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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9551 | Children With Down Syndrome Can Learn
Teaching Down Syndrome
Teaching Down Syndrome Summary
4.6 stars out of 11 votes
Contents: EBook
Author: Helen Middlebrooke
My Teaching Down Syndrome Review
Highly Recommended
Download Now
Diseases Associated with Hirschsprungs Disease
Congenital anomalies associated with HD have been reported from various series and have an overall incidence of about 14.7 in 2856 patients.31 Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal abnormality associated with HD, and the genetic modifiers have been located on chromosome 21q 22.32 The diagnosis of HD in Down syndrome is often delayed because other associated anomalies take precedence and because constipation is often present in these patients due to hypotonia and hypothyroidism. Cardiac abnormalities have been reported in the range of 0.5 to 1.0 of the general population, and the incidence is increased in patients with Down syndrome. The common defects are endocardial cushion defects and patent ductus arteriosus. Hirschsprung's disease is often associated with other neurocristopathy manifestations, such as pheochromocytoma, neuroblastoma, neurofibromatosis, and MEN II. Waardenburg syndrome, caused by a gene on chromosome 2, is also associated and is charac
Additional Contraindications
Consequences Of Congenital Or Acquired Human Herpesvirus 6 And 7 Infections
Epidemiology of Congenital Hypothyroidism
The incidence of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) as detected by common neonatal screening programs, is approximately 1 3,000-1 4,000 in live births 1 . Very recently, in the Netherlands a higher incidence of 1 1,800 was observed using a screening based on thyroxine (T4), thyrotropin (TSH) and thyroxine-binding globulin (TBG) measurement 2 . With this strategy, the incidence of various types of CH was estimated 1 2,200 for permanent CH with 1 2,500 of thyroidal origin, 1 21,000 of central origin, and 1 12,000 for transient hypothyroidism. For unknown reasons, the female male ratio in CH is consistently 2 1. Newborn infants with Down syndrome have an increased risk for CH of approximately 1 140.
Additional Materials
Encephalomyocarditis (EMC) virus (ATCC VR 129B) Human interferon reference standards (available from Dr. C. Laughlin, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD) Human diploid fibroblast (FS-4 Havell and Vilcek, 1972), trisomy 21 human line (GM2504 Preble et al., 1982), or human lung carcinoma line (A549 ATCC CCL 185) 2. Assay human cells using EMC virus following steps 8 to 15 of the basic protocol and noting precautions for handling viruses. To assay for human IFN-a and IFN-P, use a human diploid fibroblast line such as FS-4, or for extreme sensitivity, use a trisomy 21 human line such as GM2504. To assay human IFN-y use A549, a human lung carcinoma line.
Maternal serum testing at 1516 weeks
Triple screen (a-fetoprotein, human chorionic gonadotropin hCG , estriol). In women under age 35 years, screening for fetal Down syndrome is accomplished with a triple screen. Maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein is elevated in 20-25 of all cases of Down syndrome, and it is elevated in fetal neural tube deficits. Levels of hCG are higher in Down syndrome and levels of unconjugated estriol are lower in Down syndrome. 2. If levels are abnormal, an ultrasound examination is performed and genetic amniocentesis is offered. The triple screen identifies 60 of Down syndrome cases. Low levels of all three serum analytes identifies 60-75 of all cases of fetal trisomy 18.
Prevention of dementia I
Disease elimination suits diseases with single known causes (pathogens) that can be specifically targeted in a prevention strategy. This has been the model used in infectious diseases such as smallpox, which was eliminated from the community by population vaccination programs, and in other diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and diphtheria, which can be prevented in most individuals by vaccination. This will also be the model used in proposed gene therapies for genetic disorders where a single gene mutation is responsible for the disease. The gene therapy will target the mutation and correct the abnormality before it has had the opportunity to cause irreparable damage. Another method of disease elimination involves DNA testing of a foetus during early pregnancy where a known genetic risk for a disorder, such as Down syndrome, exists leading to a possible termination of the pregnancy.
Prevention of dementia II
Most of the highly publicised advances in the genetics of Alzheimer's disease have come from the study of very rare families with so-called Familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD). FAD is an autosomal dominant disease, which means that 50 per cent of each generation develop Alzheimer's disease, usually between the ages of 40 and 60 years. Causative mutations on chromosome 14 (presenilin-1 gene), chromosome 1 (presenilin-2 gene) and chromosome 21 (amyloid precursor protein gene) have been found in these families. Hints that chromosome 21 could be implicated came with the finding that there was a higher rate of Down syndrome, a genetic disorder due to abnormalities on chromosome 21, in the family history of Alzheimer patients, and with the observation that the majority of persons with Down syndrome who survive to late adulthood develop dementia.
Surgical Myringotomy with Tube Insertion Age 017
Child Psychiatry
85 of cases of mental retardation are mild (IQ range 55-70) and are usually idiopathic. Patients often have a reasonable level of independence with assistance or guidance during periods of stress. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the number-one preventable cause, whereas Down syndrome is the number-one overall cause. Fragile X syndrome (in males) is another common cause of mental retardation.
Second trimester
A triple or quadruple maternal serum screen should be offered to help detect neural tube defects and Down syndrome (ie, triple screen alpha-fetoprotein + unconjugated estriol + human chorionic gonadotropin inhibin A is added for a quadruple screen). |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9567 | android marshmallow
The idea of Early Access is making its way to mobile as Google Play are set to launch their own Early Access category which will contain in-development and beta Android Apps which people can help test before full launch.
Before this announcement, in order to get onto into betas for Android Apps you were required to sign up to a Google Group in order to opt in, to which you were then added to the beta branch of that particular app.
Now however, you’ll start seeing beta and in-development apps with a new label right in the Google Play Store, “Early Access”. These will allow users to find app betas from Google Play as well as opt-in without going through the rigmarole of signing up to a group. Users will also be able to send feedback through these Play Store listings too, which is much more convenient.
In addition to supporting developers who just want to get their apps out there, Google is going to also be adding a new section onto the store called Google Play Early Access which showcases hand-picked groups of promising open betas.
An early look of the new listings has also been revealed, you can see that below:
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9600 | 5 Things You Must Learn to Become a Good Ally to Disabled Individuals
Caring for a disabled person is not an easy task. It requires a lot of patience and a true feeling of love and care to become a good ally to disabled individuals. One of the most important qualities when caring for a disabled person is clear communication. Accurate interpretation is the first major step to becoming an ally of a disabled individual.
Helping Disable
Here are 5 other important steps to take in developing a helpful relationship.
1. Give Disabled People Space
Disabled people who use wheelchairs or other objects that help them move around need adequate space. The objects they use can be thought of as extensions of themselves. Additionally, you should respect a wheelchair when not in use and not use it for stacking items. It should also not be used as a prop to lean on. Animals used as service guides should also be treated as extensions.
2. Careful Language
You should be aware of the language you use around disabled people and avoid identifying them by their disability. Instead of referring to them as a patient with a specific disease, call them by their name. Think of the person as having a personality and interests when you describe them to other people. Try not to define them by their disability.
3. Avoid Assumptions
Making assumptions can lead to false conclusions, so it’s best not to assume that all disabled people are unhappy. You can learn about the individual by asking them questions. Remember to treat the person like an individual and not someone with a general dysfunction.
4. Respect Privacy
Don’t assume you can post a picture of the disabled person on social media without asking. A disabled person still has privacy rights and may not want to be publicized, regardless of the cause.
5. Give Disabled People Benefit of the Doubt
Treat a disabled person as someone who can accomplish things. Avoid thinking of them in terms of low expectations. Give them a sense that you have confidence in them. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9655 | Restaurant: Lei Garden
Mondays: HKD1 = 1 mile, Tuesday - Sunday: HKD2 = 1 mile! (Present QR code in Asia Miles App when you pay your bill) T&C apply.
Terms & Details:
Other Asia Miles terms & conditions apply |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9665 | What is a Parked Domain? How Do I Create Parked Domain?
Parked domains are often used by businesses that want to have more than one web address for advertising purposes. Parked domains are additional domains hosted on your account which display the same website as your primary domain and share web statistics as well; however, you can give the parked domain its own email boxes.
To add a parked domain to your account:
Step 1: Log into cPanel.
Step 2: In the Domains section, click the Parked Domains icon.
Step 3: Under Create a New Parked Domain, enter the domain name you would like to park on top of your primary domain.
Step 4: Click Add Domain.
Related Articles |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9687 | How to Believe in God in 4 Easy Steps!
How to Believe in God in 4 Easy Steps! October 30, 2018
People talk as though they don’t have control over what they believe.
I ask some atheists why they don’t believe in God: “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
I ask some Catholics why they believe: “I was born Catholic.”
And Latter-day Saints are just as guilty. We certainly believe in a process of searching and praying for truth. But listening to testimony meetings makes it clear that after all the prayers are done, people believe their “testimonies” will arrive gift-wrapped from God.
We talk about belief as though it’s something we receive, rather than something we build.
Forgive the click-bait title format and cheesy grin. I used it to emphasize that believing is a conscientious process. We can tackle it in the same way as “Lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks,” “How You Can Whiten Your Teeth Almost Instantly,” or “The One Trick to Saving for Retirement.”
None of this is to say believing is easy (just like those examples). But even though they are difficult, we can approach them like problems with workable solutions. Belief has always worked that way for me.
1. Get Over Yourself
Do whatever you want with yourself. But I had to get over myself.
I’m nine years old, staring straight out the window of my parent’s Buick station wagon. There is an impressive semi in the highway lane to our right as we near the end of some congestion. When all of a sudden we start to move backward!
I felt the sensation of the car moving. And all my visual information had us getting closer and closer to the end of the trailer.
Everything from my senses, logic, and experience told me we were moving backward.
Of course, once I burst out loony, Mom explained that the semi was moving faster than we were. I had been tricked.
Yet somehow, we convince ourselves that by the time we are adults we’ve perfected our minds to the point that we can reliably believe anything they pop out.
Why be so confident in the brain that’s telling you the circle on the right is bigger?
I’m guessing you have no trouble seeing that your political opponents are too influenced by emotion to see fact and reason. And, surprise, they think the same thing about your political beliefs. Maybe you’re both right.
I once won a debate in my Biology class on whether or not a VW Beetle qualified as a living creature by biological criteria. Our minds are not that reliable.
None of this is to say we shouldn’t bring our best mental efforts to the fore. But sometimes those best efforts work against us. Perhaps we should be a bit more circumspect about what they produce.
2. Choose to Believe
In my freshman philosophy class, our professor used one lecture to outline the history of the question of God’s existence. At the end of the lecture, he opened the class for comments. One person asked if our professor believed in God. (Our professor was by nature very open about his personal life.)
Artist depiction of woman embracing a tree
High on the Mountain Top, Phil Thomas
He paused, looked up, crossed his arms. “The people who are like me, that believe in God,” he said, “are a lot happier than I am. I wish I could trick myself into believing in God.”
There is no silver bullet that refutes the truth claims of the Church of Jesus Christ. And there is no evidence so powerful to force belief.
Most of the world’s greatest minds have believed in God.
And the more educated Latter-day Saints are, the more they believe.
While you may personally find one narrative more likely than another, someone who is smarter than you has chosen a different narrative.
I’m not here to convince you to believe what I believe. But believing is great. And lots of people already want to. So do it. Articulate in your mind, this might be true and that might be true. There is evidence for both. Smart people believe both. So I choose to believe __________. Fill in your blank.
This is not to suggest that anything you fill in that blank will be equally valid. This is not to say once you choose to believe you should unrelentingly stay with something that is clearly not working.
What do you do with all the reasons you had to choose the other option? You file it away for now. If you’ve already accepted that every thought you had isn’t the most reliable, you can simply accept that if what you chose is right, you’ll find answers in time.
Some who leave the Church of Jesus Christ hate this, because in leaving they lost something. They need to believe that whatever argument, or evidence, or pamphlet they saw is so irrefutable that they have no choice but to stop believing. If reasonable people can see those same arguments and continue to believe then they could have too. So you’ll hear phrases like “cognitive dissonance” or for the less articulate “brainwashing.”
But there is nothing wrong with the brains of people who believe. And if you want to be one of them, the first thing you have to do is to decide.
3. Engage Your Mind for Belief
My junior year of high school I was in a speech and debate class. We had three debates during the semester, and when our teacher introduced the subject, she let us self-select sides.
One of the topics was capital punishment. At this point, I would have described myself as strongly in favor, so I joined the pro side. But unlike the other subjects, the class split quite unevenly with all but three students siding with me.
The teacher’s philosophy was usually to allow students to choose the side they felt, but in this case, the class was so uneven, she asked for volunteers. All three people opposed to capital punishment happened to be friends of mine from our drama club and mock trial team, so I agreed to switch sides.
With almost no effort, I was able to construct arguments opposed to capital punishment. When I went to the library to prepare that afternoon, finding evidence was trivially easy, and I began plugging it into my arguments.
Over the next few days, I kept hearing more and more about capital punishment in places I would never expect, and seemingly unrelated topics (like a scale graphic from my science class) immediately prompted new ideas for arguments.
By the time we debated in class, I had persuasive and cogent arguments that I personally believed for a side I only adopted by circumstance. The exercise changed my belief on the topic to this day.
When faced with a doubt, I often pose to myself the question, “If it were all true, how would this make sense?” Once I’ve framed that question, answers often rush in.
There is a phenomenon that occurred to me during this process that you can also take advantage of to help your belief. Have you ever noticed after you get a new car that you begin to notice it everywhere? This is called the Baader-Meinhoff effect. We notice what we are aware of.
Once we’ve chosen to believe, and we are looking for reasons to believe, we tend to find them. But they’re not going to appear until you’ve put yourself in a mindset to find them. This also works for those issues you’ve filed away. Over time answers will often appear where you wouldn’t have otherwise seen them. And that list of reasons to not believe begins to dwindle.
You’ve probably noticed this informally with believers. Someone who believes wholeheartedly will often describe something like a well-timed raise or a child’s change of heart as a “miracle.” These aren’t likely supernatural phenomenon, but for the person who wants to believe they give them reasons to.
4. Address Reasons for Disbelief
Angels Among Us, Annie Henrie Nader
Angels Among Us, Annie Henrie Nader
Anyone who’s attended two weeks at the Church of Jesus Christ knows that the worst time to attend is when your child is between twelve and eighteen months. They are impossible to corral. And there is nowhere for them to go. You spend your hours wandering the hallways keeping them from interrupting other people.
I am exceptionally familiar with reasons for not believing in the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this blog. And wouldn’t you know it, just as my son was passing through this phase these arguments began to improve. Suddenly there appeared to be real reasons to abandon my faith, where there were none just weeks before.
Belief, it seems, is a lagging indicator. Lagging indicators are predictable effects that happen after some other cause. For example, clumsiness might mistakenly be seen as the cause of workplace accidents, but it’s a lagging indicator for rest. Implementing additional breaks reduces clumsiness which reduces accidents. Spending time trying to get employees to use more precise hand motions or eye paths may seem like they are fixing clumsiness, but they wouldn’t be addressing the underlying problem.
Most Latter-day Saints who abandon their faith cite belief as the reason. They no longer believe what the Church teaches.
But why did they stop believing? Why did arguments that have existed for the better part of two-hundred years suddenly find resonance? Why when faced with two coherent arguments did they choose the one away from belief.
If you want to believe, but are struggling, it’s worth the exercise to ask what is it about not believing that appeals to you. And try to fix it. For me, it was sharing toddler responsibilities more evenly with my wife. Once she started watching him every third hour so I could enjoy priesthood meetings, arguments against my faith quickly appeared as basic and unappealing as always.
“There is nothing noble or impressive about being cynical. Skepticism is easy—anyone can do it. It is the faithful life that requires moral strength, dedication, and courage.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Many will respond to these thoughts by suggesting that nothing in this shows why believing is a good choice or a more rational choice. I agree. If you don’t want to believe, don’t do what I’m suggesting. But like that philosophy professor, there are many who do want to believe. The peace, focus, and community that faith brings are powerful. If you want them, you are not a victim of your own mind, you can choose to believe.
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Anti-Mormon Mockery of Family Proclamation Begins ..."
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The God Who Changes His Mind
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The God Who Changes His Mind
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The God Who Changes His Mind
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• Louis Midgley
I must admit that I was more than a little disappointed in what Christopher has set out. Let me explain why I was disappointed. I noticed that following language that I found troubling: “people believe their ‘testimonies’….” Latter-day Saints at virtually every level seem to me to have gotten into a bad habit of talking about “having a testimony,” rather than testifying about the reasons they have for their faith. And we also tend to forget that both the English words “faith” and “belief” are an attempt to set out in English what is a single work in the Greek New Testament. The Greek word means “trust” and not entertaining some propositions as true in the sense of corresponding to some facts. However, there would, of course, be no reason for trusting God as one as having won a victory over all forms of death, including mortal death for everyone, even Joseph Stalin, and anyone else who opens themselves to the work of the Holy Spirit in purging, cleansing, perfecting, sanctifying us, and thereby overcoming spiritual death by transforming us into genuine Saints. Please not that both the English words Saint and sanctification, though coming from a Latin root, originally came from a Greek word meaning “holy.” So a Saint is a “Holy One.”
When we give the reasons for the faith that is in us, according to the Apostle Peter, we are setting out the reasons we put our trust in Jesus as the Messiah or Christ, or, as the Book of Mormon has it, the Holy One of Israel. What is it that has caused a new birth in us, or has transformed us from our previous carnal, sensual and devilish way of being in the world, and hence into genuine Saints. It will be well for each of us to cease talking about getting a testimony and testifying about why we have chosen to put our trust in Jesus Christ and hence sought the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, which is the light that removes from us the darkness of this fallen world.
• Maine_Skeptic
‘“There is nothing noble or impressive about being cynical.”
I couldn’t agree more. Cynicism is the unwarranted assumption that people always act on their worst motives. As we’ve seen from those who refuse to condemn president 45’s white nationalism, cynicism can make people as easy to fool as blind faith.
“Skepticism is easy—anyone can do it.”
I couldn’t disagree more. You’re projecting faith based reasoning onto skepticism, and they are two different things. Unlike faith, which has believing as its goal, Skepticism is the willingness to test one’s assumptions against the available evidence. It isn’t easy by any definition, because it means we have to be willing to accept when the evidence disagrees with our views. Most skeptics have had to admit that their prior beliefs were wrong. Most believers have not had to do that.
• TinnyWhistler
• Brianna LaPoint
Id rather believe in myself. Putting faith and trust in any god is like skydiving WITHOUT a parachute. You think that you will be fine, but in the end, you will hit the ground and kill yourself
• Doubting Thomas
This reads like a how-to manual for gullibility.
• Elzbieta
I mean no disrespect and certainly hope that Mormonism works for you and your family, Christopher, but true belief is not something we can simply talk ourselves into. Think about it: could you, in the 21st century with all of the evidence to the contrary, truly bring yourself to believe in the gods of the ancient pagans (take your pick of pantheon)? If not, why? Is it because you didn’t grow up in that culture? Is it because there is no evidence to support the claim that these gods exist and actually quite a bit of evidence supports them not existing? Is it because, if you were to try worshiping and believing in them, it would feel more like LARPing than true belief?
Hopefully, you can now understand where nonbelievers are coming from. Most have tried to “fake it ’til they made it,” but such an approach fails spectacularly. Many have seen that the only benefits of prayer are psychological in nature, that most faiths contradict each other while claiming to be the one true path, and that many religions make claims which can be disproved by science and/or history.
No religion has ever “proven” its theological claims, or else we wouldn’t call it religion. We would call it reality or fact.
• Christopher D. Cunningham
I’m sorry if it seems that I “don’t understand where nonbelievers are coming from” and I don’t expect that everyone will choose to believe the same thing I do. What I’ve noticed is that many people want to believe, but like you feel like they can’t. You and I just simply disagree with the premise that “true belief is not something we can simply talk ourselves into.” My experience suggests that it absolutely is. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9693 | N++ is coming to Steam
One of the best platformers of 2015 (and if you ask me, ever) is coming to Steam. Previously a PS4 exclusive, N++ is currently being ported for PC, though it might be a while before it releases. The news comes via Metanet Software co-founder Raigan Burns, who made the announcement on NeoGAF.
"The good news: we've found a new programmer, and they've been working on porting N++ to Steam for the past month or so," Burns wrote. "There are still a few more months of work – we want to add all of the planned post-launch-update stuff that got put on hold when our team imploded – but we will definitely be bringing N++ to Steam. We're still looking at other platforms too."
N++ is the follow-up to N+, which was a follow-up to the Flash-based N. N++ is a huge offering: in addition to hundreds of single-player and cooperative levels, there's a slick level editor which will benefit from the PC's mouse-and-keyboard arrangement. I bought a PS4 just to play this game, but I'll be getting it again when it hits PC. If you're a fan of reflex-driven platformers it's pretty much the best game out there, for mine.
N++ for PC has always been on the cards. Metanet's Mare Sheppard said last year that if the game sold well on PS4 they'd port it, though the Sony exclusivity was due to that company partially funding it. "[If] N++ PS4 sells well, we really hope to be able to bring it to PC/Mac/Linux. And ideally Vita as well," she wrote.
"But because we're such a small team (3 people) with such limited resources (time and money), we have no choice: we have to see how it does on PS4 before we know if we can bring it to more platforms. So fingers crossed it sells well and we can afford to port! That's the goal."
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9696 | Community Colleges
Community Colleges Shape Student Success
Since community colleges serve almost half of the undergraduates in the U.S., you’re well aware of the task at hand. Even with the challenge of improving retention and completion rates, you’re responsible to help a diverse student population succeed in completing college, getting a job, and advancing their career.
At Pearson, we recognize the value that you’re bringing to your communities and the millions of students who rely on you to make progress in their lives through learning. Learn more about how other community colleges are succeeding and making an impact on student success.
Community colleges making a difference
Here are some examples of how community colleges are making a difference in the lives of their students. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9701 |
PEP-Web Tip of the Day
List of Articles
Volume 28 (2000)
I Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience
Introduction 3
Fred M. Levin, M.D. and Arnold Wilson, Ph.D.
Reflections on Interactive and Self-Organizing Aspects of Learning in Psychoanalysis 7
Virginia C. Barry, M.D.
Breaks in Consciousness in the Psychoanalytic Process: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Change and a Bridge to Edelman's Mind/Brain Model 21
Barbara Fajardo, Ph.D.
A Case Study of an Autistic Child: A Reappraisal 47
Susan M. Fisher, M.D.
Discussion: Psychoanalytic Talk and Neural Sculpting 63
Martha K. McClintock, Ph.D.
The Self-Organization and the Autonomy System 67
June L. Hadley, M.D.
Learning, Development, and Psychopathology: Applying Chaos Theory to Psychoanalysis 85
Fred M. Levin, M.D.
Subtle Is the Lord: The Relationship Between Consciousness, the Unconscious, and the Executive Control Network (ECN) of the Brain 105
Fred M. Levin, M.D. and Colwyn Trevarthen, Ph.D.
Are Mental Functions Hierarchical? 127
Arnold H. Modell, M.D.
The Transformation of Past Experiences 137
Arnold H. Modell, Ph.D.
Knowledge and Ignorance in Psychoanalysis 151
George Moraitis, M.D.
About Theory 167
Leo Sadow, M.D.
Preliminaries for an Integration of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience 179
Mark Solms, Ph.D.
II Applied Psychoanalysis
The Effect of Early Father Loss on the Artist's Work: Charles Burchfield 203
Helen E. Beiser, M.D.
The Creativity of Women 215
John E. Gedo, M.D.
Cold Hard World\Warm Soft Mommy: The Unconscious Logic of Metaphor 225
Burton A. Melnick, Ph.D.
Heinz Kohut and Eugene O'Neill: An Essay on the Application of Self Psychology to O'Neill's Dramas 245
Maria T. Miliora, Ph.D.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9717 | Select a new theater location.
Alita: Battle Angel
Runtime: 122 minutes
Rating: PG13
Rating Desc:
Description: Set centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg to his clinic. When Alita awakens she has no memory of who she is. Determined to uncover the truth behind her origin, Alita sets out on a journey that will lead her to take on the injustices of this corrupt world, and discover that one young woman can change the world.
Showtimes for: |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9721 | Live Show at 7PM Tonight
Okay, back up... what does this mean?
Read More
078 Evil, a Sin, is Alive
[iTunes Link] [Zune Link] [Stitcher Radio]
SBJ returns with David and Jay (an older guest). We go over Black and White 2 news. We talk all about Darkrai and dive into Latios and Latias talk for PKMN of the Week. On top of that, Jay, explains Shattered Gemstones. Enjoy!
Host: SBJ | Guests: Jay and David
Direct Download
059 V as in Victini
[iTunes Link] [Zune Link] [RSS Link]
SBJ and Irene cover news and talk about Pokémon the Movie: White - Victini and Zekrom. In more depth, they tackle Hermain Cain's Pokémon Goodbye, New Dragon Type in TCG, and why Ash ended up in Space. Spppaaaceee!
Host: SBJ | Guests: Irene
059 V as in Victini
058 M as in Marriland
[iTunes Link] [Zune Link] [RSS Link]
This week PKMNcast presents a full cast with the one and only, Marriland. David and SBJ talk with Marriland about the video game and trading card game. In this episode we also cover the new Movies coming this Dec, as well as, a bit about Dark Rush. A big thanks to @devoncarrots for arranging Marriland to be on the show. A big thank you to Marriland and all of the fans who support both sites for listening.
Vote for Nyan Shirt!
Host: SBJ | Guests: Marriland and David
058 M as in Marriland |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9732 | Open Up Just To Fall Apart
10600587_10204764587811044_3323353174422219428_nby Devin Mitchell Durbin03 Sep 2013
Open up just to fall apart,
Close the eyes, just to hear them sing.
Pray to god, for a good day.
Pray to stay, for another day.
Lose the time,
Keep the pace.
Take notes, and remember.
Write them down,
Don’t lose count.
One, two, three,
Who’s paying attention?
Keep paying attention.
Focus to the front,
The procession.
Follow the leader,
Or take lead.
Open your mouth,
Or keep it shut,
Take one chance
And believe them.
Do they believe it?
Can they really,
Take the shot,
Or will they be shot
Shut down, left behind?
Buried underneath the dirt.
Hidden from the eyes of man,
Taken to, but not taken from
The future knocks,
But who is knocking?
Pulse pounding,
Lost control.
Lost count.
Preacher’s swearing
Up and down,
Promising redemption.
Dealer’s swearing
Up and down,
Promising release of tension.
Bartender’s swearing
Up and down,
Promising relaxation.
Take the drink,
Smoke the joint,
Read the bible.
Three different people,
All looking for the same thing.
Wake up, put on a little make up.
Take a shower,
Get wasted for an hour.
Fuck her, fucked him,
He puts his pants back on.
Rushes to class,
But not before he smokes a joint.
Opened his mouth,
Opened his lungs,
Opened his mind.
Didn’t speak up,
Kept it shut.
She shut herself,
Broke herself.
Lost yourself.
Find yourself. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9748 | Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Intermediate
Lesson Overview:
• Create new drop-2 chord shapes from close-voiced triads.
• Learn how to use the hexatonic scale.
• Develop a more accurate right hand with string-skipping and hybrid-picking techniques.
Click here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.
Eric Johnson has earned the title of one of the most respected guitarists on the planet with his countless hours of dedication. Johnson’s exacting demands can sometimes border on OCD—he claims to hear the difference between various battery brands used in his pedals and requires a specific number of string wraps on each tuner post. His inherent perfectionism set the preconceptions of guitar technique to an all-time high with two groundbreaking albums from 1986 and 1990—Tones and Ah Via Musicom, respectively. Both catapulted this Texan to the status of Grammy award-winning guitar god. Today, we’ll examine a few of the techniques that have taunted our ears, muddled our minds, and focused our phalanges for decades.
Along with his technical pentatonic flash and 500-pound, violin-like tone, Johnson’s quintessential contribution to modern guitar soloing is the use of string skipping to imply harmonic contours that are independent of his rhythm section. Johnson effectively does this via vertically stacked triads that span the fretboard, also known as drop-2 chords. A drop-2 chord is created by taking any close-voiced chord (where all three notes are within an octave) and lowering the second-highest note by an octave. In Fig. 1 you can see how this process works with three inversions on string set 5-4-2. Move these voicings to string sets 6-5-3, 4-3-1, and 5-3-1 for all major, minor, and diminished triads (if you’re bold), and then memorize the shapes of each to master them.
Now that you know how Johnson visualizes the fretboard, let’s take a look at how he applies this to some actual music. When his “Cliffs of Dover” became a widespread phenomenon, attracting musicians and listeners alike, he began extending the live intro by delaying the recorded intro’s identifying statement. He did this by using drop-2 chords to play chord melodies over a synthesized G pedal.
Fig. 2 is a free-time, voice-leading idea in the key of G, where the chord’s melody is the top note while the bottom notes move in intriguing counterpoint. The harmonics in measure four are played by fretting the G6/9 chord while picking the appropriate string with your thumb as your index finger gently touches the harmonic above the fret in parentheses.
Fig. 3 arpeggiates drop-2 chords in a single-note soloing approach over a static D harmony (the triads used are shown between the staves). This is reminiscent of the first solo from Johnson’s “Desert Rose.” In order to fit the three-note shape in a 4/4 rhythm, we add an extra note on the final 16th-note of each beat. Notice that the “extra note” is a chord tone of the next triad (i.e., G is the b7 of Am7/E). That same harmonic sense from Fig. 2 is used as a consistent melodic device that creates contrast for the sextuplet G major phrase at the end.
Johnson’s music-theory mastery comes forth in his use of pentatonic scales built from various notes of a given harmony—a thought process known as multiple pentatonics. This idea is simply to use different minor pentatonic scales too add color to a static progression.
For example, try using a minor pentatonic scale built on the 4th or 5th degree of the scale. In the key of A, we would have D minor pentatonic (D–F–G–A–C) or E minor pentatonic (E–G–A–B–D). Why? Well, each of these scales contain notes from the A Aeolian mode (A–B–C–D–E–F–G).
Fig. 4 succinctly displays this purpose through the ascending sequence’s lack of predictability, thanks to the E minor pentatonic that spans beats two through four. For the phrase’s terminal pinch harmonic, experiment with where you pick along the 2nd string to get a clear note—it’s a matter of where you pick, not how hard you pick.
A penchant for the unexpected has led EJ down paths toward surprising innovations, like the use of the minor hexatonic scale. This six-note scale adds the 2nd/9th to the otherwise utilitarian minor pentatonic scale.
Fig. 5 sees it as the F# added to E minor pentatonic. The advantage of the hexatonic scale is twofold: First, it supports sequences that imply the use of the 9th and 11th. It also provides a nice passing tone between the b3 and root.
There is a bit of a technical curveball in measure one of this “Cliffs of Dover”-inspired line, where a repeated, root-note pedal tone (12th fret, 1st string) amidst a descending string-skipping arpeggio (Gmaj7, if you’re wondering) would cause nightmares for even the most efficient alternate picker. Use your middle finger to pluck the E notes and give your flatpick a rest. For the descending, sequential, sextuplet pull-off barrage in measure two, use light economy picking (successive downstrokes or upstrokes to cross neighboring strings). Be sure to keep the line’s flow by precisely slurring.
All musical ideas are related. You shouldn’t think that you’re learning new concepts in a vacuum. After you learn the A minor pentatonic scale shapes, you not only know how to play in the key of A minor, but you know the C major pentatonic scale and a Cadd9/13 arpeggio. Also, you’re only two notes away from the C Ionian, D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian, and B Locrian modes. (Those notes are F and B, by the way.)
Taking inventory of what you already know and building from there can be the most unexpected way of reinvigorating your musical creativity. Thinking about the guitar in new ways after the rules are learned is how we all progress. Enjoy the journey! |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9750 | An equalizer, or EQ, is a filter that allows you to adjust the volume level of a frequency, or range of frequencies, within an audio signal. In its simplest form, an EQ will let you turn the treble and bass up or down, allowing you to adjust the coloration of, let’s say, your car stereo or your television. In professional audio circles, equalization is a highly sophisticated art that can be used to sculpt the tone of instruments in a mix, counteract anomalies in a room, or just pump up the bass.
Regardless of its application, good equalization is critical to a good mix. When used correctly, an equalizer can provide the impression of nearness or distance, “fatten” or “thin” a sound, and help blend or provide separation between similar sounds in a mix, allowing both to be heard as intended. It can also be used to adjust a sound system to account for the acoustical response of a room or an outdoor venue.
This article will explain the functions of two of the most common EQs in use in modern recording and live sound: Parametric and Shelving.
Parametric EQ
The parametric EQ is a mainstay of recording and live sound because it offers continuous control over every parameter. A parametric equalizer offers continuous control over the audio signal’s frequency content, which is divided into several bands of frequencies (most commonly three to seven bands).
You will find parametric EQs in the following configurations:
• Fully Parametric. The 4- and 6-band EQs in the StudioLive™ Series III mixers are good examples of a fully parametric hardware EQs, offering control of the gain (boost/cut) for each frequency band, the center frequency of the midrange bands, and the cutoff frequency for the low and high bands. A fully parametric EQ offers continuous control of the bandwidth, which determines the range of frequencies affected, or control over the Q, which is the ratio of the center frequency to the bandwidth. For most purposes, a Q control accomplishes the same thing as a bandwidth control but the two are not identical. More on that in a minute.
• Semi-Parametric. On a semi-parametric EQ, like the 3-band EQ available on the stereo channels of the StudioLive AR-series mixers, the gain and frequency are adjustable but the Q and bandwidth are fixed at a preset value.
• Quasi-Parametric. A variation on the semi-parametric is the quasi-parametric EQ, which typically provides full frequency and gain adjustment but only two or three Q settings. The EQ in the StudioLive 16.0.2USB digital mixer’s Fat Channel is an example of a quasi-parametric EQ, offering a simple choice of high or low Q settings for the mid band.
Understanding Q
In equalizers, Q is the ratio of center frequency to bandwidth, and if the center frequency is fixed, then bandwidth is inversely proportional to Q—meaning that as you raise the Q, you narrow the bandwidth. Q is by far the most useful tool a parametric EQ offers, allowing you to attenuate or boost a very narrow or wide range of frequencies within each EQ band.
A narrow bandwidth (high Q) is particularly useful for removing unpleasant tones. Let’s say the snare drum in your mix has an annoying ring. With a very narrow bandwidth, you can isolate the offending frequency (usually around 1 kHz) and remove, or reject, it. This type of narrow band-reject filter is also known as a notch filter. By notching out the offending frequency, you can remove the problem without removing the instrument from the mix.
A narrow bandwidth is also useful in boosting desirable components of an instrument’s sound, such as the attack on a drum. For instance, a kick drum resonates somewhere between 60 to 125 Hz, but the attack of the kick drum is much higher, at 2 to 5 kHz. By setting a narrow bandwidth and boosting the attack a bit, you can achieve a punchier kick drum without overpowering the rest of the mix.
A broad bandwidth accentuates or attenuates a larger band of frequencies. Broad and narrow bandwidths (low and high Q, respectively) are usually used in conjunction with one another to achieve the desired effect. Let’s look at our kick drum again. We have a kick drum that has a great, big, low-end sound centered around 100 Hz and an attack hitting almost dead-on at 4 kHz. In this example, you would use a broad bandwidth in the low-frequency band, centered at 100 Hz, and a narrow bandwidth boosted at 4 kHz. In this way, you are accentuating the best and downplaying everything else this particular kick drum has to offer.
The quasi-parametric EQ on the StudioLive AR-series mixers’ mono channel provides a unique “asymmetric” Q design in which, while the Q is fixed, the Q narrows when the signal is cut to provide a notch filter, but broadened when the signal is boosted to provide more musical enhancement for sonic shaping.
Shelving EQ
A shelving EQ attenuates or boosts frequencies above or below a specified cutoff point. Shelving equalizers come in two different varieties: high-pass and low-pass. Low-pass shelving filters pass all frequencies below a specified cutoff frequency, while attenuating all the frequencies above the cutoff. A high-pass filter does the opposite, passing all frequencies above the specified cutoff frequency while attenuating everything below. Usually, the frequencies beyond the cutoff are rolled off, following a predetermined curve, not cut off sharply, as with a “brickwall” filter.
Some multiband parametric EQs offer low and high bands that can be switched to shelving filters. In others, such as the EQ in the Studio Channel, the low and high bands are shelving filters, while the mid band is fully parametric. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9798 | Owning a home is more than just a commitment—it's a full-blooded relationship. And, much like the relationship you have with your spouse, kids, or others you choose to surround yourself with, this alliance has its heavenly highs and abysmal lows. It's full of laughter, tears, triumph, and unfettered, barely controllable rage. There will be moments when you love your house, and others when you hate it with a great passion.
So in honor of Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d share many of the things that people adore about being homeowners, as well as a few things that can drive them crazy. Consider this a primer on how to prepare for the emotional highs and lows of homeownership so you know to take it all in stride.
Love: No more throwing away money on rent
That's right, your old landlord can no longer bleed you dry and leave you with nothing to show for it.
“When the first of the month rolls around, my home payment is paying down my own debt instead of someone else’s,” says Keith Hickman of Los Angeles. "That's a great feeling."
Hate: All the money you'll have to funnel toward home maintenance
Then you wake up at 3 a.m. to find that your pipes have burst ... and your basement has flooded ... and that it'll cost around $10,000 to fix. Wouldn't a landlord be nice right about now?
Love: You can let your 'inner decorator' loose
Want to paint your bedroom walls fire-engine red, or add zebra-print carpet to your kitchen? Go right ahead, let your freak flag fly. It's your house, a blank slate on which to express yourself.
Hate: Addictive obsession with HGTV
Forget “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”—now it’s all about keeping up with Chip and Joanna Gaines. And don’t get us started on the other byproduct of your new maniacal decorating focus—the design paralysis that will set in. Who knew there were literally hundreds of shades of white to paint your walls?
Love: So much space!
Compared with a cramped apartment, a home has no lack of storage space, so go ahead and fill up those cabinets with that hundred-roll of paper towels you've often dreamed of buying at Costco. Quench your thirst with an endless stream of cold drinks on hand thanks to that second fridge in your garage.
Hate: All that space could turn you into a borderline hoarder
But watch out: Your home could become the de facto storage place for everything you and your extended family don’t want in their house.
“My ‘unused’ third floor has suddenly become my family's ‘storage shed,’" says Gary Nosacek of Milwaukee. "The lovely open space now houses a giant nativity set that belongs to my mom, my brother’s stash of Halloween costumes, and three huge boxes full of branded give-away tote bags for my daughter who works in automotive marketing."
Love: You'll get to know your neighbors
Renters rarely even look at their neighbors, much less engage in conversation. But now, you might be astonished to find yourself waving at strangers next door or across the street, or bringing them an apple pie.
Hate: You'll get to know your neighbors
There's a fine line between neighbors being friendly versus nosy, helpful versus overbearing. One or two bad apples could become so annoying, you'll cringe and hide when the doorbell rings.
Love: Your home's price could appreciate
In a healthy economy, a home's value generally goes up—with the average property appreciation hovering between 3% to 4% per year. And that means that if all goes well, you stand to reap a tidy profit when you sell.
Hate: Your home's price could also plummet
All it takes is one bad twist of fate—like a huge hurricane or wildfire—to turn your real estate "investment" into a real clunker. And it's one you're stuck with, too.
Love: Owning a home means you can finally feel like an 'adult'
You're no longer some flaky, fly-by-night drifter. You own a home. It's a weighty rite of passage, and can pave the way toward all other types of grown-up activities such as raising a family and contributing to the community.
Bonus: Your parents can no longer nitpick about when you're going to get your life together, because you're one of them now. More or less.
Hate: Owning a home means you must bid adieu to your frivolous, fun-filled life
Being an "adult" homeowner is a ton of work—seriously, the honey-do list is endless.
“Every weekend passes by in a blur of repairs and maintenance projects, and each project ends up spawning many more,” notes Amanda Austin of Erie, PA. And it'll suck when you have to turn down your apartment-dwelling friends' invitations to brunch because you have to mow the lawn.
But while homeowners might gripe and groan, rest assured, they didn't take the plunge for nothing. For better and for worse, it's part of the American dream for good reason: It's worth it. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9801 | In my previous article on eye contact, I focused on getting and keeping someone’s attention. Today, we’ll explore some of the psychology behind certain eye gaze behaviors.
Generally speaking, when someone looks you in the eye and maintains relaxed contact (no frowning or squinting), they are signaling that they respect you – maybe even like you! If a person doesn’t make eye contact, then generally, the opposite can be said.
Let’s consider some specifics:
Gaze Avoidance
1. Disapproval
If your boss closes their eyes for longer than a normal blink while facing you, it is likely they disapprove of something you just said or did. Rapid blinking is a sign of anxiety, but a longer closing of the eyes is a way of unconsciously saying, “I don’t want to see (or hear) this.” If your boss were to intensify this blocking behavior with a hand over their eyes, then tread lightly.
2. Social Climbing
The next time you attend a social or networking event, see if you can spot the social climber. This will be a person who is “engaged in a conversation” but always looking out for someone more popular and of higher status with whom to talk. While the social climber’s torso might be facing the person who is trying to engage them, their gaze will be regularly scanning the room.
People also tend to gaze at the “alpha” male or female in a room, so if you follow a social climber’s gaze, you might find that others are gazing in the same direction. If you’re at a networking event looking to make contact with the chairman of a big company, then by all means, let the social climbers lead you there.
3. Recollection
Now, if at that same networking event, someone looks upwards while maintaining their head positioning, they are likely trying to recall a name or detail they would like to share with you. This one of the brain’s ways of shutting out distractions to allow an insight to form.
4. Processing – or Intimidation?
Is the person you’re talking to looking down? They’re calculating/processing, which is different from recalling information.
Looking down can also be an indication that someone is intimidated by you. How can you tell the difference?
KeyAs with all non-verbal cues, you should look for clusters of behavior. If the person is shuffling their feet, stuttering, and/or shifting their gaze unsteadily, they’re feeling the heat. Do what you can to put them at ease.
If, on the other hand, the person is looking down and has lowered their brows (as in the profile of anger), then they’re processing.
There are cultural exceptions to this – and other – norms. In some cultures, for example, it is disrespectful to make eye contact with someone in a position of authority. It is said that British officers in colonial Africa used to think the locals were deceitful because they would avert their eyes when addressed. This is a common misconception: Liars will often look you straight in the eye to convince you they’re telling the truth and to observe your reaction to their tale.
5. Distraction
If your boss is checking the latest stock prices on their laptop while you are explaining a project’s failure, then they are saying they have more important things on their mind.
If the boss is looking out the window while you tell your tale, they are listening, but probably not buying what you have to say.
Active Gazing
Before you approach the “alpha” at an event, you might want to observe first how they gaze at their admirers. Do they look down their nose until the admirer submits and looks down?
Do they pull a Judge Judy and gaze at their subject as if scrutinizing them? This sort of gaze is more common in a board room, where people tend to move their reading glasses down their noses so they can look at others over their glasses. If that’s what you do, you might want to consider removing your glasses when addressing someone.
Does the “alpha” look angry? Are their eyes narrowed, brows drawn down, and lips tightened?
Under the above circumstances, you should consider approaching with your A-game on or wait for a better opportunity.
