text:
[βοσκός](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B2%CE%BF%CF%83%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%82) - shepherd in greek!

boskos is a resource manager service, that handles and manages different kind of resources and transition between
different states.

## Introduction

Boskos is inited with a config of resources, a list of resources by names. It's passed in by `-config`, usually as a
config map.

Boskos supports 2 types of resources, static and dynamic resources. Static resources are the one that depends on actual
physical resources, meaning someone needs to physically create it, and add it to the list. Dynamic resources
may depend on static resources. In the example bellow , aws-account is static resource, and aws-cluster is a dynamic
resource that depends on having an aws-account. Once a cluster is created, AWS are in used, so admin might want to
always have a minimum cluster available for testing, and might allow for more cluster to be created for spike usage.

```yaml
---
resources:
  # Static
  - type: "aws-account"
    state: free
    names:
    - "account1"
    - "account2"
  # Dynamic
  - type: "aws-cluster"
    state: dirty
    min-count: 1
    max-count: 2
    lifespan: 48h
    needs:
      aws-account: 1
    config:
      type: AWSClusterCreator
      content: "..."

```

Type can be GCPProject, cluster, or even a dota2 server, anything that you
want to be a group of resources. Name is a unique identifier of the resource.
State is a string that tells the current status of the resource.

User Data is here for customization. In Mason as an example, we create new
resources from existing ones (creating a cluster inside a GCP project), but
in order to acquire the right resources, we need to store some information in the
final resource UserData. It is up to the implementation to parse the string into the
right struct. UserData can be updated using the update API call. All resource
user data is returned as part of acquisition (calling acquire or acquirebystate)

## Dynamic Resources

As explain in the introduction, dynamic resources were introduced to reduce cost.

If all resources are currently being used, and the count of resources is bellow Max,
boskos will create new resources on Acquire. In order to take advantage of this,
users need to specify a request ID in Acquire and keep using the same requestID
until the resource is available.

Boskos will take care of naming and creating resources (if the current
count is below min-count) and deleting the resources if they are expired (lifetime
option) or over max-count.

All resource being deleted (due to config update or expiration) will be marked
as `ToBeDeleted`. The cleaner component will mark them as `Tombstone` such that
they can be safely deleted by Boskos. The cleaner will ensure that dynamic
resources release other leased resources associated with it to prevent leaks.

## API

###   `POST /acquire`

Use `/acquire` when you want to get hold of some resource.

#### Required Parameters

| Name    | Type     | Description                                 |
| ------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| `type`  | `string` | type of requested resource                  |
| `state` | `string` | current state of the requested resource     |
| `dest`  | `string` | destination state of the requested resource |
| `owner` | `string` | requester of the resource                   |

#### Optional Parameters

| Name         | Type     | Description                                   |
| ------------ | -------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| `request_id` | `string` | request id to use to keep your priority rank  |

Example: `/acquire?type=gce-project&state=free&dest=busy&owner=user`.

On a successful request, `/acquire` will return HTTP 200 and a valid Resource JSON object.

###   `POST /acquirebystate`

Use `/acquirebystate` when you want to get hold of a set of resources in a given
state.

#### Required Parameters

| Name    | Type     | Description                                 |
| ------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| `state` | `string` | current state of the requested resource     |
| `dest`  | `string` | destination state of the requested resource |
| `owner` | `string` | requester of the resource                   |
| `names` | `string` | comma separated list of resource names      |

Example: `/acquirebystate?state=free&dest=busy&owner=user&names=res1,res2`.

On a successful request, `/acquirebystate` will return HTTP 200 and a valid list of Resources JSON object.

###   `POST /release`

Use `/release` when you finish use some resource. Owner need to match current owner.

#### Required Parameters

| Name    | Type     | Description                                |
| ------- | -------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| `name`  | `string` | name of finished resource                  |
| `owner` | `string` | owner of the resource                      |
| `dest`  | `string` | destination state of the released resource |

Example: `/release?name=k8s-jkns-foo&dest=dirty&owner=user`

###   `POST /update`

Use `/update` to update resource last-update timestamp. Owner need to match current owner.

#### Required Parameters

| Name    | Type     | Description                    |
| ------- | -------- | ------------------------------ |
| `name`  | `string` | name of target resource        |
| `owner` | `string` | owner of the resource          |
| `state` | `string` | current state of the resource  |

#### Optional Parameters
In order to update user data, just marshall the user data into the request body.

Example: `/update?name=k8s-jkns-foo&state=free&owner=user`

###   `POST /reset`

Use `/reset` to reset a group of expired resource to certain state.

#### Required Parameters

| Name     | Type          | Description                                         |
| -------- | ------------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| `type`   | `string`      | type of resource in interest                        |
| `state`  | `string`      | current state of the expired resource               |
| `dest`   | `string`      | destination state of the expired resource           |
| `expire` | `durationStr` | resource has not been updated since before `expire` |

Note: `durationStr` is any string can be parsed by [`time.ParseDuration()`](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#ParseDuration)

On a successful request, `/reset` will return HTTP 200 and a list of [Owner:Resource] pairs, which can be unmarshalled into `map[string]string{}`

Example: `/reset?type=gce-project&state=busy&dest=dirty&expire=20m`

###   `GET /metric`

Use `/metric` to retrieve a metric.

#### Required Parameters

| Name   | Type     | Description                |
| ------ | -------- | -------------------------- |
| `type` | `string` | type of requested resource |

On a successful request, `/metric` will return HTTP 200 and a JSON object containing the count of projects in each state, the count of projects with each owner (or without an owner), and the sum of state moved to after `/done` (Todo). A sample object will look like:

```json
{
        "type" : "project",
        "Current":
        {
                "total"   : 35,
                "free"    : 20,
                "dirty"   : 10,
                "injured" : 5
        },
        "Owners":
        {
                "fejta" : 1,
                "Senlu" : 1,
                "sig-testing" : 20,
                "Janitor" : 10,
                "None" : 20
        }
}
```

## Config update:
1. Edit resources.yaml, and send a PR.

1. After PR is LG'd, make sure your branch is synced up with master.

1. run `make update-config` to update the configmap.

1. Boskos updates its config every 10min. Newly added resources will be available after next update cycle.
Newly deleted resource will be removed in a future update cycle if the resource is not owned by any user.

## Other Components:

[`Reaper`] looks for resources that owned by someone, but have not been updated for a period of time,
and reset the stale resources to dirty state for the [`Janitor`] component to pick up. It will prevent
state leaks if a client process is killed unexpectedly.

[`Janitor`] looks for dirty resources from boskos, and will kick off sub-janitor process to clean up the
resource, finally return them back to boskos in a free state.

[`Metrics`] is a separate service, which can display json metric results, and has HTTP endpoint
opened for prometheus monitoring.

[`Mason`] updates virtual resources with existing resources. An example would be
a cluster. In order to create a GKE cluster you need a GCP Project. Mason will look for specific
resources and release leased resources as dirty (such that Janitor can pick it up) and ask for
brand new resources in order to convert them in the final resource states. Mason
comes with its own client to ease usage. The mason client takes care of
acquiring and release all the right resources from the User Data information.

[`cleaner`] Mark resource with status `ToBeDeleted` as `Tombstone` such they can be
safely deleted by Boskos. This is important for dynamic resources such that all
associated resources can be released before deletion to prevent leak.

[`Storage`] There could be multiple implementation on how resources and mason
config are stored. Since we have multiple components with storage needs, we have
now shared storage implementation. In memory and in Cluster via k8s custom
resource definition.

[`crds`] General client library to store data on k8s custom resource definition.
In theory those could be use outside of Boskos.

For the boskos server that handles k8s e2e jobs, the status is available from the [`Velodrome dashboard`]

## Adding UserData to a resource

1. Check it out:
    ```shell
    curl -X POST "http://localhost:8080/acquire?type=my-resource&state=free&dest=busy&owner=$(whoami)"
    {"type":"my-resource","name":"resource1","state":"busy","owner":"user","lastupdate":"2019-02-07T22:33:38.01350902Z","userdata":null}
    ```

1. Add the data:
    ```shell
    curl -X POST -d '{"access-key-id":"17","secret-access-key":"18"}' "http://localhost:8080/update?name=resource1&state=busy&owner=$(whoami)"
    ```

1. Check it back in:
    ```shell
    curl -X POST 'http://localhost:8080/release?name=liz2&dest=free&owner=user'
    ```

## Local test:
1. Start boskos with a fake config.yaml, with `go run boskos.go -in_memory -config=/path/to/config.yaml`

1. Sent some local requests to boskos:
```
curl 'http://127.0.0.1:8080/acquire?type=project&state=free&dest=busy&owner=user'
```

## K8s test:
1. Create and navigate to your own cluster

1. `make server-deployment`

1. `make service`

1. `kubectl create configmap -n test-pods resources --from-file=config=cfg.yaml`
  See [`resources.yaml`](./resources.yaml) for an example of how the config file should look

