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Sea Turtles Can Save Themselves If We Clean Up Our Act
By Nathan J. Robinson, Ph.D Sea turtles have been swimming in our oceans ever since the time of the dinosaurs, enduring meteor collisions, ice ages, and the shifting of the continents. Yet human activity has recently brought many sea turtle populations to the brink of extinction. Even the largest of the sea turtles – the leatherback...
By Nathan J. Robinson, Ph.D
Sea turtles have been swimming in our oceans ever since the time of the dinosaurs, enduring meteor collisions, ice ages, and the shifting of the continents. Yet human activity has recently brought many sea turtle populations to the brink of extinction. Even the largest of the sea turtles – the leatherback turtle, a prehistoric giant that can grow to over 2 meters in length – is rapidly vanishing from the East Pacific Ocean. This population has now declined by more than 98% in the past 25 years. In the hope of seeing populations recover, countless conservationists and volunteers work tirelessly day and night. But lest we forget, these people do not work alone, sea turtles themselves are also working hard in this struggle.
All sea turtles start their lives as small hatchlings, just a few centimetres long. Life is perilous for a hatchling; they are prey for a staggering array of birds and fish. Only those with enough luck and persistence will survive long enough for their bodies to develop, their carapace (shell) to toughen, and flippers to grow. It is estimated that only 1 in every 1,000 hatchlings will survive the 20 to 30 years it takes for a hatchling to reach adulthood. In contrast to their earlier years, adult sea turtles are armoured and rugged. While they will now only be preyed upon by killer whales and the largest of sharks, this does not mean that the sea turtles' struggle for survival is over.
With adulthood comes the desire to reproduce and to do this sea turtles swim back to beaches near to where they were born. These migrations can extend over 10,000 km and are some of the longest in the animal kingdom. Sea turtles undertake these epic migrations to ensure that they nest on sandy tropical beaches where the conditions are just right for incubating their eggs. The energy stores required to both migrate such long distances and nest successfully are so great that sea turtles generally need between 2 to 7 years to build up enough of their energy stores for a single nesting season.
Once they make their arduous journey, a female turtle will lay hundreds of eggs in a single nesting season. Under suitable conditions, sea turtles can continue to do this for at least 40 years after reaching sexual maturity. In fact, we do not know how old sea turtles can get in the wild, because we simply have not been researching them long enough to answer this question. Furthermore, sea turtles continue to grow even after reaching sexual maturity and as they do they are able to lay more eggs than their younger counterparts. Sea turtles, like some freshwater turtles, might even exhibit negligible senescence. In other words, sea turtles don't appear to age like us; instead, they just get bigger and better over time.
The huge investment of time and energy that sea turtles dedicate to reproduction is a testament to their innate drive for survival. Indeed, for sea turtle population to thrive each adult must produce enough hatchlings over the duration of their adult lives to ensure that, against terrible odds, at least some offspring will survive long enough to become adults themselves. While this strategy has worked for millions of years, humans are now tipping the balance.
Each year countless sea turtles are incidentally caught and killed by fisheries that are hunting for commercial species, such as tuna or swordfish. If they're not caught by fisheries, they choke on or die after ingesting plastic bags and other plastic waste that makes its way from our homes to our oceans. And when adult sea turtles do come back to nest, they find that the once quiet, dark nesting beaches where they hatched are now lit up by hotels, restaurants, and houses.
It is our responsibility to fix these issues, be it by fishing in a smarter and less wasteful manner, reducing sound and light pollution on nesting beaches, or reducing our use of disposable plastics. This is our part in ensuring the recovery of sea turtle populations worldwide. The turtles will do the rest.
Credit: N.J. Robinson 2014
Nathan J. Robinson, Ph.D, is Field Director of The Leatherback Trust. His research focuses on investigating how large marine species, such as sea turtles, respond to oceanographic processes. He is also interested in applying novel technologies to uncover the secrets of marine megafauna and develop effective conservation management strategies. Nathan holds a Ph.D in Biology from Purdue University, USA, and a Masters in Marine Biology from Southampton University, UK.
The Leatherback Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the leatherback sea turtle. Our mission is to promote the conservation of leatherbacks and other turtles at risk of extinction.
Eastern Pacific leatherback turtles are critically endangered. This population of sea turtles has declined by more than 98% since 1990. We are working to reverse this trend by tackling the 5 most deadly threats to leatherbacks and other sea turtles around the world. Our scientists conduct research at nesting beaches and at sea, collecting critical data to support conservation interventions. We partner with communities to protect nesting beaches and work with governments to inform sustainable development and fisheries management priorities.
The Leatherback Trust
The Leatherback Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the leatherback sea turtle. Our mission is to promote the conservation of leatherbacks and other turtles at risk of extinction. Eastern Pacific leatherback turtles are critically endangered. This population of sea turtles has declined by more than 98% since 1990. We are working to reverse this trend by tackling the 5 most deadly threats to leatherbacks and other sea turtles around the world. Our scientists conduct research at nesting beaches and at sea, collecting critical data to support conservation interventions. We partner with communities to protect nesting beaches and work with governments to inform sustainable development and fisheries management priorities.


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Moody's cuts Ghana's sovereign rating
in Business, Local Economy, Top Stories
Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Ghana's sovereign rating to B2 from B1, citing the country's rising debt burden and deteriorating debt affordability.
The key drivers of today's rating action are the following:
1) Ghana's deteriorating fiscal strength, as reflected in the rising debt level and worsening debt affordability amid persistently high fiscal deficits.
2) The increase in Ghana's vulnerability to shocks given its large debt-refinancing needs and wide external imbalances
Concurrently, Moody's has changed the foreign-currency bond ceiling to Ba3 from Ba2 and the foreign-currency deposit ceiling to B3 from B2. The local currency bond and deposit country ceilings remain unchanged at Ba2.
RATINGS RATIONALE
The primary driver of Moody's decision to downgrade Ghana's sovereign rating to B2 is the country's high and rising debt burden and deteriorating debt affordability. The rating agency expects public debt to exceed 65% of GDP by the end of 2015 from 55.7% in 2013, mirrored by rising interest expenses relative to government revenues.
Persistently high fiscal deficits are the main cause of the increasing debt ratio. Moreover, Moody's anticipates that any fiscal consolidation from double-digit deficits will be slow over the forecast horizon in view of rising interest payments, the clearance of arrears, and the elections scheduled for 2016 (i.e., expenditure and the electoral cycle are highly correlated). These factors counteract the revenue-enhancing measures introduced by the government in 2013 and constrain the effectiveness of the government's efforts to reduce the wage bill as a percentage of tax revenues to 35% by 2017 from above 50% at present.
Similarly, interest payments have increased significantly over the past year to 23% of revenues in 2013 from 14% in 2012, which places Ghana in the 95th percentile among all rated sovereigns by Moody's on this metric of fiscal stress. Interest payments have continued to rise during the first quarter of 2014, reflecting the high rates on domestic debt. Domestic debt accounted for slightly less than 50% of total public debt at the end of the first quarter of 2014, about one third of which is of short maturity.
The second driver behind the downgrade is Ghana's increased susceptibility to event risk, particularly liquidity risk in light of the government's large debt financing needs. At the same time, the double-digit current account deficit, only part of which is financed by net foreign direct investment inflows, leaves Ghana vulnerable to a sudden stop in international capital flows. The strong pressure on the Ghanaian cedi from the weak overall balance of payments position, and from above target inflation at 14.8% as of May 2014, is mirrored by a declining stock of international reserves to low levels. Gross international reserves at the central bank at the end of the first quarter of 2014 represented 2.7 months of import cover.
At the same time, the Central Bank of Ghana has monetized the fiscal deficit in the first quarter of 2014 — a period when revenues are seasonally weak — resulting in a higher exposure than the full-year equivalent in 2012 or in 2013. In view of falling foreign investor engagement in domestic debt since September 2013 through March 2014, and an already high government exposure of the domestic banking system, Moody's notes an increased risk of domestic funding pressures once the central bank scales back its funding activities over the remainder of the year. Fiscal monetization is also likely to exacerbate inflationary pressures.
Moody's views the expected completion of the Jubilee field gas pipeline infrastructure over the coming months as a mitigating factor to the extent that domestic gas production allows for import substitution and contributes to strengthening Ghana's energy capacity over the medium term. This should sustain the economy's competitiveness and growth potential, and reduce the import bill and associated current account exposure. Similarly, in its central case, Moody's also expects oil production to reach full capacity over the next few years, royalties from which would further support the government's relatively low revenue share as a proportion of GDP as compared to peers.
RATIONALE FOR MAINTAINING THE NEGATIVE OUTLOOK
The negative outlook reflects the risk of (1) sustained fiscal imbalances over the medium term to result in a greater than anticipated deterioration in debt metrics; (2) a continuing buy accutane 20mg online decline in foreign-exchange reserves that increases Ghana's vulnerability to external shocks; as well as (3) tight domestic and external funding conditions that exacerbate the government's funding challenges.
WHAT COULD CHANGE THE RATINGS UP/DOWN
Downward pressure on the rating could arise from factors that include (1) continued delays in fiscal consolidation; (2) a sustained decline in oil, gold or cocoa prices that would put downward pressure on fiscal revenues and export receipts; (3) diminished access to foreign investment or portfolio capital or loss of market access; (4) continued pressure on the balance of payments and on international reserves.
A return to a stable outlook on Ghana's sovereign rating could occur as a result of: (1) accelerated and sustained fiscal consolidation that would gradually reduce the government's debt burden over the medium term; (2) a strengthening of FDI inflows as a source of funding for the country's large infrastructure investment needs; (3) a substantial bolstering of Ghana's foreign-exchange and/or fiscal reserves that would reduce the country's vulnerability to domestic or external shocks. An external financial assistance program, such as an IMF program, would also be supportive of creditworthiness.
GDP per capita (PPP basis, US$): 3,461 (2013 Actual) (also known as Per Capita Income)
Real GDP growth (% change): 7.1% (2013 Actual) (also known as GDP Growth)
Inflation Rate (CPI, % change Dec/Dec): 15.3% (2013 Actual)
Gen. Gov. Financial Balance/GDP: -10.1% (2013 Actual) (also known as Fiscal Balance)
Current Account Balance/GDP: -11.9% (2013 Actual) (also known as External Balance)
External debt/GDP: 30.3% (2013 Forecast)
Level of economic development: Moderate level of economic resilience
Default history: At least one default event (on bonds and/or loans) has been recorded since 1983.
On 25 June 2014, a rating committee was called to discuss the rating of the Ghana, Government of. The main points raised during the discussion were: The issuer's governance and/or management, have materially decreased. The issuer's fiscal or financial strength, including its debt profile, has materially decreased. The issuer has become increasingly susceptible to event risks.
The principal methodology used in this rating was Sovereign Bond Ratings published in September 2013. Please see the Credit Policy page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.
The weighting of all rating factors is described in the methodology used in this rating action, if applicable.
For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series or category/class of debt or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.
For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.
Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.
Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.
Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.
Source: Moody's Investors Service
SADA to construct 40-megawatts solar plant at Tamale

