From Sun Moon Lake, we travelled southwards to Xitou Nature Education Area (溪頭自然教育園區). A forest with diverse varieties of plants and the natural research ground for National Taiwan University students. Besides abundant in plant species, there're plenty of wildlife resources, making it an excellent area for ecological education.
Also a sanctuary for the nature lover and a popular destination for bird watching, leisure hiking, astronomy and summer getaway.
One of the highlights here is a 2,800 years old red cypress call the Sacred Tree (神木) which had survived three lightning strikes. But in order to reach the sacred one, we walked/ hiked for almost 2 km before we saw the oldest tree in the forest.
Another highlight is Skywalk, a 220 meters long canopy walkway which is 22.6 meters above ground (equivalent to seven storeys high). It's also a nice experience to get a closer look at the canopy, plus the air up here is so refreshing.
The evening and dinner were spent at Xitou Monster Village (溪頭怪物村) located at the entrance of Xitou Nature Education Area. Xitou Monster Village is a Japanese style/ monster themed quaint village in the middle of a forest. The wooden huts house many stores selling funny-looking souvenirs and snacks.
Here's the famous signboard of a monster with long sausage nose.
We were told that there will be more activities during the day where 'monsters' will roam around the village. We are probably not fated to meet the monsters after all LOL. The Monster Village in the evening is mostly people like us who have booked their accommodation stay in Xitou Nature Education Area.
We had a great tea session in this shop.
Ya I know, the name is kinda funny but rest assured we are not sleeping in some classrooms LOL. We stayed at the well-equipped and comfortable villas. Do take note that the Xitou Education Center accommodation is in a forest area so sighting of insects is common…but waking up to the fresh air deep in nature is one huge plus experience.
What are your thoughts about Xitou? Leave a comment and share it with me.


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Qeshlaq-e Sufilar Hajj Mirza Ali Aqa (, also Romanized as Qeshlāq-e Şūfīlār Ḩājj Mīrzā ʿAlī Āqā) is a village in Qeshlaq-e Shomali Rural District, in the Central District of Parsabad County, Ardabil Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 54, in 13 families.

References

Towns and villages in Parsabad County

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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For Real Friday: Strong Female Characters
April 3, 2015 / kaitlinbevis
On Wednesday I explained that as far as I'm concerned, Artemis was the original strong female character. When I think of modern day examples that best reflect Artemis, Buffy the Vampire Slayer springs to mind. But lately, strong female characters have gotten some bad press lately.
This article and this article (seriously read them, they're great) explains the issue with the strong female character better than I could, but it basically boils down to the fact that strong female characters have become a gimmick. Someone the hero can impress and use as a bench mark to move past or someone who's given a moment of beating someone up to make viewers happy before the hero has to save her. This, by the way, is not Buffy the Vampire Slayer at all and by the way, Buffy does not fall into the other strong female character trap, which is to make her the only type of female character. Buffy is strong but she's also multi dimensional, there's more to her than that she can kick but and on top of that, the cast is exploding with examples of different female characters with different strengths, weaknesses, and complexities.
If the Greek myths had been written today, I'd want Artemis to be a Buffy figure. A single, strong and otherwise complex character who exists to do more than just motivate the hero and who is just one example of what a goddess could be like out of many. Part of my motivation for writing the Daughters of Zeus series was to do just that.
Persephone is an (I hope) complex character with different strengths and weaknesses. People in the book keep calling her strong and brave and all these wonderful things that shallow-strong characters are supposed to be, but she's the first to point out that they're wrong. She's not strong in the physical sense, not because of lack of ability, but because until she ended up down in the Underworld, it never occurred to her to try to be. She's not the brightest crayon in the box but she's resourceful. She's naive and idealistic and that naive idealism helps and hurts her at different points in the plot. Her plot is a romance and but she exists outside of her relationship with Hades. She has strengths but she also has flaws, enough of them that some readers can't stand her, which is a great thing. A character that everyone loves is a flat character. Universal appeal doesn't exist in three dimensional characters.
Aphrodite isn't a strong character at all. She's weak. She's one-hundred percent defined by her relationships. She's confident to a fault and on the surface seems very shallow, but inside she's dealing with a lot of pain and that confidence and those relationships are the only thing holding her together while she deals with that, and that's okay because there are people like that and they deserve to see themselves in fiction too. Also, she's not static, she'll grow as her series does, but in ways that are very different than Persephone.
Artemis is strong and confident and unlike both Persephone and Aphrodite she's not trying to live up to some self-imposed ideal, she's completely happy with who and what she is. Her arc won't deal with growth but with other things I can't get into because of spoilers. She's had relationships but they don't define her and they aren't important enough to the plot to bear much mentioning.
There's different ways to be strong and there's room for all of them in fiction. Don't settle for shallow "strong" characters who don't even pass the sexy lamp test.
Daughters of Zeus, Kaitlin Bevis, Persephone
← Way Back Wednesday: Artemis
Mythology Monday: The Underworld →

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep (appears in most sources as Amenemhat Sobekhotep; now believed to be Sobekhotep I; known as Sobekhotep II in older studies) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period, who reigned for at least three years c. 1800 BC. His chronological position is much debated, Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep being either the founder of the dynasty, in which case he is called Sobekhotep I, or its twentieth ruler, in which case he is called Sobekhotep II. In his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period, the Egyptologist Kim Ryholt makes a strong case for Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep as the founder of the dynasty, a hypothesis that is now dominant in Egyptology. His tomb was believed to have been discovered in Abydos in 2013, but its attribution is now questioned.
Titulary of Sekhemrekhutawy Sobekhotep on a relief from the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, Deir el-Bahri.
Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep is well attested by contemporary sources. First, he is mentioned on the Kahun Papyrus IV, now in the Petrie Museum (UC32166). (Ryholt, p. 315) This Kahun Papyrus is "a census of the household of a lector-priest that is dated to the first regnal year" of the king and also records the birth of a son of the lector-priest during a 40th regnal year, "which can only refer to Amenemhat III." This establishes that Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep reigned close in time to Amenemhat III. Second, a number of architectural elements bearing Sobekhotep's titulary are known: a fragment of a Hebsed chapel from Medamud, three lintels from Deir el-Bahri and Medamud, an architrave from Luxor and a doorjamb from Medamud that is now in the Louvre. Three Nile level records from Semna and Kumna in Nubia are also attributable to Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep, the latest of which is dated to year 4, showing that he reigned for at least three complete years. Smaller artifacts mentioning Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep comprise a cylinder seal from Gebelein, an adze-blade, a statuette from Kerma and a faience bead, now in the Petrie Museum (UC 13202).
During a 2013 excavation in Abydos, a team of archaeologists led by Josef W. Wegner of the University of Pennsylvania discovered the tomb of a king with the name Sobekhotep. While Sobekhotep I was named as owner of the tomb on several press reports since January 2014, further investigations made it more likely that the tomb belongs to king Sobekhotep IV instead.
Drawing of a seal reading "The son of Ra, Sobekhotep Amenemhat, beloved of Sobek-Ra, Lord of Iu-miteru".
There is some dispute in Egyptology over the position of this king in the 13th Dynasty. The throne name Sekhemre Khutawyre appears in the Turin King List as the 19th king of the 13th Dynasty. However, the Nile level records and his appearance on a papyrus found at Lahun indicate that he might date to the early 13th Dynasty. In both monument types only kings of the late 12th and early 13th Dynasty are mentioned.
In the Turin King List, Khutawyre appears as the first 13th-Dynasty king; Egyptologist Kim Ryholt maintains that it is possible that the writer of the list confused Sekhemre Khutawy with Khutawyre, the nomen of Wegaf. Furthermore, the identification of any mention of Sekhemre Khutawy is difficult, as at least three kings are known to have had this name: Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep, Sekhemre Khutawy Pantjeny and Sekhemre Khutawy Khabaw.
Based on his name Amenemhat Sobekhotep, it has been suggested that Sobekhotep was a son of the penultimate pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty, king Amenemhat IV. Amenemhat Sobekhotep can be read as Amenemhat's son Sobekhotep. Therefore, Sobekhotep may have been a brother of Sekhemkare Sonbef, the second ruler of the 13th Dynasty. Other Egyptologists read Amenemhat Sobekhotep as a double name, these being common in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasty.
^ a b c d e f g K. S. B. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997.
^ a b "Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep, the Petrie Museum". Digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
^ "Giant Sarcophagus Leads Penn Museum Team in Egypt To the Tomb of a Previously Unknown Pharaoh". Penn Museum. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
^ "King Sobekhotep I Tomb discovered in Sohag". State Information Services. 7 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
^ Stephen Adkins (7 January 2014). "Pennsylvania Researchers Discover Tomb of Egypt's First King of 13th Dynasty". University Herald. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
^ "US diggers identify tomb of Pharoah Sobekhotep I". Times Live. South Africa. 6 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
^ "Archaeologists discover tomb of Pharoah Sobekhotep I in Egypt". Voice of Russia. 7 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
^ Stark, Florian (7 January 2014). "Pharaonengrab aus apokalyptischen Zeiten entdeckt". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 8 January 2014.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sebekhotep Sekhemre Khutawy.
K. S. B. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c.1800–1550 BC, (Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997), 336, File 13/1.


