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Wading birds: shorebirds with unusual social structures
Waders display fascinating behaviour patterns, but are also exemplary for the loss of biodiversity
Behavioral Biology Biodiversity Ecology (E&C)
Waders like wet conditions. They look for insects and other creepy-crawlies in the damp earth. Some species, such as the Mexican snowy plover or the ruff have developed fascinating behavioural patterns. Clemens Küpper and his working group at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen is conducting long-terms studies of the social behaviour of these birds. Here, the issue of biodiversity is central, since like many groups of bird species, the numbers of wading birds are in dramatic decline.
Female snowy plover: the breeding grounds of this wading bird are threatened by the progressive development of the coasts and the popularity of sandy beaches.
© Clemens Küpper
The snowy plovers don't exactly embody the classic image of bird family life. The eggs, for example, are incubated by male as well as female birds. Once the chicks have hatched, the mother usually goes looking for a new partner while the father is left to rear the chicks by himself.
Sometimes, though, the female remains with the family – at least at first. "For her, the chances of survival of the brood are the key factor. If the father is able to rear them on his own, she leaves the nest. If the situation looks pretty hopeless, she also disappears off into the sunset," Clemens Küpper explains.
What is the cause of this unusual distribution of roles in the animal world? Together with his team, Clemens Küpper is conducting a long-term study on the social behaviour of the birds, which live along the coasts of America. "The key is the gender ratio. There are more males among the snowy plovers than there are females. Females can therefore allow themselves the luxury of leaving the rearing of their chicks to their partner, and to go and look for another bird to mate with," he explains. If male and female chicks are roughly evenly spread in the oviposition, the relationship changes in favour of the males. However, researchers still don't know why more female than male chicks die.
Under threat on many fronts
Like most other wading birds, the snowy plover is under threat. Prawn farms, an increase in building along the coastline and the popularity of sandy beaches, the preferred breeding grounds of the birds, are reducing the size of their habitat to an increasing extent. "Most wading birds are migratory – in other words, they use several habitats. If the living conditions in the breeding and overwintering grounds deteriorate, the birds suffer multiple setbacks at once," Küpper explains.
In Germany, intensive farming is creating more problems for wading birds than anything else. For example, numbers of lapwings – which until just a few years ago were a common sight in German fields – have declined by 90 percent in some areas. Curlews are also on the brink of extinction in some places. "Nowadays, many nests get crushed by machinery when fields are mown too early and too frequently. If only the first mowing could be put back by three or four weeks, it would make a big difference for the protection of wading birds and grassland bird species."
Fighting arenas
And the "waders", as they are known in specialist circles, have even more to offer. The ruff, for example, has one of the most unusual social structures in the bird world.
Ruffs with chicks. On extensively mown meadows, clutches are often destroyed.
© Clemes Küpper
The males compete in real arenas for the favour of the females. The strongest fighter has a threefold chance of procreating. However, only 20 percent of the males have access to these competition grounds; the others fly from one arena to the next and try and gain entry.
The male ruffs can be divided into three personality types: as well as the fighters, there are males without decorative feathers with female-like plumage, who are not aggressive and who also do not perform courtship displays to gain the females' favour. "They look like females and behave like females," Küpper explains. That enables them to mate with the females undetected. This change in behaviour is caused by a chromosomal accident, which leads to a permanent change in the bird's genetic makeup. Clearly the behaviour has been so successful that this mutation has not died out – even though it is deadly if a bird has two copies of it.
Successful thanks to an unlikely wingman
Male ruffs in the courtship display. The birds with the light-coloured ruffs are so-called satellites. Ruffs have a very individual plumage. After mating, only the females take care of eggs and young.
© Hanna Algora
Another genetic mutation can be observed among so-called "satellites". They perform courtship rituals for the females, but show almost no aggression. "Fighters and satellites are often seen together. This combination appears to be highly attractive to the females, since such duos are extremely successful. In such cases, the satellite only gets to mate with the female when his partner is busy defending against competitors."
Even so, this bizarre behaviour has not protected the ruff from becoming increasingly rare. In Finland, where Küpper and his team study the ruffs in the wild, they are also threatened by intensive farming. The bird, which actually benefits when fields are grazed by cattle, has almost no chance of incubating its eggs or rearing its young when there are too many cattle. In Germany, too, the birds are only able to survive when extensive agricultural methods are used. "Initiatives such as the referendum on species diversity in Bavaria and other federal states give us hope that in the future, biodiversity and agriculture will no longer be at loggerheads. Then we will see a return of the ruff to Germany," says Küpper.
Dr. Clemens Küpper
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen +49 8157 932-299 ckuepper@orn.mpg.de
Alongside climate change, the loss of biodiversity is also a threat to humankind.
The constant addition of nutrients into our ecosystems is depleting biodiversity
Interview with Sönke Zaehle from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry about the role of nutrients in the decline of biodiversity
"The only things you want to conserve are the things you know"
Jana Wäldchen has played a key role in developing the plant identification app, Flora Incognita. We discussed with her how being able to identify different plants contributes to species diversity, which plant species are particularly under threat and how non-native species are suppressing local plants
Birds in serious decline at Lake Constance
Over the last 30 years, the region has lost 120,000 breeding pairs
The environment shapes behaviour
Behavioral Biology Ecology (B&M)
Global study on bird song frequency
Competition for mates leads to a deeper voice than expected based on size
Alpha animals must bow to the majority when they abuse their power
Democratic decision-making allows subordinate vulturine guineafowl to regain control over collective group actions when dominants have a monopoly over resources
Archive of animal migration in the Arctic
Behavioral Biology Climate
A global archive with movement data collected across three decades logs changes in the behaviour of Arctic animals
Variety in the migratory behavior of blackcaps
Behavioral Biology Biodiversity Evolutionary Biology
The birds have variable migration strategies
The order of life
Complex Systems (A&A) Complex Systems (M&T) Ecology (B&M) Ecology (E&C) Structural Biology
A new model that describes the organization of organisms could lead to a better understanding of biological processes
Swimming closely together offers fish hydrodynamic benefits
Fish-like robots help to answer age-old question of why fish school
Deep-seabed mining disrupts seafloor food web
Biodiversity Ecology (E&C) Microbiology (E&C)
Interventions on the seabed reduce the turnover of carbon
Odors as navigational cues for pigeons
Volatile organic compounds identified that can be used for olfactory navigation by homing pigeons
Problems with reproduction in birds
Behavioral Biology Genetics
With zebra-finches, infertility is mostly due to the males, while the death of embryos is due to the females
Searching together: a lesson from rats
Using simple rules rats in groups outperfom individuals in a search task
Orphaned chimpanzees can suffer for life
Male chimpanzees who lose their mother early in life are less competitive and have fewer offspring than sons who continue to live with their mothers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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In-Memory Data Grids
In-Memory Computing
How Do In-Memory Data Grids Differ from Spark?
Topics : Architecture, Comparison, Technology
As an in-memory computing vendor, we've found that our products often get confused with some popular open-source, in-memory technologies. Perhaps the three technologies we are most often confused with are Spark/Spark Streaming, Storm, and complex event processing (CEP). These innovative technologies are great at what they're built for, but in-memory data grids (IMDGs) were created for a distinct use case. In this blog post, we will take a look at how IMDGs differ from Spark and Spark Streaming.
The Basics: IMDGs Provide Fast, Scalable, and Highly Available Data Storage
IMDGs host data in memory and distribute it across a cluster of commodity servers. Using an object-oriented data storage model, they provide APIs for updating data objects typically in well under a millisecond (depending on the size of the object). This enables operational systems to use IMDGs for storing, accessing, and updating fast-changing data, while maintaining fast access times even as the storage workload grows. For example, an e-commerce website can store session state and shopping carts within an IMDG, and a financial services application can store stock portfolios. In both cases, stored data must be frequently updated and accessed.
Data storage needs can easily grow as more users store data within an IMDG. IMDGs accommodate this growth by adding servers to the cluster and automatically rebalancing stored data across the servers. This ensures that both capacity and throughput grow linearly with the size of the workload and that access and update times remain low regardless of the workload's size.
Moreover, IMDGs maintain stored data with high availability using data replication. They typically create one or more replicas of each data object on different servers so that they can continue to access all stored data even after a server (or network component) fails; they do not have to pause to recreate data after a failure. IMDGs also self-heal to automatically create new replicas during recovery. All of this is critically important to operational systems which must continuously handle access and update requests without delay.
IMDGs Add Data-Parallel Computation for Analytics
Because IMDGs store data in memory distributed across a cluster of servers, they easily can perform data-parallel computations on stored data; they simply make use of the cluster's processing power to analyze data "in place," that is, without the need to migrate it to other servers. This enables IMDGs to provide fast results with minimum overhead. For example, a recent demonstration of ScaleOut hServer running a MapReduce calculation for a financial services application generated analysis results in about 330 milliseconds compared to 15+ seconds for Apache Hadoop.
A significant aspect of the IMDG's architecture for data analytics is that it performs its computations on data hosted in memory – not on an incoming data stream. This memory-based storage is continuously updated by an incoming data stream, so the computation has access to the latest changes to the data. However, the computation also has access to the history of changes as manifested by the state of the data stored in the grid. This gives the computation a much richer data set for performing an analysis than it would have if it could only see the incoming data stream. We call it "stateful" real-time analytics.
Take a look at the following diagram, which illustrates the architecture for ScaleOut Analytics Server and ScaleOut hServer. The diagram shows a stream of incoming changes which are applied to the grid's memory-based data store using API updates. The real-time analytics engine performs data parallel computation on the stored data, combines the results across the cluster, and outputs a combined stream of alerts to the operational system.
The power of stateful analytics is that the computation can provide deeper insights than otherwise. For example, an e-commerce website can analyze not just browser actions but also interpret these actions in terms of a history of customer preferences and shopping history to offer feedback. Likewise, a financial services application can analyze market price fluctuations to determine trading strategies based on the trading histories for individual portfolios tuned after several trades and influenced by preferences.
Comparison to Spark
The Berkeley Spark project has developed a data-parallel execution engine designed to accelerate Hadoop MapReduce calculations (and add related operators) by staging data in memory instead of by moving it from disk to memory and back for each operator. Using this technique and other optimizations, it has demonstrated impressive performance gains over Hadoop MapReduce. This project's stated goal (quoting from a tutorial slide deck from U.C. Berkeley's amplab is to "extend the MapReduce model to better support two common classes of analytics apps: iterative algorithms (machine learning, graphs) [and] interactive data mining [and] enhance programmability: integrate into Scala programming language."
A key new mechanism that supports Spark's programming model is the resilient distributed dataset (RDD) to "allow apps to keep working sets in memory for efficient reuse." They are "immutable, partitioned collections of objects created through parallel transformations." To support fault tolerance, "RDDs maintain lineage information that can be used to reconstruct lost partitions."
You can see the key differences between using an IMDG hosting data-parallel computation and Spark to perform MapReduce and similar analyses. IMDGs analyze updatable, highly available, memory-based collections of objects, and this makes them ideal for operational environments in which data is being constantly updated even while analytics computations are ongoing. In contrast, Spark was designed to create, analyze, and transform immutable collections of data hosted in memory. This makes Spark ideal for optimizing the execution of a series of analytics operators.
The following diagram illustrates Spark's use of memory-hosted RDDs to hold data accessed by its analytics engine:
However, Spark is not well suited to operational environments for two reasons. First, data cannot be updated. In fact, if Spark inputs data from HDFS, changes have to propagated to HDFS from another data source since HDFS files only can be appended, not updated. Second, RDDs are not highly available. Their fault-tolerance results from reconstructing them from their recorded lineage, which may take substantially more time to complete than server failover by an IMDG. This represents an appropriate tradeoff for Spark because, unlike IMDGs, it focuses on analytics computations on data that does not need to be constantly available.
Even though Spark makes different design tradeoffs than IMDGs to support fast analytics, IMDGs can still deliver comparable speedup over Hadoop. For example, we measured Apache Spark executing the well-known Hadoop "word count" benchmark on a 4-server cluster running 9.6X faster than CDH5 Hadoop MapReduce for a 10 GB dataset hosted in HDFS. On this same benchmark, ScaleOut hServer ran 14X faster than Hadoop when executing standard Java MapReduce code.
What about Spark Streaming?
Spark Streaming extends Spark to handle streams of input data and was motivated by the need to "process large streams of live data and provide results in near-real-time" (quoting from the slide deck referenced above). It "run[s] a streaming computation as a series of very small, deterministic batch jobs" by chopping up an input stream into a sequence of RDDs which it feeds to Spark's execution engine. "The processed results of the RDD operations are returned in batches." Computations can create or update other RDDs in memory which hold information regarding the state or history of the stream.
The representation of input and output streams as RDDs can be illustrated as follows:
This model of computation overcomes Spark's basic limitation of working only on immutable data. Spark Streaming offers stateful operators that enable incoming data to be combined with in-memory state. However, it employs a distinctly stream-oriented approach with parallel operators that does not match the typical, object-oriented usage model of asynchronous, individual updates to memory-based objects implemented by IMDGs for operational environments. It also uses Spark's fault-tolerance which does not support high availability for individual objects.
For example, IMDGs apply incoming changes to individual objects within a stateful collection by using straightforward object updates, and they simultaneously run data-parallel operations on the collection as a whole to perform analytics. We theorize that when using Spark Streaming, the same computation would require that each collection of updates represented by an incoming RDD be applied to the appropriate subset of objects within another "stateful" RDD held in memory. This in turn would require that the two RDDs be aligned to perform a parallel operation, which could add complexity to the original algorithm, especially if updates need to be applied to more than one object in the stateful collection. Also, fault-tolerance might require checkpointing to disk since the collection's lineage could grow lengthy over time.
IMDGs offer a platform for scalable, memory-based storage and data-parallel computation which was specifically designed for use in operational systems, such as the ones we looked at above. Because it incorporates API support for accessing and updating individual data objects with integrated high availability, IMDGs are easily integrated into the business logic of these systems. Although Spark and Spark Streaming, with their use of memory-based storage and accelerated MapReduce execution times, bear a resemblance to IMDGs such as ScaleOut hServer, they were not intended for use in operational systems and do not provide the feature set needed to make this feasible. We will take a look at how IMDGs differ from Storm and CEP in an upcoming blog.
Tags: CEP, data-parallel, Hadoop, real-time analytics, scalable speedup, scaleout stateserver, Spark
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As with the rest of the properties on Finca La Corona, guests of this villa have access to a heated pool, Jacuzzi, and small gym as well as a number of entertainment areas such as a BBQ and Bocce ball court.
Finca la Corona is located in the village of Yé, just atop the Famara cliff, and under a mile from the foothill of the Corona volcano. This area was declared a natural reserve, and therefore pristine and isolated from the mass tourism of other areas of the island, offering a true sense of peace and tranquility, fully undisturbed.
Just a short walk away from the villas lies a path down the Famara cliffs. The hike down this path takes approximately 45 minutes, and leads to some of the island's most pristine and untouched beaches, not accessible by any other means. Aside from the beaches located just below the Famara cliff, the north of the island also offers numerous other attractions such as the tourist centers developed by local artist César Manrique (Mirador del Rio, Jameos del Agua, and Cueva de los Verdes), less than 10 minutes away from the villas.
Finca La Corona is located in the northern-most tip of Lanzarote, just outside of the small village of Yé. This village, home to less than 100 inhabitants, sits just at the foothills of the Corona volcano, the oldest on the island. The Corona's last eruption, which occurred over 3,000 years ago, covered most of the northern part of the island in volcanic ash and debris, providing a truly unique landscape around both the village of Yé and Finca La Corona.
Haría, Orzola, and Arrieta are three villages in the northern end of Lanzarote, all less than a 10 minute drive away from Finca La Corona. These villages exemplify both the greener north of the island (Haría), as well as the traditional fishing villages (Orzola and Arrieta), and offer visitors a variety of restaurants and destinations.
Haría, also known as the valley of a thousand palms, is a village located just south of Finca La Corona, and one of the oldest villages on the island. This area offers some of the most spectacular and breathtaking views on the island, particularly during the winter months when the seasonal rainfall turns the northern portion of the island into a green oasis. Haría is also home to César Manrique's last residence, after leaving his original home to the foundation that took his name.
The coastal villages of Orzola and Arrieta offer not only great views of the cerulean blue ocean surrounding Lanzarote, but are also great places for a seaside lunch or dinner at a traditional restaurant such as Amanecer (Arrieta). Orzola is also the docking point of a ferry connecting Lanzarote and the small island of La Graciosa, the ideal destination for a mid-day excursion or hike.
Free Internet Access, Sun Beds provided, Towels Provided, Beach Towels provided.
Kitchen: Complete Kitchen Equipment, Coffee – maker, Dishwasher, Freezer -Fridge, Hob, Oven, Washing machine, Toaster, Kettle, Mixer.
Reference: 156289, Size: 170m², Bedrooms: 2, Bathrooms: 2, Swimming pool: Comunitary, Garden: Private , Equipment: Antenna, Satellite dish, Wifi, Refrigerator, Oven, Jacuzzi, Ceramic hob, Sport facilities: Gym.
En base a la Ley Orgánica 15/99 de Protección de Datos y Ley 34/2002 de Servicios de la Sociedad de la Información y de Comercio Electrónico, le informamos que los datos personales de esta comunicación, están incorporados en un fichero titularidad de LANZAROTEPROPERTY360 Ud., como interesado directo, tiene derecho de acceso, rectificación, cancelación y oposición al tratamiento de la información que le concierne y autoriza a que pase a formar parte del fichero, ante el cual puede ejercer sus derechos, de acuerdo con la normativa vigente., que podrá hacer efectivos mediante solicitud dirigida a LANZAROTEPROPERTY360 con copia de su identidad, o enviando un correo electrónico a soporte@artekasa.es (Ley Orgánica 15/1999, de 13 de diciembre, de Protección de Datos de Carácter Personal).


