text:
Q: Fixing "spatial index grid size is invalid" without Recalculate button I've got a python script that is connecting a squence of points to make lines, and putting them into a feature class (based on answers to my previous question). It works wonderfully on a small area that I was using to debug and test (~25 meters, 20 points), but then when I put it into a real-world scenario (~1000 meters, ~500 points), it breaks.
The spatial index grid size is invalid.

Looking into the ArcGIS help suggestions to fix/prevent that, this page suggests recalculating the spatial index grid (directions here), but my polyline feature class doesn't have that option when I am in the "Indexes" tab -- there's no "Recalculate" button at all, and the "Delete" button is grayed out. So how can I fix the error? (I tried simply deleting my original feature class and making a new one, on the theory that my original "little" test case was setting the spatial index grid too small; however, even with a brand-new feature class, I have the same error.)
The problem is more specifically the number of dots I'm trying to connect during one run of the script -- less than ~50 is fine, more than ~100 is not...*
ArcGIS for Desktop with Advanced level license, data stored in feature class in a file geodatabase.

A: I recently ran into this problem and was able to solve it by deleting the spatial index on the feature I was trying to edit.  For reference I'm working with features in WGS84 (EPSG:4326).

A: I encountered the same problem for the first time while creating polygons around GPS GCPs. Everything was fine while circling the sub-provinces or suburbs. When I started doing the entire provinces this thing showed up. First I tried everything e.g. vector conversions, shp to feature class, coverage, etc.Then I realized that if the clicked vertexes are close one another, a polygon can be completed. Having known this I drew a small polygon inside the intended location, then edited the vertexes in small aerial increments until the entire province's circumference is reached. The projection was Geographic.


text:
Q: RewriteCond for a folder only on a specific domain extension I have a site that can be accessed via 3 domains (domain.com, domain.ch, domain.fr). The three use exactly the same files and folder, though.
Regarding the .fr domain (and only this domain), I need the following:

*

*redirect domain.fr (root) to domain.com/fr/france.

This has been achieved with the following rule:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.fr$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "http\:\/\/www\.domain\.com\/fr\/france" [R=301,L]

It works. (There's also a functioning rule to force www. in front of every URL.)
What I can't get to work is:

*redirect domain.fr/fr also to domain.com/fr/france.

*and finally, redirect any URL domain.fr/fr/* to domain.com/fr/*
(keeping whatever * stands for).
The trick (to me) is that the same .htaccess file will also be present on domain.com and domain.ch, but those rules must not activate for those domains.

A: You can put these rules in your htaccess
# Redirect [www.]domain.fr and [www.]domain.fr/fr to www.domain.com/fr/france
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?domain\.fr$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(|fr)$ http://www.domain.com/fr/france [R=301,L]

# Redirect domain.fr/fr/* to domain.com/fr/*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?domain\.fr$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^fr/(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/fr/$1 [R=301,L]

A: Try :
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.fr$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/fr/france
RewriteRule ^fr/(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/fr/france/$1 [R=301,L]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Tesla to roll out China-made Model 3 cars with cobalt-free LFP batteries: sources
Sep 30, 2020 batteries, cars, Chinamade, cobaltfree, LFP, model, Roll, Sources, Tesla
BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc TSLA.O is poised to start selling some Model 3 vehicles made in China equipped with cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, two people familiar with the matter said.
Currently the Model 3 electric sedans made at the carmaker's Chinese plant use nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries. The starting price for the vehicles is currently 271,550 yuan ($39,900) after factoring in government subsidies.
Tesla will announce the product change as early as Thursday, the two sources said. They declined to be named as the matter is confidential.
Tesla was not immediately available for comment.
LFP batteries are cheaper to make and contain no cobalt, one of the most expensive metals used in electric vehicle batteries. Tesla will use LFP batteries in all Model 3 vehicles made in China with standard driving ranges, according to the sources.
In China, the world's biggest car market, Tesla sold over 11,000 vehicles, mostly Model 3s, in August. It is also building a new car manufacturing capacity for Model Y sport-utility vehicles in Shanghai and expects to start delivery of them from next year.
Reuters has previously reported that Tesla would use LFP batteries made by China's CATL 300750.SZ, which declined to comment at the time.
Reporting by Yilei Sun, Zhang Yan and Tony Munroe; Editing by Pravin Char
Car rental service Kyte, launching in Boston, delivers the car to your door
QVC is having a massive sale on Shark vacuums
Best Prime Day deals on car maintenance and garage tools
Used car prices saw record rise in September due to short supplies
Imported cars' sales sustain recovery in Q3

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Pierre-Louis Named to Leslie Award Watch List
By admin on November 10, 2017 in Sooners
Vionise Pierre-Louis has been named to the watch list for the inaugural Lisa Leslie Award, the Naismith Hall of Fame and Women's Basketball Coaches Association announced Friday.
King of the Game: OSU vs. Iowa State
Oklahoma Sooners Football Hot Links: Jordan Brand, a retired Bob Stoops, and more!


text:
When Lacey showed up in the gold rush boomtown of Hangtown where Tom helped in the cafe, he was smitten. About the only pretty girl in the whole of gold country she was looking for a Pa who'd come to the mines and disappeared. Tom had to help her, but as soon as he did somebody shot at him and things went south in a hurry. Then he learned that Lacey's pa was an important officer in the army who'd been working undercover in San Francisco during the Mexican War and he knew he'd stuck his nose deep into the evil skullduggery of some pretty bad men. If he didn't find her pa soon the next goose cooked would be his. That notion chilled him to the bone.
"John Putnam's Into the Face of the Devil, gives its readers a wild ride—literally. With his wonderful ear for authentic dialect, vivid descriptions of the land, page-turning action and mouth-watering descriptions of local recipes, he creates a great sense of time and place while offering a thoroughly entertaining tale. In short, Putnam does historical fiction right: he takes his vast knowledge of the Gold Rush era and brings it to life."
Laura Schulkind, author and poet, LauraSchulkind.com
I heard a pistol pop and the tinkle of glass shattering. It was hardly noon and the fresh-off-the-boat guys were at it again. While I pulled my freight wagon over at the new hotel down the street more drunks fired off shots. Hot lead splattered across my load of lumber scaring me half out of my boots. I leaped to the ground and ducked behind a stack of planks, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Then a fierce clatter of pounding hooves came from up the road and the city boys grabbed their hats and ran for their lives. A buckboard raced toward me like the hounds of hell were after it.
"Hiyah! Get on now," my friend Eban hollered, snapping the reins so the horses would run even faster while Woody Dunn, a muleskinner a little older than me, held onto the seat next to him, a frightful look smeared across his mug. I stood up and waved. Woody caught sight of me and jumped to the ground, somehow managing to stay on his feet when he hit.
"What's wrong, Woody?" I asked. "Where's Eban heading in such a rush?"
Woody sucked up fresh air like he hadn't had any in a month. "Tom, you got to get to the cafe quick," he wheezed. "Maggie needs you to look after the place for her. She ain't doing good and Joshua took her up to the cabin."
"Maggie!" I blurted. "Is it time?" I could see the uneasiness deep in his eyes.
"She's asking for Mrs. Wimmer and Eban's heading over to Coloma right now to fetch her," he said. "But don't you dare go near the cabin. That's women's stuff. Leave it alone. You'd best take care of the cafe like Maggie wants."
My feet went cold as a February snow. Even though I'd promised Maggie I'd tend to things for her the whole idea of me cooking for a bunch of cantankerous miners scared me silly. "Woody, most of those men don't only eat at the cafe for the food, they come to see Maggie. She's about the only woman around and for sure the best cook. They'll be ornery as starving wolves if I'm there instead of her."
Woody nodded his head and laughed. "Yep, like as not there'll be some awful sore gold miners, but they'll get used to it. Besides somebody's got to do it and you're the one Maggie wants. I'll unload your wagon. You head to the cafe."
When I stood there like a one legged man at a barn dance Woody gave me a shove on the shoulder. "Go on, Tom," he said, still grinning at my complete discombobulation.
I started toward the cafe on foot, but in the short spell while I'd talked to Woody the mob of fresh-off-the-boat guys had filled the street once more. Mostly from New York City or some other place back east, they didn't know the first thing about mining gold. Folks who'd been in California a while looked down their noses at them, figuring they were nothing but trouble.
The old timers were right. For the last couple of days they'd caused a heck of a hullabaloo here in the middle of town drinking, yelling and showing off their new colt revolvers. And now I worried they would start shooting again so I glanced back toward the pile of boards where I hid earlier.
A fellow I couldn't see yelled out from over by the saloon, "Quiet down and listen up." Right off the shouting and shoving eased. "That's better," he went on.
That made me feel some safer too. And while I scouted around for an easy way through the crowd, the guy started talking in a high, twangy voice.
"I know you're worried about all the robberies and killings happening lately," he told them. "It's a bad thing, but I'm here to help. It's getting harder for a man to find a good paying strike as more men show up in the mines. Folks can get desperate and do some rotten things, but you ain't got to worry if you're a part of the California Mining Cooperative. We got solid, gold producing claims, some in the best dry diggings you'll find anywhere and others right on the creek. You can make money tomorrow, no prospecting place after place looking for color. All you do is sign up. I'll even buy you a drink. Come on inside. Let's talk it over. Who's first?"