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En flytande ö eller flottholme är ett naturligt föremål som flyter på ytan av en vattensamling och som inte sitter fast vid vattensamlingens botten. Konstgjorda flytande öar kallas vanligen för pontoner. Flytande öar är inga landmassor och räknas därför inte som äkta öar, trots att de delvis består av jord.

Naturlig process
Flytande öar tillkommer på olika sätt. Några har varit en del av strandlinjen som lossnat under en översvämning eller konstgjord nivåhöjning. Om en flytande ö består en längre tid kan det finnas växtlighet på den, till och med små träd.

En flottholme hålls uppe av inneslutna gaser som ökar dess lyftkraft. Mikroorganismer och svampar bildar gaser som metan och koldioxid. Under den kalla delen av året kan en flottholme sjunka under vattenytan för att åter flyta upp när värmen och gasproduktionen ökar.

Globalt fenomen

Enstaka flytande öar är mer än hundra meter långa. De förekommer bland annat på stora floder som Amazonfloden och större insjöar som Titicacasjön där människor till och med bosatt sig. El Ojo i Argentina är en rund ö på 120 meter i diameter som sakta roterar.

Flytande öar av pimpsten från vulkanutbrott under havsytan kan bilda stora öar som flyter i år innan de sjunker. 2019 upptäcktes en sådan flytande ö av pimpsten om 150 kvadratkilometer nära Tonga i Stilla havet. De flytande öarna bildas vid utbrott som sker på grunt vatten, och i området dyker de upp med omkring fem års mellanrum. Dessa för med sig växter, korall och annat djurliv för att så småningom sjunka.

Exempel på vatten med flottholmar

Sverige
 Eksjön
 Hillesjön
 Lundsjön–Dammsjön
 Måcksjön
 Nimmern
 Pirttijärvi
 Ralången
 Sommen
 Vixen
 Älvlången

Finland
 Juojärvi

Lag
Flottholme hafve han, som den vid land sitt fäster. (12 kapitlet 4 § jordabalken av 1734 års lag, upphävd 1972)

Finland har motsvarande lag: Beträffande flottholme ... äganderätt till sådan holme tillfaller den, vilken fäster densamma vid sin strand. Detsamma gäller, om holme utan ägarens tillgörande fäster sig vid stranden.

Se även
Gungfly
Konstgjord ö

Noter

Limnologi
Naturgeografi
Öar efter typ


text:
package com.treyzania.mc.zaniportals.portal.targets;

import com.treyzania.mc.zaniportals.adapters.PortalEntity;
import com.treyzania.mc.zaniportals.adapters.PortalLocation;
import com.treyzania.mc.zaniportals.adapters.PortalPlayer;

public class NotifyInvalidPortalTarget implements PortalTarget {

	@Override
	public String getName() {
		return "(invalid)";
	}

	@Override
	public PortalLocation getDestination() {
		return null;
	}

	@Override
	public void teleport(PortalEntity ent) {

		if (ent.isPlayer()) {

			PortalPlayer pp = (PortalPlayer) ent;
			pp.sendMessage("This portal does not have a set destination.");

		}

	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Common furniture beetle treatment is for this tiny timber pest. The common furniture beetle is the everyday name given to the insect which de Geer called Anobium punctatum in 1774. The common furniture beetle belongs to the family ANOBIIDAE which contains about twenty two different species found in Britain. The adult beetle varies in size from 2.5 mm to nearly 4.5 mm in length and is usually chocolate brown in colour. All are covered with fine yellowish down which does not however hide the longitudinal rows of punctures or small pits on the elytra or wing cases.
They lay from twenty to sixty eggs are laid by each fertilized common furniture beetle female. The maximum possible is about eighty but the average is about 28 eggs. They are laid usually in small groups in cracks of unpolished wood, but sometimes they may be found just inside the old flight holes. In shape they are they are like oval pearls, but they are often pushed a little out of shape. When being forced into crevices during egg deposition they are easily seen with the naked eye.
The young larva emerges in two or three weeks' time. Not from the top of the egg but from the base. And immediately commences to tunnel their way into the wood. The larval stage is spent entirely in the wood and extends for not less than two years. The average length of the larval stage properly being between three and four years: periods of five or even more are not uncommon.
The common furniture beetle larva's are greyish-white in colour and covered with fine hairs. The head is yellowish-brown, but the jaws are dark chestnut-brown. It usually holds its body in a hook shape when in the tunnel or tightly curved into a ball when it is brought out of the tunnel into the light. The larvae spend the whole of this stage tunnelling mostly up and down the grain, but often crossing into a different growth ring.
Tunnelling takes place in cold weather as well as in the summer, although at a decreased rate. And after tunnelling the larva withdraws a short distance from the working face for an hour or two. Before it starts tunneling again into the wood. The tunnel which is left behind is loosely filled with bore dust or powder which is known as frass. When the powder is rubbed together between the fingers it is gritty. In the early spring of the year in which the larva matures, it bores towards the outside of the wood. But just short of the actual surface it constructs a pupal chamber.
Which is slightly larger than the diameter of the gallery and changes into a pupa or a chrysalis. The pupa is creamy white in colour and in many ways resembles the adult common furniture beetle. All the legs, wing cases and antenna can be seen plainly, but are held in place by the thin transparent pupal skin. It can move only the last few segments of the abdomen, but in about six to eight weeks the pupal skin is burst off and the adult body form appears.
Although the adult stage has at last been reached a period is spent resting whilst the exo skeleton hardens and it turns into the characteristic brown colour. Then the beetle bites its way out into the open air and the hole it makes, which averages 1- 2 mm in diameter, is termed the fight hole. The adult beetle stage extends over two to three weeks only. During this time mating takes place and sometimes within a few hours of emergence and then the female lays her eggs.
What is a common furniture beetle treatment; this is the way that we treat your particular problem. We have different solutions to treat the many types of wood boring insect that can live in our houses or garages. The pre-treatment starts with a survey from there we can suggest the best common furniture beetle treatment with the right products and methods to remove the common furniture beetle from your house, garage, loft, joists, loft timbers, stairs, furniture. Plus free 30 year Guarantee.
The common furniture beetle lays its eggs on the timber and the grubs cause the damage. Damp timber is especially at risk, floorboards, old furniture where the varnish has worn off.
The common furniture beetle is found in lofts, attics and damp basements on joists and ceiling timbers. If the infestation is heavy it will be in the floorboards. This beetle prefers softwood species of timber; they generally prefer damp pine woods.
Have you had a homebuyers report or may be found woodworm somewhere in your property. Such as the joists in the loft or the floorboards in the lounge. Then the best way to diagnosis any wood boring insect is to have a woodworm beetle survey. We can quickly write to you with a full report and identify which beetle species has infested. Your property's timbers and recommend a woodworm treatment to eradicate them quickly and safely.