On the other hand, if your target is connecting with people through extended, relaxed eye contact, they are likely more interested in the relationship than the content of the interaction itself. Approach with an open heart and mind!
in Body Language] |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9825 | Electronic Cataloging Project Entry #22
• Curate Reynolda Blog
Curate Reynolda
Electronic Cataloging Project Entry #22
May 16, 2011
May17.jpgAlong with creating records for objects in TMS, I'm also busy working on a Data Dictionary. This defines the basic organization of our database by giving for each field: a definition, what it consists of, and how the Museum uses it. It may seem trivial to explain something that might be obvious but creating this document ensures that information is put in the same places, the same way, no matter who is entering it. Here is an example of one of our entries (warning-technical jargon ahead!):
Field: Description
Attributes: free-text, long; alpha-numeric
Access: system admin; public (view only)
Description: Narrative text describing the object.
Example: This panoramic landscape was painted during Frederic Church's first trip to Ecuador in 1853.
Data-Entry Conventions: Expected. Available during new object creation and on object front card. If the description includes text in a non-Western European language, you can enter this text in the Unicode field. Western-style characters with diacriticals and other marks can be pasted into the regular free-text field.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9828 | Spinal Cord Stimulation
What is Spinal Cord Stimulation?
Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) is a minimally invasive procedure that involves implanting a device that applies low currents of electrical stimulation to the spinal cord and/or its exiting nerves.
Spinal cord stimulation is referred to by some pain experts as a “pacemaker for pain”. It works by sending small electrical impulses created by a compact generator through thin leads, or electrical cables, to the spinal cord, where they block pain signals traveling to the brain. Pain is replaced with a mild tingling or a massaging sensation, called paresthesias. A wireless remote control is used to adjust the location and degree of stimulation by selecting pre-programmed settings.
The core technology that is used in today’s SCS systems was developed in the mid-1960s. Melzack and Wall developed the original theory for the mechanism of spinal cord stimulation in 1965 (1). This “gate-control theory” for pain proposes that simultaneously triggered touch and vibratory sensation inhibits pain stimuli sensation due to their shared location in the spinal cord, the dorsal horn nucleus. In essence this theory is the foundation for spinal cord stimulation. An everyday example of this theory is seen when one has a headache. Many people will rub their temples or another area of their head, stimulating the muscles of the head or sensory fibers of the skin. When these areas are stimulated, to some degree they block the sharp pain perceived from an active headache. This is also commonly seen when you accidently bump your knee, elbow, or finger and you rub the associated area inhibiting the acute painful stimuli to the brain.
The first spinal cord stimulators were implanted directly on the dorsal column of the spinal cord of terminal cancer patients by Shealy et al. (2) in 1967. Shortly after, Shimogi et al. were the first to publish the successful implementation of epidural spinal cord stimulation (3), which is a percutaneous, less invasive technique. This avoids the complications of the original open surgery, which includes cerebrospinal fluid leakage, localized fibrosis, and arachnoiditis. Another initial challenge was a limited area covered by the single, or monopolar electrode. SCS leads today have evolved from monopolar (1 active electrode) to bipolar (2 active eletrodes), quadripolar (4 active electrodes), and octapolar (8 active elctrodes) leads.
Since then, SCS has been used in the treatment of cervical and lumbar post-laminectomy syndrome (failed back or neck surgery syndrome), cervical and lumbar radiculitis (neck and back radiating pain), complex regional pain syndromes (CRPS or RSD), intractable pain due to peripheral vascular disease, phantom limb pain, intractable pain due to angina, peripheral neuropathy, post-thoracotomy syndrome, neuropathic extremity pain, chronic visceral pain syndromes, and other pain conditions.
The spinal cord is a bundle of nervous tissue and supporting material that extends from the brain to innervate the rest of the body. The brain and the spinal cord together form the central nervous system (CNS), which sends and receives messages from the body through the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
The spinal cord is contained in the spinal canal formed by the vertebral column. The meninges are a covering consisting of three layers that continues from the cranium to the sacrum and protects the spinal cord and its nerves. The innermost layer, or pia mater, wraps around the brain and spinal cord. The middle layer, or arachnoid mater, is a spider web-like layer. The outermost layer is called the tough dura mater. Between the arachnoid mater and the pia mater is ones cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) which protects and buffers the brain and spinal cord. Outside of the three-layered meninges is the epidural space. The epidural space is a potential space that lies outside of the dura and typically houses protective fatty tissue and blood vessels. The epidural space is where medications are placed for epidural blocks and where the leads are placed for spinal cord stimulation.
The spinal cord normally extends from the foramen magnum, a hole at the bottom of the cranium, to the L1 vertebra in adults. In children the spinal cord ends at L3 and travels upward as they grow older. Nerve roots exit from the back and front of the spinal cord and then join to form the spinal nerves from second cervical nerve root to the fifth sacral nerve root (C2 to S5). The spinal nerves then leave the spinal canal through openings between each vertebra called the intervertebral foramen.
The main functions of the spinal cord are to relay signals from the brain to all muscles for movement, relay signals up from the body for sensory input, and to also coordinate reflexes. Each spinal nerve root supplies sensory innervations to a specific area of skin called a dermatome.
Lesions of specific nerve roots result in predictable pattern of signs and symptoms. For instance, a lesion in a lumbar nerve root may cause radiating pain, muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, and/or reflex changes in the legs. This gives physicians a tool for localizing the lesion that is causing the symptoms. Imaging modalities such as MRIs and diagnostic tools like EMGs (electromyography) may be used to assist and confirm a diagnosis.
SCS is a minimally invasive procedure that is done on an outpatient or short hospital stay basis. There are two steps to the procedure, a trial procedure and a permanent implant. The trial procedure is a brief procedure that is usually done under light sedation. The area where the leads are implanted is numbed with local anesthesia. One or more needles are directed under x-ray guidance into the epidural space, which is the area surrounding the spinal cord and/or nerve roots.
The leads are then placed through the needles and are steered to the desired location. The leads are then connected to an external generator. Once the generator is turned on, the impulses are sent with varying intensities to different positions on the leads. The patient will sense paresthesias (tingling and/or buzzing) while a programmer adjusts the settings to provide the “optimal coverage” over the painful areas. These settings are then saved on the remote control so that the patient can adjust the stimulator to best fit their needs. The trial period usually lasts a few days to a week, depending on the effectiveness of the SCS. The goal is to test the stimulator’s effectiveness at relieving pain, increasing normal daily activities, and overall improving quality of life.
If SCS trial period provides sufficient pain relief (usually 50% or greater), then the trial is deemed a success and a permanent implant may be scheduled if the patient desires. The permanent procedure is carried out in similar fashion to the trial procedure. The significant difference is that the generator is implanted, like a pacemaker, in a subcutaneous pocket. Usually the upper, outer quadrant of the buttock is chosen, which results in a largely unrecognizable and comfortable experience. A different type of lead may also be used if your physician believes this will give you better long-term relief. A few small bandages will be applied over the incisions. After the procedure, the patient can usually return home the same or the following day.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9876 | GATE 2020 Answer Key, Solutions, Responses – Check Here
Gate 2020GATE 2020 Answer Key will be released in the month of February 2020. GATE, Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is conducted on national level. It is organized on rotational basis by IISc & IITs. GATE is a perfect gateway to get admission in postgraduate Engineering & Technology professional courses. Candidates can get admission in government and private aided engineering institutions in India on the basis of GATE score. Here, in this article candidates can check the complete information of GATE Answer Key 2020.
GATE 2020 Answer Key
GATE 2020 Answer Key will be released subject-wise for all subjects in February 2020. Through answer key candidates can check their questions along with their answers. The answer key can help the candidates to check their numbers of correct answers and wrong answers. They can also estimate that how many marks they are going to score in the final result.
The final answer key will be released in March 2020. After few days of releasing the answer key candidates can check the GATE 2020 resultGATE 2020 score card will be provided via online mode.
Also Check:
GATE 2020 Score Card Calculation
Previous Years Answer Keys
InstitutionMorning SessionAfternoon Session
GATE AcademyME | CS | CE | EC |ME | IN | CE | EE |
Engineers AcademyME | CSME | EE |
Click here to view Previous Answer Keys.
GATE Cut-Off (Previous Year)
Also Check:
GATE 2020 Cut-Off
GATE 2020 Counselling
GATE 2020 Question Papers
Question papers (memory based) of GATE examination are given in the table.
Question Papers:
InstitutionMorning Session
Click here to view GATE Previous Years Question Papers.
Candidates can check their answer key as per their paper code. To check the answer key candidates have to use their session number GATE paper subject code for which they have applied. With the help of GATE answer key candidates are able to know their qualifying status. Candidates are instructed to keep their login credentials to check the answer key.
How to Download Answer Key
Candidates can download their answer key by following the online procedure given below:
• Visit the official website link. (link will be provided above)
• Open that link and you will be redirected to the official answer key link.
• Subject-wise answer key along with question paper will be displayed on your screen.
• Click on your subject answer key and download it.
• It will be downloaded in pdf format.
GATE Answer Key Challenge
The authority will also provide the facility of challenging the answer key if any. After checking the generated answer key, if candidates not satisfied with the official answer key can challenge it till February 2020.
Candidates can challenge the answer key by paying Rs. 500/- for each question. The final decision is taken by the GATE conducting authority if the challenge is accepted.
The final answer key will be uploaded on the website. The final key will be released by the authority after accepting the objections from all candidates.
GATE 2020 Marking Scheme
GATE written examination is conducted on different dates for all branches. The exam was conducted through online mode (computer-based test). MCQ questions of 1 mark, for every wrong option 1/3 mark is deducted and in 3 marks MCQ questions, 2/3 marks is deducted for each wrong answer.
There is no negative marking for numerical type questions. The negative marking is considered only in the multiple choice questions.
If you have any query related to the GATE 2020 Answer Key, you can ask us by leaving your queries in the given below comment box.
Displaying 32 Comments
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15. P.sathish says:
Please send me the answer key of chemistry paper 2018
16. MEENU C S says:
Sir, please send the answer key for chemistry afternoons session
17. Raghu mohan says:
Send me question paper mg section my gmail
18. Dhana Lakshmi says:
Sir I had a doubt in resonant peak(c.s) sum doubt in ece paper. In that sum we will get 2 resonant frequencies and 2 damping ratio values. So what will be the answer I kept one value but the key
has another value.please do reply me
19. Juhi says:
Please send me the answer key of Geology.
20. Sandeep kaur says:
Plz send me answer key of ece gate 2018
21. Nagesh Patil says:
Please send me answer key of XE engineering science Paper
22. GOVIND KUMAR says:
i need qp answer to send my gmail
23. Anonymous says:
What’s qualification in gate exam
24. Seema begum says:
Please send me the answer key of physics paper 2018.
25. raju says:
I had a doubt in gate 2018 me afternoon session paper.there was a question in general aptitude which is to find out number of additional robots required to complete the task.I got answer as 7.But it was not in the options given to us.Can you please tell the solution for it.
26. Inayat Ullah Ganaie says:
Please send the answer key of my today’s gate question paper in my e-mail immediately…
That will be your most kindness.
27. S.S.BALAMURALI says:
Any age limit for Gate exam.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9893 | Start Listening
The Nightmare Stacks: A Laundry Files novel
Written by
Narrated by
14 hours
Alex Schwartz had a great job and a promising future - until he caught an unfortunate bout of vampirism, and agreed (on pain of death) to join the Laundry, Britain's only counter-occult secret intelligence agency.
His first assignment is in Leeds - his old hometown. But the thought of telling his parents he's lost his job, let alone their discovering his 'condition', is causing Alex almost as much anxiety as his new lifestyle of supernatural espionage.
His only saving grace is Cassie Brewer, a student from the local Goth Festival who flirts with him despite his fear of sunlight (and girls). But Cassie has secrets of her own - secrets that make Alex's night life seem positively normal . . .
James Bond meets H. P. Lovecraft in the latest occult thriller from Hugo Award winner Charles Stross, in a series where British spies take on the supernatural.
Read on the Scribd mobile app
Download the free Scribd mobile app to read anytime, anywhere. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9895 | You are on page 1of 5
Suggested Spec.
for FCAW-SS -1-
This document provides information on welding and related operations of stainless steel which
are fabricated in accordance with the terms specified in latest edition of the following Code:
- AWS D1.6/AWS D1.6M-Structural Welding Code, Stainless Steel
Welding Procedure
The welding shall be done Semi-automatically using the Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW)
process. Joints shall be made by single or multiple pass welding, from one or both sides as per
WPS. (Note: Fully Automatic application can also be used).
Semi-automatic welding: Welding with equipment that supplies continuous wire feed with or without
means for mechanical travel. Manual manipulation by the welder of one or more of the variables of
speed of travel, guidance, and direction of wire is involved during the welding operation.
Fact on Stainless Steels
Stainless steels are commonly divided into the following general groups:
(1) Chromium Martensitic (4XX Series)
(2) Chromium Ferritic (4XX Series)
(3) Austenitic (include 2XX Series, Cr-Ni-Mn and 3XX Series, Cr-Ni)
(4) Precipitation-hardening (which grades are assigned designations based on their Cr and Ni
(5) Duplex
Austenitic stainless steels have excellent weldability; have better ductility and toughness than
carbon steels or low alloy steels because of the Face-Centered cubic Crystal (FCC) structure.
Base Metals
The base metals used shall conform to ASTM austenitic stainless steel specifications as noted
on the WPS.
Other grades of stainless steel may be welded provided accepted WPS are available.
Note: For the purpose of this document, Table 3.2 of Prequalified Austenitic Stainless Steels,
base metal Groups A, B, C, D and E of the AWS D1.6 code can be used. However Alloy
Designation like 304L, 304, 316L and 316 of group A or B are the most popular ones used in
Base Metal Thicknesses
Base metal from 2.0 mm (1/16 in) or 16 gauge to unlimited thickness as per AWS D1.6 Code.
Suggested Spec. for FCAW-SS -2-
Filler Metals
Filler metal as per specifications for Stainless Steel Electrodes for Flux Cored Arc Welding
under AWS A5.22
Following are guides for choosing filler metal match for austenitic stainless steels:
-Joining of similar metal joints; use filler metal of matching composition (e.g. weld 304L material
with 308L electrode).
-Dissimilar joining; use the lower alloyed of the two base metals (e.g. use 308 electrode to weld
304 to 316 materials).
-If both metals are low carbon (3XXL), then use low carbon (3XXL) filler metal as well.
Note1: For low or high temperature, corrosive or any critical applications always confirm wire choice
with wire manufacturer.
Note 2: For the purpose of this document, Table 3.3 of Prequalified Filler Metal Classifications, lists
filler metal groups, based upon strength, which are prequalified for the corresponding prequalified
Base Metal Group of Table 3.2 of AWS D1.6 Code. For welding of two different base metal groups
in Table 3.2, use filler metal of Table 3.3, corresponding to the lower strength of the two base metal
Storage and Conditioning of Wires
Wires shall be dry and free from surface rust and foreign material. Wires shall be delivered in
sealed containers that do not show evidence of damage.
All Wires shall be stored in warm and dry conditions and kept free from oil, grease and other
deleterious matter once they have bee removed from their containers.
Shielding Gas
The shielding gas shall be a welding grade having a dew point of -40 C (-40 F) or lower.
Shielding gas shall not be done in a draught or wind unless the weld is protected by a shelter.
The shielding gas and filler metal wire combination shall be as shown on the WPS.
100% CO2 (for E3XXLT1-1 or E3XX LT0-1 wires) and Ar+20-25% CO2 (for E3XXLT1-4 or
E3XXLT0-4 wires) are shielding gases that normally used in this process.
Position(s) of Welding
The welding shall be done preferably in the flat position, but other positions such as horizontal,
vertical and overhead are permissible when specified on the proper WPS.
Electrical Characteristics
The welding current shall be direct current (reverse polarity) using a constant voltage type power
supply. The range of parameters, as per wire manufacturer's instructions, will show on the WPS.
Suggested Spec. for FCAW-SS -3-
Preheat and Interpass Temperature
Preheat does not normally apply to the welding of austenitic stainless steel, but if required, details
will be shown on the specific WPS. The minimum preheat shall be sufficient to remove moisture
from the work. The maximum interpass temperature shall be 350 F (175 C) according to AWS
D1.6 Code.
Heat Treatment and Stress Relieving
This will not be applicable to structures welded under this document, unless a specific WPS
showing all the parameters and acceptance is obtained by an authorized person.
Types of WPS:
There are two types of WPS, Prequalified or non Prequalified. Prequalified WPS uses prequalified
joint as specified in a governing code or standard that does not require validation of welding
parameters through the performance of a procedure qualification test.
Prequalified joints and requirements for Prequalified WPS are outlined in Section 3 of AWS D1.6
Note 1: All prequalified WPS to be used shall be prepared, approved, and controlled by the
manufacturer, fabricator, or Contractor as written prequalified WPS, and shall be available to those
authorized to use or examine them.
Note 2: The use of a Prequalified joint shall not exempt the Engineer from using engineering
judgment in determining the suitability of application of these joints to a welded assembly or
Limitation of Variables for Prequalified WPS:
Definition: Groove welds without steel backing, welded from one side, and groove welds welded
from both sides, but without back gouging, are considered Partial Joint Penetration (PJP) groove
welds for purposes of prequalification. In other hand Complete Joint Penetration (CJP) groove welds
made without the use of backing shall have the root back gouged to sound metal before welding is
started from the second side.
-Prequalification covers weldments in thickness of 2 mm (1/16 in) or 16 gage and greater,
designed for supporting mechanical loads under normal atmospheric corrosion
conditions. It applies only to nominally austenitic stainless steel base metals and filler
metals whose as-welded fusion zones normally contain a small amount of delta ferrite.
-Base Metal Prequalification: Austenitic stainless steels whose filler metals normally produce a small
amount of ferrite (as per Table 3.2 of AWS D1.6 for prequalified limits) shall be considered
prequalified, provided they are welded with filler metals in accordance with Table 3.3 and the WPS
used conform to all the applicable requirements of this code. All other stainless steels or
combinations, and WPS which are not prequalified, shall be qualified in conformance to this
-Steel for backing shall be of the same base metal group (Table 3.2 of AWS D1.6) as the base
metal, unless otherwise approved.
Suggested Spec. for FCAW-SS -4-
-Roots of groove or fillet welds may be backed by copper or stainless steel backing to prevent
melting through. Copper backing shall be removed and the root visually inspected.
-Neither the depth nor the maximum width in the cross-section of weld metal deposited in each weld
pass shall exceed the width at the surface of the weld pass; see Figure 3.7 of AWS D1.6 Code.
-For corner joints, the outside groove preparation may be in either or both members, provided the
basic groove configuration is not changed and adequate edge distance is maintained.
Note: FCAW-G (gas shielded) is prequalified process for all position based on AWS D1.6 Code,
providing that WPS would meet all the requirements of Code.
Essential Variables
Essential variables should be, as per Table 4.1 of the AWS D1.6 Code. Changes to any of
the essential variables require requalification of WPS.
AWS D1.6 Table 4.1: PQR Essential Variable Changes Requiring WPS Requalification
Highlights for Essential Variables:
Following are general changes requiring a requalification for FCAW process based on Table 4.1
of AWS D1.6, however for full detail list of essential variables, Table 4.1 of AWS D1.6 applies:
(a) a change in base metal thickness qualified per Table 4.2 of AWS D1.6
(b) a change in F-Number (Table 4.5) and/ or A-Number (Table 4.6) of filler metal qualified
(c) a change in the type of welding current (AC or DC) or polarity
(d) a change in base metal group shown in Table 3.2 or in base metal type if not listed on Table
3.2 of AWS D1.6
(e) In vertical welding: For any pass from uphill to downhill or vice versa
(f) a change from a single gas to any other single shielding gases, or to a mixture of shielding
gases, or a change in specified percentage composition of shielding gas mixture, or omission of
shielding gas
Preparation of Base Material
The edges or surfaces of parts to be joined by welding shall be prepared by oxy-acetylene
machine cutting. Where hand cutting is involved the edge will be ground to a smooth surface.
All surfaces and edges shall be free from fins, tears, cracks or any other defects which would
adversely affect the quality of the weld.
All moisture, grease or other foreign material that would prevent proper welding or produce
objectionable fumes, shall be removed. Contact with lead, zinc, or lead or zinc compound shall
be avoided due to the potential for hot cracking.
All surfaces to be welded shall be wire brushed prior to welding. In multi-pass welds the weld
bead shall be wire brushed between passes. The brushes shall be of stainless steel and be kept
exclusively for use on stainless steel and be kept clean and free of contaminants.
All other equipment such as grinding discs shall be kept exclusively for use on stainless steels.
Suggested Spec. for FCAW-SS -5-
Back gouging of welds shall produce a groove having a profile and a depth adequate to ensure
fusion with the adjacent base metal and penetration into the root of the previously deposited
weld metals.
Welds Quality
Cracks or blowholes that appear on the surface of any pass shall be removed before depositing
the next covering pass. All welds shall be free of cracks and overlap.
The procedure and technique shall be such that undercutting of base metal or adjacent passes
is minimized.
Fillet and groove welds shall meet the desirable or acceptable weld profiles specified in Clause
5.11 of AWS D1.6 Code.
The reinforcement in groove welds shall not exceed 3 mm (1/8 in) and shall have a gradual
transition to the plane of the base metal surface. Undercut shall be limited to that described in
Clauses 6.28 and 6.29 of AWS D1.6 Code.
In general, the weld quality will be such as to meet the requirements of Clause 6.28 (for statically
loaded structures) and/ or 6.29 (for cyclically loaded structure) of AWS D1.6 Code.
Weld Metal Cleaning
Slag or flux remaining after a pass, if any, shall be removed before applying the next covering pass.
After the final pass all slag and weld spatter shall be removed. Arc strikes shall be removed by
grinding or other suitable means (by using only stainless steel chipping tool, brush). Cracks or
blemishes caused by arc strike shall be ground to a smooth contour and examined visually to assure
complete removal.
Welding Technique
Refer to the WPS for the precise variables to be used in welding a particular thickness and joint
configuration, position and parameters, i.e. stick-out, gas flow rate, travel speed, passes and layers,
The selection of the torch angle depends on joint type, material thickness, edge preparation, in
addition to the degree of skill and experience of the operator.
Generally, the forehand technique provides better visibility of the weld joint and a flatter weld puddle.
The backhand technique yields better penetration. Torch angle is usually maintained with 10 to 20
degrees on either side of vertical.
The size of any single-pass weld or the size of the first pass of a multiple-pass weld size shall be
such as to minimize the possibility of cracking.
Prior to depositing weld metal on the underside of a welding groove, the root shall be gouged, or
chipped to sound metal, unless otherwise specified on the applicable WPS.
Keep stainless steel materials clean and dry and keep them in separate place in warehouse.
Special ventilation and/or exhaust are required when welding high chromium alloys such as
stainless steels. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9899 | We've heard it countless times - Build an awesome product, and your customers will shout from the rooftops. Solve your customer's big problems, and they'll tell everyone. If you build it, they will evangelize.
Unfortunately, it's not true. A very small percentage of the population is actively blogging and writing reviews. A slightly higher percentage may participate in ratings or sharing on social networks. The rest are passive consumers - reading and forming opinions silently and unlikely to influence other prospective customers.
Consumer Influencers
2. Offer suggestions for how customers can talk about you
If steps #1 and #2 sound a bit like a chicken-and-egg problem, it's because it is a chicken-and-egg problem. If no customers are talking about you, you don't know what will resonate with them and you can't know how to best encourage them to start talking. It may take a few rounds of asking questions and active listening to hone in on what's exciting about your product.
Understand what excites customers about you and how they naturally describe it
For new products, you will need to start with non-customers (people who are not familiar with your product) and get them familiar enough so they can provide feedback. Then prompt them to tell the story of how they would use your product - "Well, I usually pay bills twice a month..." "So that's when you would log in to the site, or...?" Questions like "what would you do next?" or "how do you think this would help you?" keep the conversation flowing.
Consumer Conversations
Ed Yourdon
You'll want to run at least five of these interviews, but you probably won't need more than a dozen to see the patterns in what users like and how they describe it. This isn't quantitative information; you don't need a big sample size. You aren't interested in a 1-10 rating, you are interested in the story of your product, starring your customer. You want to capture the phrases and the cadence of their speech as much as the concepts.
Once you've gotten them comfortable talking, it's time for the big question: If you were recommending this to a friend, what would you tell them to make them want to use it?
"What I love about this - well, this budgeting chart makes it so clear where my money is going. It makes me feel like I'm in control of my finances."
"I don't usually sign up for social apps, but this one didn't spam me and it helped me get back in touch with a bunch of old college friends that I wouldn't have found otherwise."
Offer suggestions for how customers can talk about you
Look at the feedback you got from users and figure out which elements best overlap with the message your company wants to send. You'll need to refine the phrases and stories customers use to get rid of "ums" or inappropriate language, but otherwise keep them as authentic as possible.
Word of Mouth Flowchart
Intersection Consulting
Post these stories on a "what people are saying about us" page. Put one next to the social sharing widget on your site. Twitter them. If you have a "invite a friend" or "refer a friend" page, put these stories in a drop-down menu so the user can choose which message to pass along.
What you don't want is a customer who wants to talk about you, but doesn't feel ready or motivated to write something that sounds smart. You want those customers to have words at the ready that don't sound like a press release.
"Since I've been using this service, I have never lost a file. I probably save five hours of re-work per week."
Think of a blogger staring at an empty white screen, trying to find a topic to write about. She just had a great experience with your product... but nothing's coming to mind but "really useful" and "definitely worth the money". Is she going to write a bland review, or choose to write about something else entirely? Think of the community site participant who would normally lurk - if it only takes a second to call to mind the right words, he's much more likely to post a response.
Finally, you can't count on luck and customer affection - often, you have to ask for the mention. Be clear on what you want, where you want it, and a direct link to click or text to copy and paste and edit. MoveOn.org and other political action groups have mastered this - any time you're asked to contact your representative, they helpfully provide you with text that is factually accurate and well-written. Whether you choose to keep it or provide your own is up to the individual.
Kids Sharing
Some examples:
• Kelly M. says "As soon as I signed up for the service, I got email alerts that saved me over $100!" Do you have a success story? Click here to share it on Facebook.
• We reached the 500th download mark, but we don't have any user reviews yet. Have you used the auto-save function? Are you saving time with the export to blog post? Help us out by going to Software Site and writing a quick review. Let other users know!
• Since you've been using the service, you've lost ten pounds. Forward this email to a friend so they can congratulate you and sign up.
For any of these "asks", the action needs to be obvious, no more than two clicks away, and you need to provide text but also the option to edit it or replace it entirely.
Most of these examples are targeted at consumer products and services, but they work just as well for enterprise customers. Even if you've had a relationship with a customer for years, try asking: "What do you find most valuable about us?" You may just be surprised - and the answer may help you win your next deal. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9915 | Tag: In Person Event Marketing
In Person Events Marketing
Nov 2017
In Person Events Marketing
The secret to experiencing successful in-person events is this: complete 95 percent of event preparations before the big day. No matter what type of event you’re planning — an open house, client dinner, seminar, fundraiser, new store opening, etc. — target your energy on pre-planning. This approach enables you to focus on guests come event day, rather than being distracted with organizational issues. Today, let’s focus on the day-of-event implementation considerations. When Guests Arrive How you acknowledge guests when they first arrive is one of the most important components of an event plan. Remember, you’re making a first impression. Even if...
Read More |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9919 | Fujin Japanese lantern lamp, Japanese god of wind - Shoji Lamps Expand
Fūjin 風神
$ USD 40.81
Fūjin is the Japanese god of the wind and one of the eldest Shinto gods.
The iconography of Fūjin seems to have its origin in the cultural exchanges along the Silk Road. Starting with the Hellenistic period when Greece occupied parts of Central Asia and India, the Greek wind god Boreas became the god Wardo in Greco-Buddhist art, then a wind deity in China (frescoes of the Tarim Basin), and finally the Japanese Wind God Fūjin.
The wind god kept its symbol, the windbag, and its dishevelled appearance throughout this evolution. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9932 | Upload a file
Sandblasted Signs
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Sandblasted Cedar
Call Signs Now Naperville at (630) 357-2300 for more information.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/9985 | Jason Approaches the Finish Line at LAAS
How to conduct a successful MQA demo when the person requesting same already has made up their mind? That question, or some variation thereof, must have run through the mind of Meridian's SW regional sales manager, Courtney Careccia, when the sole attendee (besides me) in her room on a slow Sunday asked for a non-MQA/MQA comparison on her all-Meridian system. After no more than 45 seconds—it could have been less, but certainly not more—the man asked to switch to the MQA version, listened for a much shorter time, stood up, declared the whole thing was a sham, and marched out the door. It was almost as if the comparison had never happened.
Just the day before, when John Atkinson and I shared breakfast with Bob Stuart of MQA, Bob had told us, "No A/B demo can be done effectively in 45 seconds, or against prejudice, or on the basis of one trial. Frankly, it makes it a non-event.
"According to ECG measurements around content with and without components above 20kHz, the brain needs 100–200 seconds to process information before it can effectively move from A to B. We at MQA infer this is primarily a response to more or less temporal smearing, and therefore probably also applies to comparisons between grades of higher rate content." (footnote 1)
Whether or not this inference is accurate, it was clear to this silent observer that the demo was over before it began.
So what did Courtney do? She provided an object lesson on how to let water run off a duck's back. She watched the man walk out the door without blinking an eye, and remained open to welcoming the next attendee. Courtney, I think I need to jump into the same lake as you, follow your lead, and placidly paddle along behind a true pro.
Also leading the way were Meridian's DSP7200SE digital active loudspeakers ($45,000/pair), 218 Zone Controller ($1000), and 808v6 CD/MQA CD player/DAC/preamp/streamer. The latter was for folks who wanted to listen to a CD. A MacBook running Roon and streaming Tidal wirelessly via a local network, and Meridian Speaklink cabling completed a system relatively elegant in layout and appearance.
One of E. Covina, CA-based Sunny Components' three 4th floor rooms at LAAS combined Wilson Audio's Sabrina loudspeaker ($15,900/pair) with an electronics chain dominated by Audio Research's ARC LS28 linestage preamp ($7500), PH9 phono stage ($7500), and Reference CD-9 player ($13,000). From my prior experience with these components, I had expected quite a different sound than the extra-sibilant, extra-shine, bass-thump presentation of Chris Thomas' "Broken Chair." After all, the Sabrina didn't win a Product of the Year award from Stereophile for nothing—it is without question a giant killer in its price range, and capable of producing mind-blowing, highly dynamic, well-controlled sound that extends far lower in frequency than one might expect.
Archie Shepp's "When Things Go Wrong" fared much, much better in the midrange warmth department, and also sounded very clear, quiet and transparent. But a visit with the MQA version of Beyoncé's "Daddy Lessons," which I tried to focus on despite excessive talking in the room, seemed noisy and bright. Was this a case of Tidal wireless streaming failing the sniff test? What is certain is that an Aurender DAC A-10 ($5500), Technics turntable SL1200G ($3995), AudioQuest Niagara 5000 noise-dissipation system ($3995), AudioQuest cabling, and an HRS rack completed the equipment chain.
Pietra chose Emotiva Gen 1 monoblocks to showcase their black galaxy granite-enclosed Pietra Model 3.10 loudspeaker ($17,500/pair) via Pietra speaker wire. Weighing 340 lbs., the 3.10 has a surprisingly low sensitivity of 83dB/2.83V/m. Pietra designs speakers with their own proprietary software, and claims very even response with good directivity.
A well-worn track of Rodrigo y Gabriela sounded nice and even, but the top was too bright. Chesky's recording of Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus fared better, with the system revealing the multiple shortcomings of a hesitant chorus whose members frequently failed to begin and end passages at the same time, and were too concerned with the microphone to consider the music's spiritual import. From this if-only-it-were-sublime experience to Yello's "Electrified II" we went, with the transition far less shocking than the reality of how much bigger, fuller, and more impactful this track can sound when more information is conveyed. I would have loved to have heard these loudspeakers with different electronics.
Because I gave the MSB room at AXPONA a hard time, I want to say right off the bat that, at LAAS, the change in the MSB Reference DAC to a new, free-to-download high-resolution 16/44.1 filter and new DSD "optimized" mode, along with an optional Femto 33 clock ($14,905 by itself, or $54,405 total as shown), made a world of difference. On the same Murray Perahia Plays Handel and Scarlatti disc that I listened to in Chicago, the lovely grace and even flow of Perahia's playing emerged intact, with the balance between top and bottom registers ideal. Perhaps there was a mite too much percussive emphasis on notes in extremely rapid passages, or perhaps this system was even more accurate in conveying Perahia's staccato, pseudo-harpsichord pianism than virtually every other system I've played this recording on. Regardless, it was one of the most magical presentations of Perahia's performance of Handel's Harpsichord Suite 5 in E, HWV 430 that I have ever experienced.
God, I love those times at audio shows when I want to close the book on the clock and list of obligations, and simply get lost in the music. This was one of them. Every subtle dynamic transition was conveyed effortlessly, and with utmost poetry. I didn't want to stop listening.
A very different 1978 recording of Bill Berry & the Ellington All-Stars fared equally well. To help make such a musical presentation possible, MSB's Vince Galbo made use of an AudioQuest Niagara 7000 ($7995), Audioquest Niagara 5000 ($4995), and carefully implemented Tripplite hospital-grade isolation transformer on the transport, all of which were behind the curtain. What you can see in the photo are MSB's Universal Media transport with Dual Signature PowerBase ($11,990) and M204 class-A, 200wpc monoblocks with newly upgraded power supply ($39,500/pair), YG Acoustics Sonja 1.2 loudspeakers ($72,800/pair), Analysis Plus Golden oval interconnects ($8000) and speaker cable ($11,000).
Yet another winning system surfaced in the room where Nola Metro Grand Reference Gold 2 loudspeakers ($40,000/pair) met a Synthesis A40 V integrated amplifier ($6395), Déjà Vu/Western Electric Audio Vintage Collection preamp with Western Electric tubes, transformers, and vintage parts ($25,000), Déjà Vu/Western Electric DAC ($25,000), Esoteric P-05 transport, and Nordost Odin 1 and Odin 2 cabling. Shirley Horn's brightly illuminated voice on "It Had to be You" sounded positively gorgeous, with excellent midrange textures, revealing intimacy, and not a hint of glare.
Switching to my CD of the rousing last movement of Lou Harrison's Violin Concerto, all instrumental timbres were excellent, with both the metal and skin of Lou's wild assortment of percussion conveyed with ease. The system wasn't as tight as can be on the bottom end, but its depiction of depth and believable tonalities was excellent.
Footnote 1: In subsequent discussion by email, Bob referred us to four papers, one of which can be found here. The others are "High-resolution music with inaudible high-frequency components produces a lagged effect on human electroencephalographic activities," by Ryuma Kuribayashi, Ryuta Yamamoto and Hiroshi Nittono (Clinical neuroscience, 2014); "Multidisciplinary study on the hypersonic effect," by Tsutomu Oohashi, Emi Nishina, Manabu Honda (International Congress Series 1226), and "Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity: Hypersonic Effect" by Tsutomu Oohashi, Emi Nishina, Manabu Honda, Yoshiharu Yonekura, Yoshitaka Fuwamoto, Norie Kawai, Tadao Maekawa, Satoshi Nakamura, Hidenao Fukuyama, and Hiroshi Shibasaki (The American Physiological Society, 2000).
Glotz's picture
Measuring goes to another whole level!
I have a buddy of mine that bought the Tannoy Sensys DC1's with super-tweeter support. He claims he has never heard a difference. No surprise!
You (or anyone) don't know what you are hearing! It is proven- it is FELT, which in turns commands the brain to relax and focus... and one's head/face proves it!
Mind blown juuust a little bit.
Archimago's picture
Thanks for the coverage Jason.
For the MQA discussions, it's "EEG" (brain), not "ECG" (heart).
For those looking at the research paper, this is another example of very small effect size just like all the research articles on high-resolution that have come before. With a small sample size of 22 individuals, and inconsistent responses among the physiological domains measured, to focus on the EEG & ERP changes as evidence of this "100-200 second" threshold seems a little "speculative" as the authors admit. Also, looking at the procedure, one wonders how this is supposed to represent the typical listening "task" when enjoying music in a high quality sound room! (When was the last time you tried a Go/No-Go task on a CRT(!) monitor with a refresh rate of 100Hz in front of you while listening to music with speakers 1.5m away?)
Now as for MQA taking this speculative result and claiming it's due to "temporal smearing" - well that's even more speculative isn't it :-)? The bottom line is that this research is using presumably a lossless 24/192 recording of classical music. It did not use MQA encoding. We do not even know how well MQA would maintain the ultrasonic spectrum as shown in the paper's supplemental material. Likewise, we do not know if MQA encoding would have affected the 24-bit depth. Therefore, it would be healthy to be a little guarded when it comes to accepting the attribution theory being offered. |
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Preconception & Prenatal Care
Prenatal Care- Initial Office Visit 1. Medical History 2. OB Hx 3. Surgical Hx 4. Family Hx 5. Physical Exam 6. Lab Tests
Maternal Assessment 1. Meds 2. Alc/Tobacco 3. Physical Abuse 4. Nutrition 5. Env. exposures
Subsequent Visits 1. Maternal Ht & Wt 2. Blood pressure 3. Fundal Height 4. Fetal Heart Tones 5. Edema 6. Fetal size and position
Lab tests 1. Hemotocrit (anemia) 2. Blood type 3. Rh factor 4. Antibody screen 5. Syphillis test 6. HIV test 7. Hepatitis surface antigen 8. Pap 9. Urinalysis 10. Urine culture 11. Vaginal infections
Screen for Diabetes when... 1. Family Hx 2. Previous Stillborn or macrosomic child 3. Glycosuria 4. AMA 5. Previous GDM
Maternal Diabetes 1. Preeclampsia 2. Macrosomia, shoulder dystocia, c-section 3. Hypoglycemia and jaundice 4. NTD 5. Sacral Agenesis 6. Heart malformations
Late pregnancy complications 1. Premature Labor 2. Prolonged Pregnancy 3. Preeclampsia (Hypertension, Edema, Proteinura) 4. HELLP 5. Eclampsia
Conditions predisposing to fetal demise 1. Maternal Hx 2. Maternal disease 3. OB complications
Maternal Hx 1. Prior stillbirth 2. Prior abruption
Maternal Disease 1. IDDM 2. Hypertension 3. Renal Disease 4. Autoimmune Disease
OB Complications 1. PROM 2. Preeclampsia 3. Post dates 4. Decreased FM 5. Decreased AFV
Methods of Fetal Assessment 1. NST 2. CST (contraction stress test)
Biophysical Profile 1. NST 2. AFV 3. Fetal breathing 4. Limb movement 5. Fetal Tone (curls up/ extends back)
Symptoms of Labor 1. Uterine contractions every 2-3 mins 2. Effacement of the cervix 3. Dilation of the cervix 4. Station
Created by: KChatham |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10008 | Could Cow Manure Help to Inspire a New Biogas Storage Battery?
16 Mar 11:00 by Steve Walia
Cows can generate more than 100 pounds of manure every day - not to mention a tremendous amount of methane gas. This creates a large 'waste resource' that needs treating and using wisely but which contains a wealth of potential energy if it can be extracted and stored in the right way.
Already a number of farms are working to gather the energy that exists within manure. It goes into an anaerobic digester, which allows the gas to gather and concentrate before being stripped of elements such as CO2 and water. It's then combined with natural gas sources and sold as a heat producing gas.
Now a scientist based at Ontario's University of Waterloo is finding a way to make the process better and more efficient. David Simakov, a chemical engineering assistant professor, is working with a team to look at ways to extract more energy from the raw biogas source using a hydrogen-based refining process which could convert CO2 into usable methane gas.
By applying a conversion, the production rate of previous separation techniques could grow by 100pc and produce a far greater volume of renewable gas, meaning that the volume would be worth storing and could for a natural battery. At the same time, the high-tech new approach naturally slashes CO2 emissions.
Mr Simakov explained that the team were not creating new processes or chemical reactions but rather engineering an existing approach to improve the conversion process whilst slashing the typical existing costs of biogas refining. The final process is expected to be around five years away but would be combined with renewable energy to produce the hydrogen needed to input into the process, creating a symbiotic green energy process that would work together for greater results. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10023 | Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
Organization Boot Camp
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Product Description
Use these lessons to get kids' organization skills in shape! Activities focus on understanding organization, how to organize materials and binders, organizing ideas, planning for projects, using tools such as homework planners, calendars, checklists, visual supports, cleaning up after yourself, long-term strategies for organization, and and more. Other skills that impact organization are also addressed, including planning, time management, prioritizing, and self-control.
How to Use
These lessons and activities can be used in large or small groups by the regular education teacher, special education teacher, or other support professional. These materials can also be used during advisory for older students. Detailed educator guides are included with step-by-step instructions for each activity with student objectives and discussion questions. While all students can most assuredly benefit from strategies to strengthen executive functioning and organizational skills, some examples of students most in need include those with ADD/ADHD, Asperger’s Disorder, and Learning Disabilities.
Why Teach Organization Skills?
Organization is a critical executive functioning skill that helps students to complete tasks efficiently and effectively both in and out of school. Kids who struggle with organization might forget homework assignments, not be able to find pages in their binders, keep messy workspaces or lockers, have challenges when planning assignments, struggle to meet deadlines, and more. Simply put, executive functioning skills are necessary life skills.
Table of Contents
Lesson 1: Introduction to Organization
• Activity 1: Organization Boot Camp
• Activity 2: Assess Your Organization
• Activity 3: What it Means to Be Organized
• Activity 4: How Being Organized Helps Me
Lesson 2: Let's Get Organized
• Activity 1: A Place for Everything
• Activity 2: Is This Organized?
• Activity 3: Cleaning Up After Yourself
• Activity 4: Organize It!
• Activity 5: Organize the Space!
Lesson 3: Organizing Your Materials
• Activity 1: Setting Up Your Binders
• Activity 2: Tips for Binder Organization
• Activity 3: Binder Clean Out
• Activity 4: Organizing Your Personal Spaces
• Activity 5: Being Prepared
Lesson 4: Organizing Your Ideas
• Activity 1: Organizing Your Writing
• Activity 2: Using a Graphic Organizer
• Activity 3: Using an Outline
• Activity 4: Organizing a Project
• Activity 5: Organizing Your Day
Lesson 5: Skills that Help with Organization
• Activity 1: Planning
• Activity 2: Time Management
• Activity 3: Prioritizing
• Activity 4: Self-Control
Lesson 6: Tools for Organizational Success
• Activity 1: Routines Make a Difference
• Activity 2: Using a Homework Planner
• Activity 3: Using a Calendar
• Activity 4: Making Checklists
• Activity 5: Visual Supports
• Activity 6: Creating a Homework Kit
Lesson 7: Sticking with Organization
• Activity 1: Weekly Organizing Plan
• Activity 2: Making a Homework Plan
• Activity 3: Certificate of Achievement
Note that both color and black/white options are included.
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Target executive functioning and study skills necessary for academic success at the middle and high school level. The bundle includes over 300 pages full of lessons, templates, and workbook pages to teach study strategies and ways to improve executive functioning skills. It includes a HUGE selection of my executive functioning and study skills materials in one place.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10041 | Ricky Gervais and Christopher Guest on the creative process behind their films
In the exclusive interview clip above, comedian Ricky Gervais and Mascots writer and director Christopher Guest discuss the creative process of making a film, from constructing a narrative to casting and ad-libbing .
