In the prior post we introduced the Fermi paradox—or Fermi question—before an overview of the many hypotheses that try to answer the question, and ended noting that we must consider what we are to do, given the possibilities. In this post I'm going to share which of those hypotheses that screen-based sci-fi has chosen to tell stories about.
First we should note that screen sci-fi (this is, recall, a blog that concerns itself with sci-fi in movies and television), since the very, very beginning, has embraced questionably imperialist thrills. In Le Voyage dans la Lune, George Melies' professor-astronomers encounter a "primitive" alien culture on Earth's moon when they land there, replete with costumes, dances, and violent responses to accidental manslaughter. Hey, we get it, aliens are part of why audiences and writers are in it: As a thin metaphor for speculative human cultures that bring our own into relief. So, many properties are unconcerned with the *yawn* boring question of the Fermi paradox, instead imagining a diegesis with a whole smörgåsbord of alien civilizations that are explicitly engaged with humans, at times killing, trading, or kissing us, depending on which story you ask.
But some screen sci-fi does occasionally concern itself with the Fermi question.
Which are we telling stories about?
For those who missed the first sci-fi interfaces Movie Night, my friend Reed stepped up and brought a multi-camera setup to the event and edited in post so you could vicariously see what it was like. Watch above, but if you're more interested in reading, the transcript (edited because the messiness of the spoken word) appears below.
Hey, good evening. Thanks for showing up. This is actually a wild hair idea that occurred to me in the shower about three and a half weeks ago. My name is Chris Noessel. Every year for the past five years I've hosted a private showing in my home, and I thought, "How on Earth and I going to cram all the people I want to invite into my small living room this year?" I tried to work out the logistics and just failed. But fortunately I was able to contact The New Parkway and they said, "We love this sort of thing. And we have a slot open. And we have the film pre-licensed." So for all those reasons a big round of applause to The New Parkway.
So I'm going to do one plug really quickly, if you're not familiar. You're here because you love the movie. I'm going to tell you a little about the project that this evening came about from. About six years ago my coauthor Nathan Shedroff approached me with this cool idea about a book. He noticed that the Motorola Star-Tac phone was surprisingly like the Star Trek communicator, and thought, "Hey, there's probably a connection here." So over the course of about six years we collected every sci-fi interface that we could in an online database. We tagged that cloud with a database and wrote a book about the results. That book was published in 2012. We just went through our second printing where all of the errata (that many people here may have pointed out) is now corrected. In fact, one of the awards for the trivia contest is a copy of that second [printing].
So, that's what that project is about. Since just before the release of the book I've been hosting a website called scifiinterfaces.com where I'm slowly releasing that database that we built up and adding a few other things, so it's actually quite a lot of nerdery all in one place.
Why is March 18 Fifth Element Day?
How many cigarettes is Korben allowed each day?
How many points does Korben Dallas have on his license when he gets in the taxi, and for extra credit, how does he know?
What Big Label appears on this interface in the film?
What is Leeloo looking at when we see this close up of her eye?
What word is repeated three times in the encyclopedia?
This image is associated with which entry in the encyclopedia?
Fill in the blank "This is a police patrol. This is not an exercise. Can you please spread your legs and _______________."
In the pilot of sci-fi university, the weapon against ultimate evil is an example of what two interface principles?
Can you name any of the four things that the design of the ultimate weapon tests for?
What does it mean that the ultimate evil approaches Earth in exactly the right bearing and at exactly the right time to be stopped by a spinning weapon that cannot be aimed?
As you may have surmised, the blog covers individual interfaces in movies. I'm going to talk very briefly about one that appears in this film.
One of the reasons why I picked The Fifth Element to watch annually is that it has a number of great interfaces. On the blog there are 53, some of which contain multiple interfaces. It's chock-full of interface goodness. We're going to talk about this particular one. Note that this isn't one of the great ones, this is one of the ones that could use improvement.
So let's take a little tour. When Dallas wakes up we see that his apartment sort of "comes on" after his alarm, and one of the things he does is he walks to this machine to get his cigarettes. At the very bottom it shows what his goal is. "TO QUIT IS MY GOAL." (That's what the shirt says.) At the top is kind of a reminder. It says, "Quit smoking!" With "4 Refill" and "4™ a day." On the right side is this utterly inexplicable LCD display. I think those "1s" are meant to represent the cigarettes, but I'm not certain. And I think in the center is a huge, overblown "there are four left." Why on earth would you need that, when you can glance to the left and look? And the last thing. Is that the temprature of the cigarettes? Is it important that they stay at 27.5 degrees? Really, that makes no sense at all.
And then this is the interface panel that's he's got, the buttons that he has to push, and they make more sense. You'll see Korben only presses the bottom one and it's kind of useless.
To explain why this is good, we have to dip down very briefly into persuasive design. Has anybody here every studied persuasive design?
Awesome. Did you study under B.J. Fogg? B.J. talks about a principle called "putting the hot signal on the path." What that means is, when you are trying to provide a trigger for a user to get them to recognize an opportunity to change their own behavior, it needs to be a hot signal. Hot in this sense is one that gets the user's attention readily. And that's one of the problems with this interface. There are signals all over it to tell Korben, "Hey, you don't want to keep smoking." There's a surgeon general's warning in the back. There's that reminder of the goal.
But we also know that humans have a psychological capacity to habituate. You see something a number of times and you'll stop seeing it anymore. (The other thing is that if the surgeon general's warning is meant to persuade anyone, it's behind four glass vials where it absolutely cannot be read. It's a piece of misery.
But it means the signal can go ignored until the issue becomes a crisis.
This seemed to solve my problem. I had no cold water, I could enjoy my showers. But what ultimately occurred was that the water flooded the drain pan above me. My short term goal of not being frozen to death was actually a bad thing to design for. I should have left it above me because it was a hot signal in the path. (The irony there I hope you'll appreciate.) The signal was in a place where I would encounter it, in a place the designers know I would be. And that's what hot signals on the path are.
When we take that same principle and apply it to the interface, we want to stop the habituation by having this [the goal statement] be an e-ink display that changes every day. And [the surgeon general's warning] be an LED screen that changes and doesn't show text. You can't read text there, through a glass vial. What you want to see back there is an image. And I borrowed one of the images from the Australian cigarette packages that are really gory and really gross and make you think twice. "What the heck am I about to smoke?"
Okey doke. That's all I'm going to leave you with. Because a) there's beer and b) there's a cool movie to watch. But if you dig this kind of thinking, there are four places you can get it.
If you're interested in trying some future thinking, come to Cooper's Design the Future class, which I'll be teaching.
OK, we'll see that start in about a minute. You guys enjoy the show.
Major thanks to everyone who came out and joined me for the first ever scifiinterfaces.com movie night at The New Parkway in Oakland! It was a sold-out show, and while there were a few glitches, folks are telling me they had a great time and are looking forward to the next one. There will be a more detailed report once the pre-show video comes out. But in the meantime, this: If you didn't win the trivia contest or weren't able to attend, you can still get your hands on the "movie night" t-shirts I debuted there.
Head on over to the spreadshirt shop. It's ugly (with the default CSS). It doesn't have a custom URL or anything. It only has 5 products at the moment. But hey, that's all part of the charm if you'd like to wear your sci-fi interface nerdiness with pride.
P.S. I have no idea why the women's KEEP CLEAR tee is not appearing in orange since I designed it like the Men's tee, but I have a request with Spreadshirt now. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.
I'm thinking the Bay Area has an appetite for maybe two movie nights a year (let me know if I'm wrong) but I'd also love to try this in Berlin. Do you (or someone you know) know of a cinema in Berlin like the New Parkway that might be interested in my replicating this there?
Posted in The Fifth Element (1997), ~ Movie Night, ~ Site news.
View the Fifth Element posts in chronological order.
By default, WordPress displays topics in reverse-chronological order. You have to have order=asc in the query string to read them as they were posted, and the link above contains just that.
Posted in The Fifth Element (1997), ~ Site news.
Fifth Element Day at the New Parkway is on!
Thanks to the fast action of connections on social media, we have the requisite numbers to cover the licensing costs to show The Fifth Element on 18 March at the New Parkway!
You'll notice on the original page as well as this one that sales are being routed to Brown Paper Tickets. That's the ticket sales service that New Parkway likes to work with. If you were one of the VIPs who ordered through trycelery.com, look for an email in your inbox over the next few days that confirms your name will be on a VIP Will-Call List at the door, cross-referenced with the email account you provided.
If we make it to 100 people, I'll try to get my hands on one of the replica prop kits for a multipass, and offer that as another prize. Tell your friends and family and get us to 100 people!
If we make it past 100, and get to the max capacity of 140, I'll come up with some other, even crazier stretch goal.
After the trivia, there are a couple of things I could do. But I'll put it to you, blog readers: What sounds best?
If there's some other idea you've got to make this first scifiinterfaces movie night more fun than a Mangalore concert, drop it in the comments. I'll check back occasionally on results, and finalize things sometime as we near the event.
Seriously, this is going to be supergreen.
Posted in The Fifth Element (1997), ~ Movie Night.
In full disclosure, The Fifth Element may be one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time. So I had to be extra vigilant about the reviews so as not to come off as a fanboy. Even with all that due diligence, Besson's movie fared really well on a close examination of its interfaces.
The most interesting interface in the film belongs to the Ultimate Weapon, because it raises such unusual challenges to interface design.
According to the movie, the Ultimate Evil arrives every 5000 years, and this is the only time the weapon needs to be fired. (Its prior firing would be around 2737 B.C.E., and if it was on Earth before then, in prehistory.) Its designers must ensure that it will be usable to users separated by around 250 (human) generations. Given such an expanse of time, how can a designer ensure that any necessary inputs will be available between potential uses? What materials will survive that long to ensure structural and functional viability? What written instructions can survive the vast changes in language and cultural contexts? How can you ensure that spoken instructions or principles will be passed down accurately from generation to generation? Presuming some lossy transmission, what clues can you give in the interface itself as to the intended use?
