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Germania Mint adds Germania Beasts to it's range and kicks off with the treasure hoarding dragon, Fafnir (UPDATED)
Germania Mint adds Beasts to it's range and kicks off with the treasure hoarding dragon, Fafnir (UPDATED)
It was less than two years ago that the fledgling Germania Mint burst onto the scene with its pretty Germania bullion round, and it wasn't long after they moved into the numismatic realm with some fine proof and plated coins. Part of the Kurowski Group, they've developed an impressive talent for high quality gilding, colour and plating with various metals. Much of that expertise is on show with the Germania range.
The latest addition is also the start of a new series called Germania Beasts. The subject of this debut release is the dragon Fafnir, a tale from the Norse Saga's, that also translated well into the old Germanic culture. Indeed, Fafnir was an integral part of the composer Wagner's work. The character of Sigurd in the backstory below has his counterpart in Teutonic circles as Siegfreid.
The coin itself is a beauty, especially the 25,000 mintage one-ounce silver bullion round, which looks more extravagent than its more traditional rivals. Yes, we know the denomination is a faux one, but these are so close to the general coin market in every other respect, that we cover them here. The dragon on the reverse spirals around and when placed with the obverse of another coin above it, appears to flow from one face to the other. A nice touch that's quite reminiscent of the South African Mints Big 5 bullion coin series. The Bicephalous Eagle that is a signature of the mints issues, is very well integrated into the obverse side. In our view, all the inscriptions on this one are perfectly placed to not impact the integrity of the overall design. A superb piece all round and, assuming premiums aren't excessive, a no-brainer for the collector to pick up.
On the higher end front, there are two variants. The first, called Geminus, is a twin-pack of 1 oz rounds, one finished with a gilded dragon and ruthenium/palladium plating, the other with a reverse of that. This is a good way to see the two-coin, one image effect pretty well. Packaged in a gatefold box to make seeing this easy, just 500 sets will be produced. The second special is one employing a new finish called Chameleon, similar to the effect some automotive paints have, or even the old Mod suits of the Sixties, that 'shimmers' when moved. In addition, this one doubles up at 2oz in weight and has some impressive levels of high-relief. At 999 pieces, and beautifully presented in a themed acrylic frame with a pedestal, this looks to be a gorgeous and sinister piece – we love it.
We've been impressed in meeting them, just how much passion they have for the themed world they're building in these numismatics. Germania had a history filled with powerful mythology and a very real history of beating back the seemingly unstoppable Roman Empire, so it's a cool choice of theme and they've realised it impeccably to date, with their five ranges, including Germania, Allegories and now this one. Fafnir should start to ship around August time, barring any Covid-related delays.
UPDATED 11/07 – Geminus coin images revised to show both sides of both coins in the set
WHERE TO BUY PAGE
In the Icelandic Volsunga Saga (late 13th century), Fáfnir is a dwarf with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guards his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems. He is the strongest and most aggressive of the three brothers.
Regin recounts to Sigurd how Odin, Loki, and Hœnir were traveling when they came across Ótr, who had the likeness of an otter during the day. Loki killed the otter with a stone and the three Æsir skinned their catch. The gods came to Hreidmar's dwelling that evening and were pleased to show off the otter's skin. Hreidmar and his remaining two sons then seized the gods and held them captive while Loki was made to gather the ransom, which was to stuff the otter's skin with gold and cover its outside with red gold. Loki fulfilled the task by gathering the cursed gold of Andvari as well as the ring, Andvaranaut, both of which were told to Loki as items that would bring about the death of whoever possessed them. Fáfnir then killed Hreidmar to get all the gold for himself. He became ill-natured and greedy and ventured into the wilderness to keep his fortune. He turned into a serpent or dragon in order to guard his treasure. Fáfnir breathed poison into the land around him so no one would go near him and his treasure, wreaking terror in the hearts of the people.
Regin plotted revenge so that he could get the treasure and sent his foster-son Sigurd to kill the dragon. Regin instructed Sigurd to dig a pit in which he could lie in wait under the trail Fáfnir used to get to a stream and there plunge his sword, Gram, into Fafnir's heart as he crawls over the pit to the water. Regin then ran away in fear, leaving Sigurd to the task. As Sigurd dug, Odin appeared in the form of an old man with a long beard, advising the warrior to dig more trenches for the blood of Fafnir to run into, presumably so that Sigurd does not drown in the blood. The earth quaked and the ground nearby shook as Fafnir appeared, blowing poison into his path as he made his way to the stream. Sigurd, undaunted, stabbed Fafnir in the left shoulder as he crawled over the ditch he was lying in and succeeded in mortally wounding the dragon. As the creature lay there dying, he spoke to Sigurd and asked for his name, his parentage and who sent him on such a dangerous mission. Fafnir figured out that his own brother, Regin, plotted this, and predicted that Regin would also cause Sigurd's death. Sigurd told Fafnir that he would go back to the dragon's lair and take all his treasure. Fafnir warned Sigurd that all who possessed the gold would be fated to die, but Sigurd replied that all men must one day die anyway, and it is the dream of many men to be wealthy until that dying day, so he would take the gold without fear.
Regin then returned to Sigurd after Fafnir was slain. Corrupted by greed, Regin planned to kill Sigurd after Sigurd cook Fafnir's heart for him to eat, and take all the treasure for himself. However, Sigurd, having tasted Fafnir's blood while cooking the heart, gained knowledge of the speech of birds and learned of Regin's impending attack from the Oðinnic (of Odin) birds' discussion and killed Regin by cutting off his head with Gram. Sigurd then ate some of Fafnir's heart and kept the remainder, which would later be given to Gudrun after their marriage. (Source: Wikipedia)
MINTS DESCRIPTION
Fafnir was wise and powerful and it's the ancestor of today's dragon image. The name of the dragon came to most European languages from Latin, which uses the word draco, derived from the Greek drakan – sharp-eyed. This lets us to believe the dragons were not only sinister but the very intelligent beasts.The mythology and legends are full of stories about dragons that are used to understand the world and teach important lessons. Fafnir is the dragon from Germanian mythology. He owned the great treasure of Andwari, which he fiercely defended. According to legends, consumption of his blood develops supernatural powers. Fafnir, as every dragon didn't simply exist for his own sake but largely as a background for bold adventurers.
The coin design has been precisely planned and created by Natalia Danysz. The idea used in this project is very rare in Numismatic World before! Seemingly two separate displays compose integral part. The Fafnir's visualisation has been created in the way, where two parts of its body placed on obverse and reverse of one coin create an image of a dragon's body arranged in the infinity sign shape. To see this effect, coin needs to be flipped or two coins with Fafnir need to be placed, obverse & reverse, one above the other.
The integral part of coins from Germania series is the symbol of two-headed eagle. On Fafnir's coins eagle is located on the reverse, encircled by dragon's tail.
GEMINUS COIN 01
DENOMINATION n/a n/a n/a
COMPOSITION 0.9999 silver 0.9999 silver 0.9999 silver
WEIGHT 31.1 grams 2 x 31.1 grams 62.2 grams
DIMENSIONS 38.6 mm 38.6 mm 45.0 mm
FINISH B/Unc B/Unc B/Unc
MODIFICATIONS None Plating (multiple) High-relief
MINTAGE 25,000 500 999
BOX / C.O.A. No / No Yes / Yes Yes / Yes
By Mik Woodgate|2022-09-10T01:08:15+01:00July 3rd, 2020|Categories: Culture, Bullion Round, Coloured, Gilded, Silver, Germania Mint|2 Comments
domique69.69 July 4, 2020 at 09:54 - Reply
Amazing job Germania Mint!
Harry P. July 15, 2020 at 01:31 - Reply
Germania Mint is banging out some beautiful coins. Berserk & Ariowit were fantastic. This 2 oz variant w/Chameleon shimmering finish is a killer cool piece. Love it! On a par w/MOP issues.


