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worldwide / europe
Myles Sanko
Timo Lassy Band
Philippe Cohen Solal
Ursula Rucker
Magnus Lindgren´s latest record Stockholm Undergroud, produced by Nils Landgren and Siggi Loch, was released on ACT Music in September 2017. Stockholm Underground is a homage to Herbie Mann, the one of the greats of the jazz flute, and to his legendary 1969 album Memphis Underground, listed by Rolling Stone in 2013 in the "100 Best Jazz Albums" of all time. Magnus Lindgren is re-tracing the footsteps of Herbie Mann – together with Daniel Karlsson / keys, Henrik Janson / guitar, Lars DK Danielsson / electric bass and Per Lindvall / drums. Also as guests the album contains Till Brönner / trumpet, Eric Bibb / guitar & vocals, Ida Sand / vocals and Nils Landgren / trombone.
The key figure in this project is evidently Magnus Lindgren, a stalwart of the Stockholm jazz scene, and known in the role he has had for many years, as a member of the Nils Landgren Funk Unit. Lindgren is not just a hugely gifted saxophonist; he is also probably the best jazz flautist in Europe. And he is offering this aspect of his artistry for the first time in pure form: Stockholm Underground is the first album on which he plays only flute. When it comes to emulating the soft melodic lines, producing the breathy tone, or indeed other Herbie Mann hallmarks such as singing-while-playing and multiphonics (like on Penny Blue), Lindgren proves to be a complete shoo-in. He is also in the driving seat as composer/arranger, having penned eight of the twelve tracks on the album.
Magnus is a multi-talented creator of music. His ability to express himself on the tenorsax, clarinet or flute wears the sign of a real master.
Meanwhile several Big Bands and Symphonic Orchestras took note of his enormous talent as conductor and arrange. He is invited to be "Artist in Residence" for SWR Big Band and Bielefelder Symphonic Orchestra. And he is part of projects with John Beasley (Charlie Parker-SWR), HR Big Band with Dhafer Yoseff, Till Brönner & the Bochumer Symphonic Orchestra, Max Herr / Web Web (Potsdamer Symphonic Orchestra) and with Nils Landgren, Jan Lundgren and the SWR Big Band's project Lalilu as arranger and solist.
official video for Penny Blue
Mr. Mann
EPK for Stockholm Underground


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1972 Baseball Season
1972 Baseball Season Headlines
Bob Moose throws a wild pitch in the NLCS, while wild-haired Rollie Fingers saves game seven of the 1972 World Series. Here are some of the headlines of the 1972 baseball season:
Mickey Lolich On Top in 22
Despite losing several starts to the players' strike of 1972, ace lefty Mickey Lolich won 22 games for the Tigers, finishing second in the American League with a 2.50 ERA. Due to an unequal number of games played, the Tigers defeated the Red Sox by 1/2 game.
Tom Seaver: 21 Wins, 249 Ks
A 21-12 record with 249 strikeouts would constitute a career year for most pitchers. For Tom Seaver -- a pitcher who would eventually total 311 games -- it was a standard season. In addition to his 20-plus victories, the Mets star posted 262 innings, 77 walks, and a 2.92 ERA in 1972. Despite his excellent performance, he didn't lead the league in a single category.
Baseball Seasons Image Gallery
Rollie Fingers was almost as well known for his
mustache as he was for his pitching.
See more baseball seasons pictures.
Rollie Fingers Preserves the Win
In 1972, his first full season as a reliever, Rollie Fingers won 11 games, saved another 21 contests, and cultivated his bushy handlebar mustache. In the seventh game of the 1972 World Series, he worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam to save a 3-2 victory and the championship trophy for the A's.
Steve Carlton Leads Phils
The 1972 Phillies were victorious in just 59 games, 27 of those triumphs being credited to Steve Carlton. No pitcher before or since has ever won as high a percentage of his team's victories in a single season.
Jon Matlack Is 1972 National League Rookie of the Year
In 1972, lefty Jon Matlack became the second Met to capture Rookie of the Year honors, following Tom Seaver in 1967. The only Met who could better Matlack's record of 15 victories in 1972 was Seaver, who collected 21 triumphs that season. Matlack also tallied a 2.32 ERA and four shutouts.
Willie Stargell Keeps On Swinging
In 1972, Willie Stargell had another stellar season. He totaled 33 homers and 112 RBI. He had a less-than-spectacular National League Championship Series, however, batting a mere .063 as the Pirates dropped a heartbreaking five-game duel with the Reds.
Bob Moose Blows the NLCS
Pirate Bob Moose threw the most infamous pitch in the history of the National League Championship Series. With two out in the bottom of the ninth inning of game five, Moose bounced a pitch past catcher Manny Sanguillen. The wild toss allowed George Foster to score the run that clinched the pennant for the Reds. In two games in the playoffs, Moose retired just two men and recorded a 54.00 ERA.
George Foster Clinches NLCS
While playing a most uncharacteristic role as a pinch runner for Tony Perez, George Foster scored the fourth and deciding run of the 1972 National League Championship Series. Reds manager Sparky Anderson relished his second pennant in his third year as manager of the Cincinnati ballclub.
Rod Carew Wins American League Bat Title
With a swing that looked like the mechanical motion of a spring-wound toy, Panamanian Rod Carew became the first batting champion to win his crown without hitting a single home run in 1972. Along with his .318 average that season, he accumulated 21 doubles, six triples, 51 RBI, and 61 runs scored. His 1972 award was the first of four consecutive American League batting titles for Carew, who totaled seven circuit-topping hitting averages over his 19-year career.
Check out the next page for more headlines from the 1972 baseball season.
To learn more about baseball, see:
How Baseball Works
How the Baseball Hall of Fame Works
How Minor League Baseball Teams Work

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Fantasy Golf • PGA Tour
2019 Sony Open in Hawaii one-and-done fantasy golf picks
With the PGA Tour deciding to offer a one-and-done fantasy golf platform, as well the increasing number of private one-and-done leagues, we here at Golf News Net will offer weekly one-and-done fantasy golf picks separate from our weekly fantasy golf rankings and picks.
We began with the 2018 Safeway Open, continue this week at the 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii and will continue through to the Tour Championship in Atlanta in August 2019, keeping track of our picks all along the way.
Before we begin, if you're not familiar with game, read this primer on the one-and-done fantasy golf format, and welcome to the game. It really is as easy as it sounds, but you have to take a long-term view of the season to figure out how best to use players.
The PGA Tour completes the Aloha Swing this week with the Sony Open in Honolulu. It's the first full-field event of the year, and it's filled with players with great to solid status. Not many Web.com Tour and Web.com Tour Finals graduates get in this field because of its popularity. However, there are a number of horse-for-course picks in this field, regulars who love to start the year here.
Despite that, the recent trend tells us six of the last seven winners in Honolulu played the week prior at the Tournament of Champions on Maui. There are probably two reasons for that: 1. They're better players; after all, they won to get to Kapalua, and 2. They've knocked off the competitive rust before everyone else.
We missed on Aaron Wise last week. He was playing great at the end of 2018, and he didn't come through for us. However, neither did Brooks Koepka, so stuff happens.
2019 Sony Open in Hawaii One and Done picks
Justin Thomas: Thomas was frustrated last year he didn't win this. He thought he had it. He finished great in Maui. But you're gonna save him for a major.
Bryson DeChambeau: The awkwardness of the flagstick in and dropping from knee height aside, Bryson played solid golf to start the year.
Cameron Smith: I thought last year was going to be huge for Cam. It was, but not in a way I anticipated. He's a better player, now he can win more.
Brian Harman: Harman didn't play last week, but his track record in this event is pretty peerless. Started to get back to better at the end of last year.
Charles Howell III: Ticks the boxes. He loves this event, and he played last week.
My pick this week will be Charles Howell III. I like to use CH3 early, and this is a great spot.
2018-2019 PGA Tour One-and Done Picks
Safeway Open: Sungjae Im (T-4)
CIMB Classic: Xander Schauffele (25th)
CJ Cup at Nine Bridges: Paul Casey (T-18)
WGC-HSBC Champions: Eddie Pepperell (WD)
Sanderson Farms Championship: Nick Taylor (T-26)
Shriners Hospitals for Children Open: Rickie Fowler (T-4)
Mayakoba Golf Classic: Emiliano Grillo (15th)
The RSM Classic: Lucas Glover (T-11)
Sentry Tournament of Champions: Aaron Wise (T-27)
Sony Open in Hawaii: Charles Howell III
Tags2019 Sony Open in Hawaii 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii one and done picks 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii preview golf betting Sony Open in Hawaii Sony Open in Hawaii fantasy golf picks


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José Andrés Rafael Zaldívar Larraín (né le  à Santiago du Chili) est un homme politique chilien, membre du parti démocrate-chrétien du Chili.