Smiths Detection is a world leader in products and systems to detect and identify threats to our freedom, safeguarding society against terrorism and criminality and protecting our emergency responders and armed forces. Its government regulated technologies detect CBRNE material, explosives and narcotics, and include powerful X-ray screening systems to identify dangerous and illegal objects.
Smiths Detection takes science out of the laboratory and puts it in the hands of security professionals. Its technologies are built into products that safeguard buildings and transport systems; screening everything from a ticket to a truck.
The products and systems are designed for the real world and are based on a deep understanding of the operational environment faced by security and military professionals. An increasing activity for Smiths Detection is taking individual products and integrating them to form complete security solutions, including networking, customised to individual requirements.
Among the major users of Smiths Detection equipment are customs officers responsible for cargo security while also combating a rising tide of illicit narcotics and contraband; the emergency services who are confronted with unknown threats every time they attend an incident; and security staff who ensure our safety on board aircraft, in public places and in the protection of the nations' critical infrastructure. The systems are also used extensively by and armed forces & public service workers who need to be protected against the growing threat of chemical and biological agents.
Smiths Detection is one of five operating divisions of Smiths Group, a global technology company listed on the London Stock Exchange. Smiths employ more than 23,000 people in over 50 countries.
This organisational feature looks at Smiths Detections' mobile cargo scanner HCVM T x-ray system for detecting smuggling threats at Luxembourg customs. Its material discrimination capability enables a high level of steel penetration so complete vehicles can be scanned, thereby increasing effectiveness.


How long have you been there? 3 months in my current position, but I worked at DDC previously in operations last year for a few months too.
Talk us through a typical working day for you? One of the things I like about my job is that no two days are the same. My role focuses on ensuring that we continue to deliver the high standard of service our charity clients expect, so I spend a lot of time liaising with our contacts at the charities we work with to build a relationship with our clients, and a lot of time with the operations team ensuring processes are running smoothly, and finding ways to implement changes which can improve client delivery.
What do you think is great about DDC? The charities team work closely together and are passionate about providing the best service to the clients. It's a very supportive environment to work in.
What did you do before DDC? I had previously worked in a variety of admin-based jobs, including in DDC's operations team last year, but always whilst studying full time, and I graduated with my Master's degree in January.
Who do you work closest with at DDC? The CRM team – Sarah, Claire, and Gemma.
Who would be your ultimate dinner guest? David Chalmers, who is a philosopher. My degree was in philosophy so I would enjoy being able to ask him questions directly!
If you had a superpower what would it be? Probably the ability to pause time, so I could spend more time enjoying my hobbies – especially reading more.
Would you ever bungee jump or skydive? I've actually done a bungee jump before in Spain a few years ago, I'm not sure I would ever skydive, though!
Where is the farthest you have been from home? Greece, which isn't that far but it was my first holiday away with friends and I have some brilliant memories from it.


text:
Movies |
'Real Housewives' star Shannon…
'Real Housewives' star Shannon Storms Beador says she and daughters have coronavirus
The 'Real Housewives of Orange County' castmember made the announcement on Instagram
"The Real Housewives of Orange County" cast for Season 14 includes, left to right, Emily Simpson, Braunwyn Windham-Burke, Kelly Dodd, Shannon Storms Beador, Tamra Judge, and Gina Kirschenheiter. (Photo by Tommy Garcia, Bravo)
By Peter Larsen | plarsen@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: July 24, 2020 at 5:33 p.m. | UPDATED: July 24, 2020 at 5:33 p.m.
Shannon Storms Beador announced to her 1.3 million followers on Instagram on Friday that she and her three teen daughters have tested positive for the coronavirus.
"This photo was taken pre-pandemic," Beador wrote beneath a photograph of her and daughters Sophie, 19, and twins Stella and Adeline, 16. "Today we are COVID positive times four.
"The girls and I are blessed to be quarantining in the same home (but self-isolating in separate rooms)," she continued. "A huge thank you to all of the medical personnel that have been patiently guiding us through this illness.
"Sending prayers to all of those affected."
Beador is now the senior member of the cast of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" after the departures of Vicki Gunvalson and Tamra Judge after the last season.
At present, the status of the new season remains unclear. Typically, each season is shot during the winter and spring and premieres at the end of July or in August.
Earlier this year, reports circulated that the cast were filming themselves on iPhones at home. Last month, though, social media posts indicated that the Housewives had taken one of the out-of-town trips that usually serve as a multi-episode arc in each season.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie," commented Dr. Deborah Windham, the mother of housewife Braunwyn Windham-Burke, who, known as Dr. Deb, often appears on the show. "We're praying for your full recovery."
"Your daughters are the best," commented Housewife Kelly Dodd on Beador's post.
"Didn't you all go on a cast trip recently?!" replied Instagram user Merseabird84. "Get the test!!"
Peter Larsen | Reporter
Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.
plarsen@scng.com
Follow Peter Larsen @PeterLarsenBSF
More in Movies
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Vita Mavrič is famous, award-winning Slovenian musician and singer-songwriter. Her new project is a collection of both cheerful and melancholic Jewish Klezmer chansons that emerged from the myriad of traditional and timeless tunes which had the key role in European music art development. Especially interesting translations and rich music adaptation are masterfully handled on her album "Mandeljini in rozine" ("Almonds and raisins"). The main feature of Vita Mavrič' opus are beautiful melancholic vocal expression which often grows into passionate text and music interpretation.
as producer and DJ, she won Amadeus (Austrian Grammy) and got two nominations for "Kabininparty" which won the "Best Song of the Year" award. She also remixed the top of music production like: Maya Jane Coles, Tosca, Claptone, Stereo MC's, Munk, Robert Owens and many others. She became internationally recognized with the hit "Back In The Days" on which she collaborated with rapper Baby Bam of the legendary Jungle Brothers. Her last, and probably the most successful, production work became famous when Richie Hawtin himself played it at last year's Boiler Room.
Entrance: 25kn until 00:30, 35kn after.
Programmed for party, they combine the incompatible. Their music is future-retro and they are eternal children who replaced their toys with DJ equipment.
Phillitchevanje is musically more laid-back program organized by two cfsn DJs. For that occasion they are taking off their nerdy uniforms and are indulging themselves in true boyish impulses where there are no boundaries and no rules. They are not nostalgic nor do they think that ten years ago everything was better, but instead they are more than happy to remember the moments when we used to play in front of MTV/VIVA TVs.
Phillitchevanje is a parade of well-known old and new music numbers mixed with love and feeling for rhythm by the old dancing music-lovers.
Entrance:15kn until 00:30, 20kn after.


