text:
Film: What is the Tomorrow We Are Talking About
Alexandre Fernandes, Audience Development Director and Luiz Alberto Oliveira, Curator, Museum of Tomorrow (Rio) joined us for MuseumNext Dublin, sharing the philosophy of their recently opened museum in Rio de Janeiro.
Luiz: Hello. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Luiz Alberto Oliveira. I've been involved in the project of the Museum of Tomorrow since 2009. I will start by showing you the conceptual project of the museum, and afterwards, my colleague, Alexandre Fernandes will show you the actual practics that we have been accomplished in these four months that we have been born. We are still a baby calf trembling on our legs, you see.
So, well, what is a Museum of Tomorrow? This question, just a notion, is puzzling for some people. The first thing we have to do is to show you what tomorrow we're speaking about. So, the Museum of Tomorrow, first and foremost, is a science museum. In fact, we are a museum of applied science. We applied resources of contemporary science to offer to our users or our visitors an experience of exploring possibly future scenarios.
So, every museum has a collection; the collection of the Museum of Tomorrow is our possibilities. So, in this sense, we are a new kind of museum. You have science museums, in which you have, for instance, in the natural history museums, you collect traces of the past, or in what we call demonstrative, factual museums, you show evidence of the present, the ways the laws of nature function. But, at the Museum of Tomorrow, we aim to be a museum of questions, and an exploration of possibilities.
The quick question here is, what tomorrow are we speaking about? So, the museum is about a philosophical question supported by scientific content, and conveyed to the visitors by the powerful language of art. So, the key concept, or the key philosophical foundation of the museum is that tomorrow is not ready. Tomorrow is not a date on the calendar; tomorrow is not a place where we will arrive. Tomorrow is a construction, and we will take part in that construction as people, as citizens, as members of the humankind.
So, about the scientific content of the museum, we do not work with the usual position between natural sciences and humanities, or exact sciences and historical sciences, [with all] dedication of Victor Weisskopf, the American physicist, and we work with the separation of Sciences [of the Unity], cosmic sciences, and sciences of plurality, earth sciences.
On the one hand, you have cosmology, astrophysics, the universe to which we belong, and particle physics, atomic physics, chemistry, the materials that we are all made of. And you have, on the other hand, all the science that deals with the peak of complexity that we find here in our earth, in our home, in ourselves. So, for us, geology and psychology stand on the same place.
We also have ethical guidelines, values, that we offer to the consideration of our visitors. Sustainability – how do you want to live with the world. Conviviality – how do we want to live with each other, is our values that belongs to the museum since its conception, and we affirm these values to the consideration of our visitors.
And, well, another aspect of the museum is the fact that it's this architectural icon, of one of the largest process of urban renewal taking place today, the Porto Maravilha project, the process of revitalising the harbour area of Rio, 5 million square meters of intervention, the largest intervention, human intervention in this city the last five decades. And, as you can see, we are together with the Museum of Art of Rio, we have the new opening aquarium of the city, and we are at the end of a rosary of more than 15 cultural institutions that will be joined [together by a tram], so this will be a new life for the culture in the town.
The architecture, we invited Santiago Calatrava, accomplished Catalan architect, and he was inspired by a flower from the Botanical Garden of Rio, a typical flower of the Atlantic forest which surrounds Rio, which is the Bromeliad, and so he got inspired to create this [longelinea] modular structure that we set up on the waterfront between two gardens. So, this was a solution on the Maua Square.
And, this is, the Museum of Tomorrow [is an equipment] for probing the next decades, but it is rooted in the very historical heart of Rio. The five centuries of our history evolved around Maua Square, so it's a very important process of renewal – we're connecting the past and the future.
So, this is to give you a taste of Calatrava's style. On the ground floor, you have an auditorium; you have a space for temporary exhibitions of about 20,000 square meters, and we have also two particular sectors. As you can imagine, the most challenging, the greatest challenge in a Museum of Tomorrow is not becoming very fast a museum of yesterday. So, to avoid that, we set two different sectors.
The first one is the Observatory of Tomorrow, which gets together, gets connected with many institutions that provides us with data, with reports, that we use to constantly update our exhibitions. So, other museums who are devised and created preserve [unintelligible 00:06:46], we have to update and substitute ours constantly. We have already carried out 12 updatings of the museum's content. So, whenever you come back to the Museum of Tomorrow, it will be a Museum of Tomorrow, a new museum.
Also, to keep in pace with the fantastic acceleration of changes that are happening in our times, we have the Tomorrow Activities Lab, in which we carry out very short term exhibitions and innovations, and prototyping, and [unintelligible 00:07:19], and citizen project science, a place of [unintelligible 00:07:24], a place in which groups from everywhere, they can go and the museum will offer them the possibilities to, the conditions for developing any projects whatsoever. So, with this, we have a long term exhibition, medium term, temporary exhibitions, and very, very fast, short term exhibitions.
For instance, we can have a data visualisation for the [MIT], and the [unintelligible 00:07:51] showing how they, in three days, can make [unintelligible 00:07:56].
Also, technology – in order to be able to update constantly the museum, we choose the museum to be entirely digital, except for one single physical piece. So, with these resources at our hands, we try to make the museum work like an organism, that is, it can have a sense of its own metabolism, of its own functioning, by a record of the course of the visitors inside the museum, through a device called the Iris. So, the Iris is the digital [assistant] that every visitor can register, and afterwards, the visitor can receive further information about [unintelligible 00:08:44] the issues that matters, that interested them most, and the museum can receive this image of this flow of its blood or visitors flowing across it.
The Museography was inspired on the concept of a musical score. So, whereas in a symphony, you have different tempi, different movements, so here we wanted to create areas in which you have intensity, or areas when you have tranquillity, ups and downs, so this concept was accomplished to five exposition areas in the dialogue with the cathedral nave that Calatrava gave us, 180 meters long, 14 meters wide, 14 meters height, with five [unintelligible 00:09:41], the roof. And, each one of these areas, they converse with the architecture.
Each one of them comprises a specific scientific content, incarnating one of the great questions that mankind has always asked itself – where they come from, who you are, where are we, where are we heading to, how do you want to go? So, we offer the visitors a journey of exploration of these possibilities of future.
So, the first area is a very huge black egg. We call it the Cosmos area. Where do we come from is the question. It's an immersive experience, in which the visitor is taken away from his everyday perspective. So, he'll travel between galaxies, dive deeply into the nucleus of an atom, see the formation of the earth, the emergence of [light], the appearance of [mind to art]. 13.7 billion years in eight minutes. Not so an easy task, if you ask me.
The second moment is the earth, it's who we are. We are earthlings; we are combinations of matter, life and mind. So, there are three huge cubes; in each cube, one of these dimensions of our existence. On the outside, on the skins of the cubes, is always the point of view of unity. For instance, the first cube is the earth, seen from the outside, as one single body. No separations, no [unintelligible 00:11:14]. On the insides is the workings of the earth as a system, the changes of the seasons as the basic symptom of these workings of the earth as a system.
The second cube is the cube of life; on the outside, what is common in every organism. The manual, the instructions manual in [DNA-ish] that comprises the instructions for the [unintelligible 00:11:38] organisms to build their own components. On the inside, the notion of our ecosystem, exemplified by the ecosystem of Atlantic Forests of Guanabara Bay, where the museum is located.
On the third [curve, the curve] of mind, on the outside, what is common, our [nervous] system is the same for all of us, essentially. On the inside, the incredible variety of culture. 1020 pictures showing all different aspects of different cultures in [unintelligible 00:12:07] of explorations. 140 musical tones that are played randomly, so that you get lost in this maze of information about what humans are able to do.
Where are we now? We are now in [unintelligible 00:12:26] becoming aware of the fact that we have become … our activities, taken as a whole, has become a [planetary] shaping force, and the consequences of our actions are very far reaching. We live now [in the age] of the humans and Anthropocene. So, where are we? We show this, inspired on a huge moment on [Stonehenge], six towers, ten meters high, 3.5 meters wide, 2010 square meters of light telling the people, you are here. You are now in this moment where we have become this planetary shaping force. We and our descendants, we live in this planet, profoundly changed by our own actions.
The main area of the museum, the tomorrows, where are we heading two, which we have three areas. Society, planet, and human, and in the centre of each one of these areas, we have a table of games, to deal with the idea of possibilities or probabilities. So, we identified with our consultants six major trends that [unintelligible 00:13:41] the next decades, the museum will be always focussed 50 years ahead. So, population growth and longevity, we are around 70 billion people today. In 2050, we will be about 10 billion people, 3 billion people more, born on a [unintelligible 00:13:56] belt of tropical, poor countries. Not only 3 billion people more, 3 billion poor people more.
Also, the fact that we have, in many places, increasing our longevity in such a way that in 2050, there will be no more [unintelligible 00:14:16]. We will have as many elders as you have children. No human society has ever lived according to this age distribution.
