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+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

After the Saab 38 (also known as B3LA) had been cancelled in 1979 in favor of the more advanced Saab JAS 39 Gripen multi-role fighter, Saab presented in 1991 a new trainer design to the Swedish Air Force as a replacement for the Saab 105 (Sk 60) transitional trainer, light attack and reconnaissance aircraft. This new aircraft was internally called "FSK900". The aircraft was a conservative design, with such a configurational resemblance to the Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet that it is hard to believe Saab engineers didn't see the Alpha Jet as a model for what they wanted to do. However, even if that was the case, the FSK900 was by no means a copy of the Alpha Jet, and the two machines could be easily told apart at a glance. FSK900 had a muscular, rather massive appearance, while the Alpha Jet was more wasp-like and very sleek. The FSK900 was also bigger in length and span and had an empty weight about 10% greater.

In early 2020, the leasing contract for the Sk 90s with Sweden was changed into a formal purchase, and the Iolaire fleet (as well as the Gripen fighters) gradually received the RoScAC’s new camouflage scheme in grey and green, which had been introduced with the TF-50s.

General characteristics:

Crew: two pilots in tandem

Length incl. pitot: 13.0 m (42 ft 8 in) for the A trainer, 13.68 m (44 ft 10 in) for the S variant

Wingspan: 9.94 m (32 ft 7 in)

Height: 4.6 m (15 ft 1 in)

Empty weight: 3,790 kg (8,360 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 7,500 kg (16,530 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Williams International FJ44-4M turbofans without reheat, rated at 16.89 kN (3,790 lbst) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,038 km/h (645 mph)

Range: 1,670 km (900 nm)

Armament:

No internal gun; five hardpoints for 2,500 kg (5,500 lb) of payload and a variety of ordnance

The kit and its assembly:

This whif is a rarity among my builds, since it is an alternative reality model. A fictional air force of an independent Scotland crept into my mind after the hysterical “Brexit” events in 2016 and the former (failed) public vote concerning the independence of Scotland from the UK. However, the situation bore some serious storytelling potential: What would happen to the military if the independence would have actually taken place and British forces had left the country?

The aforementioned Scottish National Party (SNP) paper from 2013 is actually real, and I took it as a guideline. Primary focus would certainly be set on air space defense, and the Gripen appeared as a good and not too expensive choice. An advanced trainer would also have been needed, and the Sk 90 (a personal invention and already built as a Swedish and Austrian aircraft) would fulfill a complementary role.

A Scottish Sk 90 had been on my agenda since 2016, and now materialized as an addition to my Scottish TF-50 and two Sk 90s (a swedish and an Austrian one). The Saab Sk 90 is basically the 1:72 Kawasaki T-4 from Hasegawa, and since it was to depict an original Sk 90A, formerly operated by Sweden, it was built without modifications. The kit is relatively simple and fit is quite good, even though some PSR was necessary on almost any seam – there are actually two T-4 molds, and this one is the more recent offering.

Painting and markings:

I wanted to depict a RoScAC aircraft of the first hour, so I went for a Swedish look with tactical markings from the new operator. Since I already had a Sk 90 in Swedish “Fields & Meadows” camouflage, I decided to go for a Gripen-esque grey-in-grey livery.

Swedish JAS 39 carry a two-tone livery; the upper tone is called pansargrå (tank grey, which is, according to trustworthy sources, very close to FS 36173, Neutral Grey), while the undersides are painted in duvagrå (dove grey, FS 36373, a tone with the confusing name ”High Low Visibility Light Grey”), and the simple pattern was faithfully adapted to the T-4.

After checking a lot of Gripen pictures I selected different tones, though, because the colors appear much lighter in real life. I ended up with FS 36231 (Dark Gull Grey, Testors 1740) and RLM 63 (Lichtgrau, Testors 2077) – in combination, these tones come IMHO quite close to the real thing?

After a light black ink wash I emphasized single panels with Humbrol 165 and 147. The cockpit interior was painted with Revell 47 (Mausgrau) while the landing gear became glossy white.

For the RoScAC look I added some manually overpainted patches where the former Swedish roundels and tactical markings would have been. As a trainer, I also added orange dayglow markings on the fin and the wings, created with generic decal sheet material (TL Modellbau). The de-icing devices on the wings’ and fin’s leading edges were created with black decal stripes instead of paint, a very tidy and simple method. Decal strips in silver were used on the fin’s rudder and on the flaps. Small things, but they grade the grey model up visually.

Another creative field were the national markings: how could fictional Scottish roundels look like, and how to create them so that they are easy to make and replicate (for a full set for this kit, as well as for potential future builds…)? Designing and printing marking decals myself was an option, but I eventually settled for a composite solution which somewhat influenced the roundels’ design, too.

My Scottish roundel interpretation, already used on my RoScAC T-50, consists of a simple blue disk with a white cross – a straightforward solution since it’s different from any other contemporary national marking, esp. the UK roundel, and easy to create from single decal parts. In fact, the roundel discs were die-punched from blue decal sheet, and the cross consists of two thin white decal strips, cut into the correct length with the same stencil, again using generic sheet material from TL Modellbau.

Another issue was the potential tactical code, and a small fleet only needs a simple system. Going back to a WWII system with letter codes for squadrons and individual aircraft was one option, but, IMHO, still too complicated. However, for individual aircraft identification I adopted the familiar British single letter aircraft code, and since the RoScAC would certainly not operate too many squadrons, I rather adapted a system similar to the Swedish or Spanish format with a single number representing the squadron – or, in this case a letter, because the fictional Flying Training School would not be a front line unit.

The result is a simple 2-digit code, and I adapted the German system of placing the tactical code on the fuselage, separated by the roundel. Keeping British traditions up I repeated the individual aircraft code letter on the fin, where I also placed a Scottish flag (scratched from the same decal material as the roundels. A small serial number, created from single black letters (once more Tl Modellbau material) was added on the rear fuselage, and, for some local pride, I added a self-printed coat-of-arms of Edinburgh to the air intakes.

Finally, after some light weathering, the kit was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

Creating this whif, based on an alternative historic timeline and with a near future perspective, was fun – and it might spawn more models that circle around this story. A certain future build is a Saab Gripen in RoScAC colors and there might also be an entry level trainer (Shorts Tucano?), some helicopters for the army or SAR duties and maybe a transport aircraft, but not a big one. The foundation has been laid out, now it’s time to fill Scotland’s alternative recent history with detail and hardware proof. ;-)

Mercedes-Benz O816D, Unvi GT (C29F)

Guideline (Kent), Chelsfield

D-Day Museum, Southsea

17 September 2015

A Haiku Note:

========================

If the truth be told;

to know you are a Buddha

you must look within.

========================

www.flickr.com/photos/buddhadog/43903927710/

And what of the Eightfold Path?

====================================================

The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.

1. Right View

Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.

2. Right Intention

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

3. Right Speech

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

4. Right Action

The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.

5. Right Livelihood

Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.

6. Right Effort

Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

7. Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.

8. Right Concentration

The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.

Application. I will not fail to

bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not

entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the

transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon

Trusting to hear from you immediately....Musa Adib

to change my life

in a sumptuous sweep

he says i dont have to

look before i leap

a rich harvest ready

to reap .. money will be

remitted.Upon receipt

of your reply.. money

for keeps a transaction

simple legal accountable

cheap.. no more a

beggar poet he

reiterates ..no one dare

call you a black sheep

relax inhale breathe

in deep.. no more

shooting pictures

of beggars homeless

or garbage heap..

become a multi

millionaire

good night sleep

burkina faso

rich mans dreams

from the desk of

musa adibe

beauty in the

eye of the beholder

is only skin deep

FROM THE DESK OF Mr Musa.adibe

(BURKINA FASO,WESTA)

AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB)

With Due Respect I am Mr Musa.adibe of the bill and exchange at the foreign

remittance Department of AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB),I crave your indulgence as

icontact you in such a surprising manner. But I respectfully insist

youread this letter

carefully as I am optimistic it will open doors for unimaginable

financial rewards for

both of us. In my department we

discovered an abandoned sum of Ten Million, Five Hundred Thousand US

dollars (US$10.5m)

only , in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who

died along with his

entire family on (31 July,2000) in a plan crash and his name is

Christian Eich,( 57) an

engineer who ran car maker (BMW's museum) his wife and two( children)

and( hiswife)'s parents

were also among the victims. Since we got information about his death,

we have been

expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we

cannot release it

unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the

deceased as indicated in

our banking guidelines but unfortunately we

learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died along with

him at the plane

crash leaving nobody behind for the claim of the sum amount of money

with our banking

home.It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make

this business

proposal to you so that the money could be released to you as the next

of kin or relation

to the deceased for safety and subsequent

disbursement since nobody is coming for it and i don’t want this money

to go into the

bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.The Banking law and guideline here

stipulates that if

such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be

transferredinto the

Bank treasury as "unclaimed fund". The request for a foreigner as next

of kin in this

business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner

and a Burkinabe

cannot stand as nextof kin to a foreigner Because I am a citizen of

this country Burkina

Faso. We agree that (30%) of this money will be for you as a foreign

partner, in respect to

the provision of a foreign account , (10%) will be set aside for

expenses incurred during

the business and (60% )would be for me. There after I will visit your

country for

disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the

immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply

first to the bank as

relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name,

your bank account

number, your private

telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and

location wherein the

money will be remitted.Upon receipt of your reply through my

privatee mail Adress : (musa.adibe@yahoo.com) I will send to you by

fax or email the text of the

application. I will not fail to

bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not

entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the

transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon

Trusting to hear from you immediately.

(Yours faithfully )

( Mr Musa.adibe)

musa.adibe2012@gmail.com

Ava coach of Great Yarmouth FA12 ENG formerly with Guideline.

this is the helical ramp of Lingotto building, in Turin. The Lingotto once was a huge automobile factory, constructed by Fiat. Built from 1916 and opened in 1923, the design (by young architect Mattè Trucco) was unusual in that it had five floors, with raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars built on a line that went up through the building.

Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track. It was the largest car factory in the world at that time. For its time, the Lingotto building was avante-garde, influential and impressive—Le Corbusier called it "one of the most impressive sights in industry", and "a guideline for town planning".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingotto

few days ago, the Lingotto hosts the ESOF 2010 (European Science Open Forum) and the closing ceremony took place on the roof of this building. There were a lot of volunteers that worked for this event, and all the volunteers wore orange t-shirts.

Here you can see orange people going down the helical ramp, after the closing ceremony.

The course coordinators and facilitators, Dr. Virginia Wiseman Course .Director, London School of Hygiene and Sanitation Institute for Global Health University College London giving a guideline for course participants.

The course was organized and conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and UNICEF Head Quarter for 18 UNICEF Health Section staff, drawn from UNICEF Addis Ababa and 16 field Office, and 3 additional staff attended the Face to face training. From the Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia 5 people had started, and 3 of them successfully completed. In addition two UNICEF staff from Zimbabwe and Somalia Office joined the training.