Il fut ministre de l'Économie de février au , ministre des Finances du 2 mai au , président du Parti démocrate chrétien de 1976 à 1982 et de 1989 à 1991, puis président du Sénat de 1998 à 2004. Il fut brièvement ministre de l'Intérieur du  au .

Biographie
Ancien étudiant de l'Institut Alonso de Ercilla de Santiago du Chili, de la congrégation des Frères maristes et diplômé en droit de l'université du Chili, Zaldivar commence sa carrière politique au sein du Parti conservateur social-chrétien (PCSC) puis participe en 1957 à la refondation du PCSC, devenu Parti démocrate chrétien (PDC).

Marié en 1959, il est, de 1959 à 1962, avocat adjoint de la municipalité de Colina puis juge de police locale de La Cisterna.

De 1964 à 1967, il est ministre de l'Habitat dans le gouvernement de Eduardo Frei Montalva. De 1968 à 1970, il est gouverneur de la Banque interaméricaine de développement et représentant chilien du comité inter-américain de l'alliance pour le progrès à Washington et au comité économique et social à Caracas (1970).

De 1970 à 1973, il est membre du conseil national du parti démocrate-chrétien où il préside en 1972 la commission politique.

En mars 1973, Andres Zaldívar est élu sénateur pour le  regroupant des provinces de la région d'Atacama et de celle de Coquimbo. Après le coup d'État du 11 septembre 1973 et la dissolution du parlement le , Zaldivar s'exile en Espagne d'où il assume la présidence du Parti démocrate chrétien de 1975 à 1982.

Durant ces années d'exil, il préside l'Internationale démocrate chrétienne de 1981 à 1986. Il participe au référendum chilien de 1988, s'opposant à la prorogation du mandat du général Pinochet. Après la victoire du Non, il assure de nouveau la présidence du Parti démocrate chrétien, de 1989 à 1991, à la suite de Patricio Aylwin, élu président du Chili en , tandis que Zaldivar était quant à lui élu sénateur de la  de Santiago Poniente, avec 31,27 % des voix, aux côtés du candidat UDI, Jaime Guzmán (17,91 %), dans le cadre du système électoral binominal.
Constamment réélu, il participe à de nombreuses commissions parlementaires comme celles de la justice ou de la réforme constitutionnelle. En mars 1998, Zaldívar est élu Président du sénat, charge qu'il assume jusqu'au .

En 1999, Zaldívar est le candidat du PDC lors des primaires au sein de la Concertation des partis pour la démocratie pour être le candidat de la coalition de gauche aux élections présidentielles de 1999. Avec 28,27 % des voix, il est battu lors des primaires par Ricardo Lagos, candidat du PPD-PS (71,3 %).

Zaldivar est réélu sénateur en 2005 tout en menant la campagne électorale de Michelle Bachelet lors des élections présidentielles. Après la victoire de celle-ci, il est nommé Ministre de l'Intérieur mais doit démissionner moins de quatre mois plus tard à la suite des débordements des manifestations étudiantes. Il a été réélu sénateur en décembre 2009.

Fonctions
 Sous-secrétaire d'État aux Finances de 1964 à 1967.
 Ministre des Finances du  au .
 Président du Parti démocrate chrétien de 1975 à 1982 et de 1989 à 1991.
 Président du Sénat de mars 1998 à mars 2004.
 Ministre de l'Intérieur du  au  (gouvernement Bachelet)

Liens externes

Ministre chilien des Finances
Ministre chilien de l'Intérieur
Ministre du gouvernement Bachelet
Ministre du gouvernement Frei Montalva
Président du Parti démocrate chrétien du Chili
Personnalité du Parti démocrate chrétien du Chili
Étudiant de l'université du Chili
Grand-croix de l'ordre du Soleil
Naissance en mars 1936
Naissance à Santiago