Fortunately, the Mondoshawan physiology is not a substantial problem. In their suits they are still similarly-sized, bilateral, upright bipeds with a head where sensory organs are clustered at the top, and, emerging from the tops of their torsos, prehensile arms at the end of which are manipulator digits. This solves a great deal of what could be difficult interspecies issues. Imagine, for contrast, trying to design an interface usable by intelligent versions of both butterflies and cephalopods. Not easy. But an interface for two humanoid species: Much less difficult.
How to ensure the interface material lasts?
Certainly, the system must maintain some physical integrity over time. Passing over the creative license of "advanced alien technologies," we see that the material for the weapon is quite-long lasting, i.e. stone and in the case of the key, metal. Additionally, the weapon is kept in a temple in the desert, a non-volatile environment suited to preserving such materials.
There are materials for the stones that could last longer and be more resistant to damage, like metal or industrial ceramics, but we do not know anything about the provenance of the weapon, and whether such materials were available.
How to hide the weapon from malefactors?
In the words of Cornelius, an evil person could stand on the platform and activate the weapon to "turn light to dark." No one wants that to happen. The Mondoshawans hide the weapon in the Egyptian temple, and take pains to carefully conceal the presence of the door to the weapon room and its keyhole. Ordinarily Mondoshawans keep the key to the door of the room which houses the weapon to themselves offworld, but when they take the stones for protection, they leave the key with a member of a sect that worships the weapon, ensuring that the key is passed down through the generations along with the weapon's instructions.
How to ensure the instructions persist?
Even with durable materials, if the use of the weapon isn''t so completely intuitive as to be automatic, the instructions on how to activate it must endure transmission through time, across the lives of generations of people (and Mondoshawans). In this case, the instruction set is fairly simple; one must have access to "the" five elements for the weapon to work. Four are the familiar classical alchemical elements of earth, air, fire, and water. These are represented in the movie by four patterns of lines. The lines have subtle variations that reflect physical properties of that element. Earth was flat horizontal lines. Water was wavy horizontal lines at the base. Air was wavy horizontal lines at the top. Fire was vertical wavy lines.
The simplicity, replicability, and memetic nature of this part of the instruction set is demonstrated as we see the symbol repeated in a number of places: on the walls of the pyramid, on the sides of the stones, on the pedestals to which each stone fits, on Cornelius'' belt buckle, and as a mark on Leeloo''s skin. Had these symbols been more complex in nature, there would have been more risk that they would have shifted and evolved, like language does, beyond recognition and therefore use as a clue to the weapon's function.
The walls of the temple.
The instructions are also kept alive through the ages via myth and religious fervor. The characters Cornelius and David belong to a sect devoted to the Ultimate Weapon. This is clever cultural design. Humans have historically demonstrated a desire to worship, and the Mondoshawans have taken advantage of this, providing the Ultimate Weapon a group of people wholly dedicated to its preservation regardless of whether or not their generation is the one to see it fire. The rites, rituals, and artifacts of this religion that act as a backup for the instructions on firing the Ultimate Weapon, as we see when Cornelius tries to explain it all to the President.
Cornelius shows illustrations in a manuscript to the President.
The transmission media of memes and religious fervor are not—as we see in the film—perfect. Language and culture are lossy media. But they do get the characters close enough so that they can figure out the rest on their own.
How to make sure it can be figured out?
The weapon is initialized by placing the sacred stones on the proper pedestals. But which stones go on which pedestal? Fortunately, anyone with a visual or tactile sense can match the right stone to the right pedestal by matching the pattern. Furthermore, since the stones and their fitting are almost triangular, it is easy to tell how they should be seated. See the pilot of Sci-Fi University for more about these affordances and constraints.
The main challenge within this part of the bigger challenge is the spans of time involved. Given 5,000 years between firings, entire cultures, countries, technologies, and languages come and go in that time. How many people alive now are fluent in languages from 5 millennia past? You have to use mechanisms that don't depend on culture, technology, or language. Physical affordances and constraints are a fine tool for these reasons.
How to let users know they're on the right track?
When a little bit of the required element is provided to the placed stones, there is immediate feedback as small rectangles open just a bit near the tops. It is this partway state that indicates to the protagonists that, even though they haven't completely supplied enough material, they are on the right track. This clue gives them enough of a signal that they continue trying to deduce control of the interface.
What activation materials to use?
The stones require some small amount of each element to be supplied to their topmost surface to become active. For three of the four (earth, air, water), these elements are in abundance here on Earth.
To consider the fourth, fire, takes us to strategic questions about the design.
It's possible that the design of the weapon is constrained by some unknown cosmogenic power source in the stones. <handwaving>It's mystical physics that requires that there be 4 stones and 4 pillars and smooches in the center.</handwaving> But it is of course of more use to us to imagine that it wasn't, but some deliberate design. Which leads me to ask why wasn't it a single big button? Well, I can see five effects this particular design has.
A major part of the plot involves the fact that the stones—keys to operating the machine—have been removed from Earth to keep them safe. This proves to be a major complication and a minor mystery to the protagonists, but is in fact one of main features of the weapon. Much of it is architectural and would be very difficult to move. By adding activation keys, the Mondoshawans ensured that they could disable it if necessary.
If three of the activation elements were not available: earth, air, and water, it would raise serious issues about the human caretakers of the planet. Do they stand on a scorched earth? Is their air ruined? Have they let the water of Earth, like what happened on Mars, evaporate into space? Any of these scenarios raise serious doubts about whether life on the planet is worth saving. Or is there to save.
Unlike the other elements, fire isn't as abundant. In pre-cultural Earth, it was an accident of geothermal activity and lightning. To be able to control it to a level that it can be applied to the stone speaks of a fundamental level of cultural and technological advancement. If humans have not kept stewardship of their culture well enough to be able to control fire, it again raises the question of whether they are worth saving.
The key to the weapon room similarly tests for cultural stewardship. It looks like a fragile thing, made of thin perforated metal. Having a reverant group treat it as a holy artifact ensures that it will not get crushed or rusted, and in the process lose access to the room that contains the weapon.
The affordances and constraints that help the characters position the stones correctly require a level of basic, intelligence as individuals. Can they do pattern matching? Do they understand simple physics? This isn't the strongest of tests, but I'm pretty had humans devolved to primates by this point or distracted by constant war, they'd have been screwed.
The "fifth element" (ignoring wu xing and similar actual 5-element philosophies) in this case is love. In the film Korben must overcome his reticence to confess his love for Leeloo. When he does, she realizes that humanity—including its capacity for war—are worth saving, and the weapon fires. Love is a big word of course, so it's not clear whether familial, friendly, platonic, or even purely sexual love would suffice, but perhaps it doesn't matter. The designers wanted to make sure that humanity still has some capacity for feeling intense care toward another. If not, why bother saving them?
It's made a bit dubious because it's specifically for the love of an "ultimate warrior," a "perfect being." Leeloo looks very much like a very fit, pretty example of one of a human, who has shown very human capacities for joy, pain, fear, delight, &c. It's not that hard of a test for Korben to love her, except, to overcome his own sense of awkwardness and humility and openness to rejection (in front of a small crowd, no less.) If she had looked like a Mangalore it would have been a more difficult—and more telling—test of the capacity for altruistic love, but perhaps that's not the point.
These five effects seem like pretty good reasons to design the interface to this weapon in this particular way. In total, they test to make sure there's a humanity there worth saving. And fortunately for humanity in 2263, Korben (and the culture that produced him) prove just enough of a match.
As if that wasn't enough, bear with me for just two more bits of nerdery about the weapon. These are a bit extraneous to the interface, but derived from study of the interface, and so may be of note to readers.
1. We can't ignore the fact that the Ultimate Evil plummets toward the Earth in a straight line. A straight line, that is, that puts it directly in the path of the ultimate weapon, which fires a perfectly straight line. And recall that the weapon is on a planet that's orbiting around a star, and precessing its rotational axis. This is too slim a chance to be coincidence. It stands to reason that this is not, as Cornelius says, a sentient evil bent on ending "all life" (which would just veer a few degrees out of the way to safety), but part of the same system as the weapon, designed to identify and tempt the worst of people, i.e. Zorg, and try and thwart these aspects of humanity that are ultimately tested. If that's the case, and the Mondoshawans installed the weapon, did they, by extension, install the Ultimate Evil as well? Is this some sort of "invisible fence" meant to keep humanity in check, and destroy it if it ever evolves for the worse?
2. Many of these same issues have been addressed in the real world by the designers of containers of radioactive waste (the danger of which persists between 10,000 and 1,000,000 years) and, more positively, the the Long Now Foundation working on its main project, the Millennium Clock. For those unfamiliar with this project, it is a prospective, large-scale clock that once built, will chime every thousand years. The clock mechanism and function is intended to last for 10,000 years. The Long Now foundation is faced with similar long-term design challenges and have come to some similar conclusions as the designers for the film. The clock will be made of Bronze Age materials and technology, and it will be situated in the desert. The clock will largely be self-maintaining, but the Foundation is also developing a Rosetta Wheel containing many, many examples of existing human language, useful for decoding written instructions. The idea itself has many elements that ensure its persistence as a meme, being simple, distinct, and a powerful embodiment of an important message about the value of long-term thinking. The Long Now Foundation was begun in 01996, the year prior to the release of The Fifth Element. I am a huge fan of the Foundation and its initiatives, and I encourage readers to read further to learn more.
How do you ensure that a complicated weapon can be fired by people hundreds or even thousands of years in the future?
Sci-fi University critically examines interfaces in sci-fi that illustrate core design concepts. In this six-minute pilot episode, Christopher discusses how the Ultimate Weapon Against Evil brilliantly and subtly embodies the design concepts of affordances and constraints.
This is a pilot, to see if folks like the format. So please leave your thoughts in the comments, and if enough folks dig it—and if I run across other interfaces that bear such explication—I'll do more sometime in the future. If you'd like to view it at a larger size, check it out on YouTube. Happy viewing!