This sensitive message comes one of Nan Witcombe's Thoughts of Nanusha series of books and conveys a meaningful message about relationship. The original of this print was written on vellum (animal skin) with the decoration in gouache and lettering in Sumi (Japanese ink). This is the perfect 50th Wedding Anniversary present.


text:
Society of Authors and ALCS Present Talking Points to Publishers on Author Income
In News by Porter Anderson July 9, 2018
Following a report that author income in the UK is declining, the UK's author-advocacy organization and revenue collection agency wrote an open letter to the Publishers Association. It's a new call "to give everyone a bigger share of the pie."
Image – iStockphoto: M Kos83
'Publishers Must Be Included'
Last month, Publishing Perspectives reported on falling author income in the UK, based on a report, Authors' Earnings 2018: A Survey of UK Writers, released by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). We also pointed out that the UK Publishers Association chief Stephen Lotinga had responded in part that the association would "welcome engagement with the ALCS and the Society of Authors on the survey and the wider issues it raises, as it's vital publishers are included in this important discussion."
That seemed a good opportunity for dialogue, especially as many in the author and agenting communities have said for years that publishers were working to curtail financial support for authors through shrinking advances and other means.
The ALCS study reported that a "median annual income of a professional author is £10,500 (US$11,300), which is well below the minimum wage," reminding readers that "the equivalent figure in 2013 was £11,000 (US$12,400) and in 2005 it was £12,500 (US$14,124)."
And as we wrote, Lotinga had said to Katherine Cowdrey at The Bookseller, "Publishers value authors enormously and their entire businesses are dependent on supporting them. These figures will be unrecognizable to the majority of publishers as they just do not reflect the investments they are making in creative talent. If we are to have a genuinely constructive conversation about this issue then we need a much sounder evidence base."
There's been a quick response to Lotinga's statement from Nicola Solomon, who leads the Society of Authors—the UK counterpart to the States' Authors Guild—and from Owen Atkinson, chief of the ALCS.
It indicates that there's a lot the two organizations might discuss regarding author income.
"We agree that publishers must be included in this discussion," Solomon and Atkinson write in a joint open letter, "and I hope we can work together constructively to ensure that profits are shared fairly along the value chain."
She does, however, make a series of six points in response to Lotinga's short statement that, while not all comfortable for either side to contemplate, give us a rare chance to see the author corps speaking through a prominent advocacy groups to the Publishers Association.
Six Points From Solomon and Atkinson
In the interest of full reporting, we'll quote Solomon and Atkinson's six points here in full:
On what grounds are you questioning the evidence base for the survey? This was an independent survey of over 5,500 authors commissioned by ALCS from CREATe, the RCUK Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy, based at the University of Glasgow. It follows similar surveys carried out in 2005 and 2013. The downward trend is clearly established and is, I would have thought, incontrovertible.
You must be aware that very similar findings have emerged from surveys carried out in Canada, USA, and other places including a European Commission study from 2016. All show that the earnings of authors are woeful and are continuing to decline.
The findings are also very much in line with research commissioned for the Publishers Association carried out by Frontier Economics. You will recall that your research estimated that in 2016 authors received £161 million in advances, royalties and secondary rights revenue, approximately 3% of the industry's turnover. I raised this figure with you and you have not sought to correct or amend it.
You will recall that the ALCS study shows that the median earnings of a professional author are £10,437. That is entirely compatible with figures from Nielsen BookScan, which showed that in 2017 authors with sales of less than £10,000 a year accounted for 44 percent, of total book sales. Given that authors' earnings from sales are considerably lower than the amount generated from sales—typically around 5-7 percent (or under £1000 on £10,000 of sales)—it is hardly surprising that overall earnings are so low. Publishers cannot ignore those authors who net 44 percent of their sales, and authors cannot continue on the earnings they recoup from these sales.
The EU study found that the average an author earned from lifetime sales of each book was £6,000: again, this is totally compatible with the ALCS findings.
We absolutely agree with your comment in The Bookseller that we need sound evidence on which to base our discussions around author earnings. This is why ALCS has commissioned these studies every five years and why we have called upon publishers to state in their accounts how much they pay to authors, illustrators and translators in advances, royalties and secondary income. With the exception of Profile Books, publishers have been unwilling to do this and we have not received a collective response to our request from the industry. This request was made in The Bookseller earlier this year and has been repeated by editor Philip Jones. We are delighted that you now support our wish to gain accurate figures and we would welcome the opportunity to obtain these from publishers.
Pressured to Talk by a Changing Marketplace
Needless to say, this quickly develops as a difficult conversation.
From ALCS' 'Authors' Earnings 2018: A Survey of UK Writers'
But the points Solomon and Atkinson make are serious and important, particularly in an industry that faces historically unprecedented levels and forms of competition from other storytelling media, particularly in the extraordinary rise of fine television and film vying for readers' time and attention.
Western market leaders from Germany to the States and well beyond are talking more and more—and rightly—about the shifts occurring in the consumer base. Surely, there's never been a time when publishers and authors have needed more to come together.
Solomon and Atkinson go on to say what may be especially hard for some publishers to hear: "Meanwhile the profit margins of the main corporate publishers are increasing, with average profits estimated to be around 13 percent [in the UK]. Based on the PA's own 2016 figures, we estimated that the Big Five publishers' shareholders received up to three times the amount paid to authors. This estimate has never been seriously challenged."
At bottom, what Solomon and Atkinson are arguing is that publishing is driving away the talent it needs to create its content. And this isn't idle fist-shaking.
You can see the Solomon-Atkinson letter trying to point out the common ground already shared by the Publishers Association and authors. "Our industry thrives on the interdependence of authors and publishers," Solomon and Atkinson write, basically echoing Lotinga's first line, "and we of course value the vital contribution of publishers to producing better books and the overall ecology of the industry, particularly during what has been a period of profound change for all of us.
"On issues such as copyright, PLR, the importance of reading, VAT on ebooks and the requirements of the industry following Brexit we are in almost complete alignment and have appreciated working together with you."
And the way the society and ALCS chiefs describe what they want is as a joint exploration with the Publishers Association of "the causes of declining incomes for authors, and to ensure that profits are fairly shared along the value chain. We believe that this is in the long-term interest of both authors and the publishing industry. Paying fairly and encouraging underrepresented voices to consider writing might just widen our reader bases enough to give everyone a bigger share of the pie."
The point at which things stand at the end of this letter, then, is that keen instant in which the two sides of a debate take the steps needed to go forward into the discussion needed–or to allow the heat of the moment to blow over, which almost inevitably leads to distraction and overtake by other news, other duties, other issues … and the moment is lost.
Perhaps this is a case in which the two major camps of this increasingly crucial debate can come together and at least examine the grounds on which they might find their respective challenges acceptable for conversation.
No one believes that author income will reverse course and start growing, at least not without intervention. And for all the questions that some propose (Lotinga is not alone) about methodology and survey value when it comes to trying to ballpark where author revenues stand, the sheer number of writers in the marketplace today means that in an era of mounting strength in visual storytelling, the literary channels are under new pressure to come to terms with these issues and keep talking.
Tags: Author Income, author pay, Authors, Authors Licensing and Collecting Society, Publishers Association, Society of Authors, United Kingdom