1. `kubectl describe svc -n test-pods boskos` to make sure boskos is running

1. Test from another pod within the cluster
```
kubectl run curl --image=radial/busyboxplus:curl -i --tty
Waiting for pod default/curl-XXXXX to be running, status is Pending, pod ready: false
If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter.
[ root@curl-XXXXX:/ ]$ curl -X POST 'http://boskos.test-pods.svc.cluster.local/acquire?type=project&state=free&dest=busy&owner=user'
````

[`Reaper`]: ./reaper
[`Janitor`]: ./janitor
[`Metrics`]: ./metrics
[`Mason`]: ./mason
[`Storage`]: ./storage
[`crds`]: ./crds
[`Velodrome dashboard`]: http://velodrome.k8s.io/dashboard/db/boskos-dashboard


The Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan has long been a location for secret diplomacy, but few meetings there would have seemed as unlikely as the one that took place one day in early December.
That meeting on Dec. 7 between Luis Caputo, who days later would be sworn in as Argentina's finance secretary, and Jonathan Pollock and Jay Newman from Elliott Management, the $27 billion hedge fund founded by Paul E. Singer, was the start of a rapprochement leading to a momentous debt deal that has now allowed Argentina to rejoin the global financial markets that it had been locked out of for 15 years.
Last week, Argentina successfully sold $16.5 billion in bonds to international investors, a record amount for any developing country. And on Friday, Elliott and the other bondholders finally received their reward in the form of billions of dollars in repayment, representing returns worth multiple times their original investments.


text:
HomeSports
Tom Brady screams at Bucs teammates as offense sputters vs Saints
Tom Brady screamed at his Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates on special teams at the start of the fourth quarter.
Tampa Bay punter Jake Camarda started the fourth quarter with a punt into the back of the end zone and gave New Orleans the ball at the 20-yard line.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) passes in the first half of an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints in Tampa, Fla., Monday, Dec. 5, 2022.
(AP Photo/Mark LoMoglio)
The ESPN cameras turned to Brady on the Buccaneers' bench. He was studying the tablet from the last series when he lifted up his head and yelled out some expletives.
"God da–it. What the f— is that!"
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
Through three quarters, the Saints gave Brady a handful of reasons to be angry. Tampa Bay only put up three points but had 14 first downs and ran 51 plays – more than the Saints at that point.
AARON JUDGE SHOWS UP TO BUCS GAME AS HE REPORTEDLY GARNERS MASSIVE OFFERS ON FREE-AGENT MARKET
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) drops back to pass in the first half of an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints in Tampa, Fla., Monday, Dec. 5, 2022.
Brady threw an interception right before halftime as well.
It's not the first time Brady has been frustrated by the Saints. In their first game earlier this season, Brady was seen throwing a tablet in frustration. He joked afterward he "forgot the password."
"I've had a pretty bad record against that tablet, unfortunately," Brady joked on the "Let's Go!" podcast. "I think I forgot the password and I couldn't log in so those things can be frustrating as we realize. So, unfortunately, a tablet just happens to get in the way and obviously that's the reason why things weren't going great yesterday. So I had to take it out on the poor meaningless tablet."
Brady also tossed a tablet in a loss to New Orleans in 2021.
Fox News' Joe Morgan contributed to this report.
Ryan Gaydos is the sports editor for Fox News Digital.
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Perspective | Watching the unwatchable cruelty in Memphis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


willing the church is to hold its schools accountable the more the trend over time is away from that church's confessional position. There is good historical research to support this claim in James Burtchaell's work The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches.1 His study shows how nearly every Christian college in America that breaks away from accountability to the church eventually drifts away from biblical authority and has either left or is on its way to leaving Christianity itself.
Why does this drift happen? The fundamental reason lies in the answer to a basic Bible question. Where did God place the apostles and prophets, in the college or in the local church? The answer is clear. God gave the apostles and prophets to the church. They are her foundation, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). The faith "once for all entrusted to the saints" was given to the church to contend for (Jude 3), because the church — not the college — is the pillar and support of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15).2 Paul considered himself a servant of the church (Colossians 1:25).
How do these Scriptures speak to the relationship between Christian colleges and their respective churches? They say that the role of preserving the message of the apostles and prophets does not belong to the college but to local churches. I am not saying that sincere and godly people cannot remain faithful. I am saying that, theologically, the way this is done for individuals as well as for institutions is to remain accountable to their churches.
I do not doubt the genuineness of such a pledge. My objection is that it puts too much trust in man. God did not give the job of preserving the Christian message to individuals or to Christian colleges. He ordained the church as the "pillar and support" of the truth. We simply are not able to do what the church alone is designed by God to do to preserve its message.
What means does a church possess that makes it more fit than the college for the preservation of its message? Many could be suggested, and frankly a spiritually sound and intellectually serious college, speaking prophetically to the church and helping the church love God with all her mind, ought to be considered one of those means. However, I will focus here on one means that positions the church uniquely to contend for the faith. The church controls access to its membership and consequently to its ordinances, and these are, among other things, doctrinal matters. The confession, "Jesus is Lord" and the belief that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9) are doctrinal confessions. The church baptizes a man upon his profession of faith and invites him to the Lord's table. The church can also withhold these through church discipline. The church, not the Christian college, was given the keys to the kingdom. The church disciplines its members, when their life and doctrine go astray, and the church can remove people from membership for due cause. God called the church to train its ministers, who oversee these ordinances, and Christian colleges are Christian only in so far as they see their life flowing out of the church and not standing over it or independent from it. The church gives life to the Christian college and not the other way around. Remaining accountable to the church, then, is the biblical means for the Christian college staying faithful to the church's message.
The day Christian colleges baptize and receive members upon their profession of faith and the day they administer the Lord's supper is the day they will be competent to safeguard the Christian message. Of course, I am speaking tongue in cheek. The Christian college should not baptize or serve the Lord's Supper. Jesus assigned those ordinances to the church, and the college should not assume that prerogative. In the same way, however, the Christian college should not presume upon its ability to preserve the Christian message without the means God gave only to the church.
Schaeffer was reflecting on his own experience as a Presbyterian in the 1920s when conservatives in one year elected a conservative president of their denomination but were not able to discipline their schools. In the end nothing changed, except that the denomination continued its liberal slide. As far as I know Schaeffer never named in print the denominations he was talking about. I assume one of them was my own Southern Baptist Convention, but he died soon after he wrote it. His statement haunted me throughout my education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1980s while I tried to sort out the arguments on both sides of the struggle for the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Why do we need to turn right periodically? The reason is we never drift toward the Bible. When we drift, it is always away. Such is our nature as sinners. The only way back to the Bible in the Bible is repentance that happens when we are held accountable.
When a Christian college that is not accountable to the church drifts from orthodoxy, how can it be brought back? The challenge for sponsoring churches is to tenaciously but lovingly guard the theological fidelity of their schools.
1. James Burtchaell's thesis in The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches (Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans, 1998). See also George Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Unbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
2. J. P. Moreland, Love God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997), p. 44.
3. Robert Benne, Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 183-84.
5. For a sustained argument from a mainline liberal perspective that church related colleges ought to seek maximum autonomy in the college-church relationship in order to preserve their integrity as educational institutions see Merrimon Cunninggim, Uneasy Partners: The College and the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994).
6. Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster. Reprinted in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, vol. 4, A Christian View of the Church (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988), p. 355.
7. Norman Geisler, "Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (March 1999), p. 16.
8. James Nuechterlein, "The Idol of Academic Freedom," First Things: A Journal of Religion and Public Life 38 (December 1993), p. 16.
Andy Chambers is Dean of Students/Assistant Professor of Bible at Missouri Baptist College in St. Louis, Mo. This article is from his report to the Evangelical Theological Society in November 2001.