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Publications ›
Why Bother Educating Smart Kids?
by Chester E. Finn Jr., Brandon L. Wright
quoting Eric Hanushek
Editor's note: This essay is an excerpt from the new book Failing Our Brightest Kids: The Global Challenge of Educating High-Ability Students (Harvard Education Press).
Why pay special attention to high-ability girls and boys? Won't they do fine anyway? Shouldn't we concentrate on kids with problems? Low achievers? Poor kids?
Good questions all, particularly when American education leaders (and their counterparts in most other advanced countries) are preoccupied with equalizing opportunity, closing gaps, and giving a boost to those most challenged—and when resources are chronically scarce. Yet such questions have two compelling answers.
First, the country needs these children to be highly educated in order to ensure its long-term competitiveness, security, and innovation. Frederick Hess is correct: these are the young people who hold perhaps the greatest promise for making major advances in science, technology, medicine, the humanities, and much more. The same point was framed in different words in the 1993 federal report "National Excellence: A Case for Developing America's Talent": "In order to make economic strides," the authors wrote, "America must rely upon many of its top-performing students to provide leadership—in mathematics, science, writing, politics, dance, art, business, history, health, and other human pursuits."
This isn't just rhetoric. Economists don't agree on much, but almost all concur that a nation's economic vitality and growth depend heavily on the quality and productivity of its human capital and its capacity for innovation. At the forefront of creation, invention, and discovery are—nearly always—the society's cleverest, ablest, and best-educated men and women. Yes, other personal and national characteristics also loom large (such as hard work, enterprise, natural resources, stable laws, reliable banks, peace in the streets), but nothing trumps the knowledge and imagination of a country's people. Whether we are picturing breakthroughs in information technology, alternative forms of energy, more efficient engines, vaccines against Ebola, ultrapowerful telescopes, or environmentally sound crop enhancers for wheat fields, we depend on smart, creative, and highly educated individuals to lead the way.
The U.S. economy is already hobbled by our shortage of such homegrown talent (and further shackled by limits on importing such people from overseas). Organizations like the Partnership for a New American Economy and U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimate that one-fourth of American science and engineering firms now face difficulty hiring the workforce they need—and forecast a shortage of
220,000 workers with STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) degrees by 2018. It's true that changing our immigration policies would ease the crunch. But what sensible nation would rely on other countries to educate and supply its highly skilled workers?
This challenge extends beyond the tech world. In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that foreign applicants (especially from India and China) are besting American candidates for admission to high-status U.S. business schools because they're doing far better on the quantitative portion of the Graduate Management Admission Test. Some leading universities are turning to country-specific scoring systems so that American applicants get compared only with fellow Americans—a sort of affirmative action scheme for people educated in our own schools and colleges! "U.S. students' raw scores on the quantitative section have remained roughly flat over the last decade," the Journal explained, "but their percentile ranking has fallen as more of their higher-scoring international counterparts take the exam."
The problem is not that the United States lacks smart children; it's that such kids aren't getting the education they need to realize their potential. Other countries are forging ahead, while "roughly flat" accurately describes the American record. Using international test data, economists Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann estimate that a "ten percentage point increase in the share of top-performing students" within a country "is associated with 1.3 percentage points higher annual growth" of that country's economy (measured in per-capita GDP). Which is to say, if the United States propelled as many of its young people into the ranks of high achievers as, say, the Netherlands, this country would be mark- edly more prosperous—with faster growth, higher employment, better wages, and all that comes with these. (If 1.3 percentage points looks modest, consider that the average annual U.S. growth rate over the past forty years has been just 1.5 percent.)
The second big reason to attend to the schooling of high-ability youngsters is a version of the familiar equity argument: these kids also deserve an education that meets their needs and enhances their futures, just like children with other distinctions and problems. They have their own legitimate claim on our conscience, our sense of fair- ness, our policy priorities, and our education budgets. What's more, many of them also face such challenges as disability, poverty, ill-educated parents, non-English-speaking homes, and tough neighborhoods.
Those kids depend more than upper-middle-class youngsters on the public education system to do right by them. Some will manage to overcome the constraints of their upbringing, but many will fall by the wayside, destined by circumstances beyond their control never to realize their full potential. As Ford Foundation president Darren Walker recently remarked, "[E]ven though talent is spread evenly across America, opportunity is not." That's why our failure to extend such opportunities to more high-ability kids from disadvantaged backgrounds is, as the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation team recently put it, "both unacceptable and incompatible with America's long-term prosperity."
That's also why high-functioning public school systems such as that of Fairfax County, Virginia (FCPS), declare their commitment to widening opportunities for children with talent and "to providing challenging learning experiences for all learners that build on individual strengths and optimize academic potential. In order to meet the needs and develop the potential of advanced learners, FCPS provides a continuum of advanced academic services."
Yet we have a long way to go before it can be said that "advanced learners" from poor circumstances are achieving anywhere near their more fortunate classmates. Today, a random American fifteen-year-old is four times likelier to be a top scorer on PISA math than is her lower socioeconomic age-mate. A woeful 2 percent of Americans in the lowest SES quartile reached the uppermost PISA ranks in math, reading, or science in 2012. By contrast, in the top SES quartile, 20 percent of U.S. test takers made it to that level in math, as did 18 percent in reading and 17 percent in science.
Plenty more poor kids have the ability, but lots of them lack the supports from home and family that middle-class children enjoy, and many attend schools awash in low achievement, places where all the incentives and pressures on teachers and administrators are to equip weak pupils with basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Such schools understandably invest their resources in boosting low achievers. They're also most apt to judge teachers by their success in doing that and least apt to have much to spare—energy or time, incentive or money—for students already above the proficiency bar. These might fairly be termed the kids that NCLB forgot.
We are by no means the first to flag this problem. As the authors of that 1993 report declared: "The United States is squandering one of its most precious resources—the gifts, talents, and high interests of many of its students. . . . This problem is especially severe among economically disadvantaged and minority students, who have access to fewer advanced educational opportunities and whose talents often go unnoticed." (Emphasis added.)
In the years since, similar alarms have been sounded time and again. In A Nation Deceived, published in 2004, Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline, and Miraca Gross meticulously demonstrate how able children benefit from an accelerated education—and the damaging role of misguided education beliefs and practices in holding back such children.
In a 2008 Fordham Institute publication, after analyzing NAEP data over the previous decade, Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution cautioned: "Gaps are narrowing because the gains of low-achieving students are outstripping those of high achievers by a factor of two or three to one. The nation has a strong interest in developing the talents of its best students to their fullest to foster the kind of growth at the top end of the achievement distribution that has been occur- ring at the bottom end. International comparisons of top stu- dents around the world invariably show American high-achievers falling short."
In Mind the (Other) Gap, published in 2010, the University of Connecticut's Jonathan Plucker and colleagues again documented the widening "excellence gap" in American education, as "the economically disadvantaged, English Language Learners, and historically underprivileged minorities" have come to comprise a shrinking "proportion of students scoring at the highest levels of achievement."
Two years later, in Unlocking Emergent Talent, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Jane Clarenbach of the National Association for Gifted Children wrote that, "While our nation continues to express commitment to closing the achievement gap, the proportion of low-income students performing at advanced levels on the National Assessment of Educational Progress remains shamefully low. For example, between 1998 and 2007, 2% or fewer of free and reduced lunch program-eligible students scored at the advanced level on the eighth-grade math exam compared to between 6% and 10 % of non-eligible students."
Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery made waves in 2013 with evidence that even low-income youngsters who do exceptionally well in high school, earning excellent grades and lofty SAT or ACT scores, are far less likely than their affluent peers to wind up in high-status colleges, despite ample evidence that they could gain admission, obtain sufficient financial aid, and succeed academically. Why? Because they tend not even to apply to such colleges; nobody at home or school encourages them to do so and explains how to go about it. Nor do university "outreach" efforts manage to find many of them. Hoxby and Avery estimate that tens of thousands of high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds are thus "missed" by the elite strata of American higher education—and these are youngsters who have succeeded in K–12 education despite all the obstacles.
Plucker and colleagues returned to the "excellence gap" in October 2013 with a penetrating summary of research attesting to the K–12 system's failure to cultivate the talents of high-ability kids from disadvantaged circumstances—and bluntly stated that policy efforts to close the "minimum competency gap," important as they are ("an ethical and moral priority"), are not narrowing the excellence gap, "a unique problem that will not be solved without concerted effort."
Most recently, March 2015 brought a valuable study from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, entitled Equal Talents, Unequal Opportunities, which used multiple metrics to appraise how well individual states are advancing the education of high-ability, low-income youngsters. The report's bleak conclusion: "No state received full points in either policy inputs or student outcomes, which left us unable to give any state an 'A' grade." (In fact, just six states earned student-outcome grades in the "B" range—and there were scads of D's.)
One may rightly term this amply-documented situation shameful, but one ought not find it surprising. Consider the children's differing circumstances.
It's true that not all upper-middle-class kids with strong ability can count on having education-maximizing parents—some are content for their children to be well-adjusted and popular—and some youngsters themselves lack motivation. Yet the odds are hugely better that such girls and boys will get an education that does a decent job of capitalizing on their potential, beginning in their earliest months on earth. For they are all but certain to have adults in their lives who read to them, ask them questions that don't have simple answers, show them intriguing things, and take them to interesting places—adults with the knowledge and capacity to navigate our complicated education system in pursuit of suitable options for their daughters and sons, and to press for access to the best of those options. These are adults who possess resources that enable them to shift to better options when necessary, whether that means changing neighbor- hoods, purchasing supplemental education offerings, even sending their children to private schools.
Equally able youngsters from poor families, on the other hand, depend mainly on their local public education system to supply them with suitable learning opportunities. Many start school behind the eight ball because they haven't learned as many words or been asked to think about as many complicated things or seen as many informative places as their more-advantaged classmates. Many also enter schools that have a weak record of academic achievement and are staffed by less experienced teachers.
All of this puts at further risk those youngsters who were disadvantaged to begin with, compared with their middle-class peers, and makes it less likely that they will receive an education that nurtures their ability to the max. Able as they may be, they face a double whammy because their schools are beset by more urgent problems: poor attendance, children arriving hungry or sick, discipline challenges, language issues, and more. Such schools may also be strapped for resources—money, expert instructors, materials, and so on. Maximizing the potential of their high-ability, high-achieving pupils may be something that principals and teachers yearn to do but are simply too swamped to devote the energy and resources it requires.
Whether the children in a particular school are poor or rich, virtually all of the public-policy pressures, incentives, and accountability schemes of recent decades—whether arising from local, state, or federal sources, from private philanthropy, or from the priorities and values of educators themselves—have pushed teachers and administrators to concentrate on low achievers, those who, in the language of No Child Left Behind, are not yet "proficient" or "making adequate yearly progress" in reading or math.
Helping students climb over the proficiency bar wins points and plaudits for the school, but boosting them further up the achievement ladder rarely does. Schools and teachers earn few incentives or rewards for causing such youngsters to learn more. Meanwhile, plenty of these students' peers are termed "at risk"—in terms of not just prior achievement but also disabilities, immigrant status, home language, and other factors—and government (and philanthropic) funding streams, mandates, accountability systems, and special programs focus on schools' success in mitigating or compensating for such risks.
This is certainly true in the United States in the NCLB era, as that sweeping 2001 federal law focused entirely on low-achieving students. Moreover, it was recently reframed by education secretary Arne Duncan to prod states and districts to concentrate their energies and resources on the very worst schools—Duncan emphasizes the lowest-performing 5 percent—not those attended by the children with greatest potential to become academic superstars. While poorly per- forming schools harbor some of those kids, too, government policy effectively marginalizes them as among the (few) pupils the school does not have to worry about. Their low-achieving classmates get the attention. Instead of concentrating our policy energies on both boost- ing the entire distribution of performance and targeting extra help on those farthest behind, we have for years been devoted almost exclu- sively to the latter.
Government policy is not, however, the only driver of this focus on low achievers and troubled schools. Education discourse in the United States, as well as the preoccupations of most foundations, think tanks, pundits, and colleges of education, seems to have forgotten or repressed the grand tension that John Gardner highlighted a half-century back. Can we, in fact, "be equal and excellent too? " Despite another claxon sounded two decades later by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, the quest for excellence has all but vanished from our education priorities—and it's more thoroughly absent when such questing means paying attention to the schooling of high-ability children.
A senior faculty member at one of the country's top schools of education commented to us that the very phrase "gifted education" is a "tainted construction" among leading thinkers, policy influencers, and institutions in the field. He added that none of his faculty col- leagues focus on such issues—they're much more interested in ending poverty, compensating for disability, fostering cultural pluralism, and boosting low achievement—and that his school's placement office wouldn't think of sending graduates anywhere but into the most troubled and disadvantaged settings.
Such comments match our own impressions as we ride the circuit of conferences, workshops, policy seminars, and legislative initiatives around the public education field. As a simple reality check, however, we searched for "gifted education" on the websites of the ten graduate schools of education rated most highly by U.S. News. That well turned out to be almost dry. We found two or three interested (if somewhat ambivalent) professors, one full-fledged graduate degree program, a couple of optional "endorsements" for special ed certification, several one-day seminars, and a summer program for kids and teachers, but little else.
Why this neglect? Briefly stated, America's failure to solve these problems arises from a mix of ideology, political correctness, flawed education theories, and disagreements over who qualifies as "gifted." Even when we agree on which children meet that definition, we divide over what to do with them. Should they be taught within "inclusive" classrooms or separately? Do they, in fact, deserve anything different at all? Some say that programs focused on such children are elitist and contend that "these kids will do fine anyway, so let's concentrate on those who are having difficulty." Others wonder what will happen to late bloomers. Still others discount talent and ability altogether, insisting that personal qualities such as "grit" are the key to high achievement. In today's culture, creating special opportunities for high-ability, high-achieving youngsters also invites allegations of discrimination.
Many educators object to separating students in any way. They decry all forms of "tracking" and "grouping" as archaic and unfair. And they're not entirely wrong, considering how yesterday's tracking schemes often had a deterministic, immutable aspect that tended to permanently separate student populations and limit educational and social mobility. Any successful (and politically acceptable) approach to education in the United States in the twenty-first century must instead recognize this as a "land of opportunity" and education as a source of second chances. But that doesn't mean ignoring youngsters of exceptional ability or achievement—or assuming that everyone in fifth grade is equally adept at learning math or history, much less that they're all at the same level of achievement today.
Chester E. Finn Jr.
Brandon L. Wright
More from Defining Ideas
The Trial That Should Not Be
by Richard A. Epstein
More from Education
The Coronavirus Scar
by Eric Hanushek, Ludger Woessmann