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New "Waterways" episode tackles climate change, sea level rise in south Florida
The latest episode of the educational television series "Waterways" examines the threats south Florida could face from rising sea levels associated with global climate change.
The new episode is entitled "Climate Change and Sea Level Rise in South Florida." It includes resource managers, scientists and educators who discuss the potential impacts of what an estimated global sea-level rise between eight and 80 inches by the end of the century could have on people, habitat and wildlife.
Using various modeling tools, scientists are using data from past hurricanes, other notable weather events and NOAA's latest research to help predict what a future south Florida might look like. Also included in the program is how this human-caused problem might be eased through human solutions, such as conserving energy and reducing our carbon footprint.
With more than 200 episodes produced since 1993, the "Waterways" television series is a joint project between Everglades National Park, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, informing viewers of the diverse wonders of the south Florida ecosystem, and the research and conservation programs that protect them.
"Waterways" airs on public and government channels throughout the state of Florida — check local listings for scheduling. Episodes can be viewed on the WaterwaysTvShow YouTube channel.
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary protects 2,900 square nautical miles of critical marine habitat, including coral reef, hard bottom, sea grass meadows, mangrove communities and sand flats. NOAA and the state of Florida manage the sanctuary.
More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 401 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency supports the Waterways program through the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Water Quality Protection Program established in 1993 and dedicated to the restoration and protection of corals, shellfish, wildlife and recreational activities on the water. To learn more, visit http://ocean.floridamarine.org/fknms_wqpp/pages/wqpp.html.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
After fey overlord Michael Jackson conquered earth, he set his sights on the moon.
More of a moonstroll, really.
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Sega
GENRE: Action platformer
RELEASE DATE: 08/25/90 – (JP), 08/90 – (US), 02/91 – (EU)
Outside of the Jackson 5 and not including his early teenybopper solo work, Michael Jackson made 6 albums across a 30 year solo career during his lifetime. Two of those albums – Off the Wall and Thriller – have sold nearly 100 milion copies combined worldwide, and are two of the best pop albums of all time. The other four – Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, and Invincible – are definitely lesser works, but none of them sold less than 10 million worldwide.
Nintendon't, all right. Imagine Michael Jackson's Mariowalker. The scandal!
Even though only three of those albums had been released by 1990, those sales statistics show why Michael Jackson's Moonwalker was a huge deal for Sega. Released three years after Bad and one year prior to Dangerous, Jackson was still at the height of his powers. Sega could hire as many sports stars as they wanted to reach sports fans and still miss large portions of the consumer market. With Michael Jackson on their team, they could reach millions across the world who loved the man's music.
Playing on a legit Mega Drive, no less.
Moonwalker was based on Jackson's 1988 "film" of the same name. Less a movie and more of a showcase for Jackson's music videos for Bad, "Moonwalker" was a straight-to-video affair, not a major motion picture event. Even today, consensus is divided as to whether it's a work of troubled genius or a complete disaster. But like any product released with the man's name attached, "Moonwalker" was a rousing success, selling like gangbusters upon release.
Loving montage by PopOptiq.
Listening to Jackson's music and watching a movie starring Jackson are enjoyable, if not passive forms of entertainment. Would Jackson's fans – men, women, and children of all ages – be willing to play a video game starring the man? Jackson himself bet they would. He was a huge fan of Sega's arcade games and signed on with Sega to make "Moonwalker" games prior to the Genesis' release. He also oversaw the making of both the arcade version and the Genesis version with Sega of America's head of marketing, Al Nilsen.
After a fulfilling bathroom break, Jackson's ready to find those kids.
As in the film, Jackson's eccentricities are present throughout Moonwalker. Rather than attack enemies head-on, Jackson sprays magical sparkles at them. A dance routine is a screen-clearing special move. The goal of each level is to rescue children from the villainous Mr. Big and his cronies. Bubbles the Monkey – one of Jackson's favorite pets at the time – leads you to the boss of the level. When you collect a shooting star, Michael turns into a robot that can laser blast his enemies. And the final battle against Mr. Big is a spaceship battle.
You ever dance with a doberman in the pale moonlight?
In addition to the aforementioned ridiculousness, Jackson can also perform his famous moonwalk and crotch-grab. Neither of these moves do anything for your health nor are they special attacks; they're included solely because of their prominence in Jackson's repertoire. The Jackson sprite's animation is some of the best on the Genesis and eerily replicates the man's own movements. Fantastic synthesized versions of Jackson's songs play throughout each level. Without Jackson's personal involvement in the making of the game, Moonwalker could have been a completely different entity.
It's safe to assume that a "Woo!" was uttered here.
If it hasn't already been made clear, Moonwalker worships at Jackson's altar. If you're not at least a mild fan of the man's work, there's not much for you here. Indeed, it's because of his bizarre, personal touches that the game remains a cult classic. The gameplay – which involves fighting off thugs, gangsters, zombies, and animals, while rescuing kids hidden within each level – is very much of its time and doesn't hold up.
*checks watch* Yup, it's close to midnight.
The 1993 and 2003 child molestation allegations all but destroyed Jackson's public image. Those who believe Jackson is guilty of those allegations (the man was never convicted) might balk at the thought of rescuing children as Michael Jackson in Moonwalker; especially since they replenish your life once you find them. That's understandable. From a historical context, it's important to note that, upon the game's release in 1990, the concept of Jackson saving children wasn't perceived as any more or less strange than anything else the man did.
The monkey is not my son.
While the Genesis version of Moonwalker is an exploratory platformer, the arcade version is a top-down isometric brawler. Up to three players can play as different versions of Michael. The basic story and enemies are the same, though the enemies are faster and tougher (gotta get them quarters). The levels have a grittier, more urban look than the home ports. The kids are also hidden in plain sight, as opposed to the Genesis version which places them behind bushes, in the trunks of cars, or deep within caverns.
The arcade version also features comic panels to advance the story between stages.
Moonwalker wasn't the system seller Sega needed to turn the Genesis into a powerhouse, but Jackson's presence did succeed at drawing more attention to the console. While other console developers, like NEC and SNK, seemed content to carve out their own niche, Sega was hellbent on competing with Nintendo. With Jackson and sports icons firmly in Sega's corner, Sega had something Nintendo didn't have: star power. And while it would take the company one-upping Nintendo at the mascot game to truly make the Genesis a success, Moonwalker was a crucial step in establishing Sega as a true contender within the console industry.
For the handful of American kids still hanging onto their Master Systems…
Those expecting the arcade game will be disappointed.
DEVELOPER: Sega (port by Arc)
RELEASE DATE: 1990 – (US), 02/91 – (EU)
Moonwalker for the Master System is a downgrade that sacrifices some of the Genesis version's charm. Gone are the pixie flourishes that accompany each of Michael's attacks. Children no longer give him additional health once found (that honor goes to the mini-Michael icons). Bubbles doesn't point you in the direction of the boss. And the 8-bit renditions of "Smooth Criminal" and "Another Part of Me," while still good, can't compete with the Genesis' chunky synth renditions.
He can seeee youuuu.
Surprisingly, the Master System controls are superior to the Genesis'. In the latter, MJ controlled less like the elegant, graceful dancer he was in real life and more like an aging gangster trying to act cool. In the Master System version, his attacks hit quicker, he moves smoother and faster, and he just feels easier to maneuver.
Jackson's creditors come to collect.
Moonwalker is, by necessity, a smaller, less ambitious game on the Master System, but I'm still surprised at what Arc was able to do here. Jackson's sprite still has fantastic animation, the songs aren't aural trash (given the Master System's awful sound, this is a compliment), and the meat of the game, such as it is, remains intact. While I prefer the flash of the Genesis version, this is one of the few times Master System kids weren't totally screwed over by a 16-bit port.
Dylan Cornelius December 9, 2016 November 26, 2018
Category: Arcade Games Genesis Master System SegaTagged: ActionArcMega DriveMichael JacksonMoonwalkerPlatformerRetro
Dylan Cornelius
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10 thoughts on "Michael Jackson's Moonwalker"
GH says:
Good review of a good game sir – it's worth playing just to make all the animals dance with Jacko's special attack!
I did beat the Master System version, because it has infinite continues…but that last level/boss was such a slog. It's a sort of laboratory/science lab/base level if memory serves me right (I'm sure 90% of Master System games have a similar level at the end) and I had to fight the urge to quit all the way through it. Shame, because that level kinda brings down the game.
Thanks, GH! Yeah, the further you go in these games, the more of a slog they become. But, at least in the Genesis version's case, the charm more than makes up for it.
This is one of.the games I picked up when I bought my Master System earlier this year. Still yet to play but now I'm looking forward to it abit.
I was so excited for this as a pre-teen. The SMS version felt like a bit of an anticlimax, and I'm sure the graphics on the back of the SMS console box were for the MD version, but I remember enjoying it a fair bit regardless. I tried the MD version a few years ago and, for me, the slog crept in around stage 2. I wouldn't mind having another crack at it though – the soundtrack stirs up a lot of nostalgia.
The levels in the Genny version are a little too big, particularly around stage 4. MS pares them down a bit.
Yeah, short but sweet is how I've come to prefer both individual stages and whole games, with exceptions if course. I can probably count on fingers and toes the number of games I've genuinely wished were longer. Don't get me started on Elder Scrolls and Bethesda-era Fallout games…
So when this game came out, Jackson was not really at the height of his popularity. I don't know if younger people remember, but the child allegations were not the beggining of his downfall. This came out right during the period where everyone was realizing he was kind of a weirdo. He was doing the ski. Lingtening thing. The Natitional Enquirer was running stories about his eccentricities and his monkey son bubbles. Wired Elizabeth Taylor romance allegations. Neverland Ranch. He was not cool as he was a few years prior. Nobody I knew was all hyped on Michael Jackson anymore. But his music was still great and that carried into this game. This game captures past glory while dabbling in the new weirdness. And for that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the variable magic power. Where you could charge for just a little bit and do a small dance move on one enemy, charge some more to throw your hat as a projectile, and full charge for a screen clearing dance attack. And yes I also enjoyed making the dogs dance. It was a weird collaboration at the time but got a fairly interesting game out of it.
Also of note, as I had the copy with it, is the early release of this game had the thriller song in the graveyard level as the dance attack. It was quickly removed because they didn't have the rights to the song. Making that version somewhat of a rarity.
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Olumide Adeniyi says:
I Love Michael Jackson sometimes because of His Dance Moves,Black Skin to Moonwalker(as in game and a movie) with his group album for Jackson 5 and solo album(Off the Wall Thriller and Bad) except for his skin change.Though i had a worse fantasy about Michael Jackson during the church days for Thriller Music Video if i can remember(CAC OKE-ANU UGBORIKOKO)in 2001 when i was 12,But now that he's not here on earth and that he will always be the King of Pop Forever.MAY GOD HAVE MERCY FOR MAKING A COMMENT ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON.
Thank you for this comment.
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History of Vinod Khanna
by Deepak Kulshrestha | May 12, 2021 | actor | 0 comments
Vinod Khanna is a famous Indian actor as well as a politician. Vinod Khanna was born on 6 October 1946 in a Punjabi Hindu family in British India (now Pakistan), Peshawar. The next year after his birth, India and Pakistan were partitioned in 1947, after which his family moved from Peshawar to Mumbai. His parents' names were Kamla and Kishanchand Khanna. Vinod Khanna was named among the actors who started with the character of Villain but later became a hero. Vinod Khanna has worked in many best films in his life. Later he ventured into politics.
Full Name Born – Vinod Khanna
Nationality Nationality – Indian
Born – 6 October 1946
Death – 27 April 2017 (Age – 70 years)
Birthplace – British India
Education – Boarding School Nashik, Graduation Siddheem College in Commerce
Educational Qualification – Graduation
Work Occupation – Actor
Years Active – 1968 – 2017
Vinod Khanna's education
Vinod Khanna was educated at St. Mary's School in Mumbai. In this school, he studied up to another class. After this, his father got him admitted to St. Xavier's High School in Delhi. Shortly after this, his entire family shifted to Delhi. After Saint Xavier's school, he studied at Delhi Public School, located in Delhi. In the year 1960, his entire family returned to Mumbai. This time Vinod's education was studied at Barnes School in Nashik. After high school, he completed his graduation in commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai. During his studies, he saw films like sixteenth year and Mughal-e-Azam and was disappointed that this was his last point.
Vinod Khanna family
Vinod Khanna had two weddings, the first wife Geetanjali has two sons Akshay Khanna and Rahul Khanna. The second wife Kavita has a son Sakshi and a daughter Shraddha Khanna. Vinod Khanna started working in theater in college life. He had many girlfriends there. He met Geetanjali here. His love story started from college itself. He married the actor in 1971. Vinod Khanna and Gitanjali had two sons, Rahul Khanna and Akshay Khanna.
There was a time when Vinod Sunday did not work to give time to the family. He was the second actor to do so after Shashi Kapoor. But later Vinod Khanna took service of Rajneesh Osho and made him a distant from his family. This was the reason that both Gitanjali and Vinod separated in the year 1985. After the family disintegration, in 1987 Vinod entered Bollywood again with the film Insaf. Vinod married Kavita in 1990 after starting a film career again. Both have a son Sakshi and a daughter Shraddha Khanna. There are often reports about Sakshi's debut. At the same time, Shraddha Khanna is a designer by profession.
Vinod Khanna Career
Vinod Khanna started his film journey with the 1968 film Man Ka Meet in which he played the role of a villain. Which was liked a lot and he got a line of films. After this film, he signed 15 films simultaneously. Which included films like East and West, On Milo Sajna and Mera Gaon Mera Desh.
Read This — : Biography of Saurabh Shukla
His first solo hero film Hum Tum Aur Woh Aay in 1971 after playing notable supporting and villainous roles in many films and thus he became a hero from villain. Gulzar's 1973 film Mere Apne was quite a success. After this, the film Suddenly established him as a hero. Vinod Khanna's star rose to prominence through films like Qurbani, Fudge, Khoon Paseena, Amar Akbar Anthony, Mukaddar Ka Sikandar.
1982 to 1986 – Vinod Khanna in the shelter of religious guru Osho
When Vinod Khanna was at the top of his career, he came in contact with the religious guru Osho Rajneesh, which changed the course of his life. Vinod Khanna rejected this world of fame and wealth and went to the shelter of Osho. Soon his fascination with Rajneesh dissolved and after 5 years he returned to his world. Bollywood also welcomed its star very warmly.
Vinod Khanna's film career after his return from spirituality
After his return from spirituality, he worked in Mukul Anand's film Insaaf in 1987. Dimple Kapadia appeared with him in this film. After this, he got opportunities to do many romantic characters as well, but most of the time he used to get action thrillers only. In romantic films, he got crime and moonlight films during this time. During the nineties, he was seen as the emperor of Muqaddar, CID, Jai, but more. Many multi-star action films were being made at this time.
In such films it was mandatory to have Vinod Khanna. Those films were the last court, the loan of blood, the Mahasangram, the police and the perpetrators, the Kshatriyas, the Gods of humanity, Ekka Raja Rani, Ina Mica Deka etc. In the year 1997, Vinod Khanna prepared his son Akshay Khanna to act with him in Himalaya Putra. In such films, their pairing with Minakshi was seen a lot. People also liked this pair very much. After this, he was seen in the films Wanted, Dabangg etc. with Salman Khan. Let us know that you were active in films till 2017. You can see the complete list of Vinod Khanna's films at the end of the news
Vinod Khanna came into controversy after doing an intimate scene with Madhuri Dixit
During the film Dayawan, giving intimate scenes with Madhuri Dixit, she became so uncontrollable that Madhuri's lips were cut. After the film's release, Madhuri and Vinod Khanna were heavily criticized for this scene. Madhuri still regrets giving such scenes with Vinod Khanna. Vinod Khanna was 20 years older than Madhuri Dixit. After much thought, Madhuri agreed to do an intimate scene with him. But due to this she became uncomfortable.
Vinod Khanna's name also associated with these actresses
Like the reel life of superstar Vinod Khanna of his era, real life was no less interesting. Vinod Khanna's name was associated with many famous actresses of that era.
Parveen Bobby – In 1977, Vinod Khanna and Parveen Bobby's film Amar Akbar Anthony rocked the silver screen. With this successful success, Vinod Khanna's name started to be associated with Parveen Bobby.
Zeenat Aman – When Vinod Khanna was in the boom of his film career. The film Daulat was being shot in the eighties. Its actress was Zeenat Aman. The beauty of Zeenat Aman was no match at that time and Vinod Khanna was also one of the most handsome actors of his time. At that time, the newspaper headlines were full of his close relationships. How did this relationship reach? Nobody knows this
Amrita Singh – Vinod Khanna's name is also associated with actress Amrita Singh. It is said that he was very close to Amrita. The matter had reached the wedding too but could not reach any end.
Vinod Khanna's political career
In the year 1997 and 1999, he was twice elected as a BJP MP from Gurdaspur area of Punjab. Whereas in 2002, he was also the Union Minister for Culture and Tourism. After this, only after 6 months, he was made Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs.
Vinod Khanna died
Vinod was battling cancer in his last time. He was admitted to Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital and Research Center. Although early in the year 2017, there was news of his recovery, but the disease continued to increase. At the time of his illness, his entire family was present with him. He finally died on 27 April 2017 at the age of 70.


