Make way for the Avengers! This watercolour design features the superhero's Hawkeye, Iron man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Captain America. They make up the Marvel Avengers Assemble team. This design would be the perfect addition to any Marvel fans bedroom and would also be a fantastic gift.


This post is designed to describe two potential game-changing career options for autistic scientists. I have found at least two web sites that allow scientists to participate in solving problems for pay. In this way you can be paid for your knowledge and not your social skills. Your background in biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science can come in handy and help you. Large companies post these challenges, and they pay significant sums to solve them. Your inability to function socially with colleagues and bosses in the workplace does not matter. Your ability to think outside the box and solve scientific problems can earn you a good income.
One of them is called IdeaConnection, and I have belonged to the site for quite a while. The payment for solving an idea challenge varies from $500 to $10,000 depending upon the challenge. They also offer payments of $2,000 for technology sourcing leads, that is finding companies with particular technologies or products. Some of the projects involve working in virtual teams, whereas others involve working alone. The online environment makes working in a virtual team easier for an autistic scientist than working in an office setting where social miscues can cause tremendous heartache.
I found the other site, Innocentive, by reading the outstanding book Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business by Jeff Howe. This site offers even higher payments for solving scientific problems, usually between $5,000 and $100,000 per challenge. And the profiles of the successful solvers in the book indicate that autistic scientists can succeed in solving problems. One problem-solver, Giorgia Sgargetta, has a PhD in chemistry but works as a quality manager in a pesticides plant (pp. 41-42). Ed Melcarek has a masters in physics and now earns a significant income by solving scientific problems.
TopCoder is another web site mentioned in Howe's book on page 122. The site offers short-term computer science problem-solving challenges that usually take place over 2-3 days and generally offer smaller prizes of $1,200 to $2,000 per challenge solved.
These sites are potential game-changers for unemployed and underemployed autistic scientists who are looking to either expand their income or break out of poverty and support themselves. Removing the social pressures of working with colleagues and bosses can allow autistic scientific creativity to flourish more fully, thus allowing autistic scientists to maximize their potential and obtain fair compensation for their efforts.
One key point to keep in mind is that scientists should not limit themselves to only solving challenges in their fields. For instance, Melcarek usually solves chemistry and biology problems using his physics and electrical engineering background (pg. 151). Karim Lakhani, a PhD candidate in MIT's business school who studied InnoCentive, said,"We actually found the odds of a successful solver's success increased in fields where they had no formal expertise"(p. 151). For this reason, scientists should try to tackle challenges outside their fields in addition to ones in their areas of expertise.


text:
Q: Don't break on handled exceptions in Visual Studio 2008 Is there a way to tell the Visual Studio 2008 not to break on exceptions that are caught and handled? It's annoying to have to hit continue when there are many handled exceptions that pop up during run-time.

A: Click Debug, Exceptions, and uncheck everything.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When someone enters our facility for short-term care, we have two goals: complete recovery and getting them back home. We have a staff of highly skilled physical, occupational and speech therapists available to meet these goals in the shortest amount of time possible.
Those who visit us for short-term care will be placed in our Rehabilitation Unit. This unit enables individuals who need minimal day-to-day support to maintain their independence and provides convenient access to our Rehabilitation Services.
Call us today to schedule a facility tour or meet with a member of our Admissions Team: 304-636-1391.


I had the longest staring contest with my dog this morning.
It's actually kind of amazing the things that keep you entertained throughout the day when you work from home in the middle of nowhere.
Last week, I caught myself talking to cilantro. I mean, it wasn't a *deep* conversation or anything, but I was definitely talking to an herb.
I really have no idea how people do this for extended periods of time. Today is Monday, which means GROCERY SHOPPING DAY (<–sarcastic excitement), and I put on a dress and some makeup because I'm excited to leave the house and venture out into the world.
I'm just lucky that I have so many friends and family members who live nearby, many of whom are more than willing to drop by to snack on blog spoils and help preserve my social interaction skills.
Alright, enough about how my life is slowly turning into The Shining. Let's talk chicken.
You guys know I have a pretty significant obsession with Mediterranean food, so you shouldn't be too surprised to see *yet another* Greek recipe up here on the blog.
I love this recipe because it has a lovely complex taste even though it's made from just a few simple ingredients.
First, lightly fry some chicken thighs in a Dutch oven or other lidded pot. Remove the chicken, then saute sliced onions in the same pot. Add some garlic, fresh oregano, and white wine. Put the chicken back in the pot, squeeze lemon juice over the top, cover the pot and let it cook for about 30-40 minutes. Stir in some olives and feta cheese, then serve with a side of potatoes, pasta, or even just simple salad.
My local grocery store has an awesome deli section where I can buy olives, roasted garlic, marinated cheese, and other pickled vegetables by the pound. Sometimes when I make this recipe I just use all kalamata olives and crumble some feta over the top, but what I really like to do is hit up the olive bar and bring home a mixture of Greek olives, roasted garlic, and marinated feta cheese.
Just be careful to check for pits!
I love this recipe for Greek-style braised chicken thighs. It's so easy and the chicken comes out tender and full of flavor!
Pat the chicken pieces dry and season both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot. Working in batches, place four of the chicken thighs in the pan, skin-side down, and fry for 3-4 minutes or until the chicken is browned and releases from the bottom of the pot. Turn the chicken and brown the other side for 3-4 minutes. Remove from the pot and set aside. Repeat with remaining four chicken thighs.
Add the sliced onions to the pot and saute for 6-8 minutes. Add the garlic and oregano, followed immediately by the white wine. While the wine is bubbling in the pot, use a wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits attached to the bottom of the pot.
Return the browned chicken to the pot skin-side up and nestle the pieces into the onion mixture. Squeeze the lemon juice over the top.
Cover the pot and turn the heat down to medium-low. Braise the chicken for 40 minutes, or until cooked through. Remove the cooked chicken from the pot and stir the olives and feta into the onion mixture. Transfer the onion mixture onto a serving platter, then place the chicken pieces on top. Garnish with lemon slices and additional oregano if desired.
Thank you for the nice recipe and have a great week!
This one definitely looks tasty!
I like the idea of this, but don't like dark meat. Can I use bone-in breast? If so, how would I adjust the cooking time?


text:
<?php
namespace AZ\Framework\Kernel;

class Autoloader{
  private $namespaces = array();
  private $fallback;
  private $separator = DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

  public function registerNamespaceFallback($dir) {
    $this->fallback = $dir;
  }

  public function registerNamespaces(array $namespaces) {
    foreach ($namespaces as $namespace => $locations) {
      $this->namespaces[$namespace] = (array) $locations;
    }
  }

  public function register(){
    spl_autoload_register(array($this, 'loadClass'), true);
  }

  public function loadClass($class){
    if ($file = $this->findFile($class)) {
      require $file;
      return true;
    }
  }

  public function findFile($class){
    if ($class[0] == '\\'){
      $class = substr($class, 1);
    }

    if (($pos = strrpos($class, '\\')) !== false){
      $namespace = substr($class, 0, $pos);
      foreach ($this->namespaces as $ns => $dirs){
        if (strpos($namespace, $ns) !== 0) {
          continue;
        }

        $className = substr($class, strlen($ns));
        $normalizedClass = str_replace('\\', $this->separator, $className).'.php';

        foreach ($dirs as $dir){
          $file = $dir.$this->separator.$normalizedClass;
          if (is_file($file)){
            return $file;
          }
        }
      }

      if (!is_null($this->fallback)){
        $file = $this->fallback.$this->separator.str_replace('\\', $this->separator, $class).'.php';
        if (is_file($file)){
          return $file;
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Discovering my interests in these areas motivated my shy, reserved self to begin asking questions, to get involved, and to build skills for the future. During the first week of the internship, I called my father and said, "Now I know how you can have so much fun and call it a job. I want to do this for the rest of my life!" After several months, I traded my internship for a full-time job as a graphic artist and continued gathering the skills needed for successful ministry.
Three years later found me on a plane to Beijing, China, my brain telling my stiff legs that the very long ride of more than twelve hours would be worth it all. Little did I know how well the past— whether homeschooling or internships or ministry—had prepared me for this adventure!
One on a team of fifteen, our primary mission was to meet with business and nonprofit organizations and discuss the vital need for character development. I never knew what exactly would fill each day, whether it was a twenty-course meal with the vice president of a large corporation or helping with skits in front of 150 children or speaking to the mayor of a city of two million.
I became the trip scribe with camera and pen in hand. The only time to work on this assignment, however, was well into the night, between the hours of 10 and 6. When responsibilities and expectations were compressed into such a short space, I discovered that I did not have time to "get ready." I could not go out and read a book or conduct a study or practice more. I had to "be ready"—there was no time for anything else. Each picture and each sentence was a not-so-silent tribute to those who had taken part in my training and education.
Of all the places I visited in China, though, my favorites were the markets, with people thronging the narrow alleyways to sell or to buy or to steal. Whether in Chengdu or Urumqi or Beijing, the noise of men hawking suit jackets, ladies selling scarves, and children offering dried nuts created a grand cacophony of hustle and bustle.


text:
Q: How to determine the number of pixel from a warped image from a region proposal RCNN I am learning R-CNN with this slides. On slide 63 one warped image region is specified by 224x224 pixel. Is this just a random value or from where is the value coming from? I cannot see any correlation.
Slide

A: 224x224 is just the chosen input size of the RCNN "head" network. It's chosen somewhat arbitrarily, although you don't want it to be so small that you lose too much information and can't recognize objects anymore, nor too big that you waste a lot of computation.


