Competitors working hard in the weak lift to get to cloud base at the start of Task 5.

Always fun, if you like marmite! Heavy rain at the time of the display, but the lower cloud base reflected the light to give a coloured backdrop.

At the start of 1948 (only months after the first aerial demonstration by British European Airways), BEA started dummy mail-run services in Dorset and Somerset. The Sikosrsky S-51s travelled a 115-mile route in just under two hours including stops. These trials achieved timekeeping within the five minute tolerance demanded by the GPO.

The story then moves to the east of England. The success of the dummy mail-runs led to BEA inaugurating the first helicopter-operated public mail service in the UK. On 1 June 1948 Captain John Theilmann with a Royal Mail pennant flew a S-51 from Peterborough to King’s Lynn, Wells, Sheringham, Cromer, Norwich, Thetford, Diss, Harleston, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles, Norwich again, and East Dereham before returning to Peterborough. 140lb of mail was transported.

Flights continued until 25 September 1948 by which time 38,046 lb of mail had been carried and 95% of the flights rostered had been completed.

By 1954, GPO Chief Inspector Mr L J Taylor reported looking back at the experiment: ‘trails were necessarily limited in several directions, e.g. the maximum weight lift was 700lbs, and the machines could not operate with a cloud base of less than 500 feet…the most that could be said was at the then existing stage of development helicopters could not be regarded as an economically attractive proposition for the carriage of mail’.

An amazing experiment I knew nothing of until reading this in the Meccano Magazine.

it rained yesterday, the cloud base was on the road, it was as if the mountains didn't exist...

this morning it was sun and blue sky, but still a mass of boiling cloud covered the peaks; slowly the sun burned holes through the clouds confirming the fact that rain in the valley means snow up high...

this is the kreuztörltürme as viewed from the village of ellmau in the kaisergebirge

Fly to this location (using Google Earth)

so funny to see it..what do you thinking about?

cloud-based everything ^_^

View Larger On Black

I was experimenting a little - due to the drop-off in light levels when this weather front brought a cloud-base that you could almost wear as a hat - with flash. I found that if I took two images in relatively quick succession, the slightly startled subject would immediately search out the source of light; which made for some intriguing, direct interactions with the lens.

Based on an original texture by swimmingintheether

590_GHP_SoireePortraits_2019.jpg -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

Cloud-based approaches allow us to chart new dynamic ways to educate and learn that aligns with the way we think, share, study and collaborate within and beyond the classroom.

Plenary Session

9:15-9:30 Welcome

Konstantinos Doukas, CEO Doukas School (Conference Opening)

Konstantinos I. Doukas has been the CEO of Doukas School since 2006. He served as President of the Board of Directors of the Information Society S.A. initiatives between 2004-2010. He holds a diploma in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and an M.S. degree from the Dept. of Communication and Technology in Education, Columbia University (New York, USA). He served as a research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts (M.I.T.), during the Project Athena. He has coordinated and served as invited speaker in many national and international conferences. He is responsible for a number of Greek and European research projects in the new technologies in Education. A former international athlete of the Greek National Handball team, he still practices on an amateur basis, reaping overall benefits for his professional and personal life.

9:30-9:50 Invited Speaker

Marietta Giannakou, Member of the European Parliament, Head of the Greek European People’s Party Delegation, former Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs

Marietta Giannakou graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Athens, with a specialization in Neurology and Psychiatry. She was a founding member of ONNED (youth segment of the New Democracy, N.D., party). In 1989 she became Head of the EP Delegation of N.D. and a member of the EPP Political Bureau. Between 1990-1991 she served as Minister of Health, Welfare and Social Security. Between 1992-1996, she served as the International Secretary of N.D. In 1992, she became Vice-President of EUCD. Between 1992-2004, she served as the National Coordinator of the European Commission against Drugs. She had the following positions with N.D.: Secretary of International and European Affairs, Member of the Executive Committee, Head of the N.D. Delegation. Member of the European Convention on the Future of Europe, representing the Hellenic

Parliament. Between 2004 – 2007, she served as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament and as Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs. She has been honored by the Republic of Chile for her contribution to the re-establishment of democracy, by the Federal Republic of Germany; by the Republic of Italy; by the European People’s Party, for her contribution as Member of the European Parliament for European integration, by the Republic of Poland, and the Republic of France. . MEP in 1984-1990, 1999-2000. MEP since 2009.

9:50-10:30 Keynote Speakers

Prof. Kostis Koutsopoulos, European Association of Geographers, “SoC: Towards a new education paradigm”

Professor Koutsopoulos was born in Volos, Greece. After completing his B.S. degree at the University of Athens, he got his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Departments of Geography and Civil Engineering. He taught at the University of Iowa until 1980, after which time he was elected as Chair of Geography at the National Technical University of Athens. He has been Director of the Geography and Spatial Analysis Lab, Chairman of the Geography and Regional Planning Department, Director of the Graduate Program “Environment and Development” and Dean of the Rural and Surveying Engineering School. He has organized numerous congresses, meetings and seminars and has participated as keynote speaker, invited speaker, session chair and conveyor in many others. He has presented 155 papers in various meetings; he has published 50 papers in refereed journals, written 61 books and authored 100 other publications. He has been serving in various capacities in scientific and academic boards and associations in Greece and abroad.

Karl Donert, Innovative Learning Network, “Cloud-based Education: the State-of-the-Art”

Karl Donert is a Geographer with a national and international profile, a strong track record in initiating innovative projects, as well as leading major networking activities. He is Director of the European Centre of Excellence: digital-earth.eu and adjunct faculty at the Centre for GeoInformatics at Paris Lödron University, Salzburg. Karl is President of EUROGEO (European Association of Geographers) and a UK National Teaching Fellow. He is a member of the Council of Europe groups on Education & Culture and Landscapes and Climate Change, a former Hon. Vice President of the Geographical Association, a Fellow of Academia Europea, the European scientific and Research Academy, the Royal Canadian Geographical Association and Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers. He has extensive experience in major educational developments. He was coordinator of the HERODOT Thematic Network for Geography in Higher Education, initiator of the digital-earth network on geo-media and participated in more than 100 other international projects mainly concerned with the innovative uses of ICT and education. He is Director and Chief Executive of Innovative Learning Networks Ltd, a UK company specialising in professional and academic networking, developing research & development partnerships and project management. An inspirational speaker, and a European leader in learning and teaching geography acts as a consultant to many organisations, working in this context to raise the profile and quality of learning and teaching activities and research in geographic media.

10:30-11:30 Conference Speakers

Prof. Demetrios G Sampson, University of Piraeus, “Cloud-based Digital Technologies for Opening Up Education: Keep Learning Beyond the Physical Classroom at the Digital Cloud”

Demetrios G. Sampson received his degree in Electrical Engineering from the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Electronic Systems Engineering from the University of Essex, UK in 1995. He is a Full Professor of Digital Systems for Learning and Education at the Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece, a Research Fellow at the Information Technologies Institute (ITI), Centre of Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), and an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Athabasca University, Canada. He is the Founder and Director of the Advanced Digital Systems and Services for Education and Learning (ASK) since 1999. He has been a Visiting Professor at a number of universities including National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan (2011), the University of Tunis (2012, 2013), Beijing Normal University, China (2013), Peking University Beijing, China (2013), and the University of North Texas, USA (2013). He is the co-author of more than 325 publications in scientific books, journals and conferences .He is a Senior and Golden Core Member of IEEE and was the elected Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Learning Technologies (2008-2011). He is the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Service Award (July, 2012). He is a member of the ICT Advisory Board of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALESCO) since March 2014. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Educational Technology and Society Journal.

