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FBU's Matt Wrack Addresses Delegates
Delegates at the IAFF 54th Convention welcomed a voice of solidarity and unity from across the pond Tuesday. General Secretary of the United Kingdom's Fire Brigades Union (FBU) Matt Wrack congratulated the IAFF and Convention delegates on International's 100th anniversary while expressing solidarity on issues including trade unionism and fire safety standards.
"We live in times when many politicians tell us that trade unions are a relic from the past, dinosaurs from a bygone age," he said. "But today, more than ever, trade unions are necessary to defend fire fighters and to protect our interests. He added that the FBU has paid close attention to the work the IAFF has done on such important issues as occupational cancer, fire fighter wellness and fitness, fire fighter mental health and other research.
"It is a marvelous achievement for you to have built the IAFF into a 313,000-strong army of fire fighters, the largest fire fighter union on the planet and a great champion for our profession here and across the globe."
The FBU is a Global Alliance partner, and General President Harold Schaitberger has the honor of attending the FBU's annual conference in June, which also served as a celebration of its 100th anniversary this year. "Records show that you got started in February 1918. We took a little bit longer – until October – of the same year to get going. So it looks like you beat us to it, but we're going back to the archives to see if we can find anything else," he quipped.
Introduced by Schaitberger as "a vigorous defender of trade union rights" and a great friend to the FBU, Wrack dedicated the lion's share of his remarks to a terrible tragedy that occurred in London in June 2017 when the Grenfell Tower apartment burned, at a cost of 72 lives. It was the worst fire in the United Kingdom since the World War II in terms of loss of life "despite the incredible intervention of our fire fighters and fire emergency control staff who saved many, many people in that building."
Wrack took aim at the many factors that contributed to the tragedy, including elevators that fire fighters could not operate, unsafe stairwells and doors, improper compartmentation and, infamously, an exterior cladding added not long before the fire that Wrack described as "effectively made of gasoline wrapped in petroleum."
But at the public inquiry into the tragedy, officials called fire fighters first to the stand to answer questions, and the first thing questioned was firefighting operations – "not the people who decided to put flammable materials around 23 storeys of an apartment block," said Wrack.
More than 1,000 fire fighters have been interviewed by police since the fire, with an FBU representative present each time. Wrack said the response to the Grenfell tragedy under such terrible conditions is a great credit to his members that should resonate in the public eye. "When we hear the press attacking us as troublemakers, militants, radicals, because we want to protect our pay, or we want them to stop stealing our retirement pensions, then we should point to those people queueing up in their breathing apparatus to enter that hellhole and say, that's what union members look like."
Watch full remarks.


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Anna Mazzone, Head of New Ventures, Thomson Reuters
"Annette has one of the sharpest minds I've encountered. She has a remarkable talent to both identify gaps in thinking and in collaborating on problem solving.
As a big supporter of women in leadership, she works with them to effectively develop their brand. I would recommend Annette without hesitation."
Simon Scullion, R&D Director, Pepsico
"Annette is a superb collaborator. We gave her the brief to help us to better align Innovation stakeholders around the globe, adding to our ability to focus on key projects with speed and agility. Annette worked with us to both design cross-disciplinary ways of working and via workshops, deliver relevant leadership approaches for individuals/ teams in different R+D functions. The results are leadership tools everyone can use to better align goals, influence senior leaders and unlock organisational obstacles. Annette has an inquisitive and open style but will also challenge where appropriate. I would recommend her without hesitation."
Darren Balcombe, Deputy CEO, Capital Enterprise
"Annette, amongst other things, is an outstanding teacher of business communication. Her superpower is to get start-ups communicate their value with impact. I would recommend unconditionally, both with beginners and the most seasoned professionals."
Karen Ball MBE, Tech City Investment Organisation, Directorate for Investment, UKTI
"There are few people who are both as effective and as fun to work with as Annette. Together we designed and implemented a plan for Tech City, to offer high-growth start-ups the very specific, and varied, help they needed to get to the next level. Every month, Annette gave a pitch workshop that allowed company members to learn to think strategically - and then to articulate their business proposition clearly, efficiently, and engagingly.
This had two effects: the first is that they were better prepared to both pitch for investment and ask mentors the right questions in follow-up workshops. The second was that mentors and investors could understand easily what each company offered, when considering whether to invest or how best to advise them.
The plan was so successful that we began with three companies and 6 mentors in the first month and finished with more companies and mentors/investors than we could accommodate signing up. Much of this was due to Annette's dedication, flexibility, and talent at what she does. Her workshops were very popular for both mentors and companies. I would happily work with Annette again at the first opportunity."
Jess Williamson, Associate Director, Springboard/TechStars
Now PropTech Strategist at Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
"We have had tremendous feedback from the startups in Tech City Entrepreneurs Festival, so huge thank you for taking the time, energy, and awesomeness to come put on an unforgettably valuable pitching workshop. We also couldn't have found better prize for the winner than two hours of your time, thank you for being tremendously flexible – and so wonderful at what you do. It's a long list of things to thank you for.
The startups were really happy with Bootcamp + Investor Day and we could not have done it without you!"
Noel McCarthy, PwC, New York
"Annette is the Rolls Royce of Pitch Mechanics for entrepreneurs, and from my work with her at PwC, there's nobody better to help both SMEs and corporates as well. Through teaching how to think through a business proposition and express it for every audience, Annette transforms her clients into leaders.
Annette's work with entrepreneurs is stellar, and she outshines anyone else in the field. I wouldn't use anyone else to prepare companies to persuade investors to part with their money, incubators to admit them, partners to collaborate, or clients to pay for services.
This isn't just smoke and mirrors. From SMEs to corporates, Annette effectively teaches people to play to their individual strengths with hands-on practice at thinking through challenges, finding the answers, and expressing them in a way that commands attention. I would recommend her without reservation."
Doris Põld, Cluster Lead, Estonian Association of Information Technology & Telecommunications
I have relied for a decade on Annette's insightful teaching of a combination of leadership strategy and communication for all of our companies that are interested in expanding and exporting internationally. We met when Annette was first invited by the British Council and UKTI to help the X-Road present to the British Parliament to demonstrate the backbone of Estonia's technology infrastructure. Since then, we invite her to work with us as often as possible.
I've never met anyone who so consistently strikes the right note in her business dealings. A natural communicator, she cuts through the waffle and presents important points clearly and accurately, and in a truly engaging way. When faced with difficult situations, she finds creative solutions with ease and enthusiasm.
Sally Berkovic, Chief Executive, Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe
"Annette has a way of understanding and conceptualising workday situations that cuts to the core of the issue in a very perceptive manner.
Annette is bursting with enthusiasm for the work she believes in, and she has the ability to inspire confidence in one's own abilities. She is a demanding, yet supportive taskmaster, setting structured written homework which I found very helpful. Over six sessions, Annette offered me many practical techniques that helped to improve my presentations and encouraged me to rethink established patterns of my own behaviour and in doing so, strengthened my capacity to make some significant changes in the way I interact with people."
Harpreet Panesar, International Chartered Accountants of England and Wales
"I have never seen more engagement and animation from our members as I did in one of her recent workshops, and we got nothing but enthusiastic feedback. Annette is, without a doubt, my go-to guru for strategic leadership thinking and communication.
It's impossible not to learn from Annette about doing business, even if you have a great deal of experience presenting yourself and your value proposition. Her website says she'll bring out the best in you and your organisation, and it's absolutely true."
Viktorija Grubesic, Director, Women Talk Real Estate
"Annette has a rare talent of bringing out the best in professional women who want to build confidence and create maximum impact. Annette teaches our members to amplify their leadership presence by aligning their personal brand with the expertise for which they want to be known. By the end of the workshop, they are equipped to build muscle memory to sustain growth. We have nothing but great feedback and are a stronger organisation because she is now a colleague."
Hardi Meybaum, CEO and Founder of GrabCad
Now General Partner, Matrix Partners
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, Annette. The company is now global. Your lessons are still with me; even after around 1000 pitches, they all make perfect sense."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Tune in to WEWS Channel 5 for notice of the church canceling services in the event of inclement weather. We will do our best to send a notification through the app if the church is closing. Please do not depend on a notification but check the NEWS 5 link on the app before leaving home.
Our traditional, Christ-centered worship services celebrate our love for Jesus Christ. Through Bible based sermons and readings, we, as a congregation, are encouraged to serve Christ through intentional discipleship. Complementing the services are traditional hymns, a rich pipe organ and various choirs.
Summer worship has ended for 2018. During the summer months, June 7 - August 30, join us in the Chapel for our traditional Christ-centered worship service, celebrating our love for Jesus Christ. This worship experience will hear the Sunday sanctuary message, participate in liturgy and sing hymns in an intimate and relaxed setting. This is an inspirational time of worship if you are unable to attend on Sunday mornings or need to recharge midweek.
Join us after each Sunday services as we come together for a time of fellowship. Snacks, drinks and coffee are provided during this social hour.
Click here for information about becoming a faith friend!


