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The 57th Emirate Xenon, Ruler of the Caliphate of Xena, and of it's moral character. His Servitude was marked by intensive aid to the poor, and his normalization of trade relations with Zodiac, and with the Caliphate of Arga. Allowing a branch of the Zodian defense contractor Renminbi Corp. to be set up in the capital city of New Stellac, and in the latter case by arming his police force with Hero Factory equipment originating in Arga.
Compassionate, powerful, and beloved by his people. Long live the virtuous Emirate Xenon.
BREAKING: A #transgender representative in #Minnesota has introduced a bill that will remove the exclusion of #pedophiles from the protected class of “sexual orientation.”
This means it will be illegal to discriminate against CHILD RAPISTS!
This is what we have been sounding the alarm on. There is a concerted effort to normalize the sexualization of #Children and to legalize #pedophilia. This is one more step toward that end goal.
We need everyone to join in this fight before it is too late.
#GaysAgainstGroomers
Kinky Hair Syndrome, also known as Menkes syndrome, is a genetic disorder in which the hair is fragile and twisted. There is progressive deterioration of the brain and arterial changes leading to death in infancy. The condition is an inborn error of metabolism that markedly decreases the ability to absorb copper. It can often be diagnosed by looking at the person's hair, which appears to be both whitish and kinked when viewed under a microscope.
Injections of copper histidine or copper chloride administered within the first ten days after birth have been reported to improve or even normalize the outcome for some children with Kinky Hair Syndrome. However, other children with the disease show no appreciable benefit from this therapy.
Kurt Kellington was an early experimental test case for copper histidine therapy. Later in life, Kellington enjoyed badminton and even had dreams of winning the Thomas Cup. While driving through Manigotapi Mississippi, Kellington was arrested for littering. While still in shackles, he fell in love with the stenographer of the court. After he was released from jail they married and established the Manigotapi Badminton Society.
Strobist: AB800 with Softlighter II camera left. AB800 open behind backdrop of white faux suede. Triggered by Cybersync.
This is a mean blend of the entire Lorde music video for "Royals".
Blended using my normal averaging workflow for videos with G'MIC.
Final result normalized in GIMP.
My other music video blends can be found here: Video Amalgams on Flickr
“Totalitarianism is not a historical coincidence. In the final analysis, it is the logical consequence of mechanistic thinking and the delusional belief in the omnipotence of human rationality. As such, totalitarianism is the defining feature of the Enlightenment tradition.” ‒ Mattias Desmet
Totalitarianism is a product of the Enlightenment tradition. It places faith in human rationality. It’s a belief system in which man’s intellect can save man, the world, and the universe. Man will solve man’s problems, thus bringing salvation to mankind. Its priests desire to form a new society built on rationality. They want a world without pain and suffering. They even want to conquer death. Science, man’s new religion, has its own creation story. In this story, man has been reduced to particles that interact according to the laws of mechanics. Life and mankind were randomly produced without any purpose or direction. Man is seen as a machine; he works (repetitively) as a machine; he will merge with machine. The universe is also a machine, and it too will eventually be manipulated. The spiritual elect of this religion look forward to an artificial heaven on earth, where man and nature have been replaced by perfect technological clones. Once this happens, man will have conquered both man and nature. He will then gain eternal life. He will synthetically live forever. “Amen and Hallelujah!” shout the transhumanists. As a result, the totalitarians will have realized their goal of a superman/super race like the New Soviet Man/Aryan Race. The idolatry of science, which aims to create a perfect world, will ultimately result in a dystopian nightmare. Their rationality will become irrational. Secular humanism will fail.
“Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement.” – Humanist Manifesto I
With science came technological advancement. These advances separated man from nature, tradition, and family. The industrial revolution changed the social fabric of society. Before industrialization, most families lived in rural areas and did agricultural work. The family worked together to support itself. Multiple generations lived together in the same area. Extended families were an important part of society. After industrialization, many families moved to urban areas and did manufacturing work. They became cogs in the machine, working meaningless jobs. This movement split up the extended family unit. Then there was one: the nuclear family. “The dynamics of industrialization contributed to the rise of single-parent families. Factors such as increased divorce rates, the normalization of out-of-wedlock childbirth, and the empowerment of women to raise children independently all played a role in this shift.” As you can see, the nuclear family has not fared too well. Technology produced the radio, television, and social media, which have created an antisocial society. Technology was supposed to make life easier; it was supposed to make us happier, yet it has made us lonely and unhappy. Society has lost its meaning. People come home from meaningless jobs, only to live meaningless social lives online. Wolves chase after those separated from the herd, because they are easy targets. When the isolated are rounded up and killed, no one will fight for them because they are isolated from the herd. Those who are alone and isolated will be seen as useless eaters by their enemies. “To keep you is no gain; to kill you is no loss.” Indeed, a lonely society is very prone to accepting totalitarianism.
The Enlightenment was supposed to empower us, yet we have become more powerless. The Enlightenment was supposed to make us more independent, yet we have become more dependent. Plus, technology is controlled by the few. With science, a perfect artificial world is being built. It’s creating a fake Garden of Eden that is full of genetically modified foods, lab-grown meat, sex dolls that look like Eve, and synthetic-fiber clothing to hide our naked bodies of sin. Don’t eat the genetically modified fruit, it will kill you! Automated machines, robots, and artificial intelligence will replace man’s toil. Artificial wombs will replace the pain of childbirth. The digital paradise being constructed dehumanizes us. It steals our humanity. It makes us insecure, unempathetic, narcissistic, apathetic, cowardly, lonely, and isolated. An insecure society is less resilient. An insecure society is easier to control. An unempathetic, narcissistic, apathetic, and cowardly society will look the other way when people are rounded up and killed. A lonely and isolated society is weak and submissive. They feel empty and meaningless, and they have little self-worth. Such a society yearns for direction and authority. They are weak and lazy and want someone (the state) to take care of them.
We have a dumbed-down society. The education system teaches us how to be cogs in the machine. Mass media is a giant propaganda machine, indoctrinating the masses. The ignorant zombies have been trained to listen to the experts. These experts lead the sheep with twisted data and statistics. Thus, the people are easily led. Safety: give up your freedom of privacy to fight terror. Misinformation: give up your freedom of speech to fight hate speech. 15-minute cities: give up your freedom of movement to fight climate change. Mass immigration: give up your culture for multiculturalism. Abortion is women’s health. Euthanasia is good. By the way, how many genders are there? Society has been molded and shaped. You have been taught what to think, not how to think.
“I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.” ‒ John D. Rockefeller
Students have been indoctrinated and radicalized by feminism, gender theory, critical race theory, and decolonialism. The goal: abolish women, gender, race, borders and nations. All hail the tranhumanist new world order! The youth are taught that capitalism is bad and socialism is good. They’ve been taught to hate their own country, traditions, values, and culture. They’ve been taught to hate their own race! Humiliation is a tool of control to shape and guide them. If a person loses their identity, they can be easily manipulated and brainwashed. Our youth have been taught that a communist revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism. The end justifies the means! Therefore, radicals in the education system have raised up an army of woke activists. These woke evangelists have been poisoned by envy, hate, and bitterness. It doesn’t help that subversive billionaires are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into supposed ‘organic’ protests, which are being organized by professional protesters (communist agitators). Wokeism is the new puritan movement of today, with its moral values and commandments. These born-again socialists preach the dialectic gospel of social(ist) justice and equality. These radicalized saints promise a perfect world. A radicalized society is prone to accepting totalitarianism. In fact, it’s extremely prone to accepting totalitarianism. Especially when the youth are radicalized!
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” ‒ Vladimir Lenin
Science, the religion of the day, has become corrupted. Fraud in scientific research is increasing. Falsified scientific papers are becoming more and more common. The perception of reality can be steered by crunching numbers in any desired fashion. (Climate change data is famous for distorting numbers.) Totalitarians mold the perception of reality with propaganda. The COVID-19 hysteria, with its “follow the science,” was proof of its degeneration. People blindly became disciples of the experts. Their apostles commanded: Mask up, even though it’s ineffective! Social distance, even though it’s useless! Take a PCR test, even though it’s unreliable! Take the vaccines, even though they haven’t been properly tested! Ivermectin is bad, even though it can help some patients! The population must be locked down, even though it’s physically and mentally bad for their health and weakens their immune system! Herd immunity, what’s that? Small businesses must be shutdown, even though big corporations like Walmart can stay open! Schools must be shut down, even though the average age of death is 70+ years old! Fire the unvaccinated healthcare workers, even though the emergency rooms are supposedly full and short-staffed! TicTok nurses! Dance, baby, dance! We’re in a pandemic, can’t you see!?! Falsely mark down unrelated deaths as COVID deaths—beef up those numbers! Big numbers, big money! Since this is science, we must suppress opposing ideas! Science that censors different opinions is not science. Much of society faithfully trusted the science, with its religious experts and scientific doctrines, numbers and graphs. In Nazi Germany, children were conditioned to accept any form of authority without question. Without question, many people blindly obeyed the COVID restrictions. To this day, some people mask up in public. They are religious zealots! They still haven’t woken up from their indoctrination. The science of today: take a big pharma flu shot, rather than rely on your own immune system; take a big pharma flu shot, rather than eat foods that are high in antioxidants like vitamin C. Could you not just find a natural vitamin C supplement? Nope! We love big pharma! We love big corporations! We love Big Brother! We love fascism! Since you’ve been trained to be a consumer, you’ll consume what has been marketed to you. Oh, the science of propaganda! Ah, the science of marketing!
“Scientism has remained to this day one of the strongest Gnostic movements in Western society.” – Eric Voegelin
During COVID-19, people were not only begging for totalitarian measures, but they were applauding them. They wanted strict rules to ease their uncertainty, fear, and insecurity. They coped with their insecurity by running others down. The big bad enemies were not the Jews, but the unvaccinated. Fear needs an enemy! People were calling for the unvaccinated to be rounded up. Some even wanted the unvaccinated killed. This made them feel more secure, like they had the upper hand. They had the camaraderie of the mob; they felt like they belonged! The extra rules helped ease their anxiety. They felt more in control of their fear. The fellowship of the mob helped to further ease their stress and insecurity. There is security in numbers! They rebuked, denounced, and excommunicated heretical friends and relatives who strayed from the holy narrative. They felt righteous, because they were supposedly fighting for a righteous cause. This made them feel virtuous. They were crusaders for the truth, and they felt heroic! They felt relief as they took out their frustrations on their enemies. They blew off steam! They felt good! They felt energized!
These people had an authoritarian mindset. Their true selves, their true natures, came to the surface. They had a mob mentality. They had a pack mentality. These people were so filled with fear, hysteria, and panic that they could not think straight. They lost their ability to calm down and think things through. They could not regulate their fears and emotions. As a result, they could not think critically. How can one think critically in a panic? In fact, since they were taught to be cogs in the machine, they weren’t really taught to be critical thinkers. Just as a child must learn how to walk, a child must be taught how to critically think. They were taught to solve problems related to the machine, but they were not taught to think outside the machine. That is why they say things like: I support free speech, ‘but’ not hate speech. They don’t even understand how speech operates under the framework of free speech. They literally can’t understand the concept of free speech! It’s over their heads. Will these people ever change? Nope, I’ve yet to see any of them apologize for their actions during COVID. Given the right crisis, our society will accept totalitarianism.
Big government, with its increased bureaucracy, administration, and management, loves to make ever-increasing rules and regulations. We are drawing closer and closer to totalitarianism. We will soon have a totalitarian system with digital biometric IDs, central bank digital currencies, and social credit scores. We are becoming a total surveillance society. Our data is being collected, tracked, analyzed, and sold. COVID caused a worldwide hypnosis, a mass hysteria, in which the masses were ready to trade their freedoms for safety. Nothing much has changed. The world’s population is slowly being boiled like a frog; it’s slowly being corralled into a worldwide authoritarian system. Like Nazi Germany, many today would pick totalitarianism if they were promised economic solutions in a time of financial hardship. If we had another great depression like the 1930s, many in our decadent society would pick a totalitarian system. They would choose digital IDs, CBDCs, and social credit scores if they could receive universal basic income to feed their families. Is it really a stretch to see why people would accept the Mark of the Beast?
In the fourth industrial revolution, man will physically merge with technology. Of course, this technology is supposed to make man smarter and healthier. It’s supposed to turn man into the perfect superman. How can the imperfect make the perfect? Man is an imperfect sinner. He has sinned against God. God is perfect, and sin is imperfect. Perfection and imperfection do not mix. Righteousness and sin do not mix. Light expels darkness, God expels sin. God’s punishment for sin is death. God will permit sinful man to utilize his strength and rationality to attempt to work out his own salvation. Ultimately, man will fail. Christ will return to stop man from destroying all life on earth at the battle of Armageddon (Matthew 24:22). Jesus will destroy those who, in their sin, are destroying the earth (Revelation 11:18). Jesus first came as a sacrificial Lamb for the atonement of sins. The second time, Jesus will come as a roaring lion to destroy His enemies. His enemies will choose His imposter, the antichrist. They will accept the transhuman Mark of the Beast. As a result, they will forfeit salvation. Only in Christ (the perfect sacrifice) is sin forgiven. Will you accept His salvation? Or will you try, in your sin, to work out your own salvation?
Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him, and he with Me.”
Urbex Benelux -
In the early 1950s a new crisis arose in the international paper market, as a result of which both demand for and prices of paper fell sharply. From 1954 onwards the market normalized and the factory was able to start an advance. New machines were purchased and a new hall was added. In that period they received the compensation for the war damage that was measured.
The 1960s were mainly characterized by expansion and economic growth. The factory became a paper company with world renown. It was during this time that the centenary of the factory was richly celebrated.
Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands
The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.
Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.
During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.
In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.
After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.
The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."
Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands
In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.
Artist Statement
“Modernizing Maniac: A Study in Inherited Obsession” exists between artifact and intention.
Rather than presenting a finished spectacle, this work exposes the framework behind fixation—how systems of time, progress, and discipline are inherited, preserved, and rebranded as innovation. The fractured wall becomes a metaphor for history under pressure, while the clock image functions as both relic and engine: something old that continues to drive contemporary urgency.
I am interested in what happens when modernity revisits itself without critique—when obsession is not only normalized, but aestheticized. By combining cinematic imagery with declarative text, the piece mirrors the way narratives are often sold to us: structured, persuasive, and already resolved.
This work is not meant to entertain. It is meant to situate—to mark the psychological terrain from which the larger body of work emerges.
President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Avrahm “Avi” Berkowitz and White House senior staff, is applauded Friday, Sept. 11, 2020 in the Oval Office, at the announcement that the Kingdom of Bahrain is joining the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in normalizing relations with Israel. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
Sony RX1 User Report.
I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.
The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.
Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.
It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).
Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features
The Price
First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:
Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.
Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.
You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”
In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.
35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2
The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.
While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...
I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.
As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.
Design is about making choices
When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.
So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.
In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.
In use
So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.
Snapshots
As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.
I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.
To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.
Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.
Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.
How I shoot with the RX1
Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.
Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.
So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).
Working within constraints.
The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.
To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.
Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.
I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.
But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.
Pro Tip: Focusing
Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.
Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.
Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.
Carrying.
I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.
Praha - 80
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Jan Zajíc (July 3, 1950 – February 25, 1969) was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest. He was a student of the Střední průmyslová škola železniční technical college in Šumperk, specializing in railroads, and was also interested in poetry and humanities.
In 1969 he took part in a hunger strike and a commemoration ceremony by students for Jan Palach near the statue of Saint Wenceslas in Prague.
On the day of the twenty-first anniversary of the Communist takeover (25 February 1969), he travelled to Prague accompanied by three other students. His intention was to warn the public against the forthcoming political "normalization" of the country. He had several letters challenging the people to fight against the Soviet military occupation of the Czechoslovak Republic. Around 1:30 in the afternoon he walked into the passageway of the building at No. 39 on Wenceslas Square and ignited his chemical-soaked clothes. He was unable to run out of the door, and collapsed and died in the hallway.
In a letter he left behind he wrote:
"Mother, father, brother, little sister!
When you read this letter, I will already be dead or close to death. I know what a severe blow my act will be to you, but don't be angry at me. Unfortunately, we are not alone in this world. I am not doing this because I would be tired by life, on the contrary, because I cherish it too much. Hopefully my act will make life better. I know the price of life and I know it is the most precious thing. But I want a lot for you, for everyone, so I have to pay a lot. Do not lose your heart after my sacrifice, tell Jacek to study harder and Marta too. You must never accept injustice, be it in any form, my death will bind you. I am sorry that I will never see you or that, which I loved so much. Please forgive me that I fought with you so much. Do not let them make me a madman.
Say hi to the boys, the river and the forest."
The secret state police prohibited his burial in Prague because they feared demonstrations, such as the ones that followed the burial of Jan Palach. He was later buried in his hometown of Vítkov.
From Wikipedia
Stitched from 48 images taken with Canon 400d 100mm f2.8L Macro,
Stitched with Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor (ICE)
- research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/
Reuploaded this image with corrected white balance, original was 122 Megapixel new image is only 102 Megapixels as I cropped it a little differently
I was experimenting with using a really long focal length to accentuate the mountains rather than diminish them like a single shot from a wide angle lens would. Also helps getting a ridiculously high resolution stitch because of the share number of photos it results in!
HOW TO - STITCH TIPS AND TRICKS:
Hello this is my first attempt at writing a tutorial on photography, if I have any success I will write more. I’ve been doing photograph now for a couple of months and wanted to share what I so far had discovered, If you have any suggestions or corrections please let me know.
TO STITCH OR NOT TO STITCH
What is a stitch? Simple, take lots of overlapping photos, stick them all together with glue and then you have one massive photo. This is a stitch.
Why stitch? Easy answer is that it’s much cheaper! Fish eye lenses and wide angle lenses are not cheap!
However since when did a short focal length make a better panorama? Normally to fit your vast mountain ranges into the back of your little 1.6x 35mm DSLR you would have to use a very short focal length. Problem is that using a short focal length accentuates distance; this can leave the panorama looking a little weaker than it did in real life.
There aren’t many solutions to this problem, buy a ludicrously expensive medium format camera, buy an expensive full frame 35mm format camera or go analogue. Really takes the amateur out of amateur photography. This is why stitches are a great solution, they cost you nothing! You don’t need to by a new lens; you can even do it with a 1 megapixel phone camera with professional results!
COMPOSITION
Remember a stitch is made up of lots of little photos. This is both a hindrance and a blessing. Be careful with moving objects such as cars and birds, you might end up with the first half of a big ugly 4x4 in your shot, or a birds head if you are not careful. On the other hand you can do cool things such as placing the same object or person many times within the same shot! Like I say get creative!
CAMERA SETUP
Second is to make sure your camera is set up correctly! Most important thing is to make sure you don't change any setting of your camera in the middle of the stitch (Most importantly the zoom and the aperture)! If you have one of them big heavy zooms which creep under their own weight, be extra careful and hold it steady. Failing to do so will mean your final stitch might have weird geometric distortions, strange bands of out of focus picture or unnatural light and dark patches in the photo.