Bart Verswijvel, European Schoolnet, “Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century”

Bart Verswijvel is a Flemish (Belgian) educator who was a Dutch teacher (mother tongue) in a secondary school for about 30 years. Since 2011, he has a part-time job at the Flemish National Support Service for eTwinning in Brussels. Since March 2012, Verswijvel has worked for European Schoolnet as a Pedagogical Adviser, and he is involved in several projects like the Future Classroom Lab, iTEC, eTwinning and Living Schools Lab. He is especially interested in the integration of ICT in education and in project work. He is a freelance speaker, leader of workshops, prize winner in several competitions like eTwinning Awards and Microsoft Innovative Teachers, and a Microsoft Expert Educator. In 2010, Bart was awarded the Queen Paola Prize for Education.​

16:15-17:00 Round Table: The Cloud today and perspectives on the future

Tasos Pagakis manages Ericsson Brand, Internal, Marketing and PR Communications in Southeastern Europe. He has worked as a Corporate and brand communicator on and offline as of 1988 in global agencies, pitched for hundreds of businesses, shaped creative standards and created strategic plans for more than 370 globally accredited companies in 57+ market categories. He is a writer of numerous articles in international media, a Startups supporter and a believer of change towards sustainable business models. His achievements: 2010 Serbian Gold PR corp comms, 2009 Ermis Gold PR corp governance, 2009 Ermis Silver PR CSR, 2006 Gold EFFIE for retail, 2005 Gold TV award NY, 3 Gold Effies, 71 creative awards in NY, Epica, Montreaux, Eurobest, AdAge, Ermis Festivals (2000-2009). He has been a Saatchi&Saatchi strategy team member that created the European VISA campaign “Love every day”. He has been Project Manager of the VISA International 2004 Athens Olympics Brand presence plan. When in Lowe Worldwide, he designed and launched the “Insight Mining” strategic planning tool. He is an active supporter of the NGO’s Arcturos and Actionaid.

Dimitris Raftopoulos is Project Manager, EU Projects Consultant and Chair of Finances and European Projects Working Group at the European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT). He focuses on Strategic Human Resources Management and Gender Issues specializing in implementing, managing and evaluating European Projects. Holding an MBA, he has dedicated his professional experience to human and entrepreneurial development. His knowledge is in the fields of: combating gender issues in the work environment, promotion of employability, strengthening of professional skills as well as EU-funded programmes related to local development, employment, education, social exclusion, mental health, relevant legislation, economics and social policies. He interacts well in multicultural environments and has gained excellent communication skills through his work experience. Additionally, he has held the position of Human Resource Manager for the Olympic Games of Athens 2004 and worked as a consultant for several organizations in the Greek public sector. Other positions he has held: Commercial Director and Development Director for ICT startups. He has been involved in many EU projects and has solid knowledge of managerial issues, building teams and on stimulating communications.

Workshops Summaries

Cloud Applications – Implementations

(conducted in parallel for 90 min. 12:00-13:30)

“Planet School”: blended learning for inclusive classrooms

“Planet School” is the most important blended learning platform for schools in Germany. But it is still not accessible and usable for everyone. The evaluation and further advancement of “Planet School” for inclusive education is the main focus of the study. The goal is to offer variable content. The revised version of “Planet School” addresses different types of learners with accessible and usable materials, including movies, television broadcasts, interactive learning content, etc. I expect enormous enhancement in the European and the international discourse on the participation of persons with disabilities at ICT and a big step towards anchoring in practice.

Ingo K. Bosse is a professor at the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany) in the Special Education program. He leads the department for Motor and Developmental Disabilities. His research interests lie in the field of special and inclusive education with the main focus on inclusive media education, the use of information and communication technologies for learning and assistive technologies. He is also interested in researching educational aspects for students with special needs in augmentative and alternative communication. Currently he is finalizing a project that investigated the potential of the blended learning platform “planet school”. Ingo Bosse takes part in the research cluster Technology for Inclusion and Participation (TIP) at the Technical University of Dortmund that initiates, supports, and coordinates interdisciplinary research projects that investigate new ways to improve the inclusion, participation and wellbeing of individuals with disabilities, impairments or disadvantages.

Prof. Dr. Ingo Bosse, Dortmund University of Technologies

“Putting away the umbrella”: What will you do when the Cloud comes?

Alan will talk about his use of Cloud based tools to support his work in a range of contexts from classrooms, to teacher support and training. Alan has presented hundreds of workshops in many European countries, and tries to provide ideas which can be used immediately, but also others which can be developed further over a longer period of time.

Alan will talk about his use of mobile devices, work with the Open University and ESRI and refer to opportunities for work outside the classroom. Alan is a Geographer, but ideas arerelevant for other subjects too.

Alan Parkinson is an experienced and award-winning teacher and author. He has worked across the UK and EU with the Geographical Association and as a freelance geography consultant. He is a Chartered Geographer and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is Education Director of Explorer HQ, creators of Mission: Explore. He teaches Geography at King’s Ely School. He blogs at livinggeography.blogspot.com

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Le-MATH: Learning Mathematics through new communication factors

In the workshop we will discuss the preliminary guidelines for the two methods developed by the Le‐MATH project that is the MATHFactor and the MATHeatre. The guidelines are developed based on the collection and study of good practices in more than 10 European countries. We will see on-line video of actual implementation and discuss and analyze the video samples. This will give a clear overview and hands‐on to the participants and will help them understand the two methods and how these could improve the learning of mathematics as well as the change of attitudes towards mathematics. Participants are expected to teach mathematics to pupils in the age group 9‐18. The method can be used by other disciplines, so participants could be from different fields. Some participants will have the opportunity to play the role of pupils for few minutes and others will become evaluators.

Gregory Makrides holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the IIT, USA. Since 1986, he has taught at Roosevelt University of Chicago, at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), USA, at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus. Since 2006 is the Director of Research and International Relations Service at the University of Cyprus and in parallel, he is also the Executive Director of the European Office of Cyprus, since 2007. He has publications in refereed journals, conference proceedings and in public press. He is an editor of the Mediterranean Journal for Research in Mathematics Education and the Editor of the Mathematics Magazine of the Cyprus Mathematical Society. He is the coordinator of several European funded projects and he has been a partner in several other EU funded projects as well as an external evaluator. He has chaired the organizing committee of more than 40 conferences since 1997 and has organized more than 100 National and Multinational competitions since 1995. He is the President and he has important posts in several organizations (CMS EAEC EACG MASSEE THALES etc).

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English Attack! Platform: A Web 2.0 Platform for English language learners

English Attack! platform (www.english-attack.com), is an English-language learning service specifically designed for the digital generation that uses short-session online entertainment to encourage frequent digital immersion in real everyday English. English Attack! is an innovative learning method that combines interactive exercises based on hundreds of videos. The platform also offers a number of online games, thematic visual dictionaries, a number of Web 2.0 social features for the global community of English language learners, all in the context of a system of rewards and motivational games.

Ionela Lungu is a Project Manager professional specialized in the IT&C industry. She is holding a Bachelor of Computer Engineering and Automatic Control Degree from the Gheorghe Asachi University of Iasi. Currently she is coordinating the development team of ASSIST Software, a software development and outsourcing company from Suceava, Romania. She brings value to the company by constantly supporting the team members to update their knowledge, conquer new areas of expertise, and adhere to the quality management system of the company. She was also actively involved in the management team within European projects – FP7 and Eurostars.

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ESRI’s Cloud in Education

GIS technology provides the education community with tools to develop a greater understanding of our world through geospatial data analysis. With GIS, students and faculty can integrate and evaluate data from many sources to develop new theories and knowledge. This helps prepare students to meet the demands of the twenty-first-century workforce, whether they are involved in science, government, or business. Libraries, museums, schools, and universities are also increasingly using GIS for resource management, facilities management, and advanced research. ArcGIS Online, ESRI’s Cloud platform, allows you to easily create maps, visualize your fieldwork data and share this content with anyone you choose. It is a great way to start using GIS and introduce key spatial concepts to your students (www.marathondata.gr)

Iro Giannakou, GIS Analyst at Marathon Data Systems (ESRI’s official distributor in Greece and Cyprus)Adonis Kontos, President at Marathon Data Systems (ESRI’s official distributor in Greece and Cyprus)

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Cloud Applications by ICT Companies (Apple and Microsoft)

Increasing collaboration and communication in the classroom and the institution with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Partners in Learning Program.