text:
Ягодняк () — община и населённый пункт в Хорватии.

Община Ягодняк находится в восточной части Хорватии в Осиецко-Бараньской жупании. Община располагается в 17,3 км от города Осиек.

География

В состав общины входят следующие населённые пункты (данные о населении на 2011 год):
 Ягодняк — 1 299 чел.
 Болман — 520 чел.
 Нови Болман — 122 чел.
 Майшке Медже — 82 чел.

Демография
Население общины составляет 2 023 человека по переписи 2011 года. Национальный состав выглядит следующим образом:
 65,89 % сербы — 1 333 чел.
 19,33 % хорваты — 391 чел.
 7,61 % цыгане — 154 чел.
 3,02 % венгры — 61 чел.
 0,4 % немцы — 8 чел.

Достопримечательности

Католическая церковь святого Венделина
Приходская церковь святых Павла и Петра в Болмане
Приходская церковь святого Николая в Ягодняке

Примечания

Ссылки
 Официальный сайт общины

Общины Осиекско-Бараньской жупании
Объединенный совет муниципалитетов


text:
Jan Linsen (Hoorn, 1602 or 1603 – Hoorn, May 26, 1635) was a Dutch painter of mythological and historical themes.

Jan Linsen travelled in France and Italy on a Grand Tour, and in Rome he became a member of the painters' circle known as the Bentvueghels, with the nickname Hermafrodito. While on a ship bound homewards from Italy, he was captured by Moorish pirates. He was ransomed for 20 pieces of silver, which was paid by his company. He later painted a scene of this encounter that still hung in Hoorn when Arnold Houbraken was writing. He died young, according to Houbraken, due to an argument in a bar, where he was stabbed to death by a man whom he claimed to have loved and forgave before he died of the wound.

References
 Jan Linsen biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature

External links
 recently auctioned works by Jan Linsen

1600s births
1635 deaths
Dutch Golden Age painters
Dutch male painters
People from Hoorn
Members of the Bentvueghels