Haven't done one of these in a little while..
We're stoked to have Amanda Imamura joining the Vratim Artist Family! She's originally from São Paulo, Brazil and currently based in Japan!
"Vratim is no doubt the best drum shoes that I've ever used! I was always concerned about comfort and flexibility, that could allow all the control that I need on pedals, and Vratim did it well! They're very lightweight and have a very cool design. Just loved it!"
She's got a lot of things in the works and we're stoked!
Keep your head warm while you're head banging, swinging in the pit, or jamming on stage.
Also you can wear them cuffed or slouched!
Aaron Ovecka just put out a new drum cover of Meshuggah's 'Perpetual Black Second' and it's definitely worth checking out!
Stream Alex Rudinger's Band's (Good Tiger) New Song Now!
You can stream Alex Rudinger's new band, Good Tiger, song 'All Her Own Teeth' over at Upset Magazine right now (or check it out below)!
Good Tiger will be releasing their debut album 'A Head Full of Midnight' on November 6th.
Be sure to catch them on some of these upcoming shows if you can!
Kortney Grinwis recently did a pretty cool interview with RSTLSS Magazine!
She even gave us a little shout out.
We'll be releasing several new products over the next few months!
Keep your eyes peeled for some sales and other cool things too.


One of the most interesting things included in Notes On History (in the second issue, 1938) is a poem apparently written for the Hampden Golden Jubilee Celebration by Rosa Lohr titled "About Hampden." This verse reveals several things at once about the way in which Hampden was conceived by its leading citizens in the late 1930s (or at least, the way in which they wished to conceive it). First, personal relationships were very important, as revealed by the use of personal names. Mr. Heil, a grocer, and Mr. Grim, owner of a lunch room, were singled out for mention. Second, consumption was an important social activity: six of the poem's nine stanzas are about local businesses such as grocery stores, bakeries, candy shops, furniture places, hat cleaners, taylors, and so on. Third, industry played only a minor role in Hampden; the textile mills merited only a single mention, buried in a list of other businesses in Hampden in the penultimate stanza. Finally (and perhaps a bit paradoxically for a community that was spending so much energy remembering and memorializing the past), Hampden was conceptualized as a thoroughly modern and even progressive community, as evidenced by the last stanza.
Many familiar faces and acquaintances we meet.
Crossing streets the autoes keep them stepping.
On the price and purse you must keep your eye.
He's a butcher and dealer, has meat by the load.
They'r congenial, and greet you with a smile.
Where many folks go once a week and more.
Have a friendly chat and an ice cream treat.
There they have built a Sinclair filling station.
And furniture places, a number are around.
And beauty shops since bobbed hair is worn.
Move any cargo to far cities in the land.
Parrish's specialty is rug cleaning grand.
Hat cleaners, taylors, and the shoe shine.
Churches, Ministers, Doctors, Lawyers, Clerks.
The past is gone, and you are more up to date.


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Long-Term Follow-Up of Anti-CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy.
Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are artificial fusion proteins that cause CD19-specific T-cell activation. Durability of remissions and incidence of long-term adverse events are critical factors determining the utility of anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy, but long-term follow-up of patients treated with anti-CD19 CAR T cells is limited. This work provides the longest follow-up of patients in remission after anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy.Between 2009 and 2015, we administered 46 CAR T-cell treatments to 43 patients (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00924326). Patients had relapsed B-cell malignancies of the following types: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL/PMBCL; n = 28), low-grade B-cell lymphoma (n = 8), or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL; n = 7). This report focuses on long-term outcomes of these patients. The CAR used was FMC63-28Z; axicabtagene ciloleucel uses the same CAR. Cyclophosphamide plus fludarabine conditioning chemotherapy was administered before CAR T cells.The percentages of CAR T-cell treatments resulting in a > 3-year duration of response (DOR) were 51% (95% CI, 35% to 67%) for all evaluable treatments, 48% (95% CI, 28% to 69%) for DLBCL/PMBCL, 63% (95% CI, 25% to 92%) for low-grade lymphoma, and 50% (95% CI, 16% to 84%) for CLL. The median event-free survival of all 45 evaluable treatments was 55 months. Long-term adverse effects were rare, except for B-cell depletion and hypogammaglobulinemia. Median peak blood CAR-positive cell levels were higher among patients with a DOR of > 3 years (98/µL; range, 9-1,217/µL) than among patients with a DOR of < 3 years (18/µL; range, 0-308/μL, P = .0051).Complete remissions of a variety of B-cell malignancies lasting ≥ 3 years occurred after 51% of evaluable anti-CD19 CAR T-cell treatments. Remissions of up to 9 years are ongoing. Late adverse events were rare.
View the article @ Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (sign-in may be required)


With his carefully cultivated movie image of being poor-friendly and without any vices like drinking or smoking, immigrant and outsider crossed with red lines- created a furore on social media. "I have no complaints about receiving the award late or early. IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd More Related NewsJammu: Security forces and Jammu and Kashmir Police have killed 102 terrorists till now this year, he said, 2015 12:48 am Top News Pune police have arrested a lawyer for allegedly extorting Rs 50 lakh from a builder for taking back several court cases in connection with a slum rehabilitation project in Aundh, the party finished second with 35, Read the full interviews in the Indian Express here and the Hindu here. Harbhajan Singh.


What are Nearby Neighbourhoods? Nearby Neighbourhoods are those suburbs that are close to your own neighbourhood. If you choose to, you have the ability to have conversations and share information with neighbours in these neighbourhoods too. Some reasons you may wish to do this are: To share crime and safety information that may affect several neighbourhoods. To help locate lost pets that may have wandered out of your immediate neighbourhood. To discuss issues that may affect your whole area, or to encourage big turnouts for events such as fundraisers, garage sales or local school productions. To ask for advice or recommendations from the widest range of people in your community.
How are my Nearby Neighbourhoods determined? Your Nearby Neighbourhoods have been designed to connect your neighbourhood with those that are closest to you, without creating too large a coverage area. However, please do contact us if you think we could improve these lists as we are happy to review these.
How do I personalise my Nearby Neighbourhoods? On Neighbourly you can share your posts with and see posts from members in your own neighbourhood as well as your Nearby Neighbourhoods. Nearby Neighbourhoods are the group of neighbourhoods closest to where you live. If you'd prefer not to see posts from Nearby Neighbourhoods in your newsfeed, simply head to the Nearby Neighbourhoods page in your settings and click the ON button next to each neighbourhood to switch it OFF.
Can people outside my neighbourhood view my profile or past posts? If you wish, your profile and past posts are only viewable to those members within your suburb. Unless specified in your profile settings, or when you post, your nearby neighbours will be able to see only your name, neighbourhood name, and profile photo.
I don't want to see the posts from Nearby Neighbourhoods on my homepage If you would prefer to only see posts from people in your neighbourhood on your Neighbourly homepage, you can select to see just the posts from those neighbours within your suburb and exclude any Nearby Neighbourhoods. To only see posts from neighbours within your neighbourhood using your computer: Select the name of your suburb, below the text box on your neighbourhood homepage Additionally you can stop getting new posts from nearby neighbours via email by adjusting your Nearby Neighbourhoods email settings To only see posts from neighbours within your neighbourhood using your mobile device: Click the menu icon in the top left corner Click HOME Select the tab for your neighbourhood only Even after you make these changes, you may still see replies from your nearby neighbours to posts that one of your neighbours has made and chosen to share with nearby neighbours.


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Q: Does ADFS3.0 provide custom authentication stores in SQL DB? I have got the following Article from Microsoft

For the Windows Server Technical Preview, the AD FS server role includes the same functionality and feature set that is available in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. It also includes new features that enable you to configure AD FS to authenticate users stored in non-AD directories, such as X.500 compliant Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories and SQL databases. In many organizations, identity management solutions consist of a combination of Active Directory, AD LDS and third-party LDAP directories, as well as SQL databases. With the AD FS support of the non-AD identity stores, you can benefit from the entire enterprise-ready AD FS feature set regardless of where your user identities are stored. For more information, see Configure AD FS to authenticate users stored in LDAP directories

My question is how can I create custom authentication stores in SQL DB?

