text:
Memories of a great year on Pac-12 Networks
by Rich Burk
Bob Drebin/StanfordPhoto.com
I knew I wanted to say something to sum up this incredible year on the Pac-12 Networks. I just didn't know what.
Then it hit me. Or, rather, he hit it.
Let's take a step back. More than three months ago, I was in Palo Alto to handle the play-by-play call of Stanford-Cal women's swimming and diving meet. The night before the event, Stanford's baseball team was playing their first game of the season, against another perennially strong program, Rice University. I had some Stanford baseball games on my work schedule later in the season, so I headed over to Sunken Diamond to enjoy my first taste of baseball in 2014.
It was not a memorable game. Rice scored three times in the fifth inning and four more in the sixth en route to a 10-3 win.
But in the eighth inning that night, a true freshman by the name of Jack Klein led off as a pinch-hitter for the Cardinal. And I don't know why, but I got to thinking about the magnitude of the moment and what it must have meant to him. What's going through this kid's head, I thought. His first collegiate at-bat. Playing for the legendary Stanford program, at Sunken Diamond. And just how did he come to attend Stanford, anyway? And what will his career be like?
(What I didn't yet know about Jack Klein was that the facility—Klein Field at Sunken Diamond—was named after his late grandfather, Bud, an all-conference outfielder at Stanford in 1950 and later a generous donor. Nor did I know that Jack attended high school in downtown San Francisco, or that his mom is longtime Bay Area TV news reporter Kate Kelly.)
Jack's first college AB didn't last long on that brisk February evening. He swung and missed three straight times. Welcome to college baseball, rook.
Nor was it a memorable regular season for him. Twenty games, just five starts, eight hits in 30 at-bats, no home runs, three runs batted in. When I called a three-game Stanford-WSU series in late May, I had done my research and had all kinds of info to pass along to the viewers about Jack and his Stanford-bred, Stanford-bled family. Problem was, he appeared in just one game during that series, grounding out as a pinch-hitter on the second pitch he saw. (I'll save the stories for next year.)
So, naturally, when watching Stanford's first regional playoff game in Bloomington, Ind., I sat up and took note when I saw that Jack Klein, of all people, was starting in left field. My thoughts immediately went to Stanford's legendary head coach, Mark Marquess. He must be playing a hunch.
It was a Card well-played. Top of the sixth, Stanford leading Indiana State 2-0. Two on, two out. Klein, who had earlier grounded out and singled, stepped in and smoked one over the left-field fence for a three-run shot and a 5-0 lead. His first-ever collegiate home run, and it came in the postseason. "Somewhere," I tweeted, "Grandpa Bud is smiling."
It is stories like this which make Pac-12 athletics so much fun.
Naturally, I immensely enjoyed calling play-by-play during this second year of the Pac-12 Networks. I had the opportunity to call Steve Alford's first game as UCLA head men's basketball coach, and Missy Franklin's first Pac-12 championship swims.
I'll remember the September heat at McAlister Field, the home of USC soccer, and the bitter November cold at Lower Field in Pullman, the home of WSU soccer. I'll remember the atmosphere at Pauley Pavilion as the Alford era began, and the mixed emotions I felt as a good man, Craig Robinson, had his tenure come to an end in Corvallis.
And mostly, I'll remember the people. I worked with 13 different producers, all of whom were professional, all of whom "get it." The coaches, sports information directors and athletes—really, everyone in the Pac-12—was enjoyable to deal with.
Especially the Pac-12 Networks' analysts. I worked alongside 16 different broadcast partners, basking in the reflected glory of... eight Olympians (Amy Van Dyken, Natalie Coughlin, Nathan Adrian, Cynthia Potter, Holly McPeak, Kim Oden, Kevin Wong, Ken Chertow) who won a combined 21 medals... two World Series heroes (J.T. Snow, Geoff Blum)... the Pac-12's all-time leading scorer in men's hoops (Don MacLean)... a 21-time national champion volleyball coach (Al Scates)... a former Pac-12 soccer player of the year (Tracey Bailey)... an incredibly knowledgeable basketball mind (Mary Murphy)... an up-and-comer as a women's hoops analyst (Julie Rousseau)... and a onetime NCAA Sportswoman of the Year (Krista Blunk).
(Sadly, I didn't get to work with one of my favorite people on the planet, Lamar Hurd, with whom I've called more than 30 Pac-12 basketball games over the years. We were scheduled to work an OSU hoops game, which, incredibly, was postponed when the Arkansas-Pine Bluff team couldn't get a flight to Portland because of an ice storm in Dallas.)
The past nine months have been a whirlwind. And I can hardly wait for next year.
Rich Burk calls play-by-play for the Pac-12 Networks. He lives in Portland, Ore.


There is only one Saturday left for Summer Streets!
Summer Streets is a three weekend event in NYC where more than six miles in Manhattan is closed down and open only for pedestrians, cyclists, rollerbladers, skateboarders, paddle skateboarders, etc. Basically, no cars!
At every few blocks are exercise stations, yoga, entertainment, raffles, and free food sponsored by various businesses. It is great fun for families and everyone who wants to come out and play.
For the first time in history, the Park Avenue Tunnel was closed down and turned into an interactive light show. They allowed people to come up to a microphone and say anything they want for 15 seconds of airtime. People sang, chanted, told jokes, and made spooky sounds. The tunnel flashed lights and alternated with darkness. It was an interesting perspective of a tunnel we usually only get to pass through in a car.
Leave the bikes at the valet!
Waiting for the light show.
Say anything or serenade the tunnel.
Make your way out towards the Met Life building.
Some helpful hints for those attending the last Summer Streets on Saturday, August 17.
*Get there early. Summer Streets begins at 7 AM. There are less people in the morning. This means parking spaces (if you must bring a car), short lines, and less chances bumping into other cyclists and pedestrians.
*If you want a bike helmet go straight to the Midtown rest stop at East 25th Street and Park Avenue. The Department of Transportation offers free bike helmet fittings and a free bike helmet to all adults and children. All sizes are available and the styles now are much for stylish than the ol' bright green florescent helmets they used to give out.
*If you are curious about the Park Avenue Tunnel, get in line before 11 AM. The line snakes around the block but the line moves. Anticipate standing in line for about half an hour. You must fill out a waiver. After 11 AM, they close the line due to the crowds.
*For safety reasons, cyclists stay on the left half side of the street and pedestrians stay on the right half. Do not cross over or stop for no reason. This can cause a collision. Always pay attention and slow down when you get close to other bikers and pedestrians.
*Bring a backpack to carry around all the free stuff you will be aquiring. Also make sure you bring your own water bottle. Stay hydrated. There are water fountains along the way for you to refill your bottle.


Double Journey: An Historic Event - Where Were You?
Today, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It was an historic event. The type of event where you just know where you were when it happened. It is like 9/11, I know exactly where I was when I first heard (I woke up to the news of the first plane on the radio, and thought nothing of it. I turned on the TV later, only to wonder why there was a plane headed for the Twin Towers).
So for me, on this historic event, my answer will be in the dungeons of a parking garage.
It was not the plan to be there. It just happened. In fact, my carpool mate and I had planned on getting to work a little early just so that we could watch the event an the TVs at work. We normally get in about 9:10, and so we were aiming to be about 20 minutes earlier than that. Much to our dismay, Los Angeles' Traffic decided to intervene. Now you have to understand that my carpool buddy is a huge Barack Fan. It is often all she ever talks about it. During the election, it almost drove me a little crazy. So as we got near the building, it was pretty clear that we were not going to be able to park and make it into the building before he was sworn in.
So I did the gentlemanly thing. I offered to drop her off in front of the building and park her car for her. So she hopped out and rode up the stairs to go watch the innaugaration. I got to go park the car. Just as I made my way around the block (there are lots of one way streets in Los Angeles) and got into the parking structure, they began to swear Obama in. Just as it got to about 15 seconds into the ceremony, my radio reception cut out, and I missed the whole thing.
So that's how I will remember this historic event, I missed most of it. How about you? What were you doing?
That's terrible. I watched it at work.
watched it in the middle of jazz band. missed most of the speech, 'cause i had to go to the counseling office... ha.


As befitting a Captain, this fully self-contained oceanfront accommodation has two bedrooms (each with a queen) and having all the comforts to enhance and make your visit with us a pleasure. Relax in the warmth of a woodburning fireplace and melt away the stress of the city while soaking in a tub for two in the soft glow of candle light. Beautifully decorated and accented with rich hardwoods, tiles and French doors onto spacious decks to enjoy the spectacular views. Our private secluded setting lends itself to a memorable honeymoon or romantic interlude. Enjoy the charm and treasures the Captain has brought home from the sea.


text:
Q: Can there be multiple local minima for the sum of distances in the plane? Let $f$ map a point in the plane to the sum of the distances to each element in a given set of points. Can $f$ have multiple local minima?
For example, there is only one relative minimum when the given set is the set of vertices of an equilateral triangle, since if you're at some point in the plane other than the center of the triangle, you can always get a lower sum of distances by moving closer to the center (I think).