Microsoft has a global strategy in education and with programs such as the Microsoft Partners in Learning Program, we aim to help educators and school leaders connect, collaborate, create, and share so that students can realize their greatest potential. In this workshop, we will be presenting the Microsoft global strategy in education and the different programs and resources that we provide to the educator community for free as well as the local programs of Greek Partners in Learning. In this context, we will showcase the Microsoft Office 365 Education, an online platform that can provide staff, faculty, and students at a school with free email, sites, online document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing. Microsoft Office 365 platform that offers a holistic group of collaboration and communication tools is offered free for academic and education institutions. Our local partners will then present a complete Learning Management System based in Office365 that provides students, teachers, and staff with the enterprise-grade communication and productivity services they need with the power and flexibility each individual institution requires.

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Workshops: “Hands-On the Cloud”

(conducted in parallel for 90 min. 14:30-16:00)

Collaboration Snacks: Learn how to implement web 2.0 tools to organize communication and collaboration activities. In this workshop the participants explore Web 2.0 tools that can be used in the teaching practice. The tools will support different types of classroom activities. They can be implemented in different types of educational interaction like frontal teaching, group work or independent learning. The majority of the tools are web based and free to use. They can be used on a wide range of devices and support the idea of Bring Your Own Device. Participants are kindly requested to bring their own device for their successful participation in the workshop.

Bart Verswijvel, European Schoolnet is a Flemish (Belgian) educator who was a Dutch teacher (mother tongue) in a secondary school for about 30 years. Since 2011 he has a part time job at the Flemish National Support Service for eTwinning in Brussels. Since March 2012 Bart Verswijvel has worked for European Schoolnet as a Pedagogical Adviser, and he is involved in several projects like the Future Classroom Lab, iTEC, eTwinning and Living Schools Lab. He is especially interested in the integration of ICT in education and in project work. He is a freelance speaker, leader of workshops, prize winner in several competitions like eTwinning Awards and Microsoft Innovative Teachers, and a Microsoft Expert Educator. In 2010 Bart was awarded the Queen Paola Prize for Education.​

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Tablets use in School Classroom

“1:1 educational computing” describes the educational practice where each student has their own computing device. These devices are mobile and are equipped with a wireless connection. They also come in various forms (Smartphones, iPads, tablets, etc.) and have varying possibilities. This 1:1 practice, primarily as a methodology, offers many benefits. Some of them are as follows:

- The student becomes an active participant in his own learning and educational activities;

- The teacher becomes a partner and mentor. He or she organizes, inspires and creates experiential activities, releases the potential in the classroom, fosters initiative and critical thinking;

- computer technology makes numerous diverse tools available to the student. Technology enables teaching to become individualized, reinforces the role of multiple representations and promotes research and the quest for information.

Smart and mobile devices, with their user-friendly educational software, contribute effectively to learning. They create appropriate learning environments with opportunities for interdisciplinary instruction. Mainly, they cultivate 21st century competences, by combining skills, knowledge, attitudes and values. In this workshop, by working with tablets, we highlight the importance of the Cloud environment for the pedagogical framework we are presenting.

Vassilis Economu is IT Manager at Doukas School since 1994. From 2004, he is head of the Doukas School “1:1 Computing Team”, which aims to introduce and develop the Student Personal Computer into the educational procedure. From 2006, he is member of Doukas School “Quality Research Team”. He is a certified Validator specialized in the evaluation of companies according to the standards of the European Foundation for Quality Management – “Commitment to Excellence”. He has participated as researcher and analyst-programmer in more than 20 projects concerning ICT in Education and in Special Education as well. He has participated in the development of ICT software (more than 50 software titles). He continues to train hundreds of teachers to develop ICT in educational practice. He has developed various Management Information Systems in several programming environments. He has published articles and studies in educational magazines and has presented several papers in scientific conferences related to the “introduction of ICT in educational procedure” and “quality in education”.

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Collaboration in the Cloud with Linoit

Do you want to collaborate in a colorful cloud-environment? Than follow our sticky note-workshop about Lino. Lino is an online sticky notes service. Here, you can freely post, see and peel off sticky notes, memos, pictures and videos you make with your device, and even annex files on a canvas. Sticky notes posted while you’re offline will appear once you log on. You can organize your memos and ideas by changing the colors of your sticky notes, moving them and adding an icon on them. Lino is an ideal tool to share your ideas. You can create your own group to collaborate. Lino is also available as an app on your Smartphone or tablet.

Nicole Vandeborne, Basisschool Zavelberg

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Cloud computing and mobile devices for teachers

The computer is a useful utility inside and outside the classroom. This course aims to address a range of services available on Internet, considered of interest, usefulness and applicability for the teacher. The mentioned services are oriented to the organization of tasks and application in classroom context. The contents includes information management and e-mail, scheduling and events, storage and files synchronization, sharing data and settings between electronic devices. The adopted methodology wants to create skills and methodologies that helps to learn, search for, select and adopt the best options to increase efficiency and quality to the teacher’s work. Participants are kindly requested to bring their own device for their successful participation in the workshop.

Telmo Costa, 41 years old, graduated in 1995. Master in e-Learning Management and Production at the Carlos III University, Madrid. Teacher at Horácio Bento Gouveia School. School Coordinator of European Projects and coordinator of two Comenius Multilateral Partnerships. Trainer in ICT and Educational Technologies. 2008-2011: Teaching associate professional, coordinating ICT projects streamlined in the Madeira Region Education System. Training Portfolio: Cloud computing and mobile devices, School in the Cloud – Web 2.0 in the personal and professional Organization, Interactive Whiteboards, E-Portfolios, Evaluation of learning in ICT, School 2.0 – Web 2.0 in the Classroom Organization, Illustration of Contents, Multimedia presentation on education, Publications: Interactive Whiteboards, Training Support Book.

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Digital Media in the EFL Classroom

Enhancing all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) has always been a challenging task for most EFL teachers. The main purpose of this workshop is to provide some tips that can be useful to teachers of English as a foreign language in the information age. Participants will leave with a better understanding of how tools and services on the cloud can help them achieve the educational objectives of activities that enhance all four language skills. Also, they will examine possible ways of improving their own teaching through the use of cloud technology.

Bessie Mitsikopoulou is Associate Professor at the Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Athens. She holds a PhD in Critical Discourse Analysis (University of Athens), an MA in Applied Linguistics (University of Reading), a Postgraduate Specialist Diploma in Computers in Education (Institute of Education, University of London) and a BA in English Language and Literature (University of Athens). Her research interests are in the areas of critical discourse analysis, educational linguistics, new media and applications of new technologies in education, critical and academic literacies. Since January 2004, she has been Thematic Consultant of English Literacy for the Second Chance Schools in Greece, and a member of the Scientific Committee for Second Chance Schools. She has also been the Coordinator of the English Group for the Digital Platform Project of the Greek Ministry of Education. She has participated in several research and EU-funded projects in the areas of language education, curriculum reform, genre analysis and ICTs. Her recent book Rethinking Online Education: Media, ideologies, and Identities is published by Paradigm Publishers (2013).

Smaragda Papadopoulou holds a ΒΑ degree in Greek Language and Literature from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and an MSc in Technology Education and Digital Systems from the University of Piraeus. Her scientific interests lie primarily in the fields of technology-enhanced learning, e-learning and online training. So far she has worked as a language editor and proofreader of study guides for primary and secondary education students. She has also participated as an instructional material designer in e-learning projects concerning adult training in Information Communication Technologies (ICT). Since September 2011 she has been working as en eLearning specialist at the Research Centre for Language Teaching, Testing and Assessment and has developed the e-training programme for Primary EFL teachers.

Georgia Gyftoula, Centre of Self-Access Learning & Materials Development, University of Athens, has been a state Primary School English teacher since 1993. She holds a MEd in ELT by the Hellenic Open University and a MEd in Education Management and Administration by the University of Thessaly. She has been interested in implementing projects of Environmental Education, e-twinning and other European programmes as well as integrating ICT in her teaching. She is currently teaching at the 3rd Primary School of Zografou.