The integration and differentiation of locals and places, to the [unintelligible 00:14:33] transport, now especially in the great cities, we have the material means to create a real global, human community.
On the same time, and by the same reasons, local traditions and customs are reinforced, so the general political clash of integrating and differentiation, due to the same actions, the same powers, will be a very important political issue the next decades.
Climate change, of course, we show local, regional and global scenarios, and that's [unintelligible 00:15:12] soft, medium, and an intense change, the effects on cities, the effects on agriculture, the effects on migrations, and of course, the causes connected to energy, the uses of energy.
The changes in the biodiversity, and [unintelligible 00:15:31] location of the species [the disappearing of] the species, the very frightening risk that about 2100, we will have carried out the sixth greatest extinction in life on earth.
The increase of the artefacts in number, quality and capacity, its [integration] with our bodies, with our nervous systems, with our ways of living, we are putting in motion to technology the very limits of what is to be a human.
And, the expansion of knowledge, the amazing fact that today, for the first time in the human history, more than half of humanity is [unintelligible 00:16:10] in some language. And, of this half, more than half are women. If we recall that, at the beginning of the 20th century, just a century ago, the number of learned women in all the world was nil, we understand the immense psychosocial transformation that we are currently experiencing.
The [final] moment of the museum, is it earth, how do you want to go, which values we want to convey to the future. We were inspired by a house of knowledge of the Brazilian tribesmen, and we created [this ambient] soundscape and light-scape, just to show two concepts. One, that somewhere, everywhere, the sun is rising in the east; it's already tomorrow there. So, it's not a museum of the future, which is far away; it's a museum of tomorrow, because tomorrow is always happening now, and tomorrow is always the same. It's always the sun rising in the east, but it's always different.
So, this idea, we convey, organised the space, with the one single material piece of the museum, which is a piece from the other side of the world – it's a tjurunga; it's a piece of an Australian symbolic tool that the Australian Aboriginals used to connect the past and the future, to show the continuity of the [unintelligible 00:17:35] culture.
So, we can be aware that the Museum of Tomorrow wants to become a tjurunga for the 21 century, so this is the only physical object of the museum, the only object that symbolises the museum itself.
Then, we come back to the present, with the view of Guanabara Bay – if you'll excuse me for being a little bit parochial, perhaps everything you saw before, you can see elsewhere, but this, only in the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro. So, please welcome Alex.
Alex: So, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alex Fernandes. I'm Audience Development Director of the Museum of Tomorrow. Firstly, I'd like to say thanks to MuseumNext for inviting us, and to [Mark Dixon] and British Council, thank you for advocating for us to be here.
Before I start talking about audience development, I would like to say that, today, April 19th, we are celebrating four months since our big opening to the public last December. Like Luiz said, we are a baby museum. We have a lot to learn, and we're all aware of the long ways we have to go in order to understand our audience.
We believe that our audience development programmes should be created as a sparkle, a starting point, propagating a shared understanding of the world. That sparkle, that starting point, began at the heart of Rio de Janeiro's historic centre, where Louis showed earlier in the map. It is a region with a very powerful, sophisticated and affirmative culture. It is the birthplace of samba and other important Brazilian culture expressions.
So, about a year ago, in partnership with the City of Rio de Janeiro, we started to map and understand the region, and we found out some key figures. There are about 30,000 residents at the port region, about 12,000 households; 150 social organisations, including public schools, clinics, etc. More than half of the people living there earn less than $400 a month.
So, about six months before opening, we ask ourselves, how can we introduce the Museum of Tomorrow to the local community, when there is no Museum of Tomorrow to visit? We realised that, let's do it anyway. So, we invited local residents to visit the museum during the final stages of the building construction. We were able to bring 500 local residents to visit the Tomorrow. The number might appear small, but the word of mouth afterwards was huge.
Part of our community engagement plan was to launch a neighbour free membership programme before the big opening. That means every port region resident is eligible to be a neighbour member with free access to the museum.
However, how can we get those residents interested in becoming a member? We only knew where they live, and that was enough. We sent out those postcards, as you see, to every household in the region. We're talking about a region that the mail service barely gets there, so we were able to send those 12,000 postcards to every household, inviting them to register for the programme, and for attending the big opening.
So, on December 19th, exactly four months ago, the day before the big opening to the general public, we opened our doors only to our neighbours, so for our surprise, we didn't expect that many, but we had over 4,000 people for this event.
The next day, when we really opened our doors to everyone, it was a whole different story. The museum has received lots of attention from the public and from the media, which reflected on a big number of visitors, so we expected about 10,000 people for the big opening. We opened our doors for 36 hours in a row, and we had over, as you see, 26,000 visitors. That was a big number for us.
Then, it is a huge challenge for us to manage the success. That number gave us a lot of joy, but also enormous responsibility to make sure that all visitors could have a good experience. Already in January, our audience research and evaluation team conducted a profile, a satisfaction survey, that showed us that 98% of visitors had a great experience and would recommend the museum for friends and family. That showed us that the museum is mainly a family programme, so 94% of the people went there accompanied by someone, mostly family.
We became a huge touristic attraction – as you see, 43% live outside of the Rio de Janeiro state. That is a big finding for us – almost half of our visitors, about 42% are not museum visitors, and 10% never visited a museum. So, we understand that a good first experience at a museum will encourage those visitors to be more interested in other museums as well.
About our public programming: the aim is to invite the audience to participate in investigating the past, understand the changes of the present, and explore possible futures.
I'm going to give a couple of examples of our programming. Maua 360 consisted in a training programme that enabled 374 participants to investigate the past with four historians and specialists of the Rio Port region. Most of the participants who actually live in the region were unaware of the historic importance of the region.
Those are examples of Facebook cards used to invite users to our programming at the Observatory of Tomorrow, as Louis mentioned earlier. On our left side, you see one of our workshops that monitors the vital signs of the earth, such as the dynamics of the oceans, and on the right, there was a workshop, that a scientist shared findings regarding the Zika Virus, a huge current health issue in Brazil right now.
Then, exploring possible futures: those are examples – on your left, you see the big [finding of] gravitational waves, and how that opens a new window to the universe. On your right are the perspectives for 2030, when you look at current rates of deforestation and climate change.
So, I'm happy to say that we are launching, this May, our membership programme, with the aim at creating a community of shared interests. So, everything you see here, you're seeing at first hand.
Both the museum and the membership programme share the same ethical pillars of sustainability and conviviality. The main concept of the programme is that it will permanently be on beta version, in other words, it would be always under construction, a collective construction.
So, to start with, I highlight some key characteristics. We're going to start with only one category. Of course, we have different profiles as family, individual, [dual], but the amount, the value that the member will provide to the museum will be the same, and the benefits, as well.
Members will be able to elect which projects they would like to engage, such as community gardening, build your community library, or monitoring the quality of the water at the Guanabara Bay, where the museum is.
So, I go back to that sparkle, that starting point, to invite you all to visit the Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and participate on this ongoing construction of tomorrows, towards a shared understanding of the world.
I'd like to say hello to my colleagues at the Museum of Tomorrow – they are all watching us in Brazil, and they are like in a football match, cheering for us to have a good presentation. So, hi, guys.
Alexandre Fernandes, Audience Development Director and Luiz Alberto Oliveira, Curator, Museum of Tomorrow (Rio) joined us for MuseumNext Dublin, sharing the philosophy of their recently opened museum in Rio de Janeiro. To stay informed about our International Museum Conferences follow MuseumNext on Twitter or like MuseumNext on Facebook.
Tomorrow's Home – new museum exhibition explores the future of domesticity November 16 2021
Museum of Tomorrow's immersive exhibition highlights current challenges to world's largest biome January 06 2022
Film: How Can You Decolonise Museums? June 02 2020
Belfast art deco building to be transformed into museum and film centre December 21 2021
Talking Green Museums with Nick Merriman
Filmed at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in September 2020 Jim Richardson: So welcome back to MuseumNext Disrupt. Today, I'm at the Horniman Museum Gardens...
Talking Minecraft with Adam Clarke, Artist and Digital Producer
Ahead of his Digital Summit talk on Tuesday 23rd February, Adam Clarke gives a glimpse into the content of his session – "The story is...
Who is talking about Museums and Art on Clubhouse?
You may not have heard, but there's a new social media platform vying for our attention. Launched last year, Clubhouse is a social networking app...