The course aims to share knowledge and policy experience on how health systems can improve equity in the financing and delivery of health care services for mother, newborn and children by exposing the participants to key theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field of health financing and equity. The course held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 9-May-2016 © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mulugeta Ayene

read each of the statements and select the one which discribes how you feel / discribe

psychosocial therapies are part of the standard management of schizophrenic illnesses, but have not been subjected to systematic evaluation and are therefore not included in this guideline. This does not imply that they are not essential components of good practice.

The remainder of this section describes the evidence for the effectiveness of Education Programmes, Family Interventions, and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in the management of schizophrenia. Section 3 provides recommendations for the application of these interventions in clinical practice, according to the phase of the illness.

Education programmes

Education Programmes are directed at either patients or carers/family members and have several aims. Improvement in knowledge of schizophrenia and its course and in compliance with treatment has been shown. There is also evidence of greater satisfaction with services provided. Some programmes go beyond the provision of information and take an educational approach to skills training or problem solving.

Education Programmes for patients may be undertaken in individual or in group settings. Simple information-giving is less effective than interactive sessions. The focus includes giving information about the course and management of the illness, including the importance of compliance with medication and the management of stress.

Providing carers and family members with information on the likely course of the illness, the treatments available, the importance of compliance and the services available is an essential element of good practice It may be undertaken as part of a Family Intervention programme

Specific techniques, e.g. use of homework or video, have not been shown to improve the assimilation of information, but a group setting has advantages

Family interventions

The aims of 'Family Intervention' include reduction of frequency of relapse into illness and reduction of hospital admissions, reduction in the burden of care on families and carers, and improvement in compliance with medication.

Some Family Intervention Programmes have targeted families where there are high levels of criticism, hostility and over-involvement. 'High expressed emotion' is a measure of these features and programmes which reduce this or reduce the amount of 'face to face' contact between the patient and family members have been shown to reduce the frequency of relapse. However, the measurement of expressed emotion is a research technique which is not practical for everyday use. Family Intervention Programmes which are not derived from this theoretical background have been shown to be effective.

Most intervention strategies contain more than one technique. Separating and defining the effects of the components of an intervention strategy is not possible at present as few studies examine the effect of a single technique and only a general description of interventions used in research studies is usually given. However, a number of practice guides have been published which give detailed descriptions of the techniques employed in some studies. Family Intervention has been shown to be effective with some variation in the components of the programme, but family sessions to address the problems identified in the analysis may not be effective if the patient is not included. Social skills training and vocational rehabilitation were included in some studies. These are not covered as separate interventions in the guideline.

Cognitive behaviour therapy

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for psychosis is a modification of standard cognitive behavioural therapy. The aim is to modify symptoms (e.g. delusions, hallucinations) or the consequences of the symptoms which may be cognitive, emotional, physiological or behavioural. The treatment programme is intensive (involving about 20 hours of individual treatment) and based on an individually tailored formulation which provides an explanation of the development, maintenance and exacerbation of symptoms and of pre-morbid mood, interpersonal and behavioural difficulties.

There is now good evidence that treatment resistant symptoms (delusions, hallucinations) can be substantially reduced in a significant proportion of those who complete therapy. It is not yet clear who is most likely to benefit from treatment and many patients may be unwilling to participate. The treatment is well tolerated. However, reduction of symptoms has not been shown to lead to significant social or lifestyle improvements.

A combination of the following techniques has been shown to be most effective in lessening symptoms of psychosis resistant to other forms of treatment:

◦enhancement of cognitive behavioural coping strategies5

◦developing a rationale to explain symptoms28◦realistic goal setting

◦modification of delusional beliefs29◦modification of dysfunctional assumptions.

A number of these techniques are a refinement of normal good practice using a systematic approach.

'Early Intervention Studies' have aimed to identify prodromal symptoms or the 'signature' preceding relapse. The approach is not a form of cognitive therapy, but early intervention with medication or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy may be facilitated

Guideline , London , Scania , Irizar i6 , Riverside Coach Park , Bath , 25-7-15

On the left.....

“Unilever” head quarter for Germany, Austria & Switzerland opened in 2009 & nominated as the best office building world wide, awarded at the World Architecture Festival Award 2009 in Barcelona, also received several other awards like BEX-Award* etc.

The guideline for the building was an innovational ecology concept, it is world wide the first building with almost exclusively LED lamps, construction components for an active cooling systems, as wall as a head-recycling system on the roof & ecological building materials, a glass roof covers the six floors high, with light flooded, atrium.

“Behnisch Architects” in Stuttgart designed the project.

On the right.....

“Marco Polo Tower” build in 2009 at the Hamburg new harbour city is 16 storeys & 55 m high.

The so called “Design Ready” concept by the “Behnisch Architects” from Stuttgart signifies, you pay money for the basic m2 space, all inside walls, electric wiring, water installations etc you build at your own plans, taste, needs & additional cost.

The basic “Design Ready” concept square meter price currently varies between 3.500 € & 11.500 €, it is currently the most expensive apartment building in Hamburg, some apartments are still available.

...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you for over

2.250.000 visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments

The first EF-4Cs entered service in June 1968 with the 4537th Fighter Weapons Squadron, an operational conversion and tactic development unit based at Nellis AFB in Nevada. At that time, this squadron was part of the 4525th Fighter Weapons Wing. The 4525th was redesignated the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing in October of 1969, and at the same time the 4537th FWS became the 66th FWS. Overseas deployment of the EF-4C Wild Weasel IV began in March of 1969 with the 80th TFS, 347th TFW at Yokota AB in Japan. However, these planes were transferred in March of 1971 to the 67th TFS, 18th TFW based at Kadena AFB on Okinawa. The 67th TFS relocated to Korat RTAFB in Thaliand in 1972-72 to take part in the Linebacker raids. The EF-4C was intended to detect and attack the Fan Song track-while- scan radar that was used to guide the SA-2 Guideline surface to air missiles. The primary armament of the EF-4C consisted of the Texas Instruments AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile, plus an array of cluster bombs and conventional iron bombs. The Shrike missile proved to be rather unreliable in service, since it had to be preset before takeoff in order to home in on a particular frequency. The EF-4C could not carry or launch the AGM-78 Standard anti-radiation missile. In December of 1969, EF-4Cs were issued to the 81st TFS of the 50th TFW, stationed at Hahn AFB in Germany. The The 81st TFS was transferred to the 86th TFW at Zweibrucken AB in January of 1972. In 1973, surviving EF-4Cs were retrofitted with the Itek AN/ALR-46 electronic countermeasures receiver which provided fast digital processing in a bandwidth ranging from 2 to 18 GHz. Antennae for this system were placed on the tailcone at the base of the vertical fin as well as on the lower fuselage immediately aft of the nose radar. It interfaced with a cockpit display and provided automatic control of jamming assets. In addition, an AN/ALR-53 long-range homing receiver was mounted which could guide aircraft toward surface threats. After being replaced by later, more capable versions of the Wild Weasel Phantom, many EF-4Cs were returned to F-4C status and then turned over to the Air National Guard. These ex-EF-4Cs were turned over to the 113th TFS of the 181st TFG and the 163rd TFS of the 122nd TFW, both with the Indiana Air National Guard, which received these planes in 1979. However, neither squadron was actually assigned the specialized Wild Weasel mission, and both squadrons flew their EF-4Cs in the conventional strike role. Both Indiana ANG squadrons exchanged their EF-4Cs for F-4Es in 1988. Photo Credit's: Unknown to me (Kodachrome Slide) (Info: Wiki)

The 52 in 2017 Challenge for Week 12: Depth of Field

Without a specific guideline to attempt a short or deep depth of field, I set out to highlight how to see depth of field, no matter how wide or large. The leading lines of a brick wall taken at an angle highlight just how small my depth of field is inn this shot.

The Daily Shoot : "The rule of thirds is a time-honored composition guideline. Put it to use today in a photo"

Tonight I went back to shoot with Sylvain.

We wanted to use the snow so we went up the mountain to the ski resort and set up everything. It was ok at first but very son it became really cold (you can't see it but I'm wearing converses and my feet were soooo cold!). I think the batteries of my flashes didn't like that much cold so well... They died pretty quickly.

Anyway, we managed to get a few interesting shots.

Here is on of me.

Not exactly a self-portrait since I didn't use a remote trigger but instead I was just yelling "Wait... Wait... Ok, go !" And a very reliable reciever was then taking the shots. ;-)

Thanks again Sylvain! It was quite fun.

You should view this large on black.

Strobist :

Setup shot HERE.

For this shot :

1 quite old Philips flash, full power, bare, flagged on the bottom, camera left, approx. 4meters away from the subject.

1 LP160 @ 1/2, on the ground, behind subject, approx. 5 meters away.

Triggered by cactus V4

Canon EOS 7D with Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 @ 1/100th sec, f/5.6, iso100.

sorry: no diagram, no instructions. Hope the CP will be a guideline in case you are impatient ...

Trafalgar Square

Back from my mini Dark Age, in which I wasn´t being able to build nothing in a almost 3 month time, I come back with one of my favorite trucks: The Zil 157, used by the Egypt Army to pull SA-2 Guideline missiles arround. I have being playing around with some lightining tricks also. This one was taken in White background, but with lights pointing in blue surfaces. They reflected and created this. I liked, what do you think?

INSTRUCTIONS AVAILABLE TO BUILD THIS MODEL

Packard had struggled to regain its position as America’s premier luxury marque after WWII.

The 1951 Packards were completely redesigned. Designer John Reinhart introduced a high-waisted, more squared-off profile fitting the contemporary styling trends — very different from the traditional flowing design of the immediate postwar era. New styling features included a one-piece windshield, a wrap-around rear window, small tailfins on the long-wheelbase models, a full-width grill (replacing the traditional Packard upright design), and blunt "guideline fenders" with the hood and front fenders at the same height. The 122-inch (3,099 mm) wheelbase supported low-end 200-series standard and Deluxe two- and four-doors, and 250-series Mayfair hardtop coupes (Packard's first), and convertibles. Upmarket 300 and Patrician 400 models rode a 127-inch (3,226 mm) wheelbase.

Nance originally had hoped to introduce the new "Clipper" as a stand-alone marque, targeting the mid range price field which he felt was dragging the Packard image down. When word was leaked to the Packard dealer network that they would be losing their best-selling Packard model to "Clipper", they balked. As an appeasement, Nance rolled the Clipper out as a Packard, and worked to transition the cars toward their own make. Thus, the Packard Clipper name was reintroduced and applied to the company's entry-level models, previously known as the Packard 200, beginning in 1953.

The Packard inline eight, despite being an older design that lacked the power of Cadillac's engines, was very smooth. When combined with an Ultramatic transmission, the drivetrain made for a nearly quiet and smooth experience on the road. However, it struggled to keep pace with the horsepower race, which was increasingly moving to high compression, short stroke engines capable of sustained driving at speeds greater than 55 MPH.

seen from Top of the Rock Observation Desk

30 Rockefeller Plaza is an American Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Formerly called the RCA Building from 1933 to 1988, and later the GE Building from 1988 to 2015, it was renamed the Comcast Building in 2015, following the transfer of ownership to new corporate owner Comcast. Its name is often shortened to 30 Rock.

