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Posts Tagged 'girl show'
Video of the Day: Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show
Posted in Events, Music, Music Video, tagged Barclays Center, Bob Dylan, Brooklyn, carnival, concert, girl show, Ketch Secor, Old Crow Medicine Show, Wagon Wheel on October 15, 2013| 3 Comments »
The news that Nashville-based string band Old Crow Medicine Show is coming to Brooklyn's Barclays Center on March 7 reminded us how much we like their carnival-themed music vid for "Wagon Wheel." Played more than 20 million times on YouTube since its debut in 2006, the video has the band on the bally stage of an old-timey carny girl show, with the girls shimmying up to the musicians as the ticket-seller counts his cash and the Rock-O-Plane whirls on the midway. It was shot in Smyrna, Tennessee, next to Snyder & Metts Amusements, which was owned by Hill Snyder and is now part of carnival history, says a poster on Matt's Carnival Warehouse.
The band members have roots in Virginia and upstate New York, where fiddle player and vocalist Ketch Secor wrote "Wagon Wheel" as a teen. The song took its inspiration from bootleg tapes of Bob Dylan's "Rock Me Mama" to which Secor added lyrics about hitchhiking to North Carolina.
According to music writer Peter Cooper, when Secor sought to copyright the song with Dylan for use on an album, he learned that Dylan credited the "Rock me, mama" chorus to bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and Crudup probably borrowed his idea from an early 20th century recording by Big Bill Broonzy. "That song drags a heavy chain," Secor told Cooper. "In a way, it's taken something like 85 years to get completed." Released in 2004, the song went platinum this year and the band was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.
Tickets for the March 7, 2014 concert at Barclays go on sale Friday, October 18, with pre-sale to fans via OCMS's website now available. The band's 2014 tour dates in support of the Avett Brothers also include Boston, Pittsburgh and Fairfax, VA. On December 30 and New Year's Eve, OCMS will play Nashville's legendary Ryman Auditorium.
December 7, 2010: New Music Video: Little Silver's Where We Met
Artifact of the Day: The Lure of Carnival Signage
Posted in Artifacts, history, tagged carnival, collectibles, girl show, Johnny Meah, posing show, signage on November 23, 2011| 5 Comments »
Currently up for sale on eBay, these hand-painted, text-only signs for a carnival girl show continue to exert a powerful lure, just as they did on the midway in the 1940s. "NOT FOR…Junior" "Intimate SEXY! "It Tells ALL!" "It Shows ALL!" "Adults ONLY…"
A seller in Texas rescued the trio of tantalizing signs from an old show trailer, where they were stored for more than thirty years. "This is a must for any collector of carnival or sideshow memorabilia," writes eBay seller gm3320 in his description. "These signs were a great 'come on' of what was inside. The show was never as risque as the signs described. There will not be any more of these Traveling Girly Sideshows like in the early days." His asking price is $1,495 or best offer. The dimensions are 48 inches wide by 60 inches high.
The wooden signboards are akin to word banners, one of our fave forms of carny advertisements. Based on the text, ATZ's best guess is that "La Femme" was probably what was called a "posing show." Looking through old issues of The Billboard, we discovered that a "La Femme" Posing Show managed by Jack Norman was actually part of the lineup of Hennie's Brothers Shows 1948 season!
The show featured a talker, two ticket sellers and four performers. Ads like these were plentiful too: "WANTED— GIRLS FOR POSING SHOW Must Be Young and Attractive (experience not necessary)" and "Have complete outfit for Posing Show, will furnish to a capable manager that has people and can get money with same."
The job required the girls to strike poses reminiscent of famous paintings or models in an artist's studio. The phrase "posing show" first caught my ear as a carny kid in the 1960s, though the Sunday school outfits that my concessionaire parents traveled with didn't have girl shows or posing shows.
At night when the grownups cut up jackpots about carnival days gone by, my mother had a story about how her first husband had helped Zorima, Queen of the Nudists' husband frame a posing show. I asked, 'what's that?' Mom said they put up sheets and the girls would pose behind the curtains.
When I pestered her for details, Mom would say "Zorima was a beautiful girl," but that she'd never been inside the show and didn't know what they did. "You don't want to tell me," I complained and we'd argue. By then I was a teenager. "Tricia, I'm telling you the truth," my mother would say. "We didn't go in the shows. We were busy working our joints." Clothespin Pitch. Devil's Bowling Alley. Guess Your Name, Age, Weight and Shoe Size.
As for the beautiful Zorima, she must have have been an imitator of the original Queen Zorima, whose nudist show was the sensation of four world's fairs, including the 1935-36 California Pacific Exposition and the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair.
UPDATE November 23, 2011, 1:40 pm
Many thanks to Johnny Meah, master sideshow banner painter and friend going back to the little New England midways of our childhood, for the following update on Posing Shows. It Tells ALL! After writing this post, ATZ sent him a note: "Came across this on eBay and thought you might enjoy seeing it. I imagine that you painted some of these too. Would love to hear your comment." Visit Johnny Meah's website- The Czar of the Bizarre– for news, art, prose, and to download a font in his idiosyncratic handwriting style.
MEAH ON POSING SHOWS:
In the heyday of backend shows with carnivals, the female pulchritude dept. fell into four categories : The white revue, the black revue, both of which were tented burlesque shows with a band, a comic, sometimes a variety act, a chorus line and two or three feature strippers. Next was the cootch show, strictly strippers usually working to recorded music. And the posing show—-as the title implies, girls posing behind a gauze or cheesecloth curtain, either nude or as close to it as the local law would permit. The blowoff,(added attraction for another fee), would be very simple—-the curtain was raised!
In many cases these shows were operated by the same person who operated the cootch show and were utilitarian masterpieces for the operator as they could use the same girls for both shows, running them back and forth between the two shows. When legal porn theaters came in it took its toll on all of these shows, the first casualty being the posing show. Seeing a statue-still girl standing behind a gauze curtain suddenly wasn't very exciting.
The posing show became extinct and remained so for many years until one year two operators on Royal American Shows, the biggest railroad carnival of the era, decided, for God knows what reason, to resurrect the idea. The show was titled Girl World, themed to "girls of all Nations" who appeared behind the obligatory gauze curtain on a revolving stage with appropriate ethnic music. The show was not only a financial disaster but a mechanical monstrosity as well. The front had a triple cantilevered top sign, the top of which had a painting of a girl sitting on a globe of the world. It was so high that even on a mildly breezy day they had to have a guy seated on the roof of the wagon to lower it in sections the moment the wind picked up. Towards the end of the season, to salvage some of the money dumped into it, it became—–what else—–a cootch show.
For the most part, posing shows had silhouettes of girls painted on the front panels, below which hung "bally boards" bearing slogans like RACEY, SPICEY, NAUGHTY, EXOTIC, RISQUE, etc. These same worn out slogans also appeared on most cootch show panels. One day, tired of the repetitiousness of these slogans,I painted, "SCINTILATING." The owner came out on the midway, looked at it and said, "What the hell does THAT mean ?!" I painted it out and replaced it with "EXOTIC".
November 11, 2011: Up for Auction: Rack of Vintage Carnival Knockdown Dolls
May 8, 2011: Up for Auction: Sideshow Banners by Johnny Meah
March 12, 2011: Signage: Fresh Crispy Popcorn, Candy Caramel Apples
November 16, 2009: Rare & Vintage: Coney Island Sideshow Banner by Dan Casola


The property consists of an entrance hall with a kitchen leading off, a downstairs cloakroom and a storage cupboard.
There is also a lounge diner with patio doors leading out into the rear garden. Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms, with an ensuite to the master bedroom. There is also a family bathroom. The properties are located within a short distance of the hospital Ysbyty Gwynedd. Bangor itself offers many amenities such as shops, restaurants and bars. Bangor also boasts its own university.


Sometimes we're a little pressed for time and we want our makeup remover to do more than just the bare minimum. I fell in love with these eye make-up remover pads from Marcelle. The little cotton pads are drenched with make-up remover so you can take off your make-up without having to rinse. It works great and the pads are sturdy. There isn't any ounce of makeup left on your face. Also it's hypoallergenic, perfume-free and ophthalmologically-tested. What more could you ask for!
$9.95 in pharmacies and online.


text:
Villager shot dead in Bargarh
Bhubaneswar: A shocking incident has been reported where a villager was shot dead by miscreants while he was sleeping in his house at Jamuda village in Bargarh district last night.
The deceased was identified as Basant Pradhan. Basant died while undergoing treatment at the Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (VIMSAR) at Burla, according to reports.
The reason behind the gunshot attack on Basant was yet to be known. The Bargarh police have reached the spot and started investigations.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
\section{Introduction}

\IEEEPARstart{S}{emantic} segmentation is a classification task that gives a category to every pixel of an image. A pixel-level annotated dataset is imperative for training a deep learning semantic segmentation model. However, the pixel-level annotation of images is laborious, time-wasting, and expensive\cite{li_learning_2021,ji_generative_2021}. Most of the datasets used in the practical operation are unannotated which is impossible for training a deep learning model. A common idea is to train a model from annotated datasets and then apply it to the unannotated dataset. Nevertheless, because of the domain gap resulting from distinct data distribution between different datasets, the performance of the model trained in an annotated dataset will greatly decline when transferred to another dataset\cite{hoffman_cycada_2018}. For remote sensing (RS) images, the problem of domain gap is significantly magnified because of various imaging sensors, imaging time, weather conditions, image resolution, and so on\cite{li_learning_2021,zhao2022residualgan}.

\begin{figure}[]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.45\textwidth]{./imgs/intro.pdf}
    \caption{Depth consistency during image translation. }
    \label{fig:intro}
\end{figure}

Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) provides an approach for minimizing the impact of the domain gap, making it possible to transfer a deep learning model to an unannotated dataset. Methods of UDA for semantic segmentation can be roughly divided into several categories: adversarial generative methods\cite{hoffman_cycada_2018}, adversarial discriminative methods\cite{tsai_learning_2018}, and self-training methods\cite{zou_unsupervised_2018}. For RS images, adversarial generative methods, which are aimed to generate new annotated images based on generative adversarial networks (GANs), show significant advantages compared with other methods\cite{ji_generative_2021, zhao2022residualgan,gao2022cycle}. ResiDualGAN (RDG)\cite{zhao2022residualgan} is an adversarial generative method for UDA of RS images. Focusing on the unique feature of scale discrepancy and real-to-real image translation of RS images, RDG reaches state-of-the-art performance in cross-domain semantic segmentation. In this paper, RDG is selected as the foundation of our model.