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text:
Doomsday Diaries
archive about feed
The Gospel of the Triangle God
June 28, 2020 · 18 minutes read
All that exists is of great precision. Unfortunately the majority of that which exists with such precision is technically invisible to us. The good thing is that truth comes to us as a secret sense of things. We end up guessing, confused, perfection. 2
I've seen the Triangle God. And I'm here to tell its story.
I've been trying to write my way up to a non-anthropological Perspectivism. I don't know how to do it, I don't know exactly what it gets us. I do know that it's a blind spot. I also don't know what I'll write the day after I finish it. Which is why I need to keep going.
Epistemic status: I've masturbated to a Bayesian inference before writing this. Check your priors. If this doesn't make sense to you, it's okey.
I understand that my metaphors are a problem for Rationalists. And my apophenia is a problem for everyone else. I am sorry. But I want to make this step as clear as I can: there's a category of theories that are vital to guide us through reality.
When I say vital I don't mean essential. I mean: either we get this right, or we are out. The thing with those theories is that they imply some morality (not in themselves, obviously, but in relationship to our narcissism - to the stories we tell ourselves). Which makes it hard to discuss them in a pure "what is reality" way. Because we suck. And everything is a defense against change.
It's like when we hear elephants have long-term memory and our brain shuts down to the next obvious conclusion. As if this very good elephant-memory is the only thing we just learned about life. No other implications, no consequences.
Well, I'm afraid you are not going to like very much what comes next. Because I want to discuss choices and consequences. But not today. Today we will talk about Math.
Math is weird. Exhibit A: statistics. This is a distribution of length of English sentences in a corpus3:
This is the popularity of TV Shows:
It does look a bit off and not precise, fair. This is the height of men in Indonesia since 17704:
If you throw a dice a bunch of times and sum the results, it will also look like that due to the Central Limit Theorem. All those are fits of Normal distributions (a.k.a. Gaussians). This is the formula of the Gaussian that describes all those functions:
\[f(x) = \frac{1}{\sigma \sqrt{2\pi} } e^{-\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{x-\mu}{\sigma}\right)^2}\]
Where \(\mu\) and \(\sigma\) are number that will be example-specific.
Woah, my dude, wait a minute. What is this "\(\pi\)" thing over there?
It's pi. It's the ratio of the circumference of the circle and its diameter.
Are you shitting me? What does Indonesia, TV shows and English sentences have to do with a circle?
I'm not sure.
Fine. What about \(e\)?
It's not a big deal, it's just a number where \(e^{\pi i} + 1 = 0\).
Stop messing with me. What is \(i\)?
It's just that \(i * i = -1\) like if \(i\) was \(\sqrt{-1}\), but it's not real.
What the fuck do you mean not real? We were talking about human height and watching TV.
I'm sorry. It's the way things are. I'm sure the formula is right. It's Math. It's just that Math is weird.
Exhibit B: Physics.
In quantum mechanics, Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle asserts a fundamental limit to the precision that we can measure the position and momentum of a particle:
\[\sigma_{x}\sigma_{p} \ge \frac{h}{4\pi}\]
\(\sigma\) is the standard deviation. \(h\) is Planck's constant, the energy contained in a photon. \(\pi\) is the ration between the circumference and the diameter of a circle. Because that's how the universe works.
I don't want to overplay the \(\pi\) showing up everywhere hand. The greater point is that every Physics equation is a miracle. We should have been astonished all the time by the fact that a handful of math operations are predictive of how everything behaves from planets, to atoms, to light. But time heals all miracles.
I have something to say about the ontological situation of Math, but before I get to that, I feel I need to clean up the mess that was left behind by, well, you.
This is not a "is Math discovered or invented?" conversation. Math is a language, therefore contingent to human brains, historical processes. That doesn't mean much except that we could have arrived at a slightly different Math if we had three fingers or the Persians were lazier. It definitely does not mean that Math is colonialist, slave mentality, or any garbage that CK Raju has ever said about it (based on what he wrote, he doesn't understand basic math nor computers. I'm willing to put money on it. HMU. I'm home all day). Links are here for schadenfreude purposes.
Ok, so it seems to be mostly uncontroversial that Math is a language. But then what does Math talk about? Well, Mathematical Objects (© Plato, 300 BC). You see, Mathematics is not just logic nor it can be reduced to logic. Smart folks have tried to. A lot. It just isn't. Math rules can be applied in a logical way, but the rules themselves can't be summoned out of logic.
I don't want to defend people who don't merit defense (talking to you, my boy Quine), but I want to explain it enough so you know where I'm coming from. We are all familiar with Plato's Forms: the shadows in the cave, cast by light hitting the Forms from the perfect realm of Ideas. Most people understand this as a "there is an objective reality, we just have imperfect access to it, damn my english glasses". Most people are wrong. Not that the conclusion is incorrect, but the interpretation is. This was never intended to be about substance. It's a description of thinking.
If I ask you to explain how \(2 + 3 = 5\), you can raise your fingers and show me. But this is not a proof that \(2 + 3\) is equal to \(5\). This is a proof that your fingers behave as numbers do. Good for your fingers, but irrelevant for Math. Don't believe me? Let me show you.
Imagine we grab 2 rocks and put them in a bag, we then grab 3 rocks and put them in the same bag. We now empty the bag on the floor and we count 6 rocks. Does this experiment put you in a mental state where you've started to doubt Math? No. Your initial reaction (and every subsequent reaction) will be to doubt the experiment. Maybe there was an extra rock in the bag? Maybe a rock crumbled in two during the process? Maybe there was an extra rock on the floor to begin with? Maybe you miscounted? Anyway: \(2 + 3 = 5\) is not an experimental result. If something goes wrong, blame reality. A.k.a, The US Democratic Party strategy, 2016-2020.
Oh, it's because I have strong priors that Math works. You sure do. But that's kinda my point. To do Math is to act as if we are dealing with ideal platonic objects. The numbers are real, the operations that connect them are real. The geometry is real (even the new ones are real). They are a truth beyond physical reality. Pure Truth-capital-T. But beyond that…
Back to the rocks. 6 rocks came out. We don't doubt the Math. But we also don't doubt that Math works with reality. That it does apply. It's ok to doubt the particulars of the example, but not that Math can be applied to reality. If it's not working it's because you misapplied it.
So we seem to know very deeply that: Math is correct; and it's able to describe reality.
I'm not claiming this is a dogma or that we sheepishly accepted the mathematics of the patriarchal white-supremacist colonialism. I'm not blaming anyone for the situation. There's nothing to blame anyone for. The problem is exactly the opposite. We did question. For thousands of years:
We are in a position similar to that of a man who was provided with a bunch of keys and who, having to open several doors in succession, always hit on the right key on the first or second trial. He became skeptical concerning the uniqueness of the coordination between keys and doors. 5
We took it for granted that Math is a language. But there's something weird about Math. Because it doesn't do something that all other languages do. Other languages don't work very well. They seem wobbly, a loose match, they have friction with reality. But not Math, Math works well. It fits.
How did we end up here? Did we just get lucky? Over five thousand years of mostly garbage? Think about the history of mankind: a sequence of being wrong and causing damage everywhere. We destroyed things we didn't even know were there. But technology…. Shut up, Pinker. The point is not that some things didn't get better. Is that everything we do is universally precarious. Kinda works, good enough, I guess. Let's get back to it once we have more time.
Except for Math. We got this one perfectly. We did improve on it, sure, but we were mostly right all along. Here, let me try to measure the height of this pyramid. Oh, cool, I can use this to figure out the motion of the stars too. Oh, and this explains subatomic particles as well? Oh lol. I guess we are just very talented. Doesn't that look suspicious to you?
The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. 5
Or as Samzdat puts is: "It's uncertain if we do know anything, but suppose that we do. What would it look like for that to be possible?" Well, it would look like Mathematics.
Don't mistake me. I don't think God created Math. Otherwise, we would be in a similar situation: with another language that tries (and kinda fails) to explain a part of reality.
God didn't create Math. If anything, God is Math.
Let's talk science hierarchy. Math. Physics. Chemistry. Biology. Sociology.
The original plan of Comte was to understand those fields as a single scientific positivist narrative. I don't particularly care, but an important take is that a higher level is built upon the previous level, but can't be reduced to it.
This is a bit structuralist, but it's worth keeping in mind. The game of Chemistry is played on the field of Physics, but you can't understand Chemistry by just learning Physics. There's some extra knowledge that Chemistry brings, even if they never really escape Physics.
Also, as far as scientific theories go, we are talking about languages that codify knowledge. Metaphors. Theories. "The language of Biology is based on (but can't be reduced to) the language of Chemistry". I.e., not really ontological. True. But I don't care.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space, everything else is opinion. Okey. But is it really a stretch to say that the object of sociology deals with biological entities interacting? Or that biology entities are made of blobs of chemicals? It seems reasonable to jump out of the scientific taxonomy of languages into an ontological understanding of reality. As if this is not only the way we decided to structure knowledge, but that is also a little bit about how reality itself is.
And if that's the case. Well. If carbon and hydrogen are the building blocks of Biology. And neutrons, gravity, and energy are the building blocks of Chemistry. Someone is bound to start ask questions about where are the building blocks of Physics. And now those Mathematical Objects are looking like pretty good candidates. Oh fuck.
Can you see it now? The Triangle God. The principle that structures reality. The playing field of Physics (not only of the language, but of the physical reality itself). The fundamental building blocks.
All praise to the Triangle God.
God does not manifest himself only in physical form as he appeared in form of a triangle.6
Except that, and I hate to break the cathartic moment, this is fucking crazy.
I admit this took me a while to figure out. I said it jokingly. "The Triangle God". It was a way to release some pressure, to acknowledge I had reached a dead end. But realistically, I don't take myself seriously enough to be able the indulge in theology. It sounds crazy to me. I don't know what to do with Math, but I know that whatever I do, it won't be the foundation of a new cosmology. I'm too invested in not knowing.
Here's a theory of doubt. The difference between doubt and suspicion is that doubt focuses on the one who doubts, while suspicion focuses on the other. This is how you end up in Manichaeism. How you end up in the culture wars. How you end up with us.
Suspicion is part of the foundation of any modern critical thinking. Marx teaches us to be suspicious of how natural class division feels and neutral the State seems to be about it. Freud teaches us to be suspicious of reason, of conscience. Nietzsche teaches us to be suspicious of… well, everything? Of Truth, of Fairness, of Good, of Morals, even of grammar. Suspicion is the wheel of modern thinking. 7
But it was Nietzsche himself who realized that a suspicion that is immune to doubt becomes religious dogma. Maybe you are right, maybe you are full of shit. But protect yourself too much from the possibility of shitness, and you become part of the problem. Not to mention, you start looking a bit weird to everyone around you.
So the Triangle God has to die. Not for our sins, but for our aspiring virtues. What kinda people would we be if we kept it alive? Gods exist to structure the social reality, not the physical one. The Triangle God was too perfect for its own good.
So back to the metaphysical drawing board. Math is still too correct, too perfect. What if we got this backwards? What if the correctness and realism of Math comes not from it being a fundamental building block, but from it being a logical conclusion. Wait, didn't you say Math was not Logic? Yes. I don't mean that Math is a logical conclusion « of logic ». But what if Math is a logical conclusion of reality?
It always bothered me in the study of emergent properties of systems that the definition of complexity (and simplicity) is too judgmental. Take, for example, the SEP:
Ontological emergency see the physical world as entirely constituted by physical structures, simple or composite. But composites are not (always) mere aggregates of the simples. There are layered strata, or levels, of objects, based on increasing complexity.
Complexity here is not the information theory concept, but seems used as "more complicated", almost as a conclusion of it being composite. But that is not a given. A trail formed by ants is not more complex than an ant, or their social dynamics. It's just a path. And yet, it's an emergent property of all of those much more complex things. Is a zebra stripe more complex than the ontogenesis of a zebra and it's intercelular interaction? Composition doesn't imply complexity. Complexity doesn't imply composition.
It's true that causes are simpler than consequences. It's the 2nd law of thermodynamics, a.k.a., the we are all fucked law of everything. But the 2nd law only talks about isolated systems. The cause + consequence is more complex than the cause by itself. I.e., ants and paths are more complex than ants, but that doesn't make the path more complex than ants.
Vik Muniz's Marat from Waste Land reduces the complexity of its parts into a picture.
Emergent properties play a few tricks on us.
We perceive emergent properties like obvious conclusions. Inevitable. We don't always have access to the process, but we abstract it away. It's like our brains are happy to not going full banana over how the fuck there are stripes on this weird horse. We are very fast at getting used to crazy. Because there is crazy everywhere and we are hungry. Emergency hides complexity behind inevitability. It's not that emergencies are not inevitable. It's just that they hide their causes.
Emergent properties without extra complexity can be deceiving. We can rationalize what came first, the ant before the path. But it's daring us to reverse, to misunderstand. A kind of semantic post hoc ergo propter hoc. Simpler, therefore before. And of course, we do it all the time.
Abstractly, if \(B\) always emerges out of \(A\) but we don't understand the causal connection between them, then we are kinda bound to say they are at the same level. And if we've never seen a reality without \(A\), then well, \(B\) will also just be. We wouldn't be able to understand a world without \(B\). And maybe, if \(B\) is simpler than \(A\), we might just be tempted to, you know, imagine that \(B\) came first.
The ontological switcheroo.
It's probably obvious at this point where I'm going with this. But what if Math is the fundamental emergent property of reality? Not the Math language, the Math Objects. What if, when anything exists, it must exist "with great precision". A precision that makes Mathematical Objects emerge.
If that were true, what would our cosmology look like? Well, it would feel self-evident that Math is everywhere. That for something to exist, it must exist also mathematically. As an almost condition-of-being. Because we can't conceive anything that exists without Math. And we don't know what not existing looks like.
But wait, doesn't Math come first? Well, that's the switcheroo. If Math is an ubiquitous property of everything and yet simpler than Physics, then it would be reasonable that we have, you know, reversed the order. We feel like Math comes first, because it's simpler. When in reality, it emerged from Physics, not the contrary.
Maybe it's why Math explains so many things so well. It's a consequence. An inevitable logical consequence of existing, not a theory about Nature. This doesn't mean that Math is everything. Just that to be implies to be mathematically, and Math just has to worry about the second part and everything else will follow. A mathematical conclusion becomes a condition for being.
Sure. Whatever. This, the opposite of this, neither and both. Does this allow me to go outside without a mask? How do I monetize this shit? You know there's a reason why mathematical philosophers are not invited to parties, right? Yeah. I do. And I don't care that much either. I don't plan to die on this particular hill.
With a View, by Thomas Vanoost
Come to think of it, emergent properties and underlying structures can always be merged at a certain distance. In fact, that seems to be the case we see ourselves in with Math. Apart from conversations about ontology, epistemology, or some very philosophical Physics questions, it doesn't matter what Math really is. What a fucking waste of time…
Which is, in a way, surprising. Human knowledge has been shockingly effective. We are bothered by the limits of the speed of light. Press a button and someone in Paris can look into the eyes of someone in Tokyo. There's electricity and my toilet flushes. Microscopes and satellites. This is all extremely unexpected for a bunch of monkeys. Specially a bunch of monkeys that don't even understand how can they understand anything. Or what the number 12 really is.
Maybe this argument is pointless. Given that we got this far without solving it, maybe it's inconsequential. An ontological Fermat Last Theorem. Sure. Maybe the reason we were able to build all this engineering monstrosity without this certainty is not because this particular argument over objective reality of math doesn't matter. Maybe it's because what objective reality is doesn't matter. I know that this may sound like I'm pulling some anti-scientific garbage on you. But I'm really not.
Science is fine. Science is great. But we've been building science without knowing what is and what isn't. Maybe science doesn't really need the concept of "objective reality". People talk all the time about the idea that we live in a simulation. And nobody seems to be worried that the Navier-Stokes equation is going to change because of that, right?
The conversation about reality is less about what can be hacked of it (which is mostly Science), but more about what are the (mostly moral) consequences of believing reality is constituted in a particular way.
I get it, you hate some people and some people hate you back. And how can you explain that the people you hate are wrong without talking about The Objective Reality. I empathize. But that's not science, right? It's at best a defense of science.
Science has been doing its thing with relative success. And Plato is still on hold for two thousand years on the shitiest callcenter ever. We don't know what is, but things keep being and melded with in spite of that. And we keep understanding more and more of them.
It's hard to pull this argument, specially in a world where we can't agree on really basic stuff. But I'd suggest that is precisely because of this that we need a better understanding of the implications of objective reality. I think it's close to what Samzdat has tried to do with the mouse deer.
I mean, you want to keep your guns, fine. Keep them. But those are not the weapons of science, because science doesn't need them. Those are the weapons of a fight about the social and moral implications of what we believe to be truth. I'm not judging, but those are the weapons of a religious fight.
This is liberation.
It feels we need to break up understanding the world and seeking objective reality. People want the former and end up invested in the later. If you can drop the fundamental truth about Math, you can also drop the fundamental truth about most things. And the world will still spin.
Realizing that the search for objective reality is, in the end, a search for meaning can be liberating. It's not about what is. But about what it implies. Most scientific justifications for abhorrent acts are firmly grounded on misunderstanding this simple fact. The scientific version of just following orders. You act in a particular way, because you convinced yourself that this is the way reality wants you to act.
If you feel you are chasing some absolute stance, you will feel like you have no choice. Like if the conclusion presented is immutable and you are forced to follow it to the ground. "It's not abuse, it's natural selection". Nope. Being an asshole is always a choice. Being indifferent is not a logical conclusion. Reality is not a security blanket.
I understand it's not a simple task. Ideally, morality could be designed. But it also needs to be grounded. It's what nihilism has been all about. We need a language for it. Role models. Dimensions to grow. Better conversations. But it all starts with acknowledging the problem.
Before, I praised the engineering of our time. But we have been fucking garbage. We can't seem to coordinate more than zero people. We have absolutely no fucking idea what's going on. We are lost in arguments that are thousand years old, because our tiny brains can't seem to keep up with the conversation. There are people who live miserably and without choice. We are at the point that our best hope is to build a machine that magically will solve the problems we can't even articulate, which very likely will only cause more problems. We don't know what or how to feel, so hating will do. And we want to win, oh my god how much we want to win.
It may seem that I know the answers. I can assure you that I don't. I started this with a curiosity about Math. And now I'm here. Considering that the Triangle God was a metaphor for Math, for objective reality, for amoralism. The new dead holy trinity.
More than a call to step up, to face the problems, this is about permission. Permission to decide by yourself what are the fundamentals of reality. Not in the "I believe in crystal energy" sense. That's fucking crazy. But in the sense that you get to choose what matters, and design around the outcome of that decision. Permission to be responsible for reality, not just an external independent analyst.
Reason is not about things that are independent of opinion. Reason is about the choices you make. And choices are about consequences. Everything else is a waste of time.
And we are out of it.
Francisco Goya, The Adoration of the Name of The Lord, 1772. ↩
Clarice Lispector, in A Descoberta do Mundo. ↩
TEP: Tehran English-Persian parallel corpus ↩
The biological standard of living and body height in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia, 1770–2000 ↩
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, Eugene P. Wigner, 1959. ↩ ↩2
Lyric Poems from Around the World: Epic Thinks Beyond Feelings: Lyric Poems on Early Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute to His Early Life 5-30 Years & Other Lyric Poems. ↩
As most of what I write, this was originally not my own idea. But I've lost the source. ↩
« a theory for the darkness


