BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. October 25, 2018: Following the November 5th (3:00 pm ET/PT) world premiere of season one of the new animated preschool series, Rainbow Rangers (52 x 11'), on the Nick Jr.channel, Genius Brands International "Genius Brands" (Nasdaq:GNUS) is hosting an event at Nasdaq MarketSite on November 6th at their headquarters in Times Square NYC to showcase the Rainbow Rangers brand to the investor community.
Genius Brands Chairman & CEO, Andy Heyward, and top Company executives will deliver an investor presentation highlighting the economics of the consumer products program for Rainbow Rangers across the U.S., as well as in key territories around the world, many of which have already licensed the series. A senior executive from Mattel will speak, as well as key licensees from select consumer product categories. Coinciding with the event, clips of Rainbow Rangers will be streamed on the Nasdaq LIVE channel, as well as an interview with Heyward and a Mattel executive, and the Nasdaq Jumbotron in Times Square will feature Rainbow Rangers throughout the day. Shelly Hirsch, Founder of The Beacon Media Group--the single largest children's media buyer in the U.S.--will also be speaking. Additionally, guests at the event will receive an exclusive collectible Rainbow Rangers commemorative limited edition piece of animation art signed by the series' creators.
Beginning back-to-school 2019 (July/August), Genius Brands will launch the U.S. retail program for Rainbow Rangers with products debuting at retail across all categories of kid's consumer products. Master toy partner Mattel will premiere a range of toys, including collectible dolls, traditional fashion dolls, role play items, and a playset. Other product categories from Genius Brands' roster of blue-chip partners include apparel, publishing, sleepwear, bedding and bath, footwear, bags and backpacks, Halloween costumes and accessories, youth consumer electronics, health and beauty aids, cosmetics, bicycles and ride-ons, and a Rainbow Rangers live touring show.
The Rainbow Rangers series follows the thrilling rescue-based adventures of seven girls who are Earth's first responders, protecting people, animals, resources, and the natural beauty of our world. The Rainbow Rangers, who live in the magical land of Kaleidoscopia at the other side of the rainbow, have their own distinctive personalities and superpowers. Whenever there's trouble for the people or animals of Earth, our seven heroines zoom into action and ride their Spectra Scooters across the rainbow to save the day. Viewers will join them on exciting adventures, but also see them at home having the same daily dramas and hilarities as every child watching the show. And at its heart, Rainbow Rangers is about empowering and encouraging girls to take action and make a difference in their own homes and neighborhoods to improve and safeguard the planet. Every viewer—boys and girls alike—will see themselves in at least one of these strong, unique and empowered Rangers!
Headquartered in Beverly Hills, Genius Brands International, Inc. (NASDAQ:GNUS) is a leading global kids media company developing, producing, marketing and licensing branded children's entertainment properties and consumer products for media and retail distribution. The Company's "content with a purpose" brand portfolio, which is led by award-winning creators and producers, includes preschool properties Rainbow Rangers for Nick Jr. and Llama Llama for Netflix; award-winning toddler brand, Baby Genius; adventure comedy STEM series, Thomas Edison's Secret Lab; and financial literacy and entrepreneurship series, Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaires Club. The Company's content catalog also includes the animated series, Stan Lee's Cosmic Crusaders, created with Stan Lee's Pow! Entertainment. Seeing the need to provide kids and parents with a safe viewing environment that offers premium enriching and engaging programming, Genius Brands launched the Genius Brands Network – comprised of Kid Genius Cartoon Channel and Baby Genius TV, as well as an exclusive Kid Genius Cartoons Plus subscription channel on Amazon Prime. The Network channels are available in approximately 80 million U.S. households via a variety of distribution platforms, such as OTT, set top box, internet and mobile. Through licensing agreements with category leading partners, characters from the Company's properties also appear on a wide range of consumer products for retail. For additional information please visit www.gnusbrands.com.
Certain statements in this notice constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), not limited to Risk Factors relating to its patent business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.


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Pojačala Fender imaju dugu i nadasve respektabilnu povijest. Leo Fender je počeo izgradnju pojačala za gitare prije nego što je počeo s proizvodnjom modela  gitare. Prvi izvorni modeli pojačala bila su tipična cijevna pojačala, poznatija kao K & F modeli. Proizvedeni su između 1945. i 1946. godine. Nešto naprednije solid-state electronics modele, poznatije kao i SSD modeli, tvrtka je proizvela tek kasnih '60-tih godina.

Stilovi pojačala Fender

K & F
K & F (Kaufman i Fender) su prvi modeli gitarskih pojačala koja su Leo Fender i Doc Kauffman u zajdničkoj suradnji proizvodnog pogona K & F napravili. S time da su završni radovi, i sami finiš modela pripali i odrađeni u obitelji Kaufman. Pojačala su izrađena većinom u sivoj boji, u tri veličine zvučnika: 1x8", 1x10" i 1x15". Ovi modeli pojačala danas su rijetko viđeni, i smatra se da ih još postoji samo nekolicina primjeraka.

Woodie
Woodie modele pojačala tvornica Fender je proizvela između 1946. i 1947. godine.

Tweed

Specijalnu Tvid tkaninu Fender je prvi puta za prednjicu zaštitne maske kao novinu primijenio 1948. godine na modelu pojačala Champion 800., poznatijem kao zeleni tvid. Takav način izvedbe zaštite drvenih ploha kutije pojačala, i zaštitne maske, primjenjivao se sve do 1960. godine. Inače, primjena tvid tkanine na pojačalima održala se do 1964. godine, i to samo na modelu Champion 800. Do 1950. godine po standardu korišten je tvid izrađen u bijeloj boji, a od tada ga nalazimo i u dvobojnim linijama.
Promjenom pristupa u samoj idejnoj izvedbi pojačala, Fender će polako potiskivati tvid, i počet će s primjenom nove, bolje prilagodljivije Toleks.

Blonde

Blonde modele pojačala Fender je proizveo između 1960. i 1964. godine. Ovaj novi, stilirizirani model pojačala, u sebi obuhvaća veliku obitelj iznjedrenih novih stilova, odnosno modela:  Tremolux, Bassman, Showman, i Bandmaster, kao i nekoliko kombo pojačala, uključujući i modele Twin pojačala. Ovi Fenderovi modeli (osim nekoliko eksperimentalnih boja za Fender Tweed pojačala) presvučeni su Tolex tkaninom, u dvjema bojama. Osnovnoj tamno plavoj, i nešto malo Bassman modela pojačala u smeđoj boji.

Brownface
Iako je ovaj model Fender konstruirao 1959. godine, procvat njegove proizvodnje bio je 1963. godine.
Ovaj period je ujedno i puni zamah primjene Tolex tkanine (svijetle oker nijanse za masku prednjice zvučnika), do tamnijih nijansi za presvlačenje ploha same kutije pojačala. Za primijetiti su i značajne inovacije u dizajnu i konstrukcijskoj izvedbi pojačala. Tako primijetimo da se funkcija glavnog volume pota, sada replicirala na bass-treble-volume dodavajući mu vrijednosti okretajem slijeva na desno. Tu novu funkciju prepoznajemo i danas na pojačalima u potu treble-bas. Također, za pohvaliti je i uspješno otklanjanje kroničnog problema grijanja lampi, kao i napredak u izvedbi modula vibrata na modelima pojačala. Općenito, pred ostalim modelima osjetno prednjači tradicionalni Twin model, a zatim od 1960. godine izdvajaju se Vibrasonic i 1961. Showman modeli pojačala. Iste, 1961. godine, po prvi puta u konstrukciju elektronike pojačala uočena je novina reverb, kojom je omogućena šira primjena lepeza efekta zvuka. Ova novina već je 1963. godine primijenjena i na kombo modelima pojačala npr., Vibroverb modelu. Zapaženo je da je 1960. godine samo 6. modela pojačala predstavilo svoj novi dizajn. To su bili modeli: Bandmaster, Concert, Pro, Super, Vibrasonic i Twin (koji se od svibnja predstavio kao Blonde Twin). Njih ističe presvučenost Tolex tkaninom, i smatrani su daleko naprednijim od recimo: Harvard, Champ, Princeton, Vibrolux i Deluxe modela, koji su zadržali tradiciju iz '60-te, i presvlačenja u Tvid tkaninu. Dalje novine primjećujemo i u završnom finišu kabineta pojačala, gdje su prije oštri rubovi sada blago zaobljeni.

Blackface

Modelima pojačala Blackface Fender dominira crna boja, i bili su proizvedeni od 1964. – 1967. godine. Kao prepoznatljivi detalj prvih modela pojačala (npr., Princeton) bila je bijela boja ručica za nošenje pojačala, koja je nekon kratkog perioda opet vraćena u standardnu crnu. Općenito Blackface kozmetička improviziranja prestala su krajem 1967. godine, (s kratkim povratkom 1981. godine, i prekida proizvodnje sljedeće godine). Iako je tvrtku Fender 1965. godine pruzela kompanija CBS, modeli pojačala Blackface zadržali su svoj prije CBS ere prepoznatljivi estetski izgled i boju, sve do 1967. godine kad je prekinuta proizvodnja. Nakon ponovnog vraćanja proizvodnog pogona preuzeti naziv tvrtke "Fender Electric Instrument Co", promijenit će se u "Fender Musical Instruments", a Leo Fender će i dalje nastaviti raditi na otklanjanju oučenih nedostatka na modelima pojačala. Tako se zna da je: od kraja 1967. do sredine 1968. godine osim na estetskim doradama modela, radio i na otklanjanu problema oscilacije boje i jačine tona na reverb modulima Twin i Super modela pojačala. Uz te promjene istovremeno su se radila poboljšanja na nacrtu el. strujnog kola lampi, dodavanju novih funkcija glavi pojačala. U toj grupi nalaze se ovi modeli kombo (combo) pojačala: 1964. – 1965. godine Deluxe, Pro, Concert, Super i Twin, a do 1966. godine Princeton i Vibrolux modeli.

