harpoon whaling). The trip to the peninsula allowed us to take a look at the blasted landscape of the interior, the endless bare scrub falling away into the distance under an enormous sky. We passed llama and guanaco – a smaller version of the llama – one of whose characteristic features is the particularly touching way in which the males decide who is to become the paterfamilias. According to our guide, Cesar, the males run at each other and bite their competitor's testicles, thereby rendering him incapable of reproduction (as well, one imagines, of immediately converting him from tenor to soprano). How terrifying is nature in its simplicity.
Guanaco family
And then the whales, which leave me speechless. I heard one sing, truly.
Three ballena franca (southern right whales) close to.
A whale tail, courtesy of Nia Davies.
The crew of the Mimosa, from left: Nia Davies, Karen 'Chuckie' Owen, Tiffany Atkinson, Jorge Fondebrider and Mererid Hopwood.
Today, more lectures and poetry readings in Trelew, where Mererid Hopwood and Karen Owen will visit a Welsh school, followed by a reading at the University of Patagonia with myself, Tiffany, Karen, Mererid, alongside Jorge Fondebrider, Marina Kohon, Jorge Aulicino (Argentina) and Veronica Zondek (Chile).
A Patagonian dog, chilling out in Puerto Pirámide.
Posted on August 30, 2013 by richardgwyn
Buenos Aires, History, Literature, Natural History, Patagonia, Whales
Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile, Jorge Fondebrider, Karen Owen, Mererid Hopwood, Patagonia, Puerto Madryn, Tiffany Atkinson, Valdes Peninsula
Of Nooteboom, Jünger, Céline, and assorted literary gossip
I can confess without shame that occasionally I am persuaded to buy a book on the strength of the cover, and it was certainly a factor in selecting Cees Nooteboom's collection of stories, published by the superb Maclehose Press. This was before I met Nooteboom and, since I was told I would be doing an event with him at the Translator's Club in Buenos Aires, thought I had better read at least something by the man, who is very highly regarded in continental Europe and elsewhere, if not in the United Kingdom. Not that this counts for much, as there are many writers who are well-known in the rest of the world but are far less well-known in Britain than our own great authors like Katie Price or Russell Brand, to name but two, or say, more realistically, than Geoff Dyer or Tom Raworth, but hell, who cares. In the end I never got around to reading the book until the weekend just past, and can reveal that – unless I missed something important – none of the stories has anything to do with foxes or with Gauguin (from whose painting the cover picture is taken).
But back to my main gripe, our misguided isolationism, which is reflected in the inability of publishers to translate great works of literature what are writ in the foreign, and that most hideous of ailments, little-Englandism.
Since David Cameron has now put the interests of his chums in the City of London ahead of anyone or anything else, and has decided that the bankers are so good at making things happen that they might as well be given a free hand; and since the rest of Europe is, sensibly, in disagreement, it seems likely that within a couple of decades, our islands will be floundering in mid-Atlantic, spurned both by Europe and our North American cousins (what special relationship?), a non-productive, antisocial wasteland, with a tiny privileged elite and a humungus underclass of the poor and unskilled, and little in between. A bit like Latin America in the seventies. Britain will then have to re-invent itself as a 'developing country'.
Now where was I? Nooteboom told me he once met (or rather crept up on) Ernst Jünger in the Prado, and introduced himself, at which Jünger made a joke about his (Nooteboom's) surname. The joke was in German though, and involved wordplay which I, as a non-German-speaking non-Dutch-speaker, did not understand. Such trifles do not concern Nooteboom however, who continued with his story regardless. If you speak six or more languages with apparent ease, as Nooteboom does, you tend to get flippant. Ernst Jünger: a truly fascinating character, who has a cameo role in both Roberto Bolaño's By Night in Chile and Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones, thus I have been reminded of his existence twice in recent times. Is that a sign? (Normally I would interpret that as a message that I need to look him up and read something by him, but since I am not reading novels right now will have to hang on, unless I want to read his essay on On Pain, which I don't fancy. Or perhaps I will, pain being quite a salient topic.) Needless to say his work is pitifully hard to find in English, considering he is rated as one of the most important German authors of the 20th century. Nearly all of his 52 books are available in French, but only five could I find in English translation. Apparently this is largely to do with the fact that Jünger – although not a member of the Nazi party, and peripherally involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 – served as an officer in the German army, held strongly Nietzschean views promoting the model of an heroic masculinity, and was an anti-semite, at least during the 1930s. I'm not saying he was a good person; undoubtedly he had issues, don't we all, but he was not half as bad as the Frenchman Louis-Ferdinand Céline, for example, an out-and-out Jew-hating fascist maniac, and yet Céline is held in high regard as a literary figure – by those who have read him – in both Britain and the USA, in spite of his despicable opinions, and much of his work is translated
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Céline was definitely a prize shit, and no doubt deserves our opprobrium, but less specifically I often wonder how come we are so ready to condemn how others behaved in times that we cannot begin to understand, when, as we have seen before on Blanco's Blog, complicity is just another way of getting on with life, and avoiding persecution? We might perhaps take the trouble to ask ourselves just how we would have behaved. It is easy to bask in the safety of the present and cast aspersions on those who came before.
So, where were we? Is digression really such a good thing, when you lose your place so frequently, and so thoroughly? I was going to write about Nooteboom's collection of stories. So here we go. He is superb at evoking the peculiar world of northern European expats (Dutch and British) living out their blinkered lives under the Spanish or Italian sun. He writes with an understated, poetic prose, that suits the topic which surfaces at some point in most or all of these stories, which is that of a lost and, at times barely remembered love. The theme is addressed in soft focus in nearly all these stories, and present through its absence in the longest one, 'Heinz', which accounts for a third of the pages in the book, and describes the slow alcoholic decrement of its eponymous protagonist. Heinz was once married to Arielle, whose flower-adorned grave the narrator discovers one day, four decades after her death. Apart from learning that Arielle died in 1962 at the age of 22, we know practically nothing about her, yet she inhabits the centre of the story with a stubborn grace, unavoidable in her absence. This is pretty masterfully achieved by Nooteboom, and I was impressed by the fluency of Ina Rilke's translation, but nonetheless, despite the dictum that less is more and Hemingway's iceberg theory, I couldn't help feeling that I would have liked to get to know Arielle a bit, as she could not have been less interesting than the other members of the cast.
Nooteboom at the Dutch Embassy, Buenos Aires, September 2011
My two favourite stories were 'Thunderstorm', set on an out-of-season Spanish island (perhaps Menorca, as that is where Nooteboom lives), in which a couple are having a spectacular row in a café: the man walks out in a strop and is struck by lightning; and 'Late September' – another story set in a windswept rainy resort on a Spanish island – in which Suzy, a 79-year old British widow (smokes Dunhill, drives into town every day for the Daily Mail) has a desultory, what shall we call it, affair, with a 63 year old waiter, Luis, for whom she always leaves something out for him to 'find' on his nocturnal visits, except on this night, when:
All that remained was to wait for the creak of the door, the smell of whisky on his breath, those strange, halting grunts accompanied by sudden thrusts of astonishing vigour, which had more to do with rage and endemic disappointment than with anything else.
Christ. An afterthought. As life expectancy continues to grow, and third-age sex lives thrive, can we expect an upsurge in geriatric porn? Does it already exist? Do I want to find out?
The strange and displaced lives of Brits in exile under the sun has been explored in different ways by Graham Greene, J.G Ballard (in Cocaine Nights) and now Nooteboom, a non-Brit but most astute observer, makes a valid contribution. It is a world that no doubt contains untold fictional riches, but first, I guess, you have to do the fieldwork.
Posted on December 13, 2011 by richardgwyn
Buenos Aires, History, Literature
Buenos Aires, Cees Nooteboom, Cocaine Nights, Ernst Jünger, Geoff Dyer, Katie Price, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Russell Brand, Tom Raworth
River Song
Río Riachuelo at Barracas, Buenos Aires
In my post of 14 September, Villa Miseria, I wrote, among other things, of the state of the Riachuelo, allegedly the most polluted river in the western hemisphere, as it passes through the slum of Barracas 21/24 to the south of Buenos Aires.
At the invitation of FILBA, the Buenos Aires International Festival of Literature, of which I was a guest last month, I was invited to write a short piece on my visit to Barracas, to be read on the final evening of the festival, along with other pieces composed during the course of the festival by fellow writers, which can be found at the FILBA Blog.
What I wrote was a poem about the river, in what is an unusually hectoring voice, as I was affected by a strong sense of outrage – quite apart from the social conditions of the people living in the slum – at how a river, which is traditionally such a potent symbol of live-giving purity, can become so vile and corrupt a thing as to breed 'monsters of the mind'. I wondered what it would be like for a child to grow up by the side of such a river. I wrote this draft of the poem – which is clearly still unfinished – at short notice, specifically for performance at the event, and have not revised it, so it has a raw and unpolished feel to it. It is written in a mixture of English and Spanish because I liked the idea of a poem that played the two languages off against each other.
A 'medialuna' is a cartwheel as well as the small sweet croissants eaten for breakfast in Argentina (though certainly not by the inhabitants of Barracas 21/24). The lines 'Do you like this garden which is yours? / Make sure your children don't destroy it // ¿Le gusta este jardín que es suyo?/ ¡Evite que sus hijos lo destruyan!' are from Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, and his character, Geoffrey Firmin, becomes obsessed by the broader connotations of the phrase. The other Spanish phrases are either variations on this line or else echo the English.
River song/Canto del río
The reflected sky
burns blue
viscous and putrid effluvia
journey lethargically towards
any possible destination
and no one cares
no one cares
whether the detritus
on this sickly tide
reaches anywhere at all
battery acid sulphuric acid mercury
¿Le gusta este rio que es suyo?
its journey
a sickly progression
a gelatinous insult
inverted by forgetting
dreary with forgetting
and we deal with forgetting
by forgetting more
Evite que
¡Evite que sus padres lo destruyan!
A man emerges from the river
covered in a pall of flies
he pulls a pistol from his belt
calls out
¿Les gustan estas moscas?
I'll teach those bastard flies
and blasts off his own arm
his wrist and hand explode
leaving a bloody stump
I'll teach the little bastards
he tells no one
he tells the world
he tells his children
aunque nadie lo escucha
and all the people stare
though no one listens
and the man does a cartwheel
on his single arm
y el hombre hace la medialuna
stands up straight
and shoots himself in the face
the words sliding
from the remains of his mouth
Voy a enseñar a los pequeños bastardos
this is what the river spawns
Eso es lo que produce el rio
this is the ineluctable truth
of a Wednesday in September
this is how we deal with
remembering the things
we left behind
just as we deal with forgetting
This is the river song
the river song
and from the river rises
an inestimable sadness
into the void of poverty
into the sullen entrails
of forgetting
in the place where
no birds sing.
¿Le gusta este jardín que es suyo?
¡Evite que sus hijos lo destruyan!
Do you like this garden which is yours?
Make sure your children don't destroy it.
But you cannot blame your children
for the things that you forget to do
forgetting the future
just as you forgot the past
Evite que . . .
Posted on October 7, 2011 by richardgwyn
Buenos Aires, Poetry, Politics
battery acid, Malcolm Lowry, Pollution, sulphuric acid, Under the Volcano
J.M. Coetzee in Buenos Aires
Coetzee came to Buenos Aires to deliver the final reading of the festival last night. I am not really authorized to write at length about Coetzee, having only read two of his novels, which I found admirable, and a collection of his essays. However, I will certainly read more of his work now, and am particularly keen to read his own account of his life, of which there are now three volumes.
There were, of course, the introductions in Spanish: the first brief, the second rather long, both of them adulatory, then Coetzee emerged from the wings like a tall and elegant rock star (think a slightly more reverend Clapton with a tie). I was sitting in the front row, and had been approached by a security guard who told me that the first two rows were reserved for guests of the funding organisation. I told him I was an invited guest of the festival and stayed in my seat. He moved off, unsure what to do about me. Half the seats in the front two rows then remained empty, even though there were dozens of people outside who had been refused tickets, and others sitting on the steps in the foyer watching the proceedings on a big screen and possibly hundreds who had been told the event was sold out. The photographers had clearly been instructed that they could snap away only during Coetzee's introduction, and not in the reading proper. In any case, I was able to take a few pictures of my own, and they came out rather well.
Coetzee made a brief introductory statement in faltering Spanish, and then he read a story, set in a house in Spain (perhaps he chose one with an Hispanic theme for the occasion, believing there is not a lot of difference between one Spanish speaking country and the next, one with a few Spanish words in, like 'vaya con dios', which no one ever says unless they're about a hundred years old). The story lasted half an hour, or forty minutes, I'm not sure, I think I drifted off briefly, and it was about a man called John (which is Coetzee's name) visiting his mother, who lives in a village in Castille, and keeps a lot of cats and the village flasher (yes, that's right, she has made her home available to the village pervert, because he was going to be taken away by social services and she stepped in and said she would look after him. I'm not sure this is how things work in Spain, but I guess we can let that go in the name of poetic licence). The story was okay, but did he need to fly thousands of miles to read it? Because that was all he did: read a story, then sit down and sign books for his abundant fans, who queued patiently (a very difficult task for Argentinians, or at least for Porteños) who came onto the stage one at a time, were allowed to exchange a few brief words with the great man, then trundled off clutching their books like they were holy relics. I wonder how much he got paid to do this. I wonder if he is doing any sightseeing while he is here. He certainly won't be tasting the wonderful Argentinian steaks as he is a vegetarian; nor can I imagine is here much of a drinker, so will not be tasting the fine Argentinian wines. Coetzee is however a rugby fan, and since the world cup is on, the festival president tells me, he was able to talk to him about rugby on the drive back from the airport. If it had been me I would have expressed my opinion that his team (assuming he still supports the Springboks and not the Wallabies, after adopting Australian nationality) was extremely lucky to get away with a one-point victory over my team last week, but of course that is done and dusted now and we must press on. At least the world cup curse of Samoa has now been lifted, and if things go well against Fiji and Namibia we will most likely meet the Irish in the quarter-finals, which is do-able.