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In 2009 I was on a commuter flight from North Carolina to Florida. As we were preparing for take-off, the pilot speaking in a charming southern drawl, informed the passengers of our flying conditions. There would be, he stated, ". . . a few bumps on the climb-out." Nobody seemed to notice this declaration but me. I do not like turbulence and this was certainly a benign way of preparing us for the stormy flight conditions we were about to experience.
We are born into this human experience unwittingly acquiescing to whatever the karmic weather conditions might be. The journey of cause and effect is neither good nor bad. It is a sometimes baffling combination of positive movement in our lives as well as frustrating challenges. Accepting this undisclosed karmic agenda can be hard. We resent our circumstances; blame our parents or other authority figure, feel sad and hopeless, or any other form of subconscious resistance. I know these resistances first hand and yet, still often find myself either resenting or feeling sad about the most challenging hardships that I have faced my whole life. That is how I know it is karmic. Same issue, different circumstances. It follows me everywhere I go, forcing me to deal with it over and over again. I surmount it, become free, only to have life hand me another episode in a new form.
We all suffer these karmic 'bumps' that knock us about on 'the climb-out' to awakening. It is easy to see the patterns in others, but mine, although unchanging in their essence, still disrupt my serenity like mischievous elves determined to trip me up. Invariably, when I finally rise up above my personal turbulence, there is a sense of regret that I once again fell for the trickery of the mind. How could I not see this so clearly?
What, then, is the answer to this unconscious habit of falling prey to our core patterns time and again? I can almost hear a telepathic cacophony of light workers chiming in with a myriad array of solutions. Clearly there isn't one singular answer to this inquiry, but there is a one-size-fits-all remedy: surrender. We can all relate to the need to let go of control and hand our challenge, desire, fear, etc. over to a higher power.
Most people think, however, that this letting go process is a sign of failure, defeat, or powerlessness. It is not. To walk the high road of consciousness, we need to walk in harmony with Source. Along the way life's turbulence can throw us off balance. One of my first experiences of a California earthquake left me feeling dizzy and ungrounded. The seemingly solid earth shook my heavy platform bed with a roar that sounded like a freight train charging through my bedroom. There wasn't an advance warning. I had no choice but to ride that uncomfortable earth-wave for its' short, but terrifying duration.


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Position Papers Take a Stand on Adding to the Preserves and Racial Equity
In the first 20 years of our more than 100-year history, the Forest Preserves of Cook County acquired almost half of the nearly 70,000 acres that we hold today. Although the Forest Preserves has added land in every decade since, the pace of growth has slowed due the loss of ecologically significant land to development and the rising cost of acquiring real estate as Cook County's population has grown.
However, the critical need to continue to find ways to preserve open land in a natural state for our region—to provide more habitat for native plants and animals, help mitigate the effects of climate change and address inequitable distribution of preserves throughout the county—remains.
That's the case made by a new position paper, "Acquisition and Disposition of Land by the Forest Preserves of Cook County," which was approved by the Forest Preserves Board of Commissioners at their October board meeting. The paper is the second of four to be released by our Conservation and Policy Council, each a relatively short document setting out long-term guidance for the future of the Forest Preserves.
The Forest Preserves' Next Century Conservation Plan calls for the Forest Preserves to add an additional 21,000 acres over 25 years, an aspirational goal that the Council indicates is important enough to "expand existing strategies, including taking a lead role in identifying opportunities for collaborative land conservation." The paper's recommendations include finding creative new ways to continue to buy more land and begin exploring land conservation models beyond ownership.
The paper also recommends that the Forest Preserves put a moratorium on selling or using the Preserves' land for purposes that do not meet our mission until principles have been established that makes this loss of natural space "possibly solely in rare and extreme instances," and calls for more emphasis on equity in the land acquisition prioritization process.
"Acquisition and Disposition of Land" follows "Moving Toward Racial Equity in the Forest Preserves of Cook County," which was adopted by the Board of Commissioners in July and begins with a clear acknowledgement that the Forest Preserves exists within a pervasive culture of structural racism that has produced deep inequities.
"The Forest Preserves should work with the Conservation and Policy Council and other partners to ensure that voices from communities that are impacted by racial inequity are incorporated throughout the planning and decision-making process, and by applying a racial equity lens to major policy and budget decisions," the paper states. Other recommendations include ensuring an equitable distribution across the county of access to nature-related recreation opportunities and building a staff that is diverse and promotes racial equity.
Still to come are position papers on nature-compatible recreation and scaling up the Forest Preserves' volunteer programs.
Read more about each approved paper:
Moving Towards Racial Equity in the Forest Preserves of Cook County (PDF) – Adopted July 2020
Acquisition and Disposition of Land by the Forest Preserves of Cook County (PDF) – Adopted October 2020
Tags: Next Century Conservation Plan
Originally posted: November 10, 2020
Sign up for the Forest Way and receive the latest Forest Preserves news, events and volunteer opportunities each month. View past newsletters.