Ms. Chryssanthe Sotiriou has obtained a BA in English Literature from the English Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a postgraduate diploma with distinction in Translation from the University of Mons-Hainaut in Belgium, being a scholar of the ‘Alexander Onassis’ Foundation. She has been involved in the Leonardo da Vinci Sectoral Programme: “Mobile and Wireless Technologies for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (ΜW-TELL)” and in “Digital School”: Greek Ministry of Education. Her research interests include Project Based Learning (PBL), Game Based Learning (GBL) and the use of social media in Education. She has given lectures in seminars and conferences for teaching and the use of technology to teachers of primary and secondary education. She has many years of teaching experience, working as an EFL teacher at Doukas School in Athens, since September 1995; recently holding the position of Language Coordinator in High School.

Elinda Gjondedaj, Centre of Self-Access Learning & Materials Development, University of Athens

Organized by Doukas School - Website: www.schoolonthecloud.eu

065_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

060_GHP_EcoOutlook_1Dec21 — 2021 Houston Region Economic Outlook shares perspectives on the region’s economy and future outlook. Speakers include Northern Trust Chief Economist Carl R. Tannenbaum,

and Partnership Senior VP of Research, Patrick Jankowski, December 1, 2021 at the Royal Sonesta in Houston. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.060_GHP_EcoOutlook_1Dec21

low cloud base

Bica da Cana Viewpoint is located 1.560m altitude, in Canhas parish village of Ponta do Sol.

On a clear day has some superb views across the valley of S. Vicente.

IMAGE INFO

- Viewpoint is looking west-north-west from Central Lookout hill (~320m south-south-east of the Central Lookout carpark area off Stirling Range Drive) after some heavy showers had passed through.

- The distant summit of Mt Mondurup (652m A.S.L.) can be seen obscured by the cloud base.

- Peak heights (above sea level) & approximate line of sight distances (from my viewpoint) are courtesy of the Peak Visor online panoramic 3d database:

peakvisor.com/panorama.html?lat=-34.42512591796618&ln...

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SOURCE INFO

- Original 35mm frame captured using a CANON AF35M 2 (aka "Sure Shot 2" or "Autoboy 2") compact camera, with KODAK CL 200 (aka KODACOLOR VR 200) 35mm color negative film.

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PROCESS INFO

- Digitized using a CANON Canoscan 8800F scanner at 3200 dpi, 48 bit color.

- Image size = 4402x2665px [11.7MP].

- Digital scan was initially processed with Adobe Photoshop CS Windows to remove some artifacts, correct magenta color shift, improve sharpness & restore overall image quality from the very poor original film quality.

This image was captured from a commercial airliner thousands of feet up and above the cloud base somewhere over Europe. It provides a somewhat other worldly feeling.

View large on black

Well, I had some free time today and a computer handy... so I stitched the Pano together from my previous image.

I hang out up here a lot in the gloomy months of summer. I usually arrive in darkness amongst the scurrying rabbits and owls and find a nice spot to watch the sun rise over the clouds with my girl. But she's sleeping in today... inside the clouds. Far out, in the distance below the cloud base is Catalina island and the Long beach harbor. To the left just beyond the mountain tops is Topanga Canyon and Santa Monica directly behind that. And somewhere below that beautiful marine layer is the Pacific ocean and the PCH cloaked in fog and gloom.... It's fun driving back down into it... like a ride at an amusement park. Minus the old creepy carnie guy who looks like some character in a rob zombie film.

Don't get me wrong, I see lots of creatures up here. Just a few weeks back I saw a fairly large mountain lion cross the road directly in front of my car. Ugggg . That'll wake ya up in the mornin. He was in a hurry, so i didn't ask for his name. Any who.... full Corn moon on Monday..... means, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. So farewell and godspeed.

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www.twitter.com/matrobinson88

I very rarely get out into the Peak District in these conditions so made a special effort yesterday. The aim was to spend some time amongst the trees and try to find some simpler compositions - with the mist helping to clear the background of clutter.

The cloud base was actually quite high up, so only once I got out of the top of Padley Gorge was it possible to do this - but once there I like to think I made the most of it. This set of photos consists of pretty much every single photo I took up there (I've only left 3 out, for now) - so I am more than happy with my success rate (I would worry that I'm becoming one of those photographers who looks calm and collected... a bit pretentious, looking down on those who don't know the one and only composition they want weeks beforehand... but I'm sure the next sunrise will fix that - leaving me running around like a headless chicken again).

For the rest of this set - click here... www.flickr.com/photos/60494167@N02/sets/72157636175679075/

103_GHP_SoireePortraits_2019.jpg -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

Mammatus Clouds, or "breast-clouds", are fascinating formations in the sky, made mostly from the cumulus cloud base. Although they are not a sign that a tornado is about to form, they often accompany tornado-producing storms, or even may be direct byproduct of tornado activity - an aftermath of severe thunderstorms.

This is how the sky looked on Thursday evening after a storm..

It took half an hour waiting for the cloud-base to lift, but I think I caught the best moment of the evening in one shot.

Shen Hao large-format view camera, Fuji Velvia (RVP) 5x4" sheet film.

N47E Douglas DC-3C Dakota (13816) heading south from Prestwick enroute to Duxford and skirting just below the cloud base at just under 8000 feet and about 5 miles from the garden in ST7 on 27-05-2019

sunset mt teide approx 1900 m just above cloud base behind scrub brush in lava field no editing fast shutter on zoom lens

As a follow up to my still image of these mammatus (www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/30186546031/in/photost...), this short timelapse shows the formation of these unusual clouds. Look to the right corner to see them "fall" out of the cloud base. Moving very quickly away from me, these clouds only lasted for a few minutes.

a) San Jose y Niño Jesus

b) La Inmaculada Concepcion

Binondo, Manila and San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan

ivory, silver, velvet, baticuling wood

1890s

a) San Jose y Niño Jesus

head to toe: 11" (28 cm)

body: 5" x 4" (13 cm x 10 cm)

Virina:

H: 22" (56 cm), D: 9" (23 cm)

Base:

H: 6" (15 cm), D: 14" (36 cm)

b) La Inmaculada Concepcion

head to toe: 11" (28 cm)

body: 5" x 4" (13 cm x 10 cm)

Virina:

H: 22" (56 cm), D: 9" (23 cm)

Base:

H: 6" (15 cm), D: 14 (36 cm)

Opening bid: PHP 300,000

Property from the Don Maximo Viola Collection

Provenance: Maximo Viola, Descendants of Maximo Viola

About the Work

by Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III

Commissioned by D Maximo Viola y Sison (1857–1933): an exceptional tabletop “San Jose y Nino Jesus.”

The San Jose has a serious, fatherly expression and the Nino Jesus he is carrying on his left hand has a playful but respectful mien. The father carries a solid silver staff of lilies on his right hand. Both San Jose and the Nino Jesus have long hair of “jusi” fibers; the father wears a solid silver “paraguas” halo and the son wears solid silver “tres potencias” symbolizing the three powers of the Lord --- Authority (Exousia in Greek), Ability (Dunamis in Greek), and Strength (Kratas in Greek). The San Jose wears a traditional green robe and yellow cape and the Nino Jesus wears a traditional yellow robe, both are embroidered with floral and foliar designs of the 1890s genre. The father stands on an exceptional “peana” pedestal base of the rare type: a lily emerging from four acanthus leaves which are supported by smaller leaves on a base of foliar forms. The finely–gilded peana is found only with the highest quality ivory statuary. In Roman Catholicism, Saint Joseph is the foster father of Jesus Christ and the Patron of the Universal Church. During the Spanish period and up to prewar (up to 1940), the center of devotion to El Glorioso Patriarca San Jose was at the San Nicolas de Tolentino church (“Recoletos”) in Intramuros; there were weekly devotions on Wednesdays and a big fiesta every 26 November. Unfortunately, the Recoletos church, the 26 November fiesta tradition, and the image of San Jose Patriarca were all destroyed by aerial bombs in February 1945. The other important, traditional centers of devotion to San Jose remain with “Tata Hosep” in Las Pinas, “Tata Bukot” in Navotas, and “Senor San Jose” in Mandaue, Cebu. There is a renewed, worldwide devotion to Saint Joseph as Pope Francis has acknowledged that he often leaves a petition to the saint overnight and receives a resolution in the morning.