I don't know if all of the other bloggers out there deal with the same thing I do, but whenever someone is tasked with picking out a cake for my birthday, they always try to pick out some fancy, gourmet cake with fruit or some strange flavor combination, when all I really want is a good, Carvel Ice Cream Cake. Extra crunchies.
My friends and I at my last job would always find a reason to order ice cream cake. National Middle Child Day? Ice Cream Cake. Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Ice Cream Cake (complete with photoshopped Birthday Hat on MLK and his speech playing in the background). National Speak Like a Pirate Day? Well... we actually didn't have time to get the cake that day, but we wanted to, complete with asking the person at the counter to write "Arrrrrrrr" on the cake.
Needless to say, I miss those days of wreckless ice cream cake eating.
A few months back, one of the members of our Carvel Cake Clan (I just made that up), got a new job, and for her goodbye party, we of course got ice cream cake, but then we needed something else. So I offered to make this funfetti cake.
For some reason, I was very nervous about making this cake. You see, there is a reason why the Funfetti cake box mix is so popular. Because it's freaking AWESOME. Why reinvent the wheel when something is so perfect?
But I wanted to be different. I typically don't ever use box mixes for anything (unless they are cake balls - it allows me to eat them faster) so I didn't want to use a box mix for this.
I used my go to white cake recipe and then threw a ton of sprinkles in it. Most recipes call for 2 or 3 tbsp, but I went big and doubled that. I knew that was probably a bad idea... but I just couldn't stop myself. I love sprinkles.
I popped the cake in the oven and allowed it to bake. The smell of sugary sprinkles baking filled the air. I started to get nervous. I've never smelled sprinkles before. I flicked on the oven light and saw a tie dye of rainbow sprinkles atop the top of the cake. I got nervous that the sprinkles were caramelizing and melting into the cake, but I let the cake finish baking.
Luckily, although the top of the cake was somewhat frightful, the rest of the cake was wonderful. Light, airy, and speckled with a colorful rainbow of wonderfully bright jimmies.
Topped with some vanilla frosting, decorated with more sprinkles, and then grab your party hats people, it's cake time.
I didn't get any cut shots of the cake, because I was worried that people would judge me if I was taking photos of my own cake in the conference room, but let me just tell you, it was beautiful.
And you know what's amazing? Funfetti cake topped with Carvel Ice Cream Cake. Watch out now. Now it's a real party.
Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed (or high speed if using handheld mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Add sprinkles. Return mixer to medium (or high) speed and beat 20 seconds longer.
Divide batter evenly between two prepared cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Arrange pans at least 3 inches from the oven walls and 3 inches apart. (If oven is small, place pans on separate racks in staggered fashion to allow for air circulation.) Bake until thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 23 to 25 minutes.
Let cakes rest in pans for 3 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with a knife, if necessary, and invert onto wire racks. Reinvert onto additional wire racks. Let cool completely, about 1 1/2 hours.
Layer cakes with vanilla frosting, frost outside and decorate as you wish!
In a bowl combine butter, sugar and salt. Beat till blended.
Add the milk and vanilla and beat for an additional 3 to 5 minutes or until smooth and creamy.
I made this cake so long ago, that I can hardly remember anyhting about it besides that fact that it is TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME.
Yes, it's time consuming. But man, is it totally worth the work.
I have nothing funny to say about this cake... because I can't remember my experience with it. I do remember that I made it with the full intention of bringing it to work, but for some reason I didn't, which meant that I had this bad boy in my fridge for a few days, which was so bad, because I just kept taking slivers. That's what I do. I take tiny slivers. So then, for me, it doesn't count in my calories. It makes me feel better about myself. But sometimes, I lose my willpower and instead of taking one sliver, I take 5. (See: Funfetti Cake Balls). But this cake REQUIRES you to cheat. Because it is damn delicious.
I never thought to combine lemon and caramel in a cake, but it totally makes sense. Creamy lemon curd, complex, sweet rich caramel nestled in between fluffy layers of chiffon cake and a luscious meringue topping that wows. This cake is a total showstopper.
The best part is torching it with a creme brulee torch. People love that stuff. It's like Beavis and Butthead "Fire, Fire... heh heh... Fire".
Ugh... can we just talk about Beavis and Butthead? I hated it in the 90s and I hate it now. Why must they be back in my life???
I made ⅓ of this recipe and divided the batter between two 6-inch pans. I cut each layer in half to create 4 even layers. Mark has the recipe amounts for an 8-inch cake.
Preheat the oven to 325F. Line the bottom of a 10-inch cake or springform pan with 3-inch sides with parchment paper cut to fit exactly; don't grease the pan.
Sift together the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Add 1¼ cups (8.75 ounces) of the sugar and the salt and whisk to combine. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Make a well in the flour, add the yolk mixture, and then whisk thoroughly and quickly for about 1 minutes until very smooth.
In another large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy, then add the cream of tartar and beat on medium-high speed until it holds soft peaks. Add the remaining ¼ cup (1.75 ounces) sugar slowly while beating on medium-high speed until the whites hold firm, shiny peaks. Add a third of the egg whites and fold into the yolk mixture to lighten, then fold in the rest of the whites until just combined.
Pour the batter into the pan, smoothing the top if necessary. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45-55 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack. Once completely cool, run a thin knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake an then release and lift off the pan sides. Invert the cake and peel off the parchment.
Pour the cream into a small, heavy saucepan. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and use the tip of a sharp knife to scrape the seeds from the pod halves into the milk. Place over medium-high heat and bring to just under a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low to keep the cream warm.
In a medium, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, water, salt, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Then cook, without stirring, until the mixture is amber colored, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat.
The mixture will continue to cook off the heat and become darker, so make sure to have your cream close by. Carefully and slowly add the cream to the sugar syrup. The mixture will boil vigorously at first. Let the mixture simmer down, and then whisk until smooth. Add the lemon juice. Let cool for about 10 minutes.
Cut the butter into 1-inch chunks and add to the caramel one at a time, whisking constantly after each addition. Then whisk the caramel periodically as it continues to cool.
In a nonreactive saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium heat. Transfer to a cool bowl, let cool for a bit, then chill for half an hour. Stir in the lemon juice.
Split the chiffon cake horizontally into four equal layers. Place one layer on your serving plate (which I lined with wax paper around to cake) and moisten evenly with ¼ of the lemon syrup. Spread ⅓ of the caramel over the cake, then ⅓ of the lemon cream. Repeat with 2 more layers, using up the remaining caramel and lemon cream. Top with the fourth cake layer and moisten with the remaining lemon syrup. Cover the cake completely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least four hours or overnight.
In a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, combine the egg whites, sugar, and salt and whisk until the whites are hot to the touch, about 120F, about 5 minutes. Beat on high speed until the mixture is very thick and holds stiff, glossy peaks.
Unmold the cake and spread the meringue all over. Use a spatula or a spoon to create dramatic swirls. Using a propane torch if available, scorch the meringue, blackening the tips and swirls.
Halloween Funfetti Cake Balls! Spooky Scary!
It's Halloween (and today I'm dressed up as Captain Obvious).
I decided to make some funfetti cake balls for a Halloween party that I was supposed to attend on Saturday night. Unfortunately, Jack got sick, and I, like the loving fiancee that I am, stayed home to take care of him and ended up watching scary movies all night. The Exorcist and The Shining, neither of which I've seen. SO SCARY. I screamed a lot. Then I watched Poltergeist right afterwards, a movie I have seen and for years I always kept my closet door closed because my cousin, Desi, told me that if you keep your closet door open, a Poltergeist was going to come into your room. Every night, until I was 26 years old, I did this. I'm not kidding. And I'm only 29 (and 358 days) old.
To digress for just a short moment, have you ever seen this preview for The Shining, where someone makes it out to look like it's a lighthearted family comedy? It's amazing.
The thing that I love about these cake balls is that they are so easy to make, and are so delicious. The thing I hate about these cake balls are that they are so easy to make and are so delicious. When I make these cake balls, I end up eating about 10-15 of them. No joke. It's really disgusting. But I'm like, hey, they're small, so they're not too many calories. 5 cake balls later, I'm feeling naseous, but still just can't stop. And I haven't even coated them with chocolate yet. So I coat them with chocolate, let them set, and then eat another. You know, because I have to taste it when it's coated with chocolate. But what I love so much is actually when they are in the fridge, and you eat them straight from the fridge, and you hear that "crunch" as you bite through the crisp outer chocolate layer and then get to the smooth cake layer inside. So I need to eat one after I put it in the fridge. 10 cake balls later, I'm feeling sick, contemplating a second trip to the gym, yet still secretly want another.
This is what happened to me yesterday. I didn't eat 10 cake balls... at least I don't think I did, but it was close. I went to bed feeling ashamed of myself.
And what did I do the first thing when I woke up.
I ate a cake ball.
Don't judge. I'm signed up for a spin class later. And tomorrow morning.
The sad thing is, since I couldn't bring them to the party, I wanted to bring them to work. Well, who's got two thumbs and forgot to bring these to work?
So now I've got 30 more little funfetti cake balls awaiting me at home.
LOOK AT THAT! How you can you not eat 100 of these?!
Bake cakes according to directions on the box. Once baking is completed, allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
Mix thoroughly with 3/4 can frosting.
Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. This will be messy, but they will come together. Resist the urge to eat 5 cake balls.
Drizzle with different colored chocolate.
Junior's Tiramisu Cheesecake, Dr. Death, DDR. and my 400th Post!
This is my 400th post! That's crazy!!!
I had my wisdom teeth pulled this past Thursday. I hemmed and hawed, whined and moaned to coworkers. I was scared. I was convinced – convinced I tell you! – that I was going to wake up during the surgery and discover the evil oral surgeon perched over me with the metal shears of death waiting to rip each tooth out from my mouth slowly as his eyes burned with fire and the dental hygienist cackled in the background.
I know. I'm a huge baby. And a drama queen.
But you see, I had a horrible experience at the dentist. Take a trip down memory lane with me, shall we?
It was 2001. I was studying in London during my fall semester of Junior year. My best friend, Tara, and I had taken a weekend jaunt to Amsterdam and were slowly wandering around the Van Gogh museum. I was enjoying a Nip hard candy and Starry Night when all of a sudden I felt a crack. Somehow, my tooth had chipped. I thought, either I have really weak teeth or this is the strongest Nip on the face of the planet.
Unfortunately for me, I couldn't get a dentist appointment to save my life, so I lived the four months in London with a chipped tooth. When I returned to The States, it was no surprise that I needed to have a root canal. From my evil dentist whom I hated.
He was a dentist who I had been going to for years and he was mean. Just straight up mean. I think he had a drinking problem as well (no joke). But I never tried to change dentists, because I was still under the impression that all dentists were evil.
He was a round, middle aged man, who stood no higher than 5'8". His meaty, clumsy hands always fumbled when picking up the equipment. I still remember the sound of his labored breathing as he worked on my mouth, no doubt causing greater damage on my teeth rather than fixing them (no joke. I've learned I need another root canal because he drilled too close to the nerve on a cavity he filled years back. Dr. Death, DDR.
So I sat in the chair of his dim blue office with chipping paint walls as I gazed up in terror at the fluorescent lights. He gave me a few shots of Novocain and picked up an instrument. Wait! I thought. Isn't he supposed to let it set? Nope. Not Dr. Death, DDR. He went straight to work. I winced in pain and made a feeble sound, letting him know I wasn't comfortable.