Guest and Gervais sat down with the Telegraph earlier this week to discuss Guest's latest film, Mascots.
Starring Jane Lynch and The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd, Mascots follows Guest's usual faux-documentary format, charting the hopes and ambitions of a handful of obsessive, plush-costumed sport mascots.
Watch Ricky Gervais' full interview with Mascots writer and director Christopher Guest below |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10052 | Artist’s illustration of the most distant supermassive black hole ever discovered, which is part of a quasar from just 690 million years after the Big BangRobin Dienel
Scientists searching for astronomical objects in the early universe, not long after the Big Bang, have made a record-breaking, two-for-one discovery.
Using ground-based telescopes, a team of astronomers have discovered the most distant supermassive black hole ever found. The black hole has a mass 800 million times greater than our sun, which earns it the “supermassive” classification reserved for giants like this. Astronomers can’t see the black hole, but they know it’s there because they can see something else: A flood of light around the black hole that can outshine an entire galaxy. This is called a quasar, and this particular quasar is the most distant one ever observed.
The light from the quasar took more than 13 billion years to reach Earth, showing us a picture of itself as it was when the universe was just 5 percent of its current age. Back then, the universe was “just” 690 million years old. The hot soup of particles that burst into existence during the Big Bang was cooling rapidly and expanding outward. The first stars were starting to turn on, and the first galaxies beginning to swirl into shape. Quasars from this time are incredibly faint compared to the nearest quasars, the light from some of which takes just 600 million light years to reach the Earth.
“It’s like finding the needle in a haystack,” said Eduardo Bañados, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science who led the international research team. Their double discovery is described in a study published Wednesday in Nature.
Black holes, mysterious as they are, are among the most recognizable astronomical phenomena in popular science. They’re pretty straightforward: Black holes are spots in space where the tug of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. They gobble up gas and dust and anything that comes near, growing and growing in size. A supermassive black hole sits in the center of virtually all large galaxies, including the Milky Way. Astronomers can infer their existence by watching fast-moving stars hurtle around a seemingly empty, dark region.
Quasars, meanwhile, are a little trickier to understand, and you’d be forgiven for thinking they sound like something out of Star Trek. A quasar is, to put it simply, the product of a binge-eating black hole. A black hole consumes nearby gas and dust inside a galaxy with intense speed, and the violent feast generates a swirling disk of material around it as it feeds. The disk heats up to extreme temperatures on the order of 100,000 degrees Kelvin and glows brightly. The resulting light show is what we call a quasar, and what a light show it is.
“A quasar emits more light than an entire galaxy’s worth of stars, and it’s actually just a glowing disk of material that is the size of our solar system,” said Daniel Mortlock, an astrophysicist at Imperial College London and Stockholm University. In 2011, Mortlock and his colleagues reported their discovery of the most distant quasar found at the time.
The more material a black hole consumes, the bigger it becomes. Eventually, the black hole drains the surrounding area of material and has nothing to eat. The luminous disk around it shrinks and fades, and the quasar is extinguished. In this way, quasars—and the black holes that power them—are like volcanoes, erupting under one set of conditions and settling into dormancy under another.
Quasars were first detected in 1963 by the Dutch astronomer Maarten Schmidt with California’s Palomar Observatory. Astronomers thought these newly discovered points of light were stars because of their extreme brightness. But when they studied the spectrum of their light, they were stunned to find the “stars” were more than a billion light-years away. When light travels through space, it gets stretched thanks to the constant expansion of the universe. As it moves, it shifts toward redder, longer wavelengths. Astronomers can measure this “redshift” to figure out how long the light took to reach Earth, which indicates how far a certain object is. Schmidt and his fellow astronomers knew that for stars to appear so luminous to Earth from such great distances was impossible. They were dealing with completely new phenomena.
“They’re not something that anyone predicted at all,” Mortlock said. “Occasionally you get astronomical objects like [stars known as] brown dwarfs, where people had predicted that they would exist and waited for astronomy to find them. No one predicted anything like quasars. It’s one of those cases where our imaginations weren’t up to what nature turned out to provide.”
To find the latest record-breaking quasar, Bañados and his colleagues used computer algorithms to search through databases of large sky surveys. They selected points of light they suspected could turn out to be quasars and observed them with the telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. One night in March of this year, they all gathered to look at the data, one quasar candidate at a time. Quasars, astronomers have found, are easily recognizable when raw data is plotted on a chart. The spectrum of a quasar—a plot of brightness against the wavelength of light—has a very distinctive shape. Features known as emission lines appear broad, rather than sharp, thanks to the Doppler effect, which means the object emitting the light it traveling at high speeds.
“These objects are so bright that basically in 10 minutes, I can know from the raw data if it’s a quasar or not,” Bañados said. They found a quasar in their search, and when they calculated its distance from Earth, they couldn’t believe what they’d found. The next day, Bañados started drafting proposals to get observation time on powerful telescopes around the world to further study this quasar.
From the data for the quasar, astronomers can infer the size of the black hole responsible for powering it. “To get a bright quasar like this, you have to build up a supermassive black hole,” Mortlock said.
Astronomers studied the galaxy where the black hole and its quasar reside using radio telescopes in the French Alps and New Mexico. They found that the galaxy, at a mere 690 million years, had “already formed an enormous amount of dust and heavy chemical elements. This means it must already have formed a large amount of stars.” Astronomers say they’ll need to rethink some existing models for the evolution of galaxies to explain how a young galaxy could accumulate so much matter so fast. The findings about the galaxy are published in a separate study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Quasars are some of the best targets for studying the early universe. Like flashlights, they illuminate a cosmic time astronomers are still struggling to understand. The newly discovered quasar comes from a period in the universe’s history know as “the epoch of re-ionization,” when a mysterious source of radiation ionized hydrogen and transformed the gas in the universe from an indiscernible fog into something transparent. About this time, the first objects to radiate light also formed. The exact process, as well as which phenomenon happened first, remains poorly understood.
Mortlock said he feels some sense of ownership of the quasar he discovered, which is now the second-farthest ever spotted. To feel that way about an object billions of light-years away is “completely ridiculous,” he said with a laugh. “And it’s especially ridiculous because there was no way that the object we discovered was going to be the end of this process. As we get more data and observe larger areas of the sky and look more deeply, we’re always going to find more objects like this.”
Someday, Bañados’s discovery will be relegated to second place, too. “There must be more out there, especially fainter ones,” Bañados said. “I’m still searching for them.”
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10055 | Try BlazeTV for Free
Not your momma's free market
Wealthy people are using their money to create their fantasy ideologies. As a free marketeer, I have no problem with people accumulating wealth. I do have a problem with rich people changing the rules for everyone.
I got into the conservative movement as a 19-year-old economics undergraduate at Ohio State University.
My OSU professors were all recent graduates of the University of Chicago and were true believers in the free market. The theory was elegant, simple and humane. I was instinctively suspicious of anyone to the left of Milton Friedman. But recent developments have persuaded me to reconsider at least part of that elegant equation. Never in my wildest dreams, did I expect to feel as much resentment toward the wealth of certain people as I do today. Let me explain.
As a young free marketeer, I developed a sensibility that I should not automatically be suspicious of wealthy people, (even though I didn’t actually know any.) An honest person could do well in an economy like ours. “Do well by doing good.” Serve large numbers of consumers. Give the consumers what they want, at the lowest possible cost.
I developed unbridled contempt for people who used the coercive power of the State to enrich themselves. Bilking the taxpayer, bullying competitors through regulations, generating artificial demand for your product by government fiat: this kind of thing made me angry. It still does.
I couldn’t care less how a person spends his or her own money. Ostentatious conspicuous consumption. Keeping up with the Jones’. Their shallowness was their problem, not mine. As long as they came by their wealth honestly, I hold them no ill will. The gap between their income and mine, the gap between their income and the person who cleans their house: that still doesn’t much bother me. The wealthier person provides employment for others, without harming their dignity.
But now, I have come to see that some rich people are doing something I really do resent. They are using their wealth to manipulate the political system. They are trying to change the rules for everyone to remake the world in their own image.
I first noticed it in my area of social conservatism. I saw people like Paul Singer passing out money to get “marriage equality” enacted in New York State. People like George Soros form organizations to manipulate public opinion and lobby the government. (See the Tax Form 990 for the Open Society Institute for 2014, Part XV, Line 3, here.) Rob Reiner and his Hollywood friends formed an organization to overturn Proposition 8, which had been duly elected by the largest grass roots campaign in history.
Warren Buffett has spent over a billion dollars promoting abortion, “comprehensive sexual education,” and “peer counseling,” (read: propaganda) for promoting the early sexualization of children. This same handful of rich people financed the research that overturned the Texas abortion clinic regulations, which were duly enacted by the duly elected representatives of the people.
This weekend I went with my husband to the Gun Rights Policy Conference, sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation. Guess what I learned? They are dealing with the same problem. In their case, Michael Bloomberg is the Sugar Daddy of the campaign to disarm law-abiding citizens. I heard speaker after speaker describing “astro-turf” (that is, fake grass roots) organizations lobbying the legislature.
Different issue, same problem. Rich people figure they are entitled to throw their money around to enact the laws that will bring their fantasy ideology into being. They spend their money to promote massive publicity campaigns to manipulate public opinion, so people will go along with it, and maybe even come to believe it.
The fantasy ideology of gun control is: “If we only had enough new gun laws, criminals would all obey those laws and firearm violence would disappear.”
This fantasy requires a lot of propaganda. "If we never run a news story in which an armed and trained citizen interrupts a crime, no one will ever notice that a good guy with a gun actually can stop a bad guy with a gun. We will make a “documentary” that we edit to make supporters of citizen self-defense appear foolish. Those dopes in fly-over country will never notice."
The fantasy ideology in my line of work is: “Kids don’t really need their own parents.” This fantasy also needs a lot of propaganda. "If we just “educate” everyone early enough and often enough, kids won’t miss their missing parents. We can change the storyline slightly to accommodate the fact that some kids lost contact with their parents through divorce, single parenthood, or third party reproduction. But it is the same story: kids don’t really need their own parents. If we never mention in a news story the connection between fatherless boys and violence, or fatherless girls and early sexual activity, or mothers’ boyfriends and child abuse, maybe no one will ever notice."
What does this have to do with the free market, and my personal regrets? When my friends and I were promoting the free market, we were thinking of small businesses, minding their own businesses. We were thinking of Dave Ramsey-style, living within your means, ordinary folk taking personal responsibility for themselves and those around them. We thought that by speaking out against crony capitalism, we had done our duty. We were not taking seriously the ways that highly concentrated wealth could be used to manipulate the whole political system.
Perhaps some of you agree with “marriage equality.” Maybe you agree with abortion on demand and sexually explicit sex education in the schools. Maybe you agree with highly regulated guns and highly unregulated abortion clinics. But do you really want to be manipulated by a handful of unelected, unaccountable wealthy people? I sure don’t.
I am now wondering whether some of the people I considered Leftist adopted those beliefs because they were worried about these very things. I still can’t’ imagine myself going full bore down the left-side of the spectrum. But still, maybe some of these people have more to say than I gave them credit for. If you are suspicious of the rich, or of the free market, for these reasons, allow me to apologize. I should have listened sooner. I still don’t know what to do about it.
But, maybe we should talk.
One last thing…
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10089 | • User
Cantinflas, the boyfriend of the servant of a rich industrial man, gets into the house in order to kill a mad dog. Suddenly this man appears so the servant tells him that Cantinflas is his wife's brother (Leonardo), who had been lost for years. The rich man then remembers that his father in law's testament could only be paid when all brothers get together, so treats Cantinflas, a real bum, as a king.
1. Juan Bustillo Oro
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• September 11, 1940
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10121 | Deep Sea Exploration History and Technology
Here's How We Learn About the Deep Sea
DeepSee deep diving submersible in dark with lights on; Cocos Island, Costa Rica - Pacific Ocean
Jeff Rotman / Getty Images
Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth's surface, yet even today their depths remain largely unexplored. Scientists estimate between 90 and 95 percent of the deep sea remains a mystery. The deep sea is truly the planet's final frontier.
What Is Deep Sea Exploration?
Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs)
Reimphoto / Getty Images
The term "deep sea" doesn't have the same meaning to everyone. To fishermen, the deep sea is any part of the ocean beyond the relatively shallow continental shelf. To scientists, the deep sea is the lowest part of the ocean, below the thermocline (the layer where heating and cooling from sunlight ceases to have an effect) and above the sea floor. This is the part of the ocean deeper than 1,000 fathoms or 1,800 meters.
It's difficult to explore the depths because they are eternally dark, extremely cold (between 0 degrees C and 3 degrees C below 3,000 meters), and under high pressure (15750 psi or over 1,000 times higher than standard atmospheric pressure at sea level). From the time of Pliny until the end of the 19th century, people believed the deep sea was a lifeless wasteland. Modern scientists recognize the deep sea as the largest habitat on the planet. Special tools have been developed to explore this cold, dark, pressurized environment.
Deep sea exploration is a multi-disciplinary endeavor that includes oceanography, biology, geography, archaeology, and engineering.
A Brief History of Deep Sea Exploration
deep sea fish
Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone / Getty Images
The history of deep sea exploration begins relatively recently, mainly because advanced technology is needed to explore the depths. Some milestones include:
1521: Ferdinand Magellan attempts to measure the depth of the Pacific Ocean. He uses a 2,400-foot weighted line, but does not touch bottom.
1818: Sir John Ross catches worms and jellyfish at a depth of approximately 2,000 meters (6,550 feet), offering the first evidence of deep sea life.
1842: Despite Ross' discovery, Edward Forbes proposes the Abyssus Theory, which states biodiversity decreases with death and that life cannot exist deeper than 550 meters (1,800 feet).
1850: Michael Sars refutes the Abyssus Theory by discovering a rich ecosystem at 800 meters (2,600 feet).
1872-1876: The HMS Challenger, led by Charles Wyville Thomson, conducts the first deep sea exploration expedition. Challenger's team discovers many new species uniquely adapted to life near the sea floor.
1930: William Beebe and Otis Barton become the first humans to visit the deep sea. Within their steel Bathysphere, they observe shrimp and jellyfish.
1934: Otis Barton sets a new human diving record, reaching 1,370 meters (.85 miles).
1956: Jacques-Yves Cousteu and his team aboard the Calypso release the first full-color, full-length documentary, Le Monde du silence (The Silent World), showing people everywhere the beauty and life of the deep sea.
1960: Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, with the deep sea vessel Trieste, descend to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (10,740 meters/6.67 miles). They observe fish and other organisms. Fish were not thought to inhabit such deep water.
1977: Ecosystems around hydrothermal vents are discovered. These ecosystems use chemical energy, rather than solar energy.
1995: Geosat satellite radar data is declassified, allowing for global mapping of the sea floor.
2012: James Cameron, with the vessel Deepsea Challenger, completes the first solo dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
Modern studies expand our knowledge of the geography and biodiversity of the deep sea. The Nautilus exploration vehicle and NOAA's Okeanus Explorer continue to discovery new species, unravel man's effects on the pelagic environment, and explore wrecks and artifacts deep beneath the sea surface. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Chikyu analyzes sediments from the Earth's crust and may become the first ship to drill into the Earth's mantle.
Instrumentation and Technology
Diving helmets on desk
Chantalle Fermont / EyeEm / Getty Images
Like space exploration, deep sea exploration requires new instruments and technology. While space is a cold vacuum, the ocean depths are cold, but highly pressurized. The saltwater is corrosive and conductive. It's very dark.
Finding the Bottom
In the 8th century, Vikings dropped lead weights attached to ropes to measure water depth. Beginning in the 19th century, researchers used wire rather than rope to take sounding measurements. In the modern era, acoustic depth measurements are the norm. Basically, these devices produce a loud sound and listen for echoes to gauge distance.
Human Exploration
Once people knew where the sea floor was, they wanted to visit and examine it. Science has progressed way beyond the diving bell, a barrel containing air that could be lowered into the water. The first submarine was built by Cornelius Drebbel in 1623. The first underwater breathing apparatus was patented by Benoit Rouquarol and Auguste Denayrouse in 1865. Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan developed the Aqualung, which was the first true "Scuba" (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) system. In 1964, Alvin was tested. Alvin was built by General Mills and operated by the US Navy and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Alvin allowed three people to remain underwater for as long as nine hours and as deep as 14800 feet. Modern submarines can travel as deep as 20000 feet.
Robotic Exploration
While humans have visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the trips were expensive and only allowed limited exploration. Modern exploration relies on robotic systems.
Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are tethered vehicles that are controlled by researchers on a ship. ROVs typically carry cameras, manipulator arms, sonar equipment, and sample containers.
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) operate without human control. These vehicles generate maps, measure temperature and chemicals, and take photographs. Some vehicles, such as the Nereus, act as either a ROV or AUV.
Humans and robots visit locations but don't remain long enough to collect measurements over time. Undersea instruments monitor whale songs, plankton density, temperature, acidity, oxygenation, and various chemical concentrations. These sensors may be attached to profiling buoys, which drift freely at a depth of about 1000 meters. Anchored observatories house instruments on the seafloor. For example, the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS) rests on the floor of the Pacific Ocean at 980 meters to monitor seismic faults.
Deep Sea Exploration Fast Facts
• The deepest part of the Earth's oceans is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, at 10,994 meters (36,070 feet or nearly 7 miles) below sea level.
• Three people have visited the depths of the Challenger Deep. Film director James Cameron reached a record depth of 35,756 feet in a solo submersible dive in 2012.
• Mount Everest would fit inside the Mariana Trench, with over a mile of extra space above it.
• Using bomb sounding (throwing TNT into a trench and recording the echo), scientists have found the Mariana Trench, Kermadec, Kuril-Kamchatka, Philippine, and Tonga trenches all exceed 10000 meters in depth.
• While human exploration still occurs, most modern discoveries are made using data from robots and sensors.
Ludwig Darmstaedter (Hrsg.): Handbuch zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, Springer, Berlin 1908, S. 521. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10139 | Home / Uncategorized / How Exercise can Counter Weight Gain
How Exercise can Counter Weight Gain
If you want to counter the effects of weight gain and lose a few pounds so you can get back to a normal weight for you, you may want to think about taking up exercise. Although there is a great deal of focus on diet as a way of losing weight, exercise really shouldn’t be overlooked, as it is one side of the weight-loss coin. Obviously, you have to ensure you burn more calories than you consume – which reducing your calorie intake can help with – but so, too, can increasing the amount of physical activity you do. Maybe you’re extremely lazy, but at least if you do some exercise you could speed up your weight loss.
After all, if your exercise routine consists solely of going into the kitchen to get some food, you’re not likely to be burning many calories. The chances are you have a job where you sit at a desk all day before coming home to spend more time sitting down. Of course, to lose weight you can reduce your calorie intake, but you have to cut it quite significantly if you burn hardly any extra calories. The body needs a certain number of calories to function, anyway, but by doing exercise you can increase the number you are able to consume quite significantly.
It is hard to work out exactly how many calories you burn when you exercise, as everyone is slightly different and your weight, the intensity with which you exercise and the kind of exercise you do will all have some bearing on this figure. However, there are plenty of online calculators which give you some indication of the number of calories you burn doing different activities. By running for an hour a day at a moderate pace you could burn over 600 calories if you weigh 158 pounds, for instance. That means you can have a bar of chocolate containing 300 calories and still have burned 300 extra.
It doesn’t even matter what kind of exercise you choose to do, as long as you do it on a regular basis, since there isn’t much point taking up a sport if you’re only going to play it a couple of times a month only to abandon it altogether soon after. You have to get some exercise at least five days a week and try to do half an hour each time, otherwise you could jeopardise your weight-loss chances, especially if you don’t adjust your calorie intake enough to reflect the fact that you’re not doing any exercise. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10166 | Military Service Members Deposit Advance Loans
Some of the biggest banks in the country—Wells Fargo, Regions, Fifth Third, and US Bank—offered “deposit advance” products to military servicemembers. Those “advances” are essentially high interest loans.
The federal Military Lending Act (MLA) is meant to protect members of the military from predatory financial practices. It may bar such “deposit advance” loans to servicemembers. And It may provide you with rights regarding any deposit advances you have taken from Wells Fargo, Regions and US Bank.
We believe servicemembers putting their life on the line for our country should not be subject to these high interest loans.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10205 | sex worker rights
This Researcher Studied How Sex Workers Are Portrayed in Video Games
Bonnie Ruberg examined how sex workers are treated and programmed to behave in games like Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout: New Vegas.
Samantha Cole
sex worker rights
The Trans Woman Running for Senate in Colombia to Fight for Sex Workers
In Colombia, the majority of trans women must rely on sex work as a means to survive. Tatiana Piñeros wants to advocate for their rights, and work to create more job opportunities for trans people.
Eve Hartley
sex work
'It Will Never Stop': Sex Workers Respond to Raid
After a long sting operation by the feds, the CEO of was arrested on federal pimping charges. While many see the site's likely shutdown as a win against sex trafficking, some advocates fear the move will only push sex workers onto the...
Steven Blum
Sex Workers Explain the Struggles of Running an Illegal Business
Cut off from legal protections, unable to access financial services, harassed by police—what do sex workers do when their work isn't legal?
Matt Baume
How the UK's Prudish Laws from the 1950s Make Sex Work Dangerous Today
In an ideal world we'd probably pay attention to the testimony of actual sex workers before boxing their profession into a web of laws.
Frankie Mullin
Why Is South Australia So Reluctant to Decriminalise Sex Work?
The Festival State has some of the most outdated sex worker laws in the country. We examine why they're so averse to change.
Royce Kurmelovs
New Zealand’s Sex Workers Are Fighting for Public Toilets in Christchurch
The 2011 earthquake in Christchurch affected everyone in the city's limits, but one group who are still peculiarly disadvantaged are sex workers.
Jack Callil
We Talked to the Woman Behind #facesofprostitution
Tilly Lawless gave us her take on "empowerment" and why being a sex worker doesn't make her an authority on sex trafficking.
Wendy Syfret
Why Canadian Sex Workers Won't Report Rapes to the Police
Despite widespread concern about reports of gang rapes of sex workers in Newfoundland, those at risk of being attacked haven't looked to the authorities for help.
Sarah Ratchford
A Dispatch from the War on Women Who Use Drugs
In the global war on drugs women have become the invisible casualties.
Paul Gregoire
Indonesia's Sin City Skirts Shutdown Plans
We were standing at the entrance to Dolly, Southeast Asia's largest red-light district. It's a sprawling complex of colorfully named brothels in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, and this was supposed to be its last night of business
Ethan Harfenist
Canada’s New Prostitution Bill Is Far From Perfect
Critics say that the new bill doesn't fully address the compounding inequalities of race, class, and gender in prostitution.
Megan Murphy |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10239 | - The Washington Times - Thursday, November 14, 2002
From IBM Corp., something that may be a really big deal, if it can get the technology to work in the real world. Specifically, molecular-sized computer circuits that actually compute. Translated, this means seriously tiny computer parts, small enough that hundreds of billions of them could fit on the end of a finger.
OK, Fred, you say, that's cute, but why do I care?
The idea is that, if it works, the technology will have profound effects, but it isn't easy to say just what effects. We have never had anything like this.
We are used to having computers get lots faster real fast. Moore's Law, enunciated by Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel, says that the number of transistors that can be put on a chip doubles every two years. Depending on whom you talk to, you can get slightly different formulations to fit changing circumstances, but this one is close enough. It's why your computer is obsolete six months after you buy it.
For the increase in power to continue (and you do want your computer to obsolesce fast, don't you?) the little switches that make up computers-transistors actually have to get smaller. Smaller means faster for various reasons. For example, computers run so fast nowadays that the time for a signal to travel from one side of a chip to the other slows the machine down. Which is crazy, but it's true.
The first electronic computers used vacuum tubes about the size of light bulbs. A modern desktop computer made of tubes would be the size of something large, like Montana, and wouldn't work.
Later came separate transistors the size of aspirin tablets. These were better, but useless today. Now we have we have tens of millions of photo-engraved transistors on a chip the size of a fingernail. They keep getting smaller, so computers keep getting faster.
The problem is that the methods used to make them will, sooner or later, run into the laws of physics. Making the current technology smaller stops being hard and becomes impossible.
Now IBM has managed to make circuits that actually calculate by stringing together individual molecules, specifically of carbon monoxide on copper. A row of individual carbon monoxide molecules knock each other over like falling dominoes. ("Knock over" isn't the technical term, but we'll use it anyway.) The falling rows can be made to interact in ways that represent computer operations.
If you want small, molecular switches are just the thing. IBM says a circuit made this way is 1/260,000 the size of one made normally. One of the circuits the company made, and it worked, was a three-input sorter. You could put 190 billion of them on the eraser of a pencil. (You probably wouldn't want to, but they would fit.)
You might call it minimalist computing. Instead of using huge numbers of atoms in a bunch, you use the smallest number that can do the job.
Said Andreas Heinrich, a physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. "The molecule cascade is not only a novel way to do computation, but it is also the first time all of the components necessary for nanoscale computation have been constructed, connected and then made to compute." That's slick.
It's also useless, practically speaking, just at the moment. There's no way to reset the circuit after you have used it. You do a calculation once, and then have to build another circuit. It's like having a light that can be turned on but not off again.
Further, the particular circuits were made and operated within 10 degrees of absolute zero, not much good in the average office. But the rascals worked, once anyway. And IBM's people are scurrying around trying to get them closer to practicality. If they do and I wouldn't put it past them the world will become a stranger place.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10274 | How to React when Your Gerbil Bites or Scratches
Co-authored by Pippa Elliott, MRCVS
Updated: April 30, 2019
Explore this Article Responding Immediately to a Bite or Scratch Preventing Further Bites and Scratches Article Summary Questions & Answers Related Articles References
Gerbils can give everything from a playful nibble to a painful scratch to a serious bite. If yours has some bad biting or scratching behavior, the best thing to do is to react calmly. Gerbils are sensitive readers of emotion, and if yours thinks you are scared or angry, it can become agitated and attack again. To avoid problems in the future, always stay calm around your pet and give it time to get used to you before handling it much.
Responding Immediately to a Bite or Scratch
1. 1
Blow air at your gerbil. If your pet becomes aggressive (bites or scratches), blow a puff of air at its face. Your gerbil will find this unpleasant, and it should stop biting or scratching.[1]
• This same technique works if your gerbil is just nibbling on you.
2. 2
Don’t flinch if bitten. Bites can be painful, especially if they break skin. Your first thought might be to pull away. This can make your gerbil actually want to bite again, however. It’s better to react calmly.[2]
• Gerbils don't bite to be mean. Biting is usually a sign that your gerbil is scared. Shouting or flinching can make the gerbil more scared and more likely to bite again.
• Gerbils are good readers of emotion. They can sense if you are afraid or scared, which can make them agitated.
3. 3
Stop irritating your gerbil if it nips you. When a gerbil nips, it will clamp its jaws down in a single motion. This won't be as painful or damaging as a bite, though it can still hurt a little. If your gerbil nips you, it’s a sign that it wants you to stop doing something. Let it be, and the nips should stop.[3]
• For instance, your gerbil might nip you if you’re holding it and it wants down.
• You can blow air at the gerbil for a nip as well, but make sure that you also stop doing what’s irritating your furry friend.
• A nibble is a painless, repetitive chewing motion. Don't mistake these for nips or bites.
4. 4
Wash the bite or scratch wound. Gerbils can carry germs, just like any creature. To reduce the risk of infection, make sure to wash the bite or scratch wound with antibacterial soap and warm water as soon as possible. This is especially important if your skin is broken.[4]
• Cover a mild cut with antibacterial ointment and a bandage after washing.
• If you see signs of infection (pus, redness, warmth), contact a doctor immediately.
• It is unlikely that a pet gerbil would carry rabies, but you may want to get a vaccine booster just in case.
Preventing Further Bites and Scratches
1. 1
Let your gerbil know you want to pick it up. Gerbils can get scared and bite or scratch if you pick them up without warning. Approach your gerbil slowly, start talking to it in a calm voice, and hold out your hand. If your friend seems calm, you can pick it up.[5]
• Do not snatch your gerbil up quickly, since this can cause it to become aggressive.
• Hold your friend firmly enough that it won't fall, but not so hard that you squeeze it.
2. 2
Clean your hands before handling your pet. Gerbils might become aggressive because they smell another gerbil on your hands. Likewise, if you have food on your hands, your pet might very well start nibbling on you. Washing your hands before handling your gerbil should take care of these causes of biting and scratching behavior.[6]
3. 3
Spend time each day with a new gerbil so that it gets used to you. Start by sitting next the cage so that the gerbil learns who you are. You can read or speak to the gerbil to get it used to your voice. After a few days, give the gerbil a treat, such as a sunflower seed, through the bars. Let the gerbil come up to your hand to eat the treat.[7]
• Over time, the gerbil will get less and less scared of you. Soon, you may be able to give the gerbil a treat from an open hand or the gerbil may willingly hop onto your hand when you hold it out.
4. 4
Handle an aggressive gerbil with gloves at first. Some gerbils will bite out of fear until they get to know you. Wear gloves when holding yours, talk to it soothingly, and give it treats. Over time, you might see it stop biting the gloves. When it seems calm around you, try picking it up and holding it bare-handed.[8]
• Most gerbils won’t make a habit of scratching, but if yours does, gloves will keep you from getting hurt.
• Gloves of any material are fine, as long as they are thick enough to prevent bites and scratches.
5. 5
Avoid handling a gerbil that seems afraid of you. If you have a gerbil who constantly bites and scratches, it can be best to just generally avoid picking it up. You can get another gerbil so that it has a companion to play with, and use gloves when you have to pick it up.[9]
• If you have a gerbil that has a habit of attacking your hand, you can also try letting it jump on your sleeve instead instead of picking it up and holding it in your hands. It might feel more comfortable that way.
6. 6
See a vet if you can’t figure out why your gerbil is aggressive. Some gerbils will attack because they are ill. If you can’t see a clear reason for your pet’s behavior, take it to a vet for an examination to see if there is an underlying cause.[10]
• Any illness might cause your gerbil to become aggressive. If the behavior is accompanied by diarrhea, a change in weight, loss of fur, skin problems, or inactivity, it is even more likely that an illness is to blame.
Community Q&A
Add New Question
• Question
What happens if he never stops biting?
Community Answer
Some gerbils will bite out of fear until they get to know you. Most gerbils won't make a habit of scratching, but if yours does, gloves will keep you from getting hurt. Gloves of any material are fine, as long as they are thick enough to prevent bites and scratches.
• Question
Why do they nibble me when I just put my hand in and let them sniff me?
Community Answer
Nibbling is just part of the way they explore the world. They're just curious about you.
• Question
Can gerbils go crazy from never coming out of their cage?
Community Answer
They probably won't "go crazy," but they will be poorly socialized, which means you won't be able to handle them very easily because they'll be frightened of you. They might also become depressed or stressed, both of which make a gerbil more susceptible to illness.
Ask a Question
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Article SummaryX
If your gerbil has bitten or scratched you, try not to flinch or pull away, since this may scare your gerbil and cause it to do it again. To stop your gerbil biting or scratching, try blowing a puff of air into its face. You should also stop petting or holding it since it’s probably irritated. To care for the wound, wash your hands using antibacterial soap, and contact a doctor if you see any redness or pus. For more advice from our Veterinary co-author, like how to handle an aggressive gerbil, keep reading!
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10282 | Upapadasamasa, aka: Upapadasamāsa; 1 Definition(s)
In Hinduism
Vyakarana (Sanskrit grammar)
[Upapadasamasa in Vyakarana glossaries]
Upapadasamāsa (उपपदसमास).—The compound of a word, technically termed as उपपद (upapada) by Pāṇini according to his definition of the word in III.1.92., with another word which is a verbal derivative; cf. कुम्भकारः, नगरकारः (kumbhakāraḥ, nagarakāraḥ) Here technically the compound of the words कुम्भ, नगर (kumbha, nagara) etc. which are upapadas is formed with कार (kāra),before a case-termination is added to the nominal base कार (kāra); cf. गतिकारकोपपदानां कृद्भिः सह समासवचनं प्राक् सुबुत्पत्तेः (gatikārakopapadānāṃ kṛdbhiḥ saha samāsavacanaṃ prāk subutpatteḥ) Par. Śek. Pari. 75.
(Source): Wikisource: A dictionary of Sanskrit grammar
context information
Discover the meaning of upapadasamasa in the context of Vyakarana from relevant books on Exotic India
Relevant definitions
1) Vigraha (विग्रह).—One of the two attendants given to Subrahmaṇya by the ocean. The other one...
Upapada (उपपद).—1) A word prefixed or previously uttered; धनुरुपपदं वेदम् (dhanurupapadaṃ vedam...
Nityasamāsa (नित्यसमास).—An invariably effective compound; the term is explained as अस्वपदविग्र...
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10289 | Skip to definition.
Noun: Black Muslim blak múz-lim
1. An activist member of a largely American group of Blacks called the Nation of Islam
Derived forms: Black Muslims
Type of: activist, militant
Part of: Nation of Islam
Encyclopedia: Black Muslim |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10303 | Technological Advances And The Workplace Expertise Shortage
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InternetNikmati pengalaman ber-internet yang belum pernah Anda rasakan, dengan MyRepublic. Internet and cell telephones are the most typical means used to bully people and in these mediums too, there are various methods a person may be harassed by bullies. Do not chew on the cable company’s supply for cheap telephone service with their bundle. Other than the associated fee discount by way of the outsourcing function of internet in business, outsourcing permits companies to concentrate on their core services and become more environment friendly.
We offer each full-time and half-time programs including an MSc in Social Science of the Internet, MSc in Social Knowledge Science and a DPhil in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences. Additionally, multiple faxes can be sent or received simultaneously and fax communication can take place between places that have entry to the Internet.
The Internet is a series of interconnected computer networks, including the networks of government offices, companies, and academic institutes. Phone- It’s time for a greater residential phone service. The origins of the Internet date back to analysis commissioned by the federal authorities of the United States in the Sixties to build sturdy, fault-tolerant communication with laptop networks.
Common methods of Internet entry by customers include dial-up with a computer modem by way of telephone circuits, broadband over coaxial cable , fiber optics or copper wires, Wi-Fi , satellite , and mobile phone expertise (e.g. 3G , 4G ). The Internet may usually be accessed from computers in libraries and Internet cafes Internet access factors exist in many public places such as airport halls and coffee retailers.
The Internet could be accessed virtually anywhere by numerous means, including through cell Internet gadgets Cellphones, datacards , handheld game consoles and mobile routers allow customers to hook up with the Internet wirelessly Throughout the limitations imposed by small screens and different restricted amenities of such pocket-sized gadgets, the companies of the Internet, together with e-mail and the net, could also be available.… Read More..
BBC Declares Modifications To Political Programming
ProgrammingLaptop programming is an art. GitHub – Programmers can use the popular open- source site to seek out jobs based on niche or location. In 1992 an A+ development group was formally created to upgrade and preserve this programming language. Simplicity and ease-of-use make micro:bit perfect for inexperienced persons whereas additionally having advanced options for knowledgeable programmers and makers.
Programs were largely nonetheless entered using punched playing cards or paper tape See laptop programming in the punch card period By the late 1960s, data storage gadgets and computer terminals became cheap enough that packages may very well be created by typing immediately into the computers.
Because you’re busy programming, services like can save you a ton of time and stress since you can make an bill in a only a matter of minutes. Trade-offs from this perfect contain discovering sufficient programmers who know the language to build a team, the supply of compilers for that language, and the efficiency with which packages written in a given language execute.
Technical requirements: The EV3 programming language runs on Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. Table 1.6 should give you a really feel for where we stand with computer programming languages right this moment. Examples of programming languages are HTML, Javascript and Python.
That is the programming that exists in your PBX that provides it the power to select an outside line if you dial your outdoors line access code (in lots of instances the digit “9”). Since C++ has influenced so many languages, if you already know C++ you’ll likely see elements from C++ in new languages you study.
Different programming languages are used relying on what you are asking the computer to do. Animated Listings step college students by way of the code line-by-line, displaying what is occurring in the program. It makes use of the acquainted strategy of building blocks to permit youngsters to create video games or animations by programming digital camera motions, 3D models, and scenes.… Read More..
Should I Use A 4K TV As A Computer Monitor?
Programming And Networks (Master’s Two Years)
ProgrammingAssociated tasks include testing , debugging , maintaining a program’s supply code , implementation of construct techniques , and management of derived artifacts such as machine code of laptop applications. On the other hand, Matlab is a proprietary language utilized in mathematical programming. Thus far this has been a very informative course and I am studying more about C++ than I ever would have if I self taught myself through simply studying a book. In this video we’ll take a look at the basic construction of a easy C++ program.
There are some programmers who’re extra generalist and are familiar with several completely different code languages. SimplyHired – You’ll find a programming job primarily based on your location. Thanks to this dynamic reading expertise, students come to class ready to debate, apply, and study programming — from you and from every different.
There are even cards you can use to learn Scratch programming ideas away from the computer. Jobs that contain programming are rising 12{3d54f069691ecbe5a865bdb760bff1838f040fba789168d5729ea8df86d58b84} faster general than different jobs. Those who have the right personality and wish to enter a career in computer programming can achieve this by finishing research and studying about the training requirements.
fifty six{3d54f069691ecbe5a865bdb760bff1838f040fba789168d5729ea8df86d58b84} of Programmers fall into the $20 – $fifty nine per-hour vary. I believe that the first step in learning any programming language is ensuring that you just understand tips on how to be taught. A+ also offers an extension for built-in database techniques, in order that you are able to handle your databases, using the A+ programming language.
Swift is a relatively new programming language released by Apple in 2014. Just like studying and writing are fundamental skills you may be taught if you examine English, computer programming is likely one of the basic abilities you’ll learn once you study Pc Science.… Read More.. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10310 | yoga download
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10320 | How to Use Instagram Hashtags to Increase Your Audience in 2019
Want to learn how to use Instagram hashtags to expand your reach and get more followers? Here’s how to use Instagram hashtags to increase your audience in 2019.
The power of Instagram hashtags is truly undeniable, yet so many Instagram users seem to forget about them. Hashtags are not hard to implement and have their own benefits that you will be excited to hear about.
instagram hashtags
Here’s how you can use Instagram hashtags to increase your audience and get more Instagram likes and followers.
Why Do Instagram Hashtags Matter?
As mentioned above, hashtags have lots of benefits. In addition to being very easy to implement, they also have these three advantages:
⭐ Make Your Content Easily Discoverable:
First and most important is the fact that Instagram hashtags make your content more easily discoverable. Your posts can only be noticed by your followers, but once you start using hashtags, they will also appear in search results for the hashtags you used.
These hashtags are quite similar to keywords used in articles on your blog in order to appear in search engine results.
So, for example, imagine you posted a picture of a strawberry cupcake. By tagging it with #cupcake, people searching for cupcakes on Instagram will see your post in search results. By adding even one hashtag, you make your post easier for users to find.
⭐ Encourage Audience Interactions:
Did you know that Instagram posts that include at least one hashtag get way more engagement than those that have none?
This means that by including hashtags in your posts, you encourage your audience to interact with your content and your brand more. Branded hashtags, in particular, are a perfect way to receive more user-generated content (or UGC).
User-generated content is especially effective as it works as a kind of word of mouth promotion and lets you interact with your audience more by featuring UGC on your own profile. Users want to interact with hashtags, so you just need to provide them with an opportunity to do so.
⭐ Get Along with Industry Trends:
Lastly, you can get along with industry trends by keeping an eye on trending Instagram hashtags. There are many Instagram hashtags generator and free tools to help you do this that you can try out.
The point of doing so is that you can create content relevant to what everyone is currently buzzing about. Moreover, trending hashtags can help you watch out for what your competitors are doing and what people are saying about your own brand.
What Instagram Hashtags Should You Use?
Of course, there is no definite answer to this question. But one thing which is true is that there is a set of tips and tricks that can help you find out what works for you best:
Branded Hashtags:
As mentioned above, branded hashtags are a great tool to help you increase engagement and stimulate UGC creation. More often than not, hashtags you meet on Instagram will belong to some kind of brand, so creating your own must be a matter of time for you.
Branded hashtags can be divided into three main categories: Brand name hashtags (e.g. #Puma), Brand-specific slogans (e.g. #JustDoIt), and Brand name variations (e.g. #MyAdidas).
You can create your own hashtags in all of these subcategories, but even a simple brand name tag can encourage your audience to interact with you more as long as you promote the hashtag once in a while.
Community & Industry-Specific Hashtags:
While branded hashtags are useful when you already have some kind of follower base, community and industry-specific hashtags are the ones that will get you noticed in the first place. The best hashtags are always the ones that speak in your audience’s language, and community hashtags do just that.
These hashtags are popular enough that they will get you likes but not too used that your post will get lost in the mass of other similar content. For example, instead of using #sports you may be using #runningroutine to get through to a more specific and niche audience.
General Hashtags:
General hashtags on Instagram are the ones that don’t necessarily pertain to a certain brand or industry. In fact, they can be as ambiguous as a simple #love tag (the most popular hashtag of 2019).
Including hashtags that are commonly used on Instagram such as #tbt (aka throwback to) or #nofilter can increase your likelihood of being noticed. Statistics show that longer hashtags are more effective with 11 being the magic number for hashtags.
You can also use some holiday-specific hashtags that are time-sensitive and will help you shine at a certain period of time introducing your brand to potential followers.
How to Use Instagram Hashtags?
So, how do you use Instagram hashtags? Here are some of the best practices currently in use:
👉 How Many: As mentioned above, the ideal number of hashtags is around eleven, but even with as few as two hashtags, you can still get a lot of engagement.
👉 First Comment: If you want to use many hashtags (Instagram allows 30 maximum) but don’t want your caption to look stuffed, simply post the tags as the first comment under your post.
👉 User-Generated Content: In order to get more UGC, you will have to encourage your audience to use your branded hashtags. Include them into your bio as well as on your site and in emails.
👉 The Right Photo: This is worth stressing yet again: your caption and your hashtags must match the photo. If it is not relevant to your hashtags, then what’s the use?
👉 Trending Topics: Using trending hashtags is a must if you want to be on the same page with your audience.
👉 Vary Hashtags: Even though it may be tempting to use the same hashtags over and over again, you must remember to vary the hashtags you use to get more people to see your content.
👉 Learn the Competition: Instead of blindly using the most popular hashtags, it may be better to do some research and see who you are competing with. Hashtags that have fewer posts will allow you to stand out easier.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Instagram hashtags can really help you if you are looking to increase your follower count. They will get you more exposure and, consequently, increase your audience. Follow the steps in this article to create your own hashtag strategy that will aid you in conquering Instagram.
If you liked this guide on how to use hashtags on Instagram to grow your reach and get more Instagram followers free fast then feel free to share it with your friends on social media networks.
If you want us to write more detailed guides like this regarding best Instagram hashtags, Instagram hashtags for likes and followers, trending hashtags on Instagram, Instagram hashtags generator, and most popular hashtags on Instagram then please let us know via the comment section below.