Commissioned by D Maximo Viola y Sison (1857–1933): a beatific tabletop “La Inmaculada Concepcion.” The Virgin Mary has a gentle downward gaze, reminiscent of the “La Purisima” festejada at the Iglesia de San Francisco de Asis (Franciscanos) in Intramuros (destroyed during World War II). It has long hair of “jusi” fibers, a silvergilt crown, and an aureole of twelve stars. The long, slender hands are held together in prayer. The image is dressed in the traditional white robe and blue cape, “palikpik” style, embroidered with floral and foliar designs of the 1890s genre. An enameled, silvergilt sun and silver crescent moon are at its feet. The statuette stands on a (deliberately) oversized, silver–leafed, Ming–style “ensaimada” cloud base with the serpent interspersed between. The cloud is supported by a traditional gilded “peana” pedestal with foliar forms. The Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception states that: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.” During the Spanish era (up to 1898), and up until prewar (to 1940), the 08 de Diciembre procession of “La Purisima” (“La Inmaculada Concepcion”) at the Iglesia de San Francisco de Asis (Franciscanos) was one of the much – awaited events in the Manila calendar. Although it was La Catedral de Manila that was under the patronage of “La Inmaculada Concepcion,” and although the Jesuits fervently venerated her under that title at the Iglesia de San Ignacio de Loyola on Calle Arzobispo, it was the Franciscanos who organized the annual fiesta in her honor. The late afternoon procession started at San Francisco on Calle San Francisco esquina a Calle Solana, through Calle Solana, entered the Iglesia de Santo Domingo de Guzman (Dominicanos) on Calle Beaterio esquina a Calle Solana for prayers and hymns, through Calle Beaterio, passed La Catedral on Calle Beaterio esquina a Calle Cabildo, then returned to San Francisco via Calle Real del Palacio (currently General Luna street). It was a joyous affair as “Navidades” (Christmas) was already in the air with the cool December breezes; five days later would be the 13 de Diciembre fiesta of Santa Lucia de Siracusa (Saint Lucy of Syracuse) at the Iglesia de San Nicolas de Tolentino (Recoletos) on Calle Cabildo Recoletos, a time when country folk from the surrounding provinces --- Bulacan, Pampanga, Morong, Laguna, Batangas, Cavite --- descended on the church patio with their fresh delicacies and charming wares, to the delight of the city folk who eagerly purchased them, for even then, Manilenos inevitably suffered from “mal de ville” (“city illness”).

Lot 140 of the Leon Gallery auction on June 17, 2023. Please see leon-gallery.com/auctions/The-Sp

English Christian Movie "Deadly Ignorance" | Who Should We Listen to in Welcoming the Lord's Return

www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/deadly-ignorance-movie/

Zheng Mu'en is a co-worker at a Chinese Christian church in the US, has believed in the Lord for many years, and passionately works and expends for the Lord. One day, his aunt testifies to him that the Lord Jesus has returned to express the truth and do the work of judging and purifying man in the last days, news which greatly excites him. After reading Almighty God's word and watching the movies and videos of The Church of Almighty God, Zheng Mu'en's heart verifies that Almighty God's words are the truth, and that Almighty God might very well be the return of the Lord Jesus, so he begins investigating the work of God in the last days with his brothers and sisters. But when Pastor Ma, the leader of his church, discovers this, he tries time and again to intervene and stop Zheng Mu'en. He shows Zheng Mu'en a CCP government propaganda video that slanders and condemns Eastern Lightning in an attempt to make Zheng Mu'en abandon his investigation of the true way, and this video leaves him very confused: He can obviously see that Almighty God's words are the truth and the voice of God, so why do the pastors and elders of the religious world condemn Almighty God? They not only themselves refuse to seek or investigate, they try to stop others from accepting the true way. Why is this? … Zheng Mu'en fears being deceived and taking the wrong path, but also fears losing his chance to be raptured. In the midst of his conflict and confusion, Pastor Ma presents even more negative propaganda from the CCP and the religious world, producing many more doubts in Zheng Mu'en's heart. He decides to listen to Pastor Ma and give up his investigation of the true way. Later, after hearing testimonyand fellowship from witnesses of The Church of Almighty God, Zheng Mu'en understands that in investigating the true way, the most fundamental principle is determining whether a way has the truth and whether what it expresses is the voice of God. Anyone that can express much of the truth must be the appearance of Christ, because no member of corrupt mankind could ever express the truth. This is an indisputable fact. If one does not focus on hearing the voice of God as they investigate the true way, and instead awaits the descent of the Lord Jesus on white clouds based on their imaginings, they will never be able to welcome the appearance of God. Zheng Mu'en finally understands the mystery of the wise virgins hearing God's voice spoken of by the Lord Jesus, decides to no longer believe the lies and absurd theories of the CCP government and the pastors and elders of the religious world, and escapes the constraints and bondage of his religious pastor. Zheng Mu'en experiences deeply the difficulty of investigating the true way. Without discernment or seeking the truth, there is no way to hear the voice of God or be raptured before God's throne. Instead, one can only be deceived and controlled by Satan and die in Satan's net, which entirely fulfills the words in the Bible, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hos 4:6). "Fools die for want of wisdom" (Pro 10:21).

Image Source: The Church of Almighty God

Terms of Use: en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html

Arriving into Newcastle International with a 300ft cloud base and fog, is the regular B744 from Dubai.

066_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

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472_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

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Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

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June 6, 2019 - Odessa Nebraska US

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A rare day for cloud based structure! On the back side of a passing system gave us a uncanny view of clouds moving from the east to west. It is a very rare occurrence in Nebraska.

Though I'm not chasing severe weather this day... It's what pulled me out to go view some explosive non severe thunderheads. Truly the essence of a good view. Watching mother nature do her thing, and having front row tickets is even better.

*** Please NOTE and RESPECT the Copyright ***

Copyright 2019

Dale Kaminski @ NebraskaSC Photography

All Rights Reserved

This video may not be copied, reproduced, published or distributed in any medium without the expressed written permission of the copyright holder.

#ForeverChasing

#NebraskaSC

Video of adventure

youtu.be/-FwnYEyoNjg

It was the week before Christmas and I had to use up my remaining holiday entitlement before the end of the year. With the kids at school and my better half working, I had a week to play

Monday had seen me head for a day trip to Ardgour and Tuesday was an indoor day as a large Atlantic weather system swept over Scotland. The forecast for the rest of the week was changeable across Scotland – apart from the far north! So decision made – I was headed for Sutherland! Leaving the house at 6am, I arrived on the shoes of Loch Merkland four hours later at 10am. At this time of the year the days re short (an even shorter the further north you go) so I was aware I needed to get cracking and I had decided on Ben Hee as it would fit in with me getting back before dark. The plan there after was to enjoy some carlife (;)) and spend the next three days in this area.

The forecast was looking good and I set off in glorious sunshine with little wind. Numerous herds of deer greeted me as I headed up the track and towards the Allt Coire a’ Chruiteir burn. The skies were still blue but as the summit of Ben Hee came into view I noticed it was capped in cloud, which was skudding over the summit . The path was ok, but had been eroded away by the burn in places, but I wasn’t complaining as it was dry and nicer than the rest of Scotland. Once out of the wee glen the winds picked up and it was cold!! The pull into the cloud and towards the summit was also the freezing level and a white rim coated the rocks as I approached the cloud capped summit of Ben Hee.

As opposed to coming back down the same way, I decided to drop down over Sail Gharb and hoped to snap a photo of Loch an t-Seilg. I wasn’t sure whether the cloud base would enable this , however the views soon opened out and the views over to Ben Hope and Ben Loyal were fabulous. I was a bit jealous as these near bye peaks were cloud free. A few more snaps and I was soon chasing the unset down the hill to get back to the car before nightfall.