Coetzee stands in a very upright manner. There is, in fact, something quintessentially upright about him. Someone who know him expressed the view to me that this is related to a self-abnegating Afrikaaner protestant streak (although he did attend a Catholic school, so presumably got the worst of both worlds). This is not a man who will let his scant hair down. According to a reliable source (i.e quoted on Wikipedia) he lives the life of a recluse, and "a colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not a single word." In fact he is so reclusive that the Flash player did not want to upload my photo of him, so I am using a picture provided by Flickr instead. In the Wikipedia picture (which also refused to upload) he is wearing the same tie as last night, or appears to be, unless of course he has several editions of the same tie. The Wikipedia entry also informs me he has expressed support for the animal rights movement. Because he rarely gives interviews and so forth, signed copies of his books are highly valued.
Despite his saying that he was pleased to be here, he did not really give the impression of being overjoyed about the occasion. He was more like a pontiff bestowing a blessing on his devotees, with great dignity and reserve. And the ridiculous notion occurs to me that there are two Coetzees, one of them here in Buenos Aires, reading his story like a monk reading from the sacred text to his silent admirers, the other scribbling away, locked in his cell wherever it is he lives, Adelaide or thereabouts. The one I saw last night is the phantom Coetzee, the one that the real Coetzee very occasionally sends out to commune with his public, a doppelganger Coetzee who is dressed like a banker, reluctantly engaged in the contemporary phenomenon of the Book Signing, that strange ritual in which members of the reading public are able to pretend that they have a personal relationship with the author, and walk away clutching their books tight to their chests as though some of his greatness were now trapped in the trail of ink on the title page, that they have absorbed some of the fallout of his ascetic majesty, and will now, through some mystical process not unlike transubstantiation, be the richer for it.
Buenos Aires, Short Story
Buenos Aires, JM Coetzee, Porteños, queuieng, Spain, Spanish language, springboks, wallabies, Wikipedia
Dissolving
It's always an education to read in unusual locations. The organizers of FILBA appear to be steering me towards a socially engaged role that I am not normally associated with back in the UK. But that's fine with me. The reading last night took place in a cobbled courtyard next to a rehabilitation centre for women recently released from jail, and behind an abandoned market, a steel-girdered hangar that resembles a nineteenth century railway station. Outside, the place was covered in graffiti and creeping vines, and in the darkness a wind began to stir, causing a few paper cups to scuttle across the cobbles like the rats that you knew were there, but were sitting out the poetry reading in a nearby drain. The perennial smell of the Buenos Aires night – barbecued meat, with an overlay of almonds – wafted by, and an engaged and enthusiastic audience sat alongside the vendors of bags, table-cloths and other artefacts made by the women prisoners.
I am posting a poem that I read last night, as well as at the Club de Traductores on Monday, because it seems to be popular here – probably due to the excellence of the translation – but which I don't think I have ever performed back home. My Spanish reader on this occasion was the poet and journalist Jorge Aulicino. Strange how on a reading tour there is usually one piece that gets more attention than the others, for no particular reason. It is followed by the Spanish translation by Jorge Fondebrider, since Blanco's blog has acquired an encouraging following in Argentina and Spain, perhaps because they think I am someone I am not.
Blanco reading with Jorge Aulicino
When you spoke of dissolving in my arms
I realised it was not a figure of speech
that in a sense (in any sense), you meant it
to be just so, that you would disintegrate in me,
I in you, and both of us in water. Could this be
what is meant by marriage, in which both parties
disappear entirely, leaving only ripples
on the water's quiet surface? But marriage
was a curious fantasy for us, and who could
possibly officiate? You were promised to another,
a dark figure stalking alleyways at night,
an ever-busy debt-collector, and I knew
my thin credentials would never count for much
with your imaginary father. So I led you
to a pond instead, with lilies and an oriental bridge,
a bench named for a local shopkeeper,
the path which circumscribed the water
shaded by hydrangeas and a vast magnolia.
The place was known to me, but since
the I that remembered things was by now
already dissolving in the you that forgot things,
the memory might well have been a false one.
You walked around the pond, around my island,
diminished with each circuit, each time drawn by
the gravity of the island's green intelligence,
around and around, while I waited, an idiot
in a drama with no plot, no foreseeable conclusion.
from Being in Water by Richard Gwyn, with drawings by Lluís Peñaranda
'Dissolving' by Lluís Peñaranda
Disolverse
Cuando hablaste de disolverte en mis brazos
advertí que no era una figura retórica,
que en un sentido (en todo sentido), lo decías en serio
que así fuera, desintegrarte en mí,
yo en ti, y ambos en agua. ¿Será eso
lo que se llama matrimonio, cuando ambas partes
desaparecen completamente, dejando apenas ondas
sobre la quieta superficie del agua? Pero para nosotros
el matrimonio era una curiosa fantasía, ¿y quién quizás
podría celebrarlo? A otro estabas prometida,
una figura oscura que acechaba de noche en callejones,
un cobrador de deudas siempre ocupado, y yo sabía
que mis escasas credenciales jamás servirían de mucho
con tu padre imaginario. Así que en cambio te conduje
a un estanque, con lirios y un puente oriental,
un banco bautizado con el nombre de un comerciante local,
el camino que circunscribía el agua
sombreado por hortensias y una vasta magnolia.
El lugar me resultaba conocido, pero desde que el yo
que recordaba cosas para entonces ya estaba
disolviéndose en el tú que se olvidaba cosas,
el recuerdo bien podría haber sido falso.
Caminaste alrededor del estanque, alrededor de mi isla,
disminuida con cada vuelta, cada vez atraída
por la gravedad de la inteligencia verde de la isla,
una y otra vez, mientras yo esperaba, un idiota
en un drama sin argumento, sin previsible conclusión.
Buenos Aires, Poetry
Jorge Aulicino, Jorge Fondebrider, Lluís Peñaranda, poetry reading
Villa Ocampo
Victoria Ocampo was one of the great patrons of the arts of the first half of the twentieth century. She first published Borges in her magazine Sur and she hosted and promoted writers and artists from around the world on their visits to South America. Among others Igor Stravinsky, Aldous Huxley, Albert Camus, André Malraux, Indira Gandhi, Drieu La Rochelle, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Rabindranath Tagore, Albert Camus and Graham Greene were guests at the Villa Ocampo, and Lorca's Romancero Gitano was published by her.
Yesterday, along with Cees Nooteboom and his wife Simone, Minae Mizumura, and the Argentinian novelist Inés Garland (who kindly drove us there), I was a guest at the Villa Ocampo. We had lunch, and then received a guide from the house manager, the exteremely well-informed Nicolás Helft, who presented me with a 1961 issue of Sur that contains the Spanish translation of a short story by Nabokov 'Scenes from the life of a double monster' (which appears, in English, in Nabokov's Dozen) as well as poems by Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The piano that Stravinsky played, with his picture
The house itself is spectacularly lovely, even if the interior veers towards the state of a mausoleum, with rooms kept intact from the era in which they enjoyed their greatest glory. The grounds, filled with great trees and green lawns, once spread down to the River Plate, several blocks away, but is now considerably smaller (though still ample). The odour of privilege wafts around the corridors and up the stairwells. I would not have liked to have got the wrong side of Victoria (and those who crossed her often lived to regret it). So I sat in her chair and meditated on the state of being Victoria Ocampo for a minute or two, and for a brief moment felt the thrill of something like victory. This was quite alarming, although not unpleasant.
Blanco tries out Victoria Ocampo's chair (photo by Simone Sassen)
For those who understand Spanish, here is a link that connects to Jorge Fondebrider's website Club de Traductores de Buenos Aires and a video of my interview and reading from Monday evening.
Buenos Aires, Literature, Memoir
Albert Camus, Aldous Huxley, André Malraux, Cees Nooteboom, Graham Greene, Igor Stravinsky, Inés Garland, Minae Mizumura, Victoria Ocampo, Villa Ocampo
Dancing man to man
Tango was danced between men from the very beginning, since it was considered too immoral for women, although clearly this is only a part of the explanation of man-to-man dancing, and a fuller account is given here .
I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but the site at least has some nice videos of men dancing with men.
The street where I took the photograph is the Calle Florida, which, apart from being the most famous street in the city of Buenos Aires, is closely associated with Borges and all things Borgesian – he lived nearby for many years and was frequently to be seen taking a stroll here. In fact a number of anecdotes about bumping into Borges take place in this street, which also boasts a version of Harrods, smaller than the one in Knightsbridge and currently closed down, but a famous landmark of the city. It opened in 1914 and closed in 1998, but has long been expected to re-open, subject to an extended lawsuit, following its acquisition by Swiss investors.
After taking a couple of pictures I was pursued down the street by a woman who was collecting donations for the dancing men. Since it is a common courtesy to give some money on such occasion, I was happy to donate the loose change I had in my pocket. The woman was clearly not impressed, and snarled at me: 'is that all?'
What do you say to such a person? That the world is wicked; that dancing in the street never made anyone an honest crust; that we are all destined to be dust; that there is no afterlife? I despair. I continued on my way, to give my talk at the Translator's Club, and answer questions on topics which, as always, I felt utterly unauthorized to speak about. But this is one of the hazards of being a person impersonator: your grasp of reality is frail and you often forget who it is you are meant to be impersonating; and although yesterday Blanco claimed to be the poet and translator Richard Gwyn, tomorrow he might just as easily turn into an extra from a Nazi zombie movie or invent a cure for hiccups.
Buenos Aires, Everyday Stuff
Buenos Aires, Calle Florida, Dance, Harrods, Jorge Luis Borges, Nazi zombie movie, Tango
A Very Fine Cake Shop and the Palace of Ducks
Pastry Bistro, Plaza William Morris, Buenos Aires
After lunch in a cheerful Brazilian place in Palermo (the one in Buenos Aires, not Sicily) we walk through the sunny streets in search of dessert and coffee. Our destination turns out to be one of the finest cake shops in the world. I don't mean showy and pretentious like the cake shops of Vienna, but one with extremely good cakes. The display, like so many places in this city, makes imaginative use of the impact of colour. In fact both of my favourite eating places so far are spectacularly colourful, the modest Brazilian café, and El Viejo Teodoro (Old Theodore's) which is my local, where I first ate six years ago.
Brazilian cafe in Palermo
Viejo Teodoro in Calle Arenales
They are also inexpensive. But the cake shop here, run by Georgina (in photo, with one of her creations) is something else. After considerable deliberation, we went for macaroons (red, green and blue ones) and I shared a slice of banana chocolate cake, washed down with coconut tea. It is to be found in the Plaza William Morris.
Pastry Bistro http://buenosairespastry.blogspot.com/2009/03/pastry-bistro.html
Georgina of Pastry Bistro with one of her creations
Palermo is a bohemian, bustling barrio, with many bars and bookshops. It is also where Jorge Luís Borges lived as a small child, before his family moved to Europe. There is a street named after him, which conveniently crosses the Plaza Cortazar. The bookshops often have bars, so customers can spend hours browsing, drinking coffee and chatting. Perhaps the most spectacular is Eterna Cadencia (also a publishing house of the same name), with its oak-paneled rooms, sofas, patio and upstairs terrace. A beautiful place to enjoy books.
The Eterna Cadencia bookshop
Blanco taking a rest in the Eterna Cadencia bookshop
However I had been up most of the night due to the rugby (see previous post) so did not appreciate the long traipse around the bookshops as much as I might have. But I did pass a store with four large fish tanks, and cushioned seats. Here you can sit with your feet in the tanks and dozens of little fish will eat the flaky bits off your feet and nibble your toes. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Since this week I actually have to get down to some work – my tour is not simply for pleasure – perhaps I should have gone for some xthiliopathic therapy, as it calls itself, but to sit there in full view of the passing pedestrians while fish feast on your skin, well, that's just wrong.
On another theme, my friend Jorge told me, on our walk through another part of the city on Saturday evening, as we passed the Palace of the Ducks (Palacio de los Patos), that the phrase 'quedarse pato' which literally translates as 'to be left a duck' refers to a person who has come down in the world, or lost a fortune. The Palace of Ducks was divided into numerous apartments, many of which were taken by formerly aristocratic or wealthy families who had 'come down in the world' – largely as a consequence of the economic crash in the late 1920s. In other words, it was the collective home of people who had lost their properties, and could no longer afford to own a place. However, the surroundings were glamorous enough to remind them of their former glory, and to forget their penurious circumstances.
I wonder whether there is a connection with the term 'to score a duck' to be out for nought, to score no runs – in cricket. What is it with ducks that relates to poverty or the idea of zero? Any suggestions welcome.
Palacio de los patos
Buenos Aires, Food, Travel
Cake, Duck, Eterna Cadencia, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Palacio de los patos, Pastry Bistro