Author Bio:
william rodgersWilliam Rodgers is a content writer who’s currently working for The Word Point, an international translation service. As he knows several foreign languages, William’s main focus is writing SEO articles for businesses that want to drive their brand in the international market. His goal is to continually help more marketers fill Google search results with content that really matters.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10331 | Known as “the father of space travel.” Von Braun (1912-1977) was one of the world’s first and foremost rocket engineers and a leading authority on space travel.
Additionally, his determination to “go where no man has gone before” led to mankind setting foot on the moon through development of the Saturn V that launched Apollo 5 to travel to the moon in 1968.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10335 | New Ideas in Marketing
Essential news for marketers, summarised by YouGov
But blending tech and consumer experience analytics is just one of the investments a publisher can make.
The author in this article argues that as far as header bidding auctions are concerned, publishers end up going into them blindly in the context of consumer experience. If they wish to study how tech solutions affect users and revenue, they must go beyond off-the-shelf solutions.
One option then is for publishers to build their own solutions. But given that they understand content and users well, they are in need of analytics solutions that are bespoke to goals and revenue streams.
To get there, the author suggests investing in infrastructure as well as talent. By bringing consumer experience analytics and tech together and looking at programmatic holistically can lead to a fairer and intelligent auction environment.
Read the original article
[3 minute read]
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10337 | Report Copyright Infringement
Complete complaints require a signature of the copyright owner or a represtative authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.To satisfy this requirement, you may type your full legal name (not a company name) to act as your signature. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10338 | Download Video and Audio from YouTube
Disturbing Movies You Won't Be Able To Sit Through
3,784,287 views 33,064 2,717
If you're new, Subscribe! → Learn more about disturbing movies → There's bound to be a film out there that pushes one or two of your buttons. These movies, on the other hand, push every single one of them. These movies aren't just hard to watch. They aren't just edgy. And they don't just challenge the entire concept of good taste. They're deeply disturbing on almost every level… The Green Inferno | 0:20 Martyrs | 1:57 Irreversible | 3:05 The Woman | 4:22 Revenge | 5:14 The House that Jack Built | 6:36 Bite | 8:04 The Wild Bunch | 9:51 Read more here → Horror Movies Underappreciated Japanese Horror Films You Need To See Movies That Redefined The Horror Movie Genre 25 Best Horror Movies To Stream On Netflix Right Now What Famous Horror Movie Monsters Look Like Without Their Masks Hidden Horror Movie Details Almost No One Notices Secret Horror Movie Endings You Never Knew Existed Website → Like us → Instagram → Looper is the go-to source for the movies, TV shows and video games we all love. We're addicted to all things superhero and Star Wars, but we're not afraid to binge watch some reality TV when the mood strikes. Whether it's revealing Easter eggs and secrets hidden in your favorite films, exposing movie mistakes, highlighting the best deleted scenes, or uncovering the truth about reality TV's strangest stars, Looper has endless entertainment for the discerning YouTube viewer. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10342 | Meike Werner – illustrator, comic artist and coffee nerd
Meike’s love for drawing began when her parents bought her a little whiteboard and a set of wax crayons at the age of two. After that, she drew on every scrap of paper she could find, even into her mother’s cookbooks. As soon as she could read, she immersed herself in comics from Donald Duck to The Peanuts and Garfield. Throw in Disney movies and the occasional cartoons and she’d be happily sitting at her desk drawing her favourite characters. And she hasn’t stopped since. Meike is still drawing fanart of her favourite movie and tv characters. But she is also drawing her own characters and has finished her first short comic titled Last thoughts of a dead man.
Favourite tools
These are the tools Meike uses on a daily basis.
Meikes have been printed in: |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10343 | CSS and Sass
Articles on CSS Best Practices, Sass, SCSS, and more
Cool uses of the ::before and ::after pseudoelements
I have a confession to make: I kind of love the ::before and ::after pseudoelements. They're kind of like a couple of henchmen along on any styling adventure. Like never having to face the world alone - for everywhere there was 1, there is now 3.
Read More
CSS dismissal is about exclusion, not technology
It's that time again. Regular like clockwork, it seems to happen each September. Something happens, and suddenly webdev twitter is taken over with a battle royale over the value of CSS. Time for half the front-end development world to dismiss the value of the other half.
Read More
The Ultimate Guide to Learning CSS
CSS is a vast subject, with many different layers to learn about covering all different aspects of manipulating the display of elements on a page. It is also an evolving topic, which sometimes makes it difficult to know what to study. This article is intended to be a resource for learning, finding the best resources around for learning each area of CSS.
Read More
The 80-20 Approach to Sustainable SCSS
There's been a ton of innovation in the CSS and SCSS worlds over the last few years. A multitude of new naming conventions, architectural choices, and advanced libraries to make your CSS more manageable and powerful than other before.
Read More
There's a ton of interest these days in 'CSS in JS'. The premise is simple: CSS operates in a global namespace, which can result in undesirable side effects, spaghetti code, and extremely difficult to maintain codebases. JavaScript used to do this, and we fixed it by encapsulating everything in modules and using tools like webpack to stitch everything together. And hey look, our JavaScript tools can handle CSS too, why don't we move all of our CSS into JavaScript and encapsulate everything by module!
Read More |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10345 | Chapter 5: Men, Women, and Vulnerability
Gimlet Media’s Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber talk StartUp
S4 EP11: Pacing Yourself After Burnout
After a near-death experience, podcaster Helen Zaltzman felt sublime. At first.
S4 EP10: This is What a Male Identity Crisis Sounds Like
Wall Street guy Khe Hy gave up financial security to find himself. His story is less clichéd than you think.
S4 EP09: Is Your Career Veering Off Course…Or Just Doing a Zigzag?
Key moments that changed the professional lives of Pinterest's ex-President, an Obama advisor, and a data scientist turned CEO. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10347 | Request an Exam Copy
Extra-Curricular Activities 08/04/12
Categories Extracurricular Activities
Scot McKnight – Junia’s Friends
Michael Horton – Five Myths About Reformed Theology
Josh Starkey - How Literature Can Aid Your Worship
Ben Witherington - Hurtado on the Hermeneutics of Agape
Michael Bird - Who Were the Elders and What did they Do?
Leslie Keeney - Why the Trinity is Not the Complementarian Trump Card: Part 3
James K.A. Smith - Closing Lines: Eliot's Middlemarch
Marc Cortez - Why Write in a World Full of Words?
Phil Long - July 2012 Biblical Studies Carnival
Trevin Wax - Rejoicing in the Wrath: Why We Look Forward to the Judgment Day
Leslie Leyland Fields - The Gospel Is More Than a Story
Z Books Around the Web - A Theology of Luke and Acts
Z Books Around the Web - A Theology of Luke and Acts Two bloggers recently offered reviews of Darrell Bock's A Theology of Luke and Acts. If you recently reviewed a book...
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10383 |
1932, Universal, 69 min, USA, Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Gangsters and politicians, worried their allegiances will be revealed, conspire to destroy a innocent bellhop (Eric Linden) who witnesses a murder in the penthouse suite. A scathing, uncompromising and still timely look at the corruption inherent in American big-city politics. Indelible performances from a vast cast, headed by Louis Calhern and Edward Arnold. Screenplay by Albert Maltz and George Sklar, based on their play. Directed by Edward L. Cahn. NOT ON DVD
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10390 | Pretending Schmending/Lucky/Loose Cannons
A Poem By Madeline // 1/23/2014
Pretending Schmending
One of the things about being a writer
Is you write up fake conversations in your real head
Between two real people that will never be said
And then you're grasping for that minuscule shred
Of reality
Sometimes it's like that
You can't ever say that you feel things more deeply
How frustrating when the right words won't spring forth
You want to describe the way you fell in
To yourself
You want to describe how you can never feel well
Even as you sit on your bed cheerfully drinking whatever it is
That you claim obsession with
So I ask myself this
When I sit back and think
How much of it's real
How much pretending
Attractive is not a word
That aptly describes him
Simply, he's beautiful
You could liken the line of his jaw
To warm feel of chicken soup as it
Settles in your stomach
Much like the fleeting thoughts of him do
After they've passed
The curve of his wrists
Smoothness in his hands
Draws comparison to tree-lined paths
In fall, and leaves crunch under your feet
Much like he awareness that he exists
Inside the same sphere
As you
His laugh and the way he speaks
Nuances and
Little things
All boiled down to this
Fantastic human being
Those that get to be close to him
They are lucky
Loose Cannons
Loose cannon loose cannon loose cannon loose cannon
Hands shaking hands shaking hands shaking hands shaking
Play the martyr play the witch play the good girl play the game
I wish the masses would comply
To the easy standards set today
And I understand the anger
But that's never been my pain
Those feelings they are fleeting
But in others stew for days
For now all is quiet but not the type of
Waiting for a storm to pass
Liken it to one beginning
Throw two of the same into a cage
And tell them to go at it
There can be no winning in identical pairs
My shoulders sag with relief
These were a little rougher
These were a little rougher than the last set, but I really liked the first one! I feel that ALL THE TIME.
Erin | Thu, 01/23/2014
Love these!!! I agree with Erin though, a little more rough! I do like the second one a lot though!!!
Kassady | Fri, 01/24/2014
"Here's looking at you, Kid"
Write On!
At the risk of sounding repetitive...
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I really loved the first one. It really stood out, and it is so real! It felt like me, if that makes any sense. Anyway, great job! :)
little woman | Mon, 01/27/2014
The most astonishing thing about miracles is that they happen.
-G. K. Chesterton
Thank you to all three girls!
Thank you to all three girls! :D
Madeline | Tue, 01/28/2014
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Please read this before creating a new account. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10406 | A Consideration of History
From A Wiki of Ice and Fire
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A Consideration of History is a history written by Archmaester Perestan. It includes the War Across the Water, in which the Vale and the North fought over the Three Sisters.[1] The text also suggests "Erreg" was the corrupted title of an Andal chieftain who cut down weirwoods on behalf of a river king's rival.[2]
For ten long centuries the direwolf and the falcon had fought and bled over three rocks, until one day the wolf awoke as from a dream and realized it was only stone between his teeth, whence he spat it out and walked away.[1]
1. 1.0 1.1 The World of Ice & Fire, The Vale.
2. The World of Ice & Fire, The Riverlands. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10414 | Reason for the fracturing of the klingon empire
PST: discuss Star Trek without "versus" arguments.
Moderator: Vympel
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Re: Reason for the fracturing of the klingon empire
Post by FaxModem1 » 2018-10-24 05:49pm
Elheru Aran wrote:
2018-10-24 01:36pm
Longswords aren't that hard to use in an enclosed space-- in those circumstances, you use them as short spears, basically, and they have a secondary function similar to a staff, in which you can use the flat of the blade between your hands to help you wrestle your opponent.
As for the Klingons and swords... *sigh* I don't have much issue with the bat'leth being some sort of ceremonial weapon, and it should be noted that they do have secondary weapons such as the mek'leth and the dagger, which are MUCH more useful. The mek'leth is basically a fancy kukri, for example.
I think it should be noted that Worf switched preferences from the bat'leth to the mek'leth(mostly because Michael Dorn wanted a weapon that was easier to use). And he had a reason for his preference for it:
The Sons of Mogh wrote:(Dax and Worf are fighting. Worf is using a semi-bat'leth the length of his forearm. He breaks Dax's bat'leth and puts his weapon to her neck.)
WORF: E-cha!
DAX: Movek. Okay. I see your point. The mek'leth definitely have its advantages. But I still think the bat'leth, with its longer reach, is usually the deciding factor.
WORF: That is a classic argument. However, I find using a large and intimidating weapon like a bat'leth often leads to overconfidence.
DAX: So you think that I was overconfident?
WORF: You were overconfident. You thought by distracting me with your outfit you would gain an advantage.
*snip flirting*
It's also worth noting that in the spar before this conversation, Worf uses pressure and with a simple twist to break Jadzia's bat'leth. Worf did a similar trick with his bat'leth against Duras using a sword while thrusting at Worf in their duel to the death, instead closing the distance to physically hit Duras. Duras also didn't seem that experienced a combatant though.
I think the bat'leth is great if you're a very experienced duelist and used to pulling off fancy disarming tricks against an opponent. I wouldn't be surprised if Dahar masters wielded the bat'leth after years of practice, people took notice of how often the Dahar masters were winning with this weapon, pulling off the occasional fancy trick. This made a lot of young bloods start using the weapon, only without the finesse and discipline of years of practicing, making them easy opponents to beat.
Worf, entranced with the culture, but separate enough from it, seemed to have the necessary distance to look at things with fresh eyes to critique things that didn't make sense to him. This is probably why he won fights from that point onward with his preference for the mek'leth.
And we know from Enterprise and Discovery that the Klingons are huge about following the traditions of their people, to a fault. I wouldn't be surprised that they would need someone from the outside to make them change their ways regarding their traditions occasionally, because of their preference for said traditions.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10433 | Friday, October 31, 2008
Three Items of Importance
In summary:
1) Yay Yoda! (Happy Halloween!)
3) Book turned in. (Time to celebrate!)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Your Wish . . . Sort of
I'm in the middle with the red head scarf.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Halloween as a Purple Tent
Something elegant, mystical, and beautiful. Something like this:
My bad. My really, really bad.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
An Answer: Word Nerd Rears Her Head
So fox could be (and often was) spelled vox.
To complicate matters further, V and U were also interchangeable.
It's spelled: UOXES.
Putting it all together:
Tada! (Did that make sense to anyone else?)
(Hey, Dad, thanks for making me one!)
The big, pink pig
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Importance of Beta Readers
Qualified readers, no?
For example, on the most basic level: typos.
I fixed a bunch in edit #1. Going through the second edit, I was surprised at how many new typo corrections it had. And I went through #3, and the same thing happened: she caught a bunch that had been overlooked by #1 and #2. Of course, they all caught many of the same ones.
Each of the three edits caught at least ten typos that neither of the other two did. (We won't discuss how embarassing it is to have that many typos caught in the first place.)
Another reason multiple opinions is good is because sometimes they conflict. With one opinion, it's hard to know whether you as the writer agree with it or whether most readers will see it that way. But with three, if two agree and one doesn't, then you can often have a good idea whether the passage might really be working. One person's quirk doesn't mean that the section needs fixing.
I found this aspect particularly fascinating this time around. One reader marked a passage, saying, "I don't get this," while the other two starred it, writing, "Great!" or "Love this!"
Then there are the things that you as the writer were blind to but all three of them point out. By the time you see the same issue scrawled in red for the third time, you can be pretty sure that it needs fixing.
And of course each one pointed out lots of things that none of the others did, things that resonated (you can just feel it when someone hits that target—you know they're right, darn it), so I'll definitely add or fix those things.
One issue I'm struggling with this time around is making truth believable. I think it was John Grisham (although don't quote me on that) who said that the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
Here's the tricky thing: While this book is fiction, I'm drawing from a lot of real experiences, feelings, and events from women I've interviewed who have been through a husband's deployment. (That's what the book is about: five characters who become close friends while their husbands are in Afghanistan, and the trials each of them face.)
So when two of my readers mark a passage (based on something that really happened to a woman I talked to) and they call it unrealistic, what do I do?
I can't very well argue, "But that's how it really happened to so-and-so." Who cares? It's a novel. Fiction. And a reader shouldn't be pulled out like that.
So I need to figure out how to handle a few of those "real" elements so they sound more believable (even though they're accurate as they stand . . . ironic, I know).
I have a few minor tweakage revisions left to go that they pointed out, and then I'll be ready to submit. I'm pretty close now, and that's exciting.
I promised to have it turned in by Halloween, and I will, even if it means clicking "send" on midnight after my trick-or-treaters go to bed.
And then I'll celebrate. I'll try not to raid their candy stashes!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Now I Get It
"Why can't you guys just get along?!"
"Be-cause. We're sib-lings."
Oh, of course. Mystery solved. Duh.
Friday, October 17, 2008
A Good Book . . .
Who's right?
And I about fall over laughing at myself.
Trying again:
A good book . . .
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Reason #8,972 I Love Him
But as usual, going somewhere new, with fresh sounds, sights, tastes, and more, woke up my creativity and filled up my writer bucket, so to speak. Visiting Turku Castle did that in a big way. So did several of the churches we visited, not to mention Ainola and some of local restaurants (especially the one inside an old cabin, complete with the original fireplace).
For many years I've thought I really need to read The Kalevala, the Finnish book of mythology. I know bits and pieces of the story, thanks to Dad teaching Finnish literature, Mom being a Finn, seeing the National Museum as a kid, and having collector plates on the wall of our living room depicting scenes from the book. (One had a naked woman on it. I always wondered if it scandalized any of my friends' parents . . . :-D)
This trip, something finally clicked in my head. I had to get the book, read it (the good English translation, of which there is ONE), and very likely write something (or several somethings) based on the stories.
I love adapted fairy tales and the like. In fact, the first novel I ever completed was co-written with a good high school buddy and was a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. (Way fun story, if I say so myself.)
Some of my favorite YA books are retellings of mythology and/or fairy tales: Robin McKinley's Beauty, Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted, and (more recently), Jessica Day George's Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, and novels by Shannon Hale like Book of a Thousand Days and The Goose Girl.
After the trip, my sister and I scoured our parents' home, where Dad thought his copy of The Kalevala was still on a shelf somewhere. We couldn't find it. I figured that to use his copy (which is probably in a storage unit), I'd have to wait over a year until Mom and Dad get home. I'm not that patient.
I decided to look into borrowing a copy from one of Dad's colleagues. Or maybe the BYU library had one I could use. I couldn't very well buy one without doing a serious budget job for it: The Kalevala is pretty rare, and even USED, you're looking at about a hundred bucks. New? Don't even bother.
Today, a package arrived for my husband. As we do a lot of shopping online, I didn't think much of it and tossed it onto the kitchen table as I went about my day. But when he got home from work, he gave it to me to open.
You guessed it: Inside was a (very gently!) used copy of The Kalevala.
I could sing!
It's not my birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, or our anniversary (it's not even a sort-of anniversary, like of our first date, first kiss or engagement). But he knew that book was something I really, really wanted.
Yeah. He pretty much rocks.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
I Heart Finland
It's all done!
Thursday, October 09, 2008
A Life of Almost
First off (for which I'm grateful), I never had an English teacher tell me I was terrible or anything like that. I always managed to be in the advanced English classes, where students took the subject pretty seriously and the teacher expected higher quality work. So I never had to fight against terrible opposition to prove myself.
On the other hand, I never had a teacher gush and praise over me, either. In third grade, Mrs. Mixa read one of my stories and told me to keep writing, but I was in third grade. I'm glad she gave me some encouragement, but I don't recall it being along the lines of, "You're brilliant. This is what you are supposed to do."
Throughout the rest of my school career, I was a good student. A very good student. But did anyone ever pull me aside or write on top of a paper about how I should really be a writer? No. I did write an essay my sophomore year that Miss Drummond thought was kinda funny (about our Drivers Ed teacher, whom we called Squiggy behind his back, and his orange polyester pants), but that's about it.
The other high point was my senior year, when I took College Prep with Miss Drummond (again) instead of the Advanced Placement class. I knew the AP English teacher was a bit of a loon. Plus, he insisted his students read an insane number of classics in preparation for the test. I knew the test was based on writing well-crafted essays to literary questions. If you had half a dozen or so classics firmly under your belt, you could do well on the test. Knowing more books than another students didn't help if you couldn't write a coherent argument to go with them. Miss Drummond taught us to write good essays.
So I took CP with Miss Drummond instead of AP, firmly planning on challenging the AP English test anyway. Around January, she slipped to the back of the room next to me and another student, and told us she thought the two of us ought to consider challenging the AP English test. I hadn't told her my plans, and it felt good to have her confidence. (I got a 5, by the way. Yay me!)
But aside from Miss D liking that essay in 10th grade and her encouraging me to take the test in 12th, I never got a real sense that I was a great writer or ought to pursue it. I ached for that kind of validation. Other students got it, and I always came close. Sometimes very close . . . but usually in second place.
I took second place in a city writing contest my junior year. I was the English sterling scholar alternate my senior year. (Losing to the gal who took first place in that essay contest. That's actually a fun story. Read it here.) For the school literary journal, none of my stories got in, but a small little poem did. I didn't care about the poem. It was the stories that, in my mind, counted.
The "almost good enough" label applied in other areas, as well. All through high school, I was almost good enough over and over again. Several awards, positions, roles, etc. passed me by because I was almost.
The same thing happened years later when I started submitting to publishers. My first LDS-themed novel was rejected with a very nice (and long) letter from a big company telling me why they had almost accepted it. I got a phone call from the same company emphasizing how almost I was. I'm still not sure if the call helped or just rubbed salt into the wound.
I got similar rejections for years, with editors saying, "This is really good. You're a great writer. We almost said yes. But we're saying no. Good luck."
For a good chunk of my life, I've felt like the brass ring has constantly been just out of reach. (Whitney finalist, anyone?)
In some ways, even with my sixth book preparing to come out*, it still feels like that way. I'm not sure why; maybe I'm wired to be dissatisfied. But there's always another level, another place where I'm coming in #2. Now, instead of breaking into the market, it's trying to be at the top of the market instead of almost there.
There was a time I thought I should be happy with where I am. As a teen when I'd moan and wail over failing, my parents tried to make me see that for Pete's sake, I hadn't failed, I was second place. I was still doing great. I didn't see it that way.
As an adult, I can now see what they were trying to say. And, yes, today I'm happy . . . to a point. I'm really enjoying the publishing ride. It's gratifying to see how far I've come. But am I completely content? No.
I don't think I should be, either. If I were content, I wouldn't continue striving to improve my game. I wouldn't have a new goal to shoot for. My work would probably start going downhill, like some authors I've read who have "made it." To me, that's a horrific thought.
The way I see it, not being completely satisfied is a good thing for me. Someone, somewhere, knows that being almost, while frustrating, is what drives me to continue, to improve, to reach—which is why I'll probably continue to fall there.
So I'll keep trying.
*The release date for Tower of Strength has been moved up from April to March. Yay!
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Help the Techno-Idiot
It was driving me crazy, people. Kitty couldn't have hit that many keys, but for the life of me, I still can't figure out what she did or how to undo it.
Several hours after the fact, I did what I should have done first: I killed my browser and started over. That reset the reader, so I'm okay now. (Phew!)
But what caused it? If it happens again, what can I do in the future to undo it, short of exiting my browser any time the cat's in the room or banning the cat from the area completely?
Ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
(I swear I'll post something worth reading soon . . . this is just an itch I have to scratch! WHAT did the cat DO? Sounds like an Arthur episode or something . . .)
Monday, October 06, 2008
One Chore I'm Good at
So it occurred to me that maybe my method of doing laundry is different, especially after I did that meme where I showed a picture of my laundry room and people commented on my sorting baskets. Doesn't everyone have baskets like that? My mom did when I was growing up, so I thought everyone had them.
Or maybe my method isn't anything special; I don't know. But since laundry really isn't a burden to me, and it is for many other people, I thought I'd mention it. If this something useful to know, I'll have Josi throw it up on her sidebar of posts with things that work. You tell me.
Here's how my laundry life will go today:
• Fold the whites that have been sitting in a laundry basket over the weekend.
• Load the clean items back into the basket that belong in Mom and Dad's room. Put them away.
• While in our room, put dirty clothes from the hamper into the now-empty laundry basket.
• Take those dirty clothes into the laundry room.
• Sort them into the four baskets there: darks, lights, whites, and delicates. (Clothes that need to be pre-treated get slung over the edge of the basket so I can identify them later when it's their basket's turn.)
• See which basket is fullest. (Today that will probably be the lights.)
• Throw in a load of that basket. If it has two loads' worth, pre-treat any stains now so they can hop into the second load later today.
• Take the now-empty basket back to the sorting area (the couch by the TV) and load up the kids' folded whites.
• Trot downstairs and put each kids' pile on their beds. (The trick here is making sure the little people put their own clothes away after school. I have one kid right now who has three or four stacks on her bed. Last night, she slept on the floor. Cute.)
• Once the basket is empty, load up the kids' dirty clothes from their dirty clothes baskets, located in their closets. If it ain't in the basket, Mom doesn't take it. (If it's awfully close to the basket, maybe I will—if it looks like a sock fell out of the basket, I might be generous. But underwear and jeans all over the floor? Sorry. If you run out of clean clothes, it's your fault for not putting them in the basket.)
• Take the basket of dirty kids' clothes to the laundry room and sort into the four baskets.
• Walk away until I feel like coming back later. (Be a mom, work on writing, editing, blogging, run errands, oh yeah, and that shower thing. Whatever.)
• At some point after the washing machine is done (when it occurs to me), throw the wet clothes into the dryer.
• If there's a lot of dirty clothes (say the "lights" basket has two loads' worth in it) and I'm in the mood, at this point, I might throw in another load of clothes, particularly if I already pretreated something.
• I don't monitor the washer and dryer that closely. I'll transfer clothes when it occurs to me throughout the day (like if I'm in there feeding the cat or walking past the laundry room for some other reason).
• When the clothes are all dry, unload them into the basket and call it a day. Sometimes they don't get all dry until bedtime. That's fine. They're clean, and they're dry.
• That's it. I don't worry about folding all the clothes every single day. I know I'll get to the current basket of clean ones in the morning. Or tomorrow. Whenever.
So here's the photo from that meme again:
I have no idea what day of the week it was taken, but you can see that I probably did delicates that day, because the basket on the right is empty. And I probably did whites the day before that, because the whites basket is medium-ish. The darks and lights are both pretty full, so they'd be up next. I'd decide which to do the following day based on which one I did most recently if I remembered and/or what clothes I knew are needed next—or I'd pick one randomly.
There's a good chance that in the picture, the delicates are in the washer or dryer right now, because the brown basket (my trusty transporter one) is empty and on top of the dryer. You can tell that a few lights need to be pretreated because they're on the shelf (if there are several items that need treating, they'll be in a pile instead of simply draped over the edge of the basket.)
Here's the part where it's not a burden: if I do one or two loads on most days, then when things get chaotic (you know what that is like, right?) it's no big deal to skip a day or two. No one runs out of underwear or jeans for school.
I know I'll get to it. So it never gets to me.
Granted, there are some weeks I end up needing a few loads several days in a row, like after a family trip or after #2 came home from a week-long summer camp. But for the most part, if I just do a little laundry four or five days a week, it never builds up, and there's never a mountain to tackle.
Now if I can just figure out a way to get the sweeping, vacuuming, and clutter issues under control, I'll be set. Maybe.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Resistance is Futile
But according to Katri, a good friend of mine over there, in Finland it's really only teens reading the series rather than grown women lunatics who pine after Edward. Apparently Finnish women have some maturity and half a brain.
(Oops. Did I just say that in public? Please don't flog me. For the record, I could write several posts on things I admire about Meyer as a writer. I still say that women's unhealthy addictions for her hero are just sick and wrong.)
And here's more. The Host and Breaking Dawn haven't been translated yet, so they're for sale in English. In big stacks the size of a pallet. Which means they expect to sell a lot of books in a foreign language.
I don't get it, people. I just don't.
Only marginally more disturbing was seeing ads on the back of buses for High School Musical. I seriously wanted to shake the American marketing machine and tell them to saturate the U. S. for all I care, but crimeny, people, lay off the rest of the world and let them have their own culture!
Announcement: New Series Coming!
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10437 | Big Picture Science – That’s Containment: Peter Williams
by Gary Niederhoff on February 4, 2013
Part 6 of That’s Containment!, featuring Peter Williams, a physicist working in silicon valley, on the ever elusive technology of force fields.
(TRT 6:25)
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10438 | 30 December 2012
Simple Backup sbackup doesn't run on Lubuntu 12.10
I had this problem with sbackup 0.11.4 on Lubuntu, installed as Ubuntu 12.10 with lubuntu-core package installed. When sudo sbackup is run, even with --no-dbus or --legacy-indicator, it still gives plenty of errors and notably, the message "No desktop session found".
Strangely, scheduled backups work though. But when I tried instead:
sudo /usr/share/sbackup/sbackup-launch
that seems to work.
The bug might be because Lubuntu doesn't have 'gnome-session' or 'x-session-manager' running. Instead, it uses 'lxsession'.
29 December 2012
Migrating to Lubuntu - tips and fixes
If you want a fast, no frills version of Ubuntu, I suggest giving Lubuntu a try. It's Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop environment. I made the switch after installing Ubuntu 12.10 by installing lubuntu-core.
lubuntu-core doesn't install a lot of Lubuntu programs though, e.g. lxtask, so there's some fiddling to do with user settings to make the environment really usable. I'll describe some of what I did below.
I've tried migrating by installing lubuntu-desktop on another computer, which gave me all the programs associated with Lubuntu (like Abiword), but I preferred the Ubuntu set of programs — plus all the stuff I've accumulated thus far from using Ubuntu for the last few years — so I really just want the LXDE core modules. If you're installing a fresh OS, I suggest installing Lubuntu directly instead.
When using Lubuntu, you'll have to get used to not having a GUI for everything. There's some GUI system tools, but they don't always work all that well. Lubuntu is such a young OS, there's a lot of rough edges compared to Ubuntu. In fact, don't try Lubuntu unless you're running the latest (not necessarily LTS) distribution release — I encountered some problems with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the lubuntu-desktop package installed that were fixed with Lubuntu 12.10.
lxpanel keyboard shortcuts to the Main Menu stops working
The Main Menu contains shortcuts to lots of programs and system preferences. Usually Alt-F1 or Ctrl-Esc will activate it. But there's been a continual bug with the keyboard shortcuts when Lubuntu is installed over top of Ubuntu so that the keyboard shortcut may work once then stop working. Actually, that bug in lxpanel was fixed by Lubuntu 12.10, but a different bug took its place.
It turns out lxpanel runs in the background, and lxpanelctl controls it. But if you bring up the "Panel Settings/Preferences" window, the keyboard shortcut stops working. The keyboard shortcuts are actually bound to execute the lxpanelctl command, so it's lxpanelctl that loses control of lxpanel. Another way lxpanelctl loses control is when the "Run" window (lxpanelctl run) opens, and you type in a program name that then gets matched, then you use arrow keys to highlight one of the matches, then type escape repeatedly until the window closes. It's weird, but the fix is the same:
Kill lxpanel and restart it. I do it in the command line with a quick
killall lxpanel; lxpanel -p Lubuntu &
In fact, I have a bash alias to do that because it happens so often...
lxkeymap forgets your settings after log out
I like my caps lock changed to be another control key, and lxkeymap lets me make that setting. Oh, lxkeymap needs to be installed separately from lubuntu-core first. But why does it forget it's settings after logging out and logging back in? It's a bug in the lxkeymap package.
Per that bug report, you can fix this by creating a .desktop file with the following: |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10442 | Ever since search engines started offering searches not just for web pages, but also for images, the occurrences of something called “hotlinking” has risen dramatically.
For some of you who host images on your web site, you might already know what this is. Hotlinking is essentially the act of linking to images on another person’s web site. You can do this linking on a web page or even a post on a bulletin board. For example, let’s say a teenage girl just made her very own first web page on Geocities. Say this girl also likes Will Ferrell. Said girl searches the Internet for pictures of Mr. Ferrell and finds one on She then directly links the image from her page to my site. So whenever anyone views her web page, my server passes along the image to the browser.
This bandwidth theft, since most web hosting plans are charged by the amount of traffic the server must handle. Web site owners wind up footing the bill for other people’s web pages.
There are many things a web site owner can do to prevent hotlinking. The first is simply to rename the image file, but then you also have to change all the .html files on your own server which refer to that image file. There are also some changes to server config files you can make, but that’s all boring.
The fun thing to do is to switch the existing image file with another image file that the hotlinker never expected. You can put anything in place of the original file. Because of this, you can get that person in lots of trouble but most web site owners are nice.
As an example, take a look at what someone hotlinked to on a bulletin board devoted to the soap opera Passions. Below you’ll see that he used a picture of Will Sasso as Kenny Rogers as his signature. That image resides on my server.
To have some fun, I switched the image to something else, though I could have been way more naughty.
I’ve currently have the old switcheroo going on three sites right now. Usually people see what I’ve done and then take down the link. If they don’t I might just rename the file and that’ll be the end of it. If I’m feeling really bored, I might change the picture to something risque.
Who knew having a web site would be so fun?
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10451 | New En Garde Name Display System
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
So why don't you post the instructions or guidelines for creating this Display Name graphic here.
I have to fire up another computer to get to SL to get them. Been searching on the web but only found this reference.
Thank You.
Anonymous said...
May 31, 2014 at 2:04 PM
Sorry, you're right! Here's an overview of how to use the system.
First, you need a Display Name prim. If you own En Garde, you should have received one when I sent out the update (if not, you can get one by touching any vendor and redelivering a new setup to yourself). If you don't own En Garde, you can use a Display Name prim from any owner to set your display name globally across the whole system.
Next, you need to have a texture to use as a display name. You can make this texture in any graphics program, as long as you save it
as a .gif, .jpg, or .png. For best results, you should also follow these guidelines:
* The texture should have a transparent background, with your name being the only foreground element
* The texture should be 1024 pixels long and 128 pixles tall (or it can be a multiple of those numbers)
* After you create your texture, upload it to Second Life with your client. You should see it in the Textures folder of your inventory. There is a L$10 charge for uploading images.
* You must have full permissions on the texture you use (this should be automatic for textures you create)
When you've got your name texture ready, touch the Display Name prim. You then have 30 seconds to drag your name texture onto the prim.
* Make sure your inventory window is open and you can see your name texture
* Hold down the CONTROL key, and drag the texture onto this prim. It should hilite in red.
* Drop the texture on the prim, and you should see a message that your texture has been accepted.
You should see your new name if you step on a piste. It will also appear in the high score leader boards.
Name textures should have your name and nothing else. People who upload inappropriate textures will be banned from the game.
Rifkin Habsburg said...
May 31, 2014 at 2:47 PM
When trying to introduce the game to new people and to have to take the time to design one's name before you can play with one's name on the score board or to watch a match with no names on the score board is a serious oversight and design flaw: It kills the game spontaneity for first timers!
IMHO the custom name texture should be an option, not a necessity.
Anonymous said...
January 15, 2015 at 12:49 PM
The name display system is entirely optional -- the game functions fine without it. I recommend new players hop on and play (with help from a tutor) and see how they like the game before they take the time to upload a name texture.
Rifkin Habsburg said...
January 27, 2015 at 7:51 PM
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10473 | Funeral program paper Can Be Fun For Anyone
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Home > Music > Top 10 Celebrity Conspiracy Theories
Top 10 Celebrity Conspiracy Theories
Top 10 Celebrity Conspiracy Theories
How much do we really know the people on our TVs? Welcome to, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 celebrity conspiracy theories. For this list, we’ll be looking at all the wacky, bizarre, and sometimes totally believable theories people have come up with about some of the world’s biggest celebrities.
00:52 #10. Megan Fox Is a Clone
01:58 #9. Bob Marley Was Poisoned by the CIA
03:17 #8. Lorde Is 4Years Old
04:50 #7. Solange Knowles Is Beyoncé’s Daughter
06:00 #6. North West Is the Antichrist
06:59 #5. Ted Cruz Is the Zodiac Killer
08:16 #4. Princess Diana Was Murdered
09:08 #3, #2 and #1 ???
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10502 | Team & Systems
Diving into DiSC: the Dominant D
In my previous article on behavioral interviewing, I discussed the DiSC assessment’s use when evaluating job applicants. But how we leverage the results doesn’t stop there. In fact, this is an integral part of our company’s DNA, and we use the information daily.
We recently transitioned to a virtual office, but when we had a physical location, we kept a copy of everyone’s assessment results in the breakroom. We encouraged our team members to pick up and read through a coworker’s assessment whenever they had a few minutes. We don’t treat the results as a big secret. In fact, we find the more we know each other, the more effectively our team operates.
Each of the four primary personality types is critical in an organization. I’ve found organizations make two fundamental mistakes when dealing with personnel: they either have an unbalanced makeup of people, or they put people in the wrong roles, hiring for skills and knowledge rather than personality and behavior.
I want to help you avoid these problems, so we’re going to dive into each of the personality profiles and explore them. Let’s start with D.
Strengths and weaknesses
The “D” in DiSC stands for “Dominance.” These individuals tend to be decisive, tough and strong-willed. They see the big picture, love accepting challenges, thrive on taking action and are usually capable of achieving results very quickly.
People with this personality type focus on the shortest distance between where they are and where they need to go. Anything standing between these two points is considered an obstacle, and Ds have no problem overcoming obstacles.
Ds are great at getting the results you want, but when the obstruction is another person, particularly if the individual is someone else on your team, there can be conflict.
Because Ds tend to be so blunt, they often clash with other people who feel like they’re being run over. Dominant people don’t shy away from conflict. If they aren’t self-aware and willing to admit when they’re wrong, they may suffer from perpetual strife in some interpersonal relationships.
Mentoring D personality types
Your D employees value strength and usually fear being seen as vulnerable or having someone take advantage of them. They often have a tough shell to crack, and you’ll need to make consistent, repeated effort before they begin to open up to you.
Gain their respect by showing you’re competent and earn their trust by backing them up when they’re right. If you’re consistent in these actions, they’ll eventually let you in.
You’ll find Ds can be incredibly malleable if you take the time to earn their trust and respect. Don’t be afraid to tell them they’re wrong about something. When you do, use facts. Avoid being emotional. Tell them precisely where they screwed up, and let them know what they should do differently next time.
D types can be perceived as impatient, insensitive and closed-minded. They often need mentoring to recognize they aren’t one-person shows and that they need the other members of the team.
As you develop your D employees, always frame feedback from the perspective of helping them get results. Molding an effective team makes them more efficient at achieving objectives quickly and completely. When they understand this, they’ll often actively seek opportunities to develop their interpersonal skills.
Where to place a D in an organization
Ds thrive on autonomy and have no trouble being evaluated by the results they produce. CEO ranks are disproportionately filled with people whose primary personality is a D. Using them as project managers, directors of independent units and event coordinators maximizes their strengths, and you’ll see positive results very quickly.
Don’t put them in positions where their primary responsibility is dealing with other people’s personal problems, particularly if they’re not individually empowered to resolve the complaints. Human resources, for example, is an area much better suited for one of the other personality types. Customer service roles are also a poor fit and can quickly cause a D to become brusque.
If you have a supervisor who micromanages, avoid placing Ds under them at all costs. If you don’t, expect a poor working relationship, a significant amount of conflict and a high likelihood one of them will eventually leave your company.
Communicating with a D
When you’re interacting with someone who is a D, give them the bottom line up front. Tell them exactly what they need to know, then fill in the critical details. Keep the discussion brief. These individuals thrive on being concise and specific, so avoid generalizing and specifically focus the discussion.
Dominant individuals don’t mind hearing about problems, but since Ds are so focused on solutions, they want you to come prepared to offer one. Approaching a D with an issue and not recommending some kind of solution may be a recipe for being dismissed.
The foundation of your team
Companies often start with a D: someone who has a vision for the future, sees the big picture and drives for results. I’m primarily a D myself, and understanding how this type of personality operates has been very eye-opening. I’ve been able to intentionally nurture and maximize my strengths, while slowly and consistently overcoming my weaknesses.
Knowing and understanding your personality type and the personality types of those you work with could be a game-changer for your business. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you and your team take the DiSC assessment. Doing so will give you insights to make your organization have more productivity and less conflict.
About the Author
Justin Livingston is a Master when it comes to building a global audience for your Transformation Business.
He’s worked as a primary consultant behind the scenes of some of the largest personal development companies in the world, and currently coaches many of the Biggest Leaders in the Transformation Industry.
His client list includes Bill Baren, T. Harv Eker, Christian Mickelsen, Callan Rush, Sharla Jacobs, Eben Pagan, Ryan Eliason, Melinda Cohan, Kate Steinbacher, Rich German, Milana Leshinsky, Jeanna Gabellini, Vrinda Normand, Ted McGrath, Elizabeth Purvis … and so many more!!
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10518 | An suitable illustration on the requested resource couldn't be identified on this server. This mistake was produced by Mod_Security.We realize that the possibility of another person remaining ignorant for this very long of CoC hack and CoC usually is extremely not likely but we aren’t going to rule it out. It's possible you'll check it out yourse… Read More |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10520 | What do people find in Maureen Dowd?
I’ve never known. Anyway, I’ve discovered a blogger I’d not read before – a stroppy femmo who’s a great read – who seems to have similar views to mine. Go and have a good squiz around her site.
This entry was posted in Gender, Humour, Media. Bookmark the permalink.
13 Responses to What do people find in Maureen Dowd?
1. NPOV says:
Can’t say I ever had much of an opinion on Maureen Dowd, but I do note the passing of another renowned female columnist, Pamela Bone, whose essays were almost always worth reading, especially the ones I disagreed with!
2. Mo MoDo says:
I don’t agree with everything Dowd says, but I find her writing style clever and witty. I blog about every column if you are interested.
3. Patrick says:
I agree with your views on MoDo, and that of the G-spotter, and Tim Blair! I struggle to understand why anyone would keep publishing her shtick. It’s clever and witty and surprising and brave and fresh …
… like John Greenfield.
4. NPOV says:
Patrick, you agree with the g-spotter that the New Deal was a good thing due to the greater economic equality it led to?
5. Patrick says:
Er, is that one of her views on MoDo?? I would have thought that was one of her views on the New Deal!!!
But I don’t see it as completely false, either. I suspect that the New Deal probably cost America quite a bit, especially in context, but that they got away with it due to the extraordinary circumstances, and notably the complete distortion of the economy due to the war.
As for the present, I don’t argue for the abolition of welfare, far from it! I actually see something like the Danish flexicurity so beloved of this site as a good answer, but targeted like Australian welfare (I regard unemployment benefits fixed relative to actual last salary as plain immoral, for example). Eg, I think that one of the key elements of flexicurity, namely the immediate but transitional only support for job-leavers (although I would restrict it to low-income job leavers) as an excellent support for increased structural flexibility – such as scrapping unfair dismissal for <100 employee-businesses.
6. NPOV says:
I suppose I (somewhat carelessly) parsed your statement as just “I agree with the views of the G-spotter”.
Anyway, I only raised it because of our previous discussion on Kansan voters.
If you accepted the New Deal made working-class voters better off, then you were, by implication, accepting that for working classes to be voting for a party with economic policies that were quite the opposite wasn’t very rational.
7. Patrick says:
I must have too legalistic a mind. That last paragraph just seems riddled with implicit assumptions that I would challenge.
That the New Deal made the working class better-off over than relatively to the ‘upper’-class (this is not established to count as ‘better’-off);
That the Republican policies of today are ‘quite’ or at all the opposite of the new deal;
That the Democratic policies are in this regard distinguishable from Republican ones (ie that they will distribute more to poor people); and
That economic policies are the only rational factor in voting decisions.
In short, that last paragraph sums up just what was wrong with what’s wrong with Kansas (apologies to Bartels).
8. NPOV says:
Well, I’d agree that latter-day Democrat policies aren’t radically different to Republican ones as far as treatment of the working-classes go, but I don’t think, given the history and basic philosophy of each party, that it’s unreasonable to suppose that they’d be more likely to look after the economic interest of said voters.
But, yes, it was a statement “riddled with implicit assumptions”. I originally wrote it while trying to acknowledge them, but it was an even less readable jumble that what I ended up with!
9. Patrick says:
I don’t understand your knack of writing a comment that looks to me like almost complete agreement with me but then qualifying it with complete disagreement!