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Transcript for Episode 13.49
Writing Excuses 13.49: How to Finish
From https://writingexcuses.com/2018/12/09/13-49-how-to-finish/
Key points: When is a character arc over? When is a character finished? Try the MICE quotient! Character arc begins with dissatisfaction with self, and ends when self-definition solidifies. This is who I am. When the circle closes. Motivations or goal, and resolution. What about the literary idea of not resolving the loop? Very dangerous. Happy versus unhappy endings? Tragic endings are easy, just let everything get worse, and don't solve the problems. Happy endings are harder, because after making things worse, you have to solve all the problems. Consider unsatisfying and satisfying, crossed with happy and unhappy. Characters may get what they want, but have to sacrifice something they didn't expect. Watch out for mean endings!
[Dan] Hi, this is Dan. Before we start today's podcast, I wanted to let you know about my new book, Zero G. This is an audio exclusive, for the first year at least. It's a middle grade science fiction that is basically Home Alone in space. Big colony ship is headed to another star, everyone's in hyper-sleep. 12-year-old boy wakes up and has to save the ship from pirates. It's awesome, and you will love it. Look it up on Audible. Now we'll get into our episode.
[Mary] Season 13, Episode 49.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, How to Finish.
[Mary] 15 minutes…
[Amal] Because you're in a hurry.
[Maurice] And we're not that smart.
[Mary] I'm Mar…
[Amal] What? Who are you?
[Brandon] She's not finishing.
[Amal] Oh!
[Brandon] She hasn't learned it yet, because she hasn't listened to the podcast.
[Mary] I know, that's exactly right. And who are you?
[Amal] I'm… Amal.
[Maurice] I'm Maurice.
[Amal] I was going to try and do the same joke, but it wasn't going to work. I'm… Am…
[Mary] Right. No, you're right, that doesn't work.
[Brandon] So. Finishing. We're in our last month of this season, and we're going to talk about endings for characters. So, how do you know when you're done with a character arc? How do you know when a character is finished, for you?
[Maurice] Can't you just keep killing them off?
[Mary] Yeah, yeah.
[Brandon] Well, last week we did talk about plot armor and character death. So, we will have offed a lot of characters…
[Mary] By this point.
[Brandon] Already this month.
[Mary] All right. So this is the point in the season when… We've gotten through most of the season so far without me talking in great length about the MICE quotient.
[Brandon] Only little bits here and there. Yes.
[Mary] But this is one of the things that it's actually really good at. So, the MICE quotient is mostly an organizational principle, but one of the things that it's very good at is defining the frame of a story, where a story begins and ends. So a character story begins when a character is dissatisfied with an aspect of self, and it ends when that aspect solidifies. When their self-definition solidifies. That can either solidify with them being happy or it can solidify with them being dissatisfied. So in a previous episode, I talked about how you can have something that ends in a positive or a negative state. So, for me, the thing that helps me identify when the character story has ended is when I have gotten them to a point in this overarching plot arc where they come to a place where it's like, "Okay, this is who I am." That is generally, for me, when a character story is over. This is who I am, and that they are not… No longer attempting to change who they are.
[Amal] I think, for me, I tend to… And again, this comes out of the fact that I write short stories. I feel like a character story has ended when I've closed a circle. Again, because I write short stories, I find that I tend to approach stories more from an idea of structure than an idea of character. These things are obviously related all the time, but in terms of just where the story is going, when it's going to stop, usually there's some kind of circle closing. By closing, it doesn't have to like close neatly. It can be a spiral, it can be… It can be a circle with a line leading out of it. But I usually want there to be some… The change that you talk about where… That shift of character. Usually I want to see that manifest in recalling what the initial state was, and making that change evident. So when there's a spot where you see that, that's usually the endpoint for me.
[Brandon] You say that as a short story thing. That's what I do with novels.
[Amal] Aw. Excellent.
[Brandon] Even 450,000 word ones. That's what I am looking for, is that circle sort of close. Bringing it back to what the character desired, why they couldn't have it, and at the end, either deciding that they don't want it or being okay that they don't have it or obtaining it. Those are all three valid choices for closing that circle to me.
[Maurice] Right. That's what I was going to say, is that it comes back to your original character's motivations, their goal, what were they trying to accomplish, and then resolving that. That resolution can take a number of different forms. But the key for me is always like… Again, like you say, to close that loop, because something has to happen with that goal, that's the whole point of the story.
[Brandon] So, once in a while, do you just not close this loop? Is it ever… Do you just like, "I'm not going to give this character a resolution?" It's a very, very literary, modernist literary idea to just not even have a loop. Have you ever done that?
[Amal] Yes, sort of. Except that… This is my… The novel that I am very, very slowly writing on… Writing on? Writing. Writing on? It's actually a continuation of a short story that I wrote years ago that… My first Nebula nomination was for a story called The Green Book. That was… We talked about unreliable narrators last time. That was a story where most of it is taking place as a dialogue between a consciousness trapped in a book and someone who's writing in that book. But the story in the short story is framed by the fact that this is not the actual book, this is a copy of the text that appeared in that book, and this is only pieces of it that were found. So somewhere in the world, there does in fact exist this consciousness trapped in a book, but you're not seeing that, you're seeing someone's transcription of what happened. There's like several layers of this frame. So the topmost layer is the, like, a publisher's [caliphon?] almost. It's in an archive, it's describing the material. The next level is the person who was transcribing is writing a letter trying to give this transcription to someone else. Then you have the actual core of the story, which is the text that's in the book. That text ends in a way that refers back to the frame, but doesn't actually close the circle. It leaves something very open-ended which I want to explore in the novel. So… But in terms of the character beats, I think that it stops at the right place. It stops at a place where the person trans… This is going to be so convoluted to listen to, but basically, the guy transcribing it suddenly goes from being secure to being in a place of threat. That is the spot I ended on.
[Brandon] This is really dangerous, I think, kind of ending without closing that loop. I remember once watching a kind of a Hollywood director talking about the good ending and the bad… Or the market friendly ending and the nonmarket ending… Friendly ending to a movie. I was surprised that the market friendly ending had the character dying. I'm like, "That's not what I would assume." But as they talked about it, I realized that the character dying was them fulfilling… Like, they were dying in a heroic way, fulfilling their arc, and the other one, they just kind of walked off and didn't fulfill their arc. Really, it's not the life/death thing. It is that closing the loop or not, being market friendly or not. Once in a while, you could really be dangerous and be like, "I'm just stopping this character because they died halfway through." But boy, is that dangerous, because it's that whole broken promise thing.
[Maurice] Well, the thing I would… When you say that, the thing that always comes to mind for me is the show Lost.
[Groan]
[Maurice] See, there we go. Because… I've thought both ways about that ending. Like, does that ending work? No. Yes. Wait, no it doesn't. The part that doesn't work for me is that in closing their loop… Well, they don't close the loop in some ways because like I have all these unanswered questions, and you're done.
[Amal] What about the polar bear?
[Maurice] But, what they… What I did pick up was like the loop they did close was the emotional arc of the characters. So they did that. That part of it, if that's what people were invested in, if they were invested in the journey of those characters, that was closed for them, and they were pleased with the ending.
[Brandon] See, I thought you were going to go to the place… Lost also has this thing where several of the characters exited like second season. So they just killed them off or left their arcs half done. It was so frustrating to me as a watcher. They couldn't really do anything, because the actors were like, "We're leaving." But that happens in shows, too often.
[Mary] So I think one of the things that will happen to writers is that we… A lot of times we will pick up storytelling techniques from film or television that don't necessarily work in our medium, or that are an artifact of the medium that… Of television, like this character left. So now we just are ignoring them and moving on as if they never existed.
[Mary] One of the things that I was thinking about when Maurice was talking about promises and things like that, was letting the reader kind of know what the design state of the story is. I have a novella, A Forest of Memory, which is from tor.com. At the end of it, there's a ton of questions that I don't answer, and my character doesn't know the answer to them. Making it clear to readers that that was a designed state, that you were not going to get the answers, and that my character was going to be left with all of these questions and not… That this was going to be unresolved. Making that clear to readers before we got to that point without making it obvious that that's where we were going was a really tricky thing to do. It involved a certain amount of hanging flags on it, like, "I didn't… I will never know the answer to this." But it also involved doing some thematic miniature versions of that earlier in the story, where something… Like, "He asked for a dictionary," and she never finds out why. So it's stuff like that, making sure that I'm doing kind of miniature thematic versions of it so that you understand that this is the kind of ride that you're on, that there's just gonna be things that my character never gets resolved.
[Brandon] Let's go ahead and stop for our book of the week, which is kind of interesting because we're not sure if it's out yet.
[Amal] Will we close the circle or not? It is called… The working title is called This Is How You Lose the Time War. This is the co-written novella between… That Max Gladstone and I wrote together that I've mentioned a few times over the course of this season. It was amazing fun to write. It's an epistolary spy-versus-spy novella across time and space. So there is a time war. It is a time war between two possible realities. They are both very unstable, like in the… They're both very unstable. In order to try and make sure that they become a stable reality, they have to go, as they say, up thread, up the braid of time and space with agents that they send from their respective sides to try and bump history into the correct grooves.
[Brandon] That sounds awesome.
[Amal] It is so much fun. The thing is that they… It sounds huge and epic, and it is, but it's also letter is being written back and forth between two agents, Red and Blue, each one representing one side of the time war, that starts out as this snarky gotcha correspondence as they foil each other's plans, and that then grows into something more and dangerous… Very dangerous to both of them. So, it is… I am literally just about one week from knowing who is publishing it and when.
[Brandon] Hopefully, we'll have that all in the liner notes.
[Amal] Yeah. Exactly. But at the moment, it does exist in this inchoate unclosed circle space. But it is so… I love this story so much. I especially love the way Max and I wrote it, which was over the period of roughly 2 weeks at a writing retreat, where we literally sat across from each other in a gazebo and just swapped laptops back and forth to see what we were doing. The great thing about this was that Max writes roughly 4 times as fast as I do. Which made it really awkward at first, as one of us would write the letter and the other person would write the situation in which the letter was being received. Max would be done and basically have to twiddle his thumbs while I agonized and wrote stuff. But as we went on, he slowed down and I sped up. So that by the time we hit the second act, we were just… It was like a dance. It was choreography. We were swapping laptops, going, "Oh, my God, that's amazing," swapping them back, and continuing. I love that. We have very different voices, and that plays into the two very different characters.
[Brandon] Sounds super, super cool. I'm very excited to read it.
[Amal] Thank you.
[Brandon] Let's go ahead and talk briefly about happy endings versus unhappy endings for characters. Have you ever done an unhappy ending? What do you consider an unhappy ending?
[Mary] Yup.
[Mary] Yes, I have. In fact, it's the story that I talked about last week. Which is The Worshipful Society of Glovers on Uncanny. That has an unhappy ending. It's an interesting thing to pull off, because my character actually achieves his goal, and then realizes that his goal is a terrible… Achieving his goal was a terrible idea. The… Like, I tend to prefer a happy ending. Happy endings are… I just said it's a tricky thing to pull off. But actually, I find that happy endings are much easier to write… Excuse me, much harder to write than tragic endings. Tragic endings, you just make things continue to get worse, and then they don't have to solve it. But in a happy ending, you're making things continually worse, and then they have to solve all of the problems. That's not easy. Like, it's really not easy.
[Maurice] I'm… Despite coming up as a horror writer, I'm as… I love happy endings.
[Maurice] So I tend to write happy endings. Especially for my novel length works. I think part of my mentality is like, well, if the reader's invested this much time…
[Yes!]
[Maurice] I don't want to like pull the rug out from under them in the end. Now, in a short story, on the other hand, you never know what you're going to get. I notice in my short story collection, except for the first story, all those stories have horrible endings. I mean, you… I mean, I'm amazed when people make it through to the end. I mean, like go through the whole collection, and get past the first third, it gets happier. Because, and part of it is this, in a short story, because there's that lesser investment, I feel more open…
[Brandon] The mitts are off.
[Maurice] Yeah. Exactly.
[Mary] I also think that in a short story that readers are more willing to let you imply things, so you don't actually have to hit the this is a tragic ending or a happy ending as hard and you don't have to spend as much time in it. You can kind of get to it, and the reader can go, "Oh, I see. I see how bad this is going to be." In a novel, you have to get to it and be like, "Now we're going to dwell in this badness for a little while."
[Brandon] There is a difference between unhappy and unsatisfying.
[Brandon] You can be satisfying happy and unsatisfying happy. There is that, and there's also this idea that you, particularly in a novel, can be bittersweet. Than in a short story. That's what you'll often do, is parts of it are happy, parts of it are sad. The characters got what they wanted, but they sacrificed something they didn't expect that they'd have to sacrifice or something like this. So you have the… There's an entire spectrum here between happy and unhappy and satisfying and unsatisfying which are…
[Maurice] There's times when it's just mean, though. My go to example for that is actually Stephen King's The Mist. The movie version. Because in the original novella, it's kind of an open ending. You don't know… Actually, your protagonist, they've gone through this harrowing experience, then they escape, and they're like, "Then we're just going to drive off into the mist," and we don't know what's going to happen. The movie decides they're going to answer what happens to them. After you spent an hour and a half, almost 2 hours with these characters, in their struggle, watching them fight for this and this, and they finally make it out, and they're driving through the mist. They do have that part where they drive off into the mist, and I… At that moment, I start packing up my stuff. I'm like, "Well, this is where the story ends." Then the camera is still going and I'm like, "Well, what are they doing?" Then this horrific thing happens where it's like and now everything you just cared about is now moot.
[Brandon] Don't they just kick you when you're down on that one, too? Because then they show someone else who just got out by just wandering off into the mist?
[Maurice] Right, right!
[Brandon] And they're fine. Oh, man, that is a mean ending.
[Maurice] I said, it wasn't an unhappy ending. That was a mean ending.
[Brandon] Speaking of endings…
[Gasp. No!]
[Brandon] We really want to thank our guest hosts this year. We want to thank Amal and Maurice. You guys have been awesome and wonderful.
[Amal] You guys have been awesome and wonderful.
[Brandon] Do either of you or both of you have a writing prompt to end the season on? That you can give these aspiring writers that are listening?
[Amal] I kept trying to think about this. All right. You're about to cut into a cake and it speaks.
[Brandon] Whoohoohoo.
[Mary] Merry Christmas.
[Mary] Happy New Year.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You guys are out of excuses, now go write.
Previous Post13.48Next Post13.50