Whether you are pregnant and thinking about where to have your baby or someone thinking about joining our team, I am delighted that you have chosen to visit our website.
Our team here is committed to provide the best possible support before, during and after labour and we are delighted that we have recently added ten new midwives to support the increasing numbers of women choosing to have their babies with us. As well as having the only full range of neonatal services in Surrey we have developed a midwife-led birth unit, the Abbey Birth Centre.
Excellent maternity care is comprehensive and flexible to respond to the clinical and social needs of each family.
Our team will ensure that you have the correct information to help you reach the choice and decisions that are right for you. When circumstances mean that the choice has to be changed, we will ensure that we provide information and an explanation for you to understand the reasons for this ... read more.
We are delighted to announce that Ashford and St Peter's fantastic new midwifery led birth unit – The Abbey Birth Centre (ABC) has opened to our new mums-to-be. This is a unique NHS facility in the local area and offer an ideal 'home from home' setting for women seeking a natural and positive birth experience.
The centre looks and feels very different to a traditional labour ward, with care led by our friendly team of midwives who feel very passionately about promoting and supporting natural birth whenever possible.
Maternity Services are based in Abbey Wing (shown above), located at the front of the St. Peter's hospital site in Chertsey, Surrey.
Welcome to my monthly video message. This time I've been talking to colleagues working in our maternity services in Abbey Wing and the ABC birth unit and finding out about some of the fantastic work that's going on to improve care to women and their babies.
Importantly I've also learnt about some great work – through the Royal College of Midwives' Caring for You Charter – we are doing to support our team as well.
For all other visitors - visiting times are 2-4pm, 6-8pm. Only two visitors at a time during this period.
Children under the age of 16 are not able to visit unless they are siblings.
Click here for information about the parent education classes at Ashford & St Peter's.