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Am I complying or comp-lying?
I recently heard a play on words that I loved because of its powerful message. It was the verb complying: Am I complying or just lying? When we are attached more to the "ought to be" than to the self, we stop being faithful to our convictions just to "comply" with others.
That's when we renounce to be genuine and congruent with our true essence to become mediocre beings.
All this is produced by the process of "domestication", which is nothing more than a large number of "duties" that are installed in our system since childhood, so that, when we reach adulthood, we will comply them by lying to ourselves.
From which career to study —because "it is more prestigious or ensures better income"—, or where and how to live, which car to buy, even how we are supposed to "feel" in certain situations or moments, so we go through life complying the expectations of third parties, but deeply deceived.
According to statistics, only 58% of the student population chooses their career by vocation, while the remaining 42% is divided between people who studied a profession for family commitments, suggestions from third parties or economic outflows, among other factors.
In other words, from every ten students, at least four of them do it for various reasons, which are not necessarily by their own conviction.
I like that John Herschel's phrase that says: "Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue." And, when others ask me about this topic, I tell them that it is the compass that allows me to make all the decisions that most resonate with my being.
So, the next time you feel insecure about any "complying" or more honest decision with you, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions: Will this make me feel at peace and quiet? Or, on the contrary, will it generate more problems in the future? If I were a third person and had to give me a push, what would I advise me?
I always say that the answers are inside us, we just have to connect effectively with them. Do not go through life by complying and also lying, but by making that thought, feeling and action move in the same direction.
complying
self-conviction
Is it easy to measure the happines of a country?
Instituto Europeo de Inteligencias Eficientes and Ismael Cala to convene "School of Emotions: Experience" in Spain
The source of creativity
What if I had tried?
Close your eyes and wake up!
Turn the tables