A: Except for some special cases, the answer in general, is no, there aren't multiple local minima.
This result appeared as an article in the American Mathematical Monthly. You can see the whole article here: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~deloera/MISC/BIBLIOTECA/trunk/nellipse.pdf
The locus of points at a given 'sum of distances' from a set of $n$ given points is called an $n$-ellipse, and in general, the $n$-ellipse is a closed curve with convex interior. I believe this was also proved in the article above.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Our center photo gallery is where inspiration happens. You'll find project spotlights from a variety of business models to show you how the bowling boom is making these stylish centers the entertainment venues of choice.
Ready for more? Explore our comprehensive photo gallery.


text:
Biography / Television personality
Bidhya Chapagain | Biography, Age, Height, Education, Salary, Husband, Family | Nepali Journalists
About Bidhya Chapagain
Bidhya Chapagain is one of the most respected TV journalists in Nepal. she is a co-founder of Herne Katha. Herne Katha is a web-based series that brings the extraordinary life stories of ordinary people. She was also a presenter of "Sajha Sawal" a weekly debate show produced by BBC Media Action in Nepal. In January 2018, she quit the BBC. She was born on August 23, 1982, in Gothatar, Kathmandu. As of 2022, She is 39 years old with around 5 feet and 3 inches tall in height.
Bidhya Chapagain
Birth Place Gothatar, Kathmandu
Brother Mahesh
Education journalism at Ratna Rajya Laxmi
Personality Kind hearted, Inspiring, and Leading capacity
Net Worth In Review (2022)
Bidhya Chapagain Family & Husband
Chapagain belongs to a middle-class family. her father and mother was a farmer. she has one brother whose name is "Mahesh". Bidhya Chapagain is married and has a baby boy. but unfortunately, we couldn't found her husband's details.
from the beginning of her childhood, she has had a keen interest in journalism. her family is the source of inspiration and motivation for her, though she has never disclosed her personal life.
Bidhya Chapagain Salary & Education
Bidhya was the first female host of BBC's Sajha Sawal. when it comes to earning and income, she used to earn around 50 thousand to 90 thousand per month as a salary from the BBC. If she had continued the BBC's Show "Sajha Nepal" job, it would've brought her fame and money "But the satisfaction that Herne Katha provides is like nothing else." she said".
Bidhya Chapagain completed a bachelor's degree in journalism at Ratna Rajya Laxmi which is affiliated with Tribhuvan University. she was an average kind of student during her schooling and college days.
Personally, She is my source of inspiration. I am really glad, that I am writing about her. people like her should be more in Nepal.
Read the full biography of Rabi Lamichhane
Read the full biography of Samriddhi Rai
Official social sites
Birthday Aug 23 , 1982
Birthplace Kathmandu, Nepal

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
NASA »
CREW READY FOR LIFTOFF
by ED S. 27 Jul '17 NASA
Ed Smith - Founder - Universal Digest
The goal of Universal Digest is to publish in areas of ufology, space, science, history, world, regional, and some local news and events. Experiencer, telepathic, and paranormal subject matter are also published. To date, there are over 20 menus from which to choose. Universal Digest is dedicated to elevating the human condition. From over 30 years of research and writing in a number of areas, delivering the message is the purpose.
Liftoff is imminent for the next crew members to join their fellows aboard the International Space Station.
The Expedition 52-53 crew members wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-05 rocket for liftoff, Friday, July 28, 2017 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency) are preparing for liftoff to the International Space Station. Their journey to the station will begin with a lift off at 11:41 a.m. EDT Friday (9:41 p.m. in Baikonur). Live launch coverage will begin at 10:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency's website.
The three will join Expedition 52 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA. The Expedition 52 crew members will contribute to more than 250 experiments in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.
Below is the crew's launch timeline in EDT:
7:11:12am 4:30 Crew suit up
7:36:12am 4:05 Booster loaded with liquid Oxygen
8:11:12am 3:30 Crew meets family members on other side of the glass
8:36:12am 3:05 First and second stage oxygen fueling complete
8:41:12am 3:00 Crew walkout from 254 and boards bus for the launch pad
8:46:12am 2:55 Crew departs for launch pad (Site 1)
9:06:12am 2:35 Crew arrives at launch pad (Site 1)
9:16:12am 2:25 Crew boards Soyuz; strapped in to the Descent module
10:06:12am 1:35 Descent module hardware tested
10:21:12am 1:20 Hatch closed; leak checks begin
10:41:12am 1:00 Launch vehicle control system prep; gyro activation
10:45:00am :56:12 NASA TV LAUNCH COVERAGE BEGINS
10:56:12am :45 Pad service structure components lowered
10:57:14am :44 Clamshell gantry service towers retracted
11:00:00am :41:12 NASA TV: Crew pre-launch activities played (B-roll)
11:04:12am :37 Suit leak checks begin; descent module testing complete
11:07:12am :34 Emergency escape system armed
11:26:12am :15 Suit leak checks complete; escape system to auto
11:31:12am :10 Gyros in flight readiness and recorders activated
11:34:12am :07 Pre-launch operations complete
11:35:12am :06 Launch countdown operations to auto; vehicle ready
11:36:12am :05 Commander's controls activated
11:37:07am :04:05 The ISS flies directly over the Baikonur Cosmodrome
11:37:12am :04 Combustion chamber nitrogen purge
11:38:12am :03 Propellant drainback
11:38:27am :02:45 Booster propellant tank pressurization
11:39:42am :01:30 Ground propellant feed terminated
11:40:12am :01:00 Vehicle to internal power
11:40:37am :00:35 First umbilical tower separates
Auto sequence start
11:40:42am :00:30 Ground umbilical to third stage disconnected
11:40:57am :00:15 Second umbilical tower separates
11:41:00am :00:12 Launch command issued
Engine Start Sequence Begins
11:41:02am :00:10 Engine turbopumps at flight speed
11:41:07am :00:05 Engines at maximum thrust
11:41:12am :00:00 LAUNCH OF SOYUZ MS-05 TO THE ISS
11:49:57am +8:45 THIRD STAGE SHUTDOWN; ORBITAL INSERTION
The next update will be after the crew safely reaches orbit.
Written By: Mark Garcia NASA
For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/. Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram at: @iss and on Twitter @Space_Station and @ISS_Research.
UNIVERSAL DIGEST is pleased to be a conduit for some of NASA's projects and work. This article and some others were written by NASA and are mostly unedited. We do not claim credit, we simply want to make them more available to the general public.
Universal Digest is committed to providing its audience with the most timely news reporting; however, there are times where this is not possible. Therefore, a concise reporting of historical news occurrences are published, as soon as, is practicable.
ED S.
Previous:NEW SCIENCE GEAR INSTALLED ON ISS
Next: OGO MAKES A WORLD DIFFERENCE
About Ed Smith - Founder - Universal Digest
Similar Great Articles
NASA LYING, MARS IMAGES REALLY OF DEVON ISLAND, CANADA
HOMECOMING FOR ISS TRIO
SLEEP IN AND RELAXED SCHEDULE TODAY
{ Comments are encouraged }


ARSENAL fans believe today could end their title hopes and gift the league to Chelsea.
Chelsea could win the Premier League today if Manchester City beat Arsenal, according to the Gunners' fans.
Diego Costa fired the Blues further ahead in the title race with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace with Arsenal arguably the next most likely contender.
But fans aren't convinced their side can put up a genuine title fight if they fail to topple City at the Etihad.
CLICK THROUGH THE GALLERY FOR THE BEST ARSENAL FAN THOUGHTS AHEAD OF A CRUCIAL CLASH AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY.