At SimpleCraft we aim to have the most enjoyable vanilla-style experience for our players as we can without the use of flashy, game changing plugins.
It has been around eight months since this project was started and we are finally done! Woot! We have been live for two weeks or so now and we have been super successful with an average of 10-15 players on at most times. We have also had a whopping 22 players online at one time, something that a minedlands server has not seen in quite some time! Thank you all for sticking around with us during our early development and through the server launch. We hope to see every one here for years to come.
Every day we inch further and further to a full release of SimpleCraft! I cannot wait! Soon i will be looking for beta testers to play to be sure we are ready for the full release. Most of what needs to be done to launch has to wait until we have a stable spigot build, that is the main hold up as of now. check back here and on discord to stay up to date on our progress.
The Website is taking shape!


text:
Sanctuary City Trend Reaches Tucson
Written By Sally Moore
Tucson, Arizona is set to join the left-leaning, progressive trend which has dozens of cities in the United States declaring themselves "Sanctuary Cities." The Tucson City Council voted in early August to allow the initiative to appear on the November ballot. The People's Defense Initiative exceeded the required amount of petition signatures in July which paved the way for the measure entitled "Tucson Families- Free and Together" to be added to the general election ballot November 5, 2019.
Pima County Republicans, via the Munger, Chadwick & Dencker legal team immediately filed an appeal. According to an August 16 article in the Tucson Sentinel by reporter Dylan Smith, the GOP "challenged the initiative alleging not enough valid signatures had been submitted and that the city's initiative procedures violated state law and the Arizona Constitution." No Tucson elected officials are backing the measure, and City Attorney Mike Rankin has pegged potential legal problems with the initiative- should it pass. In spite of those facts, the City of Tucson was forced to defend the issue in court on Monday, August 12.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Douglas Metcalf rejected each of the Republican's arguments citing that state law allows the city to develop its own procedures for reviewing initiatives- including specifying the number of signatures required to put a measure on the ballot. "The Court has determined that the Plaintiffs' complaint fails as a matter of law," the judge wrote.
City Attorney Rankin, according to the Tucson Sentinel article, quickly responded, "We will continue to defend our code and the city clerk's application of the law" if there is an appeal. "It is important to note that this case has nothing to do with the content, subject matter or merits of the initiative itself." Rankin added, "Instead, the lawsuit challenged the provisions of the Charter, city code and the actions of the city clerk- -based on guidance from the City Attorney's Office–in applying the law as it relates to how local initiatives get on the ballot for the voters to consider. Judge Metcalf's ruling is very clear: the city clerk correctly applied the law."
According to the Pima County Recorder's Office 18,200 signatures were submitted on the petition with 13,000 found to be valid after being reviewed by the City Clerk's Office and the Pima County Recorder's Office. City procedures call for 15% of the votes cast for the mayoral candidate in the last election, equaling 9,241 signatures from registered voters.
Judge Metcalf's ruling clears the way for the Tucson Families Free and Together measure to be placed on the November ballot. If passed, a new section will be added to the Tucson City Code which places restriction on law enforcement activities.
Rankin, early this year noted that the "Sanctuary City" initiative would in his opinion, violate SB 1070, limiting local cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBO, Marshals Service or DEA, if a special agreement were not signed with Tucson. Rankin also noted in a January memo prepared for the Mayor and City Council members, that parts of the proposed ordinance were legally unenforceable as written. He stated the measure could provide protection against immigration inquiries for people charged with domestic violence and sexual assault.
It is interesting to note that none of the current Democratic Mayoral candidates participating in next Tuesday's August 27 Primary have yet come out in favor of the Sanctuary City initiative.
The Center for Immigration Studies released statistics in April 2019 which shows a very long list of cities, counties and states who have declared independent "sanctuary" from the legally passed immigration policies mandated by the government. These local, state or county's have enacted policies which obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from Immigration, Customs Enforcement (ICE)- either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance or denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens or impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.
A detainer is the primary tool used by ICE to gain custody of criminal aliens for deportation. It is a notice to another law enforcement agency that ICE intends to assume custody of an alien and includes information on the alien's previous criminal history, immigration violations and potential threat to public safety or security.
Over the past decade sanctuary cities have become popular as an out-of -the- box statement of disapproval for current U.S. Immigration Policy and enforcement thereof. Readers may recall that President Trump, immediately following his inauguration, signed the January 25, 2017 executive order calling undocumented immigration a "clear and present danger" to national security." The Presidential Order upped the ante on the immigration issues raised during his campaign which challenged the "Dreamer" DACA policy, encouraged the need for an impenetrable Border Wall and regularly highlighted illegal immigration crime throughout the nation.
Citing the high cost of unfettered illegal immigration and flawed asylum policies which take services from poor American's, President Trump suggested withholding Federal funds from "sanctuary cities" which do no not fully cooperate with U. S. immigration authorities.
The President has been highly critical of "Sanctuary City's" stating that they protect criminals, encourage illegal immigration and endanger the legal citizenry as well as violating Federal laws. His controversial executive order immediately triggered a legal challenge which U.S. District Judge William Orrick declared "coercive," noting said spending powers belonged to the legislative, not executive, branch of government.
USA Today reported on August 1, 2018 that a Federal Appeals Court ruled that the President had "exceeded his authority when he threatened to withhold such monies." Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Sidney Thomas wrote, "Absent congressional authorization, the administration may not redistribute or withhold properly appropriated funds in order to effectuate its own policy goals."
The Justice Dept. spokesman, Devin O'Malley stated that President Trump's executive order was a legal use of the president's power. Calling the 9th Circuit's decision a victory for "criminal aliens in California, who can continue to commit crimes knowing that the state's leadership will protect them from federal immigration officers whose job it is to hold them accountable and remove them from the country."
O'Malley concluded, "The Justice Department remains committed to the rule of law; to protecting public safety and to keeping criminal aliens off the streets."
Democratic proponents traditionally cite humanitarian motives such as those found in the upcoming initiative in Tucson with the label: "Tucson Families- Free and Together. The positive spin focuses on allowing undocumented families to stay together, and keep coming with impunity. No serious discussion is made of the deep and multiple costs to taxpayers on both the local and national level.
President Trump is the only persuasive spokesman to actively underscore the real costs. He regularly outlines the risks, the lives lost and honors Angel Families who have lost loved ones to illegal alien murderers. Thanks for his protective outlook and stance on strong borders continues to earn him scathing criticism and a repetitive "racist" label. His resolve seems however, not to have wavered, with his sense of humor firmly intact.
Always innovative, on Friday, April 12, the President famously tweeted his administration was "strongly" considering releasing illegal migrants detained at the border into the mostly Democratic "sanctuary cities," suggesting the idea should make liberals, "very happy" due to their liberal immigration policy views. President Trump noted, rather reasonably, "Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong consideration to placing illegal immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only…"
This was quickly followed up with another tweet in which he added, "…the Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders Open Arms policy–so this should make them very happy!
The White House addressed the wave of disapproval the next day, noting such an action had not seriously been a consideration.
The entire matter does highlight the bottom line. No legislative answers to immigration and asylum problems have been forthcoming from either party. Everyone finally, publicly, acknowledges there is a crisis on the border, but no one wants to take the bull by the horns to either enforce existing laws, or pass fresh legislation on a variety of fronts- to actually fix it.
Unfortunately, and perhaps unrelated, many sanctuary cities are quickly becoming synonymous with the problem of mass homelessness. Diseases coming across the border include serious strains of TB, measles and more which are rarely reported. Filthy, squalid conditions becoming common on the streets of California and in tent cities located in parks are being regularly reported on in the news. Human feces has drawn rats which carry fleas sparking fears of typhus epidemics and even bubonic plague in the ripe "medieval" conditions. A March 8, 2019 article in The Atlantic written by Anna Gorman is a good representation of the growing stream of disturbing reports of Typhus cases, Tuberculosis and fears of flea-borne plague.
Continuing waves of illegals into already overburdened, and cash strapped municipalities can only complicate an already precarious socio-economic situation across the country.
Tucson, Arizona has a serious decision to make in November. Will they vote to hold the law and order line or fall for the "humanitarian" lie which, under the guise of "keeping families together" ignores the crime, the costs and the risk to everyone no matter their race or ideology.
Kevin Marvin on August 31, 2019 at 8:16 am
If you refuse to take the legal actions to be here, then you shouldn't be here. That's how it is in every other country on the planet
Al on August 31, 2019 at 7:29 pm
We've already seen in California what sanctuary cities will do, inviting crime, a lack of respect for our constitution and law enforcement. Where God is removed, our city's break down.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Kindly note that the Egyptian government has announced that Tuesday, 11th September, 2018 is an official holiday.
Our office will be closed on 11th September 2018 and will be working as usual on 12th September 2018.
During the holidays a duty officer in Alexandria Head Office will be available from 10:00 till 14:00 for attending urgent matters.


NOAA scientists have spotted a trio of Beluga Whales that they believe are incredibly rare sightings given how rare they are in the region where they were found. Most notably, the sightings occurred off the coast of New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The sightings have been happening on a repeated basis, which suggests to scientists that this isn't merely a fluke, or strange occurrence. Rather, the scientists believe that there is a somewhat concrete reasoning for the sightings, which could lend to the theory that there is something happening under the surface that such an event would be taking place.
One of the whales is tagged, and NOAA scientists are actually tracking its journey. The team watching the trio also believes that they are all males, which would make sense given the fact that they are all shorter than 8 feet to current estimations. Altogether, scientists believe that they have traveled a total of 900 miles. That's an impressive length of distance to cover, given the fact that these particular whales are a bit outside of their comfort zone in terms of where they're traveling.
Mal Nathan, who spotted the whales in his boat and inevitably had the whales approaching him in that boat pointed out that the sighting was not only rare but something that was noteworthy. He said, "I cautiously moved away from them, and after a while they moved toward me again." Clearly, these particular whales are not shy about where they are going, as they have repeatedly approached boats, people, and are continuing to do so.
Mallory Nathan, the North Hempstead Bay Constable pointed out that this might just be a sign of changes that are happening under water though. When being asked about why she believed the whales were making an appearance in that region, she said, "I think it's a sign of the water quality." This has sparked a lot of conversation about what it might mean that these whales are showing up so far away from a place that they would otherwise be mainstays. It's important to note that whales, like any other creature, will go where it is necessary to continue thriving, and in this case it would appear as though these Beluga Whales, are searching for that place right now.