"I can still feel it." I mumbled in my garbled speak that only dentists can understand.
He huffed as if it were the most ridiculous thing in the world that I could still feel it. He gave me a few more shots of Novocain and waited five minutes, clearly annoyed that I was inconveniencing him because I could feel the drilling IN MY BRAIN.
I'll spare you the details, but after an hour of screaming and 8 shots of Novocain later, I left his office looking like someone had hit me in the face repeatedly with a baseball bat, or just stuck a softball in my mouth with tears streaming down my face.
So now, whenever I sit in a dentist chair, I start shaking, become short of breath, and tear up a little bit when I think of Dr. Death, DDR.
However, this oral surgeon was anything but. He was young, handsome, and extremely charismatic. I immediately was shuffled into a back room and received a cat scan. I was confused as they strapped my head to the chair and asked me to close my eyes as the machine whirled around my face. It was the chamber of death and I was going to die by wisdom tooth extraction. I prayed that it would be a quick end as the anesthesia pulsed through my body and lulled me to sleep.
An hour later, I awoke to my boyfriend entering the room and lightly kissing me on the forehead.
"Did they start yet?" I asked.
We went home and I surprisingly had no pain. I leered a little bit at the sight of my chipmunk cheeks, but otherwise, I was fine. No pain. No aching. Nothing. But I was instructed to take it easy to not aggravate my mouth.
Well, by the weekend, I was going totally stir crazy and I wanted to eat something good. I was sick of jello. I wanted something delicious. I've been eyeing this tiramisu cheesecake recipe for weeks now, and I thought this would be the perfect time. Since I bored you with my dentist story, I'll keep the cheesecake part short. You know, because this is a blog about dentists, not food.
I don't know how many of you have ever visited or heard of Junior's Cheesecake, a New York City historical icon in terms of dessert. They have a cookbook out featuring recipes for many of their famous cheesecakes, and this one just popped out of me. Tiramisu. Cheesecake. Two of my favorite things. But would it be as delicious as it sounds?
This cheesecake is OUTRAGEOUS. Perfect for any cheesecake lover. The creamy, coffee cheesecake layer is pure heaven and is topped with a layer of deliciously soft lady fingers that were soaked in a sweet tiramisu syrup made of coffee, rum, and water. The cheesecake is then encircled with more tiramisu syrup-soaked ladyfingers and finally, the entire cheesecake is topped with the most delicious, billowy, sweet mascarpone cream.
OUT. RA. GEOUS. I could have eaten the whole thing. But then I ate an entire pint of Hagen Daaz Dulce De Leche Frozen yogurt, so I couldn't justify more than a tiny sliver of cheesecake.
Who's got two thumbs and gains weight when she can't eat after wisdom tooth surgery? This girl.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Wrap the outside of the pan will aluminum foil,covering the bottom and extending all the way up the sides.
Stir the water and espresso together in a small cup until dissolved. Put one package of the cream cheese, 1/3 cup of the sugar, and the cornstrach in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low intil creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl down a couple of times. Blend in the remaining cream cheese, one package at a time, scraping down the bowl after each one. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat in the remaining 1 cup sugar, then the vanilla. Add coffee into the cream, add to the cream cheese mixture, and beat just until it's completely blended. Be careful not to overmix! Gently spoon the batter into the springform.
Place in a large shallow pan containing hot water that comes about 1 inch up the sides of the springform. Bake until the edges are light brown and the top is light tan, about 1 1/4 hours. Remove the cake from the water bath, transfer to a wire rack, and let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 2 hours. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely cold, preferably overnight or for at least 4 hours.
Make the tiramisu syrup. Combine the water and espresso in a small sauce-pan until dissolved. Add the sugar and Kahlua or Rum, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce the heat to medium, and let simmer, uncovered for 3 minutes, stirring a few times. Top the cold cheesecake (still in the pan) with a layer of ladyfingers,. Transfer the cake to the freezer until completely frozen, at least overnight and/or until ready to assemble.
When you're ready to assemble the cake, make the mascarpone cream. Place the gelatin in a heatproof measuring cup, stir in the cold water, and let stand until it swells and thickens. Cook in the microwave on high about 30 seconds or over a pan of simmering water for about 1 minute, until clear and completely melted. In a medium-size bowl, whip the cream with the mixer on high until it thickens and soft peaks just begin to form. With the mixer still running, add the sugar and beat just until the cream stands up in peaks (don't over-mix or the cream will curdle). Beat in the vanilla and rum. Add the melted gelatin all at once and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Gently fold in the mascarpone with a rubber spatula.
Remove the cake from the freezer and let it stand at room temperature about 10 minutes. Release and remove the sides of the springform, then remove the cheesecake from the bottom of the pan. Transfer to a cake plate. To attach the remaining ladyfingers (26 halves) to the outside of the cake, spread a thin layer of the mascarpone cream over the flat split sides of the ladyfingers. Stand them up around the edge of the cake, rounded-side out pressing each one gently in place. Spoon the remaining mascarpone on top of the cake and gently even out with a metal spatula; it will come up almost to the top of the ladyfingers. Since the cheesecake is still very cold, the mascarpone cream will set fast.
To decorate, cover the top of the cake with the chocolate curls, then sprinkle evenly with the cocoa. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until the mascarpone layer is cold and set and the cheesecake layer has defrosted enough to slice easily. Slice with a sharp straight-edge knife, not a serrated one. Cover any leftover cake and refrigerate or wrap and freeze for up to 1 month.
I've been an enormous slacker on TWD and for that, I apologize to all memebers, especially our fearless leader, Laurie! But now I am back in the game and have some SERIOUS catching up to do.
Wendy, of Pink Stripes, chose the Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cake and for that, I want to hug her. I can't say it enough - Alcohol in desserts is a-ok by me. I just love the unexpected flavor that pops from spirits. And now, I'll stop talking about how much I love the combination, for fear that all of my readers will think I actually do have a problem and will hold a virtual intervention.
I made these vanilla cakes one night when Jack and I were hosting several friends for a dinner party. Every so often, we and a few of Jack's college friends and their girlfriends/wives, whom I now consider my own friends and who I love so much, get together and have dinner or do some other fun event together (like our most recent trip to LBI). I had decided to make several canapes - Shrimp toast, Filet Mignon with a tomato creme fraiche on water crackers, lemon-taragon meatballs with a sweet tomato glaze, and something else that is escaping me - and two desserts - a lemon tart and these rum drenched vanilla cakes.
Everything went off without a hitch, and of course, I did not take any pictures of anything because I was pressed for time and the sun was setting and I refuse - REFUSE - to take photos of my food with flash, no matter how much Jack tells me I am being ridiculous (food bloggers, you understand). The only thing that I didn't work for me were these cakes. I don't know what went wrong, but I blame the perils of New York City kitchens. My stove is the size of half a stove, and it burns at whatever temperature it feels like. Right now, it is burning at about 25 degrees higher than it should be. Items on the lower rack cook well, but items on the top rack really brown quickly, and these were no exception. I tried to rotate the pans from the top to the bottom, and I was rewarded for my efforts of moving the loaf pans with sunken, dense middles.
I decided to quickly make some rum whipped cream and a mixed berry compote, hoping that would easy the disaster that these cakes turned into. Luckily, it did. But I was still not proud of the dish and did not want to serve it to guests. As they started to arrive, I quickly hid the cakes atop my dresser in my bedroom (I live in Manhattan - I don't have much space) and forgot about it.
Hours later, after our bellys were full and we were happily drinking some summery sangria, a friend of walked out of our bedroom after using the bathroom (we have one bathroom in our apartment and it is in our bedroom - Manhattan living at its finest) and exclaimed - do you have a cake on your dresser?!
Needless to say, I think this cake would have been phenomenal if it were not for my missteps. Thanks to Wendy for an awesome pick!
Dulce de Leche Cake with Dulce De Leche Whipped Cream. Revised for Cinco De Mayo.
Actually, this cake wasn't revised FOR Cinco De Mayo, per se, but I just happened to make this cake on Cinco De Mayo, so I'm just going to run with it. I really should call this a Cajeta Cake, as that is what dulce de leche is called in Mexico.
Remember last time I made this cake, I felt that the frosting was way too sweet for the cake? Frankly, I should have known, as it was a Paula Deen recipe, and her recipes are either meant to clog your arteries or give you a spike in natural insulin.
This time around, I looked at the frosting for the Dulce de Leche cake in Sky High Cakes. I wanted something lighter to compliment the rich dulce de leche filling, and this frosting is a dulce de leche whipped cream frosting.
I didn't feel like making the dulce de leche from scratch, so I just bought some homemade dulce de leche, made some homemade whipped cream, and folded in the dulce de leche and tossed in some cinnamon for good measure.
And I basically couldn't stop eating little spoonfuls of this whipped cream. At 6:30 in the morning. Needless to say, sitting here at 8:10 am right about to go to work, I feel like crap because I just ate 1/4 a cup of dulce de leche whipped cream for breakfast. And a tiny bit of this cake.
So let's talk about the cake, shall we?
We all know I loved the Cooks Illustrated White Cake recipe. I love the Cooks Illustrated White Cake recipe with dulce de leche oozing from the layers. And now, I love the Cooks Illustrated White Cake recipe with dulce de leche oozing from the layers topped with dulce de leche whipped cream frosting. Oh yes. This cake is pure perfection.
However, I did refrigerate the cake, to firm up the dulce de leche filling (which, when I say oozing, I mean, it OOZED. Right out of the cake layers. I guess I should have realized that dulce de leche "sauce" is not the same as dulce de leche.). So now the cake tastes like a cake that has been refrigerated. I'm really hoping that it regains its normal texture by the time I put this cake out to be consumed at work around noon.
Also, I tried to put a pretty design in the side of the whipped cream, but I failed miserably, as you can tell by the photo below. This cake may not be as pretty as the original, but I'd take this one any day.
New cake. Well. I was in a rush.
Layer cakes with dulce de leche, frost with caramel buttercream and decorate as you wish!
In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, or using a hand mixure, mix heavy cream, cinnamon and confectioners sugar until cream holds stiff peaks. Fold in dulce de leche until incorporated and there are no streaks remaining. Refrigerate until ready to use.
I totally feel like the class slacker. It's almost as if I'm suffering from a bad case of senioritis and I'm spending all of my time doing make-up assignments in order to grauate. Except I'm not graduating from anything. So this is just depressing.
Also, I have so many posts to catch up on and read, which I have started attacking, but I am nowhere near close. I've got many more delicious posts from my favorite bloggers (all of you!) that I am chugging through. But please, if you do take one note of advice from ever reading this blog, let it be this: Don't read blogs while hungry right before you have to go to a meeting. Your stomach will growl. You will be embarrased. That is all.
I feel even worse slacking on making this recipe because it takes, oh, all of about 5 minutes to put together. No joke. Five minutes, one bowl, great, GREAT taste. Remember that Thomas Keller Almond Cake I posted about last week? That took 30 minutes to make and needed to be made with care. Dorie's cake? Add zest to sugar, whisk in some eggs and extract, add melted butter and flour. Combine. Put in oven. Done.
A comparison? Well, these are pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME CAKE. The textures are slightly different, with Keller's being slightly more delicate, but overall? If you need to make a cake in a pinch that people will love you for? All Dorie, all the time my friends. It's a lesson we all need to learn.
Thanks to Nancy for this great choice! Click here for the recipe, and check out the rest of the TWD non-slackers in the universe!