Two workers from an engineering firm died on Wednesday after falling into an industrial sewage vat at a petrochemicals plant owned by Eni subsidiary, Versalis.
Salvatore Pizzolo, 37, and Michele Assente, 33, were carrying out a routine inspection of the vat at the plant in Priolo Gargalla, in the Sicilian province of Siracusa, when the accident happened.
One of the workers fell while trying to set up a small surveillance camera by the vat's edge, while the other died while trying to save him.
The men worked for the Siracusa-based engineering firm, Xifonia.
Trade unions reacted furiously, calling a strike at the plant on Thursday against the lack of stringent workplace safety measures.
"Two young lives have been cut short, it's intolerable," said Mimmo Milazzo from the Italian Confederation of Trade Unions (Cisl), while denouncing the "chronic delays concerning measures for the safety of workers".
Eni said in a statement on Wednesday that investigations were underway to establish the cause of the accident.
"The company expresses its deepest condolences to the families affected by this tragic accident," it added.
The company has not suspended work at the plant.


text:
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Bulgaria Ancient Literature
By searchforpublicschools January 5, 2022 Europe 0 Comments
The origins and ancient literature. – According to topschoolsintheusa, Bulgarian literature is both the oldest and the youngest of the Slavic literatures. The oldest, if we take into account its first written monuments, which date back to the time of the adoption of the Slavic script (see Cyrillics, characters and Glagolitics, characters), which in its first origin shortly follows the conversion of King Boris (865) and the Slavization of the Proto-Bulgarians; the youngest, if we consider the beginning of a real continuous literary movement, with content and purpose of art, a beginning that no longer falls beyond the middle of the last century. The preceding centuries can essentially be considered, in regard to literature, rather as centuries of prehistory than of true literary history.
During this long period all the written literary production that the Bulgarian people offers us is summarized in a series of translations and adaptations from the Greek of Holy Scriptures, liturgical texts, lives of saints; compilations of apologetic letters, sermons, sermons, and some dry chronicles. Such is the state of literature in Bulgaria even in the times of. maximum political splendor of the Bulgarian Empire during the so-called "golden age" of Tsar Simeon (10th century), a staunch defender not only of the material and military power of his people, but also of their moral and spiritual values.
Of the representatives of this literature, the few names that are still remembered, among those of the writers who rose to greater fame at the time, are, in addition to the names of Cyril and Methodius and their disciple Clement: Bishop Constantine, author among other things of the first early Bulgarian poetic attempt (the Azbu è na Molitva, Alphabetical Prayer, in the Pou è itelno Evangelie, Moralized Gospel); Tsar Simeone, himself a compiler of various collections of religious and varied content; John the Exarch, author of philosophical theological compilations, translations and speeches; Černorizec Hrabăr, apologist for national literature; the presbyter Kozma, preacher, patriot, flogger of national defects, avid adversary, as a century after Metropolitan Ilarion Măglenski, of Bogomilism; and a few others. But one would look in vain for an art content in the writings of all of them; the only partial exception can perhaps be considered the apocryphals, which, reworking arguments of predominantly religious history and legend in a popular form without an author's name, drawn mostly from Byzantine texts, often rise to a higher level than most of the other written productions of the weather.
The power and political independence of the state are not enough, even in moments of greater affirmation, to create favorable conditions for a true cultural increase in general and literary in particular. The weak, unstable, insufficient culture of the whole Balkan Peninsula and the still too rough state of the language, unsuitable for superior manifestations of art, hinder this increase. Everything that feeds Bulgarian culture in general in this period, and naturally even more so in the period of Greek political domination, comes from Byzantium. Nor did the strong cultural centralization in Tărnovo during the second Bulgarian empire much help. In this period too the interest, sterile but formalistic, for religious questions prevailed. The singular figure of the monk and patriarch Euthymius deserves attention, for his work around the correction of church texts and for his fight against Bogomilism and other heresies, and his pupil Grigorij Camblak, who dictated a eulogy and a biography of the master. However, a Western text also reached Bulgaria through the Croatian and Serbian regions: the Trojan legend.
The Ottoman domination, which lasted five centuries, suppressing any possible civil and intellectual development in the country, segregating the population from any contact with the world, also stifled any further possibility of literary production. The monasteries remain isolated flames of elementary culture. The Turkish ruler, devoid of his own culture, assumes an attitude of complete apathy in the face of the intellectual and spiritual life of the vanquished.
The first flashes of rebirth. – The first hearths of the rebirth were the monasteries in Bulgaria: especially those of Hilendar and Zograf on Mount Athos and that of Rila. From one of these monasteries, and precisely from that of Hilendar, he left in the second half of the century. XVIII the first call for recovery: the Istorija slavenobolgarskaja za b ă lgarskija narod, b ă lgarski car ě i sveci (Slavobulgarian history for the Bulgarian people, for the Bulgarian kings and saints), written in 1762 by his father Paisij, who recalled for the first time, in an elevated form and pervaded by a high patriotic spirit, the exploits of the ancestors to remind the Bulgarians that they were Bulgarians, to exhort them to be proud of it, to admonish them to make themselves worthy. The beneficial fruits of this book, albeit at a distant expiration, were the awakening of consciences, the call to reality, the preparation for the future.
The literary movement in fact goes hand in hand with the awakening of consciences. After Father Paisij's Story, while this still circulates in manuscript among the Bulgarians, other much more modest books speak, like this one, to the national consciousness of the people: they are some translations of a disciple of Paisij himself, Bishop Sofronij Vračanski, and one of his Kirjakodromion, written during the exile in Romania and published in 1806. This is the first Bulgarian book to be printed. Other books are printed in the first decades of the same century. XIX: modest works of general culture and translations. Of particular importance were Pietro Beron's Abbecedary (1824), which was the first elementary instruction book for the young Bulgarian generation, the Bulgarian grammar of his father Neofit Rilski, and the manual of general knowledge of his father Neofit Hilendarski. Meanwhile, in his sermons, Father Neofit Bosveli warmly advocated the independence of the church, attracting persecutions from Greeks and Turks. In 1835 Vasil E. Aprilov founded in his native Gabrovo, together with Palauzov and various others, the first Bulgarian school and wrote himself on grammar and various subjects.
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At 1st Waste we strive to provide the best quality services and push ourselves to be the best we can be.
With this in mind we are proud to announce that 1st Waste have achieved re-certification of ISO9001:2015.
We are also please to say that we have also achieved certification this year of ISO14001:2015 & also BS OHSAS 18001:2007.