MicroSourcing has segregated work areas, enabling our clients to operate independently and in privacy.
MicroSourcing enables you to operate in the Philippines and establish your offshore operations within MicroSourcing. You may choose to operate from your own office space, rather than occupying part of one expansive work floor which is shared with other clients. To accommodate this, our offices are divided into multiple work floors, each with their own main entrance, security system, and facilities. This way, you can operate semi-independently and really feel as if you have your own office in the Philippines.
Our headquarters are located at the 18th floor of Picadilly Star Building in Bonifacio Global City.
Work Floor Alpha is located in the north wing of the 17th floor. It has sufficient work space for three team leaders and 72 associates, plus two workstations for managers.
Work Floor Bravo can accommodate 20 associates. It is located in the east wing of the 17th floor, near the function room.
Work Floor Charlie is located in the south wing of the 17th floor. It has 10 workstation clusters, which can accommodate 128 associates including five team leaders.
Work Floor Delta is located in the northwest wing of the 18th floor. It has a dedicated workstation for a supervisor, as well as four long workstation clusters that can accommodate 54 employees.
Work Floor Echo is situated in the east wing of the 18th floor, adjacent to Chamonix Function Room and Antwerp Function Room. Work Floor Echo can accommodate 20 employees.
Work Floor Foxtrot is the largest work area, occupying the entire south wing of the 18th floor. It can accommodate 128 employees and has an office for a supervisor.
The MicroSourcing delivery center is located at the 10th floor of TwoE-com Center at the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.
Work Floor Alpha has sufficient work space for 58 employees. It also has an office for a manager.
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Work Floor Charlie can accommodate a total of 65 employees and has a dedicated workstation for a supervisor.
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One of our delivery centers is located at the 6th floor of 1880 Building at Eastwood City Cyberpark in Quezon City.
Work Floor Alpha has 12 workstation clusters, which have a total of 141 workstations including seats for team leaders and supervisors, and a manager's workstation.
Work Floor Bravo is located at the northwest wing of the 6th floor. It can accommodate 78 employees and team leaders. It also has its own function room for meetings and client calls, and a manager's office.
Work Floor Charlie has five long workstation clusters, which can accommodate a total of 89 employees and team leaders. There is also an office for a manager. The Stockholm Function Room is situated in this area.
Work Floor Delta is located right next to the Career Hub. It consists of four workstation clusters with a 38-seater capacity. This work floor has a separate office for a manager.
Work Floor Echo is located behind the Career Hub and server room and can accommodate 56 employees. There is also an office for a manager right next to the London Function Room.
Work Floor Foxtrot is the largest work floor in the 1880 delivery center. This area has a capacity of 200 seats and has a manager's office and server room. The Seattle Function Room is located in this work floor.
Work Floor Golf is situated right next to the MS Cafe at the southeast wing of 6th floor. It comes with 69 workstations and a manager's office. The Sydney Function Room on this work floor has a view of the Eastwood Mall Open Park.
One of our delivery centers is located at the 32nd floor of MDC 100 Building at Eastwood City Cyberpark in Quezon City.
Work Floor Alpha has sufficient work space for 16 employees. Its large, clear windows give the area a bright atmosphere.
Work Floor Bravo can accommodate a total of 60 employees. It comes with a workstation for a supervisor and large, clear windows that provide a great view of Eastwood City.
Work Floor Charlie can accommodate a total of 49 employees and has a dedicated workstation for a supervisor.
Work Floor Delta can accommodate a total of 32 employees with a dedicated workstation for a supervisor.
Work Floor Echo can accommodate 33 employees. It comes with a workstation for a supervisor and large, clear windows that give the area a bright atmosphere.


text:
Q: Can't install inkscape on Yosemite with homebrew It seems like I should be able to install inkscape with something like
brew install inkscape

based on what I've seen online. Unfortunately, when I try this I get
Error: No available formula for inkscape
Searching formulae...
Searching taps...

What am I doing wrong?

A: Had the pleasure of attempting this on a fresh install of El Capitan this morning. I wanted both the GUI and command line interface. Unfortunately, it seems that the sanest solution was to install two versions, one from brew (for CLI) and the other from brew-cask (for GUI).
$ brew search inkscape
homebrew/gui/inkscape
Caskroom/cask/inkscape

$ brew cask install xquartz # required for GUI

$ brew cask install inkscape # for GUI

$ brew install homebrew/gui/inkscape # for CLI (yep)
==> Installing inkscape from homebrew/gui
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles-gui/
==> Pouring inkscape-0.91_3.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Could not symlink bin/inkscape
Target /usr/local/bin/inkscape
already exists. You may want to remove it:
  rm '/usr/local/bin/inkscape'
To force the link and overwrite all conflicting files:
  brew link --overwrite inkscape

$ brew link --overwrite inkscape # to get the CLI inkscape on your path rather than the brew-cask GUI

The problem with using the Cask version of Inkscape is that it doesn't handle relative paths very nicely, and apparently using it as a CLI isn't recommended. But I was unable to get the vanilla Homebrew version of Inkscape working as a GUI.

A: Try this way:
$ brew search inkscape
homebrew/x11/inkscape
$ brew tap homebrew/x11/inkscape
$ brew install inkscape

A: This worked for me on Sierra (10.12.1) in December 2016.
brew update
brew cask install xquartz
brew cask install inkscape

Reboot machine.
Launch Inkscape from Applications directory. Wait a minute for the font cache to be built.