Photo: courtesy of Guilford County Jail.
It started with missing clothes. Then handprints on the bathroom wall. Maddie, a junior at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and her roommates, thought they had a "ghost," according to Fox 8. It turns out, reality was less Casper and more creepy.
The "ghost" turned out to be Andrew Swofford, 30, who is now facing 14 felonies, including identity theft, larceny, and possessing stolen goods. Maddie said that as she waited for her boyfriend to get to the apartment, she talked to Swofford, who started to try on one of her hats. "He goes in the bathroom and looks in the mirror and then is like, 'You're really pretty, can I give you a hug?' But he never touched me," she said.
The property management company is investigating. Swofford is being held at the Guilford County Jail on $26,000 bond.
Photo: Rose-Marie Murray/Alamy Stock Photo.


Washington, D.C. (Jan. 22, 2019)—Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA) President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey issued the following statement on the Treasury Department's final rule expanding access to the 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through businesses.
"Subchapter S community banks will have significantly expanded access to the 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through businesses under the Treasury Department's final rule. ICBA and community bankers were key advocates for greater tax parity between S and C corporation community banks, so Treasury's final rule capturing more services provided by Sub S banks is a significant improvement over its initial proposal.
"As ICBA details in our new analysis of the final rule, Section 199A of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act allows shareholders in Sub S banks and other pass-through businesses to take a 20 percent deduction on qualified business income. While Treasury's August proposal would have excluded critical community banking services, the final rule provides that income from loan origination and sales are eligible for the deduction—rightly recognizing these as core features of the community bank business model.