Take your time and think about your shot, the giant mountains have been there for millions of years they are not going anywhere any time soon ... Except in my case those looming clouds caused concern.
- You have a large area
- You typically have lots of light.
- You have typically no moving objects
- You want to keep as much as possible in focus,
- You likely require lots of depth of field.
This tells me that I should put my camera in Av mode with a very large aperture value but not so large that the shutter speed isn’t fast enough to cause motion blur.
Again take your time, you have all the time in the world, if you have a wide angle lens try take a test shot to see if you can expose the sky as well as the ground in one shot. Take a couple of test shots check how the photo exposes in the darkest portion of the photo and the lightest. It takes only 10 seconds but can make all the difference. More time you spend thinking about the photo the better the results and the less time you will spend in front of a computer trying to correct your own mistakes.
You don't need a tripod for this, it helps but is not necessary when lighting conditions are good, for example this shot was taken free hand.
Image stabilising technologies are your friend, however be careful if you take our shots quickly in one big swoop spinning on one foot. Not only will you get unnecessary motion blur but your Image stabiliser can miss behave by doing weird things like rotating the image or causing large amounts of motion blur. Again if you are on a moving boat or car sometimes it pays to just turn Image stabilising off. This really depends on the type of Image stabiliser used in your camera or lens. For you who have mode II on your canon lenses now is the time to use it.
Don't use spot light metering, use a metering program which considers the whole frame such as Evaluative Metering or Matrix Metering for all you Nikon users.
Use One Shot AF for your Auto focus program and also set the camera to auto select AF point selection. Another thing to consider is to switch the camera into manual focus and focus to infinity. What this means is that distance mountain peaks will be in focus but closer the subject gets to the camera the more out of focus the image will become. I would recommend this if you plan to print your stitch at full resolution. If you look carefully at the full resolution render of this stitch, towards the bottom in the grass you can notice photo joins where the focus is different over the borders of two images. It might not be noticeable at a 10th its original size on a computer screen, but a 3 meter canvas might not be as forgiving. Keeping the photos constant is the key to a perfect stitch
One thing to keep in mind is if you are careful you can achieve a pseudo HRD shot by taking a stitched photo instead of regular photo. Consider if you took a photo of both the full sun and the landscape in one photo. Without using some kind of HDR technology ether your sky is going to be white and your landscape will be exposed correctly or you will have black landscape and a correctly exposed sun. Now consider taking two photos one of the sun and one of the landscape, you can expose both correctly and then join them! This works very well but can require a bit experimentation and luck.
TAKING THE SHOT
Now keeping all this in mind it’s time to finally take the shot!
I find panning from left to right rather then up and down gives me the best result. This should help keep all the photos constant. If you have a camera with a small buffer like my little 400D then shoot slow and steady. If the buffer fills up in the middle of the stitch you will have to stay still until it slowly empties. This normally ruins a good stitch, standing perfectly still for 30 seconds is a lot harder than it sounds.
Immediately before and after taking your stitch, take a photo of your feet! Sounds silly but you will thank yourself when you go to process your stitch. If your taking test shots, swapping lenses or taking multiple similar photos, it can be a real pain having to figure out from where your stitch started and where it ended, especially when all you have to go by are little thumb nails. Accidentally including photos which you never intended to include can potentially ruining your stitch or at very least just waste your time sifting through photos.
Always take more photos then you think you will need. Include parts of the shot which you won’t intend to have in the final copy. I have made this mistake time and time again, a perfect stick ruined all because one photo didn’t expose correctly or is out of focus or is just missing. Remember you need to have to have a full set of photos which describe the full length and height of the photo, please don't ruin your stitch by publishing the full non cropped render! It might look cool but it detracts from the image and its story. You want the viewer to see the photo, not the technology used to create it. Also means your photo is about 10 times the size its cropped equivalent would have been.
POST PROCESSING
Next you have the mammoth task of turning those 50 photos you took in to one massive single photo. Currently I am unaware of any stitching solutions which don’t require you to have to put in a fair amount of work, so depending on the quality of the photos you took; this process can take some time.
If you don’t have a copy of lightroom, I would highly recommend it. It’s one of the few affordable pieces of software Adobe sell. At $200 NZD It’s about 10th the price of Photoshop and does 90% of what you would need it to do (except HDR!!). It’s reasonably user friendly and doesn’t require much technical skills to be able to use. It’s perfect for milking every last drop from your photos.
Regardless of what you have, use your photo editing software to try normalize all the photos in your stitch so that they are all exposed the same, have the same colour temperature, hue and saturation. This step is not required but can make a massive difference to the final product.
Don’t try make the photos each look their best, remember they all have to look the same so they stitch together nicely, touch-ups come later. This is the point where you will understand the benefits of shooting in raw if you do so already. Be vigilant that you’re editing retains as much detail as possible, avoid increasing the contrast and avoid making portions of the image too dark or too light. A really good way of checking the damage you are doing to your photo is to keep an eye on the image histogram (that little graph Photoshop always shows but you don’t take much notice of). You want to make sure there are not any large peaks on the far right or left of the histogram, this is a good indicator that you are “destroying” detail with the transformations you are performing on the image. Because hand editing 50 photos would take hours, what I do in Lightroom is find the most important photos which make up the image and tweak them to have the correct colour temperature, hue, saturation and gamma, and then use the copy setting functionality to mass apply my changes to all the photos in the stitch. Then go through each photo and proof that they are correct. What is the meaning of correct? In this instants aim to make the photo look like the real thing but with slightly less saturation, don’t go overboard making them look vivid and stunning just yet.
I don’t currently know any image stitches which take a raw image and return a raw image, some do take raw images but if your program of choice does not, now is the point where you have to part with your beautifully detailed raw images.
What stitcher to use?
My stitcher of choice is the Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor (ICE). It’s a piece of software created as a result of the Microsoft research project. Its free, it’s extremely smart, it’s relatively bug free and it is fast. You can download it from research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/ or just Google for it.
Its reasonably self-expiatory and simple to use. Try experimenting with different geometric projections. Sometimes different projections can help when your stitch doesn’t crop the way you would have liked it to.
Keep in mind processing a stitch is very computationally expensive, so this process can take time. On a very powerful computer the stitch above took about 3 minutes to process. On a less powerful computer it could take up to 30mins. Also keep in mind the resulting file can be massive, rendered in TIFF file format, this stitch is 250mbs! Handling such large images can prove difficult. This does not mean you need a fast computer, you just need patience.
When you have finally stitched your photo the way you want it import your stitch back in to light room and now you can play with image however you please!
Have a go yourself and let me know your results, its good way to experiment in diffident format sizes without having to go analogue, especially for all you out there who like myself how are suck with a cropped sensor 35mm.
Please don't forget flickr gives the option of viewing the image at its original resolution, its hard to appreciate the full scale of the image until you have seen it at its full resolution.
www.flickr.com/photos/mondayssocks/8212919738/sizes/o/in/...
writingwithcolor: Before you say, Write your own! – let me tell you that we do. But this page is a resource for writers, so we thought writers might want to know what kinds of representation would make us more likely to get excited about your book. We don’t speak for everyone in our demographic, just ourselves, but we hope this post gives you some cool writing ideas. Note: This is additional info writers can keep in mind when writing characters of those backgrounds. We believe it’s a good thing to ask the people you’re including what they’d like to see. Actually hearing from misrepresented and underrepresented people and asking us what we’d like to see of ourselves is much better than unthinkingly tossing characters into tired tropes or reinforcing stereotypes that do us harm. Colette (Black): More Black people doing shit! Going on adventures, riding dragons, being magical! More Black characters in prominent roles in fantasy + sci-fi and historical settings and not always and only as slavess. These stories are important, but they’re NOT our only stories. We were kings and queens too. Let us wear the fancy dresses for a change instead of the chains, damn it! More Black girls being portrayed as lovely and treasured and worth protecting. More Black girls finding love. More Black girls in general who aren’t relegated to arc-less, cliche “Sassy best friends” and “strong black women.” More positive, dynamic roles of Black men (fathers, brothers, boys…) More positive, dynamic family roles of Black families as a whole, families that are loving and supportive and there. More Black people from all socioeconomic classes. More Black characters that don’t rely on the stereotypes that the media is currently going full force to reinforce. Yasmin (Arab, Turkish): More Arabs who aren’t token characters. I want to see Arabs normalised in literature. Arab teenagers in high school, Arab young adults behind on their taxes, Arab dads who cook amazing food, Arab moms who refuse to soften their tongue for others. Arabs who aren’t mystical fantasy creatures from another planet. Arabs in YAs and in dramas and nonfiction and comedies and children’s books. We are human just like everyone else, and I’d like to see that reflected in literature. Often we are boxed into very specific genres of literature and made to feel ostracised from the rest. Let’s see some change! Alice (Black, biracial): I’m hoping for more Black and biracial (mixed with Black) leading characters in all genres, but mainly in SF/F who fall outside of the stereotypes. Characters I can relate to who love, cry and fight for their ideals and dreams. It would be great if their race would play an active role in their identities (I don’t mean plot-related). Some intersectionality with sexuality and disability is also sorely missed, without it becoming a tragedy or it being seen as a character flaw. More mixed race characters who aren’t mixed with some kind of monster, fictional race or different species. Dystopias about problems usually faced by poc having actual poc protags, without all the racial ambiguity which always gets whitewashed. Shira (Jewish): More Jewish characters who feel positively about their Judaism and don’t carry it around as a burden or embarrassment. While the latter is definitely a real part of our experience due to anti-Semitism and all we’ve been through as a people, the fact that it overrepresents us in fiction is also due to anti-Semitism, even internalized. (Basically, Jews who don’t hate Judaism!) More brave, heroic characters who are openly Jewish instead of being inspired by the Jewish experience and created by Jews (like Superman) or played by Jews (Captain Kirk) but still not actually Jewish. I’m tired of always being Tolkien’s Dwarves; I’d like a chance to play Bard, Bilbo, or even Gandalf’s role in that kind of story. Elaney (Mexican): While we’re discussing what sort of representation we’d like to see, I am using the word “latinista” and I want to quickly address that since you may have not seen it before: “-ista” is a genderless suffix denoting someone is from an area (“Nortista”, a northerner), or who practices a belief (“Calvinista”, a calvinist), or a professsion (you’ve heard ‘barista’). I find it more intuitively pronounceable than “latinx” and also more friendly to Spanish, French, and Portugueze pronunciation (and thus more appropriate), personally, so I invite you to consider it as an alternative. If you don’t like it, well, at least I showed you. 1. I want legal Latinista immigrants. The darker your skin is down here, the more likely you are to be assumed to be illegal by your peers, and I want media to dilute this assumption so many have of us. 2. I want Latinistas who are well educated, not just smart, and I mean formally educated, with college degrees, professional skillsets, and trained expertise. Being in fields which do not require a formal degree is no less legitimate of a lifestyle than being in a field which requires a PhD, but I want you to consider when casting your Latinista character that We, as a people, are assumed to be little more than the drop-out and the janitor by our peers, and People Of Color in scientific fields are mistaken as assistant staff rather than the scientists that they are. I want media to dilute this assumption. 3. I want Latnistas who are not marketed as “Latin American” but as their actual country of origin, because “Latin America” is a conglomerate of individual entities with their own, distinct cultures and if you are, for example, Cuban, then Mexican characters may appeal to you but they don’t have the same relatability as fellow Cuban characters. Wouldn’t you be a little more interested, too, to pick up a book that’s about a character who lives where you do rather than about a character who lives somewhere in general? 4. I want rich or well-to-do Latinistas. Looking back, I notice that several of the character concepts that have been bounced off of us with regards to Latinista characters incorporate poverty despite an astronomical and diligent work ethic. I don’t think this is on purpose but I do think that it is internalized because so often the stereotype of us is poor and uneducated in a vicious cycle (uneducated because we’re poor, poor because we’re uneducated) and I think that there should be more media to dilute this. Lastly, I personally do not want these tropes to be explored and subverted by people, I want them to be avoided entirely because I feel that normalizing positive representation rather than commenting on negative representation is far more beneficial and validating to the people these works are supposed to help and represent. We don’t need sympathy, we need empathy! Jess (Chinese, Taiwanese): Stories that don’t center around the identity of being Chinese-American. That doesn’t mean “erase any references to protag’s Chinese identity” but I’d definitely like stories that have us go on awesome adventures every now and then and don’t have the Chinese character being all “I AM CHINESE” from beginning to end. Please round out the Chinese migrant parents instead of keeping them as strict and/or traditional. PLEASE. I could go into how my parents and the Chinese aunties and uncles here are so awesome, seriously, and we need more older Chinese migrant characters who are awesome and supportive and just people. Also! EAST ASIAN GIRLS WHO AREN’T SKINNY AND/OR PETITE. Please. PLEEEEEASE. And more stories about Taiwanese and Chinese folks who aren’t in bicoastal regions (the Midwest, the Plains, etc.) WE EXIST. More Chinese-Americans who aren’t necessarily Christian. Maybe it’s because of the books I’ve wound up reading, but there seems to be this narrative of Chinese migrants joining churches and converting when they’re in the US. This doesn’t mean I want less Chinese-American Christians in fiction, mind: I’d also just like to see more Chinese families in the US who are Buddhist or who still keep up with the traditions they learned from their homelands, like me, without having it considered in the narrative as ~old fashioned~ or ~ancient~ or ~mystical~. Tangentially, when writing non-Christian Chinese families, I’d rather people keep the assumption of Communism being the underlying reason why far, far away. I have been asked in the past if Communism was why my family didn’t go to church, and needless to say, it’s really, really offensive. Stella (Korean): I’d love to see more Korean (and Asian-American) characters that don’t perpetuate the super-overachieving, stressed-out, only-cares-about-succeeding Asian stereotype. These Koreans exist (I would know; I went to school with quite a few of them) but they don’t represent all of us. I want to see more Korean characters solving mysteries, saving the world and having fun. More Koreans that aren’t pale, petite, and a size 2. Not all of us have perfect skin or straight black hair or monolids. And some of us love our short legs, round faces and small eyes! And fewer stoic&strict Korean parents, please. So many of us grew up with loud, wacky, so-embarrassing-but-endearing parents! Recently, there’s been quite a few novels with Korean American female protags (particularly in the YA section) that deal with being in high school, dealing with strict parents, getting into college, and boys. Lots of boys! I think it’s awesome that there are more books with KA protags, and I’m so so so glad they’re out there. But I also recognize that those are definitely not the kind of books I would have read as a teenager, and it’s not the kind of book I want to read now. I want to see more Korean characters that are queer, trans, ace, bisexual. More Korean characters that are disabled or autistic or have mental illnesses. More Korean characters in fantasy, SFF, mystery! Heck, space operas and steampunk Westerns. I want it all! :DDDD A lot of Korean-Americans struggle with their identity. It’s hard to balance things sometimes! But I’d love to see more stories that *aren’t* overtly about Korean-Americans dealing with their racial identity or sexual orientation, but stories about Koreans saving princesses and slaying trolls and commandeering spaceships. I want a plot that doesn’t center on Korean-American identity, but on a Korean-American character discovering themselves. White characters get to do it all the time; I want Korean characters to have a turn. And honestly, I just want to see more Asians in media, period. South Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians! Thai, Hmong, Tibetan, Filipino, Vietnamese characters. Indian characters! There’s so much diversity in Asia and among Asian diaspora. I want us to be more than just ~~mystical~~ characters with ancient wisdom and a generic Asian accent. We’ve got boundless oceans of stories within ourselves and our communities, and I can’t wait for them to be told. I would also love to see more multiethnic Asian characters that are *not* half white. It seems to be the default mixed-race Asian character: East Asian and white. But so many of my friends have multiethnic backgrounds like Chinese/Persian, Thai/Chinese or Korean/Mexican. I have Korean friends who grew up in places like Brazil, Singapore and Russia. Did you know that the country with the largest population of Koreans (outside of Korea) is actually China? And while I’m at it, I’d love to see more well-translated works from Asia in the US. Like, how awesome would it be to have more science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels from Asia that are easily accessible in English? SUPER awesome!! Kaye (Muslim): I am so hungry for Muslim representation, because there is so little of it. You can see one or two (YA) titles I currently think or have heard are good representation on the shelves - notably, Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars - on an AMA I did the other day for /r/YAwriters. However, I’d just love to see stories where Muslim characters go on adventures like everyone else! I’ve been saying recently that I’d LOVE to see a cozy mystery. Or a series of Muslim historical romances a la Georgette Heyer (there are a LOT of Muslim girls who love romances, and I’m just starting to get into the genre myself!). I’d love to see Muslim middle grade readers get girls who find secret passages, solve mysteries, tumble through the neighborhood with their dozen or so cousins. I have a lot of cousins and thus I always have a soft spot for cousins. And siblings. I’m looking forward to Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham because Jen is writing Scarlett as a detective a la Veronica Mars. And she’s Somali-American. How cool is that?! Let’s see some classic road trip YA with Muslims. Let’s see comedies with quirky characters - for instance, I know one or two tween Muslim girls who are driving their moms MAD by suddenly turning vegetarian and refusing to touch the celebratory biryani at family Eid parties, who join relevant societies at their schools and start preaching to their extended families about the benefits of going vegetarian and all the funny little interactions that are involved with that. Let’s have a story with some wise-cracking African American Muslim girls. My cousin is a niqaabi who loves YA and hates that she doesn’t see herself in it. Let’s see some stories with teen niqaabis! Let’s explore the full, joyful spectrum of diversity in Islam. Let’s have stories where we talk about how one word in Bengali is totally different in another language, and one friend is hilariously horrified and the other friend doesn’t know what he/she said. (True story.) I want to see joy. I want to see happiness. Being a woman of color and a hijaabi often means facing so many daily, disheartening scenarios and prejudice and hatefulness. So many of the suggested tropes recently in the inbox focus on trying to force Muslim characters into beastly or haraam or just sad and stereotypical scenarios. I know that writers are better and have bigger imaginations than that. You want angst? Push aside the cold, unkind, abusive Muslim parents trope. Let’s talk about the Muslim girls I know who have struggled with eating disorders. Let’s talk about Islamophobia and how that is a REAL, horrible experience that Muslim kids have to fear and combat every day. Let’s approach contemporary angst without the glasses of the Western gaze and assumptions about people of the Islamic faith on. We can have Muslim novels that focus on growing pains like Sarah Dessen and Judy Blume (and speaking of that, my “auntie” who used to teach in a madrasah used to press Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret on the Muslim girls she knew because of how Margaret approached growing up and had concerns about her faith and her relationships, etc.) Having Shia friends, I would like to see more stories that aren’t just assumed to be Sunni. How about stories about Su-Shi kids, too? (Sunni and Shia - the name always surprises me!) Let’s see some Muslim-Jewish friendships. Because they exist. And of course, I always, always hunger for Muslim voices first. Because it’s so important to have these voices there, from the source, and some of the issues with answering here at WWC is how people seem to be approaching certain tropes that a Muslim writer could explore with the nuance and lived experience of their faith behind it.
Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands
The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.
Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.
During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.
In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.
After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.
The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."
Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands
In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.
Tonmoy Sharma, CEO, Sovereign Health Group recently shared his vision for using neuro feedback as a tool for empowering patients who are being treated for substance abuse. In order to do so, Dr. Sharma explains, we start by measuring the four types of brain activity through the use of an EEG (electroencephalograph). The EEG picks up electrical impulses that are generated when we have any thoughts. Just like when we treat high cholesterol by measuring the different types of cholesterol in the body and the ratio between them, we can measure the four types of brainwaves that signify different types of brain activity. We know that people with substance abuse issues have a certain type of brain activity and our goal is to decrease that type of brain activity in relationship to other types of brain activity. We are working with the patient to change the ratio of the different brain activities in order to normalize brain function. After we have used EEG as an assessment tool we employ neuro feedback to help patients get their emotion regulation and decision making back on track. During between 12 and 20 neuro feedback sessions of about 30-40 minutes each we have them look at stimulus such as video or a photo that will evoke a certain emotion. We then train the patient to manage the brain waves so when faced with a trigger they can change their brain waves and resist the craving. This gives them the ability to help themselves by empowering them to take control over their emotions and begin to live day-by-day. Through these neurofeedback sessions, people suffering with addiction can see for themselves that it makes a big difference.
About Tonmoy Sharma, CEO, Sovereign Health Group. During a career spanning 30 years, Dr. Sharma has served as an acclaimed researcher having led countless international mental health clinical research trials, taught and trained students as a neuro-scientist and served as author or co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed published articles and five books on schizophrenia and mental illness. He is dedicated to putting his vast knowledge to furthering the mental health field with insights into pharmacology and cognitive impairment treatment. Dr Sharma recognizes that the substance abuse treatment community is heading towards an inevitable next step in its evolution to ensure it continues to improve the quality of patients’ treatment. Today Dr. Tonmoy Sharma is committed to tirelessly promote and call for measurement-based care (MBC) in the diagnosis and treatment of addiction and mental illness calling for a national standardized measurement scale for assessing, diagnosing and treating alcohol and drug addiction.
For more on Tonmoy Sharma, CEO of Sovereign Health Group go to LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/tonmoysharmaceo
About Dr. Judith Ho. Dr. Judy Ho, Ph. D., ABPP is a licensed and board certified Clinical Psychologist based in Los Angeles. She lends her expertise as a panelist on a variety of national television shows and provides professional services in Psychological Testing and Forensic Expert work. She is a tenured professor of psychology at Pepperdine University.
President Donald J. Trump participates in a phone call with Sudanese Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to discuss Sudan’s historic progress towards democracy with its recognition of Israel and opportunities to advance peace in the region Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo Tia Dufour)
There was probably no reason to make this an HDR with all the dynamic range within that of a single shot. Except I wanted the blending of the different wave patterns. Since the lighting in the differnt shots were basically the same, I probably could have done the same thing with a nutural density filter ( I didn't have a filter with me) and extended the exposure time. That would have normalize the waves too.
Place: Nangan, Matsu Islands
The Matsu islands are a minor archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea and administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Matsu islands together form the county of Lienchiang, but most of Liangjiang County (same name, different spelling) is under control of the People's Republic of China. Linear distance from mainland China is less than 20 km.
Mainlanders from Fujian and Zhejiang started migrating to the islands during the Yuan Dynasty. The popular net fishing industry had established the base for development of Fuao settlement and industrial development of the region over several hundred years.
During the early Qing Dynasty, pirates gathered here and the residents left temporarily. In contrast with Taiwan and Penghu, the Matsu Islands were not ceded to the Japanese Empire via the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895. Neither were they occupied by Japanese troops during World War II because they were not important militarily. Due to its strategic location for the only route for spice road, the British established the Dongyong Lighthouse in Dongyin Island in 1912 to facilitate ships navigation.
In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was toppled after the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911 and the Republic of China (ROC) was established on 1 January 1912. Matsu Islands was subsequently governed under the administration of Fukien Province of the ROC. On 1 August 1927, the Nanchang Uprising broke out between the ruling Nationalist Party of China (KMT) and Communist Party of China (CPC) which marked the beginning of Chinese Civil War. After years of war, the CPC finally managed to take over mainland China from KMT and established the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949 which also covers the Lianjiang County of Fujian. The KMT subsequently retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in end of 1949.
After their retreat, the KMT retained the offshore part from the original Lianjiang County located on Matsu Islands, and also all of Kinmen County. In July 1958 the PRC began massing forces opposite the two islands and began bombarding them on 23 August, triggering the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. On 4 September 1958, the PRC announced the extension of its territorial waters by 20 kilometres (12 mi) to include the two islands. However, after talks were held between the USA and PRC in Warsaw, Poland later that month, a ceasefire was agreed and the status quo reaffirmed.
The phrase "Quemoy and Matsu" became part of American political language in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. During the debates, both candidates, Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy, pledged to use American forces if necessary to protect Taiwan from invasion by the PRC, which the United States did not recognize as a legitimate government. But the two candidates had different opinions about whether to use American forces to protect Taiwan's forward positions, Quemoy and Matsu, also. In fact, Senator Kennedy stated that these islands - as little as 9 kilometres (5.5 mi) off the coast of China and as much as 170 kilometres (106 mi) from Taiwan - were strategically indefensible and were not essential to the defense of Taiwan. On the contrary, Vice-President Nixon maintained that since Quemoy and Matsu were in the "area of freedom," they should not be surrendered to the Communists as a matter of "principle."
Self governance of the county resumed in 1992 after the normalization of the political warfare with the mainland and the abolishment of Battle Field Administration on 7 November 1992. Afterwards, the local constructions progressed tremendously. In 1999, the islands were designated under Matsu National Scenic Area Administration. In January 2001, direct cargo and passenger shipping started between Matsu and Fujian Province of the PRC. Since 1 January 2015, tourists from mainland China could directly apply the Exit and Entry Permit upon arrival in Matsu Islands. This privilege also applies to Penghu and Kinmen as means to boost tourism in the outlying islands of Taiwan.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsu_Islands
In 2013 I had the opportunity to visit the largest of the Matsu islands, Nangan, as a friend of mine is a teacher at a primary school on the island.
History
The church with the downed tower
History of joy and suffering of an old christian time witness of Vienna
The Minoritenkirche in Vienna is one of the oldest and most valuable artistic churches of the city. It is therefore not surprising that it also experienced a very eventful history. In all probability, the Franciscans were - how the Friars Minor (Thomas of Celano: "Ordo Friars Minor" ) also called on account of its founders personality, called by the Babenberg Duke Leopold VI the Glorious, in 1230 into the country. Here he gave them a lot, probably with a church (probably dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria), before the walls of the city, between the Scots Monastery (Schottenstift) and the ducal residence. It was not until 1237, and in 1271 the entire area was included in the extended boundary wall. The Minorite Barnabas Strasser says in his chronicle from 1766 that Leopold had asked on his return from the Holy Land in 1219 Francis in Assisi to the relocation of some brothers to Vienna, which was then carried out 1224. The Franciscans, however, are detectable only in 1234 by a bull of Gregory IX . to Frederick the Warlike, the last reigning Babenberg, by the year 1239 there was already the Austrian province. The above-mentioned chapel near the present Minoritenkirche the brothers have now expanded and dedicated it to the Holy Cross ("Santa Croce"). In 1251 the dedication was by the Bishop Berthold of Passau. In addition, the friars began to build a monastery, the 1234 is mentioned in a document (the monastery comprised finally the Ballhausplatz, Minoritenplatz and parts of the Hofburg and the Public Garden) . Of the original Romanesque building stock nothing has been preserved. Especially the great fire of 1276 has cremated large parts of the Convention.
However, the strong growth of the Friars Minor now living in Vienna made a new building of the church and monastery necessary. Already laid by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1276 the foundation stone for the new building of that temple which was now already on the present site of the church, the monarch also promised tax exemption for all who had contributed to the building of the church.
First stage of construction (beginning in the third third of the 13th century.): So he decided to build new church and convent, but by the death in battle of Ottokar in 1278 at the March Field (Jedlespeigen close Dürnkrut) delayed the construction, thus only after the turn of the century it couldbe completed. The embalmed body of Ottokar remained 30 weeks in the chapter house of the monastery until it was transferred to Znojmo and finally to Prague. The king's heart is buried in the original Chapel of St. Catherine, which was now newly assigned this name because the appropriation should be reserved to the Holy Cross of Christ, the new church and the convent . This newly built house of God was given the shape of a two-aisled nave with zweijochigem (two-bay) long choir (chancel), which closed with the five sides of a decagon. This long choir, the one 1785/86 and changed into a five-storey residential building, was canceled in 1903. In connection with the subway construction (1984-86), although archaeological excavations took place, it also laid the foundations of the former free long-choir, but most of the foundations of the old presbytery were destroyed at the same time. - The first church had a rood screen, even at the turn of the 15th/16th Century the still resulting image of the Saint Francis was attached by an unknown artist. Just from this first phase, we know by the Baroque Minoritenchronik (chronicle) first mentioned the name of a builder, namely brother Hans Schimpffenpfeil .
Second stage of construction (after 1317-1328 ) Blanche (Blanche) of Valois, the wife of Duke Rudolf III . ( 1307) and daughter of Philip the Fair, in 1304 decreed in his will to build a chapel in honor of her grandfather, the Holy King Louis IX. of France (canonized in 1297) and introduced for this purpose in 1000 available books. However, the project was realized only under Isabella (Elizabeth ) of Aragon, wife of King Frederick the Fair (1330 ). The chapel dedicated to their relatives canonized in 1317, St . Louis of Anjou, son of Charles II of Naples, great-nephew of Louis IX . of France and Franciscan archbishop of Toulouse (1297 ); it was first a self- cultivation in the NE (north-east) of the two-aisled nave Minoritenkirche, until the third construction phase it was integrated into the nave (now the north aisle with Anthony's Chapel). In 1328 the chapel was apparently completed because in 1330 the founder - was buried in the chapel of Louis - in terms of her testamentary disposition. The tomb of Queen Isabella stood in the middle of the Kapellenjochs (chapel bay) in front of the apse. The tracery show similarity with those of the Albertine choir of St. Stephen (built by Duke Albrecht II [ 1358] ) as well as with that of the Sanctuary Strassengel near the Cistercian monastery Rein near Graz (around the middle of the 14th century.). Probably belonged to the tympanum with the donor portraits of Frederick the Fair and Isabella at the feet of the Mother of God, which was inserted in the third construction phase of the church in the secondary north portal, the original entrance to the Ludwig chapel. It must be mentioned that even the Duchess Blanche (1305 ) built around 1330 a high early gothic marble grave, which unfortunately disappeared in the course of the renovation of the church in the years 1784-86 by the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg. It would be in Vienna today the only work of art of this kind
Third stage of construction (from 1339 -1400): Construction of a three-aisled hall (originally nave chapel Ludwig). The north wall of the chapel was extended to the west and in the north portal installed a second yoke. In addition, it was built a new west facade, with especially the central portal - including was designed - with jamb - pompous like the French late Gothic - perhaps under South German mediation. In the obituary of the Friars Minor brother Jacob of Paris is called ( around 1340), the confessor Albrecht II as the creator of this work of art. The duke and his wife Johanna von Außenmauer MinoritenkirchePfirt have obviously significantly contributed to the emergence of Vienna undoubtedly unique late Gothic cathedrals three portal group, there is also a representation of Albrecht and his wife in the middle portal next to the cross of Christ. Together with the two for a rich Mendikantenkirche (Mendicity church) this equipment is also of French models (see Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris [after 1285] ) constructed in 1350-1370 with splendid rose windows (with "bright" and "rotating" tracery) to the south wall - unusually without a doubt. The workshop, which built the Ludwig chapel was also busy with the west facade ("Minoritenwerkstatt" (workshop)). 1350-60 or later today, finally, the bell tower was only partially built (as a builder is a lay brother Nicholas, 1385 or 1386 called ). The tower consists mainly of two parts, a lower part made of stone blocks to the height of the nave, and an upper, octagonal section of mixed masonry. Its crown had because of damage - especially been renewed several times and was eventually removed - during the Turkish wars . The consecration of the enlarged Minoritenkirche must have taken place about the year 1390. So that the church had received its valid look for the next time.
In 1529, during the first siege of the monastery and the church even more extensive damage suffering (launch of the spire). Since the monastery of the Observant (Franciscans) had been destroyed by the Turks, these sought to supplant the Franciscans in their convent, where John Capistrano, the founder of the "brown Franciscan" (Observant) in Vienna, lived some time in the Franciscan monastery and in the Church had preached, but eventually instructed the Emperor Ferdinand I the now homeless Observant buildings on Singerschen Platz. In fact, the number of Wiener Friars Minor has then shrunk to seven, so that they felt compelled to call Fathers from Italy. But that but could not prevent that the church from 1569-1620 war a Protestant church. Interestingly, originate numerous coats of arms on the balcony of this period. At that time the Conventual were only in the possession of Louis Chapel and the Chapel of St. Catherine. Also during the second Turkish siege in 1683 the tower served as an observation tower and the Minoritenkirche was accordingly fired by the Turks and severely damaged. In 1733 the tower is adorned with a copper dome, but because of the danger of collapse eventually had to be removed. It brought the church to that low pointed tiled roof, which still exists today .
More and more, the bands developed in the Minoritenkirche, especially Ludwig chapel and cemetery, grave sites of the nobility. Besides Blanche of Valois and Isabella of Aragon and Margaret, the last country Duchess of Tyrol, was named Maultasch ( 1369 ), is buried here, as well as members of Lichtsteiner, Ditrichsteins, Puchaimer, Hojo, Stauffenberger, Greifensteiner; Piccolomini, Medici, Cavalcanti, Montaldi, Valperga, etc. (many of them are listed in the "Libro d'Oro of the "Congregation Italiana"). It should also be mentioned that the Franciscans since the end of the 14th Century took lively interest in teaching at the University of Vienna, especially of course in the subjects of theology, but also the jurisprudence. At the beginning of the 18th Century lived in the Vienna alsoin the Viennese Convention the Venetian cosmographer Br Vincenzo Coronelli, which the Emperor Charles VI. appointed to head the regulation of the Danube and its famous globes are now in the globe collection of the National Library in Vienna.
It is worthnoting, finally, the fact that around 1543 on the Ballhausplatz near the Imperial Palace from parts of the monastery a small hospital was donated and that the Franciscans for 13 years did all the counseling in this new Hofspital, at this time was the newly restored Chapel of St. Catherine Hospital Church. Another wing of the former minority monastery was home to the Imperial Court Library, 1558-1613.
To Minoritenkirche the second half of the 18th Century brought drastic changes. This development was initiated by the fact that the naturalized Italians in Vienna founded an Italian congregation in 1625/26 under the guidance of the Jesuit priest and professor at the University of Vienna Wilhelm Lamormaini. By the year 1773, when the Jesuit Order was temporarily released their Italian trade fairs celebrated this "Congregation Italiana" in a chapel of the Jesuits at Bognergasse, near the old Jesuit church "Am Hof". But in 1773 that little church was by the imperial government requisited. Then the Italians found in St. Catherine Chapel at Ballhausplatz, which popularly still is referred as the Italian church - ie not only the Minoritenkirche - a new home. After a thorough restoration of the chapel was consecrated on 1 February 1775 ceremony in memory of the "Santa Maria Maggiore" to Rome in the name of "Madonna della Neve" (Mary Snow church'). The Holy Mass conducted Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who was in 1774 chamber composer and conductor of the Italian opera in Vienna, from 1788-90 to 1824 Kapellmeister and Director of the Court Chapel. Pope Pius VI . visited during his stay in Vienna on Good Friday of 1782 the church "Maria Schnee" on the Ballhausplatz. But this state of the law was short-lived: in 1783 Emperor Joseph II shifted the Friars Minor in the former Trinitarian on Alserstrasse, and the Minoritenkirche was on the grounds that the chapel "p Maria della Neve" for about 7,000 Italians living in Vienna was too small, the Congregation italiana transferred to the condition that the Community had now to restore the Great Church (imperial decree of June 3, 1784). The richly decorated chapel "Madonna della Neve" went on an imperial property and was finally in the late 18th Century canceled. Also, the Franciscan monastery passed into state ownership: one is used for imperial and feudal law firms. The cemetery near the church was abandoned. With the greatest financial burdens now led the congregation from the imperial mission of the church renovation, the thorough repair of the church was entrusted to the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg (1784-1789). In order to cover the construction costs somewhat, were the old long choir (chancel) and the beginning of the 14th Century. (Consecrated in 1317 ) at the western end of the south side of the nave grown (and now defunct) St. John's Chapel (Chapel Puchaimische Kapelle ) converted into residences. The solemn consecration of the church under the name of "Madonna della Neve" took place on 16 April 1786, on Easter Sunday.
But soon was moving closer to the church the next hardship: In the years of the Napoleonic wars, the church should serve as a warehouse for straw, hay and for different equipment, so in 1809 also the forced evacuation of the building took place. Shortly after engaging the French eventually turned this into a provisions store. Two-thirds of the floor was smashed by the rolling of drums and by the retraction of cars. In the middle of the church a wide, tunnel-like cavity had been excavated and other parts of the floor destroyed a in God's house capped oven. Until 18 April 1810, the then Prefect of the Minoritenkirche received back the church keys. In 1825 died one of the most famous Kongregaten (congregats) of this century, namely, the composer Antonio Salieri, and on 22 June this year resounded in the Italian national church with the participation of the court chapel and the first Hofchores (court choir) the Verdi Requiem.
As the situation after the Napoleonic war turmoil in the mid-19th Century had normalized, Emperor Ferdinand the Good in 1845 donated to the "Congregation italiana" the according to the model of Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco (1495-97) designed mosaic of the Last Supper, which the Roman Giacomo Raffaelli of 12 panels with a total weight of 20 tons by Napoleon's orders had made in the years 1806-1814, and was eventually bought by Emperor Franz for the Belvedere Palace. To that gave Emperor Ferdinand a considerable amount (8000 guilders) to allow the mounting of the work of art in the Minoritenkirche. The inauguration of the altar took place on 26nd in March 1847. In 1852 Emperor Franz Joseph came and soon the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand in the "Congregation ". The former paid each year mostly coming from out of town fast preachers for the Church, in return he regularly received at the Festival of Lights (2 February) as well as on Palm Sunday the sacred candle or the olive branch.