text:
Archive for the 'Directors: Gerwig' Category
Un-Marry me a little: MARRIAGE STORY and LITTLE WOMEN
Little Women (2019).
For a while The Blog conducted an annual ritual of analyzing storytelling techniques in year-end releases. I wrote entries from early in 2016, in 2017, and in 2018. Last year I muffed it, largely because of time spent revising our Christopher Nolan book. (Yes, we're also looking forward to Tenet, especially after that hellah trailer.)
This time I'm trying an alternative. Instead of surveying a range of releases, I'll focus on two that I think encapsulate some robust variants on familiar narrative strategies. Those strategies include choice of protagonist, linearity versus nonlinearity in time, and manipulation of viewpoint. While I'm concentrating on Marriage Story and Little Women, I'll draw out some comparisons with other films.
Many spoilers follow, but of course you've probably seen all the new films. Except maybe Cats.
Protagonists, dual and dueling
Human nature is not given to a protagonist/antagonist three-act structure. Human nature is just one damn thing after another in which the only thing that matters is what went on today because yesterday is gone. And that is contrary to a lot of the business that we're in, which makes sure that everybody understands the story by page 30 and is involved in the conflict.
You're plotting a film. What sort of options do you face? A basic choice involves protagonists.
You might build the film around one character who pursues a cluster of goals. Examples this season would include Dark Waters, Motherless Brooklyn, Uncut Gems, and Harriet. The protagonist can have helpers, and will certainly have adversaries, but her or his initiatives, decisions, and responses propel the action. In addition, we're usually attached to the protagonist's point of view, which limits us to what she or he knows. Judicious widening of the horizon often takes place to enhance tension. In Uncut Gems we're briefly attached to Arno's thugs when they're tailing Howard, and the climax crosscuts Howard in his office with Julia placing his big bet.
You could center the action on two characters, giving us a dual-protagonist plot. Here the goals may be shared or at least compatible. In The Aeronauts, a lady balloonist and a male meteorologist cooperate, with frictions, to break ascension records, while Ford v. Ferrari unites two men working together to win at Le Mans.
More rarely, a dual-protagonist plot can shift the protagonist in the course of the action. Good examples are Red River (1948) and The Killers (1946). I'd argue that Don Corleone functions as protagonist in the early sections of The Godfather (1972), while Michael takes up that role later. Similarly, Waves initially concentrates on Tyler, but he largely drops out of the plot and his sister Emily drives the film's second half.
Alternatively, the plot can present two protagonists in competition. This season we've had The Current War, centering on the struggle between Edison and Morgan to transmit electrical power. The narrational weight is largely with Edison, but I think Morgan is characterized enough and we're attached to his viewpoint frequently enough to present a counterweight. Morgan isn't simply an antagonist but rather what Kristin calls a parallel protagonist, like Salieri in Amadeus or Captain Ramius in The Hunt for Red October. As these examples indicate, parallel protagonists, although they're trying to figure out each one's aims and stratagems, often become fascinated with each other and recognize their affinities.
Paired protagonists are common in romantic comedies, which often consist of friction between the couple (due to clashing goals) but end in harmony and union. What's striking about Marriage Story is that here the end, not the start, of a romantic alliance is treated through the dual-protagonist strategy. Charlie and Nicole struggle over the terms of their divorce, particularly the handling of custody of their son Henry. Unlike Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), which is organized chiefly around the husband's viewpoint, this gives weight to both spouses.
Director Noah Baumbach achieves this balance through a cunning parallel block construction. The film opens with two montages of roughly equal running time. One surveys Nicole's habits and accomplishments with Charlie's voice-over praising her. ("She's my favorite actress.") Then we get a montage illustrating what Nicole loves about Charlie, with other incidents stitched together by her voice-over. Both montages weave in scenes of Nicole in rehearsal while Charlie, the director, makes suggestions.
Baumbach has compared these montages to an overture in musical theatre. The film's score sets out themes associated with each protagonist, and the quirks and routines that rush by establish important motifs, like haircutting, Monopoly games, and Henry's urge to sleep with his parents. With the he said/she said duality, the montages prepare us for the film's strategy of parallelism, a compare-and-contrast attitude.
The montages are revealed as visualizations of two memoirs the couple have written for a mediator.
They're planning to divorce, and he's asked them to recall what they loved about each other. Charlie is willing to share his notes with Nicole, but Nicole won't show hers. This hints that he's more reluctant to separate than she is, planting a question about why she seems determined to pursue the divorce.
Just as important, we've been given privileged access to both characters' minds, and this sort of alternating omniscience will proceed throughout the film. There won't be any more plunges this deep into subjectivity, but we'll always know more than either does, because after they separate we'll be attached to one or the other in large stretches.
For a time, though, we're with both. In the mediator's office, and then during the play's performance, in the bar with the troupe after the show, and in the family apartment, they interact as a couple. (True, Charlie sleeps on the sofa.) But once Nicole moves to California, the first block of action ends and we are attached to her and Henry as she launches her new project, a TV pilot.
Not until Charlie comes to visit Nicole, her mother, and her sister does the narration bring him back. There he's officially served the divorce papers. This scene launches a discreet viewpoint pivot from her to him. The family cuddle ends when Henry banishes Charlie from bed, foreshadowing how marginal his father will be to him from now on.
The film's next block attaches us to Charlie as he seeks out a lawyer, takes Henry on outings, and clashes with Nicole about how to celebrate Halloween. The couple wind up giving Henry two trick-or-treating trips, in different costumes, which reiterates the duplex structure of action we've been presented with since the start.
The alternation between Nicole and Charlie's viewpoints quickens as their negotiations get more fraught. Their first legal meeting ends with Charlie's losing faith in his easygoing attorney. The next meeting is an escalating confrontation between Charlie's new hard-charging lawyer and Nicole's equally tough Nora. In the courtroom exchange, the he said/she said pattern becomes vicious as each lawyer weaponizes minor incidents from scenes we've seen to cast shame on the opposing side.
The nastiness of the custody battle comes to a crisis in a ten-minute duologue in Charlie's apartment, an all-out fight between Nicole and Charlie. They run through a repertoire of reactions, from assurance of mutual admiration to declarations of annoyance, unhappiness, frustration, and complaints. By the end they're screaming insults. Charlie rages and then, as if aware of how monstrous he's being, collapses sobbing at Nicole's feet.
Most classically constructed films follow the pattern Kristin identified back when. The plot consists of a setup, a complicating action redefining the setup, a development section consisting largely of delay and backstory, and a climax that resolves the situation. An epilogue asserts a stable, if changed state of affairs. The four main parts are roughly equal in running time, with the climax tending to be a bit shorter and the epilogue being only a few minutes.
Up to a point, Marriage Story conforms to this architecture. The first thirty minutes set up the split in the family before focusing on Nicole's new life in California. Both Charlie and Nicole had hoped to separate amicably, with no need for lawyers. But thirty minutes in Nicole hires Nora and sets in motion a more severe legal battle than the couple had expected. The complicating action is triggered by serving Charlie the divorce papers.
There's no turning back, and the new situation centers on figuring out how to handle access to Henry. Charlie wants Henry to spend time in New York ("We're a New York family") but Nicole wants him with her, and as he was born in California the law inclines to her side. Hence the triple thrust of the Charlie block: visiting lawyers, trying to keep his Broadway production on track, and winning some loyalty from Henry.
The development section consists of characterizing stretches (Nicole indulges in a quick sexual encounter) and delays: the unsatisfactory first lawyer session, a power outage at Nicole's house, and the courtroom showdown. What happens next, though, seems to me quite original.
Between theatre and TV
To determine custody, both Nicole and Charlie must let an evaluator visit to observe each one's treatment of Henry. In a more ordinary film, this stretch would initiate the climax. The visit from the evaluator would furnish a deadline for determining how custody would be handled. Then the film's peak could be the vicious, trembling argument between Charlie and Nicole. This would be the explosion that reveals both their love and the impossibility of their staying together.
From this angle, Charlie's guilt-ridden collapse would be the resolution–his realization of how he stunted Nicole's life. A courtroom finale settling the terms of custody (a little more for Nicole than Charlie) would fill out the climax and lead to an epilogue, perhaps on the courthouse steps.
Excuse me for rewriting the film. I do it to show that Baumbach's script does something daring. The big argument comes before the evaluator's testing. After that brutal clash, we see Nicole rehearsing her answers in Nora's office. Moreover, the blundering efforts of Charlie to convince the stiff evaluator he's a good father play out in a lengthy comic scene with some gory sight gags.
A certain amount of suspense remains, I think, but the final cascade of gags works against the emotional pitch of the couple's quarrel. Baumbach has, in effect, risked using an anticlimax to round out the normal climax section of the film. It also serves as a good-natured punishment for Charlie's self-centeredness.
The same daring informs an unusually lengthy epilogue. It's built out of the sort of modules we've seen already. Nicole and her friends and family celebrate her divorce with a party, while Charlie mopes around Manhattan and morosely salutes his play's closing with his troupe in a bar. We might stop there, but Baumbach again does something original (though highly motivated). Charlie, now relocated for a teaching gig in LA, comes to pick up Henry and discovers the boy reading the note about Charlie that Nicole had prepared for the mediator session.
Not only does it reveal the feelings she had suppressed during the session, but the fact that she kept it shows she still harbors affection for that part of her life. Other films surprise us in the epilogue (Citizen Kane, for instance), but Baumbach's use of the memoir in the film's final moments remains a pretty bold, and moving, choice. This stretched and packed epilogue shows Charlie how much Nicole loved him, while also suggesting things that contributed to stifling her. Lines like "He's very competitive" and "He loves being a dad" have a new impact now that we've seen his battle for his son.
In telling this story, Baumbach exploits a larger strategy of what theatre people call continuous exposition. Instead of giving the necessary backstory in a lump at the beginning or middle, major information is sprinkled through the ongoing plot. We're familiar with this device in films that trigger fragmentary flashbacks, filling in backstory bit by bit. Baumbach goes with a more "theatrical" strategy using dialogue to invoke things that happened before the first scenes..
One of the major instances involves Nicole, who breaks down in an embrace with Nora, sobbing that Charlie slept with his assistant. Coming half an hour into the movie, it explains Nicole's bitterness in the mediation session, as well as her larger reappraisal of her life with Charlie. At other points we learn of big events, like Nicole's show taking off and Charlie's long-term settling in LA, in casual conversation, not in extended scenes.
Crucially, in their climactic quarrel, Charlie justifies his affair by accusing Nicole of withholding sex for a year. We can't appraise the truth of this, but it at least fills in a motive that more conventional exposition would have put into the setup. Resisting the temptation to supply flashbacks for all these revelations, Baumbach trusts our memory. That way the new data can color our ongoing understanding of the characters. The opening montages were generous but one-sided, chunks of incomplete exposition that suppressed important motives and behavior.
Continuous exposition is associated with Ibsen and playwrights who followed, but the theatrical patron hovering over the film is Stephen Sondheim. Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird had used Sondheim as a touchstone for ambitious high-school players, but the parallel structure of Marriage Story makes more explicit references, this time to Sondheim's Company. Nicole's party features her and her mother and sister performing "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," a saucy song about dumping a weak man. Soon in the bar Charlie is singing the yearning "Being Alive."
Maybe a little on the nose (like the movie's title), these citations seem true to the tastes of these show-biz mavens, while suggesting that at least some of Manhattan clings to Nicole in her exile.
Another parallel reminds us of a perennial Hollywood motif. Nicole began her career in a raunchy teen movie but thanks to Charlie's stage shows she became a respected performer. Yet to establish her own identity more fully she agrees to shoot a TV pilot. Marriage Story positions itself between theatre (a little pretentious, but nobly struggling) and TV (dumb and superficial, but high-tech and well-financed). Worse, TV literally defaces Nicole.
Theatre, TV: what about film?
In this story about show-biz LA, movies and references to them are sparse. (I didn't spot any.) So maybe we should take this film itself as standing in for righteous cinema, rather than the teenpic trash Nicole was in. Perhaps Marriage Story offers itself as its own example of the subtlety and risk-taking that cinema can embody. Even when streaming on Netflix.
Muses in the family
The family saga is one Hollywood genre that doesn't get enough respect. We tend nowadays to celebrate the tough, not tender side of studio cinema. The cult of noir, the abundance of hard-edged action pictures, and the idolatry that trails Tarantino all tend to make us prefer force to gentleness. When families gather, we expect big trouble, if not outright murder (Knives Out). We decry weepies of any sort, and family sagas are often felt to be soft, schmaltzy, womanish. A male friend tells me that Little Women is "a movie about hugs." When NPR devotes a whole show to it, panelists ponder how to convince men to see it. No wonder the family film has migrated to daytime cable TV.
Yet the family saga is one of the nicest things American cinema does. Two of our greatest masterpieces, How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), are prime examples. The Forties were rich in such efforts, including Forever and a Day (1943), Life with Father (1947), I Remember Mama (1948), The Human Comedy (1943), and Since You Went Away (1944). We ought to recognize as well the strength of later entries like The Joy Luck Club (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), and Soul Food (1997), all trying out some of the fresh approaches to storytelling that were emerging in the 1990s.