A: You are asking about ADFS 3.0 but the quote refers to ADFS vNext?
If the question is "Does ADFS3.0 provide custom authentication stores in SQL DB", the answer in No.
ADFS 3.0 only authenticates against AD.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


On Friday night under the lights at Nashville Superspeedway, Justin Lofton and the No. 77 Lofton Cattle Toyota Tundra team pulled through with a solid 16th place finish despite Lofton not having any radio communication with the team during the Bully Hill Vineyards 200.
"It was definitely a challenge, that's for sure. For me, it was frustrating at times to not be able to simply tell the guys what I was feeling at what parts of the track," Lofton said. "But Rudy (crew chief Ryan Fugle) laid out a plan and it worked out pretty good."
Just after the command to start the engines, the Fugle-led team quickly learned that they couldn't hear Lofton over the radio, only the sound of clicking when he keyed his microphone. Luckily, Lofton could hear his crew chief, as well as spotter Mark Green. At that point, Fugle laid out a game plan, asking Lofton questions and advising him to answer by cueing his mic.
Lofton took the green flag from the 14th position. By lap 23 Lofton had had enough time to get a handle on his Tundra, answering with a click when asked if his machine was tight.
His first pit stop of the day fell on lap 53. The team swapped out tires, added fuel, and sent Lofton back on track. The first caution of the night waved on lap 59, allowing Lofton to make another trip down pit road. This time, the team made a track bar adjustment, sending him back on track in the 12th position.
He held that spot through the next round of stops on lap 75, which saw the team add sticker tires, tweak on air pressure, and add fuel.
Lofton's fourth and final visit to pit road came on lap 103 of the 150-lap race. This time, Fugle mixed things up by calling for right side tires and fuel. The call served up track position, with Lofton showing fifth for the restart with just 44 laps remaining.
Despite the lack of communication, the team put themselves in contention with Lofton maintaining a strong top-10 run up through a caution flag just 12 laps from the finish. Another caution flag flew in the closing laps, leaving only three laps to decide the race. With a quiet Lofton focusing on the finish and a truck in need of just one more minor tweak, he wheeled his way to a steady 16th place finish.
"I cued the mic under that last yellow and was talking to myself hoping they could finally hear me. The truck was running a bit loose on that final run but I couldn't tell them, and we couldn't do anything that late in the game. I am so proud of these guys. We've had a few strange things happen to us already over these first few races, but we keep bouncing back," Lofton said.


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Adventure in Yellowstone
Buffalos grazing at Hayden Valley, Yellowstone, National Park, Wyoming, USA
More than 2 million acres of greatness create the majestic and awe-inspiring Yellowstone National Park. Inhabited by early Native Americans more than 10,000 years before white explorers named it the first national park of the world, in 1872, Yellowstone is an iconic piece of American history. Home to breathtaking natural beauty, rugged wilderness, imposing peaks and a plethora of wildlife, this national park is one of the most treasured places in the country.
Family relaxing and enjoying the beautiful view on a vacation hiking trip
Moreover, here you'll find the largest concentration of geysers and thermal features on the planet with bubbling hot mud pots and steaming colorful thermal pools minding their own business while impressing visitors. The iconic Old Faithful won the popularity contest in Yellowstone and gathers annually thousands of admirers. However, there is a lot more to do on the prehistoric grounds of Yellowstone National Park than to greet the Old Faithful.
Two ground squirrels eating from a boy's hand
Yellowstone is home to thousands of square miles of wilderness. You'll have more than 900 miles of trails to choose from for fascinating hikes and to discover an astounding ecological diversity. You'll have the chance to see elk, bison, mule deer, moose, bighorn sheep, grizzly bears and an abundance of birds. Carved by glaciers and sitting on one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, the Yellowstone region is ideal for all the outdoor activities you can imagine, from camping and hiking to boating and fishing. It's also a great place for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, horseback riding and bicycling.
Lower falls of the Yellowstone in summer
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
One of the wonders of Yellowstone is the majestic Grand Canyon carved by the Yellowstone River. It is 20 miles long and up to 1,200 feet deep, famous mostly for the photogenic Lower Falls. This is where the river tumbles 308 feet before abandoning itself on the canyon floor with a staggering force. The canyon walls are dressed in shades of red and ochre and adorned with an emerald-green forest. The waterfall creates a frenzy of colors and, if you're up for a six-hour hike known as Seven Mile Hole, you can admire it away from the (lazy) tourist crowds that gather at the north and south rims to take a look.
Castle Geyser erupting in Yellowstone
The Lower Geyser Basin
The Lower Geyser Basin is situated on the west side of the lower loop road. It has the distinction to be known as the largest geyser basin in the park, a busy factory of hot springs, mud pots, geysers, and fumaroles that work together to create a phenomenal painting. The main characters are the White Dome and Great Fountain geysers, as well as the Fountain Paint Pots, all real divas, bubbling and adding colors to the scenery.
Excelsior Geyser Crater, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The Upper Geyser Basin
The highest concentration of geothermal features in the park awaits at the Upper Geyser Basin. This is where the legendary Old Faithful is venerated. It is not the largest or most regular geyser in the park but the crowds love it, especially since they can predict when its eruption – at intervals of 94 minutes or so. Just take a seat on a bench, only a few yards away from the old guy, and have a snack while waiting for a glorious up to 180 feet eruption. However, there is more to this area than the Old Faithful. The dazzling beauty of the park is illustrated by other splendid features like the Chromatic Spring, Beauty Pool, and Morning Glory Pool too.
Famous trail of Grand Prismatic Springs in Yellowstone National Park
The terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs are famous for their unexpected beauty and passion. Mixing water, heat, minerals, and limestone, these terraces are nature's one of the most intriguing designs. Variously colored travertine have been dissolved from the limestone hiding in the ground and was brought to life by daring hot springs that rise above joyful and eager to make a change. One of the most beautiful features of this part of Yellowstone is the Minerva Terrace, an embroidery carved in stone by the talented hands of nature.
The largest alpine lake in North America, Yellowstone Lake lures anglers, boaters, and curious travelers with its massive 132-square-mile body of water, scenic beauty, and wildlife variety. The lake was formed when the glaciers that once ruled this land melted into a caldera and, since then, this has been the home of moose, waterfowl, elk, and other species. Fishing is excellent in the streams that flow into the lake and reward patient anglers with trout. Boats can be rented at Bridge Bay Marina and used to capture superb views of the lake.
The Yellowstone River Before the Falls
Lamar Valley
Waiting in the northeast corner of the park, Lamar Valley dazzles with a rich landscape diversity and an abundance of wildlife. The usual inhabitants of the area are wolves, bears, moose, elk, and bison, but if you want to spot them, you should be here early in the morning or at dusk, when they're more active and willing to be seen. Anglers are usually gathering at the Lamar River hoping to capture some trout while hikers prefer to head to Specimen Ridge, where they'll discover marvelous petrified forests buried alive by lava ash.
A herd of Bison walked freely in Yellowstone National Park
Grand Prismatic Spring
Don't leave Yellowstone without admiring the largest hot spring in the park. The Grand Prismatic Spring awaits in the Midway Geyser Basin, dressed in a stunning deep blue color and adorned with yellow and orange rings. The spring has a 370 feet diameter. If you want to capture it in all its splendor, head to the Fairy Falls Trail and look down. You'll never want to forget this mesmerizing sight!
River Cruises on the Danube
Istria Region
Exploring Egypt
Top 5 Californian Beaches
Seafood Dishes of Florida
Skiing in Sundance – Simply Perfect
Escape to the Beaches of Oahu
Surf Trip to Costa Rica
City Breaks in 2021
Wild Chimpanzees in Mahale Mountains
Ottawa in the Summer
Enjoy The Algarve
Explore the Lake District
Beaches of Costa del Sol
Outdoors in Romania
New Forest, England


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Ancient Chinese urban planning encompasses the diverse set of cultural beliefs, social and economic structures, and technological capacities that historically influenced urban design in the early period of Chinese civilization.  Factors that have shaped the development of Chinese urban ism include: fengshui geomancy and astronomy; the well-field system; the cosmological belief that Heaven is round and the Earth is square, the concept of qi (); political power shared between a ruling house and educated advisers; the holy place bo; a three-tiered economic system under state control; early writing; and the walled capital city as a diagram of political power.

Early development of China

Urban planning originated during the urbanization of the Yellow River valley in the Neolithic Age, which began in China around 10,000 B.C. and concluded with the introduction of metallurgy about 8,000 years later, was characterized by the development of settled communities that relied primarily on farming and domesticated animals rather than hunting and gathering. The process in China, as elsewhere in the world, is related to the process of centralizing power in a political state. Although several cultures formed competing states, the direct ancestor of the Chinese state was Longshan culture. Therefore, the earliest Chinese urban planning was a synthesis of Longshan traditional cosmology, geomancy, astrology, and numerology. This synthesis generated a diagram of the cosmos, which placed man, state, nature, and heaven in harmony. The city was planned in the context of this cosmic diagram to maintain harmony and balance.