普林原文書-英語系小學教材-交叉比對-Primary Mathematics 6A.Primary Mathematics 5B.
Also includes 4 Revision Tests for cumulative reviews of concepts and skills.
Also includes 3 Revision Tests for cumulative reviews of concepts and skills.
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text:
Imagination lives from the search for atmospheres and climates found in music as in any art - what interest would present a creative expression if it did not stimulate imagination, escape, research of an elsewhere or a beyond of the triviality, the daily routine and its mediocrity? This article presents some paths and ways of traveling, inner exploration, prospective and utopian discoveries and speculations on the vanishing lines of what the present conceals, or ways to turn away from it through the windows or portals opened by literary creation.
These are presentations, simple looks and indications, reading notes organized in two themes: speculations and metaphors of the present, gathered here in the category of science fiction, or paths from elsewhere and beyond in the universe of fantasy.
Greg Bear - Eon, Eternity, City at the end of time, Darwin's radio
Robert J. Sawyer - WWW Trilogy
Joan D. Vinge - The Snow Queen
Hugh Howey - Silo
Charles Stross - Singularity Sky (2003) / Iron Sunrise (2004)
Olaf Stapledon – Odd John, Starmaker
Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise, The Perseids
Connie Willis – The Doomsday Book
Jack Mc Devitt – Seeker
Version Francaise English version English (US Letter)
Greg Bear – Eon (1985)
Complex and rich novel, full of characters, places and technological fancy at the border of metaphysics, Eon is the first volume of The Way dyptic. An immense artefact is getting into orbit around Earth, but we appear as its creators. Is it coming from the future ? From an alternative universe ? Are there contemporary scientists and researchers who could understand it, if not having created it in a close future ? Because this immense ship is desolated, emptied from its inhabitants but not its cities, yet a clear way to follow the builders seems to subsist : The Way, boundless, that opens in the last room…
The reading of a text that became uchronic is particular. Dating from the mid-eighties, Eon stages a survival of the eastern block around the 2000's, but if Greg Bear isn't kind to any house, the essential is elsewhere : the future of Mankind. Sure, the novel deplores the auto-destructive possibilities we have that only need a political alibi to start wars and total destruction of ourselves or the planet. But it doesn't lock itself into the hardness of post-apocalyptical survival and the continuous violence it leads to, even if the complex society of this far future results from this planetary destruction. Indeed, speculations about immortality offered by storage technologies and personality matrix beyond corporal death are fully actual in a transhuman context well known by the author. What should we do with our present technology that will transform us for sure, even if we remain politically divided about its status, including about the way it will define our relation to our body ? Greg Bear also sets Ralph Nader ideas, at the heart of political divisions of a society that already foresee The City at the End of Time's one, his great work to come.
Technological speculations continue and find an echo in more recent works like Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End : why keep decorating and furnishing an apartment, complexes of houses or a whole city with real objects, since we can project almost everything we like on walls built to this end, even icons replacing electric switches ? Simply touching these icons activates the home artificial intelligence for it to set the lighting, the temperature or other environmental parameters… We think of the wall decorations considered by Philip K. Dick, featured with cerebral implants that make them look real (as Total Recall illustrates it). Greg Bear gives it a more realistic and less alienated image, far beyond a simple decoration to cheer up a daily living environment.
Inhabitants the utopia's at the end of of The Way don't limit themselves with an automation that blows up boundaries of virtual and real - in a more likely way today than when this novel was written (think of the connected clothes in Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End). Relation to language and therefore to others is deeply modified by the series of icons surrounding the characters for them to communicate, like a cloud of images all fully significant expressing hues, emotional states and tribal belongings often more important than what the characters say expressively. Yet should we have this little equipment in our possession allowing us to "pict" such icons, but none of this is a problem in this utopian society of extreme plenty. However, we can question the representation the author gives of foreign languages learning, that only takes a few hours, thanks to the future's technologies...
Greg Bear – Eternity (1988)
The following of Eon still offers this appreciable delicacy to stay away from tedious descriptions of post-apocalyptical violence, an unfortunately more and more invading topic in science-fiction since 15 years. Without unveiling the plot of these 2 novels, it is clear that utopia has a history, enemies, and is facing decisive moments and responsibilities which are not unanimous in a community and a city existing now and in past and future history – that is to say, for the reader, the uchronic future of East-West conflict. It the novel became uchronic, it already was when published since a part of the story happens in a world whose history strayed from ours since Alexander the Great's death – Steampunk lovers may find their beloved topics in the description of a strange universe threatened by conquerors faraway in time and space that dimensional portals abolish, conquerors also distant from everything we can call "human". Greg Bear offers a kind of Space Opera without spacecraft (not unconnected with Stargate series), the stake here is not the legacy of a distant past anymore, but the contact with a faraway future, even more distant in time than is the utopian city in the space at the end of the Way.
Indeed, a meditation about human and the move that transcend himself spreads in the background of this second novel's plot, the author expressing his admiration for Olaf Stapledon's beloved topics and the contemplation of the end of time, horizons and overlapping parallels to infinity.
Ambitious double novel, Eon/Eternity pushes very far the enunciation of political, technological, scientific and metaphysical speculations in the creation of a universe full of places, times and characters, searching for a plausibility by rooting itself in the developments of contemporary physics. Yet, real stakes are elsewhere, in a metaphysical meditation about human nature and what can subsist of it beyond corporal existence as we know it. In this transhuman construction with metaphysical stakes, Greg Bear can divert and sometimes lose his reader, but he always knows how to take into account the emotional dimension of the person and the life of his characters by building a story that holds spellbound while setting far and ambitious speculative constructions.
Greg Bear – City at the end of time (2008)
This very complex text is first of all a novel opening up a dark and intriguing world, very close to ours at the beginning, whose characters live destinies that are expected to cross in the course of a narrative that quickly reveals Metaphysical stakes, including this City at the end of times prefigured in earlier novels of the author. Without dissolving the narrative in philosophical speculation, Greg Bear knows how to tell us a story with complex characters more and more manipulated by their destiny, or their profound nature, at least by forces that transcend them and manipulate more and more deeply the reality. The latter is altered, degraded, contracted, and shifts from the history of some very strange people to a history of the future which is only partially reported, giving depth to what is only suggested. Reality has an end, a term as a very different enemy from the incredibly powerful black wizard of many fantasy novels. Insensibly, one goes from wickedness and violence to the growing grip of nothingness that closes on the universe, making time itself devoid of reality, because all the stakes are at the end of the road. The universes and crossed destinies of the beginning take on their full significance in the unity and the heart of reality: the armillary sphere, as the end of the utopia being at infinity, at the meeting of parallels, metaphysical representations that Greg Bear knows how to introduce with his vertiginous speculation.
In this very complex and puzzling construction, the author takes us beyond science fiction (is there any technological or scientific speculation in this text, at the root of his universe? ) in an alteration of utopian literature whose meaning is no much longer political. But we still find descriptions cleverly distilled of this closed society and its very ancient titanic architecture. The journey and the exploration of a dangerous universe are still present, but it is no longer the search for a lost Eldorado: utopia is now placed at the heart of metaphysics in a universe all the more totalitarian that humanity has become itself a form of technological manipulation. The future is so remote that there is hardly any explanation for the strange machines and improbable places which gradually supplant the last refuge of the fugitive at the beginning of the narrative: a gigantic and mysterious library.
At the same time a novel and a treatise on metaphysics, which is not always easy to pursue, the city at the end of time has considerably disrupted the genres of science fiction, utopian narrative, philosophical tale and speculation about the ultimate destinies of humanity in the continuity of the work of Olaf Stapledon, but certainly much more convincing from the point of view of narrative and imaginary construction. Continuity or transfiguration of the utopian literature from which science fiction comes? Work in any case major.
Greg Bear – Darwin's radio (1999)
Greedy and clumsy palaeontologists discover in the mountains the mortal remains of a strange Neanderthal family with a child who seems modern, in a state of exceptional conservation. Their clumsiness causes the proliferation of a lightning-like epidemic that resembles a flu (one can not help but think of the beginning of Stephen King's Scourge). This only affects women and causes miscarriages, and then the formation of a new fetus while the patient is recovering with difficulty. Is it the dawn of a new humanity, signifying the end of our species as we know it? Greg Bear places the problem of the evolution of man at the heart of his novels. In Darwin's Radio, the theme is no longer metaphysical but genetic, with a very solid biological basis in a novel that can be devoured like a thriller.
Going back and forth with an immemorial past punctuate the captivating narrative of a CDC geneticist concerned in the foreground by the risks of contagion. Reflections on the nature of evolution question the notions of Darwinism and the finality of life in an original way, without the author taking a position or abandoning what is known about the nature of life. Such questioning prolongs the questioning of the deep nature of man and the possibility of an improvement of his species, or even of a destination, insofar as science now gives the matter to a reflection that has remained long confined to the fields of metaphysics. Greg Bear elegantly gives his reader the means of this reflection, without imposing any conclusions upon him.
Robert J. Sawyer – WWW Trilogy
Wake – Watch – Wonder (2009 - 2011)
Optimism and kindness are qualities that are all the more appreciable because they may be too rare, especially in the dark, violent and even macabre worlds that are omnipresent in the science fiction of all periods, from HG Wells' Morlocks to Terminator Steel Caverns. It is true that reflection about the future in the counter-utopian tradition does not lend itself to blissful optimism in the face of tomorrow's singing or the kindness of men, science fiction mostly seeking to denounce the lies and traps behind such universes.
Robert J. Sawyer takes the opposite side of all this darkness in a trilogy that parallels the awakening to the world, to the others and to the adult age of a young blind girl and the awakening to the consciousness of an Artificial Intelligence whose power in exponential growth will necessarily change the world as and when it interacts with it. The fluid writing and the very solid and plausible course of events make the reading of this trilogy enjoyable. We are immersed in references to the geek culture that penetrates our everyday life, through social networks in particular, with irreproachable technological erudition, even with the retreat of a few years. Perhaps the investment in these novels of prominent personalities in the development of the Internet on a planetary scale as in transhumanism adds credit to a fully recognized work.
But can we really remain optimistic concerning the unpredictable and exponential growth of the artificial intelligence's power ? One can not speak of technological singularity, of a moment making the future unpredictable, in the strictly individual dimension of a computer becoming conscious and confronting the big bad US government. The questions of the automation of society, inseparable from the singularity because it is precisely its foundation, are totally evacuated from a narrative that makes a noticing allusion to the cyberpunk only to evacuate all its blackness. One can understand the interest of Google executives for such a reassuring, if not lenient, message. However, the idea that such an artificial intelligence, totally dependent on the physical infrastructure of the terrestrial computing network, can not leave our planet, is interesting. It is unfortunate, for if this AI had been able to set out to conquer space, it would certainly have succeeded in transforming bad aliens into gentle care bears.
Joan D. Vinge – The Snow Queen (1980)
Science fiction at the turn of the 1980s underwent a number of thematic shifts that gave rise to major works such as the cycle of Teur by Gene Wolfe or the universe of Robert Silverberg's Majipoor : broad abandonment of technological speculation, increasing incursions into the universes of heroic fantasy, even if science fiction remains at least in a certain collective consciousness of the nature of the universe and the reality of space travel.
This novel by Joan D. Vinge, Hugo Prize 1981, tells an excellent adventure on the theme of a far-off galactic civilization. A society almost deprived of spaceships has a way of life with strongly medieval, even primitive elements, technologically as well as politically. The intertwining of various stages of development gives this universe its originality, even in the grandiose and contrasting architecture of the capital ; the royal palace seems magical because of the futuristic technologies that underpin it, with at its feet an abundant and complex humanity in a medieval maze of narrow streets and boutiques. A tyrannical queen chooses to clone herself to ensure its survival beyond a radical social and political change induced by the climate change imposed by the very slow orbit of the planet. The periodic end of the Ice Age means the return to power of a whole part of the humanity of this exiled planet. The traditional modifications of a practically feudal social and political system are witnessed by the dignitaries of a galactic empire that no longer overcomes the immense time lags of space travel , consequence of a distant interstellar war that led mankind to the dispersion.
The ethnological elements of the novel are inscribed and presented in the course of this clone, Moon, who discovers herself and the universe in the quest of a lover destined to get lost in the power games of the Snow Queen's court. One of the main elements of the story makes us wait for the reunion of these adolescent lovers after all the changes that life and adventure have imposed on them, which is quite classic but never feverish. However, the wealth of this world drowns somewhat the ethnological exploration of its societies and cultures, Ursula Le Guin for example leading much farther the exploration of imaginary societies in however shorter novels. But Joan D. Vinge succeeds in maintaining the interest of his reader with a well-conducted plot that never lingers in the descriptions of cultures nevertheless well studied in their richness and complexity.
Hugh Howey – Silo (2011 - 2013)
Perceiving reality through a screen has recently become the life of many people ... Philip K. Dick dealt with this theme in his novel The Penultimate Truth (1964), the double issue of which being the imprisonment and the maintenance of such a underground dystopian confinement : the media lie is orchestrated and sustained by the rare part of mankind which remains outside these caverns of steel, spending their life to maintain this lie : "Continue to work to support the war effort, the fate of humanity and our civilization depends on your work even if the outside world, completely irradiated, is no longer viable. " Unlike Dick's other texts, the keys of falsehood and reality are given to us rather quickly in a narrative whose stakes are more political than metaphysical.