Here comes the most awaited feature with the release of 12.1.0.2 patchset – Database In-Memory. In this post we will first dwell upon the internals of this feature and then enable this feature in our test environment to benchmark the performance gain. This article assumes that the reader is well aware of the Oracle 11g Memory architecture, if not please go through Oracle 11g Memory Architecture & Oracle 11g Process Architecture.
To understand Database In-Memory feature and its benefits we first need to understand the unique "dual format" architecture that enables Oracle Database tables to be simultaneously represented on disk and in memory, using a traditional row format and a new in-memory column format.
Row Format – As we all know Oracle has traditionally stored data in row format where each new record is represented as a new row in a table having multiple columns with each column representing a different attribute about that record. This format is ideal for OLTP env. as it allows quick access to all the columns in a record since all the columns of the record are kept intact in-memory and on-storage.
Column Format – A column format database stores each of the attributes of a record in a separate column-structure. So obviously this is good for an OLAP env, as it allows faster data retrieval when a large portion of data is selected but only for a few columns.
So a row format is ideal for processing DMLs (Insert, Update, Delete) and a column format for a SELECT (Large portion but for a few columns), so up until now if you choose only one of the option and thus have to experience the cons of the format. Now with Oracle 12.1.0.2 comes, Oracle Database In-Memory feature which enables data to be simultaneously populated in memory in both a row format (in the buffer cache) and a new in-memory column format. The Oracle Database query optimizer is fully aware of the column format and thus it automatically routes analytic queries to the column format and OLTP operations to the row format, ensuring outstanding performance and complete data consistency for all workloads without any application changes.
Oracle Database In-Memory uses an In-Memory column store (IM Column Store), which is a new component of SGA known as In-Memory Area, data in the IM column store does not reside in the traditional row-format but in columnar format. In-Memory area is a static pool (Static Parameter) within the SGA, whose size is controlled by the initialization parameter INMEMORY_SIZE (default 0).
Now that we know the basic theory of the dual-architecture and the database In-Memory feature, its component and the processes involved, let's go ahead and test the feature.
Now let's enable the IM Column Store by setting inmemory_size parameter to a non-default value and then re-start the DB as it is a static parameter.
So we have enabled the In-Memory database Feature for our database, (If you are using AMM (MEMORY_TARGET) or ASMM (SGA_TARGET), you will need to extend this to account for the INMEMORY_SIZE parameter value) Now time to USE this feature to see how it effects the performance on analytical queries.
The In-Memory feature can be applied on a tablespace, table, partition, sub-partition or materialized view, however there are a few exceptions like any objects owned by SYS, SYSTEM or SYSAUX, IOTs, Clustered Tables cannot be populated in the IM column store for obvious reasons.
Let us check a few things before moving a table in memory.
As you can see above (By querying v$inmemory_area) In-Memory area is divided in two pools: 1MB pool & 64 KB pool. 1MB pool is used to store the actual column formatted data populated into memory whereas 64KB pool is used to store metadata about the objects that are populated in the IM Column Store.
As you can see from the above explain plan (TABLE ACCESS INMEMORY FULL), table was accessed but in memory.
Similarly we can remove the table inmemory, alter table to move certain columns in memory, alter tablespace in memory etc according to the application requirement. Thus Oracle has bestowed us with the power of using INMEMORY feature but at the end of the day it depends on the DBA & Developer on how to use it else even INMEMORY column store can drastically affect performance just as a wrong INDEX does.
That's all for today, I'll write another post to cover the benchmarking part and would further explore Database In-Memory feature, till then you could yourself create your 12c test lab on a VM with OEL 7 with my 63 Steps to build you own 12c lab article.


text:
import http from 'http';
import https from 'https';

/**
 * ServerFactory provides new instances for http.Server or the
 * framework's own wrapper.
 *
 * Powerstone wraps these in its own wrapper to provide a maintainable api.
 */
class ServerFactory {

    /**
     * createNativeWebServer creates and returns a http.Server
     * @param {express.Application} app
     * @returns {*}
     */
    createNativeWebServer(app) {
        return http.createServer(app);
    }

    /**
     * createSecureNativeWebServer creates and returns a https.Server
     * @param {Object} options
     * @param {express.Application} app
     * @returns {*}
     */
    createSecureNativeWebServer(options, app) {
        return https.createServer(options, app);
    }

    createWebServer(app, module) {

        var options = module.configuration.read('https', null);

        if (options)
            return this.createSecureNativeWebServer(options, app);

        return this.createNativeWebServer(app);
    }

}

export default new ServerFactory();

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Australia, a nation forged by sand
Last Updated on May 9, 2022 by Larissa
Australia is often thought of as a laid-back nation whose relaxed citizens seem to be on permanent vacation. Perhaps this carefree attitude is due to more than 90% of the population living within the siren call of the beach. While much of their culture has been formed by an outlook based on surf and sand, the country has also experienced dark days and challenges throughout its history.
Victoria Barracks
ANZAC Memorial Sydney
The Australian National Maritime Museum
Victoria Barracks/Army Museum of New South Wales
ANZAC Memorial
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There are several sights in Sydney that highlight the country's military legacy. A good place to start is at the Victoria Barracks, located on twenty-nine acres in the neighborhood of Paddington. Built in the 1840s by mostly convict labor, the colonnaded sandstone buildings are one of the finest historic barracks in the world.
Free tours are offered on Thursdays by the Victoria Barracks Corps of Guides, retired veterans wearing khaki Army slouch hats and blue blazers. Our guide, David, started our tour in the Guard House with a visit to the four cells that held "drunken and outrageous persons." This being an Army base with young soldiers away from home, the cells were eventually expanded into another building.
David pointed out a metal badge on his cap and explained the significance of the crown in the center of the Australian Army symbol. The current logo has a female crown (yes, male and female crowns are different) representing the reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II. He pointed out that after "Lizzie goes" the logo will be updated to show a male crown for King Charles, or perhaps King William. Loyalty to the monarchy lives on in the Australian Army.
The ANZAC Memorial is located in Hyde Park in central Sydney. The term ANZAC is a revered one. It refers to the Australia New Zealand Army Corps that fought on the shifting sands of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in World War I. It turned out to be a disaster; the soldiers were pinned to the beach and under constant enemy fire for eight months, only to be evacuated with tremendous losses.
Australians, being the positive creatures they are, view the battle as a supreme example of their soldiers' gallantry and fortitude. One Korean War veteran explained that even though Gallipoli was a major defeat, "The nation was forged by that battle, it made Australia the nation that it is today. You can't overestimate its significance."
The square, 98-foot tall Art Deco memorial is clad in pink granite quarried from nearby Bathurst. The interior's main focus is a poignant statue of a soldier, whose lifeless body lies on a sword and shield, being held aloft by three women and an infant representing mother, wife, sister and child; those who were left behind by the brutality of war. For a similarly moving experience, the Last Post Ceremony at the War Memorial in Australia's capital is one of the important places to see in Canberra.
The cruciform base of the Memorial houses a museum dedicated to Australia's military history right up to the Gulf War. In the World War II section we were drawn to the display of Warrant Officer GN Milne's diary; he was stationed at a hospital in Darwin, Australia when it was damaged by Japanese bombing raids.
The last stop on our personal military campaign of Sydney was the Australian National Maritime Museum; perfect for a nation that is defined by the sea. The exhibition combines the finest aspects of a traditional museum—glass cases chock full of memorabilia—with the hands-on features of a "Please Touch" display.
The interactive displays include one where the visitor plays the role of a submarine sonar technician trying to decipher garbled underwater sounds. The player guesses what each sound represents and is promoted (or demoted) based on their response. We kept at it for some time until we could finally tell the difference between a group of porpoises and a damaged piston rod.
At this point we had been to enough sobering military displays for one day. Fortunately the Maritime Museum also has an exhibit devoted to the nation's surfing heritage. This is the Australia that lives on in foreign perceptions of the country. While the typical Australian's outlook on life is pretty sunny, it is a nation that has witnessed dark clouds as well.
In one day we were able to witness both sides of Australia. A nation that was forged on the sands of Gallipoli was later nurtured on the sands of its beaches to create the vibrant country that it is today.
Location: Oxford Street in Paddington, a ten-minute bus ride from the center of Sydney. Buses 378, 380 and 382 stop right in front.
Web: Victoria Barracks and Army Museum of New South Wales
Location: Hyde Park South in the center of Sydney. Pretty much every city bus stops here. The nearest train station is Museum Station
Web: http://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/
Location: Darling Harbour in Sydney. Easy access from the city center by foot, bus, light rail, ferry or monorail.
Web: http://www.anmm.gov.au/site/page.cfm
This article originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
July 15, 2013 /by Michael
Tags: Military, Museums
https://www.changesinlongitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Victoria-Barracks-Sydney-cannon-wheel-625x491.jpg 491 625 Michael https://www.changesinlongitude.com//wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ChiL-logo-120px-high-July-2019.jpeg Michael2013-07-15 00:45:112022-05-09 11:42:18Australia, a nation forged by sand
Visiting Tana Toraja, a hideaway in Indonesia Free things to do in Rome, if you want to