And the sentiments informing domestic sagas seep into other genres. The Fast and Furious team, we're told, come to be a family, as do the Avengers. The coming-of-age story, that perennial of indie cinema, inherits the aura of cozy warmth that is central to the family saga. I'd add one of my favorites, We Bought a Zoo (2011), which isn't really a saga but does radiate a comparable warmth.
Although there are probably earlier examples (I think of Vidor's 1924 Wine of Youth), it seems likely that the 1933 MGM production of Little Women furnished an important template. The four March sisters, each drawn to a different art form, are a model for the musically gifted sisters in the fine Four Daughters (1938).
And surely the fact that Katrin in I Remember Mama chronicles the family's daily lives owes a lot to the example of Jo March, aspiring novelist.
The family saga poses at least three creative problems for the filmmaker. Since each family member is likely to confront personal problems (romance, finance, school, job) how do you weave and weight multiple storylines? How do you provide conflict to propel the action? And, since the "saga" comparison suggests development over years or even generations, how do you handle long spans of time cinematically?
Greta Gerwig handles all these problems adroitly in her version of Little Women. I'm going to concentrate on the film, but I'm aware that some of the narrative strategies are taken from Louisa May Alcott's original novel. But much of what's ingenious about Gerwig's adaptation is of her own devising.
Start with storylines. In most such films, the trick is to create a group but then produce a scale of emphasis running from minor figures to the most important one typically, the "first among equals." In How Green, that is Huw, also our narrator; in Meet Me in St. Louis, it's Esther. But the doings of other characters shape the family's destiny and the decisions made by the spotlighted figure. So the activities intertwine.
In Little Women, characters shape one another's development. Jo, the first among equals, is nonconformist and self-reliant. Yet she needs steering–from Friedrich, the professor who tries to turn her away from sensation fiction, and more importantly from Beth, who in her sickness urges her to write "our story." They give her the strength to persist and trust her sense of what her writing can be.
On the romance front, Jo's rejection of Laurie's proposal of marriage opens the field for sister Amy, who has already supplanted Jo in the role of amanuensis to Aunt March. When Jo, out of loneliness, decides to welcome Laurie's offer, it's too late: he's married to Amy. The tangled alliances of melodrama get tightly bound in the family saga.
The other sisters contribute to the causal weave of the plot, with Meg's decision to abandon the stage reinforcing Jo's stubborn attachment to her art. More generally, the fates of the sisters dramatize the tension between creative impulse and the social demands of domesticity. Meg wants a family more than fame. Amy, the indifferent painter, can hope only for a good marriage (the same prospect Aunt March makes explicit to Jo).
In family sagas, the siblings are put in parallel. Huw's brothers leave the household, but he loyally stays, and Rose, the mature sister, has more trouble attracting men than the vivacious Esther. Here, Jo's kindred spirit is Beth the pianist, whose playing gives solace to Mr. Laurence in his grief. But illness keeps Beth from fulfilling herself either as artist or grown woman. As for Marmee, we're allowed to catch a glint of Jo's defiance behind the older woman's warmth when she confesses that she's angry every day.
Jo's main contrast is with Amy. Amy has done nasty things, but she accepts the burden, laid down by Aunt March, of marrying for money, not love, in order to benefit her loved ones. She does this even though, as she reveals in a key scene, she has always loved Laurie and has always felt herself overshadowed by Jo. (Those revelations are also suggested as what leads Laurie to fall in love with her, and not simply as a substitute for Jo.) Even the various suitors get ranged along comparative dimensions of class, strength of will, and temperament.
The need to provide a dense social milieu also creates parallels–here, in terms of good deeds. The Marches are lower middle-class, living on a parson's income, but they share their Christmas dinner with a more deprived family. The primary family is constantly compared to the wealthy Laurences, who are generous and good-hearted. Even Aunt March, who married well and embraced hardheaded principles, wills her mansion to Jo. The contrast with the flinty publishing house and the imperious Dashwood is softened when we learn, surprise, that he has a batch of daughters himself.
What about conflict in the family saga? There's often an external threat–predatory capitalism in How Green Was My Valley, the war in The Human Comedy–but not always a personified antagonist. Often these films have no straightforward villains. Parental error can move the plot, as when in Meet Me in St. Louis Alonzo Smith announces that he's taking a job in New York. And crises are created by misunderstandings or happenstance, most commonly illness. Somebody almost always gets hurt (here, Meg's twisted ankle, Amy's plunge through the ice) or sick (Beth's scarlet fever).
By and large, the conflicts come through romance and sibling rivalry. In Little Women, Meg loves John only somewhat more than she loves fine clothes, so their impoverished marriage nags at her heart. Amy, enraged at not going to the theatre, burns Jo's manuscripts. Jo responds with hatred–until Amy falls through the ice and needs rescuing. Amy later considers marrying a rich nonentity, and instead acknowledges her long love for Laurie–who in turn loves Jo. As in most melodramas, we know more than any one character, so we watch as characters' hopes rise against forces they don't yet realize.
Even without a clear-cut antagonist, the family members can have goals. The March girls start out as aspiring artists, and stretches of the plot are devoted to them developing their abilities. As their goals change, swerving two of them to marriage and maternity, Jo keeps striving toward what we see her doing in the film's very first scene: selling her stories. Her burning desire to write is a major through-line, and it encounters obstacles of many sorts, from the harrumphing Dashwood to the destruction of her manuscripts by Amy. And even Jo, as we've seen, recasts her goals: in offering solace to the dying Beth, she will write "all about us."
That means writing about the family as it changes over time. Our third narrative problem, in other words.
"If I were a girl in a book, this would all be so easy"
Marriage Story's avoidance of flashbacks makes it unusual nowadays. It's hard to find a movie without at least a few flashbacks. As mysteries, Motherless Brooklyn and Knives Out resort to them to replay scenes with new information. Other films make time shifts basic to their architecture. The Aeronauts uses flashbacks to supply the backstory to an unfolding crisis situation, while Hustlers switches between a contemporary interview and stages in the career of the woman questioned.
The Irishman goes for deeper embedding. The overall frame shows elderly Frank Sheeran in the care facility; the next frame is Frank's trip with Russell Bufalino and their wives to upstate New York, where Frank will kill Hoffa. That trip in turn flashes back to the central story of Frank's career with the mob. I try to show in Reinventing Hollywood that this sort of Russian-doll structure comes to be a major option in American film during the 1940s.
In Little Women, the years of change in the March family are given through alternating blocks. We start in the present, with Jo in New York struggling to get published. She's summoned back to Concord because Beth is ill. Meg is living in poverty with husband John, and Amy is in Paris with Aunt March. For about eleven minutes, crosscutting carries us among the sisters.
This block of exposition is followed by a title, "7 Years Earlier," that sets up the time oscillations we'll get for the rest of the film. In chronological order we follow the sisters growing up. Chunks of scenes from the past, shifting viewpoint among several characters, alternate with briefer scenes of the ongoing present showing Jo's settling back into the family. Sometimes the cuts break the blocks into smaller, interlocking bits, as when we shuttle quickly between Beth's childhood illness and her fatal one years later.
Why split a linear story into two intercut strands? Flashbacks often create a specific sort of anticipation: Not just What will happen next? but What caused the outcome I already more or less know? In the first ten minutes we learn that Laurie proposed to Jo and she refused him; that Amy, not Jo, became Aunt March's traveling companion; that Meg married John, the impoverished tutor. We'll witness the development of all these turning points, and more. We must watch the rise and fall of characters' hopes, knowing they will be dashed. But we also know, from Jo's initial visit to the publishing house, that she will gain some success. This time-jumping gives us another level of omniscience, one that lets us savor the details of emotional scenes whose outcomes we roughly know. We're in the theatre, after all, to enjoy the rapture of pathos.
Instead of tagging each time shift with a date, Gerwig expects us to keep track of the double-entry storylines. She assists us by making story motifs visual hooks between past and present. Silk for a dress, a key, Jo seen writing at a window–these link scenes but also carry dramatic weight in the ongoing action. Other echoes are longer-range. We're invited to remember contrasting dance scenes (tavern, ballroom, porch), scorched dresses, and piano pieces.
Eventually the past scenes catch up with the present. The fusion comes with the burial of Beth and one more clutch of flashbacks, to Meg's wedding. I take this as the end of the development section. "Childhood is over," Jo says. Back in the present, Jo vows to abandon writing.
Now the present-time action dominates the climax. Grieving for Beth, distraught at Meg's leaving the household, and crushed by the marriage of Laurie and Amy, Jo burns her manuscripts–except for the stories she wrote for Beth. She starts to assemble them and write more.
After a glimpse of Dashwood refusing the manuscript, we see Friedrich come to visit the Marches on his way to California. After he's left for the station, the family claims that Jo obviously loves him.
At this point, in her most daring creative choice, Gerwig retains the crosscutting technique in a way that seems to continue the present/past alternation. Dashwood's daughters have urged him to publish Jo's manuscript. In New York, in a scene that rhymes with the opening passage, Jo negotiates with Dashwood.
Their conversation is intercut with views of Jo rushing to the station to catch Friedrich and ask him to stay.
The epilogue consists of more alternations. We see Jo watching Little Women being printed, crosscut with a party at the school Jo has founded in Aunt March's mansion. There John, Friedrich, and Laurie can be glimpsed as Meg and Amy teach children the arts they had practiced. The celebration ends with a birthday cake presented to Marmee.
But there's another way to take the final minutes. The alternation isn't tracking two points in time–Jo's rush to Friedrich and a later session with Dashwood–but rather a split between fiction and reality.
We're coaxed to take scene of Jo's pursuit of Friedrich as representing not her own action but the changes that Dashwood demands in Jo's novel. "Who does she marry?" he asks, explaining that a book sells only if there's a marriage. Jo reluctantly agrees. "I suppose marriage has always been an economic proposition, even in fiction." Cut to Jo racing to the station. After the shots of her embracing Friedrich under an umbrella, we're back in the office. Dashwood suggests the chapter title, "Under the Umbrella," and Jo agrees. But in turn she makes demands: "You keep your five hundred dollars and I'll keep the copyright. . . . I want to own my own book."
We've assumed throughout that Jo's book is highly autobiographical, but we've taken what we see and hear as actual events, the living source of a literary text. Instead, the crosscut climax allows a parallel reality to burst forth, a road not taken. The epilogue yields another ambivalent passage of crosscutting. The school party might be veridical; certainly the family would likely gather for Marmee's birthday. But the scene could as well serve as the fictional epilogue in Jo's book (as it does in the Alcott original).
The true epilogue of Jo's story would then be the moment when she sees her book printed, action that's crosscut with the celebration. Jo gets the first copy. In the last shot, pleasure, apprehension, and determination play across her features. And she's framed in a window, an approximate reverse shot to the image that opened the film (see image at the top of this section).
From the start Gerwig has shrewdly foreshadowed the turn to fiction by presenting the film's title, after Jo has made her first sale, not as an inscription on the screen but as the physical book itself. That book is signed by L. M. Alcott. The apparently identical volume that comes off the printing press at the end bears the name J. L. March. Gerwig has let Jo appropriate Alcott's story.
By giving us a double-voiced ending, Gerwig does something quite bold. Little Women becomes something of a "what-if" movie, positing two paths for her heroine. Alcott's Jo had given up a literary career, whereas Gerwig's Jo finds one by writing her own life and adding an optional ending. We're free to think that Jo and Friedrich married and the family became a harmonious whole, as in Alcott's book. A happy ending, we might say, for those who want one. But this film about hugs ends with the heroine hugging not a husband but her novel.
Unmarried in life, Jo can marry in fiction, and Gerwig can have it both ways. Narrative lets you do things like that.
I haven't been able to do justice to the intriguing choices made in other films of the season. I appreciate, for instance, the nonlinearity in Kasi Lemmons' Harriet, where the interruptions of present-time action offer Harriet's premonitions of future scenes. This sort of "prophetic" flashforward is rare; usually such passages are presented as omniscient narration, not assigned to characters. But the device does establish Harriet as a sensitive, almost angelic figure, and suggests that her quest to guide slaves to freedom is sustained not just by faith but by holiness.
Still, looking in a little depth at just two major films can make us aware of several choices available to filmmakers at this point in history. As Wölfflin said, "Not everything is possible at all times." But film researchers can usefully trace the flexible menu of options that filmmakers work with, and film viewers come to master.
Gerwig has kindly made available a version of the screenplay, which I discovered only after I wrote this. (Thanks, Kristin.) The notations for the final sequences are pretty interesting. The most wide-ranging discussion I've seen of the ending, with plenty of links, is the conversation between Marissa Martinelli and Heather Schwedel in Slate. Among several perceptive reviews, I'd single out the one in Time by Stephanie Zacharek and Richard Brody's review in The New Yorker.
I can't help but think how central crosscutting, that technique pioneered by early filmmakers, is to both of these films. Techniques endure because they open up a lot of expressive possibilities.
Kristin elaborates on arguments for four-part plot structure in Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Extended examples on this site are here and here. I discuss family sagas of the 1940s, along with flashbacks, protagonists, and other narrative techniques in Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling. On 1990s revival of these techniques, see The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies.
Marriage Story (2019). Is this why the film includes few standing two-shots of Nicole and Charlie?
Thursday | January 9, 2020 | 1940s Hollywood, Directors: Baumbach, Directors: Gerwig, Hollywood: Artistic traditions, Independent American film, Narrative strategies | Comments Off on Un-Marry me a little: MARRIAGE STORY and LITTLE WOMEN