Depth information is utilized for improving the effect of UDA in some recent computer vision research. The motivation is to utilize the depth information as an external assistant which gives the deep learning model other information to improve the performance. Several works have been done by combining deep information with the generative method\cite{lee_spigan_2019}, adversarial discriminative method\cite{vu_dada_2019,saha_learning_2021}, and self-training method\cite{wang_domain_2021}, which demonstrate the effectiveness of depth information in UDA. Though improvements have been made, the defect of these methods is still nonnegligible. Depth information is usually inaccessible for the street view datasets used in these methods. An additional depth estimation model is used to give an approximate depth estimation for the street view image\cite{wang_domain_2021}, which is both inaccurate and computation-wasting.

The digital surface model (DSM) is an elevation model which reflects the depth information of the ground surface. DSM can be easily obtained when producing an aerial image dataset by the photogrammetric method. As a result, utilizing DSM as assisted information for UDA of aerial images is reasonable. However, little research has been made on utilizing DSM to assist the UDA procedure of aerial images.

In this work, we adapt the depth information to the UDA task of semantic segmentation of aerial images. Depth-assisted ResiDualGAN (DRDG) is proposed by combining DSM with RDG where the depth supervised loss (DSL) and depth cycle consistency loss (DCCL) are used to force RDG to learn external information. The experimental results show that DRDG reaches state-of-the-art performance in open datasets. Our contribution can be summarized as follows:
\begin{itemize}
    \item A new GAN-based model, DRDG, is proposed for the UDA task of semantic segmentation of aerial images. Experimental results show that DRDG is the state-of-the-art adversarial generative UDA method for aerial images in open datasets.
    \item DSM, which can be easily accessed for aerial images, is introduced to the DRDG as assisted information to improve the performance of the generative model, which illustrates the effectiveness of DSM for UDA of aerial images.
\end{itemize}

\section{Methodology}

\begin{figure*}[]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.95\textwidth, height=.45\textheight]{./imgs/overview.pdf}
    \caption{Overview of DRDG}
    \label{fig:drdg}
\end{figure*}

Consider a source domain $S$ and a target domain $T$, where only images in the $S$ are annotated while DSM can be obtained in both $S$ and $T$. Formally, we define $X_S\in\mathbb{R}^{H_S\times W_S\times 3}$ is the image set of $S$, $Y_S\in\{1,...,C\}^{H_S\times W_S}$ is the corresponding semantic segmentation label set where C is the number of categories, $Z_S\in\{\mathbb{Z}_{min}, \mathbb{Z}_{max}\}^{H_S\times W_S\times 1}$ is the DSM image set. Similarly, the image set in $T$ can be defined as $X_T\in\mathbb{R}^{H_T\times W_T\times 3}$. $Z_T\in\{\mathbb{Z}_{min}, \mathbb{Z}_{max}\}^{H_T\times W_T\times 1}$ is the DSM image set of $T$. Labels are inaccessible in $T$.

The objective of the proposed method is that, given the annotated $S$ and unannotated $T$, train a model $f_T$ that performs semantic segmentation task on $T$. To this end, DRDG is designed to generate target domain stylized images $x_{S\rightarrow T}\in\mathbb{R}^{H_T\times W_T\times 3}$ from source domain image $x_S$ that is annotated (Fig. \ref{fig:drdg}). In other words, DRDG minimizes the pixel-level domain gap between the source domain and the target domain. Specifically, depth information is involved in DRDG by combining two constraints, DSL and DCCL, to further improve the performance of RDG. In this section, we will introduce RDG firstly and then describe the DSL and DCCL. Finally, a semantic segmentation model $f_T$ can be trained on the annotated target domain stylized image $x_{S\rightarrow T}$.

\subsection{ResiDualGAN}
ResiDualGAN (RDG) is an adversarial generative method for UDA of RS images, which shows prominent performance on cross-domain RS image semantic segmentation tasks. The function of RDG is to perform image-to-image translation that, in our case, transfers $x_S$ to the style of $x_T$ which minimizes the discrepancy between $S$ and $T$. Given $x_S$, $x_{S\rightarrow T}$ can be obtained by the generator of RDG, $ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$. The procedure can be written as follows.

\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
        x_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}=&ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}\left(x_S\right)\\
        =&Resize_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(E_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(D_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}^{resi}(x_S))+x_S)\
    \label{formu:rdg}
\end{split}
\end{equation}
where $Resize_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}:\mathbb{R}^{H_S{\times}W_S{\times}3}\!\rightarrow\!\mathbb{R}^{H_T{\times}W_T{\times}3}$ is a resize function that resizes images of the source domain to the size of the target domain, implemented as an bilinear interpolation in this paper, $E_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ is the encoder part of $ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ and $D_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}^{resi}$ is the decoder.

$x_{S\rightarrow T}$ is then passed through a discriminator $D_T$, which is designed to try to distinguish whether images are generated by the generator or the initial images of the target domain. On the contrary, the objective of the generator is to generate target-stylized images to try to fool the discriminator. The opposite optimization direction between the generator and discriminator brings about an adversarial loss $L_{adv}(S, T)$. In RDG, the adversarial loss can be written as follows.
\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
    L_{adv}&(S, T)= \\
    &\mathbb{E}_{x_T\!{\sim}\!X_T}(D_T(x_T))-
    \mathbb{E}_{x_S\!{\sim}\!X_S}(D_T({ResiG}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(x_S)))
    \label{formu:adv}
\end{split}
\end{equation}

$ResiG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}$ and $D_S$ is the inversion of the procedure above where another generator $ResiG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}$ is implemented to reconstruct $x_{S\rightarrow T}$ to the $x_S$, and $D_S$ is used to differentiate whether images are generated by $ResiG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}$ or original images in the source domain. The reconstruction of $x_S$ will bring into a reconstruction loss $L_{cyc}$ represented as follows.
\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
    L_{cyc}&(S, T)=\\
    &\mathbb{E}_{x_S\!{\sim}\!X_S\!}(\Vert ResiG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}(ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(x_S)))-x_S \Vert_1)
    \label{formu:cyc}
\end{split}
\end{equation}
where $\Vert \cdot \Vert_1$ is the L1 normalization.

\subsection{Depth-Assisted ResiDualGAN}
Based on RDG, in this paper, depth supervised loss (DSL) and depth cycle consistency loss (DCCS) is involved in the generators, $DRDG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ and $DRDG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}$, to constrain the image translation procedure. The function of $DRDG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ is similar to $ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$, which is designed to perform image translation between domains. The difference is that DSM is utilized as assisted information to improve the depth correctness of image translation.
\subsubsection{Depth Supervised Loss}
DSL is a regression loss of DSM. The DSL network shares the encoder $E_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ with RDG generater $ResiG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ and utilizes another decoder $D_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}^{dep}$ to generate a DSM prediction $\widehat{z}_S=E_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(D^{dep}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}(x_S))$. Following \cite{wang_domain_2021}, a Berhu loss, which is a reverse version of Huber loss, is utilized as the measure between prediction $\widehat{z}_S$ and real DSM $z_S$:

\begin{equation}
 L_{DSL}(S) = \mathbb{E}_{(z_S,\widehat{z}_S)\!{\sim}\!(Z_S,\widehat{Z}_S)\!}(Berhu(z_S,\widehat{z}_S))
    \label{formu:dsl}
\end{equation}

where $\widehat{Z}_S$ is the predicted depth image set of $S$. The Berhu loss is:

\begin{equation}
 Berhu(z_S,\widehat{z}_S)= \left\{
    \begin{aligned}
     &|\widehat{z}_S - z_S| , &  |\widehat{z}_S - z_S|\leq L, \\
     &\frac{(\widehat{z}_S - z_S)^2 + L^2}{2L} , & |\widehat{z}_S - z_S|>L.
    \end{aligned}
    \right.
    \label{formu:berhu}
\end{equation}
where $L=0.2max(|\widehat{z}_S - z_S|)$.

\subsubsection{Depth Cycle Consistency Loss}
In the process of image translation using RDG without depth information, only a cycle loss is utilized to constrain the pixel level cycle consistency between $S$ and $T$. As a result, images may be incorrectly translated because of the single constraints. For example, the roof may be translated as grass from $S$ to $T$, and then the incorrectly translated grass will be incorrectly translated to the roof from $T$ to $S$, where the cycle loss is minimized but the translation is bidirectionally wrong. To mitigate the bidirectionally incorrect problem, DCCS is utilized to constrain the depth cycle consistency in the image translation process. Specifically, for target stylized images $x_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$, the corresponding depth prediction $\widehat{z}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ can be generated by $DRDG_{T\!\rightarrow\!S}$. As well as the DSL, a supervised depth loss is applied to $\widehat{z}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ and $z_S$, which forces the depth information immutable during the image translation process. A Berhu loss is used in DCCL:

\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
 L_{DCCL}(S,T) = \mathbb{E}_{(z_S,\widehat{z}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T})\!{\sim}\!(Z_S,\widehat{Z}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T})\!}(Berhu(z_S,\widehat{z}_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}))
    \label{formu:dccl}
\end{split}
\end{equation}

\subsubsection{Total Loss}
In the end, the total loss of image translation process can be written as:
\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
    L_{total} &= \lambda_{adv}(L_{adv}(S,T)+L_{adv}(T,S)) \\
    &+ \lambda_{cyc}(L_{cyc}(S,T)+L_{cyc}(T,S)) \\
    &+ \lambda_{DSL}(L_{DSL}(S)+L_{DSL}(T))\\
    &+ \lambda_{DCCL}(L_{DCCL}(S,T)+L_{DCCL}(T,S))\\
    \label{formu:total}
\end{split}
\end{equation}
where $\lambda_{adv}$, $\lambda_{cyc}$, $\lambda_{DSL}$ and $\lambda_{DCCL}$ are hyper-parameters. By minimizing $L_{total}$, a well-constrained $DRDG_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$ can be obtained to perform the image translation process to generate $X_{S\!\rightarrow\!T}$.