Summer is here and that means most of us are more focused on shaving unwanted hair. Let's face it…the winter months have us all slacking a bit with our shaving routine. No judgement here, we're right there with you! Regardless, shaving can feel like a tedious task for so many of us because it seems like it's something we have to do so often in order to keep up with the look we want. Whatever area of your body you shave regularly, we've recently discovered some tips for helping your shave last longer. Music to your ears? Ours too.
This may seem opposite, but exfoliating BEFORE you shave can work wonders on your shave lasting your longer. Exfoliating the area of your body that you plan to shave helps to remove dead skin cells, dirt, oil, etc. Why is this important to your shave? When the skin's surface has dead skin cells and oil build up on the surface it prevents the razor from getting super close to the root of the hair you're looking to eliminate. NOW it makes sense, doesn't it? So when you exfoliate your skin before you shave you're able to have a much cleaner and smoother surface to shave, allowing you to get much closer to the roots so you're actually getting a much closer shave altogether.
We should start by saying that you should NEVER shave skin that's dry, you're much more likely to get cuts and nicks in your skin when doing so (not to mention you're at risk for getting an ingrown hair). Experts suggest that one of the best times to shave is at the end of your shower. When you shave after you've showered and done everything else you need to do in the shower, your skin has been given a chance to become wet and soft. Soft skin is much easier to shave and get close to. Again, you're able to get a much closer shave when your skin is wet and soft. In addition to your skin being soft, your hair is also much softer when it's wet and has been 'warmed up' in a sense in the shower.
As tempting as it may be to quickly run your razor over your skin to shave the skin, you really should apply a shave gel or cream before you get carried away. Gels and creams help to give the razor a much smoother surface (again, smoothness is the key word used here) to go over giving you a much closer shave. In addition to allowing you to get closer to the skin in a smooth manner, these products allow the hair you're looking to eliminate become softer and more nourished so the razor is able to glide over the hair and skin in a way that won't damage the skin. Plus, when your skin and hair roots are nourished they're much healthier!


text:
In Broadway's post-'Hamilton' era, some shows aim big by going small
Chris Gethard mines the tragedy -- and the dry comedy -- of depression in his one-man show, off-Broadway, "Chris Gethard: Career Suicide."
(Clay Anderson)
By Steven Zeitchik
Reporting from NEW YORK —
Broadway last year yielded one show everyone talked about, "Hamilton," and a lot of other shows people saw when they were sold out of "Hamilton."
This year has no Lin-Manuel Miranda musical guzzling up all that attention on Broadway. But with the founding-father phenom now solidly in middle life, other productions have a better chance of drawing attention.
A busy fall season is peppered with productions at once crowd-pleasing and critically liked (three-time Tony winner Jack O'Brien's revival of "The Front Page"), crowd-pleasing and critically dissed (the Irving Berlin-based throwback musical "Holiday Inn") and crowd-challenging and critically dissed (Stephen Karam's new translation of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard").
And that's all before some anticipated openings before the end of the year, musicals like "Dear Evan Hansen" (the social-media phenomenon with orchestrations by "Hamilton's" Alex Lacamoire) and "In Transit" (done a cappella and written by "Frozen's" Kristen Anderson-Lopez).
As with many recent seasons, a larger number of the shows come with celebrity names: John Goodman ("Front Page"), Diane Lane ("Cherry Orchard"), Cate Blanchett (soon to make her Broadway debut in another Chekhov work, "The Present") and Josh Groban in "Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" (if you're making a Broadway debut, best to make the title count).
Plenty of familiar names are in show titles too: Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and William Finn-James Lapine's wacky-relationship musical "Falsettos" are also among the revivals. Few, though, may hold a candle to the new work "Quietly," recently closed at the Irish Repertory Theatre, a sizzling story about two men connected by a tragic event in Troubles-era Northern Ireland
Yet not all that glitters is gold--sometimes it's just a painted-on set. With the fall theater season at its midpoint, here are four pieces — three on Broadway and one off-Broadway— breaking out of the pack. Trends are always hard to detect, but one denominator stands out: None features more than two people. At a time of great visual extravaganza on screen and occasionally on stage, these shows go bold by going small.
Denis Arndt, left, and Mary-Louis Parker in "Heisenberg."
(Joan Marcus / Boneau/Bryan-Brown / AP )
"Heisenberg." The two-hander, that venerable stage form, has been enjoying a small resurgence in recent years with work like Nick Payne's "Constellations." That kind of combustibility continues with Simon Stephens' new play.
Mary-Louise Parker is in full chatty mode — sometimes charming, sometimes unhinged — as an American abroad in London. After she meets an older man (Denis Arndt) on a London subway platform, they engage in a dance that, though it conforms to the May-December romance script sometimes and the grifter archetype another, is in fact neither. Instead it's a show about two people neither overtly lost nor found, finding each other.
In addition to two actors at the top of their game, the work from Stephens ("The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time") offers a chance to see the kind of meditation on love and loneliness too rarely done on modern Broadway. "We hold very different perspectives on experiences we imagine we're sharing, don't we?" are among Stephens' morsels. As audiences leave the Samuel Friedman Theatre fiercely debating motivations and morals, the line couldn't be more on-point.
"Chris Gethard: Career Suicide." A five-minute standup act? Maybe. A therapy session? Sure. But turning a lifetime of depression into a full-blown theater piece? Seems like a tough format for most comedians.
Most comedians, though, aren't Gethard. Movie fans may have come to the performer as the angsty member of the improv ensemble at the center of the indie hit "Don't Think Twice." But with numerous podcasts, a deliberately low-budget public-access show and his Upright Citizens Brigade work, Gethard, 36, has been at it a long time. He offers a kind of life opus in this off-Broadway piece at the Lynn Redgrave Theater presented by Judd Apatow.
See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour »
Much of "Career Suicide" focuses on either the tragic or the dryly comic side of Gethard's depression — or, frequently, both at the same time: laughing-through-the-pain bits about an automotive-based suicide attempt, an alcohol-fueled college bender, his chronically inept if well-meaning therapist Barb. Oh, and he does Morrissey impressions.
Gethard provides hints he's in a better place these days, but depression is hardly something he's overcome, nor does he give a sense it ever will. As he notes, no one ever asks when people will "go off" chemotherapy the way they do antidepressant drugs.
Like Gethard, "Career Suicide" is many things: a serious monologue with comedic bits, a life story with an improv artist's soul. Spalding Gray may be the best comparison, but the performer is also, simply and uniquely, himself.
Simon McBurney in "The Encounter."
(Joan Marcus )
"The Encounter." You could describe this one-man show and London transfer to the John Golden Theatre on a page. But to borrow one of creator-star Simon McBurney's go-to concepts, that only tells part of the story.
The British writer's look at the National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre in the Amazon circa the 1960s is, on its surface, a story of colliding worlds — modern and developing, new and old. But as it develops, it turns into much more. McBurney, who constructs the show with little more than himself and a lot of props and sound cues, is interested in narrative and how it plays into human endeavors like memory and history. How he's writing the tale is as important as what he puts in it.
"Your past is also a story. And we use that story to try to predict the future," he says, one of many lines that's deep but not pedantic, leavened by McBurney's sense of humor — and sound effects.
Indeed, what's most novel about "The Encounter" is the technical: McBurney conveys his words not via stage microphones but headphones hardwired into each seat, creating a kind of audio virtual reality. McBurney wants to tell us a bedtime story. There's no way to feel more tucked in than with his voice swirling around and whispering into our ears.
Nick Kroll, left, and John Mulaney perform "Oh Hello" in Los Angeles in March, before taking the show to New York.
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times )
"Oh, Hello." Sure, it seems like it was custom-made for YouTube. But John Mulaney and Nick Kroll's sketch-comedy-inspired show as the entertainingly clueless geriatric New Yorkers George St. Geegland and Gil Faizon has proved surprisingly durable on Broadway.
Under the direction of Alex Timbers, the pair culminate their off-Broadway run and national tour at the Lyceum Theatre. The piece goes from one-liners to physical shtick to surrealist comedy as the duo make trenchant observations about the elderly and gentrification and even entertainment, like their deconstruction of hokey Broadway conventions such as the one-way phone call.
The show's anchor is a fictional public-access piece called "Too Much Tuna." The piece within a piece has a different guest — sometimes celebrity, sometimes not — coming on stage from the audience every night. (At the press performance I saw, Seth Meyers gamely made an appearance.) Then, just as quickly, the pair go back to their satire of matters global and artistic.
"Theater is the hot thing right now. There's 'Hamilton' and … no other examples," Faizon notes at one point. He may be wrong about that, at least.
On Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT
Paramount, at a crossroads, pulls wraps off awards-season releases 'Silence' and 'Fences'
Looking for the lighter side to a nasty election? Playwright Jon Robin Baitz delivers it in 'Vicuña'
With his first new play in nearly a decade, Tom Stoppard aims to 'stretch your mind just a little bit'
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The faces of cosplay at Comic-Con 2019
Portraits of cosplayers from the 2019 Comic-Con International by San Diego Union-Tribune staff photographer K.C. Alfred.
What's on TV Friday: The UnXplained" on History
What's on TV Friday: The UnXplained History; Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Savage Builds Gary Oldman; Killjoys; Los Espookys; MLS LA FC, LA Galaxy
Who is Francesca Hayward? The Royal Ballet dancer in the 'Cats' trailer
Step aside Taylor Swift, Idris Elba and James Corden. It's ballerina Francesca Hayward who has the smoothest moves in the promo for Tom Hooper's "Cats."
Here are the best reactions to the divisive new 'Cats' trailer
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Kim Kardashian West appeals to Trump to free rapper ASAP Rocky
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Comic-Con: Yes, the R-rated 'Terminator: Dark Fate' will include Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton
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This Learning Lab from the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will explore the connection between visual art and history.
When studying history, it is important to remember that all historical sources do not look the same. Visual art, being an active response to a stimulus, serves as a mirror to the contemporary landscape. Art engages in a conversation with history while acting as a visual expression of contemporary thoughts and ideas.
Through the visual art piece "Walking" by Charles Henry Alston (1958), students will learn more about the events and cultural context of the 1950's including the Civil Rights Movement and the role of women as social activists while honing their visual literacy competency. Students can use this Learning Lab collection to help sharpen their historical thinking skills and expand their conceptions of historical sources.
D1.1.6-8 Explain how a question represents key ideas in the field.
D2.His.9.K-2 Identify different kinds of historical sources.
D2.His.10.K-2 Explain how historical sources can be used to study the past.
D2.His.11.K-2 Identify the maker, date, and place of origin for a historical source from information within the source itself.
D2.His.12.K-2 Generate questions about a particular historical source as it relates to a particular historical event or development.
D2.His.9.3-5 Summarize how different kinds of historical sources are used to explain events in the past.
D2.His.12.3-5 Generate questions about multiple historical sources and their relationships to particular historical events and developments.
D2.His.13.3-5 Use information about a historical source, including the maker, date, place of origin, intended audience, and purpose to judge the extent to which the source is useful for studying a particular topic.
D2.His.9.9-12 Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.
D2.His.6.6-8 Analyze how people's perspectives influenced what information is available in the historical sources they created.