Blackface - nadogradnja
Po uzoru uspješnog redizajna novog Silverface modela, Fenderovi dizajneri su pristupili provođenju iste ideje i na Blackface modele. Prateći pozitivna događanja i novine na modelima drugih firmi: Mesa/Boogie i u Marshallu utvrdili su da značajke na njihovim kao: tremolo i pročišćen (cleanish) zvuk pojačala više ne zadovoljavaju sve zahtijevnije potrebe glazbenika za drugim, i drugačijim zvukom. Taj zahtijevni posao kozmetičkog poboljšanja Blackface modela, i vraćanja Fendera u trku s konkerencijom pripao je sredinom 1970. godine dizajneru Ed Jahnsu. Prvi izrađeni modeli pojačala bili su zapravo mješavina dizajna Blackface i Silverface modela, koju je predstavljala nova linija Super Twin i Super Twin Reverb pojačala, snage 185W. Najznačajnija novina bila je dodatak pota za aktivnu kontrolu tona na upravljačkoj ploči, i modul za distorziju zvuka. Takva praksa primjene dizajna trajala je sve do početka 1980. godine kad se pristupilo dizajniranju nove Serije II. modela pojačala.

Silverface

Modeli Fender Silverface pojačala proizvodili su se od 1967. – 1981. godine, a zbog brušene aluminijske kontrolne ploče na glavi pojačala često su još nazivana i Chromeface pojačala. Sličnost izvedbe vidi se u modelu elektronike za pojačala naziva AB763 iz 1960-te godine. Općenito, svi modeli imali su oznake na kontrolnoj tabli i prednjici pojačala u plavoj boji, osim Bronco modela koji je oznake imao u crvenoj boji. Modeli proizvedeni od 1967. – 1969. godine imali su prepoznatljiv "tailed" Fender logo na kabinetu, i aluminijski ram koji je držao zaštitnu mrežu prednjice pojačala. Iako je većina modela zadržala svoj izgled, prve estetske promjene vide se već na nekim prijelaznim modelima. Da bi 1973. godine korporacija CBS na novim modelima primijenila elektroniku za pojačala naziva AC568, i promijenila oblik Fender tailed loga u tailless oblik na kabinetima pojačala. Također, na razini države donijeta je uredba kojom se stavljanjem oznake "Made in the USA" na tijelo pojačala osigurala: autorska zaštita, potvrdila vjerodostojnost kvalitete, i najvažnije SAD se jasno naznačila kao država podrijetla proizvoda. Fender je od prekida proizvodnje Silverface modela '81. tek 1996. godine odlučio krenuti s ograničenim reizdanjem pojačala po uzoru na model Twin Reverb iz '70-ih godina.

Solid-state
Zbog zastarjelog dizajna i stalnih problema s elektronikom pojačala, a i same težnje ka primjeni novih ideja Fender je 1966. godine predstvio tri nova modela tranzistorskih pojačala. To su bili modeli: Showman, Bassman i Twin Reverb. Iduće godine predstavljeni su i drugi tranzistorski modeli pojačala: Pro Reverb, Super Reverb, Vibrolux Reverb i Deluxe Reverb. Među istaknutim dizajnerima ističu se: Sawa Jacobson,  Robert "Bob" Rissi i Paul Spranger kojemu je kao patent priznato idejno rješenje poboljšanja hlađenja pojačala i rješenje sveukupnog poboljšanja estetskog izgleda modela pojačala.
Tako da 1969. godine imamo čak jednu cijelu proizvodnu seriju Zodiac i Super Showman tranzistorskih pojačala. Na drugoj proizvodnoj seriji za pomoć angažiran je bio i legendarni Seth Lover, dizajner PAF magneta  za modele Gibson gitare, i Richard Evans Chauncey bivši uposlenik tvrtke Gibson. Obojica su radili na poboljšanju rada predpojačala glave i na određivanju snage napajanja zvučnih kabineta pojačala. Zodiac serija sastojala se od: Capricom, Scorpion, Taurus i libra modela pojačala. Fender je u ranoj fazi proizvodnje tranzistorskih pojačala uložio velika sredstva u marketinšku potporu, koju je i imao, ali da bi na kraju ipak sve loše završilo. Razlog je bio taj što su mnogi ključni rukovoditelji u Fenderu nezadovoljni svojim statusom naprasno dali ostavke, i što su kontrole kvalitete proizvoda od strane državnih institucija proizvodima davali loše ocjene. I kad se na to nadoveže nedostatak stručne i temeljne izobrazbe o snazi tranzistora, te ponekad neozbiljnost pristupu poslu samih zaposlenika, kaskadni učinak svega toga stvorio je lošu reputaciju o cijelom proizvodu. Što je u konačnici 1971. godine rezultiralo prekidom proizvodnje. S ovim iskustvom Fender je zatvorio stranicu proizvodnje tranzistorskih pojačala sljedećih deset godina.

Serija II.
Ova serija se proizvodila od 1982. – 1986. godine, i bila je posljednja serija Fenderovih modela pojačala iz proizvodnog pogona u Fullertonu. Modeli Twin Reverb II, Deluxe Reverb II, kao i svi ostali modeli iz serije, bili su sveukupni Fenderov odgovor sve popularnijim Mesa Boogie modelima pojačala. Svi poslovi organizacije i vođenja smjernica dizajna, kao i određivanja temeljnih karakteristika modela pojačala pripadaju tadašnjem direktoru marketinga prodaje Paulu Riveri. Tako da je ova serija modela poznata i kao serija Fenderovih pojačala iz Riverovog vremena.

Red Knob
Modeli Red Knob proizvodili su se od 1986. – 1993. godine, i jedni su od prvih modela pojačala koja su proizvodena u novoformiranom Fenderovom (Fender Musical Instrument Corporation) pogonu. Osnovna karakteristika ovih modela je: dodatk high-gain kanala koji je omogućio svojstven i prpoznatljiv ton, i uočljivi svijetleći potovi crvene boje na upravljačkoj ploči pojačala. Stvarni je dojam da podsjećaju na starije Blackface modele iz ranih '70-ih godina s bijelim, odnosno nešto kasnije iste godine s crnim potovima na upravljačkoj ploči.

White
Model Bijelo pojačalo (engl. White amp) je pojačalo koje je Fender proizveo kad je za menadžera proizvodnje imenovan dugogodišnji Leov suradnik Forrest White. Prvi model ovog pojačala po knjizi Fender Inside Story (autor Forrest White) prodan je u paketu s Fender White Steel gitarom 13. rujna 1955. godine. U kratkom periodu proizvodnje (godinu dana) prodano je oko 1500 primjeraka pojačala. Model White pojačalo unatoč nazivu nije bio potpuno bijele boje. Naime, presvučen je u plavo - sivu Tvid tkaninu, s tamno plavom tkaninom na prednjici zvučnika i plavom ručkom za nošenje. Po estetskom dizajnu je gotovo identičan Princeton modelu.

Najpopularniji modeli
Princeton
Bronco
Blues Junior
Champ
Bassman
Bandmaster
Deluxe Reverb
Harvard
Hot Rod Deluxe
Vibroverb
Super Reverb
Pro Junior
Pro Reverb
Hot Rod DeVille
Showman
Twin Reverb
Tremolux
Vibrosonic

Izvori

Vanjske poveznice

Službeni portal Fendera
Pojačala Fender Serije II.
Modeli Fender Silverface
MOdeli Fender Solid state

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Amazing things happen when individuals and a church, corporately, begin to minister to their neighbor with intentionality, consistency, and passion. The Care Effect beautifully demonstrates how love of neighbor--the second Great Commandment--is essential to gospel proclamation, not incidental to it. Walk the streets of New Orleans with a body of believers as they show love to neighbor. Be inspired to find a way to let your deeds of love be united with words of truth so you too manifest the gospel to your neighbor.