text:
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I've tried adding position:relative and overflow:hidden to it, but it doesn't seem to be working (bear in mind i'm also using Bootstrap).

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A: You need to remove !important from padding as it's making the calculation of height during the transition messy.

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Accessories/Keys
It Still Runs is the go-to destination for all things cars. From motors to radiators and everything in between, we've got you covered.
Which Tires Are Made in America?
by Cheryl Teal
Many brands of tires are still manufactured in the United States despite consolidations in the tire manufacturing world. Some of the tire brands, which were initially made by U.S. companies, are now made by multi-national conglomerates that have manufacturing plants mostly located in the eastern United States. Hoovers, a Dun and Bradstreet company, says, "100 companies make tires in the United States, but four companies—Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear and Cooper—account for 75 percent of the $13 billion generated in revenue annually."
Tire Codes Required
The U.S. Department of Transportation requires all tires sold in the United States to have a code stamped on them. The code looks like this: DOT XX XX XXX XXX. The first two letters or a letter and a number after DOT indicate the company and the plant where the tire was manufactured. For example, if the code started DOT BE, it indicates the tire is made by B.F. Goodrich in Tuscaloosa, AL.
Manufacturers and Locations
Some companies make thousands of different tires, so sorting out who made what and where can be confusing. The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers maintains a list of codes for unionized tire manufacturers on its website. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration also maintains a searchable database to locate the manufacturer and its location. The database can also be downloaded and viewed in Access.
All-American Companies
Cooper and Goodyear tire companies started out as American manufacturers and have stayed that way to some extent. Goodyear is now an international company, but its world headquarters remain in Akron, Ohio. It also owns the Kelly Springfield and Dunlop brands. Cooper manufactures tires in Ohio and Georgia; Goodyear in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New York and Kansas. Denman Tire, founded in 1919, is based in Ohio.
Major Global Tire Companies
Michelin is the world's largest manufacturer of tires for vehicles from bicycles to the space shuttle. The French company purchased the American firm Uniroyal-Goodrich company in 1989. In the United States, it manufactures tires in Alabama, North and South Carolina and Arkansas. Bridgestone, a Japanese company bought out Firestone, another company with American roots, in 1998 and makes tires in North and South Carolina, Ohio, Illinois and Tennessee.
Other International Companies
Continental Tire, a subsidiary of a German company, makes tires in five states: Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Illinois. General Tires are now made by Continental. Yokohama, another Japanese multinational, manufactures tires in Virginia.
National HIghway Transportation Safety Administration tire manufacturer database
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Tire Locator Chart
This article was written by the It Still Runs team, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. To submit your questions or ideas, or to simply learn more about It Still Runs, contact us.
curtis_creative/iStock/Getty Images
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Copyright 2020 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media