text:
using System;
using System.Text;

namespace GradleBindings
{
    public class GradleException : Exception
    {
        public string OriginalScript { get; set; }

        public GradleException(string log, string originalScript)
            : base(log)
        {
            OriginalScript = originalScript;
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
            result.Append("Gradle log:\n========\n");
            result.Append(Message);
            result.Append("\n\nOriginal script:\n========\n");
            result.Append(OriginalScript);
            result.Append("\n\nStack-Trace:\n========\n");
            result.Append(StackTrace);

            return result.ToString();
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Computational complexity of multiplication in a nilpotent group? What is the computational complexity of multiplication in a Carnot group ?
Background: A Carnot group is a real nilpotent Lie group $N$ whose Lie algebra $Lie(N)$ admits a direct sum decomposition
$$Lie(N) = V_{1} + ... + V_{m}$$
such that $[V_{i}, V_{j}] \subset V_{i+j}$ if $i+j \leq m$, otherwise
$[V_{i} , V_{j}] = 0$.
Moreover, it is required that $V_{1}$ generates the whole Lie algebra $Lie(N)$.
Detailed question: What is the computational complexity of multiplication in $N$, as a function of $m$, $dim V_{1}$, ... , $dim V_{m}$?
More background:

*

*"Computational complexity" means giving   an estimate for the running time of an algorithm for performing the multiplication operation. I am looking for nontrivial estimates, better than, for example, the one coming from matrix multiplication. Exponentiation and logarithms are not taken into account (one variant of thinking is to use BCH formula for multiplication, with a finite number of terms due to nilpotency, other variant would be to use the remark from example 2.4 below and think about multiplication as matrix multiplication).

*Examples of Carnot groups:
2.1. When  m=1, this is a real vector space and the multiplication operation is just addition of vectors (thus the multiplication operation is the one of the addition of vectors, much less than matrix multiplication).
2.2. When m=2, the simplest example is the Heisenberg group
2.3. The group of invertible, $n \times n$ upper triangular matrices, has   $m=n−1$, $dim V_{i} = n-i$. Is there any better estimate than $n^{3}$ in this case? (I think so, but cannot find a reference to an answer.)
2.4. Any Carnot group can be seen as a subgroup of the group from example 2.3.
2.5. Carnot groups appear as metric tangent spaces for sub-riemannian, manifolds, see link in the question. As such, they are a kind of noncommutative vector spaces, with the "trivial" exception when they are commutative, like in the case of riemannian manifolds, when the tangent space is like in example 2.1
(other "simple" example being the metric contact manifolds, with the tangent space like in 2.2).


text:
use Scalar;
use maths::UnitVec3D;

static POLAR_STEP: Scalar = 2.23725224525;
static AZIMUTH_STEP: Scalar = 1.01862612263;

pub struct UnitVec3DGenerator {
    polar: Scalar,
    azimuth: Scalar,
}

impl UnitVec3DGenerator {
    pub fn new() -> UnitVec3DGenerator {
        UnitVec3DGenerator {
            polar: -POLAR_STEP,
            azimuth: -AZIMUTH_STEP,
        }
    }

    pub fn gen_next(&mut self) -> UnitVec3D {
        self.polar += POLAR_STEP;
        self.azimuth += AZIMUTH_STEP;

        UnitVec3D::from_angles(self.polar, self.azimuth)
    }
}

impl Iterator for UnitVec3DGenerator {
    type Item = UnitVec3D;

    fn next(&mut self) -> Option<Self::Item> {
        Some(self.gen_next())
    }
}


text:
Monthly: September, 2014
Chuck Smith 1 September 2014 Uncategorized
This morning I saw that Cara Ellison posted an Embed with Adriaan de Jongh, so I immediately had to read it and it made me reflect on why I started a game studio to begin with. The sentence that really hit me was, "I think what he is talking about is a divide between commerce and art, or at least, the conflict between what art wants and what the market wants and how the artist technically needs to serve both to survive."
I notice that whenever I present my games to game developers, often the first question is, "But how do you plan to monetize this?" From a business point of view, it is indeed a very important question. However, from an artistic point of view, I think this kills a lot of visions. This can also bring back the question of whether your primary goal is to make money or to give people a way to have fun. Many of our games also have the added goal of connecting people (below at the newly opened Game Science Center here in Berlin).
With our first game, Word Race, you only need one device, but you actually have to get at least four people together to play (because you need at least two teams of two people each). Our latest game, What the Shell, also requires two players for the best experience. Even though What the Shell is an abstract board game, there's a connection that happens when both players play on the same space in the game, effectively blocking each other that turn, so it makes sense that the most amusing interactions come from playing in the same room, while each player is hiding their screen from their opponent.
Word Race
(This title is no longer on the App Store.)
Each of our games start out by heavily innovating on a classic game and adapting it to digital media. Word Race took the party game of Taboo and made each word a race in itself, instead of having the same player continually describe words for a limited amount of time, which was required due to limited technology before smartphones. So, we felt a racing theme also matched this new game mechanic. If you want to give it a try, you can download Word Race on the Apple App Store.
Poker Solitaire
While we were looking at the OUYA market, we saw that there weren't many card/board games for it and decided to fill that hole in the market. The game that I felt could be most easily adapted to the TV was Poker Solitaire, because it just required choosing which space on a 5×5 grid to place your card. But even here, we didn't stop innovating. We noticed that almost all Poker Solitaire games wait until the end of the game to give you your score, so we decided to update the score with every placed card to give the player instant gratification. Also, since we know where the last card will go, we automatically place the last card, speeding up the game a bit. To see for yourself, you can play Poker Solitaire on the Apple App Store or on the OUYA Discover Store.
Our latest abstract board game, What the Shell, innovates on the American game of Pente (1977), which in turn innovated on the Japanese game of Ninuki-Renju (1923), which innovated on the old Japanese five-in-a-row classic Renju (played since 700, name coined in 1899). I've noticed in all of these games that the first player has a big advantage, which is usually compensated for using very complicated inelegant initial placement rules. Due to the design influence of New Rules for Classic Games, I decided to try the game with simultaneous play (but not a speed game), which created a very interesting experience.
(What the Shell – iPad Screenshot 2014)
In a nutshell, What the Shell is a game with simultaneous play, in which players try to get five pieces in-a-row and can also capture stones to help accomplish that goal. Adding simultaneous play changes the game's nature considerably. First of all, no one can ever be 100% sure they will win on the next turn, thus why What the Shell doesn't have a "resign" button. In a typical five-in-a-row game, if someone gets an "open four" (that is four pieces in a row with an empty space on both sides), they know they've won, since they can't be blocked on both sides. However, in What the Shell, this means they have a 50% chance of winning, something similar to exciting final showdowns in Texas Hold'em Poker with both players betting all their chips with hands like 22 vs AK.
Simultaneous play also introduces neutral pieces when both players choose to play in the same place. This allowed me to introduce a new rule that when anyone makes a capture, that person immediate gains possession of the first neutral piece. Since these neutral pieces are in important places, that incentives players to consider and weigh two options for victory: capturing pieces to gain control of neutral stones and just getting five pieces in a row. I find this adds a new dimension to the play. Also, games tend to last 1-10 minutes, so you can easily fit several games into one session.
Pay to win: not with us!
With all of our games, we have people suggesting ways to make money on the game, which we think feel "evil." We definitely don't want to create a pay-to-win game and we think the core mechanics behind these classic games need to be preserved. So, I hope our passion will pay off in the long run as we entertain people around the world with our games! To stay up to date on what we're doing, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.


text:
Q: Apache redirect to ignore folder I have a self-hosted multi-site Wordpress instance.  There are several different domains attached to this instance - but I don't like the way the URL looks.
So, the actual page URL looks something like this :
http://myblog.mydomain.com/myblog/about-us/contact/
I would like people to click a link that looks like this, and for this URL to appear in the browser address bar :
http://myblog.mydomain.com/about-us/contact/
I want apache webserver to redirect to
http://myblog.mydomain.com/myblog/about-us/contact/
What would the mod_rewrite rule look like ? Should it appear near the top of the http.conf redirects, and be last?
Thanks

A: You will indeed want to use mod_rewrite.
All rewrite rules abide by the following format:
RewriteRule pattern substitution [flags]
You can decide to either place this directly in the <VirtualHost> directive of your httpd.conf, or into the .htaccess file depending on your setup.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^myblog/(.*)$ $1 [R=301,L]

This will remove myblog/ from your URL. The R=301 means that this will be a permanent redirect, and as such, the change will be reflected in the address bar. The L declares that this is the last rule, and any rules below will not be applied.