After the image translation is finished, a cross-entropy loss is used to train the semantic segmentation model $f_T$:

\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
    L_{seg}=\mathbb{E}_{(x_{S\!\rightarrow\!T},y_S){\sim}(X_{S\!\rightarrow\!T},Y_S)}(CE(f_T,x_{S\!\rightarrow\!T},y_S))
    \label{formu:seg}
\end{split}
\end{equation}
where cross-entropy loss $CE$ is:
\begin{equation}
    CE(f, x, y)=-\sum_{c=1}^C y\cdot log(f(x))
    \label{formu:fl}
\end{equation}

\subsection{Networks Settings}

\begin{table*}
\centering
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.3}
\caption{The quantitative results of the cross-domain semantic segmentation from PotsdamIRRG to Vaihingen.}
\Huge
\label{tab:PotsdamIRRG2Vaihingen}
\resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{@{}ccccccccccccccc@{}}
\toprule[5pt]
Methods &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}c@{}}Background/\\ Clutter\end{tabular}} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}c@{}}Impervious \\ Surface\end{tabular}} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Car} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Tree} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{\begin{tabular}[c]{@{}c@{}}Low \\ Vegetation\end{tabular}} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Building} &
  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Overall} \\ \toprule[5pt]
                           & IoU   & F1\_Score & IoU   & F1\_Score & IoU   & F1\_Score & IoU   & F1\_Score & IoU   & F1\_Score & IoU   & F1\_Score & mIoU   & F1\_Score \\\midrule[4pt]
Baseline                   & 2.65  & 4.41      & 43.82 & 60.56     & 12.99 & 22.47     & 49.89 & 66.35     & 24.92 & 39.59     & 57.10 & 72.38     & 31.90 & 44.29     \\ \midrule
Benjdira's\cite{benjdira_unsupervised_2019}                   & 6.93  & 9.95      & 57.41 & 72.67     & 20.74 & 33.46     & 44.31 & 61.08     & 35.60 & 52.17     & 65.71 & 79.12     & 38.45 & 51.41     \\
AdaptSegNet\cite{tsai_learning_2018}                & 5.84  & 9.01      & 62.81 & 76.88     & 29.43 & 44.83     & 55.84 & 71.45     & 40.16 & 56.87     & 70.64 & 82.66     & 44.12 & 56.95     \\
MUCSS\cite{li_learning_2021}                      & 10.82 & 14.35     & 65.81 & 79.03     & 26.19 & 40.67     & 50.60 & 66.88     & 39.73 & 56.39     & 69.16 & 81.58     & 43.72 & 56.48     \\
RDG\cite{zhao2022residualgan}                    & \textbf{11.22} & \textbf{18.15} & 66.93 & 80.16 & 49.46 & 66.09 & 61.74 & 76.32 & \textbf{46.64} & \textbf{63.47} & 74.52 & 85.38 & 51.75 & 64.93   \\
\midrule
DRDG (ours) & 8.49 & 14.23 & \textbf{68.74} & \textbf{81.45} & \textbf{57.54} & \textbf{72.97} & \textbf{62.91} & \textbf{77.21} & 44.22 & 61.22 & \textbf{77.67} & \textbf{87.41} & \textbf{53.26} & \textbf{65.75}    \\
  \bottomrule[5pt]
\end{tabular}%
}
\end{table*}

\begin{figure*}[ht]
    \centering
    \setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{0pt}
    \setlength{\belowcaptionskip}{0pt}
    \includegraphics[width=1.0\textwidth, height=.3\textheight]{./imgs/res_all.pdf}
    \caption{The qualitative results of the cross-domain semantic segmentation from PotsdamIRRG to Vaihingen. BG=Background/Cluster, IS=Impervious Surface, LV=Low Vegetation. (a) Target images. (b) Labels. (c) Baseline (DeepLabV3+). (d) CycleGAN\cite{zhu_unpaired_2017}. (e) AdaptSegNet\cite{tsai_learning_2018}. (f) MUCSS\cite{li_learning_2021}. (g) ResiDualGAN\cite{zhao2022residualgan}. (h)DRDG(ours). }
    \label{fig:PotsdamIRRG2Vaihingen}
\end{figure*}

The architecture of DRDG follows the settings of RDG\cite{zhao2022residualgan}, which is a U-shape full convolution network. The convolution kernel size is 4, the stride is 2 and padding is 1. Channels of convolution layers are set as \{64, 128, 256, 512, 512, 512, 512\}. The discrepancy between DRDG and RDG is the depth decoder in DRDG. The depth decoder is identical to the RDG decoder except for the channel of the last layer is set as 1, followed by a softmax activation to predict a depth image. The discriminator is a full convolution network with the same kernel with DRDG and channels of \{64, 128, 256, 512, 512, 1\}. DeepLabV3 is selected as our baseline of semantic segmentation. Based on thorough experiments, the hyper-parameters $(\lambda_{adv},\lambda_{cyc},\lambda_{DSL},\lambda_{DCCL})$ are set as
$(5,10,2,1)$ respectively.

\section{Experiment Results and Discussion}

\subsection{Datasets}
Two open-source RS datasets: Potsdam and Vaihingen are used for validating the proposed method\cite{potsdam_vaihingen}. Potsdam is set as the source domain while Vaihingen is set as the target domain in the following experiments. Both of the images are produced into true orthophotos (TOPs), with annotations for 6 ground classes: clutter/background, impervious surfaces, car, tree, low vegetation, and building.  We select IR-R-G bands mode of Potsdam as PotsdamIRRG, which consist of 38 TOPs in which every TOP contains $6000\times6000$ pixels, with a resolution of 5cm. We select IR-R-G bads mode of Vaihingen which consists of 33 TOPs and every TOP contains $2000\times2000$ pixels, with a resolution of 9cm. To compare the proposed method with other methods more conveniently, we exploit the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 20th, 22nd, and 24th TOPs in Vaihingen as the validation dataset while others for test dataset, which follows other works settings. Following settings of ResiDualGAN, we also clip images of PotsdamIRRG into the size of $896\times896$ and images of Vaihingen into the size of $512\times512$.

DSMs of PotsdamIRRG and Vaihingen are provided in the raw dataset. We follow the above processes and normalize values of DSMs into the range of 0-1.
\subsection{Experimental Results}
To facilitate comparing with different methods, IoU and F1\_Score are employed as metrics in this paper. For every class in 6 different ground classes, the formulation of IoU can be written as:
\begin{equation}
    IoU=\frac{\left|A\cap B\right|}{\left| A\cup B \right|}
    \label{formu:11}
\end{equation}
Where A is the ground truth while B is predictions. After calculations of IoU for 6 classes, mIoU can be obtained which is the mean of IoU for every class. And the F1\_Score can be written as:
\begin{equation}
F1\_Score=\frac{2\times Precision\times Recall}{Precision+Recall}
\label{formu:12}
\end{equation}

Table \ref{tab:PotsdamIRRG2Vaihingen} shows the quantitative results of the proposed DRDG. The final result is the average of three results at the different random seeds. Four recent methods are selected for comparison, i.e., Benjdira's, AdaptSegNet, MUCSS, and RDG. Quantitative results show that our method DRDG reaches the SOTA results between all methods by the mIou of 53.26 and F1 of 65.75 in the experiment of PotsdamIRRG to Vaihingen, which surpasses RDG by 2.9\% and 1.3\% respectively. Significantly, DRDG reaches the mIou of 77.67 and F1 of 87.41 in the building class, which surpasses RDG by 4.2\% and 2.4\% respectively. As shown in Fig. \ref{fig:intro}, the outline of buildings is distinguishable, which may contribute to improving the accuracy of the building class through the constrain of DSL and DCCL.
Fig. \ref{fig:PotsdamIRRG2Vaihingen} is the qualitative results of DRDG, which also shows the superiority of our method.

\subsection{Ablation Study}
Table \ref{tab:ablation} shows the ablation study of DRDG. We performed the experiments of removing DCCL (w/o DCCL), removing DSL (w/o DSL), and removing both DCCL and DSL (RDG). Experimental results show that both DCCL and DSL contribute to the improvements of DRDG. Significantly, if only DCCL is involved, the mIoU and F1 decline to 50.33 and 63.39 respectively. It is plausible that DCCL is designed to constrain the depth consistency but to bring depth information into the model. As a result, the $\lambda_{DCCL}$ is set smaller than $\lambda_{DSL}$ to ensure DSL brings correct depth information into the model.
\begin{table}[]
\centering
\caption{Ablation results for DRDG. }
\renewcommand\arraystretch{1.3}
\label{tab:ablation}
\resizebox{.48\textwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{@{}lllll@{}}
\toprule[1.3pt]
               & DSL & DCCL & mIoU & F1 mean \\ \midrule[1pt]
RDG\cite{zhao2022residualgan}              &     &      & 51.75     &  64.93        \\
DRDG(w/o DSL)  &     &  \checkmark    & 50.33      & 63.39         \\
DRDG(w/o DCCL) & \checkmark    &      & 52.93       &  65.56         \\
DRDG           &  \checkmark   & \checkmark     & \textbf{53.26} & \textbf{65.75}       \\ \bottomrule[1.3pt]
\end{tabular}%
}
\end{table}
\section{Conclusion}
In this paper, a depth-assisted GAN-based framework, DRDG, is proposed for aerial image cross-domain semantic segmentation. The DSM information is introduced into the GAN process by two constraints: DSL and DCCL, which force GAN models to maintain the DSM correctness during generating images. The experimental results show the priority of the proposed method, which reaches the state-of-the-art performance of the generative method in the PotsdamIRRG to Vaihingen cross-domain segmentation task.

There is still a lot of work to be done in our paper. The first is to resolve the instability of the GAN-based method. Although RDG has made a progress on stability, however, the results still fluctuate greatly at different random initialization. The second is to find an effective way to directly combine the DSM with the segmentation model. Training the model through an end-to-end approach instead of a multi-stage framework may yield a more stable result. The last is to utilize self-training methods to further improve the performance. DSMs are accessible in both the source domain and the target domain, which facilitates self-training strategies to initialize the weights of models.

\section*{Acknowledgment}
Thanks for the support from Professor Ge Li at Peking University and computation resources from VirtAI Tech.