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Christine M. Soltis: A Woman in Horror
by Christine M. Soltis
Christine M. Soltis was born and raised in Washington, Pennsylvania. Her deepest passion is in fiction writing and has been for the past eight years. She has written dozens of books, many of which can be accessed via Amazon.com. In addition, she is co-writer on several film scripts and creates her own book cover photos and promotional videos. Christine is lead writer for travel sites EscapeWizard.com and WhatsCheaper.com. In the past, she has contributed to the Yahoo Network, Verdure Magazine and The Front Weekly. In 2011, she was an exhibitor at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. In addition to her writing, she made her acting debut in A Chemical Skyline, which was an Amazon best-seller for monster horror. She attended Point Park College for Broadcasting and has worked in newsradio since 2002. Currently, she is pursuing a Masters of Science in Environmental Studies. Websites: http://darkwriters.tripod.com or http://christinemsoltis.yolasite.com or http://solsticenightskyproductions.angelfire.com
February 16, 2012 1 11 min 11 yrs
"The Mothman is coming to get you."
From first recollection, these are the words that once haunted me. Most would substitute the above phrase with the words, "Barbara, they're coming to get you," and it would have the same effect on them as this did on me. But not I–It was the Mothman who was oftentimes inflicted upon me, not zombies.
The above stated quote comes from my own experiences as a nine year old girl. The setting was a darkened car on a road trip with family; I was sitting in the back seat near the window. The words themselves came from my father, who was in the driver's side seat. I'm quite certain my mother must have been giggling from the passenger side, but being filled with terror I couldn't possibly remember everybody's reaction. At the same time, I'm pretty certain that my massive squirming around the backseat left my siblings ready to give me to the Mothman at any time. Alas, even more terrifying words echoed out from the front seat.
"Christine, did you know that the Mothman usually goes for any children sitting near the window?" my father would ask.
At that, I would immediately squirm out of my seatbelt and jump in between my two less-than-amused older siblings. My mother and father were probably giggling up front. No, by now, I'm certain it was full-blown laughter. Once they saw that I had switched seats, despite thinking I was now safe, the words would continue.
"Oh, I must have been mistaken," my father would say, "The Mothman usually goes for whoever sits in the middle seat of the car."
As you can imagine, I squirmed out of the middle, trying to find a place of safety and solace. This went on and on for quite a bit of time from what I recall. Most families might play games regarding license plate associations or sing PG-rated family tunes in the car. Oh, not my family. Actually, this sort of teasing went on and on no matter where we would vacation. Whether we were driving through West Virginia and the Mothman was the subject of the scare or if it was to Fort Ligonier, where the headless horseman and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow would surface; or on road trips out to Montana, where we were frequently told that giants lived in all of the green forests on the way and that we just couldn't see them because the trees were too high.
This terror and the imagery was, in part, an actual blessing for me. Most parents tend to censor their children at an early age, but I am quite thankful that mine did not. Now, I have all of these early beginnings to look back on and be thankful for because they made me into a woman of horror.
Despite the memories of the past, I feel that they were an essential and enormous expansion of the imagination. In addition, those moments have essentially left me far less than terrified of monsters. From this early age, I was also granted permission to actually watch these horror films and, at such an early age, I spent a great deal of time watching them, most notably Nightmare on Elm Street, Fright Night, Dark Shadows, Critters and so many more.
Another vivid memory of mine occurred at a sleepover that I once attended with about a dozen other girls my age. At that time, I was approximately ten years of age and I recall telling my friends a scary story. At the end of it, most of the other girls were crying and terrified. When I look back at it now, I do not think I was even trying to scare any of them; it was just simply natural for me to tell a story like that. I almost feel bad now for not realizing that others hadn't grown up in a similar way, but at the time, I just simply hadn't thought anything of it.
As the years continued on, I never strayed from my addiction to fiction. Even in my early teenage years, our aunt introduced us to books that were probably a bit too old for us. These exceptionally long books were predominantly by Dean Koontz and Stephen King. By the age of thirteen, I had read a great many books by Dean Koontz, many of which I can still recall in detail. This imagery also assisted in shaping what would later become my own desire to be an author. I recall that at times, when I was sitting in class, I would think of some of the stories in the books I had just read. They were so much more exciting to me than anything else in the classroom. I even recall the day when my teacher asked me about one of the books I was reading. I told her that it talked about the end of the world. She said, "Oh, no honey, that's not real, it's just in the book." I vividly remember stopping and in that moment thinking, "I do know this."
I wasn't quite a smartass, but I was a teenager and did know the difference between what I was reading and what existed in real life. Stories were fun, yes, but they were not real.
As I look back now, I think about how well the influx of imaginary concepts has assisted in formulating my creative side. Granted, at this stage of life, being a woman who prefers to watch horror movies over any other genre is probably a bit strange to some but I could never be anything more than grateful for who I have become.
I remember just last week, I was in class for my Science Masters when one of the students said that she was always afraid of clowns. Another student claimed that she could not watch horror movies at all. I sat there and thought about it, which was when I realized and said out loud, "Wow, I'm not afraid of any of those. Well, dolls are a bit creepy because you don't expect them to come to life at any moment and terrify you, but really, I'm not afraid of those either."
It was then that I shared with them my life of being conditioned in a horror-esque fashion.
When it comes to utilizing those horror skills, I wrote my first horror novel in 2003, which is entitled, The Demon's Fog. It was the second book I ever wrote and became an experimental moment for me, as its genre also lies along the lines of supernatural thriller. Thereafter, I composed a number of others, including short story books A Dark Kaleidoscope and Estranged Decisions, which were certainly filled with my favorite things to conjure up such as witches, vampires, the devil himself and other monstrous moments. A co-created project Final Moon inevitably also came to the front through a screenplay version with Matthew T. Veltri, and a book version adapted by me. Matthew had also created a short film version of the screenplay. From there, my writing became a bit more diverse, leading into the realm of fantasy, poetry, more horror, women's fiction, travel articles, non-fiction, environmental science and so forth. One day last summer, I was doing a reading from Final Moon at Eljay's Used Books when I happened to read a horror phrase and then unintentionally giggled at it. Thankfully, the audience was amused by this morbid musing of the mind.
In 2010, I experienced my very first film acting experience, which occurred in a horror role for the movie A Chemical Skyline through Jason T Swinchock and E-Nertia Global. With such a fantastic experience of being dragged through a barn and inevitably eaten by a zombie, I developed an even greater love for the horror genre. From there, I also acted as an extra in Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera several months later and a short skit called How to Interview a Vampire, a creation by Fred Fleet in which I was also an extra.
But the horror doesn't stop there. I also found horror conventions such as Horror Realm along with a whole wide network of people who love the horror genre. At times, I do want there to be even more ladies in the field, but I am thankful for those I know such as Sandy Stuhlfire of Horror Realm and Chris Rickert of Eljays Used Books. I can only hope to meet plenty more in the future.
An upcoming horror genre project to keep your eyes open for is, "Midnight Kiss," part of the Necrology series, a film co-written by Jason T Swinchock and me. This mystical tale weaves one of the most powerful types of women into the world of horror, mixed with several other fantastic tales.
Oh and before I forget, last but not least: Happy Women In Horror Month to all! Stay scary!
One thought on "Christine M. Soltis: A Woman in Horror"
Awesome article! I try to raise my children around horror events & movies so they won' t be scared but appreciate the genre.
Interview with Horror Realm Author Series Co-Founders Sandy Stuhlfire and Chris Rickert
Welcome to Women in Horror Month: An Exclusive Essay by the Twisted Twins
Women in Horror Month 2013: In Their Words Part 1
Women in Horror Month: Amy Henning's Soul Reaver


We are committed to supplying our customers with quality products and doing so with a high level of professional service. Become a customer of George T. Sanders Company by submitting an account application today.
Download and fill out the forms below and email them to creditapps@gtsanders.com. Our credit and sales personnel will help you get started.


In this section, you will define your Neighborhood. The 1004MC, One-Unit housing and Inventory numbers are based on the boundaries you define for the neighborhood.
If there are insufficient comparables in the Neighborhood, you can define a Similar Market Area(s) to search from. Your Similar Market Area will NOT be considered for the 1004MC, one unit housing and inventory calculations.
Common scenarios for using Similar Market Area(s) include appraising unique properties when the neighborhood has low market movement or is sparsely populated.
Select either the Polygon or Square draw tools on the right-hand side of the screen to define the Neighborhood boundaries.
Draw the subject's Neighborhood boundary. The completed shape will be green to indicate that you have drawn a Neighborhood polygon.
If you are done, click SAVE in the upper right and skip the remainder of the steps.
To search in one or more Similar Market Areas, first draw your Neighborhood Polygon— any additional polygons you've drawn after your initial Neighborhood Polygon will be considered Similar Market Areas. They will be indicated by the color blue.
When done drawing your Polygons, click SAVE in the upper right corner.
When selecting Edit, you will see small squares appear at each point of your polygon. These can be dragged and dropped to customize your shape.
To delete a shape, first select the Delete tool, then select the polygon you wish to remove.


Ubuntu Manpage: backintime - a simple backup tool for Linux.
backintime - a simple backup tool for Linux.
This is command line tool.  The graphical tools are: backintime-gnome and backintime-kde4.
a specified set of folders.
If you want to run it as root you need to use 'su'.
A new snapshot is created only if something changed since the last snapshot (if any).
A snapshot contains all the files from the selected folders (except for exclude patterns).
the passphrase for your private key.
environment you can have a massive speed increase compared to the default cipher.
see a big difference between the ciphers. In this case you should stay on 'default'.
this case it may help to install so-called Optware on your device if available.
WARNING: THIS IS ONLY FOR EXPERIENCED USERS!
this. Make a backup of your device before proceed! You have been warned!
have to change users default shell from '/bin/sh' to '/opt/bin/bash' in '/etc/passwd'.
session) you are ready to go.
be nice if you write a 'How to' on Launchpad's Answers so we can add this to the FAQ.
a look at 'man encfs' for further informations).
automatically or  you  can  use  'backintime  --decode'  to  manually  decrypt  paths.
Backintime will show all snapshots decoded so you can browse all files as normal.
wildcards will be silently ignored.
The first argument is the profile id (1=Main Profile, ...).
The second argument is the profile name.
4      There was an error. The second argument is the error code.
1      The application is not configured.
2      A "take snapshot" process is already running.
3      Can't find snapshots folder (is it on a removable drive ?).
4      A snapshot for "now" already exist.
suppress status messages on standard output.
Show a benchmark of all ciphers for ssh transfer.
This manual page was written by BIT Team(<bit-team@lists.launchpad.net>).