text:
Feds call for directory assistance
By Cheryl Gerber
Microsoft's new network directory poses deployment challenges
Technology - CHOOSE A SUBTOPIC
"Census wrestles with integration issues"
"Benefits of Active Directory"
"Army tech plan drafted"
"Taming the directory hydra"
Migrating from Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT Server operating system to the current Windows 2000 platform offers many cost and operational advantages for federal agencies, if they follow good planning and testing processes.
Yet concerns about an important though optional component of Windows 2000 — Active Directory — haunt some deployments and have stalled others altogether.
Active Directory is like a giant telephone book organized to present a logical view of information about all the users and computer resources in a Windows 2000 network. As such, it can play a key role in managing a network and act as a central resource to other software applications so that they don't have to maintain directories of their own.
As Microsoft's customers and others in the industry have sorted through the trade-offs involved with Active Directory, many of the deployment issues are much clearer now. However, some will not be fully resolved until Microsoft releases new versions of its server operating system and a related directory management product.
But that hasn't stopped many systems administrators from biting the bullet and adopting Active Directory. IDC and Aelita Software Corp. surveyed information technology managers who use Windows server products and found that 64 percent had begun moving to Windows 2000 server as of September 2001.
"The vast majority of study participants who are moving to Windows 2000 will also deploy Active Directory," said Al Gillen, research manager of systems software at IDC. Federal users are part of that majority.
"Since the Army has more than a 95 percent Microsoft NT 4.0 and Exchange 5.5 [e-mail] user base, Active Directory is inevitable," said Lt. Col. Mike McHargue, team leader of the Army's Advanced Technology Integration Group.
Despite Active Directory's numerous benefits, many administrators have expressed concern about the security trade-off when choosing a single-forest design over a multiforest design. Under the forest, which sits atop Active Directory's three-tier hierarchical structure, are domains and then organizational units.
Here's the problem: If you design the Active Directory structure with only one forest, people who have master systems administrator rights to that forest get the keys to the kingdom. But if you divide that kingdom into multiple forests and grant administrator rights on a forest-by-forest basis, you limit the damage any one person can do, but you also increase the administrative work.
"When Microsoft released Active Directory in February 2000, they said the right way to design and implement Active Directory was with one forest, one domain and multiple organizational units," said John Enck, research director of server and directory strategies at Gartner Inc. "The reality is that people want more autonomy than is granted in that model. I've seen federal and state agencies burn up months fighting over what the boundaries are."
A source close to NASA's Windows 2000 and Active Directory migration has witnessed the same struggle. "Security concerns related to a single forest have held up the transition to Windows 2000 and Active Directory at NASA for more than a year," the source said. "The master administrator has rights over every domain and device in that single forest and can reach down to any workstation."
However, some agency officials, such as those at the Census Bureau (see box, Page 38) and the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, decided that the benefits of a single-forest design outweighed the security risks. Of its 18 sites and 120,000 users across the country, AFMC has migrated 70,000 users to Windows 2000 and Active Directory as part of its Enterprise Directory Service Initiative project.
AFMC has managed the security risks of a single-forest design by setting strict operational policies. For instance, users with the appropriate clearance can only log in as administrators when a task requires such privileges. Otherwise, they must use regular — more limited — accounts for routine use of network resources, such as Internet access, explained Enrique Panzardi, a network systems engineer at AFMC.
"Mitigating risk has more to do with people and processes than with technology," he said.
Part of the solution also involves having good information about how the directory is configured, including who has administrative rights and how many user accounts were created during a certain time period. For this information, AFMC has turned to a couple of the many third-party products available for Windows directory migration, reporting and security assessment.
To manage its mix of Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Active Directory, AFMC uses Aelita Software's Enterprise Directory Reporter for keeping tabs on user accounts and Enterprise Delegation Manager for designing and managing network privileges.
"The AFMC bought off the [General Services Administration] schedule and has licensed 120,000 users for each product," said George Sidoris, director of federal sales for Aelita Software.
The Army's migration project, called Army Enterprise Infostructure Transformation, uses a multiforest Active Directory approach demarcated along regional boundaries, McHargue said. The Army uses NetPro Computing Inc.'s DirectoryAnalyzer and DirectoryInsight and Quest Software Inc.'s FastLane Active Roles.
"Active Roles was designed for managing the delegation of permissions inside Active Directory," said David Waugh, vice president of product marketing at Quest Software.
Although a multiforest design provides many security boundaries, each forest must be administered independently, because Windows 2000 and Active Directory don't currently offer cross-forest administration or synchronization capabilities.
For those, users must wait for the follow-up to Windows 2000 — .Net server, which is due for release at the end of the year. Another tool that is expected to help is Microsoft Metadirectory Services (MMS) 3.0, an add-on tool designed to synchronize data across forests that is due in January 2003. The Army is keeping tabs on Microsoft's progress on both products through a joint development program with the company for the next version of Exchange (code named Titanium) and MMS 3.0.
Of course, other software providers are also keeping an eye on developments. "Microsoft is resolving the Windows 2000 and Active Directory problem with multiple forests in .Net server," said Gil Kirkpatrick, NetPro's chief technical officer. For example, to simplify administrative activities, .Net server will enable identities in one forest to be recognized in another, he said.
Trust relationships only work in one direction in Windows NT. In other words, if A trusts B, B does not necessarily trust A. In Windows 2000, trust relationships go in both directions. But .Net server adds three-way trusts, which should ease the amount of configuration required for complex environments.
Lance Horne, directory services program manager for Microsoft Federal, explained it this way: "If A trusts B and B trusts C, then A trusts C transitively."
Although it appears that .Net server with MMS 3.0 will make multiple forests easier to manage, good planning and testing are, as always, the best ways to minimize challenges when migrating to new technology.
Gerber is a freelance writer based in Kingston, N.Y.
NEXT STORY: Foul called on IT pay supplement


Begin your Bat-journey with Part 1.
Before resuming Season Two of "Batman", we'll cave into the crave of batmania with one of the biggest chunks of studio-backed cinematic cheese ever conceived: 1966's Batman, the Movie. For years, this was the only Adam West Batman vehicle available on home video. Batmaniacs have reason to rejoice, because this gloriously dated, souped-up big screen treatment of the series is an "it has to be seen to believed" extravaganza. The hopelessly dippy plot and dialogue may throw off angsty fanboys, but it's all about our merry villains: Lee Meriwether in her sole performance as Catwoman, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker, and the most color-saturated array of (inflatable) henchmen in cinema. After the sexiest psychedelic credits you'll probably ever see comes Batman infamously fending off a rubber shark with his "Bat-repellent Shark Spray." That gag's almost topped later with the "some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" routine. It only gets loopier from there.
 Among the toys on display is the Batcopter, Batboat, and Penguin submarine (with flippers!). Even cooler are the fight scenes. Here's where the multi-hued henchman get to show their mettle, withstanding the dynamic duo while an arsenal of "Kapow, Zlopp, and Touche!"s fills the screen. Each of the four primary villains is at their maniacal best, and all take turns stealing their scenes. Watching Romero's Joker today, his influence on Jack Nicholson is blatantly obvious. Of course, Gorshin (a tad underused) twitches with caffeine; there's a reason he was the sole actor from the series nominated for an Emmy. Meredith's Penguin is delightfully obnoxious, and Meriwether's Catwoman is a walking pheromone . Meriwether is criminally underrated, but they're all so damned animated that you don't care one bit that their goal is to turn the United Nations into colored sand.
Part 1 of the Bat-series.
Their escape in Part Two ("Give 'em the Axe") is among the series' most preposterous, and the battle with henchmen hits a garish high, all of which translates into camp delight. When Moth tries to flirt her way out of jail, Batman waxes chaste: "A moth that plays with fire is bound to be burned." Needless to say, Gorshin owns both episodes.


Marc Gasol will sit out Wednesday's season finale.
The team is listing rest as the reason, but nobody's that naive. While it doesn't quite feel like it given all of the recent absences, Gasol wound up playing in 73 games this season and remained an early-round player despite a huge dip in his field goal percentage. His career-worst .420 from the field was driven by an increase in 3-point volume with a drop in 3-point efficiency, and that's just the price to pay for a big man stretching the floor even semi-capably — he's going to get the green light to fire away. That goes doubly for a player of Gasol's talent on a roster without much support. Per-game, he finished as a top-40 player and Gasol scratched off top-30/35 guy on the full season. Not too bad all things considered, though the journey was much less enjoyable than it has been in past years.


text:
lechatpontidesign
portfolio & boutique
New(s)
Hand Printed Bags
Hand Made Bags
LChPD's Facebook Page
LChPD's Instagram
LChPD's Twitter
LeChatPonti in the Press
Studio 53, my very first Art studio in the big wide world, was located in Wapping, London, within the Rum Factory art studios managed by BowArts.
The BowArts Trust is a non-profit organisation that supports East London artists and community through the provision of affordable studio space, live/work accommodations, educational programs, and a free gallery, the Nunnery Gallery.
The Rum Factory studios were BowArts' latest venture at the time of my volunteering with them, and they offered me a space there. The studios were all open-plan, without doors, and, for those located on the first floor, no ceilings: the mezzanine studios had full visibility on the first floor studios.
My studio was located on the first floor, and I rose up to the challenge of making Art in the constant proximity of others. However, the total lack of privacy proved to be too much for me in the end, and I thankfully scored a new studio shortly after, in my new borough of Greenwich, not without much persistence and power of persuasion, I have to say.
Anyhow, the inauguration of the Rum Factory studios gave way to a ceremony with guest speakers that included no less than the director of the Tate, Sir Nicolas Serota. Journalists walked around checking out artists' studios and I was interviewed for the online magazine Culture24.
Below is an excerpt covering my interview, and a link to the full article.
This was the second appearance of LeChatPonti in the press, as I was also interviewed at the occasion of my solo exhibition in the cafe Zing'A'T in Macon, France, in November-December 2014. The URL to the article is unfortunately no longer valid as one needs a subscription to the online magazine to access their archives.
September 25, 2015 December 13, 2016 by LeChatPonti Tags: Art, Art Studio, Article, Community, Design, Event, Inauguration, Interview, Journalist, London Artist, London Designer, New, Press, Website
LeChatPonti Revealed
Solo exhibition @ Zing'A'T in Macon, France
November 12th to December 6th 2014
September 25, 2015 December 13, 2016 by LeChatPonti Tags: Art, Art Gallery, Bags, Community, Design, Etching, Event, Exhibition, France, Gallery, Inauguration, Interview, Life Milestone, Linocut, Linoleum Print, London Artist, London Designer, New, New Work, Painting, Print-Making, Retrospective, Screen-Printing, Screen-Printing on Fabric, Story, T-shirts, Tote Bags, Woodcut
lechatpontidesign@gmail.com
Traduis-moi !