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A woman has been filmed apparently being beaten by her in-laws for giving birth to a girl.
http://metro.co.uk reports that Local reports in Katalwi, Punjab, suggest that Meena Kashyap, 35, was also attacked as part of a dowry dispute.
Footage shows her cowering and screaming in pain as she is hit with hockey sticks by two men believed to be her brother-in-law and a friend of his.
Her husband's family had recently found out that she had previously made complaints about them in April saying they had treated her with violence.
Ms Kashyap is said to be in dispute over a dowry of £8,300 given to her by her in-laws but then when she gave birth to a girl her husband's family were angered.
She has been beaten a number of times, according to the Hindustan Times.
Police are bringing charges against her husband Daljit Singh, his brother Kamaljeet, and a friend identified only as Gaurav.
The charges include trespass and 'voluntarily causing hurt'.
Her father said: 'We had complained about the issue last year itself but nothing was being done regarding that.


LivingSocial, the daily deals site that we've covered on a number of occasions previously, has announced its first foray into physical products with the launch of an e-commerce LivingSocial Shop.
Based in Washington, DC, LivingSocial is perhaps Groupon's most well-known rival, letting users discover local experiences at knock-down prices. It claims more than 60 million members in 22 countries, and last week we reported that it was launching Live Events offers in New York.
Now, with LivingSocial Shop, the company is offering a virtual destination for its users to explore relevant items from brands. It says it will feature a broad (but curated) merchandise mix, and will deliver items direct to members' front door.
The Beach Bound merchandise will be made available to buy from today and will run for seven days. Future collections will include Lawn & Leisure (ways to have a backyard blast), Midsummer Night (must-haves for an outdoor fete), and Back-to-School 101 (A+ finds for all ages) to name a few.
That said, it seems the collections will be localized around the world – in the LivinSocial UK shop, there appears to be fragrance collections and iOS accessories available, and the Australia Shop is different too.
If you're new to LivingSocial, offers are dispatched via the LivingSocial website, signed-up members can receive a daily email blast, or you can access it through the iOS and Android apps.
LivingSocial members will be introduced to LivingSocial Shop via email from today. In addition, anyone can receive regular LivingSocial Shop emails by visiting livingsocial.com and managing their subscriptions from there.
The fact that LivingSocial is now branching out into a fully-fledged e-commerce platform is an interesting one, and is indicative of its need to grow revenues from different sources. Though I can't help but feel it's just a little bit removed from its original remit of bringing local experiences at a discount.
Launched in 2007, LivingSocial actually predates its more well-known competitor Groupon. Recently, it acquired online ordering software firm ONOSYS for 'at least $6.5m', before going on to launch its own branded Visa Card in cahoots with Chase in May.