A: Update 2017:
The preferred method to install Inkscape with homebrew in 2017 is:
brew update
brew cask install xquartz
brew cask install inkscape

Previous Answer:
Inkscape is a cask that you need to tap first before installing.
I tried a few of the suggestions given on this page, and the only thing that worked for me is a minor variation to jherran's answer:
$ brew search inkscape
$ brew tap homebrew/gui
$ brew install inkscape

At that point, I got the response Installing inkscape from homebrew/homebrew-x11 and the installation completed successfully. The result from the brew search command has changed a few times so be on the guard for it to change again and just tap the correct reply from the search command if it's not homebrew/gui next time you search.

A: This worked for me on 10.10.4 with brew:
brew update
brew install homebrew/x11/inkscape

I actually didn't need to run brew tap homebrew/x11.

A: This works on Sierra 2017.
brew update
brew cask install xquartz

Restart your machine.
brew cask install inkscape

A: As authors in the official website says for Homebrew:

If you've previously installed inkscape you should clean it before next installation:
brew uninstall inkscape
brew cleanup

Installation:
brew install caskformula/caskformula/inkscape

A: I have installed it successfully with the following command line:
brew install caskformula/caskformula/inkscape

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
RealMadrid-futbol.com
Is Venus Williams retiring? End is near for tennis legend after Australian Open withdrawal
Questions have been asked about whether Venus Williams is close to retirement after the tennis legend withdrew from Australian Open 2023.
The seven-time Grand Slam winner, who is currently ranked 1003, had been given a wildcard to Melbourne Park to participate for the 22nd time.
The Sporting News has all the details on Venus' Australian Open pull out and her future in tennis.
Why did Venus Williams withdraw from the Australian Open?
The 42-year-old was forced to withdraw from the Australian Open with details of the injury not yet revealed.
It's understood Williams picked up the issue while playing in the ASB Classic in Auckland at the start of the year.
After defeating American compatriot Katie Volynets in straight sets in the first round, Williams lost in three sets to China's Zhu Lin in her next match at the New Zealand tournament, where she was believed to have picked up the injury.
Williams, who last played at the Australian Open in 2021, had been excited to compete at Melbourne Park once again, with her first ever appearance at the event coming in 1998.
"I am very excited to be returning to Melbourne to compete at the Australian Open in January," Williams said in a statement prior to her withdrawal.
"I've been competing in the country for over 20 years now and the Australian community has always supported me wholeheartedly.
"It will be an honour to play for the fans again and I'm looking forward to making more memories at the tournament this year."
Is Venus Williams going to retire?
Williams has not yet retired from professional tennis but another breakdown in her body and her lack of tennis in the past 12 months suggests the end is getting closer.
After a 12-month absence from tennis, Williams returned to the circuit in August 2022, playing four tournaments including the US Open – which were her only events for the calendar year.
Williams failed to win a match across that period and only managed to snare one set.
Prior to her recent win against Volynets in Auckland on January 2, Williams had failed to clinch victory in a WTA match since defeating Mihaela Buzarnescu at Wimbledon 2021.
After losing at US Open 2022 in August, Williams revealed she did still have a passion to play tennis, despite her recent poor results.
"A lot of people have been asking me, 'are you gonna play again?' I love tennis and I would like to play again and I will let you know exactly when," Williams said on her You Tube channel.
"I've been hitting the court a lot and let me tell you I hit the court right after the doubles match that we played at the US Open. I immediately booked the court the next day and I went to every single practice in New York. I hit indoors and I've been hitting ever since and that's been a lot of fun."
"I have actually been working on a lot of things. Mainly my forehand and my serve, which is the most important shot in tennis."
"I've been working on slicing, and I never slice. I slice like once per year in a match, and yesterday I played a point and sliced four times, which is a world record for me! I have also been in the gym a lot and working on my leg strength."
How many Grand Slams has Venus Williams won?
Williams has won seven Grand Slam titles over the course of her long career with her latest major triumph coming at Wimbledon in 2008 when she defeated sister Serena in straight sets in the final.
This was her third Wimbledon women's singles title in four years as she underlined her status as a dominant force in the sport.
Since then, Williams has made three Grand Slam finals (one at the Australian Open and two at Wimbledon), but lost all three, including two to sister Serena.
In total, Serena and Venus have met in no fewer than nine Grand Slam finals with the latter winning twice.
What is Venus Williams' injury history?
The period between 2003 and 2006 was a difficult one for Williams as she suffered injury troubles. These problems lasted for a number of seasons with an abdominal injury stopping her from playing the second half of 2003. The American then suffered a wrist injury in early 2006 which hampered her performance at the Grand Slams that year.
Williams has also battled with the rare Sjögren's syndrome since 2004 – an autoimmune disorder that affects over 4 million people in the USA. Symptoms are not ideal for athletes that include dry eyes and dry mouth, as well as fatigue, body aches, and serious muscle injuries.
What is Venus Williams' career prize money and net worth?
According to website Celebrity Net Worth, Williams was worth $95 million (£77.8m) in 2022.
She reportedly makes between $5m (£4.09m) and $10m (£8.19m) per year from endorsements as she has partnered with the likes of Wilson, Tide, Kraft, Electronic Arts, and Ralph Lauren.
Williams also founded EleVen, the lifestyle brand that provides fashion-forward tennis and everyday looks for on and off the court.
As per the official WTA website, the American has also made an incredible $42,280,541 (£34,623,667) in career prize money following her success on the court.
PSG vs Angers live score, updates, highlights from Ligue 1 as Messi returns for PSG, Ekitike goal grabs early lead
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Ashok and Vimal are two grandsons of K.k. Vimal is womanizer. Ashok and Ganga are in love but when Ashok was about to propose Ganga for marriage, he finds that Ganga has complained against him in police station for sexual molestation. Ashok pays some money to Ganga and hope never to see her. K K bring home a girl named Deepa as K K want Deepa and Ashok to marry. But Deepa falls in love with Vimal. Vimal frequently visit a courtesan. When Ashok goes to courtesan to bring home Vimal, Ashok finds that courtesan is none other than Ganga .
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Taare Zameen Par - SF LP 04 - LP Record Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with won..


Sydney's champions of adventurous new music, Ensemble Offspring, return to WSU in their core trio line up of flute, clarinet and percussion.
It's a program of all female composers shining the limelight on the new – every work on the program was either written specifically for the musicians of Ensemble Offspring or within the last ten years. All but one of the works are by Australian composers, many of which have an association with WSU and a common theme is birdsong and the weird and wonderful squeaks, croaks and creaks of Australian native animals. Ensemble Offspring present bight sized, fun and up-beat works which will re-energise your lunchtime!


Blizzard Warning Issued for the Northeast U.S.
A blizzard warning has been issued for most the northeast. Dubbed Winter Storm Nemo, the storm is expected to dump anywhere from one to two feet of snow along the East Coast from Pennsylvania to Maine. Snow is predicted to start early Friday morning and last through Saturday.
Current weather forecasts predict that New England will be hit with the most significant accumulation, while the surrounding area, including New York City, will see its own share of snowfall. Government officials in the area already have started preparations in case of widespread power failures, travel delays and cancellations, and school closings.
Be sure to check weather alerts and forecasts regularly in preparation for changing weather conditions before and during the storm. Make sure your organization has a robust notification solution in place to communicate with your employees and constituents in the event your business is impacted by the severe winter weather. Send Word Now would like to donate a trial account of on-demand communication and incident management services to organizations that may be affected by the blizzard. If your organization would like to request a temporary Send Word Now account, please contact us at info@sendwordnow.com, and we will reach out to you immediately.


The stock Walkera ESC is relatively heavy at 3.2grams. On the other hand, the TGY DP 3A from Hobby King or Ebay weighs only 1 gram. Is tempting to use a lighter and cheaper ESC for better performance. However, the FETs on the original ESC is very low quality. (How else do they keep the price so low) They have a lot of resistance, and will get hot during flight. This modification replace those low quality FETs with the best available to transform the low quality ESC into a high performance ESC.
1. Brushless ESC. Get the TGY DP 3A. Also know as the Aeolian 3A ESC$11.40. Can also use a similar HobbyKing XP 3A 1S. (The XP 3A 1S use to not work very well if at all with outrunners, but now with BLHeli that resolved the original program. BLHeli erase the original program, and put in the opensource program. Now both the DP 3A and XP 3A have the same program, and works equally as well.).
2. Get the following FETs. They work for both the DP 3A and the XP 3A.
IRLML6244TRPBFCT-ND 6.3Amp MOSFET N-Channel from Digikey $.51 each. 3 needed.
SI2333DS-T1-E3CT-ND 4.1Amp MOSFET P-Channel from Digikey $.91 each. 3 needed.
Total cost is about $15, and you get a super light ESC.
The TGY ESC is great, is small and light, but does have some weak FETs. FET is short for MOSFET. It is what turns power on and off in the ESC. The TGY 3A ESC can handle the power requirement of the 4#3A helicopter. However, the ESC does get hot after a while. You could feel the back of the circuit board getting quite hot after a flight. The FETs on the other side must be even hotter. ( The FETs were against the receiver, so can't touch them) Heat means the battery is used to heat up the FET instead of powering the motor. Is robbing the motor of power. Of course, if it gets too hot, it will burn up the FET. The FETs that came with the TGY 3A ESC were probably generic SOT-23 FETs. It was probably sourced base on price alone. If you swap them out with some quality Vishay or International Rectifier units, you can lower the on resistance of the FET. Lower resistance means faster motor and longer run time. Also means it can carry more current without overheating. Lets get to work.
These are the original generic FET. Get hot with current.
First step is to use a soldering iron to remove the FETs. FETs are spaced quite wide apart from each other, so is not too hard with a fine tip soldering iron.
FET removal tip: Fet has 2 legs on one side and 1 leg on opposite side. If you heat one side up, it will cool before you get to the other side. All solder must melt at same time for the chip to come off. Solution: Put a blob of solder on the 1 leg. The blob of solder acts like a heat resevoir and keep that leg hot. That gives you enough time to heat the 2 legs on other side up at the same time. (Assume the solder tip is wide enough) The chip will slide right off.
Next, get the new quality FETs.
Solder the quality FETs on. Note, the P-channel FETs (item #9 in parts list) go on the bottom and N-channel FET (item #8 in parts list) go on the top in the pictures above and below.
Soldering tip: If it ain't smoking, you ain't soldering.
Solder has flux on it. The flux burn off as smoke on the soldering iron. When all the flux burns off, smoke stops. Therefore, clean the tip with sponge etc, then put some fresh solder on the tip. While the tip is smoking, solder the joint. For these FETs, the solder left over on the board and on the tip of the iron should be enough to make the joint. No need to add more solder. Use a tweezer to hold the FET while you solder one leg. Then go on to the next and the last. Once one leg is soldered, don't touch the FET with the tweezer anymore. Is stuck already, and you will break the circuit board if you move the FET with one leg soldered. Just heat the second joint to get that soldered and the last. Use magnifying glass to make sure all the legs have a nice solder joint. If one of the joint looks questionable, this is where a flux pen comes in handy. Add flux to the joint and reheat. Flux on the joint will make a nice shinny joint. Flux also increase surface tension on the solder so it stick to both contacts and make a solid connection.
Testing with 320mah Hyperion cells.
Run time was about 5:20 for my other Chinese Jade brushless conversion 4#3A that weight about the same as stock.
Run time increased by a minute to 6:25 with stock TGY 3A ESC and brushless motor along with light weight linear servo. Not bad, but FETs get hot.
Run time increased by about another 40 seconds to 7:05 with the new FETs. The ESC barely got warm! That is quite an improvement with new FETs.
That is over 7 minute run time on a 320mah cell. Quite good.
The 3A ESC in stock form can hardly handle enough power to fly the 4#3A helicopter. However, with the modified FET, it flys the helicopter without even heating up the FETs. Question is how much more can the ESC handle. Base on testing by Microchip in their paper AN792, the SOT23 package has a thermal resistance of 130C/Watt to 260C/Watt depending on circuit board configuration. Assume you stack the FETs 3X. See AtomicMods for stacking FETs. the collective resistance will be .0116 ohms. Assume the maximum allowable temperature for the FET is 100 F / 37.8 C. Use average thermal resistance of 195 C/W. At 37.8 C, heat dissipation of the FET will be .194 Watts. Each FET can then handle sqrt(.44/.0116) = 4.08 Amps. Now, since this is a 3 phase motor, that means each FET turns on only 1/3 of the time. That is 33% duty cycle. Therefore, with 3X stacked FETs, the ESC can handle is 12.3 Amps! With only 1 layer of modified FET no stacking, the ESC can handle 7 Amps. Not bad for just changing the FETs on the ESC.