Thoughts: Hearts at Stake is a fun debut novel but don't set the bar too high when you pick it up. The action was entertaining, but not all that memorable. Plot turns and twist were all over the place, and kinda hard to follow. The world building consisted of tell-and-no-show. And as for the romance, well, both pairings fell flat.
But it was still an entertaining read! Harvey has a tongue-in-cheek style that I enjoyed – and we have to give her serious credit for creating the most violent vegetarian (Lucy) I have ever read! I also loved the relationship between the two narrators: best friends, Lucy and Solange. They are fiercely protective of each other, but extremely different. They work very well together, as whatever one of them lacks the other makes up for. It was a lovely dynamic!
It was released in the US with the cover/title you see before you… but in the UK they decided to rename it to My Love Lies Bleeding and gave it a Twilightesque cover. Usually I like the changes made by UK publishers, but not this time.
Hearts at Stake is a light-hearted, funny read. So although there is a lot of life-threatening violence… it is light-hearted violence! (If that makes any sense.) So, if you can, try to get a US copy (I got mine from Fobidden Planet in London) so that the content matches the cover!
Bottom line? This was a fun, light-hearted read – but I was not particularly in love. Pick it up if you are looking for a fast-and-fun read! The next book in the series, Blood Feud, is out in July.


Efforts to prevent evictions in Olmsted County, Minnesota will get a $50,000 boost, thanks to a grant sponsored by Mayo Clinic.
The "Eviction Prevention" project is the winner of the 2018 Mayo Clinic Shared Value Award — an annual award given by Mayo Clinic to address communitywide health priorities in Olmsted County. Community members and Mayo Clinic staff cast their votes for their favorite project among three finalists. Thousands of people voted, and efforts to prevent evictions earned the most votes.
The Eviction Prevention project is a collaboration of Legal Assistance of Olmsted County, Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota and Olmsted County District Court.
"The Shared Value Award will help provide legal assistance for up to 100 families to prevent eviction and provide financial counseling through Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota to help stabilize families dealing with financial challenges," says Karen Fairbairn Nath, executive director of Legal Assistance of Olmsted County.
Fairbairn Nath said that there are approximately 350 eviction cases every year in Olmsted County.
"Once a notice of eviction is filed with the court, the eviction is permanently on an individual's record and may, at minimum, prevent a person from obtaining future rental housing. This often brings on a cascading set of negative effects, including longer-term financial instability and mental health stress for individuals and families, among others," Fairbairn Nath says.
Eviction Prevention is a project designed to help address financial stress and mental health ─ two of five health priorities in Olmsted County identified in the Olmsted County Community Health Needs Assessment. Mayo Clinic is a core member of the Olmsted County Community Health Assessment and Planning Partnership and supports communitywide health improvement efforts through the Mayo Clinic Shared Value Award.
©1998-2018 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. All rights reserved.


text:
Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size
Gary P. Burness, Jared Diamond*, Timothy Flannery
Among local faunas, the maximum body size and taxonomic affiliation of the top terrestrial vertebrate vary greatly. Does this variation reflect how food requirements differ between trophic levels (herbivores vs. carnivores) and with taxonomic affiliation (mammals and birds vs. reptiles)? We gathered data on the body size and food requirements of the top terrestrial herbivores and carnivores, over the past 65,000 years, from oceanic islands and continents. The body mass of the top species was found to increase with increasing land area, with a slope similar to that of the relation between body mass and home range area, suggesting that maximum body size is determined by the number of home ranges that can fit into a given land area. For a given land area, the body size of the top species decreased in the sequence: ectothermic herbivore > endothermic herbivore > ectothermic carnivore > endothermic carnivore. When we converted body mass to food requirements, the food consumption of a top herbivore was about 8 times that of a top carnivore, in accord with the factor expected from the trophic pyramid. Although top ectotherms were heavier than top endotherms at a given trophic level, lower metabolic rates per gram of body mass in ectotherms resulted in endotherms and ectotherms having the same food consumption. These patterns explain the size of the largest-ever extinct mammal, but the size of the largest dinosaurs exceeds that predicted from land areas and remains unexplained.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.251548698
10.1073/pnas.251548698
Dive into the research topics of 'Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Dinosaurs Medicine & Life Sciences 100%
Body Size Medicine & Life Sciences 66%
Food Medicine & Life Sciences 40%
Homing Behavior Medicine & Life Sciences 39%
Mammals Medicine & Life Sciences 20%
Reptiles Medicine & Life Sciences 15%
Islands Medicine & Life Sciences 12%
Birds Medicine & Life Sciences 12%
Burness, G. P., Diamond, J., & Flannery, T. (2001). Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98(25), 14518-14523. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.251548698
Burness, Gary P. ; Diamond, Jared ; Flannery, Timothy. / Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs : The evolution of maximal body size. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2001 ; Vol. 98, No. 25. pp. 14518-14523.
@article{dbd03ba35ced4a54b86c942cd47ca27c,
title = "Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size",
abstract = "Among local faunas, the maximum body size and taxonomic affiliation of the top terrestrial vertebrate vary greatly. Does this variation reflect how food requirements differ between trophic levels (herbivores vs. carnivores) and with taxonomic affiliation (mammals and birds vs. reptiles)? We gathered data on the body size and food requirements of the top terrestrial herbivores and carnivores, over the past 65,000 years, from oceanic islands and continents. The body mass of the top species was found to increase with increasing land area, with a slope similar to that of the relation between body mass and home range area, suggesting that maximum body size is determined by the number of home ranges that can fit into a given land area. For a given land area, the body size of the top species decreased in the sequence: ectothermic herbivore > endothermic herbivore > ectothermic carnivore > endothermic carnivore. When we converted body mass to food requirements, the food consumption of a top herbivore was about 8 times that of a top carnivore, in accord with the factor expected from the trophic pyramid. Although top ectotherms were heavier than top endotherms at a given trophic level, lower metabolic rates per gram of body mass in ectotherms resulted in endotherms and ectotherms having the same food consumption. These patterns explain the size of the largest-ever extinct mammal, but the size of the largest dinosaurs exceeds that predicted from land areas and remains unexplained.",
author = "Burness, {Gary P.} and Jared Diamond and Timothy Flannery",
doi = "10.1073/pnas.251548698",
Burness, GP, Diamond, J & Flannery, T 2001, 'Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 98, no. 25, pp. 14518-14523. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.251548698
Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs : The evolution of maximal body size. / Burness, Gary P.; Diamond, Jared; Flannery, Timothy.
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 98, No. 25, 04.12.2001, p. 14518-14523.
T1 - Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs
T2 - The evolution of maximal body size
AU - Burness, Gary P.
AU - Diamond, Jared
AU - Flannery, Timothy
N2 - Among local faunas, the maximum body size and taxonomic affiliation of the top terrestrial vertebrate vary greatly. Does this variation reflect how food requirements differ between trophic levels (herbivores vs. carnivores) and with taxonomic affiliation (mammals and birds vs. reptiles)? We gathered data on the body size and food requirements of the top terrestrial herbivores and carnivores, over the past 65,000 years, from oceanic islands and continents. The body mass of the top species was found to increase with increasing land area, with a slope similar to that of the relation between body mass and home range area, suggesting that maximum body size is determined by the number of home ranges that can fit into a given land area. For a given land area, the body size of the top species decreased in the sequence: ectothermic herbivore > endothermic herbivore > ectothermic carnivore > endothermic carnivore. When we converted body mass to food requirements, the food consumption of a top herbivore was about 8 times that of a top carnivore, in accord with the factor expected from the trophic pyramid. Although top ectotherms were heavier than top endotherms at a given trophic level, lower metabolic rates per gram of body mass in ectotherms resulted in endotherms and ectotherms having the same food consumption. These patterns explain the size of the largest-ever extinct mammal, but the size of the largest dinosaurs exceeds that predicted from land areas and remains unexplained.
AB - Among local faunas, the maximum body size and taxonomic affiliation of the top terrestrial vertebrate vary greatly. Does this variation reflect how food requirements differ between trophic levels (herbivores vs. carnivores) and with taxonomic affiliation (mammals and birds vs. reptiles)? We gathered data on the body size and food requirements of the top terrestrial herbivores and carnivores, over the past 65,000 years, from oceanic islands and continents. The body mass of the top species was found to increase with increasing land area, with a slope similar to that of the relation between body mass and home range area, suggesting that maximum body size is determined by the number of home ranges that can fit into a given land area. For a given land area, the body size of the top species decreased in the sequence: ectothermic herbivore > endothermic herbivore > ectothermic carnivore > endothermic carnivore. When we converted body mass to food requirements, the food consumption of a top herbivore was about 8 times that of a top carnivore, in accord with the factor expected from the trophic pyramid. Although top ectotherms were heavier than top endotherms at a given trophic level, lower metabolic rates per gram of body mass in ectotherms resulted in endotherms and ectotherms having the same food consumption. These patterns explain the size of the largest-ever extinct mammal, but the size of the largest dinosaurs exceeds that predicted from land areas and remains unexplained.
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.251548698
DO - 10.1073/pnas.251548698
Burness GP, Diamond J, Flannery T. Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: The evolution of maximal body size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2001 Dec 4;98(25):14518-14523. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.251548698