The 3M AuraSeries Particulate Respirator 9210+ N95 offers comfort and convenience. This three-panel, flat-fold disposable respirator has an innovative design that helps to provide comfortable, reliable worker protection against non-oil based particles.
3M`s proprietary filter media, 3M Advanced Electret Media, filters dust and other particles, while allowing for easy breathing. The soft inner material provides added comfort while the soft nose foam and adjustable nose clip help provide a custom seal. Braided headbands provide comfort and help minimize pulling of hair. Unique features to the 3M Aura Series Particulate Respirators include: sculpted nose panel that follows the contours of your nose allowing more room for eyewear, embossed top panel that is designed to help reduce the fogging of eyewear from warm, moist exhaled air, and innovative chin tab designed for ease of positioning, donning, and adjustment. These features are designed to enhance user comfort and help increase wearability. The unique three-panel flat fold design is collapse resistant and its individual packaging allows for easy storage prior to use.


Welcome to the Berkeley Psychic Institute!
At the Berkeley Psychic Institute, you can be your own Spiritual Explorer: take online classes in Meditation, Psychic Skills, Healing abilities, or make an appointment to get an online Psychic Reading from our trained friendly staff & students.
All our online activities are live. You will join our meditation classes or reading with other students that are there physically and online from different parts of the world.


Australian based 2XU ("Two Times You"), one of the world's leading manufacturers of athletic compression gear, hired The Woods & Co in October 2013 to increase consumer awareness in the USA. By devising a multi-pronged strategy that ensured editors from a broad spectrum of categories not only were sent lookbooks, but also invited to quarterly work out classes to experience the functionality of the gear, we were able to garner over $25 million in media coverage in just under two years. 2XU has since become one of the go-to athletic wear brands, for both style and technology, in the editorial world, and have been featured in top tier press including TODAY Show, SELF, Men's Health, Shape, Health, Women's Health, Vogue.com, Women's Wear Daily, Refinery 29, Runner's World, and more. To further their global expansion, LVMH recently funded the brand with a multi-million dollar investment proposition.


text:
City guides Lebanon
Lebanon travel info
Electrical current is 230 volts, 50Hz. The European round two-pin plug is standard (type C), but a variety of other plugs are used.
Arabic is the official language, though Lebanese Arabic is its own dialect, often a patois including at least one other language. French and English are the most common European languages and most people are bilingual.
The official currency is the Lebanese Pound (LBP), which is divided into 100 piastres; the Lebanese Pound is locally known as the Lira. US dollars are accpeted throughout the country. ATM machines are widely available in Lebanon except in isolated towns and cash can be withdrawn from banks during business hours. Credits cards are widely used.
Tipping is customary in Lebanon and service staff are usually tipped around 10 to 15 percent of the bill. Porters, hotel staff, valets, and doormen usually receive a nominal fee, depending on the area, service, and establishment.
Health risks for travellers to Lebanon are not excessive. Update routine vaccines such as measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, and polio vaccine, as well as flu shots. There is no risk of yellow fever, and proof of vaccination is not required to enter the country; everyone 12 years of age and older should get fully vaccinated for COVID-19 before visiting. Typhoid vaccinations are recommended to all travellers, with the exception of those who intend to stay in Lebanon for only a short period and take their meals in major restaurants and hotels. This is especially applicable around the rainy season, when contaminated water may filter into the cities. Medical facilities and healthcare in Lebanon are good but expensive and all payments are expected in cash, regardless of insurance. Visitors should make sure their medical insurance covers any possible expenses, and they should consider provision for medical evacuation.
Safety warnings change regularly and Lebanon is unpredictable at best, featuring on numerous consular warning lists. Vigilance is essential, as family, neighbourhood, and factional violence is spontaneous, sporadic, and often lethal. Certain areas must be completely avoided, particularly at the Syrian and Israeli border. Any travel south of the Litani River is discouraged. Politically or economically motivated kidnappings occur, and other crimes, such as burglary, petty theft, vehicle theft, and break-ins, are present in Lebanon, but are low by international standards. Visitors should be streetwise and exercise normal precautions otherwise.
Lebanon is a religious country where Islam and Christianity having the two largest followings. Though more liberal than surrounding destinations, visitors are still expected to dress and behaviour modestly at religious sites and during religious holidays such as Ramadan.
Cosmopolitan areas in places such as Beirut are far more liberal than the rest of the country and wider region, meaning travellers can relax and express themselves in more ways. Possession, use, and trafficking of controlled drugs are serious offences that carry custodial sentences. Most jurisdictions consider homosexuality a criminal office.
Overstaying without the proper authority is also a serious offence. Photographing military personnel or installations and government buildings may lead to confiscation of photographic equipment and possibly imprisonment.
Many businesspeople speak English but an interpreter may be needed. Work attire is conservative and local business customs may at times take precedence in an increasingly Westernised business environment, especially for smaller companies.
Business people consider it rude to negotiate without chatting over tea first. Direct eye contact, physical closeness and friendliness are important points for gaining confidence in a business meeting.
Cross-gender negotiations are more reserved and don't usually include physical greetings. Gift giving is common and it's worth asking a legal consultant to explain the legal boundaries of what could be considered a gift.
The working week runs from Monday to Saturday but some Muslim businesses may be closed on Fridays. Business cards are widely distributed.
Duty free allowances for travellers to Lebanon over 18 are 800 cigarettes, 50 cigars, or 1kg of tobacco, two litres of spirits and four of other alcoholic beverages, and perfume for personal use. All currencies in any form can be brought in without restrictions, though gold coins must be declared. A valid import licence is required for any arms or ammunition.
The international dialling code for Lebanon is +961. The outgoing code is 00, followed by the relevant country code (e.g. 0044 for the UK). Hotels, cafes and restaurants offer WiFi in major cities; travellers can purchase local prepaid SIM cards for unlocked phones.
Most foreign nationals can obtain a visa on arrival in Beruit (BEY), Lebanon, provided that they are holding confirmed return or onward tickets and the necessary travel documentation for their next destination. and they can supply a valid address and telephone number for themselves while in Lebanon. Holders of passports containing a visa for Israel (whether valid or expired, used or unused), or containing any Israeli stamps or endorsements, will not be allowed to enter Lebanon. It is highly recommended that travellers' passports have at least six months' validity remaining after the intended date of departure from their travel destination. Immigration officials often apply different rules to those stated by travel agents and official sources.
US citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon. A visa is required.
British citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their entry date into Lebanon. A visa is required for all travellers and can be obtained on arrival at Beirut International Airport for one month. However, some visas do require prior arrangments with the Lebanese government to ensure longer stays.
Canadian citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon. A visa is required for all travellers and can be obtained on arrival at Beirut International Airport for a maximum stay of one month. However, some visas do require prior arrangements with the Lebanese government to ensure longer stays.
Australian citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon. A visa is required for all travellers and can be obtained on arrival at Beirut International Airport for a maximum stay of one month. However, some visas do require prior arrangments with the Lebanese government to ensure longer stays.
South African citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon, and need a pre-arranged visa to enter Lebanon. When prearranged, they can obtain a visa on arrival for a maximum stay of six months.
Irish citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon. A visa is required for all travellers and can be obtained on arrival at Beirut International Airport for a maximum stay of one month. However, some visas do require prior arrangments with the Lebanese government to ensure longer stays.
New Zealand citizens must have a passport that is valid for at least one month beyond their estimated duration of stay in Lebanon. A visa is required for all travellers and can be obtained on arrival at Beirut International Airport for a maximum stay of one month. However, some visas do require prior arrangements with the Lebanese government to ensure longer stays.
The National Council of Tourism, Beirut: +961 0 1 343 073
140 (Ambulance), 175 (Fire), and 112 (Police)
Embassies / consulates in other countries
Lebanon Embassy, Washington DC, United States: +1 202 939 6300.
Lebanon Embassy, London, United Kingdom (also responsible for Ireland): +44 0 20 7229 7265.
Lebanon Embassy, Ottawa, Canada: +1 613 236 5825.
Lebanon Embassy, Canberra, Australia (also responsible for New Zealand): +61 2 6295 7378.
Lebanon Embassy, Pretoria, South Africa: +27 012 430 2130
Embassies / consulates in Lebanon
United States Embassy, Beirut: +961 4 543 600.
British Embassy, Beirut: +961 0 1 960 800.
Canadian Embassy, Beirut: +961 4 726 700.
Australian Embassy, Beirut: +961 0 1 960 600.
South African Honorary Consulate, Beirut: +961 0 1 804 100.
Irish Embassy, Cairo, Egypt (also responsible for Lebanon): +202 27 287 100
Embassy of New Zealand, Cairo, Egypt (also responsible for Lebanon): +20 2 246 16000