The building is best known for housing the headquarters and New York studios of television network NBC, as well as the Rainbow Room restaurant. At 850 feet (260 m) high, the 66-story building is the 22nd tallest in New York City and the 47th tallest in the United States. It stands 400 feet (122 m) shorter than the Empire State Building. 30 Rockefeller Center underwent a $170 million floor-by-floor interior renovation in 2014.

30 Rockefeller Plaza is 872 feet (266 m) tall and anchors the entire Rockefeller Center complex. 30 Rockefeller Plaza was built as a single structure occupying the entire block between Sixth Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza, and its design was influenced by John Todd's desire for the building to use its air rights to their maximum potential. It has three main segments: the 66-story-tall tower rising from the eastern part of the base; a windowless segment in the middle of the base; and a shorter 20-story tower on the western part of the base. Some sources give 30 Rockefeller Plaza's height as 70 stories, but this arises from an hyperbolic press release by Merle Crowell, the complex's publicist during construction.

As an icon of the complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza's architecture, with its limestone facade and Gothic-inspired four-leafed spandrels, influenced the design of the rest of the complex. The design of 30 Rockefeller Center was affected greatly by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which restricted the height that the street-side exterior walls of New York City buildings could rise before they needed to incorporate setbacks that recessed the buildings' exterior walls away from the streets. Hood also created a guideline that all of the office space in the complex would be no more than 27 feet (8.2 m) from a window, which was the maximum distance that sunlight could permeate the windows of a building at New York City's latitude. Although the RCA Building was recessed so far into the block that it could have simply risen as a slab without any setbacks, Hood decided to include setbacks anyway because they represented "a sense of future, a sense of energy, a sense of purpose," according to the architecture expert Alan Balfour.[80] The setbacks on the northern and southern sides of 30 Rockefeller Plaza allow the building to comply with Hood's 27-foot guideline, but the eastern elevation's setbacks are merely for show, according to Balfour.

The eastern tower contains the Rainbow Room restaurant on the 65th floor,:325 while the Rockefeller family office occupied the tower's 54th through 56th floors until 2014. The tower also serves as the headquarters of NBC, and houses NBC Studios, NBC News, MSNBC, and network flagship station WNBC; and until 1988, the NBC Radio Network. Although NBC has continuously occupied the building since 1933, it did not own the space it occupied until 1996, when it gained ownership within a condominium arrangement. The base of the tower is set back from the side streets in order to comply with the 1916 zoning law without having as many setbacks on higher floors. As a result, the walls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza rise straight up in a "slab"-like format—a rarely constructed architectural form before the complex was erected—with only gentle setbacks above the 30th floor. All of the tower's offices were specified so that no office was more than 27.5 feet (8.4 m) from a window, the maximum distance where sunlight can permeate the offices. From 1937 on, the top of the tower also contained 24-foot-tall (7.3 m) neon letters spelling "RCA", though these were later replaced by "GE" letters, and in 2014, replaced again with Comcast and NBC logos.

Below the building is the complex's shopping concourse, connected to the lobby via escalators. The open lobby's rich materials and reduced black and beige ornamental scheme is enhanced by dramatic lighting. Granite covers the building base to a height of 4 ft (1.2 m) and the shaft has a refined facade of Indiana Limestone with aluminum spandrel panels.

Part of NBC's space also extends into the central part of the tower. Since the middle of a block was seen as typically not a well-desired location for Manhattan office space, this segment was planned without windows, which was suitable for NBC's studios. This section of the building contains a 0.75-acre (0.30 ha) "Garden of the Nations" atop its roof. In 1936, the central section's roof temporarily housed a prototype of an apartment, which was used to advertise the Rockefeller Apartments between 54th and 55th Streets. Afterward, the roof was proposed as the site of a solar heat-powered "management and conference center".

1250 Avenue of the Americas, formerly also known as the RCA Building West, serves as the western annex of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The building is accessed mainly from Sixth Avenue. It is made of the same material as the original RCA Building, with a similar design. The facade of the annex rises straight from the sidewalk, set back from the corners because there were private properties at these corners at the time of the building's construction in 1935.

The observation deck atop the skyscraper, dubbed "Top of the Rock", is built to resemble the deck of an ocean liner. It offers sightseers a bird's eye view of the city, competing with the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building 200 feet (61 m) higher. It is often considered the best panoramic city view, if only because it offers a view of the aforementioned Empire State Building, which cannot be seen from its own observation deck. The timed entry system and larger observation deck also results in shorter waiting times compared to the Empire State. The frameless safety glass around the perimeter of the deck dates to 2005, when the facility reopened to the public. In the renovation by Gabellini Sheppard Associates, the original limestone and cast aluminum architectural details were conserved and new interiors were added.

The "Top of the Rock" had also been co-opted for NBC's Sunday Night Football during the 2006–07 season, with the top player/MVP in that night's game according to John Madden and Al Michaels receiving the honor of being that night's "Rock Star" in the form of a glass trophy display on the observation deck; this was a replacement for the Horse Trailer Award formerly awarded on ABC's Monday Night Football. The Horse Trailer honor was restored for the 2007–08 season.

The observation deck was also used in a key scene in the 2011 science fiction film The Adjustment Bureau. It is made of the same material as the original RCA Building, with a similar design. The facade of the annex rises straight from the sidewalk, set back from the corners because there were private properties at these corners at the time of the building's construction in 1935.

(Wikipedia)

Das Comcast Building (auch unter dem früheren Namen GE Building, kurz für General Electric Building sowie vormals RCA Building bekannt) ist ein Wolkenkratzer in New York City und Teil des Rockefeller-Center-Komplexes.

Das Gebäude hat die Nummer 30 am Rockefeller Plaza und ist daher als „30 Rockefeller Plaza“ oder abgekürzt „30 Rock“ bekannt. Nach dieser Abkürzung ist auch die Comedy-Serie 30 Rock benannt, die an diesem Ort spielt.

Nach seiner Fertigstellung im Jahr 1933 war das GE Building mit seiner Höhe von 259 Metern lange Zeit, nämlich bis ins Jahr 1969, das fünfthöchste Gebäude der Welt nach dem Empire State Building (381 Meter, mit Antenne 443 Meter), dem Chrysler Building (319 Meter) und dem American International Building (290 Meter) sowie dem Bank of Manhattan Building (heute 40 Wall Street) (283 Meter). Zurzeit (Stand 2017) ist es noch das 18-höchste Gebäude New York Citys.

Im Gebäude ist der Hauptsitz des Rundfunknetzwerks NBC untergebracht. Am 1. Juli 2015 wurde das Gebäude offiziell in Comcast Building umbenannt.

Beim Bau des damaligen GE Building entstand das berühmte Foto Lunch Atop a Skyscraper von Charles C. Ebbets, der den gesamten Bau dokumentierte.

Auf dem Dach des Comcast Building befindet sich die Aussichtsplattform Top of the Rock. Außerdem spielt die NBC-Comedy-Serie 30 Rock im Gebäude.

(Wikipedia)

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Or original size on Deviant Art.

The Story behind this is...

I´ve ordered myself a tiny pretty Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Graphic Tablet to do some digital drawings in the future for fun and to improve my Second Life creations like textures and skins.

I used to draw a bit when I was younger, maaany years ago, but I never really liked to draw on paper because I don´t like this "unflexible and definite" feel to it. Like, no "undo" no "save" no working with different layers and things like that.

I didn´t realise that there´s something like digital drawing, or I thought it would be just for pros with lots of money. But now I realised that its not that expensive when you get only a small tablett. Now I´m totally amazed by the idea of doing digital drawings myself and can´t wait to start!

I was watching a lot of video tutorials and freshed up some basic techniques for drawing lately and wanted to do a quick sketch, like a collage, for a future drawing, a Human-Spider Hybrid, to use as a guideline for a drawing. So I looked up some parts I´d need and knocked them together. Well, I kept fiddling around with it and now I´m totally amazed about the final thing. Its the first time I did something like that and I didn´t even really meant to!

I wanted to use a dark cave as background and a spider with a menacing gesture, its a crab-spider. The eyes came from another spider. When I was searching for a suitable pose I found a nice picture of Angelina Jolie. Its her mouth, the arms and the shoulder-parts I used here. But I wanted a defined looking ripcage so I looked up some pictures of skinny models (that was scary!) and used one of these for the parts from below the shoulders to the pelvis.

The drawed version will be more comic-like. I´m curious how it will turn out. Now I want my tablet to start drawing already!

A Haiku Note:

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The Buddha has said,

"following the eightfold path

starts with mindfulness."

~ (0001 0001) ~

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=====: 17 :=====

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The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.

1. Right View

Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.

2. Right Intention

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

3. Right Speech

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

4. Right Action

The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.

5. Right Livelihood

Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.

6. Right Effort

Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

7. Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.

8. Right Concentration

The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels concentration also in everyday situations.

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DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be careful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann c.1927

Current Most Interesting Pictures

flickrhivemind.net/User/buddhadog/Interesting

Free texture for your use and abuse. Guidelines are below. Enjoy.

Original (3008x2000): farm3.static.flickr.com/2069/2535506121_c8b23c8313_o.jpg

Rules

+ You may use these stock photos (those only marked as such) in any project: personal, commercial, profit, non-profit.

+ You are not required to link back to me, give me credit, shake my hand, walk my dog, bake me a cake, or do anything else aside from use the stock photographs. However, a link back and credit is appreciated. If you like to run around your house naked except for potholders, it would be cool if you would scream my name a few times.

+ You may NOT modify these and redistribute, even if not for profit.

+ You may use these in printed publications, graphics, artwork, etc without obtaining prior permission from me. If you are using any of the stock photos in a printed publication, flyer, etc, I would love to see a final version of how the photos were used.

Opinion

One frustration of mine is finding a great resource and then having your hands tied by some overly exhaustive guideline provided by the creating artist. Sometimes I believe that people get too carried away with the rules and restrictions they apply to their resources. I want to avoid that with my textures, which is why I am encouraging the outright abuse of these textures. Well, you get what I mean.

Urbanists need to regain control. The traffic engineer and landscape architect have had their way with the civic realm of our cities and towns for too long. The public spaces of any master plan are in fact the most valuable aspect of the design. Care should be given toward their creation and they should not be turned over entirely to any one specialized discipline.