Hugh Howey takes up these themes in the Silo trilogy, whose three volumes are linked together and must be read in succession. One finds the elements of the concentration-like universe, the counter utopia, as many novels of the twentieth century seem not to have exhausted them, so we take pleasure in discovering this dark universe, that enclosed and confined humanity that does not even know anymore what it is like walking straight ahead, in a straight line. The world is circular, its social stratums run through interminable staircases that connect the various levels of the silo, which are the levels of society. Of course, men have internalized the reasons for their imprisonment as the leaden weight of the tyrannical domination that weighs on them. They have also incorporated the capital punishment that awaits any subversive spirit: to be condemned to leave! To see what is behind the giant screen that shows a dead, desolated, irradiated world, when no one is aware of the causes that have destroyed the world whose true nature is no longer clearly represented. In this universe, men have lost all clear representation of the stars and even the sky, as the memory of the past and knowledge of the history is mortal for society. The one condemned to death, excluded without return, will have to task to clean this screen, as the machines of the silo can not do it. The alienation is such that each condemned person will do it with good grace before enjoying his few moments of life outside, discovering a truth that he thinks very different from what he has always been taught.
Why is the world uninhabitable? Is it real? What's out there? What layers of lies are stacked behind the screen and especially in the consciousness of the actors of dystopia, of those who must somehow pull the strings of the world? The repetition of these lies constitutes the heart of the intrigue of these three novels. Monstrous deceptions come back whenever you think you have the keys to this universe and what may have happened so that there remains only that small sample of humanity enclosed in that tiny cylindrical underground that becomes the world of generations which follow one another, in the invisible quest and the immobile journey of a society which, despite everything, works.
In many other dystopian novels, one is expected to discover the journey of a single main character who raises the veil of lies, of totalitarianism whose discourse is totally screened before the world, the life, the earth, the sky, the grass, the birds. Silo shows us by contrast the double course of the victim and the executioner through a veil of toxic smoke, of which the traveler is protected with an enormous jet of purifying nitrogen before leaving, in a protective suit meticulously manufactured in underground workshops. Everyone and everything is locked in lies and alienation, even those who organized everything in a political context that, like in Philip K. Dick's novel, doesn't have the slightest importance anymore after such a duration of confinement - but even this duration is perhaps false.
What is behind our screens and the world they give us, in the precision and accumulation of information from multiple sources concerning a reality that we do not have access to in our daily lives? The Hugh Howey's trilogy is a masterful and exciting metaphor of the impalpable, but sturdy lies fabric that has replaced our relationship to the world by placing it behind a screen.
Technological singularity changes everything, even science fiction, which also becomes unpredictable. Thus, extraterrestrial invasions now take the form of raining mobile phones that can fulfill all your vows, even provide you with a cornucopia, provided you distract the aliens. The space combat between gigantic vessels armed with disproportionately pretentious guns is totally obsolete, such ships being cannibalized by stealth agents who will start by hacking their computer network. Earth has undergone significant political developments: the unity of sovereignty, for example the member of the UN, is no longer the nation state but the individual itself. And computers and Artificial Intelligences in all this? In the first place, whatever one may think, they are not divine. But what remains and can be known about them is extremely suspicious on the subject, especially about those who seek to provoke temporal paradoxes, even gently. Of course, there will always be retrograde dictatorships practicing censorship and limiting freedom of expression - one might even confuse censorship and breakdown of communications, with a little backwardness, for example that of an artificial intelligence having evolved in space for millions of years.
These two novels by Charles Stross depict a universe of speculation that is often very funny but at the same time so coherent, in the continuity of this balloon conceived by Vernor Vinge in Marooned in Realtime, which was already going beyond connected clothes or automatic cars of the newest Rainbows End novel. In a sense, it is the traditional SF which Charles Stross seizes, he shows us forms that have become obsolete by dint of having settled in an imaginary that has become too usual and easy. For example, think of differences between Star Trek's spacecraft and Stargate's ones, beyond their forms. Stross treats them like old, crushing clunkers.
It is difficult to deny the success of his endeavour in "Singularity Sky" which tells us a story dotted with all these inventions, new spaceships and social developments that pose a very original universe in its continuity with space opera. It is not a question of radically renewing gender, but of opening new speculative horizons to the reader from what he has already read, as well as the latest technological developments. The second novel, "Iron Sunrise", leaves a more mitigated feeling. The universe is setteled, we only deepen the details in the frame of an adventure certainly full of twists, but which suffers from certain lengths and shows a model that is starting to run out of steam. If this text deserves the detour, we will appreciate the desire of Charles Stross not to pursue this universe by a third novel.
Olaf Stapledon – Odd John (1935)
Olaf Stapledon is presented as an unknown genius of science fiction during the interwar period, speculative work of a reputedly masterful range that can astonish today by its actuality or its timelessness as by its depths of view. The admiration which it arouses would make its reading impossible to circumvent for an eclectic amateur of science fiction.
I confess that this reading deeply disappointed me.
"Odd john" dates terribly by his writing and his style, which does not hold comparison for a moment with a contemporary like, for example, Lovecraft that can be read today without having the impression of exhuming something that we will still make the effort to read for fear of missing a meaning served by a really old form. Not to mention H.G. Wells. This imaginary biography of a superman in search of his own who tries to found a society that does not even reach the stage of utopia does not catch the stage of a true novel. Moral problems are presented in a sometimes grotesque manner, as this primitive society too happy to commit collective suicide to leave room for the supermen who partially subjugated or hypnotized them. There is perhaps a reference to Nietzsche in Stapledon's character, who is hardly Nietzschean nor credible. Nietzsche's reading is all the more appreciated.
Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker (1937)
Star Maker is presented as the greatest Olaf Stapledon's novel, sci-fi genius too little known, with a story of the future depicted in Last and First Men. A perceptible influence of this work's themes can be found in a novel like Eternity, by Greg Bear, or his City at the end of time. These two great speculative and metaphysical novels also contain a reflection on the ultimate fate of man, civilization and intelligence.
But Greg Bear anchors his work in the profound origin of science fiction: utopia, the ideal city, including in the imaginary dimensions of its architecture that gives the reader to dream and travel at the same time that he has matter to think. Star Maker does not choose this approach, nor does it choose a truly narrative form since nothing is really told in this history of the Universe. A rare sci-fi book whose content doesn't limits itself with the galaxy, nor even our neighbor Andromeda : Star Maker chooses to embrace all galaxies by distorting the mind of the main character who explicitly loses all Individuality as any personality. Never the least element illuminates what can happen to this man who wanders out of his house one evening to look at the stars. End of story, page 5.
Religious uneasiness is present in every chapter of this unsurpassable sized fresco, since it claims to assemble everything, including the life of the stars who, as conscious beings, finish by dancing a ballet to the glory of a improbable creator. So occupied by his multiple creations, in what universe can this Creator himself live, and what can he do between two creations, to distract himself ? This moves the problem in a way maybe unseemly, see Spinozist. Beyond an at least minimal probability that one would expect in a work with cosmological (ie scientific) scope, this text may present a poetic interest by the naivety of its religious questioning. I personally did not perceive it, but I remain admiring Greg Bear's work, who went there to seek influences. Let's hope it will not age as badly as Stapledon's.
Robert Charles Wilson – Burning Paradise (2013)
Life is omnipresent in the universe, spreading through planetary systems by means of organisms such as spores that swarm on diverse worlds. This theory of panspermia is very different from what has so far explored Robert Charles Wilson in his famous Spin - Axis - Vortex trilogy, where the universe is populated by machines that colonize it on a temporal scale, ends and modes of expansion totally escaping us.
"Burning Paradise" offers us a very curious uchrony leaving a large part to the notion of network and technical progress controlled and monitored without the knowledge of humanity. This planetary conspiracy is discovered by the characters of the novel in a long journey in which are articulated discovery of self and discovery of a world which, to be close to our own, is no less very different, because the course of history has diverged from ours since several centuries. Robert Charles Wilson takes up classical themes here, such as the idea that everything is controlled by invaders who are already there, in our daily lives. We can discover their omnipresence through cracks and fissures in everyday life that challenge the character's existence, now destined for a difficult struggle. We think of the famous series The Invaders, except that the nature of these invaders will prove very surprising, in the continuity of a literary work centered on the idea that, machines or living beings, the extraterrestrials will be totally different of little green men in a flying saucer.
Thus Cassie, one of the main characters, can not sleep on the eve of the commemoration of a century of peace since the armistice of 1914. She notices that a man observes her from the street below, and get crushed by a reckless driver. But the corpse is not human, and that what killed his parents seven years ago is beginning again. Then begins a long, very long track …
This novel is perhaps not the best of Robert Charles Wilson, but it fits very well in the continuity of his work and will attract the lovers of other texts, more ambitious.
Robert Charles Wilson - The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)
A coherence is expected from a literary work, often through hundreds of pages which must establish a stable universe and intrigues exploited in their mutual crosses as in their ultimate consequences, forming the deep unity of a narrative. On the contrary, a collection of short stories can present us with very different facets of the same writer, without any other unity than the diversity of the same person. A much rarer gem consists of a set of short stories that explores the same theme, different occurrences of divergent echoes that nevertheless speak of the same thing and end up telling the same story, but with a multitude of points of view whose inconsistencies reinforce precisely the feeling of cohesion of the whole: there is one and the same story told to me in so many ways and points of view that I have only entry points into a kaleidoscope behind which lies a unity, but only a partial view is given. For this reason, such a text persists in dwelling its reader long after reading, as views of a richer world than what has been shown. Clark Ashton Smith's Zothic world is an example of this imaginary matrix.
Robert Charles Wilson gives us here a treasure very different from his usual texts. It begins with a fantastic narrative about an increasingly rare place, which should concern every reader of odd books such as SF ones: a bookshop, his bookseller, his books, the stories he tells, and the dangers from the door at the back of the shop. Then the characters are multiplied for each of the many short stories of a very unusual science fiction. Then comes the return of a bookseller, the look back on the 70s and his survivors, for example in Toronto, and more. In closing this volume, one has the impression to have raised the corner of a secret veil, a mysterious universe that continues behind the door, or under the ground, or where the telescope of Edwin Hubble , "Who had cast a glance in the most ancient history of the sky." Not to mention cats.
A sequel to Spin may not have been the best idea, but this collection of short stories can hardly be prolonged: the essential has already been written into the imagination of the reader. Absolute masterpiece.
Connie Willis – The Doomsday Book (1993)
At the beginning of this book, it is difficult to understand why he was rewarded with the 1993 Hugo Prize. It is a journey through time. The University of Oxford is responsible for this. It is clear that the journey of the young historian Kivrin Engle just before the epidemic of the Black Death will go wrong. We know from the start that the past is not modifiable and that there will be no complex temporal paradoxes. The stakes seem all the more restricted because it does not seem that we will go much further than a tiny village in the English countryside of the fourteenth century.
However, a mysterious epidemic is taking place in the present, redoubled by administrative problems and the struggle for influences within the university, the scale of which is confined to a comedy skillfully maintained throughout a history very well carried out as the narration flows with the discovery of charming characters. Little by little, this back and forth between two epidemics takes shape as the story becomes less and less comic; if there can be a "happy" ending for the nice teacher to get the young student back from the distant past, this story will leave very deep traces in the life and the person of this young woman confronted with the plague, and the way of which humans live this omnipresent death, gradually invading all this winter world. The human stakes transcend those of time travel in a brilliant way, that they pass through pettiness, malice, the innocence of childhood or the admirable moral grandeur of a banal village priest.
A remarkable story, staged by characters who gain depth and realism beyond a mundane journey through time. A moving novel, without a line in spite despite its apparent length.
Jack Mc Devitt – Seeker (2005)
Space archaeology is one of the greatest themes of science fiction: it is the cute sin of Captain Jean Luc Picard, it inaugurates major novels like Vernor Vinge's Fire upon the deep. The fascination for an immemorial past and a mysterious wisdom hidden behind technological prodigies that surpass us are based on texts as classic as Rendez vous with Rama.
However, science fiction is expected to be always a metaphor of the present and not a simple imitation of our everyday life with some technological elements so common and agreed that nowadays a simple connected fridge can conceal more imaginary possibilities than a spaceship, depending on how it is staged. Can we still talk about science fiction in the framework of a strict police investigation conducted by archaeologists motivated by the mere earning of profit? The relics of the space voyage are expected to be a thrill that at least confusingly recalls the one we get from the Nostromo or the relics that his crew explored at the beginning of this cinematographic monument, Alien. A "simple" mass of corpses in an old metal carcass, even very large, remains much less stimulating ...
It is true that Jack McDevitt is able to tell us a story and keep us in suspense with a lost colony that sought to flee the course of human history long ago. He also knows how to rebound his intrigue beyond the discovery of a wreck which is alas nothing very exhilarating ... However, it does not seem that this universe, very distant in time and space but is almost like ours, could be such as to arouse the enthusiasm or even the emotion of space archaeology lovers. The quests of the El Dorado in the Amazon jungle can still sometimes reveal some surprises in contrast to this text whose characters even lack depth, because too modeled on the banality of our daily lives.