The last major change in the church took place in the years 1892-1905 at the restructuring of the Minoritenplatz. Now two new courses, namely the Ballhausplatz and Minoritenplatz emerged, the houses adjacent to the church (former Long John's Chapel Choir and) were demolished. The former Franciscan monastery had to give way to the House, Court and State Archives. Even the church was given a new face, although the plans of the architect Viktor Luntz due to financial reasons only could be realized partially, there were clearly visible changes: Most noticeable to the viewer is undoubtedly the Gothic passage on the south side of the walled grave stones originated partly from the bands, and part of the adjacent once cemetery, as well as the above installed "Minoritenhaus". 1907 were placed in the tower four new bells cast in Trento, which is, however - with the exception of one, St. Anthony ordained, Bell - 1914 confiscated. The solemn consecration of the church took place on 4 Held in May 1909 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph. Due to the highly cooperative attitude of the Congregation towards the transformation plans of the City of Vienna Lueger, the mayor promised that the court should never be installed directly behind the church.
More important restoration work was carried out 1960-1962 (church affairs), in the last decade, as the outer walls have been restored.
About Minoritenplatz finally should be mentioned that the pastoral care of Italians after 1786 by each rectors appointed by the Archbishop was, from 1808 to 1813 was also here Clemens Maria Hofbauer who died 1820 and later was canonized working as a church rector. Therefore, there is also his monument on the north side of the church. Since the year 1953, and officially by the order of the archbishop Ordinariate of 1 December 1957 is the Friars Minor transmitted the pastoral care of the Italian community again, firstly the Fathers belonging to the Order of Padua Province while they are under the Austrian province today. In the year 2003, ie 50 years after the adoption of the pastoral care of Italians in the Minoritenkirche by the Conventual, that Francis statue was made, nowadays, it is located on the north side of the church, next to the Baroque cultivation.
(Text by Dr. Manfred Zips , Ital. Congregation )
Sony RX1 User Report.
I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.
The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.
Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.
It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).
Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features
The Price
First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:
Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.
Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.
You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”
In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.
35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2
The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.
While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...
I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.
As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.
Design is about making choices
When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.
So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.
In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.
In use
So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.
Snapshots
As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.
I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.
To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.
Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.
Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.
How I shoot with the RX1
Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.
Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.
So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).
Working within constraints.
The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.
To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.
Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.
I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.
But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.
Pro Tip: Focusing
Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.
Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.
Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.
Carrying.
I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.
The Draco Group consists of three galaxies of which the barred spiral NGC 5985 is on the left. Together with NGC 5982 (center) and NGC 5981 (right) it forms the gravitationally bound trio Holm 719.
Object: NGC 5985, NGC 5982, NGC 5981 (Holm 719, Draco Group)
Optics: GSO Newton 8" F4 + GPU
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R
Camera: ZWO ASI 183MM Pro @-20°C, Gain=53, Offset=10
Filter: ZWO EFW 7x36mm, ZWO 36mm Filters
Exposure: total 7h, R 12x240sec, G 12x240sec, B 12x240sec, L 69x240sec, 200 Bias, 40 Darks, 60 Flats per channel
Date: 2018-05-12, 2018-05-19, 2018-05-21, 2021-08-10
Location: Schwaig, Lienz
Capture: Sequence Generator Pro, N.I.N.A.
Guiding: Off-Axis, ASI120MM, PHD2
Image Acquisition: Stephan Schurig
Image Processing: Stephan Schurig
AstroPixelProcessor 1.082: Calibration, Registration, Normalization, Integration, Remove Light Pollution, Background Calibration, Star Colors Correction, Auto Digital Development
Photoshop 22.5.1: Curves, Exposure (Offset), Nik Dfine 2 Denoise (Color Noise), Masked Nik Dfine 2 Denoise (Contrast Noise), Star Shrink, Starless Masked Smart Sharpen, Masked Dynamic (Dynamic, Saturation)
Powerlessness
Alienation in the sense of a lack of power has been technically defined by Seeman as “the expectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behaviour cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements, he seeks." Seeman argues that this is “the notion of alienation as it originated in the Marxian view of the worker’s condition in capitalist society: the worker is alienated to the extent that the prerogative and means of decision are expropriated by the ruling entrepreneurs".[20] Put more succinctly, Kalekin-Fishman (1996: 97) says, “A person suffers from alienation in the form of 'powerlessness' when she is conscious of the gap between what she would like to do and what she feels capable of doing”.
In discussing powerlessness, Seeman also incorporated the insights of the psychologist Julian Rotter. Rotter distinguishes between internal control and external locus of control, which means "differences (among persons or situations) in the degree to which success or failure is attributable to external factors (e.g. luck, chance, or powerful others), as against success or failure that is seen as the outcome of one’s personal skills or characteristics".[21] Powerlessness, therefore, is the perception that the individual does not have the means to achieve his goals.
More recently, Geyer remarks that “a new type of powerlessness has emerged, where the core problem is no longer being unfree but rather being unable to select from among an overchoice of alternatives for action, whose consequences one often cannot even fathom”. Geyer adapts cybernetics to alienation theory, and writes (1996: xxiv) that powerlessness is the result of delayed feedback: “The more complex one’s environment, the later one is confronted with the latent, and often unintended, consequences of one’s actions. Consequently, in view of this causality-obscuring time lag, both the ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ for one’s actions increasingly tend to be viewed as random, often with apathy and alienation as a result”.
Meaninglessness
A sense of meaning has been defined by Seeman as “the individual’s sense of understanding events in which he is engaged”.[23] Seeman (1959: 786) writes that meaninglessness “is characterized by a low expectancy that satisfactory predictions about the future outcomes of behaviour can be made." Where as powerlessness refers to the sensed ability to control outcomes, this refers to the sensed ability to predict outcomes. In this respect, meaninglessness is closely tied to powerlessness; Seeman (Ibid.) argues, “the view that one lives in an intelligible world might be a prerequisite to expectancies for control; and the unintelligibility of complex affairs is presumably conducive to the development of high expectancies for external control (that is, high powerlessness)”.
Geyer (1996: xxiii) believes meaninglessness should be reinterpreted for postmodern times: "With the accelerating throughput of information [...] meaningless is not a matter anymore of whether one can assign meaning to incoming information, but of whether one can develop adequate new scanning mechanisms to gather the goal-relevant information one needs, as well as more efficient selection procedures to prevent being overburdened by the information one does not need, but is bombarded with on a regular basis." "Information overload" or the so-called "data tsunami" are well-known information problems confronting contemporary man, and Geyer thus argues that meaninglessness is turned on its head.
Normlessness[edit]
Normlessness (or what Durkheim referred to as anomie) “denotes the situation in which the social norms regulating individual conduct have broken down or are no longer effective as rules for behaviour”.This aspect refers to the inability to identify with the dominant values of society or rather, with what are perceived to be the dominant values of society. Seeman (1959: 788) adds that this aspect can manifest in a particularly negative manner, “The anomic situation [...] may be defined as one in which there is a high expectancy that socially unapproved behaviours are required to achieve given goals”. This negative manifestation is dealt with in detail by Catherine Ross and John Mirowski in a series of publications on mistrust, powerlessness, normlessness and crime.
Neal & Collas (2000: 122) write, “Normlessness derives partly from conditions of complexity and conflict in which individuals become unclear about the composition and enforcement of social norms. Sudden and abrupt changes occur in life conditions, and the norms that usually operate may no longer seem adequate as guidelines for conduct”. This is a particular issue after the fall of the Soviet Union, mass migrations from developing to developed countries, and the general sense of disillusionment that characterized the 1990s (Senekal, 2011). Traditional values that had already been questioned (especially during the 1960s) were met with further scepticism in the 1990s, resulting in a situation where individuals rely more often on their own judgement than on institutions of authority: "The individual not only has become more independent of the churches, but from other social institutions as well. The individual can make more personal choices in far more life situations than before” (Halman, 1998: 100). These choices are not necessarily "negative": Halman's study found that Europeans remain relatively conservative morally, even though the authority of the Church and other institutions has eroded.
Political alienation
One manifestation of the above dimensions of alienation can be a feeling of estrangement from, and a lack of engagement in, the political system. Such political alienation could result from not identifying with any particular political party or message, and could result in revolution, reforming behavior, or abstention from the political process, possibly due to voter apathy.
A similar concept is policy alienation, where workers experience a state of psychological disconnection from a policy programme being implemented.
Social isolation
Social isolation refers to “The feeling of being segregated from one’s community”. Neal and Collas (2000: 114) emphasize the centrality of social isolation in the modern world: “While social isolation is typically experienced as a form of personal stress, its sources are deeply embedded in the social organization of the modern world. With increased isolation and atomization, much of our daily interactions are with those who are strangers to us and with whom we lack any ongoing social relationships.”
Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, migrants from Eastern Europe and the developing countries have flocked to developed countries in search of a better living standard. This has led to entire communities becoming uprooted: no longer fully part of their homelands, but neither integrated into their adopted communities. Diaspora literature depicts the plights of these migrants, such as Hafid Bouazza in Paravion. Senekal (2010b: 41) argues, "Low-income communities or religious minorities may feel separated from mainstream society, leading to backlashes such as the civil unrest that occurred in French cities in October 2005. The fact that the riots subsequently spread to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, and Switzerland, illustrates that not only did these communities feel segregated from mainstream society, but also that they found a community in their isolation; they regarded themselves as kindred spirits".
Relationships
One concept used in regard to specific relationships is that of parental alienation, where a child is distanced from and expresses a general dislike for one of their parents (who may have divorced or separated). The term is not applied where there is child abuse. The parental alienation might be due to specific influences from either parent or could result from the social dynamics of the family as a whole. It can also be understood in terms of attachment, the social and emotional process of bonding between child and caregiver. Adoptees can feel alienated from both adoptive parents and birth parents.
Attachment relationships in adults can also involve feelings of alienation. Indeed, emotional alienation is said to be a common way of life for many, whether it is experienced as overwhelming, or is not admitted to in the midst of a socioeconomic race, or contributes to seemingly unrelated problems.
Self-estrangement
Self-estrangement is an elusive concept in sociology, as recognized by Seeman (1959), although he included it as an aspect in his model of alienation. Some, with Marx, consider self-estrangement to be the end result and thus the heart of social alienation. Self-estrangement can be defined as “the psychological state of denying one’s own interests – of seeking out extrinsically satisfying, rather than intrinsically satisfying, activities...”. It could be characterized as a feeling of having become a stranger to oneself, or to some parts of oneself, or alternatively as a problem of self-knowledge, or authenticity.
Seeman (1959) recognized the problems inherent in defining the "self", while post-modernism in particular has questioned the very possibility of pin-pointing what precisely "self" constitutes. Gergen (1996: 125) argues that: “the traditional view of self versus society is deeply problematic and should be replaced by a conception of the self as always already immersed in relatedness. On this account, the individual’s lament of ‘not belonging’ is partially a by-product of traditional discourses themselves”. If the self is relationally constituted, does it make sense to speak of "self-estrangement" rather than "social isolation"? Costas and Fleming (2009: 354) suggest that although the concept of self-estrangement “has not weathered postmodern criticisms of essentialism and economic determinism well”, the concept still has value if a Lacanian reading of the self is adopted. This can be seen as part of a wider debate on the concept of self between humanism and antihumanism, structuralism and post-structuralism, or nature and nurture.
Mental disturbance
Until early in the 20th century, psychological problems were referred to in psychiatry as states of mental alienation, implying that a person had become separated from themselves, their reason or the world. From the 1960s alienation was again considered in regard to clinical states of disturbance, typically using a broad concept of a 'schizoid' ('splitting') process taken from psychoanalytic theory. The splitting was said to occur within regular child development and in everyday life, as well as in more extreme or dysfunctional form in conditions such as schizoid personality and schizophrenia. Varied concepts of alienation and self-estrangement were used to link internal schizoid states with observable symptoms and with external socioeconomic divisions, without necessarily explaining or evidencing underlying causation. R.D. Laing was particularly influential in arguing that dysfunctional families and socioeconomic oppression caused states of alienation and ontological insecurity in people, which could be considered adaptations but which were diagnosed as disorders by mainstream psychiatry and society.(Laing,[1967] 1959). The specific theories associated with Laing and others at that time are not widely accepted, but work from other theoretical perspectives sometimes addresses the same theme.
In a related vein, for Ian Parker, psychology normalizes conditions of social alienation. While it could help groups of individuals emancipate themselves, it serves the role of reproducing existing conditions.(Parker,2007). This view can be see as part of a broader tradition sometimes referred to as Critical psychology or Liberation psychology, which emphasizes that an individual is enmeshed within a social-political framework, and so therefore are psychological problems. Similarly, some psychoanalysts suggest that while psychoanalysis emphasizes environmental causes and reactions, it also attributes the problems of individuals to internal conflicts stemming from early psychosocial development, effectively divorcing them from the wider ongoing context. Slavoj Zizek (drawing on Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis) argues that in today's capitalist society, the individual is estranged from their self through the repressive injunction to "enjoy!" Such an injunction does not allow room for the recognition of alienation and, indeed, could itself be seen as an expression of alienation.(Zizek, 1994).
Frantz Fanon, an early writer on postcolonialism, studied the conditions of objectification and violent oppression (lack of autonomy) believed to have led to mental disorders among the colonized in the Third World (in particular Africans) (Fanon, ([2004] 1961).
A process of 'malignant alienation' has been observed in regard to some psychiatric patients, especially in forensic units and for individuals labeled 'difficult' or who aren't liked by at least some staff, which involves a breakdown of the therapeutic relationship between staff and patients, and which may end in the suicide of the patient. Individuals with long-term mental disorders, which may have originally stemmed from social alienation, can experience particular social and existential alienation within their communities due to other people's and potentially their own negative attitudes towards themselves and 'odd' behavior.
Disability
Differences between persons with disabilities and individuals in relative abilities, or perceived abilities, can be a cause of alienation. One study, "Social Alienation and Peer Identification: A Study of the Social Construction of Deafness",found that among deaf adults one theme emerged consistently across all categories of life experience: social rejection by, and alienation from, the larger hearing community. Only when the respondents described interactions with deaf people did the theme of isolation give way to comments about participation and meaningful interaction. This appeared to be related to specific needs, for example for "real" conversation, for information, the opportunity to develop close friendships and a sense of "family". It was suggested that the social meaning of deafness is established by interaction between deaf and hearing people, sometimes resulting in marginalization of the deaf, which is sometimes challenged. It has also led to the creation of alternatives and the deaf community is described as one such alternative.
Physicians and nurses often deal with people who are temporarily or permanently alienated from communities, which could be a result or a cause of medical conditions and suffering, and it has been suggested that therefore attention should be paid to learning from experiences of the special pain that alienation can bring.
Target: SH2-132 Lion Nebula
The Lion Nebula Sh2-132 is a weak emission nebula near the constellations of Cepheus and Lacerta. I
t’s thought to be between 10,000 and 12,000 light years away. The main components of this emission nebula are hydrogen and oxygen gases, which are stimulated by ultra violet light from nearby stars and subsequently re-emit the light. The darker areas are “dark nebulae,” which are dust clouds that obscure light
Gear:
Mount: ZWO AM5
Main Cam: ZWO ASI294MC Pro @ gain 121 and 14F
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120MM Mini with ZWO 30mm f/4 scope
Lens: Sigma 150-600 @ 500
Filter: Antlia ALP-T 5nm Ha and Oiii
Acquisition:
Light frames: Best 43 of 50 5 minute subs totalling 3 Hr 35 Min integration
Sessions: 17-Sep-23
Location: Waller, Texas country road
Bortle: 5/6 ?
Moon: none
Processing
• PI - Subframe selector, WBPP
• GraXpert background
• PI SPCC
• PI Russel Croman - BXT NXT STX
• PI Starless Edits
○ Bill Blanshan Mike Cranfield Narrowband Normalization Tool
○ Bill Blanshan GHS Stretch
○ Curves
○ Dark Structure Enhance
• PI Stars Edits
○ Bill Blanshan GHS Stretch
○ Curve Saturation, SCNR, Invert and SCNR
• PS ACR Black point, Highlights, Clarity, Dehaze
• PS Selective Colors
• PS Screen stars layer, copy stars layer/brighten it/mask in selective stars
PS Watermark
I have imaged this before in the same frame as the Surfboard Galaxy, however the 0.62 Arcseconds Per Pixel the Qhyccd 183M gives me on my Sky-Watcher Quattro 8" F4 gives me a much higher resolution image, so here it is, the Owl Nebula in the constellation of Ursa Major at a distance of 2030 Light years from Earth
Gear:
Imaging Scope: Sky-Watcher Quattro 8" F4 Imaging Newtonian
Imaging Camera: Qhyccd 183M 20mpx ColdMOS Camera at -20C and DSO Gain
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ8 Pro
Guide Camera: Qhyccd QHY5L-II Mono
Guide Scope: Sky-Watcher 50x90 Finder Scope
Filter Wheel: Starlight Xpress Ltd 7x36mm EFW
Filters: Baader Planetarium 36mm RGB
Coma Corrector: Sky-Watcher Aplanatic Coma Corrector
Image Acquisition: Main Sequence Software SGPro
Image Processing: PixInsight
Image Details:
Target: M97/NGC3587 - Owl Nebula
Constelation: Ursa Major
Red: 27x300S
Green: 27x300S
Blue: 27x300S
Ha: 25x600S
Darks: 51x300S
Flats: 101
Bias: 251 converted to SuperBIAS and deducted from Flats
PixInsight Image processing workflow:
1. Calibrated against darks and Bias Subtracted Flats
2. Star Alignment for all RGB and Ha Frames
3. Least noise frame from each colour chosen as Normalization Frame and Dynamic Background Extraction Performed
4. Normalization of all frames
5. Stacking of frames and generation of drizle data (for larger quality image in future)
6. Performed LinearFit using Red stacked image as reference for RGB Frames
7. Performed DynamicCrop on all channels and Ha
8. Performed MultiMedianTransformation to reduce background noise
9. Performed SCNR to remove excessive green in image
10. Stretched the image using HistogramTransformation
11. Performed an Unsharp Mask on RGB and HA Data
12. Performed an ATWT on the Background
11. Merged the Ha Data using the HaRVB-AIP Script in PixInsight
12. Performed a CurvesTransformation to bring out the star colour
Arp 273 or “A Rose Made of Galaxies”—I just think of them as “the Rose Galaxies”—are at least two interacting galaxies some 300 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda. UGC 1810, the “upper” galaxy, contains about five times more mass than its neighbor, UGC 1813, the “lower” galaxy. UGC 1813 is thought to have passed through, if not simply near, its neighbor, and through this interaction the two have tidally distorted into a rose-like shape. It appears at least a third galaxy (the warm “star”-sized blip in vaguely discernible swirling at the “top” of UGC 1810 in this perspective) may also be involved.
Along the top of UGC 1810 are splinters of blue jewel-like structures comprised of young blue stars. UGC 1813 shows signs of intense star formation, possibly triggered by this interaction. The bright stars littered across this image are inside our own galaxy, and plenty more galaxies are littered about. Arp 273 was first described in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, produced by Halton Arp (hence Arp 273) and released in 1966.