Back at the car and I found a larger parking area to spend a cold night in the car before another adventure on the Thursday 

344_GHP_AnnualMeet_28Jan22 — Greater Houston Partnership 2022 annual meeting with 2022 Chair Thad Hill outlining the organization's priorities for the year ahead while outgoing Chair Amy Chronis provides a look back at the accomplishments of 2021 at the Hilton Americas January 28, 2022. (Photo by Richard Carson)

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Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.344_GHP_AnnualMeet_28Jan22

"Raven 81' A-29B Super Tucano touching down on runway 30 at Prestwick, on delivery to Nigeria, we were unfortunate with the weather, very low cloud base and strong winds and rain.

Clouds Co. Dublin Ireland

356_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

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EXPLORED September 25th, 2011

A 'Fog Ocean' View From Blackrock Summit (Central District), Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

3 bracket shots - merged and lightly tonemapped in Photomatix Pro

The meteorological definition of fog is a cloud (stratus) which has its cloud base on or close to ground.

More specifically, the term stratus is used to describe flat, hazy, featureless clouds of low altitude varying in color from dark gray to nearly white. These clouds are essentially above ground fog formed either through the lifting of morning fog or when cold air moves at low altitudes over a region.

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To truly appreciate the magnitude of a massive fog system like this is to see it firsthand. I captured some video footage because sometimes photos don't do justice - check out the video clips on YouTube if you have a spare minute.

Video Clip 1

Video Clip 2

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THANKS FOR VIEWING!

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?

We are Blue Tapes, a boutique tape label specialising in sound art and alternative process artwork. We release music from Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

WHY TAPES? ISN'T IT ALL A BIT SELF-CONSCIOUSLY RETRO?

No, tapes are not a dead format. They never went away. They’ve been the format of choice for distributing home-recorded or experimental music pretty much since the inception of that technology, and even the advent of peer-to-peer, cloud-based music services, and social networking hasn’t particularly eroded this - it’s only added more strings to our bow in terms of connecting with other human heads.

Tapes are a good format. Even audio purists like Autechre are insistent that - sonically - cassette tape is their favourite playback format. Even until recently, Autechre promos were issued on cassette tape rather than CD - wanting to sidestep lazy digital pirating was only one small part of the reason for this.

One thing you need to know about Blue Tapes. If something is good enough for Autechre, then it’s good enough for us.

Tapes are still the most economical way of producing physical music product, and the one that can be produced to a high standard in the lowest print run. This is liberating in a number of ways. Firstly, it releases us from any business-based demand of recouping, covering overheads, etc, which in turn prevents us from having to prioritise releasing musically that is “commercially viable”. If a particular piece of music is so niche that about only one person in the whole world other than us and the musician who invented it would ever get it, then it doesn’t appear commercially unviable for to release that. It’s cool by us. If we love it, we will produce it, we’ll add artwork and interesting packaging - and sometimes books, and large-format art you can hang on your wall, and other strange things - and we’ll put our heart and guts into trying to get it out there to people.

OK, BUT WHY NOT JUST RELEASE STUFF ON VINYL? DOES ANYONE EVEN HAVE A TAPE PLAYER ANYMORE?

OK, so for you heathens who don’t own a Walkman, we’ll chuck in a download code with each release. Something that any music fan should have worked out by 2012 - different formats are appropriate for different listening experiences. There isn’t necessarily any one better or best format. You can’t take tapes out running with you, or listening on the bus. Most mobile telephones do this job just fine. Richard Youngs recently correctly observed that vinyl was good living room music, for when you’ve got people round or for a glass of wine in the evening. I don’t think anyone ever really liked CDs.

Tapes are something even more different. The experience of listening to a tape is not at all like listening to a Spotify playlist. Tapes cannot be shuffled. Tracks cannot easily even be skipped. You are submitting yourself as a listener to music on tape in a way which you are not particularly used to anymore, because your control over the experience is limited and passive. You cannot author your own tracklists or create your own sequencing. Tumblr, Flickr, Soundcloud, This Is My Jam etc have trained us all to be maddeningly proficient archivers of content, but in this context your faculties as an editor have been diminished. On some level this somehow stops you from thinking too much about the music, and leaves you more susceptible to its twists and turns, it leads you down the internal logic of its soundworld and you either surf with it or switch it off and come back to it.

And that is the truly great part. Tape is the ONLY format where a recording can be played from halfway through a piece. Most tape players will flip the side over for you, so you can drop in and out of the music at any time, or it can loop forever. As listeners we are freed from the tyranny of the tracklisting and the linear music narrative. Any browsing of last.fm stats reveals all album-type releases to have the greatest number of listeners for track 1, second highest number of listeners for track 2, third highest for etc… if you’re in a band and you put your best track at the end of your album then you are fucked. In our world though, the listening experience becomes cyclical. Each note of music at the ‘end’ of the tape is listened to equally as much as the music at the ‘start’ of the tape.

In future releases we will experiment with this further by releasing actual tape loops: a truly continuous music. Infinite and indestructible.

(Apart from by magnets.)

But vinyl, of course we love vinyl. Everybody loves vinyl. But vinyl is expensive. And can only be produced in mass quantity. Anyone releasing a very niche music on vinyl is taking a huge gamble - often doomed to just become an expensive vanity project. Tapes are utilitarian and bullshit-free. If you hate the music on your tape then you can record something else over the top if it. By contrast, vinyl is positively bourgouis and decadent.

This week, I paid £25 for Sunn O)))’s Monoliths & Dimensions LP. I aim to price all of our releases at £3.33 for music and artwork of comparable quality and imagination.

WHY £3.33?

It’s the number of a bus that goes past my house. Sorry, that’s such a Sarah Records thing to say.

WHY DO MUSICIANS EVEN NEED A LABEL ANYORE? WHEN THEY CAN SELL THEIR OWN MUSIC DIRECT THROUGH BANDCAMP, ITUNES, EVEN AMAZON...

They don’t. But then, they never did. Of all the reasons for wanting to start a label I think this is actually the one that’s hardest to answer. The function of Blue Tapes here isn’t to act as a benefactor, a sort of kindly uncle who chucks money at musicians so he can adopt some of their glamour by association. If anything, it’s to be a collaborator. We’ve constructed so many annoying rules about how and what we release that by the time any actual sound has emerged out the other end of the process it’s practically generative.

Each Blue Tape will consist of one piece of music per tape (or one piece per side) and will come in artwork and packaging supplied by the label. The audio almost becomes soundtracks for still images.

Further down the line, we’re hoping to get all of the musicians actually collaborating with each other, in a kind of international house band, with Blue Tapes acting as the conduit or curator for this. This was something that 4AD did very well.

Of the current crop of traditional labels, only Southern’s excellent Latitudes series is doing anything similarly exciting (although again, trying to collect the full series will kick your wallet about the balls somewhat).

The two labels I have been most excited about in the past five years have both been tape labels: Stunned (RIP), whose every release you wanted to cling to your heart and never let go, and The Tapeworm, who are practically the Penguin Books of the tape scene.

SO WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY SOUND LIKE?

Really, we want stuff that inhabits its own soundworld. That isn’t too ‘genre’. Sound that sort of makes up its own rules. A lot of this stuff will probably be home-recorded. A lot of it will probably be instrumental. Apart from the releases that are spoken word. No pop songs.

But, of course, we love pop songs. Everyone loves pop songs. Pop songs were the ultimate art-form of the 20th Century, and there’s no reason to assume that the 21st Century is going to be any different so far. Pop music superseded all other art because of its hungry commercial appetite - it was capitalism as high art. Pop music existed to sell things, so it had to evolve to be fibre optic-fast, to continually outdo itself, to extinguish the competition with the cold and precise mechanics of the killing machine.

Pop songs are the source code around which all of our cultural life is programmed. They are a highly-advanced from of brainwashing. They permeate everything. You don’t have to hunt for pop: it hunts you.

Like I said, we love that shit. But if we want anything from this label it is to create a bit of a sanctuary from real life. Tiny tape-sized pockets of time and space that the rest of the world can’t get into.

THAT’S what we sound like. Forcefields.