text:
package org.usagram.clarify.validator

import org.usagram.clarify.Indefinite
import org.usagram.clarify.error.TooShortString

class AtLeastCharacters(limit: Int) extends Validator[String] {
  def validate(value: String) =
    failIf(value.length < limit) {
      TooShortString(limit)
    }
}

object AtLeastCharacters {
  val validator = {
    val limit: Validator[Int] = GreaterThanOrEqualTo.one

    limit
  }

  def apply(limit: Int): AtLeastCharacters =
    validator(Indefinite(limit) label "limit").resolve(new AtLeastCharacters(_))
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
RT — THE FIRST TV NEWS NETWORK IN THE WORLD TO HIT 10 BLN VIEWS ON YOUTUBE
MOSCOW, JANUARY 29, 2020 — RT is the #1 most-watched TV news network on YouTube, with a record-setting 10 billion views as well as more than 16 million subscribers. The total number of views from across RT's channels on YouTube has put the network ahead of all the news channels of the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Euronews, Fox News and others.
Some of the most viral RT video content over the last year has been the network's coverage of the Gilets Jaunes protests in France. RT journalists have reported on the 'yellow vest' movement since the first day of protests, often streaming live from the center of the clashes between protestors and police.
In 2019, RT's video news agency RUPTLY was the only outlet to capture exclusive footage of Julian Assange's arrest as the WikiLeaks founder was evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy and taken by the London police. RUPTLY's was the only crew on site, effectively providing thousands of news outlets and media platforms around the world with the breaking news footage, including the BBC, CNN, the Telegraph and the Guardian.
RT and RUPTLY also delivered live coverage of the Notre Dame fire in Paris and were the first to release drone footage of the visible damage to the iconic cathedral after the incident.
In 2007, RT was the first Russian TV network to begin posting its content on YouTube, and in 2013 it became the world's first news network to reach one billion views. "To develop such a great relationship that you have people coming back and consuming more and more, and consuming to a number like one billion — is simply amazing," said the then-Google VP and Head of Content for YouTube Robert Kyncl.
RT is a global, round-the-clock news network of eight TV channels, broadcasting news, current affairs, and documentaries, with digital platforms in six languages and the RUPTLY video news agency. According to a 2017 survey on TV news consumption by Ipsos, a leading audience research firm, RT has a total weekly audience of 100 million viewers in 47 of the 100+ countries where RT broadcasts are available. RT is the only Russian TV channel to be a seven-time Emmy finalist.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
By Athenae, Marriage Equality
Illinois to Legalize Man on Dog
Trying to catch up to the rest of the 21st century:
The Illinois General Assembly is expected to vote today on same-sex civil unions legislation in what gay rights advocates expect to be a very close vote. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has said he expects state lawmakers to approve the bill and the governor has voiced his support.
The Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act (SB 1716), which is co-sponsored by openly gay Illinois State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago), has come under fire from conservative groups, including the Catholic Conference of Illinois and Washington D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which have lobbied hard against the bill.
Meanwhile, in the 16th:
Cardinal Francis George, the head of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, said, "The enactment of marriage-like benefits in civil union legislation will intensify the legal attack on marriage."
The crucial piece of legislation does not recognize same-sex marriages, but will provide the same spousal rights to same-sex partners when it comes to surrogate decision-making for medical treatment, survivorship, adoptions, and accident and health insurance. The bill would not force religious denominations to recognize or sanctify relationships they oppose.
This is a longtime kink of the Catholic Conference, that at some point they'll have to choose between going to jail for violating anti-discrimination laws, or marrying gay people. It's the vision they use to frighten their flocks and spur donations to their causes, and it's never going to happen, like most ultraconservative nightmare scenarios.
2 thoughts on "Illinois to Legalize Man on Dog"
Bleeding Gums Murphy says:
Ummm. Are you seriously suggesting that the Catholic Church (or any religious organization) will be forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies or face penalties for discrimination? Ummmm. Separation of Church and State anyone?
Or am I slow?
Maybe you are saying that this is just the image they use to dupe their dupes.
If I'm slow, sorry, but the post was a little vague at the end.


text:
How To Spend A Dreamy Time in The Desert: Visit Borrego
I'd never heard of Anza Borrego until a few months ago. After visiting, I genuinely believe it's one of California's most beautiful hidden gems. I'm here to let you in on the secret.
During the earlier part of our California road trip we spending time in LA, San Diego, Newport Beach – all places I felt comfortable with because of the busy hustle and bustle. I like noises, people, the option to get a pint of milk at midnight at a nearby corner shop if needs be. In London I'm used to sirens going past my apartment every five minutes. I find that each city reminds you of another city and things can soon start to feel a little bit like home, or at least an environment you're used to. So I was SO excited about driving to and staying in Anza Borrego, a desert state park located within the Colorado Desert of southern California, which was a two-hour drive (ish) from San Diego. Because, ladies and gents, I was going to get well and truly out of my comfort zone, and I COULDN'T WAIT! We loaded our car up with bottles of water and set the Sat Nav to our new exciting destination, slowly making our way into the humidity of the desert, cruising around bends and hills and uneven roads.
We took the scenic route and weren't quite prepared for what we saw. We were hit with the absolutely breathtaking views. The panoramic views were out of this world, and I'd never seen anything like it before. Photographs almost don't do it justice. Driving along a straight road with nothing but desert mountains around you was one of the coolest things ever. It helped that our car was amazing too, we were test-driving the brand-new-fresh-out-of-the-factory Alfa Romeo Giulia, and we became very attached to it by the end of the trip.
Serenity and Solitude
We pulled in to the hotel we were staying at called La Casa Del Zorro. Well, it's not really a hotel, it's a whole beautiful resort. A member of staff immediately spotted us with our dusty cases and drove us on his buggie (fun!) to reception so we checked in, and had a tour of the grounds. Each rooms had it's own private pool so there was no danger of not getting a sun lounger, you had your own outside your bedroom balcony door. It was perfect for having peace and quiet, and dipping into a book in the sunshine. The rooms were incredibly spacious and luxurious. You could hire a complimentary bike to cycle around the grounds, sit by the fire pit, or relax by the main family pool. There's a large tennis court, "pickle ball" (we never actually figured out what this was). At night there was incredible live music, so at night you could sit outside with a drink after dinner and soak up the atmosphere with the stars out in the full force. We ate in the Butterfield room which is a gorgeous restaurant – I had lobster and filet mignon, a dish where you have half and half and it was absolutely delicious. The spa is something a bit different too. I've been lucky enough to review lots of spas over the years but this one had a hint of spiritual guidance to it. It was a full body massage (and it was very good) but it also touched on healing, breathing, meditation and I felt mentally very relaxed as well as my body when leaving the room. I 100% recommend.
The Borrego Community
You might assume that staying in the desert means you'd be totally isolated, but this wasn't the case at all. Our amazing tour guide Linda who works for the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce showed us the friendly nature of the Borrego Springs community (and knew everyone!). I loved how it was only a short drive to other resorts if you want to mix it up a bit. We had a delicious meal at The Palms at Indian Head in their restaurant Coyote Steakhouse overlooking the pool and mountains, which describes itself as a "classic desert hotel". The prix fixe menu was 3 course for $19 which we thought was amazing value. It's worth mentioning that the pool is HUGE (Olympic-sized) – it was built in 1947 and was one of the largest pools in the county more many years. This hotel also has a lot of brilliant history to it: it was once a hotspot for movie stars (Marilyn Monroe! Clark Gable!) who wanted to escape the paparazzi or the public. They flew private planes and landed on the hotel's private runaway and they found relaxation and freedom there.
We also explored the Palm Canyon Hotel & RV Resort too which was totally different again to the other resorts. It had a sort of "Wild West" type theme which you could tell would be popular with kids. The rooms were lovely, perfect family-sized rooms, but I was really into the fact that you could hire out an RV (recreational vehicle) in the park next to the building. You tell it would be so sociable in high season, everyone sat outside their caravan drinking and chatting. The ones available are also vintage – which obviously makes it ever cooler – the interiors were 70s-inspired, bright colours, bold patterns. We went inside some of them and they have everything you need: miniature showers, fold out beds and some even had a bath inside.
We also explored the gorgeous Rams Hill golf hotel which was voted the Best Course in the Country 2016 by GolfAdvisor. The views were impeccable and the cheese selection that we took with us on our sunset adventure was 10/10.
One thing to mention about holidaying in Borrego Springs: it is actually cheaper to stay there in the Summer. This sounds weird, as normally Summer stays are pricier – but it gets ridiculously HOT in the Summer season and therefore it's actually nicer to come in the Spring or even Winter seasons.
Magical Sunsets
One of my favourite evenings of my WHOLE California trip was when we went to Font's Point (nicknamed California's Grand Canyon). It is a secluded place, a favourited spot for professional photographers, especially at sunset or full-moon evenings. Linda drove us there, Paul and I held onto the cheese and wine in the back while Linda's Jeep bounced around all over the place getting us up to this amazing point. It was so fun, it felt like safari off-roading. You're only allowed to attempt getting up there in 4 wheel drive, and Linda was a pro. I can't fully explain how magical the evening was in a blog post, but it was definitely a reminder to breathe, enjoy life, and not worry too much about the things you can't control. I can safely say it was the best view and sunset I've have ever (ever) seen.
Night-time Stargazing
This trip was hugely reflective for me, a step outside the "norm" of every day life. One thing I definitely don't (and can't) do in London is look at the sky or the stars properly. On the first night we arrived the brilliant astronomer Dennis Mammana took us on a Night Sky Tour. A small group of us met him in a quiet part of the desert and he had set up his telescope. I'd never looked through a proper telescope before, my dad had one once and we would stick it out of the window, but this was a huge mammoth one, a 14-inch Dobsonian telescope. Dennis taught us all about the different stars and star groupings — we saw the Big Dipper, Polaris (the North Star), Arcturus in Boötes, Spica in Virgo, and the Keystone of Hercules. We also saw Jupiter and three of its four moons – and some galaxies! It blew my mind that we saw the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) threw the telescope – because it is 26 MILLION light years away. My brain was aching with all the mind-blowing facts Dennis was telling us. But sometimes it's good to get out of your own head and daily worries and remember how tiny the Earth is, and how absolutely crucial it is that we look after it. Thank you Dennis for an really inspiring and educational time.
Anaza Borrego is well-known for its amazing iconic desert sculptures. The late Dennis Avery, a philanthropist and hero of Borrego Springs, commissioned artist Ricardo Breceda to create metal sculptures of dinosaurs and other creatures, many from species that had once roamed Borrego Springs and other parts of Southern California. The sculptures remind you of what the desert was centuries ago: mammoths, wild horses, giant sloths, camels, birds of prey and saber-tooth tigers, among others. There are more than 120 sculptures in all and they are absolutely incredible up close. You can catch glimpses of them when you drive into Anza Borrego, but being able to stand next to them was something else.
Thank you to Visit California & Visit Borrego for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the beautiful Borrego. Thank you to Linda for showing us around and making the trip so memorable. I can't wait to come back.
Linda Haddock says:
Thank you Emma! You captured the magic of Borrego Springs, our resorts, restaurants, night sky, Sky Art statues… and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park! You and Paul (an amazing photographer except he can't make me look 2o years younger and skinny again) are now honorary Borregans! The welcome mat is extended. Come back soon when you need to relax and breathe:-) Hugs!
Bettina Sonderegger says:
Now I know why Borrego Springs is my second home! Our English visitor captured all the ways I have come to love Borrego. It's also the wonderfully friendly folks who are Borrego. It's a love affair all around after 25 years of winter living!!!!!!
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text:
Q: Mouse hovering on function in code does not show paragraph breaks No paragraphs or line breaks rendered ? ... maybe no html at all ? Oh well, @param, @return and @author do render....
Simply, when I write my lil help functions I always write down its "javadoc" (for lack of specific term for Javascript).
For example:
/**
* Ok, let's make some changes to an object and see that they stick or get dropped according to the button we press.
*
 And why in the friging hell VSC won't honor html page breaks here ?
 or bold Or here ?