These galaxies are stupid far away (technical term for some 300 million light years) and rather “small” from our perspective, making them a very challenging target to image through the pursuit of amateur tomfoolery, but I have wanted to image these of these for some time. They are just so daggone beautiful. I got my chance on October 8, 2023, thanks to a gorgeous clear night in the desert with a strikingly stable atmosphere, no wind, no moon until later into the night, and these jewels passing overhead. I’ll take it as the universe tossing me a bone ahead of what may well be another long, cold, stormy winter.
AstroBin
Details: Celestron EdgeHD 8 with 0.7x reducer, ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro, Bin1, Astronomik Deep-Sky RGB and UV/IR filters, all riding on a Rainbow Astro RST-135E. 25x180s each of RGB and 98x120s Luminance for about 7 hours of data. Calibrated with darks (optimized), flats, and bias. Edited in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop.
Editing: Stacked in PixInsight with normalization and no drizzle. Cropped; background extraction (ABE); color calibration (SPCC); deconvolution (Deconvolution and BlurX blend); stars removed; noise reduction (NoiseX, masked); color refinement (curves and GHS), stretched (GHS); luminance image refined in Photoshop and more noise reduction, LRGB combination; additional refinement and adjustment (colors, detail, noise). Smaller galaxies were gathered, protected, and edited with a mask to avoid overlap with stars image (worked like a charm). Stars image got more color adjustment, masked noise reduction, stretched (GHS), extracted, and blended into LRGB image (PixelMath). Stars reduced (hat tip to Bill Blanshan) and refined. Photoshop used for final details, nudging out more detail, final larger adjustments for presentation (e.g. deeper contrast, final crops from larger field of view).
The amount of stars in this image make the thing there HAS to be some other life out there.
Equipment
- Nikon D90 (Astro-Mod)
- Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer
- Sky-Watcher Tripod
- AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6
- Bahintov Mask
- Intervalometer
- Laptop
- All Sky Plate Solver
- Sharpcap
- Stellarium
Acquisition:
- ISO 800
- f/5.6
- Bortle 2-4
- Taken on 7/22/2021
- 183 light frames x 1 minute
- 150 bias frames
- 22 dark frames
- 100 flat frames
Processing:
- Calibrated subframes using WBPP
- Stacked using Normalize scale gradient
- crop out stacking artifacts
- extract luminance
- DBE
- Photometric color calibration
- EZ soft stretch
- Curves transformation
- HDR multiscale transform
- LRGB combination
Website: theastroenthusiast.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_astronomy_enthusiast/
This is the last of three photos I made of blossoms on my neighbor's peach tree that grows next to the fence on our property line. The fence is more like a yard divider that a barrier, short enough to see over. The neighbor's peach tree is close enough to touch and pick the fruit from our yard. Since our neighbor's family has little taste for peaches, Melody and I may get to enjoy some of the bounty of this fruit tree. This photo had some bright spots where the background showing through empty spaces in the blossom. I decided the highlights were distracting and cloned portions of the image to normalize the pink and white colors. I did this to make the photo more cohesive in the viewer's eye. I shot this using my Canon Powershot SX50.
Eugenics theories were popularized in England by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. According to Galton, the human race could be improved through selective breeding and by exterminating the unfit. Galton hoped that eugenics would one day become “the religion of the future.” According to Galton’s thought, the intelligence of the aristocrats was genetically inherited. Galton came up with the word eugenics from the Greek word ‘eugenes,’ meaning ‘well born.’ The first International Congress of Eugenics was held at the University of London In 1912. The president of this meeting was Charles Darwin’s son.
Throughout the years, the Rockefeller’s have spent large sums of money funding eugenics. The Rockefeller’s even funded eugenics research in Germany during World War II, stating that war should not impede scientific research.
The British National Association for Mental Health (NAMH) was formed in 1944. It was lead by Montagu Norman, who had been the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. In the beginning, the group met at Norman’s home. In the 1930s, Norman had also invited Nazi Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht into his home to arrange financing for Hitler. The British National Association for Mental Health was just a rebranding of the National Councils of Mental Hygiene, which had been one of the major advocates for eugenics programs around the world. This group had collaborated with Nazi eugenicists prior to World War II.
The British National Association for Mental Health (NAMH), joined forces with the United Nations and the Tavistock Institute In 1948. The Tavistock Institute had been collaborating with British military intelligence and numerous psychiatrists. NAMH and the Tavistock Institute held an International Congress of Mental Health at the Ministry of Health. In this meeting they formed The World Federation of Mental Health, in order to coordinate global psychological operations.
The Tavistock Institute also sponsored group ‘sensitivity’ programs. The purpose of these programs was for the breaking down of an individual’s personality, so that it could be reconstructed to go along with the group (herd). Millions of people have gone through these programs. Today we have sensitivity programs like DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion.
They have also used the education system to dumb down the population. Students do not receive a classical education, in which they can learn how to critically think. Instead, they are indoctrinated. Look no further then sex education and queer theory, which are both forms of eugenics indoctrination. The education system has been used to help drug up students on mass with Ritalin, antidepressants, and puberty blockers.
One technique of eugenics is to destroy traditional morality and normalize deviancy. Mass communications are used to promote the rejection of chastity, self control, and ethics. Since the social engineers have been promoting illicit sexual conduct, most sexual acts are now accepted. They have become normalized. The sexual revolution was used to disassociate sex from procreation, all the while selling birth control and abortion to the masses. This has eaten away at the foundations of the nuclear family. The Nazi’s also promoted sexual immorality. “It was the Nazis who restored the ‘right to love’ in their propaganda.” Indeed, “Love was old-fashioned, sex was modern!” The Nazi’s even pushed the idea of premarital sex in school, as a means to increase the Aryan race.
In 1949, under Project BLUEBIRD, the CIA used drugs to experiment with mind control. “Basic to the financing of mind control projects, Nelson Rockefeller merged three federal corporations into the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and HEW and its sub-agency the National Institute of Mental Health were used to fund ARTICHOKE and other early CIA mind control projects.” In a recently released Project Artichoke document, they spoke about putting drugs and chemicals in food, water, Coca-Cola, beer, liquor, cigarettes, vaccinations, shots, gases, and aerosols. They also mentioned taking nutritional elements out of food to create dietary deficiencies as a method to condition people for mind control. They wanted to produce agitation, anxiety, nervousness, tension, and depression in order to create feelings of despondency, hopelessness, and lethargy. In another document, they asked the question, “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation?” Project Artichoke was a precursor to the MK-Ultra program, which was launched in 1953.
The CIA was obsessed with LSD. In one experiment, they used four times the normal dosage to keep seven addicts stoned for 77 days straight, and they using electroshocks to keep them from falling asleep. They used prostitutes to lure men into a certain room in order to give them LSD-spiked drinks. They sprayed LSD in public places. LSD and hypnosis were used to persuade individuals that they had been abducted by aliens. They promoted psychedelics to the public. Charles Manson, with his occult practices, LSD, and murders, can be linked to the CIA. Their sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and spiritualism, neutered the antiwar activists of the time. Indeed, the hippy generation became passive materialistic yuppies.
The CIA, with its social engineering programs, media propaganda, and its sexual revolution, was used to prepare America for change—the revamping of society through the use of psychedelic drugs and mysticism. “As illogical as it may seem at first glance, the LSD drugging of the world and an accompanying injection of mystical religion fits neatly into the New World Order—and eugenics—intention for population control and a ‘post-technological’ world. Believing that the world is overpopulated and that resources are being squandered through consumption by the masses, dystopian social visionaries epitomized by those of Tavistock and the Club of Rome have repeatedly urged that the solution is a return to a mystical primitivism—at least for the vast majority of the world’s population. And that primitivism, they seem to believe, can be furthered through the use of drugs and mysticism.”
Captain Alfred Hubbard, who was labeled the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD,” said that LSD was discovered years prior to its announced. He said that it was first discovered by members of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society—an offshoot of Blavatsky’s occultist Theosophy group—in their quest to discover a “peace pill.” It also looks like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell were both connected to British Intelligence due to their various connections. In Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley said, “If the first half of the twentieth century was the era of the technical engineers, the second half may well be the era of the social engineers—and the twenty-first century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and Brave New World. To the question quis cusodiet custodes?—Who will mount guard over our guardians, who will engineer the engineers?—the answer is a bland denial that they need any supervision.” Aldous Huxley was a proponent of LSD. He asked his wife for LSD on his death dead. He had his soma and died.
They implanted electrodes into people’s brains, while injecting various drugs into their brain tissue. By implanting electrodes into the brain, they could switch on and off various emotional and mental states such as feelings of fear or well-being. They could even cause sexual sensations. They also had the ability to manipulate memory and artificially induce hallucinations.
Dr. Delgado, MK-Ultra’s infamous psychopath, found that low intensity electromagnetic fields could alter DNA. He remarked, “Our understanding of genetics is very clumsy at present. But if we can produce lethal mutations with EMF fields, perhaps we will someday be able to use the technique to produce behavior changes.” Delgado said, “This new knowledge is so important that I think it should radically change the philosophy of our educational system, which believes in the sanctity of individuals, thinking that an individual exists at birth. This belief is not true. And this science is going to prove the fallacy of democracy in the sense that we talk about the rights of the individual; this democratic belief is not true. Because we are forming this individual, because we are constructing his brain, we are willy nilly making the differences we either desire or dislike.”
In 1956, Curtiss Shafer said, “The ultimate achievement of biocontrol may be man himself. The controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals. A few months after birth, a surgeon would equip each child with a socket mounted under the scalp and electrodes reaching selected areas of brain tissue.” He stated that “sensory perceptions and muscular activity could be either modified or completely controlled by bioelectric signals radiating from state-controlled transmitters.” In 1968, Dr. Stuart Mackay, a specialist in brain implants wrote, “Among the many telemetry instruments being used today are miniature radio transmitters that can be swallowed, carried externally, or surgically implanted in man or animal.”
As early as World War II, American Intelligence was using psychiatrists to split the personalities of military personnel, so that they could insert false memories into their minds. They found that certain drugs, along with hypnosis, worked well with some subjects.
It appears that Lee Harvey Oswald was under mind control. A book written in 1969 claimed that the CIA used a method called Radio Hypnotic Intracerebral Control and Electronic Dissolution of Memory (RHIC-EDOM) to program Oswald. A CIA agent named Herman Kimsey said that “Oswald was programmed to kill.” Of course, Kimsey quickly ended up dead. As documented in the Warren Report, Oswald allegedly lived at the home of a psychiatrist named Francisco Silva prior to the assassination of JFK. Silva had collaborated in his scientific writings with scientist Robert Heath, who was known for his surgical brain physiology experiments. Oswald was friends with David Ferrie, who was also a hypnotist. On the day of the assassination, Oswald’s wallet contained Ferrie’s library card. A friend of Ferrie, Jack Martin, said that Ferrie had hypnotically programmed Oswald to kill Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald had attended ritualistic parties with David Ferrie. During the time that Ferrie was testifying about the Kennedy assassination, he was found dead in his apartment.
Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, also appeared to be under mind control. An evaluation of Jack Ruby by a number of doctors yielded some interesting results. According to Dr. Walter Bromberg, Ruby was “preset to be a fighter, to attack.” Dr. Bromberg also stated, “Definitely there is a block to his thinking which is no part of his original mental endowment.” Dr. Roy Schafer remarked, “He appears to feel not altogether in control of his body actions, as if they occur independently of his conscious will at times.” Dr. Manfred Guttmacher, suggested that Ruby’s brain had somehow been damaged. Ruby, in his correspondence with journalist Lincoln Lawrence, said they had used clever means to trick him into silencing Oswald. Ruby remarked, “I walked into a trap the moment I walked down that ramp Sunday morning.” Ruby also stated that he was framed and that they were after his blood. “In the end, no one listened to what Ruby had to say, except for journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, who was found ‘suicided’ shortly after her interview with him. Ruby himself was to die soon after from a cancer that he believed had been injected into him.”
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, also appeared to be under mind control. Sirhan had received a head injury. He was seeing doctors at the time, and then disappeared for three months. When he returned, he had gained an interest in the occult. Many times drugs, hypnosis, and the occult are used in mind control. After the murder of Kennedy, numerous people said that Sirhan had a hypnotic-like demeanour. When Sirhan was questioned about the assassination, he said, “I don’t remember much about the shooting, sir, did I do it? Well, yes, I am told I did it. I remember being at the Ambassador [Hotel]. I am drinking Tom Collinses. I got dizzy. I went back to my car so I could go home. But I was too drunk to drive. I thought I’d better find some coffee. The next thing I remember I was being choked and a guy was twisting my knee.” A man named Bill Bryan, who was the president of the American Institute of Hypnosis, also worked for the CIA. Bryan stated that Sirhan had been his client in 1968. It is also known that Bryan hypnotized Albert De Salvo, the “Boston Strangler.” A notebook of Sirhans’ made references to a guy named “Di Salvo.” Without a doubt, there were CIA agents on the ground at the time of the assassination, one of which shouted, “We shot him! We shot him!”
The Jonestown massacre appears to have also been part of a CIA project. It looks like a group brainwashing gone wrong. Congressman Leo Ryan was assassinated during the Jonestown massacre. His friend and attorney, Joe Holsinger, said, “The more I investigate the mysteries of Jonestown, the more I am convinced there is something sinister behind it all. There is no doubt in my mind that Jones had very close CIA connections. At the time of the tragedy, the Temple had three boats in the water off the coast. The boats disappeared shortly afterwards. Remember, Brazil is a country that Jones is very familiar with. He is supposed to have money there. And it is not too far from Guyana. My own feeling is that Jones was ambushed by CIA agents who then disappeared in the boats. But the whole story is so mind-boggling that I’m willing to concede he escaped with them.”
It appears that the FBI was behind the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a series of bombings. American intelligence can also be linked to the Symbionese Liberation Army, which kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in 1974.
During the cold war, both Russia and the United States were beaming radio signals worldwide. These signals affected the human brain. These low frequencies could travel through the earth and the atmosphere, and there was no escaping them—they penetrated anything and everything. These frequencies could not be jammed. They caused symptoms of headaches, anxiety, lack of body coordination, and other symptoms such as depression.
Various beliefs can be implanted in people after brain function has been greatly disturbed by fear, anger, or excitement. The most common effect is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestibility. When this happens to a group, it is sometimes called ‘herd instinct.’ This phenomenon usually happens during war, epidemics, and periods of danger, which increases anxiety and mass suggestibility.
The CIA likes to use trauma based mind control. They show individuals pictures and movies of bestiality, human sacrifices, and cannibalism. They cause some subjects to participate in such acts. They mess with peoples sensories by drugging them up for long periods, putting them in confined spaces (include holes), placing them in water, and using strobe lights and various noises. The victims lose all sense of time and end up in a zombie-like state. The CIA has also used trauma-based mind control on small children, turning them into little Epstein-style pawns to entrap unwitting men with hidden cameras. These poor children have been abused in the most vile and wicked ways! These evils are still happening today!
“A person’s memory, consciousness, and sense of self can be fully accessed and modified by electromagnetic means.” “Experiences, feelings, memories—virtually any mental state—can be artificially injected into a human brain from an exterior source. The most frightening thing is that the means for doing this already exist in a fully operational form on a worldwide basis.”
In the early 90s, they spoke about hardwiring humans with silicon computer chips in order to not only trigger neuron impulses but also to receive them. A lab in the 90s was working on an implantable chip that could record the data of the electrical pulses that flow through the nervous system from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and sense of touch. They said that in the future they would use Directed Energy Systems for molding the perception of the public. Those who would reject this mind control would be identified through inter-agency databases, and computerized personality simulators would develop tailor-made psychological warfare programs for use against them. They also said that if the U.S. were to remain a successful superpower, it would need to have information dominance. Part of this dominance would include developing a satellite-linked information grind that would monitor those who would be implanted with a “microscopic brain chip.” Since the mid-eighties, they have used satellites not only to track victims but also to beam them with electromagnetic weapons from space. Anyone remember the Star Wars project that was started in the eighties? Twenty-five scientists, who worked for a UK firm linked to the Star Wars project, died suspiciously.
“As reported in the New York Times, in 1998, British Telecommunications is currently at work on a device that they dub the Soul Catcher, a computer chip implanted in the optic nerve behind the eye that, in conjunction with genetic programming, will monitor and record the entirety of a person’s thinking, what they see, what they feel. This information, according to Dr. Chris Winter of British Telecommunications, will be stored in a central computer. Information will also be fed to the person from an exterior computerized source, for ‘extrasensory’ experience. Among the other capabilities foreseen for Soul Catcher is the implanting of one person’s chip into a newborn baby, thus transplanting the entire experience of one person into another.”
They use microwaves to beam images and voices into people’s heads. They use Voice to Skull technology to verbally abuse them. They use frequencies to cause them great pain. The CIA can use these tactics to persuade their victims to kill others or to commit suicide. Their victims have no privacy, their every thought is read. Artificial intelligence is also used to reply to their thoughts, constantly driving their victims crazy.
Indeed, today the CIA is using Directed Energy Weapons in conjunction with Voice of God Weapons. These attacks can cause extreme torment, even severe burns. People are being physically and psychologically tortured. They even use these electromagnetic weapons to sexual assault and rape their female victims. Gang-stalking is also used against their victims—perpetrators physically stalk, harass, and intimidate them. Victims will have their homes broken into and their property vandalized. Stalkers will approach their victims on the streets and tell them about something they were thinking. A gang-stalker came out as a whistleblower and said that the CIA was paying him 10 thousand a month to stalk people. His job was to stalk at least one person a day. He had to make sure the victim saw him. Then, to prove that he did his job, he had to send a video of the victim to the CIA. A lot of these victims lose their family and friends, their jobs and homes, and many commit suicide. The victims become powerless, and society looks on them as crazy or mentally ill. Therefore, these people do not have a voice.
Whole families are targeted, including children. They even speak to young children using their mother’s voice. They torture these little ones, causing them to writhe and scream uncontrollably. This has happen to children as young as three!
DARPA has been working on next-generation non-surgical neurotechnology for the development of bi-directional brain control technology interfaces. This nanotechnology will be capable of entering the body through the mouth, nose, or by injection. Once this nanotechnology enters the body, it will migrate to the brain, where it will act as sensors and transmitters. This technology has the capability of mind control.
While Investigating Havana Syndrome, individuals were found emitting electromagnetic radiation in the lower megahertz range. This was due to nanotechnology, which was assembling at high density nerve endings in the body. At present, this nanotechnology can literally be measured in everyone. This technology exponentially increased after COVID-19. This nanobot technology is made with silicon. Jesse Beltran is an expert on Havana Syndrome, and his job is to investigate and test people who are suspected of having Havana Syndrome. He claims that everyone he has tested, whether targeted or not, has this nanotechnology in their bodies. He thinks there is a switch that turns this technology on, so that it can pick up outside frequencies. Those who have Havana Syndrome have this switch turned on. Those who don’t have Havana Syndrome have this switch turned off. He hypothesizes that once 6G is set up and fully functional, all switches will be turned on and everyone will be on this system.