Sharing is Caring..or..Sharing is Scaring?
Home/Blog/Sharing is Caring..or..Sharing is Scaring?
After Lorenzo the Magnificent's death in 1492 and the Medici had been banished from Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, a fervent anti-medicean Dominican friar, loomed into the picture.
While ironically, Lorenzo had asked Savonarola to move to Florence, captured by his incredible gifts as a preacher, Savonarola had been quick to express his criticism of the Magnificent and bring about political and social turmoil. A radically ascetic fundamentalist, Savonarola denounced the Medici rule for bringing a "de-cristianization" to Florence, charging the city itself with profound corruption and excessive laicism, and inciting divine retribution. In 1497, his supporters publicly burned thousands of objects that might tempt one to sin (art, books, musical instrument and cosmetics) in the "Bonfire of the Vanities." Even Botticelli, influenced by Savonarola's apocalyptic sermons that pervaded the city, burned several of his own works that celebrated classical ideals of beauty and form, and underwent a significant artistic evolution.A sharing of fundamentalist beliefs in an attempt to better society? Or a means of scaring the public into accepting a new form of political and spiritual rule? Sharing is caring..or.. sharing is scaring?


text:
Using No Need to Remember Ribbon Keyboard Shortcuts in Office 2007/2010/2013/2016
Home»Software»Office»Using No Need to Remember Ribbon Keyboard Shortcuts in Office 2007/2010/2013/2016
Microsoft Office 2007, or 2007 Microsoft Office System (O07) is the latest productivity suite from Microsoft official released and launched on 30 November 2007 to business customers, or early 2007 to mass public retail. Office 2007 is a major upgrade and has lots of improvements and innovative features over previous version of Office programs (Office 2003). One of the major new features of Office 2007 is the entirely new graphical user interface called the Ribbon, replacing the menus and toolbars that have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception. Another feature is the easy-to-remember (or more appropriately to call no-need-to-remember) keyboard shortcuts or shortcut keys to access to commands and functions of Office 2007 programs.
The keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this article is unlike the Ctrl-S to save, Ctrl-O to open, Ctrl-Z to undo, Ctrl-Y to redo, or Alt-F4 to close type of shortcut keys popularly used in applications nowadays. The keyboard shortcut keys in Office 2007 is a series of key sequence that allows users to access and trigger certain commands and functions without using the mouse. When compared with the old style shortcut keys, the Office 2007 shortcut keys have a whole new look and display.
Word 2007 ribbon with keyboard shortcut keys displayed. The disabled shortcuts are still been displayed, although it's grayed out.
How to Use the Keyboard Shortcuts in Office 2007
By using Save as PDF as an example, using keyboard shortcuts in Office 2007 is extremely easy and requires no memorization of key sequence or key combination at all.
Simply press the Alt key, and the next available keyboard shortcuts for commands and menu options is been display. Press to F to access Office menu.
Inside the Office menu, the available shortcuts for each menu items is displayed next to it. Simply press the corresponding key on the keyboard. In this case, press F again.
Press on the appropriate keyboard shortcut again (P) to Save as PDF.
After the complete keyboard shortcuts sequence, the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog window appears.
So to access Save as PDF or XPS in Office 2007, the keyboard shortcuts is the simple Alt-F-F-P. And best of all, the keyboard shortcuts are available for almost all commands and functions in all programs of Office 2007 such as Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and Outlook 2007.
Update: The trick above works on newer Office versions with Ribbon menu, including Office 2013 and Office 2016.
Scout for Microsoft Office 2007 Add-In Preview
Online Preview and Download Microsoft Office System 2007…
Microsoft Office Fluent - Official Name for MS Office 2007…
Open, View, Edit, and Save Office 2007 Documents,…
Run and Test Drive 2007 Microsoft Office System Virtually…
Free Upgrade to Office 2007 with Microsoft Office Technology…
Export and Save Word or Excel Documents as Acrobat PDF or…
Download Microsoft Office 2007 Free Trial Demo for…
By LK|2020-06-28T23:39:41-07:00Modified: June 28, 2020December 8th, 2006|Categories: Office|Tags: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft Office 2016|14 Comments


You need have a chip-free windshield in order to see the road clearly. This is why you will want to contact High Class Auto Glass Inc. for a professional auto glass specialist to perform a quality car windshield repair. If your car windshield is cracked or chipped, you're running the risk of getting a ticket. Furthermore, driving in a car with a broken windshield can be an eyesore day in and day out. If your windshield is covered in scratches, we can fix it with our excellent windshield repairs service. In the most extreme cases, we do excellent custom cut auto glass to make sure you can get back on the road as soon as possible.
You can trust our experts to offer you the appropriate option for your situation. For the best windshield and auto glass company, visit High Class Auto Glass Inc. in Northglenn, CO today!


text:
SOTHEBY'S ONLINE SALE OF PRINTS & MULTIPLES ACHIEVES $3.4 MILLION * Our Highest Total for an Online Auction of Prints *
Half of All Buyers Made Their First Purchase in a Prints Sale at Sotheby's
Strong Prices for Andy Warhol:
Grapes (Suite of 6) Achieves $375,000,
* A New World Auction Record for the Set *
Moonwalk (Feldman & Schellmann II.405) from 1987,
Among the Last Works Created Before Warhol's Death,
Fetches $187,500
Jasper Johns's Colorful Target from 1974
Brings $162,500
Andy Warhol, Grapes
NEW YORK, 29 April 2020 – Sotheby's Prints & Multiples online auction concluded yesterday with a total of $3.4 million and a strong 88% of lots sold. This result meets the auction's high estimate, and further marks our highest-ever total for an online auction of Prints & Multiples.
Originally scheduled as a live auction and successfully converted to an online sale, Prints & Multiples was highlighted by strong results for works by Andy Warhol, led by his Grapes (Suite of 6) that achieved $375,000 – a world auction record for the set. Half of all buyers made their first purchase in a Prints sale at Sotheby's, with hundreds of bidders participating from 30 countries.
Mary Bartow, Head of Sotheby's Prints Department in New York, commented: "We are thrilled with the results of our strongest online sale to-date. We were particularly encouraged by the participation of more than 100 new bidders, who responded to the offering worldwide. Top prices were dominated by the work of Andy Warhol, including his record-setting Grapes from 1979, but prices were buoyant overall, with half of all lots offered selling above expectations. Under unprecedented circumstances, we are pleased to deliver these results on behalf of our clients."
The auction was highlighted by two exceptional prints by Andy Warhol, led by Grapes (Suite of 6) that sold for $375,000 – more than double its $180,000 high estimate, and a world auction record for the work, previously set at Sotheby's in October 2018 when it achieved $212,500. Warhol executed Grapes in 1979, situated between the artist's iconic celebrity portraiture, and the more fictional characters that comprised Warhol's 1980s portfolios. The set of grapes – reduced to the artist's selection of improbable color combinations – strips the subject of any context and represents a question presented by any Warhol image: is a person or an object the artist has reduced to two dimensions more simple or more complex than originally believed?
Among the last works that Warhol created before his death in February 1987, Moonwalk (Feldman & Schellmann II.405) from 1987 achieved $187,500, surpassing its $175,000 high estimate. Moonwalk was intended as part of a portfolio entitled 'TV', which would depict important images from the history of television in America. However, Moonwalk was the only composition from the series that was ultimately printed. Warhol combined two separate photographs of Buzz Aldrin and the American flag – both NASA stills taken by Neil Armstrong – to create the screenprint. The resulting composition is an iconic element of Warhol's printmaking and illustration of his profound effect on American visual culture.
The auction was highlighted further by Jasper Johns's Target (ULAE 147) from 1974 which achieved $162,500 (estimate $125,000/200,000). The work belongs to a set of motifs including the American flag, numbers, and the alphabet which the artist began exploring in the mid-1950s to move beyond Abstract Expressionism and reintroduce subject matter into his work.
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Make Sponge Cake à la Andy Warhol
Revealing the Sly Genius of John Baldessari's 'I WILL NOT MAKE ANY MORE BORING ART'
Sotheby's Shifts Select March & April Sales to Online Auctions
Kandinsky's Lyrical Abstraction Writ Large in Portfolio of Prints
Sotheby's Galleries Go Pop for Prints & Multiples in London
21 Facts About Banksy
Eye-Catching Pieces for Discerning Collectors in NOW! 2020
Pablo Picasso's Flair in Mixed Media from Ceramics to Collage
Picasso, The Constant Draughtsman
Getting to Know Picasso Ceramics
What Makes Picasso Ceramics Collectible?
Sotheby's 25 Most Memorable Instagrams of 2019


Samantha Baker Harris is an actor, improviser, and academic advisor. On this episode of the show, she talks about creating and directing shows as early as 2nd grade. Samantha also talks about deciding to put more energy into writing songs and performing as a musician.
Samantha talks about why she considers her improv training to be another take on getting an advanced college degree. She also talks about how motherhood has impacted her work as a performer as well as her work as an academic adviser who has to understand the life of a non-traditional, working student.
This entry was posted in Podcast and tagged art, improv, music, parent, podcast, sam baker, sam harris, samantha baker harris, theater. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.