text:
DR PHILIPPA KAYE: Diets fail because obesity is a disease and only way to beat it is with treatment
January 21, 2023 January 21, 2023 Dr Philippa Kaye
More doctors are convinced almost every diet ends in failure… because obesity is a disease and the only way to beat it is with medical treatment, writes frontline GP DR PHILIPPA KAYE
By Dr Philippa Kaye For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 17:01 EST, 21 January 2023 | Updated: 18:25 EST, 21 January 2023
The patient in my treatment room – a busy working mother-of-two in her 40s, let's call her Kelly – seemed desperate.
As her GP, I'd seen her a fair few times before – after the birth of both her boys, and every now and then for her own health problems. This time, however, she wasn't herself at all.
Tearfully, she explained, it was her weight. Recently she'd started a new job in retail, and had been told there wasn't a uniform large enough to fit her.
'I felt so ashamed and guilty,' she admitted through sobs. 'I've tried to lose weight, but I can't.' I have lost count of how many times patients have said those exact words to me over the past decade. Most want to know if I have any advice. The answer is yes, and for starters it's not to go on another crash diet.
'Obesity is a disease,' writes Dr Philippa Kaye. 'It's a chronic, incurable condition that affects the brain and hormones – in children as well as adults'
But before that, I have one simple yet vital message, and it's one every person who struggles with their weight needs to hear: This isn't your fault. You're not greedy or lazy. Your weight is not the result of not exercising enough, or dieting hard enough, or anything else that people might have told you.
The reason you're struggling is because obesity is a disease. It's a chronic, incurable condition that affects the brain and hormones – in children as well as adults. The degree to which an individual is affected is largely down to genetics – although, of course, eating patterns, sleep, physical activity, socioeconomic status and certain medications also play a role.
Overeating is the main symptom. And only a minority of patients with obesity – you didn't misread that, as obesity is a disease it's correct to refer someone as 'having' obesity – will manage to lose weight, and keep it off, with lifestyle changes alone. The most enlightened medical thinking is that most require treatment, including psychological therapy, medication – which may well be for life – or possibly surgery.
American, Canadian and Portuguese health authorities, as well as the World Health Organisation, all now recognise that obesity is a disease in its own right.
Dr Phillipa Kaye (pictured) is a GP on the front line of the obesity crisis
And I believe strongly that we also need to, not only because it might go some way to removing both the stigma and blame associated with the condition, but it will make a huge difference to the help patients are given on the NHS.
I know some will think that by classifying obesity as a disease we are medicalising something that's a variant of the normal human condition. But as Professor Alex Miras, an expert in obesity and metabolism at Ulster University and Imperial College London, says: 'About 25 to 30 per cent of the population have high blood pressure, and we don't debate putting them on medication to control that.
'If someone has high cholesterol, putting them at risk of a heart attack or stroke, we offer medication to control that and reduce their risk.
'Why should treating obesity be seen as any different?'
At present, just over a quarter of UK adults fall into the medically defined category of obesity. That means their body mass index (BMI) score – a ratio of height to weight – is 30 or more. A further 32 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men are overweight. This equates to about 35 million people.
Excess body fat is a concern, as it increases the risks of many illnesses. By the end of the decade, it is projected that one in ten adults will suffer type 2 diabetes, when blood sugar becomes abnormally raised and begins to cause widespread damage in the body.
IT'S A FACT
In 1980, roughly six per cent of men and nine per cent of women in England were obese. In 2019, it was just under a third of both men and women.
There are 2.3 million people with coronary heart disease – again, intrinsically linked to obesity – and numbers are steadily rising. The problem, which involves blocked arteries, kills 180 people in the UK every day. And more than one in 20 cancer cases are associated with excess weight.
I say this not to shame anyone, but I know the misery these problems – and obesity itself – cause and I want to see things improve. And if, by treating obesity with medication or surgery, we prevent some of these other illnesses, there will also be a huge benefit in freeing up NHS resources.
Before we go any further, let's get the counter- arguments out of the way: A cousin/friend/partner managed to lose weight on a diet.
If it worked for them, that is great. But research suggests that 80 per cent of those who achieve significant weight loss fail to maintain it for more than a year. One analysis suggested dieters regain more than what they lose within two years, even with intensive support from healthcare professionals.
Are they all simply weak-willed?
From my own experience as a doctor, sitting face-to-face with patients like Kelly, I'd say not. Every one of my patients with obesity or overweight knows it, and has tried everything they can.
Another thing I often hear: People get fat because they eat junk, end of story.
Well, no. It's true that food has changed dramatically over the past 100 years, due to mass production – which has made it ever more affordable.
And many of these ultra-processed products are also high in calories, fat, salt and sugar, which, when eaten to excess, contribute to weight gain.
Some research even suggests these foods can impact on the hormones which make us feel hungry and full, meaning we eat more of them than perhaps we should.
Everywhere you look there are takeaways and fast food, supersized snacks, sugary drinks and buy-one-get-one-free supermarket offers on cake.
But we all live in this 'obesogenic environment', and only some of us have obesity. So what else is going on?
Well, for starters, decades of research has shown that whether or not we develop obesity is largely down to our genes.
At present, just over a quarter of UK adults fall into the medically defined category of obesity
In the 1970s there were compelling studies involving identical twins, who lived apart but share almost exactly the same DNA. Despite having grown up in different places, and sometimes different countries, they were usually the same weight, leading scientists to suspect biology, rather than environment, were major drivers.
More recently, scientists have identified hundreds of genes that increase the risk of obesity.
Prof Miras explains that mutations in these genes lead to changes in the parts of the brain that regulate appetite.
'They mean a person has 'higher' hunger than normal, and 'lower' feelings of fullness, so will ultimately consume more calories than they need and gain weight. This is the disease of obesity, which causes overeating.'
It's not fully understood why appetite genes become faulty, but the more of these genes a person has, the greater their weight is likely to be. This certainly chimes with what patients with obesity tell me: they talk of feeling hungry more than their friends, that they eat faster than others and feel less satisfied afterwards, that they don't ever feel full.
As one of Prof Miras's patients, Nikita, told us: 'I've always been able to eat a lot. I can easily have a whole large pizza to myself. And when I was younger, it didn't matter – I stayed slim.
'But after I had my son I carried on eating a lot, and began to put on more and more weight.'
Vietnam has one of the world's lowest rates of obesity – roughly two per cent of adults compared with 40 per cent of American adults.
The 38-year-old mother-of-one continues: 'I've tried dieting, going low-carb, and cutting out sugary drinks. But I found that only made me crave food more.
'I'd tell myself: no biscuits. I'd last a few days then end up demolishing three packets in one go.
'Being overweight is horrible. When I look in the mirror, I don't recognise myself.
'I have breathing problems and joint problems.
'I used to feel confident but I just want to hide away now. I rarely go out, and feel miserable all the time, which just makes me want to eat more. It's a vicious cycle.'
Nikita, who is 5ft 3in and weighs almost 15st – giving her a BMI of 37 – is on the waiting list for weight-loss surgery, which she hopes will end her struggle.
She is set to have a gastric bypass, in which the stomach is cut and stitched in such a way that it becomes a tube.
It was previously believed that these operations worked by simply by reducing the amount of food that can be eaten, but experts now believe they halt the over-production of hunger hormones, meaning patients don't have the same urges to eat. While surgery might seem drastic, for patients suffering disabling health problems, it can be lifesaving.
In addition, there is a new class of remarkably effective weight-loss drugs.
They work by mimicking the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is released after eating and leads to feelings of being full. Patients inject themselves and report that, while on the treatment, they are less hungry and sometimes even forget to eat.
In trials of one of these drugs, semaglutide, participants lost on average 16 per cent of their weight after a year of treatment.
Some received intensive diet support, while others were given none – but both groups lost the same amount of weight.
Another arm of the trial involved switching some patients who had been on semaglutide for six months to a dummy jab without them knowing. They reported feeling hungrier and eating more, and regained much of the weight they had lost.
Crucially, experts say that the success of semaglutide and similar drugs further supports the idea that obesity is a disease: that over-production of hunger hormones is what causes weight gain, and tackling that problem specifically can lead to recovery.
Everywhere you look there are takeaways and fast food, supersized snacks, sugary drinks and buy-one-get-one-free supermarket offers on cake. But we all live in this 'obesogenic environment', and only some of us have obesity. So what else is going on?
Semaglutide and similar drugs aren't that easy to get on the NHS. Patients must have a BMI of 30 or more, suffer related health problems and have tried other non-drug methods to lose weight.
But later this year, research will show if the weight loss brought about by semaglutide also prevents heart attacks.
If it does provide protection, there will be a compelling economic argument for the NHS to provide it to millions more Britons in the same way that we prescribe statins and blood-pressure medication.
Aside from surgery and drug treatment, there is also cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – a kind of psychotherapy – which has also shown to have some success in helping people tackle other factors that they feel cause them to over-eat, such as stress and anxiety.
Of course, treatment is one thing – but prevention, as they say, is better than a cure. And this will be far more complex.
As of last year, ten per cent of children aged four to five were classified as obese. At age ten to 11, this figure rose to 23 per cent.
Research shows that children with obesity are likely to grow up to be adults with obesity. However, children lose weight through lifestyle changes more easily than adults – because eating habits caused by faulty genes are less ingrained.
If behavioural approaches don't work, another GLP-1 drug, liraglutide, is licensed for patients as young as 12.
While adults who qualify for these drugs are likely to need treatment for life, or risk putting on weight again, early intervention might lead to a more lasting effect in teens – children may be able to stop taking the medication and maintain a healthy weight.
None of this means making healthy food choices and regular exercise aren't still vital.
I have no doubt what I'm saying will cause debate. So I'll leave you with my patient Kelly, who I referred to an NHS obesity clinic. She was prescribed a GLP-1 inhibitor and, a year on, she is transformed. When I see her she talks of a sense of relief – that she is no longer a slave to her appetite. She no longer feels ashamed or guilty or depressed.
And she has lost a significant amount of weight, reducing her risk of a range of serious health problems. As her doctor, what more could I want?
Low-risk diet drugs the NHS has to take seriously
By BARNEY CALMAN, HEALTH EDITOR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Diet pills have had a bad rap – justifiably, I'd say. In the 1960s there were the 'miracle' appetite suppressants fenfluramine and phentermine, taken by millions of slimmers around the world.
The drugs turned out to cause heart valve damage, which is sort of unsurprising as they are amphetamines by another name.
Barney Calman, Health Editor for The Mail on Sunday
More recently there was sibutramine, which damaged the heart AND triggered psychosis and suicidal thoughts. Oh, and rimonabant. It helped people lose a bit of weight, but left many with depression.
Orlistat, which is NHS approved, doesn't dampen the desire to eat. Instead it works by blocking the absorption of fat in the gut, which means that you excrete it… sometimes uncontrollably. Lovely. But the advent of new GLP-1 obesity treatment drugs has been a game-changer. They seem low risk – and they really work. This year, we'll learn if those who lose weight on semaglutide are less likely to have a heart attack or stroke.
If so, the jabs might become as ubiquitous as cholesterol-lowering statins, given to anyone at risk of developing an obesity-related illness.
That's a lot of people. And in the pipeline there is a powerful drug, CagriSema, which leads to even greater weight loss, faster.
Is obesity a disease? It's a persuasive theory.
The important thing is that if the new medicines can help tackle the obesity crisis then NHS chiefs must take them seriously, look at the scientific evidence and stop peddling tokenistic initiatives such as impossible-to-stick-to diets and putting calories on menus – both of which do very little other than make people feel bad, and, as a result, eat more in the long term.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/articles.rss
Dr Philippa Kaye
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Woke museum chiefs stop calling embalmed Egyptian dead 'mummies'