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Provide a perfect connection for our footswitch with this BNC cable. The BNC connector cord has a 1/4" mono plug input that operates with any 1/4" mono input. It is 5.5' long and can function as a spare or replacement cord for your footswitch.


text:
All Of The Fighters You Can Play In The King Of Fighters XIV Demo Tomorrow
SNK Playmore is doing a very, very rare thing: they're releasing a demo for King of Fighters XIV. We all know how rare demos are, so the news was received quite positively when gamers found out they could take a few fighters for a test run in the upcoming fighting game.
Game Informer is reporting that seven of the 50 total fighters from King of Fighters XIV will make the cut for the demo.
The first of the seven playable characters includes Sylvie Paula Paula from Team Official Invitation, which happens to be a unique team with very interesting characters on it. Sylvie has an outfit adorned in eyeballs and was a failed experiment during the NESTS days (which in the lore of the King of Fighters dates back during the late 1990s). Sylvie's teammates include Kukri, who is a mysterious new fighter who seems to possibly have ties to Ron and Lin, a storyline that never really seemed to fully resolve itself. Kukri also appears in the story trailer as having ties to the main villains in the game. The last member on the Team Official Invitation is Mian, who is a performance arts martial artists, she stays covered head to toe in traditional Eastern opera garb, which is pretty cool.
I would have preferred if Mian was the one who made the cut in the demo since she has such unique fighting maneuvers and a cool use of her opera gear, but Sylvie made the cut instead.
Joining Sylvie in the demo is newcomers King of Dinosaurs, who is represented on the Mexico Team, along with Nelson from the South America Team.
Shun'ei is another new character in this year's King of Fighters outing and he will also be one of the seven playable characters in the demo. He has joined Team China, which has taken on a very different look from when they were around back in the 1990s. Team China used to house the psycho-soldier team who eventually turned into the Psycho Team, representing the psychics Athena and Kensou. It appears SNK wants to get the China Team back to its roots in some ways, bringing in Tung Fue Ru from the Fatal Fury series and the new character Meitenkun.
Shun'ei isn't much of a traditional fighter nor does he have any traditional Chinese kung-fu moves under his belt. He's much closer to the likes of K9999 from back in King of Fighters 2001.
From there the other three characters available in the demo include mainstays Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury, and the protagonist and deuterogonist from the King of Fighters series, Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami; the two rivals have been battling since the early days of The King of Fighters are back to duke it out once more.
I can't say it's the best selection of characters for a demo to represent King of Fighters XIV, but it's definitely diverse. You'll also gain access to a standard versus mode and a tutorial mode to learn how to play each of the characters.
The news about the playable characters in the demo was accompanied by a story trailer as well. You can check that out below.
The story trailer aired during this year's EVO 2016 event that took place in Las Vegas, Nevada over the weekend. It gave gamers a little bit of something extra to look forward to for the game's release on August 23rd next month on the PS4.
The trailer also revealed that if you download the demo for the PS4 you'll gain access to a free PS4 dashboard theme.
Pre-orders have also opened up for both physical and digital copies of King of Fighters XIV, so if you order now you'll gain instant access to classic Kyo's outfit along with Nightmare Geese, which reminds me of an Akuma-tier level of Geese Howard.
games 2y Xbox Support Thanks Gamers For Patience As Xbox Live Gets Fixed Ryan Winslett
games 2y Why GameStop Canceled Many Kingdom Hearts 3 PS4 Pro Pre-Orders Ryan Winslett
games 2y Sony Fined 2 Million Euros For PS4 Sales Practices Deemed Misleading Will Usher
games PlayStation Exclusives For Red Dead Redemption 2 Are Now On Xbox One
games Devil May Cry 5 Demo Pulled From Xbox One, But Will Return
games Marvel's Spider-Man Is The Fastest-Selling Superhero Game In U.S. History
games PS4 Spider-Man Is Getting His Own Comic Series


The concept of the Walking House came out of N55's residency at Wysing in 2007, during which the artists researched the lifestyles and legal concerns relating to people of traveller origin. N55 took the concept of the historic model of the 18th century Romany horse carriage - as a tool for mobility that has a minimal effect on the environment - and re-worked it for the 21st century.
Wysing went INSIDE OUT; turning our entire 11 acre site over to the 24 contemporary artists who worked here from studios. Artists took over kitchens, offices, greenhouses and the gallery spaces as an alternative take on the open studios format, revealing hidden and unseen places that may never have been noticed before.
The London based artists collective Public Works worked with Bourn map-makers, ramblers, land-owners and local primary school for a year looking at creative ways of talking about the local area.
Wysing re-opened following a one-year closure period that saw a £1.7 million capital development project create new studios and a new reception building. The occasion was marked by an exhibition of work by the twenty four artists who were working from studios at the time.


text:
Q: erlang list manipulation I have a list of tuples:
L = [{1, [a, b, c]}, {2, [d, e, f]}, {3, [[h, i, j], [k, l, m]]}]

this is what I have
lists:map(fun({_, B}-> B end, L).

the output is
[[a, b, c], [d, e, f], [[h, i, j], [k, l, m]]]

what I want is:
[[a, b, c], [d, e, f], [h, i, j], [k, l, m]]

it seems a pretty easy problem, but I can't figure out how to do it.
Please help!

A: Let's see...
1> L = [{1, [a, b, c]}, {2, [d, e, f]}, {3, [[h, i, j], [k, l, m]]}].
[{1,[a,b,c]},{2,[d,e,f]},{3,[[h,i,j],[k,l,m]]}]

Trivial and straightforward, but not tail-recursive:
2> lists:foldr(fun ({_,[X|_]=E},A) when is_list(X) -> lists:append(A,E);
                   ({_,E},A) -> [E|A] end,
                [], L).
[[a,b,c],[d,e,f],[h,i,j],[k,l,m]]

Not being tail-recursive is not very nice, though, but...
3> lists:reverse(lists:foldl(fun ({_,[X|_]=E},A) when is_list(X) ->
                                     lists:reverse(E,A);
                                 ({_,E},A) -> [E|A] end,
                             [], L)).
[[a,b,c],[d,e,f],[h,i,j],[k,l,m]]

...the tail-recursive version also works (thanks to Zed for pointing out lists:reverse/2).

A: For your specific example case, you can define the following function:
group3([], Acc) ->
     Acc;
group3([A,B,C|Tl], Acc) ->
    group3(Tl, [[A,B,C]] ++ Acc).

group3(L) ->
    lists:reverse(group3(L, [])).

and invoke it like this:
group3(lists:flatten(lists:map(fun({_, B}) -> B end, L))).

Hopefully that's enough to give you a general strategy.

A: -module(z).
-export([do/1]).

do([{_,[X|_] = L}|Tl]) when is_list(X) -> L ++ do(Tl);
do([{_, L}       |Tl])                 -> [L|do(Tl)];
do([])                                 -> [].

test:
1> z:do(L).
[[a,b,c],[d,e,f],[h,i,j],[k,l,m]]


text:
Ram Sagar Rawat (born 13 July 1951) is an Indian politician from Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh.