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Today we will start talking about Primordial Breathing, which is a part of Static (Nei Dan) Sitting Qigong. Primordial Breathing is also known as Embryonic Breathing, Fetal Breathing, Stopping the Breath, Internal Breathing and by other names, but the original Chinese name is 胎吸 (Tai Xi). Primordial Breathing is a very powerful practice that allows generating and storing inner Qi efficiently in the body. However, learning proper Primordial Breathing Qigong Meditation takes effort and time. There are several things you have to master first before proceeding with the actual Qigong meditation. The most important one is training your abdominal muscles through the practice of Normal Abdominal Breathing and Reverse Abdominal Breathing.
Majority of people use their chest while breathing. This makes the breaths not as deep and slow as they should be. When we breathe using our chest, more muscle power is utilized, as we tend to take more breaths per minute. Abdominal breathing, on the other hand, is a much more relaxing and effective type of breathing. It is the way human beings should breathe by nature. During abdominal breathing, we use the contraction and expansion of our stomach to take fewer, but much deeper and better quality breaths. This allows breathing in more oxygen and releasing more carbon dioxide when we exhale.
If you have never practiced abdominal breathing before, start with simple breathing. Expand your abdomen while inhaling and pull it in when exhaling. You can put one hand over your chest, another hand over your belly and feel and observe the belly moving in and out, while the chest stays still. Practice Simple Abdominal Breathing for a while, until you are comfortable with it. Then, move to the next stage.
In addition to the stomach, Advanced Abdominal Breathing involves the movement of your buttocks, lower back and diaphragm. As you inhale, gently push out your abdomen, while relaxing the buttocks and the lower back and moving the diaphragm downwards. As you exhale, move your abdomen inwards, while squeezing the buttocks, pulling in the lower back and moving your diaphragm upwards.
It will take you time to learn how to do this type of breathing properly, and to train relevant abdominal muscles.
Once you mastered Advanced Abdominal Breathing and really learned how to control your abdominal muscles, you can start practicing Reverse Abdominal Breathing. As you inhale, gently move your abdomen inwards, while squeezing the buttocks, pulling in the lower back and pushing your diaphragm down. As you exhale, push out your abdomen, while relaxing the buttocks and the lower back and moving the diaphragm inwards.
Once you have practiced these types of breathing techniques and become well-experienced using your abdominal muscles, you can proceed with your first Primordial Breathing Qigong Meditation. Detailed instructions on how to do this practice will be explained in the next blog Qigong Meditation: Primordial Breathing (Part 2).


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What is real purpose of matrix? Why machines gives "human battery" simulation of real world and not hold them sedated? Why they try make them think they live real life?
Yeah, good question. Apparently in the early drafts of the Matrix, they used human brains for their computing power (you can still see a similar idea in the short story Goliath), and the Matrix was just to distract the humans while this happened. it's said that Hollywood executives thought that this was considered too confusing back in 1999, so the Wachowskis used the "human battery" idea to try to explain why the Machines still needed humanity.


Download Income Tax Declaration Form 12BB for Employees. If you are employee of any company and going to file income tax return form, you need to fill Form 12BB which is new form announced by Income Tax Department of India for Employees to declare income tax. In Form 12BB, employees need to mention provisional statement about proposed investments they made in current financial year and expenses (which can be deducted in Income tax act).
Effective from 1st June, 2016, Employees whose income are taxable (After investment and expenses), they need to fill IT Form 12BB to declare their income, LTA, LTC, HRA, Home loan interest, and other information which are listed in the Form 12BB.
How income tax of Employee Calculated?
As per the rules, currently Income tax of employee is deducted by Employer (TDS – Tax deduction at source) from their monthly salary (if the employee's salary is more than income tax slab). And to calculate TDS income, Employer do count declared investments of employee and also calculates the expenses which can be counted in 80C and other income tax deduction acts of income tax India.
Currently, Employees do not need to fill any form, just need to mention investment/expense in exempt allowance. But this practice will not be valid from 1st June, 2016, as now Form 12BB has been introduced by IT department of India.
House Rent Allowance: - As per IT Act 10 (13A), House Rent Allowance get exemption from Taxable Income. You need to provide Rent receipts (if you are living on rent house), house owners name and address, amount you paid as a House Rent to be mentioned in Form 12BB.
Note: - You need to mention House owner's Pan Card number, in case your house rent exceeds more than 1 lac.
- Leave Travel Allowance (LTA):- You need to provide all proof of travel expense you made from LTA money in 12BB form.
- Home Loan Interest :- If you have taken home loan , you can exemption of interest paid for home loan under Section 24, Mention the amount you paid as an interest, your name and address and Pan card number.
- Investments: - If you have made any investment which can be deducted under 80C, 80CCC, 80CCD, 80D, 80G, 80EE or 80E section of income tax, you can mention that in Form 12BB.
- For Employers: - Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has clearly mentioned that Employers need to give proper evidence of the employee's income and calculate the TDS according to that.
- For employees :- if your income is less than income tax slab or if you have paid more income tax than your actual income at the end of financial year, you can claim Income Tax Refund.
Employees can download PDF format of ITR Form 12BB from this link.


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Decode the Happiness Index on a spiritual adventure to Bhutan! The rest of the world struggles to achieve GDP goals, but this country's got a different vision. Here, Gross National Happiness is the goal – and this mountainous land is well on its way! With its great mix of natural beauty and culture, Bhutan is as close as many of us might get to heaven. There are plenty of things to do – both inside and out, and we'll be making the most of it.
Our Alpha Mike Foxtrot (military slang for Adios, motherf*****s!) program is the best job in the world: 3 hosts travel for 6 months straight!
You'll be travelling on this one with Chief Alpha. Like all our chiefs, Alpha's a die-hard travel junkie, and has shed the city-slicker persona to go exploring with you. We've heard Alpha's trips are all non-stop parties – lots of laughing and harmless prank-playing – sure to be a hoot!
What makes our trip different!
Bhutan is a land of mountains, forests and monasteries. So we're going to climb up to a monastery through a forest. The trek is a beautiful journey upto Bumdra monastery, and the descent is via Taktsang monastery, so we are hitting two spiritual birds with one stone!
We go river rafting past the majestic Punakha monastery (or dzong), and maybe catch sight of birds like the white Heron and Kingfisher.
Not only are we camping by the river on our first night in Punakha, we are also staying at a luxury campsite near Bumdra Monastery after the trek. Expect cozy nights, skies full of stars and lots of campfire stories!
What's more fun than exploring a new place on two feet? Doing it on two WHEELS. We'll be cyclng through the Valley, villages and trails to get a different view of Phobjikha.
We're channeling the archers of yore by learning archery, the national sport of Bhutan. The locals can get quite competitive in this martial art, so we better pull up our socks and shoot straight!
Throughout our trip, we'll be eating local food in interesting places – from dining with Bhutanese families, learning to cook a local dish, having a 4-course sit-down meal, to trying out a yak burger if you're upto it!
We'll be visiting monasteries, temples, and even a nunnery of female monks.
We'll attend prayers, explore the beautiful structures and learn a bit about the country's spiritual and religious legacy.
We'll be exploring the capital White Collar Hippie style – meeting locals, eating local food, exploring the markets & monuments, and even checking out the nightlife.
We'll try the Bhutanese style of relaxation with the medicinal bath after coming down from Taktsang Monastery, to relieve fatigue from our trekked-out feet and city-cluttered minds.