text:
package com.gs.collections.impl.block.function;

import java.util.Collection;

import com.gs.collections.api.block.function.Function2;
import com.gs.collections.api.block.function.primitive.DoubleObjectToDoubleFunction;
import com.gs.collections.api.block.function.primitive.FloatObjectToFloatFunction;
import com.gs.collections.api.block.function.primitive.IntObjectToIntFunction;
import com.gs.collections.api.block.function.primitive.LongObjectToLongFunction;

/**
 * Provides static Function2s which can be used by Iterate.injectInto for adding primitives or to a collection
 */
public final class AddFunction
{
    public static final IntObjectToIntFunction<Integer> INTEGER_TO_INT = new AddIntegerToIntFunction();
    public static final LongObjectToLongFunction<Integer> INTEGER_TO_LONG = new AddIntegerToLongFunction();
    public static final DoubleObjectToDoubleFunction<Integer> INTEGER_TO_DOUBLE = new AddIntegerToDoubleFunction();
    public static final FloatObjectToFloatFunction<Integer> INTEGER_TO_FLOAT = new AddIntegerToFloatFunction();
    public static final DoubleObjectToDoubleFunction<Double> DOUBLE_TO_DOUBLE = new AddDoubleToDoubleFunction();
    public static final Function2<Integer, Integer, Integer> INTEGER = new AddIntegerFunction();
    public static final Function2<Double, Double, Double> DOUBLE = new AddDoubleFunction();
    public static final Function2<Float, Float, Float> FLOAT = new AddFloatFunction();
    public static final Function2<Long, Long, Long> LONG = new AddLongFunction();
    public static final Function2<String, String, String> STRING = new AddStringFunction();
    public static final Function2<Collection<?>, ?, Collection<?>> COLLECTION = new AddCollectionFunction();

    private AddFunction()
    {
        throw new AssertionError("Suppress default constructor for noninstantiability");
    }

    private static class AddIntegerToIntFunction implements IntObjectToIntFunction<Integer>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public int intValueOf(int intParameter, Integer objectParameter)
        {
            return intParameter + objectParameter;
        }
    }

    private static class AddIntegerToLongFunction implements LongObjectToLongFunction<Integer>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public long longValueOf(long longParameter, Integer objectParameter)
        {
            return longParameter + objectParameter.longValue();
        }
    }

    private static class AddIntegerToDoubleFunction implements DoubleObjectToDoubleFunction<Integer>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public double doubleValueOf(double doubleParameter, Integer objectParameter)
        {
            return doubleParameter + objectParameter;
        }
    }

    private static class AddIntegerToFloatFunction implements FloatObjectToFloatFunction<Integer>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public float floatValueOf(float floatParameter, Integer objectParameter)
        {
            return floatParameter + objectParameter;
        }
    }

    private static class AddDoubleToDoubleFunction implements DoubleObjectToDoubleFunction<Double>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public double doubleValueOf(double doubleParameter, Double objectParameter)
        {
            return doubleParameter + objectParameter;
        }
    }

    private static class AddIntegerFunction implements Function2<Integer, Integer, Integer>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public Integer value(Integer argument1, Integer argument2)
        {
            return argument1 + argument2;
        }
    }

    private static class AddDoubleFunction implements Function2<Double, Double, Double>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public Double value(Double argument1, Double argument2)
        {
            return argument1 + argument2;
        }
    }

    private static class AddFloatFunction implements Function2<Float, Float, Float>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public Float value(Float argument1, Float argument2)
        {
            return argument1 + argument2;
        }
    }

    private static class AddLongFunction implements Function2<Long, Long, Long>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public Long value(Long argument1, Long argument2)
        {
            return argument1 + argument2;
        }
    }

    private static class AddStringFunction implements Function2<String, String, String>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public String value(String argument1, String argument2)
        {
            if (argument1 != null && argument2 != null)
            {
                return argument1 + argument2;
            }

            return argument1 == null ? argument2 : argument1;
        }
    }

    private static class AddCollectionFunction<T> implements Function2<Collection<T>, T, Collection<T>>
    {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        public Collection<T> value(Collection<T> collection, T addElement)
        {
            collection.add(addElement);
            return collection;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Home Front page news Alabama Dem Doug Jones votes with GOP on spending bill to avoid...
Alabama Dem Doug Jones votes with GOP on spending bill to avoid shutdown
Newly elected Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, in his most high-profile vote since taking office, was one of five Democratic senators to vote overnight with Republicans on a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.
Jones' election to the Senate last month marked the first time in 25 years that Alabama voters picked a Democratic senator.
The election results sparked much political speculation about whether Jones would vote with Republicans or fellow Democrats, considering that Alabama is one of the country's most conservative-leaning states and gave President Trump more than 62 percent of its vote in 2016.
While Jones' vote this weekend might suggest an intent to represent his electorate or win a 2020 re-election, he made clear from the start of his improbable special-election win that his top priority upon arriving on Capitol Hill would be to keep alive the Children's Health Insurance Program, which the GOP spending bill did for several years.
"Because of CHIP and the many families in Alabama and around our country that would be put in jeopardy by a government shutdown, I felt compelled to vote yes," Jones said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.
Jones won last month by less than 2 percentage points over Republican candidate Roy Moore, a conservative firebrand whose campaign was severely damaged in the closing months by allegations of sexual misconduct as a young man.
The Republican leaders of the GOP-controlled Senate failed overnight to get the 60 votes needed to move forward and pass a temporary spending bill to keep the government fully operational past Friday midnight.
Republicans have a 51-to-49 member majority in the Senate. The vote was 50-49.
Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain did not vote because he's home recovering from cancer treatment.
The four other Senate Democrats who voted for the bill were Sens. John Donnelly of Indiana; Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota; Joe Manchin of West Virginia; and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
All four are up for re-election this year in states that voted for Trump in 2016.
Jones, who has the seat left open after Republican Jeff Sessions became attorney general, is up for re-election in 2020.
In his victory speech last month, Jones effectively avoided any talk about how he'd vote in Congress but made clear that he won with bipartisan support. And he urged the GOP-controlled Congress to fund CHIP before he arrived in January.
The Alabama Republican Party was straightforward after Jones' win about how it wanted him to vote.
"During this campaign, we heard Mr. Jones repeatedly say he would talk about 'kitchen table issues' and that he would 'reach across the aisle' to work with Republicans," said party Chair Terry Lathan.
"While these issues weren't discussed and no other Democratic Senator has worked with the Republicans, all eyes will be on his votes. Alabamians will watch the issues he will support or try to stop. We will hold him accountable for his votes."
She also fired a warning shot at Jones — pointing out that essentially 60 percent of elected offices in Alabama are held by Republicans, which means "a strong slate" of candidates in upcoming elections.
http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/9QfYcF-G4O8/alabama-dem-doug-jones-votes-with-gop-on-spending-bill-to-avoid-shutdown.html
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Lake Secession, South CarolinaPhotos, maps and news from Lake Secession, South Carolina.Updated December 10, 2017.
Lake Secession is a census-designated place (CDP) in Abbeville County, South Carolina, United States located near a lake by the same name. The population was 1,083 at the 2010 census.
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Lake Secession. The City of Abbeville, SC takes this stewardship responsibility very seriously and is committed to the protection and enhancement of the lake resources..
Enjoy The Lake House on Lake Secession and ... - VRBO. Enjoy The Lake House on Lake Secession and the 6 Acres It Sits On..
Lake Secession Homes for Sale in Iva SC. 354 Diamond Hill Shores Road, Abbeville, SC 29620.
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51 Ideal Point Point, Abbeville, SC 29620 - MLS# 1354761 | Estately. View all 27 photos.
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Real Estate, Lots and Homes for Sale on Lake Secession SC. $4,800,000.