He was elected to 6th, 9th, 10th,11th and 13th Lok Sabha from Barabanki (Lok Sabha constituency)

References

1951 births
Living people
People from Barabanki district
India MPs 1977–1979
Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh
India MPs 1989–1991
India MPs 1991–1996
India MPs 1996–1997
India MPs 1999–2004
Samajwadi Party politicians from Uttar Pradesh

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
STEPHEN EMMER International Blue Album Launch at Abbey Road Studios
June 16, 2014 / electricityclub / Comments Off on STEPHEN EMMER International Blue Album Launch at Abbey Road Studios
Dutch composer Stephen Emmer's new album 'International Blue' was launched at the world famous Abbey Road Studios with a special live revue featuring its four vocalists Glenn Gregory, Neil Crossley, Liam McKahey and Midge Ure. The album is in Stephen Emmer's words "a humble, but yet ambitious project", bringing back "the lost art of crooning".
Produced by Tony Visconti whose credits have included David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Morrissey, the studio legend first picked up on Stephen Emmer's music via MySpace. Unable to be present at the event, via a video address, Visconti discussed how he first worked with the Dutchman on the 2008 spoken word album 'Recitement' which featured none other than Lou Reed and how he fell in love with Emmer's cinematic style of composition. He described the songs on 'International Blue' as being "well written from a deep tradition of classic standard songwriting" that have "the signature of the crooner stamped all over it". "The songs are off the beaten track" he added "and not straightforward love songs", concurring with Emmer's view that there has always been a spiritual connection between the vocalists of the Post-Punk era and the classic singers of the past such as Frank Sinatra and Scott Walker.
Proceedings in the legendary Studio 2 opened with Glenn Gregory's tribute to the late Billy Mackenzie entitled 'Untouchable' which evoked the haunting drama that the man born William would have been proud of. It has been the calling card for a collection of great ballads that would stand up in any genre. Neil Crossley's 'Sleep For England' interestingly took on more starker tones as one of the album's more electronically assisted, but still lushly organic numbers. The stylishly quiffed Liam McKahey, formerly of COUSTEAU, rose to the occasion with an intriguing take on the crooner on 'Blown Away' in the manner of David Bowie covering Scott Walker. "I didn't mean to…" the Irishman said later, "…but I'll take that!"
A big cheer greeted Midge Ure as the diminutive Glaswegian jokingly manhandled a mic stand clearly set up for the considerably taller Glenn Gregory! His track 'Taking Back My Time' is clearly an emotive statement of intent on Ure's part. His adoption of a lower vocal register affirmed his love of Scott Walker which has been well documented via his 1982 cover of 'No Regrets' and ULTRAVOX's own string laden 'All In One Day' in 1986. Coincidentally, his first solo album of new material in 12 years called 'Fragile' is out soon.
Liam McKahey returned with 'Mama's Mad', another excellent Bowie / Walker hybrid complimented with a dash of MASSIVE ATTACK. With his own music leaning towards Americana, he clearly found crooning again a re-enlightening experience back to his COUSTEAU roots; he even revealed an interest in collaborating within the field of laid back electronica; "I really like ZERO 7… their music lends itself to good singing" he later told The Electricity Club.
The showcase concluded with Glenn Gregory giving a spirited rendition of 'Let The Silence Hold You', the second of four tracks featuring his dulcet tones on 'International Blue'. Indeed, Gregory's songs on the 'International Blue' album are perhaps the ones which the album hangs itself on. 'A Break In The Weather' for example reimagines 'Wild Is The Wind' as a John Barry era Bond theme, while 'In The Mirror Reflected' captures the spirited piano intro of Dusty Springfield's version of 'Going Back' and references 'To Sir With Love' in the chorus.
Overall, it has been great to be hear Gregory perform all-new material again and this experience certainly bodes well for the new HEAVEN 17 album which is currently being recorded. For Glenn Gregory himself, a possible career as a 21st Century crooner is beckoning if all else fails. Either that, or he will become a Bowie impersonator as his upcoming Autumn shows with Tony Visconti, Woody Woodmansey and Steve Norman performing 'The Man Who Sold The World' album will indicate 😉
Afterwards, all the protagonists mingled with press and punters alike; and it was here that The Electricity Club caught up with Stephen Emmer for a quick chat about how he got into composing orchestrated pop and how this all related to his intriguing musical past…
You were in the band MINNY POPS who supported JOY DIVISION in 1980 at that gig in Bury where the riot took place?
Yes, we were touring the UK and Europe as support to JOY DIVISION, but we weren't aware at the time of the troubles internally with Ian Curtis' health and all of that. What happened, was there was this sold out gig in Bury and we knew Ian wouldn't be performing as he was ill. But the crowd obviously found out when he didn't appear for the JOY DIVISION set. Back then, gigs were far more aggressive so if people didn't like you, they would bottle you! We were not bottled and after we had done our slot, we went down to the dressing room. Then JOY DIVISON's manager Rob Gretton, who sadly is no longer with us, suddenly shouted "BLOCK YER FOOKIN' DOOR!" in his Mancunian accent, which for us Dutch was hard to understand and decipher! We were like "WHAT?!" *laughs*
Shortly after that, the audience got onto the stage and showed their dismay that Ian Curtis wasn't going to perform by having some huge fights in the corridor by the dressing room! We could hear all of it but luckily, we had our door barricaded! When it was all over, we came out and that was that. We didn't think much of it at the time, but it was only later that this whole anecdote has become of such cultural significance.
Really, it was just an evening with a bit of an incident that has become part of rock history! However, MINNY POPS are not included in that scene from the 'Control' film, but the director Anton Corbijn… he got to know JOY DIVISION through us!!
You have four great vocalists on 'International Blue', but would Ian Curtis have fitted in with this project had he been around today?
That's a good question, I think so… the sonority of New Wave singing with electro bands has always intrigued me. I was a part-time journalist then back in Holland with a magazine called 'Vinyl', but nobody within journalism ever saw the relationship between these singers like Ian Curtis doing things like 'She's Lost Control' with that low voice and Frank Sinatra… it's like Sinatra but more dark! So it dawned on me that these singers, they should perform that kind of material and I could write for them. And that's how 'International Blue' got started. It's a bit more remote from New Wave but still a little electronic alongside the orchestral; it is very logical that these are the kind of singers who suit this genre best.
You started as a guitarist with MINNY POPS, so how did you branch into orchestrations? Are you classically trained?
No, I'm not… after all the electronic pop music I did with ASSOCIATES, THE LOTUS EATERS and ACT in the UK, I went back to Holland doing assignments for TV themes, documentaries, film and commercials. What I learnt there was you have to arrange in every genre. Tony Visconti gave me a great compliment and said "Stephen Emmer as an arranger and composer, knows the rules best through that experience in media music – so he also knows how to use, or not use a cliché in music". So I made a very thorough study of arranging with an orchestra, although my pedigree is in electronics. I had a solo record in 1982 called 'Vogue Estate' which featured Billy Mackenzie and Martha Ladly. It was produced by Michael Dempsey who was in THE CURE and ASSOCIATES with this young guy called Flood who is now a legend!
Is there any other New Wave vocalist you would like to have worked with on 'International Blue'?
Yes, in fact I bumped into him last night as we were eating in the same restaurant… he was on my list but it didn't come off! I'd never met him before but I decided to go up to him… it was Ian McCulloch of ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN. He has this Jim Morrison type of voice that I would like to work with… so we might do so in the future.
The album's lead single 'Untouchable' is about Billy Mackenzie. What was it like working with him?
He was a very sweet guy and a true gypsy at heart. When we recorded together on the track 'Wish On' from 'Vogue Estate', we weren't sure he was going to show up because he was very random in his behaviour. He arrived, but when it was his turn to sing, we saw he was underneath a table in the mixing room with a bottle of blackcurrant and rum fast asleep! He woke up and apologised, sung the song and left half drunk! *laughs*
Warner Brothers had invested a lot of money in him and thought he would become the next David Bowie, but he was more of an artist's artist. He suffered from being pushed into the realm of bigger gigs and all of that. It's a shame, because out of most of the vocalists of that period, only he could take a TR808 and have a vocal battle with it… which vocalist would do that? He was great!
If Billy Mackenzie had been able to adopt a more conventional approach to being a pop star, do you think ASSOCIATES could have been as big as A-HA?
I think so… coincidentally, Morten Harket recently asked me to write a song for him.
The Electricity Club gives its warmest thanks to STEPHEN EMMER
Special thanks also to Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR
STEPHEN EMMER's 'International Blue' is released on 7th July 2014 via Electric Fairytale Recordings
http://www.stephenemmer.com/
Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Chi Ming Lai
Posted in Interviews, Live Reports	Tagged with Glenn GregoryMidge UreStephen EmmerTony Visconti
ANALOG ANGEL Interview
BORIS BLANK The Time Tunnel


