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CULTURAL LEGACY: The Ransom Center preserves some of the world's most important literary and artistic collections and makes them accessible to researchers from around the globe.
Magazine Blog Edition | Print Edition
Harry Ransom Center
Arrive with curiosity. Leave with inspiration.
Take your mind on an adventure. The Ransom Center is an internationally renowned humanities research center at The University of Texas at Austin. Our extensive collections provide unique insight into the creative process of some of our finest writers and artists, deepening the understanding and appreciation of literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts.
The collections include nearly 1 million books, more than 42 million manuscripts, 5 million photographs, and 100,000 works of art. Highlights include Robert De Niro's archive of scripts, notes, costumes, and props; the earliest known extant photograph made with the aid of the camera obscura; E. E. Cummings's wooden paint box; manuscript drafts by Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing; Jack Kerouac's notebook documenting his writing of On the Road; original works by Frida Kahlo, including her iconic self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird; the Gernsheim Collection, containing some of the world's finest examples of photographic art and science; some of Albert Einstein's unpublished notes and calculations for his work on general relativity; Gabriel García Márquez's manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, and more (digitized for easy perusal); and one of only 20 complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible in the world.
The Center is the gathering place for curious minds, and a perfect place to launch your next intellectual adventure. Come visit our exhibitions, attend one of our many programs, check out our collections, or research and study. Keep up-to-date with all the happenings at the Ransom Center when you subscribe to eNews or become a member.
The Ransom Center encourages discovery, inspires creativity, and advances understanding of the humanities for a broad and diverse audience through the preservation and sharing of its extraordinary collections.
Collection Development and Stewardship ○ Collection Development ○ Exhibition Loans
The Ransom Center is committed to building diverse and inclusive collections of enduring cultural value and caring for them in accordance with the highest standards of preservation and access.
Public Service and Engagement
The Ransom Center aspires to engage the broadest possible audience with its diverse and internationally renowned collections.
The Ransom Center values diversity, creativity, and innovation in the materials we preserve, in the interpretation of these materials, in our support of research and teaching, and in our service to the public.
Positive Work Environment
The Ransom Center supports the professionalism and unique talents and perspectives of our colleagues, and fosters a community that values diversity, equity, inclusivity, excellence, collaboration, transparency, and thoughtful action.
The Ransom Center affirms the fundamental importance of the diversity of individuals and ideas in the Center's collections, audience, staff, and programs.
Access Policies and Forms
Audiovisual Access Policy
Camera Use Policy: ENG • ESP
Copyright Ownership & Fees for Certain Ransom Center Collections
Costume Access Policy
Materials Use Policy: ENG • ESP
Notification of Intent to use or quote extensively from Harry Ransom Center collection materials
Patron Visit Form
Photoduplication Order Form
Proxy Researchers Information
Reading and Viewing Room Guidelines
Reproduction, Publication, and Use Fees
Reproduction, Publication, and Use Payment Methods
Statement on Language in Ransom Center Descriptive Records
Deaccessioning Policy
Deaccessioning FAQ
Digital Collections Policies
Exhibition Loan Policy
I propose that there be established somewhere in Texas—let's say in the capital city—a center of cultural compass, a research center to be the Bibliothèque Nationale of the only state that started out as an independent nation.
Harry Huntt Ransom (1908–1976) in his speech to the
Philosophical Society of Texas, December 8, 1956
The Harry Ransom Center—originally named the Humanities Research Center—was founded in 1957 by Harry Huntt Ransom, a visionary English professor who rose through the ranks at The University of Texas to dean, vice president and provost, president, and eventually chancellor. Ransom believed that a strong library was the foundation of a great university, and he devoted much of his attention and energy throughout his career to building the library collections of The University of Texas at Austin. The origins of the Ransom Center, however, trace back decades earlier when the University began to acquire a series of important private libraries.
In 1917, English professor Reginald H. Griffith persuaded University regent George W. Littlefield to purchase the library of Chicago businessman John Henry Wrenn for the University. The Wrenn library contained nearly 6,000 first and rare editions of mostly seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and American authors, in addition to notable manuscripts of the Brontë sisters, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and the Brownings. In 1921, the University purchased the working library of George A. Aitken, author of critical works on Sir Richard Steele, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift. Four years later, Miriam Lutcher Stark of Orange, Texas, donated to the University her personal library, which was notable for containing all four of the first folio editions of Shakespeare, as well as manuscripts and first editions by Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and other writers of the Romantic period. During this period, Fannie Ratchford presided over the collections, first in the Old Library Building (now called Battle Hall) and later in the rare books library in the Main Building, encouraging scholarly discussion over afternoon tea.
The Wrenn, Aitken, and Stark collections gave the Ransom Center a strong foundation for future growth. By 1952, the University's collection had reached one million volumes and was poised for rapid expansion in the decades to come under the visionary guidance of Harry Ransom.
In 1956, Ransom identified his ambitions for the University's library collections in a speech to the Philosophical Society of Texas. He boldly proposed "that there be established somewhere in Texas—let's say in the capital city—a center of cultural compass, a research center to be the Bibliothèque Nationale of the only state that started out as an independent nation." Ransom wanted the Center to be more than a collection of rare books, and his ideas marked a shift in the practice of developing research libraries. Ransom believed that, due to its late start in the field compared with other university and private libraries, The University of Texas could not reasonably build a strong collection of early printed books, which was the traditional collecting focus of libraries that were well established and well endowed. Instead, he plunged the University into the collecting of modern English and American literature, including the works of living writers. This focus was beneficial for a number of reasons: few institutions had set foot in this territory, prices were still relatively low, and collection materials were abundant. Focusing on this underdeveloped market enabled Ransom to acquire materials for a much lower cost, and his collecting efforts supported a growing scholarly interest in modern literature. Furthermore, Ransom decided to acquire literary manuscripts as much as, or more than, rare books, which was an unusual practice at the time. Perhaps most notably, he sought to acquire entire working archives rather than individual manuscripts. This collecting strategy was based on Ransom's premise that the published work should not mark the beginning of literary study. Rather, he believed, study should begin with the archival trail an author leaves behind: the journals, outlines, notes, multiple drafts, and correspondence. In short, Ransom believed that all of the recorded material that is directly or indirectly involved in the creative process is pertinent to the student or scholar.
In 1958, Ransom made several significant acquisitions for the Center, including the extensive library of Edward Alexander Parsons, consisting of 40,000 volumes and 8,000 manuscripts. The Parsons collection, with strengths in Americana, classics, fine printing and binding, travel literature, Bibles, and European history and literature, provided a strong base for the fashioning of a research library. That same year, Ransom purchased the T. Edward Hanley library, which included manuscripts of Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, and George Bernard Shaw. This acquisition gave focus to future collecting for the Center. The Hanley library became the foundation for an evolving and quickly growing collection of twentieth-century literature. Ransom also began acquiring materials more broadly in the humanities, particularly in the areas of photography, art, and the performing arts.
The Humanities Research Center moved to its current location on the corner on 21st and Guadalupe streets in 1972. Although Ransom remained closely involved with the Center's acquisitions until his death in 1976, he served officially as the Center's director for only three years (1958–1961). The Pforzheimer copy of the Gutenberg Bible was purchased in 1978 for the Center in memory of Ransom. In 1983, the Humanities Research Center was renamed the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in honor of its founder.
Ransom's protégé F. Warren Roberts served as director from 1961 until 1976 and continued Ransom's practice of collecting broadly in the humanities and the arts. During his tenure, Roberts acquired the archives of many writers, among them D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, and Evelyn Waugh. In 1963, the Center acquired the Helmut Gernsheim collection, a rich collection that documents the history of photography and serves as the foundation of the Center's photography holdings. In 1968, the Carlton Lake collection, one of the finest research collections outside Paris devoted to modern French literature, art, and music, added yet another dimension to the twentieth-century emphasis.
Following Warren Roberts's retirement, librarian John Payne and curator Carlton Lake served as interim and acting directors of the Center until Decherd Turner was named director in 1980. He served in this capacity until 1988. Turner's primary focus was on establishing a respected conservation department for the Center and strengthening the rare books holdings with such acquisitions as the voluminous Robert Lee Wolff library of nineteenth-century fiction. Perhaps most notable in this period was Turner's acquisition of the Pforzheimer library of early English literature, which includes works by John Locke, John Milton, Queen Elizabeth I, and William Shakespeare, as well as first editions of most major writers of the period from 1475 to 1700. Turner also acquired the Giorgio Uzielli library of books printed by the Aldine Press, which, along with the Pforzheimer library, strengthened the Center's collections in classical and Renaissance holdings.
At the same time, Turner broadened the Center's film and performing arts holdings, adding the archives of iconic film producer David O. Selznick, actress Gloria Swanson, and filmmaker Ernest Lehman. He also acquired the records of the London costuming firm B. J. Simmons & Company, which comprise 29,000 designs dating from the 1880s to the 1960s, including work by such designers as Cecil Beaton, Tanya Moiseiwitsch, Motley, and Léon Bakst.
In 1988, Thomas F. Staley became director of the Ransom Center and led the institution through a 25-year period of tremendous growth. Under Staley's leadership, more than 100 author's archives were acquired, including the papers of J. M. Coetzee, Don DeLillo, Penelope Fitzgerald, Denis Johnson, Doris Lessing, David Mamet, Norman Mailer, Jayne Anne Phillips, James Salter, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and David Foster Wallace. Staley built what is widely regarded as the most significant collection related to the postwar British theater, acquiring the archives of playwrights Tom Stoppard, Arnold Wesker, John Osborne, and David Hare. Other collecting strengths of this period include the archives of Jewish writers and anglophone African authors. Staley also expanded the collections beyond literature with such acquisitions as the archives of actor Robert De Niro and photojournalist David Douglas Duncan, and the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Watergate papers.
In addition to focused collection development, Staley's tenure was marked by growth in other areas. Staley increased the Center's endowments from $1 million to more than $30 million. He established an endowed fellowship program to support the research of more than 50 visiting scholars each year. He also spearheaded a $14.5 million renovation of the Ransom Center in 2003, which provided newly constructed public space for an exhibition gallery, an auditorium, and a new Reading and Viewing Room. Complementing this renovation was a broadened emphasis on exhibitions and public programs to showcase the collections in new and engaging ways.
Today, the Ransom Center's staff, under the directorship of Stephen Enniss, carries forward Ransom's vision. The Center is known for having one of the strongest collections of twentieth- and twenty-first-century British and American literature in the world and for housing the archives of many of the most notable cultural figures of the time. The Center's collections include 42 million manuscripts, nearly one million rare books, 5 million photographs, and 100,000 works of art, in addition to major holdings in the performing arts and film. The collections at the Ransom Center are rich resources for the students of The University of Texas at Austin, who can see, and in turn be inspired by, the original texts, artwork, and photographs that they study in their classes. More than 10,000 scholars and students come from all over the world to study the Center's holdings each year. But the collections are not just for students and scholars. They are available for all visitors, many of whom make a pilgrimage to Austin to see the Gutenberg Bible, the Niépce Heliograph, or the archives of their favorite authors.
A History of the Buildings
Collections of rare books and manuscripts existed at The University of Texas long before Harry Huntt Ransom joined the faculty. The size and importance of the Wrenn library, the founding collection of what would eventually become the Ransom Center, called for special quarters when it was acquired by the University in 1917. The Wrenn materials were originally installed in the Old Library Building, which was designed in the Spanish-Mediterranean revival style by Cass Gilbert in 1911. Still considered one of the most beautiful buildings on campus, it is now called Battle Hall and houses the Architecture Library.
The completion in 1937 of the University's new Main Building, designed by French-born architect Paul Philippe Cret, provided a new home for the Wrenn collection and for the other collections that followed it in the next two decades. The elegant setting of the Wrenn Room, modeled after the library of Sir Walter Scott, included carved walnut bookcases and paneling and high ceilings with bays divided by carved beams and decorated with printing-related motifs. There were three other main rooms in the library: the Aitken Room, which served as the reading room; the Stark Room, which provided additional shelving space; and the marble-floored exhibition room in the entryway. Small roof gardens to the east and west extended the formal ambience of the library. These rooms were eventually designated as the Miriam Lutcher Stark Library.
In 1963, the fourth floor of the new Academic Center, located just to the west of the Main Building, became the home of the extensive twentieth-century collections acquired by Ransom. The Academic Center had a marble-floored lobby, which gave way to a large, carpeted hallway that served as an exhibition gallery and separated an open courtyard, boasting a splendid view of the University Tower from the five named collection rooms: Tinker, Josey, Hoblitzelle, Knopf, and Dobie; the associated libraries remained in these rooms until 2010. Teak and stainless steel appointments, as well as Barcelona chairs and benches designed by Mies van der Rohe, bespoke an elegant modernity. Pre-modern collections were housed in the Main Building in the Stark Library.
The Humanities Research Center building, which opened in 1972, was intended to be the ultimate solution to the problem of space for the growing collections. The architects, Jessen Associates, were selected by Ransom himself, for he had worked with them on the Academic Center and was particularly fond of that structure. The final result was a nearly square structure of seven stories and a basement with a reinforced concrete frame, limestone exterior walls, and nearly 175,000 square feet of space. It provided excellent protection from the outside environment and limited natural light above the third floor. In the original design for the Center, the fourth floor was designated for use by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. At the last minute, the first and second floors were assigned to the Huntington Art Gallery (now the Blanton Museum of Art) for display of the Michener collection of twentieth-century American painting. The fifth, sixth, and seventh floors contained both stacks for collection storage and staff workspaces. In 1982, the building was renamed the Harry Ransom Center.
In the early 1980s, the School of Library and Information Science was relocated, providing space on the fourth floor for the Ransom Center to expand its cataloging facility and to establish a newly organized conservation department. Years later, the creation of a new university art gallery allowed the Ransom Center to claim the full building and undertake a renovation of the first and second floors and the front façade, which was completed in 2003 under the direction of the San Antonio architects Lake/Flato. The design presented by the architects was intended to make the building more open and inviting without compromising security.
The renovation included the addition of a large gallery and state-of-the-art theater on the first floor and a new Reading and Viewing Room on the second floor. With panels of pecan wood lining the walls and suspended from the high ceilings, the reading room recalls the earlier home of the Ransom collections in the Stark Library. The architects emphasized, albeit in a new way, the scale and mass of the original building, calling attention to its high spaces and its sturdy columns. By enclosing two plazas in glass etched with images of the collections and opening the first two stories to the abundant Texas light, they reflected architecturally the two-fold vision of the Ransom Center: to provide spaces worthy of the collections and to make those spaces easily accessible to a growing public.
The Harry Ransom Center Advisory Council is comprised of influential friends from across the state and nation, and international community. It serves as an advisory group to the director and makes a significant difference in the success of the institution.
Council members work with the director and staff to increase private support of the Ransom Center and to champion development and outreach priorities. They promote awareness among constituencies of the broad value and impact of the Center on The University of Texas at Austin campus and beyond. They also encourage philanthropy as a means to enhance public support to fulfill the mission of the Center.
webmail@hrc.utexas.edu