text:
Somali forces end extremist siege of Kismayo hotel; 26 dead
By: Abdi Guled, The Associated Press 6 days ago
Terrorists attacked the Asasey Hotel in Kismayo , Somalia, Saturday. At least 26 people, including two journalists, were killed, a Somali official said. The attack started with a suicide car bomb blast and then gunmen stormed into the hotel. (AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali forces Saturday morning ended an all-night siege on a hotel in the southern port city of Kismayo, in which the death toll has risen to 26 people, including a prominent Canadian-Somali journalist and several foreigners, officials say.
Those killed include three Kenyans, three Tanzanians, two Americans, one Canadian and one Briton, said Ahmed Madobe, the president of Jubbaland regional state which controls Kismayo. Fifty-six people, including two Chinese, were injured in the hotel attack, he told reporters.
At least four al-Shabab assailants attacked the Asasey Hotel Friday evening, beginning with a suicide car bomb at the entrance gate and followed by an assault in which gunmen stormed the hotel, which is frequented by politicians, patrons and lawmakers.
Africa: A continent where partnership is in demand
While U.S. military might is unrivaled, a robust whole of government approach enables security, stability and prosperity on the African continent.
By: Col. Chris Karns
The attack lasted more than 14 hours before troops shot dead all attackers inside the hotel compound, Col. Abdiqadir Nur, a local police officer, told The Associated Press.
The militants attempted to maintain control of the hotel but failed to do so when engaged by Somali security forces, a defense official tells Military Times.
Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida, often uses car bombs to infiltrate heavily fortified targets like the hotel in Kismayo, which has been relatively quiet in recent years.
Al-Shabab remains the largest terror organization in East Africa, Air Force Col. Chris Karns, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command, told Military Times. The extremist group was responsible for a truck bombing in Mogadishu in October 2017 that killed 500 people in one of the deadliest violent extremist attacks since 9/11.
"It is important to continue to actively degrade al-Shabab to prevent its intent to cross borders," said Karns. "Actions such as these demonstrate and define the true nature and character of al-Shabab. It also reinforces the need for continuous pressure on the network to prevent its spread across borders."
At any given time, said Karns, anywhere from 650 to 800 U.S. personnel are in Somalia, helping to build the Danab, an elite force trained by the U.S. military.
The U.S. has conducted 46 airstrikes against violent extremist groups in Somalia this year in support of the Federal Government of Somalia "and to apply continued pressure on terror organizations wishing to do harm to African partners and U.S. interests," said Karns.
Canadian journalist Hodan Nalayeh and her husband, Farid Jama Suleiman, died in the attack, Mogadishu-based independent radio station Radio Dalsan confirmed to AP.
"I'm absolutely devastated by the news of the death of our dear sister Hodan Nalayeh and her husband in a terrorist attack in Somalia today. What a loss to us. Her beautiful spirit shined through her work and the way she treated people," Omar Suleiman, a Texas-based imam who knew the victim, wrote on social media.
Nalayeh was born in Somalia in 1976, but spent most of her life in Canada, first in Alberta and then in Toronto. She founded Integration TV, an international web-based video production company aimed at Somali viewers around the world. She was the first Somali woman media owner in the world.
Despite these periodic attacks, incremental progress and positive reform is occurring in places like Somalia, said Karns.
"The evil activities of a few, don't define the future of a people, nor does it erase progress," he said. "The Somalis have made considerable progress in the areas of governance, defense and economic development. Hard-earned, steady incremental progress is occurring in Somalia."
Military Times managing editor Howard Altman contributed to this report.


text:
Home / Collections / ARTIST: Lewis, Jeffrey / Trip To Key West (And Back) 1999
Trip To Key West (And Back) 1999
BBB DISTRO
"Trip To Key West (And Back) 1999" by Jeffrey Lewis
BACK IN PRINT! This 41-page comic book travel diary, originally written/drawn by Jeffrey Lewis in spring of 1999, has not been available in print since about 2002.... but now it's back!
On April 12, 1999, for no particularly logical reason, Jeffrey got on a midnight Greyhound bus from NYC to Key West, Florida, just to see what would happen... And there was absolutely no predicting all the craziness that would unfold! With just a pen and a sketchbook, and staying awake all night drawing on the streets of Key West, this scribbly little comic book travel diary emerged as a document of a very strange slice of Americana.
The drawing and lettering are quite a bit more quick and messy than the usual style of Jeffrey's comic books, because this was all drawn with no planning, on the fly... See the page sample for a glance at the style of this story.
6.65" x 10.25", 41 pages. $5
Full-color covers with b+w interior. Saddle-stitched


text:
Neolimnomyia nemoralis är en tvåvingeart som först beskrevs av Johann Wilhelm Meigen 1818.  Neolimnomyia nemoralis ingår i släktet Neolimnomyia och familjen småharkrankar. Arten är reproducerande i Sverige. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Småharkrankar
nemoralis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Gaurena argentisparsa is a moth in the family Drepanidae. It is found in Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim in India and in Tibet, China.

The wingspan is about 36 mm. The forewings are grey, irrorated (sprinkled) with black and with a black-edged white spot at the base below the median nervure and a white antemedial band edged by irregularly-waved black lines. There is a small black-edged white orbicular and large round reniform stigma, with a black-edged white band from it to the inner margin, its inner edge dentate. There is also a waved postmedial line with a diffused white band beyond it forking to the apex, as well as some submarginal white specks and an irregular patch at the anal angle and a marginal series of white lunules. The hindwings are fuscous, with traces of postmedial and submarginal lines towards the inner margin.

References

Moths described in 1896
Thyatirinae
Taxa named by George Hampson


text:
MY105.3 App
Big Fat 80's Wedding
$600 Visa Gift Card
Community Job Fair
Cubicle Confessions
My105.3 on Alexa
MY105.3 on Google Home
MY Morning Show Blogcast
MY 105.3 Personalities
Deb Turner
MY Morning Show
MY Community Outreach
MY Midday Show
MY Afternoon Show
MY Night Show
MY Saturday Afternoon Show
MY 105.3 App
Hopefest 5K
Tri-State Events
Michael Buble' Tickets
My VIP Contests
My VIP Help
Most Recently Played
Top Played Songs
MY Morning ShowMY Morning Show
Liam Hemsworth Wants to Have A Lot of Babies With Miley Cyrus
Jesse Grant, Getty Images
Liam Hemsworth revealed he wants to have a bunch of kids with wife Miley Cyrus.
The 29-year-old actor, who covers the May/June issue of GQ Australia, opened up about married life with the "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" singer, admitting they're definitely going to have babies "one day" when the timing is right for them.
"Once we don't have so many dogs," he explained. "You couldn't bring a baby into our house right now. But one day, we'll know when it's right. But right now? Not for the time being."
When the time does come, he said he wants "10, 15, maybe 20" kids.
Hemsworth went on to say the California fire that destroyed their Malibu home really gave him some perspective—and prompted him and Cyrus to tie the knot in December 2018.
"I was 18 when I met Miley," he said. "We really fell in love quickly and had a really strong connection from the beginning and I think in the back of my head I knew it was on the cards, but we weren't planning to have a wedding anytime soon."
"Then just going through something this emotional with someone, it brings you closer and we felt like we'd lost a big part of our lives, so we wanted to make a new part of our lives," he added. "It was something really good coming out of a horrible situation. It was going to happen eventually, but I think this just sped it up a little bit."
15 Celebrity Couples Who Secretly Got Married
Source: Liam Hemsworth Wants to Have A Lot of Babies With Miley Cyrus
Filed Under: Liam Hemsworth, Miley Cyrus
20 Freebies You Can Get On Your Birthday in the Tri-State
2020 My 105.3 WJLT is part of the PopCrush Network, Townsquare Media, Inc. All rights reserved.


text:
Creators: Children Theatre Group, CHOREA Theatre (Poland)
Cast: Iga Appel, Dawid Będkowski, Helena Dałek, Julia Maciężak, Patrycja Michalak, Mikołaj Mrozicki, Robert Obrycki, Marcin Pączek, Julian Piotrowski, Wanda Poteraj, Marcel Rutowicz, Joanna Sarna, Aniela Światopełk-Mirska, Jagoda Tranda, Antek Wójcik-Urbaniak, Weronika Wroniak, Filip Appel, Joanna Filarska, Dominika Krzyżanowska Gorzkiewicz, Paweł Korbus, Jola Królicka, Patryk Zakrocki, Tomasz Krukowski
Premiere: 01.09.2019, Stage in Art_Inkubator in Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz, Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny Retroperspektywy 2019
City and all its manifestations - buildings, vehicles, institutions, sounds, people, movement, machines. Tools - body, voice, word, sound, waste and various plastic materials. Idea - enabling children to creatively express themselves with parents' minimal interference.
Joanna Filarska - Culture animator and educator, coordinator of artistic, social and educational projects. Worked in the Community Center of Alternative Education in Lodz, in the common day-room for pre-school children 'Kraina Pełna Skarbów' in Lodz, and as an educator and animator at the University of Jan Józef Lipski in Teremiski. She coordinates artistic, social and educational projects in CHOREA Theatre and Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz. She leads and coordinates a year-round cultural education program 'Creative Workshops in Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz'. She works with youth and children groups, leading music and theatre workshops. She also works with the local community, cooperates with schools and organizes the audience. She was a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2015. She sings with pleasure. She performs in CHOREA Theatre concerts: 'Songs of the World', 'Lullabies', 'Concert of Ancient Music', 'Engi Vengi', and in CHOREA Theatre performances: 'The Bacchae', 'Vidomi', 'Darkness'. In life and work she likes the uncertainty.
Dominika Krzyżanowska Gorzkiewicz - Culture animator and educator, coordinator of artistic, social and educational projects. Worked in the Community Center of Alternative Education in Lodz, in the common day-room for pre-school children 'Kraina Pełna Skarbów' in Lodz, and as an educator and animator at the University of Jan Józef Lipski in Teremiski. She coordinates artistic, social and educational projects in CHOREA Theatre and Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz. She leads and coordinates a year-round cultural education program 'Creative Workshops in Fabryka Sztuki in Lodz'. She works with youth and children groups, leading music and theatre workshops. She also works with the local community, cooperates with schools and organizes the audience. She was a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2015. She sings with pleasure. She performs in CHOREA Theatre concerts: 'Songs of the World', 'Lullabies', 'Concert of Ancient Music', 'Engi Vengi', and in CHOREA Theatre performances: 'The Bacchae', 'Vidomi', 'Darkness'. In life and work she likes the uncertainty.
Paweł Korbus - Visual artist, performer, author of video works and installations, actor. He combines techniques of working with body, voice and various media from the field of visual arts. Interested in corporality and body under the influences and pressures of culture, experiences and emotions, mental sphere in a state of uncertainty, the suspension in a situation of conflicting needs and a subject to cultural disciplines. He crosses geographical and social distances. He enters relations and tests his behavior in situations of being a stranger. Korbus is a graduate of Art Education at the Institute of Fine Arts of the Faculty of Art at Maria Skłodowska-Curie University in Lublin, and also a scholarship holder of the Visegrad Artist Residency Program 2016, and Art Scholarship of President of City of Lublin 2017. He performed on many internationals festivals, like: Performance Platform Lublin (Poland, 2009), Performance Month (Berlin, Germany, 2014), Supermarket Independent Art Fair (Stockholm, Sweden), Bruno Schulz Festival (Drohobych, Ukraine), Bedesten Festival (Antioch, Turkey), Forgetting/Remembering Performance Art Meeting (Istanbul, Turkey, 2017). All the time on the road, travels back and forth. Always gloating. Occupied with love and pleasure. Independent, visual, performative.