I love Revelation 18:13! The end of verse 13 is usually translated something like the “slaves and souls of men,” but it can be translated the “bodies and souls of men” like in the New King James Version. I love the ring to that! In the original language this word slave, properly indicates the body. The word means body first, then secondarily it means slave. If one expounded on the verse, it could be translated like this: the bodies of slaves and the souls of men. Enslaving the body is one thing, enslaving the soul is another! This Babylonian (Tower of Babel) system in Revelation 18 makes merchandise of the bodies and souls of men. I have chosen the words “made merchandise of” strategically. In the context of Christianity, one meaning of this phrase denotes the exploitation of a person for profit in a deceptive or unethical manner, and it indicates a betrayal of trust in a relationship. An example of this in the Bible was when Laban took advantage of Jacob. The Beast system will be sold as something great, as something to help unit humanity, yet this promise will be betrayed and those who take the Mark of the Beast will be exploited. The Beast system will usher humanity into transhumanism. This will be the betrayal of humanity. This global mind control network will control the masses remotely, exploiting the bodies and souls of men. You have been forewarned. Repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ!
This photo was taken by my step-daughter, Amanda. It was made using an iPhone 11. I scanned a photographic print in order to add it to flickr. I’ve cropped it a bit and applied RNI Films filtering. The photo was taken in our kitchen in Marietta, GA.
Edited in RNI Films with Fuji Superia 200 V.2 normalized
President Donald J. Trump meets with reporters to announce that Israel and Sudan have agreed to normalize relations Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo Tia Dufour)
Urbex Benelux -
In 1939 the factory was shut down due to a shortage of workers as a result of the second phase of the general mobilization for the Second World War . 72 percent of the personnel were requisitioned.
Between 1940 and 1945, the factory was badly damaged by bombing, which caused major fires in the paper and wood supplies. At the end of the war, only one machine was ready to use, but a law passed in October 1942 had to stop businesses with damage exceeding 25 percent.
After a slow start-up, the company worked back in 1947 with 140 employees and production had increased to four tons per year. It would take until 1949 before the supply could be normalized.
Saint-Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint-Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents.
The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020.
The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург (Saint-Petersburg).
The historic architecture of Saint-Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Sony RX1 User Report.
I hesitate to write about gear. Tools are tools and the bitter truth is that a great craftsman rises above his tools to create a masterpiece whereas most of us try to improve our abominations by buying better or faster hammers to hit the same nails at the same awkward angles.
The internet is fairly flooded with reviews of this tiny marvel, and it isn’t my intention to compete with those articles. If you’re looking for a full-scale review of every feature or a down-to-Earth accounting of the RX1’s strengths and weaknesses, I recommend starting here.
Instead, I’d like to provide you with a flavor of how I’ve used the camera over the last six months. In short, this is a user report. To save yourself a few thousand words: I love the thing. As we go through this article, you’ll see this is a purpose built camera. The RX1 is not for everyone, but we will get to that and on the way, I’ll share a handful of images that I made with the camera.
It should be obvious to anyone reading this that I write this independently and have absolutely no relationship with Sony (other than having exchanged a large pile of cash for this camera at a retail outlet).
Before we get to anything else, I want to clear the air about two things: Price and Features
The Price
First things first: the price. The $2800+ cost of this camera is the elephant in the room and, given I purchased the thing, you may consider me a poor critic. That in mind, I want to offer you three thoughts:
Consumer goods cost what they cost, in the absence of a competitor (the Fuji X100s being the only one worth mention) there is no comparison and you simply have to decide for yourself if you are willing to pay or not.
Normalize the price per sensor area for all 35mm f/2 lens and camera alternatives and you’ll find the RX1 is an amazing value.
You are paying for the ability to take photographs, plain and simple. Ask yourself, “what are these photographs worth to me?”
In my case, #3 is very important. I have used the RX1 to take hundreds of photographs of my family that are immensely important to me. Moreover, I have made photographs (many appearing on this page) that are moving or beautiful and only happened because I had the RX1 in my bag or my pocket. Yes, of course I could have made these or very similar photographs with another camera, but that is immaterial.
35mm by 24mm by 35mm f/2
The killer feature of this camera is simple: it is a wafer of silicon 35mm by 24mm paired to a brilliantly, ridiculously, undeniably sharp, contrasty and bokehlicious 35mm f/2 Carl Zeiss lens. Image quality is king here and all other things take a back seat. This means the following: image quality is as good or better than your DSLR, but battery life, focus speed, and responsiveness are likely not as good as your DSLR. I say likely because, if you have an entry-level DSLR, the RX1 is comparable on these dimensions. If you want to change lenses, if you want an integrated viewfinder, if you want blindingly fast phase-detect autofocus then shoot with a DSLR. If you want the absolute best image quality in the smallest size possible, you’ve got it in the RX1.
While we are on the subject of interchangeable lenses and viewfinders...
I have an interchangeable lens DSLR and I love the thing. It’s basically a medium format camera in a 35mm camera body. It’s a powerhouse and it is the first camera I reach for when the goal is photography. For a long time, however, I’ve found myself in situations where photography was not the first goal, but where I nevertheless wanted to have a camera. I’m around the table with friends or at the park with my son and the DSLR is too big, too bulky, too intimidating. It comes between you and life. In this realm, mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras seem to be king, but they have a major flaw: they are, for all intents and purposes, just little DSLRs.
As I mentioned above, I have an interchangeable lens system, why would I want another, smaller one? Clearly, I am not alone in feeling this way, as the market has produced a number of what I would call “professional point and shoots.” Here we are talking about the Fuji X100/X100s, Sigma DPm-series and the RX100 and RX1.
Design is about making choices
When the Fuji X100 came out, I was intrigued. Here was a cheap(er), baby Leica M. Quiet, small, unobtrusive. Had I waited to buy until the X100s had come out, perhaps this would be a different report. Perhaps, but probably not. I remember thinking to myself as I was looking at the X100, “I wish there was a digital Rollei 35, something with a fixed 28mm or 35mm lens that would fit in a coat pocket or a small bag.” Now of course, there is.
So, for those of you who said, “I would buy the RX1 if it had interchangeable lenses or an integrated viewfinder or faster autofocus,” I say the following: This is a purpose built camera. You would not want it as an interchangeable system, it can’t compete with DSLR speed. A viewfinder would make the thing bigger and ruin the magic ratio of body to sensor size—further, there is a 3-inch LCD viewfinder on the back! Autofocus is super fast, you just don’t realize it because the bar has been raised impossibly high by ultra-sonic magnet focusing rings on professional DSLR lenses. There’s a fantastic balance at work here between image quality and size—great tools are about the total experience, not about one or the other specification.
In short, design is about making choices. I think Sony has made some good ones with the RX1.
In use
So I’ve just written 1,000 words of a user report without, you know, reporting on use. In many ways the images on the page are my user report. These photographs, more than my words, should give you a flavor of what the RX1 is about. But, for the sake of variety, I intend to tell you a bit about the how and the why of shooting with the RX1.
Snapshots
As a beginning enthusiast, I often sneered at the idea of a snapshot. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to appreciate what a pocket camera and a snapshot can offer. The RX1 is the ultimate photographer’s snapshot camera.
I’ll pause here to properly define snapshot as a photograph taken quickly with a handheld camera.
To quote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So it is with photography. Beautiful photographs happen at the decisive moment—and to paraphrase Henri Cartier-Bresson further—the world is newly made and falling to pieces every instant. I think it is no coincidence that each revolution in the steady march of photography from the tortuously slow chemistry of tin-type and daguerreotype through 120 and 35mm formats to the hyper-sensitive CMOS of today has engendered new categories and concepts of photography.
Photography is a reflexive, reactionary activity. I see beautiful light or the unusual in an every day event and my reaction is a desire to make a photograph. It’s a bit like breathing and has been since I was a kid.
Rather than sneer at snapshots, nowadays I seek them out; and when I seek them out, I do so with the Sony RX1 in my hand.
How I shoot with the RX1
Despite much bluster from commenters on other reviews as to the price point and the purpose-built nature of this camera (see above), the RX1 is incredibly flexible. Have a peek at some of the linked reviews and you’ll see handheld portraits, long exposures, images taken with off-camera flash, etc.
Yet, I mentioned earlier that I reach for the D800 when photography is the primary goal and so the RX1 has become for me a handheld camera—something I use almost exclusively at f/2 (people, objects, shallow DoF) or f/8 (landscapes in abundant light, abstracts). The Auto-ISO setting allows the camera to choose in the range from ISO 50 and 6400 to reach a proper exposure at a given aperture with a 1/80 s shutter speed. I have found this shutter speed ensures a sharp image every time (although photographers with more jittery grips may wish there was the ability to select a different default shutter speed). This strategy works because the RX1 has a delightfully clicky exposure compensation dial just under your right thumb—allowing for fine adjustment to the camera’s metering decision.
So then, if you find me out with the RX1, you’re likely to see me on aperture priority, f/2 and auto ISO. Indeed, many of the photographs on this page were taken in that mode (including lots of the landscape shots!).
Working within constraints.
The RX1 is a wonderful camera to have when you have to work within constraints. When I say this, I mean it is great for photography within two different classes of constraints: 1) physical constraints of time and space and 2) intellectual/artistic constraints.
To speak to the first, as I said earlier, many of the photographs on this page were made possible by having a camera with me at a time that I otherwise would not have been lugging around a camera. For example, some of the images from the Grand Canyon you see were made in a pinch on my way to a Christmas dinner with my family. I didn’t have the larger camera with me and I just had a minute to make the image. Truth be told, these images could have been made with my cell phone, but that I could wring such great image quality out of something not much larger than my cell phone is just gravy. Be it jacket pocket, small bag, bike bag, saddle bag, even fannie pack—you have space for this camera anywhere you go.
Earlier I alluded to the obtrusiveness of a large camera. If you want to travel lightly and make photographs without announcing your presence, it’s easier to use a smaller camera. Here the RX1 excels. Moreover, the camera’s leaf shutter is virtually silent, so you can snap away without announcing your intention. In every sense, this camera is meant to work within physical constraints.
I cut my photographic teeth on film and I will always have an affection for it. There is a sense that one is playing within the rules when he uses film. That same feeling is here in the RX1. I never thought I’d say this about a camera, but I often like the JPEG images this thing produces more than I like what I can push with a RAW. Don’t get me wrong, for a landscape or a cityscape, the RAW processed carefully is FAR, FAR better than a JPEG.
But when I am taking snapshots or photos of friends and family, I find the JPEGs the camera produces (I’m shooting in RAW + JPEG) so beautiful. The camera’s computer corrects for the lens distortion and provides the perfect balance of contrast and saturation. The JPEG engine can be further tweaked to increase the amount of contrast, saturation or dynamic range optimization (shadow boost) used in writing those files. Add in the ability to rapidly compensate exposure or activate various creative modes and you’ve got this feeling you’re shooting film again. Instant, ultra-sensitive and customizable film.
Pro Tip: Focusing
Almost all cameras come shipped with what I consider to be the worst of the worst focus configurations. Even the Nikon D800 came to my hands set to focus when the shutter button was halfway depressed. This mode will ruin almost any photograph. Why? Because it requires you to perform legerdemain to place the autofocus point, depress the shutter halfway, recompose and press the shutter fully. In addition to the chance of accidentally refocusing after composing or missing the shot—this method absolutely ensures that one must focus before every single photograph. Absolutely impossible for action or portraiture.
Sensibly, most professional or prosumer cameras come with an AF-ON button near where the shooter’s right thumb rests. This separates the task of focusing and exposing, allowing the photographer to quickly focus and to capture the image even if focus is slightly off at the focus point. For portraits, kids, action, etc the camera has to have a hair-trigger. It has to be responsive. Manufacturer’s: stop shipping your cameras with this ham-fisted autofocus arrangement.
Now, the RX1 does not have an AF-ON button, but it does have an AEL button whose function can be changed to “MF/AF Control Hold” in the menu. Further, other buttons on the rear of the camera can also be programmed to toggle between AF and MF modes. What this all means is that you can work around the RX1’s buttons to make it’s focus work like a DSLR’s. (For those of you who are RX1 shooters, set the front switch to MF, the right control wheel button to MF/AF Toggle and the AEL button to MF/AF Control Hold and voila!) The end result is that, when powered on the camera is in manual focus mode, but the autofocus can be activated by pressing AEL, no matter what, however, the shutter is tripped by the shutter release. Want to switch to AF mode? Just push a button and you’re back to the standard modality.
Carrying.
I keep mine in a small, neoprene pouch with a semi-hard LCD cover and a circular polarizing filter on the front—perfect for buttoning up and throwing into a bag on my way out of the house. I have a soft release screwed into the threaded shutter release and a custom, red twill strap to replace the horrible plastic strap Sony provided. I plan to gaffer tape the top and the orange ring around the lens. Who knows, I may find an old Voigtlander optical viewfinder in future as well.
This graphic shows a comparison of different Solar System bodies as a log normalized ratio from the surface of the body.
Much like the old "How New Yorkers see the world" cartoon, this graphic looks from the surface of the body towards the core. Surface* features (to left) are deliberately over-emphasized, and core structure (at right) is under-emphasized.
The graphic is designed to compare the composition - phase state of materials that make up these particular solar system bodies.
For many of the bodies, detailed information is lacking, so a best guess was generated based on available data. Due to the log-scale emphasis on near-surface structure, unknowns near the surface have the highest error. (For example ice shell thickness of the ice covered Ocean Worlds of our Solar System.)
For planets with a variable surface covering (Earth, Titan), the bar is split in the relative areal% of that covering material.
*For gas and ice giants, the 'surface' is the 0.1 MPa level in the atmosphere.
Copyright @2017 Michael J. Malaska
History
The church with the dowend tower
History of joy and suffering of an old christian time witness of Vienna
The Minoritenkirche in Vienna is one of the oldest and most valuable artistic churches of the city. It is therefore not surprising that it also experienced a very eventful history. In all probability, the Franciscans were - how the Friars Minor (Thomas of Celano: "Ordo Friars Minor" ) also called on account of its founders personality, called by the Babenberg Duke Leopold VI the Glorious, in 1230 into the country. Here he gave them a lot, probably with a church (probably dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria), before the walls of the city, between the Scots Monastery (Schottenstift) and the ducal residence. It was not until 1237, and in 1271 the entire area was included in the extended boundary wall. The Minorite Barnabas Strasser says in his chronicle from 1766 that Leopold had asked on his return from the Holy Land in 1219 Francis in Assisi to the relocation of some brothers to Vienna, which was then carried out 1224. The Franciscans, however, are detectable only in 1234 by a bull of Gregory IX . to Frederick the Warlike, the last reigning Babenberg, by the year 1239 there was already the Austrian province. The above-mentioned chapel near the present Minoritenkirche the brothers have now expanded and dedicated it to the Holy Cross ("Santa Croce"). In 1251 the dedication was by the Bishop Berthold of Passau. In addition, the friars began to build a monastery, the 1234 is mentioned in a document (the monastery comprised finally the Ballhausplatz, Minoritenplatz and parts of the Hofburg and the Public Garden) . Of the original Romanesque building stock nothing has been preserved. Especially the great fire of 1276 has cremated large parts of the Convention.
However, the strong growth of the Friars Minor now living in Vienna made a new building of the church and monastery necessary. Already laid by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1276 the foundation stone for the new building of that temple which was now already on the present site of the church, the monarch also promised tax exemption for all who had contributed to the building of the church.
First stage of construction (beginning in the third third of the 13th century.): So he decided to build new church and convent, but by the death in battle of Ottokar in 1278 at the March Field (Jedlespeigen close Dürnkrut) delayed the construction, thus only after the turn of the century it couldbe completed. The embalmed body of Ottokar remained 30 weeks in the chapter house of the monastery until it was transferred to Znojmo and finally to Prague. The king's heart is buried in the original Chapel of St. Catherine, which was now newly assigned this name because the appropriation should be reserved to the Holy Cross of Christ, the new church and the convent . This newly built house of God was given the shape of a two-aisled nave with zweijochigem (two-bay) long choir (chancel), which closed with the five sides of a decagon. This long choir, the one 1785/86 and changed into a five-storey residential building, was canceled in 1903. In connection with the subway construction (1984-86), although archaeological excavations took place, it also laid the foundations of the former free long-choir, but most of the foundations of the old presbytery were destroyed at the same time. - The first church had a rood screen, even at the turn of the 15th/16th Century the still resulting image of the Saint Francis was attached by an unknown artist. Just from this first phase, we know by the Baroque Minoritenchronik (chronicle) first mentioned the name of a builder, namely brother Hans Schimpffenpfeil .
Second stage of construction (after 1317-1328 ) Blanche (Blanche) of Valois, the wife of Duke Rudolf III . ( 1307) and daughter of Philip the Fair, in 1304 decreed in his will to build a chapel in honor of her grandfather, the Holy King Louis IX. of France (canonized in 1297) and introduced for this purpose in 1000 available books. However, the project was realized only under Isabella (Elizabeth ) of Aragon, wife of King Frederick the Fair (1330 ). The chapel dedicated to their relatives canonized in 1317, St . Louis of Anjou, son of Charles II of Naples, great-nephew of Louis IX . of France and Franciscan archbishop of Toulouse (1297 ); it was first a self- cultivation in the NE (north-east) of the two-aisled nave Minoritenkirche, until the third construction phase it was integrated into the nave (now the north aisle with Anthony's Chapel). In 1328 the chapel was apparently completed because in 1330 the founder - was buried in the chapel of Louis - in terms of her testamentary disposition. The tomb of Queen Isabella stood in the middle of the Kapellenjochs (chapel bay) in front of the apse. The tracery show similarity with those of the Albertine choir of St. Stephen (built by Duke Albrecht II [ 1358] ) as well as with that of the Sanctuary Strassengel near the Cistercian monastery Rein near Graz (around the middle of the 14th century.). Probably belonged to the tympanum with the donor portraits of Frederick the Fair and Isabella at the feet of the Mother of God, which was inserted in the third construction phase of the church in the secondary north portal, the original entrance to the Ludwig chapel. It must be mentioned that even the Duchess Blanche (1305 ) built around 1330 a high early gothic marble grave, which unfortunately disappeared in the course of the renovation of the church in the years 1784-86 by the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg. It would be in Vienna today the only work of art of this kind
Third stage of construction (from 1339 -1400): Construction of a three-aisled hall (originally nave chapel Ludwig). The north wall of the chapel was extended to the west and in the north portal installed a second yoke. In addition, it was built a new west facade, with especially the central portal - including was designed - with jamb - pompous like the French late Gothic - perhaps under South German mediation. In the obituary of the Friars Minor brother Jacob of Paris is called ( around 1340), the confessor Albrecht II as the creator of this work of art. The duke and his wife Johanna von Außenmauer MinoritenkirchePfirt have obviously significantly contributed to the emergence of Vienna undoubtedly unique late Gothic cathedrals three portal group, there is also a representation of Albrecht and his wife in the middle portal next to the cross of Christ. Together with the two for a rich Mendikantenkirche (Mendicity church) this equipment is also of French models (see Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris [after 1285] ) constructed in 1350-1370 with splendid rose windows (with "bright" and "rotating" tracery) to the south wall - unusually without a doubt. The workshop, which built the Ludwig chapel was also busy with the west facade ("Minoritenwerkstatt" (workshop)). 1350-60 or later today, finally, the bell tower was only partially built (as a builder is a lay brother Nicholas, 1385 or 1386 called ). The tower consists mainly of two parts, a lower part made of stone blocks to the height of the nave, and an upper, octagonal section of mixed masonry. Its crown had because of damage - especially been renewed several times and was eventually removed - during the Turkish wars . The consecration of the enlarged Minoritenkirche must have taken place about the year 1390. So that the church had received its valid look for the next time.