In May 1913 the career of choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky was rising meteorically. He premiered two very different works that month: the Rite at the end of May and, two weeks earlier, Debussy's ballet Jeux, about a trio of lovers playing in the forest, with its graceful, sensual score. As expected, the performance scandalised Parisian audiences, in a musically intense month. The acclaimed American conductor Kent Nagano, director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera, closes the programme with Saint-Saëns' colourful Egyptian concerto, the last of the composer's five piano concertos, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist.


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Green Action () is an environmental organisation based in Zagreb, Croatia and the national member of Friends of the Earth. Based with a full-time activist group with thirteen members back by a larger number of volunteers, the organisation works on topics related to biodiversity, energy, climate change, freshwater, genetically modified organisms, transport, urbanism and waste. Green Action was founded in 1990.

Green Action is part of the 30 national organisations that Friends of the Earth Europe represents and unites at the European level.

See also
 Tomislav Tomašević

References

External links

 Friends of the Earth Europe

Environmental organizations based in Croatia
Friends of the Earth
Organizations based in Zagreb
Environmental organizations established in 1990
1990 establishments in Croatia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Located in beautiful Coral Gables, Florida, The University of Miami is one of nation's finest private universities.Beyond the academic side of things, the University is also noted for its highly active and varied schedule of events. Sports play an important part in life at the University of Miami, with football, basketball, baseball, soccer games and tennis matches particular favorites on the schedule. The varsity sports teams all come under the banner, Miami Hurricanes. The visual arts, music and theatre also feature heavily on the University of Miami schedule, with the college being home to no less than 12 venues. Members of the public as well as students, are welcome to attend many of the films, concerts, readings, talks, cultural programs and theater performances on offer here.
So why not plan your visit now? Make Eventful your source for all the latest news and up-to-date events information from the University of Miami Coral Gables, and check out the schedule right here!