I would like to thank my many constituents, friends, colleagues and other members of the public who have expressed concern about recent developments in my life.
I have seen the Sunshine Newspaper dated Friday 22nd December 2017.
My relationship with my partner has ended and we have parted ways on amicable terms.
I would like my private and personal life to remain as such and I have no intention of being drawn into any discussion of same.
I expect that due to the work that I do, those who oppose me, for their own reasons, may continue to attack me. In the meantime, please rest assured of my complete commitment to the oath of my office.
#NEWSauce is still wondering if he is single, though. For research purposes.
← CJ Archie responds to the covfefe.
Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.


We all know the feeling. You sit down in a Sprint Planning meeting and a project manager walks in. The instant that he sits down you can tell there will be some tension. He wants to do it. He is compelled to. He will absolutely try to force real world hours on your estimations. He lives in a world of black and white and the only justification of the work that you are doing is measured in time. He will take your Story Points, and turn them into something they are not. Time. If you can empathize with the story above, you are not alone. This blog post will talk about tackling the ideology change I believe is needed to ensure accurate estimations.
Who has touched / modified this data?
As technology continues to advance and more companies start to see the need to stay up-to-date on the "newest and latest," the more I have become invested in researching ways technology is starting to impact roles in the workforce. As I dug deeper on Continuous Integration to elaborate further on my previously explored "DevOps" path, I stumbled upon this great concept referred to as "Infrastructure as Code" or "Programmable Infrastructure" and it really peaked my interest. This blog post will cover a high level description of Infrastructure as Code and how developers can start taking advantage of it while incorporating it into their everyday tasks.


text:
David Stuart Holmes Rosenthal (born 1948 in Cambridge, United Kingdom) is a British-American computer scientist.

Biography
Rosenthal is the son of Michael David Holmes Rosenthal and Marjorie Mary "Molly" Rosenthal (both deceased). His brother Mark Geoffrey Thomas Rosenthal ran to be a member of the UK Parliament for Ynys Môn in 2015.

Rosenthal received an MA degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and a PhD from Imperial College, London.
In the 1980s he worked on the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon University with James Gosling.
In 1985 he joined Sun Microsystems, and developed the NeWS Network extensible Window System with Gosling and co-authored a book on it.
He developed the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) for the X Window System in 1988, and was issued a patent on a security system for X.
In 1993 he became employee #4 and chief scientist at Nvidia, and then joined Vitria Technology in 1996. In 1999 he rejoined Sun and was a distinguished engineer. He became chief scientist for the LOCKSS project, first at Sun and then since 2002 at Stanford University.
His research concerned computer data storage long-term protection techniques.

He holds 23 patents.

References

External links
 DSHR's blog

British emigrants to the United States
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Stanford University staff
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Alumni of Imperial College London
American computer scientists
X Window System people
Nvidia people
Sun Microsystems people
Computer graphics professionals
1948 births
Living people