But seriously, artists who we are currently in talks with releasing stuff from include the modern classical composer and librettist Missy Mazzoli, the avant-playwright and journalist kicking_k, a collaboration between San Franciscan sound artist Zachary James Watkins and Moroccan poet Abderrahim Elkhassar; minimalist electronic composers The Fractal Skulls, Cherry, and 51717, and the improv-doom group Kellar. Our first release (blue one) is The Grin Without The Cat or The Cat Without an Outline by Matt Collins of Toronto.

It’s all very exciting stuff.

WHICH IS BETTER: ANALOGUE OR DIGITAL?

There are no betters in life, only differents! But everything about this label, from the processes used to create the artwork to the tiny-teethed grinding cogs in the cassettes we release is going to be steeped in the former. For some reason, the physics involved in the processes of sunlight burning through a chemical barrier to x-ray an image into paper or film, or how audio information can be remembered by magnetised ferric oxide is easier to grasp and more fun to think about than how a digital camera or MP3 works.

Also, what I like about tapes is they don’t just disappear into the vaults of your iTunes. Instead they turn up randomly in your sock drawer, or behind the sofa, like little lost amulets; staring at you accusingly. And you think YOU, fuck - you. Let me put you on and just forget about this cleaning the house business for five minutes.

We’re launching a website soon. From it you can buy music. £10 for a subscription series, where you will receive a tape a month for four months, or individually for £3.33 each.

bluetapes.tumblr.com/

www.thisismyjam.com/bluetapes

This morning's cloud base started developing into something interesting at about 7.00am. I believe that these are altocumulus stratoformis undulatus clouds.

according to cloud-based priority...

A glimpse of something other than cloud from the summit of Sgorr Dhearg on Beinn a'Beithir. The cloud-base had lowered during the climb - typical! - but started lifting again after 15 mins of hanging around at the top..

650_GHP_SoireePortraits_2019.jpg -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

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Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

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Enjoy.

- Nikon D300 / @18mm

- Tripod

- F22 ( :s But I think It look Well )

Processing

- Some Work in Lr

- No HDR

About

A cloud is a visible mass of droplets, in other words, little drops of water or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity, such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae. Clouds are studied in the nephology or cloud physics branch of meteorology. It is composed for more than 20° of gas.

On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm (0.00039 in) in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. They thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance at the cloud base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may appear colored accordingly. Clouds look darker in the near-infrared because water absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths

012_GHP_SoireePortraits_2019.jpg -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

It was the Sunderland Airshow at the weekend and probably the biggest event in the city's calendar.

I'm led to believe that the thousands of visitors who descend upon the seafront come from far and wide and you could find accommodation hard to find if you don't book up early enough!

In the week leading up to thhis year's event, the UK was having a heatwave. Unfortunately, as Friday approached, the sttart of the weekend-long event, the weather changed. A low cloud base really puts a spanner in the works for an event like this and although the show went ahead as planned, some of the flying displays were either dropped or curtailed. The weather challenges aside didn't stop the fun and there was still plenty going on to keep the huge crowds happy.

Here, a view along the misty seafront as thousands of people look to the skies.

This morning's cloud base started developing into something interesting at about 7.00am. I believe that these are altocumulus stratoformis undulatus clouds.

053_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

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354_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

Peter John 1

This Spitfire MKIX has quite a history, Spitfire AB910's colour scheme is based on Spitfire Mk Vb BM327, ‘SH-F’, named “PeterJohn1”, the personal aircraft of Flight Lieutenant Tony Cooper, one of the flight commanders on 64 Squadron in 1944.

Tony Cooper’s desire to become a pilot began when he had a ‘joyride’ in an aircraft of Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus, sitting on his sister’s lap at the age of five. His dreams were almost shattered when his applications to join the RAF were refused twice, because the medicals showed that he had a badly damaged ear drum. Then in late 1937, aged 21, Cooper was accepted for pilot training with the RAF Volunteer Reserve at Luton. It seemed that the RAFVR was less particular and, as he says, “There was a war coming”.

Instructor

After completing his flying training on Miles Magisters and Hawker Harts, Cooper was sent to the Central Flying School (CFS) at Upavon in July 1940 on a flying instructor’s course. There he flew the Avro Tutor biplane and the North American Harvard – the first aircraft he had experienced with a retractable undercarriage – and within the month he had qualified as a flying instructor.

Cooper spent some time instructing at No 7 Service Flying Training School (SFTS), Peterborough, on the Fairey Battle. Then, in November 1940, he was posted to No 31 FTS at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, instructing on the Fairey Battle, the North American BT-9 Yale training aircraft and, from July 1941, on the Harvard. By June 1942 he had over 1,300 hours total flying and was assessed as an above average flying instruct

Back to UK & to the Spitfire

Whilst at Kingston, Cooper met and married a Canadian girl, but this did not stop him from continually pestering the authorities to be allowed to return to the UK on ‘ops’. Eventually, his wish was granted and he returned to England with his wife, who was moving from a land of plenty to a strange war-torn country with all its restrictions, shortages and dangers, where she knew no-one. Cooper’s parents took her in whilst he attended a Spitfire conversion course at No 61 Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Rednal (and its ‘satellite’ airfield of Montford Bridge) in Shropshire, initially flying the Harvard, with which he was by now very familiar, and then Mk 1 and Mk II Spitfires. He completed the OTU course at the end of June 1943 and, although he had less than 60 hours on the Spitfire, he was assessed as an above average Spitfire pilot.

64 Squadron Spitfires

PeterJohn1 In July 1943, Tony Cooper joined No 64 Squadron, which was temporarily based at Ayr in Scotland with its Mk Vb Spitfires, undergoing a period of rest and training. He was to serve with the squadron for the next 16 months. He had yet to acquire any operational experience, but he was now a very experienced pilot with some 2,000 hours of flying under his belt as he entered the fray.

His exposure to operational flying began when 64 Squadron moved from Ayr to Friston in August 1943 and, a few days later, on to Gravesend in Kent. Many of the operations conducted by the Squadron were over occupied Europe. The pilots flew on fighter sweeps and escort missions to daylight bombing raids carried out by medium bombers, such as Martin Marauders or Lockheed Venturas. They also escorted Coastal Command Bristol Beaufighters on anti-shipping strikes off the coast of Holland.

On these sorties enemy anti-aircraft fire, ‘flak’, was, if anything, more dangerous than encounters with Luftwaffe fighters and, in his comments in his logbook, Cooper frequently wrote, “Heavy flak”. The escorting Spitfires were often hit by enemy ground fire and on many occasions Cooper witnessed one or more of the bombers they were escorting being shot down. Sometimes Cooper led a section of Spitfires down low over the Continent to strafe targets such as barges.

Deanland (“Tentland”)

At the end of April 1944, in preparation for the impending invasion of France, 64 Squadron moved to the Advanced Landing Ground at Deanland, near Lewes in Sussex, where conditions were somewhat Spartan. There was no permanent accommodation for personnel, everyone was expected to live under canvas and only four blister hangars were provided for aircraft maintenance work. For many of the Squadron, Deanland (or “Tentland” as it was sometimes known) took some getting used to. Tony Cooper recalls: “Deanland was a bit of a come-down; luckily it was summer time when we suddenly found ourselves on this hump in the middle of the Downs. We were in tents and I found myself using the same equipment my father had used in the First World War: a truckle bed made of wood and canvas and the same materials for a bath and wash stand. Food and drink did arrive fairly regularly, but where from I’m not absolutely sure. At night it was very cold, but when D-Day came along we didn’t get much sleep as we were doing up to four shows a day and were kept very busy.”

An entry in Cooper’s logbook against 5th May 1944 – a day when he flew a dawn patrol for 1 hour and 55 minutes – proudly notes the birth of his son, Peter John. On 22nd May, he records that he took over a new personal aircraft, Spitfire Mk Vb BM327, coded ‘SH-F’, which was named “PeterJohn 1” after his newly-born son, who he was not able to see until the baby’s christening some weeks later.