In 1529, during the first siege of the monastery and the church even more extensive damage suffering (launch of the spire). Since the monastery of the Observant (Franciscans) had been destroyed by the Turks, these sought to supplant the Franciscans in their convent, where John Capistrano, the founder of the "brown Franciscan" (Observant) in Vienna, lived some time in the Franciscan monastery and in the Church had preached, but eventually instructed the Emperor Ferdinand I the now homeless Observant buildings on Singerschen Platz. In fact, the number of Wiener Friars Minor has then shrunk to seven, so that they felt compelled to call Fathers from Italy. But that but could not prevent that the church from 1569-1620 war a Protestant church. Interestingly, originate numerous coats of arms on the balcony of this period. At that time the Conventual were only in the possession of Louis Chapel and the Chapel of St. Catherine. Also during the second Turkish siege in 1683 the tower served as an observation tower and the Minoritenkirche was accordingly fired by the Turks and severely damaged. In 1733 the tower is adorned with a copper dome, but because of the danger of collapse eventually had to be removed. It brought the church to that low pointed tiled roof, which still exists today .
More and more, the bands developed in the Minoritenkirche, especially Ludwig chapel and cemetery, grave sites of the nobility. Besides Blanche of Valois and Isabella of Aragon and Margaret, the last country Duchess of Tyrol, was named Maultasch ( 1369 ), is buried here, as well as members of Lichtsteiner, Ditrichsteins, Puchaimer, Hojo, Stauffenberger, Greifensteiner; Piccolomini, Medici, Cavalcanti, Montaldi, Valperga, etc. (many of them are listed in the "Libro d'Oro of the "Congregation Italiana"). It should also be mentioned that the Franciscans since the end of the 14th Century took lively interest in teaching at the University of Vienna, especially of course in the subjects of theology, but also the jurisprudence. At the beginning of the 18th Century lived in the Vienna alsoin the Viennese Convention the Venetian cosmographer Br Vincenzo Coronelli, which the Emperor Charles VI. appointed to head the regulation of the Danube and its famous globes are now in the globe collection of the National Library in Vienna.
It is worthnoting, finally, the fact that around 1543 on the Ballhausplatz near the Imperial Palace from parts of the monastery a small hospital was donated and that the Franciscans for 13 years did all the counseling in this new Hofspital, at this time was the newly restored Chapel of St. Catherine Hospital Church. Another wing of the former minority monastery was home to the Imperial Court Library, 1558-1613.
To Minoritenkirche the second half of the 18th Century brought drastic changes. This development was initiated by the fact that the naturalized Italians in Vienna founded an Italian congregation in 1625/26 under the guidance of the Jesuit priest and professor at the University of Vienna Wilhelm Lamormaini. By the year 1773, when the Jesuit Order was temporarily released their Italian trade fairs celebrated this "Congregation Italiana" in a chapel of the Jesuits at Bognergasse, near the old Jesuit church "Am Hof". But in 1773 that little church was by the imperial government requisited. Then the Italians found in St. Catherine Chapel at Ballhausplatz, which popularly still is referred as the Italian church - ie not only the Minoritenkirche - a new home. After a thorough restoration of the chapel was consecrated on 1 February 1775 ceremony in memory of the "Santa Maria Maggiore" to Rome in the name of "Madonna della Neve" (Mary Snow church'). The Holy Mass conducted Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who was in 1774 chamber composer and conductor of the Italian opera in Vienna, from 1788-90 to 1824 Kapellmeister and Director of the Court Chapel. Pope Pius VI . visited during his stay in Vienna on Good Friday of 1782 the church "Maria Schnee" on the Ballhausplatz. But this state of the law was short-lived: in 1783 Emperor Joseph II shifted the Friars Minor in the former Trinitarian on Alserstrasse, and the Minoritenkirche was on the grounds that the chapel "p Maria della Neve" for about 7,000 Italians living in Vienna was too small, the Congregation italiana transferred to the condition that the Community had now to restore the Great Church (imperial decree of June 3, 1784). The richly decorated chapel "Madonna della Neve" went on an imperial property and was finally in the late 18th Century canceled. Also, the Franciscan monastery passed into state ownership: one is used for imperial and feudal law firms. The cemetery near the church was abandoned. With the greatest financial burdens now led the congregation from the imperial mission of the church renovation, the thorough repair of the church was entrusted to the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf of Hohenberg (1784-1789). In order to cover the construction costs somewhat, were the old long choir (chancel) and the beginning of the 14th Century. (Consecrated in 1317 ) at the western end of the south side of the nave grown (and now defunct) St. John's Chapel (Chapel Puchaimische Kapelle ) converted into residences. The solemn consecration of the church under the name of "Madonna della Neve" took place on 16 April 1786, on Easter Sunday.
But soon was moving closer to the church the next hardship: In the years of the Napoleonic wars, the church should serve as a warehouse for straw, hay and for different equipment, so in 1809 also the forced evacuation of the building took place. Shortly after engaging the French eventually turned this into a provisions store. Two-thirds of the floor was smashed by the rolling of drums and by the retraction of cars. In the middle of the church a wide, tunnel-like cavity had been excavated and other parts of the floor destroyed a in God's house capped oven. Until 18 April 1810, the then Prefect of the Minoritenkirche received back the church keys. In 1825 died one of the most famous Kongregaten (congregats) of this century, namely, the composer Antonio Salieri, and on 22 June this year resounded in the Italian national church with the participation of the court chapel and the first Hofchores (court choir) the Verdi Requiem.
As the situation after the Napoleonic war turmoil in the mid-19th Century had normalized, Emperor Ferdinand the Good in 1845 donated to the "Congregation italiana" the according to the model of Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco (1495-97) designed mosaic of the Last Supper, which the Roman Giacomo Raffaelli of 12 panels with a total weight of 20 tons by Napoleon's orders had made in the years 1806-1814, and was eventually bought by Emperor Franz for the Belvedere Palace. To that gave Emperor Ferdinand a considerable amount (8000 guilders) to allow the mounting of the work of art in the Minoritenkirche. The inauguration of the altar took place on 26nd in March 1847. In 1852 Emperor Franz Joseph came and soon the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand in the "Congregation ". The former paid each year mostly coming from out of town fast preachers for the Church, in return he regularly received at the Festival of Lights (2 February) as well as on Palm Sunday the sacred candle or the olive branch.
The last major change in the church took place in the years 1892-1905 at the restructuring of the Minoritenplatz. Now two new courses, namely the Ballhausplatz and Minoritenplatz emerged, the houses adjacent to the church (former Long John's Chapel Choir and) were demolished. The former Franciscan monastery had to give way to the House, Court and State Archives. Even the church was given a new face, although the plans of the architect Viktor Luntz due to financial reasons only could be realized partially, there were clearly visible changes: Most noticeable to the viewer is undoubtedly the Gothic passage on the south side of the walled grave stones originated partly from the bands, and part of the adjacent once cemetery, as well as the above installed "Minoritenhaus". 1907 were placed in the tower four new bells cast in Trento, which is, however - with the exception of one, St. Anthony ordained, Bell - 1914 confiscated. The solemn consecration of the church took place on 4 Held in May 1909 in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph. Due to the highly cooperative attitude of the Congregation towards the transformation plans of the City of Vienna Lueger, the mayor promised that the court should never be installed directly behind the church.
More important restoration work was carried out 1960-1962 (church affairs), in the last decade, as the outer walls have been restored.
About Minoritenplatz finally should be mentioned that the pastoral care of Italians after 1786 by each rectors appointed by the Archbishop was, from 1808 to 1813 was also here Clemens Maria Hofbauer who died 1820 and later was canonized working as a church rector. Therefore, there is also his monument on the north side of the church. Since the year 1953, and officially by the order of the archbishop Ordinariate of 1 December 1957 is the Friars Minor transmitted the pastoral care of the Italian community again, firstly the Fathers belonging to the Order of Padua Province while they are under the Austrian province today. In the year 2003, ie 50 years after the adoption of the pastoral care of Italians in the Minoritenkirche by the Conventual, that Francis statue was made, nowadays, it is located on the north side of the church, next to the Baroque cultivation.
(Text by Dr. Manfred Zips , Ital. Congregation )
The most west of Big Tidung island tried to hunt the sunset,was chasing it by bicycle and still fortunate to have the color while normalizing my breathe :-).
Stu Kauffman just gave a fascinating talk at the Almaden Institute on Complexity.
I would bet that his discussion of cells and genetic signaling networks will also apply to the brain and synaptic networks. The evolution of evolution itself moves up a hierarchy of abstractions to act at the network topology level.
Here are my rough notes from Kauffman’s talk:
Cells are dynamically critical because being critical is the best way to coordinate complex behaviors. (critical meaning the edge between chaos and order)
We have been taught that natural selection is the only source of order. What if there was a law that governs all of biology? It would be profound and would alter our view of biology. There are organizing principles that biology “obeys” because it is selectively useful. It’s like finding one of Newton’s law of motion for cells.
Cells are very complex. Genetic regulatory nets:
Transcriptome in yeast regulates 6500 genes, Humans: 25K
Transcription factor -> promoter or enhancer. Protein signaling cascades.
Transcriptome+protein signaling network is a parallel processing non-linear stochastic dynamical system.
Huge web. Nobody knows structures and dynamics.
Systems biology is trying to look for general laws
10^8000 genome state space.
Percolate: order, all fixed states.
Derrida deconstructionist. Mafia+deconstructionist = make you an offer you can’t understand
Hamming distance. Fan-in of K=2 or less. Take a Random network. Take 60K logic gates at random. Each gate has 2 inputs. The system Behavior is simple. It spontaneously goes to ordered regime. Nearby states converge. Dt = Dt+1 is the critical line.
Being critical is very, very rare. If it exists, it must have been selected for over 3.8B years of evolution.
Why cells should be critical?
Cells must bin past discriminations to future reliable actions
• Order: convergence in state space forgets past distinctions. Info-lossy
• Chaotic: small noise yields divergence in state space trajectories precluding reliable action
• Critical: near parallel flow optimizes capacity to bind past and future
Bacteria: operons for different food and different enzymes
Critical Boolean networks maximize robustness to mutations
Cell types correspond to attractors
Critical networks maximize the probability that such mutations leave all existing attractors intact and occasionally add new attractors.
Thus, critical networks optimize robustness of cell types to mutations and the capacity to evolve new cell types.
Mutual information: correlation between 2 variables. Entropy of variable A + B – joint entropy. Between 0 and 1. 0 = no correlation.
Ways to go from order and chaos. Inputs: order until K=2, peak for criticality.
If k greater than 2, then put lots of 1’s in there. P-bias of .15
Model of floral development shows criticality.
E.Coli: apply random 1500 values on real network; also to Yeast medusa network, 200 regulatory genes in medusa head, rest are regulated 3500 genes (humans 2500 regulating genes in medusa head, 23K regulated). If apply random Boolean functions to the yeast network, why would it be critical? This is about the dynamics of the networks. Cells do thermodynamic work. Work is constrained release of energy in few degrees of freedom, but it takes work to create the constraints. Cells do this, but we don’t have concepts for it in physics.
Hela 48 hourly time point. Affy gene array data. Lempel-Ziv analysis. Cells clearly are not chaotic; they are either ordered or critical (data lie on top of each other)
Avalanche size distribution. Deletion – see how many other genes change. Log-log straight line power law. Slope -1.5 power law (critical branching process). 250 yeast deletions, measure how many alter their activity. Ilya’s work.
NCD: normalized compression distance. Analysis of toll-like receptors on surface of macrophage. Ideal compressor. Take random length n, concatenate 2 of them. Ideal compressor will compress to n. 2 random ones, won’t be able to compress it. The more you can compress, the more similar they are. Regression gives a diagonal line, indicating it is critical. Nature, Dec 2006 Max Planck. Binary and ternary discretization leads to line that is critical. It’s breathtaking.
This is self-organization in nature via natural selection. If this is right, it may be a general law, one of the few laws in biology (e.g., Darwin, a few in ecology and population genetics). We will create life anew in the next 15 years. My bet is that life anywhere in the universe will be critical because it is the best way to coordinate complex behaviors.
Post-Playtex Era Strong In Cullman
Chamber of Commerce weather greeted several dozen lactating women and their families at the Walmart Pavilion inside Heritage Park on Saturday morning.
The gathering celebrated the 4th annual BIG Latch On. This event ran from 10 am until noon.
Cullman County nursing mothers along with their husbands and other support members convened to breastfeed their babies in a supportive, lactation-friendly environment.
Ashley Wright, the lead organizer of this event, invited all area lactating moms as well as their friends, family, and community to come out and participate in the cause.
The BIG Latch On is an annual, global event that celebrates, promotes and supports breastfeeding.
The larger goal of the global BIG Latch On movement is to normalize breastfeeding.
There was a worldwide synchronization latch from 10:30 to 10:31 am Cullman time.
Groups of nursing moms and their supporters around the world either latched their babies, expressed milk or fed breast milk by spoon to their babies all at the same time across the world. It was a sacred, touching and profound moment at Heritage Park.
cullmantoday.com/2017/08/06/post-playtex-era-strong-in-cu...
12 hours of integration time:
Ha: 24 x 600 second exposures
Sii: 24 x 600 second exposures
Oiii: 24 x 600 second exposures
Bortle Class 4
Equipment: HEQ5 Pro | ASI Air Mini | William Optics Z61 w/ 61a field flattener | ZWO 533 MM Pro w/ 1.25” Filter Wheel | ZWO EAF | Optolong LRGB, Ha, Sii, and Oiii filters.
Processed in PixInsight: Combined channels in PixelMath. BlurXterminator (Correct only). Spectrophotometric Calibration to remove green cast.
BlurrXterminator again for sharpening. StarXterminator so I could edit the nebula and stars separately. Used SCNR on star image. Narrowband Normalization to change the pallet to SHO and made further color adjustments. Removed color noise and grain with NoiseXterminator.
Stretched both star and starless image with Histogram Transformation. Did some more with Curves Transformation.
Used Selective Color Correction for some more adjustments. Blended the star and starless image back together with PixelMath. Reduced star size with Star Reduction.
Summary of 2021
By Andrew Karagianis
Flickr version
If 2020 was a year of fear and panic, 2021 was a year of frustration. However, it wasn’t all bad.
Let’s get the COVID stuff out of the way first. People are still wearing masks below their noses, as though their nose and lungs aren’t connected – probably the same reason why it’s fine to breathe through your nose underwater as long as your mouth is closed.
Wait, what?
People are still socializing indoors with people who don’t live with them, without masks on, even though we know that the virus is airborne, not just spread via droplets. The government still hasn’t made a blanket travel ban or gone into another long-enough lockdown, because it values jobs over lives. And as I’ve realized more recently, mask mandates as they currently exist aren’t as helpful as they could be, because masks are not one-size-fits-all. I have yet to find a mask that doesn’t leave gaps – and the big honking industrial respirator I have that would offer the best protection isn’t allowed in a lot of settings because it has a valve that lets breath out.
And so here we are, with COVID cases skyrocketing like we’ve never seen before during the past few weeks due to this Omicron variant. The pandemic is nowhere near over, and our freedom to socialize like it’s 2019 without that nagging concern of “Am I going to be exposed to COVID by doing this?” is not on the horizon. Even the Q-anon confidiocy (confederacy + idiocy), who believe the world is out to get them, know deep down that maybe those large gatherings are risky for them personally. Vaccines prevent severe disease, but they don’t prevent infection, and that has been my justification for not seeing friends or family in person very much this year – because no level of face-to-face fun is worth finding out a few days later that someone’s been exposed to COVID.
But we’ve all spent enough time reading about the pandemic, so here’s how the rest of my year went. This year I’m going to separate the months by headers.
There were eight main events in 2021 that made it a significant year for me, which I will highlight as they come up in the chronology.
January:
Ally and I rang in the new year at home. Toronto was [still] on lockdown. We watched two episodes of Schitt’s Creek, and read our books.
In the first half of January, the provincial government announced a stay-at-home order effective January 14th, for everyone who could stay home. On January 14th, I got the word from my employer that I should try to work from home as much as possible. I texted our landlord, and he agreed to let me use NathAnne’s old apartment as a work space temporarily. On January 15th, I started working from home.
February:
February was cold.
I got my second FitBit – a Charge 4. I also started my GAIN Q3 training. As of December 24th, I still haven’t finished it due to lack of opportunities to do my practice interviews.
Also in February, my stocks on the investing app reached their peak. From that point on, my portfolio gradually decreased in value until July, when I reached the “break-even” point and sold it all off. Then I bought back a few shares in one company that consistently did well, and as of the end of 2021, I’m up about $70. Small gains as far as experienced investors are concerned, but it’s better than being in the hole!
March:
The first of the eight main events that influenced my experience of 2021 was that on March 20th, I got my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID vaccine. Let me just say how amazing that is. Humans had never developed a coronavirus vaccine until 2020, and now, a little over a year into the pandemic, I’d been given one.
Unfortunately over the course of the year, we would come to realize that vaccinated people can still be infected and even hospitalized in some cases, so it’s not perfect, but I am certain that mass vaccination has prevented lots of deaths. When I wrote my summary of 2020, 4.9 million people had received one dose of the vaccine. As of December 22nd, 2021, 4.49 billion people have had at least one dose of the vaccine. So that’s great progress.
But more needs to be done to get vaccines to less-wealthy countries where the vaccination rates are much lower than they are here. Why? Not just to save their lives; that’s the moral argument, and I’m fine with that. But also because most of the variants of concern have come from less-wealthy countries. And unless air travel completely stops, those variants will all come to Toronto soon after they’re discovered. Oops; I got to talking about COVID again! Well, of course I am; this is the biggest thing since World War Two.
Anyway, also in March, Ally embarked on a mini-project to document the rivers buried underneath our neighborhood in Leslieville, and I meanwhile took pictures of the date stamps of some of the manhole covers and sidewalks to see how old they were. One was from 1929! Damn, we’re just fascinating, aren’t we?