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text:
"Cathy's Clown" by The Everly Brothers
"Save the Last Dance For Me" by The Drifters
"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by Elvis Presley
"Are You Lonesome Tonight" by Elvis Presley
"Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning
"Strangers In The Night" by Frank Sinatra
"I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee
"El Paso" by Marty Robbins
"Everybody's Somebody's Fool" by Connie Francis
"The Theme From 'A Summer Place'" by Percy Faith & His Orchestra
"Stuck on You" by Elvis Presley
"Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland
"At Last" by Etta James
"It's Now Or Never" by Elvis Presley
"Georgia on My Mind" by Ray Charles
"Alley-Oop" by Hollywood Argyles
"Running Bear" by Johnny Preston
"Stay" by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs
"I Want To Be Wanted" by Brenda Lee
"My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own" by Connie Francis
"Mr. Custer" by Larry Verne
"Puppy Love" by Paul Anka


you know there's a 3 limit color in every NES game right?
I don't think these were meant to follow NES graphical limitations. It's a modernization of the SMB1 tileset.
Yup, it was made for 16-bit systems like SNES and Sega Genesis.
This is really nice, do you plan on making Mario/Luigi sprites to go with it?
From a skim-through, every tile looks better than the original. Fantastic job.
I personally would stick to the 3 Color Rule because this looks more 8-bit anyway and not all of these tiles have the same amount of colors (? Blocks have 3, but Brick Blocks have 4, for example), but overall this sheet is excellent and it seems pretty easy to edit that out anyway.


text:
Multiverse of Madness
Doctor Strange 2 trailer Easter egg may confirm a major Loki connection
Will Wanda cross paths with the TVA in this year's Doctor Strange sequel?
Alex Welch
More than any other upcoming Marvel title, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness promises to bring together many of the storylines and characters that have been at the forefront of Phase Four of the MCU.
The Sam Raimi-directed flick will feature several characters who have already played major roles in previous Phase Four titles, including Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and will address storylines introduced in WandaVision and What If…? Notably, the film's title also suggests that it'll connect to the similarly multiverse-centric Loki.
Some Marvel fans believe the first Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer even includes a subtle but important Loki Easter egg.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCI-FI MOVIE? Tell us now for a chance to get paid to write an article for Inverse.
Time Doors — The trailer features several delightfully weird and wild moments, including the appearances of a Shuma-Gorath/Gargantos-inspired monstrosity and a dark version of Doctor Strange reminiscent of the Sorcerer Supreme variant introduced in What If…? Episode 4. But there's also a very brief shot around the 0:39 mark that shows a person — presumably Wanda Maximoff — wielding chaos magic while walking away from a glowing orange doorway.
Wanda's volatile red magic is featured heavily throughout the trailer, but that's not the part of the shot Marvel fans have focused on. Instead, it's the orange doorway in the background that's caught viewers' attention, because it looks a whole lot like one of the Time Variance Authority's Timedoors.
Is the TVA in Doctor Strange 2?
Does the Multiverse of Madness trailer show Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) walking away from one of the TVA's Timedoors? Marvel Studios
In Loki, Timedoors are portals created by the TVA that allow the organization's agents to travel throughout all of time. The doors can take them to any moment and, similar to the doorway seen in the Multiverse of Madness teaser, they look like orange holograms.
Whether or not that's actually a Timedoor in the trailer is impossible to know for sure but, if it is, that suggests the Doctor Strange sequel will not only touch on many of the same multiversal plot points introduced in Loki, but that the TVA might actually play some kind of role in the story.
As for what purpose the organization could serve in the film, there are a few different possibilities. Given both Wanda's status as a Nexus being and the multiversal quest it's rumored she'll go on, it's entirely possible the TVA will show up and try to put a stop to Wanda's antics. Alternatively, it wouldn't be surprising if Wanda were to find and use some TVA technology to travel across the multiverse in pursuit of her twin sons, Billy and Tommy.
The God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) standing in front of one of the TVA's Timedoors in Loki Episode 1. Marvel Studios
The Inverse Analysis — Marvel is doing its best to keep the plot of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as mysterious as possible.
However, assuming this moment is what it looks like, the film may address the plot of Loki more directly than Marvel fans have previously believed. Whether that also means characters from the Disney+ show, like Mobius (Owen Wilson) or Loki himself (Tom Hiddleston), will show up remains to be seen.
Either way, Marvel fans should prepare themselves for the possibility that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will, at the very least, re-establish the TVA as an important force within the MCU.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6, 2022.