Spiroflow, a worldwide leader in bulk bag handling, offers solutions from conveying to bulk bag filling and bulk bag unloading systems to end-of-line robotic palletizing. The easiest method of transporting bulk bags is on pallets (or skid sheets) using a forklift or pallet truck.
The ideal size of the pallet is large enough so that the rounded section of the bulk bag does not overlap the edges of the pallet. When the two palletized bulk bags are placed side by side the bags must not touch. This will minimize the risk of damage to the bag and greatly assist in the stability of the bulk bags in stacking and inside trailers and containers.
As most pallets are rectangular in shape this is not always an easy task if you are using a square-based bulk bag. The ability to locate the bulk bag centrally on the pallet, especially after filling, is critical. There is a wide range of mechanical devices available to assist the fork truck driver plus utilizing the side shift on the forklift truck itself will help.
If bulk bags will be stacked, the pallets need to be close slatted on both the top and bottom to stop "pinching" of the bag. The bulk bag must not protrude through the slats of the pallet above or they will be damaged by the fork tines when unstacking the bags. Close slatted pallets also give much greater stability in the stack which reduces damage, time in unstacking, and generally, makes it easier for the fork truck driver.
Close slatted pallets are costly and may only be financially justified for in-plant use unless their return can be guaranteed. For shipping out, the bags can be transferred to a non-returnable pallet. Two bulk bags can also be placed on top of each other on one pallet for trailer or containerized shipment as long as the filled height of the bulk bag is less than 42 inches. This is a labor-intensive process and must be considered as part of a costing exercise. If stacking isn't needed then standard single trip pallets can be used. However one must factor in the risk of damage to the filled bulk bags on poorly constructed pallets by fork tines.
If the plant handling the bulk bags already has skid sheet handling facilities available, these can be used instead of pallets with certain caution.
When stacking with skid sheets, stability is reduced. We do not advise three high stacking for bulk bags with a filled height in excess of 40 inches, or two high stacking for bags with a filled height of more than 54 inches. Racking should be considered for bulk bags taller than those noted above.
The same caution concerning pallets and bag sizing applies to skid sheets.
Well-filled bulk bags that have been properly sized are stable and safe to handle and stack. What constitutes a well-fitted bulk bag is discussed below, but stability must be retained not just after filling but during stacking, unstacking, transportation, and restacking.
To do this a good fork truck driver should always try to restack bulk bags in the same sequence that they were originally stacked. The bottom bag, which is more compressed, will best be re-positioned at the bottom of the new stack or be part of the lower tier in a trailer/container where double stacking can be achieved.
Bulk bags which lean to one side or become banana-shaped cannot be corrected once filled. They are dangerous and expensive to handle.
Bulk bags which contain aerated ingredients which have not been deaerated, during or after filling, are unstable, dangerous, and expensive to handle. Such ingredients tend to be those which have fluidizing air entrained in the material prior to filling. The air must be removed if the filled bulk bag is to remain stable. This applies particularly to powdered ingredients.
The use of bulk bags to transport minerals, chemicals, grain and other dry solids by sea rather than in ISO Containers is a growing market. Lower shipment costs and the ability to ship value-added products not suitable for packaging is becoming popular, particularly with end-users who are unable to receive bulk shipments.
There are several points worth noting before planning this method of shipment.
Bulk bags require loading and unloading "on the hook." This means that the choice of vessel is all important. Wide hatches and small wing spaces with minimum flaring in the forward hold will enable the bulk bags to be loaded and unloaded by a ship's crane or dockside cranes without moving the bulk bags into the corners of the hold by fork truck.
Stacking of bulk bags in the ship's hold without pallets requires using a correctly sized crane spreader bar so that the bags are touching when lifted over the ship's side and that the loops are vertical.
Bulk bags for this type of shipment usually have loop extenders added to the lifting loops to enable the four loops to meet in the center for single hook pick up. Tying the loop extenders together with elastic assists the stevedores at unloading time and therefore a reduction in damage costs.
It is worth the extra bag cost to ensure that the quality/weight of cloth used in the make-up of the bulk bag is increased slightly higher than normal as this will reduce the chance of damage at the docks where rough handling is usually encountered. Some overseas ports reject poor quality bags or unsafely filled bulk bags.
To discharge a bulk bag it must be lifted into a bulk bag discharger. Therefore, it is advisable to ensure that the bulk bag to be discharged is located within reach of the bulk bag discharger hoist or fork truck fitted with a lifting frame.
Lifting frames are devices to which the bulk bag lifting loops can be attached so that the lifting loops are kept vertical. These lifting frames can be made for hoist and/or fork truck use. They are usually supplied as part of any bulk bag discharger and should be made to suit the size of bulk bag being discharged.
It is bad practice to allow operators to stand under a hanging bag when it is being hoisted and a well-designed bulk bag discharger should allow an operator to discharge the bag without ever standing under the hanging bag.
At Spiroflow, we specialize in high containment bulk bag filling and bulk bag unloading systems – offering the most comprehensive range of standard and custom solutions in the business.
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Amazing Stories, in its new incarnation as a web site, has announced that it's teaming up with Futures Past Editions to reprint stories from the long and remarkable history of Amazing Stories magazine. That backlist includes even more vintage science fiction from Amazing's companion publications, Amazing Stories Quarterly and Amazing Stories Annual.
The eBook and printed editions will bear the comet tail logo of the magazine under the imprint Amazing Stories Classic Reprints. Selected stories will also be published on the Amazing Stories web site: the first of these is Don Wilcox's The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years (available there now).
I've already got one of the Futures Past eBooks on my Kindle, just waiting for me to get to it: it's Arthur K. Barnes' The Interplanetary Huntress (currently a free download at Amazon , Barnes & Noble, and Kobo).
Barnes sometimes collaborated with Henry Kuttner, and that's why I'm pretty sure I want to read him. Kuttner—with or without C.L. Moore—was pretty amazing in his own right.
A quick visit to their web site shows that Futures Past Editions is already republishing loads of vintage science fiction and some new titles, too. I look forward to seeing what this co-venture with Amazing Stories will add to that list.
If we ignore the fact that I was just goofing around, we'll be free to imagine that this is the title card for the Republic Serials version of Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom. There. Aren't we happier now?
I thought so. Now I'll go and put on my "Better Living Through Mindless Escapism" T-shirt.
Meanwhile. . . in the world that is somewhat more real than the one we visited so briefly. . . I'm working on the fourteenth illustration for the book. It's being mean to me, so I'm playing around with extruded titles.
On the querying front: I'm preparing to wind down. The queries that are still out there amount to two agents with the first five pages; three agents with the first two chapters; two agents with the first three chapters; and one agent with the full manuscript. I have two or three queries I'd still like to send in the next week or so, but then I'll just wait out the agents' response periods (assuming that they pass on the book) and at last move on to Phase Two, Attack on the Editor's Tower.
Phase Two will involve fewer characters but will last at least as long as Phase One since, well, that's just how it is. In the frenetically glacial pace of the publishing process, I mean. I can't say that I haven't learned anything that I didn't already know in the abstract, but the realities somehow still surprise me.
One does get a sense of what it must be like at the big, open end of the funnel that is the Inboxes of the literary agents. They have plenty more to do, apart from fielding queries, and although they are legion they're still outnumbered by hundreds to one when you compare them to the hosts of queriers.
At the level of editors, that funnel mouth isn't necessarily smaller. I guess in order to change things you'd need a vastly more profitable business or an army of brilliant, unpaid interns who never burn out. Which, now that I think of it, is perfectly possible in the world of Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom. . . so long as you're willing to be the villain.
Here's a pretty inspired Kickstarter project for a mobile, Roomba-like inkjet printer.
It'll print on any size paper without requiring a huge framework. While it doesn't seem all that practical for a 100 page document, there's a lot of potential here for unusually small or large sheets and, when it comes right down to it, the thing is just a nifty idea that ought to exist.
It probably will, too: with 22 days left to go they've already raised $390,000 of their $400,000 goal.
Vintage Allies has posted an interview with me, which means that they asked me questions and I tried not to sound like an idiot. How did that work out? You decide.
In other news, here's a robot character I've just finished for Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom. He's a minor character, but in spite of that he's got to be there in one of the illustrations: so here he is.
Those illustrations, since you ask, are coming along pretty much on schedule even though I somehow decided to add a title page illustration (it's nice!). I'm about halfway done with the whole set. That means my ballpark estimate of "sometime in June or July" is still looking good.
Of course I've got even more robots and control rooms and escalators to model along the way. So, you know, fingers crossed.
Oh, and it looks like I found a new (browser specific?) bug that's whacking out some of the posters people build with the Pulp-O-Mizer. I have to fit a little testing and fixing in there too, then.