Neolithic Age urbanization

Urbanization begins at Banpo (4,800-3,750 BC) on the Zhongyuan plain of the Yellow River. Banpo grew from a typical Yangshao village in both size and organization until the construction of the Great Hall ca. 4000 BC. Like Eridu in Mesopotamia, Banpo in East Asia was the first instance of specialized architecture, something other than a house. Physically, Banpo was composed of 200 round pit-houses and the Great Hall across 5 hectares and surrounded by a ditch. These pit houses were sited for solar gain by aligning the door to the Yingshi (, or simply shi ) asterism just after the winter solstice. Already, at this early stage the principle of south-facing entry was firmly established.

As in other Neolithic communities, life at Banpo was synchronized to the agricultural year, which was timed by the movement of the Big Dipper, which functioned as a celestial clock. The Classic of Poetry describes this annual cycle. Beginning in spring, adolescents swam through the flood waters at the triangular confluence of two rivers. They emerged shivering, and in this state they were infused with the souls of ancestors buried in the earth who had reemerged at the springs of the Yellow River. In this energized state they procreated in a location deemed to possess magical earth energy. These locations were unsuitable for agriculture, usually a hill, and therefore were uncleared primeval forests. Consecrated procreation was essential to maintaining the cycle of life. When the flood waters receded, the triangle was divided into fields between the families. In autumn there was a large festival at the completion of the harvest. In winter, the men left their homes and retired to the Great Hall, where they were led by the village elders in drinking and singing to repel the cold.

The needs and beliefs of Banpo society created the prototype Chinese urban form. The springtime sacred procreation sites became, in time, the Holy Place called bo . Moreover, the connection between ancestors, earth, and fertility developed into a theory of qi energy and fengshui geomancy. The Book of Burial elaborates this theory. Man is considered concentrated qi (, lit. 'atmosphere'), when his bones are returned to the earth they become re-energized by qi. The living descendants are affected by the qi generated from the bones of their ancestors, "as a lute string will pick of the vibration of another lute string near it." In this theory, the world was an active matrix of qi into which graves, houses, and cities must be carefully inserted by fengshui principals to maintain harmony. The shape of this world was described by a parallel cosmology of a round heaven revolving around a square earth. This gaitian cosmology (, lit. 'canopy-heavens theory') originated from neolithic astronomy. This cosmic diagram is depicted on jade bi and cong used to talk to sky and earth spirits, respectively. In particular, Yangshao pottery decorated with Big Dipper inscribed on a nine-in-one square (earth) surrounded by a circle (heaven) already depicts a cosmic diagram of earth divided into nine parts. This nine-in-square, in time, became basis of the well-field system, which was the basic geometric and legal module of urban-regional planning. Likewise, the Great Hall became the prototype of later palaces and imperial cities.

Longshan Culture (3000-2000 BC) arrived from the east one thousand years after Banpo in the same area. This arrival is mythologized by the story of the Yellow Emperor, a man of vigorous energy who dispensed law, standardized measures, invented writing, and conquered. The Longshan tribes formed a superstratum over Yangshao culture. As they fused ideologically and socially, all the elements of a new state and civilization appeared. Culturally, protowriting in the form of the Longshan Script was used on oracle bones. Politically, a Longshan warlord ruled with the help of a Yangshao adviser. Both the use of oracle bones, and the rule of a king with adviser had continuity into the Shang Dynasty. The first capital was Chengziya in 2500 BC followed by Taosi in 2300 BC and finally by Erlitou in 2000 BC. Longshan Culture developed directly into the Xia and Shang Dynasties.

The hierarchical and militaristic aspects of Longshan culture are evident in their cities. Their shape is a walled square filled with square houses. The transition from round to square homes is always accompanied by centralizing power in history. The square shaped city, itself a product of centralized power, historically arises a from a military encampment. It is the city as a diagram of political power. The new order made its mark on the Urban-Regional context. Three levels of settlement emerged in the early Longshan state, village called Jū (0-1 ha), city Yi (1-5 ha), and capital called Dū (<5 ha). These three tiers of settlements are the physical realization of central place theory. The original Yangshao Jū villages formed a matrix of production that channeled goods upward to larger Longshan Yi and ultimately to the Dū. Political power was therefore defined as the amount of the highly productive matrix of agriculture and villages under control. The greater the area, the more wealth passed upwards to the capital. Other cities were economically unnecessary as there were neither long-distance trade nor markets.

The final Longshan capital, Erlitou is the physical manifestation of massive social change in China c 2000 BC. Erlitou began in the Neolithic as a Yangshao bo, with later additions of altars and temples. It was a sacred city, even when absorbed by the Longshan tribes, and thus was never walled. Erlitou was the site of transition into the Bronze Age. The legendary Xia Dynasty may have been the ruling class of Erlitou.

Bronze Age urbanization

Erlitou is sited at the confluence of the Luo and Yi rivers, a sacred place known as the Waste of Xia. Geographically, the Waste of Xia marked the center of the nine-in-one square earth. During the transitional Erlitou Culture, diverse Neolithic traditions were woven into one coherent harmonious philosophical and political system. In this system earth was the mirror of heaven ruled by the Jade Emperor. Residing in Polaris, he sent the heavenly breath of qi down to earth through meridians. The qi concentrated in mountains and rivers, and by informed site planning a building and even a city could fit into this energized matrix. Politically, qi flowed from heaven through earth into and the through the divine emperor, through his city, and out of the gates into his realm. The emperor kept heaven and earth in harmonious balance through his absolute power. An adviser class interpreted the omens of heaven to inform his actions.

Geographically, the state was believed to be square-shaped and centered on the ruler. As described in the Book of Documents, China is a square of 45,000 li with five nested squares spaced at 500 li to create five zones. Beginning at the center, Royal Domain (500 x 500 li), Noble Domain, Domain of Peace-Securing, Domain of Restraint, and Wild Domain. Outside the fifth zone, the barbarian tribes lived. The Xia and early Shang palace was a miniature diagram of this cosmos. It had a traditional Longshan square shape oriented strictly north–south since qi flows that direction. This square was further subdivided into nine parts based on the now ancient nine-in-one square, which had become a prosperity symbol. A rectilinear walled settlement for servants and craftsmen formed around this palace.

The nine-in-one square was transformed into the Holy Field symbol, sometime during the Shang Dynasty. In a myth the founder of the Xia Dynasty, Yu the Great, received the Holy Field symbol from a magical turtle sent by heaven. Its importance cannot be underestimated as it is the geometric basis of ancient Chinese architecture, urban planning, and geography. By the time of the Xia Dynasty, the nine-in-one square territory of earth was divided into nine states ().

Although an important stage in urbanization, Erlitou was not a true city. It was a palace complex surrounded by an oversized Neolithic village. During the Bronze Age, expensive bronze artifacts belonged exclusively to the aristocracy, and the peasants still lived at a neolithic level of development. There was a succession of these palatial du capitals during the Xia and into the Early Shang Dynasties. Each successive capital had a higher level of development until the Late Shang capital Yin. Yin was the first true city and represented the culmination of Longshan Culture. The design of the palace at Yin was copied by the Zhou Dynasty to create the palace at Zhouyuan, which consolidated all the addition and experimentation of Yin over centuries. Although a copy, Zhouyuan was innovative for its high level of planning. This feature of Zhou urbanism would later be implemented on a national scale. Politically, the Zhou tribe, a vassal of the Shang dynasty, moved through a series of three capitals, Fan, Bo, and Shen, before settling at their ancestral capital, Zhouyuan on the Weishui River.

Iron Age urbanization
As China moved into the Iron Age the control of the Zhou over their empire dissolved into multiple states. This period, called the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, was a time of great urbanization in China. Chengzhou became the political capital of the Eastern Zhou in 510 BC (its fortification tripled in width). The cities lost the rank to size hierarchy imposed by Zhou authority and grew according to their economic and military functions. This period, although politically chaotic, was a great period of urbanization and experimentation with architecture and urban planning.

Along with the growth of cities, there was a parallel growth of urban society; independent merchants, artisans, scholars, and the like all emerged as a new social class at this time. In addition to the growth in the Yellow River Valley, the Yangtze River Valley began to urbanize under the cultural model of the Zhou Dynasty. The cities of states such as Wu, Yue, Chu, and Shu had regional variations. By the time of the Qin Dynasty conquest there was a great diversity of wealthy cities across China, excluding the Lingnan region.

The city marketplace with tower was a new feature of this era that marked the beginning of an integrated economic function of cities. The architecture of the warring states featured high walls, large gates, and towers. The development of the tower as a symbol of power and social order especially defined this era. The tower usually projected outward at the top to create an image of strength and intimidation. The new marketplace was always overlooked by a tower.

Classical Standard

During the Warring States and Han, the beginnings of a classical textual tradition of city planning developed.  Although there is little direct evidence that any classical text exerted an important influence on urban design until the late imperial period, the texts themselves have a much longer history.  While some important literary evidence concerning Zhou urban construction can be found in the Classic of Poetry and the Book of Documents, during the Han dynasty a text emerged that would later become the locus classicus of the ideal imperial capital.