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Federal restart fund could revive TransLink, mayors' council chairman says
By Carl Meyer | News, Politics, Ottawa Insider | June 5th 2020
#664 of 1611 articles from the Special Report: Coronavirus in Canada
Metro Vancouver's TransLink is expected to lose almost a half-billion dollars in revenue this year, as ridership plummeted while people stayed home and avoided enclosed spaces to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The chairman of the Mayors' Council on Regional Transportation says he's encouraged that the federal government's offer of $14 billion in "safe restart" funding could include a much-needed lifeline to public transit systems like TransLink.
New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote told Canada's National Observer that there appeared to be a "clear intent" from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that a portion of the new federal funding commitment would go toward municipal needs like transit.
That would be welcome news for Metro Vancouver's TransLink, which Cote said is expected to lose almost a half-billion dollars in revenue this year, as ridership plummeted while people stayed home and avoided enclosed spaces to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
"This is really encouraging news," Cote said. "We're talking about a significant amount of funding ... I think if we're starting to talk in dollar figures in the hundreds of millions, we're getting to the point where we can start to see financial sustainability come back to transit agencies."
http://twitter.com/mayors_council/status/1268972746261716992
Cote and the mayors' council approve TransLink transportation plans and appoint most members of its board of directors. The council includes representatives from municipalities across the transit system's service area.
Trudeau made the announcement on Friday from Rideau Cottage in Ottawa. He said it would cover the next "six to eight months" and help pay for things like protective equipment, child care, seniors, sick pay and municipal needs including "public transit and community programs."
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government wanted to ensure Canada has the conditions in place for a safe economic restart — and that means making sure people have the things they need to stay healthy. The way to do this successfully, she said, is "through a collaborative conversation with the provinces."
The federal government is still negotiating with the provinces and territories about how the money will be distributed. On Friday, British Columbia Finance Minister Carole James said she's "keen to partner up with the federal government" on economic recovery, but was waiting on more information.
"We haven't received those details yet, and I know we'll be working on them in the upcoming week," James said.
The chair of the Mayors' Council on Regional Transportation says he's encouraged that the federal government's offer of $14 billion in "safe restart" funding could include a much-needed lifeline to public transit systems like TransLink.
"I want to see how many resources are coming to British Columbia, and I heard a long list of areas that it's intended to cover, so we'll want to see which areas the prime minister sees being cost-shared with the federal government, how much is coming simply to British Columbia, for us to determine where our priorities are."
B.C. Transportation Minister Claire Trevena was part of a joint statement of four populous provinces this week calling on the federal government to provide transit funding, to be allocated directly to them.
On a per capita basis, with B.C.'s 13 per cent of the national population, the province might expect to see roughly a $1.8-billion slice of the pie, Cote said.
In a tweet sent Friday, the mayors' council thanked B.C. Premier John Horgan for "working with us" to "bring the Government of Canada to the table on transit relief funding."
"Now we look forward to working with you and (Municipal Affairs Minister Selina Robinson) and (Trevena) in the coming weeks to finalize a recovery and rebuilding strategy for transit across B.C."
Carl Meyer/Local Journalism Initiative/Canada's National Observer
Carl Meyer
Former staff reporter
@ottawacarl
Experts warn of increasing car use, loss of transit routes post-crisis
By Amy Smart | News, Politics
Toronto and Vancouver are in a financial freefall, and Ottawa has noticed
By Carl Meyer | News, Business, Politics, Ottawa Insider | April 27th 2020
B.C. government to consider 'relief' for record gas prices: Horgan
By Amy Smart | News, Politics | April 5th 2019

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you want images you share online to be attractive and cohesive, you should tastefully and unobtrusive integrate watermarks. Your watermark shouldn't impact the overall look and feel of a photo. Instead, the watermark should be a part of a photo. Carefully integrated watermarks are hardly noticeable. Their removal is a labor intensive process.
This is the subject of this tutorial. I'll demonstrate you how to blend a watermark into a photo using Visual Watermark. Note this is a time-confusing process and cannot be suited to all types of photography.
Import your images into the program. Mac: Drag them into the program screen, or click the Select Pictures button. Windows: Drag photos into the left side of the program, or click the Add Images button.
Fit your watermark into the right place within a photo.
Open watermark editor. Mac: Click any of the photos you've just imported. Windows: Click the Create New Watermark button.
Add and design your watermark. I'll use a text watermark for this tutorial with a name in it. Mac: Click the Add Watermark – Text menu item. Windows: Click the Add Text button. Enter watermark text, select color and size on the screen appeared.
Finally, blend your watermark with the rest of the photo so that it looks like a part of the photo. I'll make the watermark partly transparent by setting its opacity to 60% and change its color to be slightly yellowish.
Windows: Click the Apply button to return to the main screen and then – Watermark button in the bottom-left corner. Mac:* Click the Go button to start watermarking.
And I'm done. I've successfully integrated a watermark so that it doesn't distract from the original photo. Before you create a watermark into your next photo, carefully position and transform it. Stay tuned for more tutorials!


text:
Murdock, Victor
The son of famous Kansas publisher Marshall Murdock, Vic Murdock achieved prominence on his father's Wichita Eagle at a young age. After making a name for himself as a reporter in Chicago, he returned to the Eagle as managing editor at age 23.
In 1903, Murdock was elected to the U.S. Congress. In 1914, he resigned his seat in the house and ran for the senate on Teddy Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" ticket.
His defeat marked the virtual end of his political career, although he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the trade commission and served several years in Washington.
After leaving office, Murdock returned to Wichita, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Eagle until his death on July 8, 1945, at age 74.
Said Fred Brinkerhoff: "Murdock in his youth was a dashing, dynamic individual. He might easily have remained in the political wars throughout his life. But he was content to have his political career compressed into a decade and a half and return to journalism."
Just a quick note to let you know, we really appreciate your help with our advertising. It's good to be able to make one phone call and have our ads run in a few dozen papers here in Kansas and in Nebraska. This adds tremendously to my efficiency.... Read more
Bruce, QS Nurses


text:
package log

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net"
	"os"
	"reflect"
	"sync"

	"io/ioutil"
	"path/filepath"
	"regexp"
	"strings"

	"github.com/go-stack/stack"
)

// Handler defines where and how log records are written.
// A Logger prints its log records by writing to a Handler.
// Handlers are composable, providing you great flexibility in combining
// them to achieve the logging structure that suits your applications.
type Handler interface {
	Log(r *Record) error
}

// FuncHandler returns a Handler that logs records with the given
// function.
func FuncHandler(fn func(r *Record) error) Handler {
	return funcHandler(fn)
}

type funcHandler func(r *Record) error

func (h funcHandler) Log(r *Record) error {
	return h(r)
}

// StreamHandler writes log records to an io.Writer
// with the given format. StreamHandler can be used
// to easily begin writing log records to other
// outputs.
//
// StreamHandler wraps itself with LazyHandler and SyncHandler
// to evaluate Lazy objects and perform safe concurrent writes.
func StreamHandler(wr io.Writer, fmtr Format) Handler {
	h := FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		_, err := wr.Write(fmtr.Format(r))
		return err
	})
	return LazyHandler(SyncHandler(h))
}

// SyncHandler can be wrapped around a handler to guarantee that
// only a single Log operation can proceed at a time. It's necessary
// for thread-safe concurrent writes.
func SyncHandler(h Handler) Handler {
	var mu sync.Mutex
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		defer mu.Unlock()
		mu.Lock()
		return h.Log(r)
	})
}

// FileHandler returns a handler which writes log records to the give file
// using the given format. If the path
// already exists, FileHandler will append to the given file. If it does not,
// FileHandler will create the file with mode 0644.
func FileHandler(path string, fmtr Format) (Handler, error) {
	f, err := os.OpenFile(path, os.O_CREATE|os.O_APPEND|os.O_WRONLY, 0644)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return closingHandler{f, StreamHandler(f, fmtr)}, nil
}

// countingWriter wraps a WriteCloser object in order to count the written bytes.
type countingWriter struct {
	sync.Mutex                // lock
	w          io.WriteCloser // the wrapped object
	count      uint           // number of bytes written
}

// Write increments the byte counter by the number of bytes written.
// Implements the WriteCloser interface.
func (w *countingWriter) Write(p []byte) (n int, err error) {
	n, err = w.w.Write(p)
	w.count += uint(n)
	return n, err
}

// Close implements the WriteCloser interface.
func (w *countingWriter) Close() error {
	return w.w.Close()
}

// prepFile opens the log file at the given path, and cuts off the invalid part
// from the end, because the previous execution could have been finished by interruption.
// Assumes that every line ended by '\n' contains a valid log record.
func prepFile(path string) (*countingWriter, error) {
	f, err := os.OpenFile(path, os.O_RDWR|os.O_APPEND, 0600)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	_, err = f.Seek(-1, io.SeekEnd)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	buf := make([]byte, 1)
	var cut int64
	for {
		if _, err := f.Read(buf); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
		if buf[0] == '\n' {
			break
		}
		if _, err = f.Seek(-2, io.SeekCurrent); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
		cut++
	}
	fi, err := f.Stat()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	ns := fi.Size() - cut
	if err = f.Truncate(ns); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return &countingWriter{w: f, count: uint(ns)}, nil
}