The conception of a great civic realm, anchored by wonderfully, local public spaces, should be the principle goal of any urban design. Beauty will last the ages. If we are to truly build resilient settlements their public spaces must endure for generations. We do not have the luxury to waste on failed endeavors. The founding, or renewal, of a public space is critical to the success of any urban place. The square gives a neighborhood its identity. With success in mind, Urbanists must utilize all the characteristics of a successful public space —particularly the required management and diverse funding that allow for them to endure. As the New Urbanists increasingly look to retrofit suburbia, a similar eye must be put upon the many lost, miss-used or forgotten spaces that exist within our built environment. All land must not be underutilized. Perhaps our society does not yet understand the benefits that non-traditional American public spaces provide? In other parts of the world, a “shared space” is a cultural foundation. They are the streets and plazas that allow city life to exist. Traffic engineers had no hand in the creation of Rome’s piazze. We must learn from these cultures, and as American’s understanding of public space evolves we should not be timid about introducing these ancient forms into our plans. Today no one is looking after the whole of the civic realm. Our professional culture has specialized out of existence the generalist. And it is the generalist that understands what is required to grow a beautiful public space. As Urbanists, we understand the whole system. As Urbanists, we can conduct the symphony required to produce authentic beauty throughout our civic realm.

“Today nobody is concerned with city planning as an art — only as a technical problem. When, as a result, the artistic effect in no way lives up to our expectations, we are left bewildered and helpless; nevertheless, in dealing with the next project it is again treated wholly from the technical point of view, as if it were the layout of a railroad in which artistic questions are not involved.” (Sitte, p.223) In 1889, Camillo Sitte published “City Planning According to Artistic Principles.” One hundred and twenty years later little has changed in the practice of city building. The value of artistically created space has still not found a voice in the modern world. Why?

Shaping the public spaces of our settlements to support an enduring way of life is essential to both the economic development of a place and its overall resiliency. For decades, the artistic expression of our public spaces has not been the driving force behind the projects that shape our built environments’ identities. Beauty, comfort and the higher ideals of a place must be resurrected as the organizing force for city builders. We are still trapped by the statistics of the engineer and dull line of the drafting ruler when it comes to how we create our built environment. A Living Urbanism requires a sophisticated civic realm.

Anatomy of our Civic Realm

The civic realm can actively be identified as our publicly celebrated structures. However, our libraries, churches and governmental building are only a small, but visible, piece of our civic realm. A mature civic realm can be conceived of as the entire system of public spaces both contained by these civic buildings and connecting them. Contrary to other classification systems, I would like to propose that the civic realm is made up of only two categories of public space. In the most complex of conditions Shared Space and Landscaped Space, supported by quality public and private buildings, can provide the full range of conditions required for a meaningful civic realm to exist.

A Shared Space can be characterized as a piazza, piazzetta, plaza and, most importantly, streets and thoroughfares. I find these spaces fall under the guideline that urbanism enjoys complexity. These are “mixed-use” spaces in true form. Surprising is that within the best urbanism these spaces make no special consideration for the car. Properly programmed, multi-modal and effectively scaled the street is the most abundant of all shared public spaces. Yet we dilute the street down to a traffic tool in all American conditions. Why? When there are so many precedents for how a street can support all modes of transport equally. Few, if any, engineers will stamp drawings for the construction of a true piazza, piazzetta or plaza effectively removing these timeless forms from the urbanist’s palette. Our struggles for reducing the width of streets has taken too long. The ability to develop a true piazza needs to be possible. We must resurrect Shared Space as a possible modern urban form.

Landscape Spaces exist to connect urban dwellers to nature and to support the emotional experience of the pedestrian. Landscape Spaces create the contemplative places within a village, town or city. They are formed by having a strong connection with nature. The quay running along the river Siene in Paris, the great lawn in New York’s Central Park and the tree lined promenades of Villa Borghese in Rome are all stunning examples of how a Landscape Space gives emotion and soul to a city. Care must be given toward balancing the scale, orientation and natural features of our greens, squares, gardens and parks to ensure they offer the urban dweller relief in any form they wish to find.

Physical Characteristics of Public Space

Is a boulevard really a successful public space if it does not provide a pleasing escape for the pedestrian? Is a small plaza really a successful public space if it does not allow for the cafe to swell in the evening filling ever available square foot with patrons? As we contort the forms of our civic realm to support the modern demands placed upon them by public process and the science of traffic “engineering” (Jacobs, p. 72) we lose the characteristic that allow these spaces to be the foundation for a vibrant and living urbanism.

“The design standards imposed by the highway engineering profession, for instance, are particularly damaging to community as they ensure the dominance of the motor vehicle over the pedestrian, even within the neighborhood. If I may say so, your profession [architects] could be of great help with this challenge of converting the planning and engineering professions, as surely you have noticed that the well-proportioned neighborhoods of the Georgian and Victorian era hold their value far better than the monocultural housing estates of the past 50 years.” (HRH Prince of Wales, 2009)

As Urbanists, we must take up the Prince’s challenge. By giving modern meaning to the characteristics of a quality public space we can allow a boulevard to be a boulevard and plaza to be a plaza. We should no longer support the hybrid, or false, forms being forced upon our citizens.

Balancing the form of a public space is essential. It is most successful when all three dimensions of the space, as well as the surface treatments and sculpture, are considered in concert. It is understood that the containment of a public space is critical. Establishing the constraints of the outdoor room is also linked to the width and length of a public space. As mentioned earlier, we struggle to create narrow streets. I would also like to propose that our squares, and if we could build them, plazas and piazze are much too large.

“In former times all the arrangements and building forms we have enumerated were joined naturally in a unified arrangement that enclosed that plaza. In contrast to this, one tries in modern times to lay the plaza open. What this implies should be clear form what has been said above. It is equivalent to destroying the old plazas. Wherever such a disastrous undertaking has been carried out, the spatial effect is lost forever.” (Sitte, p. 176)

Christopher Alexander has also developed several patterns which I find often over-looked in contemporary practice.

“Pattern 61 – Make a public square much smaller then you would at first imagine; usually no more than 45 to 60 feet across, never more than 70 feet across. This applies only to its width in the short direction. In the long direction it can certainly be longer.” (Alexander, p. 313)

“Pattern 123 – For public squares, courts, pedestrian streets, any place where crowds are drawn together, estimate the mean number of people in the place at any given moment (P), and make the area of the place between 150P and 300P square feet.” (Alexander, p. 598)

Do modern planners or landscape architects consider the population of a public space when considering its most effective size? It is time to reexamine the size and proportions of the public spaces we design and ensure that they are appropriate to the activities, surrounding architecture and number of users. Size does matter.

Layers exist within all great public spaces. Picture the Piazza del Campo. The image of Siene’s Palazzo Pubblico, with its great tower, might come to mind, or the comfortable slope of its fan shaped form. But, with further scrutiny one can begin to see the layers of this space more clearly. The cafés, with their deep sienna brown awnings, situated on the ground floors of the surrounding buildings establish the outside layer and give the piazza its essential active edge. Just as important as engaging uses at the ground level is the composition, slightly varying fenestration and harmonious cornice line of the surrounding buildings. The tower pierces the perceived ceiling of the piazza completing the required characteristic that a public space be engaging in all dimensions. The tower can quickly be established as this spaces center, but with more investigation one will find that the square in fact has many centers. The portico of the Palazzo, opposite the portico is the Fonte Gaia, typically the square as several vendors dotted along its inner edge, the ring road between the cafés for strolling the circumference of the space and the sloping red brick floor with its many groups of seated onlookers all provide a difference experience. The addition of each of these layers enriches the composition giving the public space more significance.

Significance for public space can mean many things. Great spaces possess significant gravity. Several blocks away one should be able to sense, as if it is pulling you in, the nearing public space. This energy emitted from a significant public space attracts more than just pedestrians. At times this can create a gradient of taller builds, more intense ground floor users and increase in the number of intersections and streets. This gravity can also give a neighborhood its identity. “I live just off Washington Square Park” not only uses the significance of the square to orient location, but demonstrates how the gravity of the public space imposes identity on the surrounding blocks as well. The gravity created between the constellations of public spaces present throughout a civic realm give additional vibrancy to the traffic that flows throughout the city. This pulse of mobility gives life to not only the centers of activity but the various arms connecting them.

There are additional spaces that surround and lead into the primary place. They are the foyers for publics space during large events, the quieter plaza filled with cafés just outside the busy market square or the commercial nodes just outside the gates of the public garden providing refreshments to the scene. A healthy civic realm has a constellation of iconic public spaces. Each of these individual spaces possesses a constellation of supporting space. They might provide relief during extreme conditions or give space for services to support the active edge of the square. A single public space is better when it is part of a series of spaces. This fractal relationship gives vibrancy and depth to a living urbanism.

Public spaces are living. They breathe, sleep, require maintenance and enjoy company. As urbanism ages it continues to grow, change and adapt to the conditions of the time. This is true of the public spaces within that urbanism as well. Over designed and ridged alignment to uses significantly hinder the successful aging of a public space. These spaces must possess a certain amount of flexibility. This is even true within the span of one year. The best public space can support its citizens throughout the year. There is no “session.” The life of the city should not halt in winter. Prague does not close its squares due to cold weather. The many groups, clubs and organizations that a loved public space establishes will further extend the life of these places. These groups will give guidance to the space and provide resources as it ages. Quality public spaces are living infrastructure.

Beauty is Essential

A timeless public space is beautiful. This perhaps is the essential characteristic. Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder. However, on average the dull, rigid and sterile places that mid-century planners conceived of as beautiful public space have failed. Beauty to the masses, not to a small group of intellectual designers, is essential for a public space to be successful. This beauty ensures the long term enjoyment of a space is certain. Fashion changes too frequently. To let it guide the creation of public space is a mistake. Beautiful squares, plazas, parks and gardens are multigenerational investments. Their form must be timeless for the required investment to be worth its value to a society. Beauty is more likely to be loved, and loved public spaces are more likely to spawn the groups required to maintain and care for it as the life of urbanism surrounding it unfolds. A loved public space endures.

Cycle of Involvement

What does the civic realm really mean to the city? Inevitably cultures and societies evolve. The civic realm provides the platform for this evolution. The civic realm is both the glue that holds a society together and a mirror that allows it to see its failures. This question is not correct; the civic realm means different things to different people. The meanings are not important, but the fact that the civic realm is present in one’s life is. We are just now becoming aware of what the lack of a civic realm can do to a culture and a society.

The civic realm engages the memory. It provides a physical history of a place either through the preservation of its best historic structures or through the generational interaction and story telling that gives rise to the myths of a place. The public spaces of living urbanism should persist within one’s memory. The mind should hold on to their image long since created. The most literal representation of the civic realms memory is those monuments and memorials erected to celebrate our past and the people who made life possible. Either in the squares of Savannah or under Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe the physical memory is real. It is these memories, provide in large part through the civic realm, that serve to give a place its soul.

One comes to respect both one’s place and oneself more in the presence of the past’s greatest accomplishments. This respect, carried by the citizens’ sense of a place, resists filth, counteracts vandalism and elevates the spirit of said place. Given respect, by way of the connections to previous accomplishments, a successful civic realm’s public spaces will be cherished.