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Wanna Feel Old? Go to VidCon.
What happens when the mechanism that once made people famous strands would-be stars?
By Victor Luckerson Aug 11, 2017, 9:30am EDT
Jungyeon Roh
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The first time I wondered whether VidCon had been engineered specifically to make me, age 27, feel exceptionally old was when the teens started screaming for Tyler Oakley. Oakley was the host of YouTube OnStage, the kickoff concert at the annual conference for online video creators and their highly engaged fans in Anaheim, California. As his face flashed across a trio of giant screens in the 7,500-person arena, a mass of teenagers—mostly girls—began shrieking. The response for Jason Derulo, the alleged main act of the evening, was comparably muted.
"This is my eighth VidCon," Oakley said when he took the stage, eliciting laughter and applause after nearly every sentence. "It just keeps getting bigger and better every single year."
There's no arguing the bigger part. This year VidCon had around 30,341 attendees over a five-day odyssey that sprawled across the entire 1.6 million-square-foot Anaheim Convention Center. In 2010, when the event was first launched by longtime YouTube star Hank Green and his brother, author John Green (via a conversation with a sock puppet), only 1,400 people showed up. Oakley himself was just a fan back then. "The first year I came, I waited in line, I met Rebecca Black, and I about died," he said to teens who were in elementary school when "Friday" dropped.
Now, Oakley is a YouTube megastar with more than 7 million subscribers who watch him vlog weekly about LGBT issues. I knew, as hundreds of teenagers watched Oakley crack jokes through their iPhone cameras, that he was a big online star. But I didn't know he had written a book that cracked the New York Times best-seller list, or sat in the front row during New York Fashion Week, or met with President Obama. He was, by any reasonable measure, A Big Deal, speaking from the stage to the next generation of VidCon attendees who could look up and see a model to follow toward stardom.
"It's much harder than it used to be, but many more people are succeeding. That's a weird dichotomy."
—VidCon cofounder Hank Green
This is the YouTube arc at its most romantic. A young person with creativity and charisma begins shooting videos in his bedroom just for the heck of it and slowly builds up an audience, and, before you know it, he's on Ellen. YouTube's first promise, when it launched in 2005, was to democratize fame (remember when Time magazine told us we were all Person of the Year? A YouTube mock-up appeared on the cover). Its second promise, after it had been acquired by Google and started serving ads under a profit-sharing model in 2007, was to give users a way to parlay that fame into riches. For the video site to thrive in the future, as well as the internet's broader creative economy, it's critical that people continue believing that both these things are possible for anyone and everyone.
This is exactly why VidCon's opening ceremonies tried to shovel as much adoration onto the audience as possible; these are, after all, the next generation of YouTube stars. (VidCon is still run by Hank Green, but YouTube is the title sponsor.) "You are truly what makes YouTube special," Oakley said to rapturous applause. Just before he came on, the OnStage concert began with a bizarre earworm called, "You Put the You in YouTube," which featured a variety of the platform's stars, at least one giant chipmunk, and choreographed tyrannosaurus rexes (all of this was sponsored by Pop-Tarts).
You put the You in YouTube.
See you tomorrow, #VidConUS pic.twitter.com/bUlV01kw1x
— VidCon (@VidCon) June 22, 2017
Underneath the jubilation, though, there's an unmistakable anxiety about the future of YouTube, and online creativity more generally. The video site has grown at a torrid pace since its launch and shows no signs of stopping; earlier this year YouTube revealed that users now watch a billion hours of video per day, while 400 hours of video are uploaded to the platform each minute. But a recent crackdown on videos that might offend advertisers has reminded creators how little control they have over their monetization on the platform. The powerful algorithms that make YouTube so addictive may also create a feedback loop that benefits established creators (or media giants that can create viral-ready content at scale, like BuzzFeed), while boxing out newer ones. And attempts to decamp from the world's biggest video site for another platform can end in abrupt ruin, like Vine.
The digital media revolution is no longer hype—we're living it. But an online world where powerful gatekeepers decide who can and can't make a living isn't so different from the old one, even if those gatekeepers are now tech companies and millennial-focused media brands. VidCon itself—which is housed on three separate floors for fans, creators, and business executives—illustrates that the platform that told us "Broadcast Yourself" has also built a hierarchy of power and influence as it's become more valuable. As YouTube itself approaches its teenage years, the strange, exciting world of independent online media risks being left behind.
"A lot of creators, big and small, are trying to figure out either how to sustain their companies or to make their hobby something that actually contributes to their income," VidCon cofounder Hank Green told The Ringer. "It's much harder than it used to be, but many more people are succeeding. That's a weird dichotomy."
The second time I wondered whether VidCon had been engineered specifically to make me, age 27, feel exceptionally old was just outside the first-floor entrance of the Anaheim Convention Center, when I met the parents of aspiring YouTube stars Cameron Reynolds and Summer Bakker. Both kids are 13 and mostly watch YouTube in lieu of regular television (they're not alone; according to a Piper Jaffray survey about the mysterious habits of teens, more young people watch YouTube daily than cable TV).
Victor Luckerson
"She'll go in her room and say, 'I gotta edit, Mom,'" Sandra Bakker said about her daughter as we sat between rows of food trucks. For kids like Cameron and Summer, VidCon is a chance to meet their favorite celebrities and get a whiff of what internet stardom might be like. The two kids had passes on VidCon's community track, granting them access to the first floor of the sprawling conference. They could attend panels by YouTube stars, ranging from the literary world of "BookTube" (video stars who review and discuss books) to the challenges facing transgender YouTubers. They could wait an hour or two in lines that snaked through the entire bottom floor of the convention center for autograph signings with their favorite personalities ("limit of up to 1 selfie and 1 item signed," warns a placard in the autograph line). Or they could peruse the chaotic expo floor, where YouTube stars hawked merchandise, Nickelodeon offered to slime kids in virtual reality, and the streaming app live.ly held an impromptu fidget spinner trick competition. At the end of the weekend, they'd get the chance to attend the Twix Prom, where hundreds of sweaty teens would decide if they were "Team Left TWIX® or Team Right TWIX®."
Despite all the staged spectacle, the highlights on the fan floor were often spontaneous moments. A few times a day, a well-coiffed teenage boy, often accompanied by a handler or two, would emerge from some first-floor doorway or descend from an escalator, and kids would lose their minds, gaggling around the apparent megastar and craning to document evidence of the chance encounter with their phones. (He would, in return, record their undying adulation with his own phone.) "When kids saw the Beatles for the first time, they went crazy, just like my daughter's going crazy over these YouTubers," Glenn Bakker says. "I keep telling her, 'They're still people.'"
The entire weekend is a corporate-sponsored sugar rush for kids and an otherworldly gantlet for their parents, who are provided a break room with free massages and a cash bar by the VidCon staff. At lunch one day I met Ella Shum, whose 16-year-old daughter, Sonya Walker, had waited two hours to sit in the front row for a panel featuring Markiplier, a popular creator in YouTube's gaming community. Shum was skeptical of this second generation of YouTube stars. "To me, they're all over-coiffed, they're all over-made-up, they're all overly casual but try so hard to be that. It's not natural," she says. "We met a YouTube star who started in 2007 through a friend, and we talked to him a long time. It's almost like a legendary Pokémon—wow! 2007! He's 30-something!"
Shum's daughter doesn't want to be a YouTube star anymore (she grew out of that phase, Shum says), but a lot people at VidCon do. And many of them are aware that they face a tougher road than the people who are currently megafamous did. In one of those neverending meetup lines, this one for news commentator Philip DeFranco, I met Raven Withers, a 21-year-old from Dana Point, California, who watches five hours of YouTube per day. Withers was proud to say she was one of Markiplier's first 10,000 subscribers (he now has 18 million) and rattled off strange phrases that meant nothing to me like Ear Biscuits and Good Mythical Morning (a podcast and YouTube show by internet comedy duo Rhett and Link).
"We met a YouTube star who started in 2007 through a friend, and we talked to him a long time. It's almost like a legendary Pokémon—wow! 2007! He's 30-something!"
—Ella Shum, mother of a 16-year-old VidCon attendee
She notes that she has plans to launch her own gaming channel, but gestures toward the other fans that surrounded us. "There's probably one, two, three, maybe 10 people in this line that probably have a channel," she says. "Honestly, it would have been a lot easier five years ago. Back in the day, there weren't that many channels. There weren't that many people that thought about doing this. Look at the king of YouTube, PewDiePie. He started the entire [gaming] thing, with 50 million subscribers and growing today. That's a large industry you have to fight through. Let alone being a woman—that's harder."