* @param none
* @return nothing
*/

async testChangingObjectValues()
{
     // do some stuff changer
}

and now if I just hover the mouse over testChangingObjectValues() all i see is just a long sausage of text, no nice paragraph or line breaks.
Is there a request to fix that ?
Thanks.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Thread: How were log cabins constructed during the gold rush?
So pretty simple, where can I learn about the construction of log cabins from about 1850 to 1890? I have found stuff on how they are built now, but I can't find any information on how people constructed them back then step by step. If anyone can help point me in the right direction, that would be great! thanks!


Josiah Renaudin: Welcome back to another TechWell interview. Today I'm joined by TJ Usiyan, an instructor with the Atlanta-based company Iron Yard and a keynote speaker at this year's Mobile Dev + Test Conference. TJ, thank you so much for joining me today.
TJ Usiyan: Thank you for having me.
Josiah Renaudin: Absolutely, and before we actually dig into the meat of the abstract of your keynote, can you tell us just a bit about your experience in the industry?
TJ Usiyan: I started programming in iOS seriously probably about eight or nine years ago and I worked on a couple of apps for myself and went to a bunch of meet-ups. I was fortunate enough to bump into Aaron Hillegass, actually. Big Nerd Ranch. We chatted a little bit. He, in passing, mentioned that they were looking for people and I never let him forget that until I graduated and bothered a few other people as well. I was there for a few years and now I teach for Iron Yard, still in Atlanta. I have, in that time, mostly been teaching but I have worked on a couple of contract apps and done some map ... Mostly I'm a teacher. Mostly I spend my time trying to explain how to write apps and use all the tools.
Josiah Renaudin: Gotcha. Your keynote itself, it covers how our ideas and assumptions impact the applications we develop, which is a really interesting topic that I haven't heard too often. So to kick things off, what are some of the actual benefits of human subjectivity when it comes to influencing our systems and applications? I mean, of course people make applications but I think sometimes people forget about, so what can subjectivity really mean for applications?
TJ Usiyan: One of the nice things that can occur is that you can ignore things that don't actually matter to your user. If you know the problem space really well, you know to some extent what the user knows and what they care about. You can place emphasis on things that you know will delight the user and remove emphasis from things that the user doesn't actually care about. Sometimes you do that without realizing it, so that's a benefit of subjectivity and making assumptions, and sort of having in-built assumptions that you just go with.
Josiah Renaudin: Of course, there's always the other side to that coin, that because our assumptions and ideas are really magnified in this space, how could you actually see that being detrimental to development? Especially since, like you mentioned before, sometimes we don't even realize how much our subjectivity is influencing the stuff.
TJ Usiyan: Yeah, that's kind of the main point, that the benefit that we get often is a double-edged sword because we think that we are being efficient and cutting out the fat, so to speak. You can always later on find out that we actually trimmed a little bit too much—the user, it turns out, sometimes does care about this, or there's a user who you simply had not considered.
Josiah Renaudin: It's funny, I used to review products for a CBS site, and all the time you would get this strange complaint, like, "You've added too much subjectivity, you've added too much of your own opinion to this review," which inherently doesn't make a lot of sense. Because a lot of the complaints you get about people not realizing how things are subjective ... We talked about it a little before, but why do you think we so often overlook the subject of nature of software development? Why do you think we push that to the side and say, "That's not really a part of it," when in reality, of course, if you have a small team of, let's say, three people making something, the choices you make or what you might like or what you think people like are going to absolutely influence it. Why do we overlook that?
TJ Usiyan: Because we're not presented with people when we interact with the software usually. Usually we open up our computer and we see screens that, I guess if you pressed me, I would realize or admit were written or arranged by some person somewhere, but I don't know what they look like, I don't know what they sound like. They don't know me, and that, coupled with the fact that usually when we talk about programmers and programming, there's this element of math and this element of algorithms and code being this thing that eventually can almost think for itself.
Josiah Renaudin: So much of software today is talking about agile, DevOps, and the idea of really working together. The testing and development teams working together in a lot of ways. How can different thought processes and assumptions between these development and testing teams impact that actual success of an application? Do you need to be on the same page within a team with your assumptions and opinions on things in order to move forward? Or is there value to this dissonance where you can bounce off of each other and come to a compromise?
TJ Usiyan: That's a good question, and how can different thought processes ... Usually, hearing someone who is on a different page early in the process can help you expand what you would actually consider and make decisions about what you actually want to emphasize and not emphasize, right. One thing that I want to warn people against is that I'm not advocating that you actually have to consider every single person all of the time in all scenarios, but you have to know that you have a made a decision not to support this user in this way. Having a conversation early on with as many people with as many views as you can, can help you understand where you've fallen in the relation to certain decisions that you can make, and you know whether or not you have to be on the same page ... You don't actually have to be on the same page in the beginning, but I do think that by the end of your process, you should be on the same page.
Josiah Renaudin: As a teacher, have you seen a lot of times where not being on the same page at the start doesn't eventually lead to a compromise at the end? Where a team will actually break up because there's so many differences that seem insurmountable.
TJ Usiyan: Yes, yes, and there are probably two different explanations for that. I guess I can talk about them now. One of them is that you don't realize that you aren't on the same page throughout the whole process, and then you get to the end and the product that comes out displeases both of you or one of you, just because you never really reconciled that thing which you didn't know that you needed to reconcile. The other scenario is where sometimes you find out very early on that you don't agree and that you have different desires and you never come to a compromise just because there is no compromise to make. Or no compromise that will please both of you or something along those lines where, if we basically realize that we want to make different products, that are related but not the same, then there's no way to make that work.
Josiah Renaudin: That's, as you mentioned, an almost unsolvable issue in many cases when you're just on completely different sides of the fence and you're trying to make different things. Have you seen, over the course of your career in software, have you seen one consistent theme amongst different development teams that's holding them back, that you feel like is solvable? That you can change that frame of mind and actually help them succeed?
TJ Usiyan: Yeah, there are a few. The simplest one, which is not actually all that simple, is I would challenge very strongly the idea of what we are talking about when we talk about company's culture or a company's ethos and basically our ideas around diversity, because I think it's not as complicated as it could be yet. We don't hold in our heads the many ways that people can be diverse and hopefully should be diverse on a team, and when we allow more diversity, I think we will actually achieve a more sympathetic software development process.
Josiah Renaudin: Yeah, absolutely. Of course, I don't want to give away your entire keynote, but I'm still going to ask you a big question here. More than anything, what's kind of the central message that you want to leave with your keynote audience? If they only want to take one thing away from your discussion, what do you hope that is?
TJ Usiyan: Be more mindful and consider how you are being mindful. Yeah, more than anything, that is the statement.
Josiah Renaudin: All right. Fantastic. Thank you very much, TJ. I really appreciate the time. I'm looking forward to hearing the full thing at Mobile Dev + Test this year.
TJ Usiyan: Thank you, and I'm looking forward to actually delivering that talk.
An instructor with Atlanta-based Iron Yard, TJ Usiyan is a teacher, writer, musician, and software developer, excited about crafting interesting work and helping others do the same. TJ has two degrees—one in electronic production and design and the other in creative writing. He entered software development through musical and pedagogical interests and has spent the time since exploring and modeling musical structure and the language of music in Objective-C and Swift. TJ developed and released the iOS app Chordal Text and the Additive Synthesizer Audio Unit (Partial).


text:
Las isoflavonas de soja son compuestos químicos derivados de los fenoles heterocíclicos, los cuales tienen una estructura cerrada muy similar a la estructura de los estrógenos. Su biosíntesis deriva de la unión entre un precursor alifático (malonil coenzima-A) y un precursor aromático (hidroxicinamil coenzima-A éster).