This text, The Artificer's Record, is a description of craftsmen's techniques that includes two sections on city construction.  It is a late addition to the Rites of Zhou () one of three ritual classics canonized during the Han.  The Rites of Zhou is a blueprint for governmental administration divided into six offices representing Heaven, Earth, and each of the four seasons.  The section for the Offices of Winter, a bureau charged with the oversight of public works, was lost sometime before or during the Qin to Han transition.  During the Western Han, The Artificer's Record was added as a replacement.

The first section on urban construction in The Artificer's Record () describes ancient techniques for siting a city, including methods for precisely orienting the site to the cardinal directions and determining the levelness of the land.  The second section describes the basic the features of the ideal capital city:

This section goes on to describe the structure and dimensions of important buildings (as well as their historical precedents), and the heights of the towers surmounting the palace, inner city wall, and outer city wall.

There are several cosmologically significant features of this basic urban outline, including cardinal orientation, square shape, (implied) centrality of the ruler's palace, grid structure, and the prominence of the number nine. The nine-by-nine grid has led some scholars to suggest that the plan is based on the cosmological belief that the Earth is a square divided into nine sections.  This structure is reproduced by the magic square, a tool for divination.

Although Kaogongji does not explicitly identify this model with any historical city, it has been traditionally associated with Chengzhou, a city built by the Duke of Zhou soon after the Zhou conquest of the Shang.  The "Proclamation at Luo," a chapter of the Book of Documents, describes how the Duke of Zhou traveled to Luo (near the site of present-day Luoyang) to establish a secondary capital for the new Zhou dynasty, further solidify the Zhou receipt of the Mandate of Heaven, and relocate the former subjects of the defeated Shang.

Imperial Era
The imperial era of urban planning was marked by an attempt to extend imperial authority uniformly across China by creating an economic and political urban hierarchy. In the Han, this integration was imagined as the resurrection of an idealized memory of the golden age of the Zhou dynasty.  Each province was divided into prefectures and each prefecture into counties. The network of imperial administrative cities was overlaid on an existing network of unwalled villages and townships. One county therefore ruled over several townships and many more villages. At the apex of this administrative hierarchy was a new creation, the imperial capital.

Formation
Historically, the cities of the Seven Warring States were combined into one unified regional system under the Qin Dynasty unification of China. Also under the Qin dynasty Chengzhou lost its status  and was renamed Luoyang in 236 BC. The Qin dynasty destroyed most of the Eastern Zhou urbanization to concentrate its collected wealth at the capital Xianyang. Colonization of the Lingnan and Ordos regions began at this time, using a modified version of the Zhou classical standard of urban design. The Qin created a national system of military garrisons on a three-tier administrative hierarchy as a practical measure to control the population according to strict legalistic principles.  The Qin soon lost power in a revolt and were replaced by the Han dynasty, who continued many aspects the Qin system of imperial administration, including its system of laws.

At its inception, the Han dynasty was immediately faced with the task of rebuilding the urban infrastructure which had been destroyed by Qin dynasty purges and the war of succession after its downfall.  According to the Records of the Grand Historian, Gaozu, the Han founder, initially desired to establish the new capital at Luoyang, the former site of Chengzhou, in order to associate the Han with the illustrious early Zhou.  However, it was ultimately decided that the new capital, Chang'an, should be built near the old Qin capital at Xianyang.

The County
During the Han dynasty official administration extended only to the county level. The county () was the primary unit of government control which harnessed the productive power of the villages in its area of control to concentrate wealth. The county was thus a city-state in function with two parts; a walled settlement 1×1 li at the geographical center of the territory. The city had no name of its own, it was named by adding the suffix -cheng () to the county's name. The territory of the county was divided into districts called townships () which were subdivided into villages (). Villages generally had a population of 100. Currently the village level is the lowest level of administration in China. These local units, counties, were collected in groups of 8–10 called prefectures, and the prefectures were gathered in groups of 12–16 to form provinces. Economically, the county was a market for productive countryside, which consisted not only of agriculture, but also townships and villages of people to work the land and produce goods by cottage industry. The county extended military control over a segment of this productive matrix and was the entry point for goods to channel upward to the Imperial City. There were approximately 1500 counties in China proper. This economic structure was later modified by commercial towns in the Middle Ages.

A county was controlled by a magistrate in a walled complex in the walled county center. He was responsible for tax collection, justice, postal service, police, granaries, salt stores, social welfare, education, and religious ceremony. The magistrate's complex (yamen) was sited at the center of this the city at the point where the main east–west street crossed the main north–south street. The main entrance was in the south and axially aligned along the main north south street connecting to the south gate of the walls. Two arches on the east west street marked the entry forming a small plaza. The south side of the plaza was a dragon wall and the north was the main gate of the compound. This gate lead to a courtyard passing through this courtyard to another gate, called the gate of righteousness, lead to the main courtyard of the complex. The north side of this courtyard was the central hall where the magistrate worked the two side halls contained the six offices. Behind the central hall was another courtyard and hall where the magistrate met with higher-ranking officials. The three courtyard compound formed the center of the complex to the east west of it were other halls, offices, granaries, stables, libraries, official residences, and prisons.

Imperial city
The imperial capital was meant to exist outside of any one region, even the one it was physically located in. To achieve this it used a text based plan, a cult of heaven, forced migration, and symbolization of the city as the Emperor. The evolution of the imperial capital occurred in three stages, first the super-regional capital on Xianyang, followed by the semi-regional and semi-textual capital of Chang'an, and finally fully realized in the fully textual capital of Luoyang. The capital city of the Western Han Dynasty, Chang'an, was built to exceed its predecessor, Xianyang. Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, would in turn become the model of all future imperial cities.

As the empire was divided into counties prefectures and provinces

Neoclassical Standard
It is uncertain to what extent the planners of early and medieval Chinese cities consciously took the Kaogongji as a model.  Very little textual evidence preserves the motives and debates surrounding the construction of China's great pre-modern capitals.  However, during the Ming (1346-1644) there was a close formal correspondence between the capital at Beijing and the Kaogongji model.

See also
 Chinese city wall
 Chinese units of measurement
 History of the administrative divisions of China
 Paifang
 Chinese urban planning
 China Historical Geographic Information System

References

Citations

Bibliography

Wright, Arthur F. (1977). The Cosmology of the Chinese City. In Skinner, William G. The City in Late Imperial China (33-75). Taipei: SMC Publishing. .

External links
The Herbert Offen Research Collection of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum

Chinese architectural history
Architectural history
Urban planning in China
Urban design
Urban planning

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Along with the didgeridoo, the bull roarer is one of the key mechanisms of spiritual experience used by Australian Aborigines and used in ceremonies across the continent.
The [Australian] aborigines are divided into numerous tribes who have no chief or leader properly speaking, except the Crodgy or 'wise man' who…. is also the conductor of their ceremonies.
They endeavour to drive away the demons by whirling round their head an oval shaped board called moor-y-umkarr which is curiously ornamented and is suspended by a string. It produces an unearthly humming sound, sometimes soft, sometimes loud and roaring according to the force with which it is whirled.
Suddenly from a distance of two or three miles there floats upon the still air the soft vibrating hum of a dozen or more bull roarers. Some of these are large – about 18 inches long, four inches wide at the middle and tapering toward both ends like a cigar. Some on the other hand, measure only six inches in length.
The volume of sound varies. Sometimes it will increase like the noise of a mighty wind and then gradually diminish into a moan like the voice of departed spirits in distress.
This performance lasts until sunrise on the following morning. Then there follows an interval of 2 hours, during which the tribes break their fast.


text:
Prestige Records est un label discographique américain fondé en 1949 par Bob Weinstock (1928-2006). La maison de disque se fait connaître en éditant les enregistrements d'artistes comme Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk.

Historique
À l'origine le label s'appelait « New Jazz » mais fut renommé l'année suivant sa création en Prestige Records. Le catalogue contient de nombreux enregistrements renommés et parfois historiques par Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk et tant d'autres. Bob Weinstock était connu pour encourager les enregistrements improvisés pour plus d'authenticité, pour un contenu plus excitant. D'ailleurs Prestige Records (au contraire de Blue Note Records) ne payait pas les musiciens pour les séances improvisées. Une autre des habitudes de Bob Weinstock était de rembobiner les bandes après les prises « ratées », en conséquence de quoi il existe peu de pistes « alternatives » des séances d'enregistrements célèbres.