// RotatingFileHandler returns a handler which writes log records to file chunks
// at the given path. When a file's size reaches the limit, the handler creates
// a new file named after the timestamp of the first log record it will contain.
func RotatingFileHandler(path string, limit uint, formatter Format) (Handler, error) {
	if err := os.MkdirAll(path, 0700); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	files, err := ioutil.ReadDir(path)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	re := regexp.MustCompile(`\.log$`)
	last := len(files) - 1
	for last >= 0 && (!files[last].Mode().IsRegular() || !re.MatchString(files[last].Name())) {
		last--
	}
	var counter *countingWriter
	if last >= 0 && files[last].Size() < int64(limit) {
		// Open the last file, and continue to write into it until it's size reaches the limit.
		if counter, err = prepFile(filepath.Join(path, files[last].Name())); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
	}
	if counter == nil {
		counter = new(countingWriter)
	}
	h := FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		_, err := counter.Write(formatter.Format(r))
		return err
	})

	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		// lazy evaluate, this needs no lock.
		lazyEvaluateRecord(r)

		counter.Lock()
		defer counter.Unlock()
		if counter.count > limit {
			counter.Close()
			counter.w = nil
		}
		if counter.w == nil {
			f, err := os.OpenFile(
				filepath.Join(path, fmt.Sprintf("%s.log", strings.Replace(r.Time.Format("060102150405.00"), ".", "", 1))),
				os.O_CREATE|os.O_APPEND|os.O_WRONLY,
				0600,
			)
			if err != nil {
				return err
			}
			counter.w = f
			counter.count = 0
		}
		return h.Log(r)
	}), nil
}

// NetHandler opens a socket to the given address and writes records
// over the connection.
func NetHandler(network, addr string, fmtr Format) (Handler, error) {
	conn, err := net.Dial(network, addr)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return closingHandler{conn, StreamHandler(conn, fmtr)}, nil
}

// XXX: closingHandler is essentially unused at the moment
// it's meant for a future time when the Handler interface supports
// a possible Close() operation
type closingHandler struct {
	io.WriteCloser
	Handler
}

func (h *closingHandler) Close() error {
	return h.WriteCloser.Close()
}

// CallerFileHandler returns a Handler that adds the line number and file of
// the calling function to the context with key "caller".
func CallerFileHandler(h Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		r.Ctx = append(r.Ctx, "caller", fmt.Sprint(r.Call))
		return h.Log(r)
	})
}

// CallerFuncHandler returns a Handler that adds the calling function name to
// the context with key "fn".
func CallerFuncHandler(h Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		r.Ctx = append(r.Ctx, "fn", formatCall("%+n", r.Call))
		return h.Log(r)
	})
}

// This function is here to please go vet on Go < 1.8.
func formatCall(format string, c stack.Call) string {
	return fmt.Sprintf(format, c)
}

// CallerStackHandler returns a Handler that adds a stack trace to the context
// with key "stack". The stack trace is formated as a space separated list of
// call sites inside matching []'s. The most recent call site is listed first.
// Each call site is formatted according to format. See the documentation of
// package github.com/go-stack/stack for the list of supported formats.
func CallerStackHandler(format string, h Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		s := stack.Trace().TrimBelow(r.Call).TrimRuntime()
		if len(s) > 0 {
			r.Ctx = append(r.Ctx, "stack", fmt.Sprintf(format, s))
		}
		return h.Log(r)
	})
}

// FilterHandler returns a Handler that only writes records to the
// wrapped Handler if the given function evaluates true. For example,
// to only log records where the 'err' key is not nil:
//
//    logger.SetHandler(FilterHandler(func(r *Record) bool {
//        for i := 0; i < len(r.Ctx); i += 2 {
//            if r.Ctx[i] == "err" {
//                return r.Ctx[i+1] != nil
//            }
//        }
//        return false
//    }, h))
//
func FilterHandler(fn func(r *Record) bool, h Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		if fn(r) {
			return h.Log(r)
		}
		return nil
	})
}

// MatchFilterHandler returns a Handler that only writes records
// to the wrapped Handler if the given key in the logged
// context matches the value. For example, to only log records
// from your ui package:
//
//    log.MatchFilterHandler("pkg", "app/ui", log.StdoutHandler)
//
func MatchFilterHandler(key string, value interface{}, h Handler) Handler {
	return FilterHandler(func(r *Record) (pass bool) {
		switch key {
		case r.KeyNames.Lvl:
			return r.Lvl == value
		case r.KeyNames.Time:
			return r.Time == value
		case r.KeyNames.Msg:
			return r.Msg == value
		}

		for i := 0; i < len(r.Ctx); i += 2 {
			if r.Ctx[i] == key {
				return r.Ctx[i+1] == value
			}
		}
		return false
	}, h)
}

// LvlFilterHandler returns a Handler that only writes
// records which are less than the given verbosity
// level to the wrapped Handler. For example, to only
// log Error/Crit records:
//
//     log.LvlFilterHandler(log.LvlError, log.StdoutHandler)
//
func LvlFilterHandler(maxLvl Lvl, h Handler) Handler {
	return FilterHandler(func(r *Record) (pass bool) {
		return r.Lvl <= maxLvl
	}, h)
}

// MultiHandler dispatches any write to each of its handlers.
// This is useful for writing different types of log information
// to different locations. For example, to log to a file and
// standard error:
//
//     log.MultiHandler(
//         log.Must.FileHandler("/var/log/app.log", log.LogfmtFormat()),
//         log.StderrHandler)
//
func MultiHandler(hs ...Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		for _, h := range hs {
			// what to do about failures?
			h.Log(r)
		}
		return nil
	})
}

// FailoverHandler writes all log records to the first handler
// specified, but will failover and write to the second handler if
// the first handler has failed, and so on for all handlers specified.
// For example you might want to log to a network socket, but failover
// to writing to a file if the network fails, and then to
// standard out if the file write fails:
//
//     log.FailoverHandler(
//         log.Must.NetHandler("tcp", ":9090", log.JSONFormat()),
//         log.Must.FileHandler("/var/log/app.log", log.LogfmtFormat()),
//         log.StdoutHandler)
//
// All writes that do not go to the first handler will add context with keys of
// the form "failover_err_{idx}" which explain the error encountered while
// trying to write to the handlers before them in the list.
func FailoverHandler(hs ...Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		var err error
		for i, h := range hs {
			err = h.Log(r)
			if err == nil {
				return nil
			}
			r.Ctx = append(r.Ctx, fmt.Sprintf("failover_err_%d", i), err)
		}

		return err
	})
}

// ChannelHandler writes all records to the given channel.
// It blocks if the channel is full. Useful for async processing
// of log messages, it's used by BufferedHandler.
func ChannelHandler(recs chan<- *Record) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		recs <- r
		return nil
	})
}

// BufferedHandler writes all records to a buffered
// channel of the given size which flushes into the wrapped
// handler whenever it is available for writing. Since these
// writes happen asynchronously, all writes to a BufferedHandler
// never return an error and any errors from the wrapped handler are ignored.
func BufferedHandler(bufSize int, h Handler) Handler {
	recs := make(chan *Record, bufSize)
	go func() {
		for m := range recs {
			_ = h.Log(m)
		}
	}()
	return ChannelHandler(recs)
}