Also in March, Terrance (our parrot) started having problems with what seemed to be his breathing. We took him to a few vets over what I think were several days… I remember Ally being out with him to the vet once while I was working from home, and looking at his empty cage and getting teary-eyed at the thought of Terrance dying. Fortunately, after a few weeks of medication, he was back to normal. Now he’s 16 years old!
The second (and most significant) event of 2021 for me (at least until November) was that on March 24th, I got a bloodtest, and stupidly looked up my results online that night. It’s not a death sentence, but it fucking might as well have been in my mind, for the first few weeks as I tried to make sense of it. It said my fasting blood glucose was 6.5, and the report said that it indicates prediabetes. Great, thought I – I’m destined to have a disease in which a) I can’t have sugar ever again, and b) I have to prick my needle-phobic skin every day. All of those trips to Bulk Barn in which I bought $30 worth of chocolate at a time had caught up with me, not as an overweight 60-something, but as a slim 35-year-old.
I didn’t hear from my doctor for close to a month though, and no news is good news when it comes to medical things, but I immediately stopped eating cookies and started looking into the glycemic index and figuring out what life-long staple foods I wouldn’t be able to eat anymore, and what I’d be left with.
April:
After I made an unrelated doctor’s appointment in April, the substitute doctor confirmed that I do tentatively have prediabetes. They would test me again in August, but in the meantime, the substitute doctor suggested I start talking to a dietitian, so I did. I woefully overhauled my entire diet over the spring. Gone were:
• Gigantic bowls of cereal – my first love and a daily staple for as long as I can remember.
• Cookies – I probably ate a few hundred calories’ worth of cookies on most days.
• Normal pasta (as opposed to whole wheat).
• Pizza
• Chocolate
• Pop
• White bread products (even though I’d already switched to whole grain bread for sandwiches a few years ago, despite being on my Hate List from 2010).
Needless to say, I started losing weight, and not because I wanted to. These foods constituted the majority of my diet. My Zoo friends circa 2008 were right – those foods I was eating every day back then (white bread, honey buns, pop, etc.) were bad for me. I knew at the time that they were probably right, and my teeth had been showing evidence ever since I was a kid, but since I never got fat, I just assumed this would happen to me much later in life.
I replaced my beloved boxed cereals with porridge; started eating junk chick peas (dried flavoured chickpea snacks), seeds, nuts, and yogurt, and made sure to include protein or “healthy fat” with every carb-based snack or meal. I had to do whatever I could to avoid getting the daily needle prick disease that also happens to have some other shitty effects.
I also started jogging [again] that spring. Let’s be clear – I’ve been pretty sedentary my whole life, with some bouts of medium-term exercise in between. I’d only jogged a few times, but I got into the habit of going out for a power walk or jog before working from home on weekday mornings, and eventually got to the point of being able to jog 0.975km without stopping, once. Unfortunately, I actually got worse at jogging as the year went on, and I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it might have to do with a) the summer humidity, and b) the mostly-downhill route I was taking around Greenwood Park in the spring.
On April 4th, I bought a Canon EOS IX Lite on eBay for $46 – an APS film SLR! I hadn’t really considered that APS film could be had with SLR technology until more recently, so I figured I could get some great film shots with it in combination with whatever lenses I had that would fit it. Two of them fit, but malheureusement, the pictures were grainier than the ones I took with the Kodak Advantix T500 point-and-shoot camera. Given that APS film is such a rarity, I’ve only used one roll in the EOS IX Lite because the T500 produces better-quality pics, but it could also have been related to the roll of film itself…anyway, it was neat to try, and I’ll try it again.
On April 24th, I’d lived in Ontario for 17 years.
On April 25th, Ally & I gave the landlord our notice to move out. After 7.5 years, we decided it was time to leave, as the stench of pot smoke from the basement tenants in the shared ventilation system was pissing us off, and the landlord had recently told us he was considering selling the house. We needed the guarantee of a second room for a private work-from-home space…and I knew that once a new landlord took over the house, I’d be kicked out of the second-floor apartment in short order. I was upset the whole weekend and cried about it three times that Sunday (yeah, that’s right; normalize men expressing emotions) while Ally was downstairs working.
I had gotten attached to the house, the view of the jungle (as I called it) out the third-floor windows, and the neighborhood itself, down to the routes I walked so often along the main roads for shopping or eating; TTC/walking commuting routes while working at Good Shepherd, and along the side streets that we’d wander on evening walks. We’d arranged a network of local services for us in that area over the years. But as I said to Ally, we had done that neighborhood to death. Our neighbors were dicks, and I was intellectually okay to live somewhere else even if I emotionally didn’t want to. We started looking for new apartments right away, and saw one that night. Whether virtually or in person, we saw 8 apartments within 7 days of giving our notice.
May:
On May 1st, Ally got her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and then we saw and put a deposit down for a two-bedroom apartment in Etobicoke.
Over the next few weeks, we filled my car full of boxes and other stuff and made at least 8 runs over to the new place in advance of the big moving day. We were lucky in that the landlady gave us a key a month before we moved in.
Around May 25th, I went to Mom’s house and she gave me a Kodak Retinette film camera that had belonged to Gramp, and was made between 1954 and 1958 – my fourth film camera, but the first that uses 35mm film! As of January 1st, 2022, I still haven’t used it though.
At the end of May, I created a 2021 version of my Hate List, and promptly forgot about it. Although there are still a lot of things that grind my gears, I’m a lot less focused on resentments than I was back in 2010 when I wrote the original Hate List. Also, before you make a comment about the existence of a hate list in the first place, you need to see what was on it. It doesn’t target things that people are born with.
June:
On Saturday June 5th, we moved to our new apartment. This was the culmination of the third big event that shaped my 2021. After 7 years, 7 months, and 22 days, it was time to leave the *****Haus (a name we didn’t use until the very end, when we needed a name to refer to it as part of our history). It was the last time I’d hear the roar of the GO train or the screeching from the subway yard in the background, or the chirping birds in the tree canopy outside our windows. We loaded up my car and took Terrance over to the new apartment, set him up, then drove back to the house one last time to meet the movers. We were 35 this time and decided to get someone else to do the heavy lifting down two narrow stairways and around tight corners.
It was insane how much stuff we had, even in this bigger new apartment. But eventually we sorted it out while listening to Elton John and George Harrison on Ally’s Spotify, and made it liveable. We ate Indian food and ice cream, and rejoiced about never having to see our old neighbors again.
Within two days of moving in, I found a new spot for taking pictures. I wanted to retain the habit of going for almost-daily walks, so I familiarized myself with the local streets pretty quickly.
On June 16th, I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
I spent most of my non-work time in the summer walking and riding my bike around our new neighborhood, which was more bike-friendly than the old one (Leslieville), even if the biking culture is different here. Less hipsters and more Lance Armstrong types, but at least the cycling infrastructure is better here. We rode to Tom Petty (Sam Smith) Park and east along the Martin Goodman Trail several times, and got to know that easterly trail route pretty well. Don’t get me wrong; Leslieville had some recreational trails nearby, but they were a lot farther away. Now the physically-protected bike trails are much closer.
During the first couple of months in our new home, we spent a lot of evenings sitting on the front porch, reading books or eating supper. It was just nice to be able to sit outside on one’s own property (even though we’re tenants) – for the previous 7.5 years, if we wanted to sit outside, free of judgement, we had to go to the park. As the summer went on, we spent less time on the front porch and more time in the back yard. This probably coincided with the upstairs tenants moving out in July; that apartment being vacant for a month, and new tenants moving in in August.
July:
On July 3rd, I got the Strava app as a way to map my bike rides. I also set up my drums in the new apartment in July; having thought I probably wouldn’t be able to in the new place since there were actually other tenants in the adjacent units here (we lived with two empty apartments between us and the basement tenants for almost four years at the *****Haus, so drumming there was never much of a concern).
August:
On August 1st, we headed to Emily Provincial Park for our second camping adventure together, which brings us to the fourth event that made 2021 significant for me – 2021 was the year of camping for us. It was the first year since 2014 that I didn’t leave the province, but camping was accessible enough for us to go a few times. We paddled along the Pigeon River, did some fishing and drone flying (outside of the park; I’m no scofflaw), and choked on the thick 24-hour campfire smoke – clearly some of the other campers didn’t get the memo that you don’t burn a campfire all day during the summer. But it was a nice trip overall.
After camping, I was brought back to working from the office more often, which increased further in September. I was on the fence about it. Working from office mixed up my day a bit, in that it gave me more variety, but it also gave me less time to exercise for diabetes prevention, not to mention putting 70km on my car per day. Which is still an improvement over the 98km per day I was doing when I lived at the *****Haus, but anyway.
In August I finally finished posting my honeymoon pictures on Flickr. It took me two and a half years. I was sad to finish that project, because I got to revisit bits and pieces of my honeymoon frequently over two and a half years. Travel for me is a very nostalgic thing, because although I may only spend a handful of days in a new place, I spend months or years posting pictures from it, so really, the trip feels a lot longer to me, which I like.
September:
In September, I started posting my Europe 2020 pictures, skipping over my trips from 2018 and 2019 in favor of the more-timely contrast of my Europe pictures, because they were taken just days before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.
September was eventful. Ally bought a car around September 8th. I bought a JBL Bluetooth speaker, since the new apartment has these things called “rooms”, in which sound from my computer doesn’t carry as far. It arrived just in time for me to stream some of the ceremonies for the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
It’s hard to believe 9/11 was 20 years ago, and that there are adults today who hadn’t been born yet on 9/11. But at the same time, it feels like it was 20 years ago, even though I remember images and conversations from that day like it was yesterday. I was a teenager then, just shy of my 16th birthday, living in St. John’s Newfoundland, still in high school, hopelessly single, with dreams of being a rock star (and working toward it, as only a naïve and modestly-talented teenager could). Now I’m 36, live in Toronto, married four years, and have been working as an addiction counsellor for nine years.
A few days later, I went for my follow-up bloodtest to either rule out or confirm prediabetes. Unfortunately, it was confirmed. My fasting blood glucose was actually a tiny bit worse, which was a drag because I’d been making so much effort to eat better and get more exercise during the previous six months. But my doctor told me not to be discouraged, so….we’ll see what the next test shows.
The next weekend we went camping again; this time to Point Farms Provincial Park for just one night. We concluded that we could go camping frequently if we went to relatively-nearby parks and were willing to go for just one night, to avoid the need to ask for time off work. It was a nice little journey to Lake Huron, which I had never seen (other than its offshoot, Georgian Bay). When we got back home, we decided to book another one-night camping trip.
For the federal election, I voted by mail like a communist. Just kidding; communist countries don’t have legitimate elections. We live in a democracy, but you don’t have unlimited rights to personal liberty. Canada isn’t America, and never was. Get used to it, snowflake.
On September 25th, I went for my longest-ever bike ride — 31km! My legs were shot by the end of it, but I was happy with myself.
October:
On October 2nd, we went camping for a third time; this time for a one-nighter in Algonquin Park, at the Canisbay Lake campground. Yes, one night is not much time for a trip to Algonquin, but I can’t stress how much of a pain in the ass it is to have to request time off work, especially in my job, where there are certain days each month that I can’t take off. My previous employer was very fast at approving such requests, but my current one is not. On this trip, we got rained out. But we did see a moose about 50 feet in front of us on the trail! And it was very scenic with all the deciduous tree leaves in bright fall colors.
On October 9th, I bought an iPad and put the old 2010 MacBook Pro into full retirement. It’s not dead yet, but it was time to get a device that I could consistently use to browse the internet, after the MBP kept being useless due to an erroneous clock/date error that I couldn’t fix.
On October 14th, I had my first colonoscopy. Yes, you needed to know that. This was the fifth event that made 2021 significant for me. The prep actually wasn’t too bad. I hardly felt hungry on the all-liquid diet the day before. But I opted to do the procedure without sedation, because being put to sleep is my second biggest fear (behind death itself). Let me just say that if you haven’t had a colonoscopy before…when it’s time, get the sedation. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, like someone jabbing my stomach from the inside with a baseball bat. It felt like the kind of torture they might apply to extract information from an inmate at Guantanamo Bay.
But I was able to walk out of the clinic and go about my day without any assistance, so at least there was that!
After that, I was back to working from home 3 days a week, which I was fine with and which continued for most weeks until the end of the year.
If there was a theme to October itself, it was Ally’s mural project. We spent every weekend in October (except the camping weekend) plus a few weekday evenings painting a whale mural on a garage door near the Junction. A woman had seen Ally’s Bell Box mural from 2019 and commissioned a similar design. It was a nice way to spend time together, in spite of the alleyway channeling the cold wind like it was the Scarborough Town Centre bus terminal. If you look at the photo of the mural above, @creating_to_be_whole is Ally’s Instagram account.
November:
Ally and I got our flu shots on November 2nd. Never before had I been so gung-ho to get a flu shot.
On November 6th, a day that will live in infamy, I went to Mom’s house for a masked visit. We took Penny for a walk to Centennial Park and talked about prediabetes, and then went back and talked about various things in her living room. Elliot came over and joined the conversation. Then I drove home and got stuck in traffic on Lake Shore Blvd at Cherry Street, as they had demolished the onramp to the Gardiner near Logan Ave in September, and Lake Shore was down from three lanes to one, without sufficient signage. When I got home and parked in the driveway, I took a picture from inside my car of a person riding by on a bicycle with the sunset in the background, not knowing it was the last picture I would take before my world changed. I was going to go inside and tell Ally that I got stuck in traffic, which is why I took so long getting home.
Ally was standing in the kitchen, and she told me “I think I’m pregnant!”
Holy fuck!
* * * * *
This was the sixth event that made 2021 significant for me, and turned everything else on its head. For the first several days, I was pretty concerned. We’re doing okay, but we aren’t part of the wealthy Toronto homeowner class. How am I going to be able to afford a kid?!?
We both asked a lot of questions of ourselves and each other, but by the second half of November, we eventually settled on “If we have this opportunity to have a kid and we decide not to, we would probably regret it in the long run.”
So, most of November was spent deliberating about what we were going to do, all while not allowing ourselves to get advice from anyone else because we didn’t want to tell anyone else (other than Ally’s doctor) quite yet.
December:
On December 5th, we told our parents. They were over the moon!
I had the weeks of December 13th and 20th off work, so I recorded a bit of music and did some more walking, which was limited by the prevalence of ice on the sidewalks earlier in the month.
On December 16th, I went with Ally to get her second ultrasound. I heard the baby’s heartbeat and we got a printed picture, in which it definitely looked like a baby this time.
We went up to Dad’s house for a pre-Christmas visit on December 19th, knowing that we probably wouldn’t visit on Christmas Day now. I booked my COVID booster shot for February 1st once the government released the hounds, I mean appointments. Then I got word of another place with earlier appointments and I booked one for January 15th, and later found an even earlier appointment for December 30th. In fact, if there was a seventh theme for 2021 for me, it was the year of needles, which is significant because I fucking hate needles as I mentioned earlier:
• On March 20th I got my first dose of the COVID vaccine (Pfizer).
• On March 24th I got bloodwork.
• On June 16th I got my second dose of the COVID vaccine (Pfizer).
• On September 13th I got bloodwork.
• On October 14th I got two finger pricks to test my blood sugar before and after the colonoscopy (thankfully those were only 5.6, but I had been on a liquid diet).
• On November 2nd I got my flu shot.
• On December 22nd I got my tetanus/pertussis/diphtheria booster shot.
• And on December 30th I got third dose of the COVID vaccine; Moderna this time.
The Omicron variant had made its way to Ontario by early December, and by December 23rd the daily count of new COVID cases had broken the record set in April; over 5,000 (on December 31st, it was 16,713 cases). We decided that week that we were not going anywhere for Christmas this year. Not worth the risk.
On Christmas Day, Ally and I had a leisurely morning and opened our presents around 11:00am. We went for an afternoon walk, FaceTimed with my family who were at Dad’s house in the afternoon, and ate leftover lasagna for supper. A very low-risk Christmas for us. On Boxing Day, we took and posted a picture of us with the second ultrasound picture of our future child and Terrance photoshopped onto my shoulder. The likes and comments started pouring in! A lot of people were happy for us! Later that day, Ally recorded vocals and I recorded an intro guitar part for “Mr. Tambourine Man”, finishing our rendition of The Byrds’ version of the Bob Dylan classic.
Indeed, if there was an eighth theme of 2021 for me, it’s that I recorded more music in 2021 than in any previous year (except 2011, when I made more recordings of Adam & Evil songs). I also sang on at least three of them, which is a big step for me. I collaborated with Ally, Dad, Terrance, and the ambient sounds of Leslieville on some tracks, and made 48 recordings overall in 2021 (although I’m counting unfinished versions).
I did very little painting in 2021; just a couple of cards I think, but I did buy Procreate (how fitting, amirite) for iPad in December.
I was more active on Flickr in 2021. I posted 211 photos/videos in 2021, whereas I posted 103 in 2020, and only 62 in 2019 for comparison.
TV shows gotten into/watched/finished:
• The Beatles Get Back
• That’s it! With no Mandalorian or The Crown until 2022, 2021 was a minimal year for TV.
Memes/Instagram accounts I liked:
• Anakin and Padme in a field – so many possibilities!
• Middle Class Fancy/Rand & Nance - #relatable as a middle-class person.
• Townie Memes – this reminds me of my homeland.
• BlahTO – a spot-on satire of BlogTO.
• Jenny-Jinya – this account is a tear-jerker if you have pets.
Books read:
1. Finished A Promised Land by Barack Obama
2. Tried reading The Bedside Book of Birds by Graeme Gibson, but it involved a lot of bird abuse stories.
3. Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld
4. Face The Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley
5. A Journey Across the Island of Newfoundland in 1822 By W. E. Cormack
6. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
7. Almost Feral by Gemma Hickey
8. Son of a Critch by Mark Critch
9. Started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
10. Started You’re going to be a dad!
A few songs I got into:
• “Two of Us” and “Don’t Let Me Down” by The Beatles
• “Saving Ourselves for Marriage” by Anal Cunt
• “Tomorrow” and “Under The Gun” by KISS
• “Living in Lightning” by City and Colour
I haven’t seen a movie in a theater since “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. I haven’t been to an indoor family meal since Christmas 2019. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since March of 2020. Lots of people have taken a different approach, but this approach is what’s worked for me so far. We will get through this pandemic…remember, this isn’t just a hard year – as I said above, this is the biggest event to strike humanity since World War Two. Of course it’s hard. Of course we’re fed up with it. I’ve been lucky since my job is protected as being essential, and so I haven’t been on the rollercoaster of open/close, income/no income that some of you have experienced. I’ve also been lucky in that while I’m an essential worker, I’m not required to work with people who are known to have COVID, like hospital workers are. Those are the people I feel for. For them, this might as well be World War Three.
But clearly the virus isn’t done with us yet. No one person has the power to stop it, but collective action goes a long way.
Hang in there, and thanks for reading! Happy New Year!
Sources:
ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
www.cbc.ca/news/world/coronavirus-covid19-canada-world-de...