This isn't a weather forecast. It's what happens to your vision with cataracts.
Are you over the age of 60 and notice your vision is more blurry than normal? Has reading small print or driving at night become more difficult in recent years? Don't ignore the changes. Make an appointment with your optometrist. You may have cataracts.
What are cataracts, what causes them, and how are they treated? Keep reading to get a clear view of this cloudy condition.
Behind the iris (the colored part of your eye) and your pupil (the black circle in your iris) lies the lens of your eye. Similar to a camera lens, the lens of your eye adjusts so you can focus on the world, whether things are at a distance or close at hand. Made mostly of water and protein, the protein in a healthy eye is evenly spread across the lens to keep the eye clear and transparent, allowing a clear view.
As you age, the protein may gather together in clumps, thus clouding your vision. This is a cataract. The larger the clump, the blurrier your vision becomes.
Most cataracts develop slowly over the years. In the beginning stages you may not realize their existence. As they worsen, it becomes more difficult to read or drive in the dark. You may notice your eyeglasses or contacts aren't as effective as usual.
The main symptom of cataracts is blurred or cloudy vision. You may also have sensitivity to bright lights or glares. Many people see halos of dim light radiating around lights, need brighter light to read, or no longer see colors as vividly as they once did. Some people start seeing double vision out of one eye.
Cataracts typically form in both eyes, but not at the same rate. Any change in vision warrants a visit to your eye doctor.
Normal aging affects the health of your lens, and is the main cause of developing cataracts. Other common causes include injury to the eye, an inherited genetic disorder, and a prior eye surgery. Risk factors for cataracts include diabetes, long-term steroid use, prolonged exposure to sunlight, obesity, smoking, high blood pressure, and heavy drinking.
A comprehensive eye exam is used to diagnose cataracts. By dilating your pupil, your doctor is able to examine your lens and the rest of your eye. A new prescription or anti-glare sunglasses may be enough to correct your vision. But if cataracts continue to cause problems, cataract surgery may be necessary.
While surgery on your eye sounds scary, it has become a simple outpatient procedure that lasts less than an hour and has a very high success rate. One of the most common types of operations performed, cataract surgery can be performed with general or local anesthesia. During surgery, your cloudy lens is removed and replaced with a man-made lens. If both eyes have cataracts that require surgery, you'll typically have each eye done separately four weeks apart.
More than 9 out of 10 people report improved vision following cataract correction surgery. Before opting for the procedure, talk with your surgeon about the pros, cons, and possible risks. As long as you refrain from dangerous activities, there's no rush to have the surgery done, so take your time making your decision.
Since doctors aren't sure what causes cataracts, there's not a proven way to prevent them from developing. The best advice available to ward them off is to get regular eye exams, quit smoking, eat a healthy diet that's rich in antioxidants, wear sunglasses that protect your eyes from ultraviolet rays, reduce the amount of alcohol you drink, and manage chronic health conditions.
All adults should visit their eye doctor every other year. Starting at age 50, get an eye exam once a year.


The recent Kepler Space-Telescope discoveries of planets similar to Earth in size and proximity to the planets' respective suns have sparked scientific and public excitement about the possibility of also finding Earth-like life on those worlds.
But the Princeton University researchers have found that the expectation that life — from bacteria to sentient beings — has or will develop on other planets as on Earth might be based more on optimism than scientific evidence.
Astrophysical sciences professor Turner and lead author Spiegel analyzed what is known about the likelihood of life on other planets in an effort to separate the facts from the mere expectation that life exists outside of Earth. The researchers used a Bayesian analysis — which weighs how much of a scientific conclusion stems from actual data and how much comes from the prior assumptions of the scientist — to determine the probability of extraterrestrial life once the influence of these presumptions is minimized.
Turner and Spiegel, who is now at the Institute for Advanced Study, argued in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [no link to paper] that the idea that life has or could arise in an Earth-like environment has only a small amount of supporting evidence, most of it extrapolated from what is known about abiogenesis, or the emergence of life, on early Earth. Instead, their analysis showed that the expectations of life cropping up on exoplanets — those found outside Earth's solar system — are largely based on the assumption that it would or will happen under the same conditions that allowed life to flourish on this planet.
In fact, the researchers conclude, the current knowledge about life on other planets suggests that it's very possible that Earth is a cosmic aberration where life took shape unusually fast. If so, then the chances of the average terrestrial planet hosting life would be low.
"Information about that probability comes largely from the assumptions scientists have going in, and some of the most optimistic conclusions have been based almost entirely on those assumptions," he said.
Turner and Spiegel used Bayes' theorem to assign a sliding mathematical weight to the prior assumption that life exists on other planets. The "value" of that assumption was used to determine the probability of abiogenesis, in this case defined as the average number of times that life arises every billion years on an Earth-like planet. Turner and Spiegel found that as the influence of the assumption increased, the perceived likelihood of life existing also rose, even as the basic scientific data remained the same.
Joshua Winn, an associate professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that Turner and Spiegel cast convincing doubt on a prominent basis for expecting extraterrestrial life. Winn, who focuses his research on the properties of exoplanets, is familiar with the research but had no role in it.
"There is a commonly heard argument that life must be common or else it would not have arisen so quickly after the surface of the Earth cooled," Winn said. "This argument seems persuasive on its face, but Spiegel and Turner have shown it doesn't stand up to a rigorous statistical examination — with a sample of only one life-bearing planet, one cannot even get a ballpark estimate of the abundance of life in the universe.
Deep-space satellites and telescope projects have recently identified various planets that resemble Earth in their size and composition, and are within their star's habitable zone, the optimal distance for having liquid water.
Of particular excitement have been the discoveries of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. In December 2011, NASA announced the first observation of Kepler-22b, a planet 600 light years from Earth and the first found within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.
Kepler-22b — Comfortably Circling within the Habitable Zone.This diagram compares our solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first "habitable zone" planet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. The habitable zone is the spot around a star where temperatures are right for water to exist in its liquid form. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth.
Kepler-22's star is a bit smaller than our sun, so its habitable zone is slightly closer in. The diagram shows an artist's rendering of the planet comfortably orbiting within the habitable zone, similar to where Earth circles the sun. Kepler-22b has a yearly orbit of 289 days. The planet is the smallest known to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It's about 2.4 times the size of Earth.
Weeks later, NASA reported Keplers-20e and -20f, the first Earth-sized planets found orbiting a Sun-like star. NASA has since announced the discovery of over 2000 Kepler planets, with some 500 possible Earth-like candidates.
While these observations tend to stoke the expectation of finding Earth-like life, they do not actually provide evidence that it does or does not exist, Spiegel explained. Instead, these planets have our knowledge of life on Earth projected onto them, he said.
Yet, when what is known about life on Earth is taken away, there is no accurate sense of how probable abiogenesis is on any given planet, Spiegel said. It was this "prior ignorance," or lack of expectations, that he and Turner wanted to account for in their analysis, he said.
"When we use a mathematical prior that truly represents prior ignorance, the data of early life on Earth becomes ambiguous," Spiegel said.
Spiegel and Turner also propose that once this planet's history is considered, the emergence of life on Earth might be so distinct that it is a poor barometer of how it occurred elsewhere, regardless of the likelihood that such life exists.
In a philosophical turn, they suggest that because humans are the ones wondering about the emergence of life, it is possible that we must be on a planet where life began early in order to reach a point so soon after the planet's formation 4.5 billion years ago where we could wonder about it.
Thus, Spiegel and Turner explored how the probability of exoplanetary abiogenesis would change if it turns out that evolution requires, as it did on Earth, roughly 3.5 billion years for life to develop from its most basic form to complex organisms capable of pondering existence. If that were the case, then the 4.5 billion-year-old Earth clearly had a head start. A planet of similar age where life did not begin until several billion years after the planet formed would have only basic life forms at this point.
Again, said Winn of MIT, Spiegel and Turner offer a unique consideration for scientists exploring the possibility of life outside of Earth.
"I had never thought about the subtlety that we as a species could never have 'found' ourselves on a planet with a late emergence of life if evolution takes a long time to produce sentience, as it probably does," Winn said.
What Bayesian reasoning overlooks, of course, is the inconvenient fact that there are some one trillion galaxies in the known universe and some 50 billion planets estimated to exist in the Milky Way alone and some 500,000,000 predicted to exist in a habitable zone. Spiegel and Turner point out that basing our expectations of life existing on other planets, for no better reason that it exists here, is really only proof that were are more than capable of deceiving ourselves into thinking that things are much more likely than they really are.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has picked up the faint, ghostly glow of stars ejected from ancient galaxies shown below that were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago. The mayhem happened 4 billion light-years away, inside an immense collection of nearly 500 galaxies nicknamed "Pandora's Cluster," also known as Abell 2744. The Hubble team estimates that the combined light of about 200 billion outcast stars contributes approximately 10 percent of the cluster's brightness.
They argue that other unknown factors exist that could have contributed to us being here that we don't yet understand. So, they conclude that, deriving numbers from an equation such as that put forth by Drake, only serves to underscore our belief in the existence of other alien life forms, rather than the actual chances of it being so.
We think evidence will be discovered in the next 20 years: The Kepler mission has discovered 1,235 exoplanets that revolve around a sun, in an area that represents around 1/400th of the Milky Way. By extrapolating these numbers, the Kepler team has estimated that there are at least 50 billion exoplanets in our galaxy — 500 million of which sit inside the habitable "Goldilocks" zones of their suns, the area that it is neither too hot nor too cold to support life.
As Arthur C. Clarke, physicist and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey wrote, "The idea that we are the only intelligent creatures in a cosmos of a hundred billion galaxies is so preposterous that there are very few astronomers today who would take it seriously. It is safest to assume therefore, that they are out there and to consider the manner in which this may impinge upon human society."To an objectivist, empirical view, the rules of Bayesian statistics can be justified by requirements of rationality and consistency and interpreted as an extension of logic. Using a subjectivist view, however, the state of knowledge measures a "personal belief".