The cycle of a person’s involvement with the public spaces of their civic realm will come to teach them how to care. It will give them pride for their locale and its continued success. Pride will lead to ownership. The city will become one’s own and in time this ownership brings one further comfort in its spaces – a comfort that makes the city a home. Through a populations life cycle of experience within a civic realm, many stories will be crafted which, over time, will enrich the memories of a living urbanism.

Stewardship

A market square is more then just the physical space of the market square. Public space is a platform for the life of a city to unfold. However, a play needs its actors, script and time of performance to bring an audience. Successful public spaces require users. The best of these places provide activities for their users. The smallest parking court can be elevated to a public space when planted with a fruit tree. The cycle of caring for the tree, picking its fruit, smelling its flowers and enjoying its shade can create public space out of the simplest of utility areas. The activities in larger public spaces are produced. There are stewards of the space that initiate the production of the activities required to seed the cycle of involvement that leads to the long term enjoyment of a vibrant civic realm.

Just as important as the physical characteristics of a space are the activities carried out within, surrounding or through it. We have discussed the importance of the edge activities. But, often these need to be support and enticed by the activities available in the space proper. Just as the civic realm is divided into shared and landscaped space, activities can be passive and active. There is a strong correlation between landscaped spaces and passive activities. However, a quiet piazzette, with several café tables can be the loveliest of places to rest. Fred Kent, president of Project for Public Spaces, states that the best of public spaces are programmed by “zealous nuts.” It is these groups of nuts that knit together a square or park to improve its gravity, give opportunity for the creation of memories, and fundamentally provide for the enjoyment of future generations in the space.

At the center of a large publics space’s groups must be a “Friends of Great Kennedy Plaza” or a “Central Park Conservancy.” These organizations manage, fund and govern the ongoing operations of the space. They ensure its characteristics remain in place or improve. It is unfortunate, but modern urbanism requires successful large public spaces to be run like businesses.

Did Rome require Friends of the Forum? What kept the “geomorphic” spaces of unplanned cities running? (Kostof, p.43) We currently have no living tradition for the stewardship of our public space. During the last century, Americans learned that the stewardship of our native landscapes was worth the effort. During this century, we will learn that the stewardship of our village, town and city public spaces will be worth the effort as well. We must learn from Olmsted’s dual understanding for both the natural importance of Yellowstone’s preservation for the country and the complex details that would lead to Central Park’s success for New York. Both are of equal importance. Both required stewardship.

Local Economy

It is yet to be seen what type of global economy will be left, but being the optimist it is likely that global markets will still exist. The interesting thing about being competitive in a global market has a lot to do with the strength of your local market. For cities to be competitive globally they will need to differentiate themselves locally. Leveraging the advantages of the local arts, culture, landscape and vernacular building tradition is the foundation for cultivating a unique place in a global market. And we learned that a beautiful civic realm supports all of these items.

A resilient civic realm sets up so many factors that encourage innovation. In time of recession, people take to the streets with market stalls and push carts. These local economies would not be possible without established public space. Random encounters can lead to innovative interaction. The streets, square, plazas and parks are the places for locals to interact and improve their craft or practice.

What significant arts movement has been cultivated and supported by a suburban location? Movements, the type that inspire generations, begin in the cafés and piazze of our cities. The physical space of a city should be painted. Its beauty should be sketched, photographed and act as a well spring of creativity for future movements. A resilient civic realm captures the creativity of the group. The arts are perhaps the most radical of economies, but their practice is essential to pollinating the garden of innovation required for local economies to be successful. Fundamentally, a movement, either business or cultural, needs to be inspired. A living urbanism’s civic realm must provide this inspiration.

Civic and cultural institutions further enhance a local economy. Good public space gives visibility to these institutions and provides the essential link between the “Res publica” and “res privata”. These institutions are not only captured in the physical form of a museum or cathedral. Conservation can begin with a discussion in the square. Romance can ignite with a stroll through the garden. Just as a public space can give identity to a neighborhood, a resilient civic realm can help establish an attractive local culture. The institution of a romantic city can be a powerful enabler of the local economy.

Local economies are even more fine grain. The arrangement of public space gives identity to a district. The power of a good space provides the name to a neighborhood. These names can endure long past the time of their original conception. The economic power of a great civic realm can be demonstrated in the suburban shopping center habit of adorning placeless destinations with names traditionally assigned to the best public spaces.

A healthy social interaction, one that supports local economies, takes place in the public spaces of a living urbanism — commerce, or trade, originated in public space. That tradition is still present. I witnessed a chance encounter between two businessmen aboard a San Francisco trolley. One man hopped on, struck up a conversation with the man seated next to him and the next thing I knew they were getting off at the next stop heading toward the coffee shop to discuss a possible new venture. This is just one example of how a comfortable civic realm, not to mention public transit surrounding such areas, can support economic innovation. And if you believe Jane Jacobs, it is this type of innovation that keeps places alive.

Foundation for a Resilient Place

As Urbanists, we are responsible for helping to craft the foundations for a resilient place. A living urbanism is the best example of such a place. As we’ve discussed the creation, stewardship and enjoyment of a beautiful civic realm can have a profound effect on the successful passing of time. Celebrations and ceremonies are conducted within their enclosure, demonstrations are held in times of unease and direction given in times of crisis. The public spaces of our settlements are critical to their long term sustainability. These spaces are the constant throughout the lives of the citizens. Great care must be given to their creation and renewal. A beautiful public space can offer both a joyful reminder of the past and inspiring insight to the future.

As urbanists, we must realize that complexity is resilient. Natural ecosystems enjoy complexity as an essential piece of their endurance. Can a complex collections of public space help a local economy support itself during recession? Will these same public spaces improve themselves during booms? Many options are always more enjoyable than fewer and it seems as if contemporary planners, and even new Urbanists, are limiting the complexity possible in our built environment. A city or town should have a diverse selection of public spaces, each giving different types of citizens enjoyment. The stimulation of an elegantly complex civic realm keeps a culture renewed.

A living urbanism begins with community and space. It is the act of shaping this space that gives life to a place. Pleasing public space is the insurance that greater things are possible in a place. The quality of the civic realm is completely related to the comfortable level of density that the private spaces of a village, town or city can support.

A sophisticated civic realm allows for a compact population to exist. This population in turn improves the entire civic realm. It is essential for our projects to push this correlation. Achieving greater density is a significant piece of the puzzle that allows for transit, cultural institutions, local economies and an active street life to exist. It is this interdependence that makes the understanding and implementation of great public spaces so essential to our mission. As urbanists, we possess the skills necessary to lead the coming age of urban stewardship. It is time Urbanists regained control of our civic realm.

Works Cited

“Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning: With a translation of the 1889 Austrian edition of his City Planning According to Artistic Principles”

“The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History”

“Dark Age Ahead”

“A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction“

livingurbanism.wordpress.com/tag/camillo-sitte/

This is a re-loader. It brings a pair of missiles, and offloads them backwards onto an SA-3 Twin launcher. A really essential piece of equipment.

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. It was preceded into production by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible.

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

Equipment Type: all-environment variable fighter and tactical combat battroid

Government: U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force

Accommodation: pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (fully extended)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Powerplant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2008 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

18 x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Minimum time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x internal Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 rds fired at 1,200 rds/min

4 x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including

- 12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

- 12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

- 6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

- 4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point), each carrying 15x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

Optional Armament:

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry GBP-1S ground-combat protector weapon system, or

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry FAST Pack augmentative space weapon system

The kit and its assembly:

The second vintage 1:100 ARII VF-1 as a part of a Zentraedi squadron series, the canonical SVF-789. This one was inspired by a profile of such a machine in the “Macross Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Part 1” Art Book – true robot porn and full of valuable detail and background material for anyone who’d consider building a VF-1.

The SVF-789 machine shown in the book is a simple VF-1A, but with Zentraedi language markings and in a rather unusual livery in all dark green, yellow and black trim and grey low-viz roundels. While this does IMHO not really look sexy, I found the idea of a squadron, manned by former (alien) enemies very interesting. And so I took up the idea and started fleshing it out – including the idea of SVF-789’s initial base deep in the Amazonian jungle (justifying somehow the all-green livery!?).

This second build was to represent a flight leader’s aircraft, and consequently the basis is a VF-1J kit (which only differs outwardly through the head). In order to set the machine a little more apart I decided to incorporate some “Plus” program updates, including a different nose tip for the updated radar and two small fairings for IRST and laser designator sensors above and below the nose section, respectively. The fins’ tips were also modified – they were elongated a little through styrene sheet replacements.

This update is a bit early for the official Macross timeline, but I just wanted more than a standard J Valkyrie in a more exotic paint scheme.

Otherwise, this VF-1J fighter kit was built OOB, with the landing gear tucked up and the usual additions of some blade antennae, a pilot figure and a custom display stand in/under the ventral cannon pod.

The ordnance is non-standard, though; in this case the aircraft received two pairs of air-to-ground missiles (actually some misshapen Soviet AAMs from the Academy MiG-23 kit – either very fat R-60 ‘Aphid’ AAMs or very poor renditions of vintage K-6 ‘Alkali’ missiles?) inboards and four AMM-1 missiles on the outer pylons, with the lowest missile replaced by scratched ECM and chaff dispenser pods. The gun pod was also modified with a new nozzle, with parts from a surplus AMM-1 missile – also inspired by a source book entry.

Painting and markings:

This was planned to be a more exotic or extravagant interpretation of the profile from the book, which was already used as a guideline for the VF-1A build. The overall design of an all-green livery with a white nose tip as basis was kept, together with yellow trim on wings, fins and the stabilizer fins on the Valkyrie’s legs. The VF-1A already deviated from this slightly, but now I wanted something more outstanding – a bold flight leader’s mount.

Zentraedi vehicles tend to be rather colorful, so the tones I chose for painting were rather bright. For instance, the initial idea for the green was FS 34079, a tone which also comes close to the printed profile in the book. But it looked IMHO too militaristic, or too little anime-esque, so I eventually settled for something brighter and used Humbrol 195 (called Dark Satin Green, but it’s actually RAL 6020, Chromoxyd Grün, a color used on German railway wagons during and after WWII), later shaded with black ink for the engravings and Humbrol 76 (Uniform Green) for highlights.

The nose became pure white, the leading edge trim was painted with Revell 310 (Lufthansa Gelb, RAL 1028), a deep and rich tone that stands out well from the murky green.

In order to set this J Valkyrie apart from the all-dark green basic VF-1As, I added two bright green tones and a light purple as flight color: Humbrol 36 (called Pastel Green, but it’s actually very yellow-ish), 38 (Lime) and Napoleonic Violet from ModelMaster’s Authentic Line, respectively. 36 was applied to the lower legs and around the cockpit section, including the spinal fairing with the air brake. The slightly darker 38 was used on the wings and fins as well as for the fuselage’s and wings’ underside. On top of the wings and the inner and outer fins, the surfaces were segmented, with the dark green as basic color.

As an additional contrast, the head, shoulder guards and additional trim highlights on the legs as well as for a double chevron on the breast plate were painted in the pale purple tone. A sick color combination, but very Zentraedi/Meltraedi-esque!