text:
Featured, Our House, Partnership
The Breast Cancer Support Group of Jamestown made a $5,000 contribution to Chautauqua Hospice & Palliative Care's Our House Campaign to bring a hospice residence to Chautauqua County. The group also challenged other community organizations to support the Campaign.
Following a recent meeting at which Mary Rappole, Our House Campaign Co-Chair, shared details of the project, the group voted to send a strong signal of support to the project.
Members of the Breast Cancer Support Group of Jamestown recently presented CHPC with a $5,000 challenge gift. Left to right: Joyce Seekins, ten-year survivor; John Smith, one-year survivor; Pat Carr, 27-year survivor; Mary & Bert Rappole, Our House Campaign Chairs; and Shauna Anderson, CHPC President & CEO.
"This is very important to our community," said Pat Carr, organizer of the Breast Cancer Support Group. "We feel it deserves strong support and we challenge other community organizations to step forward and help make this a reality."
John Smith, a breast cancer survivor who is working to bring attention to men's vulnerability to the disease, also challenges his peers at National Fuel Gas to support the project.
The hospice residence, which will be located adjacent to the CHPC administrative offices on Fairmount Ave. in Lakewood, is expected to be in operation in 2021. Each year it will provide over 200 individuals who lack a caregiver, who have complex medical conditions or who can't remain at home with a peaceful, dignified resting place in their final days.
The Our House Campaign has raised $1.2 million toward the final goal of $2.1 million. "We are so grateful for the generosity of the Breast Cancer Survivors and the compassion they offer to our community members who are fighting for their lives," said Mary Rappole.
October is breast cancer awareness month and Carr reminds the community to "Turn on pink to blackout breast cancer." Anyone interested in the activities of the Breast Cancer Support Group are encouraged to contact Pat Carr at (716) 665-4343.
The mission of CHPC is to provide comprehensive palliative/end-of-life care and education. CHPC provides hospice care for patients and families facing life-limiting terminal illness, palliative care for those with serious chronic illness, and bereavement support to individuals, families and organizations who have suffered the loss of a loved one. To donate to the Our House Campaign, learn more about the hospice house or learn about the mission of CHPC, visit www.chpc.care or call (716) 338-0033.
Community Foundation Supports Hospice House
Dr. Bert and Mary Rappole Discuss the Our House Campaign for Hospice on WRFA
Campaign Underway For Countywide Hospice House (from The Post-Journal)
Our House Campaign Case Statement
A Service of Remembrance and Memorial Butterfly Release
A Message From Our Leadership


Elizabeth Burns: What's On Your List?
When I was at Internet Librarian 2009, one of the fascinating presentations was about evaluating websites and blogs.
In a nutshell, here's what you do.
First, create a list of all the blogs you're going to analyze. Which, in itself, is HUGE, right? One would have to look at all the different directories, click through blog rolls and links, etc.
Second, create the list of factors you're going to evaluate.
Third, evaluate each blog based on those factors.
Fifth, presto! You have a scientific study of the "best" blogs.
I'll add a sixth: now call yourself a consultant and sell this expertise to people like publishers. The presenters noted that their clients subscribe to this type of service and get quarterly updates. I'm not quite sure what the price would be; enough to pay you for what is a lot of time, especially at the beginning. But quarterly updates should also include new blogs; remove dead blogs; and always keep on eye on those factors. What gets added, removed, change in importance.
I'm enough of a nerd (or is it a geek?) that this type of thing fascinates me. I especially love how it shows there is no quick and easy answer to the question, "how do you judge a blog?" Rather, it takes a look at both quantitative and qualitative factors. Also, it removes the potential for bias based on friendships.
So it got me thinking. What should be on the list of factors to evaluate book blogs? These are in no particular order; but I imagine, done correctly, some factors should carry more weight than others.
Statistics, including unique visits, returning visitors, length of visit.
Comments, including quantity, quality, reason.
Amount of posts per week.
Quality of blog posts (multiple points here: accuracy, originality, grammar, spelling).
Authority (who is the blogger, as well as recognition of blog).
What else would you add to the list? Or leave off? And what gets more "weight" than something else? To me, content is very important, so the content would somehow carry more weight than something like age of the blog.
I have only had one cup of coffee, so I know I'm omitting some important factors.
1. Links out of blog - doesn't matter as much if they're mostly links to books (via Amazon, etc.).
2. Technorati rating - no longer relevant as they've apparently stopped ranking blogs.
3. Subscribers via email - can you really trust a self-reported figure?
Links out: this would have to be judged different ways, to omit the "don't matter" ones like you point out. I was thinking about "links out" in terms of properly crediting sources, as well as community building. So this would need more than one column.
Technorati: they do have a top 100 book blogs, but frankly, I'm not relying on it very much myself as it makes no sense. However, its an easy thing to add (and to not give a lot of weight to).
Subscribers/stats: anything that is self reported would be suspect. So this would also need to annotated somehow, self-reported versus verified.
The weighting would depend on what you are looking for in a blog.
Some of the best blogs have very few subscribers, while some of the biggest have poor quality posts.
My blog gets a lot of hits, as I have done a lot of behind the scenes SEO tinkering, but that doesn't mean it is the best blog. I think you'd have to consider the rankings very carefully to get a fair reflection of what are really the best blogs.
I would think that average time on blog would be a good reflection of this, but I guess that would need to be balanced with number of RSS subscribers, who don't visit the site.
It just goes to show that there is no "simple" answer to give people who want to know the "good" blogs.
FarmLaneBooks, yes, absolutely, what are you looking for? Is it a lot of readers or is it a targeted, specific readership? Is it reviews or industry news? Giveaways? Some want quick reactions, others long reviews.
Good is such a subjective term though. What is good for me is not always good for you. I could care less about stats but really care about content. I also like reliability of reviews (which falls into content) but if I find a blog where the blogger has similar reading tastes as I do I frequent because I'll know I can find good suggestions and advice.


If more government institutions functioned like the Downtown Improvement District, there would be greater trust and support for government services.
Some of the best money I spend each year is the approximately \$200-250 that I send to the Downtown Improvement District (DID).
excellent landscaping including planting and pruning trees, maintaining flowerbeds, hanging flower pots on light posts, etc.
It may seem selfish, but honestly, this is the best government service I current receive. It is inexpensive. I am able to see a direct increase in my quality of life in Downcity. It clearly increases and protects my property investment. I get an annual budget that is fairly detailed mailed annually that explains precisely what my dollars purchased and how they will be used in the coming years.
When the currently dormant^0 announced they would seek to use a special assessment district to fund operation expenses, I was all for it. Sure, a portion of my support came from the simple economics, but I would be lying if I did not admit that the wonderful relationship I have with the Downtown Improvement District was not a part of my consideration. The DID has provided an excellent model to Downcity residents demonstratingthe efficacy of using the greatest (but not sole) beneficiary of place-bound services as a revenue source. Does anyone really believe that Downtown would have doubled its residency from 2000-2010 3 if the DID were not around?


All Dynamo users will recognise the necessity of understanding and managing lists in all but the simplest of programs. In Dynamo 2.0 we now have an inbuilt option to use dictionaries to store and manage data.
A list is comprised of an index or indices and values that are always ordered. A simple example is illustrated below. The grey box is a series of indices starting from 0 and these are linked to the values.
If I decided to sort the list alphabetically then the indices will change. This method is not particularly useful when you need to 'tie' data to keys.
An example of this would be looking up values in a Uniclass2 table.
The Uniclass codes are directly linked to the descriptions; if I want to lookup a description from a code then a dictionary will be useful.
The Dynamo Script below reads the Uniclass2 data from an excel sheet and splits this into two lists. The first list is the code and the second list contain the descriptions.
A dictionary can be made from these two lists. The 'ByKeysValues' is used to create the dictionary and then the 'ValueAtKey' can be used to 'look up' the data.
In the example below, you can see that two values have been 'looked up' from the given Uniclass codes. These strings could have been extracted from Revit model elements.
In summary, dictionaries are very powerful when data needs to be tied to specific values.
Dynamo is a visual programming tool that works with Revit. It enables designers to create visual logic to explore parametric designs and automate tasks. For more information on Autodesk's Dynamo Studio and how to more effectively work with project teams, please get in touch with the Excitech team.