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Robert Rabiah is an Australian film actor best known for his roles as Hakim in Face to Face for which he was nominated for a AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Film and Best Actor at the Inside Film Awards, Nick in Chopper, Dario Mancini in Fat Tony & Co., Spiro Politis on TV soap Neighbours, Mehmet in Deadline Gallipoli, Mohsen in Ali's Wedding, Bilal in Safe Harbour, Paul `PK' Kallipolitis in Underbelly, and Sami Almasi in Secret City (TV series).

Career
In 2000, Rabiah's first role was in the Australian film Chopper, alongside Eric Bana and Vince Colosimo. He got roles in television shows, including Blue Heelers, Stingers, Underbelly, Fat Tony & Co., and Neighbours. In 2004, he had a minor role in Evan Clarry's Under the Radar. In 2011, he was cast in Michael Rymer's Face To Face.

He later acted in the Australian romantic comedy film Ali's Wedding, action film The Shinjuku Five, 2018 drama television series Safe Harbour,  Deadline Gallipoli, Down Under, Secret City and Below.

Awards and nominations

Select filmography
 Chopper (2000)
On the Beach (2000)
The Wog Boy (2000)
Under the Radar (2004)
 Killing Time (2011)
Face to Face (2011)
Fat Tony & Co. (2014)
Deadline Gallipoli (2015)
Down Under (2016)
Neighbours (2017)
Ali's Wedding (2017)
Safe Harbour (2018)
Secret City (2018)
Below (2019)
Jack Irish (2021)

References

External links

Living people
Australian male writers
20th-century Australian male actors
21st-century Australian male actors
Australian male film actors
Australian male television actors
21st-century male writers
Male actors from Melbourne
Australian male stage actors
Australian male voice actors
Australian television presenters
Writers from Melbourne
Male actors from Sydney
1986 births