text:
Virginia Residents Fight Back Against Nuclear Industry Effort to Lift Ban on Uranium Mining
Virginia residents are organizing against a push by the nuclear industry to lift a three-decade-long ban on uranium mining. The ban went unchallenged until recently, when the cost of uranium began to rise. Virginia residents have expressed concern about the dangers uranium mining poses to drinking water, air quality, farm products, fishing and tourism. They say allowing mining of the one uranium deposit already identified would open the door for exploration of other sites across the state. Almost all of Virginia's major cities have passed resolutions to oppose lifting the ban. We're joined by the former director of Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, Robert Burnley, now an environmental consultant to the statewide coalition, Keep the Ban. [includes rush transcript]
Robert Burnley, former director of Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, now an environmental consultant to the statewide coalition, Keep the Ban.
Amy Goodman: And we stay right here in Virginia as we turn to a major effort now underway to lift the state's three-decade-long ban on uranium mining. The ban was first put in place after tests showed a Pittsylvania uranium deposit beneath the small town of Chatham in the southern part of the state could contain about 119 million pounds of the radioactive mineral, which is used to supply nuclear power plants. Studies also showed that mining the site would generate about 29 tons of waste, which could endanger life in the region for centuries.
Well, the ban went unchallenged until recently, when the cost of uranium began to rise. Now the company that owns the deposit wants to develop it. During the lead-up to a failed effort to lift the ban in the 2012 legislative cycle, Virginia Uranium, Inc., spent at least $300,000 lobbying lawmakers. As the state prepares to consider the ban again in its next session, mining advocates have also funded TV ads like this one.
VirginaEnergy.org AD: It seems like everywhere you look, there's an old factory or mill where people used to work. You know, developing our own energy resources will create hundreds of good-paying jobs in Southside. We've got the skills. We've got the workers. All we need is a chance to work. Uranium mining is done safely around the world. If it can be done safely in Virginia, I'm for it, because we need the jobs.
Amy Goodman: But many Virginia residents have expressed concern about the dangers uranium mining poses to drinking water, air quality, farm products, fishing and tourism. They're saying that allowing mining of one of the uranium deposits already identified, Virginia uranium deposits, opens the door for exploration of other sites across the state. Now, almost all of Virginia's major cities have passed resolutions to oppose lifting the ban.
Well, for more, we're joined by the former director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Robert Burnley. He served 32 years in the Virginia government, now an environmental consultant to the statewide coalition, Keep the Ban. He's also an adviser to the Alliance for Progress in Southern Virginia.
Robert Burnley, welcome to Democracy Now! For viewers and listeners around this country and around the world, talk about the significance of what you're dealing with here in Virginia.
Robert Burnley: What's going on here in Virginia, Amy, is an experiment. Uranium has never been mined and never been processed in this part of the country before. It's always been done in the arid southwestern part of the country, where it doesn't rain and there are no people. In Virginia—
Amy Goodman: Well, there are fewer people.
Robert Burnley: There are fewer people. In Virginia, the opposite is true. We get over 40 inches of rain—excuse me. We're subject to severe weather events. Hurricanes are very common. We have tornadoes on a regular basis. And we experienced a level 6 earthquake last year for the first time in a long time. We were told in the past that Virginia didn't have earthquakes. So, this has never been done in that type of environment before, in a wet environment. And there are a lot of people that depend on water for drinking and other uses.
Amy Goodman: Why are you concerned that—and what is Virginia Uranium? What is this company?
Robert Burnley: Virginia Uranium is a—it was founded by the owner of this uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County. There's been some corporate structure changes recently, and I can't really describe exactly everything that's going on. But it's—Virginia Uranium is mostly owned by Canadian companies that have some familiarity with uranium mining and processing. Of course, no one in Virginia does, because it's never been done before.
Amy Goodman: And your concern about uranium mining, exactly what effect it would have?
Robert Burnley: What's going to happen, if uranium is mined, and especially if uranium is processed in Virginia, there are a huge amount of waste that's generated. When uranium—when the uranium, the yellowcake, is taken and marketed, 85 percent of the radioactivity remains in the waste products. Those products are just—are buried, and they're buried in facilities very much like we store municipal solid waste: hole in the ground, plastic liner, fill it up with this toxic, radioactive waste, cover it over for thousands of years, and hope nothing happens. We have, as I said, a lot of rain and severe weather in Virginia. And to think that these facilities would withstand those types of stresses is just ludicrous.
Amy Goodman: I wanted to play a comment from the Greenpeace co-founder, Patrick Moore, who supports lifting the ban on uranium mining in Virginia. In recent years, Moore has been paid by the nuclear industry to promote the expansion of nuclear power. In 2011, he spoke before a National Academy of Sciences panel studying the future of uranium mining in Virginia.
Patrick Moore: A sensible environmentalist would support uranium mining in Virginia, so long as it adopts best environmental practices, including water management, waste management and ecological restoration. I, with my colleagues, have visited mining operations, including uranium-mining operations, around the world, in Southeast Asia, Africa, in South America, all through North America and Europe. And we have seen the changes that have occurred with the concept of sustainable development and ecological restoration over the past 30 years. I've been in the environmental movement for 40 years myself. Tremendous strides have been made in improving all aspects.
Amy Goodman: I want to also play a comment by Virginia Beach Department of Utilities Director Tom Leahy, who argues against lifting Virginia's moratorium on uranium mining.
Thomas Leahy: Our concern, of course, is quite large—release of tailings during some kind of catastrophic storm. The location of this mine, as well as other possible future mines, are upstream of at least six water supply intakes, from Halifax down to Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. And they happen to be located in a part of the state and a part of the country that's susceptible to significant precipitation events, not just hurricanes but things we call probable maximum precipitation, 30 inches of rain in six hours. There have been two storms like this in 40 years in Virginia directly east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and basically in a straight line in a path with this proposed mine. We admit that that—we're modeling and looking at an unlikely scenario, but risk probability times consequence, and probability of an event might be small, but if the consequence is great, it might be an unacceptable risk.
Amy Goodman: Bob Burnley, your final comments? Patrick Moore saying that, I mean, the uranium mining has become much more advanced in the last 30 years, since the moratorium was imposed here.
Robert Burnley: Right. The fact of the matter is, it's never been done in a positive water balance area before, in a wet environment. It's an experiment. We don't know how to regulate it. We don't know how to design the facilities. And we don't know how to manage the wastes.
Amy Goodman: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Bob Burnley is former director of Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality. He served 32 years in the Virginia government, now an environmental consultant to the statewide coalition, Keep the Ban.
And that does it for our broadcast, as we continue our 100-city tour. Tune in on Wednesday night for our special coverage of the first presidential debate. As President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney square off, Democracy Now! will broadcast live from Denver with a special expanded presidential debate. We'll air the debate, pausing after Jim Lehrer's questions and the answers of the candidates to include responses from our live guests who will be standing in Denver, from two presidential contenders who have been shut out of the official debate: Jill Stein of the Green Party, Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. That's Wednesday night, or you can watch our broadcast in person in Denver. But that's all coming up on Wednesday night. We'll begin our broadcast at 8:30 Eastern time. We'll be at the Central Presbyterian Church at 1660 Sherman Street in Denver.
Our Election 2012 Silenced Majority tour continues tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Tuesday night I'll be at the Unity Church in Boulder, Colorado, 7:00 p.m.; on Thursday night at the Tim Gill Center for Public MeAmy Goodman:dia in Colorado Springs. And then, this weekend the Colorado leg of the tour continues with stops in Salida, Carbondale, Paonia, Crested Butte, Telluride and Durango. Check out details of the tour at tour.democracynow.org. We'll continue in New Mexico and Arizona, California and New York.


text:
Q: Prevent Confirm/Alert dialogs in Ghost.py In my django app I use Ghost.py to render a web page with some Javascript. The problem is that sometimes the JS takes a while to run and Ghost.py thinks that my JS script is not working well and raises the typical confirmation box asking me whether I want to terminate the script.
In my machine I see that the confirm box comes up and press the 'No' button when it asks me to terminate the script. But when it's running in an AWS EC2 instance, that confirm box causes a dead lock because it will keep waiting for someone to press the 'Yes' or 'No' button.
Is there a way to automatically press the 'No' button every time a confirm box shows up?
I tried using:
ghost = Ghost(wait_timeout=20)
ghost.confirm(False)
ghost.open(html_path)
ghost.capture_to(img_path)

as well as this:
ghost = Ghost(wait_timeout=20)
ghost.open(html_path, default_popup_response=False)
ghost.capture_to(img_path)

The documentation on the topic is scarce. Any help is appreciated.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


May 26: How can I walk with God?
June 9: What is the church?
June 30: Do I have a role to play in the church?
July 14: How can I live on mission?
Tell your friends, neighbors, your friends' neighbors, and your neighbors' friends that this week is going to be can't miss! Our Kids team is planning a fun week for kids (ages?) with games, crafts, teaching from the Bible, and capping it all of with a family night on Friday night.
On Sunday mornings we're going to be preaching from the book of Acts. After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples were left with simple instructions: wait until you receive power from the Holy Spirit, then you'll be my witnesses from here to the ends of the earth.
The book of Acts tells the story of how the gospel started in Jerusalem and then slowly worked out to the ends of the known world. This was just the beginning, though. Now we are a part of this gospel movement that started right here in Acts, and God is calling us to surrender our lives to Him so we can be a part of His story.


text:
Q: setting vue modal mask to blur I'm trying to add a blur panel behind my modal using vue.js but The problem is that the modal-mask has the content nested in it so to add a filter: blur() property it'll blur everything.
Right now I can only add a black tint to the background.
jsfiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/EricTalv/2eed5qjo/26/
HTML

      <button class="modal-close" @click="$emit('close')">Close</button>

CSS
/* BLUR PANEL */
#modal-mask {
   position: fixed;
    z-index: 9998;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, .6);
    display: table;
    transition: opacity .3s ease;
}

A: you'll need to move the content into a separate container and toggle a blur class
https://jsfiddle.net/2eed5qjo/27/

  ... your content ...

<modal v-if="showModal" @close="showModal = false">
</modal>

then add a css class like this
.blur-content{
  filter: blur(5px);
}


Sandra Von Der Fecht, LCSW is a social worker in Freehold, NJ. She specializes in social work and clinical social work.
Sandra is an amazing and caring therapist. I have seen her for 10 years now and I would highly recommend her. She is always there when you need her.
×Post a ResponseAre you Sandra Von Der Fecht, LCSW?
How was your experience with Sandra Von Der Fecht?