The third time I wondered whether VidCon had been engineered specifically to make me, age 27, feel exceptionally old was on the second floor, when everybody lost their shit over Vine. I attended more than a dozen panels over three days at VidCon, and none were as crowded as "Mourning Vine," which gathered some of the defunct social network's biggest stars to reflect on its demise. The panel was part of the "creator track," where the people who are trying to fashion their YouTube channels into legitimate businesses can get tips and insight from their peers.
I never watched enough Vine to know too many of the stars' names, but the attendees of the panel were very, very excited to see David Dobrik, Thomas Sanders, the Gabbie Show and others. Though the panel name implied a somber tone, it was a fairly festive event. As each star took the stage, teen fans screamed and peppered them with hard-hitting questions like, "Are you coming out with more merch?" and "Do the Stewie voice! [from Family Guy]." A celebration made sense for these stars; they were the ones who had ably carried their audiences to platforms like YouTube and built the brief, shining light of Vine into their growing mythologies.
Everyone hasn't been so lucky. One audience member asked what Vine stars the panelists miss seeing, and Gabriel Gundacker was mentioned. Later I called him up. Gundacker, a Florida native, recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue writing and acting opportunities. He's found it difficult to transfer the unusual structure of Vine—"about the length of a one-liner," in his words—to other platforms. "It was hard to get people to follow you or to appease those followers with Instagram or Twitter because the material is inherently different," he says. "A lot of people message me and they say they're sad I'm gone. That's always so strange to me because I'm not gone. I haven't passed. I just don't make the Vines anymore."
There were other reasons for creators to be anxious amid the success stories. Many YouTubers have seen their revenue decrease this year because of the way the video site serves ads. In March, following reports about advertisements appearing before racist or explicit videos, YouTube created more strict guidelines for what kinds of videos can be monetized on the platform. But these changes ended up casting too wide a net, capturing news commentary and LGBT videos that could hardly be deemed offensive. At the same time, major brands such as AT&T and Johnson & Johnson pulled their ads from YouTube to avoid controversy, driving down ad volume. Collectively, these events have come to be known as the "adpocalypse," and they've created existential dread among creators whose livelihoods are pegged to unknowable corporate interests and mysterious algorithms. "I do have different income streams, but if YouTube were to suddenly just not monetize any videos, then yeah, that definitely worries me," says Aysha Abdul, a 22-year-old beauty vlogger.
Criticism of YouTube outside VidCon's walls was more pointed. RJ Aguiar, who's been a full-time YouTuber since 2014, saw his ad revenue drop 90 percent in the spring as some videos were demonetized without warning and others simply attracted fewer ads. Now wary of using YouTube as a stable source of income, he's trying to find a traditional professional job at a tech company. "It's never been easy making a living on YouTube, but the recent climate is crippling midlevel creators," he says. "It's basically robbing us of our ability to make a living off the platform."
YouTube, which has weathered criticism from creators for months over its ad policies, announced this week that it's releasing new tools to help creators appeal decisions to show a limited number of ads on videos when they fall in a gray area of the platform's standards. The company has also regularly emphasized that the adpocalypse affected a fraction of its total creators in specific genres. "Creators have asked for a more detailed understanding of how well their individual videos are monetizing," a company spokesperson said in an email. "While we've always provided notification when a video is fully demonetized, today's icon changes will help creators identify and appeal videos that are earning less money because they've been deemed by our systems as not being suitable for all advertisers."
While YouTube's new feature should improve the plight of some creators, there's still an increasing feeling that the online creative economy is a world of haves and have-nots. At the first VidCon in 2010, fans and creators mingled casually as everyone celebrated the ascendance of online video. At this year's event, creators were cloistered at a Hyatt hotel more than a mile from the convention center and its gaggle of fans. The hotel was swarmed by security personnel to keep overeager onlookers at bay, while vans with tinted windows shuttled video stars from the facility back to the conference. Inside, creators discussed which of the conference's many corporate after-parties they would attend as armed police officers strolled through the opulent atrium that serves as the hotel lobby. "As the event has grown, the logistics have gotten more complicated, security's grown, the size of the audiences have grown, and that's certainly a different feel than it was many years ago, where there was a lot more of an even playing field," says Laura Chernikoff, the former guest manager for VidCon. "It's always been an event about community, and community is a hard thing to keep a feel of at 28,000 people [in 2016]."
The one time I didn't wonder whether VidCon had been engineered specifically to make me, age 27, feel exceptionally old was on the third floor, when Verizon tried to convince me it was "revolutionizing connectivity." As a galloping alt-rock song blasted through one of the convention center's largest conference rooms, Verizon's bizarre assortment of media properties (I've delved into them before) flashed across the screen, along with phrases such as "11,400 hours of originals" and "delivering powerful experiences … wherever you are." The company was aiming to convince advertisers, sporting badges for VidCon's industry track, to market their wares on its various websites and streaming services.
"It's never been easy making a living on YouTube, but the recent climate is crippling midlevel creators. It's basically robbing us of our ability to make a living off the platform."
—RJ Aguiar, full-time YouTuber
Ultimately, it's the people on the third floor—ad and tech and ad-tech executives—who decide what kind of future the kids on the bottom two floors of VidCon will be able to aspire to. Online creators largely make money through programmatic advertising—the annoying preroll ads on YouTube—or brand deals that involve product placement in videos and possibly illegal schilling on Instagram. YouTube, for all its faults, remains the most well-known and viable platform for a creative person to quickly start making money. Instagram, despite its growing emphasis on video, still doesn't share ad revenue with creators. Snapchat pays media companies but not regular users who build a following. Twitter started a revenue split in 2016 but still largely revolves around text. Facebook has been slowly expanding a revenue-sharing program with creators and is planning an aggressive push into premium video, but that premium investment will go to media conglomerates and sports leagues, not independent creators.
There are other corporate obstacles creators face. The identity-affirming content that used to be the bread and butter of plenty of creators is now mass-produced by video behemoths like BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which has been accused of stealing the work of independent creators and recently dealt with a rash of public departures (explained, of course, via dramatic vlogs). "What BuzzFeed wants online video to look like is probably different than what independent creators want online video to look like," says Chernikoff, who currently serves as the executive director of the Internet Creators Guild, an organization formed in 2016 to advocate for the online creative community. "It's going to be interesting to see what wins out—how much this does get folded back into traditional media gatekeepers and opportunities vs. the creators, who I think are really leading the field in creating small businesses, growing careers, collaborating, still being a community, and all of the things that started out making this field so great."
The cumulative result of these challenges is a market that is harsher for creators than it's ever been while still offering more different avenues to success than ever before. "Someone at Tyler Oakley, Hannah Hart, PewDiePie's level, they've built essentially a celebrity business. … That's a very different level than the people who are trying to just keep doing this, just keep making content," says Chernikoff. "When something like adpocalyspe happens, it hits that group harder because they're not diversified as much."
There are solutions emerging for midlevel creators. Patreon was launched as a humble experiment by YouTube personality Jack Conte in 2013 to see if users would pay a monthly fee to support their favorite internet creators, whether they were vloggers, writers, or musicians. The platform has paid creators $100 million through the end of 2016 and expects to pay them an additional $150 million this year.
"All the trends are moving toward consumer payments," Conte says. "Netflix has 100 million subscribers. Spotify just announced 50 million subscribers. The New York Times is shifting most of their revenue toward consumer payments instead of advertising. … It's just very clear that the web is building the infrastructure to get creators paid."
The last time I wondered whether VidCon had been engineered specifically to make me, age 27, feel exceptionally old, I was standing just outside the Anaheim Convention Center as a hundred teenagers craned their heads up and chanted in unison. From a balcony on the top floor, some of YouTube's biggest stars were looking down upon their fans. The teens on the ground, likely aspiring stars themselves, screamed the names of some of their idols: "David! David! David!" was an especially popular refrain. Occasionally a star would toss a random item—a T-shirt or a water bottle or even a scrap of paper—and the teens would scramble to collect it, even if they didn't recognize who had discarded it. David Dobrik, the Vine star turned YouTube star the kids were so desperate to see, never came out. Despite often being separated by just a 5-inch screen, he and his fans were a universe apart.
View all stories in Tech