// LazyHandler writes all values to the wrapped handler after evaluating
// any lazy functions in the record's context. It is already wrapped
// around StreamHandler and SyslogHandler in this library, you'll only need
// it if you write your own Handler.
func LazyHandler(h Handler) Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		lazyEvaluateRecord(r)
		return h.Log(r)
	})
}

func lazyEvaluateRecord(r *Record) {
	// go through the values (odd indices) and reassign
	// the values of any lazy fn to the result of its execution
	hadErr := false
	for i := 1; i < len(r.Ctx); i += 2 {
		if lz, ok := r.Ctx[i].(Lazy); ok {
			v, err := evaluateLazy(lz)
			if err != nil {
				hadErr = true
				r.Ctx[i] = err
			} else {
				if cs, ok := v.(stack.CallStack); ok {
					v = cs.TrimBelow(r.Call).TrimRuntime()
				}
				r.Ctx[i] = v
			}
		}
	}

	if hadErr {
		r.Ctx = append(r.Ctx, errorKey, "bad lazy")
	}
}

func evaluateLazy(lz Lazy) (interface{}, error) {
	t := reflect.TypeOf(lz.Fn)

	if t.Kind() != reflect.Func {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("INVALID_LAZY, not func: %+v", lz.Fn)
	}

	if t.NumIn() > 0 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("INVALID_LAZY, func takes args: %+v", lz.Fn)
	}

	if t.NumOut() == 0 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("INVALID_LAZY, no func return val: %+v", lz.Fn)
	}

	value := reflect.ValueOf(lz.Fn)
	results := value.Call([]reflect.Value{})
	if len(results) == 1 {
		return results[0].Interface(), nil
	}
	values := make([]interface{}, len(results))
	for i, v := range results {
		values[i] = v.Interface()
	}
	return values, nil
}

// DiscardHandler reports success for all writes but does nothing.
// It is useful for dynamically disabling logging at runtime via
// a Logger's SetHandler method.
func DiscardHandler() Handler {
	return FuncHandler(func(r *Record) error {
		return nil
	})
}

// Must provides the following Handler creation functions
// which instead of returning an error parameter only return a Handler
// and panic on failure: FileHandler, NetHandler, SyslogHandler, SyslogNetHandler
var Must muster

func must(h Handler, err error) Handler {
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	return h
}

type muster struct{}

func (m muster) FileHandler(path string, fmtr Format) Handler {
	return must(FileHandler(path, fmtr))
}

func (m muster) NetHandler(network, addr string, fmtr Format) Handler {
	return must(NetHandler(network, addr, fmtr))
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Greek Mythology / Plays / Sophocles / Antigone
Antigone by Sophocles
One of Sophocles' earliest surviving plays, Antigone is often thought of a perfect specimen of Ancient Greek tragedy. It begins a day after the defeat of the Seven against Thebes, soon after Creon, the new ruler of the city, has announced that Eteocles, who has died defending the city, shall be buried with honors, but his brother, the traitor Polynices, shall be left for the dogs to devour. In the prologue of the play, Antigone tries in vain to persuade her sister Ismene to defy the decree, eventually leaving to bury Polynices by herself. A while later, a guard tasked with watching over the body, informs Creon that someone has secretly performed burial rites. Creon threatens him with death lest he finds the perpetrator and, later on, he does: it is, of course, Antigone, Creon's niece. She refuses to apologize, claiming that it was always her divine right to bury a dead brother, and Creon's edict was nothing more but a state document. Creon imprisons Antigone, and his heart isn't softened even by Haimon, his son, who is also Antigone's fiancé. On the contrary: just after the end of his discussion with Haimon, Creon sentences Antigone to be walled up alive in a cave. As she is taken away there by a guard, the blind prophet Teiresias informs Creon that he has offended the gods by allowing the birds and the dogs to infest their temples with the meat from the unburied Polynices. Creon departs to bury him and to release his niece, but arrives at the cave a bit too late, only to find Antigone already hanged and embraced bt Haimon, who subsequently kills himself. Upon hearing the news, Creon's wife, Eurydice, hangs herself as well. Creon, nothing but a shade of a man now, dubs himself "twice dead" and, while blaming himself for the deaths of all of his beloved, asks his servants to lead him away.
Although a case can be made for 438 BC, Antigone is generally believed to have been written and performed in or a little before 441 BC, making it the earliest one of Sophocles' three Theban plays (which include Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus), though the events it depicts place it last in the chronological order. As many of Sophocles' productions, it was received with overwhelming enthusiasm, and the trilogy it was originally part of (we don't know much about it) won first prize at the Dionysia festival.
• Antigone, daughter of Oedipus
• Ismene, daughter of Oedipus, sister of Antigone
• Creon, king of Thebes
• Eurydice, Creon's wife
• Haemon: son of Creon and Euridice, Antigone's husband-to-be
• Teiresias, a blind prophet, guided by a Boy
• The Guard, a Theban soldier serving Creon
• Messengers
• Chorus of Theban Elders
In front of the royal palace in Thebes.
Summary of Antigone
As depicted in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, on the day before the one during which the entire action of Antigone takes places, Eteocles and Polynices—Oedipus' two sons—slay each other in a single fight. Their uncle Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, decrees that Eteocles, who has died defending the city, shall be buried with full honors, while Polynices, the traitor who had gathered the Argive army to conquer Thebes, is to be left for the dogs to devour.
In the "Prologue" of the play, Antigone, resolved to defy this edict, tries to persuade her sister Ismene to join her in the deed; Ismene, instead, vainly attempts to dissuade her. Finally, after a brief discussion, Antigone leaves to bury her brother Polynices alone.
The Chorus, comprised of fifteen Theban elders, enters the stage. They inform the audience that Creon has summoned them to meet him. While they wait for him, in a celebratory ode, they remind us of the events that have taken place during the previous few days, describing the danger from which the city has been saved and expressing their joy at the famous victory.
Creon comes forth and acquaints the Theban elders with the nature and the reasons behind his decree: though both of them princes, Eteocles and Polynices must be treated as differently as one would a patriot and a traitor. The Chorus hesitantly agrees.
Just at that moment, a guard (one of the men tasked with watching over Polynices' body) arrives before Creon and announces that an unknown person has somehow already paid burial rites to Polynices by sprinkling dust on his corpse. Enraged, Creon threatens the guard: "If you do not find the very hand that made this burial, and reveal him before my eyes, mere death shall not suffice for you."
The choral ode which follows (the first stasimon)—often printed separately from the play as "The Ode to Man"—is one of the most admired lyric songs of the ancient world. Incited by the mysterious burial rite announced by the guard, the Theban elders celebrate man's inventiveness and achievements, famously claiming that "wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man."
As the Guard comes back leading in a young girl, the leader of the Chorus suddenly interrupts the ode: "I am bewildered!" he exclaims. "I know her. How can I deny that this girl is Antigone? O unhappy child of your unhappy father, of Oedipus! What can this mean? What! Surely they are not bringing you captive for disobeying the King's laws and being caught in lunacy?"
Unfortunately, as the audience already knows, that is precisely what it means: even though aware of the edict, Antigone has decided to pay funeral rites to her brother believing that no human law can ever supersede the higher law of the gods and the ancestral, familial bonds. "It is not my nature to join in hate," she says, "but in love."
Enraged by this act of defiance, Creon threatens Antigone with a death penalty and calls immediately for her sister to be brought before him, suspecting that Ismene might have taken part in the deed as well. "I performed the deed," Ismene says almost immediately upon seeing Antigone, "and I share and carry the burden of guilt." Her sister rejects this claim outright: "Do not share my death. Do not claim deeds to which you did not put your hand. My death will suffice." However, Creon—who refuses to be moved even by the fact that Antigone is betrothed to his son, Haemon—takes it into consideration: he now orders that both sisters shall be taken into the palace and closely guarded until their sentence is determined.
In the second stasimon, the Chorus sings of the curse of the Theban royal line, lamenting the fact that the last "dazzling ray of hope spread over the last roots in the House of Oedipus" (Antigone and Ismene) must soon be darkened by everlasting death.
Haemon enters to plead for the life of his fiancée. His words don't touch Creon, neither when spoken from the position of a son, nor when carefully articulated from the position of a fateful subject concerned for the authority and reputation of a just king. Strangely enough, it seems that they do even more damage when spoken from the position of a caring and passionate lover.
"Bring out that hated thing," Creon angrily interrupts his discussion with Haemon. "May she die right now in her bridegroom's presence and at his side!" "No, not at my side will she die," Haemon replies. "Nor shall you ever look at me and set eyes on my face again." As Creon is to discover very soon, this is not merely just another rambling of a spoiled teenager—but a suicide note. After Haemon leaves, Creon announces to the Chorus that he has decided to spare Ismene, whom she now believes to be entirely innocent, and to confine Antigone in a sepulchral chamber and leave her there to die out of hunger.
In the fourth choral ode (the third stasimon), the Theban elders celebrate the power of love, whom no mortal man or god can ever escape.
Antigone is now brought out from the palace by two guards tasked with conducting her to her living tomb. The very sight of her touches the Theban elders, who, nevertheless, note that she has only herself to blame for her fate: "Your pious action shows a certain reverence," they say to her, "but an offense against power can in no way be tolerated by him who has power in his keeping. Your self-willed disposition is what has destroyed you."
Bemoaning her fate to innocent enter her unfortunate bridal-chamber, the tomb, Antigone expresses her confidence that much love must await her beyond the grave, on the other side. Then she enters the tomb to be seen no more.
In the fourth stasimon, the Theban elders sing of three other mythological figures supposed to have suffered Antigone's fate, i.e., cruel imprisonment: Danae, Lycurgus, and Cleopatra.
Fifth Episode
The blind and aged prophet, Teiresias, enters the stage, led in by boy.
He comes with an urgent proclamation for the king: the altars of Thebes and its hearths have all been tainted by the birds and dogs with the carrion taken from Polynices, "the sadly fallen son of Oedipus," and so the gods refuse to accept his prayers and sacrifices anymore.
Creon, however, refuses to believe Tiresias and, instead, accuses him of complicity in some kind of a plot designed to undermine his authority. Say what you want, the king adds, but Polynices will remain unburied, "even if the eagles of Zeus wish to snatch and carry him to be devoured at the god's throne."
Tiresias, angered, declares that as a punishment for Creon's confusing of the worlds of the living and the dead (Polynices, though dead, lies unburied, and Antigone, though alive, is entombed), Haemon, his only son will have to die.
Creon, suddenly moved and distressed, resolves to yield. After a brief consultation with the Theban elders, he heads to bury Polynices and release Antigone from her prison. Gladdened by Creon's decision, the Theban elders burst into a joyous ode calling upon Dionysius to visit the avenues of Thebes and purify the city of its "violent plague."
Soon after Creon's departure, a Messenger comes back to announce some unfortunate news. Upon overhearing this, Creon's wife, Eurydice, faints inside the palace and, after recovering consciousness, comes out of it and demands the whole story.
It is a dreadful one. We learn that after properly burying Polynices, Creon and his servants opened the tomb of Antigone only to find the girl there hanging by her bridal veil, with Haemon embracing her dead body. On seeing his father, Haemon, in a frenzied state, attacked him and, after Creon's escape, killed himself.
Having heard the news, Eurydice retires into the palace at about the same moment when Creon comes back, carrying Haemon's covered corpse upon a bier. As he laments his destiny, another Messenger rushes out from the palace, announcing to him that his wife, Eurydice, has stabbed herself, her last words nothing more than a few curses directed at him.
"I killed them both," cries out Creon, "and never will I be able to blame someone else for their demise!" Dubbing himself "no more than a dead man," Creon asks his servants to lead him away. As he is conducted to the palace, the leader of the Chorus speaks the closing words of the play: "Wisdom is the chief part of happiness, and our dealings with the gods must be in no way unholy. The great words of arrogant men have to make repayment with great blows, and in old age teach wisdom."
Widely considered one of the greatest of all Ancient Greek tragedies, Antigone raises a number of challenging and thought-provoking questions, the answers of which, over time, seem to have evolved in favor of the tragic grandeur and beauty of the eponymous character.
Creon, the Just Ruler
Originally, it is difficult to imagine anything even remotely similar: to the all-male Greek audience of fifth-century Athens, Antigone was probably nothing more but a dangerous woman meddling in the manly affairs of the state, and Creon was the tragic hero of the play who, just like most tragic heroes in Sophocles, actively collaborates in his own ruin.
A close reading of Antigone reveals that, indeed, neither the Chorus nor Teiresias ever considers Antigone's act just, both of them criticizing Creon only after they learn that the gods are offended by its consequences. The final words of the Chorus—where the moral of Ancient Greek plays is usually made known—concerns the life of Creon and not that of Antigone. Moreover, the fact that Creon was undoubtedly played by the protagonist (the first actor) and Antigone by the deuteragonist (the second actor) serves as further evidence that Sophocles might have imagined the central tragedy of the play to be the one revolving around Creon's arrogance and fanaticism.
The tragedy, put simply, is not that Creon is wrong in his decision to leave Polynices unburied and put the interests of the state before those of the individual (Antigone). The tragedy is that he persists in this decision so much that eventually (most evidently, during the discussion with Teiresias) he starts defending it only because he has put his own interests before those of the state.
Creon vs. Antigone: The Perfect Conflict
In the 19th century, however, German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel proposed a different and very influential interpretation of the play. Dubbing Antigone "the perfect play," he claimed that the tragedy dramatizes the unresolvable conflict between two equally valid and mutually exclusive "rights": the right of the state and the right of the family (Hegel refers to them as claims of law and of conscience).
In other words, for Hegel, both Creon and Antigone are tragic characters, but not because (as Aristotle would say) they are neither entirely good, nor wholly bad, but because both are persistent in their views and fail to see that it is their ethical one-sidedness which is bound to result in some kindof tragedy.
In this case, the play isn't at all about who's right and who's wrong, but about the reconciliation of two extreme embodiments of two particular rights, Creon and Antigone, who, precisely because of their "extreme goodness," are not compatible with the complex nature of the real world.
Antigone, the Martyr
Nowadays, though, after a century torn apart by totalitarian governments, it is impossible to think of Creon as merely a proud, but just ruler, and of Antigone as yet another troublemaker. On the contrary: even against some of the words written in the play, we are more inclined to see Creon as an unreasonable tyrant and Antigone as a rebellious and highly sympathetic martyr.
Consequently, for modern readers, the real tragedy is not the terrible fall of Creon from grace, but the death of the innocent Antigone, and the play isn't about arrogance being adequately punished, but about the inevitable fate of the rulers who sacrifice the rights of the individuals for the interests of the greater good.
There are many translations of Antigone available online, both in verse and in prose; if you are a fan of the latter, you can read Richard Claverhouse Jebb's translation for Cambridge University Press here. If, however, you prefer poetry, feel free to delve into Edward Hayes Plumptre's blank verse adaptation here.
See Also: Sophocles, Antigone, Seven Against Thebes, Creon
Seven Against Thebes
Antigone: GreekMythology.com - Jan 18, 2020
Link will appear as Antigone: GreekMythology.com - Jan 18, 2020