As the third most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has a lot of human capital potential. In addition, overall macroeconomic indicators such as inflation rates are stable, and economic growth has maintained an upward trend in recent years, with GDP annual growth remaining around 6% as of 2018. Despite becoming one of Africa's fastest growing economies, the DRC is riddled by widespread poverty, which particularly affects rural areas. The country remains fragile after suffering decades of violence and conflict, as reflected in the weak capacity of public institutions to accelerate poverty reduction and improve development outcomes for citizens across the country.
Poor development results are particularly palpable in the health sector. Almost half of all children under the age of five are malnourished. Maternal mortality rates have remained stubbornly high despite government efforts to train and implement midwives and to improve access to and quality of health services. At the local level, Health Facility Committees (HFCs) act as mechanisms through which citizens can interact with health authorities and service providers, but they have not been completely effective at fulfilling their roles. The health sector is marred by inefficiencies, insufficient funding, poor infrastructure, limited accountability, and weak institutional capacity. The situation is particularly acute in regions like South Kivu, North Kivu, and Katanga where there remain many internally displaced persons and sporadic outbreaks of conflict.
CORDAID, a reputable organization with extensive experience in the DRC, has been granted a GPSA award to improve the quality and the access of frontline health care services in DRC by strengthening the capacity of HFCs to engage with health authorities in eleven health zones in South Kivu and Bas Congo regions. This will be achieved by implementing four components geared towards: 1) reinforcing the HFC system by strengthening the capacity of its members and service delivery authorities to utilize the system effectively; 2) empowering HFCs to take a larger role in improving health services and collecting citizen feedback; 3) supporting the integration of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of the population in targeted zones; and 4) building the capacity of CSOs involved in the Project to implement and practice social accountability, and collect knowledge to improve project design, disseminate outcomes and share lessons learned by HFCs and local authorities.
1. 3700 citizens, organized in 185 formerly ineffective Community Health Management Committees now use community score cards and other tools to identify priority issues in their respective health situations, provide adequate feedback to authorities and identify appropriate solutions.
2. 60% of community health management committees now include representatives of vulnerable and marginalized people.
3. Community grants are allocated more effectively thanks to improved communication and trust between health center users, providers, and government regulators.
4. Health centers have received new equipment. Outside of the centers, simple improvements, such as new water pumps and sturdy sheds for prenatal care, have been added to community facilities.
The decentralization process in the DRC throughout Project implementation has greatly contributed to the success of the project. Decentralization has impacted the attitude and motivations of the provincial health authorities to take the work of HFCs seriously. The general decentralization dynamic was positive and provided a clearer path toward achieving project objectives.
Mid-project changes within the economy of the DRC called for changes to project implementation. The project learned to take a new and more challenging economic context into account by changing the conditionality for accessing project micro-funding.


Read Jane Anson's initial impression of the Bordeaux 2016 en primeur wines in Médoc. Editing by Chris Mercer.
Bordeaux 2016 en primeur wines are better than 2015 across the northern Médoc as a whole, and drinkers may find more buying options in second wines and smaller estates than in recent years.
I loved tasting the northern Médoc wines during Bordeaux en primeur week.
Almost across the board, the northern Médoc has out-delivered the 2015 wines by some strides. They are the best since 2014, and significantly better than 2014 in most cases.
There is an extra dimension to many of the wines in terms of acidity and structure.
A dry and warm summer – though not overly hot – burnt right through the pyrazine in the vineyard, so there is very little of the green pepper flavor that can indicate underripeness.
This is one of the main reasons why there could be value at all levels in the Médoc.
That said, some northern Médoc estates priced too high in 2015 for the quality up there, because generally their lower priced 2014s were better. So I wonder where they will go this year? We must wait and see.
There have been many comparisons to the 1996 Médoc vintage, but the 2016 barrel samples have more elegance and also reflect the improvement in viticulture over the past 20 years.
Further south, the issue for Margaux is that the 2015 wines were so exceptional. This is a nice problem to have, but it's hard for 2016 to clearly exceed '15 – even if most wines are undeniably doing a great job of keeping up.
Eric Boissenot, consultant at many top estates in the Médoc, told Decanter.com, 'The fact that there are many great second wines is a good indication of quality. It is more regular in this aspect than 2009, 2010 and 2015 in many ways. There is a race and elegance to the tannins this year that is remarkable.
It's a fascinating year for understanding terroir impact. First came the wet early season, and then the exceptionally dry summer. Put that together with a relaxed picking season where many could really pick their dates and it means that terroir differences came through strongly – as did the effect of vine age.
'The rain was largely before the flowering so had no affect on ripening, although young vines suffered from the drought,' added Boissenot.
That said, it's worth remembering that we shouldn't let 2016 overshadow the success of the 2015 vintage, especially on the Right Bank, and in Pessac-Léognan and Margaux.
Bordeaux 2016 is not a blockbuster vintage in the main, so if you prefer richness in your glass, I would consider sticking to 2015 on the Right Bank – or indeed Pessac and sometimes Margaux.


Android Soccer is a cool sports game where you can play the multiplayer mode for free. Your task in the new challenge is to hit the target in the short time to become the winner. If you are successful, you will obtain extra points. The time is limited. So, you should act quickly to unlock all of the levels in Android Soccer. Don't forget to set the aim and the power before shooting the ball! Let's get ready to beat the opponent goalkeeper now! Have fun!


text:
Following fellow Asian buyers, Japan resumes shipping in Iranian oil
January 21, 2019 - 21:26
TEHRAN – The governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced on Monday that Japanese refiners have resumed imports of Iranian oil after receiving waivers from U.S. sanctions on Tehran, IRNA reported.
"After China, South Korea, India and Turkey, Japan also started the process of importing Iranian oil," Abdolnaser Hemmati said.
Hemmati further noted that despite U.S. sanctions the revenues from oil exports are gradually entering the country's trade cycle.
Japan is the last of the four biggest Iranian oil buyers in Asia to resume imports after receiving a waiver from U.S. sanctions on crude imports that started in November.
China and India maintained their imports after November while on Saturday, South Korea received its first Iranian oil cargo in four months.
In a report on Monday, Reuters also quoted a spokesman of the Japanese refiner Fuji Oil Co that the refinery has lifted a cargo of Iranian crude oil over the weekend.
"The very large crude carrier Kisogawa loaded about two million barrels of Iranian oil on Sunday and is expected to reach Japan on Feb. 9, according to the Fuji spokesman and Refinitiv Eikon data", the report read.
"It took a while for us to resume imports of Iranian oil," the spokesman said, adding that the biggest hurdle was to get banks to agree to handle payments to Iran.
EF/MA
China offers Iran $3bn oilfield deal despite U.S. sanctions: Wall Street Journal
India to continue shipping in Iranian oil
'S. Korea expected to restart Iran's oil imports in late Jan. or early Feb.'
Iranian oil prices
Asian buyers


text:
Homepage Cold War EraHere's why the F-14 Tomcat was a true multirole fighter (and not just a fleet defense interceptor)
Here's why the F-14 Tomcat was a true multirole fighter (and not just a fleet defense interceptor)
The F-14 Tomcat wasn't supposed to be a one trick pony like the F-15 Eagle.
Often referred to as a fleet defense interceptor, the legendary F-14 Tomcat was instead also designed with air superiority in mind.
'Many people will bring up the point that the F-14 was built as a fleet defense interceptor, which it also was designed to do. The F-14 wasn't supposed to be a one trick pony like the F-15,' Matthieu Pickens, an aviation expert, says on Quora.
'When you only have 4 acres to work with, having an aircraft proficient at multiple jobs is a must. To solve these diametrically opposed mission-sets, the engineers came up with a radical solution. They designed the plane to have the internal fuel capacity for the fleet defense mission, but without the added weight and drag penalties necessary to carry the phoenix for the air superiority mission. They did this by developing pallets to carry the Phoenix missiles rather that designing permanent fixtures for them like on the later MiG-31.
'On any mission the Foxhound isn't carrying R-33 missiles, these recesses just create extra drag.
'This F-14A is equipped for such an air superiority/escort mission.
'It carries 4 AIM-7 Sparrows and 4 AIM-9 Sidewinders, the same loadout of the F-4 Phantom II and the F-15 Eagle until the arrival of the AIM-120 AMRAAM 15 years after it entered service with the USAF. The Navy learned in Vietnam it needed a nimble fighter (in addition to pilot training) to escort the vulnerable attack aircraft on strikes. The heavy and draggy center-line pallets have been removed. Even without the external tanks, the F-14 had an unrefueled combat radius of 500 miles. Even without the pallets, the Tomcat still had the flexibility to carry other stores on the outer hardpoints as the mission required.'
As mentioned above, the Navy doesn't have the luxury of operating single mission aircraft on it's carriers, for this reason the F-14 could perform the fleet defense mission and the interception mission at the same time.
When the Tomcat entered service a map showed that 'if a carrier were parked in Washington D.C., its Tomcats could be on BARCAP as far away as St. Louis, MO,' Pickens recalls.
'Tomorrow, it could be assigned to a tactical reconnaissance mission. Even in such a role mission the TARPS-equipped F-14 is still dangerous.
'Late in its career after 9/11, it even got the ground attack capability it was initially supposed to have. If you can't have an A-6, at least you can have an F-14.
'Another advantage is that the RIO could operate as a FAC on CAS missions. The Tomcat was truly extraordinary. It's a shame they were retired.'
This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. F-14A Tomcat VF-1 Wolfpack, NE103 / 162603 / Operation Desert Storm, 1991
Pickens concludes;
'If Col. John Boyd hadn't spoken up during a Congressional hearing, the USAF might have been forced to adopt the F-14 rather than get the F-15. Imagine Grumman F-14s replacing USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Convair F-106 Delta Darts.'
Photo credit: Grumman, U.S. Navy and Kirill Naumenko via Wikipedia
Aircraft Carriers / F-14 Tomcat / Military Aviation / U.S. Navy
ANYTIME BABY…! COOL VIDEO FEATURES THE LEGENDARY F-14 TOMCAT IN ACTION ON THE FLIGHT DECK
Aviation History / F-14 Tomcat / Military Aviation
ONE OF A KIND: COOL PROMOTIONAL VIDEO ILLUSTRATES F-14 TOMCAT'S UNIQUE CAPABILITIES
MiG-31's REPLACEMENT WILL BE DESIGNATED PAK DP