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A set of reusable body parsers and utilities that do not require configuration.
Don't parse the body content.
A body parser that always returns an error.
A body parser that flattens a future BodyParser.
Wrap an existing BodyParser with a maxLength constraints.
Allows to choose the right BodyParser parser to use by examining the request headers.


text:
GROOVEY TV'S TOP 5 VIDEO GAMES OF 2012
Teh Ben December 22, 2012 Geek, Grooveyness, Uncategorized No Comments on GROOVEY TV'S TOP 5 VIDEO GAMES OF 2012
All of the end of the year, everybody's best of" lists are rather subjective, and most of them really tend to be author-centric. So keep this fact in mind, as you are just gonna have to realize this is my very opinionated Top 5 list for videogames this year, so try to not get all butthurt that I left out something obvious and/or Skyrim related. Back in the day, I used to be a bit more than casual gamer", but this year I've been forced to put my electronic reward teat on the back burner. Adult Real Life Problems" plagued me to an almost constant degree this year so I really did not get to put a whole lot of time into or effort into playing lots of games or getting a bunch of achievements and crap. Instead, the lovely year of 2012 dealt me a busy hand with getting beat up by the SWAT team while in my Rock Band underwear, having a car that would explode every time I unlocked the doors, being swamped constantly with home repairs, and working all sorts of unholy hours all year long onstage dancing alongside the other Aussie Thunder Boys. The normal work we do as male entertainers is exhausting already enough as it is without the extended overtime. So naturally, anything I decide to put time and effort into really had to be genuinely worth my while. I'll be damned if I waste time sitting around wasting my precious life force playing the latest copy of regurgitated crap like Angry Birds: Cocks Version II".
I'm not exactly sure if I'm the most qualified for this, due to my normal propensity to gravitate towards the strange and weirder types of digital offerings. I love games that are different and strange, or the exact opposite -games that are mind numbingly repetitive and require little or no thought at all. I still, to this day, play my copy of E.T.""The Extra Terrestrial on my Atari 2600 (for all you young kids, an Atari 2600 was a blocky ass thing you hooked up to your TV in the 80's to give your television diarrhea) when I'm really bored. I may have a strange taste for the whimsical, but I am also capable of falling in love with some well-designed mainstream blockbusters too. That, and my editor stuck a knife in my desk yesterday with a note attached to it saying something that if I write another article reviewing another 12-year-old CD that he'll give me his prison shaft" or something. So I'm sticking to the more current and popular stuff, so don't worry, there's not going to be anything like El Shaddai on this list. But if you like playing really weird games, trust me, El Shaddai is the bee's testes.
(Note: Most of these games have been played and reviewed on my Xbox 360 because that's the only current console I have. I can't help it, I'm not made of money and I have a medically diagnosed disorder in which I only feel truly loved when I'm paying sixty dollars a year to Microsoft to have 12 year olds in Pittsburgh constantly reassure me of how gay I really am. I'm not sure if there are any platform differences…. So, sorry Playstation 3 dudes, I won't go back to Sony unless they make a new Parappa The Rapper (Gangsta Edition).
Abobo will punch your dick off!
5. Abobo's Big Adventure "" (flash game at www.newgrounds.com)
Anyone that knows me knows I have a rather disturbing NES collection that borders on a Hoarders-level of intensity. I know most you have a big box of old dusty Nintendo games up in your attic, so stop pushing your judgment on me already. Now, imagine if that huge cardboard box full of games got a kinda drunk, put on a little Barry White and busted out the lube and then all of "˜em got their freak on. The resulting offspring of this awesome group procreation would be known as Abobo's Big Adventure. The main character is Abobo from Double Dragon and he kicks and punches his way across varied realms of the Nintendo golden age. All the enemies are a hodgepodge collection of any and all conceivable NES sprites you can remember. Remember those stupid little pedestrian girls that walked around in River City Ransom? In this game you can walk up to them and punch their heads off leaving bloody girl stumps and chomp up the decapitated heads for HP. This game is an awesome short-term diversion when you have writer's block or you get bored of stalking your female friends on Facebook. You can play it directly on the Newgrounds site or you can download the full game from i-mockery.com for standalone play for when you are eventually cut off from your ISP for illegal organ trafficking. I love the fact that a group of people got together and programmed this game, released it online and then made it available for download for free as a true testament to genuine love, passion and effort. This game is by far the finest 8-bit tribute ever, and not in an irritating way like that obnoxious Minecraft game is(cue the haters).
Oh, Jules….Why did they make you 17??? This makes me feel so damn dirty.
4. Lollipop Chainsaw "" (360/PS3)
Ha Ha! Ok, I lied! I did sneak a weird game onto my list. If you love zombies, copious blood, bizarre slander, underage cheerleaders and misogyny, this is the game for you. You play as a Californian cheerleader who fights wave after wave of zombies with a pink sparkly chainsaw. There's a nod to the bronies" phenomenon in this game with the unique Sparkle Bonus" feature. Beheading multiple zombies with one slash fills the screen with sparkles, rainbows and stars followed by a happy cheerleader chant. There are multiple environmental levels, which consist of fighting different types of zombie breeds, culminating into awesome, curse-filled boss fights in which the killing blow is usually sawing the adversary in half, controller vibrations resonating as your chainsaw hits marrow and sinew. There's blood sprayed all over the place, which eventually ends up blacking out the entire screen. Inbetween the blood bath and sparkly pony rainbows, there's hilarious banter between the main character and her newly-beheaded boyfriend that she wears on her hip as a belt accessory. As you progress through the game, be sure to listen closely as you free the zombie-enslaved students, they say some of the damnedest things. After freeing one student, he told me happily told me something about his sister and a turkey baster. This is a game that I can assure you, has been created solely for me. Splash in some fantastic background music at the appropriate moments, and you've got an unbelievable game on your hands. I absolutely loved driving around in the combine chopping up large groups of zombies into mulch as Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" blared. After playing this game, I have been known to listen to Toni Basil's Hey Mickey" on repeat over the course of my entire commute to work at the ThunderDome to drink heavily and dance my woes away.
I'm your Commander..and I..uh…command you to drop your pants…
3. Mass Effect 3 "" (360/PS3)
As a young game player who lived for instant and constant action, my introduction to role-playing games left a rather sour taste in my mouth. I was introduced to this genre through a little-known turd nugget known as Dragon Warrior on my NES. It was clunky and boring, and in order to examine the patch of dirt the little warrior character was standing on, twelve different sub-menus had to be opened to hit EXAMINE". Then from there it was a ten second pause followed by …..SIR COCKSTAIN…FOUND NOTHING". So I wrote these types games off as being shit permanently until my roommate several years later introduced me to Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES in which I was instantly hooked and never looked back. These types of games require a lot of emotional investment due to the intricate stories and how damn long they are with the constant level grinding with the sheer butt-ton of random encounters. When done correctly, these games are a fulfilling experience that tends to stick with you well after the curtain closes. Mass Effect 3 is a game that has masterfully created a dazzling cinematic role-playing sci-fi masterpiece. Every step of the journey is unique, because your choices and moral decisions change the inner working of the relationships the player has with the other characters in the game. You want to bang blue alien chicks at the club? You got it. You want to start a catfight between all the other women on the Normandy? Go for it! You want to have a gay Commander Shepard who sexually takes advantage of an emotionally wounded male shuttle pilot? You go get down with your virtual gay self! You can even make your Shepard look however you wish! My version, Commander WeToddDid Shepard" had his features so awkwardly askew that he looked like he had a debilitating case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome complemented by a face full of scars. Even though his face was absolutely horrific, he still managed to bang his way across the galaxy, proving that universally that blue chicks have really, really low standards.
And if you played Mass Effect 2, the surviving members of your old squad are scattered around the galaxy for reunion. I didn't really get to experience a whole lot of this feature in the game because 90% of my team was killed off in the final battle the last Mass Effect. In my game, the only surviving teammate from Mass Effect 2 was the terminal frog-faced guy. I found him in my game, but he won't join your war effort, he just sits around watching Jersey Shore in the Citadel hospice, praying for a swift death. Everything about this game is fantastic, and I when I have time, I will play through again, but this time with a butt-ugly female version of Commander Shepard. Something tells me she's going to be kind of…..slutty.
Not Pictured: Sgt. ButtPlug, Esq.
2. X-Com: Enemy Unknown (PS3/Xbox)
Did you ever play A LOT of X-COM back in 1994? Did the alien terror always manage to wipe out all your UN funding? Did you always use up every last Time Unit for each soldier and leave them standing in plain view, frozen in time, defenseless to the massive group of blaster toting aliens fifteen feet away from them? Did you give each of your squaddies silly-ass pet names, and then chuckle with malice as you lead them like blind lemmings to their deaths? If you did all that and loved it, then I'm sure you already have a copy of this game and are at this present moment sending your troops to an efficient end. This new version of X-COM is not quite a sequel, or an HD remake, or a gritty reboot. It hovers in the gray realm of being just a new X-COM game with the same mechanics and overall goal of the original game. At least this is a more faithful game than that other bastard X-COM that is still in development. You know which one I'm talking about….The one that is a FPS that takes place in the Dennis The Menace universe. I'm pretty sure that one is going to suck pretty hard. This is the fun and nerve-racking turn-based strategy version that is closest to the original game.
All the good stuff from the old game is streamlined and simplified slightly for the console update. My favorite optional function from the old game is still intact, the ability to name your squad members. Nothing bonds together a group of miscreant military mercenaries better than having something universal in common, all of them having idiotic names like Wookie Pubes", Scrotie McBurgerballs", and Shamus O'Blumpkin". And then half the fun is watching these poorly named commandos get positively shredded on the battlefield. This game is still pretty tough as it ever was, so I highly recommend not playing it drunk because when I played it after chugging a half bottle of Sailor J, I lost all my soldiers and my troop transport craft on the first fight. In about three turns…Definitely not a good drunk game.
These characters are standing on a massive pile of 13,000 guns. I think Pandora is made of firearms.
1. Borderlands 2 (Xbox360/PS3)
What is the worst part about a game with 64,000,035 different guns? Not a single damn thing.
The crew from Gearbox has thrown down another winner with Borderlands 2, improving every aspect of an already over-the-top polished forerunner. There's a shit ton more missions, better weaponry, the new purple funk" element, a more balanced monetary system, and very well-designed and fleshed out supporting characters. Even Scooter the Mechanic has some hilarious side quests that made me shoot geysers of Mountain Dew out of my nostrils when they got to the punchline of each story. Catch a riiiiiiiide?? The main antagonist is much better and far, far more obnoxious and he taunts you constantly throughout the entire game. Add in even some new vagina-themed monsters, new character classes and giant new skill trees and there are literally hundreds of hours that this game will suck from your life like a sparkly brooding vampire. The storyline and writing is top-notch from the very first mission and stays strong throughout the whole length of the game.
The big difference I noticed in this sequel to the original is the absence of the Legendary F Word. It was peppered in almost every basic conversation in Borderlands 1, but is all but non-existant in the realm of Handsome Jack's Pandora. This game is a blast to play co-op with your buddies or with random creepy twelve year olds on XboxLive. So when you play it with the random Live players, they will add their very own F words as you drop crappy loot for them.
This great game just continues to get better. Don't discount the fact that they've already added two whole large game expansion downloads already, with a third one set to drop in a week. My favorite Borderlands 2 moment, aside from the hilarious conversations and ECHO recordings, was the inclusion of a NPC based on a Borderlands player who passed away while they were working on this game. As a tribute to him, Gearbox put a virtual version of him into the game itself. He's hanging out in town and if you find him he'll give you some pretty sweet guns. I think giving that kid a little immortality via a videogame was really touching. If you get any games this year, make sure this incredible game is one of them.
Happy Holidays to all of you gamers! May your wet dreams be filled with Lara Croft's pixelated triangular titties, boning Borderland's vagina headed monsters, and may you unlock the coveted Nude Code for Halo 4. Master Chief has a ginormous armored green dong.
Also, just to throw these out there without having to write another article…..
Best Song Of the Year 2012: Sunshine" Matisyahu.
Best Video of the Year 2012: Gangnam Style" by Psy.
Best Horsie Dancing and Elevator Crotch Ducking of 2012: Gangnam Style" by Psy.
Best Movie of the Year 2012: Goon"
Best TV Show of 2012: That weird moonshine documentary with 12 moonshine runners and 4 teeth.
Best Album of 2012: Push and Shove" No Doubt.
Best Las Vegas Entertainer of the Year 2012: Carrot Top.
Best Video Game Moment of 2012: I'm Han Solo" on Kinect Star Wars. (duh)
2012december2012Top 5Video Games
Teh Ben
Teh Ben is a Denver-based author and World Champion of Duck Hunt (1986). He also has many works of fan fiction on various websites detailing the sexual relationships of the ThunderCats. When not writing, he can be found in front of his television holding a Zapper one centimeter from the screen.
TOP RAMEN GAMER REVIEWS DUCKTALES: REMASTERED
Clutch Rocks Denver!
Video Interview with Jean-Paul Gaster from Clutch
DEFTONES ANNOUNCE US SPRING TOUR SEVENTH STUDIO ALBUM KOI NO YOKAN OUT NOW