Карен Фишер:. Фильмография, фото, биография и многое другое на Фильм.ру. Karen is a given name. D6B 1725 - Karen Fisher (12181762826).jpg 1,365 × 2,048; 2.68 MB. 0 references Adult Film Database person ID · 30456. 1 reference. The Eczema Detox: the low-chemical diet for eliminating skin inflammation [Karen Fischer] on Amazon.com.
*FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. View and license Karen Fisher pictures & news photos from Getty Images. The following is a list of characters who first appear in the sixth series of the BBC school drama Waterloo Road, in order of first appearance. The sixth series consists of twenty episodes, first broadcast from 1 September 2010 to 6 April 2011. Photos and videos by Karen Fisher (@SexyKarenFisher) | Twitter.
Download it at Examville.com - The Education Marketplace.


text:
Cladrite Culture / Fridays with Rudy
Fridays with Rudy: Vagabond Dreams Come True, Ch. 12
In Chapter 12 of his 1930 memoir, Vagabond Dreams Come True, Rudy Vallée finally gets around to providing some typical memoir material, sharing tales of his boyhood in Westbrook, Maine, and offering accounts of his experiences traveling west to Hollywood to make his first picture, The Vagabond Lover (1929).
Chapter XII
From Westbrook to Hollywood
IN EVERY interview that I have ever given I have been careful to state that my birthplace was a small town in Vermont called Island Pond. Most peculiarly, however, the interviewers have seen fit for some reason to omit this fact and to refer to me as a Maine boy. Probably this is due to the fact that i spent only two years of my life in Vermont. Although I grew up in Maine, I am very proud of my Green Mountain birthright, and the vacations that I have spent in Island Pond were some of the most wonderful days of my life.
However, it was during my boyhood in Westbrook, Maine, that I first began to dream of the theatre. I must have inherited a love for all things theatrical from my father who, though a druggist all his life, had been associated with several theatres in various small business ways. Anyway it was always in the back of my head, and even when I was in the early grades of grammar school I used to climb up by the door of the motion picture booth and peek in to watch the film with fascinated eyes as it went past the aperture plate, with the bright light from the arc lamp shining on it; and the hum of the machine as the operator cranked it by hand, and the smell of film and film cement meant as much to me as the picture itself.
My idea of perfect happiness in life was to be the manager of a theatre, who not only selected the films to be shown, but could sit in the theatre all day and watch them.
My last years of grammar school I knew I would have to help father in the drug store. I had grown into long pants and I began my first work in the drug store. Being rather dexterous with my hands and quick of mind I proved to be one of father's best clerks, but I never liked the work. It was that I actually disliked manual labor; I never minded chopping eighteen pails of ice every day and bringing them upstairs and then packing the ice around the things that had to be kept cold (this was in the days before they had iceless refrigeration) nor did I mind opening the boxes containing countless small boxes and bottles which had to be put away in a thousand and one places in the store.
I enjoyed making the syrups, and usually gorged myself on them as I drew them from the large bottles in which they came—I was particularly fond of chocolate syrup and usually became sick from overindulgence.
But it was the fact that there was little of romance in waiting on customers who were slow in making up their minds, and who were cross and disagreeable at times; it made me miserable. Then again there was nothing fixed about the hours, we worked from early morning until late at night. Many a time father and I were just about to close the store when a street car would stop in front of our place filled with people coming back from a near-by dance hall and rust theatre, and again we would put on the lights, open the doors, and in a breathless rush serve forty and fifty people at the soda-fountain.
I had to rush out on cold days and pump gasoline, as we were one of the first drug stores to have a gasoline filling station. The only happiness I knew in the store was when father took on the sale of Victor photograph records and I had a chance to give demonstrations to possible purchasers of these records. After I had played them twice over, I usually knew all the good and bad features of the records and could invariably whistle and hum along with them. I knew the selling points of each and very rarely failed to sell a record when i attempted to do so. The thing lasted all too short a time but its effect upon me was profound and tremendous.
A small event of great future import took place a the beginning of school vacation when a disagreement with the head clerk affected me so that I walked out of the store and went out swimming with the boys.
We had one small movie theatre in the town, the Star Theatre, which was my idea of the last word in motion picture theatres. I heard that a boy who worked as assistant operator was leaving his job and that the manager needed someone to take his place.
I must have loved things theatrical when I could get there early in the morning, sweep the entire theatre out, downstairs and balcony, with an ordinary broom, and between the two shows, sweep the places where thoughtless people had thrown their peanut shells, sweep out the projection booth, clean and oil both machines, change the carbons in the lamp house, rewind the films, help put out the posters, take care of the furnace, polish the brass around the billboard sheets in front, and even take tickets until the show began; but I got my reward!
I was given the poorer of the two projection machines to operate, and I will never forget the tremendous thrill when the chief operator roughly called to me, gave the crank a great twist, and left me, all a-tremble, to catch it before it stopped and to continue to project the film. I got one of the greatest thrills of my life as I looked out through the hole in the booth to see the personages on the screen who were all brought to life by the magic crank which I held in my hand.
But after standing there hours and hours in the unbearable heat of the booth, cranking for fifteen minutes at a time, always watching to see that the light showed properly on the film, I was somewhat less excited; still I always loved it.
The show changed three times weekly, and the three nights before the changes, the two-reel comedy had to be carried to Portland, six miles away, to be shipped to another theatre on the same chain. I tied the film to the carrier back of my bicycle and bicycled to Portland, left the film at the station and then wearily pedaled home. The point was that I saved the carfare; I felt very happy in the thought that I had earned the extra twenty cents.
For all my labors in the theatre six days a week (thank heaven there were no Sunday shows in Maine!) I received the magnificent sum of seven dollars, but I was prouder and happier when this pay envelope came to me than I had ever before been in my life, and although my father tried to prevent me from working there, he saw that I was determined and permitted me to continue at the theatre instead of working in the store.
I continued doing this for two years before i went to Maine's largest theatre, the Strand in Portland. After having served such an apprenticeship in pictures at so little money, it is not difficult to imagine the elation I felt when I left for Hollywood with my boys, in a special car all our own, to be a star in my first picture at a salary of $11,000 a week.
The first night I went to sleep in my berth on the Pullman was perhaps the happiest of my life. I went off to sleep thinking that I was actually going to accomplish the thing that I had often dropped off to sleep dreaming about when just a boy.
The question "How did you enjoy making pictures?" to me is a silly one, because there can be no boy who has not at one time or another wanted to take part in a dramatic playlet that brings a beautiful woman into your arms, takes you with her through trials and misfortunes and finally brings the happy ending. It is fun enough to do this anyway, but to be paid for the effort is certainly doubling the pleasure of the task.
To some of the stars in Hollywood, picture making is extremely arduous, and of course it really is, but to my boys and me it was comparatively easy work after the very strenuous program that had been ours for months. Picture work seemed child's play after week after week of four and five shows a day, night club at night until three, early morning recordings, rehearsals, broadcasts, personal appearances, and what not.
True, picture making is a task, because the rehearsals and the final shooting of the picture are much more difficult and nerve-wracking than were the rehearsals for those high school or community plays that most of us did not so long ago. And now, with the coming o sound to pictures, much more is demanded of the actor not only in voice but in talent and initiative during the filming of the scenes, since the talkies have shorn the director of his chance to direct the final shooting.
The talkies have brought doom and despair to many formerly successful stars, but hope and success to others who otherwise would never have succeeded. Such, I suppose, is my case, but since the technique of making sound pictures is almost identical with the principles of broadcasting, I began my career in pictures at the peak—as a star, thus eliminating all those other preliminary steps of extra or featured player.
In the choice of a story it was necessary to have one that would bring the seven boys into the picture and give them a logical reason for being there, but yet we wanted to avoid the hackneyed night club, back stage and college campus ideas. Nearly all of our sound pictures today s deal with one of those three themes in order to bring music into the plot. Therefore, barred from the dramatic complications of these three angles we had to choose a very simple story.
My part, as I conceived it, was that of a shy, embarrassed boy who was in a group of orchestra boys who considered themselves superior to him; a boy whose high idealistic principles caused him to be conscience-stricken throughout the entire picture due to the deception which he was practicing. Furthermore, being in a daze of puppy-love from the moment I met the heroine of the story, I was continually in hot water. There was little opportunity on my part for very much animation or life, and hardly a chance to smile. What we commonly term "personality" is made up of just those things. The part was practically "personality-less," but it gave me a real excuse for everything I did, especially the singing of my songs, which after all, was perhaps the most important thing in the making of the picture.