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Home Main Attractions UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Medieval towns, fortified churches, painted monasteries, wooden masterpieces and ancient Dacian ruins are just some of the attractions that make up Romania's exceptional cultural heritage.
25 of its beautifully preserved architectural gems have been included by UNESCO in the World Cultural Heritage in acknowledgement of their natural, scenic and monumental appeal. A tour of these sites is a good way to discover Romania's history, artistic wealth and popular traditions. Each and every stop on this route will reveal a unique and stunning location.
The western half of Walachia (Southern Romania) is endowed with spectacular monasteries, thermal-spring spas, and charming villages set at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Continue your trip along the Olt River Valley and discover Transylvania's forest-covered slopes, unspoiled landscapes, quaint villages, and fortified churches. In northeastern Romania, make time for Bucovina's painted monasteries, with their magnificent 15th-century frescoes, which are unique in the world. Cross the Prislop Pass into Maramures, famous for its hand-hewn wooden architecture and its unique tall-spire churches with double roofs.
Images of Romania's World Heritage Sites (UNESCO), courtesy of Cosmin Danila, are available at: www.PatrimoniuRomanesc.ro
Romania's UNESCO World Heritage Sites:
Monastery of Horezu
Medieval fortified churches of Transylvania
Historic centre of Sighisoara
Wooden Churches of Maramures
Dacian Fortresses of the Orastie Mountains (Sarmisegetusa Regia)
The Monastery of Horezu
Location: Walachia – Southern Romania
Nearby large town: Ramnicu Valcea (27 miles east)
Nearest train station: Ramnicu Valcea
Telephone: (250) 860.071
Founded in 1690 by Prince Constantine Brancoveanu, the monastery of Horezu is a masterpiece of the 'Brancovenesti' style. Renown for the richness of its sculptural detail, the treatment of its religious compositions and its painted decorative works, the monastery houses precious collections of frescos and icons dating
from the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century.
The Hurezi School of mural and icon painting established at the monastery in the 18th century had a profound influence on religious art and architecture in the Balkan region.
The monastery museum, housed in the princely residence, features masterpieces of Brancovenesti art: icons, books, embroideries, silver collections and an interesting library of old books containing approximately 4,000 volumes. Overnight accommodation available.
The Medieval Fortified Churches of Transylvania
Transylvania is home to nearly two hundred villages with fortified churches built by the Saxons between the 13th and 15th centuries. Having to withstand constant invaders, the villages' central areas, where the church was located most of the time, were fortified with defense walls, having the capacity to shelter a large number of people. Seven of the fortified churches have been designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. A visit to these quaint villages, placed amidst lush farmland and green rolling hills, will give travelers a taste of the long-gone medieval times.
Location: Transylvania – Central Romania
Nearby large town: Sighisora (18 miles east)
Nearest train station: Dumbraveni
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Biertan
Nearby large town: Sibiu (30 miles southeast)
Nearest train station: Miercurea Sibiului
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Calnic
Nearby large town: Sighisoara (20 miles west)
Nearest train stations: Saschiz, Sighisoara
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Darjiu
Nearby large towns: Brasov (11 miles southwest)
Nearest train station: Prejmer
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Prejmer
Nearest train station: Saschiz
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Saschiz
Nearby large town: Medias (8.5 miles northwest)
Nearest train station: Copsa Mica
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#ValeaViilor
Nearby large town: Sighisoara (25 miles northwest)
Nearest train station: Rupea
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Castles-Fortresses.html#Viscri
Location: Transylvania - CentralRomania
Nearest train station: Sighisoara
www.RomaniaTourism.com/Sighisoara.html
Founded by German craftsmen and merchants known as the Saxons of Transylvania, Sighisoara is a fine example of a small, fortified medieval town which played an important strategic and commercial role on the fringes of central Europe for several centuries.
Sighisoara, one of the most beautiful towns in the heart of Transylvania, looks today much as it did 500 years ago. This medieval town was also the birthplace of Vlad Dracula - nicknamed Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) - ruler of Walachia from 1456 to 1462. It was he who inspired Bram Stoker's fictional creation,Count Dracula. His house is just one of the many attractions here. Others include the Church on the Hill, with its 500–year old frescos; the Church of the Dominican Monastery, renown for its Renaissance carved altarpiece, baroque painted pulpit, Oriental carpets and 17th-century organ; and the Venetian House, built in the 13th century.
Among the most striking attractions is the 210-feet high Clock Tower (Council Tower), built in the 14th century, where each day a different wooden figure emerges from the belfry on the stroke of midnight. The tower was raised in the 13th and 14th centuries when Sighisoara became a free town controlled by craft guilds, each of which had to finance the construction of a bastion and defend it during wartime. The fortification walls, built in the 14th and 15th centuries, were up to 50-feet high and featured 14 defense towers. Most of the old structure and 9 of the defense towers can still be admired today… (more insformation)
The Painted Monasteries of Bucovina
Among the most picturesque treasures of Romania are the Painted Churches of Bucovina (northeastern Romania). With their painted exterior walls, decorated with 15th and 16th century elaborate frescoes (featuring portraits of saints and prophets, scenes from the life of Jesus, images of angels and demons, heaven and hell), deemed as masterpieces of Byzantine art, these churches are one-of-a-kind architectural sites in Europe. Far from being merely wall decorations, the paintings represent complete cycles of religious murals. The purpose of the frescoes was to make the story of the Bible and the lives of the most important orthodox saints known to the villagers, by the use of images. Their outstanding composition, elegant outline and harmonious colors blend perfectly with the surrounding landscape. Whether you are interested in religion, history, art or architecture, you will be intrigued by the construction and decor - exterior and interior - of these edifices. The best preserved are part of monasteries in Humor, Moldovita, Patrauti, Probota, Suceava, Sucevita, and Voronet. Another, a small church, is located in the village of Arbore. Seven of the churches were placed on UNESCO's Word Heritage list in 1993. The eight one, Sucevita, is awaiting sanction to be added soon.
Arbore Church
Location: Bucovina – Northeastern Romania
Nearby large town: Suceava (20 miles southeast)
Access: car, bus (from Gura Humorului or Radauti)
Nearest train stations: Darmanesti, Radauti
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Arbore
Humor Monastery
Nearby large town: Suceava (25 miles east)
Access: car, bus (from Suceva), train
Nearest train stations: Gura Humorului
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Humor
Moldovita Monastery
Access: car, train (from Suceava to Vama, 1 ¼ hours, and from Vama to Vatra Moldovitei, 35min)
Nearest train stations: Vatra Moldovitei
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Moldovita
Patrauti Church
Nearby large town: Suceava (5 miles southeast)
Access: car, bus from Suceava
Nearest train stations: Darmanesti, Suceava
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Patrauti
Probota Monastery
Nearby large town: Suceava (31 miles northwest)
Access: car
Nearest train stations: Dolhasca
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Probota
Saint George's Church / Saint John the New Monastery
(Biserica Sfantul Gheorghe / Manastirea Sfantul Ioan cel Nou)
Location: Suceava – Northeastern Romania
Address: Str. Ioan Voda Viteazul 2
Nearest train stations: Suceava
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#StGeorge
Voronet Monastery
Access: car, bus (from Gura Humorului), 3 ½-mile walk from Gura Humorului
www. RomaniaTourism.com/Painted-Monasteries.html#Voronet
The Wooden Churches of Maramures
There is a strong tradition of building wooden churches across Eastern Europe, from Karelia and northern Russia all the way to the Adriatic, but in terms of both quality and quantity the richest examples are in Maramures. The Wooden Churches of Maramures are unique in shape and ornamentation and eight of them – in Barsana, Budesti Josani, Desesti, Ieud, Plopis, Poienile Izei, Rogoz and Surdesti, have been recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.
The characteristic high roofs and tall, narrow, pointed steeples are often collectively described as the Gothic Style of Maramures. The primary wood material used by the artisans was local oak, which has survived the elements with sturdy elegance until today. The interior walls of the churches were painted by local artists, with biblical scenes often juxtaposed against the familiar landscape of the village. Most of these houses of worship have stood proudly since the 17th and 18th centuries – some even longer. The oldest wooden church in Maramures is the Church on the Hill in Ieud, which dates from 1364.
Barsana - Church of 'Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into Temple'
(Biserica Intrarea Maicii Domnului in Biserica)
Location: Iza Valley, Maramures – Northern Romania
Nearby large town: Sighetu Marmatiei (10 miles northwest)
Nearest train station: Sighetu Marmatiei
Built in 1720, the wooden church in the village of Barsana (tracing its name to barsani, the local shepherds who breed long-haired sheep) features some impressive interior frescoes with baroque and rococo influences painted by Toader Hodor in 1806. Originally part of a monastic complex closed down in 1791, the church was moved to its present location at the beginning of the 19th century. This outstanding church boasts an impressive collection of icons painted on glass and old religious books now on display in the museum of the new Barsana Monastery.
Budesti Josani Village - Church of Saint Nicholas
(Biserica Sfantul Nicolae)
Location: Maramures – Northern Romania
Nearby large town: Sighetu Marmatiei (20 miles north)
Laid out the foothills around the Cosau Valley, the beautiful church in Budesti Josani (1643) is home to a valuable collection of icons painted on glass depicting folkloric scenes; the church also houses a unique collection of 15th century wooden icons painted on both sides. The outstanding Last Judgment fresco, painted by Alexandru Ponehalski in the 1760s, has been preserved in its entirety. The influence of the Western Gothic style can be seen in the arrangement of the main belfry, which is surrounded by four smaller turrets. The coat of mail and helmet of Pintea the Brave (1670 - 1703) - a local outlaw who fought against social injustice - can be seen in Budesti Monastery.
Desesti – Saint Parascheva Church
(Biserica Sfanta Cuvioasa Paraschiva)
The beautiful wooden church with a tall spire and steep, low-reaching,
double-skirted roof in Desesti was built in 1770 in traditional Maramures style
and painted by the renowned post-Byzantine fresco painters Radu Munteanu and Grigore Zugravu.
Of significant interest are the Genesis, depicting the creation of Adam and Eve, and the Last Judgment scenes.
Ieud - Church of Birth of the Most Holy Mother of God
(Biserica Nasterea Maicii Domnului)
Nearest train stations: Viseu de Jos or Salistea de Sus
Built in 1364, the Church on the Hill is the oldest church in Maramures. Built of pine and fir with small windows, a double roof and a single, impressive steeple, it features 15th century primitive Byzantine-style murals. Fourteen icons, illustrating moments from the Judgment to the Crucifixion biblical scenes are placed along the path leading up to the church to recall The Way to the Cross that Jesus Christ walked to Golgotha.
Plopis - Church of Archangels Michael and Gabriel
(Biserica Sfintii Arhangheli Mihail si Gavriil)
Nearby large town: Baia Mare (12 miles northwest)
Nearest train station: Baia Mare
Built between 1796-1798 and painted in 1811, this church's construction combines architectural elements from both the Maramures and Transylvania regions. High walls endowed with two rows of windows increase interior illumination and add to the distinctive style of the church, the only one in Maramures with a three-vaulted roof.
Poienile Izei - Saint Parascheva Church
Nearest train station: Viseu de Jos or Salistea de Sus
The church at Poienile Izie, built on fir logs between 1604 and 1632, is one of the most beautiful and best-preserved architectural monuments in Maramures. The church's interior frescoes, painted in 1794 by Gheorghe din Dragomiresti, feature some of the most dramatic depictions of hell, illustrated in the Last Judgement scene. An interesting element is the metal horned moon under the cross, considered a means of protection against the Tartars.
Rogoz - Church of Archangels Michael and Gabriel
Built in 1663 and painted in 1785, the wooden church in Rogoz features an asymmetrical roof with the northern side larger and lowered to protect the people standing outside during important religious celebrations.
The overhanging roof protects the stylized horse-head carvings, believed to
keep evil spirits away. Unlike the typical churches in Maramures, this church
has a much smaller interior space, with walls no higher than 10 feet.
Surdesti - Church of Archangels Mickael and Gabriel
(Biserica Sfintii Arhangheli Mihail si Gavril)
Nearby large town: Baia Mare (12 miles west)
Dating from 1767, the famous wooden church in Surdesti, built of oak beams skillfully intertwined, displays well-preserved interior watercolor canvases and a remarkable 175-feet tall belfry. Surdesti is known to be one of the highest oak buildings in the world with an overall height from ground level to the top of the steeple of 235 feet. Remarkably, no metal was used to erect the belfry as even the fastenings are made entirely from wood.
Dacian Fortresses of the Orastie Mountains
(Sarmisegetusa Regia)
Location: Transylvania – Central Romania (Map)
Nearby large town: Hateg (37 miles west) and Deva (39 miles northwest)
Nearest village: Costesti (12 miles northwest) and Gradistea de Munte (6 miles west)
www.CetateaSarmizegetusa.ro
Dating from the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D the Dacian fortresses in Orastie Mountains show an unusual fusion of military and religious architectural techniques and concepts from the classical world and the late European Iron Age. Built as a defense ring around the capital of the Dacian kingdom, Sarmizegetusa (also Sarmisegetuza), the fortresses at Banita, Capalna, Costesti - Blidaru, Costesti – Cetatuie, Luncani - Piatra Rosie once formed the nucleus of the Dacian Kingdom. Although conquered by the Romans at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. the extensive, well-preserved remains of these defensive works, still stand in spectacular natural surroundings and give a dramatic picture of a vigorous and innovative civilization.
Hiking enthusiasts can enjoy the trails in the nearby Retezat National Park, the oldest in Romania (established 1935). Covering 95,000 acres of pristine forests, alpine meadows, peaks, and some 80 glacial lakes, the area was designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reservation and provides unforgettable hiking experiences among its peaks, valleys, rivers and gorges.
Info for visitors:
The sites are open, every day, from March 1 until November 30.
Access to Sarmisegetusa Regia:
Car (a recently paved road takes visitors half mile away from the site).
Park your car then walk 850 m (half mile) on the cobbled walking trail.
There is a small admittance fee to visit the Sarmisegetusa Regia:
5 Lei ($1.25) for adults and 2 lei ($0.50) for seniors and children.
The area is best explored during the summer season with proper hiking shoes and directions.


❶Unfortunately, she was addicted. I noticed I wasn't good enough and I spent several weeks to enhance my writing.
The Effects of Smoking essaysThere are an assortment of effects of smoking that can harm a smoker. They can affect not only the smoker's health but also the non-smokers around the smoker. Why should the people around the smoker suffer when they made the decision not to smoke? It slowly kills th. Free essay on Why Smoking is Bad for Everyone available totally free at ismagop.ga, the largest free essay community.