10. NPOV says:
That’s ok – I don’t understand your knack of interpreting my “medium grey, qualified with a darkish tinge” as “white, qualified with a bit of black” :-)
11. Niall says:
Is this an attempt to placate the feminist bloggers?
12. Absolutely. I was thinking it was time to ‘reinvent’ myself.
13. Kris says:
I don’t mind Ms Dowd, I don’t always agree, but it would be a sad old world if we did.
Comments are closed. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10530 | Convert 136 ounces to pounds
If you want to convert 136 oz to lb or to calculate how much 136 ounces is in pounds you can use our free ounces to pounds converter:
Convert ounces to pounds
136 ounces = 8.5 pounds
How to convert 136 ounces to pounds
To convert 136 oz to pounds you have to multiply 136 x 0.0625, since 1 oz is 0.0625 lbs
So, if you want to calculate how many pounds are 136 ounces you can use this simple rule.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10538 | NAME Apache2::UploadProgress - Track the progress and give realtime feedback of file uploads SYNOPSIS In Apache: PerlLoadModule Apache2::UploadProgress PerlPostReadRequestHandler Apache2::UploadProgress In your HTML form:
DESCRIPTION This module allows you to track the progress of a file upload in order to provide a user with realtime updates on the progress of their file upload. The information that is provided by this module is very basic. It just includes the total size of the upload, and the current number of bytes that have been received. However, this information is sufficient to display lots of information about the upload to the user. At it's simplest, you can trigger a popup window that will automatically refresh until the upload completes. However, popups can be a problem sometimes, so it is also possible to embed a progress monitor directly into the page using some JavaScript and AJAX calls. Examples using both techniques are discussed below in the EXAMPLES section. EXAMPLES Simple Popup Upload Monitor The simplest way to add a progress monitor to your forms is to use the popup technique. This will launch a popup window with a progress monitor that will automatically refresh until the upload is complete. The popup will use the XML method by default, and format the page using an included XSL stylesheet (which can be customized to suit your needs). If the browser does not support XML transformations, then content negotiation will automatically fall back on a basic HTML page. Here is what you need to do to get the popup technique working:
So all we have done is add an onsubmit handler on the form that will pop up a new window and load the progress monitor. No changes need to be made to your CGI script, and nothing else needs to be done (apart from the standard Apache configuration directives listed in the SYNOPSIS above) Embedded Upload Monitor It is also possible to embed the progress monitor directly into the page and it is just as easy:
The only difference is that we changed the onsubmit handler to call startEmbeddedProgressBar, and then we added and extra 'div' tag to indicate where we want the progress monitor to appear. For complete runable examples please see the scripts in the examples directory. APACHE CONFIGURATION UploadProgressBaseURI Change the location of the extra support files, so that you can customize them to suit your needs. UploadProgressBaseURI /CustomUploadProgess Alias /CustomUploadProgess /var/www/customprogressfiles Make sure that you copy all the support files found in the 'extra' directory to this new location and then you can customize them to your liking. This currently only affects the urls used in the XML/XSL and HTML mime handlers used in the popup progress monitor. HANDLERS handler This handler should be run at the PerlPostReadRequestHandler stage, and will detect whether we need to track the upload progress of the current request. There are 5 ways for the handler to determine if the upload progress should be tracked: X-Upload-ID There is an incoming header called X-Upload-ID which contains the progess ID X-Progress-ID There is an incoming header called X-Progress-ID which contains the progess ID Query contains ID The query portion of the URL consists of just a 32 character hexadecimal string (for example http://localhost/upload.cgi?1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef) Query contains progress_id There is a query parameter in the query string called progress_id, and it contains a 32 character hexadecimal number (for example http://localhost/upload.cgi?progress_id=1234567890abcdef12345678 90abcdef) Query contains upload_id There is a query parameter in the query string called upload_id, and it contains a 32 character hexadecimal number (for example http://localhost/upload.cgi?upload_id=1234567890abcdef1234567890 abcdef) Note that you can not pass the progress_id as a hidden POST parameter, since the Apache2::UploadProgress module never actually decodes the POST request so it will not be able to determine what the ID is. The reason for this is that we are trying to track the rate at which the POST request takes to upload, so we need that ID before we even start counting the incoming POST request. So the ID must be passed as a header, or as a simple query parameter, as part of the action attribute of the form. progress When called, this handler will return the upload progress of the request identified by the given ID. The ID can be provided in exactly the same way as in the handler method given above (Although is usually easiest to just provide is as a query parameter called progress_id). This handler can return the results in several different formats. By default, it will return XML data, but that can be changed by altering the Accept header of the request (if multiple mimes are present in the Accept header, they are tried in order of qvalue according to RFC 2616). For example, if you set the Accept header to the following: Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, text/x-json Then the preferred mime type would be text/x-json, but if it was not available, the data would be sent in text/plain. The following formats are currently supported: HTML ( text/html application/xhtml+xml ) JSON ( text/x-json application/x-json ) TEXT ( text/plain ) YAML ( text/x-yaml application/x-yaml ) XML ( text/xml application/xml ) For an example of how to alter the incoming Accept header see the example script that is included in the examples directory. PUBLIC METHODS register_mime( $mime, \&callback ) my $callback = sub { my ( $size, $received, $r ) = @_; return sprintf "Total size: %d\n Received: %d\n", $size, $received; }; Apache2::UploadProgress->register_mime( 'text/plain' => $callback ); Register a content handler for a mime. Callback will be called with three positional arguments, size, received and $r. Callback is expected to return a scalar of octets representing the response body. This can be used to override any of the existing content handlers (for example if you wanted a custom HTML response, override 'text/html'). INTERNAL METHODS The following internal methods should never need to be called directly but are documented for completeness. progress_id( $r ) $progress_id = Apache2::UploadProgress->progress_id($r); Determine the progress ID for the current request (if it exists) fetch_progress( $progress_id ) $progress = Apache2::UploadProgress->fetch_progress($progress_id); printf "size: %d", $progress->[0]; printf "received: %d", $progress->[1]; Pulls the progress values from the cache based on the provided ID store_progress( $progress_id, [ $size, $received ] ) Apache2::UploadProgress->store_progress( $progress_id, [ $size, $received ] ); Update the progress values in the cache for the given ID track_progress An Input filter handler that totals up the number of bytes that have been sent as part of the current request, and updates the current progress through calls to "store_progress". BUGS Safari The JavaScript for the embedded progress meter is currently failing in Safari Cancelled uploads When a user cancels an upload, but leaves the page with the progress meter active, the progress meter may continue to reload indefinately SEE ALSO . . Apache2::Filter. Apache2::RequestRec. AUTHOR(S) Christian Hansen "" Cees Hek "" COPYRIGHT This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10543 |
Angular 2 course wrap up and what's next - Slides
1 comment:
1. PLZ Make videos on advance of routing ,custom popup,Lazy Loading,advance of component Interaction(parent and child),3rd party controls like (prime ng ,kendogrid)
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10571 | Thank you and see you around!
Friday, June 1, 2018
Some of you might have anticipated this day and here I am to tell you that, yes, this is my last post on exPress-o for a while. I'm not saying this is 'it', I'm simply saying that the past 8+ years have been the most amazing/challenging/fun years of my life. I'm saying that this space shaped my personal taste, expanded my creativity and made me think outside of the box. I'm saying that I'm thankful to all of you for reading all my posts from the very beginning, and I'm saying that despite all that, I'm ready to let it go, for a while, at least...
Thank you, amazing readers for meaningful connections, friendships and work opportunities. Thank you to this slice of heaven for showing me that being an introvert in a world of extroverts works as long as you do it your own way. Thank you for all the emails, notes, comments in the past 8+ years. I read them all and I even have some of them saved for a rainy day....
This is certainly not a goodbye...See you around? :) xo
(Photo of Alfred Eisenstaedt enjoying a tube floating party on the Apple River in Wisconsin in 1941 via For Emma, Forever Ago)
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10582 | Run-Time Context
Session and Query Contexts in the SQL Standard
The SQL standard says that each session has a session context, which contains some attributes of the session that are exposed by the SQL language. These attributes are set when the session starts. They include the timezone, the locale; the current time (in several forms); the user (in several aspects); the default schema; and the default SQL path.
Some attributes (like the timezone) can be changed by the user in SQL; others (like the current time) are set by the s-Server, and the user can read the value in SQL. The latter group behave like functions, and the former group behave like variables.
Each statement (ie query or DML statement) has its own run-time context, which contains the attributes pertinent to execution, copied from the session context In standard SQL the run-time context is constant: the user can’t change the attributes, and they don’t change by themselves. Even if query execution takes a long time, its time attributes stay constant.
The run-time attributes include the locale and the timezone, not available from SQL; as well as the attributes in the following table, which are exposed in SQL:
Attribute Description
LOCALTIME the time of day, without timezone
LOCALTIMESTAMP the date & time, without timezone
SYSTEM_USER operating-system user id
SESSION_USER database user id
(Syntactically, these all look like identifiers, but they behave as functions with no argument.)
Session and Query Contexts in the SQLstream s-Server
The current version of the s-Server supports a simplified version of these attributes. Roles and privileges are not yet supported. The s-Server does not yet distinguish individual users, so SESSION_USER is simply “sa”, (the database administrator). SYSTEM_USER is the unix user that started the s-Server.
The session locale and timezone are inherited from the s-Server. The s-Server locale is set from the unix environment variable LOCALE when the s-Server is started, and the s-Servertimezone is always UTC. All rowtimes are in the s-Server’s timezone. It’s simplest if all JDBC clients run in the same timezone as the s-Server. By default this is UTC.
Following the SQL standard, the time-valued attributes are constant, and return the moment the query was prepared. However a streaming query can run for a very long time, so as a practical necessity we have added the attribute CURRENT_ROW_TIMESTAMP, which changes for each row, being set to the approximate system time of the s-Server.
The analogous CURRENT_ROW_DATE and CURRENT_ROW_TIME do not exist; these values can be extracted from CURRENT_ROW_TIMESTAMP.
CURRENT_ROW_TIMESTAMP should not be confused with ROWTIME. ROWTIME is an operator which is applied to a row in a stream to get its rowtime (a timestamp). ROWTIME behaves like a pre-defined column name that occurs in all streams. CURRENT_ROW_TIMESTAMP is an operator that applies to a query result and returns the latest rowtime seen in the results. (Since the result of a query is essentially a stream, usually an anonymous stream, CURRENT_ROW_TIMESTAMP returns the stream clock. For more information, see the topic What are Rowtime Bounds? in the Concepts Guide. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10586 | October 8th, 2010
Discussion (18)¬
1. Alli says:
I LOVE his sneaky door close. It amuses me. :P
Your art has really grown and it shows! It’s incredible to look back and look at the comic now.
2. Jen says:
Clearly they planned which room to meet in. ;) Love the “sneaky” panel.
3. Ali says:
I love the limbo move going on. Very inconspicuous. Love that. XD
4. Bex says:
Aww, for some reason Ben arranging a rendez-vous with the ghost seems so cute xD And of course, love the sneaky moves. And the light contrast in the two halves of the first panel. Also his expression in panel 6 is awesome.
• Rachael says:
lol for a moment i thought the “reply” button was a “like” button, like on facebook, so…. OMG YEAH I AGREE! great contrast! loving the light schemes!
5. Val says:
Looks like a secret adgenda!
I’ve got my first Civil War reenactment tomorrow at Harper’ Ferry! Wish me luck!
6. Lizzie says:
Oh my God, he looks like Puppet Ron! Wooooooooaaah, Botha’.
Yes, ghostie. Tell us things.
7. Idunyken says:
I love how Ben just flatly demands answers from a hundred-and-fifty-year-old ghost XD
8. Elwen says:
Teehee, I’m gonna use that from now on :3 Vwoop!
9. lauren says:
it just keeps getter awesomer….
10. Pattypixie says:
OMG that 4th panel. LOL
11. Neva Sirenda says:
Love the first panel, with that stark lighting contrast, Charlie trying to be all open and honest and Ben sneaking around in the dark, keeping secrets. And that “vwoop” — is that Ben being sneaky or did the ghost push him into that room so they could meet? — because that’s kind of how it looked to me, especially with Ben’s reaction to the general supernatural high-handedness.
12. Segreto says:
OHMYGOD. Why, every time I start reading a new webcomic, do I get up-to-date at the most NAILBITING moments!?!? ARRRGH. Now I have to waittttt…. THIS COMIC IS AMAZING!!!! D:
13. Jessi says:
Ben really does get the best sound effects, doesn’t he? Dive! Pop! Vwoop! :))))
Reply to Neva Sirenda¬ |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10628 | celebrating mid life
This poem by Fleur Adcock is for all the women who, like me, are on the “darker side” of forty. She reminds us that there is more to beauty than flawless skin, and that the more we choose how we want to be in the world and how we want to live our lives, […] |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10636 |
3 Answer(s)
• In continuation to my answer, here's something useful and fun:
Copy the following formula in cell B1 (assuming your data starts in A1): SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A1)," ","*",1)
Copy down the above formula to the rest of the cells
Select column B
Go to Data--> Text to column...
Check "Other" and put "*" there (without double quotes)
Press Ok
Your Data should be split and formatted in a nice usable table.
• Here are the steps:
• Select the starting cell where you want the imported data to be placed
• Go To Insert --> Link to External Data...
• This will open an "External data" dialog box where you need to put in the url of the source and press Enter.
• This will bring up "Import Options" asking you to select a language to import. Select Automatic.
• This populates the list box with HTML elements. Select HTML_Tables.
• In case, you want your data to automatically refresh, there is an option to set the frequency at which the data will be refreshed.
• This should populate your sheet with the required data.
Sign In
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Reset Password
Fill out the form below and reset your password: |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10645 | The device, service and repair the Opel Omega - 8.2. Hydraulic system of the drive of switching off of coupling//1993-1999.
Opel Omega
since 1993-1999 release
Repair and operation of the car
Opel Omega
+ 1. Maintenance instruction
+ 2. Maintenance
+ 3. Repair of engines
+ 4. Heating system and ventilation
+ 5. Fuel, exhaust systems
+ 6. System of start of the engine
+ 7. System of ignition
- 8. Coupling
8.1. Technical characteristics
8.2. Hydraulic system of the drive of switching off of coupling
8.3. Main cylinder
8.4. Working cylinder
8.5. Coupling pedal
8.6. Clutch plates
8.7. Main malfunctions, their reasons and methods of elimination
+ 9. Transmissions
+ 10. Main transfer, half shafts
+ 11. Brake system
+ 12. Suspension bracket and steering
+ 13. Body
+ 14. Body electric equipment
8.2. Hydraulic system of the drive of switching off of coupling
When carrying out pumping use only new hydraulic liquid.
Before pumping check all tubes and reliability of connections.
Pumping valve arrangement
The valve of pumping is located on the right side of the transmission.
Main method of pumping
1. Fill a tank with new hydraulic liquid.
2. Remove a cap from the pumping valve. Put on a hose the valve and lower the second end of a hose in hydraulic liquid.
3. Ask the assistant to squeeze out a coupling pedal. Open the valve of pumping and merge liquid. Close the valve. Release a coupling pedal.
4. Repeat this operation while in the following liquid there is no vial of air left.
Pumping with use of a set with the unilateral valve
1. In a rubber tube of such set the unilateral valve preventing hit of air and old hydraulic liquid back in system is installed. Capacity for collecting old hydraulic liquid can be also included in the package.
2. After connection of a set to the valve of pumping open the valve. Smoothly squeeze out a pedal of coupling and slowly release it. Repeat this operation until all air is removed from hydraulic system.
Pumping with use of a set for pumping under pressure
Having connected a set for pumping under pressure to a tank of hydraulic liquid, for pumping of system it is rather simple to open the pumping valve for a slitiya of old hydraulic liquid and production of air.
All methods
Upon completion of pumping wash away the spilled hydraulic liquid, reliably twirl the valve of pumping and establish on it a cap. Double-check the level of hydraulic liquid. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10650 | View Full Version : AI to 120%
10-05-2015, 15:21
If you can put the option to have the AI to 120% for them to do better lap times ... without be 20% more aggressive.. please
10-05-2015, 15:59
Im quite sure the AI will be tweaked and adjusted in due time, In earlier versions there was two sliders instead of just one. I dont know for sure if it will change drastically but I expected changes, even if small ones
Umer Ahmad
10-05-2015, 16:11
Also dont judge he AI at Donington, they are too slow there known issue.
If you want a real challenge race them in the rain, they are too fast ;)
10-05-2015, 20:19
Yes it would be nice to have two sliders like Rfactor ! , and thanks i will not judge them in Donington !
By the way it's a great game thanks for it ! If you guys could just tweak the AI to have a nice complete single player game it would be just a perfect game !
Im racing in Rfactor2 and i'm a little bored to always have to tweak my AI's so it's why this game looked so good to me , with the career mode etc ..
Thanks for reply !
10-05-2015, 20:49
or if 100% was that much faster, you could do that too..
this could get very spinal tap :) |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10652 | Jump to content
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1. Thanks for your reply @Ausman I removed the linearization block - because I cannot use float and created a formula instead. The attached image shows the way I did it. I will test the thing and post an update about it. BR
2. Hi, Many thanks for your reply Joe The PLC model I'm using is "Unitronics SM43-J-RA22". I will answer the questions you listed and we need to know their answers: the range of the pressure sensor is from 2 - 30 Psi(abs). Its sensitivity is 3mV/psi. Full scale span is 90mV. The analog input of this PLC 14bit (16384units). Its Input is set to 0-10v. The analog output is 12bit - from 0-10v. The relationship between the pressure sensor reading and the output that will drive the pressure regulator is pretty simple: the pressure reading will be from -0.5Bar to 0Bar. and the pressure regulator should start at 3Bar @ (-0.5Bar sensor reading) and ends at 0Bar @ (0Bar sensor reading). I used "Linearization" block to create the relationship between the pressure sensor input and pressure regulator driving output - as shown in the figures below. BR, Qassim
3. Hi, Many thanks for the reply @Ausman & @Joe_Tauser. I spoke to the guy responsible for the project and it turned out that he was mistaken. There is no set point required by the user. The functions looks like a simple linearization. The pressure read by the pressure sensor will directly drive the pressure regulator with a given formula. Currently I'm trying to create this simple program. But since I don't have any experience in using this program, I think it will take me some time to learn it. Many thanks, Qassim
4. Greetings, I'm new to this form and to Unitronics PLCs and I would like to ask for some help/ I previously programmed "allen bradley" PLCs using a software called "RSLogics". The were 4 programming languages that I can use to build the PLC program. However, VisiLogic doesn't have "Structure text" language. I already have done the analog conversion using formulas and created the HMI, but I'm stuck now The program that I am trying to make is simply as follows: A number is written using the HMI and stored in a variable. This number is then compared to analog reading of the pressure sensor. If the numbers were different, then one analog output will be changed to reflect the number entered using the HMI - which will control a pressure regulator. Could anyone please help me with this issue ? Many thanks, Qassim
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10660 | Earn the miles you redeem, redeem the miles you earn
While I didn't coin the aphorism, I repeat it every chance I get: the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem.
It doesn't matter how big the portal bonus, or how cheap the manufactured spend, if your balance in a single account never dips below 900,000 you have 900,000 worthless miles.
I'm not judging; we all make mistakes. But the first thing to do when you find yourself halfway up a mountain is to stop climbing!
Earn the miles you redeem
There are two typical strategies for an affiliate blogger promoting the flavor of the month increased signup bonus (or increased affiliate payout):
• explain how great a loyalty program is and how valuable the signup bonus is;
• or highlight specific destinations or properties that the signup bonus can get you to.
So you can find Bankrate.com employee Jason Steele discussing free one-ways on United award trips in order to sell Chase credit cards, or Summer Hull name-checking aspirational Marriott properties to promote an increased signup bonus on their co-branded card.
But if United miles aren't the miles you redeem and Marriott properties aren't the properties you stay at, you shouldn't be thinking about these cards at all!
Even if you do read a review of Lufthansa First Class and think to yourself that it wouldn't be too bad to try it sometime, you need to do a reality check first: are you going to learn the nuances of Lufthansa award availability? Are you willing to buy a tag flight to Lufthansa's US gateways if you can't find United award space? Are you able to plan your vacation time around those flights?
My point is that mere interest isn't enough to waste a credit card application on — you need a plan you're willing to commit to. Otherwise you risk ending up with a pile of worthless United miles or Marriott points.
Everyone's miles and points strategy is different, and I'm not going to tell you what miles and points you should be earning, or which are the most valuable, because you already know which loyalty currencies are the most valuable: they're the ones you're able to consistently redeem for the trips you actually want to take.
Redeem the miles you earn
So you got snookered into earning a bunch of miles and points that have been collecting dust and are slashed in value every 18-to-24 months. It's true they're worthless until you redeem them, but the good news is they're only worthless until you redeem them, and that's completely in your power.
So here are some suggestions for cleaning out those stuffy old accounts and finally turning your aging miles and points balances into real-world value.
• Pay with points. I get e-mails a few times per month from readers who are frustrated that after earning a few hundred thousand Membership Rewards points, they find they're virtually unusable for the supposed "sweet spot" redemptions: Delta and Frontier are the only US-based airline transfer partners, British Airways is distance-based and imposes fuel surcharges, and the other airline programs have learning curves too steep to quickly master. But if you ever pay cash for airline tickets, you're in luck — you can simply buy those airline tickets with your Membership Rewards points and unlock one cent per point in value (more with the Business Platinum American Express)!
• "Worse" transfer partners and rates. It's true that Membership Rewards points transfer to Starwood Preferred Guest at a 1000:333 ratio. It's also true that Starpoints are both more valuable and more flexible than Membership Rewards points. If Starpoints are the ones you're comfortable aggressively redeeming, 50,000 of them are worth more than 150,000 unredeemed Membership Rewards points.
• Standard awards. I wrote about "standard" or "high-level" awards in a slightly different context last month, but they fit right in here. If you are sitting on hundreds of thousands of AAdvantage miles from multiple Citi Executive / AAdvantage signup bonuses because you can't find low-level Business or First award space, book an AAnytime award instead. Yes, between the US and Tokyo you'll pay 120,000 AAdvantage miles for Business or 170,000 miles for First class each way, but you'll also have your pick of dates and American-operated flights.
• Hotel stays. You'll hear many bloggers tell you that airline miles are best redeemed for flights and hotel points for hotel stays. My question is, compared to what? If you're sitting on millions of miles while paying cash for hotel stays, you're missing out on an opportunity to save money, whether or not you're "maximizing" the value of your miles. Kenny at Saverocity wrote last week about redeeming AAdvantage miles for hotel stays and getting up to 1.6 cents per mile, but even getting 1 cent per mile in value is 1 cent more per mile than you're getting while they sit in your account unredeemed.
• Give away and sell awards. Are your friends and family planning a trip? You may not be able to find award space for the dates you want to travel, but you might have better luck searching for their dates. Have them pay you for economy and book them into first. In my experience, people tend to like that.
Conclusion: remember why we play this crazy game
Everyone's motivation is different for travel hacking. Maybe you want to travel more. Maybe you want to pay less for the trips you were already taking. Maybe you want to travel in classes of service and stay at hotels you wouldn't be able to otherwise afford.
Whatever your motivation is — and no motivation is right or wrong — it's realized only at the moment of redemption, not the moment of earning! |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10677 | Yangon is a former capital of Myanmar. But Yangon is still the largest city in Myanmar and it is the most important business district among all the other cities in Myanmar.
Bagan is known as the ancient city, which is located in Mandalay Region, which is also one of the world wonders, the capital of first Myanmar Empire founded in AD 1044 where you will see thousands of stupas, temples and pagodas.
Inle Lake is also one of the must visit destinations in Myanmar. Local people (Intha people’s) houses are built the same way over the lake. They make their living by harvesting floating gardens, floating markets and fishing.
The Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda is also known as Golden Rock which is the third most famous Buddhist pilgrimage site in Myanmar after the Shwwedagon Pagoda, and the Mahamuni. It is located near Kyaikhto Mon State , Myanmar .
Chin State is situated at the western part of Myanmar bordering with India, being covered by mountains. Mountains are higher and slop more than Shan hills.
Mandalay (Yadanabon), the last capital of Myanmar Kingdom, situated in Upper Myanmar. Mandalay is the capital of Mandalay division. It has an area of 36595 sq-km and the population is over 4.6 million. It is the second largest city of Myanmar. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10679 |
Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.
August 9, 2008
Restrict Google Video Results to Embeddable Videos
Google Video has a new option: restrict the search results to videos that can be embedded in a web page. This is especially useful for the TV view that plays videos without opening new pages. Google shows a small "play" icon next to the videos that are playable inline.
In other related news, Google Video tests an autocomplete feature that shows popular queries from YouTube [sic]. As previously reported, YouTube Suggest has been launched in May after more than a month of public testing.
1 comment:
1. Welcome back. This is another wonderful option, before it was irritating, we had to click the image, and then click one more time to watch the video. Maybe all the video sites should have a standard playable options any place.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10680 | Benefits of the Bootstrap Framework
Mar 27 2016 Gordon
I started playing around with Bootstrap in 2015 when I didn’t understand what Bootstrap was or why a web designer would build websites using Bootstrap. Since then, I have built 6 Bootstrap sites and can now give five broad reasons to choose Bootstrap as a theme/framework for building a website.
Bootstrap is more than a web site theme with a unique set of styles, fonts, and page templates. Bootstrap is a framework, which could be considered a super theme (technically a superset of HTML, CSS, and Javascript technologies). Many Bootstrap developers share and contribute to Bootstrap making it more than a theme but an entire website design framework. The Bootstrap framework is an open source (read: public) project that many developers and designers have contributed to mostly via the Github social network.
Five Benefits of Bootstrap
1. speed of development
2. responsiveness
3. consistency
4. customizable
5. support
The first benefit of Bootstrap is speed of web site development. As a web designer or web programmer, you don’t code to reinvent the wheel. Hundreds of developers have already contributed to the Bootstrap code base and all these developers share their chunks of code or design components. A web designer initially configures the web features desired, and then, the configured Bootstrap files are downloaded for initial site testing. Each configured Bootstrap site can be a unique design and each could be considered a Bootstrap theme. With all the Bootstrap resources available, the developer can quickly start creating a site structure without having to code individual site components.
The second benefit of Bootstrap is site responsiveness. Bootstrap is a mobile-first theme meaning it is designed for small smartphone screens but has a grid layout system which scales nicely for wider screens. Bootstrap polls the device requesting the webpage, and then, provides a mobile, tabloid, or desktop layout depending on the screen width of the requesting device. The client and developer don’t need to worry about multiple versions of the website. If your domain doesn’t have device responsiveness coding, Google will be penalizing the domain and your content may display poorly on some devices.
Responsive image
The third benefit of Bootstrap is consistency. Your Bootstrap site could be handed over to another Bootstrap experienced developer, and the web interface would remain consistent. For example, the menubar would function the same no matter which Bootstrap developer had last updated it. This consistency also relates to the many different web browsers available. The Bootstrap site responds and displays consistently when tested with most modern browsers.
The fourth benefit of Bootstrap is that it is easy to customize. The Bootstrap developer can choose any website components (buttons, sliders, date picker, popups, etc) to create the web experience that the client desires. With lots of Bootstrap components to choose from, the developer can create a unique customized theme.
The fifth benefit of Bootstrap is support. Github has over 600 developers sharing code and ideas on Bootstrap. The framework is always evolving and improving. A standard WordPress theme might be built and tested by a single developer or small team, but the worldwide community of Bootstrap developers would result in a superior theme.
When you combine the tools of faster development, device responsiveness, browser consistency, easy customization, and a good network of online support, the Bootstrap framework offers many time-saving advantages for web developers and they can concentrate more time on their client projects.
Some Bootstrap sites:
**Bootstrap site I have built
***Bootstrap with WooCommerce site I have built
Image above from: Interneting Is Hard |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10685 | Sunday , August 18 2019
Home / Featured / How to Manage Your Work Bonuses Properly
How to Manage Your Work Bonuses Properly
Some companies offer quarterly or annual bonuses. Though its rewarding to receive a bonus, it’s also important to create your budget without using your bonus as part of your annual budget. To help you handle bonuses correctly, follow these simple guidelines:
Don’t do anything until you actually get your bonus
You might have a vague idea of how much bonus you’ll get but do not start spending the money before you get it. Plus, it will be taxed before it even reaches you. So, you really don’t know exactly how much you’ll get.
It’s okay to have general plans for your money, but don’t start racking up credit card debt or making promises to your family about extravagant vacations until the money is in your account.
Your bonus isn’t guaranteed income
If the company is not doing well that quarter, they may opt to cut bonuses rather than lay people off. It’s also possible that you may not qualify for the bonus based on unmet sales quotas or other performance expectations. Keep in mind that your bonus is not entirely within your control so you should avoid relying on it as a regular part of your income.
Don’t rely on bonuses to reach financial goals
Using your bonus to help you reach your financial goals like paying off debt or building your emergency fund are good ideas. You will also be able to reach your goals more quickly. However, you should be working towards these goals separately as part of your monthly budget. If you solely rely on your bonuses to reach these goals, you may not make any real progress. If you’re making progress regardless of your bonus, you won’t be as frustrated if your bonus is not what you expected.
Have a little fun
It’s your bonus and you earned it! It’s okay to indulge a little. Set aside 10% to reward yourself for a year of hard work. For example, if your bonus is $3,000, take $300 and treat yourself. Go out to dinner with your significant other or get something beautiful. If you don’t have any debt, you own your home, and have a funded emergency fund, do something fun. Go on a vacation. However, you need to understand that you’re not to purchase any item or go on vacation unless you actually receive it. So if you decide to use your bonus each year to cover your family vacation, understand that you will not go on vacation if you do not receive the bonus. This way your vacation will not destroy your budget.
Don’t Depend on Your Bonuses to Make Ends Meet
Its unwise to include your bonuses in your budgeting estimations when determining how much you can afford to borrow – especially for a home. This will protect your finances in the future. If you’re relying on your bonus to make ends meet each year, you need to change the way you’re spending money or earn a higher salary.
Lastly, whatever your bonus, it’s always a good idea to invest or save part of it.
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About Touya Kelley
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10691 | Sunday, August 18, 2019
Peripheral Neuropathy
February 19, 2013 by
Filed under Treatments
Neuropathy is the term used to describe a collection of disorders that occurs when nerves of the peripheral nervous system (the part of the nervous system that is outside of the brain and spinal cord) are damaged. The condition is referred to as peripheral neuropathy, and it is most commonly due to damage to nerve axons. Neuropathy usually causes pain and numbness in the hands and feet. It can be the result of traumatic injuries, infections, metabolic disorders, and/or exposure to toxins. One of the most common causes of neuropathy is diabetes. It is known as a Diabetes disease.
Neuropathy can affect nerves that control muscle movement (motor nerves) and those that detect sensations such as heat, cold or pain (sensory nerves). In some cases, a condition called autonomic neuropathy, can affect internal organs, such as the heart, blood vessels, bladder, or intestines.
Pain from peripheral neuropathy is often described as a tingling or burning sensation. There is no specific length of time that the pain exists, but symptoms often improve with time, especially if the neuropathy has an underlying condition that can be cured. The condition is often associated with poor nutrition, diseases, pressure or trauma. When then they can’t find the cause, it is referred to as idiopathic neuropathy.
In the United States, about 20 million people suffer from neuropathy. Over half of diabetes patients also suffer from the condition.
How can you cure peripheral neuropathy? There are a variety of treatments available. They range from traditional pills and creams to special diets and therapies that stimulate the nervous system. You may find the book, How to End Chronic Peripheral Neuropathy and Diabetic Nerve Pain helpful. Their Self-Treatment Program Provides a Simple, PROVEN Solution. And Yes, It Is Guaranteed.
If you prefer to go it alone, some types of neuropathy topical applications of capsaicin (the chemical that makes peppers hot) has been found to be very effective.
Other alternative therapies for peripheral neuropathy include cannabinoids (an class of chemicals found in marijuana), Botulinum Toxin Type A (better known as Botox), NMDA antagonists (such as ketamine), dietary supplements (such as alpha lipoic and benfotiamine), chiropractic massages, yoga, meditation, cognitive therapy, and accupuncture.
If you favor conventional drugs… In June 2012, researchers from the University of Michigan School of Nursing reported that Cymbalta (duloxetine), an antidepressant, can relieve the symptoms of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.
Another class of medicines commonly prescribed for neuropathy is that of anticonvulsants. These medicines block calcium channels on neurons to limit pain. Opioid narcotic treatments for neuropathy are used as well to treat the condition, but are less favored because of the risk of dependency. However, opioids have been the most consistently effective in reducing pain.
Can neuropathy be managed or prevented? There are several ways to manage neuropathy and prevent many symptoms. Good foot health is important, especially for diabetics. Patients should check feet for blisters, cuts, or calluses and avoid tight fitting shoes and socks. Doctors can recommend an exercise plan that will reduce neuropathy pain and control blood sugar levels. If you smoke, Quit and eat healthy meals. Massaging the hands and feet may also help neuropathy management by stimulating nerves and temporarily relieving pain. Finally, try to avoid prolonged pressure on knees or elbows in order to prevent new nerve damage.
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10694 | Are Greeks an ethnoreligious group?
By: | Post date: 2016-02-04 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: History, Modern Greek
Weeell… in the Ottoman Empire (and in the Byzantine Empire before it), identity was primarily credal, organised as Millets (Ottoman Empire). As far as everyone in the Ottoman Empire was concerned, there were:
• Muslims
• Franks (Catholic)
• Romans (Orthodox)
• Armenians
• Jews
See Albanians or Bulgarians in that list? Me neither. In fact, Bulgarians were only able to assert a distinct national identity by establishing a distinct ecclesiastical identity, through the Bulgarian Exarchate.
Ethnicity as we understand it did not factor much in how people understood identity. The Catholics of the Greek islands were ethnic Greeks, as were the Muslims of Crete; that didn’t matter. In the Millet way of thinking, Markos Vamvakaris was as much a Frank as Édith Piaf; and no distinction was to be made between a Muslim from Iraklio and a Muslim from Damascus.
That delayed the establishment of national identities in the Balkans. People were aware of the Albanian language, and had words for Albanians, for example; but Albanians were either Franks, Romans, or Muslims first, and Albanians second. That’s why it was so important for the Albanian nationalists to assert “the religion of Albania is Albanianism”. And why Greeks historically used the odd construction “Turk-Albanians” (who are just Muslim Albanians).
So. There are a lot of longstanding ethnic minorities in Greece, who identified as Romans through the Byzantine and the Ottoman periods, and transitioned to a Greek national identity after Greek Independence. That includes Arvanites (Albanian-speaking) and Aromanians (Romance-speaking), who may not have spoken a word of Greek but fought the Turks, because their identity was Orthodox.
Things with Slavic-speakers got a lot more contentious, of course, and I’ll wisely decide to avoid getting into it. There was some contentiousness with Aromanians too. But I will mention the entertaining case of the Kızderbent Trakatroukides:
• Settled in Northeastern Turkey from southern Bulgaria.
• Unlike the other Bulgarian villages of Northeastern Turkey, did not join the Bulgarian Exarchate but stayed with the Greek Orthodox church.
• Therefore did not join the other Bulgarians in leaving Turkey for Bulgaria in 1919.
• Therefore instead were persecuted as Greeks and fled to Greece in 1923.
• And the majority of them were settled in the village of Polypetro…
• … whose local population spoke Makedonski.
The sum of the anecdotes is: Greek identity may not be ethnoreligious now, but “Roman” identity was ethnoreligious for a long time. Greek identity is in many ways a successor to “Roman” identity, so who ended up called “Greek” was not unrelated to who was called “Roman”.
And of course those historically non-Grecophone populations get very touchy if you tell them they aren’t Greek.
EDIT: Dimitra edited her answer in light of mine. I am now reciprocating.
Let’s set some parameters. There were three names in play.
* Romans (Ρωμιοί), which meant the Rum millet, and included everyone Greek Orthodox. I’ll claim that’s the ethnoreligious identity.
* Hellenes (Έλληνες), which meant the Ancient Greeks, and which the intelligentsia towards the end of the Ottomans started promoting over the other two names. That’s the modern name for Greeks; and though that may not have been the original intent it includes Greek nationals of all creeds (including Jews and Armenians—and though many Greeks may wince to acknowledge it, Muslims as well). I’ll claim that that’s the civic identity. Inasmuch as is there such a thing in Greece.
* Graikoi (Γραικοί), which was used less than the other names, but which I have seen used for ethnic Greeks. (The Aromanian writer Giorgos Exarchos is a quite loyal Greek, but he makes a point of distinguishing Graikoi Hellenes from Vlach Hellenes.) The word of course is just Greek for “Greek”. I’ll claim that that’s the ethnic identity.
Dimitra’s conclusion is that Greeks in Ottoman times were not ethnoreligious, because “If Greek Then Orthodox” did not map to “If Orthodox Then Greek”.
Now the equation “If Roman Then Orthodox” did map to “If Orthodox Then Roman”. Roman was an ethnoreligious identity; and Bulgarians, Albanians and Aromanians were Roman.
It is true that the Graikoi were a privileged group within the Romans. They had control of the Patriarchate (which ran the Rum millet), and they were quite happy for Graikoi and Romans to be conflated, at the expense of the other ethnicities.
BUT the culture they were privileging wasn’t a culture of modern vernacular Greek: it was Hellenic culture (Ancient Greek). And here’s the catch: Graikoi were only somewhat more privileged in their access to Hellenic culture than Bulgarians and Albanians. Remember that people did not always consider Ancient Greek the same language as Modern Greek. Greeks themselves called Modern Greek Romaic until independence; and their Western contemporaries often did too. And if Graikoi had to learn how to write in good Hellenic, well, so could Albanians and Bulgarians. (And of course, they did.)
So the equation Hellenes = Graikoi was disrupted: non-Grecophones had access to Hellenic culture. The equation Romans = Graikoi was disrupted: non-Grecophones were Orthodox. And the equation Hellenes = Romans was disrupted: the true Hellenes were pagans, and people were well aware of the discontinuity between Ancient and Mediaeval civilisation.
But the equation Roman iff Orthodox, of course, was not disrupted: it was a definition.
(It is now that Romios means something different—alignment with Greek identity through low rather than high culture—Hellene being the high culture, of course. Vamvakaris was a Frank not a Roman, but Greeks now will happily claim him as a Romios. I’ve heard Greek Christians claim that any Greek Jew who loves Kazantzidis must be a Romios.)
Was the definition of Roman = Orthodox forced on Graikoi, Bulgarians, Albanians, Aromanians etc by the Ottomans? I suspect it wasn’t, and that it was inherited from Byzantium. If you were Orthodox, you followed the Emperor’s creed; if you were Catholic or Muslim, you were a foreigner, and if you were Jewish, you were a second class citizen. I don’t think the Byzantines overly worried about what your ethnicity was, whether you were Bulgarian (like John Koukouzelis) or Georgian (like John Tzetzes) or Armenian (like half the emperors). As long as you were Orthodox and wrote in Ancientish Greek, you were a good subject of the Roman Empire.
Were the Graikoi or the Bulgarians worried about ethnicity in Ottoman times? Again, I don’t think so. Partly because the term Graikoi was so rarely used to begin with, partly because you don’t hear much mention of the minority ethnicities at all.
I *think* I’m in agreement with Dimitra overall: Greeks as Hellenes are a civic identity now (Greek Jew, Έλληνας Εβραίος, is not a contradiction in terms); Greeks as Romans were an ethnoreligious identity back in the day. And this having been a reasonably recent transition, it has been a little bumpy.
“Greek Muslim”. Έλληνας Μουσουλμάνος. I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that Christian Greeks are still uncomfortable with the concept.
(Google gives me 177 hits for Έλληνας Μουσουλμάνος, vs 2170 hits for Έλληνας Εβραίος. There are 98,000 Muslims in Greece and 5,000 Jews in Greece.)
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10706 | An t-Òʞṁıos, June '16.
McClellan Galleries, Glasgow, 2016.
In "You killed my fish!" a basic disagreement with oneself is experienced as a non-indifference toward the other.
An audience is closed behind a sliding door onto a mezzanine in a glue factory.
Dirt on the floor, the muscles around his mouth are numbed by handfuls of cloves.
Two proxy animals for our instability; playing with a dead ſısh, capturing a lobster.
Unsubstantiated interpretation--which is nonetheless potentially valid.
A lobster inspirers an uninformed and emotional debate on the veracity of of its pain.
In fact its nerves not more complex than a mosquito, only enigmatic.
It's lack of central nervous system means the manner of death we decide,
serves only to minimise our trauma not the lobsters.
Playing with a dead ſısh, Hopper notices the life by Meade.
Hopper takes the bowl and recusitates his ſısh in his hands between rushes of water.
When interupted he shouts "YOU KILLED MY FISH!"
An arguement ensues and they run through the factory,
dropping the fish on the exit.
By negating pre-concieving artistic meaning, merit and self-expression Hopper and Meade work creating when idenity is not, deteritorialising and opening to expression through the non-identical. Not questioning the veracity of interalised problems in others and projected perceptions.
An art-process-as-artwork-as-emotion-live-exhibit where the continuum for catastrophe is for a moment actually interrupted and an escape afforded through non-sense. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10712 | By William Kingsland
�My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.� ���Gal. IV,19
Religions and Religion
The Concept of a Personal God
Superstition and Supernaturalism
A Survey of the Past
The God of Christendom
The Constitution of Matter
The Age of the Earth
The Evolution of Man
Spiritual Man
The Fall of Man
The Ancient Gnosis
(Page VII) I do but echo in this little work the views of thousands of well-informed thinkers in the Western World at the present time.
On the other hand, the beliefs which are here perhaps somewhat strongly represented as being primitive and obsolete, are still those of many millions; and I recognise that they must remain so for many a long day yet to come. They are still the authoritative teachings of the Roman and Anglican Churches, as well as the �faith� of that wonderful organisation, the Salvation Army, for whose work I have a profound admiration. They are also more or less the tenets of innumerable other Christian sects.
As for the Eastern World, it is scarcely necessary to say that Christianity has hardly touched the religious beliefs of India, China, or Japan, not to mention other lesser countries. The total adherents of the Eastern religions far exceeds that of the whole population of the nations which are supposed to be �Christian�, but not one-tenth of whose inhabitants can really be designated as such.
(Page VIII) Those who know anything at all of these Eastern religions can hardly be surprised that �Christianity� should have made so little headway in the East; not merely because of the inherent merits of these religions, and their greater adaptation to the mentality of the Eastern peoples, but perhaps even more so because of the discrepancy between Christian doctrines and their exemplification in the �Christian� nations.
When all is said and done, formal religions are the outcome of the mentality of the race, the community, and the age in which they arise. We must always make allowances for this, and not expect any one form to be universally acceptable, or even understandable.
For the purpose of this work I am defining Religion as the effort of the individual to realise his innate spiritual nature and powers .This is what I understand Religion to be at root. It applies to Mankind as a whole, to the Race as well as to the Individual. Anything that ministers to this must be considered to be an accessory to Religion, though not Religion itself. The one is only too often mistaken for the other.