text:
Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South
Ludek Stavinoha
In the early 2000s, the issue of access to HIV/AIDS medicines and intellectual property rights became for many an emblematic case of how the contemporary design of the global economic order contributes to the violation of the right to health of the global poor. A transnational network of AIDS activists exposed the role that 'Big Pharma' pricing policies and patents had played in the denial of life-saving treatment to millions across the Global South. Gathering
widespread media coverage around the world, during this brief period, the pharmaceutical industry was effectively drawn from the confines of elite communicative spaces and sites of power into the public sphere, where it was duly named and shamed.
This paper investigates how the pharmaceutical industry responded to the ensuing public relations fiasco, drawing on a frame analysis of news coverage of the crisis in the Financial Times, The Economist and the European Voice, and interviews with industry insiders, NGO lobbyists, AIDS activists, policy-makers and journalists. More specifically, it explores the communication strategies of the pharmaceutical industry, focusing in particular on the elite communicative sphere located in Brussels, a key site of power in global trade and health governance.
The findings indicate that the industry's media strategy was essentially reactive and that it has focused much of its PR efforts on engaging key elite audiences rather than mass publics via communicative channels that bypass mass-mediated public spheres, such as direct lobbying and corporate social responsibility schemes. Furthermore, whereas 'Big Pharma' effectively lost the 'media battle', its capacity to shape the EU's trade agenda has not significantly
diminished. These findings challenge the widely-held notion that politics is essentially played out in the media and indicate a need to go beyond the media-
centrism characteristic of much contemporary theorisation about the interplay between communication and power.
Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference - Bangor, UK United Kingdom
Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
medicine Social Sciences
pharmaceutical industry Social Sciences
AIDS Social Sciences
elite Social Sciences
coverage Social Sciences
centrism Social Sciences
life saving Social Sciences
corporate social responsibility Social Sciences
Stavinoha, L. (2014). Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South. Paper presented at Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, Bangor, UK United Kingdom.
Losing the media battle, waging the policy war : Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South. / Stavinoha, Ludek.
2014. Paper presented at Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, Bangor, UK United Kingdom.
Stavinoha, L 2014, 'Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South', Paper presented at Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, Bangor, UK United Kingdom, 10/11/14 - 11/11/14.
Stavinoha L. Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South. 2014. Paper presented at Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, Bangor, UK United Kingdom.
Stavinoha, Ludek. / Losing the media battle, waging the policy war : Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South. Paper presented at Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference, Bangor, UK United Kingdom.
@conference{12b24123a4bb4812a977cdd0ef9e8631,
title = "Losing the media battle, waging the policy war: Big Pharma's response to the access to medicines crisis in the Global South",
abstract = "In the early 2000s, the issue of access to HIV/AIDS medicines and intellectual property rights became for many an emblematic case of how the contemporary design of the global economic order contributes to the violation of the right to health of the global poor. A transnational network of AIDS activists exposed the role that {\textquoteleft}Big Pharma{\textquoteright} pricing policies and patents had played in the denial of life-saving treatment to millions across the Global South. Gatheringwidespread media coverage around the world, during this brief period, the pharmaceutical industry was effectively drawn from the confines of elite communicative spaces and sites of power into the public sphere, where it was duly named and shamed.This paper investigates how the pharmaceutical industry responded to the ensuing public relations fiasco, drawing on a frame analysis of news coverage of the crisis in the Financial Times, The Economist and the European Voice, and interviews with industry insiders, NGO lobbyists, AIDS activists, policy-makers and journalists. More specifically, it explores the communication strategies of the pharmaceutical industry, focusing in particular on the elite communicative sphere located in Brussels, a key site of power in global trade and health governance.The findings indicate that the industry{\textquoteright}s media strategy was essentially reactive and that it has focused much of its PR efforts on engaging key elite audiences rather than mass publics via communicative channels that bypass mass-mediated public spheres, such as direct lobbying and corporate social responsibility schemes. Furthermore, whereas {\textquoteleft}Big Pharma{\textquoteright} effectively lost the {\textquoteleft}media battle{\textquoteright}, its capacity to shape the EU{\textquoteright}s trade agenda has not significantlydiminished. These findings challenge the widely-held notion that politics is essentially played out in the media and indicate a need to go beyond the media-centrism characteristic of much contemporary theorisation about the interplay between communication and power.",
keywords = "Communication, Public relations, pharmaceutical industry, corporate social responsibility, HIV, Media",
author = "Ludek Stavinoha",
note = "Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference ; Conference date: 10-11-2014 Through 11-11-2014",
T1 - Losing the media battle, waging the policy war
T2 - Media, Persuasion and Human Rights - PSA Media and Politics Group Annual Conference
AU - Stavinoha, Ludek
N2 - In the early 2000s, the issue of access to HIV/AIDS medicines and intellectual property rights became for many an emblematic case of how the contemporary design of the global economic order contributes to the violation of the right to health of the global poor. A transnational network of AIDS activists exposed the role that 'Big Pharma' pricing policies and patents had played in the denial of life-saving treatment to millions across the Global South. Gatheringwidespread media coverage around the world, during this brief period, the pharmaceutical industry was effectively drawn from the confines of elite communicative spaces and sites of power into the public sphere, where it was duly named and shamed.This paper investigates how the pharmaceutical industry responded to the ensuing public relations fiasco, drawing on a frame analysis of news coverage of the crisis in the Financial Times, The Economist and the European Voice, and interviews with industry insiders, NGO lobbyists, AIDS activists, policy-makers and journalists. More specifically, it explores the communication strategies of the pharmaceutical industry, focusing in particular on the elite communicative sphere located in Brussels, a key site of power in global trade and health governance.The findings indicate that the industry's media strategy was essentially reactive and that it has focused much of its PR efforts on engaging key elite audiences rather than mass publics via communicative channels that bypass mass-mediated public spheres, such as direct lobbying and corporate social responsibility schemes. Furthermore, whereas 'Big Pharma' effectively lost the 'media battle', its capacity to shape the EU's trade agenda has not significantlydiminished. These findings challenge the widely-held notion that politics is essentially played out in the media and indicate a need to go beyond the media-centrism characteristic of much contemporary theorisation about the interplay between communication and power.
AB - In the early 2000s, the issue of access to HIV/AIDS medicines and intellectual property rights became for many an emblematic case of how the contemporary design of the global economic order contributes to the violation of the right to health of the global poor. A transnational network of AIDS activists exposed the role that 'Big Pharma' pricing policies and patents had played in the denial of life-saving treatment to millions across the Global South. Gatheringwidespread media coverage around the world, during this brief period, the pharmaceutical industry was effectively drawn from the confines of elite communicative spaces and sites of power into the public sphere, where it was duly named and shamed.This paper investigates how the pharmaceutical industry responded to the ensuing public relations fiasco, drawing on a frame analysis of news coverage of the crisis in the Financial Times, The Economist and the European Voice, and interviews with industry insiders, NGO lobbyists, AIDS activists, policy-makers and journalists. More specifically, it explores the communication strategies of the pharmaceutical industry, focusing in particular on the elite communicative sphere located in Brussels, a key site of power in global trade and health governance.The findings indicate that the industry's media strategy was essentially reactive and that it has focused much of its PR efforts on engaging key elite audiences rather than mass publics via communicative channels that bypass mass-mediated public spheres, such as direct lobbying and corporate social responsibility schemes. Furthermore, whereas 'Big Pharma' effectively lost the 'media battle', its capacity to shape the EU's trade agenda has not significantlydiminished. These findings challenge the widely-held notion that politics is essentially played out in the media and indicate a need to go beyond the media-centrism characteristic of much contemporary theorisation about the interplay between communication and power.
KW - Public relations
KW - pharmaceutical industry
KW - corporate social responsibility
KW - HIV
KW - Media

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: text to speech with php I want to make a script
text to speech, but it is not in English i recorded audio alphabet
a.mp3, b.mp3, c.mp3.
I created a form with html
<form action='read.php' method='post'>
<input type='text' name='text' size='50'>
<input type='submit' name='go' value='Read!'>

but i need code with php where the form convert text to speech
for example i write abc in text input and press Read! so the php will play a.mp3, b.mp3 and c.mp3
after each other
how will the code be ?
and is there any better way to make text to speech web based ??

A: PHP is server sided, you cant use PHP to play mp3.
You will need client-sided code to play the sounds (javascript, HTML5, FLASH,..)
All you can do with php is parse the string (exemple: "abcd") and check if
you have "a.mp3, b.mp3, c.mp3, d.mp3" then transmit it via session, or _GET method.
But, it's not the best way as you can use javascript or actionscript code to make the same thing, plus you will need the client-side code to play the sounds in the right order.
Example in pseudo code:
<html>
    <script>
         text2speech($string){
             $letters = explode($string);
             foreach($letters as $letter){ play_sound($letter); }
         }
         play_sound($letter){
             $letter."mp3".play();
             while($letter.isPlaying() == true){ /*wait for the sound to finish*/ }
         }
    </script>

    <form>
        <input type="text" name="text2READ"><input type="submit" onlick="text2speech(text2READ.getValue())">
    </form>
</html>

Javascript and HTML5 are perfect for what you want to do, you will need to use audio HTML5 tags, and add elements to your DOM with javascript and then call their .play() method using javascript.
The pseudo code i wrote is not completely correct, as you'll need to add audio elements to your DOM etc, i just wrote it so you understand the idea.
Good luck

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


My name is Jordan Smith and I am pretty much the definition of all things Gold & Blue as well as Wild & Wonderful. I am a lifelong Fayette County resident and a graduate of Valley High School C/O 2010. WVU Tech has been my home long before I had the honor of calling it my employer.
I completed my undergraduate work at Tech in 2015 with my B.S. in Business Management. I am a second generation Golden Bear. In addition to my father, I have had numerous relatives come through a wide variety of programs at WVU Tech.
My plan of action at WVU Tech is to open the eyes of numerous high school students as well as possible transfers by enlightening them with the word of all things Tech. I am always here to help! I pride myself in the ability to promote my home in the highest manner possible!