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Home Weather A recent reversal in the response of western Greenland's ice caps to...
A recent reversal in the response of western Greenland's ice caps to climate change – Watts Up With That?
Research suggests some ice caps grew during past periods of warming
Peer-Reviewed Publication
IMAGE: ICE CAPPED AND SNOW-COVERED MOUNTAINS OF COASTAL WEST GREENLAND. (APR. 2015) view more CREDIT: IMAGE CREDIT: MATTHEW OSMAN © WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION
Woods Hole, Mass. (September 9, 2021) – Greenland may be best known for its enormous continental scale ice sheet that soars up to 3,000 meters above sea level, whose rapid melting is a leading contributor to global sea level rise. But surrounding this massive ice sheet, which covers 79% of the world's largest island, is Greenland's rugged coastline dotted with ice capped mountainous peaks. These peripheral glaciers and ice caps are now also undergoing severe melting due to anthropogenic (human-caused) warming. However, climate warming and the loss of these ice caps may not have always gone hand-in-hand.
New collaborative research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and five partner institutions (University of Arizona, University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University, Desert Research Institute and University of Bergen), published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals that during past periods glaciers and ice caps in coastal west Greenland experienced climate conditions much different than the interior of Greenland. Over the past 2,000 years, these ice caps endured periods of warming during which they grew larger rather than shrinking.
This novel study breaks down the climate history displayed in a core taken from an ice cap off Greenland's western coast. According to the study's researchers, while ice core drilling has been ongoing in Greenland since the mid-20th century, coastal ice core studies remain extremely limited, and these new findings are providing a new perspective on climate change compared to what scientists previously understood by using ice cores from the interior portions of the Greenland ice sheet alone.
"Glaciers and ice caps are unique high-resolution repositories of Earth's climate history, and ice core analysis allows scientists to examine how environmental changes – like shifts in precipitation patterns and global warming – affect rates of snowfall, melting, and in turn influence ice cap growth and retreat," said Sarah Das, Associate Scientist of Geology and Geophysics at WHOI. "Looking at differences in climate change recorded across several ice core records allows us to compare and contrast the climate history and ice response across different regions of the Arctic." However, during the course of this study, it also became clear that many of these coastal ice caps are now melting so substantially that these incredible archives are in great peril of disappearing forever.
Due to the challenging nature of studying and accessing these ice caps, this team was the first to do such work, centering their study, which began in 2015, around a core collected from the Nuussuaq Peninsula in Greenland. This single core offers insight into how coastal climate conditions and ice cap changes covaried during the last 2,000 years, due to tracked changes in its chemical composition and the amount of snowfall archived year after year in the core. Through their analysis, investigators found that during periods of past warming, ice caps were growing rather than melting, contradicting what we see in the present day.
"Currently, we know Greenland's ice caps are melting due to warming, further contributing to sea level rise. But, we have yet to explore how these ice caps have changed in the past due to changes in climate," said Matthew Osman, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Arizona and a 2019 graduate of the MIT-WHOI Joint program. "The findings of this study were a surprise because we see that there is an ongoing shift in the fundamental response of these ice caps to climate: today, they're disappearing, but in the past, within small degrees of warming, they actually tended to grow."
According to Das and Osman, this phenomenon happens because of a "tug-of-war" between what causes an ice cap to grow (increased precipitation) or recede (increased melting) during periods of warming. Today, scientists observe melting rates that are outpacing the rate of annual snowfall atop ice caps. However, in past centuries these ice caps would expand due to increased levels of precipitation brought about by warmer temperatures. The difference between the past and present is the severity of modern anthropogenic warming.
The team gathered this data by drilling through an ice cap on top of one of the higher peaks of the Nuussuaq Peninsula. The entire core, about 140 meters in length, took about a week to retrieve. They then brought the meter-long pieces of core to the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Denver, Colorado, and stored at -20 degrees Celsius. The core pieces were then analyzed by their layers for melt features and trace chemistry at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. By looking at different properties of the core's chemical content, such as parts per billion of lead and sulfur, investigators were able to accurately date the core by combining these measurements with a model of past glacier flow.
"These model estimates of ice cap flow, coupled with the actual ages that we have from this high precision chemistry, help us outline changes in ice cap growth over time. This method provides a new way of understanding past ice cap changes and how that is correlated with climate," said Das. "Because we're collecting a climate record from the coast, we're able to document for the first time that there were these large shifts in temperature, snowfall and melt over the last 2,000 years, showing much more variability than is observed in records from the interior of Greenland," Das added.
"Our findings should urge researchers to return to these remaining ice caps and collect new climate records while they still exist," added Osman.
Additional collaborators and institutions:
Benjamin Smith, University of Washington
Luke Trusel, Pennsylvania State University
Joseph McConnell, Desert Research Institute
Nathan Chellman, Desert Research Institute
Monica Arienzo, Desert Research Institute
Harald Sodemann, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Norway
This research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), with further support from the U.S. Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship; and an Ocean Outlook Fellowship to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research; the National Infrastructure for High Performance Computing and Data Storage in Norway; Norwegian Research Council; and Air Greenland.
About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment. WHOI's pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu
Nature Geoscience
Abrupt Common Era hydroclimate shifts drive west Greenland ice cap change
9-Sep-2021
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