Gracias a su similitud estructural con los estrógenos, éstos poseen acciones muy similares, siendo los derivados más estudiados por su estrogenicidad: genisteina, daidzeina (su metoxiderivado formononetina), biocanina A. A estos compuestos se les conoce como fitoestrógenos.

Descripción
Se pueden clasificar como moduladores selectivos de los receptores de estrógeno. Son compuestos no esteroideos con actividad 100 a 1000 veces menor que el estradiol.

 La genisteína es el principio que mayor afinidad presenta por los receptores estrogénicos en comparación con los demás fitoestrógenos
 La biocanina A también es un estrogénico in vivo, aunque no se une al receptor
 La daidzeína posee una mayor afinidad por le receptor que su metoxiderivado formononetina, pero ambos tienen una acción estrogénica débil.

Acciones farmacológicas
Dentro de las acciones farmacológicas podemos diferenciar:

 Acción estrogénica: como poseen una estructura similar a los estrógenos, tienen acciones agonistas o antagonistas estrogénicas. Su mecanismo de acción se basa en que las isoflavonas son capaces de desplazar al 17-estradiol de los receptores estrogénicos. A la genisteína se le han atribuido efectos proliferativos (estrogénicos) y antiproliferativos (antiestrogénicos) gracias a diferentes estudios in vitro en líneas celulares humanas. También mediante los estudios in vivo se demostró la acción antiestrogénica porque se observó que a dosis 10 a 100 veces más altas que el estradiol, compite con los estrógenos endógenos por el receptor, se une a ellos y es capaz de prevenir un crecimiento estimulado por estrógenos. Las acciones entre hombres y mujeres son diferentes:
 En hombres se cree que pueden afectar negativamente a la función reproductiva y a la fertilidad masculina (las isoflavonas solas o junto con otros disruptores hormonales), pero por otro lado se ha relacionado el consumo de productos derivados de la soja con la disminución del riesgo de cáncer de próstata.
 En mujeres premenopáusicas puede modificar el ciclo menstrual prolongando su duración ya que ofrecen un efecto modulador. El efecto de los fitoestrógeos es dependiente de dosis. La acumulación de estos productos ha producido alteración en las células mamarias, presentando cáncer de mama  y un incremento de hiperplasia endometrial con presencia de sangrados. (Valls, C. " Mujeres invisibles para la medicina").
 En las mujeres postmenopáusicas provoca una reducción de los síntomas postmenopáusicos como, por ejemplo, los sofocos.
 Acción hipocolesterolemiante: en nuevos estudios, se observó que las isoflavonas de soja disminuyen el LDL-colesterol y la relación LDL-HDL. Gracias a esto, pueden prevenir enfermedades arteriocoronarias.
 Acciones cardiovasculares: son capaces de aumentar la excreción fecal de los ácidos biliares y disminuir su síntesis. También tienen propiedades antioxidantes y ejercerá una acción cardioprotectora evitando así la oxidación de los lípidos. Concretamente, la genisteína ha demostrado tener acciones sobre la coagulación, inhibiendo, así como reducir la reactividad vascular coronaria porque hay un aumento de la dilatación sanguínea.
 Efectos anticancerígenos: en diversos estudios en animales in vivo se ha demostrado que la genisteína es capaz de inhibir el crecimiento de las células tumorales porque interviene en la acción de la tirosina quinasa y la topoisomerasa del ADN, impidiendo así la división celular.
 Efectos metabólicos: Se han presentado evidencias de que juegan un rol beneficioso en la obesidad y la diabetes. Estudios de intervención nutricional realizados en animales y en humanos sugieren que la ingesta de proteínas de soja asociada con isoflavonas, mejora el control de la glucosa (reduciendo la insulina en suero) y la resistencia a la insulina. La proteína de soja también aparece como moduladora de la hiperglucemia y reduce el peso corporal, la hiperlipemia y la hiperinsulinemia, manteniendo efectos beneficiosos sobre la obesidad y la diabetes.

Indicaciones
Las isoflavonas son una opción terapéutica complementaria para la menopausia y sus síntomas como la osteoporosis, sofocos, ansiedad, sudoración, inestabilidad emocional, dolores de cabeza...

Gracias a su actividad estrogénica han demostrado interés para la prevención de la arteriosclerosis postmenopáusica y distintos tipos de cáncer como el de mama o el de próstata.

Efectos adversos
A dosis recomendadas, no se han descrito efectos adversos significativos, ni se han indicado interacciones farmacológicas. Sin embargo, en algunos estudios se han determinado efectos adversos que pueden producir el empleo de Isoflavonas:

 Alteraciones en la duración del ciclo menstrual en mujeres premenopáusicas.
 Riesgo de hipotiroidismo, bocio y adenocarcinoma tiroideo, por disminución de niveles de tiroxina, por inhibición de la peroxidasa microsomal tiroidea.
 Alteraciones del tracto gastrointestinal, como náuseas, distensión abdominal o diarrea.
 Ascenso de los valores de transaminasas.

Los estudios realizados sobre humanos con Isoflavonas no muestran efectos adversos con respecto a la reproducción, ni evidencias de toxicidad.

Aunque no se han demostrado interacciones con otros fármacos hay que tener en cuenta mujeres tratadas con:

 Tamoxifeno
 Hormonas tiroideas
 Anticoagulantes orales como Cumestrol y Warfarina

Toxicidad
Tras varios estudios de toxicidad clínica y subclínica (estudios de teratogenicidad, subcrónica, mutagenicidad) se indicó que a dosis recomendadas (150 mg/día) no hay indicios de toxicidad por las isoflavonas. Aun así, existen resultados contradictorios entre los ensayos y algunos autores indican que si presentan efectos tóxicos y algunos otros que no.

En estudios de toxicidad aguda en ratas y ratones, administradas por vía oral e intraperitoneal, no se observó ningún efecto de toxicidad, al igual que en los estudios de toxicidad subaguda no presentan ningún signo de toxicidad por lo que se puede garantizar la seguridad del producto, pero como se ha dicho anteriormente, estos estudios son contradictorios.

En los estudios de seguridad y tolerancia a dosis únicas y a dosis repetidas en humanos sanos se observó una buena tolerancia a las isoflavonas y no se observaron efectos adversos significativos, únicamente se observó algún efecto adverso, pero leve en la administración de genisteína a dosis repetidas.

Toxicidad reproductiva, carcinogénica y teratógena:

 Los estudios epidemiológicos no muestran efectos adversos en el ámbito reproductivo en humanos, ni evidencias de toxicidad sobre el desarrollo en niños.
 Los datos obtenidos en estudios clínicos pueden confirmar la ausencia de carcinogenicidad y de alteraciones en la función endocrinológica incluso en dosis muy superiores a la exposición dietética humana.
 Según los datos obtenidos en estos estudios sobre el potencial genotóxico y carcinogénico, así como la toxicidad reproductiva y del desarrollo, se  concluye que a pesar de que los resultados son limitados o contradictorios, el consumo de isoflavonas es seguro.

Según los datos obtenidos por los estudios, se puede concluir que el empleo continuo de isoflavonas a dosis habituales es segura y bien tolerada y en raras ocasiones se han desarrollado efectos secundarios, siendo estos de poca relevancia que desaparecieron al suspender el tratamiento.

Cáncer de mama:

Los estudios realizados en distintas líneas celulares de cáncer de mama y en animales son contradictorios, esto parece estar producido por la ausencia de homogeneidad en los estudios.

Cáncer de endometrio:

En estudios clínicos a corto plazo se observó una ausencia del efecto antiproliferativo endometrial pero no se observó efecto proliferativo, ni se afectó a otros parámetros clínicos. De forma que estos hechos demuestran la seguridad de fitoestrógenos en respecto al cáncer de endometrio.