We may note, however, that the effort may (Page IX) be, in the first instance, a blind unconscious �feeling after God�; indeed, it would appear that such must necessarily have been the commencement of religion with primitive races. It implies a relation to some Deity, and hence the innumerable gods and conceptions of �God� invented by man. But in the higher stages the universal testimony of the mystics is to the experience of unification. Moreover, the history of religious experience shows us many strange expressions of this inner impulse [See in particular The Varieties of Religious Experience, by Wm. James]
I have an equal love and admiration for the devotee of each and every religion who endeavours to practise what he professes to believe, and to live the life indicated by the original founder or founders of that particular religion. In respect of ethics, however, there is little room for choice. All religions worthy of the name must necessarily teach the fundamental principles of right conduct; but ethics alone is not religion.
As for beliefs and creeds, these are merely the outer garments in which the religionist dresses up according to the conventions of his time and his community. A good Christian (Page X ) would have made an equally good Buddhist if he had happened to have been born in a Buddhist community. The mischief is that these garments are not merely commonly assumed to be �the real thing�, but are largely worn for mere convention and respectability; and only too often, indeed, to mask insincerity and hypocrisy, and as a cloak for unrighteousness.
I hold that whilst not judging the individual for his beliefs, or even for his actions, we have every right � and might, indeed, consider it to be our bounden duty � to denounce and oppose with all our might both beliefs and actions which are intrinsically evil, or which give rise to evil in the form of superstitious practices and bigoted intolerance and persecution. We have every right to denounce both beliefs and systems which have been, and are, a fruitful cause of these. We have in this respect quite clearly the example of the founder of Christianity.
What I have here endeavoured to do, merely in outline, is to show that certain modern beliefs, dogmas, and creeds, which have been carried over and have survived from a far less enlightened age or period, can no longer be valid in the light of our modern (Page XI) knowledge. There is, of course, nothing new in this, many writers are doing it today.
But, further than that, I shall hope to indicate that even in the remotest past there was already a deeper knowledge, a real Gnosis which we are in fact only now beginning to recover. 1
It is that ancient Gnosis which must be the Religion of the Future; for, as I shall hope to show to some extent, all our scientific discoveries and our modern philosophical thinking tends to confirmation and restatement of it.
In this work I do not use the term Gnosis with any special reference to the Hellenistic Gnosticism, but simply as indicating a supreme degree of knowledge, and more particularly in mystical religion.
(Page 1) Will there be any religions at all in the future?
Note that I say religions, not Religion.
But, in the first place, shall we speak of the more immediate future � say one hundred, or perhaps one thousand years hence � or shall we speak of, say, one million years?
I will leave it to my readers to decide as I proceed which of these periods is the most applicable to the principles I shall endeavour to elucidate.
We may note here, however, that one million years is not much more than a day � possibly not even that � in the whole history of the Race, (See Page 35, The Age of the Earth) and there is every indication that Humanity as a whole is still very young. Certainly in the matter of religion the great majority have not as yet developed any real appreciation of their spiritual nature and (Page.2) faculties, nor have they even attained to the mental capacity of which man is clearly capable, as seen by the attainments of a few. Were it otherwise, the world would be a very different place from what it is today. In matters of religion the great majority still �speak as a child, feel as a child, and think as a child.�
Mankind as a whole has been in the past, and is today, superstitious rather than religious. Or perhaps we had better say that though religion itself, as an effort of the individual to realise his relation to the super-physical or �spiritual� world, is both Man�s highest effort and most deeply rooted instinct, yet it has hitherto, in his profound ignorance of the laws and nature of the physical world � let alone the superphysical � taken the form of superstition and supernaturalism rather than a clear realisation of his own inherent spiritual nature and powers.
Yet over and over again these have been presented to him, back from the remotest time of which we have any literary records; but always and ever the great majority have materialised and debased the pure teachings.
Religion, as the effort of Man to realise his spiritual nature and faculties, lies in the (Page 3) natural line of his evolution as a further stage beyond the development of his mind or intellect. He has struggled from the merely animal � not to go any further back � to what we at present call the human; though precisely when he first became homo sapiens it is impossible to say. He is still an animal physiologically, and indeed even very much so mentally, though his great distinction from the animal is in the evolution of Mind.
But, at all events for some millenniums, he has reached forward to something still higher. The best and the wisest and the noblest of the Race have done so in no uncertain manner from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge in script or monument, and undoubtedly also ages before that. But the great bulk of the Race lag behind these exemplars; indeed they tail off, even today, to something little better than a somewhat more intelligent animal. Thus we have in the line of Man�s ascent or evolution � not �descent� � first the physical, then the mental, then the spiritual. But, as I shall show later on, this ascent is simply his return to his Source; the completion of the great cycle of Cosmic Man in his outgoing or �fall� � into physical life � and his return or �redemption� : his (Page 4) �resurrection� from his present loss of consciousness of his spiritual nature; represented in the New Testament as �sleep� and �death�, We are able to trace in biology and history the stages of Man�s ascent, but we know little or nothing of the stages of the descent, save as these are given to us in allegory and in parable, as for example in Genesis and in the parable of the prodigal son.
Man becomes at first vaguely conscious of a soul, of a part of his being which is related to a, or The, great underlying Power which is the Universe in which he lives and moves and has his being. This reaching out to an underlying unseen REALITY is Religion � whether as science, as philosophy, or as what more generally goes by the name of religion in its institutional forms.
Religion, however, is not a mere matter of individual salvation. �The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.� It is a cosmic process, from which the individual can in no wise separate himself. It is the great effort of �all creation� to return to its Source after the outgoing cycle. �I will arise and go to my Father.� And he who does not recognise the stages by which in the vast cycle of evolution he has reached his (Page 5) present development with the rest of humanity, and who has no response in his heart for �the world�s great pain� � not for his fellow man only, but for all the �lower Kingdoms� also � has still much to learn and far to go.
Answering then our first question with a seeming paradox, we might say that though possibly there may be no institutional religions in the future such as we have with us today, yet Man will be incomparably more religious then than now.
Religions, in so far as they are institutional � with a definite set of beliefs, creeds, dogmas, and ritual � are not Religion, though they are what is commonly understood by the term. They are, indeed, mostly departures from Religion: perversions of originally pure spiritual teachings. They quickly abandon the simplicity and intention of their founders, and become involved in endless doctrinal disputes. They quickly lose their spiritual character, and become hardened, materialised, literalised and secularized. They become worldly institutions, with exclusive, individualistic, and proselytizing aims. They become the slayers of truth rather than its exponents and exemplars.
For the very reason that religion is Man�s (Page 6) highest effort and deepest instinct, it is potent for the greatest evils as well as for the highest good. It is the origin and nourisher of the grossest superstitions and the most cruel practices, as well as of the sublimest ideals and the most saintly lives. It has drenched the world in blood, and claimed a holocaust of tortured victims. Fire and sword and persecution, the rack and the stake, are associated even with what claims to be the supreme religion of Love and Peace. In its institutional and hierarchical forms it has fostered the continuance of superstition and ignorance for the benefit of shameless priestcraft; and has served as cloak, and even as an excuse, for the grossest sensualism. Even stranger still, perhaps, thousands of devotees have tortured themselves for the sake of their religious convictions. Whether Indian fakir or Christian ascetic, whether the idea centres on the conception of the will of an Idol or that of the Christian God, the motive and the psychology is the same. At root the individual is trying to find his own soul; to realise himself.
All these things have been, and are today, associated with the name of religion; but are they in any sense the legitimate products of� (Page 7) Religion itself? They are certainly the products of institutional religion, of formulated creeds; and we might well decide that institutional religion as the formulator of creeds has ever been the perverter of religion rather than its exponent, its exemplar, and its preserver.
Our question is, then, not as to whether religion as such will survive. There can be no question as to that, for the instinct in Man to reach out to the Root and Source of his being must necessarily grow stronger with every increase in his knowledge and capacity for fathoming the depths of the Universe around him, and the latent powers in his own nature which he feels himself capable of developing in ever greater and greater degrees. Therefore would I account all genuine scientific investigation as a necessary part of religion. The distinction between the religious and the secular which has hitherto been made has been for the most part purely artificial. Religions have made themselves the great exception, even from reason itself. A supposed revelation, and dogmas associated therewith, have endeavoured to take the place of rational beliefs. Yet clearly any revelation can only be as is the capacity to receive; and (Page 8 ) when the individual is capable of receiving, is capable of mental perception, the supposed secret is as open to him as is the physical object when the eye is adapted to see it.
Man�s consciousness will inevitably expand. New faculties � or rather faculties now latent, but the possibilities of which are in evidence in abnormal individuals � will come into play, and ever and always his evolution must bring him nearer and nearer to a realisation of his own inherent spiritual nature and powers.
Religion thus viewed is simply the natural process of Man�s evolution, and not any supernatural ordinance of the God or Gods he has himself invented in his childish days.
Our question is as to whether institutional religion, based for the most part on primitive conceptions of a supernatural character, can survive the progress of our scientific knowledge, and the readjustment of our views as to the nature of the universe and of Man himself which must inevitably result therefrom and be common property through the facilities for the spread of knowledge which our modern civilisation provides.
Already we hear on every side of the waning influence of institutional Christianity. If that finally decays � as indeed would appear (Page 9) to be inevitable in the course of time � what will replace it? Will some new religion take its place, or will it reform itself out of all recognition of its present characteristics?
There are two courses open to it; either to strip itself of its pagan accretions and get back to the simple religion of Jesus, or to recognise the allegorical nature of its present literalised Scriptures, and understand and teach the real and original Gnosis from which these sprang: the real inner spiritual meaning as known to the Initiates who formulated them. I shall endeavour later on to show to some extent how these allegories can be brought into line with our knowledge in other departments of our human experience.
But it will be harder for the Church thus to abandon its present ground than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; for the reformers will have to reckon not merely with a deeply rooted popular tradition, but also with a great institutional hierarchy, loath to depart from the sumptuous edifice which shelters and enriches it.
The Church of England would disestablish itself tomorrow were it not for the dread word disendowment. Has it then not faith enough to believe that if it seeks first the (Page 10) Kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be added to it?
With the passing of superstition and supernaturalism, will religion once and for all throw off its evil association � perhaps a necessary evil in the meanwhile � with a priestly hierarchy of which these are the main support?
Our question may even take the form as to whether any concept of a personal God can survive. The question of Deity is a fundamental one, and we must examine it somewhat more in detail.
(Page 11) The concept of a personal Deity has already gone with all philosophical thinkers in the West; indeed, as the Upanishads and other Eastern literature shows us, it had gone ages ago with the deepest thinkers in the East. Its place is taken today in philosophy by the concept of the Absolute, or Reality � a fundamental Reality which IS the Universe. This one fundamental eternal Reality can be described as a PRINCIPLE, but never as a Person.
It may seem strange to many minds to have religion without a personal God; but that already obtains in the Eastern religious philosophies, more particularly in the Vedanta and in Buddhism, and it is these impersonal religions which are the most free from the rancour�s, strife�s, and persecutions which accompany more or less all religions in proportion as they degenerate into dogmas and formulas. It would appear, indeed, in the general history of religion, that in proportion as the personality of the Deity is accentuated, so are the evils of the institutional forms. (Page 12) And in proportion as the impersonal nature of THAT which IS the Universe is recognised, so do these evils vanish, and freedom of thought and toleration take their place.
All theological propositions about �God� are found on analysis to be self-contradictory, but it is essential to remember that every teacher has to adapt his teaching to the understanding of his hearers, and the general notions of the time and the community to which he belongs. The teachings of Jesus had to be adapted to the crude Jewish conceptions of a personal God, who required above all things to be propitiated and worshipped; and it would appear that his presentation of a heavenly Father was the most reformative one that his hearers were capable of understanding. Gautama Buddha, on the other hand, had to deal with minds of quite another order, and accordingly we find that he refused to personify or in any way define the Absolute. When questioned as to the nature of this Absolute Principle he was silent. So also the Upanishads. Neti, neti, not this, not that, is the answer to all attempts to give attributes to THAT. But this negation is really the explicit of a much larger affirmation. Let us understand clearly that the primitive (Page 13) mind requires a Gospel (lit. Good News): something which, adapted to the mental capacity of the hearers, would appear to console for the evils and trials of life. Yet what may be a Gospel for one man, or one community, is very far from being so for others. Whatever it may have been for the ignorance of that part of that world in which the Christian theology was formulated, the statement that one had �risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept�, could be no �Gospel� to those in possession of the ancient Wisdom Religion of the East: of India, Chaldea, Egypt, or the Gnostics and Initiates of Greece.
What sort of �Gospel� could it have been to Plato or Socrates, not to mention Confucius, Lao Tsze, Guatama Buddha, Shankara Acharya, or innumerable others who lived and wrote centuries B.C.? What sort of a� �Gospel� can it be to us if taken in its crude materialised form? The dead do not �sleep�, awaiting the resurrection of their physical bodies. The resurrection of the physical body of Jesus cannot be accepted as a historical fact; or even if it is, it has by no means the significance attached to it as �the first-fruits of them that slept�. We might indeed (Page 14) say that Christian theology, far from being a �Gospel�, has done more than anything else to put the fear of death and Hell into the hearts of untold millions. Some of the early Church Fathers knew better, but their teaching has been ignored. How, for example, could this �Gospel� apply to the teaching of Origen contained in the following passage.
�The present inequalities of circumstances and character are thus not wholly explicable within the sphere of the present life. But this world is not the only world. Every soul has existed from the beginning; it has therefore passed through some worlds already, and will pass through others before it reaches the final consummation. It comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life. Its place in this world as a vessel appointed to honour or dishonour is determined by its previous merits or demerits. Its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this.�
But when we understand the spiritual meaning of �resurrection from the dead�; when we understand that it is not physical death that is referred to at all, but the deadness of Man�s spiritual nature until his Christ Principle has risen again in him � it having been dead and buried by his �descent into (Page 15) matter�; whereby hangs also the meaning of the �Fall� � we are no longer in conflict with a wider and deeper knowledge. There are a great many references in the New Testament to the resurrection from the dead which have this spiritual meaning, though they are commonly taken as if they referred to a physical death and resurrection. Both sleep and death are associated with the spiritual condition of the living in many passages which might be called to mind.
�Now it is high time for you to awaken out of sleep� (Rom. XV 11).
�If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead� (Phil.III, 11).
We are far from despising the simple childlike faith in a heavenly Father who sees and knows every thought and action of every single individual, and who personally adjusts the daily supply and the daily tasks and trials to the needs of the individual � at least for those who pray to him for help and guidance. Even as in the time of Jesus and Paul, there are still primitive minds in these matters who can only be fed with milk, not with strong meat, with parables, not with (Page 16) metaphysics. It is really astonishing, however, and even pathetic, how many intelligent people today are as yet merely primitive children in matter of religion. The psychology of religious beliefs is no different from the psychology of other beliefs; and all beliefs are largely a matter of psychology and not of reason. We meet every day with innumerable cases of autosuggestion of the most absurd character. By autosuggestion, continual meditation on the Passion of the Cross, St. John of the Cross and other Christian mystics produced actual stigmata marks on their hands. That proved nothing beyond the power of autosuggestion. The effect would have been the same even were the Crucifixion only an allegory and not an historical event, but of course the belief in historicity must be there. The sectarian religionist moves within the narrow circle of his own mind and that of the community to which he belongs. He has neither the will nor the capacity to inquire into other modes of thought, or other religions. Believing that he already has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth � and indeed that it would be a sin to question the basis of his beliefs � he goes on his way rejoicing, and (Page17) perhaps pitying, even if not looking askance at those who differ from him.
The close and intimate experience of divine guidance and communion which is so real to many devotees, saints, and mystics, comes from the depths of one�s own being, which is, and never can be other than one with the absolute, the ONE LIFE, however much the outer man, the conventional �self,� the ever-changing phenomenal personality, may appear to be separated therefrom, and therefore refers this experience to an external personal God.
Man creates his own Gods and his own Devils; but we clearly see that in all ages there have been those who have transcended the crude popular notions which attach to these, and which for the most part are based on a simple realism which takes the objective world to be exactly what it seems.
But religious beliefs based on crude realism cannot possibly survive the present spread of knowledge. That is not to say that Religion itself will be destroyed. Something much more real, much more fundamental will certainly take the place of the present crudities. In so far as every advance of knowledge brings us nearer to Reality � nearer in our (Page 18) concepts, that is to say � it brings us nearer to a clear apprehension of the real nature of the problems of our life and consciousness; and the more it does that, the more we apprehend that the appearance of things � as also our consciousness of time and space � are veils which hide from us rather than disclose the One Eternal Reality. They can only be disclosures of Reality in proportion as we penetrate beneath their appearances as time and space phenomena, and learn to recognise that underlying REALITY which endures.
If I am asked to define Reality, I shall say that Reality is that which endures. It is that which changes not amidst all change; and it must be not merely the unchanging Reality underlying the objective world but the subjective also. To find it, the man must penetrate to the depths of his own being. He must find that in himself which endures; that which is independent of the phenomenal world; that deeper Self which has never not been, nor can ever cease to be. He must find his true Self, and can only do so as he lets go of the phenomenal changing personality to which at present he clings so desperately, and is even much afraid lest it should not be (Page 19) �saved�. And therein lies the paradox that whosoever would save his life must lose it. The finding of the true Self is a continual negation, a perpetual �loss� of the phenomenal self.
So long as the individual thinks himself separate from the underlying Reality � which he must always do so long as he conceives of it as a personal God � he must remain in the outer courts of the Temple, and worship afar off. But when he has realised his oneness with the One Imperishable REALITY there is no longer room for the personal Gods which he formerly worshipped.
(Page 20) I have several times used the words superstition and supernaturalism. They are so closely associated with the subject of religion, and are so often used in a loose manner, that it will be necessary at this point to examine their meaning and implications more definitely.
The two terms are clearly allied, for superstition implies the supernatural. A Dictionary definition of superstition is as follows:
�Belief or a specific form of belief in which ignorant and abnormal religious feeling is shown, as by venerating things that deserve no veneration, or by attaching undue importance to forms and observances in themselves; also any practice founded on such beliefs.�
A secondary meaning is given as : � Credulity regarding the supernatural.�1 (1 Standard Dictionary)
The first of these definitions is exceedingly unsatisfactory, since it leaves the question (Page 21) quite open as to what things are or are not deserving of veneration. To the Protestant the Mass and the veneration of the Virgin are superstitions, but they are not so for the Roman Catholic.
The second definition immediately raises the question as to what is the supernatural. Where does �Nature� end and the supernatural begin? Apart from this question, the word carries its own meaning, however, attached to the term which recognises that God the Creator is beyond �Nature� and that therefore any direct action attributed to Him is a supernatural act.
Now as regards the term �Nature�, there is no doubt that in the old sense of the word it simply meant the physical world of matter and force; or more broadly it meant everything that could be seen and accounted for within the limits of what was known as �natural law�. Hence the unseen and the apparently unaccountable was relegated to the field of operation of the supernatural. It was peopled with beings � or with a Being: the theological God � who could interfere with the course of Nature, and so produce a �miracle�. (Page 22) But nothing can be more evident than that the supposed boundary line between the natural and the supernatural is a purely artificial one, dependent merely on our knowledge for the time being � or perhaps we should rather say our ignorance � of the laws of Nature. In bygone times there was no difficulty in conceiving of the supernatural as being just beyond the limits of the seen and known world. It was entered at death. It was the �spirit world�, and is so today with very large numbers of people. But our modern scientific knowledge has not merely disposed of innumerable �superstitions� which formerly attached to this superphysical region but it has also raised the much larger question as to whether there is any line of demarcation whatsoever between the natural and the supernatural; whether in fact the whole universe, seen or unseen, is not one great natural Whole, governed by law and order from centre to circumference or rather from the innermost to the outermost, though these terms also are merely arbitrary ones of our normal perceptions. Perhaps it would be better to say that all is natural from Matter to Spirit, and to conceive of these as the two contrasted poles of one unitary Reality. The (Page 23) polarity is due to the limitations of the mind or intellect, and not to anything intrinsic in the nature of the Reality itself � as, indeed, modern philosophers are now beginning clearly to understand.
Last century the reaction from the supernaturalism and superstition of the previous centuries, brought about by our brilliant scientific discoveries, led to the other extreme, and materialism became associated with the concepts of a great many scientific men. Mind and consciousness were considered to be simply the products or �epiphenomena� of matter and force.
But there were deeper thinkers even among the scientists, who saw that such a generalization was very far from being legitimate. Thomas Henry Huxley, though he has commonly been accounted a materialist, protested most strongly against the materialistic doctrine. In Evolution and Ethics he writes as follows:
�It seems to me pretty plain that there is a third thing in the universe, to wit, consciousness, which, in the hardness of my heart or head, I cannot see to be matter, or force, or any conceivable modification of either, however intimately the manifestations of the phenomena of consciousness may be connected (Page 24) with the phenomena known as matter and force� Take the simplest possible example, the feeling of redness. Physical science tells us that it commonly arises as a consequence of molecular changes propagated from the eye to a certain part of the substance of the brain, when vibrations of the luminiferous ether of a certain character fall upon the retina. Let us suppose the process of physical analysis pushed so far that one could view the last link of this chain of molecules, watch their movements as if they were billiard balls, weigh them, measure them, and know all that is physically knowable about them. Well, even in that case, we should be just as far from being able to include the resulting phenomenon of consciousness, the feeling of redness, within the bounds of physical science, as we are at present. It would remain as unlike the phenomena we know under the names of matter and motion as it is now. If there is any plain truth upon which I have made it my business to insist over and over again it is this.�
And now we have Professor Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World)� coming forward and reinforcing this view with all the weight of our most recent science based on the principles of relativity and the quantum. Physical science is shown to be a closed region of �pointer readings� � namely, the numerical indications of our physical instruments of measurement � which can be dealt (Page 25) with mathematically, but which cannot possibly enter the superphysical region of mind and consciousness. These latter are direct knowledge, whereas the very existence of �matter� is only an inference. Instead of Huxley�s billiard-ball atoms ( The common conception of an atom during the last century was that of an elastic particle, like a billiard-ball� only more so�.) we are now presented with electrons and protons. Somewhere and somehow in the physical brain the vibrations of these become translated into sensations which are totally unlike anything that science can formulate about them � as for example, the sensation of colour. At this point, in fact, we cannot say whether it is an external world in which �matter� has a reality of its own, or whether that world is not a construct of mind itself.
The wider and deeper scientific knowledge which this present century has brought us, and more particularly the discovery of the break-up and constitution of physical matter, at the same time that it has vastly deepened our concepts of �Nature�, has entirely disposed of the nineteenth-century materialism.
But there is another aspect of this question which we must not overlook. Without referring back to any supernatural beings or (Page 26) Being, we see clearly that we ourselves exercise supernatural powers in so far as we are able to direct and control the laws which we recognize as conditioning the external world of what we call �Nature�. I must surely be super �i.e., Above, over, beyond � anything that I can control. I can set one law against the other. I can inhibit a phenomenon which would otherwise take place �naturally� by bringing into operation a counter law. We can do things today by our knowledge of natural law which our forefathers would have roundly declared to be impossible save by a �miracle�. Who shall say what we may or may not be able to do tomorrow? Today, in ignorance of the deeper laws of nature, more particularly of the action of mind upon matter, a great many �superstitious� religionists still regard certain things as �miracles�, and attribute them to the direct action of a personal God � and in some cases to a personal Devil.
Mind, in so far as it can control the external laws of matter and force, and direct them for its own purposes, is clearly superior to them; but at the same time we cannot doubt that there are laws which determine the action of mind upon matter. If we knew more about (Page27) these laws, we should doubtless consider it to be quite natural that, for example, prayer is answered just in the measure and degree of its �faith�. Much also that now goes under the label of �spiritual healing� would fall into its natural place as a power of the mind.
Apart from physical science there has sprung up within the present century a science of Mind, Psychology, which has already disclosed to us hitherto unsuspected depths and actions of the human mind. There are doubtless many discoveries to be made in this direction which will tend still further to remove elements of superstition and supernaturalism which still cling to the obscure actions of the mind upon matter. The existence and action of the subconscious is, in this direction, as great a discovery and a revolution of ideas as is the discovery of the inner constitution of the atom of physical matter. Professor Eddington in his work just referred to says:
�Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into subconsciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite but yet continuous with our mental nature. This I take to be the world-stuff. We liken it to our conscious feelings because, now that we are convinced of the formal (Page 28) and symbolic character of the entities of physics, there is nothing else to liken it to�. It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference� (pp.280,281).
This is indeed a jump from physics to the metaphysics so much despised last century by the matter-of-fact physicist, who did not know that even then he was an unconscious metaphysician. But now it would appear that the new physics leads directly to metaphysical conclusions which are as old as any philosophy of which we have any records. Thus in the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (1, 5, 3) we read:
�It is with the mind, truly, that one sees. It is with the mind that one hears. Desire, imagination, doubt, faith, lack of faith, steadfastness, lack of steadfastness, shame, meditation, fear � all this is truly mind. Therefore even if one is touched on his back, he discerns it with the mind.�
The direct action of mind on mind, as in hypnotism and telepathy, is also giving us a deeper insight into the superphysical previously designated the supernatural.
(Page 29 ) We might, as a preliminary classification, grade the �stuff �� though substance, i.e., that which sub-stands, would appear to be a better word � as follows: physical matter, ether, mind-stuff, Spirit.
We may conceive of these as being at root of all one Substance, but we must not conceive of that Substance as being in any way analogous to physical matter as being substantial. What it may be in its own nature as �Spirit� is utterly incomprehensible. Philosophically it is the Absolute; theologically it is God � or perhaps this would be repudiated by the theologian as being pantheism. Yet if God is �all and in all�, what else can it be?
�In this high consideration it is found that all is through and from God himself, and that it is his own substance, which is himself, and he hath created it out of himself; and that the evil belongeth to the forming and mobility; and the good to the love� (Jacob Bohme, The Three Principles, Preface).
In any case we recognize that the difference between physical matter as such, and the Ether which is the more immediate substance of which it is composed, is so great that any attempt to define what Mind is as one further or deeper remove from the Ether, is seen to (Page 30) be quite beyond our powers. Yet we are compelled to conceive of Cosmic Mind as being at least as �substantial� as the Ether. We are compelled to conceive of it as a force, for it produces, at least in our own bodies � and most probably through the intermediary of the Ether � action on physical matter. Moreover we are compelled to conceive of telepathy as being in some sense analogous to wireless waves. Some medium transmits the thought vibration, which, as a vibration, or any other form of motion in the root substance, must certainly, be as definite a �thing� on its own plane as are the wireless waves in the Ether.
Even thus will the supernatural, and the superstitions attached to it, be pushed further and further back. And if the theologian tells us that God is �in substance and essence� above and beyond our deepest conceptions of any ultimate Substance of the manifested or phenomenal world, we shall reply that at least in all His operations in that world. He must act only by and through natural law; and that in fact what we call natural law must in this regard be the law of His own Nature and Substance from which He will be indistinguishable. If He must be regarded as a (Page 31) personal Being, acting very much as we ourselves act, only with infinitely more knowledge and power: we are at least told that �in Him there is no variableness neither shadow of turning�, and that is precisely what we recognise in the operation of natural law.
Thus we see HIS � or ITS � very Substance and Being as the Substance of the outer world of phenomena; and we partake of it in our own bodies, whether physical, etherical, mental, or spiritual. Moreover, to the extent that we de-individualize our consciousness and allow it to expand into Cosmic Consciousness, so do we reach in still fuller and fuller degree that ONE which is the Root of the subjective eternal Self as well as the objective temporal personality.
Thus we are told in the old Hermetic Script:
�If, then, thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is knowable to like alone. Make, then, thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure; leap forth from every body; transcend all Time; become Eternity; and thus shalt thou know God.�
And who among our theologians who discourse so learnedly of God as being this, that, (Page 32) and the other, can claim to have done this? Paraphrasing the saying of the old Chinese philosopher, Lao Tsze, and also the Upanishads, verily we may say: �He who knows God tells it not; he who tells it knows Him not.�
Let us now take a brief survey of the past in order the better to understand the present and to forecast the future.
(Page 33) We pass back over the pages of history and we see the first beginnings, the growth, maturity, and final decay of innumerable systems of religious beliefs and ritual practices, from the crude animistic fetish of the primitive savage to the elaborate and ornate ritual of the Romish Church today: borrowed � without acknowledgement � from the earlier symbolism and practices of the �Pagan� mythology of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and even of India. One might almost say that whatever is connected historically with Christian theology and ritual is entirely derived from pagan sources, and has no connection whatsoever with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. (For a fuller statement and summary of our present knowledge in this connection readers may� be referred to the work of Arthur Weigall, The Paganism of our Christianity.)
In vast waste places of the Globe � once the scene of activity of mighty nations, but now overgrown by the primeval forest, or buried under the sandy billows of the desert, or still standing in magnificent ruins � we see the remains of altars and shrines and stately temples dedicated, in the not very remote (Page 34) past � as we now understand the age of mankind � to the worship of this, that, or the other God; Sun Gods, Moon Gods, Serpent Gods, Fire Gods, Gods and Goddesses; Gods who must be worshipped and propitiated; Gods satisfied with nothing less than a sacrificial victim � animal or human, but always with the shedding of blood � culminating sometimes in the idea of the God himself being slain and resurrected � as for example Mithras, Krishna, Osiris, Horus, and many others before the time of the deified Christian Saviour.
Gods, Gods, ever more Gods innumerable; their names would fill a volume; names which for the most part mean nothing to anyone nowadays, but which once represented the beliefs of untold millions, and the dominance of priesthoods holding unlimited power and wealth through the fostered superstitions of ignorant multitudes.
Is it any different today?� No � and Yes.
Let not anyone think that our present temples and canes, or the beliefs which they represent, are any more permanent than these ancient ruins. A million years hence � and what is a million years in the whole history of Man? � where will all these be? (Page 35) Yet even so, in the eyes of the seer and the mystic that seemingly distant period is here and now; it is already discounted in his estimate of Reality. It has not yet taken form and objectivity in the normal consciousness of Humanity; it has not yet come into view in the series of moving pictures which pass across the screen of time and space: the event being no more than the momentary picture flashed on the screen, only to disappear as instantaneously as it has appeared.
�The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.�
And even so, apprehending this deeper truth, we give heed to present forms and formulas only in so far as they can serve their time and generation in the minds of those whose vision extends no farther; those to whom it is not yet given �to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven� � mysteries which are quite outside the relations of time and space, or the forms and doctrines of any religion whatsoever.
Through all this welter of Gods in the past, (Page 36) and the modern conflict and strife of creeds and dogmas, there is one thing that stands out very clearly. Each and every formulated conception of the unseen Power or Powers of the Universe, whether monotheistic or polytheistic, has hitherto been purely anthropomorphic. Always and ever man has created his God or Gods in his own likeness, and has ascribed to them like consciousness, like passions, like motives to those which he himself possesses.
It is true that higher and more philosophical concepts have never been absent in the teachings of saints and sages and philosophers and mystics in all ages; but these have never found their way into institutional religion, or have only done so in a grossly perverted form.
I will deal with these higher concepts presently; in the meanwhile let us consider the traditional Christian theology, since it is that which we are the most concerned in this Western part of the Globe.
(Page 37) Nothing is clearer in connection with Christian theology than that it was formulated by those whose outlook on the universe, or Nature, was vastly different from ours of today. It was in fact made by those whose knowledge and concepts were of the most rudimentary character; when this world was considered by them to be the one and only place with which �God� was concerned; when the Earth was commonly believed to be flat; when the Sun and the Moon and the Stars were all supposed to rotate round it, and to have been created for the special benefit of Man; when no idea existed as to the distances or sizes of these heavenly bodies: the stars being merely so many points of light, more or less bright.
It is commonly supposed that up to the time of Copernicus (1473-1543) nothing had been known about the rotundity of the Earth or its revolution round the Sun. But Aristarchus, 260 B.C., had taught this, and the rotundity of the Earth was well known to many Greek writers. The fact was that the (Page 38) makers of the Christian dogmas put the Scripture narrative before everything else. Thus St. Augustine naively remarks that: �It is impossible that there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the Earth, since no such race is recorded by Scripture among the descendents of Adam.�
The theology was formulated when the Old Testament was accepted as the personally inspired word of the Jewish God Jehovah, and the account of creation in Genesis was held to be literally true � hence the doctrine of the Fall of Man, of original sin, and of the necessity � carried over from pagan sources � of a propitiatory offering. The �only begotten Son of God� had to atone for the sins of the world by incarnating and shedding his blood on the Cross, as so many previous �Saviours� are reputed to have done.
In the person of Jesus of Nazareth these allegories were literalised by the Christian theology makers, and finally, at the various Ecumenical Councils, were hardened into their traditional form as they have been handed down to us.
If we take the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles to be mainly historical � which is very doubtful � we see that the immediate (Page 39) followers of Jesus utterly misunderstood and materialised his teachings and his mission. They looked for an immediate Second Coming, for the �last day� when the Earth and the Sea would yield up the physical bodies of all humanity from the time of Adam: when the personal Devil would be finally overcome and cast into Hell with all the �heathen� and the unbelievers, whilst the �saints� would share in the glories of the new Heaven and the new Earth.
Strange to say this na�ve belief survives even today; nor has there been any century of the Christian era in which the Second Coming has not been expected, and even prophesied for a certain date, which numberless credulous �believers� have confidently accepted.
As regards the teaching of Jesus, which was essentially that of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, the Christian nations have always treated the �heathen�, the coloured races in particular, as if they were of no account in the sight of God � witness, for example, the conflict over the emancipation of the slaves. The original incentive to missionary effort � whatever it may be now � was based on the idea that the benighted heathen had to be �saved� in the orthodox (Page 40) Christian manner, otherwise he was irretrievably doomed to Hell. Indeed it was not the heathen only, but even a Church member could not be certain that his fellow member was �one of the elect�. Of course he could be quite sure about himself generally. But this same doctrine of election, even now held by some, has sent thousands into our lunatic asylums.
The Roman Catholic Church still claims to hold the keys of Heaven, and regards the members of all other Christian Churches as being excluded therefrom.
Now it is not to the point that hundreds of thousands still accept this original crude theology. It is not to the �tail� that we must look for the religion of the future. The old orthodoxy is very much in the melting-pot today. It is hardly a question even as to whether it will survive another century. The question is as to what will take its place. What concept of Deity, what concepts of the Universe or Nature will result from our enlarged modern knowledge? What concepts of himself will the enlightened member of the Race formulate out of the extraordinary advancement of knowledge which is now resulting from scientific discoveries and modern scholarship?
(Page 41) The established hierarchy of traditional theology has always fought and will doubtless continue to fight against the rising tide of knowledge. History shows us that even the most primitive ideas when supported by a powerful and wealthy priesthood are exceedingly difficult to uproot; and nothing in the average mind dies harder than religious superstition and traditional belief. The Church of Rome will have nothing to do with �Modernism�, and its adherents are forbidden free investigation in certain directions, or to read books which have been placed on the Index.
Three hundred years ago it was astronomy which threatened to overthrow the teachings of the Church, and Bruno was burnt at the stake for teaching what is now common knowledge. Galileo only escaped the same fate by recanting what he knew to be true. One hundred years ago it was geology which challenged the Scripture record and the cherished belief in the Genesis narrative. The Devil was said to have put the fossils there to deceive mankind. There are still a few good people who profess to believe that. Since the time of Darwin and Huxley it has been biology to which the conflict has been (Page 42) transferred, and evolution is now the word which is anathema. And so the story goes on.
We can have no quarrel with the sincere believer who finds his spiritual sustenance in the old doctrine of Man�s Fall and Redemption, and consoles himself with the thought that one brief life well spent � or even badly spent if he can obtain priestly absolution before he dies � will ensure for him an endless life in Paradise. Yet this is a soul-killing doctrine.
We have nothing to say either against those who find inspiration in an elaborate ritual � vestments, and masses, music and incense, et hoc genus omne � and may even think that these are the principal elements of religion, and that God himself takes a delight in them. But why associate these with the simple teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? Who can imagine Jesus, or Paul, or Peter in a cope, or a mitre, or a chasuble? �The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not.� The very idea that God requires to be worshipped and propitiated is a survival of primitive anthropomorphism.
All these institutional practices may be �Christianity� as it has come to be known (Page43) historically; but they certainly do not belong to the religion of Jesus Christ, nor even to that of Paul � the great Apostle to the �Gentiles� � whose fundamental teaching was �Christ in you�. Paul might have been expected to quote Jesus continually as his authority, but, strange to say, he never quotes him, with the single exception of Acts xx, 35: �It is more blessed to give than to receive� � a saying which is not found in the Gospels.
It is food for thought also that Philo, who was contemporary with Jesus, never mentions him, though he used the term �Logos� and also �only begotten Son�. Both these terms are pre-Christian, as is also the doctrine of the Trinity. They are pre-Christian philosophical concepts, and were not �divinely revealed� by the coming of Christ. They were appropriated by the Church, like so many other things, from pagan sources.
And so we may leave the orthodox theology with those to whose mental limitations it is best suited, and proceed to note the groundwork for our conception of Man and the Universe which our modern science and our modern scholarship and philosophy provides, and which must inevitably influence and determine the religion of the future.
(Page 44) Let us commence with astronomy, since it was the first real science to threaten the traditional theology by enlarging man�s knowledge of the extent and nature of the universe in which he finds himself.
Can we with our modern knowledge conceive in the remotest degree what a monstrous thing it was in the year 1600, when Bruno was burnt at the stake, for anyone to assert that the Earth was round, not flat, and that the Sun and all the heavenly bodies did not revolve round the earth for its own special benefit but the Earth round the Sun? Such assertions were not merely contrary to common sense, to what everyone could see for themselves, but worse still, they were contrary to Holy Scripture. They appeared to cut away the very foundations of Christian belief. When the Inquisitors were invited by Galileo to look through his telescope and see for themselves the Satellites of Jupiter revolving round the Planet, they refused to do so. The thing was impossible, for it was not in Holy Scripture; and moreover, we had no (Page 45) right to pry into what was not there revealed to us.
What does our astronomical knowledge disclose to us today? What are our present conceptions of the nature and extent of the visible universe?
The number of stars which could be seen with the great 100-inch reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson in California, is estimated to be about fifteen-hundred million � a few million more or less don�t matter. But that is by no means the end of the story. The new relativity theory gives us a universe which is �finite but unbounded�( This phase �finite and unbounded� represents what is supposed to be an absolutely new conception resulting form the four-dimensional mathematics of the Relativity Theory. In Isis Unveiled, however, the work of that marvellously informed woman. Mme H.P.Blavatsky, and published in 1877, we find the following sentence. �But notwithstanding that the world of matter is boundless for us, it still is finite� Vol. 1, page 7 ) Space � as disclosed by the material world � (the reservation is important) is supposed to be curved, so that if one were able to set out on a journey into space, apparently in a straight course, and were to travel with the speed of light namely, 186,000 miles per second, or nearly 6,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo miles per annum, one would find oneself possibly at the end of something like 100,000,000,000 years � according to (Page 46) present calculations � back on the same spot from which we started. As the schoolboy said when he was asked to define a circle: it is in a line which meets its other end without ending.
The nearest star to our Earth, a Centauri, is 41/2 light years distant. Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, 26 times as bright as the Sun, is 8.7 light years away. The Pleiades some 325 light years. But these are comparatively near neighbours. The great star cluster in the constellation of Hercules, which contains fully 35.000 stars as bright as our Sun, and some more than a thousand times brighter, is about 36,000 light years away. The whole of our system of stars, known as the Galactic system, approximates to the form of a flattened disc, with a thickness about one-eighth of a diameter; our Sun being a very considerable distance from the centre. The diameter of this disc is estimated to be somewhere in the order of 300,000 light years, and the thickness about 37,500 light years.
But in addition to our Galactic system it is estimated that there are something like two million extra-galactic nebulae visible with the 100-inch telescope. Each of these is either a system of stars � a universe in itself � (Page 47) or one in the making. Some of these nebulae have been estimated to be as much as 140 million light years away. Taking the Einstein theory as a basis, it is estimated that the whole universe is about one-thousand-million times as big as the part of space visible with the 100-inch telescope.
In this vast universe, our own Solar System � taking the orbit of Neptune as its limit � is but an insignificant atom. Sir J.H. Jeans, in his little work �Eos, or the Wider Aspects of Cosmogony�, estimates that if the whole number of stars in the universe were represented by grains of sand spread over England, they would make a layer many hundreds of yards in depth; and that our Earth would be only one-millionth part of one such grain.
What concern, then, are our little worldly affairs to any supposed Cosmic Deity, whether inside or outside of this vast universe; whether it was all created by the world of His mouth in six days, or in six hundred thousand million years? What concern can even the existence of our little speck of matter be to such an inconceivable Being � let alone the idea that we may pray to Him for rain or for fine weather, (Page 48) and ask Him to bless our crops and our battleships? These figures utterly transcend the power of our minds to grasp; how then can we possibly conceive of a Being who made all this by a simple fiat, and who is supposed to be omnipresent and omniscient in this vast universe, let alone the idea that He required to be worshipped by the microbes on this little microscopic object which we call our Earth. Conceivably millions of such little specks of matter as our Globe could come into and go out of existence in the equally ungraspable extension of �Time� without even touching the consciousness of such a Being; just as millions of microscopic lives come into and go out of existence in our own bodies every minute without our being in the least aware of them.
No: the moment we begin to think in any sense cosmically instead of parochially, the postulating of a personal God who is this, that, and the other � not to speak of His opponent the personal Devil � appears as the mere childish beginnings of Man�s effort to understand his existence and his place in the Cosmos, and his own larger spiritual nature.
But let it not be thought that this is either pessimism or atheism. There is another aspect of this question. How is it that we, (Page 49) mere microbes crawling on the surface of this million-millionth speck of matter, can thus discern, and measure, and weigh and analyse the incalculable millions of Suns and Universes scattered through space? Must there not be something infinitely great in Man, greater than any of these physical dimensions, that he is able to do this � something that is only shadowed in these achievements?
�I am somehow receptive of the great soul, and thereby I do overlook the sun and the stars, and feel them to be but the fair accidents and effects which change and pass� (Emerson, The Oversoul)
Must not Mind, which can thus compass the universe of matter, be infinitely greater than that which it thus compasses? Must we not postulate also a Cosmic Mind which brings all this forth in its own imaging or imagination? This Cosmic Mind was conceived of in Greek philosophy as the Logos about which we shall say more presently.
Nothing is more certain than that the individual can only exercise a faculty which is derived from something cosmic in the first instance. Like the atom of physical matter which is simply a limited and individual (Page 50) aspect of a potency residing in the cosmic Ether: the mind of the individual man can only be a limited and partial aspect of the potency of Cosmic Mind. All our modern psychology and philosophy tends to show that even the individual mind is to a large extent in its own sphere, the creator of the objective world, and of time and space. �Intellectuality and materiality,� Bergson tells us, �have been constituted by reciprocal adaptation. Both are derived from a wider and higher form of existence.� (Creative Evolution, p.127)
But we must enquire presently whether even intellect is Man�s highest faculty; whether, indeed, it is in any way fitted to grasp Reality. Are the physical dimensions and measurements which the mind cannot overpass in any formulated concept, of any real value as criteria of Man�s nature and status in the Universe? Does not their very excess destroy their value?
Let us turn for a moment from these outward dimensions of space and look inwards. If the macrocosm discloses these immensities, what of the microcosm?