The Deatherage Companies were established in 1990. It is a full service firm in the fire, safety, and training fields. President and Founder, Bill G. Deatherage, acknowledged as one of the area's leading experts on Fire and Life Safety, has built a consulting and training firm with a reputation that is unmatched. The Deatherage Companies has built this reputation on one basic principle - a commitment to quality service.
As president of The Deatherage Companies, Bill has over 40 years of professional fire and safety experience with industrial, municipal, manufacturing and academic organizations. He served as the City of Broken Arrow's Fire Marshal for 25 years. Upon retiring, Bill is able to concentrate fully on The Deatherage Companies and to continue with his belief --- that fire and life safety should be paramount daily in our personal and professional lives.
Parts of Bill's experience included the resolution of post-inspection safety and environmental issues for various entities, with excellent results. He is able to incorporate his teaching experience. He currently teaches as an Adjunct Instructor for Tulsa Community College (30 years) and Oklahoma State University (28 years).
A highly trained and talented Safety Specialist with over 20 years experience. Billy began his safety career in 1988 by joining the United States Navy. After completing his tour with the military, he continued his Civil Service career in multiple positions within the Department of Defense with over 12 years in the Fire and Emergency Services, including all branches of the Federal Government. Billy conducts the OSHA 10 and 30 Hour courses for the Tulsa Technology Center and at the Northeastern State University Broken Arrow campus. Other duties include but are not limited to assisting clients safety programs, including safety inspections, plan reviews, accident investigations, and safety training.
Our expert staff develops and provides, high-quality, effective emergency response, emergency medical, emergency safety, disaster preparedness and environmental health training programs and program certifications. Our programs are designed to emphasize realistic, hands-on emergency and safety skills – skills that save lives. We provide expert consultation, needs assessments, emergency-disaster planning and OSHA compliance services.


I arrived in New Zealand ready to travel but knowing I would need to find a job within a couple months so I decided to wait and see what opportunities presented themselves during my journey. As I visited every wine region I could, I kept an eye out for jobs in the wine industry, preferably in a tasting room. Initially I didn�t want to work as a cellar hand after an unfortunately miserable experience in Australia, but kept a few contacts from my sister in law (who sells wine in the US) just in case I changed my mind. I was also WWOOFing and purposefully chose hosts that were in wine regions or involved in winemaking, giving me great insight on the local wine industry and the growing areas. After traveling through the North Island, I arrived in Marlborough at the end of February, out of money and knowing that it was very unlikely that I would find a job in a tasting room as I hoped, so I started asking around at the wineries in the area to see if anyone was still looking for vintage help; picking grapes was a last resort. It seemed that I was a few weeks too late for Marlborough since vintage had already begun, so I emailed all the wineries with job vacancies listed online as well as the contacts from my sister in law. Miraculously within an hour, I had a phone call from a contract winery in Cental Otago who wanted to hire me to start in two weeks time. I was thrilled! Vintage in Central Otago was an awesome experience, I learned so much and was worked with some amazing people. I later realized that I was just at the right place at the right time because the winery had received many CV�s previously but only later realized that they needed more help just as I sent them my CV. The fact that I was in the country, had experience in the wine industry and needed a job immediately worked to my advantage. This obviously emphasizes the value of good contacts when traveling and the need to be flexible. Those looking for a job in the industry may have more luck in Hawks Bay since it seemed that wineries were still looking for vintage help in mid February (I wanted to continue traveling at the time though). It is also important to note that most wineries are quite small and only hire on an extra person or two during vintage except the larger contract wineries or bulk facilities (mostly in Marlborough); this also means that tasting room jobs are pretty much permanent positions held by family members or friends. My advice those looking for vintage work is try to find a contact to get your foot in the door at a winery, email as many wineries as possible and ask for suggestions about where else to apply, look at bigger facilities who hire more people and if nothing else, just go and hope for the best. If nothing else you will be able to find a job picking grapes easily by applying at agencies in whichever location you choose if you are there at the right time. I was lucky but I also came as a traveler with no set plans rather than a winemaker looking for a specific position and location, which was to my advantage in the end. Experiencing the wine industry in New Zealand has been amazing, I couldn�t be more thankful for an incredible opportunity to increase my knowledge of wine while allowing me to be part of the kiwi culture. Cheers!
Date submitted: 8/05/2011 8:46:18 p.m.


Backstage before the show, Osman Yousefzada was arranging the tulip-like garland of furls at Tiphaine de Lussy's scarlet one-shoulder neckline, as Jan de Villeneuve—perhaps just a trifle enviously—heaped praise on the generously–armed trenchcoat that Tyg Davison was about to wear down the runway. The atmosphere was happy. Yousefzada is both a gifted maker of clothes and a good friend, and this show featured clients who have become just that. Although he was going for a "total wardrobe" with this collection, that came with a caveat: This was a "total wardrobe" for an Osman-specific cadre of art opening habitués. Day looks included a double-breasted olive suit with powerfully–flounced pants, another black suit with pants split to the knee, and color-trimmed fur and shearling outerwear. Under the cover of eveningwear, Osman was free of the off-kilter baroqueness of his ideas with appropriate fabrications. A four-tiered pair of pants in egg-yolk-yellow sequins rustled south of a jacket whose jacquard was a swirl on the spectrum from raspberry to violet. A cousin to De Lussy's dress featured the same petal neckline in white and set black stems of tulle within an asymmetrical floral–scattered jacquard skirt. These were party clothes for self-curating women intent on displaying their unconventionality with panache.


My Name is Ayetoons and welcome to my page !
I am a new starting 17 year old Animator that would love to make animations for your enjoyment. I have been using Flash for quite some time and hoping to make a career with my animations. I have good drawing skills which I will be added into my Animations .
It will mean alot if you could follow me to help me with my journey for doing something I love.


WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHOW/MOVIE I WANTED TO WATCH?
HOW DO I GET CLOSED CAPTIONS?
WHAT DEVICES IS CONtv AVAILABLE ON?
HOW DO I UPGRADE MY SUBSCRIPTION TO PREMIUM?
WHAT IS A VIP SUBSCRIPTION?
HOW MUCH DOES CONtv COST?
HOW DO I CANCEL MY CONtv SUBSCRIPTION?
WHY AREN'T SUBTITLES AVAILABLE FOR THE SHOW I WANT TO WATCH?
I HAD A PROBLEM WITH MY VIP SUBSCRIPTION PURCHASE!
I'M A PAYING SUBSCRIBER, WHY AM I STILL SEEING ADS?
THE VIDEO QUALITY DOESN'T LOOK VERY GOOD.