Before we left for the Coast I listened daily to eight or ten songs, and finally from a group of nearly two hundred I selected the four songs which are in the picture. It was necessary that I do this in my dressing-room at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre at which we were playing. It was in the hot summer time and I came of the stage very tired from the heat and stage work, but between every show it was necessary that hear these songs over and over again in order to make up my mind.
I do not believe absolutely in first reactions; rather do I believe that it is necessary to hear a melody several times in order to pass judgment, and it is really best to hear the melody at intervals of several days, and then if a tune does not come back and haunt the mind it usually has little merit. I rated the songs like themes in school, A, B plus, B, and so forth.
The story was still vague when we left for the Coast, so I carried eight songs marked A with us, hoping that at least four would fit in the picture. Whatever their opinion of the picture as a whole, the critics have usually complimented us on the sporting of the songs and their rendition, and the fact that all four are selling excellently, and one, "A Little Kiss Each Morning," is the outstanding hit today, makes me feel very happy. One of the songs, "If You Were The Only Girl In The World" is a tune about twelve years old, but had failed so miserably as a fox trot that its publishers had soured on it. I tried to convince them that it was a hit song if played as a slow waltz. This idea, too, has proved itself since the picture came out.
Our trip came as a wonderful relaxation, and to some of the boys it was a belated honeymoon, as all of them brought their wives. The bass player and I are the only single ones. I took my best sweetheart, my dear mother, and my father. Feeling that he had worked long enough in the drug store, having been behind the counter twelve and fourteen hours a day for twenty years, I wrote my father to sell the store and come West with us on this glorious trip.
We have relatives in Pasadena, and father and mother were very happy visiting, watching us make the picture and attending the social functions with me which Hollywood and Los Angeles showered upon us.
From the time we let the Pennsylvania station, with the goodbyes of fans, newspaper men, publishers and others ringing in our ears, it was one constant reception in every town of any size stopped at. They even woke me in the middle of the night to pose for the newspaper cameramen of the various towns we went through, while a radio delegation or a representative of the theatres that sponsored our picture greeted me.
At Chicago I was tendered a delightful breakfast with the press in attendance.
But the biggest surprise of all came as we neared Los Angeles when, a few miles out, fifty representatives of the press and screen magazines climbed aboard the train. After dinner and refreshments I became the target for their interviews. But I had become accustomed to the questions and it was a pleasure to answer them.
Then we drew in to Los Angeles to find a tremendous delegation waiting for us—movie cameramen with bright lights, fifteen girls from the studio and a big crowd of radio fans and curious onlookers. The Sheriff of Los Angeles was also there with letters of welcome from both the Governor of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles.
The studio girls, who form the dancing chorus of such productions of "Rio Rita," surrounded me, making a general wreck of me as they pushed and pulled me about among them. Then I was presented with a big saxophone of wood and a large gold key.
After a formal ceremony, pictures were taken of me with my parents, and of the Sheriff and myself, and microphone recordings of our response to the greetings were made. We were then escorted to a Rolls-Royce and, followed by a long line of cars carrying my boys and various officials, started for Hollywood, the sirens of four motor cycle cops securing the right-of-way for our procession the entire distance. This last gave my mother the great thrill she ever had, and I can still hear her, hysterically half-laughing, half-crying. It was really wonderful.
At the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood we were greeted by Irving Aaronson and his Commandeers, playing my own "I'm Just A Vagabond Lover," and our welcome was complete.
As the last part of the trip across had been almost unbearable and we were all feeling very tired, we retired at once.
My faith in the production head and scenario writer was justified, as the story of the picture was simple enough and yet of sufficient interest to make it a fine vehicle for our work.
I was most fortunate in having Marshall Neilan as director of my first motion picture; he is not alone a great director, but a very human individual with a great understanding of my songs and a keen with a great understanding of my songs and a keen insight into the art of recording them, being a fine musician himself. His crew of light experts (who can make or mar the features of the players) the sound recorders, the cameramen, the make-up man, who after some study finally evolved my best make-up, all helped to solve the difficulties of picture making that I had dreaded most of all.
Such notables as Marie Dressler, Sally Blane, Charles Sellon and others of wide and varied experience, who were in the cast, did much toward making the picture a success. In fact the honors are entirely Marie Dressler's. Everything in and about the studio was perfect, everyone gave his co-operation, we did our best, and if it seems not to please our great film public it will be just that it was not to be.
We were wonderfully received in Hollywood, being the recipients of receptions at Breakfast Club, Masquers, Montmartre, and many other places, but our greatest reception was in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel. It was a Tuesday evening, and the room was filled to overflowing with the greatest collection of notables and stars of the movie world I have ever seen under one roof.
Many of these were famous when I used to crank films in the booth of the little Star Theatre, and the feeling that went over me as I saw them there honoring me with their presence made me very happy indeed.
On the eve of our departure for New York I was happy to give a banquet in the Cocoanut Grove of the Ambassador, and everyone who had participated in the making of our picture, from the greatest to the humblest "grip" who carried the lamps and helped move everything, was there. It was a wonderful evening; Ted Lewis was playing there, everybody was happy and the place was jammed. Of course there were speeches, and we left with a wonderful feeling in our hearts for California and Hollywood.
With faces turned to New York, we set out for our routine of continuous work again; but all the time I was on the Coast I received pleading letters from those who missed our radio programs, those who were confined to sick-rooms and who really looked for our return with longing, I felt that I owed an allegiance to them and looked forward to playing for them on the air once again.
For a time we feared that our picture had been destroyed in the vaults of the company where they made the reproductions of the original. But it was saved and only small parts destroyed. At any rate, I will never forget its première and the wonderful thrill of pleasure that I received when after what seemed an interminable burst of applause I stepped out on the stage to say a few words and express my appreciation to RKO and everyone who had helped us to make it.
Perhaps the greatest honor conferred upon me was the wonderful way in which my home town turned en masse to see the picture. The Mayor, Kiwanians, Rotarians and American Legion all united in declaring the day on which the picture was first shown a municipal holiday. A long procession of automobiles and street cars went from Westbrook to Portland, over the same route that I used to bicycle over with the two-reel comedy film, to do homage to a local son in his first talking picture.
In most places the picture was well received. It was not intended to be elaborate, but a simple and logical entrance for me into the movies. In my second picture I hope to show that I am capable of the things that have come to be expected of motion picture stars.
Read Chapter 13
Brooklyn Paramount, Charles Sellon, Cocoanut Grove, Hotel Roosevelt, Irving Aaronson, Island Pond, Marie Dressler, Marshall Neilan, Portland Maine, Sally Blane, Star Theatre, Westbrook Maine
Sold American!
Pitch perfect: sporting goods


River's Edge RV Park & Campground - Wag!
If you are looking for a fantastic campground and RV park where your family and your pooch can have fun, this is the ideal place to come. At River's Edge RV Park and Campground, you will find a huge variety of facilities and amenities, making it the ideal place for an exciting family adventure. Situated by the Chena River in Alaska, this campground forms part of the River's Edge Resort, which is packed with entertainment to ensure you have a memorable experience.
When you visit this campground, you can look forward to stunning natural beauty and a wonderfully relaxing atmosphere. It also provides an excellent way to enjoy the local attractions without having to unhook your vehicle because transportation and tickets to major attractions are provided. If you are bringing your pooch along to have some fun, you can even access dog walking facilities at River's Edge.
There are plenty of facilities here to ensure you have a comfortable and fabulous time. This includes a choice of eating establishments if you fancy a change from campground cooking. You can look forward to delicious breakfasts at the Miner's Hall or authentic Alaskan dishes at lunch and dinner at Chena's Alaskan Grill. In addition, you can access laundry services, a gift shop, picnic areas, and even cable TV at the sites. If you are planning to bring along your mobile devices, you can also take advantage of the free WiFi on offer here.
The River's Edge resort offers a range of RV hookup options as well as a tent site for those that do not want to drive. You can access free showers, modern bathrooms, and even an RV and car wash facility in case you want to get your vehicle cleaned up before heading home. With so much to offer, it is little wonder that this campground has become a bit hit amongst families and dog owners.