(Page 51) About the year 1704 Sir Isaac Newton wrote:
�It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space as most to conduce to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous body compounded of them; even so very hard as never to wear or break to pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God Himself made one in the first creation.�
Great as was Sir Isaac Newton�s intellect, we now know that this conception of the atom of matter was wrong in every respect. The atom is not a solid body; it is mainly composed of space, just as the Solar System as a whole may be said to be. It is neither hard nor impenetrable, and it does wear and break to pieces. As for the theological idea which he introduces, we need hardly say that no physicist nowadays would consider that (Page 52) to be relevant to his conceptions as to the nature of matter.
The atom or molecule of physical matter was known last century � before the possibility of its break-up or the nature of its constituents was even guessed at � to be exceedingly minute. It was estimated that it would take something like 250,000,000 placed close together to cover the length of one inch. One pint of water contains a far greater number of atoms than there are pints in all the oceans of the world. One cubic centimetre of air � less than the top of one�s little finger � is estimated to contain about 28 million million million molecules. An ordinary electric light vacuum bulb encloses a space of about 150 cubic centimetres; and if a minute hole were made in it so that one million molecules could enter per second, a simple calculation will show that it would take rather more than 133 million years to fill the bulb.
But it is now known that the atom is composed of a number of electrical particles called electrons and protons, and that these are inconceivably smaller than the atom itself; so much so that they are comparable, as regards their relative size and the distances (Page 53) between them, to the sizes and distances of the Sun and Planets of the Solar System. The atom is in fact conceived to be a Solar System in miniature, with the proton, or positive electrical particle as a central nucleus round which the electrons, or negative particles, revolve in orbits. This present theory, however, fascinating and simple as it appears to be, is even now in question. We may, however, work on it in the meanwhile as not merely being explanatory of certain facts, but also as giving us some sort of a mental picture corresponding to those facts.
The present data show the electron to be something like 100,000 times smaller than the atom; so that in comparison with the whole space occupied by the atom it is
����������� ������ 500 billionth������
The electrons have been compared to a few gnats flying about in a space as great as a cathedral. If the electron were magnified to the size of a halfpenny, its relative distance from the proton round which we suppose it to revolve, and which is about the same size, would be one mile.
Conceive of one halfpenny revolving round another one mile distant, and you have a (Page 54) picture of the hydrogen bomb. We may compare this with the Solar System in the following manner. If we had to make a model of the System to a scale in which the size of the Earth was represented by a halfpenny, the Sun would be 326 yards away, whilst Neptune, the outermost planet, would be rather more than five and a half miles distant. As regards the atom, however, we must bear in mind that the electrons are revolving in their orbits with enormous velocities, so that the halfpenny electron might go round its central nucleus something like twenty or thirty thousand times in one second. It is thus practically an impenetrable ring, just as when we revolve a ball at the end of a string very rapidly in a circle, we see it as a ring. Matter is only solid because of its intense atomic motion
Such are the refinements of our modern scientific instruments and processes that we can now photograph the tracks of atoms and electrons.
The various chemical atoms have different numbers of electrons which determine the characteristics of their chemical properties. Thus the hydrogen atom has only electron; the oxygen has eight; and at the (Page 55) other end of the scale the uranium atom has ninety-two. Thus we see that �matter is mainly composed of space.� How very different in the light of this knowledge do we find the reality of the material world to be from its appearance.
These figures, like the complementary astronomical figures, altogether dwarf our imagination. But even so, we have by no means got to the end of the matter � literally matter. The electrons themselves are doubtless compound bodies. Sir J.J. Thomson has put forward the view that:
�If we compare the atom with its electrons to a solar system, we may compare an electron or a positive particle to the centre of a nebula, and regard the electron as surrounded by an atmosphere of small particles�. These considerations suggest that just as matter is made up of molecules, and molecules are made up of electrons and positive particles, this is not the end of the story, there are still worlds to conquer, the worlds which build up the electrons and positive particles.�
Where, then, can there be an end in this inner direction of space? Any �space�, however minute, is conceivably divisible, and re-divisible, ad infinitum.
(Page 56) What a mighty thing, therefore, is our present physical body when measured by the standard of these microcosmic dimensions. Shall we not set them off against the macrocosmic dimensions of astronomy, and say that the one cancels out the other, and that perhaps at root extension in space has no �reality� at all; that our consciousness makes it, and can transcend it?
Professor Eddington tells us that:-
�If we eliminated all the unfilled space in a man�s body and collected his protons and electrons into one mass, the man would be reduced to a speck just visible with a magnifying glass.� (See The Nature of the Physical World, p.1).
According to these present conceptions the whole universe might very well be the physical body of some great Cosmic Being, and all the suns and worlds mere atoms in that body. But that is no new idea. Swedenborg taught that the universe was in the form of a man: though perhaps he did not quite mean it in that sense. But the conception of the Archetypal Man as containing the whole universe within himself is one of the oldest concepts of the more occult philosophy. We (Page 57) find it clearly stated by Jacob Bohme, that unrivalled spiritual seer. Thus he says:
�And we declare unto you that the eternal Being, and also this world, is like man: The eternity generateth nothing but that which is like itself; for there is nothing in it but is like it, and it is unchangeable, or else it would pass away, or it would come to be some other thing, and that cannot be. And as you find man� to be, just so is the eternity. All is in man, both heaven and earth, stars, and elements� (The Threefold Life of Man, VI, 46, 47).
As for �the space within the atom,� we read in the Yoga Vasishtha of Indian literature that:
�There are vast worlds all placed away within the hollows of each atom, multifarious as the motes in sunbeams.�
Modern astronomy may be said to have become atomic, and modern conceptions of the atom astronomical.
(Page 58) We may now turn from the consideration of spatial quantities to that time. How old is the Solar System, and more particularly our little speck of matter?
We have two means of estimating the age of the Earth: the data derived from astronomy and that derived from geology.
The discovery by modern science of the constitution of physical matter, of the break up of the atom and the consequent liberation of enormous stores of energy in the form of radiation, has placed a powerful method of calculation in the hands of both the astronomer and the geologist. Whereas it was previously thought that the energy radiated from the Sun must in some way be accounted for by combustion, and calculations on that basis could only give it a life of some ten or fifteen million years, the knowledge of the energy stored up in the atom now enables us to reckon by millions of millions of years.
Radiation means loss of mass; annihilation of the atom. The atomic annihilation of one pound of coal per week would give us as much (Page 59) energy as is now available from the combustion of the five millions of tons of coal which are mined every week in the British Isles. A single drop of oil would take the largest liner across the Atlantic.
We know the mass of the Sun, and we can also calculate the amount of energy which is radiated from its surface. It is therefore easy to calculate the equivalent loss of mass. This loss is at the rate of 250 million tons per minute; yet at this enormous rate the Sun would last for another fifteen million million years, while its present age is probably between five and eight million million years.
It is perhaps easier to calculate the approximate age of the Sun or even of distant stars, from the given data, than to calculate the age of the Earth. It is generally conceded that the Earth and the other Planets have been, in some unknown manner, thrown off from the Sun. The theory which appears to be most in favour today with astronomers being that the near approach of a passing star caused a large arm or streamer of matter to be drawn out of the Sun by gravitational action: the Sun being at that time a gaseous nebula. This protuberance subsequently condensed and detached itself (Page 60 ) as a planet. A similar action is supposed to happen to the Planets, whereby their satellites are formed. All this, however, is pure speculation, and by no means satisfactory even at that. Occult science has quite a different teaching, which however would be out of place here. Moreover there is nothing to show us how many million million years ago it was since this may have happened. We must turn to geology for more direct evidence of the age of the Earth.
The data from which geologists can draw their conclusions are very varied. Calculations have been made from the accumulation of salt in the oceans; from the thickness of the sedimentary and other formations, but more recently, and perhaps more reliably, from an analysis of the radioactive contents of some of the rocks of the earth�s crust.
The uranium and thorium ores, which are radioactive, go through a series of slow transformations, the end products of which are helium and lead. The rate of transformation is fairly well known, so that these radioactive materials act as a kind of timekeeper for the earth. The conclusions arrived at by this method point to a period which is somewhere between 1,600 million years as (Page 61) a minimum and 3,000 million years as a maximum. Other geological evidence is more or less in accord with these figures; but once we have passed, say 1,000 million years in our estimate, a few millions, or even a few hundred millions, matter very little. In any case we must reckon by hundreds of millions, and Bishop Usher�s 6,000 years is � no �when.
(Page 62) To suppose that Man came into existence on this Earth full-grown, and at the word of a personal Creator, is another of those primitive ideas which can find no support or corroboration in our actual knowledge of the processes of Nature and of biological evolution, though it still survives in the minds of millions who profess the �Christian faith�, and it is the authoritative teaching of both the Roman and Anglican Churches.
But with biology, as it has already been with astronomy and geology, it can only be a question of time for the known facts to be universally recognised by everyone but the extremely ignorant � or the extremely bigoted. As regards the Genesis narrative there will then be two alternatives: its total rejection, or its allegorical interpretation. The theology which still clings to that narrative in its literal acceptation is in fact already a lost cause.
A very mild attempt to recognize the allegorical nature of the narrative is already in evidence with apologists in certain quarters. It is said that the �days� of creation do not mean actual days of the week, but periods (Page 63) of time which may possibly extend over thousands or even millions of years. So far so good; but there is a great deal more to be said in the matter.
I will attempt a brief outline of this immediately; but first of all let us look at the biological facts.
There was undoubtedly a time in the early formation of this Globe when no organic forms whatsoever could possibly have existed. Whatever theory we may accept as to the probable or possible origin of the Globe as a throw-off from the Sun or otherwise, we may say that literally it was, �in the beginning�, and for millions of years, �waste and void�, and that �there went up a great mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground�.
Now there appears to be very little doubt that the first organic forms of life, the primitive protoplasm and the unicellular protozoa, arose in the slime of the warm tropical oceans. From these primitive cells the whole of our flora and fauna have evolved during the course of incalculable ages. No one at all acquainted with the facts of the case is inclined to dispute this today. We have not merely the indelible records of the geological (Page 64) strata and the fossils to show us the gradual evolution of more and more complex organisms in ever increasing variety, but each individual human being today commences his existence as a primitive cell, and recapitulates during his nine months gestation the whole biological evolutionary process.
The various stages of that evolution may be represented broadly in the following diagram. They are the stages for the Race as well as for the individual embryo.
Mammals Subclass,
(Page 65) We may put x, y, z as three stages of as yet unknown development: for the process still goes on. Also we may enclose the whole in an egg to signify that Man � in so far as he is physical, and limited in his consciousness to the physical world � is as yet only in the gestation stage as regards his future development as a cosmic being, with cosmic consciousness. He has still to come out of the shell of matter with which he has encased himself during his �fall�. He is still a crustacean clinging to a rock, and not a free-swimming creature in the larger world of the cosmic Ether.
Man having thus evolved his physical body through all the lower organic kingdoms � and perchance even through the mineral -
I died from the mineral and became a plant;
I died from the plant and reappeared as an animal;
I died from the animal and became a man;
Wherefore then should I fear? When did I grow less by dying?�
and being now the highest representative of the organic process, we may consider that he was as much in view from the beginning as a full-grown product as is the oak from the acorn, or the full-grown individual man from the germ-cell.
But was, or is, the ultimate end merely the (Page 66) evolution of a physical body for Man? Assuredly not � at all events from the point of view of religion. We are necessarily taking that point of view in this work, and religion necessarily implies not merely that man survives his physical body but also that he has a spiritual nature. What this implies I will deal with more in detail immediately; but meanwhile we may note that we do not know why in once case an oak should result, and in the other case a human being. Nevertheless we are compelled to postulate an inner active principle moulding the �dead� chemical matter into these innumerable other forms which we recognise as being �living�. That inner principle in fact we term Life.
So far as the biological process on this Earth is concerned, as soon as the matter of the Globe has reached a certain state or stage of chemical organisation, Life begins to manifest itself in organisms scarcely distinguishable from complex chemical molecules, but yet distinct in this one respect, that they have the power of self-initiated movement. We distinguish them as living organisms � or sometimes simply as living matter � because they are the most primitive or simplest form of organised matter � more complex than the (Page 67) chemical atom or molecule � in which we can recognise this self-initiated movement. What we commonly call �dead� matter is, in its aggregated forms, only moved by external impacts. What we call �living� matter moves itself by internal impulse.
That is the bare definition of Life so far as its connection with physical matter is concerned. But Life as we know it in ourselves is something which exhibits infinitely more than the power to move or mould matter. It includes consciousness, mind, will, emotion; and, as we have seen from the quotation I have already given from Huxley (p.14) there is no conceivable connection between these and the mere mechanical properties of so-called dead matter. Thus the first expression of Life recognisable by us is movement. We might perhaps say that the highest expression is Love.
The term �origin of life� which is so commonly used in scientific works is quite misleading. What should be spoken of is the origin of organic forms of life. Organic forms manifest the informing life, but they do not originate it. How can they? If we postulate that it is matter itself which moves itself, then matter itself is life, and we can (Page 68) never speak of dead matter. These terms of course came into use when matter was considered to be nothing more than Newton�s �solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles.� Our present knowledge that matter is derived from and composed of a more universal Substance � which may even be �mind-stuff�� itself, not to speak of Spirit � puts a totally different complexion on the question. The ultimate Cosmic Substance may be living substance � may be Life itself.
If I make a vortex-ring in water, the ring is distinguishable qua ring, that is to say as a form, from the substance of the water. It is true that I cannot distinguish the form by physical sight unless I introduce a little colouring matter into the water. How then does it come about that �I� can distinguish physical matter from the Ether of which the electrons and protons are composed: very possibly being something analogous to vortex-rings therein? My physical body is built up of these, which, from the analogy of the vortex-rings in water, should be indistinguishable from the substance of which they are composed. I, then, as being the living cognizing subject, and either distinct from both physical matter and the substance out (Page 69) of which it is formed, or else that substance is at root myself.
Matter in its atomic constitution is an organised form of the substance of the Ether just as much as are the more complex �organic� forms which are organised out of the simpler atoms and molecules. They are all one Substance: how then shall we say that some of the forms are organised by Life whilst others are not? If we postulate that Life is something quite distinct from Substance then we must say that Life as it were comes in only so soon as a certain complexity of physical matter has been reached. But the real fact is that it is only when a certain degree of organisation of matter has been reached that we are able to recognize the self-initiated action of Life. If we conceive of the Ether as being a dead substance, how could it possibly organise, or be organised into form, unless Life acted upon it? The alternative is that Life is intrinsic in the nature of the Ether, or in something much deeper or more cosmic than the Ether.
The new physics has already entirely de-materialised our concepts of matter; and we see clearly that we have two things to deal with: a Root Substance � which science at (Page 70) present calls the Ether of space � and an active Principle which we call Life. We are here in fact face to face with the choice between the duality of Life and Substance, or the monistic view that they are at root, and in a last analysis, one and the same. In any case it is not physical matter as such which contains the potentiality of evoking into the forms of living organisms.
Are we then compelled to make a choice between Monism or Dualism? I think not; but at the same time how are we possibly to distinguish in any final analysis between Life and living Substance? It is simpler to speak of the Life as if it were an attribute of the Substance; or conversely of Substance as an attribute of Life. Indeed, if we call the Life �God�, we are compelled to postulate that God and Substance are not two things, otherwise God is not �all and in all.� The same applies if we simply call it the Absolute. The universe in its totality, visible and invisible, is one Substance and one Life, infinite, uncreated and eternal, whatever name we may give to it in its unitary nature.
Returning for a moment to the origin of physical forms of life on this Globe, we cannot say at what exact period � how many (Page 71) hundreds of millions of years ago � life began to mould the first organic forms; nor can we say at what point in the process Man came to be distinguished from the mere animal � whether ape or otherwise � as homo sapiens. There was no such precise point. Man is distinguished from the animal by his superior mentality, and to a certain extent by his nascent spirituality. But the incoming of Mind � the manifestation through the organism of that particular attribute of the Cosmic Life, already existing in that Life in a supreme degree � has been a gradual process, and is in fact as yet by no means complete; whilst the real spiritual nature of Man � also already existing in a supreme degree in the One Life � is hardly as yet in evidence at all in humanity as a whole.
We have records of primitive man which appear to go back several millions of years; but there is no authentic certainty in the matter, for we do not know the age of the geological strata in which these are found; as for example those of the Neanderthal man.
In what respects is the highest type of man today distinguished from primitive man of the flint or stone age? In what respects does (Page 72) he manifest more fully the attributes of the One Cosmic Life?
Undoubtedly in the first instance he manifests an amazing increase in the powers of mind or intellect; the power to formulate ideas, both abstract and concrete, the power to analyse and the power to synthesise not merely the phenomena of the objective world of Nature, but also the subjective world of his own mind and emotions. He formulates science and philosophy, and an enquiry into the limitations of his own knowledge. He is infinitely more self-conscious.
But that is by no means all. He has discovered that he has feelings and emotions which are something much more than, and essentially different from, mental concepts. The emotions of love and hatred are not intellectual; neither is his sense of esthetic values. The whole colouring which he gives to his mental concepts as well as to his external precepts, belongs to a region of his nature which transcends mind. In short he has discovered that he has a soul; or, as it is sometimes termed, a spiritual nature.
But it is not he who evolves that nature; it is that nature which evolves him � in so far (Page 73) as he is represented by a succession of individual forms.
It is just here that we must break away from conventional ideas of Man; and more particularly from conventional religious ideas and dogmas. The new physics and the new biology, of which I have given such a brief sketch, are here, if rightly understood and applied, of immense service to � shall we say � the new religion. Just as the concepts of the new physics dematerialize matter, so also must we dematerialize Man; and just as they de-individualize the physical atom, and refer it back to a Cosmic Substance, so also must we de-individualize our concepts of Man, of ourselves, and refer the individual back to a Cosmic Life.
Let us now turn our attention to this larger aspect of Man�s origin and nature.
What is Spirit?
(Page 74) Spirit is only another name for the one Infinite, Eternal, Uncreated Root and Source of all that ever was, is, or can be. It is the ONE LIFE and the ONE SUBSTANCE.
�Never the Spirit was born; the Spirit shall cease to be never;
�Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit for ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!�
( From: The Song Celestial (Bhagavad Gita), Sir Edwin Arnold.) PAGE 74 MISSING
We distinguish arbitrarily between Spirit and Matter; but is there any distinction at root? That which is transitory, that which does change, that which belongs to �time�, is simply the forms which arise and disappear in this world as �matter�; forms which range from Solar Systems and Universes to electrons and atoms in the physical world, and who knows what else in the superphysical? (Page 75)
How, then, about those forms which we know as mankind � ourselves?
When we are told that �God created man in his own image�, we can accept the statement as literally true of Man�s source and origin. But we can only do this if we dematerialize man, and regard him as a Cosmic Being, wholly and completely a spiritual Being in the first instance, and before his �fall into matter�. The statement is obviously and palpably untrue as regards physical man, or rather our consciousness of man in the limitations of his physical nature. We have seen that physical man was made �of the dust of the ground�, that his body evolved from what we commonly call �dead� matter. What possible likeness to God can we find in physical man at any of the stages of his physical evolution? There was no individual physical man � in the beginning� of the Earth, of whom it could be said that he was �made in the image of God�; neither did any such man dwell in a geographical Garden of Eden. All that has been talked about the locality of that �Garden� is pure nonsense. The four rivers and all the rest of the description are simply allegory.
We need not dwell here on the misrepresentations (Page 76) of the original meanings of the Hebrew words translated �God� and �Lord God�, or of the perverted rendering of the sentences we have quoted. We may, for our present purpose, accept them as they stand.
For more complete information on this question the reader may be referred to the work by Fabre d�Olivet, La Langue Hebraique Rectitué, Paris, 1815. An English translation was published in 1921 by Putman, New York. (Page 77)
Man, as a spiritual or cosmic Being � if distinguishable as such from the Root Principle, or Principle-Substance � would at least be only one remove as it were from the Universal, and therefore quite clearly �made in the image of God� in so far as the word �made� can be said to be applicable at all.
Cosmic Man, like everything else in the universe that exists (ex, out, and sisto, to stand), must necessarily in a final analysis be identified with the One Root Principle, here called �God�. But in so far as Man can be said to be distinguishable from the Universal � for example, just as physical matter is distinguishable as such from the Ether, though of the same substance � we can hardly conceive otherwise than that �in the beginning� he was so nearly akin to his Root and Source that the expression �made in the image of God� is quite a natural one.
But we have this even more clearly set forth at the commencement of the Gnostic Gospel of St. John.
�In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.�
As an alternative reading we have:
�All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him; and the life was the light of men.�
Identify this Logos with the archetypal Cosmic Man of Genesis, and the whole matter becomes as clear as day. Free it from all the obscurantism of theological dogma which identifies the Logos with the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, and at once we come into line with both science and philosophy
The term Logos is pre-Christian. It stands for the concept of the divine thought or will uttering itself in objective form. Professor Max Muller in his work Theosophy, or Psychological Religion, tells us that, �Logos is a Greek word embodying a� Greek thought, a thought which has its antecedents in Aristotle, in Plato; nay, the deepest roots of which have been traced back as far as the ancient philosophies of Anaxogoras and Heraclities� (p.380). It is also embodied in the Sanskrit term Vach, speech, word in a mystical sense as the concrete expression of ideation. (Page 78)
How much the Gospels, and even St. Paul�s Epistles, have been overwritten to make them appear to support an already formulated theology we do not as yet know. Further scholarly researches, or the discovery of documents may bring this more clearly into view. But the deeper interpretation which we are here putting forward is by no means new or unfamiliar to students; and it may clearly be seen in the authorised version as it now stands.
Paul taught the doctrine of a Cosmic Christ Principle, which had to be �brought to birth� in each individual, even as it was manifested in the personality of Jesus of Nazareth.
But that Cosmic Christ, or Christ-Principle, we must identify with the Logos of St. John�s Gospel; and the Logos of St. John�s Gospel we must identify with the spiritual Cosmic Man of Genesis, �made in the image of God�. But this Cosmic Man we must further identify with ourselves � when we have succeeded in de-individualizing ourselves.
�All things (in this world of Man) were made by him.� Of course. Man makes his own world. Man is the Creator of that world. It is all his own image-making (Page 79 ) (imagination), the forms in his �mind-stuff�. And by what is Man enlightened save by his own inner spiritual nature, the divine Cosmic Man, the Christos, the Anointed, �made in the image of God�, and, as such, still �eternal in the heavens.�
�In God, be sure, the soul in its highest prototype has never known creature, nor has she ever therein possessed time or space. For in this image (of God in the soul) everything is God: sour and sweet, good and bad, small and great, all are one in this image. This image is no more changed by anything in time than the divine nature is changed by anything that is creature: for it apprehends and uses all things according to the law of godhood� (Meister Eckhart).
Being thus in his original and prototypal aspect the Archetypal Divine Man, he is also the �Saviour� of the individual �fallen� man in whom he has to be �brought to birth�. But this bringing to birth of the �Christ in you� is the realisation by the individual of his inherent spiritual nature � which is precisely the definition of Religion which I have given as the basis of this work. The real man is the spiritual man; and the realisation of this in the full consciousness of the Christos �in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the (Page 80 ) Godhead bodily�, is the goal of his evolution.��������
Just as the divine Man, the Christos, is �one with the Father� as his Root and Source, so is the individual man one with �Christ� as the divine Archetypal Man.
�I am the vine, ye are the branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in me� (John XV 4,5).
How clear this becomes when we transfer the conception from a personal historical Jesus, or �Saviour�, to that of the Cosmic Christ who is our own inner divine spiritual principle; our real immortal Self, which knows neither birth nor death, and into the consciousness of which we must be regenerated � literally reborn � if we are to attain to �eternal life.�
For how can these words apply in any sense to an individual personal historical �Saviour�? They are literally true when we understand that our life, in all its aspects, even the life of each cell in our physical bodies, is �hid with Christ in God� (Col.III,3).
Life, the ONE LIFE, is eternal in its own nature, but not in the forms in which it (Page 81 ) manifests in time and space. These obviously all perish as such; therefore it is only as we learn to know ourselves apart from the temporary form, only as we learn to know ourselves as the Archetypal Man, �made in the image of God�, that we can attain to that continuity of consciousness which alone can be spoken of as �life eternal�. For verily we �fall asleep� out of that life when we incarnate; losing thereby all recollection of our previous existence and our eternal spiritual nature. Nor must we expect to do otherwise than incarnate again and again until this cycle of birth and death has been conquered through the attainment of a real spiritual consciousness which transcends these alternate periods of sleeping and waking. �The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.�
The true doctrine of immortality, of �eternal life�, is not a doctrine of survival, or even of �salvation�, but of the immortal nature of the Spiritual Ego in its own right and nature. It implies pre-existence as well as post-existence, for Spirit is the one eternal Root and Source of ALL.
This true doctrine was well understood in (Page 82) the early centuries of the Christian era, and it was only in the sixth century, at the Second Council of Constantinople, A.D.553, that the doctrine of reincarnation was made a heresy.
�Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul and the consequent and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema.�
Can any rational person, with anything beyond the most limited parochial outlook on the Cosmic Process, conceive that Humanity as a whole has to pass through such a vast cycle of evolution, but that the individual only shares in that Process for the one brief flicker which is all that a single life-time represents in the millions of millions of years which comprise the whole Cycle?
The evolution of the individual must necessarily be commensurate with that of the Race: for how else does the Race progress save by the progression of the individual members thereof? What I may do in any one life-time not merely helps or hinders my own evolution, it helps or hinders also the evolution of the Race. The world of today is what the individuals of the past have made it; the world of tomorrow will be what the individuals of today are making (Page 83) it. That is denied by none. It is to be supposed, then, that each generation as it springs up consists of souls who come from nowhere, who have had no past , but have to reap what previous generations have sown, and will have no share in reaping what they themselves are now sowing? Shall the law �what a man sows that shall he also reap� have no application here?
Nothing could be more irrational than to conceive that the individual begins when he is physically born � with more or less already developed faculties according to his fortunate, or unfortunate, parentage � and then forsooth goes on �for ever and ever�, with no further share in the great evolutionary process. Nor is the matter improved by making a personal �God� responsible for every soul that is born � one a savage, another a philosopher, a third a child of the slums, and yet a fourth a pampered child of fortune. There is either a great and inflexible law of justice (Karma) underlying all the varied attainments and circumstances of the individual, or else it is all the veriest chaos and caprice.
There is no space here, however, for a complete exposition of the teachings respecting reincarnation� and karma; nor is the (Page 84) whole truth concerning these by any means available. It is both true and not true that �I� reincarnate. What must be realised in the first instance is the distinction between the real immortal Self and the temporary conventional �I�; between the self may be found. That higher Self is the Christos, the Christ in you.
The whole Cosmic Process is a perpetual reincarnation, and cycle within cycle the same principle obtains. The form perishes, but the Life is reborn in new forms.� �All flesh� � all that pertains to the lower personal self � �is as grass�, and, slightly paraphrasing, we may say: �The grass withereth, and the flower falleth; but the Self abideth for ever.�
The immortality or �salvation� of the lower personal self is entirely dependent on its aspiration and union or At-one-ment with the higher spiritual Self, the Christos.
In the Genesis allegory, Adam is said to have fallen into a �deep sleep�, whereby the physical separation of the sexes was brought about � to his still further �fall� or undoing and loss of his spiritual nature, and even any recollection of it. And in this �deep sleep� (Page 85) the great majority of the Race exist to the present day. �But as in Adam all die, even so in Christos shall all be made alive again.�
We must now examine the nature of this �Fall� somewhat more closely.
(Page 86) Although in view of what has just been said, the �salvation�, or �redemption�, or �regeneration� of the individual man, as well as of the whole Race, through a realisation of the original Divine Nature of Man, is perfectly clear and understandable, yet there is certainly an apparent difficulty here as regards the �Fall�.
We have seen that we cannot accept the �Fall� as being something which happened to �our first parents� considered as a single pair of physical individuals residing in a mythical Garden. What, then, does the allegory in Genesis mean; or rather, in what sense has Man fallen?
In the first place, and since the Archetypal Man is a Cosmic Being, the �Fall� must certainly be a Cosmic Process. We must regard it as the outgoing of the unitary Cosmic Life, the ONE LIFE, into differentiation, or multiplicity � of form � or manifestation. We have a physical analogy in the formation out of the Cosmic Ether of the forms we know as physical matter; and we may very well (Page 87) conceive that the Cosmic Ether is still several removes from the One Root Principle.
The �Fall�, therefore, �in the beginning�, is the outgoing from the ONE of some individualized Cosmic Life or Lives. In many ancient systems these were postulated to be the �Creative Gods�: many different names being given to them, such as the Prajapatis in the Eastern philosophy, or the Sephiroth of the Kabbala. In the New Testament we have seen it to be the Logos, and in Genesis it is Adam, the Archetypal Man �made in the image of God.�
This first differentiation or outgoing is the commencement of the Cosmic Cyclic Process, or World-Process of evolution and involution; the evolution being the process of differentiation into more and more complex forms, the involution being the return to the Source or unity of the ONE, though this latter half of the cycle is usually termed evolution in so far as it relates to man�s progress.
This return process is hardly as yet recognized in modern philosophy, though it is well recognised in the Eastern Scriptures, and is in fact, so far as the individual is concerned, the fundamental experience in all Mysticism, to whatever religion the mystic may belong. (Page 88) In Eastern philosophy it is known as the outbreathing and inbreathing of Brahma; or sometimes as the Days and Nights of Brahma: the Days being the period of the whole cycle of objectivity, and the Nights the equally long period of subjectivity. Another term for these is Manvantara and Pralaya, and these major periods have minor periods or cycles of lesser duration, cycle within cycle.
Thus for the individual man the coming into incarnation� is equivalent to a minor Manvantara, or outgoing, and the time between any two incarnations is the equivalent pralaya or indrawing. A still lesser cycle is that of physical waking and sleeping.
So far as the great Cosmic Process as a whole is concerned the why and wherefore of it is inscrutable. It has been the great problem ever since man began to think philosophically. Thus in the ancient Rig Veda we find the question asked:PAGE 89 MISSING
�Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The Gods themselves came later into being �
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
That, whence all this great creation came,
Whether Its will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it � or perchance even He knows not.� (Colebrook�s translation) (Page 89)
In the fourteenth-century mystical Treatise, the Theologia Germanica, we find the question somewhat quaintly answered in this manner:
�If there ought not to be, and were not this and that � works, and a world full of real things, and the like � what were God Himself, and what had He to do, and whose God would He be?�
But looking at the question from this cosmic point of view, the term �Fall� is clearly inapplicable. We cannot say that God �fell� when he willed to evolve the universe out of his own Substance � if indeed we can say that he willed at all.
�In this high consideration it is found that all is through and from God himself, and that it is his own substance, which is himself, and which he hath created out of himself�(Jacob Bohme, The Three Principles of the Divine Essence,Preface).
And if we cannot say that God �fell�, neither can we say that the Logos, the Archetypal Man, �fell� when he, in his turn, had to (Page 90) repeat the act of creation, and evolve this world of his own.
The fact is that the term �Fall� is only applicable when we regard the process from below, from the point of view of Humanity collectively � and also individually � in our already fallen condition as physical human beings. Then indeed we can say, �Oh, what a fall was (is) there!�
And yet in some sense the �Fall� must be necessary; a part of a divinely perfect WHOLE.
The Fall and Return are represented in the New Testament in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The point is that in religion it is the Return which is the practical matter. Jacob Bohme postulates the Return as a universal law. �All things enter again into that whence they proceeded.� (De Signatura Rerum, XV,42)
Even physical science may be said to have recognised this to a certain extent in what is known as the law of entropy. Herbert Spencer, however, has stated it more clearly as follows:
�Apparently, the universally coexistent forces of attraction and repulsion, which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout (Page 91 ) the universe also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes � produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion � alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.�
As regards the Logos, we have this principle stated by St. Paul in 1 Cor. XV, 28, as follows:
�When all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.�
In other words, when the present cyclic process has run its course, so far as the Logos is concerned, then shall the Logos also be indrawn again into the One.
But this also is a concept which antedates St.Paul by many ages. In the Eastern Scriptures it is taught not merely that �the Gods themselves came later into being�, but also that at the end of the Manvantara they and all else disappear � to reappear in the next Manvantara.
A free translation from the Ordinances of Manu might be given as follows:
(Page 92) �When the dissolution � Pralaya � had arrived at its term,� The great Being � Param-Atma or Para-Purusha � the Lord existing through himself, out of whom and through whom all things were, and are and will be� resolved to emanate from his own substance the various creatures� (Manava-Dharma-Sastra, Book 1, Slokas 6, 7).
�It is thus that, by an alternative waking and rest, the Immutable Beginning causes to revive and die eternally all the existing creatures, active and inert� (Manu, Book I, Sloka 50).
Now just as the ONE, or �God�, necessarily remains in his own nature and substance notwithstanding the creation, or emanation, or evolution of the Universe, so also does the Logos. The Logos creates his own particular world but yet remains. Here again we may take the analogy of Ether and physical matter. Physical matter is formed of the substance of the Ether, but yet the Ether remains. In the Bhagavad Gita we have Krishna, the Logos, saying: �I establish this whole world with a single portion of myself, and remain separate.�
�Man in respect of his external comprehensible or finite body standeth only in a fitting figurative shadow or resemblance; and with his spiritual body he is the true essential Word of the divine property, in which God speaketh and begetteth His Word� (Jacob Bohme, Epistles. VI, 41).
(Page 93 ) So far as the individual man is concerned, his higher spiritual nature has often been referred to as the �divine spark�. It is what Browning calls �the inmost centre in us all where truth abides in fullness.� But, �wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in.�
In the New Testament, as we have already seen, it is the �Christ in you�, which must be �brought to birth.� Man does not originate or grow that divine spark out of his physical nature in any sense whatsoever, biological or otherwise. On the contrary, it is that divine spark which grows him. It comes more and more into evidence as his evolution proceeds, and his physical organism is adapted to manifest it. The �spark� at present burns dim in the great majority of the Race; and indeed, quite possibly, it may be �quenched� altogether in the individual. Then for that individual consciousness there is no �salvation�, no possibility of reuniting with his higher Self. The man �has a name that he lives�, but is already spiritually dead, and for that personality, the lower self- which is merely a string of memories � there is nothing left but to fade out, even as a dream does. The spark has already been withdrawn, and (Page 94 ) there is no path by which the personal consciousness can follow.
This is quite clearly stated by Jesus in the Parable of the Vine.
�If a man abide not in me [the Christos], he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned� (John XV, 6)
This is certainly the fate of millions of the Race so far as the personality is concerned. As regards the divine �spark�, that of course is immortal. It is not �born� when it incarnates, neither does it �die� when the body � or the �person� � dies. It must seek another embodiment. I need hardly add that the �fire� referred to in the text has nothing to do with the orthodox hell fire; though we cannot but believe that for the wicked man the process of annihilation of the personality after death is a long and desperate one. It is the �second death� referred to in Revelation.
But dimly as the spark burns in the great majority of the Race at the present stage of evolution, yet we have innumerable historical examples in which we see that it has been fanned into such a flame of divine Love that (Page 95 ) we cannot but regard these individuals as the highest and noblest of the Race. Moreover we are compelled to recognise that this quality of Life which we term Love must be in a transcendental degree the very essence and substance of the ONE LIFE in the fullness of its ineffable nature.
�Pure and measureless love awakens joy within us; but love is a fathomless and soundless abyss; abyss calls to abyss� it is the Abyss of God calling the men of God. And this supreme invocation, this call out of the depths of the Abyss, which bids us come, appears to us as a shining dawn of essential light. It encompasses us and draws us, and we pass into the darkness, into the infinite darkness of God� (Ruysbroeck).
But though we cannot regard the Logos, the Christos, the Divine Man as having in any sense �fallen�, there is another aspect of the matter which is presented to us more specifically in the New Testament. It is the allegory of the Crucifixion. The Cross � the most ancient symbol in the world signifies matter, the material universe. The Cosmic Process, the �descent of Spirit into Matter�, is the crucifixion of the Divine Man in so far as that all the life and consciousness of every (Page 96 ) individual being � we might say of every individual atom � is part of his consciousness. It is all his �body�. It is all one �Vine�, even as the branches are part of the Vine so long as they are not �withered and cast off�. Yet even then� there is a utility for the �withered� branches� in Nature or the Cosmic Process. And herein lies the transcendental mystery of the sufferings of the Christ on the Cross �for the sins of the world.� The sufferings of �fallen� man, the sufferings of the world, �humanity�s great pain�, are the sufferings of the Divine Man.
We know that as the spark of divine Love becomes more and more in� evidence in the individual, he feels more and more acutely the sufferings of his fellow creatures. This is because he becomes more and more identified with his own divine principle, the Christos, and suffers � as represented in the Gospels and the allegory of the Crucifixion � for �the sins of the world.� For verily the Divine Man is crucified in each one of us and in the whole Race. It is a present suffering, not a past historical event.
It is in each one of us also that Christ must �rise again from the dead.� The Fall, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the (Page 97) Resurrection, are for the popular but ignorant Christianity of the Churches definite historical events; but for the mystic and the initiate they are perpetual cosmic and personal processes.
To what extent the personal Jesus of Nazareth accomplished these processes in his particular personality may best be left for each individual to decide for himself. At all events the historical Jesus as presented to us in the Gospels is almost universally recognised as the highest type of spiritual, or �anointed�, i.e. Regenerated man, fully conscious of his divine nature and �sonship�.
As for the allegory of the resurrection, we see from this that it has no reference whatever to a physical resurrection from an earthy tomb. It is the final victory of the individual over the deadness of his nature to spiritual realities. It is applicable either to the individual or to the Race as a whole. Thus we have the ringing cry of St. Paul: �Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee� (Eph.V,14).
The whole context of this verse shows that this applies to the living, not to the dead in their graves. It is the meaning which attaches to �death� all through the New (Page 98 ) Testament, though it is so often made to appear as if it referred to physical death. And who so fearful of physical death as the orthodox Christian? It is this materialised �Christianity� more than anything else that has �put the fear of death� into the minds of so many millions � and then� taught that they could be �saved� by priestly intervention or profession of �faith� in man-made doctrines.
�The fear of death does not manifest itself or develop in the great religions until the latter begin to be corrupted for the benefit of priests and kings. The intuition and intelligence of mankind have never again reached the height which they attained when they conceived the ideal of divinity of which we find the most authentic traces in the Vedic traditions. One might say that, in those days man disclosed, at the topmost height of his stature, and thus established, once for all, that conception of the divine which he subsequently forgot and frequently degraded; but despite oblivion and ephemeral perversion, its light was never lost� ( Maurice Maeterlinck, The Great Secret, page 135).
This is but a brief outline of the great history of Man in his Cosmic as well as his individual aspects; mainly as presented in the Scripture of the West.
(Page 99) So-called �Christianity� has arrogated to itself a superiority over all preceding teachings, and has claimed for itself a �revelation� in the person of Jesus of Nazareth of facts as to Man�s spiritual condition and nature which were previously unknown.
This claim cannot be sustained in the light of our modern knowledge of ancient teachings and ancient Scriptures. The real fact is that every one of its teachings is derived from earlier sources, and the allegories and myths which appear in the Jewish Scriptures and in the New Testament were current ages before these were written. But these teachings have to be repeated over and over again, now in one form, now in another; for the fate of all such mystical teachings, of truths which can only be presented in the form of allegory or myth, is always and ever to be materialised and literalised. Such, indeed, has been the fate of the teachings represented once more by certain Initiates in the Christian Scriptures. Many writers have tried, and are trying today, to bring the inner spiritual meaning to the understanding of the more intelligent minds of the community; but the Church with its �orthodoxy� still stands in the way. It must, in fact stultify its whole history and (Page 100) teaching if it now abandons the literal interpretation of the Scriptures on which it has built its theology and claims. Still, in the end, the Truth must prevail.
So soon as we have recognised that the Christos is a universal cosmic principle � the �light which lighteth every man coming into the world� � quite distinct from any particular historical character in whom this principle may have been manifested in a supreme degree: it matters not whether we call it Christos, or Krishna, or Horus, or Osiris, or by the name of any other �heathen� god, the traditional �events� in whose life have been reproduced more or less closely in the Gospel narratives � for example, virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, etc. ( Cf. Doane�s Bible Myths.) � Each and every �religion� may then find this principle as the true inner spiritual basis of its scriptures and traditions, subsequently materialised, literalised, and in general secularised for the benefit of a priestly castle.
We may conclude by examining very briefly some aspects of the ancient Gnosis teachings as to Man�s individual nature and Cosmic relations and origin.
(Page 101) We have already shown by a few quotations from ancient sources how the very deepest spiritual truths have been apprehended and stated from the remotest times. In some cases they have been stated quite plainly; in others they have been embodied in allegory and myth. There is every evidence to show that there has always existed a real Gnosis concerning the deeper aspects of the universe and of Man�s nature: a Gnosis which has always had its Initiates, Masters, Adepts, and Hierophants. It was they who framed the allegories and symbols, who wrote the Scriptures of the world, who built the Great Pyramid, and in other ways made manifest this Ancient Wisdom.
To suppose that all the pre-Christian nations were without any real spiritual knowledge or truth, or only had a dim light to guide them, is one of these conceits of �Christianity� which appears so detestable to the well informed today. It might perhaps have been excused some fifty or sixty years ago when practically nothing was known of (Page 102) Eastern religions and philosophy; it cannot be held today for one moment by anyone who has made any study at all of comparative religion and philosophy.
In the far back ages, millenniums before the Christian era � how many we do not know � the ancient Seers and Initiates had already arrived at the conception of One Eternal Immutable PRINCIPLE which IS the Universe in its wholeness. And they had already arrived at the conception that the individuality of the individual was a mere appearance; that in reality there was nothing separate from the ONE; and they had expressed this in the now well-known aphorism of the Upanishads,THAT ART THOU.
�What that subtle Being is, of which this whole Universe is composed, that is the Real, that is the Soul, That art thou, O Svetaketa� (Chandogya Upanishad, VI, 14, 3).
�Verily he who has seen, heard, comprehended and known the Self, by him is this entire universe known�
(Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad, II, 4, 5 ).
�As the flowing rivers in the ocean
Disappear, quitting name and form,
So the knower, being liberated from name and form,
Goes unto the heavenly Person, higher than the high.�
Mundaka Upanishad, III, 2, 8.
(Page 103) The following extracts from Professor Max Muller�s work, Theosophy or Psychological Religion, are a commentary on these quotations.
�We must remember that the fundamental principle of the Vedenta-philosophy was not �Thou are He�, but Thou art That, and it was not Thou wilt be, but Thou art. This �Thou art� expresses something that is, that has been, and always will be, not something that has still to be achieved, or is to follow, for instance, after death�. By true knowledge the individual soul does not become Brahman, but is Brahman, as soon as it knows what it really is, and always has been.� (Page 284).
�This is the gist of what I call Psychological Religion, or Theosophy, the highest summit of thought which the human mind has reached, which has found different expressions in different religions and philosophies, but nowhere such a clear and powerful realisation as in the ancient Upanishads of India.� (Page 105)
So also the old Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzue:
(Page 104) Today the Western world is attaining to a knowledge of this deeper Gnosis from many different directions: through archaeological discoveries, through scholarly researches, through the revival of Theosophy in the Theosophical Movement initiated in 1875 by Mme. H.P. Blavatsky, and through the writings of our modern mystics, seers, and transcendentalists.