text: Q: Only Update Start In field when updating the scheduled task via command promt/powershell Is it possible to only update the Start In (Optional) field (in GUI) when updating the task via command prompt. Is there like a flag for /tr to specify the executable file and then the location of the executable file. In this sample syntax: schtasks /change /tn <task_name> /tr /ru /rp. Can we do like /tr -e  -l


text:
Evangelical Protestants and Evangelicalism
U.S. Jews are more likely than Christians to say Trump favors the Israelis too much
While U.S. Jews have a strong attachment to Israel, they are divided in their assessment of Trump's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Evangelical approval of Trump remains high, but other religious groups are less supportive
Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump's presidential job performance. Other religious groups are more divided.
ReligionMarch 1, 2018
5 facts about U.S. evangelical Protestants
The Rev. Billy Graham, who recently died at age 99, was one of the most influential and important evangelical Christian leaders of the 20th century. As the country remembers Rev. Billy Graham, here are five facts about American evangelical Protestants.
ReligionOctober 27, 2017
500 years after the Reformation, 5 facts about Protestants around the world
Five centuries after the Reformation, global Protestant Christianity looks very different than it did at its inception. Here is a look at some key facts about Protestants around the world.
Among white evangelicals, regular churchgoers are the most supportive of Trump
White evangelicals overwhelming voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, and their support has continued into his presidency.
ReligionFebruary 27, 2017
Most white evangelicals approve of Trump travel prohibition and express concerns about extremism
While most Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's recent refugee policy, there is a sizable divide on the issue among major religious groups.
Pew Research CenterNovember 9, 2016
How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis
The 2016 presidential exit polling reveals little change in the political alignments of U.S. religious groups.
ReligionSeptember 23, 2016
Many evangelicals favor Trump because he is not Clinton
Nearly four-in-ten white evangelical voters who support Trump mention that they do so at least in part because he is not Clinton.
Fact TankJuly 14, 2016
Evangelicals increasingly say it's becoming harder for them in America
A growing share of self-identified "evangelical or born-again" Protestants (41%) says it has become more difficult to be an evangelical Christian in the U.S. in recent years; just 34% answered the question the same way in September 2014.
U.S. PoliticsMarch 14, 2016
Exit polls and the evangelical vote: A closer look
As Donald Trump has racked up big wins among self-described "born-again or evangelical" Christians in many of the early primaries, some religious leaders, political analysts and researchers have questioned whether many of these self-described evangelicals actually are evangelical Christians.
You are reading page1Page2Page3Page4Page5


Let me paint the scene for you. A mountain standing over the valley, a perfect jump and a sunset final in front of a huge crowd. The VIP and media are inside the fences, the families and tourists behind, and the alcoholics are hiding in the trees. The riders are the center of attention, launching the jump into the sunset, fighting for the victory ring as the photographers' flashes pop.
After two runs to make the rankings in each conference, the riders battle against each other until the best of each conference is named. In the end, the best from both sides fight for the title—but whatever the format is, the most important thing here is the judging.
During this competition the two international judges, Charly Royer and Lao Chazelas have the pleasure of judging only style, giving the victory to Aleksi Patja with a switch wobble 900 safety. Judging style is easier said than done—so props to the judges and the riders, who played the finals as well as they played in the riders' hockey game the day before.
Again this event was a real success, blowing away expectations—at least ours. Enjoy the photo portfolio.


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If there was a contest for the worst photoshopped photo, the Yonhap News Agency in South Korea would would hands down with this photo. The person President Park is really shaking hands with is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Why couldn't they just have used both photos?
On Sunday, April 28th, I will be the special guest author at 10 Magazine's monthly book club meeting. I've been looking forward to this event for some time and the chance to talk about my books, especially War Remains and Ice Cream Headache. Kudos to Barry Welsh, the organizer of this event, who personally invited me to participate in this event.
I am following in the steps of greatness, a who's who of Korean Arts, History, and Literature including, Michael Breen, Daniel Tudor, Charles Montgomery, Andrew Salmon, and Robert Neff. I invite you to check out what they have written and done.
Even when it comes to self-publishing.
There's a really good article on the Huffington Post which you can read here. Essentially it's about the self-publishing industry and the stigma attached to those of us who have self-published and are trying to get the word out about our books.
I've heard it all. When I told some of my friends and colleagues that I was going to self-publish my first novel, War Remains, their first reaction was that the only people who would buy it would be my family and friends. One former colleague, a writer himself, said that no one will ever take me seriously as a writer. That was three years ago and as far as I know, he still hasn't written the book he said he was going to write. I've written five in that time.
Self-publishing is easy. It's having to deal with promoting your book and having people talk about it what takes the most time and work. However, in order to help chip away at that stigma, you need a little help along the way. I know that with each sale of one of my books that stigma is slowly being removed. Just this past weekend, War Remains was up to Number #8 on Amazon's Kindle list. It might have only been for a few hours, but you know that has to count for something. That's why I work so hard to trying to promote and market my books. A sale here and a sale there and people start to take notice.
And if it's a good book and the author tells a good story it doesn't make any difference if it was self-published or not. That's the bottom line.
I'm a student and a teacher of history and when it comes to writing both become quite evident in what I write.
My first novel, War Remains, A Korean War Novel took me back to the opening months of the Korean War, the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, Kunu-ri, and the battle at Hoengseong. My interest in the Korean War was in part due to my coverage of Korean War commemorative events in Korea between 2000-2003 for the Korea Times, which also included meeting many veterans.
Although Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm is about my twenty-plus years living and working in Korea, the book is also a personal history of Korea and the changes which have occurred on the peninsula since I came to Korea in 1990. Besides the essays and articles about the Korean War, there is a special section about Panmunjom, including the article I wrote in 2001 about the 25th anniversary of the Panmunjom Ax Murder Incident.
There's also a lot of history evident in Invaders from Mars and Other Tales of Youthful Angst. Though most of the essays are about growing up in Oglesby, Illinois, a town of 4,200 back in the 1960s and 1970s, there are a number of historical references, including, but not limited to, the Vietnam War, the Apollo space program, and 1960s television. Many of the essays in this collection started out as blog posts which I later revised and expanded. I tell people that if you like Bill Bryson or Dave Barry, you'll like this collection.
And that brings me to Ice Cream Headache when I travel back in time again, this time back to 1968. I've always been fascinated with this year. A lot has to do with my own sort of prepubescent coming of age when I first really became aware of the world around me. Although Johnny Fitzpatrick is the only one directly affected by the historical backdrop, everyone has their own stake in the historical backdrop of the novella.
Reading Ice Cream Headache, Invaders from Mars and Other Tales of Youthful Angst, and War Remains, is reading me: who I am and where I've come from.
When I came to Korea in 1990 to live and work, my knowledge of Korea was what I was able to glean from a South Korean Fodor's travel guide, travel information from the Korea National Tourism Agency, a couple badly photocopied pages of firsthand experiences by English teachers at the language school I would be teaching at in southern Seoul, and a feature story in a 1979 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Nowadays, finding out information about what life is like in Korea is easy thanks to all the websites and blogs devoted to Korea and the trove of books which have been published about Korea in the past 20 years (including one from this reviewer: Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm). There is no dearth of information about Korea and it seems with every new book or blog about Korea another "expert" chimes in.
Well, another expert, Daniel Tudor, has chimed in with Korea: The Impossible Country and this is one expert who knows his stuff about Korea. Indeed, this old Korean hat found a trove of fresh insights about Korea as well as some succinct explanations of Korean customs and traditions and one of the best explanations that I've ever come across of that ever so explanation-evasive Korean "cultural code", han.
It's all here. Anything and everything you've heard or wondered about Korea is explored here, up close and personal. He examines everything from Shamanism and Confucianism to the rise of democracy in Korea and nationalism. With journalistic flair and the desire for getting at the truth, whether to satisfy his own curiosity or not, Tudor unravels all that is mysterious, intriguing, and sometimes frustrating about Korea to get at the very heart of what makes Korea, Korea.
Although this is not an academic study, (those looking for a more of an academic study about Korea might want to choose Don Oberdorfer's, The Two Koreas or Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun) there is much to be learned and digested here. And even if you have already lived and worked in Korea for any length of time, Tudor offers fresh insights into contemporary Korean society whether he's talking about Korea's drinking culture or the role of women (though he might need to update his book soon with the election of Park Guen-hye).
Though a bit heavy on the historical, cultural, anthropological, psychological attributes of Korean society and things Korean for short term visitors to Korea, it should be standard issue for anyone who is going to be here for the long term. Tudor excels with his ability to describe the Korean-ness of Korea. Additionally, it should be required reading for anyone doing business in Korea: from students and military personnel to business persons and diplomats.
Although an actual date has not been decided, in April or May, I will be one of the guest authors talking about Ice Cream Headache or Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm at the 10 Magazine Book Club in Seoul. This book club meeting has already featured or will feature such authors as Michael Breen, Daniel Tudor, and Andrew Salmon. That's some great company to join.
I will also be featured on Arirang radio sometime soon talking about War Remains.
On February 19, Ice Cream Headache will be the featured blog post on Authors Promoting Authors.
I am reading Daniel Tudor's book, Korea: The Impossible Country right now and I am loving it. His book should be standard issue for anyone who's going to be in Korea for any length of time. I know I am learning some new things here as well as finally having someone explain han and jeong in accessible terms.
I would love to have the chance to talk about Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm and share my insights on what it's been like for me all these years living and working in Korea. Unlike most expats who have written books about their experiences in Korea, I was fortunate that I was a writer for the Korea Times at the time and witness to a lot of history going down here. When Tudor talks about Chun Do-hwan or Roh Tae-woo, how many expats can say that they lived next door to ex-presidents of Korea?
Winter is my favorite time of the year in Korea; especially when it snows. Having lived in Korea since 1990, I have seen my share of snow in Seoul, Daejeon, and my first winter wonderland at Mt. Sorak in 1991.
December was the snowiest month I have experienced in Daejeon as well as Korea all those years.
On New Year's Day, another couple of inches was dumped on Daejeon and with the temperature not too cold, I trudged through the snow over to Uam Historical Park (a little over a mile from where I live) to take some winter photos.
Read about my first winter in Korea, snow, and other things in Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm.
Either way, this gentleman was not about to be dissuaded by snow and ice. Look closely, you'll also see his cane and an industrial-strength chain to make sure no one steals his Lespo.
It's been wicked cold in Daejeon for the past three days; the coldest December that I can remember in a long time. Most of the streets in my neighborhood are still sheets of corrugated ice and snow. There won't be any city department crews sprinkling salt on these streets.
Some folks have taken to spreading crushed yontan (charcoal briquettes used for heating and cooking) on the streets for traction. Last night, I saw a guy using a blow torch to melt the ice on one patch of ice on a side street near my apartment so he could move his car.
This deep freeze is supposed to last until the middle of next week.
It's a good time to curl up with a good book.
How about Ice Cream Headache?
Or, Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm?
A photograph is worth a thousand words.
For as long as I have lived in Korea, now starting my 23rd year, I have never seen this much snow in early December. And I'm lovin' every minute of it!