text:
Jared Diamond Collapse
In: Historical Events
Submitted By shirlaks
HOW S O C I E T I E S CHOOSE TO FAIL OR S U C C E E D
VIK ING
Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published in 2005 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 13579 10 8642 Copyright © Jared Diamond, 2005 All rights reserved Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed/Jared Diamond. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-670-03337-5 1. Social history—Case studies. 2. Social change—Case studies. 3. Environmental policy— Case studies. I. Title. HN13. D5 2005 304.2'8—dc22 2004057152 This book is printed on acid-free paper. 8 Printed in the United States of America Set in Minion Designed by Francesca Belanger Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or...
...Collapse- book is about a history topic about how societies choose to fail or survive. The main characters are historical people and unknown kings of Mayan cities or Easter Island villages. Jared Diamond tells the story of the Viking explorer Erik the Red, who discovered Greeland and Vinland (Terranova, in Canada). Another character is captain Olafsson, a norse sailor who wrote the last news about Greenland in 1410. Another main character is Christopher Columbus, who arrived at Hispaniola in 1492, but now this island is two countries, the Dominican Republic and the Haiti. Diamond studied the politics of two presidents. the dominican Rafael Trujillo, who protected the enviroment and the dictator François, Papa Doc, Duvalier, who decided on politics of deforestatation of his country, Haiti. The author considered the bad politics of another main character, king George II, who was interested in sending merinosheeps from Spain to Australia, an idea which was succesful from 1820 to 1950 but then the farmers understood their lands lost fertility. Another main character is Tokuwaga Jeayasu, a shogun of Japan in 1600, who prohibited Christianity in 1600 and protected his country againt deforestation. The book takes us to a lot of places around the globe: Mayan cities, Rwanda, Viking colonies of Vinland or Greenland, Haiti and Dominican Republic, Easter Island and Polynesian colonies in Pacific, and the Chaco villages in New Mexico (United States). The time period was from 800......
Words: 22095 - Pages: 89
...Over the years, there have been so many societies that have collapsed. Jared Diamond, a scientist who studies societies and their declines, believes that a collapse results from environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, or a societies response to the their problems (11). Diamond wrote about many societies in his engrossing book Collapse, but out of them all, the Greenland Norse seems to be the one that supports his ideas and opinions the most. The Greenland Norse was a landscape where Vikings settled, but unfortunately their civilization came to an end after being severely damaged. As Jared Diamond would say "collapse isn't inevitable but depends on a society's choices" (21). This shows that the actions of the colonist that settled in Greenland were the main prospect of its end. Overall the collapse of Greenland Norse is instructive because it declined from deforestation and soil erosion, colder climates, military issues with their neighbors, cut-off trade with Europe, and their inability to adopt useful methods from their surrounding societies; these problems fall into all of Jared Diamonds factors in his five point framework impeccably proving his theory. Firstly, the Norse caused ecological downfall by all the reckless logging and farming they did, which resulted in soil erosion and deforestation. Due to this, the settlers lost lumber, firewood, and iron (Diamond 250). Lumber and firewood were scarce because there was no trees......
Jared Diamond Anthropology
...easy beast to tame, and one shouldn't expect an explanation to come easily. To Jared Diamond, there is a combined ecological and political explanation for what caused the collapse of The Southwest civilizations such as the Anasazi. The Anasazi saw a rapid increase in population in the late 1300s, and when the weather continued to provide positive weather conditions for growth, their empire expanded into lands that were not as fertile to provide food and resources for their growing population. When the weather ceased to grant the Anasazi people quite as much potency, a drought occurred and famine thereafter. The only way to produce food was to use the fertile lands left in the middle of the empire, but this wasn't nearly enough to feed the entire empire. Thus, the empire collapsed due to overzealously...
Malthus in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide Summary
...Africa: Rwanda's Genocide is an educative chapter written by Jared Diamond educating the reader that in the case of Rwanda's collapse, the critical circumstances like lack of farming land, hunger, poverty, war, lack of natural resources etc. were caused by population pressure. Overpopulation being the major causes, it brings plenty of problems with it. Diamond starts off the chapter by talking about his family's visit to East Africa where they saw overpopulated streets of poor people especially poor children at the side of the road begging for a pencil. Diamond talks about how "population problems such as those of East Africa are often referred to as Malthusian theory" which is population grows exponentially compare to food production increases arithmetically. (Diamond 312) Then, Diamond discusses about Rwanda's people that was dominated by Hutus, principally farmers, and Tutsis who were minority. Both did not like each other and therefore; Hutus army with weapons started the killing of Tutsis and "within six weeks, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis, representing about three quarters of Tutsi population in Rwanda". (Diamond 317) Later, Diamond presents many surveys, samples, statistics and examples such as, overpopulation in Kanama causing population consuming less than average daily required calories, to inform readers about different regions becoming the victims of population pressure. At the end of the chapter, Diamond thinks that overpopulation had immense......
Greenland Norse
...conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over diversity." - Jared Diamond (Collapse 275) Defining who we are is a very important part of our lives. It is vital for humans to have a sense of identity and our belonging. Identities are made up of many factors, such as culture, values and ambitions. As humans we tend to hold on very closely to our beliefs, because they usually come hand in hand with our identity. The things we grew up seeing or believing play a huge role when trying to define who we are, and who we want to be. Once we have made up our mind on who where are, and what our identity consists, of it is very hard to change our mentality. I find the saying "old habits die hard" very true. It is very challenging adapting to a new lifestyle, environment, culture and values. The Greenland-Norse are a perfect example of a society who couldn't adapt to a new lifestyle. They identified themselves with the European and Christian culture, and when they arrived in Greenland they had no intention of changing that, even if that particular lifestyle wasn't suited for their new environment. Their perseverance in trying to maintain a European and Christian culture identity led them to their collapse. In the book Collapse, Jared Diamond provides details about the collapse of the Greenland-Norse. According to Diamond, Greenland was founded by Erik the Red, a hot blooded Norwegian, who was charged with murder and forced......
...Megan VanSickle Climate Change Collapse Summaries Chapter 10-Malthus in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide Summary In Chapter 10 Jared Diamond is educating the readers in the instance of Rwanda's collapse with the conditions of lack of farming land, hunger, war, poverty, lack of natural resources and more. These were caused by population pressure. Overpopulation is the primary cause which brings many problems along with it. Diamond begins the chapter by discussing and talking about his family's stay in East Africa. He and his family saw overpopulated streets of poor people which sadly most of them were children. The children were on the side of the road begging. Diamond also discusses how population problems such as this with East Africa are sometimes pointed out as Malthusian theory. This is when population grows rapidly compared to food production increases. Diamond also discusses the Rwanda's people that were controlled and influenced by Hutus, mostly farmers and Tutsis. Hutus and Tutsis did not like each other so Hutus army started killing Tutsis with weapons. Diamond later causes many examples such as overpopulation in Kanama. This caused population consuming below the average daily required calories. This educated readers about the different regions that are coming to be thee victims of population pressure. At the end of chapter 10, Diamond thinks that overpopulation had great impact on the Rwandan genocide. Diamond uses three counterarguments in order to prove his point...
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
...The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia September 7, 2012 Currently, various countries in the world are faced with many serious issues, and these problems can make countries collapse. According to Jared Diamond (2011), who is a professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, "There are four frameworks that cause societies to collapse, consisting of human impacts on the environment and climate change, declining relations with friendly neighbors, relations with hostile societies, and society's responses to their problems". Ethiopia is one of the East African countries that is now facing with various national problems, which can be clearly explained by all of Jared Diamond's frameworks. Ethiopia has a significantly high risk of collapsing in the very near future. One of the most critical factors that Ethiopia faces is the various environmental catastrophes, which deals with the first framework that Jared Diamond has pointed out. According to the Embassy of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2012), most of the land in Ethiopia is highlands, grasslands, deserts with only a few rivers, and Ethiopia is a landlocked country. Therefore, Ethiopia has lacked adequate of water resources. Moreover, Ethiopia is faced with human impacts on the environment such as deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, and water shortages in some areas ("CIA  The World Factbook," 2012).......
Person in Context of Changes
...delivered by Jared Diamond, who is a modern scientist and who is looking solutions to eternal problems like collapses of civilizations from the angle of history and science. I became acquainted with his findings after reading about agricultural revolution. The humanity always tries to find these milestones in its history when it has chosen a certain direction. It I like a crossroads. Such a milestone is believed to be the year 1917 for Russia, when it has chosen the Communist path. In Diamond's book I learnt about another milestone in the history of the whole planet. He actually doubted the widely accepted idea that life of humans improved greatly after it started developing agriculture. We were taught that after people started to crop plants they got more time for arts because there was now more time left to devote to hobbies. Diamond made counterarguments to these statements which amazed me. I found that my understanding of the world and history is very doubtful. Moreover, Diamond poses that people with its developed agriculture are more dependent on food than those who collected plants and berries in forests. And it is another paradox because I usually tended to believe that how we develop our food industry is only a plus for us as consumers. But Diamond told that bushmen actually used to eat 75 types of plants, whereas I eat mostly potato, rice and buckwheat. It is a reason to reflect who lives and eats better. Another book of Diamond about collapses of......