text:
Willis watching special Sunday
It would take Bill Willis 10 days and four hours to play all 2,900 songs he has downloaded on his computer.
From Sinatra to Stevie. And Miles Davis in between.
It turns out one of the last video and audio links to one of the nation's most historic moments is a thoroughly modern man who is on line with Sunday's NFL opener.
"I hope to be in Cleveland, but if not, I'll be glued to the TV set," says Willis of the Bengals and Browns, still living 83 years later in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
"One of the reasons this has come to pass is a legacy by a fellow named Paul Brown."
Naturally, Wednesday would have been Brown's 97th birthday. In three days, Brown's teams play in Cleveland for the 64th time. But for the first time, the team that is named for him and the one that he helped Willis integrate takes the field with an African-American head coach in Romeo Crennel.
And the news is that it's not news, completing the journey that began when Brown assigned Willis, his track-quick lineman, to room with captain Lou Rymkus that long ago training camp at Bowling Green.
"The league is on the right track," says Willis, who ignored enough late hits and hate names in the late 1940s to help make integration a staple of pro football instead of an anomaly. "I like to think what Paul and we did back then helped make it possible for blacks to not only participate, but to get into coaching."
Sunday's thrill for Willis is just another day at the office for Crennel and Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, in his third season as the first African-American coach in the history of Paul Brown's other team. There are six African-American coaches in the NFL and you just can't stop the presses any more. What happens in two weeks when Lewis takes the Bengals to Chicago to play Lovie Smith's Bears and Crennel takes the Browns to Indianapolis to play Tony Dungy's Colts?
"I would like to think the game transcends it all, and that's the thing both Marvin and I were working toward, and hoping to get," Crennel said Wednesday in a conference call. "In the NFL, the color of a coach's skin doesn't matter. We're just two football coaches playing each other on Opening Day and the guy who can get his team to play the best on that day should win the game, and I think that's what we both want from our position."
It's what Brown and Willis wanted back in Brown's first year coaching the new Cleveland Browns in America's newest pro football league, the All-American Conference. Brown didn't much care if little green men could get his team on firm footing.
He signed Willis on Aug. 6, 1946 in those first heady anything-is-possible days after the war, and three days later he signed another African-American in fullback Marion Motley to continue to rankle some of the new league's fathers.
But Brown did it delicately. He didn't call Willis. Instead, he called a Columbus sportswriter and casually suggested he pass the word to Willis to drop by Bowling Green on his way to a tryout in Canada. That's how it was. Willis never thought about the pros in this country. It was either Canada, or coaching again at Kentucky State.
"I think he knew what he was doing and how important it was because he used other avenues," Willis said. "And when he told me to suit up, he told me he'd let it be known in his own time."
The rival NFL had signed Kenny Washington and Woody Strode earlier in 1946 to break its color line, but they were men near the end of their careers while Willis and Motley went on to become Hall of Famers and marquee names of the pro game's first dynasty. Willis, so quick and athletic for the times at nose tackle, actually became football's first true middle linebacker when Brown began to drop him off the line.
Hard to believe, but those were days that Brown couldn't take Willis and Motley to Miami for the Browns' last game of their rookie season because of a law prohibiting blacks and whites to enter into competition together.
Now, in three days, two black guys lead their teams of blacks and whites onto the field to open the NFL season. That may not be news, but for Willis, it gives him pause.
"Looking back on it," Willis says, "who thought this day would ever come?"
Brown handled the Miami travesty like he handled everything else with Willis and Motley. Quietly and with dignity, is the way Willis remembers it. He gave them each $500 extra in their checks, and told Willis something vague that made him think it would be taken care of. Willis then remembers Miami disappearing from the league.
In the days that Jackie Robinson couldn't always have the same accommodations with the Dodgers on the road, Willis can't remember one ugly hotel incident.
"Paul was a clear thinker," Willis said. "He had everything planned out before it happened. He made sure everything was handled."
Breaking through the barriers
Of course, Brown couldn't handle the taunts of fans and opponents. Or the late hits. As mad as he would get, Willis always made sure he turned the other cheek. He once said that if he and Motley hauled off and belted somebody, it could set integration in the pros back 10 years. Once, afer the whistle, one guy drilled him and then Willis grabbed him to fend him off.
"Get your black hands off me," the guy said, but Willis fought the temptation and held the guy away in case he chose to clock Willis at the last instant.
"The best way when they play you dirty is make sure when you tackle them, you make it a good one," is how Willis remembers Brown's counsel.
Plus, there were guys like Rymkus who told him if he had problems with anyone, to send him his way.
And, Willis always remembers the lineman from the 49ers when Willis's knee obviously buckled in the middle of a snap. The guy had a free shot at him, but he eased through the play without laying a hand on Willis.
"Cleveland was a great town to play in. The city of champions they called it," Willis says. "It was a melting pot and everyone got along."
Willis insists he never heard a cross word from a teammate. They took their cue from Paul, he says. As he walked into his dorm on that first day of training camp, he heard someone holler out something that could have been a racist taunt, like "Who dat over in dere?" Willis discovered it was a guy using his home region's dialect and expression.
"We had guys from all over," Willis says, and the two Ohioans, Willis and Motley, had to adjust to talk from the south and both coasts.
If Willis doesn't go to Cleveland on Sunday, watch for him at Paul Brown Stadium Dec. 11. He has an open invitation to sit next to Bengals president Mike Brown since Willis is one of the few people that Paul Brown would let sit next to him while he watched the Bengals play.
"I haven't met either of them," Willis said of Lewis and Crennel. "But I plan to do it. It is something I would really like to do. I look forward to talking to them."
Willis would like to know that the Browns haven't forgotten their founder.
"He did a lot for this city, this team, and the NFL, period," Crennel said. "We have a mural on the wall when our players come in the door, and there is Paul Brown kneeling on the sideline. We realize he's a major part of the history of this team, and we don't want to forget that."
Willis certainly hasn't.
"I'll be watching," Willis says, "but I'm not sure what will be going through my mind. It's something I'm really going to enjoy."
Mixon Holds Second Annual Football Camp
Joe Mixon's football camp was held at his high school in California.
Camp hits: Green eyes century; Ross wreaks havoc in space; Price continues grind; TBT on line
Ced gets another say
Willow no longer just in the wind
Quick hits: Eifert question mark for camp; three-pick day; Joe all go
Record sack race underway
Carl Lawson is one of the many guys happy to see voluble and valued veteran left end Carlo Dunlap surface for this week's mandatory minicamp. Lawson, who usually sets up at right end on passing downs, nearly broke Dunlap's rookie sack record last season and he likes the competition. And on Tuesday he offered a challenge to a guy he calls "like an older brother to me."
Quick hits: Eifert not back Tuesday; Dalton finds Ross, Malone deep
Bengals 2018 Training Camp Opens Thursday, July 26
Bengals fans will get their first chance to see this year's team up close when Bengals Training Camp, presented by Fifth Third Bank, kicks off on Thursday, July 26.
On Sale Now: Bengals Introduce Jungle Pass
Fans interested in attending every Bengals home game this season have a new option. The $200 mobile-only Jungle Pass includes tickets to 10 Bengals games, eight in the regular season and two in the preseason.
Scrutiny is mandatory for offense
Just the presence of the very large Cordy Glenn at left tackle at Tuesday's start of mandatory minicamp is evidence of the effort to shore up the offense since he arrived via trade for a first-rounder. But the hopes of a little-used role player also reflect how this offense may be changed by as much philosophy as looks. Remember Ryan Hewitt, the forgotten fullback?
Hobson's Choice: Potpourri
Open Letter to Fans: Bengals Support Music Venue
The Bengals support a music venue and think it would be a great addition to the downtown area.


text:
WBZ Evening Weather Forecast For January 21, 2022Eric Fisher has an updated weather forecast.
WBZ Evening News Update For January 21, 2022COVID cases continue to drop in Massachusetts; Boston Firefighters Union claims vaccine mandate violates their contract; Cmdr. Billie Farrell becomes the first woman to command the USS Constitution; Latest forecast.
Billie Farrell Becomes First Woman Commander Of USS ConstitutionBillie Farrell took command of Old Ironsides Friday after a change-of-command ceremony at noon. WBZ-TV's Rachel Holt reports.
Richards Strikes Out 10, Pitches Red Sox Past Mets 2-1
By JAKE SEINER AP Baseball Writer April 27, 2021 at 10:13 pm
Filed Under:Boston Red Sox, New York Mets
NEW YORK (AP) — Garrett Richards finally found the strike zone and punched out 10, Bobby Dalbec hit his first homer of the season and the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Mets 2-1 Tuesday night.
Richards (1-2) allowed a run and seven hits over seven innings, issuing no free passes one start after walking six. The right-hander trimmed his ERA from 6.48 to 4.94.
Boston improved to an AL East-leading 15-9, including a major league-most 12 comeback victories.
Jeff McNeil put New York up 1-0 with a homer in the second, but Dalbec tied it with a shot to right-center leading off the third.
Rafael Devers put Boston ahead with an RBI single in the sixth, scoring Kiké Hernández after his leadoff double.
Matt Barnes fanned Pete Alonso and J.D. Davis during a 1-2-3 ninth for his fifth save. Alonso struck out four times.
Barnes quick-pitched Alonso for strike two, apparently upsetting the slugger. Alonso stared down Boston's closer after fouling off the pitch, then failed to check his swing on a breaking ball for strike three.
David Peterson (1-3) permitted two runs in six innings for the Mets. The left-hander induced 12 groundouts and struck out three while giving up four hits and two walks.
Richards had walked 13 batters over 16 2/3 innings to begin his first season with Boston, but mechanical tweaks had him pounding the zone Tuesday. He ditched his full windup and took some movement out of his typically noisy delivery, and that helped him throw 70 of his 93 pitches for strikes, including 19 swings and misses.
The 32-year-old — who has tantalized between repeated injury woes throughout his career — posted double-digit strikeouts for the first time since setting a career high with 11 on April 21, 2018, with the Angels.
Primarily a fastball-slider pitcher, Richards mixed in 20 looping curveballs. The Mets took eight of them for strikes and whiffed on two more.
New York started hitting the ball hard the second time through the order, but Boston limited the damage. Richards stranded two in the fourth, James McCann and Kevin Pillar were thrown out on the bases in the fifth and Richard stranded two more in the sixth.
Brandon Nimmo, the NL leader in on-base percentage at .477, was out of the starting lineup for New York a day after getting an injection for an impingement in his right hip. He pinch hit in the seventh and struck out.
DIRTY WORK
Alonso turned in a defensive highlight at first base in the fifth, flopping toward the line to grab Dalbec's sharp grounder before getting to his feet and diving to tag the bag with his glove.
Two-time Gold Glove winner Francisco Lindor got the Mets out of the seventh by snaring Marwin González's liner and sprawling onto second base to double up Hunter Renfroe.
BOO WHO?
Lindor was booed after grounding out in the eighth inning. He's hitting .212 since signing a $341 million, 10-year deal on the eve of opening day.
Red Sox: CF Alex Verdugo and INF Christian Arroyo were both held out of the lineup but available off the bench. Verdugo had a hamstring cramp Saturday and sat out Sunday. Arroyo was hit by a pitch Sunday on his left hand. Verdugo entered as a defensive replacement in the ninth.
Mets: LHP Stephen Tarpley was optioned to the alternate site and INF José Peraza was recalled. … The club has arranged for players, coaches and other Tier 1 personnel to receive their second coronavirus vaccine after Wednesday's game, taking advantage of a day off Thursday to deal with any side effects. The team will remain short of the 85% vaccination rate required by Major League Baseball to begin easing certain safety protocols. … The Mets and Yankees may increase capacity from 20% to 33% starting May 19, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.
Mets ace Jacob deGrom (2-1, 0.31 ERA) faces Boston RHP Nick Pivetta (2-0, 3.48) to complete the two-game series. The right-handed deGrom struck out a career-high 15 without a walk in a two-hit shutout against Washington last time out.


text:
Q: Reinforcement learning, Q-learning to determine order to cast spells optimally? If I have a wizard who has 20 spells, each of which does different things, sometimes direct damage, sometimes disabling, sometimes protecting etc.  He has a fight with 10 orcs and I want to determine an optimal order of spell casting to kill the orcs as fast as possible.
Would Q learning help with this problem?
I could start with the initial state of 20 spells and then each following state would be which spell I have left and the final state would be the wizard or orcs dead.  Does that make any sense or am I trying to use the wrong AI algorithm for the job?