text:
Jelgava () es una ciudad del centro de Letonia, en la región de Zemgale, a 44 km de Riga. Es la ciudad más grande de esta región. Hasta 1919 fue la capital de Curlandia.

Jelgava se encuentra en una llanura en la orilla derecha del Lielupe, cuyas aguas cada cierto tiempo ponen en peligro a la ciudad. El canal de Jacobo —que debe su nombre a Jacobo Kettler— rodea Jelgava y es un punto crucial para el tráfico ferroviario y el mercado de madera y trigo.

Origen etimológico
Se cree que el nombre de la ciudad procede de la palabra jelgab del idioma livonio y significa "población baja".

Historia
Los Livos empezaron a crear asentamientos en la región entre los ríos Lielupe y Driksa en el siglo X. Dirigidos por Konrad de Mander, los caballeros de la orden de los Hermanos Livonios de la Espada comenzaron a construir el castillo de Jelgava de 1265 a 1266. Con la fortaleza los caballeros alemanes abatieron hasta 1290 a los livonios y semgalleros de los alrededores. Aunque la ciudad ganó con sus instalaciones defensivas a los lituanos, estos en 1345 lograron el saquear el castillo.

Tras la disolución definitiva de la orden durante la Guerra Livona, se adueñó del castillo la nobleza de Curlandia. En 1573 se reconocieron sus derechos como ciudad y en 1578 fue declarada capital del Ducado de Curlandia y Semigalia.

En 1617 la ciudad volvió a ser capital del ducado formando parte de la República de las Dos Naciones y se empezó a hablar de la población como Mitawa. Los continuos enfrentamientos entre Polonia y Lituania trajeron consigo varios asedios que tuvo que sufrir Mitava. A pesar de ello, la ciudad creció y se llegó a convertir en un centro comercial e industrial. Sin embargo, los vecinos de Curlandia poco a poco se iban expandiendo y pronto Jelgava pasó al dominio de Rusia.

El penúltimo duque de Curlandia, Ernst Johann Biron, favoreció a la ciudad en el plano cultural. Levantó el castillo real de su reino, inauguró la primera biblioteca pública y organizaba representaciones teatrales en la corte. Además en 1775 fundó la Academia Petrina que se convirtió en el centro cultural de la ciudad.

Con el inicio de la Revolución francesa en 1789 los habitantes de Jelgava exigían una serie de derechos civiles. En 1795, sin embargo, se produjo la anexión a Rusia y la ciudad pasó a llamarse Mitawa.

El conde provincial y luego rey Luis XVIII de Francia comenzó en 1798 a usar el palacio de Jelgava como residencia principal hasta 1801. Aunque la ciudad fue ocupada durante las Guerras Revolucionarias Francesas por tropas prusianas, se salvó mayoritariamente de la destrucción.

Una nueva expansión experimentó Jelgava tras la conexión con la red de ferrocarriles en 1868. Se produjo un éxodo rural hacia la ciudad, donde los inmigrantes comenzaban a trabajar como comerciantes, funcionarios y profesores.

Sin embargo, a causa de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Jelgava pasa por una etapa difícil. Las tropas alemanas ocuparon la ciudad durante la guerra y después fue un campo de batalla entre el Ejército Rojo y los cuerpos libres "Freikorps" báltico-alemanes. Tras la victoria de los Freikorps Jelgava se convirtió en una ciudad importante de la independiente Letonia.

De 1941 hasta 1944 las tropas alemanas ocuparon Jelgava y al ser derrotadas fue conquistada por el Ejército Rojo. Gran parte de la población de origen alemán fue expulsada y tuvo que regresar a Alemania. El centro histórico, las zonas industriales, la red ferroviaria y los edificios públicos, casi el 90 % de la ciudad, fueron dañados durante los combates.

La reconstrucción se llevó a cabo durante él período de la República Socialista Soviética de Letonia.

Hoy en día, en la de nuevo independiente Letonia, Jelgava se esfuerza por la ampliación del turismo y la ciencia. Desde 1939 la ciudad cuenta con la Universidad Letonia Argícula Latvijas Lauksaimniecības Universitāte.

Clima

Patrimonio

Jelgava se compone de calles regulares y anchas que rodean los palacios de los nobles germano-bálticos. El antiguo castillo de Curlandia en una isleta en el río fue derruido por el rey Ernst Johann von Biron, quien mandó a Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli que edificara un castillo propio en los terrenos de Curlandia. El castillo contiene todos los sarcófagos reales y se encuentra en medio de un parque.

Otros símbolos de la ciudad son sin duda la iglesia de estilo barroco de Santa Ana, la torre de la iglesia destruida y dos edificios de estilo neoclásico: la Villa Medem y la Academia Petrina.

Ciudades hermanadas

Jelgava mantiene un hermanamiento de ciudades con:

Personajes ilustres
 Federico Kettler (1569-1642), duque de Curlandia.
 Guillermo Kettler (1574-1640), duque de Curlandia.
 Federico Casimiro Kettler (1650-1698), duque de Curlandia.
 Ernst Johann von Biron (1690-1772), duque de Curlandia.
 Peter von Biron (1724-1800), duque de Curlandia.
 Carlos de Sajonia (1733-1796), duque de Curlandia y Semigalia.
 Wilhelmine von Sagan (1781-1839), duquesa de Sagan.
 Kazimierz Pułaski (1744-1779), militar polaco, comandante de la Confederación de Bar, general del Ejército Continental durante la Revolución Estadounidense.
 Karl Eduard von Eichwald (1795-1876), científico.
 Renārs Kaupers (1974-), cantante letón.
 Sabine Jemeljanova (1991-), modelo glamour.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

 Página web oficial de Jelgava.