Container Gardening: Do You Have a Favorite Method?
I have been fortunate to have access to outdoor space for gardening in many of the places I have lived. The one place I have not had a place to garden outside is in New York. When we moved there I submitted an application for a plot in a local community garden. As far as I know, I am still in the waitlist. That was six years ago! I'm in Virginia this year. We live in a house that has a generous yard. In the back yard there are two raised beds. Sadly I have not planted anything in either of them though I harvested the last of the tomatoes left from the previous tenants. I had hoped to sow a winter ground cover and possibly plant spring bulbs before the first frost. There's still time. Yesterday there was a high of 70 degrees F in Arlington!
If you don't have in-the-ground garden space, you can reliable garden in containers. Rooftop Roots has installed several varieties on the a container garden on the rear plaza of the Arlington Public Library Central Branch. Which one would work best for you?


When a motorist refuses to take a breathalyzer test, field sobriety tests are often a very important piece of evidence the State uses to prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of DUI. Judges rely on the police officer's expertise in giving field sobriety tests, and the police officer's subjective opinion based on the results of those tests that the defendant was under the influence of alcohol.
The standard field sobriety tests that have been scientifically proven to show that a person's blood alcohol level is .10 or greater are the walk and turn test, the one leg stand test, and the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. These tests have been validated through extensive research sponsored by the National Highway transportation Administrative (NTHSA) for effective DUI detection. When performed correctly, the horizontal gaze nystagmus test by itself it 77% accurate in DUI detection, the walk and turn test is 68% accurate, and the one leg state test is 65% accurate. By combining the horizontal gaze nystagmus and the walk and turn test, 80% accuracy can be achieved.
In order for these tests to have any validity, they MUST be administered in the prescribed, standardized manner according to NTHSA and the Illinois Supreme Court in People v. McKown, Docket No. 102372 (Ill. 2/19/2010). No exceptions, or else the tests are not valid. But often times the police officer does not possession the requisite expertise to evaluate these field sobriety tests correctly. Other times, the police officer cuts corners to save time and does not properly assess the motorist's performance on this test. When this happens, you need to have an attorney who is familiar with the NTHSA requirements for validity of the tests on your side. A valuable DUI attorney can properly cross-examine the police officer and effectively persuade the judge that these tests should carry no weight with the court in making its decision of guilt because they were not administered properly.
1. Did the police officer check for equal tracking of the pupils and pupil size before administering the horizontal gaze nystagmus test?
2. Was the motorist over 65 years old, did he/she have back leg or middle ear problems? Was the motorist wearing high heels during the test? These are all factors that could invalidate the tests.
3. Were the tests performed on the dry, hard, level, and non slippery surface?
While these points might seem minor during your DUI arrest, NTHSA says that these tests are NOT valid unless administered properly. Many police officers have not been trained in the administration of field sobriety tests since the police academy. They forget how to give these tests or get sloppy over the years. A person charged with DUI must have someone nitpicking the officer's administration of the tests to the judge or jury. Whether you hire my firm to represent you or someone else, it is important that you have an advocate on your side that is familiar with NTSHA and the tests requirements.


Once gritty, Lowertown in St. Paul is becoming gourmet. Here's a look at what's where and what's to come.
A dingy bar with great Coneys and beer by the pitcher.
Soup-and-sandwich spot; in winter, plays host to 25-plus local growers and vendors. Good coffee, too.
The place for big portions of Greek food in a sophisticated setting. Great for parties.
This utilitarian outpost has a mellow atmosphere and surprisingly good soups, salads and sandwiches; try the Cubano.
Italian restaurant best known for its lunchtime pasta bar.
Tiny and minimalist, this Japanese spot serves noodle bowls and set meals.
Matt Lokowich signed a 20-year lease on his bar specializing in beer, burgers and hot dogs.
Award-winning restaurateur Tim McKee designed the menu of Mexican street food at this happening spot with a Latin vibe.
Bond over small plates and wine at this 4-month-old spot where conversation is encouraged.
David Fhima, who used to run LoTo in this space, returns with American comfort food, a bar, bakery and wine shop.
Lenny Russo is relocating his Heartland contemporary restaurant from St. Paul's Mac-Groveland to a larger space in the historic Market House. A year-round market will be part of the mix.
For his latest project, Bulldog owner Matt Lokowich is doing an upscale deli and liquor shop, complete with walk-in cooler and 1,000 kinds of beer.
Henry Chan, chef/owner of Shanghai Bistros in Woodbury and Eau Claire and Hudson, Wis., plans a splashy Asian-themed restaurant and rooftop bar on top of this parking ramp.
Midwest-friendly menu of Sheboygan, Wis., bratwurst; Chicago hot dogs; and Italian beef from actor Bill Murray and his brothers.
The Glenville, Ill.-based popular tavern and grill chain specializes in burgers, oversized sandwiches, jumbo martinis and microbrews.


First, it was the absolute exclusion of pasta from the menu at Buckingham Palace, despite Meghan Markle's love of pasta. And now, Princess Eugenie has reported she got a little knuckle-rapping for posting a picture of her father in a corridor strictly off-limits to the filthy, teeming masses the royals know as their subjects. Nothing but rules, rules, and more rules!
However, the shot gave her nearly 300,000 followers an unintended peek behind the royal curtains.
"I recently got in trouble for posting a picture of Papa in a corridor of the palace that was off-limits to the public," she told the magazine.
What's even the point of being a princess if you can't Instagram from off-limits corridors of Buckingham Palace?
Wow, I Can't Wait for This New Cozy Mystery!


Santiago Solari praised his side's "backbone" after Real Madrid earned a narrow first-leg win over Ajax in the Champions League last 16.
Were you expecting such an intense Ajax?
"They've been saving all their energy for this game. They didn't let us play our game, pressing us aggressively and very high up the pitch. When the game opened up and they stopped pressing us so intensely, we managed to get playing and create chances."
Ajax better than Madrid on the night?
"That's your opinion. We did a lot of things right to come away with this result. We were able to do what was needed, and showed real backbone."
"It's not that we didn't show enough energy, it's that they pinned us back and took the ball off us, often at the limit of what was legal."
"I'm particularly pleased about Asensio's goal and performance. It's his third appearance since he came back [from injury] and he's coming on leaps and bounds, doing everything that he needs to do."
Are you also pleased with Gareth Bale? You took him off after an hour, which is when you tend to bring him on when he's a substitute. Is that your plan for him?
"That's just a coincidence. I'm very happy with how everyone played. We needed everyone to put a real shift in and if they hadn't, I don't think we would have come away with the win."
"Us coaches don't have a monitor in front of us. We just go with what the referee says."
"We have to approach it with the same professionalism and dedication - the approach you need when it's the Champions League knockout stages."


text:
Q: Is there a word for the various "subevents" at an event? Is there a general word for the "subevents" at an event of some sort? For instance, at a conference, I guess I could probably use "talk" or "presentation"; at a fair I could perhaps use "presentation" or "demonstration", and so on – but is there a common word that I could use for any "subevent" at any kind of event? I've thought about "feature, "item" and "slot", but when I look up these words in dictionaries, I don't find unequivocal support for either of them in this context.
Examples:
The first [REQUESTED WORD] starts at 9.
There are many interesting [REQUESTED WORD] on today's programme.