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Vin Diesel Drives A Car On Fire In Fate Of The Furious Street Race
by Martin Bigg / Comments
The golden rule when watching a Fast and Furious film is to suspend your disbelief.
By now, it's abundantly obvious that you will need to suspend your disbelief when watching the absurd action scenes in The Fate of the Furious, the upcoming eighth installment of the unstoppable Fast and Furious franchise. From AI-controlled cars plummeting out of a parking lot, to a submarine destroying everything in its path, we have no doubt The Fate of the Furious will up the action ante even further. There will be at least be one street race set in Cuba taking the series back to its forgotten roots, but don't expect it to be tame.
In the film's opening sequence shown in a new clip, series regular Dom takes part in a Cuba street race driving a modified 1953 Chevrolet Fleetline against a 1955 Ford Fairline. After engaging nitrous, the Fairline bursts into flames, but because this is Fast and Furious and there's a race at stake, Dom stubbornly continues to drive it. In reverse.
Apparently, ten Chevys and seven Fords were used for the sequence, but everything had to be flown in especially for the shoot. "The challenge with Cuba was that we literally couldn't get anything," the producers told Top Gear. "We had to really plan ahead and figure out what could possibly go wrong and prepare for it all. As tough as Iceland was, at least there auto-parts stores. For Cuba, we brought in everything from car carriers, a tool truck, box trucks, parts trucks, and trailers, and packed it all up with multiples of everything." The filmmakers always wanted to shoot a Fast and Furious scene in Cuba.
"Cuba is well known for its car culture," the film's producers explain. "If there is a guy to be immersed in that culture, it's Dom Toretto. He knows everything about those vintage cars and honors the tradition of maintaining them. The Cuban ingenuity of keeping the cars running with whatever they've got - whether lawnmower, tractor, or boat parts - is that spirit, that tuner car spirit, that was just so perfect for Dom and this film." Incredibly, over $17 million worth of vehicles were used during filming, though we wonder how many were destroyed. The Fate of the Furious opens in theaters on April 14 in a plot that sees Dom turn against his loyal crew, but it's not expected to rake in as much money as Furious 7.
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After spring seeds and sprouts come the garden's version of teenage angst. Or maybe it's my own. But after studying master gardener Eliot Coleman and savoring the charm of companion-planting guru Louise Riotte, I thought I had this garden business figured out.
Heirloom blues: The author's Cherokee Purple tomatoes are one success story in a season frought with trouble.
My tomato plants would produce bushels of plump, tasty beauties. My corn would leap in the pan and cream itself. My arugula would make acclaimed aficionado Barack Obama beg for more. Rain would fall, the sun would shine, bees would buzz all at the right times.
Delusion comes in garden green.
In May, I made ready for the mad rush to plant and transplant everything. I had waited, not so patiently, for Mother's Day. According to climatic data, that's the average latest-frost date in my area. But as you might recall, a cold, wet spell hit the region around that time. My tomato seedlings huddled with me in the warmth of the house, grow lights buzzing. I rattled my packets of corn seed and daydreamed about harvest time. I read and re-read passages from Riotte's Carrots Love Tomatoes.
"Few garden projects are more fun to experiment with than companion planting," Riotte opines. Among her 12 books of gardening lore are Roses Love Garlic and Sleeping with a Sunflower, and though Riotte died in 1998, her work lives on. Reading Carrots Love Tomatoes, which first appeared in 1975, was like sitting down with my grandmother for a little garden wisdom.
Early in my efforts to encourage seedling growth, I discovered that my incorrigible dog Molly loves fish emulsion. She overturned a whole shelf of seedling trays I'd fertilized with the smelly stuff, and I lost most of my habañero crop before Mother's Day.
But enough crying in my fish emulsion. Eventually the sun came out, and it found me behind schedule. If I didn't get my tomatoes and peppers in the ground, I'd be feasting on lots of fried green tomatoes come August and September. If I didn't plant my corn, there'd be none of Grandma's baked creamed corn coming out of my oven at summer's end.
I became a planting maniac, dirt under my fingernails, sun on my cheeks and the knees of my jeans worn bare. Beans sprouted, pepper plants filled out, corn pushed its eager stalks skyward. By the end of May, we were enjoying early arugula and Amish sugar-snap peas, both planted during April's cool rains. At day's end, I would sink into my grandfather's old recliner, exhausted. All seemed well.
Then came June, with a record heat spell one week followed by a late-season cool spell. Days and then weeks without rain. I watered and watered and kept things alive and green. Soon, very soon, we'll be enjoying baby chard, I told myself—only to find almost the entire bed of chard and baby beet greens picked clean the next morning. A mere two plants remained, I discovered as I peered at the dirt. I didn't need a forensics crew to analyze the clean cuts.
Riotte didn't mention that rabbits love chard.
So my garden rhythm got derailed by a fence-building stint followed by re-seeding the chard bed.
Then I noticed that where there'd been two neat rows of young jalapeños the day before, naught but a stalk or two was left—plus a single top lying beside them. Rabbits don't leave such evidence, so I dug in the earth around them. Cutworms, fat and white and curled up into the letter C. The words "crop loss" acquired new meaning for me. I had no more seedlings sprouting, so we cheated, buying replacements from a local organic supplier and planting again.
Good lord, I thought: If I survive midseason, it'll be time to rev up for fall plantings. I wished, too, that Riotte offered ways to trick the weather, because the June drought was still going. My corn stayed green but stopped growing. Was it the drought or the cool spell? Tiny black bugs chewed my purple-hull pea sprouts. Colorado potato beetles made themselves at home in part of my 'Rose Finn' potato patch. Another beetle critter munched my basil, coming out at night for an Italian feast.
But at least when I weeded, the invaders didn't grow back in the hot, dry dust before I planted my first cover crop (buckwheat and white clover).
After some study, I opted for a variety of organic approaches to each pest, all the while feverishly watching weather forecasts and hoping for rain. One by one, I hosed the aphids off of every purple-hull pea seedling and tomato plant. I smashed Asian garden beetles and saved most of the basil.
This I've learned firsthand, alas. Long-ago tenants of my mountainside plot grew tobacco, which strips the soil of nutrients. Soil-test results from my local agricultural-extension office confirmed it, and I knew my first year would be a long row to hoe. I've got to rebuild soil structure and add nutrients—all organically, if it doesn't wear me to a frazzle. I figure that some pesky bugs must have come with the free, composted horse-and-mule manure I carted home; others somehow seem to know that I don't have my sustainable system all in place quite yet. I didn't manage to get all of Riotte's suggestions in play, such as planting mint near cabbage to discourage the white moths whose larvae devour the plant.
Nonetheless, the garden has persevered. We've eaten coleslaw made with our first cabbage: So what if I had to peel away a few bug-chewed layers to reveal a flattened globe that looked like a flying saucer? Meanwhile, my early-season corn has tasseled, and silk has risen out of the first ears. I tasted my first Cherokee purple tomato, ripened on the vine. My purple-hull peas have grown new leaves. And my arugula appears to have broken all the rules, caring not a whit that summer's warmed up: I have bushels of the stuff.
In fact, all things Italian seem to be doing well: The 'Principe Borghese' tomatoes (which seemed near death as seedlings before I solved the lighting problem) have popped out so much fruit, I'll spend August canning. Dainty yellow pear tomatoes dangle on the sprawling vines.
Still, I wish Riotte had mentioned that deer love green beans. I'd added a tasty haricot vert recipe to this week's menu but had to settle for yet another variation on arugula salad.