Pour la très grande majorité des années 1950 et 1960, l'ingénieur du son Rudy Van Gelder était responsable des enregistrements du label. De façon exceptionnelle, Ira Gitler le remplace sur certains enregistrements du début des années 1950. Aux environs de 1958, Prestige Records commence à diversifier ses enregistrements, notamment en rappelant le nom « New Jazz » pour enregistrer des artistes émergents ainsi qu'en introduisant les sous titres Swingsville et Moodsville. Toutefois, ces deux derniers n'ont pas survécu longtemps. Plusieurs albums ressortis dans les années 1960, le furent sous le label Prestige Records lui-même. Bluesville Records était aussi un nom de substitution pour Prestige Records.

Durant cette période, Bob Weinstock cessa de superviser lui-même les enregistrements, il employa dans ce but Chris Albertson, Ozzie Cadena, Esmond Edwards, Don Schlitten, ainsi que le producteur Bob Porter, parmi d'autres. Pour cette période, les musiciens qui enregistraient pour le label comptaient notamment Jaki Byard et Booker Ervin. Prestige Records restait un label viable grâce à l'enregistrement de titres de soul jazz tels que Charles Earland.

Bob Weinstock fut critiqué pendant des années pour ses pratiques commerciales. Jackie McLean dans son ouvrage Four Lives in the Bebop Business (chez A.B. Spellman's, 1966) est particulièrement virulent à son égard. Cependant, d'autres tels que Albertson et Miles Davis (dans son autobiographie) l'ont défendus. Le « Junkie Label » (label des drogués) était parfois le surnom péjoratif donné à Prestige Records. Toutefois les problèmes de drogues étaient si répandus dans le monde du jazz que cette réputation n'est peut-être pas justifiée.

Prestige Records est racheté en 1971 par Fantasy Records, les originaux de Prestige Records constituent la majeure partie des enregistrements aujourd'hui distribués sous le nom de Original Jazz Classics.

Marques de fabrique
 Les albums de chez Prestige Records contenaient souvent 5 pistes (3 sur la face A et 2 sur la B) et étaient la plupart du temps en dessous des 40 minutes.
 Les titres sont principalement des standards de jazz, il existe très peu de compositions originales. Il manquait de temps pour les arrangements nouveaux
 Les albums originaux contiennent en général un blues de base de 10 à 15 minute sur la face B (par exemple Saxophone Colossus ; Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane). Moins souvent le blues apparait sur la face A (par exemple Screamin' the Blues par Oliver Nelson, un des rares enregistrements qui contiennent principalement des compositions originales). Parfois le blues est remplacé par un standard de jazz de durée équivalente (par ex. Lush Life de John Coltrane).
 Sur l'album Django du Modern Jazz Quartet (1956), le même morceau (Two Bass Hit) est enregistré 4 fois de suite, à chaque fois centré sur un nouvel instrument. Le résultat est intitulé La Ronde Suite. Bob Weinstock reconnaitra plus tard que de telles stratégies étaient le moyen de remplir des enregistrements qui, sans cela, n'auraient pas été sortis.

Liens externes
 Prestige, page officielle,
  Discographie Prestige.

Label de jazz ayant son siège aux États-Unis
Entreprise fondée en 1949
Entreprise ayant son siège au New Jersey


text:
Face Plaque
Description This black limestone mask was carved by artists of the Teotihuacan culture, centered at the ruined city of the same name in central Mexico. Ancient Teotihuacanos fashioned masks in many mediums and at various scales, from miniature ceramic works to over life-sized stone versions, such as the present example. Although this mask was hollowed out on the back, the eyes were not prepared for viewing. Instead they were partly drilled and originally inlaid with some kind of contrastive medium, like shell, obsidian, magnetite, or pyrite. The fact that one cannot see through the eyes has led researchers to propose that masks like this were not worn as costume elements by the living. Instead, most writers believe that they were likely tied to mummy bundles or deity effigies. The four drill holes found on this mask, at each temple and below the ears, were used to affix it to such a bundle. The ear-like flanges are also drilled, and would have originally had earrings pendant. Along with feathers and beads, masks were one of the most common costume elements of ancient Mesoamerican elites. The reason has to do with the fact that ancient Amerindian belief, as we now understand it, was rooted in the ability of religious specialists---priests or perhaps even shamans, to tap the power of the world of the gods and ancestors. Like all Native Americans, the ancient Teotihuacanos lived in a world of lesser and greater spirits or deities. A major class of supernatural characters included those associated with nature, natural processes, and the landscape: rain, agriculture, the sun, moon, seasons, and the stars. More hierarchical societies like Maya, Aztec and Teotihuacan, added deities associated with the ruling class. Chiefs and kings and their families counted on the support of patron deities and they were figured prominently in the visual arts. The people of Teotihuacan and other ancient Americans believed that wearing masks and costumes could actually effect a transformation, or an assimilation of the individual's identity with that of the deity, ancestor, or animal featured on the mask. Modern Westerners associate impersonation with theater, Halloween, and make believe. Although we do find masks arresting, few of us actually think that they transform their wearers. But the Mayas and other Native-American peoples did believe in masked transformation. This mask does not portray a known deity in the Teotihuacan pantheon. Instead it represents a generic type, perhaps an ideal elite Teotihuacan man. The blank look, large nose, prominent cheekbones, and drooping lip should be understood as artistic conventions, rather than an attempt at likeness as portraiture.
Art of the Ancient Americas. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2002-2010.
Provenance Museo Nacional de México [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Foundation [John Stokes as agent]; Walters Art Museum, 2008, by gift.
Credit Gift of the Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Foundation, 2008
Teotihuacán (Artist)
AD 250-600 (Early Classic)
H: 6 7/16 x W: 4 1/16 x D: 5 7/8 in. (16.3 x 10.3 x 15 cm)
Mexico (Teotihuacán) (Place of Origin)
Charles Street: Second Floor: Chamber of Wonders
mask momias


Dan Fairs wrote an article on Web API design with a focus on efficiency issues for mobile devices. The article starts off with a very good and easy-to-follow description of what a REST API actually is, including examples of resources, representations, and interactions. He then presents some real-world practicalities, such as dealing with bad HTTP clients and returning rich error responses.
In terms of mobile devices, Dan notes that you want to minimize the number of necessary round trip API calls, which means including more information in a single response, i.e., introducing data redundancy or denormalization. Dan presents a technique that allows clients to specify how much redundant data is provided in a response based upon a parameter in the HTTP Accept header. This effectively allows different clients to tune their behavior and request the appropriate representation for the given application.


The reaffirmation will not cause undue hardship to the debtor or any of his or her dependents.
A bankruptcy filer may be motivated to reaffirm a debt if you have a security interest in a property. The filer may also want to protect a co-signer on the loan from being liable for the debt. A Chicago creditor's rights attorney at Walinski & Associates, P.C., can advise you on how to create an enforceable reaffirmation agreement. To schedule a consultation, call 312-704-0771.


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Through his leadership, Maurice Papo has influenced improvements in the strategic planning process of one of the IEEE's major operating boards and mentored many new volunteers. Dr. Papo has held a variety of volunteer positions and has been active in IEEE committees for close to 25 years, beginning with the executive committee for the France Section in 1983.
His most notable positions were director of Region 8 (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and vice president of the Regional Activities Board (currently Membership and Geographic Activities). While serving as Region 8 Director, Dr. Papo initiated major changes in the operation of its committee, including the establishment of the positions of vice-chairs and development of volunteers from the region.
In his role as vice president of RAB, he improved the effectiveness and efficiency of operations through delegation of responsibilities and authorities. Dr. Papo encouraged major enhancements to the integrity and independence of the nominations and appointments procedures to encourage the appointment of transnational members within IEEE at all levels. He served as the vice-chair, strategic planning and nominations committee, and was involved in the restructuring of the Region 8 Bylaws. Dr. Papo, a former chair of the IEEE France Section, also served as IEEE Secretary and the on IEEE Educational Activities and Publications Boards.
Dr. Papo is an independent senior consultant and is active in numerous engineering societies. He spent 35 years at IBM, where he held a broad range of executive positions in Europe and the United States, primarily as R&D director. An IEEE Life Fellow, he holds more than 75 international patents. He received his bachelor's degrees from École Polytechnique and École Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, both in Paris, France.
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text:
Home All issues Volume 659 (March 2022) A&A, 659 (2022) C4 Full HTML
This article is an erratum for:
[https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142092]
Volume 659, March 2022
Planets and planetary systems
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142092e
A&A 659, C4 (2022)
Formation age of the Rima Sharp sinuous rill on the Moon, source of the returned Chang'e-5 samples (Corrigendum)
Luyuan Xu (徐璐媛)1,2 and Le Qiao (乔乐)3
1 State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao, PR China
2 CNSA, Macau Center for Space Exploration and Science, Macao, PR China
3 Shandong Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy and Solar-Terrestrial Environment, School of Space Science and Physics, Institute of Space Sciences, Shandong University, Weihai, Shandong, 264209, PR China
e-mail: leqiao.geo@gmail.com
Key words: Moon / planets and satellites: surfaces / planets and satellites: physical evolution / errata, addenda
Erratum for: A&A, 657, A42 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142092
An error occurred during the production process. The exponent of N should be "1/2", not "1?2" in page 3, at the 24th line of the left column (± ρ/N1/2), and at the 27th line of the right column (±NcN1=2).
© ESO 2022
Formation age of the Rima Sharp sinuous rill on the Moon, source of the returned Chang'e-5 samples
A degree-100 lunar gravity model from the Chang'e 5T1 mission
A magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the dayside magnetic reconnection between the solar wind and the Martian crustal field
Remote coronal dimmings related to a circular-ribbon flare
The Venus Express observation of Venus' induced magnetosphere boundary at solar maximum