IAVA's Rapid Response Referral Program (RRRP) works with veterans and families across the nation providing critical support, guidance and linkages to on the ground resources. RRRP is staffed by masters-level Veteran Transition Managers (VTMs) that work on the front lines every single day, ensuring our nation's heroes and their families have the support that they need and have earned.
We saw a steep uptick last week with GI Bill payment related cases and served 32 new clients. The team is busy and working through them, ensuring our clients receive financial support and resolution with payment issues.
Client quote of the week: "My case manager takes the time to understand my complicated needs and issues. The support she provides me has made the biggest positive impact on me since I transitioned out of the military." Learn more by checking out RRRP's latest Weekly Impact Report.
Senior Veteran Transition Manager, Military Services & Faith-Based Lead, Julienne Williams will be joining IAVA's Advocacy team and IAVA members from across the country next week to participate in Storm the Hill. IAVA's Storm the Hill is a quarterly advocacy and leadership development campaign and the most powerful non-partisan policy impact program for post-9/11 vets in America.
Tune in next Thursday, December 13 when IAVA's Chief Services Officer, Hannah Sinoway delivers testimony in NYC before the NYC Council Committee on Veterans regarding veteran access to higher education.
IAVA's Rapid Response Referral Program (RRRP) is here for any veteran or family member that is in need of support. Reach out to us today. Visit our FAQ page for more information.


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The Sentinel-6 satellite
#GS3 #SCIENCE #SPACE #CLIMATE
Data from satellites such as Sentinel-6 help scientists foresee the effects of the changing oceans on the climate.
The Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, designed to monitor oceans, was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 21.
This is a part of the next mission dedicated to measuring changes in the global sea level.
Other satellites that have been launched since 1992 to track changes in the oceans on a global scale include the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and OSTN/Jason-2, among others.
The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite has been named after Dr. Michael Freilich, who was the Director of NASA's Earth Science Division from 2006-2019 and passed away in August this year.
The mission Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) mission, is designed to measure the height of the ocean, which is a key component in understanding how the Earth's climate is changing.
The spacecraft consists of two satellites, one of them launched on Saturday, and the other, called Sentinel-6B, to be launched in 2025.
It has been developed jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat), the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EU, with contributions from France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).
Satellite function
According to NASA, the satellite will ensure the continuity of sea-level observations into the fourth decade and will provide measurements of global sea-level rise.
Since 1992, high-precision satellite altimeters have helped scientists understand how the ocean stores and distributes heat, water and carbon in the climate system.
Essentially, the satellite will send pulses to the Earth's surface and measure how long they take to return to it, which will help scientists measure the sea surface height.
It will also measure water vapour along this path and find its position using GPS and ground-based lasers.
Further, the data it collects will support operational oceanography, by providing improved forecasts of ocean currents, wind and wave conditions.
This data will allow improvements in both short-term forecasting for weather predictions in the two-to-four-week range (hurricane intensity predictions), and long-term forecasting, for instance for seasonal conditions like El Niño and La Niña.
Mission Sagar - II Handing Over Food AID to Djibouti by INS Airavat
Naga Peace Accord
DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS DATED 17.01.2021
GS-1 Art & Culture
GS-1 ARTS
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gs-3 climate
GS-1 Tribes
GS-3 Transportation
GS-2 Indian Polity
GS-2 Justice
Prelims-2020
GS- 1 Solar System
GS-3 Wildlife
GS-3 Energy
GS-3 Pandemic Management
GS-2 Welfare Schemes
GS-3 Ecosystem
GS-2 Women & ChildrenWelfare
GS-3 Natural Disaster
GS-1 World History
GS-1 Festival
GS-3 CHILDWELFARE
GS-03 Agriculture
GS-3 Social Awareness
GS-3 History & Culture
GS-1 Volcano
GS-2 Visa Norms
GS-2 Monsoons
GGS-3 Government Policies
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GS-2 GOVERNA
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GS-3 Taxation


Navigating new markets can be both a daunting and challenging task. Africa's population is growing steadily and will soon top 1 billion people. Of that number, there is a growing middle class that is ready to purchase both goods and services. The Chamber can help you identify some vetted partners with whom you can work to understand the market, your value proposition, competitors, market entry etc. so that you can formulate a realistic and successful marketing strategy for regions of interest within Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Borders Iran and Afghanistan share a 582-mile (936-km) border along a plain in western Afghanistan. The Iranian-Afghan border crosses through several deserts and marshlands.A list of every Word of the Year selection released by Dictionary.com. Dictionary.coms first Word of the Year was chosen in 2010.


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Mike Tyson 'hated Michael Jackson's guts' after crushing backstage snub
Boxing legend Mike Tyson will return to the ring for the first time in 15 years when he fights Roy Jones Jr in California on Saturday
MIKE TYSON SHOWS OFF INCREDIBLE PHYSIQUE
Jane LavenderAssociate Editor
After 15 years out of the ring former Heavy Weight Champion of the World Mike Tyson is returning to boxing this weekend.
The 54-year-old, known as 'Iron Mike' will take on Roy Jones Jr in California with millions around the world expected to tune in for his come back.
At the height of his career, Tyson was one of the most famous - and controversial - sports people on the planet.
Huge bouts and lucrative sponsorship deals saw him amass what is believed to have been fortune of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Nicknamed the 'baddest man on the planet', Tyson rubbed shoulders with A-list stars and counted some of the biggest names in TV, film and music among his friends.
Mike Tyson was one of the most famous sports people on the planet (
Reuters)
Mirror Football email - sign-up for all the latest news and transfer headlines
Mike Tyson reiterates desire to fight Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury
However, the boxer's friendship with global superstar Michael Jackson got off to a rocky start, with Tyson admitting he "hated his guts" in a grudge that last for years.
The pair were first introduced at a concert and it's fair to say the meeting did not go well.
Speaking on T.I.'s expediTIously podcast, the former world champion said: "I met Mike one day, I think he was at a concert in Cleveland, I'm with Don King.
"So me and Don come in, right? And I'm champ and everything, did all this s***, undisputed.
"So Don goes and Don gives Michael Jackson the peace sign, like this. And then so Michael gives Don the peace sign, and so I give Michael the 'peace' sign, and Michael put his hand down.
Tyson was snubbed by Michael Jackson backstage at a concert (
AFP/Getty Images)
Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jnr will be 'won by the man who has lived the cleanest life'
Mike Tyson told he wouldn't have beaten Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier
"In a way, I say, 'Did he play me? Nah, he didn't play me, he just didn't see me. I knew he didn't play me, cause I'm f***ing champ."
Remaining understanding, Tyson was again introduced to Jackson at the end of the show - and once again the boxer was snubbed.
He said: "So we went backstage, right? So I'm backstage, and so there's his backstage, some of his singers and stuff.
"He's on stage, it's over I'm signing autographs and stuff, so Michael comes over and he talks to Don, he doesn't talk to me. … I say 'Let me just go on and meet Mike', cause that's really why I'm here, I want to meet Mike.
"And then I go over to meet Mike, … and he goes like this, 'Don't I know you from somewhere? Where I know you from?' He broke my ego, he crushed me.
Mike Tyson with singers Aaron and Nick Carter (
Mike Tyson earned $400m during his boxing career - but blew it all
Mike Tyson explains why he "wanted to kill" Evander Holyfield during rematch
"I said 'No, I'm just a fan, pleasure to meet you, sir. He said, 'OK', and then he got out and went in the car."
It would be a grudge that Tyson would refuse to let go of for years - even refusing an invitation to hang out from Jackson.
Eventually, he forgave the Thriller star and the pair became close friends. But Tyson couldn't let the earlier snub lie.
He said: "I got on a plane, went over there, hung out, and we just started hanging out together. And I said 'F*** man, he's a good guy.
Mike Tyson and Michael Jackson ended up close friends when the boxer ended his grudge (
Mike Tyson's incredible body transformation ahead of return fight against Roy Jones Jr
Mike Tyson sparring partner 'gave him a black eye' after turning up in £20 training gear
"But in my mind, I said 'Why'd you play me though, Mike, why'd you play me like that? You knew who I was, why'd you play me?'"
Following the end of his career and his conviction for rape, Tyson has admitted he is "broke".
After filing for bankruptcy in 2003, Tyson said: My whole life has been a waste – I've been a failure.
"I just want to escape. I'm really embarrassed with myself and my life. I want to be a missionary. I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country.
"I want to get this part of my life over as soon as possible. In this country nothing good is going to come of me. People put me so high. I wanted to tear that image down."
In recent years, Tyson has worked hard to turn his life around. His one-man Broadway show embarked on a successful tour of America.
And the purse from his long-awaited fight with Jones Jr will all be donated to charity.
Jones JrMike TysonMichael Jackson
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The website of wildlife education charity Wild About Britain is calling for more volunteers to help populate the site with news and pix. The site owners want cycle info. Andrew Hunter of Brooks saddles is helping the charity with its marketing and content development.
wildaboutbritain.co.uk is run by Hunter's brother, Stuart Diston-Hunter, and contains daily news, an events calendar, forums, and photo galleries.
"Wild About Britain desperately need volunteers to help add content and design, photographs and news from every corner of the British Isles," said Andrew Hunter.
"Essentially, the web site aims to get people from every age group and background to become more actively involved in our natural heritage. By providing a full range of information on wildlife, the environment and outdoor activities, we aim to show that our countryside still has a great deal to offer, and that modern entertainment needn't be limited to computer games, videos and television."
Hunter said contributors could submit photos, write about days out, or forthcoming events.
"We currently have volunteers that range from the occasional forum poster or photograph contributor to web developers, designers and journalists that have all helped to produce 20 000 web pages," said Hunter.