\ifCLASSOPTIONcaptionsoff
  \newpage
\fi

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


The Community College Association (CCA) is a successful organization because of the leadership of hundreds of local members who work tirelessly at the bargaining table, reaching out to members, providing guidance on grievances, campaigning for education-friendly trustees, and in general strengthening their chapters. These local education and union activists received We Honor Ours (WHO) awards in 2018.
Erin Thomas, MiraCosta College Academic Associate Faculty — Currently the lead negotiator, she served as treasurer for two years and works as a faculty mentor, serves on the professional development committee, leads professional development workshops, has served as an academic senator, and most recently was elected the first-ever associate faculty to serve as coordinating officer on the MiraCosta College Academic Senate.
Forest T. Quinlan, Napa Valley College Faculty Association — As lead negotiator, he bargained a 9 percent salary increase, got more money for program coordinators, and convinced the district to agree to one-for-one compensation for labs across the board.
Ricardo Aguilar, San Joaquin Delta College Teachers Association — Currently serving as the human rights and equity chair, he fights for DACA students. Undocumented until 2012, when the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was established, Aguilar volunteers for campaigns and initiatives, continually advocates for the rights of part-time faculty, and is a recent graduate of the CCA California Leadership Academy.
Kirsten Moreno, Long Beach City College Faculty Association — Currently chapter vice president and chief negotiator, she worked tirelessly to achieve an impressive multiyear raise, lecture lab parity, and relief for department heads — with no takebacks! Active in campaigns to elect faculty-friendly trustees, she is chair of the first-ever Faculty Association Safety Workgroup.
Sergio Guzman, Rio Hondo College Faculty Association — A past chapter president, he promoted member engagement and networking by increasing the number of social outings, happy hours, and an end-of-the-year faculty and administration get-together. He helped to foster a collaborative environment between the faculty association and the district, as well as the board of trustees, allowing him to resolve many grievances before they became serious problems.
Patrick Mitchell, Merced College Faculty Association — As president, he was honored for his resolute behavior in dealing with an adversarial administration and board of trustees. He is credited with building a more student- and faculty-focused board of trustees, and is respected as a tactician in the realm of negotiations. Involved in CCA/CTA at the local and state level, he has served on numerous committees and boards.
Michael Sanetrick, Mt. San Antonio College Faculty Association — As one of only two adjunct faculty on the board, he advocates for part-time faculty interests, and his input and perspective have proved invaluable. An active member, he serves on the internal governance committee and chairs the survey committee, in addition to occasional task force work. He even volunteers to stuff hundreds of envelopes.
Ted Phillips, San Bernardino CCD Teachers Association — Currently vice president, full-time rep, bargaining team member and webmaster, he is a creative problem-solver and strong advocate for getting members' input to drive decisions. He single-handedly generated over 600 emails and passwords through the association's website and assembled the voter roster data.
Artel Garcia, College of the Desert Adjunct Association — Artel Garcia teaches Spanish at College of the Desert. Instrumental in creating two new courses for heritage speakers of Spanish, reactivating the A.A. in Spanish for transfer, she helped create a certificate program in translation and interpretation in three areas: education, health care and business. Garcia has also planned activities to promote cross-cultural awareness. She is successful in motivating students to do radio broadcasting in Spanish, promote cross-cultural communication in a foreign language, and meet the needs of the broadcast field in Spanish in the Coachella Valley community.
Jose Simo, College of the Desert Faculty Association — Currently vice president and a bargaining team member, he brings clarity and experience to the issues facing students and faculty. The association has benefited greatly from his dedication and problem-solving skills.
Tom Greenwood, Kern CCD/CCA — A dedicated union leader, he played a major role in negotiationg a compressed faculty salary scale that boosted paychecks and faculty morale substantially. As a result of his leadership, the latest contract was settled on time — for the first time in recent memory.
Caree Lesh, Southwestern College Education Association — A strong union leader, she is respected for her intelligence, commitment, connections and skill at the bargaining table. She "collaborates without caving" and always stands up for faculty and students.
David Ryba, Citrus College Faculty Association — Respected as a fierce and relentless leader, he has earned the respect of his peers for being honest, having integrity, and being tough but fair. Much of his work involves grievances when the contract is violated. He was honored for spending countless hours preparing, organizing data, and creating pivot tables and charts to make sense of things. He firmly believes in doing the right thing regardless of the work that's involved to fix it.
Mark Blethen, South Orange County CCD Faculty Association — A fierce and tireless advocate for faculty rights, he was honored for the negotiation of a fair compensation package for all faculty, converting from Blackboard to Canvas, and gaining significant increases for part-time faculty including pay for office hours, and a 12 percent overall raise for all faculty. An outgoing president, he negotiated part-time rehire rights and made parity a priority.
Suzanne Gretz, Imperial Valley College CCA/CTA/NEA — Having served as both president and chief negotiator, Gretz has many accomplishments, including increasing union membership to 80 percent during a time when IVC did not have agency fees, and negotiating new rights for faculty, including a more equitable salary schedule. She is leading the fight against a new administration trying to rewrite the entire contract in favor of management rights.
For more on the awards and the CCA, go to cca4me.org.


text:
Q: Find 4 values in window size 6 that fit criteria then Add to list until 3 do not fit criteria not include last 3 -> Repeat next window . Python if you have a list of values:
values=['130','90','150','123','133','120','160',
        '45','67',
        '55','34','130','120','180','130','10']

and wanted to scan through with a window size of 6 and if 4 out of the 6 were >= 100 then keep scanning until there were 3 in a row that were < 100 and then not include those in the list
so for example with an empty list called results:
results=[]

i would like to append those values that satisfied the criteria into the empty list to get
results=[('130','90','150','123','133','120','160'),
         ('55','34','120','180','130','10')]

i know i have convert all the strings into integers with int() but that's not the part that i'm having trouble with. i'm having trouble finding the 4 out of the window size 6 that are >= 100, adding that to a list, AND THEN going from where i left off in the window
In the Chou Fasman Algorithm each window size is 6 and if 4 are greater than 100 then all 6 are included and its extended until 4 consecutive values (i'm going to do 3 instead) are less than 100 (those 4 (or 3) are not included) and then the window starts again from that spot making a new list.
so first window would be:
['130','90','150','123','133,'120'] #and more than 4 are greater than
# 100 so that starting point is stored and the next window is checked
['90','150','123','133','120','160'] #again there are 4 greater than
# 100 so the next window is checked
['150','123','133','120','160','45'] #again
['123','133','120','160','45','67'] #again
['133','120','160','45','67','55'] #stop and assign values '130' to '160'
# into a list and then start the new window from where it left off

Results=[('130','90','150','123','133','120','160')]

['120','160','45','67','55','34'] # skips
['160','45','67','55','34','130'] # skips
['45','67','55','34','130','120'] # skips
['67','55','34','130','120','180'] # skips
['55','34','130','120','180','130'] # new list in Results starts with '55'
['34','130','120','180','130','10'] # sequence ends and this window still
# fits criteria so include these into the list so the results would now be

Results=[('130','90','150','123','133','120','160'),
         ('55','34','130','120','180','130','10')]

I'd really like to use For loops and stay clear of yields and generators if possible but if that's the only way then so be it

A: Would you like to try with this to see if it suits your requirement?
for i in xrange(0,len(values)):
    results[-1].append(values[i])
    if len(filter(lambda x:int(x)<100,results[-1][-3:])) == 3:
        results.append(results[-1][-2:])
        results[-2]=results[-2][:-3]
        if len(results[-2]) == 0:
            del results[-2]

>>> results
[['130', '90', '150', '123', '133', '120', '160'], ['55', '34', '130', '120', '180', '130', '10']]
>>>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Sure, you certainly need to drink plenty of water to help combat bloating, you can (and should!) also consume high-water content foods. Reach for cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon, asparagus, grapes, celery, artichokes, pineapple, and cranberries — all of which contain diuretic properties that will also help you stay full due to their higher fiber content.
Italiano: Perdere Peso, Español: bajar de peso, Deutsch: Abnehmen, Português: Perder Peso, Nederlands: Afvallen, Français: perdre du poids, Русский: сбросить вес, 中文: 减肥, Čeština: Jak zhubnout, Bahasa Indonesia: Menurunkan Berat Badan, 日本語: ダイエット, ไทย: ลดน้ำหนัก, Tiếng Việt: Giảm Cân, हिन्दी: वज़न कम करें (kaise vajan kam kare), 한국어: 체중 감량하는 법, Türkçe: Nasıl Kilo Verilir
Not a jock? Find other ways to fit activity into your day: walk to school, jog up and down the stairs a couple of times before your morning shower, turn off the tube and help your parents in the garden, or take a stroll past your crush's house — anything that gets you moving. Your goal should be to work up to 60 minutes of exercise every day. But everyone has to begin somewhere. It's fine to start out by simply taking a few turns around the block after school and building up your levels of fitness gradually.
You're probably familiar with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). When it comes to cardio, HIIT is definitely the best way to strip off body fat, to the extent that there's literally no reason to hop on a treadmill and run at a steady pace for 30 or more minutes unless you're an endurance athlete. And if you're reading this magazine, chances are you don't desire the physique of a marathoner.
When most people think of HIIT they think of it as applicable only for cardio, yet it can also be used in weight training. After all, weight training itself is a form of HIIT—you do a set with all-out effort, rest, then do another set, rest, and repeat. Resting two to three minutes between sets, however, is too long for a training session to be considered an effective form of HIIT. But all you have to do is shorten rest periods and you're doing a kind of HIIT that burns fat.
"Anytime you're stressed, you probably go for food," Dr. Seltzer says. (Have we met?!) That's because cortisol, the stress hormone, stokes your appetite for sugary, fatty foods. No wonder it's associated with higher body weight, according to a 2007 Obesity study that quantified chronic stress exposure by looking at cortisol concentrations in more than 2,000 adults' hair.
Eat Breakfast Every Day. One habit that's common to many people who have lost weight and kept it off is eating breakfast every day. "Many people think skipping breakfast is a great way to cut calories, but they usually end up eating more throughout the day, says Elizabeth Ward, MS, RD, author of The Pocket Idiot's Guide to the New Food Pyramids. "Studies show people who eat breakfast have lower BMIs than breakfast-skippers and perform better, whether at school or in the boardroom." Try a bowl of whole-grain cereal topped with fruit and low-fat dairy for a quick and nutritious start to your day.
Belly fat is, in fact, the colloquial term for abdominal fat. According to medical experts, belly fat can be potentially dangerous. Excess of it can lead to a number of health problems including heart diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, a decrease in the level of HDL or good cholesterol, and can even lead to strokes or sleep apnea. You need to combat this problem before it gets too late.
On the Shred Diet, you'll eat four meals and up to three snacks a day. Eating smaller meals will keep you from getting hungry as you distribute your calories throughout the day. Equally important, spacing out your meals will keep your hormones stable. When you eat small meals, especially meals composed of foods that have a low-glycemic index (choices that are less likely to spike your blood sugar), you prevent surges in hormones that lead to weight gain.
Even if you do meet your goal, it's nearly impossible to keep off the weight over the long term: "The amount of restriction required [to maintain that number] will make you so hungry that you'll eat everything in sight—it's survival instinct," Dr. Seltzer says. And since calorie restriction gradually slows your metabolism, your body will be less prepared to burn the foods you binge on, he adds. That could mean gaining more pounds than you lost in the first place.
Worried about hunger? There are a lot of simple tactics you can use to curb your appetite. Drink caffeine in the morning to kill your appetite until lunch, eat a lot of vegetables and protein, drink a lot of water, and make sure to have your sugar water at night. The first few days can be tough, but the hunger goes away a lot faster than you'd think.
Physical activity helps burn abdominal fat. "One of the biggest benefits of exercise is that you get a lot of bang for your buck on body composition," Stewart says. Exercise seems to work off belly fat in particular because it reduces circulating levels of insulin —which would otherwise signal the body to hang on to fat—and causes the liver to use up fatty acids, especially those nearby visceral fat deposits, he says.
After your last training session (Wednesday, in this example, two full days before Saturday's event), eat two to three grams of carbs per pound of body weight for the rest of the day. If you train at night and it's hard to eat enough carbs before bed, you can split up the total and eat the rest of the carbs on Thursday night. Insulin sensitivity remains high for 48 hours post- workout, so glycogen will still go to your muscles. Otherwise, on Thursday, go back on the diet prescribed in Step 2.
The very notion of going "on" or "off" a diet is self-sabotaging. The key to sustainable weight loss is creating habits that you can (happily) live with pretty much forever, registered dietitian Georgie Fear, R.D., C.S.S.D., author of Lean Habits for Lifelong Weight Loss, tells SELF. And in a previous review from the University of Toronto, after examining 59 scientific weight-loss articles, including 48 randomized control trials, researchers concluded that how easy a diet is for you to stick with may actually be a much better predictor of your weight-loss success than the actual diet you choose.
You don't have to be the next Usain Bolt in the making to enjoy some serious belly-slimming results from hitting the track from time to time. Even a moderate-rate jog a few times a week can blast through that belly fat; in fact, a study conducted at Duke University Medical Center found that, over the course of an eight-month study, overweight adult study subjects who jogged 12 miles a week lost the most belly fat and burned 67 percent more calories than participants who did an equivalent amount of resistance exercise, or a combination of cardio and resistance work.