Referencias

Enlaces externos
 http://www.aeem.es/documentos/guias/guia_final_040
 Baber RJ, Templeman C, Morton T, Kelly GE, West L. Randomized placebo-controlled trial of an isoflavone supplement and menopausal symptoms in women. Climacteric 1999;2:85-92.
 Beneficios de las isoflavonas de soja
 Cederroth, C. R., Auger, J., Zimmermann, C., Eustache, F., & Nef, S. (2010). Soy, phyto‐oestrogens and male reproductive function: a review. International journal of andrology, 33(2), 304-316.
 Chavarro, J. E., Toth, T. L., Sadio, S. M., & Hauser, R. (2008). Soy food and isoflavone intake in relation to semen quality parameters among men from an infertility clinic. Human reproduction, 23(11), 2584-2590.
 Die, M. D., Bone, K. M., Williams, S. G., & Pirotta, M. V. (2014). Soy and soy isoflavones in prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials. BJU international, 113(5b)
 González Cañete, N., & Durán Agüero, S. (2014). Isoflavonas de soya y evidencias sobre la protección cardiovascular. Nutrición Hospitalaria, 29(6), 1271-1282.
 Hale GE, Hughes CL, Robboy SJ, Agarwal SK, Bievre M. A double- blind randomized study on the effects of red clover isoflavones on the endometrium. Menopause 2001;8:338-46.
 Ludueña, Beatriz;Mastandrea, Carlos;Chichizola, Carlos;Franconi, Ma. Cecilia Isoflavonas en soja, contenido de daidzeína y genisteína y su importancia biológica Bioquímica y Patología Clínica, Vol. 71, Núm. 1, -, 2007, pp. 54-66.
 McClain RM, Wolz E, Davidovich A, Pfannkuch F, Bausch J. Subchronic and chronic safety studies with genistein in dogs. Food Chem Toxicol 2005;43:1461-82.
 Messina MJ, Loprinzi CL. Soy for breast cancer survivors: a critical review of the literature.J Nutr 2001;131:3095S-108S.
 Munro IC, Harwood M, Hlywka JJ, Stephen AM, Doull J, Flamm WG, Adlercreutz H. Soy isoflavones: a safety review. Nutr Rev 2003;61:1-33
 Nikander E, Kilkkinen A, Metsa-Heikkila M, Adlercreutz H, Pietinen P, Tiitinen A, Ylikorkala O. A randomized-controlled crossover trial with phytoestrogens in treatment of menopause in breast cancer patients. Obstet Gynecol 2003;101:1213-20.
 Scambia G, Mango D, Signorile PG, Anselmi Angeli RA, Palena C, Gallo D, Bombardelli E, Morazzoni P, Riva A, Mancuso S. Clinical effects of a standardized soy extract in postmenopausal women: a pilot study. Menopause 2000;7:105-11
 Ullmann U, Oberwittle H, Grossmann M, Riegger C. Repeated oral once daily intake of increasing doses of the novel synthetic genistein product Bonistein in healthy volunteers. Planta Med 2005;71:891-6
 Yan, L., & Spitznagel, E. L. (2009). Soy consumption and prostate cancer risk in men: a revisit of a meta-analysis–. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 89(4), 1155-1163.

Flavonoides
Endocrinología

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


It is perhaps refreshing and reassuring to not witness some of the squad's contributive players linked with a departure thus far.
Jose Mourinho's tactics from last season called for an unpredictable, combative figure amongst the attack when the going got tough.
And Marrouane Fellaini, for the most part, was that figure.
Under Louis van Gaal, the Belgian was slightly misused and under David Moyes, it was appalling to watch him fail to fit into the system.
This is not to say Fellaini has actually cemented an indispensable place in the starting eleven, but he is important to it nonetheless.
Every title-chasing side requires some sort of plan B off the bench when the going gets tough and the lanky midfielder represents that option.
Fellaini's physical presence rather than his skill with the ball at his feet, is what terrorizes most defenders and that is an attribute of very few players in the United set up.
The former Everton man came up short on certain occasions last season and the cameo which saw him give away a late penalty at Goodison Park springs to mind.
However, that in itself was perhaps a result of lack of freshness as it can be hard to impose yourself on a game defensively after being suddenly introduced.
As a late substitute, the pace at which you play can be slower or faster than how things are being maneuvered and it is evident that Mourinho was aware of that and therefore Fellaini was not scapegoated on that night…not in the dressing room at least.
Fellaini's notable contributions off the bench have been a direct involvement in the build up to goals or an assist as he plays the role of a target man and lays off the ball off for goalscorers.
In a team full of finesse and not as much aerial threat or grit, the part which the Belgian has to play cannot be overlooked.


Room Two is the Senior Class of the school and presently has a roll of 17 Year Fours to Eight.
2018 started with a stay at Hillary Outdoors for our older students. Funding has been made available through Wharf To Wharf and Lottery Funding. This excellent venue has been used by us a lot in the past seven years providing challenging activities for our students. Challenge and Change has been the focus for our class in the first two terms.
This Term we have been looking at the history of our area.
Pupils in the class can get support through a Teachers Aide in Darren Milton and a Learning Support programme taken by Vicky Kyan.
Another Online tool sees our older children connect through the Virtual Learning Network with a group of isolated, rural schools ranging from Halfmoon Bay on Stewart Island in the South to Tapora School in Northland. The culmination of learning is a shared camp in Wellington every two years.
Students are encouraged to look after each other through a Tuakana/Teina partnership where the older children nurture the younger ones and many of our outdoor experiences are shared throughout the school.


ARTS is an international talent platform, offering exposure to faraway lands of South Africa, Australia and throughout North America. They unite agencies looking for the brightest and best new talent worldwide, with a state of the art experience on a Hollywood set and Broadway style stage.
Many compare their ARTS experience to a career day that lasts for an entire week, centred around the world of fashion and performing arts.
They offer international networking like no other!
Verʏ good aгticle. I am facing a few of these issueѕ as wеll..


"Laurier Woods Is Growing Campaign"
The Laurier Woods is Growing Campaign was a great success, with the last 4 stewardship acres being named in 2017. The campaign was launched in 2011 to secure the community's support in acquiring an additional 40 hectares (100 acres). Donors contributed $100 or more, with donations totalling $1,000 being recognized with a 'Stewardship Acre'. The donor board is on display at the main entrance.
Susan & Gordon Miller, the Commissioner for the Environment of Ontario, were presented with our first certificate of appreciation for their donation on February 4, 2011.
to add 100 acres to the Laurier Woods Wetland Conservation Area.


Here we have the toughest of the Cincinnati halves in gem MS-65 condition. The obverse is toned in light golds and reds from the being in the original three card holder while the reverse is blazing white. Very scarce and underrated.


text:
The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington
About the Jackson School
Faculty & Affiliate Faculty
UW-QUAL Program
Course Lists
Centers & Research
Meet an Adviser
Comparative Law and Legal Cultures
JSIS B 366/ 366
Quarters: Winter
General Education Requirements: I&S
Instructors: Stephen Meyers
Explores global issues of comparative law, societies, politics, and courts. Uses criteria, methodologies, and theories to compare legal settings internationally. Covers: what is 'comparative law'; families' of law; history of comparative law; models of judicial review; legal cultures; and models of regulation.
Find out class times and more information at UW MyPlan
Culture, Power, and Religion
Technology, Security, and Diplomacy
JSIS Business Office
JSIS Intranet
The Henry M. Jackson School is a proud member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs.
The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Box 353650, Seattle WA, 98195-3650
Phone: (206) 543-4370 | Fax: (206) 685-0668 | Email: jsis@uw.edu
© 2023 Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington | Seattle, WA