A: I would use 'activities', 'stuff' or 'things'. But it depends on the event.


text:
Main Blog > About Those Annoying Errors in Books You Read...
About Those Annoying Errors in Books You Read...
WTM • Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 10:04 PM
Do you ever read a book and marvel at the errors that you find? Poor spelling, bad grammar, horrific editing, misrepresented facts, outright falsehoods, conflicts, inconsistencies, and the sort? Well, I do. I'm currently going through J.R.R. Tolkien's works line-by-line and am amazed at how many errors, conflicts, inconsistencies, and the like are to be found therein, these in works that have been in print for 65-80 years now.
What to do? Glad that you asked! This site lets you catalog all that you find for all to see and for the author and publisher to rectify in the next edition. It's become a hobby of mine and at least the practice forces you to read every word and pay close attention. As a matter of record, Tolkien never successfully reconciled The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings, and, boy, does it ever become obvious.
Have a look through the Corrigenda List and see what all has been found wrong with some of your favorite reads.
Like this? Upvote
and earn 10 NeatoPoints redeemable for neat stuff!
BLACKLISTED: PlasmaGryphon in reply to WTM • 03Nov18 9:51am • 0
Well, kind of by definition fanboys are unreasonable and obnoxious. But when it comes to fandoms, or groups and circles in general, there seems to be a spectrum from, "Those are a bunch of cliquey assholes," to, "Those guys are open to fun debates all the time." Even in the latter end of the spectrum though, unfortunate wording and example choice can make someone sound disingenuous or caustic enough that no one wants to honestly engage.
Sorry, this just reminds me a tiny bit of some of the psuedoscientists I've engaged with before. They talk a lot about how scientists never want to discuss things or consider that an established idea is wrong, even when they actually have interesting ideas. Often their problem was a combination of bad luck and presentation instead (extreme cases were along the lines of opening a cold email with, "I know you're an idiot, but ..."). Opening with strong sounding claims and weak examples, or unfortunate wording, can lead to quick escalation of drama.
Just in my personal experience, this seems to conflict with the many times I've come across discussion of ambiguities and inconsistencies in Tolkeins, which, due to the demographics of the internet, is surprisingly common even as someone who read LotR only. There are a massive amount of detailed discussions, both among fans and fans answering outside questions, that amount to, "Tolkein was never clear, here are some letters where he discusses his intentions, but he contradicts himself." Although usually the discussions are about ambiguities much more substantial than a change of choice of wordings. It was one of the topics that just distinctly stood out to me, where I was impressed by the analysis and criticism enough that I found such writings interesting more so than the original source of the discussion
Best of luck, and I just hope Tolkien's work keep you busy enough that you don't have time to move on to finding inconsistencies between something like 2001 and 2010.
BLACKLISTED: WTM in reply to PlasmaGryphon • 02Nov18 7:34pm • 0
Well, the title of what I am writing is:
Errors, Potential Errors, Conflicts, Inconsistencies, Anachronisms, and Mysteries in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The examples given were mainly conflicts and inconsistencies. For genuine errors, we have as an example, in The Hobbit:
Page 150 – it is stated, "…since they started their journey that May morning long ago", but it is clear that prior to this passage the journey began at the end of April. For example, on page 25, Gandalf states, "….your father went away on the twenty-first of April, a hundred years ago last Thursday". Thus it could be no later than April 29 when the journey began the next day. Indeed, on page 12 of FOTR, Tolkien writes of Bilbo, "With them he set out, to his own lasting astonishment, on a morning in April".
Page 299 – it is stated, "……Gandalf had been to a great council of the white wizards….". As learned later when Tolkien fleshed out the mythos of Middle-earth for LOTR, there had only ever been five wizards in Middle-earth and only one of them (Saruman) was a white wizard. Thus there could not have been any council of white wizards. In LOTR, Gandalf states that this event was a Council of the Wise (which included elves). Further confusing the issue is the fact that the Council of the Wise was also known as the White Council.
For The Lord of the Rings, there are many errors but I am in the midst of cataloguing them. Also numerous are outright conflicts with The Hobbit. Here are some samples:
Dwarves in TH are armed with bows and arrows, mattocks, and swords but those in LOTR use axes exclusively.
Talking trolls with first and last names are unique to TH. Trolls in LOTR are mute and nameless.
Tolkien frequently refers to tobacco in TH, although in LOTR tobacco is mentioned only as pipe-weed. Pipe-weed as such is not mentioned in TH.
Tolkien did word some passages poorly such that their meaning is ambivalent. in FOTR, Frodo is said to be thinking about Balin's visit to the Shire long ago, giving the impression that he is remembering it from experience. But the timeline in the Appendices indicate that Balin's visit occurred about 20 years before Frodo was born. There are others and I will be collecting them as I go through the books again line by line.
P.S. Stay away from Entmoot.com if you don't wish to be disrespected and called names. Tolkien fanboys aren't always reasonable. But if you haven't seen it, The Encyclopedia of Area is a Tolkien scholar's dream. http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp
BLACKLISTED: PlasmaGryphon in reply to WTM • 02Nov18 6:46pm • 0
Most of those just seem like loose wording and not out right errors... So I'm not really sure if there would be much point arguing how the wording could be interpreted one way or another.
On the other hand, there are some big things to discuss with possible problems with thematic components of Tolkein's work, and how things like the World Wars influenced Tolkein. I'm not the biggest fan of his work, but have participated in some rather interesting, level-headed discussions of these issues with much bigger fans, some taking a variety of positions and respecting those who disagreed.
BLACKLISTED: WTM • 01Nov18 7:00am • 0
Edward:
Yes I have, on the site entmoot.com. It is pretty much as you have said. Here are a few tidbits from my ongoing review:
There still remain a number of canonical errors in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, original errors made by Tolkien that he never rectified and which publishers are now afraid to correct since they fear incurring the wrath of the Tolkien Estate, which holds practically his every written word to be sacrosanct. A good example of such is to be found on page 150 in The Two Towers, when Gimli saves Eomer's life by beheading two orcs just prior to the battle of Helm's Deep, stating afterwards that he had 'hewn naught but wood since Moria', completely ignoring the battle in which Boromir was killed and in which Gimli and Legolas had together slain dozens of marauding orcs.
From The Hobbit:
Page 51 – It is stated, "The master of the house was an elf-friend". The housemaster in question was the 6,500 year-old Elrond Halfelven, one of the greatest elves in Middle-earth, and not just a mere elf-friend, as were Bilbo and later Frodo. The title of 'elf-friend' was traditionally granted by the Elves to their allies among mortals.
Pages 42-43 – the 'pots full of gold coins' are subsequently referred to as 'pots of coins' and 'pots of gold'. On page 301, these pots are called 'the gold of the trolls'.
From The Lord of the Rings:
On page 49 of TH it is stated that elves tease and laugh at dwarves because of their beards. Yet, in ROTK, Cirdan, the oldest male elf remaining in Middle-earth, is described as having a grey beard himself. Tolkien does not say if Galadriel and Elrond were sniggering behind his back as they boarded ship at the Grey Havens.
And a LOT more to come.
BLACKLISTED: Edward • 01Nov18 6:08am • 0
Thank you, WTM. Ever try talking to a Tolkien fan about problems with his work? Might as well just ask to be berated and skip the intellectual effort.
"About Those Annoying Errors in Books You Read..."


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News published June 2022
Cabinet agrees to bid for £82M of Levelling Up funding
Published: 29th June 2022
A proposal to work up detailed plans for a £multi-million bid to give Hunstanton a new leisure centre has been approved by the borough council's cabinet.
It's electric! Electric vehicle charging points coming to west Norfolk
Funding has been secured to provide 52 charging points in seven locations across west Norfolk ensuring that people with limited access to off-street parking can still choose an electric vehicle.
Mammoths spotted in King's Lynn
Mammoths have appeared in King's Lynn this week as part of Break's GoGoDiscover Trail.
Lovell and borough council football match raises hundreds for charities
Published: 22nd June 2022
Housing developer Lovell took on the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in a charity football match at The Nest in Horsford on Saturday 18th June 2022.
Stars and Shakespearean scholars show support for transformational project in King's Lynn
Published: 21st June 2022
Hunstanton Neighbourhood Planning Referendum result
Here are the results for the Hunstanton Neighbourhood Planning Referendum of 16 June.
Heacham Neighbourhood Planning Referendum result
Here are the results for the Heacham Neighbourhood Planning Referendum of 16 June.
Armed Forces Day flag raised in Tower Gardens
The borough showed its support for members of the armed forces, by raising the British Armed Forces Day flag in Tower Gardens, King's Lynn, on Monday 20 June 2022.
Short film about King's Lynn history by young filmmakers receives premiere
A film made by group of young people in King's Lynn to celebrate the history of Chapel Street, as part of the King's Lynn Heritage Action Zone, received its 'world premiere' on Thursday.
National Drowning Prevention Week marked by the borough council
The Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk is urging residents to stay safe and enjoy the water this summer.