Kerala power sector: recipe for culture change.
The document elaborates on the uphill tasks facing the planners: "A large number of smallholders have to move to post- harvest and non-farm activities to augment their income. The research focus should be to evolve technologies and management options to suit needs of smallholders' agriculture, and also to involve them in agri-supply chain through institutional innovations. ……To add to smallholders' problem, the quality of production environment is worsening. The problem of land-and-water degradation is becoming a key constraint in augmenting agricultural production. Available estimates reveal that nearly 120.72 million ha of land in the country is degraded due to soil erosion and about 8.4 million ha has soil salinity and water-logging problems. etc etc".
It is customary to give credit to ICAR for India's green revolution, white revolution etc etc and it is also true that agricultural production in the country has been increasing steadily and in step with the population. Percapita production of food grains has been increasing, and India was free from hunger on the average, within a few decades of national independence. However, there are fears that, percapita production has already peaked some ten years ago, and there are concerns about the graph drooping further down. (Usta Patnaik.) And of course, several researchers had expressed serious doubts around the so called green revolution and the contributions made by ICAR and its all India network of institutions. These issues need detailed study, in the specific context of Indian agriculture continuing its primitive existence, despite tall claims by scientific communities and spokesmen of the establishment.
In fact, only a minuscule of the working people engaged in Indian agriculture (260 million) belong to the organized sector (1.5 million) and they mostly work for the plantations, dominated by the private corporate sector and big farmers. Vast majority of the working people, engaged in agriculture and allied activities, the self employed farmers as well as the agricultural labor, belong to the informal or unorganized sector of the national economy. Agricultural production has increased due to the expansion of cultivated land and increased productivity of land, thanks to expansion of irrigation facilities, use of chemical fertilizers, and switch over to high yielding variety seeds. Public investments in irrigation have played a key role in increasing production: There was an increase of over 30% in gross cropped area, thanks to irrigation even though the net cropped area had increased hardly by 12 % during the past sixty years. Gross irrigated area was only 17.4 % of cropped area in 1951-52 whereas the more recent figure is around 43 %. Assured water supply with the help of canal irrigation and tube-wells powered by highly subsidized grid electricity had facilitated not only application of chemical fertilizers but also adopting HYV crops.
Nearly 60 percent of the farmer households have not accessed any source of information on modern technology. Among those who had accessed such information, the three main sources were other progressive farmers (16.7 %), input dealers (13.1 %) and radio (13 %).
Government agencies such as Krishi Vigyan Kendra, extension workers, farmer visits, or even demonstrations and fairs have come to play a negligible role in disseminating information on modern technology.
Both government and other sources were least accessed by the marginal and small farmers: As against 10 percent of the medium and large farmers, only around 4 percent of the sub-marginal and marginal farmers and 8 percent of the small farmers accessed information regarding improved practices and technology from extension workers.
Quality and reliability of extension services appeared to be a major concern.
Only 30 percent of the farmer households are members members of cooperative societies and of this one third did not make use of their services.
The report had pointed out that, "rising cost of cultivation, low remunerations, high risks with frequent crop failures, declining agricultural growth, and mounting debts have all led the farmer to a distress like situation." It gives a graphic picture about the primitive nature of Indian agriculture and the hapless Indian farmer, "trapped by low literacy, lack of organization and poor connectivity with low levels of awareness regarding technology usage, institutional credit schemes and government's support initiatives." About 40 percent of farmer households dislike their occupation and farming, as an occupation, is looked down by the society as a whole. All these, including the rising suicide rates among farmers have, no doubt, everything to with the gross mismanagement of our agricultural sector.
An overview of the institutional responsibilities in the management of Indian agriculture, summarized as a chart, is given in the next page. Land being the most fundamental resource for agriculture, land-use planning is a crucial tool in managing agriculture development. This is so in any civilized country, but in India land is looked upon as a commodity, despite the town and country planning act being in existence for several decades. According to the act, village panchayats and town municipalities should have their own planning departments manned by trained personnel, and supervised by land use boards constituted by their respective local self governments. For over-viewing and guiding these activities and for making state level land use plans and production of quality maps, Land Use Boards were constituted by every member state of our union republic.
Many of the State Land Use Boards are headed by junior or disgraced IAS officers and have turned totally dysfunctional with very little role clarity, and stagnating due to lack of working funds and professional manpower. Like the Kerala State Land Use Board, many of these organizations have taken up foreign consultancy assignments. Survey of India, initiated by the British, continues to be an imperial institution under the central government, and has not cared to develop state level counterparts: Its linkages with State Land Use Boards are weak. Due to all these, India is extremely backward in the art and craft of cartography and the country simply does not possess even an essential minimum of inventory of quality maps, an essential input for the management of agriculture. All talks about national cropping plans etc based on the agro climatic resources of the subcontinent, make little practical sense, considering these grass-root level realities.
Situation with regard to water management and irrigation, as well as the weather resources, are similar to that of land use and land use planning. India is noted for its traditional canal irrigation networks, based on dams and reservoir as well as wells, tanks and bunds. Irrigation departments under the state governments are highly bureaucratized, and their linkages with agricultural departments, local administration and farmer collectives are extremely weak. Corrupt regimes at the state level naturally favor the rich peasantry, in the absence of comprehensive plans for individual river basins. Lack of professionalism in water resources planning and management has affected the quality and efficiency of the age old canal irrigation systems, leading to arbitrary increases in water-rates. There has been a massive shift to pumped irrigation, as a result: Cheap electricity, provided by State Electricity Boards, had led to even over-exploitation of ground water resources, all over the country. Central Water Commission, the federal custodian of our water resources has no counterparts at the state level, and as revealed in the recent Mullaperiyar conflict between Tamilnadu and Kerala, it is not even considered a competent body to arbitrate between two state governments.
Climate and weather studies in India are considered the sole prerogative of the Central Government. Daily, monthly and annual weather studies and forecasts by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) are made at regional levels and they have little relevance or use for the farming communities. In the absence of professional support from IMD, the farmers get guided by the local panchanga astrologers, or even water diviners. Our universities and research centers are engaged in climate studies related to global warming, sponsored by UNEP programs and foreign universities. They show little interest in weather and climate studies that are of relevance to local agriculture at the village or district level. Even the possibilities with our own weather satellites are not fully utilized. Rain gauges as well as weirs and notches, installed in the past for measuring surface water flows, have gone dysfunctional in many places, due to administrative neglect or lack of maintenance funds. Recently, IMD has drawn up plans for rectifying these deficiencies by strengthening itself. However, reconstitution and reorganization of IMD into a full-fledged federal body, so as to improve its coverage, quality, and efficacy, is not part of its immediate agenda.
As indicated in the Vision 230 document, 97 research institutes, 46 state agricultural universities, five deemed universities and one Central Agricultural University and 589 KVKs constitute the national network for agricultural research and extension services, presided over by ICAR. ICAR institutes cater to not only agricultural crops but also, horticulture, fisheries and animal husbandry and related technologies as well as mechanization. Like the Coconut Research Institute in my own village, their linkages with local farms and farming communities are extremely week. There is an agricultural university in each state: They are autonomous bodies under the state government, but depend on ICAR for academic guidance as well as research funds.
Scientists working for ICAR, inevitably, develop a split loyalty due to the pulls and pressures of international, research dominated by global finance. In the absence of any coherent patriotic program for agricultural development, they look for global opportunities. Indian agricultural research continues to be weak and hapless, despite the long years of ICAR. It does not have roots in Indian farms and farming communities: We seems to believe that, even agricultural sciences has to be learned and taught only in English and not in Indian languages. We do not have books and literature in agricultural sciences in the languages spoken by our farmers and farm workers. And, that is reason enough to campaign for the restructuring of ICAR network on genuine federal lines and democratize its administration, in order to take it closer to the farming communities and the people at large.
Food Corporation of India was setup in 1964, in order to provide farmers with remunerative prices, to make food grains available at reasonable prices, and to maintain buffer stocks as a measure of food security. With its four zonal offices and over 35,000 employees FCI has turned a highly bureaucratic and inefficient set-up. Like all other Central Public Sector Undertakings, FCI has also failed to build up state level counterparts or subsidiaries, with sufficient autonomy to deal with region-specific and crop-specific problems, with the involvement of state governments and local self government institutions. There is another Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), that have promoted State Warehousing Corporations as joint ventures with the state governments (50:50) with similar or over-lapping functions. CWC with its 17 regional centers and dealing in some 200 commodities look at export as its sole priority, and have no interest in the operations and management of its state-level subsidiaries, which have turned virtual orphans, without any worthwhile policy inputs or financial support from state as well as central governments. For effectively implementing the warehousing and price support strategies the organizational set up already created need to be streamlined and modernized.
State governments are looked upon as the custodian of agriculture production, and they are expected to perform, using the inputs provided by Central Government and its numerous agencies, over which they have very little control. Even here, policy making is seen as the sole prerogative of Central Government and its Planning Commission: even the National Development Council (NDC) is hardly consulted on policy questions on agriculture. Agricultural Prices Commission finds even questions related to terms of trade difficult to handle, due to numerous regulatory complexities and diverse tax regimes. Liberalization of trade and bilateral trade agreements has brought in further complications in policy management at the state level.
Despite constitutional provisions for decentralized administration, several related sectors like social forestry, minor irrigation, local transport, small and village industries etc continue to be outside the purview of local governance. As already pointed out, Indian farmers are poorly organized as a collective and play virtually no role, or play an extremely weak role in policy making, related to land use, water resources management and irrigation, crop development, mechanization, or even formulating development plans. Even states like West Bengal and Kerala where land reforms and democratic decentralization of administration has registered substantive progress, farmers and their collectives play little role in the management of agriculture. A recent (January 2009) report by the West Bengal State Commission on Agriculture had lamented on the lack of participation by farmers and their collectives in the formulation and implementation of farm development programs in that state. If that is the situation in a state like West Bengal, the over all situations in the country must be far far worse.
Developments in agrarian relations in the country have been extremely uneven. Peasants' struggle for land has succeeded in some measure during the six decades of national independence. Land reforms were attempted in almost all Indian states, and under influence of the left, the reforms were seriously pursued in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, where the democratic movement got considerably strengthened. Kerala has experienced a big shift from food crops to cash crops, typical of capitalist agriculture. Farm incomes per unit area cultivated as well as per person engaged in agriculture are nearly three times the national average, in Kerala. There are two agricultural workers per cultivator in Kerala if we go by the census counts, and the ratio is just the reverse for the country as a whole. Agriculture workers as well as the entire informal sector workers in Kerala command much higher wages and better working conditions compared to their counter parts elsewhere in the countries.