text:
Statistics 2 – Inference and Association
This course will teach you the use of inference and association through a series of practical applications, based on the resampling/simulation approach, and how to test hypotheses, compute confidence intervals regarding proportions or means, computer correlations, and use of simple linear regressions.
This course, the second of a three-course sequence, will teach you the use of inference and association through a series of practical applications, based on the resampling/simulation approach, and how to test hypotheses, compute confidence intervals regarding proportions or means, computer correlations, and use of simple linear regressions.
$499 | Enroll Now
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This course is the second in a three-course sequence that provides an easy introduction to inference and association through a series of practical applications based on the resampling/simulation approach. Once you have completed this course you will be able to test hypotheses and compute confidence intervals regarding proportions or means, compute correlations and fit simple linear regressions.
After completing this course, you will be able to test hypotheses and compute confidence intervals regarding proportions or means, compute correlations and fit simple linear regressions.
Calculate a confidence interval for a proportion
Conduct an A-B test
Calculate the correlation coefficient and test its statistical significance
Fit a simple regression line via least squares
Use the regression equation for predicting
Fit a multiple regression model
Distinguish between explanation and prediction in regression
Assess regression model fit (R-squared, goodness-of-fit, RMSE)
Interpret regression coefficients
Explain the use of k-nearest neighbors for prediction
Use a hold-out sample to assess performance of models
Anyone with no prior statistical background, who encounter statistics in their work, or who needs introductory statistics for further study.
Mr. Peter Bruce
Mr. Peter Bruce is Founder and President of The Institute for Statistics Education at Statistics.com. He is the developer of Resampling Stats software (originated by Julian Simon in the 1970's), and has also taught resampling statistics at the University of Maryland and in a variety of short courses. He is the author of Responsible Data Science, with Grant Fleming (Wiley, 2021), Machine Learning for Business Analytics, with Galit Shmueli, Peter Gedeck,
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Ms. Anuja Kulkarni
Ms. Anuja Kulkarni has managed and taught over 125 online course sessions and more than 1000 students as an Assistant Teacher at The Institute for Statistics Education. She holds a Masters' degree in Statistics from Kolhapur University, India, where she also taught undergraduate statistics. Ms. Kulkarni teaches Statistics, Optimization Methods and Predictive Analytics and assists in several other course topics here for over six years. In all, her passion is leading new students into the fascinating and practical world of statistics through the introductory statistics course series at The Institute.
Mrs. Meena Badade
Mrs. Meena Badade has over 23 years teaching experience, leading courses in statistics at various levels of education and at different institutions nationally and internationally. She also has a number of research papers published in respected journals. In addition to academic practice, she has considerable corporate experience at Metric Consultancy, where she worked as a statistical consultant and data analyst for international clients, applying various statistical techniques to projects in several industries.
Confidence Intervals for Proportions; 2-Sample Comparisons
CI for a proportion
The language of hypothesis testing
A-B tests
Bandit Algorithms (briefly)
Correlation and Simple (1-variable) Regression
Significance testing for correlation
Fitting a regression line by hand
Least squares fit
Using the regression equation
Explain or predict?
Multiple predictor variables
Assessing the regression model
Goodness-of-fit (R-squared)
Interpreting the coefficients
RMSE (root mean squared error)
Prediction; K-Nearest Neighbors
Using the regression model to make predictions
Using a hold-out sample
Assessing model performance
K-nearest neighbors
Mar 10, 2023 to Apr 7, 2023
Apr 14, 2023 to May 12, 2023
May 12, 2023 to Jun 9, 2023
Jun 9, 2023 to Jul 7, 2023
Jul 14, 2023 to Aug 11, 2023
Aug 4, 2023 to Sep 1, 2023
Sep 8, 2023 to Oct 6, 2023
Oct 6, 2023 to Nov 3, 2023
Nov 10, 2023 to Dec 8, 2023
Dec 8, 2023 to Jan 5, 2024
Jan 5, 2024 to Feb 2, 2024
Feb 9, 2024 to Mar 8, 2024
Mar 8, 2024 to Apr 5, 2024
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We assume you are versed in statistics or the equivalent understanding of topics covered in our Statistics 1 and Statistics 2 courses. Review the course description for each of our introductory statistics courses and estimate which best matches your level, then take the self test for that course.
For Statistics 1 – Probability and Study Design, take this assessment test.
The courses listed below are prerequisites for enrollment in this course:
Statistics 1 – Probability and Study Design
This course, the first of a three-course sequence, provides an introduction to statistics for those with little or no prior exposure to basic probability and statistics.
Topic: Statistics, Introductory Statistics | Skill: Introductory | Credit Options: ACE, CAP, CEU
Class Start Dates: Feb 3, 2023, Mar 3, 2023, Apr 7, 2023, May 5, 2023, Jun 2, 2023, Jul 7, 2023, Aug 4, 2023, Sep 1, 2023, Oct 6, 2023, Nov 3, 2023, Dec 1, 2023, Jan 5, 2024, Feb 2, 2024, Mar 1, 2024, Apr 5, 2024, May 3, 2024
What Our Students Say
Over the last two summers, I've taken the two stats courses meant to prepare future AP Stats teachers. Those courses were invaluable to me and gave me the confidence I needed to tackle a difficult subject.
Karen Behrend
I think the resampling approaches are refreshing and insightful. And the textbooks are marvelous in their clarity of expression and real world examples. I have told many of my colleagues about this wonderful and refreshing online medium for learning about statistics.
Herbert Turner
Analytica, Inc.
Can I transfer or withdraw from a course?
We have a flexible transfer and withdrawal policy that recognizes circumstances may arise to prevent you from taking a course as planned. You may transfer or withdraw from a course under certain conditions.
Students are entitled to a full refund if a course they are registered for is canceled.
You can transfer your tuition to another course at any time prior to the course start date or the drop date, however a transfer is not permitted after the drop date.
Withdrawals on or after the first day of class are entitled to a percentage refund of tuition.
Please see this page for more information.
Who are the instructors at the Institute?
The Institute has more than 60 instructors who are recruited based on their expertise in various areas in statistics. Our faculty members are:
Authors of well-regarded texts in their area;
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The majority of our instructors have more than five years of teaching experience online at the Institute.
Please visit our faculty page for more information on each instructor at The Institute for Statistics Education.
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What type of courses does the Institute offer?
The Institute offers approximately 80 courses each year. Topics include basic survey courses for novices, a full sequence of introductory statistics courses, bridge courses to more advanced topics. Our courses cover a range of topics including biostatistics, research statistics, data mining, business analytics, survey statistics, and environmental statistics. Please see our course search or knowledge center for more information.
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Our courses have several for-credit options:
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The Institute for Statistics Education is certified to operate by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). For more information visit: https://www.schev.edu/ Please see our knowledge center for more information.
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Introductory Statistics for College Credit
This course will teach you the equivalent of a semester course in introductory statistics.
Topic: Statistics, Introductory Statistics | Skill: Introductory | Credit Options: ACE, CEU
Statistics 3 – ANOVA and Regression
This course, the third of a three-course sequence, provides an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple linear regression through a series of practical applications.
Topic: Statistics, Introductory Statistics | Skill: Introductory, Intermediate | Credit Options: CEU
Class Start Dates: Mar 17, 2023, May 19, 2023, Jul 21, 2023, Sep 15, 2023, Nov 17, 2023, Jan 19, 2024, Mar 15, 2024
Organization of Course
This course takes place online at The Institute for 4 weeks. During each course week, you participate at times of your own choosing – there are no set times when you must be online. Course participants will be given access to a private discussion board. In class discussions led by the instructor, you can post questions, seek clarification, and interact with your fellow students and the instructor.
At the beginning of each week, you receive the relevant material, in addition to answers to exercises from the previous session. During the week, you are expected to go over the course materials, work through exercises, and submit answers. Discussion among participants is encouraged. The instructor will provide answers and comments, and at the end of the week, you will receive individual feedback on your homework answers.
This is a 4-week course requiring 10-15 hours per week of review and study, at times of your choosing.
Homework in this course consists of short answer problems, and includes exercises that require the use of computer software.
In addition to assigned readings, this course also has an exam, short narrated software demos, example software codes, and supplemental readings available online.
Those seeking ACE credit, or who are certificate candidates needing to satisfy their introductory statistics requirement, must pass an online exam at the end of Statistics 2 – Inference and Association.
Course Text
The text for this course is Introductory Statistics and Analytics: A Resampling Perspective by Peter Bruce, (2014, Wiley). This course material will also be provided electronically, with updates, as part of the course, but you may wish to purchase the book as a reference to retain after the course is over.
In this course, software is needed for statistical analysis and simple resampling/simulation operations. We recommend one of these three options:
Regular Excel (not Excel Starter) and Resampling Stats for Excel (must have Windows)
StatCrunch (Windows or Mac OS)
You will need to have some facility with using formulas in Excel. If you don't, please review either this tutorial or this tutorial before the course starts.
Resampling Stats for Excel
This is a commercial add-in for Excel, designed as a practitioner's tool for doing resampling simulations. A free license is available to all course participants, while they are enrolled in the Statistics.com sequence of introductory statistics courses. Runs only on Windows. Enrolled students will be given access to a free 1-year trial of Resampling Stats through the software download link on the main Stats course webpage. You can also visit the Resampling Stats website and download the 1-year trial here.
StatCrunch
This is a very affordable web-based statistical software program, which also has simulation and resampling capabilities. Runs over the web, so can be used with both Windows and Mac. Resampling is not as intuitive as with Box Sampler and Resampling Stats for Excel. Learn more at www.statcrunch.com.
Note for StatCrunch Users: On all platforms, we recommend that you use the New version of StatCrunch. All examples in the textbook supplement are based on the New version of StatCrunch.
R is a powerful opensource statistical scripting language that is widely recognized as an industry standard. You will need to have familiarity with R and RStudio prior to taking the Statistics 1, 2 or 3 courses if you choose to use R as your software package. Comprehensive supplemental materials are available for R users. You can learn more about R here and RStudio here.
Python: Python is a language long used in computer science that has recently become quite popular in data science. You will need to have familiarity with Python prior to taking the Statistics 1, 2 or 3 courses if you choose to use Python as your software package. Comprehensive supplemental materials and support are available for Python users. We recommend the use of Jupyter notebooks and the Anaconda installation package.
Software Uses and Descriptions | Available Free Versions
To learn more about the software used in this course, or how to obtain free versions of software used in our courses, please read our knowledge base article "What software is used in courses?"
Course Fee & Information
Courses may fill up at any time and registrations are processed in the order in which they are received. Your registration will be confirmed for the first available course date unless you specify otherwise.
Transfers and Withdrawals
We have flexible policies to transfer to another course or withdraw if necessary.
Contact us to get information on group rates.
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Add $50 service fee if you require a prior invoice, or if you need to submit a purchase order or voucher, pay by wire transfer or EFT, or refund and reprocess a prior payment.
Options for Credit and Recognition
This course is eligible for the following credit and recognition options:
You may take this course without pursuing credit or a record of completion.
Mastery or Certificate Program Credit
If you are enrolled in mastery or certificate program that requires demonstration of proficiency in this subject, your course work may be assessed for a grade.
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If you require a "Record of Course Completion" along with professional development credit in the form of Continuing Education Units (CEU's), upon successfully completing the course, CEU's and a record of course completion will be issued by The Institute upon your request.
ACE CREDIT | College Credit
This course has been evaluated by the American Council on Education (ACE) and is recommended for college credit. For recommendation details (level, and number of credits), please see this page. Please note that the decision to accept specific credit recommendations is up to the academic institution accepting the credit.
ACE Digital Badge
Courses evaluated by the American Council on Education (ACE) have a digital badge available for successful completion of the course.
There is no supplemental content for this course.
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More and more companies include their corporate charity giving in the frame of a corporate social responsibility policy.
This policy can be defined as the company's engagement towards its partners (shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees…) to maximize the added value generated in favor of the community, on an economic as well as on a social and environmental level.
United Fund for Belgium specializes in the efficient and fair distribution of charity funds and, through the active cooperation of employees, enables many companies to optimize this part of their corporate social responsibility.