A: Looks fine to me. You are looking for a trajectory of actions that alter the state. I.e. your player and orc health in such a way that you get a reward for a particular state occurring. I.e. killing the orc.


LATIGIANTCOCK . ObsessiveEyez. KellySweetyGirl. Gaytwink19.
AyumiLatinAyumiLatinLadyDevilBBWKiaraaBella .StebanCifMUSCLEFIREBOYSXKinkyMelissaCarrieHoles .JessicaHotyChristineKeyBustyBeverlyXAyumiLatin .JaneNickAlisonDesireRusskiy25LUKAS11 .LanaAnnXCrazyDeliaFaradayOrigusdagradea .MrandMissFit01TheHardersFaradayCuteMayaForU .BrookSunshineMrandMissFit01ebonny4youLovelyUmaForU .AyumiLatinKatelineSugarAlliceTheDommeXkristygreyy .OrigusdagradeacammeronxxxChristineKeyBoobsyLIPSnPOPs .BabyHotMarceDreamiaGingerObsessiveEyezLovelyUmaForU .vadim7897LadyDevilBBWLexxyeMaccILOVEANAL18 .
MiaMeganGaytwink19MiaMeganLinaRoxy .KatelineSugarcutegirl7JessicaHotyextremeboy4u .HotMarcoxxxGirlKinkyHotGreyHunterGirlKinkyHot .DanilastyaDiamondBelovedsweetirenforucleoKatia .MichelleAshleyTheBestQueenBustyBeverlyXFelicitta .Lucia27VictoriaMadisonMikeVanHoltBrookSunshine .G100MayaSuziStarrRusskiy25HannaMuffin .FelicittaDiamondBelovedBustyBeverlyXLucia27 .AlliceTheDommeXGirlKinkyHotNicoleForLoveAlisonDesire .HannaMuffinHannaMuffinKellySweetyGirlILOVEANAL18 .JaneNickThomas00TheHardersCutelittleboyxx .


text:
Det finska varmblodet (finska: suomenpuoliverinen) är en hästras som utvecklats och avlas i Finland och som registreras i den finska föreningen Ridhästavelsförbundet rf. Hästarna avlas för att användas inom ridsport och har dokumenterade framgångar från tävlingsbanorna. Finlands hästpopulation ligger idag på ca 70 000 hästar och 22 % utgörs av det finska varmblodet. Dock är det finska varmblodet inte en helt egen fixerad ras, utan precis som många andra varmblodshästar som Trakehnare, Hannoveranare eller Oldenburgare så använder man sig av många olika varmblodshästar i aveln och hästarna registreras efter att ha genomgått ett godkänt test.

Historia

Föreningen för det finska varmblodet startades år 1926 med målet att avla fram en varmblodshäst som kunde användas både inom militären och inom ridsporten. Målet var en elegant häst med god balans och grunden utgjordes av bland annat det finska kallblodet där man valde ut lättare hästar som korsades med olika varmblodshästar som det svenska varmblodet och olika tyska varmblodsraser. Den första hingsten som registrerades var den importerade, tyska Hannoveranaren Flüchtling.

Under 1950-talet började arméerna att byta från att använda häst till att använda sig av motordrivna fordon, vilket gjorde att det finska varmblodet minskade i antal. Även om ridsporten nu fick ett större genombrott så var inte det finska varmblodet lika välkänt som andra sporthästar. 1995 var antalet nyfödda föl enbart 170 stycken. Detta har dock ökat stadigt och 2008 föddes 400 föl som godkändes för registrering. I genomsnitt används 130 hingstar varje år men en stor del av dessa är importare varmblodshästar. Dock är aveln baserat mycket på olika importerade hingstar.

1986 flyttades hela stamboken och registret över till Suomen Hippos, den förening som har hand om i stort sett all hästavel i Finland. Föreningen för det finska varmblodet blev en medlemsassociation i Suomen Hippos. År 1995 satte man en standard för hur det finska varmblodet skulle se ut och satte ett mål för aveln för att så småningom kunna avla det finska varmblodet helt rasrena.

Egenskaper
Det finska varmblodet fick en standard så sent som 1995 och därför varierar utseendet fortfarande något mellan olika individer. Idealet för att bli registrerad är dock att hästen har en mankhöjd mellan 158 och 172 cm. Alla färger är tillåtna men hästen ska ge ett atletiskt utseende och avlägger prov som de ska klara för att få registreras. Gångarterna ska vara elastiska och smidiga. Man lägger även stor vikt vid att hästen ska vara uthållig och ha ett stabilt temperament.

Det finska varmblodet används idag som en ren sporthäst, och många finska varmblod har nått framgång inom ridsporten. Bland annat rider svenska hoppryttaren Peder Fredricson ett finskt varmblod vid namn "Arctic Aurora Borealis". Malin Baryard-Johnssons häst H&M Tamina är också registrerat finskt varmblod. För att vara säker på att få ett bra avelsmaterial testas hästarna vid 2 och 3 års ålder där man bedömer gångarterna och hoppförmåga. Vid 4 års ålder genomgår hästarna även ett ridbarhetstest. Ston som fött föl får även testas vid 5 års ålder. Vid 4-årstestet undersöker man hästens hälsa, bedömer hästen vid hand och under ryttare. Hästen visas upp i antingen banhoppning eller dressyr, dock måste även dressyrhästarna genomgå ett hopphäst med lägre hinder.

Se även
Svenskt varmblod
Danskt varmblod
Finskt kallblod
Varmblodshäst
Bayerskt varmblod

Referenser

Varmblodshästar
Hästraser från Finland

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Vino Ice is a wine pourer with a chill rod, designed to keep chilled wine at a perfect drinking temperature.
Vino Ice works for white, rosé and red wines. Just chill Vino Ice in the freezer before using, then insert in a bottle chilled to your desired temperature.


text:
BLOODY HOLIDAY
Chicago Police 'Perplexed' by 101 Fourth of July Shootings
Chicago police announced a "very comprehensive review" of where their tactics went wrong after more than 100 people were shot over the Fourth of July holiday. A total of 101 people were shot from late Friday to early Wednesday, 15 of them fatally. Almost half of the incidents came in the final 12 hours of the four-day weekend. Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, said many of the incidents were "petty disputes that escalated into somebody pulling out a gun," the Chicago Tribune reported. The violence is "perplexing" for police, Guglielmi said, as "some very successful tactics" were used and 1,300 extra officers deployed. The bloody weekend came after President Trump took to Twitter early Friday to warn that crime in the city had reached "epidemic proportions" requiring federal help.
Read it at Chicago Tribune


You can download free of charge this body parts worksheet. Just click the DOWNLOAD button under the photograph. It will be connected to a new page. Do right click on the picture, then pick save picture as… After that you are allowed to modify the file name and the folder where you want to store the file. Then click the save button.
Check out these photos related to body parts worksheet, hope you like it..


text:
'Racism' Is Dead
Murdered by its massive overuse and violent abuse.
t had suffered battered-word syndrome a long time before its murderers finally killed it.
Ironically, the ones who abused it before it died see and perceive nothing but skin color.
For example: A white man sneezed in the subway. Why? "Because he's a racist!"
Thank you, word beaters, for so beautifully illustrating your favorite punching bag's cause and manner of death.
"Racism" — may it rest in peace — had become a convenient scapegoat for its abusers' numerous shortcomings. The primary ones being their so-called arguments' want of logic and shameful avoidance of facts.
Tragically, it waited too late to seek outside help because it thought felt either it wholly deserved the violent, brutal beatings it got on a regular basis or, during those rare times in between beatings, as it tried to hide the multiple bruises on its face with heavy makeup to at least make them seem not as bad as the previous set of bruises they were overlaying, that if only it was nicer to its abusers, and didn't complain or talk back whenever they repeatedly punched it, they would, hopefully, one day stop for a moment to see the intense physical and emotional pain they were causing and decide then and there not to hit it anymore.
Alas, that was not to be the case.
So today, instead, we're having to bury its thoroughly bruised and battered body, and forced to ask ourselves that painful and somber question so steeped in ever darkening feelings of total helplessness and regret: "What could we have done differently?"
The saddest part is that its life once had purpose and meaning before its abusers, way before their callous cruelness took on it this inevitably fatal toll, beat even the last vestiges of both out of it. Hence, it goes to its grave not known as much for its contributions to the betterment of our society as for its being yet another nameless victim soon to be lost in a veritable sea of all the past, present, and, unfortunately, future victims of heartless, despicable liberal word-beaters. A cold and too easily forgettable statistic.
"What good can come of its death?" we ask. What can we do now so that, someday, somehow, we'll know that, in reality, it didn't die in vain?
That is something you'll have to find an answer for yourself.
We can tell ourselves to be more watchful, to pay closer attention whenever we see one or more of the same signs of word beating which "racism" showed — like large, bright red flags — before it, too, slipped through the cracks only to meet such a horrible fate.
But would even that be enough? What do we do about the vile and barbaric liberal word-beaters? Do we bury their indefensible actions in dismissive excuses, even as we bury their latest victims underneath ever newer parcels of ground?
Or do we inform them and all who would be like them, in no uncertain terms, that they'll find absolutely no tolerance at all anywhere in our society?
That alone would give us hope that this grave will not merely forever mark in silence the entombed remains of "racism" but be the place from which we, continuing its original work for a better, more honest, decent, just, and, yes, united society, took our first step towards bringing about, to the loud and joyous praise of millions now living and yet born, the long awaited demise of this monstrously backward malevolent liberal practice of word beating.
Such is the change every one of us needs and, the Lord willing, shall all have.
Labels: desperate liberals (BIRM), heartless liberals (BIRM), liberal hypocrites (BIRM), liberal racism, liberalism: THE ideology of fear, liberalism: THE ideology of hate, more liberal intolerance
Obamageddon
No, Liberals Can't Read
Over twice as many American Troops dying every mon...
'We've stopped the oil spill, so let's sue Arizona...
Speaking of our country's real and present need fo...
Enduring Spirit of Resistance to Domination
'Stop Buying My Albums!'
Irresponsible Congress
DemObamic Regime Abuses Reason and Common Sense