The following quotation from The Great Secret, by M. Maeterlinck, may be given as representative of the views of many writers and thinkers today. It is worth quoting in view of what we have already put forward as regards biological evolution, and the present subject of the ancient Gnosis.
� �When this world had emerged from darkness,� says the Bhagavata Purana, which according to the Hindus is contemporary with the Veda, �the subtle elementary principle produced the vegetable seed which first of all gave life to the plants. From the plants life passed into the fantastic creatures which were born of the slime in the waters; then, through a series of different shapes and animals, it came to man.� ��They passed in succession by way of the plants, the worms, the insects, the serpents, the tortoises, cattle and the wild animals � such is the lower stage,� says Manu again, who adds: �Creatures acquired the qualities of those that preceded them, (Page 105 ) so that the farther down its position in the series, the greater its qualities.�
�Have we not here the whole of the Darwinian evolution confirmed by geology and foreseen at least six thousand years ago? One might give an infinite number of these disquieting examples. Whence did our prehistoric ancestors, in their supposed terrible state of ignorance and abandonment, derive those extraordinary intuitions, that knowledge and assurance which we ourselves are scarcely reconquering? And if their ideas were correct upon certain points which we are able by chance to verify, have we not reason to ask ourselves whether they may not have seen matters more correctly and further ahead than we did in respect of many other problems, as to which they are equally definite in their assertions but which have hitherto been beyond our verification? One thing is certain, that to reach the stage at which they then stood they must have had behind them a treasury of traditions, observations, and experiences � in a world, of wisdom � of which we find it difficult to form any conception; but in which, while waiting for something better, we ought to place rather more confidence than we have done, and by which we might well benefit, assuaging our fears and learning to understand and reassure ourselves in respect of our future beyond the tomb, and guiding our lives.� (p.43)
Thus Christianity in its traditional-form has not merely nothing new to tell us, but is a sad (Page 106 ) materialisation and limitation of the ancient Gnosis of which it should have been a restatement. Even the Christian mystics are only repeating the experiences of the mystics and seers of all time. How could it be otherwise? Their experiences, where valid, and not mere self-induced visions, must necessarily correspond, and they one and all testify to the one fundamental fact, the oneness of the individual and the Universal.
Let us examine a few rather more modern statements,
�Am I not with God�s Godhead essentially one?
How else is He my Father? how else am I His Son.
�Spark from the Fire! Drop from the Sea!
O man, what art thou then Unless to thine Eternal Source Thou dost return again?�
Angelus Silesius.
�When the will is so united that it becometh a One in oneness, then doth the Heavenly Father produce his only-begotten Son in Himself and in me. Wherefore in Himself and in me? I am one with Him � He cannot exclude me. In the selfsame operation doth the Holy Ghost receive his existence, and proceeds from me as from God. Wherefore? (Page 107) I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost deriveth not his being from me, He deriveth it not from God. I am in nowise excluded.
�God in himself was not God � in the creature only hath He become God. I ask to be rid of God � that is, that God, by his grace, would bring me into the Essence � that Essence which is above God and above distinction. I would enter into that eternal Unity which as mine before all time, when I was what I would, and would what I was:- into a state above all addition or diminution; - into the Immobility whereby all is moved� (Meister Eckhart).
�St. John says: �All things were made by Him,� that means one life in Him. That which man was in himself when created, that he was eternally in God. As long as a man� does not attain to the purity with which he came forth, when first created out of nothing, he will never truly come to God.�� (John Tauler)
�All whatsoever it is that liveth and moveth is in God, and God himself is all, and whatsoever is formed or framed, is formed out of Him, be it either out of love or out of wrath� (Jacob Bohme)
�God giveth power to every day life, be it good or bad, unto each thing, according to its desire, for He Himself is All; and yet He is not called God according to every being, but according to the light wherewith He dwelleth in Himself, and shineth with His power through all His beings. He giveth in His power to all His beings and works, and each (Page 108 ) thing receiveth His power according to its property; one taketh darkness, the other light; each hunger desireth its property, and yet the whole essence or being is all God�s, be it evil or good, for from Him and through Him are all things; what is not His love, that is His anger.� (Jacob Bohme).
�Men possess virtues and the Divine likeness in differing measure; in greater or lesser degree have they found their essence in the depths of themselves, according to their dignity. But God fulfils all; and each, clearer or fainter, according to the measure, of his love, possesses the sense of God�s presence in the depths of his own being.� (Ruysbroeck).
(Page 109) Our conclusion, then, is simply this: The Religion of the Future will be no new thing; it will be a clear understanding and appreciation of what has been taught by Mystics, Seers, and Initiates in all ages of which we have any literary records � and probably ages before that. Its fundamental principle has never been better realised or stated than in the ancient Upanishads: more particularly in that single aphorism, THAT ART THOU.
At every point of his nature and existence � whether as a physical being, or in the powers of his mind, or, deeper still, in the innermost root and source of his life and consciousness � the� individual� touches the universal, and derives all his substance and his powers therefrom. The more he de-individualises himself, the more will his consciousness expand towards the universal. Hence it is precisely his present sense of separateness which is the great illusion, the great heresy, the great �Fall�: and so the cause of all that we call Evil. Man has not merely separated himself in consciousness from �God�, but even from any sense of unity with his fellow man � let� (Page 110) alone the �lower orders of creation� with whom he is physically akin. It is nothing but this individualism and self-seeking which is the cause of all the bitter strife and conflict in the world; from that of one religion with another to the sordid struggle for existence in our so-called �civilized� communities.
Religion in its proper understanding is the return of Man to consciousness of his divine or spiritual nature and powers.
�As in Adam all die (to the consciousness of their spiritual nature) even so in Christ (the divine spark within) shall all be made alive again� (to that consciousness).
Thus Religion is a quality of life ,not a mere belief or profession of �faith�. Religion in its exoteric� or doctrinal form must first of all bring this fundamental principle to the intellectual apprehension of mankind in general. Instead of setting one religion against another, and endeavouring simply to proselytise, it must endeavour to find the points of contact and similarity. Individual religion merely ministers to and aggravates the evils of separateness � of which we have no better example than in the history of ecclesiastical Christianity.
(Page 111) How far the religion of the future can be institutional and yet avoid the fearful evils which have so far attached to institutional religions, is a problem which can only be worked out gradually; but it is the clearest of the clear that there can be no possible intermediary between the individual and his own inner divine Self. Each individual must �work out his own salvation� in his own inner experience. No one can possibly do that for him. The deep quality of faith in his own inner nature and powers will supply the right motive and the right will to press forward to an ever-increasing realisation. The life of the spirit that is lived � that is the only true religion, let the individual profess what doctrines he may. But the life is above all doctrines.
We apprehend, therefore, that so far as religion in the future may be institutional it will have no resemblance to the present methods and claims of any priestly hierarchy. It may be instructional � yes; but the instructors will be those who know, not an ignorant priesthood who may even be �weak-minded and depraved in habits�, (See Catholicism, �by the Rev. M.C. D�Arcy, S.J., p.31) and yet not merely supposed to be capable of instructing the people but also of administering a �sacred office�.
(Page 112) There will be no �places of worship�; for these belong to the primitive ideas of Deity, the anthropomorphic conception of a personal God who requires acknowledgement of his sovereign power; who requires adoration, subserviency, honour, ritual, court, etiquette, and what not, exactly as earthly Potentates used to do � only more so. In actual practice the �honours� appear to have gone rather to the Hierarchy than to the Deity.
What will the individual, what will the Race become, when �the earth shall be full of (this) knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea�? (Isaiah XI, 9).
�Such a man, as Adam was before his Eve (before he fell into generation) shall arise and again enter into, and eternally possess Paradise.� (Jacob Bohme, Mysterium Magnum, XVIII, 3)
That is the necessary and inevitable end of Man�s great Pilgrimage. The return is as certain as the �Fall�; but the why and wherefore of the Pilgrimage we have yet to learn.
�The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
� He knows it � or perchance even he knows not.�
But the great and practical point now is, (Page 113) that the individual need not wait for the slow progress of the Race. There are today, as of old, Initiates, Adepts, Masters of the Divine Science of the Soul, waiting to take the individual in hand as soon� as he is ready to take the next forward step. And so surely as the individual seeks to do this, so surely shall he find; and it is only those who do seek who find � exactly what they seek and in the form in which they seek it. The mind moulds its own forms. Seek therefore only that which is formless.
The supreme Truth is formless � or rather it is embodied in all forms. But this can only be apprehended as the individual frees himself from form.
Even so must the religion of the future be free from forms and formulas, and yet make use of these for precisely what they can serve towards an appreciation of the one central Truth.
When we have apprehended that Central Truth we are above the innumerable forms of religion in which the Race at various times has endeavoured to grope after this truth, and at other times has perverted it. Then we can speak to the Christian as a Christian, and to the Buddhist as a Buddhist, and to (Page 114 ) each every one in his own language, and in the measure of his capacity to understand.
What the great Neoplatonist and Hermetic philosopher,� Jamblichus, wrote, about the year A.D. 300, will serve to show once more that there were in those times those who knew; nor can we suppose that this knowledge has ever been lost to the world. It was only lost through the dark ages of the dominance of the Christian Hierarchy. With this Hierarchy the Gnosis became a heresy, and the seekers after the deeper knowledge were burnt at the stake, whilst the masses became sunk in ignorant superstitions. But there always remained a Hierarchy of Initiates, withdrawn from the world, who, as Philo tells us:
�Such men, though few in number, keep alive the covered spark of Wisdom secretly, throughout the cities (of the world), in order that virtue may not be absolutely quenched and vanish from our human kind.�
Here then is what Jamblichus tells us:
�But there is another principle of the soul, which is superior to all nature and generation, and through which we are capable of being united to the Gods, of transcending the mundane order, and of participating eternal life, and the energy of the super-celestial Gods. Through this principle, therefore, (Page 115) we are able to liberate ourselves from fate. For when the more exalted parts of us energize, and the soul is elevated to natures better than itself, then it is entirely separated from things which detain it in generation, departs from subordinate natures, exchanges the present for another life, and gives itself to another order of things, entirely abandoning the former order with which it was connected.�
Also Plotinus :
�This, therefore, is the life of the Gods, and of divine and happy men, a liberation from all terrene concerns, a life unaccompanied with human pleasures and a flight of the alone to the alone.� (Enn.VI, 9,11).
Is this in any way different from the �Gospel� of St. Paul?
�But we all, with unveiled face (or rather mind) reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord (the Spirit), are transformed into the same image from glory to glory� (2 Cor.III, 18).
And from a priceless little modern mystical treatise, Light on the Path:
�Seek the way by making the profound obeisance of the soul to the dim star that burns within. Steadily, as you watch and worship, its light will grow stronger. Then you may know that you have found the beginning of the way. And when you have found the end its light will suddenly become the infinite light.�
(Page 116 ) When all men, all the Race of Mankind � every individual now struggling on the upward path, the return journey, through incarnation after incarnation � shall thus have realised, individually and collectively, their divine spiritual nature: then, and then only, shall be fulfilled the prophecy of the �second coming�:
�The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign unto the ages of the ages� (Rev. XI , 15).
But in the meanwhile the �second coming� is also an individual achievement. It is achieved in each individual who has reached the end of his great pilgrimage, and for whom the �divine spark�, the �Christ in you�,� has become �the infinite light�.
And the teaching is the same whether we take it in terms of Buddhism or of the Christian Scriptures. (I cannot say �Christianity,� because Ecclesiastical Christianity does not teach this, nor does it recognise that the fundamental truths of Buddhism are the same as those of the Christian Scriptures.)
The goal, the consummation is the same whether we speak of the individual as having �achieved Nirvana�, or as having been �made alive again in Christ�
(Page 117 )
� As one who stands on yonder snowy horn
Having nought o�er him but the boundless blue,
So, these sins being slain, the man is come
Nirvana�s verge unto.
Him the Gods envy from their lower seats;
Him the Three Worlds in ruin should not shake;
All life is lived for him, all deaths are dead;
Karma will no more make New Houses.
Seeking nothing, he gains all;
Foregoing self, the Universe grows �I�.�
Light of Asia.
Or, again, in the words of the Christian Scriptures:
�He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out thence (into incarnation) no more.� (Rev.III. 12).
That �temple� is Man himself � Cosmic Man, �eternal in the heavens.� �Know ye not that ye are the temple of God.�
(I Cor. III. 16).
This fundamental fact of the divine nature of Man as the Christos is what I apprehend must be taught as The Religion of the Future.
Through the long, long evolutionary Cosmic Process the divine spark or �Monad� passes through the lower kingdoms of Nature until (Page 118) it reaches the animal and the human, where it begins to appear as a self-conscious activity.
Through the long, long evolutionary history of the Race the self-conscious individual gradually, and by many a bitter experience, learns to transcend his animal nature: in the first place by the cultivation of intellect or the higher power of Mind, but ultimately by �bringing to birth� the powers of Spirit. Hence arise, from feeble beginnings the innumerable forms of �religion�.
But let it not be thought that any mere conformity to a particular religion, or �belief� in any specific doctrines, is the end of the struggle, the attainment of the goal. Much less can it be thought that it is a mere question of being �saved� in the sense of going to heaven �for ever and ever�. The individual who has really attained, who has become Christos, who has reached the goal of the present evolutionary cycle of Humanity, possesses a Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic Powers the very possibility of which would be commonly denied by the great majority. Nor would it be fitting that the world at large should realise the possibility of the possession of these powers by each individual; for until the quality of divine compassion has been (Page 119 ) correspondingly developed, they may be used for selfish ends � with dire disaster both for the individual and the Race. Hence the possessors of these powers must remain unknown to the world in general, though not so to those whose qualifications entitle them to recognition and instruction by them.
�The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.�
The individual who has really attained has conquered this �last enemy,� both in the physical and in the spiritual sense.
In the spiritual sense we have already seen that �death� means deadness to our own inherent spiritual nature. In the physical sense its conquest means the end of the great cycle of physical births and deaths, or reincarnations � or, as it is called in the Eastern Scriptured, sangsara, the continual round of births and deaths.
�Karma will no more make new houses.�
And so the individual who has attained takes a physical body or not of his own will and design for the helping of Humanity, out of his sensitiveness to �humanity�s great pain,� and not because Karma forces (Page 120 ) him to do so. The Eastern Scriptures and the Western Scriptures teach fundamentally the same truths as to man�s nature and destiny.
What else the man who has attained, who is Christos, is and does, cannot be set down here; nor can any but his fellow initiates know or even conceive of that divine glory which yet is everyone�s birthright.
�Yea, He is mighty. The living power made free in him, that power which is HIMSELF, can raise the tabernacle of illusion high above the gods, above great Brahm and Indra.
�Hark!�from the deep unfathomable vortex of that golden light in which the Victor bathes, ALL NATURE�S wordless voice in thousand tones ariseth to proclaim:
(From the Voice of the Silence by H.P.Blavatsky)
Even so may all who read this be �born again� into the �golden light� of the Divine Christos.
Absolute, The 11, 12, 29, 70
Adam 84, 87, 112
Anthropomorphism 36, 42
Aristarchus 37
Astronomy 44
Atom 52, 73
At-one-ment 84
Attainment 115
Bergson, Henri, quoted 50
Bhagavad Gita, quoted, 74, 92
Biology 62
Blavatsky, H.P.B. 104, 45
Boehme, Jacob, quoted
29, 57, 89, 90, 92, 107, 112
Brahma, Days and Nights of, 88
Browning, Robert, quoted 93
Bruno 41, 44
Buddha, Gautama 12, 13
Buddhism 11, 116
Catholicism 111
Christ 96
Christ Principle, Christos 14, 79, 84, 95, 117, 118, 120
Christ in You 14, 79, 84, 93, 116
Christ- The Cosmic 78, 80
Christianity, VII, 8, 42, 98, 99, 105, 110
Christianity and Paganism 33, 43
Chuang Tzu, quoted 103
Church, The 5, 9, 97, 99
Church, The Anglican VII, 9, 92
Church, Roman VII, 21, 33, 40, 41, 62
Confucius 13
Consciousness 23, 27
Copernicus 37
Creeds IX, 5
Cross, The 38, 96
Crucifixion, The 16, 95, 96
Cyclic Process, The 87, 88
Crucifixion, The 16, 95, 96
Dawin, 105
Death, 14, 81, 97, 119
Death and Sleep 4, 15, 81
Death - the Second 94
Devil, The 26, 39, 41, 48
Earth, Age of the 58
Eckart, Meister, quote, 79, 106
Eddington, Professor, quoted 24, 27, 56
Eden, Garden of, 75, 86
Electrons, 52
Emerson, quoted 49
Epistles, The 78
Ether, 29, 30, 50, 68 , 76, 86, 92
Ethics IX
Evil 109
Evolution 42, 82, 118
Fabre d'Olivet 76
Faith 111
Fall of Man 3, 15, 38, 42, 86, 89, 96, 109
Galileo 41, 44
Genesis 4, 41, 62, 84, 86, 87
Geology 60
Gnosis XI, 9, 100, 101, 105, 114
God IX, 12, 21, 29, 42, 75, 76, 89, 92, 103
God- Personal 10, 11, 17, 19, 26, 31, 48, 83, 112
God- Theological 21, 30
Gods IX, 17, 34, 87
Gospel and Gospels 13, 14, 38
Gospel- St. John's
77, 78
Heathen 39
Hell 14, 40, 94
Hermetic Script, quoted 31
Humanity I
Huxley, T.H., quoted 23
Immortality 81
Incarnation, The 96
Initiates, Adepts, Masters, etc., 99, 101, 102, 113
Jalalu'd-Din Rumi, quoted 65
Jamblichus, quoted 114
Jeans, Sir. J.H. 47
Jehovah 38
Jesus 9, 12, 13, 23, 38, 42, 43, 77, 80, 94, 97, 99
Karma 83, 119
Lao Tsze 13, 32
Life,The One 17, 71, 74, 80, 86, 95, 102
Life and Substance 70, 74
Life, Nature of... 66
Light 45
Light of Asia, quoted 117
Light on the Path, quoted 115,
Logos, The 43, 49, 77, 87, 89, 91, 92, 95
Maeterlinck, M. quoted 98, 104
Man, Archetypal 56, 77, 80, 81, 86, 87
Man- Comisc Origin of 75, 76, 78, 106, 117
Man-Divine Nature of 117
Man- Evolution of 3, 8, 62, 71, 93
Man- Fall of, 3, 15, 38, 42, 86, 109
Man- Greatness of 49, 73
Man-Physical 75
Manu, Ordinances of, - quoted 92
Mass, The 21
Materialism 23, 25
Matter 51 , 74
Max Muller, quoted 77, 103
Mind 23, 26, 29, 49, 50, 72, 118
Mind-Cosmic 30, 49
Miracle 21, 26
Missionary effort 39
Modernism 41
Monad, The 117
Monism 70
Mystical experience IX, 87, 97, 106
Mysteries, The 35
Natural Law 22, 30
Nature 21 , 25, 26, 72
New Testament, quoted 15, 80, 91, 94, 97, 110,115, 116, 117, 119
Newton, Sir Isaac, quoted 51
Nirvana 116
Omar Khayyam, quoted 35
Origen, quoted 14
Pantheism 29
Personality 18, 94
Philo 43, 114
Physics, The New 28, 69, 73
Plato 13
Plotinus, quoted 115
Psychology 27, 50,
Psychology- of Religoin 6, 16
Radiation 58
Reality 4, 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, 35, 50
Reality and Appearance 18
Redemption 42
Reincarnaion 81, 82, 116
Relativity, Theory of: 45
Religion 1, 2, 4, 6, 17
Religion- definition of: VIII, 4, 79, 110
Religion- History of 33
Religion- Institutional 5, 7, 8, 11, 36, 111
Religion- and Mentality VIII
Religoin-of the Future XI, 1, 40, 109, 111, 117
Religion- Psychology, of: 6, 16
Religion-Primitive IX
Resurrection 13, 14, 96, 97
Revelation 7
Rig Veda, quoted 88
Ruysbroeck, quoted 95, 108
St.Augustine, quoted 38
St.John of the Cross 16
St.Paul 43, 78, 91, 97, 115
Salvation 81, 84, 93
Saviour and Saviours 38, 79, 80
Second Coming 39, 116
Self, the real 18, 31, 84
Self- the phenomenal 19, 84
Sankara Acharya 13
Sleep and Death 4, 15, 81
Socrates 45, 55
Soul 72
Space 45, 55
Spark,the Divine 93
Spencer, Herbert, quoted 90
Spirit 12, 29, 74, 81, 118
Spiritual Healing 27
Stars, Distances of the 46
Subconscious, The 27
Substance 29, 30, 68, 70, 73, 74
Suggestion, Auto- 16
Sun, The 59
Supernaturalis 8, 20 , 26, 28, 30
Superstition 2, 6, 20
Tauler, quoted 107
Theologia Germanica, quoted 89
Theologians 31
Theology 12, 13, 14, 37, 38, 41, 62, 100
Theosophy 103, 104
Thomson, Sir. J.J., quoted 55
Trinity, The 43
Universe, The 11, 12, 47
Upanishads, The 11, 12, 28, 102, 109
Vedanta, The 11
Virgin, The 21
Voice of the Silence, quoted 120
Yoga Vasishtha, quoted 57
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10723 | Monday, 7 December 2015
on a clifftop
... e e cummings
hamari dhadkane ek ho jaati hain...
he holds her limp, forlorn hand and lifts it ever so tenderly all the way to his heart. turning her palm, he presses it gently against his skin. he cradles her close, head pressed against hers, despair in his eyes. has he lost her? his heart beats steady, strong. he doesn't feel her fingers move as if awakened by those very beats. eyes tightly shut holding in the tears, he waits. he can't lose her. not now, not like this. "khushi!" pleading, desperate. "hmm?" is that her! his eyes fly open, as realisation dawns, endless feelings flood their quickening brown. he smiles. at last he smiles.
sometimes poetry cannot be learnt by heart, it is just felt by it.
for about 11 minutes last night, that is all it was. poetry. of love and death, of love and life; of the wind, sky, rain, and mud; of green hills and colourless breath. of my heart and hamesha.
why isn't she holding onto me as she did instinctively before she even knew me, let alone loved me? he's looking for a sign of life, for if she is there, she will hold him, this he knows. and when she lifted her hand finally to latch on to the filthy banyan, oh that registering of it, his slow turning of head in wonder, the long look into her eyes, that utter relief and gratitude and that something else.
now that the hand had found life, it wanted love. she reached up to stroke his tear and mud stained cheek, he brought her palm to his lips. a kiss of joy, he breathed in. she looked in wonder, her arnav ji, her adversary, her laad governor, her very first love. finally free. she had promised to bring him back, and she would. but before that, just by the wind and the leaves and the faraway temples and hamlets a few moments alone. alone with him. arms around each other, on the bare earth floor, among the silence and the stillness, flowing into each other, part of nature, two lovers endless in time.
i don't need anything else, khushi, i don't need anything.
tum jo mil gaye ho to yeh lagta hai, ke jahaan mil gaya
ek bhatke hue raahi ko carvaan mil gaya...
he picks up her dupatta lying on the grass and carefully lays it upon her shoulders, a million promises in a single gesture. she looks up, only trust in those eyes. you are mine, he seems to say, i love you, i protect you, i make sure nothing puts even a mark on your dignity. she is too week to walk, close as she has drifted by death just a short while ago. he cradles her in his arms and walks with her to the jeep. his stride, her dupatta, their line of body just like from that evening of the guest house. or was it from before that, way before, from a time before memory?
poetry makes the prosaic bearable. and how i felt it last evening.
leaving you with a beautiful love song by tagore. hemanta mukherjee sings it ever so quietly for biswajit as he plays the piano thinking of his beloved wife in "kuheli" a movie from the early seventies. i saw it when i must have been 11, the voice still plays in my head when i hear the words: tumi robe nirobe.
tumi robe nirobe hridoye maumo
nibiro nibhrito purnima nishithini-shomo
you'll reside in my heart, silent
as a deep and intimate full moon night,
you'll fill my life and youth,
and my whole universe, with splendour,
as the goddess of night.
alone will gaze your tender eyes,
the fall of your wear will keep me covered,
you'll fill my pain and suffering, my dreams fulfilled, with fragrance,
as the goddess of night.
... translated by dipak mitra.
credit: uploader
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global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10756 | The Legal Deal
All the material on this website is property of Rage Holdings LTD. and cannot be reproduced without express permission from either the webmaster or James G. Rage. Pictures from films or web pages randomly found via Google image search are intended for education and/or entertainment purposes and are the property of their respective studios of origins. They are used without permission, and although that may seem hypocritical, we certainly aren’t making any money off of them, and it’s probably pretty harmless anyhow. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10761 | Preloader image
Do Dogs Go to Heaven? | John Meador
The homepage of Pastor John Meador
john meador, pastor, firsteuless, first euless, meador
Title Image
Do Dogs Go to Heaven?
11 Feb 2008, by John Meador in Uncategorized
“Will there be dogs in heaven?”
Set the scene in your mind. I was studying about the new heaven and new earth and as I shared this during a lunch meeting, I was met with the question above. Now, I’m on the spot. Maybe 60 or so eyes looking my way.
Respected scholars are split on the subject. Some say, “no.” Dogs don’t have souls.
Some say, “yes.” There were animals in Eden – and the tree in Eden will resurface in heaven. They have a point.
But my answer THAT moment: “Well, if there are dogs in heaven, I know one that won’t be there – MINE.”
But in seriousness, I was reminded that even though my dog is rebellious, selfish, dirty, a moocher, and even far worse than those descriptors on her most disobedient day, she still is no more disqualified for heaven than I am. In fact, upon further reflection, I realized my own stubbornness and rebellion, selfishness, etc., are uglier than than the dogs. I have a head start on being intelligent, reasonable and capable of knowing better than to offend my Maker and Master. And yet, I am still disobedient. Not as bad as I once was, but still…
I don’t know if dogs are in heaven, but because we are all in the same boat, I am ever thankful for the ocean of grace. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10763 | Tuesday, September 25, 2012
"FRAGILE! It must be Italian!"
It's no leg lamp, but it's still a "major award!" We've been awarded BEST PUNK BAND at the 2012 Silicon Valley Music Awards! Pretty neat! Thanks to Kid Kris, Steve, Shitbird, Jake, Craig, Bobby and Andy for helping make this happen. We've been at it for 7 years and it's nice to be recognized for all the hard work we've been putting in. Thank you everyone who voted for us! Wah-BAM! |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10771 | The Caverns of Ely
Poetry, 1997, Pasdeloup Press, Stratford
The Caverns of Ely is a long narrative poem which moves among a number of world: a mythical underwater realm, a village in Cambridgeshire, England, a coral reef in Belize, and a spit in the south shore of Cuba. Myth, history and present reality converse together in a poem which looks at themes of love, courage and archaeology.
This limited edition chapbook ( 32pp.) is published by Pasdeloup Press (1997) with a cover illustration from a terracotta sculpture by the press’s proprietor, author, publisher and visual artist, Virgil Burnett. The chapbook was printed in Erin, Ontario, by The Porcupine’s Quill.
Once, in the umbilical cord of the Americas,
I met a trunkflsh lodged in a cove
He wooed me with tales of flatlands and horses
and led me to his garden grove.
* * *
On the surface, it’s just DNA combining
and recombining
in finite fashion
but enter and you
lose your bearings:
what territory is here?
where am I?
what is that?
Another being’s another
planet, a jungle, a cave,
a sea grotto
of infinite extent,
a quiet journey of the heart
pursued that we might love each other
and the world,
better than we do.
Sirenia, ground zero, a manatee
hugs her pup, suckling
wreathed in seagrass
doomed denizen, like
those others, hidden in caverns measureless,
crossopterygians, impossible name,
night-haunting creature
coelacanth, fringe-finned fish,
Latimeria Chalumnae, father/
mother, ready to walk,
but above or below, all doomed.
Danger of language, echo of heartache
Whom might I tell whom the telling might not destroy?
Today, the first snow since you have gone
The garden vibrant with large, soft flakes
I sit at the window
of the small guest room
looking out, looking at the flakes
Thinking of you.
* * *
It’s nine o’clock in rainy England
Lonely, lonely, lonely forever
hardhearted, heart-broken
kings of the sea.
Moonlight in Haddenham
one star alone alight
above old grey steepleless church
all around lie fens, fields
slope away into distant
ship of the fens.
Wind blows, always.
Against the panorama of gold,
of grain, of green, of sugar beets
of red of lettuce,
against these are the horses. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10776 | Salesforce Developer Reports
How can we create a report from a SOQL statement?
What are my options?
1. Because we know the ID of the report, we can perhaps make a GET / REST request to /REPORTID and see if we can grab the "Grand Totals (259,093 records)" line
2. Create a tabular report upfront in salesforce with some filters whose values can be passed dynamically from link. And you can embed the link in your email template. <a href="" + "report filter value" + "&pv1=2018-01-01">Tabular report Name</a>. Or, you can create a formula field which will show hyperlink to this report and use that formula in email template. pv1 is just the second report filter; if your prebuilt report needs different filters, use pv0, pv1, pv2, etc. Read up on URL hacking reports.
How can we create a report from a SOQL statement using the 'visualforce page' approach?
This does not really create a saved report like a normal report in Salesforce. However, it may just be a 'good enough' band-aid. We need one controller class and two Visualforce pages.
Your controller:
public class MyApexClass{
public Opportunity[] GetOpportunityList() {
Opportunity[] opps = [
SELECT name,,amount,
FROM Opportunity
LIMIT 10
return opps;
public pageReference generateReport() {
return Page.secondPage;
Your fist page:(the button is in this page.)
<apex:page controller="MyClass">
<apex:commandButton value="Generate Report" action="{!generateReport}"/>
Your second page:(this is the report.Name this page as "secondPage")
<apex:page renderAs="pdf" Controller="MyClass">
<apex:datatable value="{!opportunityList}" var="opp" columnsWidth="25%,25%,25%,25%">
<apex:column value="{!}" headerValue="Name"/>
<apex:column value="{!opp.amount}" headerValue="Name"/>
<apex:column value="{!}" headerValue="Account Name"/>
<apex:column value="{!}" headerValue="Owners Name"/>
What are the current limitations of the Salesforce Report and Dashboard API?
1. Cross filters, standard report filters, and filtering by row limit are unavailable when filtering data.
2. Historical trend reports are only supported for matrix reports.
3. The API can process only reports that contain up to 100 fields selected as columns.
4. A list of up to 200 recently viewed reports can be returned.
5. Your org can request up to 500 synchronous report runs per hour.
6. The API supports up to 20 synchronous report run requests at a time.
7. A list of up to 2,000 instances of a report that was run asynchronously can be returned.
8. The API supports up to 200 requests at a time to get results of asynchronous report runs.
9. Your organization can request up to 1,200 asynchronous requests per hour.
10. Asynchronous report run results are available within a 24-hour rolling period.
11. The API returns up to the first 2,000 report rows. You can narrow results using filters.
12. You can add up to 20 custom field filters when you run a report.
13. Asynchronous report calls are not allowed in batch Apex.
14. Report calls are not allowed in Apex triggers.
15. There is no Apex method to list recently run reports.
16. The number of report rows processed during a synchronous report run count towards the governor limit that restricts the total number of rows retrieved by SOQL queries to 50,000 rows per transaction. This limit is not imposed when reports are run asynchronously.
17. In Apex tests, report runs always ignore the SeeAllData annotation, regardless of whether the annotation is set to true or false. This means that report results will include pre-existing data that the test didn’t create. There is no way to disable the SeeAllData annotation for a report execution. To limit results, use a filter on the report.
18. In Apex tests, asynchronous report runs will execute only after the test is stopped using the Test.stopTest method.
All limits that apply to reports created in the report builder also apply to the API. For more information, see “Analytics Limits” in the Salesforce online help.
How can we determine the ID of a report given its name?
List <Report> reportList = [SELECT Id,DeveloperName FROM Report where DeveloperName = 'Closed_Sales_This_Quarter'];
How can we run report synchronously?
Reports.ReportResults results = Reports.ReportManager.runReport(reportId, true);
How can we run report asynchronously??
Reports.ReportInstance instance = Reports.ReportManager.runAsyncReport(reportId, true);
How can we obtain the instance ID of a report after running it?
Reports.ReportInstance instanceObj = Reports.ReportManager.runAsyncReport(reportId,reportMetadata,false);
String instanceId = instanceObj.getId();
instanceObj = Reports.ReportManager.getReportInstance(instanceId);
Reports.ReportResults result = instanceObj.getReportResults();
Reports.ReportFact grandTotal = (Reports.ReportFact)result.getFactMap().get('T!T'); |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10805 | Re: real POSIX.1b semaphores
David S. Miller (
Tue, 19 Nov 1996 07:39:21 -0500
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:32:57 +0000
From: ". Tethys "SYSTEM ADMIN" X" <>
Except surely this breaks any future move to a longer pid_t. You
could argue that if we have a 64 bit pid_t, then the lower 32 bits
should be more than enough for the PID, with the upper 32 bits for
thread_id and any other information. But then again, that's
probably what they thought about 16 bit PIDs all those years ago...
4 billion processes, times sizeof(struct task_struct), that alone is
around 2 terabytes. In reality 4 billion processes would take up at a
minimum around 6 or 7 terabytes. I give it 5 or 6 years for this to
matter at all. ;-)
Even with a million users on a single machine (even a NUMA one!) each
of them would need to spawn 4,000 processes to reach this level of
Yow! 10.49 MB/s remote host TCP bandwidth ////
over 100Mb/s ethernet. Beat that! //// |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10812 | Thursday, 19 January 2012
Boom and Bust - the definitive explanation
At the Press Gallery Lunch earlier The Guardian’s Michael White and Ed Balls had a conversation about the claim that Labour had abolished Boom and Bust, and it led to the most, shall we say, meticulous explanation of it that I have heard. It follows here…
Michael White: Whenever Gordon Brown said, as he so often did, ‘no more boom and bust’, some of us GCSE economists flinched because we knew that couldn’t possibly be true. We thought it couldn’t be right. What did you think?
Ed Balls: I think, economist or not, the power of retrospection is a great power.
MW: No. That’s the chairman’s cheap joke, come on, what did you think at the time?
EB: Since 2008 there have been many people who have written columns that said in retrospect that phrase about ‘boom and bust’ shouldn’t have been used. But I certainly used the boom and bust phrase as did other politicians in the previous 15 years. Go back to the first time it was used, was in the Labour party economic policy submission to Labour party conference of 1993. I wrote the words, and it was basically pointing out how Conservative politicians of the previous ten years, particularly Nigel Lawson, in their attempt to play politics with interest rates and the currency had ended up with self-inflicted boom and bust ups and downs, and the solution to that boom and bust political interference was an independent central bank, which was our argument. It was never an argument which was, ‘we could abolish the economic cycle’. It was an argument that we could through bank independence prevent the self inflicted political mistakes of the political era.
Did, as the years go on and Gordon Brown made more and more budget speeches, did he sometimes give the impression that stability might have been cemented into the British economic reality and psyche….perhaps. And perhaps in retrospect that was a rhetorical error.
It is only a “rhetorical error” rather than an “error”, Balls explained, because the fact that Labour used the phrase was not a reflection of an irresponsible fiscal policy executed by the party, as claimed by the Tories. The country’s economic situation going into 2008 was sound, said Balls.
So summed up, the boom and bust thing was just a phrase that Gordon Brown got a bit carried away with. I’ll say he did.
Cameron's speech is, er, more about "setting tone"...
There was a rather distracting Union Jack poster behind the PM as he gave his speech on capitalism just now – it almost meant I missed the new thing in his speech which was thoroughly tucked away.
The talk was the latest move in a bid to wrestle the lucrative “responsible capitalism” territory away from Ed Miliband. It’s been riling the Tories that the Labour Leader has been going round saying he started the debate on the issue in his conference speech last September.
And so to show that actually the Tories were talking about it first, Cameron claimed his party set the ground for this debate years ago, and just to make sure Eddie couldn’t trump him again he went as far back as Disraeli and Pitt, before Labour even existed.
Most of the rest of the speech was doing that thing that the Tories do quite often, where they choose a theme and then try and show how all their existing policies already link into it.
So here renewal of the right-to-buy scheme, academies and free schools all tied into moral capitalism.
Then 2,600 words into a 2,800 word speech the PM announced that there were 12million co-operative members in the UK and that their groups are governed by 17 pieces of legislation.
“Today I can announce they will all be brought together and simplified in a new Co-Operatives Bill that will be put before Parliament.”
I know he’s unable to step on the toes of Vince Cable, announcing measures on executive pay in the near future, but it’s hardly a measure to get the blood racing is it. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10820 | One Month with Milo
It's been a month now, and we're still getting to know each other, but I've compiled some notes on the newest member of the family.
What I know so far is that Milo... a little animal. We moved him to his own room, despite my motherly desire to have him nearby, because even in his sleep he makes the grunts, groans, toots and snorts of a baby bison. He is working on being the Second Noisiest Person in America.
...has questionable taste. His favorite night-night music is pop rock/power ballads between 1982 and 1986 (minus Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen and Heart, which redeems him somewhat).
...likes to toga. He hates to be swaddled unless he has one arm free. Am thinking of dressing him as Caesar for Halloween. fat. I mean this in the nicest, proudest way. He is a satisfying snack of a baby. I bite him all the time. He's delicious.
...likes his sister. Smack in the middle of this evening's witching hour (which, in Week 5, has accelerated to 1.5 hours of not happy anywhere from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Come over. It's fun.), he stopped his fussing to gaze at Lu as he sat on her lap during storytime.
So far, he's a keeper. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10827 | Green Party radicals and dopey coffee magnate Howard Schultz agree: American voters don't have enough choice. If you don't like the options put forth by the Republican or Democratic parties, with rare exceptions you can either cast a largely symbolic protest vote or go pound sand. The result is that "both parties are consistently not doing what's necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics," complains Schultz.
Yet in all his interviews and speeches, Schultz has not once identified the major reason why there is no national third party. The reason is that America is a two-party state — where both the GOP and the Democrats are part of the government and have used state power to erect near-insurmountable barriers to third party competition.
Here's how it works. As Seth Ackerman explained in detail some time ago, Democratic and Republican Party bosses have conspired over the years to make running outside the two-party system all but impossible. Third parties or independent candidates are saddled with tremendous signature-collection requirements (hundreds or thousands of times as many as in peer nations), and other burdensome rules. Then the ones that do fulfill onerous legal requirements are subject to intense legal harassment, typically by the dominant party in whatever state is in question. This is usually carried out by party hack lawyers getting party hack judges to disqualify signatures, filing endless lawsuits quibbling over candidate eligibility, or other such tactics.
Notably, most of these requirements do not apply to the Democrats or Republicans, who are automatically granted ballot access in most states. Thus established, the parties are then effectively guaranteed representation in powerful government institutions — like the Federal Communications Commission, where each party always has at least two out of five seats.
Incidentally, that is why most even slightly successful independent runs for president are done by ultra-rich people who can afford to hire battalions of signature gatherers and lawyers.
This contrasts with a one-party state, in which any democratic institutions are completely fraudulent. Saddam Hussein would hold routine "elections" in which the Baath Party was the only option and he would win 99 percent of the vote.
Obviously America's two-party state is not that bad. Genuine political competition does happen to some degree. But America's political options really are heavily limited through state repression (just look at the dodgy tactics the New York state Democratic machine uses to prevent political competition). We might say our democratic institutions are only half fraudulent.
Pundits and political scientists often overlook this as well. They instead point to something called "Duverger's Law," a noted tendency in first-past-the-post election systems to develop only two major parties due to fear of vote-splitting and allowing the opposing party to win. And indeed countries with such systems tend to oscillate between two dominant parties. The U.K. with its Westminster system, for instance, has had a Labour Party or Conservative Party prime minister continuously since 1922.
However, the U.K. (and similar countries like Canada and Australia) also has smaller parties that do manage to win non-trivial numbers of seats — most notably the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party in recent history. That's because while it may be very difficult for the whole country to overcome the vote-splitting fear, it's much easier to accomplish in a limited number of races. What's more, before 1922 the Liberal Party was the major second party — only replaced by Labour after decades of electioneering work.
All that was only possible because the U.K. is not a two-party state, and allows new parties reasonably easy access to the ballot. Indeed, the Populist Party nearly accomplished a Labour Party-style disruption in the U.S. in the 1890s — i.e. before the establishment of the formal two-party duopoly.
Despite the slogan of government "of the people, by the people, for the people," the sad reality is that the United States' political institutions have a strong overtone of authoritarianism. Howard Schultz is not likely to discover or mention this fact, but that is why he couldn't possibly win even if his politics weren't naked billionaire class interest covered over with a good-government veneer. But at least his candidacy might prompt Americans to discover the cutting-edge democratic innovations of the 19th century. |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10832 | The Punisher (1989)
The Punisher Movie Poster
directed by: Mark Goldblatt
starring: Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeroen Krabbé, Kim Miyori
IMDb | Buy Movie on Amazon | | added: Feb 8th, 2011
Want to buy the poster? Try these links:
Additional movie data provided by TMDb |
global_05_local_6_shard_00002272_processed.jsonl/10844 | Oliver Cromwell
Perhaps Oliver's an unusual choice to have as a hero of faith. It's also true that his record is not without blemish. He is included here because:
• He had a genuine Christian conversion.
• He was a Congregationalist.
• He was the first Head of State to allow multiple Protestant churches, including our own type.
Additionally, he helped birth modern democracy by limiting the monarch’s powers (by removing his head, of course, but I suspect Cromwell would have accepted the 1660 constitution in which the King ruled with parliament, not without).
• He was one of the best generals in history.
• He invited the Jews back to England, so as to hasten the return of Christ, undoing their appalling medieval expulsion.
Born in 1599 to the poorer branch of a landowning family, he became a yeoman farmer. In 1630 he had a spiritual crisis, rejecting the frivolities of his youth and accepted Christ as his saviour. He inherited land, whereupon he was classed a gentleman, and elected MP for Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire.
He opposed Charles I's personal rule and high church religious policy, and played a part in the 1640 parliament which precipitated civil war between itself and the King. Cromwell rose to general within the army, and his cavalry, known as Ironsides, were the most feared on the field.
He was a puritan- he wished to purify the Church of England from the remaining Roman Catholic influences surviving the reformation and those recently added by the King and William Laud his archbishop. Upon achieving power, his government abolished bishops and established a Presbyterian Church of England with freedom for other Protestant groups.
He's not without controversy. He did after all lead the way in executing a king, only to become a dictator himself a few years later, even passing the position on to his son after he died. He devastated Ireland in the 1649 invasion, and he hated Catholics and Catholicism, considering it to be a political movement as much a religious one. During the rule of the major generals, in which his chosen military commanders enforced puritan morality on the country, Christmas was banned as were may-poles, many ale houses and cock fights (not for the sake of the birds).
Said before one his battles in which rain would dampen gunpowder, rendering muskets ineffective; trusting God should not make us idle to our own duties.
Said to the Scotch Presbyterians who were unwilling to co-operate with others Protestants.
Cromwell's choice of officers would be based on abilities and loyalties, not high birth or money.
At heart, he was a simple country gentleman.
• Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.
Generally contracted to 'warts and all'; Cromwell did not wish the artist painting him to depict him better looking than he truly was, this being the custom of the time.
Written to his daughter and son-in-law, encouraging them to seek genuine faith in Christ.
Said of his own conversion. |
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