By the sacred anointing of the sick and the prayer of the priests the whole Church commends those who are ill to the suffering and glorified Lord, that he may raise them up and save them. And indeed she exhorts them to contribute to the good of the People of God by freely uniting themselves to the Passion and death of Christ" (CCC 1499).
Twice a year, the parish offers Anointing of the Sick to those who need it at a special Mass. The Sacrament of Anointing is for those who are baptized, have reached the age of reason and begin to be in danger due to sickness or old age. This includes elderly who are weakened, though no notable illness is present; those who are facing surgery due to serious illness; and those who suffer serious mental illness. The Sacrament of Anointing is not for minor illness or discomfort.
In addition to the scheduled Anointing of the Sick, the Sacrament is available in emergencies by calling the Rectory for the priest on duty.


text:
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- indented html is formatted as it is

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
The Results From When I Time Leaped to My Second Year of High School and Confessed to the Teacher I Liked at the Time – 69
The Hiiragi Family's Circumstances – 2
Once Hiiragi-chan and them had finished eating, they left the restaurant.
I then settle the bill and follow after them.
The plan that Hiiragi-chan had told me about was for them to head to the famous garden that I had even heard about, located on the rooftop. It would then be the feeling of, "The rest is up to the two young ones," as they are left to go on a walk.
Even if I can't enjoy it, I have to stick with them until the end.
Chasing after Hiiragi-chan and the middle-aged man, I also entered the garden. The garden seemed to be made by a famous gardener. It overflowing with water, bright greenery, and colorful flowers. It almost seemed like I had entered a fantasy world.
"The garden, is really pretty…"
"Ah, yeah…"
The two people were having an awkward conversation. Hiiragi-chan was using a parasol so I couldn't see her expression.
While sneaking around, I followed the two of them.
"Thank you for today. I was surprised since you were so beautiful."
"No. It's nothing like that…"
Like a young lady, Hiiragi-chan showed a modest amount of humility.
However, Hiiragi-chan was pretty today, just like the middle aged man had said. It's just, if it's making a move like that, I wish he would let me do that?
"Aah, Don't worry about it. A man like me… I understand that I can't be popular, just looking at a woman's reaction, I can kind of guess…"
Uuu, that's painful…
Yeah yeah, I get it, I really do.
Sitting on a bench in the shadow of a tree, I observed the two of them at a distance at which I could hear them.
"That's not true. I think that Sanjou-san is quite a wonderful person…"
From Hiiragi-chan's tone, and the middle-aged Sanjou-san's appearance, I can tell that it was polite flattery. It seems like had money, but definitely didn't look popular. His level of sociability is low, and he can't even talk very well.
So, the talk about being popular if you're an adult with money was a lie…!? I ended up getting shocked in a weird way.
"Wonderful…? Really?"
Hey hey, old man. That was just polite flattery. Don't take it so seriously. A spicy Japanese person that would say something like "Well, I guess you really don't seem to be the popular type," with that timing, really doesn't exist.
"Ummm… Uuhhh, yeah."
While being troubled, Hiiragi-chan nodded, and Sanjou-bocchan ended up closing the distance between the two of them.
I noticed that Hiiragi-chan's body had gone stiff.
In my mind, second-level battle station alerts sounded out.
From what I heard earlier, Sanjou-bocchan was the fourth inline at a well-known and well-established company. It means that this time's marriage interview, wasn't even something the Hiiragi family really wished for. That's why, whether or not she likes him, she wants it to be settled peacefully.
"W-what p-part of m-me is g-good…?"
Sanjou-bocchan brought his face closer to Hiiragi-chan.
He rested his hand on her lap, and started to stroke her thighs repeatedly over the skirt.
"Hey… what part? What part of me do you like?"
"… Umm, s-sorry… s-stop… please…"
I'm someone who settles things peacefully, so I've never gotten into fights with other people. If things can be settled uneventfully, then even if it's worse for me, I'm the type of weak person to lower my head and apologize.
"If you marry me, you can play quite a bit, you know? What are you referring to when you say, "Please stop"?"
"… I, ummm… have a person I like… a lover that I haven't even told my parents… that's why… sorry… I didn't say wonderful intending it in that way…"
Puchin, I, who had finally snapped, headed towards the bench the two of them were sitting on. Even for me, I haven't officially touched those thighs!!
Sanjou-bocchan, who seemed to be disappointed, grabbed Hiiragi-chan by the wrist.
"Then, then—isn't it fine if it's just one time! I got us a suite, let's go. If you let me do it, I'll wash today's rudeness away completely, okay? Let's go."
"——That's why you aren't popular!"
With my fist held so tight that my fingernails were digging into my skin, I struck Sanjou-bocchan in the face as hard as I could.
Gyuu, with a squeak that sounded like a squealing frog, he fell behind the bench with quite some force.
The scared Hiiragi-chan hid behind my back.
"That hurt… W-who are you…!?"
"I'm just a middle-aged man passing through while in the middle of a time leap. What about it?"
"Y-you're completely unrelated—this is assault! Police! I'll call the police."
"You're calling the police when you were the one trying to forcefully drag a woman into your room when she clearly hated it? Don't make me laugh!"
"Bufu…"
As I became more calm, I had a flash of inspiration. If I just act like some stranger passing by, then it wouldn't cause Hiiragi-chan any trouble.
However, Hiiragi-chan, who was still trembling even now, continued to hold onto my hand tightly. If I were to say, "Well, bye," and gallantly dash off like this, there was bound to be problems.
"… Thank you, Seiji-kun."
She called me by name.
"A-a-anyways, don't just selfishly touch a woman like that. No matter where you touch, it's the same as being a molester! Also, you're already at this age and you still don't know what it means to be polite? At least learn to read the mood. That's why you aren't popular even though you money."
I just threw a huge murdering boomerang. However, I don't care about that. He was the one that was wrong.
"A person like you, there's no way you would understand my feelings…!"
"I get it, you idiot! That's why, I'll tell it to you. If you want to do something like that, go to the store!"
It was advice from a mature middle-aged man.
"Dammit… Gufuu… I just, I just wanted love…"
"Stop lying. You just wanted to do it."
I can't believe this old man. All he thinks about is his lower half.
"I-I'm going to tell my parents, and even Sanjou-san's parents as well. T-that you were trying to do something perverted to me!"
With teary eyes, Hiiragi-chan shouted out with a shrill voice. She was still hiding behind me though.
… A scared Hiiragi-chan who is trying her best is so cute.
"J-just that, please… please refrain from that."
Sanjou-bocchan rubbed his forehead into the ground and prostrated.
"Doing something perverted like that is only for the store, or with your lover!"
Supashiiin!
Hiiragi-chan had used her parasol and took a world class full swing at him. It seemed that she felt satisfied with that, and the matter was finally settled.
8 thoughts on "The Results From When I Time Leaped to My Second Year of High School and Confessed to the Teacher I Liked at the Time – 69"
iamviruz says:
Lol openly suggesting people to go to the brothel sounds funny but I guess the situation isn't funny at all though.
Easykiln says:
It seems relatively accepted in Japan, from the number of stories I see openly referencing it. Anyway, criminalizing sex work only puts the workers in danger and gives another source of income for underworld organizations, so I approve.
rk Dawson says:
So u a mafia?
theblackgift says:
He means if you say : " No! No legal prostitution!" people would do it illegally and underground organizations would profit. However in my country prostitution is forbidden (even things like compensated dating), but to my knowledge illegal prostitution is really undeveloped in my country, small enough to not garner any attention. Though laws regarding watching porn or consentual, unpaid sex are pretty loose to my knowledge. (I'm from germany and I heard the average age to have sex for the first time is 14, AVERAGE)
Creative Boundaries says:
If this were a anime or manga, despite the terrible atmosphere they would likely have added some bumps or bandages to this guy's head
Shin_Itsuka says:
Respect+ to our mc for not being a chicken!!!!
Everything should be finished with one punch!!!!
-mokelo- says:
Hiiragi-chan should have used the parasol to swing at the lower-half of the pervert or better close the parasol and poke the weak point with force! hahaha
Saiyel-Kun!! says:
One puuuuunch– oops not that! But still hands down for MC saving Hiiragi-sensei!!