I meant to start on my series of posts about China immediately after I returned, but it seems like I'm not getting around to it until now. So many photos to sort through!
Back in the 1800s, a number of foreign countries had concessions in China, areas of cities where the foreigners lived and ruled. In Shanghai, one of these was the French Concession, an area that today retails much of its foreign influence and is a lively place for both expats and Chinese people to enjoy. I spent a morning doing a self-guided walking tour around the area and then returned at night a few days later to eat dinner.
As you can see in the pictures above, the tree-lined streets of the French Concession make it so the neighborhood could easily be mistaken for something in France. In the early morning (thanks, jetlag!), the shops were all closed, but this area would be full of people in the afternoons and evenings.
There are many beautiful buildings left behind from the concession days. Two examples are pictured below. The first is part of the Ruijin Hotel, formerly the Morriss Estate. I brazenly walked through the gates and around the property to look at the buildings, and I noticed that an employee started walking behind me and followed me nearly to the exit. Many old mansions have found new incarnations as hotels, banks, and shops. But some of them, like the former St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, haven't fared as well. Apparently this beautiful building was used as a warehouse for washing machines at one point after it stopped being a church!
Things in China these days change rapidly. Some of the French Concession remains residential, with normal people going around doing normal things like buying vegetables from a sidewalk stand. But things are rapidly going upscale. It's hard to miss the Sinan Mansions project, a redevelopment of dozens of old mansions into upscale residences, shops, restaurants, and a super expensive hotel where you can have your own personal butler if you're willing to pay over 5,000 USD a night for a villa. Some of the project, like the hotel, is already done, but other parts (as pictured below) are still in progress. While it's nice to see new life come into these dilapidated structures, it's unfortunate that their replacements are things that normal people will be unable to enjoy.
One very popular area of the French Concession is called Xintiandi, which translates to "New Heaven and Earth." It is perhaps the redevelopment that spurred the other projects. The old shikumen houses have been converted into expensive shops and restaurants. This area was full of people at night, especially foreigners. Sadly, one of the most photographed angles of Xintiandi prominently features a Starbucks.
There are many restaurants and bars that are popular with the expat crowd in this area, but I didn't try any of them. Instead, I went for the Shanghainese favorite, Xinjishi, which I'll probably mention if/when I get around to making a food post. On the way back to my hostel, I sighed at the giant, garishly-lit Gap store and the line of drunk foreigners waiting for cabs (pictured below).
One neighborhood, many faces. It's not what I expected when I thought of Shanghai before I visited. It's interesting to see a neighborhood that has had various cultural influences over time and how it has evolved. Hopefully not all of the past will be lost as things move forward. I'll have to come back in ten years and see!
Susan Conley, her husband, and their two young sons say good-bye to their friends, family, and house in Maine for a two-year stint in a high-rise apartment in Beijing, prepared to embrace the inevitable onslaught of new experiences that such a move entails. But Susan can't predict just how much their lives will change.
While her husband is consumed with his job, Susan works on finishing her novel and confronting the challenges of day-to-day life in an utterly foreign country: determining the proper way to buy apples at a Chinese megamarket; bribing her little boys to ride the school bus; fielding invitations to mysterious "sweater parties" and tracking down the faux-purse empire of the infamous Bag Lady; and getting stuck in an elevator, unable to call for help in Mandarin.
Despite the distractions, there are many occasions for joy. From road trips to the Great Wall and bartering for a "starter Buddha" at the raucous flea market to lighting fireworks in the streets for the Chinese New Year and feasting on the world's best dumplings in back-alley restaurants, they gradually turn their unfamiliar environs into a true home.
Then Susan learns she has cancer. After undergoing treatment in Boston, she returns to Beijing, again as a foreigner—but this time, it's her own body in which she feels a stranger. Set against the eternally fascinating backdrop of modern China and full of insight into the trickiest questions of motherhood—How do you talk to children about death? When is it okay to lie?—this wry and poignant memoir is a celebration of family and a candid exploration of mortality and belonging.
This book focuses on two major events in Susan Conley's life: moving to China and dealing with cancer. They're supposed to mirror one another: first Susan is a stranger in a new country, and then she becomes a stranger to her own body. It sounds cleverly put together with the promise of some sort of deep, inspired conclusion. Unfortunately, it never quite works. The connection never fully materialized for me.
The parts dealing with Conley's cancer are my least favorite in the book. I think perhaps it is difficult to articulate this experience because it was so internal. Unlike being a foreigner a country, where there are constant anecdotes about culture shocks and language difficulties to illustrate the strangeness to the reader, the cancer is just cancer. So instead, we get stories about how her children react to the cancer. Mildly interesting, but for me, not relatable. I read this book at the same time as I read The Replacement Wife, another book about a woman dealing with cancer. Emotionally, this book fell so flat in comparison.
However, I did enjoy all of Conley's stories about China, and I would have happily read more. Having returned from a trip to China not long before starting this book, I happily found myself transported back through the writing. Some might find her narration arrogant or irritating, but it didn't strike me as such. I felt like she wrote honestly and had more tolerance and openness than most Americans would have if they suddenly moved to China. Of course, there are the obligatory complains about smog, toilets, and the language barrier, but this doesn't prevent her from exploring and enjoying Beijing.
We get additional insight into the culture through characters she describes, such as Mao Ayi (her housekeeper/nanny), Rose (her English teacher), and Lao Wu (her driver). We learn that there are many "Mao Ayi"s in China because people would prove their patriotism with their choice of children's names. We get a glimpse of the pressures put on young people in China through Rose's struggle over her boyfriend and career choices.
If the whole book had focused on Conley's experiences in China (and perhaps more about her husband's previous adventures in rural areas of the country), it would have been a stronger, more interesting memoir.
You've got a woman with cancer in a loving relationship who decides to find a replacement wife for her gorgeous, successful husband. He's not into the idea, but once his mind opens to the thought of other women, he starts noticing other women. It's clear pretty early on that there's no way that this story is going to have a happy ending for everyone. And as the characters get more and more tangled into their stupid but well-meaning web, the reader can only wait for the inevitable train wreck.
This is a good book. But it's also a tricky book. From the description and the genre, I expected it to be a mostly light, shallow read with some cheap emotional manipulation. This was not the case. Of course, in the many hundreds of pages, there are many that are easily skimmable, but I felt like it was hard-hitting and realistic in the issues that it explored. The reason why it's tricky is because, despite being good, it's a difficult book to like. I would compare this to Emily Giffin's Heart of the Matter, which I actually stopped reading because I knew that there was no way the book was going to resolve itself in a manner that would make me happy. This book is the same way. I knew right away that it was going to make me mad.
As a reader of chick lit, I find myself expecting things to be a certain way. It doesn't need to be a happy, tidy ending, but we expect to see people get what they deserve, both good and bad. In The Replacement Wife, it's more like real life. People just get what they get. No one's a real villain, and no one's a real saint. It's frustrating and sad to watch mostly well-intentioned people causing each other to suffer when it isn't fair or for any noble purpose. Who do you cheer for, when one person's happiness means an equally deserving person's misery?
Viewing the novel as a whole, however, I see a theme. There are a lot of beginnings and endings that occur. Though it's not satisfying to see good things unfairly come to an end, it's relieving to see that bad deeds that people do aren't punished forever, either. It seems like the whole idea is that there is no karma, that things happen randomly in life, and all we can do is hang on and make the most of it.
What can I say? How many chick lit books evoke that strong of a response? I think it speaks loudly for the strength of the author's character development and writing. This would be an excellent book for a book club because everyone is bound to have something to say.
A remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens.
This is the best, most interesting book I have read for awhile. Since reading it, I have found myself looking for more information on North Korea. I have recommended this book to so many people, and so far I've only heard good things back. It is well-written, powerful, and relevant. I'm so glad I found out about this book, and I'm thankful for the Around the World Challenge for the motivating me to actually read it.
It wasn't planned this way, but I'm glad I read this and book and Havana Real (about Cuba) very close together because there are noticeable parallels. Both are Communist dictatorships that have been relatively isolated from the modern world. Both experienced extreme famine and poverty following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the subsidies that allowed their countries to maintain decent economies. Both aren't really big on their citizens escaping or expressing ideas counter to what is considered acceptable by the government. But North Korea took things to a much bigger extreme. Maybe Cuba is trying to crack down on its bloggers, but North Korea does not have any bloggers. Cubans probably don't get a whole lot of meat, subsisting on meals like "rice and bouillon cube," but in North Korea, white rice is considered a luxury item. A North Korean meal is more like… grass and ground up corn cob? Government hired thugs might rough you up for speaking out in Cuba, but in North Korea, they send you and three generations of your family to labor camp for, I dunno, saying Kim Jong-Il is short.
All of the hardships and cruelties are shocking, but if that's all this book was about, I'd find it relatively average. After all, this is what we expect to hear about when we think of North Korea. The very human stories of the six North Koreans is what makes this book so strong. Of all things, it begins with a love story, a sweet, innocent relationship that could only exist in a place like North Korea, where people don't keep track of how hours pass and night time really is about darkness because there is no electricity. Most of the characters mentioned are people who wholeheartedly believed, as most North Koreans must believe in order for this system to continue, that they lived in the best country in the world and that their Dear Leader was like a god. However, all of the characters experience a moment – sometimes it didn't hit until after they had left the country – where they realize that their government has lied to them. One of them described this moment to be like the experience when a religious person becomes an atheist, standing among a sea of believers and realizing that he no longer believes.
One would expect that escape from North Korea, the most isolated country in the world, would be difficult. But as an outsider, one would also expect the decision to be a simple one – why not leave a country without freedom or food? Yet this was not the case. Loyalty to the country is deeply engrained, and many people who have left say that they would immediately return if the Kim dynasty was overthrown. Quite a number of people even crossed the border to China many times, but they did so only to make money, and they would continue to return to North Korea, their home. For the people who did make it out to South Korea, the escape was often bittersweet. They were ill-prepared to adapt to life in a much more modern world. Men who were abnormally short due to malnutrition had little hope of romantic prospects with the taller South Korean women. And most painful of all, since the North Korean idea that bad blood tainted three generations, they had to live with the thought that any relatives left behind might suffer or die in labor camps because of their actions. What a horrible choice to have to make. No wonder such a small number (relatively speaking) of them have left.
In the conclusion, the book mentions that for a long time, people interested in North Korea have looked on with curiosity or even amusement, wondering how this regime has lasted this long and how much longer it has to live. I guess I'm included in that group. It's hard not to see it with a bit of humor, with so many comical references to Kim Jong-Il and the general silliness that propaganda carries for those who haven't fallen under its spell. (My mom tells me, though, that they saw similar propaganda growing up in Taiwan and China) But the truth is that as long as the regime remains, North Koreans will continue to die. And North Koreans who have escaped will have to keep wondering about the fate of their loved ones.
Well, this has turned more into general commentary about North Korea than a book review. It definitely says something about the book that it has caused this sort of passionate interest, though. I have found myself reading more about the country and watching some of the rare video footage coming out of the country. Hopefully all of this will be a thing of the past in the near future.