The cockpit interior was, according to Macross references, painted in Dark Gull Grey. The seat received brown cushions and the pilot figure was turned into a micronized Meltraedi (yes, the fictional pilot Taqisha T’saqeel is to be female) with a colorful jumpsuit in violet and white, plus a white and red helmet – and bright green skin! The gun pod became dark blue (Humbrol 112, Field Blue), the AMM-1 missiles received a pale grey livery while the air-to-ground missiles and the chaff dispenser became olive drab. As an additional contrast, the ECM pod became white. A wild mix of colors!

This was even enhanced through U.N. Spacy roundels in standard full color – their red really stands out. The squadron emblem/symbol on the fin was painted with a brush, but in this case in a smaller variant and with two USN/USAF style code letters for the home basis added.

Since I can not print white letters onto clear decal sheet at home, the aircraft’s tactical code ‘300’ was created with letters from the human alphabet. A simplification and deviation from the original concept, but I found the only alternative of painting tiny and delicate Zentraedi codes by brush and hand just to be too risky.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a sheen acrylic varnish – with the many, contrasting colors a pure matt finish somehow did not appear right.

Building was relatively simple, just the rhinoplasty was a little tricky – a very subtle modification, though, but the pointed and slightly deeper nose changed the VF-1’s look. The standard Zentraedi-style VF-1 of SVF-789 already looked …different, but this one is … bright, if not challenging to the naked eye. Anyway, there’s more in the creative pipeline from the Zentraedi unit – this aircraft’s pilot in the form of a modified resin garage kit.

XIL 46 is a Scania K340EB$/Irizar PB new to Baker, Weston-super-Mare in January 2009 as their number 103. It later worked for Guideline Coaches of London, Mearns Exclusive Travel of East Kilbride, MCT of Motherwell as T20 MCT and JP Coahces of Forfar as XIL 46. It is seen here on the Isle of Arran approaching Brodick ferry terminal.

Il cimitero di Rosenthal (Valdirose in Italiano, Rožna Dolina in Sloveno)

Valdirose, cimitero della comunità ebraica, com’è stato per tante parti di Gorizia, stravolte dalla guerra prima, e dal confine poi, si trova appena oltre il valico confinario, in territorio Sloveno.

Una superstrada sorretta da enormi piloni di cemento grigio ne sovrasta la vista, tanto che per guardare il cielo, ci si deve girare seguendo l’orientamento delle lapidi verso Gerusalemme.

Tra l’ingresso del cimitero e il campo c’è una roggia, come vuole la tradizione ebraica, ma il ponticello che dall’entrata principale portava all’area delle sepolture è stato abbattuto, e la cappella mortuaria è ora trasformata in casinò, uno fra i tanti disseminati tra Nova Gorica e la sua periferia. Il cancello in ferro che delimita l’ingresso secondario è stato divelto, tanto che è impossibile chiuderlo.

Dentro, molte lapidi sono cadute, e spesso per passare si finisce per camminarci sopra.

Rosenthal-Valdirose è un tipico cimitero ashkenazita, se ci si astrae può sembrare di essere in un cimitero ebraico di Leopoli, o di Praga.

Le lapidi sono state consumate dal tempo, molte scritte sono illeggibili, ma è possibile, ancora, riconoscere i nomi di personaggi noti, importanti per Gorizia e non solo: Bolaffio, Luzzatto, Richetti, Morpurgo.

Sopra un piccolo cippo, protetto dalla più imponente lapide della famiglia Michaelstaedter, qualcuno ha posto dei sassolini, come si usa tra gli ebrei.

Il cippo ricorda Carlo Michelstaedter, piccolo perché eretto in memoria di un suicida, il filosofo, scrittore e poeta, che nel 1910 si tolse la vita a soli 23 anni perché convinto di aver «già detto tutto».

Personaggi famosi, tanta gente comune, e qualche soldato dell’esercito AustroUngarico caduto durante la prima guerra mondiale.

La comunità Ebraica , numericamente prevalente a Gorizia per almeno due secoli, dopo il primo conflitto mondiale è andata via via assottigliandosi fino al centinaio di persone risultanti alla fine degli anni ’30.

Deportati durante la guerra, solo due fecero ritorno.

The Jewish cemetery of Rosenthal (Valdirose in Italian, Rožna Dolina in Slovene).

Rosenthal has followed the fate of Gorizia, whose identity has been devastated by the WWI and the border redefinition that followed, and lies now in Slovenian territory.

An highway supported by enormous concrete pylons lies nearby, so if you want to watch the sky you must turn your head following the guideline of burial stones towards Jerusalem.

Nearby flows a small river, as per Jewish tradition, but the small bridge that used to lead to the main entrance has been pulled down, and the mortuary chapel has been transformed in a casinò, one between the many scattered between Nova Gorica and its periphery. The iron gate has been bent, so that is impossible to close it.

Inside, many stones have fallen, and often to pass trough you are forced to walk over them. Rosenthal is a typical ashkenazite cemetery, you can feel as you were in Prague.

Many stones are consumed from the time, yet many are still readable, and it is possible to recognize the names of famous, important personages for Gorizia: Bolaffio, Luzzatto, Richetti, Morpurgo. Over a little one, someone has placed small stones, as it is used between the Hebrew. There lies Karl Michelstaedter, and it’s small because it’s for a suicide. Karl, philosopher, writer and poet, ended his life at 23 y o , convinced to have “already said it all”. Famous figures, common people, and some soldier of the AustroHungarian army fallen during the first world war. The Jewish community, numerically prevailing in Gorizia for at least two centuries, after the WWI has gradually faded till the hundred people counted end of the '30s.

Deported during WWII, only two of them had made return.

Photo Specifics: Right Side. Profile. Travel-lock engaged.

This is the Cuban Tracked SA-2 'Guideline' (S-75) Surface-to-Air Missile Launcher. It consists of a Soviet SM-90 Launcher armed with an SA-2 SAM that is mounted on a T-55 Tank Hull. This is a design indigenous to Cuba, and unique to it's Military as well.

Model Features:

Scale 1:27

Launcher rotates 360' and has about 75' of elevation

Commander and Driver Hatches / Compartments

Removable Travel-Lock

(2) Working cable spools

Removable SA-2 Missile

Rolling Chassis

Military Marking Decals by Bison

Detailing Decals by my good friend Jeff Churill a.k.a. Cooper Works

Meet the Crew HERE.

Want to see more angles? Check out the Set!!

Here's a pic of the Real Thing.

This is my latest addition to my growing family of Tracked Soviet Developed Surface-to-Air Missile Launchers.

If you haven't already, check out the SA-3 Launcher and SA-4 Launcher!

The S-75 Dvina was a Soviet high-altitude air-defence system, using a V-750 surface-to-air guided missile. It was one of the most widely deployed air-defence systems in history and in October 1959 it became the first surface-to-air system to destroy an enemy aircraft, when three Chinese missiles destroyed a Taiwanese RB-57D over China. Given the NATO reporting name ‘SA-2 Guideline’, it achieved worldwide recognition when it was used to shoot down Gary Powers’ U-2 over Moscow in 1960 and then a second U-2 over Cuba in October 1962.

This is an SA-2B variant known in Russia as the S-75 Desna. It could intercept targets at between 1,600ft and 98,400ft and had a range of 21 miles. It was donated to the Smithsonian Institute by the US Navy in 1985 and is seen on display in the Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center as part of the National Air and Space Museum.

Washington Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia

7th May 2015

sorry: no diagram, no instructions. Hope the CP will be a guideline in case you are impatient ...

Night photo of Downtown Dallas taken 06-26-10 from the west of Downtown. As a point of reference, the currently tallest structure in the Dallas cityscape is the Bank of America Tower at 72 stories and 921 feet in height, the 20th tallest building in the United States, lined in green argon.

Downtown Dallas with its Uptown District contains 50,319,621 square feet of office space per the latest 3Q10 office report from CoStar - the largest of any urban core in Texas. As a comparison Houston's CBD, the second largest in Texas, contains 43,129,432 square feet of office space per the latest 3Q10 office report from Transwestern. The Downtown Dallas CBD is 17% larger than Houston's.

[Editors note: CoStar and Transwestern count both single tenant and multi-tenant buildings, which provides a much clearer picture of a cities office space market. Dallas has several very large Downtown tenants that occupy multiple buildings as single tenants (i.e. AT&T's World Headquarters fully occupies three or four buildings, Hunt Oil occupies a building it built for itself, Belo Broadcasting occupies several office buildings, etc.). Other office reports such as Cushman Wakefield, Grubb & Ellis and CBRE count only multi-tenant buildings in their reports, providing an incomplete and distorted view of office space in a city.]

Museum Tower, at 560 feet tall and 42 stories costing $200 million dollars, is under construction (its construction crane is not yet in place and visible in this photo but will soon be as the foundation excavation is proceeding at a rapid pace).

The 5.2 acre Woodall Rodgers Urban Park is under construction. The Woodall Rodgers Urban park is creating a "Central Park" like setting amidst the skyscrapers of Downtown Dallas and will be the "front lawn" to Museum Tower. The Woodall Rodgers Urban Park is costing $110 million dollars.

Woodall Rodgers Freeway is becoming the new 21st century "Main Street" of Downtown Dallas with the intense development that has occurred fronting Woodall Rodgers Freeway from both the south (the traditional Dallas CBD) and the north (Dallas CBD's Uptown district) sides of the freeway.

The amount of construction activity in the immediate and near vicinity of Woodall Rodgers has become a major hotbed of skyscraper development for Dallas, currently now and going forward into the future.

The Calatrava Bridge, center left photo in foreground, at 400 feet tall and costing $165 million dollars, is under construction and is extending Woodall Rodgers Freeway across the Trinity River into Oak Cliff/West Dallas on the west side of Downtown Dallas. Calatrava Bridge will make a dramatic impact on the skyline as it will have wire suspensions stretching in both directions, will be painted white and illuminated at night, creating a dramatic visual sculpture on the Downtown cityscape.

The Calatrava Bridge is a keystone development that will open up hundreds of millions, and ultimately billions of dollars, of development along the Trinity River Lakes project that is unfolding at the doorstep of Downtown Dallas. The Downtown Dallas central core will then not only have jumped over Woodall Rodgers Freeway to encompass what is now its Uptown District to the north but will also jump over the Trinity River to include skyscraper and highrise development on the Oak Cliff/West Dallas side of the Trinity River to the west via the Calatrava Bridge.

While some may like to call it a bridge to nowhere, in fact it is THE bridge to the future.

Plans call for over 30,000,000 square feet of new dense urban highrise and skyscraper development to be built in West Dallas along with the addition of 24,000 residents in the next 17 years ... pretty incredible growth. It is the Calatrava Bridge and the new frontier it will open up that will catapult Dallas into its status as the "Chicago of the South" by 2030.

Here is the planned development guideline developed by the City for the new urban frontier of West Dallas:

www.dallascityhall.com/citydesign_studio/pdf/WD_UrbanStru...