Innovations Fitness offer a range of Boot Camp sessions at Emsworth Park and Penn's Place, Petersfield. We make sure all our classes are suitable for all our clients, encouraging you while you work out, creating a fun and supportive atmosphere so that you can get fit, achieve your goals and enjoy yourself while you do it.
Don't enjoy going to the gym?
Want to exercise outside in the fresh air?
Want to have fun whilst exercising?
Want to lose weight, raise your energy levels and get fit?
Want to meet new people in the area?
If your answer to any of these questions is YES, then Boot Camp is for you. Whether you are very unfit and need help kick starting your exercise regime, or are training for the Marathon, we can help.
Every session is different so you will never get bored with the exercises. Boot Camp sessions work on all aspects of fitness and include circuits, games, running and of course a healthy amount of silliness. You will use a range of equipment at the sessions from, weights, tyres, hula hoops and space hoppers! We will push you as hard as you want, quite simply, you will get out as much as you put into the sessions.
The sessions are designed for entry-level fitness and are packed full of fun plus will leave you feeling energised and invigorated.
Exercising outdoors is proven to leave you feeling refreshed and can help you burn up to a fifth more calories. Just five minutes worth of outdoor exercise every day can immediately boost your mood and self-esteem too.
Outdoor workouts help you burn up to 20% more calories because your body has to work harder, thanks to all the natural, uneven surfaces you'll encounter (which also helps boost your balance and core strength). Being outdoors might also increase your levels of vitamin D – well, if it's a sunny day you may absorb some sunlight in your skin. And that not only helps improve your mood but keeps your bones strong too.
As your FIRST session is FREE you have nothing to lose. Come down and give it a go.
At Innovations Fitness we like to make coming to our sessions as easy as possible.
Now you can purchase 10 boot camp sessions in advance which gives you access to all our boot camp sessions at both Emsworth and Petersfield.
£6 for a one hour session or sign up to become an IF member for just £40 per month, which offers you unlimited bootcamps each month.
Please note a 5% transaction fee will be added to your class if you book it online.
A monthly membership for unlimited bootcamp sessions.
Set up a monthly standing order with Topsy or book your first month online.
Please note a 5% transaction fee is added to all online payments.


Prince Harry's well publicized Vegas trip last year will be one to remember. But that will all We can do because this year He will skip Las Vegas and instead visit Hurricane Sandy victims as well as visiting Colorado Springs Warrior games. But Vegas is just a short trip from Colorado so never say never.


text:
Q: Render dynamic class value in MVC layout I'm having an MVC layout pages which looks roughly like this
<!DOCTYPE HTML
<html class="prod">
    <head>
    </head>
    <body>
    </body>
</html>

I want to render the value of class attribute (prod) dynamically based on something returned from my controller.
So far, I tried variations on the following without success
Controller
[ChildActionOnly]
[AllowAnonymous]
public PartialViewResult Environment()
{
    return PartialView("Environment", "prod");
}

View
@model string
@Model

Layout
<html class="@{ Html.RenderAction("Environment", "Site"); }">

This actually generates the following
<htmlprod class=""></htmlprod>
<html>
</html>

The same thing happens when I use a ContentResult. To be clear, I do not want to use a Viewbag.
I want to generate a raw HTML string and display that using a PartialView or something similar. The actual value is retrieved through a parameter in the constructor of the controller (ioc).

A: You do not need a partial to return you the class name. You may set the class name to the dynamic ViewBag dictionary and use that in your layout.
public ActionResult Index()
{
  ViewBag.HtmlClass="prod";
  return View();
}

And in your Layout
<html class="@ViewBag.HtmlClass">

</html>

If you do not wish to use ViewBag, You can create a child action method which simply returns a string.
[ChildActionOnly]
public string Environment()
{
    return "production";
}

And in your layout,
<html class="@Html.Action("Environment","Home")">
</html>

A: You vague question seems to have some deficiencies.  Controllers shouldn't be in charge of what environment the application is executing in.  I would probably do:
Global.asax:
public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
  private const string Environment = "Environment";

  protected void Application_Start()
  {
    this.Application.SetEnvironment(Configuration.AppSettings[Environment]);
  }
}

HttpApplicationStateExtensions.cs
internal static HttpApplicationStateExtensions
{
  private const string Environment = "Environment";

  public static void SetEnvironment(this HttpApplicationState state,
    string environment)
  {
    state.Application[Environment] = environment;
  }
  public static string GetEnvironment(this HttpApplicationState state)
  {
    var result = state.Application[Environment];
    return result;
  }
}

WebViewPageExtensions.cs
internal static WebViewPageExtensions
{
  private const string Environment = "Environment";

  public static string GetEnvironment(this WebViewPage page)
  {
    var result = page.AppState[Environment];
    return result;
  }
}

Usage:
<html class="@GetEnvironemnt()">
</html>


Beyoncé didn't just serve black girl magic on her September Vogue cover, but she made us want more flower crowns and headpieces (shoutouts to Frida Kahlo, the OG flower queen).
Actress, producer, and overall badass Mindy Kaling decided to recreate the image and throw her own flavor up in the mix. She named it "Pad Thai, Vogue Edition" (We need this to be the title of a book!), and people on Twitter followed her lead with their own reinterpretations.
Casey Gates served up angles and showed off her "#ladybrain:"
@mindykaling @Beyonce @voguemagazine @LaLigneNYC Can I join?
Share your flower crown pics down in the comments for us to see, and tag us in them on IG @asis!


Carroll Financial does not replace the need for an attorney, Bob will work with your legal counsel to ensure seamless service.
Carroll Financial is focused on helping clients with their financial needs before, during and after divorce. It is best to meet as early in the divorce process as possible. Please contact us for a complimentary, confidential consultation.


Mr. Transmission of Sandy Springs is excited to announce that, once again, we're a drop off location for Captain Herb Emory's Memorial Toys for Tots drive. It's an amazing cause and a perfect way to bring a smile to a child's face this holiday season. If you'd like to donate, stop by and drop off a toy for a lucky kid. If you have questions, here are a few things you need to know.
When is the Last Day to Donate?
The toys are being picked up on December 8th. That means the last day to donate is December 7th. However, we encourage you to donate early. We'd love to have our office overrun with toys.
Donate any toy that you think a kid would love. There's no list of specific toys. We appreciate anything and everything you're willing to donate. Think about what kids in your life would like and consider that. Just make sure that your gift is new and unwrapped.
Toys for Tots doesn't accept realistic looking weapons or gifts with food, so please shy away from these things.
Absolutely! However, we encourage you do this through the Toys for Tots website: http://www.toysfortots.org. You can also donate toys there, but we'd love to have you stop by.
I Have a Toy to Donate. Where Do I Go?
We're located at 6569 Roswell Rd., Ste. C in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and here Monday through Friday from 7:30 - 5:00. If you can't make those times, give us a call, and we'll try to work something out.
Thousands of kids around the United States go without a Christmas gift. Toys for Tots and the U.S. Marine Corps has been trying to make sure less fortunate kids experience the joy of Christmas. Every year, thousands of organization, companies, and people organize for this cause—we're glad to, yet again, participate this holiday season.
If you have any question, reach out to us, and we'll be more than happy to help. Stop by and help make a lucky kid's holiday season a magical one.


SermonIndex.net : Christian Books : PSALM 107 PART 4 Deliverance from storms and shipwreck; or, The seaman's song.
PSALM 107 PART 4 Deliverance from storms and shipwreck; or, The seaman's song.
Deliverance from storms and shipwreck; or, The seaman's song.
And like a stagg'ring drunkard reel!
The haven where they wished to be.


Agent Carter introduces the Old West to the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
Agent Carter delivered the kind of fan service it needed - it introduced a whole new set of Marvel Heroes! Now with UPDATES!
That wasn't Woody from Toy Story, that was a whole different hero. Breaking down Kid Colt's appearance and a bunch of other nods and secrets over at Monomtyhic!


text:
Taghhannuck Grange to host talk/slide show by author Carol Ascher
By Barbara Prindle
JANUARY 22, 2019 --
Taghhannuck Grange #100 will sponsor a talk and slide show by Carol Ascher, A Chance for Land and Fresh Air: Russian Jewish Immigrants in Ellsworth and Amenia, 1907-1940. The talk will take place February 14th at 7:30 at the Taghhannuck Grange Hall, at 4 Dunbar Road in the Ellsworth section of Sharon. Refreshments will be served.
A Chance for Land and Fresh Air tells the story of some 30 Jewish families who beginning in 1907 became dairy farmers in the Ellsworth Hills above Sharon. Twenty years later, most had moved to Amenia, New York, where they ran boarding houses and hotels, turning Amenia into a Jewish resort. Her presentation highlights several families who continue to have farms in the area, including the Gorkofskys, Osofskys, and Paleys.
Carol Ascher, whose exhibit at the Sharon Historical Society was expanded into a book, lives in the Ellsworth Hills. She came upon this hidden history when she heard stories of Jewish farmers who had lived in her area. She examined the town's land records, which, in turn, led her to census data and the archives of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan, and back to Sharon and Amenia, to conduct interviews and collect family photographs, and other documents. Thanks to Brent Prindle, her presentation includes a map of where the farms were located.
Copies of A Chance for Land and Fresh Air will be available for purchase.
For more information and RSVP as seating is limited, please call Barbara Prindle at: 860-364-5373
Click an image to view the larger photo
Taghhannuck Grange on Facebook


Regardless of how small the spot is, how hard is to get across the apartment or to discover a area for something new about there is always an answer to everything. Only look around you and honestly you'll discover at least 2-3 worthless points staying around the apartment. Clear every thing around you and keep points simple. A simple life now is easier to take pleasure from, so is a easy home.