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Macho Mentality Persists, Says Pope
Notes Attitude Ignores the Novelty of Christianity
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A discriminatory macho mentality continues to persist in cultures that ignore the novelty of Christianity to recognize the equal dignity of men and women, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this Saturday upon receiving in audience participants from the international conference titled "Woman and Man, the 'Humanum' in Its Entirety," which marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter "Mulieris Dignitatem."
The conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, ended Saturday.
"From the second half of the 20th century until today," said the Pope, "the movement for women's rights in the various settings of social life has generated countless reflections and debates, and it has seen the multiplication of many initiatives that the Catholic Church has followed and often accompanied with attentive interest."
In the apostolic letter "Mulieris Dignitatem," the Pontiff said John Paul II saw the need to "delve into the fundamental anthropological truths of men and women, the equality in dignity and their unity, the rooted and profound difference between the masculine and the feminine, and their vocation to reciprocity and complementarity, collaboration and communion."
The Holy Father continued: "In the face of cultural and political currents that attempt to eliminate, or at least to obfuscate and confuse, the sexual differences written into human nature, considering them to be cultural constructions, it is necessary to recall the design of God that created the human being male and female, with a unity and at the same time an original and complementary difference.
"Human nature and the cultural dimension are integrated in an ample and complex process that constitutes the formation of the identity of each, where both dimensions -- the feminine and the masculine -- correspond to and complete each other."
Mom and dad
Benedict XVI, however, insisted that discrimination continues: "There still persists a macho mentality that ignores the novelty of Christianity, which recognizes and proclaims the equal dignity and responsibility of women with respect to men. There are certain places and cultures where women are discriminated against and undervalued just for the fact that they are women.
"In the face of such grave and persistent phenomena the commitment of Christians appears all the more urgent, so that they become everywhere the promoters of a culture that recognizes the dignity that belongs to women in law and in reality."
"God entrusts to women and to men," said the Pope, "according to the characteristics that are proper to each, a specific vocation in the mission of the Church and in the world. I think here of the family, community of love, open to life, fundamental cell of society.
"In it, woman and man, thanks to the gift of maternity and paternity, together play an irreplaceable role in regard to life."
The Pontiff affirmed the right of children to have a father and a mother, and the state's role to "sustain with adequate social policies all that which promotes the stability of matrimony, the dignity and the responsibility of the husband and wife, their rights and irreplaceable duty to educate their children."
EXPLORE # 159 on Sunday, March 2, 2008; # 460 on S03-01-2008
«Questions of science,
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart.
Tell me you love me,
Come back and haunt me (...) »
Coldplay - The scientist.
---
Ça faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas pris Yuki en photo ainsi que Clemy alors pourquoi pas prendre les deux en même temps ! Clemy à de nouveaux acryliques, qui lui donne un air moins innocent et enfantin donc.. Je ne sais pas, elle changera quand je me serais lassée. On les voit mal mais ils sont violets avec des pointes de jaunes, je la prendrais mieux en photo plus tard ^-^
Zoute Sale - Bonhams
Estimated : € 550.000 - 750.000
Unsold
Zoute Grand Prix 2022
Knokke - Zoute
België - Belgium
October 2022
"Nothing that is desirable comes easily or cheaply and the Carrera RS is no exception, but without question it is one of the great cars of the 1970s; the personification of GT motoring and race breeding." - Motor Sport magazine, February 1973.
Porsche revived the Carrera name for its top-of-the-range 911 in 1972/3. Designated Carrera RS (Rennsport), the newcomer was intended as a limited edition 'homologation special' to enable the factory to enter Group 4 competition in the Special GT class, with a minimum build requirement of 500. However, the demand for this fabulous car proved so great that the production run was later extended by another 1,300-or-so units, qualifying the RS to compete also in Group 3, which it would dominate. The Carrera RSR GT-category racer collected overall wins in the World Sportscar Championship at Daytona and the Targa Florio in 1973, defeating 3-litre prototypes from Ferrari, Matra and Mirage-Ford in the process, an outstanding achievement for a production-based car.
Based on a lightened 911S platform, the Carrera RS featured revised suspension and wider rear wheels (beneath flared wheelarches) for improved handling, while the 2.7-litre, fuel-injected, air-cooled, six-cylinder engine's 210bhp boosted top speed to around 240km/h. Not merely styling gimmicks, the Carrera's trademark 'duck tail' spoiler and front air dam made a vital contribution to high-speed stability and represent Porsche's first serious experimentation with aerodynamic devices on a production car. Above all it was the reduction of weight that transformed performance. Lighter body materials and ruthless pruning of non-essentials brought the weight of the Carrera RS down to below 900kg, enabling it to devastate the competition on the racetracks of Europe and the USA.