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Paul Ludwig Christoph Gmelin (* 8. Oktober 1885 in Pinache; † 23. September 1967 in Mannheim) war ein deutscher Physiker, der auch als  Paul Ludwig Christian Gmelin bekannt war.

Gmelin stammte aus einer bekannten schwäbischen Gelehrtenfamilie. Sein Vater war der Pfarrer Ludwig Eugen Gmelin (1851–1929) und sein Großvater der Apotheker und Chemiker Paul Albrecht Ferdinand Gmelin. Er ging unter anderem auf die Lateinschule in Göppingen und das Reallyzeum in Böblingen. Nach dem Abitur am Dillmann-Realgymnasium in Stuttgart studierte er ab 1904 Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften an der TH Stuttgart und der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. Zu seinen Lehrern gehörte der Mathematiker Alexander Brill in Tübingen. Schon als Jugendlicher hatte er eine Neigung zum Basteln und wandte sich ab 1906 der Experimentalphysik zu. Er war ab 1907 Hilfsassistent von Friedrich Paschen in Tübingen, bei dem er 1908 magna cum laude promoviert wurde (Der Zeemaneffekt einiger Quecksilberlinien in schwachen Magnetfeldern. Absolut gemessen.). Danach legte er sein Lehramtsexamen ab, bevor er wieder zu Paschen ging, der ihn zum zweiten Assistenten machte. 1910 ging er – vor allem aus finanziellen Gründen – als Physiker zur BASF in Ludwigshafen in deren Hauptlabor und leitete ab 1914 das physikalische Labor in deren Werk in Ludwigshafen-Oppau und war Leiter der Betriebskontrolle. Im gleichen Jahr zog er nach Mannheim. Er blieb bis zur Pensionierung 1947 bei BASF.

Er befasste sich in Tübingen unter Paschen mit Richard Gans mit der Präzisionsmessung magnetischer Felder. Gans war damals erster Assistent und außerordentlicher Professor bei Paschen. Bei der BASF befasste er sich mit Messtechnik für die Chemie, am Anfang unter Jonathan Zenneck mit der Entwicklung von Öfen und Messgeräten für die Stickstoffgewinnung nach einem Lichtbogen-Verfahren ähnlich dem Birkeland-Eyde-Verfahren, was bald eingestellt wurde, da das Verfahren zu energieintensiv war und sich das Haber-Bosch-Verfahren als überlegen erwies, an dessen industrieller Entwicklung Gmelin unter Carl Bosch mitwirkte. Von den Chemikern wurden die Physiker bei BASF zunächst misstrauisch als Außenseiter betrachtet, fanden dann aber eine Rolle in der Entwicklung von Messtechnik. Gmelin erwarb sich auch Ansehen durch ein Verfahren zur Bestimmung der Zusammensetzung von Gasgemischen nur mit akustischen Methoden zur Dichtemessung. Er entwickelte auch Sicherheitstechnik (Warngeräte für Kohlenstoffmonoxid-Konzentration und anderes) und Betriebskontrolle, ein Gebiet für das er einer der Gründungsväter war. Seine Abteilung im Werk Oppau wuchs 1930 auf rund 400 Mitarbeiter.

1930 trug er auf der Hauptversammlung des Vereins Deutscher Chemiker vor (Physikalische Technik in der anorganischen chemischen Technik) und 1937 auf der 13. Deutschen Physikertagung vor (Physikalische Meßverfahren in chemischen Betrieben).

1914 heiratete er Elisabeth Seuffer (1893–1972), mit der er einen Sohn, den Medizinaloberrat Wolfgang Gmelin (1918–1989) und eine Tochter hatte, die Musiklehrerin Waltraut Reichle (1915–1991). Gmelin war wie der Vater und die Mutter musikalisch begabt.

Weblinks
Biographie von Alexander Kipnis

Physiker (20. Jahrhundert)
Person (BASF)
Deutscher
Geboren 1885
Gestorben 1967
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Augusto Foronda , CPGEI/CEFET-PR Federal Center of Technological Education of Paran?
Carlos Garcia , Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas, Morelos, Mexico.
Rajiv Malik , M.T.S., Kasenna Inc., CA, U.S.A.
A.K Othman , University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
A.E. Adams , University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
C.C. Tsimenidis , University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Andrew Logan , Incipient Inc.
V Prabakar , Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Dr. BV Kumar , Infosys Technologies Ltd.
SV Subrahmanya , Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Hiroaki Yoshikawa , Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp.
R. Walker , XiWrite S.a.S., Italy.


One of the most important issues in China today is the migration of millions of people from rural areas to the cities in search of a better life or to be forced out of their familiar life by modernisation. This film tackles the problems of migration through two related stories of people on the move, in search of lost spouses and a better life. Set in a town along the Yangzi River to be flooded by the completion of the controversial Three Gorges Dam, which will be made into the largest hydraulic power facility in the world, Still Life tells stories of displacement and successfully captures through amazing camera works the anger, frustration, and helplessness felt by many ordinary people who find the rapid changes in China disorienting and left out in the process.
Given the Chinese government's single-minded focus on rapid economic growth Still Life offers a window on the human costs of this rapid development. As most observers focus our attention on the remarkable economic progress of China today, Still Life thus provides an important supplement to the picture of economic policy and social condition one gets from reading the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times.


text:
Tourist Informations
Fort William Scotland to Inverness
Stretching from Fort William to Inverness, the Caledonian Canal is 60 kilometers very long. 22 miles of which are man-made for connecting the natural lochs of Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, the famous Loch Ness and Loch Dochfour. The canal is, also by today's criteria an incredible feat of manufacturing first opened in 1822. It had been built to greatly help commercial delivery steer clear of the treacherous trip around the western shore. Unfortunately by the time the canal was finished many ships under sail (that the canal was created) was in fact replaced by vapor ships of much better in a position to negotiate the west coast oceans than their predecessors, so traffic through the channel hardly ever really paid for itself.
Not very today - the canal these days is absolutely humming with vessels, most of them personal pleasure ships from all over the entire world whom started to make the voyage through the popular lochs by which the canal passes. More famous area of water that forms part of the Caledonian Canal is Loch Ness, where you can find a number of cruise organizations providing multiple ship trips and sailing vacations to select from in the event that you feel tempted to decide to try the water. You could combine boating with walking parts of the Great Glen Method which employs around the same course.
Source: www.visitinvernesslochness.com
Fort William Scotland Travelodge
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BAGGAGE TRANSFERS AND WALKING BUNDLES…
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Well this inner critic, also called your inner mean girl is something that we all have in varying degrees. And she's there whether you believe it (or like it) or not. My inner critic is called Lazy Bum Bum Face, or B for short, and she can pack a serious punch.
For me, B always felt like a small, immature and fearful child and for the longest time I would judge myself and beat myself up (even more) for feeling this way. I didn't understand then what it so clear to me today – there is no wrong way to feel. My feelings are not wrong.
B would sabotage my goals and dreams and would get in the way of wanting to try new things or meet new people. B was a habitual over thinker, worry wart, people pleaser, judge and jury… suffice it to say she was busy.
Understanding and learning to manage B is a daily exercise in mental and spiritual fitness. In the same way I brush my teeth and wash my hair, managing B is just as important so requires work! Constantly second guessing yourself is a full-time job and I was ready to say enough! I was so ready to change.
Here are 4 steps you can take to stop beating yourself up and learn to quieten (and show compassion) to your inner mean girl instead.
You know when your friend says things like I feel so fat, I'm so bad at this or I'll never get the promotion, your ears prickle and you immediately notice these negative and unhelpful things she is saying. Well, I need you to start to notice when you say the same types of things about yourself.
Giving your inner mean girl voice a name will help you separate yourself from and open a healthy dialogue with her. I want you to begin to talk to your inner mean girl voice very differently.
Remember your best friend who is in pain, or your daughter who fell? You would never say to her shut up, failure or stupid to her so we won't say it to ourselves either. The goal is to turn the volume down, it is never to dismiss, judge or criticise her. Your inner mean girl represents fear, pain, doubt and insecurity. In these moments we need love, kindness and a positive attitude to help us. If you wouldn't say it a friend, don't say it to yourself.
Never beat her up because, after all, she represents fear, doubt, insecurity and pain and these are perfectly normal and natural feelings. Allow her time to feel them and hold this space as a judgment and criticism free zone. When you have started to understand why your inner mean girl voice feels this you can compassion to remind her who is boss!
Be Your Own Best Friend is a daily journal for building self-esteem and using compassion in everyday life for women, put together to help you leave low self-esteem, insecurity and your inner critic behind. Designed to be used for a 12 week period, each page has been beautifully crafted to help you nurture your more fabulous relationship: the one you have with yourself. I have also included some really helpful and practical exercise to help you protect and build your self-esteem and confidence. Together, we will embark on this journey to a deeper appreciation, acceptance, and love for yourself. Available on Amazon.


welcome welcome, some guy named van is going around saying people have big foreheads and their kids are ginger pieces of crap, but nevertheless, this is a great place to be!
Welcome, sir! Glad to have you with us!
Thanks, but how do you get those ranks?
By having a big forehead and banging a red head.
hello mr new guy here let me tell you what you gonna find here other then ranks .. many angry men who will eat ur kids we are all cannibals we have eat many players 1on1 are u up for that kind of chalenge?
Try to find a good set of people to hang out with if your new, Xurnt is a good guy for this. Alot of people on here are very intolerant of newer players and will often kick/ban you from games if you don't know how to answer their "Noob test" questions.
When someone asks you this, they're asking you how much gold is located in the goldmine at those locations on the map.
Thanks. That was really helpful. I appreciate it.