The new version of the Avian Waves website is now online! It took much longer than expected to complete, but I think it is now finally done. It may still need some tweaks here and there, so please contact me if you find any issues.
My debut album has just arrived from the mastering studio (www.gklabs.com) where it was sweetened to crystal clarity! All that is left is some artwork tweaks and CD duplication. The album should be available very early 2007. I am excited for it to finally go on sale, professionally mastered and professionally pressed.
It seems all I've been blogging about recently is RD Tabs. Well, 1.0.8 is now out! It's mainly a bug fix release. No new features have been added. I won't be adding any more features to the 1.0.x branch, but will continue to release bug fixes until 1.1 is ready. I'm working on a lot of cool new things for 1.1 including a more versatile tab manager! Stay tuned for that.
For an introduction to RD Tabs, read this blog post.
Download RD Tabs 1.0.8 here.
- Attempted to fix issue where RD Tabs would occassionally (rarely) hang when closing. It appears rarely that something is not cleaning up properly (or timely) in the RDP ActiveX control (or possibly the wrapper) and the application sits and waits... A ten second hard timeout is set up now which will hopefully cause a forceful termination if the application takes longer than ten seconds to close. I won't know unless I see this issue pop up again.
- Fixed bug in Export Favorites feature where it would only allow you to export using the "Browse" button and not directly by typing in a path and filename into the textbox.
- More "friendly" error messages are provided for common errors while exporting favorites (such as invalid filename).
- On tab close, the focus now moves to the right instead of the left. I mistakenly assumed in version 1.0.7 that in most tabbed programs the focus moved left. I have found since it moves right in every test case I've tried! If you prefer the focus to move left, change the parameter OnTabCloseSwitchFocusToTheRight from TRUE to FALSE in the user.config or rdtabs.config files. This setting is currently not configurable from the GUI.


These days, timing is everything. We all lead such busy lifestyles ourselves, we have to accept that most likely the same is true of our prospects. If we are asking them to make time to hear about our latest offering, it better be good, and it better be at the right time.
Knowing that you have the right message to take to market is one thing – but ensuring it reaches your target audience at a time most suited to them, is critical to how that , how much time will be allowed to exploring it, and crucially, how much more time they decide to make available to commit or purchase. The easier this last part can be made for the buyer, the better, nothing is more off putting than completing lengthy order forms, or pages and pages of online order processing. At Cash Cow Marketing we believe the best mix is, right time, right place, right message, right process. Marketing automation will help to get all these right, and that's a recipe for success.


This dissertation is a study of five second-generation German visual artists (i.e., artists born between 1940 and 1970 who are the descendants of Jewish and Gentile Germans of the Third Reich) who deal with the legacy of the Third Reich in their artwork. Informed by contemporary trauma theory, the project traces how the psychological residue inherited from their parents' Third Reich experience has ingrained itself in the social life of contemporary Jews and Germans, finding expression both directly and obliquely in the works of second-generation artists. It is my conviction that the legacy of the Third Reich must be addressed productively in order to accomplish what psychoanalysis has coined the labour of mourning. Because public discourse around World War II and the Holocaust is still subject to a significant reticence, especially among Jews and Germans, alternate means of communication may be found in visual art production. I conducted personal interviews with selected artists in Canada and Germany, namely Brigitte Radecki, Suse Rumland, Eva Brandl, and Bettina Hoffmann, followed by a thorough theoretical analysis of their work and examination of their personal data. As a second-generation German visual artist, I also included my own work in the study. My study establishes that second-generation German visual artists are in a unique position to contribute to a necessary labour of mourning that was bypassed by their parents' generation and that they approach this difficult task in significant ways. As a visual artist, my studio art practice habitually informs my theoretical investigations. Therefore the first part of this thesis consisted of a series of three solo exhibitions ( Speechless, The Grim Reaper , and 2001 Earth Odyssey ), which were exhibited simultaneously in Montreal in August 2002. They addressed issues of trauma and recovery as experienced by one second-generation artist, with the intent of establishing community and opening new venues for discussion.
x, 292 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.


We assist individuals and families to survive and to exit homelessness & poverty, one house at a time.
Donna Mae was unanimously appointed President by the Board on April 13, 2019 and retains the position of executive director. She brings 30+ years in office management, legal secretary and 15 years in electronic component manufacturing marketing & sales. Her managerial skills makes it possible for her to multi-task. She has regularly communicated activities and news with the Board & volunteers -- as they happen -- by email, executive committee meetings, and other means of communication on most CCO matters. She has been married over 37 years to Stephen M. Baukat, Vice President & Quality Assurance Director of Baukat Enterprises, LLC. They retired to Durango late 2013 from Tustin, California.
On August 14, 2018, Community Compassion Outreach (CCO) (the "Organization") Board of Directors retained Baukat Enterprises, LLC, to manage and administrate the operations of CCO. Donna Mae is CEO/President of the woman minority owned business that was formed on June 26, 2017. Her company is developing a wearable sleeping bag for the homeless.
Donna Mae is mother of three from a previous marriage, grandmother of seven (4 boys /3 girls) and great grandmother of two girls.
Johnie Ragsdale operates the Ragsdale & Associates PC offices with husband John W. Ragsdale, Clinical Psychologist Specialist, located on North Main Avenue. Johnie is compassionate for people less fortunate than us, and she has been serving the Durango and La Plata County communities for decades.
She has served her community in various roles: Classroom volunteer - PTA President, Girl Scout Leader - Youth Mission Trip Leader to Apache Reservation - Youth Mission Trip Leader to Navajo Reservation - Youth Mission Trip Leader to Juarez - Mexico Youth and Adult Mission Trip Leader to New Orleans - Two mission trips to Mozambique - Africa assisting women in micro loan development, women's issues/relationships - Kitchen Volunteer at Manna Soup Kitchen.
Johnie holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology at the San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California.
Jon Alsdorf, one of the cofounders of CCO, is a native western Coloradan and has lived In Durango for 13 years serving as the Pastor of Adventure Christian Church (a.k.a., Durango Christian Church). He is married to Tiffany, celebrating 23 years of marriage this year, and has two daughters, Emily and Natalie.
In addition to working in ministry for the past 21 years, Jon also serves as a Police Chaplain with the Durango Police Department, and has recently received his real estate license and works with Durango Star Realty.
Jon has a vision to help create strategies and opportunities for the homeless and low income families to attain home ownership. He believes this to be a central part of developing healthy families and a better community. Jon graduated from Pacific Christian College in Fullerton, California in 1997 with a B.A. in Church Ministry.
 Daniel Morgenstern has led a rich and productive creative life in every field he has engaged.
Dan has two degrees in Music and as a skilled professional musician was a featured soloist in the Aspen Music Festival and served as Principal Flutist of the Jerusalem Symphony. Dan has also had decades of Arts Management leadership experience bringing the knowledge of highly complex organizations and the integration of diverse passionately held points of view into harmony.
As the 25 year CEO of the multi-national Electroline Manufacturing Company based in Cleveland, Ohio, he has deep experience in every phase of business management and operations from product development and design, manufacturing technologies, sales, marketing and distribution and a history of successful customer and labor relations.
He retired early to Durango in 2000 where he has been active in community affairs including co-founding the Affordable Housing Task Force leading to the the creation of the Regional Housing Alliance. He has served on numerous Boards including Habitat for Humanity, the Women's Resource Center, and the San Juan Symphony.
wisdom and skills as a conflict resolving negotiator, strategic planner and fund raiser.
Loretta has lived in the Durango-La Plata County area since 1998 and has two decades of experience in homeless outreach. She has been the homeless outreach leader at Adventure Christian Church (formerly known as Durango Christian Church) since 2015.
In 2015 she launched Durango Homeless Youth Advocates aka Durango Highlands Youth Advocates, which guides youth into education and housing to increase potential for employment and improve self-esteem. This outreach supports efforts of youth that have goals to re-enter high school, obtain a General Education Diploma (GED) or any higher education program either in Colorado or nation-wide.
Her business background includes three decades in real estate sales, co-owner of two Realty Executives franchises, development of single-family housing, project management and accounting. Her last project in Arizona was a research-design of an RV park in Cottonwood, near Sedona, which sold prior to development.
Loretta has three adult children (two daughters & a son) all of whom have the gift of helps and outreach. Her middle granddaughter, is an outreach team member with Community Compassion Outreach in Durango and often accompanies her on local "mission trips" serving the homeless community.
Jeremy comes to us with expertise in print and web media. He is currently graphics designer at Basin Printing. After following Community Compassion Outreach progress with every new printing project, Jeremy joined the organization to give back to the community. His talents and skills in sales, software and commercial graphics are great assets we look forward to utilizing. Jeremy has been in Durango a little more than a year, and he has reached out to people experiencing homelessness.
CCO became a nonprofit on March 29, 2018. The IRS determination letter dated August 21, 2018, recognizes Community Compassion Outreach (CCO) as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Form 990 will be filed for our first year in operation in 2019 (NOTE: CCO started as a church program in January 2017 and has evolved into a more effective organization since our nonprofit status was determined). To obtain additional information, please contact us here.