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So kids, love yourself every day, starting with today, what it takes for you to love yourself today is up to you to find out!
I just saw a tweet from my friend Kaia Tetlie, stating something that "Cant be said often enough"; Live your life like there is no tomorrow. Funny thing is that I've been thinking about that exact proverb on my current travel, it is something often linked to travel, and it is kind of how I prefer to travel as well. But I've concluded that its a badly formulated lifestyle "tip". The deeper meaning is that you should make every day matter and dont hang around waiting for something to happen — make it happen, make it happen now!
Det kan aldri sies for ofte: Live life like there's no tomorrow.
But on most days for most of us there will be a tomorrow, and if you truly lived today like tomorrow would not come that means saying goodbye to making plans and doing anything that can be seen as worthwhile when viewed from the future. What I think you rather should do is Love yourself every day.
If you love yourself every day its likely you aren't wasting your day away on something you dont find meaningful and worthy — then you wouldn't love yourself that day! I also think it's a lot easier to live up to loving yourself every day, I know that if I were truly living today as if there was no tomorrow then I would be burning the candle in both ends and in effect have a worthless tomorrow (NO way would I go to bed if there would be no tomorrow!).


No one can behold the realm of God without being born from above (or anew, again). All three possible translations of the Greek contribute to the fullness of the understanding of the truth that Christ is trying to communicate to this Pharisees, this man who would later become a prominent Christian in the Church. In beholding and then comprehending a new understanding of the faith requires a revolution of vision. In certain ways, I requires starting all over again … this time as if one had God as one's parent. It is a fresh vision, a new vision, a heavenly vision.
I find various expressions of the Church tend to emphasize one or the other or even the other. Some expressions are filled with "born again" language; others, "born anew" language; still others, "born from above language". I find it best not to isolate one from the other, but rather to hold then together as a fuller whole. In my contemplative expression of the Christian faith, we think often in terms of "being born from above". Yet, in my contemplative expression, we must always be remembering to be "born anew" lest we get lost in ancient ways. And, of course, in daily Benedictine practice, "each day we begin again". You most likely live within an expression of the faith that is not precisely like mine or even quite different from mine … but always your faith, to be a living, continually refreshing and growing faith, must always be being born anew, again, and from above. Do not become stagnant. Do not become imprisoned in the past. Do not grow stale as years old bread. But always be a child eager to learn and to mature.


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Q: Visual studio extension setting the git branch I am writing an extension (VSIX) in VS and one feature is to change the GIT branch. GIT is integrated in VS (2019) and also the method to change a branch should be present but I cannot find any documentation: is there a method to change the GIT-Branch
Thanks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Home> Auto
The Tesla Model S Controversy: Understanding the Effects of Temperature on Electric Vehicle Efficiency and Range
by Vivek Gowri on February 18, 2013 4:22 PM EST
Introduction and Technology Background Thermal Effects on Energy Consumption and Range How this Impacts the Model S & Final Thoughts
Thus far, plenty of ink has been spilled regarding the Tesla Model S and the fallout from the New York Times article, and it even showed up in our latest podcast. I feel like my perspective on this topic, as someone who has worked in the EV space as an engineer for the last four years, as well as driving a family owned Nissan Leaf for the last year and a half, is a bit different from our editors who discussed it, as well as most of the others who have written about it.
I'm not particularly interested in getting involved with the back and forth or analyzing what either party said - I feel like the Times reporter didn't really understand how EVs work, nor how to drive them, and I don't really agree with Elon Musk's Matlab data infused response (it felt too vitriolic to get across any point other than Tesla being angry about the article). And just to go back to the point about not understanding how EVs should be driven, you have to tailor your driving style to suit the powertrain in order to get the maximum out of the EV - if you don't want to, you're going to be disappointed. Consider it like needing to switch keyboard shortcuts when you move from Windows to OS X - it's a slight mental recalibration that has to happen for you to use the platform to its fullest. But that's another story for another time.
What I feel like is getting lost here is actual EV performance in cold weather, or hot weather, or really anything in the way of hard numbers. We all know that battery performance is reduced in more extreme environmental conditions, and that all cars, regardless of powertrain type, consume more energy (fuel or battery) in those extreme climates. Unfortunately, quantifying these general ideas is a bit more difficult. That's where I come in.
Technology Background
First, a bit of background. I spent the last few months working in Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Powertrain Research Facility (APRF). They're an extremely knowledgeable group of engineers and scientists whose job it is to test advanced technology vehicles in their temperature controlled dynamometer facility, which can sustain temperatures anywhere between -5 F to 100 F. Most of this research is done as a part of the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology Program.
Everything from pure electrics to plug-in hybrids, normal hybrids, clean diesels, direct engine turbos, and advanced transmissions (dual-clutch, CVT, etc.) go through the labs with an extended set of instrumentation to collect various speed and consumption metrics. The resulting data sets are truly comprehensive (2 million data cells for 20 minutes on the dynamometer) and allow the researchers to draw conclusions about the various powertrains and their behavior. It's a pretty impressive setup.
The APRF has released some of the data to the public in something called the Downloadable Dynamometer Database. The D3 pages for the Nissan Leaf includes data from the three different temperatures used in EPA's 5-Cycle fuel economy test: 20F (with a heater load), 72F (climate control off), and 95F + sun lamps (with an air conditioning load). In all cases involving heating or air conditioning, the climate control system is set to 72F. Using this data, we can take a more in depth look at what the actual penalties of environment are on efficiency and performance, and really see the impact of temperature on energy consumption and range.
Before we start, I should probably explain the terms used in the graphs that follow. UDDS is an urban driving cycle (it stands for Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule), CS stands for cold start (the first start after the vehicle has been sitting for a number of hours), HS is hot start (any subsequent start after the vehicle has warmed up), HWY is short for HWFET or Highway Fuel Economy Test (also seen as the Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule or the EPA's highway fuel economy cycle), and US06 is a supplemental federal test procedure (SFTP) to provide a more aggressive driving schedule than the relatively tame HWFET cycle. A comparison of the three driving cycles (speed versus time) is shown above.
Thermal Effects on Energy Consumption and Range Introduction and Technology Background Thermal Effects on Energy Consumption and Range How this Impacts the Model S & Final Thoughts
relztes - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
How can it possibly be unfair to test the US model in the US? If they took it to Nunavut for a test at -30 F, I'd see your point, but there is nothing extreme about 20 F in at least half of the US.
Kerdal - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
Trust me, they don't have to go as far as Nunavut to test at -30F (-35°C), it was -45°C (-50F) a few days ago over here (QC) haha
Most cars wouldn't start, I wonder what kind of range an EV would get at those temperatures but that's probably why we don't have any over here.
Alexvrb - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
Bingo. The Nissan Leaf is a POS. It sucks horribly in cold weather (anything below freezing point of water, apparentely). It also uses air cooling for the battery pack, so it suffers quite horribly in hot climates, especially long-term. The Leaf is an all-compromise car. The Model S is leaps and bounds better, though it's got a price tag to show it.
The Volt and even more common hybrid designs are a better option at this point, if you don't have the cash for a Tesla Model S.
Err, and by better option I mean if you are only considering EVs, PHEVs, etc. There are lots of good options depending on how you're driving and what your needs are. For example small diesels or specially tuned small turbo gas motors for highway commutes.
IKeelU - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
Thanks for this article. It's nice to hear an educated response to the controversy.
ricardoduarte - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
Without having much to do with post, i have a few questions since the Vivek is electric car driver.
I admit that i know little about EV's and I am a petrolhead, which loves everything about petrol cars, however i always wondered what would be like to compare the fuel expense with a petrol car (I am in uk and both are quite expensive at the moment).
I wonder if you have any other cars (for longer journeys), or this is the household main car?
- How many times do you charge your car per day?
- Have u noticed any big advantage financially to the use of an electric car?
- Do you avoid random driving because of fear of running out of charge, or that you might actually need the car later?
Sorry for the questions, but i always wondered if drivers of electrical car feel restricted because of the battery recharge time, and if the financial advantages are big enough to compensate any anxiety that the presence of batteries might give.
happycamperjack - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
The fundamental problem of pure EV car is simple, Limited Freedom. Since the introduction of car, it has been the symbol of freedom throughout ages. How many hollywood films have you watched that have cars driving into the sunset? Sure current EV might last you 200 miles or 300 miles and that's plenty for everyone, but that anxiety of running out of juice is always gonna be in the back of your mind. People don't want to wait to charge their car, that directly limited their freedom of movement. If they don't mind that, they probably wouldn't mind public transportation either. So what you end up is a product that's perfect for engineers who can plan ahead and optimize their schedule around it. For anyone else it's a product that's unproven, anxiety inducer, pricey, and just a chore to deal with.
Plug in hybrids make a lot more sense. For city driving, the 30+ miles range is enough for most of the people during work days. For vacation or weekend getaways, that's where gasoline comes in. Knowing that you would not have to plan all the "charging" stops well ahead of time, makes life so much easier. Volt is a good start, but it's pretty ugly and feels cheap inside out when you compared to cars in the same price range, that's why it's not selling well. Fisker's reliability problems from multi sourcing parts(reminds me of F35) is scaring away potential buyers. The market is really waiting for a winning design. I really hope Tesla would consider adding at least a small gasoline motor to keep the electric motor running at perhaps 50% capacity when it's out of juice.
The points you make about EVs could become less relevant over time. Namely:
- Recharging stations will become more common, making the more limited range of an EV less of an issue, and eventually (hopefully) a non-issue. After all, limited gas stations didn't hamper the adoption of gas-fueled cars a century ago.
- Recharging times will shorten as battery tech improves.
- Battery charges will increase as battery tech improves.
I agree about the hybrids. I rented a For C-Max for a week and mostly did city driving (except for the 30-mile drive to and from the airport), and the top-off before returning to the airport cost me about 8 bucks. I'm pretty much sold on renting hybrids from now on.
Thanks for the comment. As for now, there are more than 10x the gas stations than charging stations in US, and a lot of them are in california. Not to mention it takes 10 times longer (in charging stations, even longer without it) to charge a EV than a gasoline car. And if everyone's doing it, it's gonna overload the grid and force more "dirty" electricity production to keep it up. I think all this add up to an inconvenient solution for most of the population in US. Like I said, for more well organized people like engineers, this would not be as much of a problem. But why have a problem when you can have none? Our electric technology and the grid is not quite there yet.
This situation reminds me a lot of Tablet PC. The concept was good, but technology(capacitive screen and battery) wasn't there to make it good enough to sell to the mass.
melgross - Monday, February 18, 2013 - link
Try 1,000 to 1, or more. But the point is that so far, these EVs, are very range limited, and people expect a $100,000 car to do better. So while these road tests aren't exactly fair, or done well, they do illustrate the point that they come nowhere near a gas fueled vehicle