The shift from sustenance agriculture based on food crops to capitalist agriculture based on cash crops is taking place all over the country, slowly but steadily, and the intervention programs designed by the Delhi bureaucracy with minimal or ineffective consultations at the lower levels, including the farmers' collectives, have proved, by and large, ineffective. There is a crisis situation emerging, and the Central Government and its policy makers are using the opportunity to plan a total surrender of the agricultural sector to global capital. Technology developments like genetically modified crops and micro climate controlled agriculture and others are opening up totally new horizons in agriculture. And the emerging trends are uneven, unbalanced and unsustainable in the long run. They need to be carefully analyzed and clearly understood if we are to decide on a strategy for countering these new imperialist offensives.
Data from nine villages in the States mentioned above showed that 21 per cent of households (mainly poor peasants) actually had negative crop incomes. By contrast, the average agricultural income of households in the top docile was over 3.2 lakhs per household. Not only do the data show that aggregate incomes from agriculture are highly unequal across cultivator households, they also show that there are large variations in the costs of cultivation and profitability across crops, and, for a given crop, across regions. Variations in the profitability of crops across different classes are substantial….
True, India is a subcontinent of diverse cultures and subcultures, supported by vastly different agro-climatic conditions. Politically, we are a conglomeration of numerous developing nationalities and call ourselves a multinational country. The process of nationality development in the sub-continent was frozen by the British in their imperial interests, and the ruling classes, that inherited political power from the colonial rulers, were in no mood to complete the unfinished tasks of national liberation. Even the re-organization of Indian states on linguistic or cultural lines, a legitimate dream of Indian independence movement, was resisted by them. Indian big bourgeoisie and our ruling elites sustain their hegemony over the Indian people with the help of neocolonialists, and by blocking and suppressing their struggles for cultural and material development.
Our elite classes have even invented jargons like Unity in Diversity, for seeking moral justifications for the oppressive development policies, pursued by the Indian State. Culture is not generated in a vacuum: It springs from the material life of people. It is sustained by science and technology, and culture is the product of autonomous development of a society, with its own personality, history and geography. The abstract universal man is pure invention by the intellectual classes and doe not exist for the vast majority of the working people of our century. We have seen, in the earlier sections, the bogus character and hollow claims of the inefficient agricultural development programs followed by the Indian state, with little or no involvement of our farmers and their collectives, as well as the people at large. Vision 2030 of ICAR is a sure recipe for the further alienation of our working people from the Indian State, that rules over them. It will end up as an even bigger failure than the earlier development program, which has virtually pushed Indian agriculture into the present chaotic situation. And it could be salvaged only through the prolonged political struggles of the working people, and vast majority of them belong to agriculture.
Indian agriculture continues to be primitive in terms of technology and organization, even after six decades of intervention by the Indian state under the leadership ICAR. However, it has already entered the capitalist phase of development which is uneven, unstable and unsustainable. Vision 2030 document prepared by ICAR is incompetent to address the emerging crisis. Central Government and the elite classes that rule the country are getting ready to hand over the agriculture sector to foreign monopoly capital under the pretext of solving an impending crisis.
The big capitalist farmers and rich peasants are sure to join hands with the foreign monopolists in this process of takeover, as part of the ongoing globalization process. This will be at the cost of the rest of the farming community, consisting of small and marginal farmers, agricultural workers and other sections of our rural proletarians.
This process is sure to be prolonged and protracted. The big capital is equipped with modern farming technologies and agricultural research organized by imperialist states. A well planned strategy and effective intervention by the Indian state are absolutely necessary for protecting the interest of the farming communities and the country at large. ICAR and other central government organizations need to be strengthened by developing their state level counterparts and then transforming them into genuine federal institutions, capable of defending national interests.
Rural proletarians of India's informal sector, including the agricultural workers need to be unionized for fighting for their basic human rights, such as minimum wages, reasonable working conditions, and social security. The report on unorganized sector by Arjun Sengupta committee on the unorganized sector of the national economy has highlighted the need as well as the possibilities for regulating the labor market in the informal sector.
In fact, Arjun Sengupta report is the byproduct and legacy of decades long struggles waged by the informal sector workers, in several parts of the country, under the leadership of working class parties which has by now acquired adequate strength and expertise to formulate and campaign for an alternative agriculture development program that is truly patriotic and anti-imperialist.
A dwelling without compound around was unthinkable for a Malayalee. It could be even plot as small as a cent and half: What is important was the smell of raw earth around. This life style is costing our society dear: Unplanned growth of our population centres substantially increases the cost of basic infrastructure and civic amenities. Road density in Kerala is 414 km/100 sqkm and it is far ahead of the national average of 75 km. Road length per lakh population in Kerala is 506 km against the national average of 259 km.
Kerala with a population density of more than double the national average has already set aside large land areas for road construction. Economy of the state finds it difficult to maintain these vast quantities of roads constructed year after year. Higher road length per person is also an indicator of the higher outlays subsumed for power and fuel supplies, water supply, sewerage and drainage as well as other utilities. Urbanisation is inevitable, and it was high time that, some sort of discipline was brought into the anarchic situation.
The apartment culture that is slowly setting in Kerala has, therefore, a definite social and economic rationale and the mushrooming real estate and property development business, undoubtedly, are creating real values. I may quote here the personal example of a close friend and comrade-in-arm Kunju Krishnan: we may refer him as KK for convenience. He was a poor man by any standard and working as a helper in a mechanical workshop near his ancestral home, frequently used as shelter by senior leaders of left movement, during the dark years of head-hunt by a blood-thirsty police.
KK along with his wife and three children was holed up in a small tiled hut, along with his aged ailing mother, when I came across him in the early eighties. He was a known leader in the locality, sincere to the core, and as usual rewarded less and respected more for his stubborn honesty. On dividing the family assets, bulk of his ancestral property went to his sisters, married and properly settled elsewhere: Title of the 40 cents of land and the house, where KK lived was held by his ailing mother who was under pressure to divide it once again as family property. He, however, was lucky on the legal front, after the mother died and within no time property developers closed in on him.
For the prices prevailing during late eighties, he got a good bargain: With the cash compensation received for the land, KK could purchase an acre of agricultural land in nearby village where he built a small farm-house, the two daughters were comfortably married off, and son got educated to work as an accountant in a respectable firm. In addition he was allotted three apartments: As on now, he lives in one and the others are rented out. KK was overnight catapulted into an altogether different social orbit.
More interesting part of this story of large value addition was the bankruptcy of KK's builder, even before the apartments were completed and handed over. The hard liquidity problem of the early nineties, that brought to a complete halt the booming property business, had forced the builder to flee the country. Fortunately for KK, there was enough number of apartment aspirants who had fully paid up for the apartments and ready to go for legal remedies. KK as a man of public interest assembled the necessary expertise, legal, financial as well as technical, to form a cooperative enterprise for raising the balance money and completing the building project.
True, he could move into the new flat only four years behind the schedule: However, as per the contract entitlements with the builder, KK continued to stay in his good old place, from where he managed to marry off his two daughters. Despite all odds, he conducted the house warming ceremonies in grand style in the new flat in 1995. Possibly KK's example was more of an exemption: several among the martyrs of the building industry of nineties are yet to recover and a good many among those who invested for apartments continue to wait indefinitely. Moral of the story is obvious: KK and others helped themselves using their collective endeavor.
Belonging to the collective of some eighty and odd apartment dwellers bring in several advantages and privileges. Managing electricity, phone, gas, water, drainage, sewerage and waste disposal collectively is of great advantage. Most apartment collectives have developed their own arrangements for paying up the utility bills and some are offering even internet connections. Convenience shops, common washing and ironing centres are developing as common amenities. A well-kept small garden and children's playground are real luxuries even for the middle class. Instant geriatric care of the old, first aid and emergency medical help are within the reach of the collectives of apartment dwellers. Cultural evenings and festival celebrations are bringing people together in many apartments that simply strengthen our age old secular traditions. Common garages, car parking and 24 hour security at the gate are the new civic amenities that are now taken for granted by every apartment dweller: However these were simply the privileges of the elite classes till yesterday!
The new culture that is developing around our apartments are sure to stay: it is not a passing fad, simply because of the enormous advantages offered by it at very low costs. However, these are sure to face several serious problems, thanks to their unplanned growth. Servicing the apartments with utilities and infrastructure are likely to be a serious problem, which need to be pre-empted with the help of careful planning at intracity as well as intercity levels. Mushrooming of the apartments in almost all cities and major towns is sure to discipline us.
We will be forced to redesign our population centers in a far more rational way, sooner than later, consistent with the unique features of our land and waters. Kerala, as we know, is a narrow strip of land with a 560 Kilometer coastline on the West, and mountain reliefs on the East. Every 14 kilometer on the average, there is a river system flowing Westward, and forty-one drainage basins rush their heavy monsoon run-off, into a huge inland water body, stretching along the coastline and shaking hands with the Arabian sea, at half a dozen locations called pozhi.
Thanks to this unique hydrology, more than half of Kerala population live on its coastal planes, measuring only a third of total land area. This coastal plane, on the two sides of the backwaters network, with its lakes, canals and estuaries, numerous seaports of antiquity and large population centers, is developing into a single modern metro of some twenty million people; population densities crossing the level of 3000 persons per sqkm, for several long stretches. The North-South inland waterway along this backwater system, and the several kilometers of navigable stretches upstream of the forty-one rivers, were developed by several generations of Kerala rulers, before and after the great Cheraman Perumal took to Islam.
This 1700 Kilometer long inland waterway network was the backbone of Kerala economy and served the culture and commerce of the region for centuries, turning Parasurama legend into a living reality. Due to a variety of factors beyond our control, neglect and ignorance in the main, these arteries of history had turned totally dysfunctional, within a few decades of national independence, inflicting heavy damages on our economy and culture.
These are the unique features of Kerala and historical facts that had encouraged our President to recommend us to develop some sort of mysterious smart waterways. Even water supply and drainage systems as well as power and fuel lines could be built around such smart waterways and transportation network along the backwater system.
Reconstruction of Kerala economy and culture along its ancient waterways, with the help of modern Science and Technology, should be the twenty-first century dream project of Malayalees: Why not re-design our population centers by developing a master plan for the building of apartments for the 560 KM long metro that is emerging along Kerala coast? Perhaps, even our builders' community could be asked to step in!