Geoengineering: a Global Issue
...Table of Contents 1. Essay Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Geoengineering: What is it? 4. Environmental Issues & Science 5. Human Impact 6. Ethical & Justice Issues 7. Conclusion 8. Bibliography Geoengineering: A global issue Essay Abstract Geoengineering is a set of new technologies which aim to change the environment in human favour. Considering the technology is nascent, the morality, ethics, technological knowhow and the human impact are all uncertain as they relate to geoengineering. This paper argues that on these grounds, the geoengineering issue should be a global issue. Local governments fail to implement this technology effectively. The subsidiarity test should be passed when it relates to the geoengineering issue. Introduction With rising CO2 levels, changing weather patterns and an ever increasing intensity of weather events, governments and environmental groups are trying to address the global warming issue. There are many theories on how to deal with climate change; from a reduction in pollution to carbon capture. Geoengineering is a relatively new idea in the field of science which "describes this array of technologies that aim, through large-scale and deliberate modifications of the Earth's energy balance, to reduce temperatures and counteract anthropogenic climate change." (Bracmort et all., 2011: 1) The vast majority of technology is nascent and at a theoretical stage but it has the potential to affect......
Rwanda Genocide
...One hundred days of internal war in Rwanda has become one of the brutal massacres in the history of human kind. More than five hundred thousand people died in this injustice religious war where Tutsi people were exploited brutally throughout the whole country by Hutu people( Des et al, 1994 ). When we examine the issue to find the potential stimuli that trigger the war, we cannot deny the fact that the lack of religious tolerance was the main cause to fuel this massive killing. It can be clearly seen that due to the lack of religious tolerance in between Tutsis and Hutus, one of the massive killing in the human history has raised a bigger question about the status of human rights in Rwanda attention from developed nation's involvement within the country Under the colonial law established from Belgium and Germany, Rwanda was in overall control of Tutsi people (Des et al, 1994). Under the kingship of King Rwabugiri Hutu people were regarded as one of the mostly hated groups within the country (René et al, 2004). This is how the preparation of the massive massacre began. Despite the effort of Belgium colonialism to maintain balance between Hutu and Tutsi people, the hatred and anger just kept growing. It was plain simple unfair society in Rwanda seeking for right political space in the land. Tutsi meaning "rich in cattle" were overall control and Hutus meaning "servant" were becoming modern day servants (René, 2004).The existing government were in control of Tutsi people who......
...EVOLUTION AND SELF-INTEREST Richard Dawkins argues that at its most fundamental level, the genetic level, life is self-interested.1 Genes do only one thing; they replicate themselves. These replicators reside in and are carried around by biological vehicles (trees, animals, humans, fungus, etc.). The resources that support these biological vehicles are finite, so the process of life has become a competition among genes to create vehicles that can successfully compete for limited resources and survive to pass on their genetic code. Dawkins coined the term 'selfish gene' to emphasize the single, focused object of a gene's existence. What he means is that the sole purpose of a gene is to make copies of itself using the Darwinian selection process; very selfishly ignoring the consequences this pursuit may have on other living entities. Self-interest is a requirement for survival. This does not mean, of course, that animals and humans cannot be altruistic sometimes, in certain activities.2 It does mean that no living entity can survive for long if it is only purely altruistic. On the other hand, survival is not necessarily jeopardized when an organism is purely self-interested. Altruism, in the absence of self-interest, is not evolutionarily stable in the biological world; it leads to extinction. It is for this reason that all extant life forms must be selfish. Humans, like all creatures, are self-interested; not because it is good to be selfish but because we would not be here......
Diamond Growth Sustainable Model
...The Diamond of Sustainable Growth A Historical Framework for the study of political economy and economic development George David Smith, Richard Sylla, Robert E. Wright( NYU Stern School of Business For most of its existence, humanity neither enjoyed nor understood economic growth, or society's capacity for creating wealth. Prior to the 18th century, the aggregate incomes of particular societies may have increased a little for short periods in a few places, but most of the time incomes hovered not far above the subsistence level. Powerful leaders and ruling classes could accumulate vast wealth, but this was normally achieved through the redistribution of incomes from the weak to the powerful, and certainly not through the creation of wealth as we know it today. Going back centuries, to paraphrase the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, human life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Peace and good weather were more likely to summon forth children more than prosperity. Whenever war, pestilence, and drought returned -- and they always did -- people died in droves. To many observers, humanity appeared doomed to spend eternity wet, cold, hungry, and grief-stricken. In the late 18th century, the English proto-economist Thomas Robert Malthus warned that the mass of humanity, quite aside from the foregoing perils, was doomed to a life at the margins of starvation, as surges of population growth would inevitably outstrip the finite......
El Futuro Incierto de Los Oceanos
...El futuro incierto de nuestros mares y océanos "La superpoblación no es la densidad de personas, es el número de personas relativo a la explotación de los recursos" – Paul R. Ehrlich. Como todas las especies, los seres humanos han ejercido su impulso por perpetuarse y propagarse en el planeta, debido a esto, han domesticado paisajes y ecosistemas buscando asegurar su provisión de alimentos y reducir la exposición a depredadores y peligros naturales, desarrollando el comercio como una herramienta fundamental para el intercambio de bienes y servicios. Dado lo anterior, es tal el grado de domesticación de la naturaleza que en la actualidad ya no se puede hablar de sitios "vírgenes", sino mas bien, de sitios poco explorados (Peter Kareiva, 2007). Las consecuencias de este crecimiento insostenible se ven reflejadas en el decadente estado de salud de los ecosistemas marinos que cubren un 71% de la superficie de la tierra, lo que representa el 97% de los recursos hídricos del planeta. El mapa global del impacto humano sobre los ecosistemas marinos que se muestra en la figura 1 (Halpern B. S., 2008), revela que el 41% de los océanos se encuentran gravemente impactados por diversas variables antropocéntricas. El resultado de este estudio muestra que en concordancia con lo expuesto por Peter Kareiva, no hay ninguna zona del océano que no haya sido afectada por la influencia humana. [pic] Figura 1. Mapa global de los impactos acumulativos de la actividad humana......
How Gmo's Affect Your Life
...How Genetically Modified Foods Affect Our Lives In recent years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have replaced our diet with genetically altered foods, which have adversely affected human health as well as local communities. Being resistant to pesticides, GMOs are created by splicing genes of different species that are combined through genetic engineering (GE), something that is impossible to do in nature (The Non-GMO Project). Consuming these genetically altered and more processed foods can lead to increased risk of diseases and even cancer (Genetically Modified Food). Most of the time we do not even realize that we are eating these harmful toxins as they are infused in our food without our knowledge (Label GMOs). The farmers that maintain the traditional farming practices and choose to grow organic produce over crops that are GE are constantly trying to keep their businesses alive. Larger corporations, however, who choose to use genetically modified (GM) seeds, make larger profits with less time and effort involved. Choosing to buy local organic produce over crops that contain genetically modified organisms can not only help you stay healthy, but also keep our local farmers in business so that they may continue to grow their crops the way nature intended. Living in the Bay Area we are extremely fortunate to have access to all sorts of organic fruits and vegetables that are grown right in our own backyard. There are countless farms in California that can grow......
...A Review of Acemoglu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail by Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine and Salvatore Modica Acemoglu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail [2012] is a grand history in the style of Diamond [1997] or McNeil [1963]. Like those books, this book is exceptionally fun to read and full of interesting historical examples and provocative ideas. The basic theme of the book is that what matters most in why some nations fail – and others succeed, for the book is as much about success as failure – are not – as earlier authors have argued - economic policies, geography, culture, or value systems – but rather institutions, more precisely the political institutions that determine economic institutions. Acemoglu and Robinson theorize that political institutions can be divided into two kinds - "extractive" institutions in which a "small" group of individuals do their best to exploit - in the sense of Marx - the rest of the population, and "inclusive" institutions in which "many" people are included in the process of governing hence the exploitation process is either attenuated or absent. Needless to say Acemoglu and Robinson's theory is more subtle than this simple summary. They argue that for any economic success political institutions must be sufficiently centralized to provide basic public services including justice, the enforcement of contracts, and education. Given that these functions are carried out, inclusive institutions enable innovative energies to emerge and lead to......
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Spring has sprung!!! And we're ready for it.
What more do you need to know other than we'll have the Captain Lawrence crew hanging out with us, and plenty of their beer to drink. Effortless Grapefruit IPA is brand new in cans, so we're counting on having some warm sunshine (please please please!!!) for a perfect day of boozing in the morning.
Combine that with Chef Jeffrey Maslanka's pork, gravy, and biscuits, and we're in for a good time. Cancel your afternoon meetings...you'll be here for a while. The fun starts at 10:00am!


Ship was a bulk carrier. When taking round of E/R, found bilge water level high. Bilge alarm was not working. Pumped out the water through the OWS, but after 1 hr found the level further increasing. On inspection found the water coming from the fwd bulkhead of the engine room.Suspected the ballast tank forward of ER is cracked and the water leaking into ER, the tank was deballasted and gas freed.
C/E, Chief officer, Master, fitter, AB – all went into the tank and found one of the stiffners cracked and the water leaking to ER. Same welded by using a triangular stress plate temporarily. The hydraulic test was done by filling the water, found satisfactory, the ship proceeded to the designated port.