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Walter Cunningham, who helped pave the way to the moon, has died at the age of 90
Irene Matthews January 4, 2023 2 min read
NASA upgraded the Apollo 7 astronauts' medals to a Distinguished Service Certificate at a ceremony in October 2008, noting mission success, despite arguments with flight controllers. But Mr. Cunningham was the only surviving crew member by then. Major Eisell, who died in 1987, was represented by his widow, Susan Eisell Black. Captain Schirra, who died in 2007, was killed by astronaut Bill Anders.
Mr. Kraft took a conciliatory stance. "We got you through hard times once, but you certainly got through it and have done very well since," he told Mr. Cunningham in a recorded message. "You did a good job on your own, you did a good job at NASA, and I'm honestly very proud to call you a friend."
Ronnie Walter Cunningham was born on March 16, 1932, in Creston, Iowa, the eldest of five children. His father, Walter, owned a small construction company. When he was young, his family moved to Venice, California.
He entered the Navy in 1951 and flew Marine Corps aircraft. After leaving active duty in 1956, he received bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles. While at RAND in October 1963, pursuing doctoral level studies, he was assigned to the third group of NASA astronauts.
Shortly after Apollo 7, Mr. Cunningham was appointed director of what became known as the Skylab program, which developed America's first space station. He was succeeded by astronaut Pete Conrad in 1970. Mr. Cunningham resigned from NASA the following year after failing to obtain a mission to fly the next Skylab missions.
See also Watch Rocket Lab attempted its first launch from US soil on December 19th
Mr. Cunningham later became a senior executive in financial and real estate firms. In 2012, he joined a group of former astronauts and NASA employees who sent a letter to the agency criticizing what they felt were unproven assertions that man-made carbon dioxide was a major factor in global warming.
Irene Matthews
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Previous Apollo astronaut Walter Cunningham dies at 90
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Ok, let's get this out of the way ... this is not *really* a show about how to fire people. Rather, today we discuss how to take a poor performer and turn them into a good performer. And when, despite your best efforts, you are not successful in helping the person turn around, how to be in a position where you can fire the person.
You may not feel good about it (that's ok, you shouldn't!), but you will be confident in your decision and be able to put your head down on your pillow and sleep at night.