text:
ARGENTINA | 17-10-2022 17:32
Victoria Tolosa Paz sets priorities: 'There can be no excessive overlap of social plans'
New Social Development Minister is settling into her new office, anticipating a new line for her stewardship. "You're going to have to go out to work if you want to earn more than a minimum wage," assures Victoria Tolosa Paz. New official feels that she has the support of all internal sectors within Frente de Todos and that they will only manage to be electorally competitive if they can succeed in "sorting out the lives of those with work and those without."
Rosario Ayerdi
Editora de Política de Diario Perfil. Mail: [email protected]
Victoria Tolosa Paz, pictured in the offices of the Social Development Ministry. | PERFIL/PABLO CUARTEROLO
It was Victoria Tolosa Paz who opened up the doors of the Social Development Ministry to Alicia Kirchner in 2003. Almost 20 years later she is now the minister, heading the portfolio, returning to the historic building on the Avenida 9 de Julio thoroughfare.
Her office no longer has the view of the Obelisk requested by Carolina Stanley during the Mauricio Macri presidency – upon arrival Tolosa Paz returned to the offices used by the predecessor who is now governor of Santa Cruz, hanging up portraits of Evita and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She also placed a photo of the president and vice-president together on her desk. The remaining portraits and photos are piled up near the entrance, waiting to be hung up.
"This Ministry and its Labour counterpart have two clear functions, which are capping the social programmes so there is incentive to work and administering funds responsibly to avoid the overlap of plans which end up discouraging the search for formal employment. What must not happen is an excessive overlap of social plans so that there is no money for those sectors with nothing," declares Tolosa Paz at the start of the interview.
This will require a firm political decision because insisting on no more plans has already triggered plenty of conflict in the streets.
The political decision is that we cannot transfer incomes which discourage work. It's knowing that there is a limit and that people cannot just queue up and walk away with this, that and the other because that means that elsewhere there are people who do not pick up any of the assistance which they really need. That is to say: You're going to have to go out and work if you want to earn more than the minimum wage (54,500 pesos).
Patricia Bullrich has said that should she run and win the elections, there would be no more plans left in four years' time.
The headline saying that Bullrich would end the plans cannot be applied in this context, she loves throwing out highly explosive headlines. What do we propose? Bridging jobs. And what might that be? Putting the economically active population to work with the state obliged to generate the economic conditions for that to happen. We must encourage employment and discourage overlap in the transfer of incomes.
Some social organisations are requesting more plans. How do you think they are going to react to ending overlap?
There are no more social plans and they already know that because [previous minister] Juan Zabaleta drew that same line – that definition cannot be moved. We're going to take up every demand which is soluble but no more than that.
There is a sector of the population below the line of destitution which needs urgent measures. Isn't that bonus which was going to come with the "soy dollar" and for which there is still no known date necessary?
The commitment is already there with the creation of the soy bond in writing and this will make some sense out of the last three months of this year. It will be temporary and I'm moving to a deeper question: How do you stop destitution from growing? You can do two things: raise incomes and try to keep the food prices in the basic shopping-basket frozen and accessible. We need to be able to clinch a wage-price agreement.
And how do you make that agreement work if there has been none until now?
Over the last year we could not reach that kind of agreement because the previous economy minister [Martín Guzmán] did not have the necessary political support. Sergio Massa does have it and I think that just as he managed agreements to accumulate reserves, he has the clout to get an agreement out of those sectors which have obtained benefits so that other sectors of the population do not sink deeper into poverty and destitution.
Alberto Fernández showed off that he had appointed three ministers (all ladies) without consulting Cristina Fernández de Kirchner or Massa. Do you feel that he has the support of the entire coalition?
I'm the Social Development minister proposed by the president and I could communicate with Massa as soon as I learned of the proposal, I could have a dialogue with Máximo Kirchner prior to accepting the post and I could speak with Alicia Kirchner and with [La Cámpora referential figure Andrés] 'Cuervo' Larroque. I feel that I have the support of Máximo, Sergio and Alberto because I did not talk to Cristina but I imagine that if she has something to say to me, Cristina has always said it.
Do you have time to make changes so that you can reach the elections with competitive proposals?
We have 14 months left. Regarding the electoral question, I'm not thinking of how our Frente is going to reach the elections. The only thing I know is that in these 14 months we have to resolve Argentina's problems and sort out the lives of those with work and those without. If we do that, we will be competitive and may be recognised as a government which listens and attends to problems.
Although still united, Frente de Todos is shattered. Will 2023 find you competing together?
The president said and I repeat: unity is necessary but not enough...
Unity was enough in 2019 but not now.
That was an agreement we wanted to make but in putting it together, we found points of disagreement, of which the biggest was the agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Now we have to try and make the Frente take decisions in unison, seeking points of synthesis. There is a unity which will not be broken in the run-up to 2023 and which will be synthesised in a political expression yet to be defined.
Santiago Cafiero: 'Brazil's absence in the times of Bolsonaro was deeply felt'
Stories that caught the eye: January 20 to 27
'Democracy has won!' – Opposition celebrates as Maduro's skips CELAC summit
In this news
personalities:
Victoria Tolosa Paz
Social Development Ministry
Reshuffle
More in (in spanish)
Pastel de papa: las claves para que explote el sabor
Juliana Awada impacta con un look monocromático: Rolex y sombrero para navegar
Revelan el audio que Keita Baldé le mandó a Wanda Nara: "He sufrido este período"
Previous news of "Argentina"
Argentina admits responsibility for AMIA case 'impunity' before IACHR
Stories that caught our eye: October 7 to 14
President reshuffles his pack with 'militant women'
Macri says he's not registered to run in 2023
'I fell in love' – Horacio Rodríguez Larreta opens up about new partner
Leaked recording reveals Chilean minister's anger at Argentina's ambassador
Argentina closes 2022 with record levels of oil production


A couple of months ago, a video called "Proud Egyptians أنا مصري" went viral on Youtube and Facebook in the Egyptian community. The video was created by a group of people (originally a Facebook group) with the name of PMC Egypt.
We're not sure what PMC stands for, but we are sure what these people are trying to do and what message they're trying to give out. PMC Egypt is a group of hopeful young people trying to send out a message of hope. They created two videos so far to spread their message, we're not going to explain or analyse them, the videos are very clear and speak out for themselves.
Here's a link to their facebook page to stay updated to their latest videos and their twitter account if you would like to follow them.
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text:
New U.S. ISIL strategy: bomb the 'Daesh cash'
The United States has unleashed a new strategy against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL): bomb the "Daesh cash."
According to Col. Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, nine air strikes in Iraq and Syria in the past few months have destroyed "tens of millions" of dollars of "Daesh cash."
Screen grab of U.S. air strike on ISIL cash facility in Mosul. /U.S. Department of Defense
Daesh is a widely used Arabic abbreviation for ISIL, which has hoarded millions of dollars in cash, most it from black market oil sales.
"Striking these cash collection points hurts this enemy," Warren said on Jan. 20. "They operate on cash; there is no credit in ISIL."
Warren said the U.S. has twice struck ISIL cash-collection facilities in Mosul, Iraq, the most recent on Jan. 18. Video of one air strike shows what the U.S. military believes to be plumes of money fluttering into the air following a huge blast.
"A combination of taking away their ability to earn money by striking oil and taking away the money they have on hand by striking the Daesh cash really puts the squeeze on them," Warren said.
Warren said the number of civilian casualties in strikes on the cash facilities was less than 10.
Col. Steve Warren, ISIL, Mosul, New U.S. ISIL strategy: bomb the 'Daesh cash', WorldTribune.com
New U.S. ISIL strategy: bomb the 'Daesh cash' added by Editor One on January 22, 2016


text:
Travis Ewanyk (born March 29, 1993) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre currently playing for Eispiraten Crimmitschau of the DEL2.

Playing career
Before turning professional, Ewanyk played in the junior Western Hockey League with Edmonton Oil Kings. He was drafted 74th overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft after his second season with the Oil Kings. He played two more seasons for the Oil Kings before signing a three-year entry level contract with the Oilers.

Ewanyk spent two seasons with the Oilers' American Hockey League affiliate the Oklahoma City Barons before he was traded to the Ottawa Senators for Eric Gryba. He spent just one season with the Senators' AHL affiliate the Binghamton Senators before becoming a free agent. With no NHL interest, Ewanyk signed for the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL on October 12, 2016. He also played one game for the AHL's Texas Stars during the 2016-17 season. He also had spells with the Fort Wayne Komets and the Wichita Thunder.

On August 29, 2018, Ewanyk moved to Europe and signed with the Krefeld Pinguine of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). He signed a new one-year contract with Krefeld on April 3, 2019.

References

External links

1993 births
Living people
Binghamton Senators players
Canadian ice hockey centres
Edmonton Oil Kings players
Edmonton Oilers draft picks
ETC Crimmitschau players
Fort Wayne Komets players
Ice hockey people from Alberta
Idaho Steelheads (ECHL) players
Krefeld Pinguine players
Oklahoma City Barons players
Sportspeople from St. Albert, Alberta
Texas Stars players
Wichita Thunder players

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Day 2

I am more comfortable with Git. Got that down!

I am going to take from my CSS/HTML Ch. 13 reading comments, as this was a big part of my dag, and a cause of brain freeze. And, this is how I really felt:

  I sure put [a lot of CSS] to use on Day 3 whilst working on the About_Me project. I definitely felt like Peter Griffin for a bit there. I need more practice with the display, and need to try the visibility property. Things get pretty fancy on pg. 319/320 with border-images and box-shadows, but these are more advanced than what was covered in the tutorials, and I personally had time to tackle today during our lab. But please, let's practice.

JavaScript class and reading material was straightforward.