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Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty ImagesPhoto: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of "Hacker Philanthropy"
A new book by Linsey McGoey reveals the influence over public policy that a massive philanthropy can wield.
Michael Massing
November 25 2015, 2:53 p.m.
IT'S ELECTION SEASON, and teams of journalists are avidly tracking the flow of big money into political campaigns. Sifting financial records and filings, they are laying bare the activities of Super PACs, 501(c)(4)s, and campaign committees. There's a parallel realm of big-money activity, however, that receives much less attention: philanthropy. With the explosion of the billionaire class, the number of deep-pocketed donors and foundations has mushroomed as well. Many of the new benefactors are Wall Street and Silicon Valley moguls who are seeking to apply to social and economic problems the same zest for innovation and entrepreneurship that they showed in their business ventures.
The creed of these new philanthropists was brashly outlined in June by Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook, in an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal under the headline, "Philanthropy for Hackers." Traditional philanthropy, he declared, is "a strange and alien world made up of largely antiquated institutions." These old-timers have long favored "safe" gifts to well-established institutions, "resulting in a never-ending competition to name buildings at major universities, medical centers, performing arts centers and other such public places." The new breed, by contrast, has a hacker mindset: It is anti-establishment, believes in "radical transparency," is given to problem solving, and has an ability to identify weaknesses in long-established systems and to disrupt them. With this "hacker elite" now seeking to upend philanthropy, Parker exhorted them to resist the urge to institutionalize and instead treat philanthropy as "a series of calculated risks" and "big bets." In a bid to put these principles into practice, Parker launched a foundation bearing his name, with an endowment of $600 million and a commitment to finding new ways to fight allergies, malaria, and cancer.
Interestingly, there are two members of the hacker elite who for 15 years now have practiced this style of philanthropy in a big way: Bill and Melinda Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is by far the largest such institution in the world. Its assets of $41 billion are more than double the combined assets of the "Big Three" foundations — Ford ($12 billion), Rockefeller ($4 billion), and Carnegie ($3 billion). The Gates Foundation has all the traits Parker extols, and its work has served as a sort of grand experiment in the new "venture philanthropy," as it's sometimes called.
Gates is the largest philanthropic supporter of primary and secondary education in the United States. Together with the Walton Family Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, it has helped reshape national education policy. Gates has been no less influential in international public health. Over the last 15 years, it has spent billions of dollars to fight polio, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. Though the World Health Organization spends more than Gates does on health, the foundation, by virtue of its high profile and skillful marketing, has played a key part in setting the global health agenda. On top of it all, the foundation in recent years has invested heavily in agricultural development in Africa, joining with the Rockefeller Foundation to build on the "Green Revolution" that Rockefeller helped launch after World War II. Not since that earlier initiative has a foundation left such a large imprint on the world as the Gates Foundation.
Despite its impact, few book-length assessments of the foundation's work have appeared. Now Linsey McGoey, a sociologist at the University of Essex, is seeking to fill the gap. "Just how efficient is Gates's philanthropic spending?" she asks in No Such Thing as a Free Gift. "Are the billions he has spent on U.S. primary and secondary schools improving education outcomes? Are global health grants directed at the largest health killers? Is the Gates Foundation improving access to affordable medicines, or are patent rights taking priority over human rights?"
As the title of her book suggests, McGoey answers all of these questions in the negative. The good the foundation has done, she believes, is far outweighed by the harm. In education, she maintains, most of its initiatives have either gone bust or failed to deliver on their promises. The foundation's first great education initiative focused on creating small schools in place of big ones, on the assumption that doing so would allow students to receive more individualized attention. From 2000 to 2008, it spent $2 billion to establish 2,602 schools across the United States, affecting a total of nearly 800,000 students. Unfortunately, the experiment failed to improve college acceptance rates to the degree that the Gateses had hoped, and so they abruptly terminated it.
Instead, the foundation channeled its resources into a host of other initiatives — increased data collection on teacher effectiveness, the introduction of performance-based teacher pay, more standardized testing for students. The foundation has invested heavily in charter schools and vigorously backed the Common Core, which sets national reading and math standards. These are all key elements of the so-called school reform movement. Arne Duncan, as head of Chicago's public schools, worked closely with both the Gates and Broad foundations, and as President Obama's secretary of education he sought to implement many of their ideas.
McGoey (along with many others) is sharply critical of this movement. She cites studies that show that charter schools have performed no better or worse than traditional public schools, and she notes that the Gates Foundation itself has backed away from its once vocal support for assessing teacher performance on the basis of student test scores. While the willingness of the Gateses to change their minds in the face of evidence is admirable, McGoey writes, the reforms they championed "are now entrenched. For many teachers and students, their recent handwringing over the perils of high-stakes testing has come a little too late."
In McGoey's view, the Gateses' missteps stem mainly from their refusal to see that the real problem in American public education is not failing public schools nor ineffective teachers but poverty. If Gates and other wealthy backers of charter schools were to admit this, she writes, they would have to face the question of why people like themselves are allowed to make so much while so many others have so little. This is a standard critique of the wealthy elites who support the school reform movement. It's persuasive, in its way, but too easy. Many public schools clearly are substandard, and many teachers are ineffective. Assuming that poverty is not going to be solved overnight, what other, more immediate steps might be taken to address these problems? How might Gates spend its money more wisely? McGoey offers little guidance on this. She seems to have visited few schools and talked to few teachers or parents. Nor does she give much space to the perspective of the Gates Foundation itself. As a result, her conclusions carry less weight than they otherwise might.
The same is true when it comes to the foundation's work in public health. As McGoey briefly acknowledges, the foundation's investment of more than $15 billion in this field "has done considerable good." That seems an understatement. Thanks in part to the Gateses' strong investment in vaccines for infectious diseases, deaths from measles in Africa have dropped by 90 percent since 2000. Over the last quarter century, tuberculosis mortality worldwide has fallen by 45 percent, while over the last dozen years the number of new malaria cases has dropped by 30 percent. And polio, which in 1988 was endemic in 125 countries, is today endemic in only two. The foundation has also played an important part in fighting the spread of HIV and helping those infected with the virus to lead productive lives. For this, Bill and Melinda Gates deserve much credit.
The question is, has this been the best use of their money? As McGoey notes, chronic diseases, as opposed to communicable ones, exact a staggering toll worldwide, yet the foundation has invested less than 4 percent of its funding in research on them, and the global health community has largely followed suit. "The failure to combat obesity, cancer and heart disease epidemics in poor nations," she observes, "has been one of the most glaring mistakes of global development efforts in recent years." An equally serious shortcoming has been the neglect of primary-care facilities in the developing world. The initial problems that the nations of West Africa faced in combating the Ebola outbreak stemmed in part from the weaknesses in their overall health systems. Interestingly, in late September, the Gates Foundation, together with WHO and the World Bank, announced a joint partnership aimed at improving access to primary care in poor and middle-income countries — a dramatic (if tacit) acknowledgement that the emphasis on fighting individual diseases has been too narrow.
I wish No Such Thing as a Free Gift had delved more deeply into this. The book offers few comments from practitioners on the ground in the developing world and scant firsthand information about the needs of villages and their populations. McGoey spends much more time discussing whether the Gates Foundation is protecting the patents of pharmaceutical companies and whether it is making common cause with Monsanto to spread genetically modified crops in Africa — popular concerns on the left — than exploring the critical matter of the possible distortions that the foundation, through its tremendous influence, has introduced into global health policies.
On one point, however, McGoey is convincing — the need for more analysis of this powerful foundation and the man and woman at its head. Bill and Melinda Gates answer to no electorate, board, or shareholders; they are accountable mainly to themselves. What's more, the many millions of dollars the foundation has bestowed on nonprofits and news organizations has led to a natural reluctance on their part to criticize it. There's even a name for it: the "Bill Chill" effect.
That's not to say that there has been no critical coverage of the foundation's work. Diane Ravitch has excoriated Gates along with the rest of the school reform movement in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, as well as on her blog. The New York Times and other papers have offered occasional close examinations of Gates' work. And Joanne Barkan, in a 2011 article in Dissent titled, "Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools," offered a thoroughgoing critique of the education work of Gates and its fellow foundations. In another Dissent article on "how big philanthropy undermines democracy," Barkan complained that "the mainstream media are, for the most part, failing miserably in their watchdog duties. They give big philanthropy excessive deference and little scrutiny."
That may be changing. Alessandra Stanley, writing in the Times in late October, offered a skeptical assessment of the outsized claims made by Sean Parker and other Silicon Valley philanthropists. "Tech entrepreneurs believe their charitable giving is bolder, bigger and more data-driven than anywhere else — and in many ways it is," she observed. "But despite their flair for disruption, these philanthropists are no more interested in radical change than their more conservative predecessors. They don't lobby for the redistribution of wealth; instead, they see poverty and inequality as an engineering problem, and the solution is their own brain power, not a tithe."
Dale Russakoff, in The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools?, described the dysfunction that resulted from the $100 million contribution that Mark Zuckerberg made to the city of Newark in a bid to remake its schools and create a national model. Spending time with politicians, administrators, teachers, and parents, Russakoff showed how the "reformers" — convinced that they knew what was right for Newark — largely excluded teachers and parents from the policymaking process. That sparked strong grassroots opposition, and in the end little headway was made. Sobered by the experience, Zuckerberg and his wife last year announced $120 million in grants to schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area, with the express intention of getting more input from teachers and community leaders.
We need more probing accounts of this sort. The power of the new barons of philanthropy is only going to grow. The risks they take and the bets they make will no doubt become bolder. If journalists don't hold them accountable, who will?


KAMPALA, UGANDA An American woman who was kidnapped with her driver at Uganda's most popular wildlife park by gunmen had failed to take an armed ranger as required by the park's regulations, a spokesman for the country's wildlife authority said Thursday.
We have armed ranger guides, if you're going out on a drive in the park you're supposed to have one, but these tourists went out on their own without a guard, Bashir Hangi, spokesman for the state-run Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), told Reuters.
From their camp in the park, they just got into a vehicle and went out. They should have notified us and informed us that they're going out for a game drive and then we would have availed them a guard but they didn't do this, he said.