The 14 story Perot Museum of Nature and Science is also under construction. This is a spectacular museum addition to the Downtown Dallas core; the Perot Museum is costing $185 million dollars.

The Museum's 4.7 acre site is located at the NW corner of Woodall Rodgers Freeway and Field Street, adjacent to Victory Park. The Museum will be situated at the crossroads of the future Trinity River Corridor Project, the Arts District, the West End, Uptown, and other popular attractions.

Also currently under construction is the Dallas City Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District. The City Performance Hall is a magnificent facility in the world class Dallas Arts District and is costing $100 million dollars. The Dallas Arts District is the largest arts district in the nation, spanning 68 acres and 19 contiguous blocks in Downtown Dallas.

The Omni Hotel, a 1,001 room, 23 story, 376 foot tall hotel costing half a billion dollars, sheathed in blue glass, next to the Dallas Convention Center is under construction on the far right of the photo.

The Omni Hotel is located on 8 acres in the heart of downtown, which is experiencing a renaissance from more than $14 billion in new development underway in and near the urban core. Two acres of the Omni Hotel site are slated for additional dining, retail and other venues which will enhance entertainment opportunities for those who visit, work or live downtown.

First Baptist Church of Downtown Dallas has started work on a massive development to its Downtown Dallas campus. Several older buildings are slated to be imploded on Oct. 30, 2010 to make room for the significant new development that will be occurring. Cranes for the development will appear later once the excavation and ground work is completed. First Baptist Downtown Dallas is spending $130 million dollars on their new campus development.

As a further indication of the booming Downtown Dallas corridor, a $100 million dollar 23 story upscale apartment building called 1400 Hi Line is under construction as of 01-19-11 at the corner of Hi Line and Stemmons Freeway. The new highrise will front Stemmons and will be located across the freeway from the American Airlines Center. A nearby DART rail station will serve the residents of the 1400 Hi Line highrise.

Read more about this exciting 23 story upscale development for Downtown Dallas here: loweroaklawn.com/spotlight/coming-soon-hi-rise-living-on-...

The total of just the projects listed above equals $1.5 billion dollars in new development underway in Downtown Dallas at this moment, but the above list is by no means inclusive of all construction projects in process. A total of more than $14 billion dollars in construction outlays are occurring right now in Downtown and near Downtown Dallas!

What is amazing is the level of significant financial investment that is occurring in Downtown Dallas during an economic downturn in the nation's economy - but Dallas is still growing, building and investing in itself today for a much better tomorrow.

A recent article titled "The Rejuvenation of Downtown Dallas", published in the October 2010 edition of D Magazine, concerning the incredibly positive developments that are occurring now and their impact on the future of Downtown Dallas that will power it into the upper echelon of elite U.S. cities:

www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_CEO/2010/October/The_Rejuvenatio...

And another significant recognition and accolade from Forbes Magazine, published 09-02-09, that highlights Dallas' worldwide reach and influence and its growing significance on the world stage:

www.forbes.com/2009/09/02/world-capitals-cities-century-o...

Dallas will surpass Chicago as the 3rd largest metro in the nation by 2030 or sooner, published 03-15-10 in The Dallas Morning News:

www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall...

Free texture for your use and abuse. Guidelines are below. Enjoy.

Original (3008x2000): farm3.static.flickr.com/2157/2535508169_897d0cc31f_o_d.jpg

Rules

+ You may use these stock photos (those only marked as such) in any project: personal, commercial, profit, non-profit.

+ You are not required to link back to me, give me credit, shake my hand, walk my dog, bake me a cake, or do anything else aside from use the stock photographs. However, a link back and credit is appreciated. If you like to run around your house naked except for potholders, it would be cool if you would scream my name a few times.

+ You may NOT modify these and redistribute, even if not for profit.

+ You may use these in printed publications, graphics, artwork, etc without obtaining prior permission from me. If you are using any of the stock photos in a printed publication, flyer, etc, I would love to see a final version of how the photos were used.

Opinion

One frustration of mine is finding a great resource and then having your hands tied by some overly exhaustive guideline provided by the creating artist. Sometimes I believe that people get too carried away with the rules and restrictions they apply to their resources. I want to avoid that with my textures, which is why I am encouraging the outright abuse of these textures. Well, you get what I mean.

INSTRUCTIONS AVAILABLE TO BUILD THIS MODEL

Packard had struggled to regain its position as America’s premier luxury marque after WWII.

The 1951 Packards were completely redesigned. Designer John Reinhart introduced a high-waisted, more squared-off profile fitting the contemporary styling trends — very different from the traditional flowing design of the immediate postwar era. New styling features included a one-piece windshield, a wrap-around rear window, small tailfins on the long-wheelbase models, a full-width grill (replacing the traditional Packard upright design), and blunt "guideline fenders" with the hood and front fenders at the same height. The 122-inch (3,099 mm) wheelbase supported low-end 200-series standard and Deluxe two- and four-doors, and 250-series Mayfair hardtop coupes (Packard's first), and convertibles. Upmarket 300 and Patrician 400 models rode a 127-inch (3,226 mm) wheelbase.

Nance originally had hoped to introduce the new "Clipper" as a stand-alone marque, targeting the mid range price field which he felt was dragging the Packard image down. When word was leaked to the Packard dealer network that they would be losing their best-selling Packard model to "Clipper", they balked. As an appeasement, Nance rolled the Clipper out as a Packard, and worked to transition the cars toward their own make. Thus, the Packard Clipper name was reintroduced and applied to the company's entry-level models, previously known as the Packard 200, beginning in 1953.

The Packard inline eight, despite being an older design that lacked the power of Cadillac's engines, was very smooth. When combined with an Ultramatic transmission, the drivetrain made for a nearly quiet and smooth experience on the road. However, it struggled to keep pace with the horsepower race, which was increasingly moving to high compression, short stroke engines capable of sustained driving at speeds greater than 55 MPH.

Parked on Regent Road is Harlequin Coaches of Livingston Irizar PB bodied Scania FA62ENG acquried from Guideline of Battersea.

ACH 80A is a Scania K114EB4/Irizar PB C49Ft coach in the fleet of Alexcars, Cirencester, Gloucestershire. It was new to Blueways Dorset, Swanage as YN05 GYY in August 2005, although it arrived from Guideline (Blueways), Battersea, London, in June 2009. It was given its current mark in September 2014. It is pictured taking Swindon Town FC supporters to Wembley for the Sky Bet League One Play-Off Final against Preston North End. The operator sadly ceased trading in April 2020 after 74 years service, in part due to the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Want to find out more? Join The PSV Circle - Details at www.psvcircle.org.uk

Copyright © P.J. Cook, all rights reserved. It is an offence to copy, use or post this image anywhere else without my permission.

sorry: no diagram, no instructions. Hope the CP will be a guideline in case you are impatient ...

A Haiku Note:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life is but a dream

not really reality

it's an illusion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You too shall pass away.

Knowing this, how can you quarrel?"

~ The Buddha ~

~ (0000 1011) ~

::::::::::: 0B :::::::::::

=====: 11 :=====

The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.

1. Right View

Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.

2. Right Intention

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

3. Right Speech

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

4. Right Action

The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.

5. Right Livelihood

Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.

6. Right Effort

Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

7. Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.

8. Right Concentration

The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels of concentration also in everyday situations.

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. The recognition and understanding of mental health conditions has changed over time and across cultures, and there are still variations in the definition, assessment, and classification of mental disorders, although standard guideline criteria are widely accepted. A few mental disorders are diagnosed based on the harm to others, regardless of the subject's perception of distress. Over a third of people in most countries report meeting criteria for the major categories at some point in their lives.

The causes are often explained in terms of a diathesis-stress model or biopsychosocial model. In biological psychiatry, mental disorders are conceptualized as disorders of brain circuits likely caused by developmental processes shaped by a complex interplay of genetics and experience.[1]

Services are based in psychiatric hospitals or in the community. Diagnoses are made by psychiatrists or clinical psychologists using various methods, often relying on observation and questioning in interviews. Treatments are provided by various mental health professionals. Psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are two major treatment options, as are social interventions, peer support and self-help. In some cases there may be involuntary detention and involuntary treatment where legislation allows.

Stigma and discrimination add to the suffering associated with the disorders, and have led to various social movements attempting to increase acceptance.

Black schist. Preserved dimensions 45.8 x 72.3 x 6 cm

Found at the ancient settlement at Veiga da Samardã adjacent to the Roman mines of Tresminas.

AE 1980.583: [--- M]agius / [Ma]gi f(ilius) Clun/iensis an/norum XX[---] / h(ic) s(itus) e(st)

Dated to the first three quarters of the 1st c. CE

On display at the Complexo Mineiro do Ouro Romano, Centro Interpretativo, Tresminas, Portugal

(Roman gold-mining complex, Interpretive Center)

Tresminas Complexo Mineiro do Ouro Romano

Near Marble Arch 13th Sept 2010

FEAR HERE !! image.blog.livedoor.jp/guideline/imgs/6/9/6991b5d4.jpg spring vortex...big = photos6.flickr.com/7317841_4e80e35f80_o.jpg more info can be found here, www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/ca10170.htm & here... www.trophybassonly.com/id56.htm and www.flickr.com/photos/astrovinni/270441096/in/set-1774549/

© All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal

See an interesting thread on the idea of rules and self-censorship through means of ruling. Egyptian activist and blogger 3arabawy's account is threaten to be deleted. His account is the biggest and the only visual source of social contests in Egypt. More than 8000 pictures , masterpieces of social documentary, are going to vanish from Flickr if there is no collective support to his case.

According to Flickr's watchdogs/mediators 3arabawy disrespected the guideline of "Do upload content that you have created. Respect the copyright of others." 3arabawy diffuses pictures of other Egyptian photographers UNDER their AUTHORIZATION. Actually no photographer complained of 3arabawy's uploads as stealing copyrights. But mediators keep considering his account as "out of law" and proposing him to move to another website. Asking him to move to another website they will censor him (although undirectly) from Flickr. This is VEILED CENSORSHIP.

However there are some possible exits. The law and the copyright issue prove to be flexible: Barack Obama was authorized to upload other photographers pictures on "his" account. May Flickr be thanked for its contribution in the campaign for Change. More than the campaign issue iself, Flickr proved to be lucid and giving the concept of social network all its political and social dimension. Flickr is actually an important platform for giving visibility for all kind of pictures including social documentary. We might keep in mind the important role of social documentary in political struggles of the past decades.

Flickr must assume its role of social network and platform preventing 3arabawy's work. Failing to protect 3arabawy's archives, Flickr would make the game of censorship better than any state would expect it.

Please support 3arabawy's case by contributing to the ongoing discussion here:

www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/84895/

Let's keep 3arabawy's account like it is!

See where this picture was taken. [?]

The biggest challenge in one of my last assignments used to be the picture ratio. A very wide screen crop was needed for the pictures, so I asked the designer to get me a generic photo, calculated it's ratio down to my camera's LCD and sticked a small guideline frame on it to properly compose the photos. Worked perfectly.