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» Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition Sneaks Onto The PS4
Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition Sneaks Onto The PS4
It's amazing that it took this long for a developer to combine the stealth and puzzle genres together. It's a logical amalgam; after all, at its core, a stealth game is really just a puzzle game with an action-oriented twist. With Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition, developer Curve Studios boldly goes where no indie developer has gone before and attempts this fusion of stealth and puzzler and brings to life a game that is more than the sum of its parts.
Not Just Puzzle-Based Stealth
At its core, Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition is about the fusion between the puzzle and stealth genres but the overall game ends up being much more than that.
The premise of Stealth Inc. is sticking to the shadows while simultaneously devising how to navigate through a particular level. For example, you may need to push a block to create a shadow that lets you hack the security panel, away from the prying eyes of a security camera. In another scenario, you may need to navigate through a laser grid to reach the other side of a room. Knowing the correct path through a level is only half the battle, with the other half having the reflexes and skills to make it through in one place. Death comes quickly in Stealth Inc. as your character can only take one hit before dying.
Finishing a level isn't the end but likely only the beginning, as each level has a hidden Helix piece to find and also a time limit that must be beat to achieve the highest ranking. Your first try through a level will be just to finish it, with subsequent attempts revolving around these optional goals.
Your character in Stealth Inc. has no abilities outside of hiding in the shadows and a wicked wall jump; however, there are unlockable suits you can use to balance the odds in your favor. For example, these suits may let you trigger instant camouflage or set up a decoy. They come with a price, however, as the highest time rank cannot be achieved when using one of these special suits. However, you can still use the suits to find the hidden Helix piece, and you'll likely need each and every last suit.
Stealth Inc. offers 80 levels in the base campaign, with the difficulty curve sharply increasing after the first set of levels. This isn't an easy game and only the best stealth experts are going to make it to the top. The included DLC adds another 40 levels to the game, bringing the total to 120 levels, and the DLC levels present an almost insurmountable challenge. Good luck.
Even when (or if) you beat the game's 120 levels, the included level editor will provide you with many more. If there is one thing you can say about Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition, it's that you definitely get your money's worth in terms of included content. There is more content here than in most $60 retail games!
Stealth Inc. is best described as the combination of the following genres and games:
Stealth, due to needing to avoid security cameras and the necessity of sticking to the dark.
Puzzle, due to needing to figure out how to properly manipulate the environment to reach the end.
Trials Fusion, because of the time-based scoreboard elements
Super Meat Boy, thanks to the hard-as-nails platforming
Unfortunately, Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition doesn't include multiplayer of any sort: This is a strictly single player affair.
The PlayStation 4 Advantage
Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition on the PS4 is hands down the best looking version of the game. The graphics are crisp, clean and detailed with no slowdown or visual glitches present in the many gameplay hours sunk into it. In addition, the game includes all of the DLC in one purchase, making it the most cost-effective version of the game. Unfortunately, the game is not Cross-Buy compatible.
The game takes advantage of the DualShock 4's unique architecture by using the light bar to display whether you're visible or hidden. It does this by changing colors depending on your level of visibility; however, this creates a problem, mostly due to the strength of the light bar. Since you're frequently in and out of visibility in this game, the light bar will rapidly flicker through the three warning colors, which can be distracting when playing in a dark environment. Unfortunately, there is no way to disable this feature and while it's a nice attempt at making the game feel unique on the PS4, it's more distracting than anything.
Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition is the total package. If you've never played the game on a previous system, now is the time to pick it up thanks to the included DLC. This isn't a game you'll blow through in an afternoon and certainly not with all the top rankings. If you've a fan of Trials Fusion, Super Meat Boy or stealth games in general, this is a must buy.
However, if you're already played the game previously and own the DLC, there is nothing here to warrant an additional pick up. It's just a shame that the recently announced Stealth Inc. 2 is Wii U exclusive, at least for now.
Final Score: 8/10
A copy of Stealth Inc. Ultimate Edition was provided to PS4 Experts from Curve Studios for review purposes.
Game Category: Puzzle & Indie
Article by - Joshua Phillips
Updated: 5/4/2014
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Ahhh...Amalfi. Italian hospitality, fabulous cuisine, grapes and wine. Add to it azure blue seas, fabulous and rugged coastlines, the magic of Capri, and a classical Roman landscape, and you are beginning to feel the heartbeat of our newest sea kayaking adventure. Already been to Crete and Corfu on our classics? Please join us in "La Dolce Vita" Amalfi style.
Crete Inn-to-Inn Sea Kayaking - With world-class kayaking along a dazzling coastline, local cuisine, fascinating culture, warm hospitality and incredibly comfortable climate, it's easy to see why this award-winning trip has been our most popular year after year. Come experience it for yourself!
Small Cyclades Kayak Tour and Circumnavigation of Irakleia, Schinoussa, Keros, and Koufonisi.
Naxos is the largest in the string of Cyclades islands. Childhood home of Zeus in the Zas cave on Mt. Zas. Our Naxos circumnavigation offers a full range of Zeus worthy paddling challenges for the seasoned paddler. Join this exploratory sea kayak journey around Naxos TODAY!
Crete Kayaking and Camping - a self-supported adventure on the south coast of Crete! Gorgeous coastline, warm waters, sandy, remote beaches, and delicious local cuisine make this expedition a trip of a lifetime!
Over the years more than few yoga instructors have commented to us just surprised they are that kayaking complements yoga so well. Let this yoga and kayaking trip to Crete raise your body awareness, balance your mind and nourish your soul. Combine the ancient practice of yoga with the timeless Greek shores on an unforgettable trip!