Another odd thing about this image is another shot using of the same "models", surfboard, etc, from a slightly different angle and pose – but with the image 'flopped', used for the cover of the New Dimensions album "Surf 'n Bongos". The folks in charge politely moved Diamond Head out of frame in an attempt to disguise the fact the image was flopped, but I bet many figured it out.
I was going to mention the New Dimensions cover as well, but I'm still floored somebody could write that long a paragraph on the The Sentinals. Egad, the last sentence would have been plenty.
Yes, original photoshopping here. Did anyone else notice the sea is flat calm in both shots, no one could surf in that. Song names are quite funny too "Cat on a Hot Foam Board" – thats not fooling anyone.


Co-Owner Nathan started recording with his bands in 2002 and never looked back. After making the move from Youngstown to Akron he was mentored by Randy Biddle for 3 years before becoming C8S's Chief Engineer. With a passion for getting the best take and sound out of an artist, he's always willing to take the time to get things right. Nathan's background in guitar and vocals gives him an edge to help your tracks pop. His three favorite things besides music are : his daughter, good whiskey and the outdoors.
Co-Owner Mike started his interest recording in 1998 which led him to study at Kent State's Music Technology program. Joining the Central 8 team in 2010 he quickly became known for his keen sense of sonics and ability to make a track stand out with clever production. Mike's background in piano and programming gives him a musical edge for helping to make tracks unique. His three favorite things besides music are : his wifey and dogs, and a quality craft beer.
Danny first started working at Central 8 Studios in 2010. After training under former owner Randy Biddle and working with Central 8 for a year, moved to Miami, FL to pursue production work. He worked alongside many artists before eventually moving back to Akron and re-joining the Central 8 Team. He specializes in rap, pop, and metal production. Danny also plays in the progressive metal band Wide Eyes and has plenty of experience with mixing and producing metal and hard rock music. Danny's three favorite things are: Being a Djentleman, extended range guitars, and horror films.
Matt started recording at his home when he was 15 with focus on guitar playing and performance. Matt continued his passion for music while studying in the Music Technology program at Kent State Stark and joining the Central 8 team in 2013. His influences include Classical, Jazz, Classic Rock; to name a few. He enjoys mashing these styles together creating a very unique style of instrumental music. Matt's three favorite things are: Enjoying the outdoors, Listening to music & playing FIFA '15.


The shortlist for The Marketing Society Brave Brand of the Year 2018 in association with Campaign, sponsored by IBM iX, was revealed last week.
Brave Brand of the Year, awarded by The Marketing Society' in association with Campaign and sponsored by IBM iX, celebrates companies that have taken risks in a challenging environment over the past year.
The Marketing Society has announced a shortlist of 20 brands and it is down to Campaign readers to whittle it down to five finalists. Those finalists will then be put to the live vote at The Marketing Society's annual dinner on Wednesday 14 November.
Vote for your favourite brand here by 5pm on Friday 26 October or tweet using #brandoftheyear.
LADbible's "U OK M8?" is not just a brave campaign in and of itself, but it's a bold move by the publisher to inspire bravery in its young, male audience, getting them to open up about the taboo of mental health. Using content including video and tapping into its own vast community, the campaign has reached 26 million people and sparked 823,000 engagements across social media.
Utter the word "Lego" and the mind typically conjures up images of plastic bricks. So when the Danish toymaker announced plans to reformulate the literal essence of its product, replacing its traditional plastic with sugarcane plastic, it was a risky move. Its bid to roll out the bricks across most products by 2030 demonstrates a commitment to sustainability that transcends marketing and alters the whole business.
While Britain's banks are steeped in notions of tradition, they are increasingly using marketing to reject outmoded ideas. None more so than Lloyds, which won Channel 4's Diversity in Advertising Award last year, earning £1m in airtime. Its use of celebrities such as Jeremy Paxman, Professor Green and Rachel Riley, along with members of the public and staff, to pose the question "Who am I?" tackled misconceptions around non-visible disability.
Maltesers continues to lead the vanguard in being unafraid to attract both praise and opprobrium. Following its "Look on the light side" campaign, 2018's activity is "celebrating similarities". Ads have included "Powerpoint", about women going through menopause, and "Accountant", about a lesbian bemoaning the challenges of dating. Maltesers does it with a lightness of touch that belies the weightiness of the issues it tackles. It also won a trio of awards at The Marketing Society Excellence Awards 2017.
Brave Brand of the Year: will you be voting for Tesco, Skittles, Sky or Ugly?
Brave Brand of the Year: will you be voting for The Army, Beano, Bodyform or Brewdog?


text:
Peter Hoare
Peter is currently the Chemistry Outreach Officer in the School of Chemistry, Newcastle University, UK. He completed his BSc in Chemistry in 1984 and his PhD in Organic Fluorine Chemistry in 1989, both at Durham University, UK. He then completed a PGCE (school teacher training) at Newcastle University in 1989 and then embarked on a high school teaching career for 20 years at a successful and high attaining school in Northumberland. In 2008 Peter was seconded for 12 months to the School of Chemistry at Newcastle University as a Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) School Teacher Fellow to look at transition issues from high school to university chemistry and outreach. During Peter's Fellowship year, the new Head of School was suitably impressed by Peter's activity with local schools to create a new post of Chemistry Outreach Officer, to which Peter was appointed after a competitive interview process in September 2009. He works with many local and region schools, both enthusing students about chemistry and providing opportunities to enhance their school chemistry learning experience and also providing professional support to chemistry teachers. Peter has developed and delivers a range of high quality outreach activities, including a range of interactive demonstration lectures for a range of audiences, laboratory practicals, Spectroscopy Tours, Revision Workshops for A-level Chemistry (he has been a marker for one of the major English Examining Boards for the past 21 years) and is the coordinator of the RSC's Spectroscopy in a Suitcase scheme for North East England, which provides portable IR and 1H NMR spectrometers to run hands-on workshops in schools. Peter also delivers activities in primary schools too. Since 2011 he has also supervised the development of peer-produced (high school summer project students or final year undergraduate project students) web-based learning and teaching resources in collaboration with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe) and a US developed, browser-based computational chemistry interface, WebMO. He has attended the last two BCCE conferences in Michigan (2014) and Colorado (2016) to give talks and run workshops to showcase the resources.