Boy, is it something else to actually come up with and write the content/code yourself. First day of Coder Brain officially felt.


text:
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

API_KEY = 'AIzaSyAkbiLjgdmV6iY6-bw3bCJqiNkpJVA4xTI'
API_SERVICE_NAME = 'youtube'
API_VERSION = 'v3'

class ConnectionError(Exception):
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.value = value

    def __str__(self):
        return repr(self.value)

def search_for_videos(search_term, max_results=10, page=None):
    youtube = build(API_SERVICE_NAME, API_VERSION, developerKey=API_KEY)
    videos = []

    try:
        if page is None:
            result = youtube.search().list(
                q=search_term,
                part="id,snippet",
                maxResults=max_results
            ).execute()
        else:
            result = youtube.search().list(
                q=search_term,
                part="id,snippet",
                pageToken=page,
                maxResults=max_results
            ).execute()
    except HttpError:
        raise ConnectionError("Connection problem.")

    for v in result.get("items", []):
        if v["id"]["kind"] == "youtube#video":
            videos.append({'title': v["snippet"]["title"],
                           'thumbnail': v["snippet"]["thumbnails"]["default"]["url"],
                           'id': v["id"]["videoId"]})
        else:
            pass

    next_page = result.get("nextPageToken", [])
    prev_page = result.get("prevPageToken", [])

    return {"results": videos, "next page": next_page, "previous page": prev_page}

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # r = search_for_videos('fedora')
    # print r
    pass


text:
Alt-Right 'Christian' subreddit endorses Trump's idea to shoot immigrants at border
IRL Layer 8
The 3-year-old community has been quarantined by Reddit moderators.
Eric Crudup (Licensed)
Alex Puente— 2019-10-02 03:43 pm | Last updated 2019-10-02 03:49 pm
Reddit is an online discussion community that hosts millions of users and visitors. The website contains a multitude of forums otherwise known as "subreddits," where users are able to discuss specific topics from politics to Netflix shows. But some more extreme groups have taken advantage of this system, such as r/AltRightChristian, where a user recently created a viral post endorsing President Donald Trump's idea to shoot migrants at the border.
The New York Times this week reported on inside details about an Oval Office meeting that took place in March. More than a dozen White House and administration officials were interviewed by reporters regarding the meeting, in which Trump discussed methods to prevent immigration. Among suggested plans were building a water-filled trench, complete with snakes or alligators, and an electrified wall with spikes on top. On top of all that, the president also suggested that guards shoot immigrants in the legs to "slow them down."
This story has gained a lot of traction online. Many users took to Twitter to express their disgust and outrage.
"NY Times reporting that Trump proposed digging trenches filled with alligators and snakes to stop immigrants. Also asked if he could order border guards to shoot immigrants in the legs. They actually did a cost analysis. Dear God this man is a monster," Twitter user @67jewelCDH wrote.
A very different response comes via the subreddit r/AgainstHateSubreddits, which is dedicated to drawing attention to radicalization on Reddit. It shared a link to r/AltRightChristian, where a moderator posted an image of a CNN article regarding the controversy and responded with the words "FUND IT." The post was well-received on the extremist subreddit, which is three years old but doesn't share membership numbers.
The "alt-right" (an abbreviation of "alternative right") is a far-right, white nationalist movement in the United States. It's often defined as a primarily online movement, taking to websites such as Stormfront to promote white supremacy. It's also been active on social media sites such as Twitter but within the last few years, more and more associated accounts have been banned.
R/AltRightChristian has been "quarantined" by Reddit administrators. When a sub is quarantined, users are shown a displayed warning for offensive content, and the sub can no longer appear on Reddit or Google's search results. The subreddit calls for an ethnonationalist state of white people and recommends conservative blog Breitbart news as a "sympathetic" source of information for alt-right readers.
Alt-right subreddit that used clowns to promote white nationalism has been banned
Milo Yiannopoulos threatens to crash furry convention he is barred from
The Proud Boys accused of making armed 'house calls' to threaten private citizens
Alex Puente
Alex is a recent graduate of the journalism school at the University of Texas at Austin. She has written for the Texas Observer, the Austin Chronicle, KUT, and ORANGE Magazine.
Alt-right Btw Donald Trump Racism Reddit


text:
"Juke Box Boy" (também apresentado como The Jukebox Boy) é o quarto single do álbum Living in the Background, lançado por Baltimora em 1986. Foi lançado apenas na Europa, mas conseguiu entrar somente no Top 15 de faixas mais tocadas na Itália. Um videoclipe também foi feito para a música.

Faixas.
7" Single

12" Single

Desempenho nas paradas musicais

Singles de 1986
Singles de Baltimora


As you probably already know, tobacco use is linked with many serious illnesses such as cancer, lung disease and heart disease, as well as numerous other health problems. What you may not know is tobacco users also are at increased risk for periodontal disease.
In fact, recent studies have shown that tobacco use may be one of the most significant risk factors in the development and progression of periodontal disease.
Whether you smoke, dip or chew tobacco, you are more likely to have periodontal disease – and to have it more severely – than those who do not use any form of tobacco.
As a smoker, you are more likely than nonsmokers to have calculus form on your teeth, have deeper pockets between your teeth and gums, and lose more of the bone and tissue that support your teeth.
If the calculus is not removed during a professional cleaning, and it remains below your gum line, the bacteria in the calculus can destroy your gum tissue and cause your gums to pull away from your teeth. When this happens, periodontal pockets form and fill with disease-causing bacteria. If left untreated, periodontal disease will progress. The pockets between your teeth and gums can grow deeper, allowing in more bacteria that destroy tissue and supporting bone. As a result, the gums may shrink away from the teeth making them look longer. Without support, your teeth may become loose, painful and even fall out. Research shows that smokers lose more teeth than nonsmokers.
As a user of smokeless tobacco, your gums are more likely to recede, and you have a greater chance of losing the bone and fibers that hold your teeth in your mouth. If your gums recede to the point where the tooth roots are exposed, your teeth may become susceptible to root cavities or sensitive to cold and touch (not to mention the fact that your chances of developing oral cancer increase with smokeless tobacco use).
These problems, associated with tobacco use of any kind, are caused by the many chemicals, such as nicotine and tar, in tobacco. These chemicals have harmful effects on the periodontal tissues. They cause an increase in the accumulation of plaque and calculus (or tartar) that can irritate your gums and lead to infection. Following periodontal treatment or any type of oral surgery, the chemicals in tobacco can also slow down the healing process and make the treatment results less predictable.
Tobacco use is addictive, yet every year millions of Americans quit. The benefits include reduced chances of developing cancer, lung disease and heart disease, as well as less expensive health care. When you quit using tobacco, you also reduce your chances of getting oral and gum disease. Gums that are free of disease are essential to help you keep your teeth for a lifetime.
Quitting takes commitment – and it's usually easier if you have help. To begin a tobacco-cessation program, talk to you periodontist or physician. They are prepared to help you.


text:
Justice Yates '23: Singing Sensation Surprise
Michael Candelaria August 19, 2021
Justice Yates '23
File this story of achievement under the heading "School of Music: Former Tuba Student Turns Into National Award-Winning Singer."
That's exactly what happened to Justice Yates '23. And more.
With instrument in hand and plans to become a band teacher, he arrived at Stetson from Tavares High School, only about 35 miles from the campus. Yates, however, certainly has journeyed far in only his past two-plus years.
In mid-July, Yates took first prize from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) in his category — Lower Classical Tenor Baritone Bass Voice.
Yes, he won as a singer. In turn, now a new career beckons.
Founded in 1944, NATS is the largest professional association of teachers of singing worldwide, with more than 7,000 members across the United States, Canada and approximately 35 other countries. Each year, NATS hosts National Student Auditions, a competition and educational experience, where thousands of high school and college students gain instruction and perform through several rounds in multiple categories. This year, in a virtual setting like last year, there were a record-breaking 1,148 applicants throughout the United States and Canada.
And, in the end, Yates was a winner, receiving impressive professional praise along with $1,200 in prize money — even though he still doesn't quite know what to think of it.
"I'm thinking that maybe some people are going to try to contact me in the future and arrange a couple more interviews, which will be great," he says. "I'm really flattered. I think that's amazing that I get to have some exposure."
At the very least, even his friends and classmates are viewing him a little differently. The word, sort of, is out about him. His words: "I have noticed there's some kind of shift in competitiveness because I did win a competition; I can't deny that. … But I'm still leery about competing with other singers here at Stetson. The skill level of many of my colleagues is so high that winning an outside competition isn't enough to guarantee success in the School of Music's [upcoming] Giffin and Concerto competitions. I still have lots of work to do."
Throughout the rounds of competition, the comments from NATS judges were consistently positive, citing his tone, which they described as "centered and direct."
Still, Yates sounds sheepish about all the attention.
"It's really hard to get that [tone] sometimes when you are trying to understand the mechanism of the voice. To hear all of them say that, it's really, really, really nice of them. It lets me know that I'm doing at least one thing right," he says with a laugh.
Tuba No More
Yates didn't begin singing until his senior year at Tavares High, when he joined the choir. A longtime member of the school band, he had sung on occasion with the band and was noticed by the choir director. Courteously, the choir director, Chip Batko, reached out to the band director, Cole Bushman, to inquire. By the way, Bushman is a Hatter, Class of 2017. Yates won't forget their names.
"He [Batko] really needed some guys. And I was like, 'Yeah, I have nothing else to do my senior year. So, I might as well just join the choir,'" Yates recalls.
It turned out to be his Yates' aha moment.
"I joined, and he just put me in a chair, gave me some music, and we got going," Yates continues.
"After I joined, I just realized there's this whole world of music that I was not even familiar with, that I loved even more than the world of music that I was in before."
Consequently, as a first-year student at Stetson, Yates made an immediate change that, he notes, wasn't a difficult decision. He switched majors from instrumental to voice. Up until that time, Yates had planned to teach music. Given his years of involvement with bands, he figured that was the next logical step.
Instead, he followed his heart, realizing "I like singing more than I like playing [the tuba]."
Yet, there had been no formal training. His mother had always loved to sing, and his father played the bass for his church when he was younger. So, there was that bit of background, but not much else.
"Music has been a part of our family for a very long time," explains Yates, whose middle name is Miguel to add some distinction. "But it was never a serious career option that any of us thought of."
A Transformation for Justice Yates
Then, gifted with a booming voice, Yates grew as a singer under the tutelage of faculty at the School of Music, particularly his studio instructor, Jane Christeson, MM, professor of music/voice.
Christeson, a former winner of opera competitions and an opera performer across the United States, led a chorus of instructors who worked with Yates. Originally, he had been attracted to Stetson by its small-class environment and the promise of one-on-one instruction. He hasn't been disappointed.
Justice Yates now has found the stage in a big way, including theater performances at the 2021 Vienna Summer Music Festival, such as singing the role of Peter the Father in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel.
"Any time that a new student is thinking of coming into Stetson [School of Music], I always, always tell them that is one of the main things I'm excited for, and I'm most pleased with at Stetson, is the amount of support that you get from every single faculty member," he comments.
"Everyone here is always ready to help you and allow you to succeed at the best of your ability. … Without their help, I wouldn't be doing any of this."
Not coincidentally, Yates leaned on the faculty during his preparation for the NATS competition, as well as in the song selection for his winning performance (on YouTube above).
Yates chose a song by an artist he had learned about from Christeson. The song was "For You There is No Song" by Black American composer H. Leslie Adams, known for his moving lyrics and spiritual compositions.
In his performance, Yates, of course, delivered. And fittingly, he learned of his winning news while attending the 2021 Vienna Summer Music Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida, where talented young singers and instrumentalists learn in classes and perform in opera productions. Earlier at the camp, one of the directors had told him that NATS success would "mean something huge for a possible career in singing."
While such as story isn't a surprise to new School of Music Dean Washington Garcia, DMA, it is, as the saying goes, music to his ears.
"The level of excellence we have at the school of Music is just huge; it's a very, very high-level," Garcia comments. "This is one more opportunity for us to demonstrate, and to share with the world, the quality of training our students are receiving.
"Obviously, this is a huge accomplishment for Justice, for his dedication and for his work, but this award is not just for Justice. It's an award for our entire voice faculty and School of Music at large, because we're all part of the same team. … This is a testament of what our faculty bring to the table in the process of identifying, training and following up with students."
Yates, meanwhile, has new, greater choices in front of him. While graduate school is a definite option, he says, he's also singing a song of wait and see.
"I'm kind of just going with the flow," he concludes, "and seeing what other opportunities and doors open for me."
-Michael Candelaria
Molly Winsten '15: Tackling a New Challenge
Nick Rickles '11: 'Wanted to Leave with a Medal'