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The World According to Foreign Policy Podcasts
In this article, you will get all information regarding The World According to Foreign Policy Podcasts
On Foreign Policy's I Spy podcast, many of the former intelligence operatives we hear from are true believers—people who describe their particular missions as crucial to U.S. security. The show is Foreign Policy's most popular podcast and has been downloaded millions of times. But the episode that drew the most listens in the past year actually featured a doubter: a CIA veteran who had come to think of spying as a waste of time and resources. Joe Weisberg spent a few years training to be a case officer at the agency and then went on to become a TV writer and producer. His time at the CIA informed some of his plotlines, including in The Americans, a series he created for FX. But it also led him to conclude that spying causes more harm than good in the world. We named the episode "The Skeptic."
In some ways, it reflects what we aim to do on our podcasts more broadly: tell stories but also pull back, question assumptions, and sometimes raise doubts.
On our show about climate change, Heat of the Moment, we have profiled people who are doing genuinely good work to stem global warming—even as we ask whether their solutions are practical and scalable. On Global Reboot, which looks at the world's biggest problems, we discuss the need for sweeping policy changes but also analyze why change is so difficult—and often unlikely—in many countries. In all our shows, we think of this as the account and the accounting: the story itself and the act of reflecting on that story.
Foreign Policy produced nine new or ongoing podcasts in the past year. By way of looking back at 2022—our own bit of accounting—we asked producers to choose their favorite episodes. This is what they came up with.
1. The Spycatcher, Part 1 and Part 2
I Spy, Season 4, Episodes 2 and 3
FBI agent Eric O'Neill was just 26 years old when he was asked to catch a suspected spy in the bureau. After months of grueling undercover work, he managed to expose Robert Hanssen as one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history. The two-part story includes all the drama of a spy thriller but also highlights the corrosive side of espionage work: how the mission tests O'Neill's Catholic faith and nearly destroys his marriage.
2. Negotiating an American Journalist's Freedom From Myanmar, Part 1 and Part 2
The Negotiators, Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2
Anuj Shrestha Illustration for Foreign Policy
Mickey Bergman makes another appearance on The Negotiators, a spinoff of I Spy featuring diplomats, mediators, and troubleshooters describing their most dramatic negotiations. In 2021, Bergman traveled to Myanmar to negotiate the release of American journalist Danny Fenster from prison. As with all negotiations, getting to the right people—in this case, the head of the military junta—is often the hardest part.
3. Tooze Unplugged
Ones and Tooze, Episode 57
In this live taping of Ones and Tooze at the Caveat theater in New York City, co-hosts Adam Tooze and Cameron Abadi stray from the usual format—two data points that shape the world—with a segment on Adam himself: how he came to be an economic historian and what political and philosophical tenets underpin his writing. They also discuss the malign influence of billionaire Peter Thiel on U.S. politics and the declining importance of Wall Street as a place to hang out your shingle.
4. The High Seas
The Catch, Season 1, Episode 4
This episode tells the story of crew members aboard a Chinese fishing vessel off the coast of Peru who decide to jump from the deck, 17 feet above the water, to flee abusive conditions onboard. The crew members see the shoreline bobbing in the distance, but it's much farther than their estimates. The Catch looks more broadly at illegal and unregulated fishing on the high seas.
5. Soccer Opens Path to Reconciliation After Rwandan Genocide
The Long Game, Season 2, Episode 9
Eric Eugene Murangwa was a 19-year-old goalkeeper for Rwanda's most beloved soccer team when the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis began. On the first day, troops came to Murangwa's house, looking for enemies of the state. But one of the soldiers saw an album filled with photos of his time with the team, and Murangwa was saved. The Long Game focuses on athletes who have shown courage and conviction not just on the field but off as well.
Tags: Foreign, podcasts, policy, World
Tibb işçilərinin İrandan xaricə axını artıb
Stuart Skinner strong as Edmonton Oilers beat St. Louis Blues 3-1 – Edmonton | Globalnews.ca
Literary calendar for week of Dec. 4, 2022