Our team exclusively consists of long-term public transport telematics experts in the areas of ITS, AVLC and ticketing, which have experience in various fields of traffic telematics. In total the team from Weisskopf Engineering accumulates more than 120 years of profound sector experience, distributed over a small and effective team. Through an intensive knowledge transfer within the team, we are able to complement each other in an optimal way.
Andreas founded Weisskopf Engineering in 1999. Today he is Chairman of the Board, Partner and still in an active role as Consultant for Public Transport Companies.
His focus are the development of strategic concepts and the technical and organisational consultancy for the use of telematics systems in public transport.
With his many years of work experience in different roles such as consultancy and development of AVLC systems as well as operational management of companies in the public transport sector, there is hardly no area left where he does not have profound knowledge and extensive experience. His key areas of expertise in complex AVLC systems are integrated passenger information, transfer planning, transfer monitoring, statistical analysis and analogue, digital and hybrid radio communication systems together with coverage planning and load calculations.
Earlier in his career, Andreas designed and developed software and hardware for different applications in the public transport telematics sector. In 1987 he founded a software development company, which he led as Managing Director and Chairman of the Board until the company was merged in 1997 with Häni-Prolectron AG. Together with his 85 employees he significantly contributed to the modernization of tools for the operational management a public transport companies. As part of his consulting work he helped many customers to design, procure and operate innovative and comprehensive AVLC solutions.
Patrick joined Weisskopf Engineering in 2011 as Managing Director and Partner. His focuses of expertise are technical and organisational themes in the field of electronic ticketing systems for public transport companies.
During his long career in the traffic telematics for public transport, he worked in different roles and gained a lot of practical experience: software development, development and offer project management, management of system architecture, product line management and market strategy. Among other things, he also worked as project manager in the most innovative eTicketing projects such as Easy Ride (Geneva / Basel), intermobilPASS (Dresden) and he was a member of the core team BIBO (BeIn-Beout) at the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways).
In his various roles, he worked internationally in different countries such as India, USA, the Middle East and South Africa.
Marcel joined Weisskopf Engineering in 2011 as Deputy Managing Director and Partner.
The focuses of his work include the development of strategic concepts for the enhancement and renewal of telematics systems in public transport, technical analysis of complex matters and the development of appropriate set of measures, as well as the technical and organizational advice on the use of telematics systems in public transport.
He is specialized in passenger information, transfer protection planning and monitoring, passenger counting, statistical analysis, analogue and digital radio communication (TETRA, UMTS / GPRS), integrative systems analysis and the moderation of solution processes.
Through his many years in various management roles, Marcel has a solid leadership competence and moderating skills. Among other things, he led a development department with 150 employees with offices in Poland, USA and Switzerland. In a couple of committees, he was heavily involved in the standardisation and normalisation in research projects for real-time data interfaces (CEN, SIRI, and VDV). He has a brought technical expertise in various projects in the area of control and information systems developed for public transport where he played a key role from the analysis to the implementation.
Manfred joined Weisskopf Engineering in December 2014.
His focuses of expertise are technical and organisational consulting in the field of electronic ticketing systems and telematics systems for public transport companies. This also includes technical analysis of complex matters and the development of appropriate set of measures.
His specialities are ITCS/Telematics systems, transfer protection planning and monitoring, passenger counting, statistical analysis and business intelligence for public transport companies.
ITCS/Telematics Systems: project management for the development of Telematics systems, ticket printer and on-board computer. Product management for concepts and development of transfer protection planning and monitoring, statistical analysis and business intelligence solutions for public transport.
Passenger Counting Systems: Project management for the development of passenger counting systems. Product manager for passenger counting systems with different sensor technologies and suppliers, reports and extrapolation.
Electronic Ticketing: Project and product management for the projects intermobil and type approval of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) for a BIBO system, which includes an automatic usage detection with the piloted BIBO (BeIn - BeOut ) approach. Assisting in the VDV core application to define the standards for a BIBO system.


Today we flightplanned Austin-->Llano-->Junction-->Austin. Of course we stopped in Llano and took the airport courtesy car to Cooper's BBQ in downtown Llano. We filed the IFR flight plan for all three legs before departing Austin. Picked up the 1st leg IFR clearance on the ground in Austin by calling Bergstrom Clearance Delivery on 125.5. On the second leg we picked up our IFR clearance via cell phone just before engine startup. There are no remote communication outlets in Llano hence the need to make a cell phone call. On the third leg (leaving Junction) we picked up our IFR clearance in the air by calling Houston Center on the radio. We were in and out of the soup...sometimes I could see the ground and then we'd go back into the clouds. Below is a map of our flight plan.
I hand-flew the route back to Austin. No auto-pilot. Just following the course indicator.
Below is the radar track of my flight. As I approached Austin I was receiving vectors to the final approach into Bergstrom ILS-17L runway.
On top is pretty mellow. Compare the above photo with this photo in the full soup (below).
You can hardly see the propeller! Your vestibular system goes haywire and you fly the instruments and ignore your inner ear sensations. You can also see the moisture streaming up the windshield. I guarantee that no matter how good your inner ear is this sight picture and the motion of the airplane will totally fool you as to which way is UP.
On the ground in Junction, Texas. It starts to look like WEST TEXAS out here. The airport is about 1/2 mile north of Intersate-10. Cute little podunky airport with a nice landing strip and velvet smooth taxiway.
So all in all it was a good day. More cross-country time is needed for my instrument rating. The good news is that I can count beautiful blue sky flight days as cross-country time.
So I flew all the way to Houston and saw nothing out the window until I was over the Pine Forest golf course on the final approach to runway 15 at West Houston airport. No sightseeing today. Landed, got some ice water, re-fueled, organized my departure/arrival procedures, called Clearance Delivery for routing and clearance, took off and started back to Austin. The flight back to Austin at 6000 feet was smooth. But I must admit the last 10 miles at 2000 feet was *hot*.
ATC cleared me "direct" on the return leg...as shown below. One more IFR cross-country and I'll be done with this phase of my instrument training!


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text:
Pacific Vanuatu
Vanuatu-flagged ship runs aground in Black Sea
A Vanuatu-flagged cargo ship has run aground in the Black Sea off the Russian port of Azov.
Varnava Photo: Meshkov Georgiy/ marinetraffic.com
The Russian news agency RIA said the incident happened after the ship Varnava developed problems with its steering.
There are no reports of any injuries.
The reports said although the steering has been repaired the tugs have so far been unsuccessful in dislodging the 100-metre long vessel.
The ship was on its way from Azov to the Turkish port of Tekirdag.
NZ govt defends PM's Tokelau visit