2,000 gone in Afghanistan: Did you notice the death of Sgt. Riley Stephens?
Residents of Tolar, Texas, attend a candlelight vigil Wednesday at the old Tolar High School football field to honor hometown Army Special Forces soldier Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens.
When No. 2,000 fell last weekend in Afghanistan, journalists were keeping count. But is the nation keeping up?
Last Saturday, Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens, 39, was shot and killed by an Afghan National Army soldier at a highway checkpoint in Wardak Province. The Airborne Special Forces member had three children and a wife. Residents in his tiny hometown, Tolar, Texas, gathered Wednesday night on the local high school football field, burning candles in his honor.
According to The Associated Press, Stephens was the 2,000th U.S. service member killed in Afghanistan, the type of historic landmark that gets the media's notice.
But if the simple cold arithmetic of his passing didn't get your attention, you've got company. Although 68,000 U.S. troops remain in that war zone, the majority of Americans have mentally moved along, military experts say, to the point where such tragic notches rarely rate a mention at the supper table and barely raise more than a momentary blip in the Twitter-sphere.
"I don't think it ranked very high" in the nation's consciousness, said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow with the 21st Century Defense Initiative and director of research for the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. "Thoughtful people – even if they have made up their minds about the war – they just want to commemorate it the same way we commemorate Veterans Day or Memorial Day. It merits a little bit of response in that regard. But beyond that, it elicits almost no new policy debate whatsoever."
"A 2,000th fatality does not affect people's (personal) calculus on mission feasibility or the desirability of one policy option over another. It's just going to be a sad milestone," O'Hanlon said.
Perhaps that's partly because America's lengthiest war has not generated the fatal pace of past military conflicts. While 181 U.S. service members have been killed, on average, per year in Afghanistan, the annual death rates for American troops in three previous wars were higher to exceedingly higher – Iraq: 498 per year, Vietnam: 4,850 per year, and Korea: 12,300 per year.
The U.S. military plans to finish a withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
"Of course, 2,000 fatalities these days really means 20,000 wounded because we're keeping so many wounded people alive," said O'Hanlon, who describes himself as "a supporter of the mission" in Afghanistan. "So, I think the numbers are pretty high in many ways."
Beyond that, giving special commemoration to the 2,000th service member to die in Afghanistan seems somewhat disrespectful to the 1,999th U.S. troop to die there -- someone whose life story and profound sacrifice may get far less acclaim. Meanwhile, the first casualties of the conflict get shoved deeper into the nation's collective memory, said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit group with more than 200,000 members.
"The larger concern we have is with that general disconnect," Rieckhoff said. "Obviously somebody was just killed in action there and that person should be remembered and celebrated. But we've also got to remember there are widows who have been dealing with this since 2001. They still need support and their families need care and their kids need to figure out how they're going to school. The price those families pay impacts generations."
"Most Americans aren't constantly thinking about Afghanistan. It's not always in the papers. It's at the end of very few news broadcasts. Maybe there is some fatigue in the general population," Rieckhoff said. "But I also think there's some paralysis: They don't know what to do about it. So, what we simply try to tell them is just make sure you remember the families."


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Fast forward nearly forty years, and you'll find that our company has mushroomed into a multi-faceted travel giant with around 800 employees in over 45 branches – and Barrhead Travel is now one of the largest and most successful travel groups in the UK.
We offer the best priced holidays and cruises in the marketplace, as well as excellent service and guaranteed quality – a winning combination for our customers. We invest heavily in technology and training, so that we can be sure that a Barrhead Travel holiday delivers every time.
Recognised by independent researchers as one of the most financially-strong travel businesses in the UK, peace of mind comes with every purchase from Barrhead Travel. All of our package holidays are completely financially protected, so your money is always secure.
We're open extended hours, so you can contact us when it suits you best. Alternatively, you can book online at any time. We offer a phenomenal range of travel products and services, from sunshine package holidays to UK breaks, cruises, weddings abroad, long-haul trips, family holidays, hotel stays and flights, and we have fully-trained experts on the front line who will help you find that ideal holiday at value for money prices. Many of our holidays are tailor-made, for just that reason, as we recognise that one size doesn't necessarily fit all.
Barrhead Travel has never stood still, and in the years ahead we'll continue to evolve and to provide the lowest prices, top-notch service and the best value for our customers.
We are delighted to be announced UK Travel Group of the year and Best Large Scottish Travel agency in 2013.


text:
Filed under Lifestyles
Filmmaking, video shoots come to life
with Eagle Production Group
Nicole Miguez, Reporter|February 26, 2019
Senior Isaac Carpio sets up his camera for the Jason Elmore performance. Elmore is the lead singer and guitarist of "Jason Elmore & Hoodoo Witch." Members of the Eagle Production Group filmed the performance in the Eagle Nation News studio on Thursday, Feb. 21. "My favorite part of teaching this class is bringing artists in," EPG adviser Michael Logan said. "I get to share my love of music and videos with the class."
Kester Muthalaly
The Eagle Production Group is a class for advanced filmmakers that specializes in professional video shoots and short films.
"We had a professional guitar player come in, and we recorded him playing live," said Micheal Logan, EPG's teacher. "We also film and live-stream events. It's basically a small production company made up of myself and my students."
Occasionally, EPG partners with Eagle Nation News. They've produced public service announcements for student broadcast station that have aired repeatedly.
"There was a smoking PSA that has aired multiple times, which was made by one of my students," Logan said. "As far as content for them, it's mostly PSAs and commercials."
Some of their work is posted on their YouTube channel, EagleProductionGroup. Ranging from live music recordings to documentaries, Eagle Production Group does it all.
"Usually students gravitate towards what they're interested in," Logan said. "Some gravitate towards cinematography, some towards sound and some towards writing or directing."
Not only do the students create films for the school, but they also travel across the country to compete in film competitions.
"We go to New York City every October for the All American High School Film Festival," Logan said. "We attend the Student Television Network conference, which is in Seattle this year."
When my kids graduate, they have a portfolio of professional videos they've made, so a lot of them can get jobs in the industry after they graduate."
— Michael Logan, Eagle Production Group adviser
Students are able to use their works to build their portfolios and resumes when looking to apply for colleges or jobs.
"When my kids graduate, they have a portfolio of professional videos they've made, so a lot of them can get jobs in the industry after they graduate," Logan said. "Since we work with a community and a bunch of entities in the area, oftentimes students will go on to work professionally for them."
Creative freedom is given to students, allowing them to make movies of many different types.
"I'm making an action movie right now, it's going to be about 15-20 minutes long," said Caiden Jackson, a student director and editor. "We also have a Spider-Man movie coming up."
Students can submit their works to UIL competitions and occasionally win awards for their creations.
"My favorite film is the last one I made. It's called the Bootlegger," Jackson said. "It got to UIL semi-finals."
Eagle Production Group is a high-quality course perfect for anyone interested in filmmaking.
"If you want to join the class, do it. EPG is awesome," Jackson said. "It's the best class you could possibly take if you want to pursue filmmaking in your future."
One of the films coming out soon is the newest Shattered Dreams video, which will coordinate with the Shattered Dreams event.
"Shattered dreams is the video that promotes no drinking and driving," said Samuel Funk, a senior in EPG. "This year it's going to be amazing."
For those interested in joining the Eagle Production Group, it's the second to fourth levels of the class. A student would start with Principles of AV Production, then move forward into the video production classes.
"My favorite part of teaching this class is bringing artists in," Logan said. "I get to share my love of music and videos with the class."
Billboard blues artist Jason Elmore comes to Prosper
Nicole Miguez, Graphic Designer
Nicole Miguez is a 17-year-old student, writer and artist. She grew up homeschooled in Addison, Texas, until August of 2017 when she moved to Prosper....
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Our Playgroup / Prep-Programme students will experience the following activities as part of our exciting, progressive curriculum. We are preparing today's children to use language in all our activities and to become independent thinkers and learners of the future.
Supervised free play: planned to challenge each area of the Foundation Stage of the British National Curriculum. This includes: building; threading; imagination play; puzzles; water; sand; role play; cutting/pasting; games; sorting; matching; sequencing; books.
Circle time: where discussions take place, interaction with peers and the teachers are facilitated, Letterland characters are introduced, songs are learnt and stories enjoyed.
Mandarin: through songs, visual aids and using a theme approach, our students have an interactive introduction to this important language of the future.
Outdoor Play: in one of our two innovative and safe playgrounds, our students are able to experience activities that will develop their body movements and confidence.
Art & Craft: we provide activities and opportunities for students to develop their imagination and to experiment and create through mediums such as paint, collage, sand, junk modeling, playdough, clay, corn starch and a host of wonderful "messy" activities.
Cooking: our students all participate in cooking lessons, from chopping to spreading, baking and tasting. This is an excellent introduction to the maths and science concepts needed for future life skills.
Music: "Music is the food of life." Our students are exposed not only to singing, but are introduced to musical instruments along with concepts such as rhythm, beat, fast, slow, loud, quiet, movement and time.
Field trips: we believe that students need to be exposed to as many facets of learning as possible; therefore, whenever possible – and to compliment our themes – we arrange field trips for our students (Monday – Friday).
Snack time: this is an important area in a child's social development; our students are encouraged to make choices and participate independently.