The Ridge: Columbus, GA > Message Series: "Afterlife"
Knowing your forever can shape your today.
The questions we have about life after death—Is there a heaven? Am I good enough? What if I'm not?—can leave us wondering. But that doesn't mean we have to live in fear. Discover why our ideas of what's next could change everything. "Afterlife" is a three-part message series.


text:
Projections have Ole Miss in Cotton or Peach Bowl
December 7, 2014 benchwarmer42
OXFORD — Championship Saturday was very good to Ole Miss.
No. 7 Arizona, No. 9 Kansas State and No. 13 Wisconsin all lost in the course of 24 hours over the weekend, leaving the door open for No. 12 Ole Miss.
Five major bowl projections have Ole Miss playing in the New Year's access bowls, replacing Kansas State. Four have the Rebels (9-3, 5-3 SEC West) in the Cotton, while a fifth has Ole Miss in the Peach.
The College Football Playoff selection committee is expected to reveal its playoff bracket at 12:30 p.m. today (ESPN). The rest of the four New Year's bowls will be announced later in the show, likely around 1:45 p.m.
It ultimately comes down to Ole Miss and Kansas State: Arizona is likely not to be bruised too much by a woeful showing in a conference championship game, and Wisconsin lost any chance of climbing…
Previous postCollege football TV viewing guide: Five games to watch
Next postAfter playoff field is set, who else fills New Years Six bowl line-up?


text:
Locust Projects Makes Art Happen with Three New Commissioned Projects
Written By Shanieya Harris
The 181, THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF INFINITY ON ITS SIDE (O DISSIPATION), 2022. Photograhy by Zachary Balber; courtesy Locust Projects.
Locust Projects is Miami's longest-running nonprofit alternative art venue, founded in 1998 by artists, for artists.
Their newest commissioned projects feature the works of the 181 Collective, Leila Weefur, & Sonic Insurgency Research Group.
The 181 Collective is composed of 4 members: Brandon Boan, Abby Donovan, Tom Hughes, and Jason Rhodes. The group has worked to captivate a new and youthful approach to "art on the move" titled, The Absolute Value of Infinity on its Side (O Dissipation).
Have you ever been asked to tour an exhibit while wearing a headlamp? If the answer is no, this is where art lovers searching for an adventure should go.
Lorrie Mertes, Executive Director at Locust Projects says, "Art on the move is different each time. It could be art that is seen on a bus or the side of a building. This time around with the 181 collective there was a great deal of trust and freedom. They started with a carpet, the rug cutter, and the ladder. Each day they gradually began to add to it. You never know what you will see when you arrive."
When asked what art on the move meant to the collective, member Tom Hughes giggled and simply responded, "We just took it for what it was at face value!"
"You cannot hold something static to its definition. It is about activating and being in relation at all times. What you see on day one will not be the same as what you will find on the last day of the exhibit." Jason Rhodes chimed in.
The collective brings together their journeys and that of bystanders. As a collective, it becomes their responsibility to activate a response from all receptors.
"It is so amazing to see the transfer and sense of car and curiosity in the presence of existing with art." Brandon Boan alluded to setting up at the beach and the reaction that came from children.
When asked to describe their work in one word they agreed on, "Envelope, wobble, half-opened, and cephalopod."
Leila Weefur, Play Prey, 2022. Installation view at Locust Projects, By Zachary Balber Photography. Courtesy Locust Projects.
Leila Weefur's PLAYPREY is a four-part film. Upon entering, it is complemented by audible dialogue, a red-carpeted space, a white architectural installation meant that assists in the exploration of youthful play. Weefur's work touches upon the manifestation of desire, and latent aggression that impacts queer black children's experiences in the Christian Church.
Referencing back to the thought process behind the dialogue Weefur clarified, "The voiceover is a child's inner thoughts. Rarely do we hear/see/understand the inner world of children, especially as they are trying to understand themselves and their relation to the constructed world around them. I wanted this to be the guiding voice, to place everyone in the mind of their child selves and experiences."
Amid architectural nuance and sincerity, Weefur is interested in hearing from others about how and what parts of themselves they can locate in the film.
What parts of yourself will you identify?
Sonic Insurgency Research Group (SIRG) is also a featured collective consisting of artists Josh Rios, Anthony Romero, and Matt Joynt.
SIRG is showcasing its immersive sound installation called If the Source is Open (Megamix).
The exhibition extends the collective's investigations into the relationship between sound and power. It is a mixture of interviews, the natural bustle of Miami, and construction.
SIRG, If the Source is Open (Megamix), 2022. Installation view at Locust Projects. By Zachary Balber Photography. Courtesy Locust Projects.
SIRG responds to those who may question the fusion saying, "The construction sites in the piece present an important sonic presence to think about. The ongoing project of gentrification requires the production of an enormous amount of sound that many might consider being noise. Often silencing the social sonic spaces and practices of people that have been displaced by gentrification."
There is an integrated absorption that invites you, the viewer/listener, to envision, slow down, and spend time with the piece.
Stepping onto the platform creates a physical meeting point where listening can take place. It's a strategy for occupying the room, focusing on the audience, and positioning the listener. It is the listener's responsibility to be present and activate it.
Locust Projects' current exhibitions are open until April 9th. Located in the Miami Design District at 3852 North Miami Avenue, Miami, FL 33127, they are open to visits between 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
For further information, go to locustprojects.org.
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Our view: State-approved squalor requires more action
The Opinion of the RGJ Editorial Board
Many of our community's most vulnerable residents have been living in state-approved squalor.
A program of "supported living arrangement" homes for those with mental health issues was set up by the state of Nevada to have looser regulations than for larger group homes. This was intended to help more small businesses become providers.
But an investigation by the RGJ's Anjeanette Damon found that some of these homes could not even meet those lower standards and agency staff overlooked obviously depressing and decaying conditions.
Within hours of Damon's report being posted at RGJ.com, the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health responded that it would immediately begin independent inspections of each home in its system over the next seven days and take other steps to address the problems.
While heartening, the quick response must be considered just an initial effort that will be followed by a long-term plan to keep this from happening again.
The Nevada Legislature also has a role to play.
It makes sense for supported living arrangement homes to have a lower regulatory burden to clear than larger group homes. But the smaller homes for those with mental illnesses do not even face the same minimal requirements as similar homes for those with developmental disabilities. They have policies that should be followed rather than regulations. This needs to change and requires legislative action to do it.
Nevada's top health official, Richard Whitley, talked about the RGJ investigation Monday on the "Ralston Live" TV show. Regarding a home on Probasco Way in Sparks featured in Damon's story, he said the conditions were unacceptable and vowed regulatory changes.
Whitley also said, "I don't believe it's a resource issue. I think it's one of oversight and regulations internally to us."
Despite this claim, resources are part of the problem.
Reimbursement levels are often inadequate. The owner of a company behind many of the problems in Damon's story — Alonzo Hickerson — said he was often asked to provide 24-hour supervision but given enough money for only 12 hours.
Whitley is right, though, that there was a failure in oversight.
He admitted that the squalor at the Probasco home "didn't just happen overnight." Multiple case managers had the opportunity to raise red flags but failed to, repeatedly.
These are people whose job it is to make sure residents with mental health issues in our community are doing OK. For them to not speak up about deplorable conditions points to deeper issues that will take extra effort to solve.
This situation requires a full evaluation of what went wrong. It should include how the culture at the Division of Public and Behavioral Health contributed.
Another aspect to zero in on involves the public-private partnership. A thread running through Damon's story is how a small business had some initial success providing supported living arrangement homes and was tempted to expand beyond its means by the lure of more government money. It eventually received more than $2 million in a single year.
This happened even though the company operating the Probasco Way house, Project Uplift, did not have the required cash reserves. It was less solvent than it should have been — and agency staff knew it.
In short, warning flags were everywhere.
Beyond the state's initial response, a thorough examination of the causes of failure needs to happen. Reimbursement levels need to be addressed. Oversight of how policies are being executed needs to improve. And action toward a long-term solution must follow.
Our community must be able to trust that those among us with mental health issues are not being ill-treated.