With a quick google search and downloading free tools, anyone with physical access to a server can reset the administrator password and have full access within a few minutes. Securing the server in a locked room however, is not the only physical security that a business owner needs to be concerned with.
Hardly a day goes by without an announcement of a well-known major corporation that has had its website or computer system compromised, resulting in the theft of its customer's private information.


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Home/General Store, Tunnel, Uncategorized/Hot Air Spy Balloons: Laughable or Genius?
Hot Air Spy Balloons: Laughable or Genius?
Imaginative, colorful, amusing, all words that come to mind when you think of hot air balloons. In fact, you may struggle to imagine such a thing striking fear in a soldier's heart. But, these very balloons were a scary site for a few years of the Civil War. In the course of the war, both the Union and Confederate armies used balloons for locating enemy forces and monitoring their movements.
On April 19, 1861, just as the Civil War began, Thaddeus Lowe launched his small hot air balloon the Enterprise from Cincinnati. Lowe's bold plan was to fly east 500 miles and land in Washington, perhaps on the lawn of the White House. He wanted to offer his services to the Union, and beat out any rivals trying to accomplish the same. Unfortunately, the rebellious wind sent him much farther south, touching down in the heart of the seceded state of South Carolina.
Thaddeus Lowe, 1865. Photo Courtesy: Library of Congress
The Southern farmers were not impressed by his flying skills or his Yankee accent. Lowe was arrested as a spy for supposedly carrying dispatches from the Union army. He showed them the "dispatches" were actually editions of the Cincinnati Daily Commerce, and thus escaped a traitor's death. Thankful to be alive, Lowe hurried north to Washington, with his balloon equipment in packing cases. Here the Union army was preparing to invade rebel Virginia, and troops were skirmishing across the Potomac River near Arlington. The new commander, Gen. George McClellan, like Abraham Lincoln, loved advanced technology and desired its use in the war. The plan was to show Lincoln how the Enterprise could carry up telegraph equipment and a wire, and send direct aerial observations to a commander on the ground.
Prof. Lowe ascending in the Intrepid to observe the Battle of Fair Oaks
On, June 16, 1861, Lowe soared 500 feet above Constitution Mall, with a telegraph key and an excited Morse operator. The telegraph wire was strapped to the tether line and winch, and then run directly across the lawn and into a service room in the White House. Lowe broadcast the following message:
Balloon Enterprise. Washington, D.C. 16 June 1861
To President United States:
This point of observation commands an area nearly fifty miles in diameter. The city with its girdle of encampments presents a superb scene. I have pleasure in sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station and in acknowledging indebtedness to your encouragement for the opportunity of demonstrating the availability of the science of aeronautics in the service of the country. T.S.C. Lowe
Lowe succeeded in his mission. Lincoln to form an official Military Aeronautics Corps within the Union Army. Lowe received Union funds to build more balloons. His fleet eventually consisted of 8 military balloons: the Union, the Intrepid, the Constitution, the United States, the Washington, the Eagle, the Excelsior, and the original Enterprise. The new balloons could carry enough tether and telegraph cable to climb to 5,000 feet.
Lowe observes from Intrepid at the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862.
Photo courtesy: Smithsonian Archives
On Sept. 24, Lowe rose in the Union to more than a thousand feet near Arlington, and began telegraphing information on the Confederate troops located at Falls Church, Va., more than 3 miles away. Union guns were then fired accurately on the Confederate army without actually being able to see them. This event was the first time in warfare that destruction could be delivered to a distant and invisible enemy.
From his balloons, Lowe witnessed a new kind of fighting. Rapid, violent, passionate, and patriotic (on both sides), it was based on a swift exchange of attack and counterattack. It produced mass fatalities never before seen in American history. Lowe rarely described the human loss that he saw. Instead, he limited reports to tactical information, like someone observing the moves in a vast, impersonal strategy game. But the obvious sounds of war came up to him—the boom of shells, the rattle of shots, the screaming of wounded. He wrote: "It was one of the greatest strains upon my nerves that I ever have experienced, to observe for many hours a fierce battle."
A sketch made of Confederate troop positions as seen from a Lowe balloon in 1861.
Photo courtesy: National Air and Space Museum
Some historians claim that, although balloon observations contributed to battle victories, the Union's commanding generals didn't use the information to their full advantage. Vague reports on Robert E. Lee's movements issued from the Intrepid during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign only served to panic General McClellan. The general withdrew his vastly superior forces from Richmond, Virginia, rather than attacking the poorly defended Confederate capital. Had McClellan attacked, the war might have ended 3 years sooner and saved tens of thousands of lives.
After McClellan was relieved of his command, Ulysses S. Grant took over. Grant, preferring to rely more on slow destruction than on intelligence, cut its funding and thus its effectiveness. Lowe was accused of financial impropriety, and his pay was reduced. Lowe resigned from the balloon corps on May 8, 1863. By August, the Union balloon corps was disbanded. Although, not overly successful the balloon corps definitely opened up a new side to military planning and intelligence.


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Is There a Drop in Protection Rates for Vaccines Due to the Delta Variant of COVID-19?
There are emerging signs from Israel indicating that the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine may not be as effective against the COVID-19 delta variant.
Although this is still a developing situation and will receive the attention of the entire world over the next few months as more information is collected, there are some key findings that have already been made regarding the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine against the delta variant.
Israel's Health Ministry have reported in the past that two shots of the Pfizer vaccine proved to provide a 93-95% protection rate against infection, hospitalization, and serious illness, with that number falling to just 64% since June 6 in infection cases.[1] This coincides with when social distancing measures were eased and when the delta variant began circling through the country.
Masks remain the most effective protection. One of the issues with masks, however, is landfills. The Avro Mask is unique — fully recyclable. Visit Avro Mask>>
Out of those infected with the new delta variant in Israel, approximately 55% occurred in individuals who had already received the vaccine, although this doesn't mean that the vaccine is not doing its job. While the total number of new infections has certainly increased, indicating that the vaccine is not as effective against the delta variant, the rate of hospitalizations was not affected to the same degree. While previously, the vaccine had a success rate of 97% for preventing hospitalization of those infected with the virus, that number only fell by 4 points to 93%, showing that serious infections and hospitalizations had not spiked as much as new infections.[2]
Although it may not seem like a serious matter due to the minor rise in hospitalizations, a greater number of infections among vaccinated individuals may become a problem regarding the development of vaccine-resistant strains of the coronavirus[3]. The Israeli government is currently conducting further studies on infected individuals based on the hypothesis that the vaccine may potentially wear off over time in people of certain ages or with some pre-existing medical conditions, which comes as a shock since both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were originally reported to provide protection against the coronavirus for years.[4]
As of the time of writing, Pfizer has yet to release any type of statement regarding the effectiveness of their vaccine regarding the delta variant of the coronavirus in relation to events in Israel, while the Israeli government are reintroducing social distancing measures once more as their number of seriously ill people continues to increase.
[1] EuroNews, "Israel sees drop in Pfizer vaccine protection against infections, still strong in severe illness", May 7, 2021. https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/05/us-health-coronavirus-israel-pfizer
[2] Bloomberg, "Pfizer Shot Halts Severe Illness in Israel as Delta Spreads", July 5, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-05/israel-sees-decline-in-pfizer-vaccine-efficacy-rate-ynet-says
[3] The New York Times, "Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines Likely to Produce Lasting Immunity, Study Finds", June 28, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/health/coronavirus-vaccines-immunity.html
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