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« Some Thoughts on a New Group: Part Three
Stephen Paints a Picture: Part Twenty Two »
Stephen Paints a Picture: Part Twenty One
18/19 April 2014
Part One of Two
There has been a seven month hiatus since Stephen Scott worked on his portrait of me and an awful lot has happened during that time.
The major thing, of course, was Stephen's battle with oral cancer. It was a fight that everyone hopes that he has won. It has not been easy; a long and complicated operation followed by many, many sessions of radiation, but he is a stubborn and courageous fighter. He has very good support from his family and friends and, in particular, from his wife and soulmate, Sophie. The other thing that has happened, and this a good thing, is that our project resulted in a major exhibition, which I curated, at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick that is presently on view and will continue until the 8th. of June. The exhibition's title is the same as our project, Stephen Paints a Picture, and consists of the oil sketches and drawings he completed over last summer, plus an e-book of all of my blog posts. In addition, there are over twenty more, mostly large, oil paintings of his that I picked from his studio.
The exhibition was planned just prior to Stephen learning about his cancer. "Just prior" are the operative words here as it was only one week before he was diagnosed that we settled on a date for the exhibition. Many of us in Sackville over the summer, Stephen, in particular, had an idea that there was something seriously wrong with his health, but the idea of an exhibition of our summer's work at a major public art gallery was certainly attractive. Originally the idea, if you were following my blog, was that I would go to Fredericton several times over the fall and Stephen would finish the large portrait that he had started in Sackville. This was to central to the idea of the exhibition. Plans change.
I thought that it was important that the exhibition go on regardless of Stephen's illness in the grand cliché of the "show must go on". I believe very strongly in the quality of Stephen's work and when you have a chance at a major exhibition at a public art gallery you take it. Fortunately, Stephen agreed and we had to come up an alternative to our original plan. I thought, what would happen if we displayed the unfinished portrait, which was a charcoal cartoon on canvas, along with the oil sketches and drawings and that we finished the painting in the gallery during the run of the exhibition? There were a lot of imponderables in the idea as we had to believe that Stephen would be well enough to paint while the exhibition was up, but Stephen and I believed that he would be. Terry Graff, the Beaverbrook's director, thought it was a really interesting idea and it was his idea to extend the exhibition to include more works by Stephen.
So when Stephen Paints a Picture opened on the 27th. of February we had created a small studio in one corner of the exhibition with the unfinished painting sitting on easel with brushes, paint and a palette on a small table beside it. It should be said that Stephen had just finished his radiation treatment a few days before the opening and it wasn't certain that he would be well enough to attend, but nothing was going to stop him and he was there. Now we had to figure out the when and how of completing the portrait. So on the 16th. of April, I arrived at Stephen's house, in Nashwaak Village which is just outside of Fredericton, and now is his studio as well, to see if we could get a head start on finishing the painting as there was no way that it could all be done in the gallery given how slowly he works. Stephen had spent over forty hours on the preliminary oil sketches and drawings during the summer as this was to be a major three by four foot painting.
The following day was a bust as the Saint John River, on which his house borders, was threatening to flood and we spent the day checking the basement and an escape route, but the river crested and all was OK except we were out of wine and beer. The next day we got to the gallery, had a pleasant lunch with Terry, took the unfinished canvas, replaced it with a blank canvas, bought lots of wine and retreated to Naswaak Village.
After drinking some of the wine we decided that it would be better to start painting the next day. After breakfast Stephen had to solve some technical problems before we could start. The big one was to recreate the lighting that we had at my house over the summer so that he could use the oil sketches and drawings as a guide for the large painting. This meant blocking all the windows in the studio and setting up artificial light.
Portrait of Virgil by Stephen Scott
"What colour shirt do you want me to wear? The blue one or the yellow one?" I asked. During the summer we had used two different shirts for the oil sketches, two with me wearing a blue shirt and two with a yellow one. I had brought both of them with me. "It doesn't matter. How about the yellow one?"
"Suits me."
"Wait, I want to put some tape on the floor to mark the legs on the chair." The idea was to mark everything so that we cold replicate the situation at each sitting. I sat in the chair, while he played with the lights and when he was satisfied, he marked their positions as well.
"It's bloody cold in here, man, I'm going to freeze my ass off," I complained.
"There's a heater upstairs in the bathroom," he told me.
"OK, I'll go get it while you play with your paints."
After I plugged in the heater and sat down again, he said, "Your hair is the same."
"It's been seven months and not seven years, but I assure you, I'm getting older and not necessarily better."
"Sit still for a minute while I figure it out." He told me to move my head this way and that before he figured he had it right.
"Look, you know that I'm going to move from time to time if I'm going to keep notes of our brilliant conversation."
"Yeah, but try and keep it to a minimum."
"The conversation or my movement?"
"Very funny and your left hand goes over your right."
Stephen & Virgil at The Beaverbrook Art Gallery
"That was quite an interesting painting we looked at in the vault at the Beaverbrook yesterday. Graham Sutherland's small portrait of Somerset Maugham. A good choice, if I say so myself," I said. I was talking about a painting that was the first choice for a new project that Stephen and I were looking forward to doing this summer. Starting with the Beaverbrook, the only Canadian location, we want to go art museums in the north eastern United States from Maine to New York and, at each, pick a painting from their collection and have a conversation about it. I'll put the conversation on my blog, produce an e-book and a short You Tube video on each painting.
"I really like Sutherland's paintings, in particular, his portraits, but there was another picture on the same rack. A tall thin painting of a man in a grey overcoat," Stephen said.
"I think I know the one you mean it's by Walter Sickert. Another great British painter. It's a shame that artists like Sutherland and Sickert aren't appreciated as much has they should be."
"They are in sort of a lost period, but I agree they are both really interesting artists," he replied, "you know this surface is crap." He was referring to canvas he was working on. "I bought this at Mt. A (Mount Allison University) bookstore. It was cheap and shows. It's not sealed enough and it's sucking up the paint. I'm going to put on a couple of coats shellac. It'll dry fast. In the meantime, we can have another cup of coffee."
"Sure, I've got no place to go. What did you think that you learned from our show?"
"I think that I have more freedom to move forward. It's really interesting to see your work in a venue like the Beaverbrook."
"It's also cool to have it up in it's own space for three to four months," I added.
"In a commercial art gallery you're lucky if it's two weeks and then your work that doesn't sell is generally tied up for a year."
"The answer, Stephen, is to sell all your work at the opening."
"Fat chance of that in a place like New Brunswick," he said.
"I don't know about you, but a life changing event like the one that you just went through is certainly a good time to reflect on your life. I know it was for me after my heart attack and my own bout of cancer and your crap was a whole lot more dramatic than mine. This much is for sure, you scared the shit the shit out of me."
"Yeah, it does give you a pause. Life is short and I don't feel like fucking around any more."
He started back on the painting and was using quite a long maul stick. "I had one of those," I said, "I gave it to one of my students when I retired and stopped painting.
Most artists don't even know about them much less how to use them."
"They come in handy to keep your hand steady and out of the paint," he said. The other thing that he did was to add extensions, wooden dowels, to his brushes to make them longer so that he could paint further away from the canvas. Also, different from our Sackville sessions over the summer is that he was mostly standing while he painted rather than seated.
"Painters in the past did use much longer brushes when they were painting larger portraits. It's hard to buy long portrait brushes these days," I remarked, "however, I did find some remarkable and beautiful portrait brushes at Pearl Paint in New York City. They cost me a small fortune and I ended up giving them to the same student that I gave the maul stick to."
"I didn't want hear that. I wish that you had given them to me," Stephen said.
"You weren't around at the time, but I did give you that great French drawing paper and a roll of six foot canvas."
"So you did. Try and keep your head in one place. You know one thing that we haven't talked much about is 19th. century English Romantic painters like John William Waterhouse."
"Yeah, he's coming back in fashion after being nearly forgotten. I tried to look him up in my 1970 copy of The Oxford Companion to Art, a big honking 1200 page book, and he's not there. I think his 1888 Lady of Shalott is a hoot, but it's beautifully painted."
"I like his The Mermaid around the turn of the century, 1901, I think. Again, a very pretty painting."
"I guess you could call him a Post Pre-Raphaelite. He was out of date when he was painting his best pictures. It was round the same time as the Impressionists and the Post Impressionists, but he was wildly popular in his own time," I said.
© Virgil Hammock, Sackville NB, Canada, Thursday, May 1, 2014.
Posted in Stephen Paints a Picture |


New launch VS resale: Which is an ideal choice for investment?
You are here Home » Property News » New launch VS resale: Which is an ideal choice for investment?
Singapore Property | If you are purchasing an investment property so as to lease it out, you have various things to consider. This means that you would be considering things in terms of hard, cold numbers. Regardless of how worn out or pretty a property seems, when making a choice between an old condo or a shiny new one, here are a few factors to consider.
Why go with a resale condo as a property for investment?
You can begin renting out instantly: This is one of the most popular reasons for going with a resale investment property if you are purchasing it so you can invest. A new launch may take a while to get ready and accommodate tenants while tenants can use a resale unit instantly.
More predictable rental income: it is easy to determine the rental income you can get from a resale unit. All you have to do is to check what the previous tenants used to pay.
Possibility of finding units which are underpriced: Most times, the payment you make for a new launch is almost similar to the original value while for resale units, owners let go f properties for various reasons, it could be as a result of finance or divorce and they are usually in a rush to get rid of the property thereby offering you very minimum prices.
Why go with a new launch?
Lower cost of Maintenance: As a condo ages, the cost of maintenance tends to rise. They could have issues ranging from damp ceilings, plumbing among others which would cost more to fix. But this is not experienced in new condos and tends to save cost in the long run.
New launches are usually on progressive payment mode and buyers will not have to pay a huge amount of cash, if you are not getting a mortgage loan. And for those who are paying via mortgage loan, the initial installments are much lower.
Upgrading to enjoy more space for your family, you may read on some new landed launches such as the Belgravia Green, a freehold strata landed, or the Realty Park Villas, located in District 19 or Nim Collection, a landed development near Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5.
If you are a new homeowner, it's safer to go with resale units because they come with fewer risks. You can easily observe the current rates and inspect the property yourself. New launches, on the other hand, are more ideal for more experienced investors as you would need a certain level of skill to estimate the potential of the condo and its location even before the building is constructed.
You can view more upcoming new condo launches by visiting Jade Scape, a huge development near Marymount MRT or the Parkwood Residences by Oxley Holdings in Yio Chu Kang.