Where Can I Spread Bet on NZD/USD?
Where Can I Access Live NZD/USD Prices?
Where Can I Get Live NZD/USD Charts?
Where Can I Practice Trading NZD/USD?
When using a Financial Spreads account clients can spread bet on a large range of currencies, for example you can trade on NZD/USD but also the EUR/USD, AUD/USD and GBP/USD.
When using a FinancialSpreads account investors are able to speculate on numerous real time prices like NZD/USD and a range of other foreign exchange, stock markets, equities and commodities prices.
When trading with a FinancialSpreads account investors can make use of live charts for NZD/USD and numerous other markets.
This is a Rolling spread betting market so it does not have a settlement date. If you decide not to close your trade and the trading session ends then your position will roll over to the next trading day.
If a trade rolls over then you will normally either have to pay or receive a small fee for overnight financing depending upon whether you are speculating on the market to move higher or lower. For additional information also see Rolling Spread Betting.
Points (Units) Traded: Spread betting trades on the NZD/USD market are made in £x per point.
Where a point is $0.0001 of the forex pair's price movement.
E.g. if NZD/USD moves by $0.0040 then you would win/lose 40 times your stake.
Stake (Trade Size): You work out how much you would like to stake per point, e.g. £3 per point, £4 per point, £15 per point etc.
Simplified Trading Example: With that in mind, if you decided on a stake of £2 per point and NZD/USD moves $0.0034 (34 points), you would win / lose £2 per point x 34 points = £68.
Time to Take a Profit? You could choose to let your position run or close it, i.e. close your trade to lock in your profit. For this example, you opt to close your trade and sell at $0.7477.
Close and Limit the Loss? You can choose to keep your spread bet open or close it, i.e. close your trade and restrict your loss. In this example you decide to settle your trade and sell the market at $0.7420.
Lock in Your Profit? At this point, you may choose to keep your bet open or close it to take your profit. In this case you opt to close your bet and buy at $0.7412.
Time to Restrict the Loss? At this point, you can opt to leave your bet open or close it, i.e. close your spread bet and limit your losses. For this example, you decide to close your position by buying the market at $0.7474.
Where Can I Practice Financial Spread Betting on NZD/USD?
FinancialSpreads offers traders the chance to put one's trading skills to the test by using a free Practice Account on CFD and spread betting markets like NZD/USD.
The Demo Account is not restricted to one market; traders can also get trading experience using a large range of forex rates, shares, commodities and index markets.


text:
Air, like all matter, consists of molecules. Even a tiny region of air contains vast numbers of air molecules. The molecules are in constant motion, traveling randomly and at great speed. They constantly collide with and rebound from one another and strike and rebound from objects that are in contact with the air.
A vibrating object will produce sound waves in the air. For example, when the head of a drum is hit with a mallet, the drumhead vibrates and produces sound waves. The vibrating drumhead produces sound waves because it moves alternately outward and inward, pushing against, then moving away from, the air next to it. The air molecules that strike the drumhead while it is moving outward rebound from it with more than their normal energy and speed, having received a push from the drumhead. These faster-moving molecules move into the surrounding air. For a moment, therefore, the region next to the drumhead has a greater than normal concentration of air molecules—it becomes a region of compression. As the faster-moving molecules overtake the air molecules in the surrounding air, they collide with them and pass on their extra energy. The region of compression moves outward as the energy from the vibrating drumhead is transferred to groups of molecules farther and farther away.
Air molecules that strike the drumhead while it is moving inward rebound from it with less than their normal energy and speed. For a moment, therefore, the region next to the drumhead has fewer air molecules than normal—it becomes a region of rarefaction. Molecules colliding with these slower-moving molecules also rebound with less speed than normal, and the region of rarefaction travels outward.
The wave nature of sound becomes apparent when a graph is drawn to show the changes in the concentration of air molecules at some point as the alternating pulses of compression and rarefaction pass that point. The graph for a single pure tone, such as that produced by a tuning fork. The curve shows the changes in concentration. It begins, arbitrarily, at some time when the concentration is normal and a compression pulse is just arriving. The distance of each point on the curve from the horizontal axis indicates how much the concentration varies from normal.
Each compression and the following rarefaction makes up one cycle. (A cycle can also be measured from any point on the curve to the next corresponding point.) The frequency of a sound is measured in cycles per second, or hertz (abbreviated Hz). The amplitude is the greatest amount by which the concentration of air molecules varies from the normal.
The wavelength of a sound is the distance the disturbance travels during one cycle. It is related to the sound's speed and frequency by the formula speed/frequency = wavelength. This means that high-frequency sounds have short wavelengths and low-frequency sounds long wavelengths. The human ear can detect sounds with frequencies as low as 15 Hz and as high as 20,000 Hz. In still air at room temperature, sounds with these frequencies have wavelengths of 75 feet (23 m) and 0.68 inch (1.7 cm) respectively.
Intensity refers to the amount of energy transmitted by the disturbance. It is proportional to the square of the amplitude. Intensity is measured in watts per square centimeter or in decibels (db). The decibel scale is defined as follows: An intensity of 10-16 watts per square centimeter equals 0 db. (Written out in decimal form, 10-16 appears as 0.0000000000000001.) Each tenfold increase in watts per square centimeter means an increase of 10 db. Thus an intensity of 10-15 watts per square centimeter can also be expressed as 10 db and an intensity of 10-4 (or 0.0001) watts per square centimeter as 120 db.
The intensity of sound drops rapidly with increasing distance from the source. For a small sound source radiating energy uniformly in all directions, intensity varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source. That is, at a distance of two feet from the source the intensity is one-fourth as great as it is at a distance of one foot; at three feet it is only one-ninth as great as at one foot, etc.
Pitch depends on the frequency; in general, a rise in frequency causes a sensation of rising pitch. The ability to distinguish between two sounds that are close in frequency, however, decreases in the upper and lower parts of the audible frequency range. There is also variation from person to person in the ability to distinguish between two sounds of very nearly the same frequency. Some trained musicians can detect differences in frequency as small as 1 or 2 Hz.
Because of the way in which the hearing mechanism functions, the perception of pitch is also affected by intensity. Thus when a tuning fork vibrating at 440 Hz (the frequency of A above middle C on the piano) is brought closer to the ear, a slightly lower tone, as though the fork were vibrating more slowly, is heard.
When the source of a sound is moving at relatively high speed, a stationary listener hears a sound higher in pitch when the source is moving toward him or her, and a sound lower in pitch when the source is moving away. This phenomenon, known as the Doppler effect, is due to the wave nature of sound.
In general, an increase in intensity will cause a sensation of increased loudness. But loudness does not increase in direct proportion to intensity. A sound of 50 dB has ten times the intensity of a sound of 40 dB, but is only twice as loud. Loudness doubles with each increase of 10 dB in intensity.
Loudness is also affected by frequency, because the human ear is more sensitive to some frequencies than to others. The threshold of hearing—the lowest sound intensity that will produce the sensation of hearing for most people—is about 0 dB in the 2,000 to 5,000 Hz frequency range. For frequencies below and above this range, sounds must have greater intensity to be heard. Thus, for example, a sound of 100 Hz is barely audible at 30 dB; a sound of 10,000 Hz is barely audible at 20 dB. At 120 to 140 dB most people experience physical discomfort or actual pain, and this level of intensity is referred to as the threshold of pain.
Skipping Stones on Ice Makes Crazy Sci-fi Sounds
Mystery Behind Cuba's Alleged Sonic Attack Deepens
Can you really shatter a glass with a high note?
Can a sound wave kill you?
The Skinny on Sonic Booms


Christmas is just around the corner and Pen & Parcel wants to help you spread Christmas cheer!
Christmas cards can be purchased in any quantity over 50.
Choose from multiple paper options. Standard paper options include classic felt, linen, recycled and pearl. Or upgrade to premium bamboo or premium cotton for an additional fee. Email me for pricing on premium papers. Click here for more information on our different paper types.
There are many shapes and sizes to choose from. Pricing for flat rectangle or square shaped cards can be found here. If you are interested in a folded card or a different shaped card (circle, geometric, scalloped, etc.) please email me and I can tell you about all of your options and pricing for each.
White envelopes are included with your purchase. Envelope upgrades (kraft, pearl, or foil lined envelopes in gold or silver) are available for an additional fee.
Add extra cheer with custom envelope liners! Click here for more details.
You can pick up your cards from me OR I can ship them to you for an additional $7.50.
I will email a proof prior to ordering for you to approve.
Once the proof is approved by you, you can expect your order to arrive within 7-10 days.
In order to get started, I will need you to email me your pictures that you want included on your card and any specific ideas that you have for it. I will also need to know what size card you want, the type of paper that you would like, how many cards you will need AND what you would like your card to say.
**ALL ORDERS MUST BE PLACED BY DECEMBER 5 DECEMBER 10!