D-Day

On D-Day, 6th June 1944, Cooper’s logbook shows that he flew twice. No 64 Squadron was tasked with providing ‘Low Beach Cover’ over the American assault. The Squadron ORB records that Cooper was allocated his personal Spitfire BM327, ‘SH-F’, for both sorties. He took off at 0430 hours (before dawn) for his first sortie of the day, as part of a 13-aircraft formation, providing “Fighter Cover for Utah Beach” and landed back after a total of 2 hours and 40 minutes airborne (the first hour recorded as night flying). The naval barrage was so intense that it was not safe to be over the coast and the Wing Leader withdrew the formation to a safer distance. Cooper’s remarks in his logbook give an interesting picture of the confusion that reigned and suggest that the invasion stripes, so painstakingly painted on by the ground crew, were not entirely effective: “Navy shelling coast defences – first landing [by the invading troops - Ed] made at 0620 hours. Nearly shot down by a Thunderbolt – Spitfire in front actually was – Another Spit hit by naval shell and blew up – General Brock’s benefit!”

D-Day from Tony Cooper cockpit Remarkably, Tony Cooper carried his camera with him in the cockpit and took a photograph over the invasion-striped wing of his Spitfire just after dawn broke on D-Day, looking towards another of the Squadron’s Spitfires in tactical formation. The thousands of Allied ships in the Channel are not really visible in the photograph, but they were to the pilots.

On the evening of 6th June Cooper flew his aircraft on another sortie over the invasion beaches, taking off at 2200 hours, this time tasked with, “Fighter Cover for Omaha Beach”. His comments in his logbook against this sortie read, “Hun bombers attacked invasion fleet – tremendous return fire from ships – one bomber destroyed.” He landed back at ten minutes past midnight – almost 18 hours after his first take-off that day – logging two hours and five minutes of night flying. When asked about night landings in the Spitfire on the short, temporary runways at Deanland, which were lit only by ‘goose-neck’ flares, Tony says, “I remember them well, with reasonably controlled terror, especially when it was raining!”

D-Day+1

On 7th June (D-Day +1) Tony Cooper flew three fighter cover patrols over Utah and Omaha beaches; two of them in his personal aircraft “PeterJohn 1”. In all, Cooper was airborne for a total of 7 hours 25 minutes that day. The Spitfires’ freedom of movement was severely restricted by the low cloud base and the many anti-aircraft balloons being flown from the Allied ships involved in supporting the landings; this led to a much increased risk of collision. The last operation of the day took place in the late evening, with Cooper leading a section of 4 Spitfires flying in formation on him in the dark, with no lights showing. This sortie provided ample evidence that it was possible to be nearly as frightened by your own side as by the enemy, as Cooper recorded in his logbook: “Very bad visibility – no attacks – sent forty miles out to sea on return owing to reciprocal homing vectors – very shaky experience – brought in eventually by rockets”. By the time Cooper’s section landed, it was completely dark and his No 4 ran out of fuel as he was taxying back to dispersal. Cooper recorded 2 hours and 35 minutes of night flying in his logbook for the sortie.

June 1944

The intense flying rate continued: on 10th June, Cooper flew three times, then once on 11th, twice on 12th and three times on 13th. As was typical of many other units, June 1944 was the busiest month of the war for No 64 Squadron; its total flying hours amounted to a staggering 1150 hours – the bulk of which were flown in the two-week period after D-Day. Everyone was stretched to the limit, especially the ground crews who had to work long hours to keep the Squadron’s Spitfires in the air. Meanwhile, the pilots had to endure the strain of continuous operations. Cooper’s experience was typical and his personal flying total for the month was 75 hours of which 71 were operational and 25 were flown in the dark.

Spitfire Mk IXs

Tony Cooper In late June 1944, No 64 Squadron was moved to Harrowbeer, in Devon, to become part of the Harrowbeer Spitfire Wing with No 129 Squadron, with Wing Commander ‘Birdie’ Bird-Wilson as the Wing Leader. No 129 Squadron was commanded by Cooper’s good friend, Squadron Leader Johnny Plagis, who was godfather to Cooper’s son Peter John. BBMF Spitfire Mk IX MK356 is now painted as Plagis’ aircraft at that time. His story features on page 28 of this magazine.

A few days later 64 Squadron was re-equipped with Mk IXB Spitfires with which it flew fighter sweeps over France. It continued to take losses. Sometimes pilots were able to bring a flak-damaged aircraft safely home to base, sometimes they force-landed, sometimes they had to bale out and all too frequently a pilot was killed. Many sorties now involved strafe attacks against ground targets such as locomotives, vehicles and barges; inevitably there was enemy flak to contend with and on almost every sortie at least one of the Spitfires was hit. It was, therefore, an event worthy of note when Cooper wrote in his logbook against one bomber escort sortie, “No aircraft hit! All returned”.

On 5th August, after escorting 15 Lancasters of 617 Squadron, which dropped 12,000lb ‘Tallboy’ bombs on the U-boat pens at Brest, Cooper led his section of four Spitfires in a strafe attack on flak positions. He says that as they dived on their target, “It was the worst flak I’ve ever seen in my life”. The No 3 in Cooper’s section was killed during the attack; his No 4 was also hit and forced to bale out only 2 miles off the enemy coastline. The pilot climbed into his dinghy and was picked up by an Air-Sea-Rescue Walrus seaplane, in a courageous rescue, and he was back at base within three hours

September 1944

In September 1944, 64 Squadron and Tony Cooper flew sorties in support of Operation ‘MARKET GARDEN’, the Arnhem Para-landings. Then, on 27th September, during an escort mission for 130 Halifax bombers on a daylight raid against the synthetic oil plants at Bottrop, in Germany, the engine of Tony’s Spitfire Mk IX failed when he was almost halfway across the sea between Belgium and England, having apparently been hit by flak over the target. With the Belgian coast being the nearest, he turned around and glided through 12,000 feet of cloud, breaking out at only 1,000 feet, to crash-land, wheels-up, near Moerbek, Belgium, an area that, as it turned out, was just 4 miles inside the Allied lines and which had been in enemy hands only 36 hours earlier! Tony managed to ‘hitch a lift’ in an aircraft back to Thruxton the next morning and he was flying again that afternoon. His comment in his logbook simply reads: “Engine failed – crash landed – PITY!”

Off ‘Ops’

In November 1944 Tony Cooper was posted off ‘ops’ and back to instructing. In his 16 months with 64 Squadron he had flown some 600 hours, the vast majority of it operational flying and had twice been ‘mentioned in despatches’. He had seen much action, including being involved in the D-Day operations; he had made a significant contribution and was very lucky to be alive. Many of his fellow pilots on the Squadron – his friends and colleagues – had not been so fortunate.

Instructor at 53 OTU

During his time as an instructor at No 53 Spitfire Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Kirton Lindsey and Hibaldstow, Tony Cooper once flew Spitfire Mk Vb AB910 (on 19th November 1944), which is now, of course, part of the BBMF fleet of Spitfires. Remarkably, he also witnessed the infamous ‘girl on the tail’ incident with AB910 at Hibaldstow on 14th February 1945, when Flt Lt Neill Cox DFC* inadvertently took off with WAAF Margaret Horton on the tail of the Spitfire. Tony Cooper’s last sortie in the RAF was flown on 18th June 1945. He now had over 3,200 hours total flying; he had flown some 160 operational sorties and had survived 5 forced landings, two of them at night, two on fire and one as a result of being hit by enemy fire.

This was a shot taken in the Lake District of England as the light was slipping away in the early evening. The mountains can be seen to have a low cloud base over them!

067_GHP_SoireeCandids_2019.JPG -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.

040_GHP_SoireePortraits_2019.jpg -- Greater Houston Partnership “Emerald City” Soiree 2019 with photography sponsored by Conoco Phillips at Hotel ZaZa August 24, 2019. (Photo by Richard Carson)

***DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS***

Download full resolution individual photos/videos by clicking the "down-facing arrow" below the preview image on the right hand side of the page. You will then be prompted to select a destination for the photo on your local computer.

This cloud based gallery will be available for three months in order to enable you to download all of the photos to your computer for safe long term storage. While the gallery may be in the cloud for longer than this time you should endeavor to file and secure the photos for future use in whatever manner you deem appropriate.