Recently, Google has come under fire after its "auto complete" of sentences isn't always the most appropriate.
For example, when writing "sit on" the most common suggestion to follow is "my face". LOL.
Gboard is designed to avoid such predictions in its generic models, but human language is complex, and as with any sort of system that filters sensitive phrases, sometimes inappropriate suggestions make it through into the machine learning models. When we learn of an inappropriate suggestion we work quickly to remove it.
You can apparently get rid of the phrases by dragging them into the trash on your messenging app. Let's be fair though, ya'll probably have it come up like that becasue you use that phrase a lot.


Welcome to CaptionSync by Automatic Sync Technologies; thank you for choosing us for your captioning and transcription. CaptionSync is a sophisticated system and offers many options and settings. This article provides an overview of our services.
Detailed information on how to use our system and make a submission is available in our tutorials (video and text available): Prepaid Accounts or Bill-in-arrears accounts.
The core service offered by CaptionSync is to accept media files and return caption and subtitle files. Users can provide their own transcripts, or have CaptionSync generate the transcripts using our professional transcribers. Most CaptionSync accounts are set up by default to provide caption/subtitle files.
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CaptionSync recently added more accessibility services: Live Captioning for live events, and Audio Description for video files (a verbal description of relevant visual elements).
Finally, CaptionSync offers many other supplementary services related to captioning and transcription. In the Supplementary services price sheet, on the help page, in your CaptionSync account, you'll find a list of supplementary services we make available. If you have a need for a service not listed there, please open a Support ticket, so that we can advise you further.
To check pricing for the services you want to request, open the help page, in your CaptionSync account. In the Main price sheet you'll find pricing for the main services (Captioning, Transcription and Production Transcript). In the Supplementary services price sheet you'll find pricing for supplementary services, like Result Review, Video Encoding, Translation or Cinema Certified Result Review.
Prepaid accounts: You'll need to purchase credits before using your CaptionSync account. Click Buy more, upon login (upper-right corner); or open the Billing tab. You will see the total credits available, and a detailed list of how many credits each service requires. You can then either purchase credits for a specific service or services; or purchase credits for additional services for existing submissions; or just purchase a certain amount of credits. If you purchase credits for services, you can then select the priority required, and/or add-on services. Finally, you just need to generate the invoice and pay it. The credits will then be added to the credit balance once it is paid.
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You can either provide your own transcript with your media file, or you can have our professional transcribers create the transcript for you.
If you choose to provide your own transcript, ensure you follow our formatting guidelines. Complete documentation on transcription formatting and markers is available in our Transcription Guidelines article. More information about our formatting guidelines is available in our Sync Marker Summary, Caption Results Not in Sync and Getting Sync Markers to Work articles.
If you are having us perform the transcription, we recommend using our Guidance for Transcriber feature to help the transcriber produce an accurate transcript. By informing transcribers of correct spelling of names and special terms, this will help minimize transcription errors. If you wish to set your Commonwealth English spelling preference, you can use our Regional Spelling Preference feature.
Note that if you need to have the speakers identified, you need to make that request via Guidance, when making your submission.
CaptionSync can produce transcripts, caption/subtitle files, and Production Transcripts for English, Spanish, French or German content. New languages will be made available as demand warrants; if you need other languages, let us know.
Our policy regarding musical content is to refer to it using [ Music ] or [ Singing ]. If your audio content contains songs which you want to have transcribed, please read our transcribing/captioning lyrics article for more information.
AST-Link: a simple application for batch uploading large numbers of files (also useful for sending very large files). More information in our tutorials for AST-Link on Windows, and AST-Link on Mac.
List of URLs: CaptionSync can accept a list of URLs and then fetch your video(s) from those URLs. In our Using List of URLs article, we provide step by step instructions on how to submit your media files.
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DVD/MP4 Transfer: mail-in DVDs or VHS tapes to convert to captioned DVDs or MP4s. Our DVD/MP4 Transfer Service tutorial provides more information on how to use this service.
Custom Integration: CaptionSync offers a simple API that allows direct integration with our system.
If you are interested in using these features, most can be added via Settings -> Account Features. Learn how to enable your account for these features from our How to Enable Additional Account Features article. For more information on other features and custom integrations, open a Support ticket.
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CaptionSync is very fast; as soon as your results are ready, they will be emailed to you (this can be disabled via Settings -> Contact Settings, if you do not want the emails) and they will be available for download on your account.
If you submit your own transcript, results will typically be available in less than 15 minutes.
If you are using AST's professional transcribers to create the transcript, results will typically be returned based on the turnaround requested, e.g. 2 Business Days, 1 Business Day, etc.
Weekends and a small set of holidays are not counted as business days. Holidays will be announced in advance via a news item.
Please note that poor quality audio, strong accents or overlapping dialog can be difficult to transcribe and may take extra time.
If you choose to use our Result Review service, or if your request is routed to Result Review for any reason, this service will typically take an additional 24 hours to deliver.
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AST uses trained, professional transcribers to generate our transcripts, which allows us to offer the highest transcription quality possible. Transcribers do make occasional errors, but in general, you should find that their error rate is well below 1%. Please be aware that error rate does vary with audio quality; if you submit poor audio, you should expect higher error rates. To minimize error rates, provide the best audio quality that you can, and make use of our Guidance to Transcriber field to provide special terminology and proper names.
If our transcribers feel that they are simply unable to provide a quality transcript for your material due to poor audio quality, you will receive a notice that the submission is being rejected. There are no fees charged for a rejected submission. Poor audio is the most common culprit behind rejected requests. If you get a video that has been rejected double check the audio quality. Look into better ways to record the audio – clip-on microphones are inexpensive and are great at picking up the speaker.
If you notice minor typos in your file, incorrect terminology, incorrect speakers' names, or if you realize you need a file format that you didn't request initially, you can use our Redo feature to make minor adjustments to a request and regenerate the caption files. There is no additional cost when you use the redo feature; it is available for 6 months after the original submission was placed. Learn more about this feature in our tutorial on how to use the Redo feature.
If you have poor audio and it is causing problems, or if you are submitting your own transcripts and are unsure of the correct format, you may want to consider our Result Review service to have AST review the results and ensure the transcripts are correctly formatted and the captions are in sync. More information on Result Review can be found in our website and also in our Support Center.
You can also try to improve your recording circumstances to ensure you submit better quality audio and then get the best possible results.
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text:
Chalsa est une ville située dans l'État indien du Bengale-Occidental.

Géographie

Ville au Bengale-Occidental

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Dr. Lloyd Bertholff was academic dean of Western Maryland College, when I first learned of his way of planting seed. I was attending theological seminary next door to that campus. He later became President of Illinois Wesleyan University, and continued his investments there also.
As a portion of his contribution to God each year, Dr. Bertholff would provide a fair scholarship for some worthy student who might not have been able to get an education otherwise.