Bareflash, with a spot filter from right. PW Triggers

guideline of orpington m1

This is the a Soviet-designed, high-altitude air defense system S-75 Dvina also known as the SA-2 Guideline.

Size: 1/32

Color: Dark Gray and Light Bluish Gray

View Witchcraft On Black

I think I used way too much honey……Eight Jars!!!!!!!!!!!

Just Breath Into A Paper Bag When Needed…….SORRY…….. ;0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZIBm2QGaM

Those fingers in my hair

That sly come hither stare

That strips my conscience bare

It’s witchcraft

And........ I’ve got no defense for it

The heat is too intense for it

What good would common sense for it do

Cause it’s..... Witchcraft... Wicked.... Witchcraft

And.... although.... I know.... it’s strictly........ taboo

When you arouse the need in me

My heart says yes indeed in me

Proceed with what your leading me to

It’s such an ancient pitch

But one I wouldn’t switch

Cause there’s no nicer witch than you

This form of spell casting is employed when you want to set up a powerful sweetening spell in a small place and keep it working for as long as you wish.

Honey jars are extremely convenient and one reason for their continued popularity is that although they can be worked on an altar like other forms of bottle spells, they can also be literally hidden in plain sight in a kitchen cabinet.

Another early version of the homey jar bottle spell employs a hollowed-out red apple or red onion to hold honey and the name-paper of the person on whom you are working.

The apple or onion may be shut up in a tin and a candle burned on the tin's lid -- or it can be placed in the bottom of a flower pot, with a plant grown on top of it to hide the spell.

The plant takes the place of candle, but it radiates the intent of the spell just the same. It can be given as a gift to the person on whom you are working, and can spread its sweetness throughout their home

BTW........

This is........ WILD HONEY .........From inside a tree in the woods

VERY POWERFUL

In the old days, when skin color was a lot more important to people than it is now; it was recommended that the color of the sweetener match the skin of the person you wanted to sweeten.

Thus, for a white judge, you might use Crystal Syrup, and for a Latino loan officer you might use light brown sugar syrup, and for a dark-skinned lover you might use Blackstrap Molasses.

Frankly, these days specifying a person's skin color is not as meaningful as it once was (for which we can all be thankful),

and today many folks prefer to use honey for the spell, no matter what the target's skin color is, because it is a natural sweetener and not man-made.

I believe that if you just follow your own intuition and decide which sweetener you like the best, you can be confident that you have made the right choice.

Next, prepare your paper.

Again, in the old days, we would be told to use white paper for a white person, tan paper for a high-brown, and rough old grocery-bag paper for a person of dark color, but these days the type of paper you use can simply be a matter of personal style.

I often use a smooth, tan-colored light-weight shopping bag paper because that is my choice, based on the way I was taught, which was that such paper is pure paper.

No matter which kind of paper I use, I prepare my paper by tearing it neatly on all four sides so there is no machine-cut edge.

Of course some folks trim their paper square with scissors -- and the spell still works for them.

So go ahead and prepare your paper just as you wish and that will suffice.

Once you have got your paper together, write the person's name three times on it, one name under the other like so

John Russell Brown

John Russell Brown

John Russell Brown

Then rotate the paper 90 degrees clockwise and write your own name across the person's name, also three times:

Abigail Samantha Little

Abigail Samantha Little

Abigail Samantha Little

The result will be that the two names are crossed over each other, like a cross or a tic-tac-toe grid, and the other person's name will be under yours.

This is called crossing and covering their name. If the sweetening is being done for love, you can use a red ink pen. Otherwise, the color of the ink does not matter, and you can just as easily use a pencil.

Now all around the crossed names write your specific wish in a circle. If you need a guideline, lightly sketch the circle-shape with a pencil and then follow around it when writing with your ink pen.

You must write your wish in one continuous run of script letters, with no spaces -- AND WITHOUT LIFTING YOUR PEN FROM THE PAPER.

Do not cross your t's or dot your i's. Just write the words in one run and be sure to join up the end of the last word with the beginning of the first word so the circle is complete.

Then you can go back and cross your t's and dot your i's. To make it easy to connect the word together at the end.

I have found it best to make my petition in the form of short commands, such as "help me favor me help me favor me" or "love me love me love me" or "forgive me come back forgive me come back."

If you make a mistake -- for instance, if you lift your pen in the middle of writing your petition-circle -- throw away the paper and start it all over again. You want it to be perfect.

Fold the paper toward you to bring what you want your way and speak aloud your wish as you do so.

Turn the paper and fold it again, and again, always folding toward you, to bring what you want your way.

Speak aloud your wish each time you fold the paper toward you. Fold it until it will not fold any more.

Open the jar of honey.....

make room for the folded paper packet, you will need to eat some of the contents.

Take out a spoon's worth, and as you eat it, say, "As this honey is sweet to me, so will I become sweet to Marg or the name of the person you are working this on.

You can do this three times..........taking out three small spoonfuls of honey and speaking your wish aloud each time.

Push the folded paper packet down into the jar and close up the lid.

Thats it....

Just wait...... and he will drop to your feet......

Everyone says...... Love is so magical.......hehehe

It is.......

xoxoxoxoxo

If you read all of this......hehehe

Sometimes there is a spell in a spell

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. It was preceded into production by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible.

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

Equipment Type: all-environment variable fighter and tactical combat battroid

Government: U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force

Accommodation: pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (fully extended)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Powerplant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2008 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

18 x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Minimum time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x internal Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 rds fired at 1,200 rds/min

4 x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including

- 12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

- 12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

- 6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

- 4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point), each carrying 15x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

Optional Armament:

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry GBP-1S ground-combat protector weapon system, or

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry FAST Pack augmentative space weapon system

The kit and its assembly:

The second vintage 1:100 ARII VF-1 as a part of a Zentraedi squadron series, the canonical SVF-789. This one was inspired by a profile of such a machine in the “Macross Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Part 1” Art Book – true robot porn and full of valuable detail and background material for anyone who’d consider building a VF-1.

The SVF-789 machine shown in the book is a simple VF-1A, but with Zentraedi language markings and in a rather unusual livery in all dark green, yellow and black trim and grey low-viz roundels. While this does IMHO not really look sexy, I found the idea of a squadron, manned by former (alien) enemies very interesting. And so I took up the idea and started fleshing it out – including the idea of SVF-789’s initial base deep in the Amazonian jungle (justifying somehow the all-green livery!?).

This second build was to represent a flight leader’s aircraft, and consequently the basis is a VF-1J kit (which only differs outwardly through the head). In order to set the machine a little more apart I decided to incorporate some “Plus” program updates, including a different nose tip for the updated radar and two small fairings for IRST and laser designator sensors above and below the nose section, respectively. The fins’ tips were also modified – they were elongated a little through styrene sheet replacements.

This update is a bit early for the official Macross timeline, but I just wanted more than a standard J Valkyrie in a more exotic paint scheme.

Otherwise, this VF-1J fighter kit was built OOB, with the landing gear tucked up and the usual additions of some blade antennae, a pilot figure and a custom display stand in/under the ventral cannon pod.

The ordnance is non-standard, though; in this case the aircraft received two pairs of air-to-ground missiles (actually some misshapen Soviet AAMs from the Academy MiG-23 kit – either very fat R-60 ‘Aphid’ AAMs or very poor renditions of vintage K-6 ‘Alkali’ missiles?) inboards and four AMM-1 missiles on the outer pylons, with the lowest missile replaced by scratched ECM and chaff dispenser pods. The gun pod was also modified with a new nozzle, with parts from a surplus AMM-1 missile – also inspired by a source book entry.

Painting and markings:

This was planned to be a more exotic or extravagant interpretation of the profile from the book, which was already used as a guideline for the VF-1A build. The overall design of an all-green livery with a white nose tip as basis was kept, together with yellow trim on wings, fins and the stabilizer fins on the Valkyrie’s legs. The VF-1A already deviated from this slightly, but now I wanted something more outstanding – a bold flight leader’s mount.

Zentraedi vehicles tend to be rather colorful, so the tones I chose for painting were rather bright. For instance, the initial idea for the green was FS 34079, a tone which also comes close to the printed profile in the book. But it looked IMHO too militaristic, or too little anime-esque, so I eventually settled for something brighter and used Humbrol 195 (called Dark Satin Green, but it’s actually RAL 6020, Chromoxyd Grün, a color used on German railway wagons during and after WWII), later shaded with black ink for the engravings and Humbrol 76 (Uniform Green) for highlights.

The nose became pure white, the leading edge trim was painted with Revell 310 (Lufthansa Gelb, RAL 1028), a deep and rich tone that stands out well from the murky green.

In order to set this J Valkyrie apart from the all-dark green basic VF-1As, I added two bright green tones and a light purple as flight color: Humbrol 36 (called Pastel Green, but it’s actually very yellow-ish), 38 (Lime) and Napoleonic Violet from ModelMaster’s Authentic Line, respectively. 36 was applied to the lower legs and around the cockpit section, including the spinal fairing with the air brake. The slightly darker 38 was used on the wings and fins as well as for the fuselage’s and wings’ underside. On top of the wings and the inner and outer fins, the surfaces were segmented, with the dark green as basic color.

As an additional contrast, the head, shoulder guards and additional trim highlights on the legs as well as for a double chevron on the breast plate were painted in the pale purple tone. A sick color combination, but very Zentraedi/Meltraedi-esque!

The cockpit interior was, according to Macross references, painted in Dark Gull Grey. The seat received brown cushions and the pilot figure was turned into a micronized Meltraedi (yes, the fictional pilot Taqisha T’saqeel is to be female) with a colorful jumpsuit in violet and white, plus a white and red helmet – and bright green skin! The gun pod became dark blue (Humbrol 112, Field Blue), the AMM-1 missiles received a pale grey livery while the air-to-ground missiles and the chaff dispenser became olive drab. As an additional contrast, the ECM pod became white. A wild mix of colors!

This was even enhanced through U.N. Spacy roundels in standard full color – their red really stands out. The squadron emblem/symbol on the fin was painted with a brush, but in this case in a smaller variant and with two USN/USAF style code letters for the home basis added.

Since I can not print white letters onto clear decal sheet at home, the aircraft’s tactical code ‘300’ was created with letters from the human alphabet. A simplification and deviation from the original concept, but I found the only alternative of painting tiny and delicate Zentraedi codes by brush and hand just to be too risky.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a sheen acrylic varnish – with the many, contrasting colors a pure matt finish somehow did not appear right.

Building was relatively simple, just the rhinoplasty was a little tricky – a very subtle modification, though, but the pointed and slightly deeper nose changed the VF-1’s look. The standard Zentraedi-style VF-1 of SVF-789 already looked …different, but this one is … bright, if not challenging to the naked eye. Anyway, there’s more in the creative pipeline from the Zentraedi unit – this aircraft’s pilot in the form of a modified resin garage kit.