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Author Interviews, Book Reviews, Booktubers, Fantasy, giveaways, YA/NA
Interview of YA Fantasy Author Michelle Madow (Video)
Meet YA Fantasy author Michelle Madow and watch as she reads from ELEMENTALS 1: THE PROPHECY OF SHADOWS. Then get to know her as she poses a fun trivia question. Be sure to leave a comment to enter the giveaway for a signed paperback of the same.
Summary: Witches are real. They're descendants of the Olympian gods. And now, five witches gifted with elemental powers must fight to stop a war against the Titans.
When Nicole Cassidy moves from sunny Georgia to gloomy New England, the last thing she expects is to learn that her homeroom is a cover for a secret coven of witches. Even more surprisingly… she's apparently a witch herself. Despite doubts about her newfound abilities, Nicole is welcomed into this ancient circle of witches and is bedazzled by their powers — and, to her dismay, by Blake — the school's notorious bad-boy.
Girls who get close to Blake wind up hurt. His girlfriend Danielle will do anything to keep them away, even if she must resort to using dark magic. But the chemistry between Blake and Nicole is undeniable, and despite wanting to protect Nicole from Danielle's wrath, he finds it impossible to keep his distance.
When the Olympian Comet shoots through the sky for the first time in three thousand years, Nicole, Blake, Danielle, and two others in their homeroom are gifted with mysterious elemental powers. But the comet has another effect — it opens the portal to the prison world that has contained the Titans for centuries. After an ancient monster escapes and attacks Nicole and Blake, it's up to them and the others to follow the clues from a cryptic prophecy so that they can save their town… and possibly the world.
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Psychometrics & evolutionary aesthetics: the beautiful and the sublime
Denis Dutton's evolutionary aesthetics, which infuses evo bio into aesthetics, is a welcome start toward kidnapping another philosophical field from the hallowed halls of the humanities and raising it in the clinical laboratory of social & bio science. I critiqued his particular model here. I'm now going to elaborate a useful construct -- it's not that clever, but it clears things up, and it allows us to discuss both universal tendencies alongside group and individual differences. First, let's look at a graph and then inspect the parts:
The graph shows two orthogonal vectors, d (danger) and b (beauty). The magnitude of the danger component is determined by how intuitively dangerous the object appears to the human mind -- for example, a still pool would score lower than a turbulent rapid. This roughly corresponds to the older term sublime but is more transparent for integration with evo bio. The magnitude of the beauty component is determined by how intuitively pleasant the object is to the human mind -- for example, other things equal, a human face with clear skin is more beautiful than one maculated with acne.
For now we leave aside why and how the human mind has been designed to perceive some objects as more pleasant or dangerous than others. We assume natural selection has adapted the mind to find things more pleasant (or dangerous) the more they further (or hinder) survival and reproduction, though we treat these two vectors as orthogonal since they needn't a priori overlap. Moreover, if we only used a single axis like the number line, an object composed of equal parts beauty (positive) and danger (negative) would result in 0, with no hint of the magnitude of the components. If we use two axes, however, when the two components are equal, in general they won't yield the same result as another equal-component case would, since the magnitude of the components needn't be the same across the two cases.
Components for both beauty and danger result in a vector a (for aesthetic quality), which is what interests us. Now, if we draw a line 45 degrees between d and b, this will partition the space into three equivalence classes: B (the beautiful), where for all a in it |b component| > |d component|; D (the dangerous), where |d component| > |b component|; and BD (the beautifully dangerous), where |b component| = |d component|. By assumption, each vector a itself represents an equivalence class, namely the set of all objects whose components for beauty and danger are those of a (we return to how to investigate this assumption later). For example, a vector with a b component = 7 and d component = 1 might represent the set containing, among other things, a rainbow, a flower in bloom, a baby's smiling face, etc. A vector with these scores reversed might represent the set containing, among other things, an impending tornado, a punisher winding up to lash you, a precipice that leads a mile straight down, etc.
Because we're measuring intuitive reactions, they could be easily quantified: just come up with lots of items and ask a large random sample of people to rate each item for how dangerous and beautiful it appears (1 for not at all, 10 for very much so), and then average the results. The only drawback is that in order to place a new item on the graph, you'd have to repeat this laborious procedure, though if you were only concerned with grosser details you could ask 20 people whether it was more or less dangerous and more or less beautiful, allowing you to place it in one of four quadrants. Or you could ask whether it was more dangerous than beautiful, more beautiful than dangerous, or about the same for both, allowing you to place it in either B, D, or BD.
We assume that on the whole humans prefer to experience objects whose aesthetic quality a lies in B rather than D, since a preference for impending tornados would be very difficult to pass on to future generations. Because the highest known mutation rates in humans are on the order of 10^-4, we take this as the upper-bound for how many people might have such preferences in a population -- say, coprophiliacs. Any higher proportion would suggest either that the preference confers protection against disease -- which in this case is close to unimaginable -- or that it results from infection, e.g. by a fecal-to-oral germ which compeled the host to habitually ingest a substance likely to contain germs closely related to the original germ, perhaps a form of kin selection (since such a germ would not be easily transmissible to other human hosts).
As an aside, the set BD is what others would simply call "thrilling" -- one feels both fearful and joyful in equal measure. Some examples are tickling, which consists of roughly equal measures of an attack on one's vulnerable areas and affectionate play that cements an intimate social bond. This vector would not be distanced very far from the origin. One that would be further distanced is riding a rollercoaster. Returning to sexual matters, a face like that of Angelina Jolie (compared to, say, Natalie Portman) would lie on the BD line, since it incorporates an above-average degree of masculinity for a female face, as well as giving off a predatory expression. Like tickling, but much further distanced still: BDSM.
Hopefully this distinction will clear up some of the confusion that can cause reasonable people to talk past each other, e.g., when someone claims that fair hair is more "attractive" than dark hair, or that missionary sex is not as "hot" as role-playing. By breaking such things into (at least) the two components of beauty and danger, we can make better sense of how the two items compare.
Looking forward, we have assumed that each vector represents an equivalence class, so if one prefers Angelina Jolie to Natalie Portman, they will (in more cases than not) also prefer kinkier to more vanilla sex. This would follow if there were a general factor for aesthetic preference, like psychometric g, which is domain-general. Just as people who score highly on one cognitive test tend to score highly on all others, thrill-preferring people are assumed to prefer the thrilling in all domains. However, unlike g in intelligence, our purported aesthetic g does not have a century of solid empirical support. This is understandable, since psychometricians aren't very interested in aesthetics, and presumably the tests are more difficult to devise than IQ tests.
Still, here's an outline for research. Basically, we would choose a large random sample of people and administer questionairres that focused on widely divergent domains: e.g., sexual acts, physical attraction, musical styles, natural phenomena (whirlpools, flowers, etc.), visual art / design styles, hobbies, and so on. Each question would require the person to choose 1 of, say, 9 options as their most preferred type -- one option for various regions of the beauty-danger graph. The hypothesis would be that all of the correlations between any two domains would be positive, just as all correlations on subscores for IQ tests are positive. The correlation matrix could then be factor analyzed to see if there were only one general factor, as well as second-order factors similar to "verbal IQ," "spatial IQ," and so on, in IQ tests.
After a reliable model had been developed, we could run the standard tests for heritability using the behavior geneticists' paradigm of twin and adoption studies. Using fMRI (including on pathologicals like coprophiliacs), we could discover what is different in the brains of people with contrasting aesthetic preferences. Administering the tests to diverse populations, we could see whether or not there were any remarkable group differences; and if so, why, taking into account their history. We could also look for quantitative trait loci involved in aesthetic preference. These tools are already firmly established, so assuming we devised a reliable aesthetic preference test, we could quickly investigate these larger questions -- contrast this with the case of IQ, where researchers had to wait many decades after the initial psychometric success in order to study heritability, brain correlates, and candidate genes. All that is wanting is a group of aesthetically minded psychometricians. Calling Dean Simonton?
Steve Sailer 3/25/06, 7:01 PM
That reminds me of how Edmund Burke's distinction between the sublime and the beautiful applies to golf courses. The beautiful is some place conducive to human habitat -- meadows, valleys, slow moving streams, grassland intermingled with copses of trees, the whole English country estate shtick. The sublime is nature so magnificent that it could kill you, such as by you falling off a mountain or into a gorge.
Beautiful landscapes are most suited for building golf courses, since a golf course needs at least 100 acres of land level enough for a golf ball to come to rest upon. But golfers get a thrill out of the mock sublime, where you are in danger of losing not your life, but your mis-hit golf ball into a lake or canyon. One reason that Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula is so legendary is because it combines sublime sea cliffs with beautiful (and thus functional for golf) rolling plains.
It is my observation that appreciation of aesthetics is correlated with both IQ and social class. Which leads to the conclusion that it's just another way in which the human animal sorts out his status within society. People with higher IQ's are better at figuring out the preferred tastes of the upper class and instinctually internalize those tastes.
Obligatory cat pictures
Psychometrics & evolutionary aesthetics: the beaut...
More recent selection in humans
Janson gets a facelift
Project Runway wrap-up (SPOILER)
Spanish girl example
Spanish Girls II
TV no make you dumb