Private customers wishing to purchase a Carrera RS could choose between two specifications. The Lightweight was intended for competition, whereas those who valued comfort could specify the Touring package (order number '472') which cost an extra DM 2,500 (£430) and offered the luxury of the 911S's trimmed and upholstered interior.
One of the first 200 Carrera 2.7 RS models built, this desirable 1st series (thin steel) RS Touring was completed on 1st December 1972 and registered in January 1973. The car left the factory finished in Bahia Red (its present colour) with black leatherette interior, as confirmed by the Porsche Certificate of Authenticity on file. The RS was delivered new to Glöckler in Frankfurt, Germany with two options: '410' (Sport Seat Left) and '490' (retractable antenna). The Porsche's early history is unknown, but the car was in Germany in the 1990s and found its way to France where, in 2002, it was registered by a Mr Micheron. In 2008, still in France, the car was registered for the FFSA passport mentioning the engine number as '663.1302', the unit being of the correct type 911/83 at that time. In 2010 Mr. Micheron participated in Le Mans Classic with the RS, and the car was featured in Flat6 Magazine in 2011 following its Le Mans participation.
It appears that the engine has been upgraded to 2.8-litre specification. It is the correct type of engine and has been re-stamped with the number '6630225', which matches the aforementioned Porsche certificate (same for the gearbox). Fully restored to the highest level with no expense spared by Swiss specialist Marc De Siebenthal, the RS comes with invoices totalling over € 100,000! The invoices for mechanical work carried out suggest the engine and running gear have been improved to the highest level. The engine seems to have been very well prepared and is very responsive to the throttle. Bonhams' representative had the pleasure of driving the car over a couple of kilometres, where it performed very well. In short: this beautifully restored RS Touring is 'on the button' and ready to be used at any event, including concours.
(Photo of Town Dollhouse)
The Winner of Question 8 is....Fee! Yay.
Question 9: in the movie A Christmas Story the brothers are called Ralphie and _____?
So, as you can tell from the title, I have another question for you guys. This ones about my profile picture, I'm thinking it might be time to change it up a bit, seeing as I've had this one since I began here on Flickr. I may also change my banner as well, just so everything's been changed.
So... yeah, what do you guys think? Feel free to give suggestions and opinions. I know this is probably quite a minor thing, but still felt it might be something worth asking. XD
EDIT #1: I have found one I'm pretty happy with, thoughts?
EDIT #2: May try this one, seeing as this one is me. (or at least a version of me. XD)
Maroc, Rabbat.
Un regard, une question de point de vue.
Miroir du monde, l'image révèle, le miroir inonde le cadre d'un autre reflet.
Morocco, Rabbat.
A look, a question of point of view.
Mirror of the world, the image reveals, the mirror floods the frame with another reflection.
I have lived in Tokyo for about a year and half now and I can confidently say now that I really enjoy living here. I have met a number of people living here from abroad and when asked the question on their thoughts of living here, it's either they love it or hate it. I come from the U.S., so living here(and maybe vice versa for Japanese) is very much like living on an alien planet. So many things are so different culturally and etiquette wise that it's the only way I think of to describe it. I am not saying it's good or bad, but it's just very different. I had visited here many times before moving here so I had a rough idea as to what I was getting into, but visiting and living here are two different things.
This is where it gets complicated. Regardless of who you are, or where you come from Japan will send you on a roller-coaster of emotion out it for most of the first year of you living there. When you first arrive here everything is fun and new. Going out everyday making friends, discovering off the beaten tourist path places, etc. Then eventually the uglier parts set in. (Now this can happen in any country I am sure, but this is the first place for me to live abroad so I am basing it on here.) Sooner or later the language will get to you here. Japanese is unrelated to any other language around the world. It has it's own set of rules, and somethings if you try to litterally translate to English will make no sense at all. After all that you have the written language. Made up of Chinese Kanji and combined with Hiragana and Katakana. It can get overwhelming really fast. Combine that with most Japanese people not being as quick as westerners to really open up and be friends can leave you feeling a bit isolated. Luckily for me I already knew people here, but if I didn't this would be a tough hurdle to get over. On top of that, there is a lot of racism here. This could be the toughest thing to look past of them all. It's always in your face, but there is little you can do about it. It's not like anybody ever attacks your or anything like that, but more of the kind of thing where you might not get a job for the simple fact that you are not Japanese.
After discovering all of this (and you will) now is where you decide how you handle it. Everyone will go through times where they are having a good time, but then some days it will really drag you down. This will go on for about a 8 months to a year for most people. Then where you end up is up to you. Some people stew in the things of the uglier side of it and it ends up making them hate here as well as the people. This is very easy to do.
For me I try to focus on the things I do like about living here. Living in the largest city in the world and not having to worry about crime really is almost enough to over come everything else. I can't count the number of times I have forgot something at a cafe etc. and it still being there the next day or if I fall asleep on the train (which I often do) and my cameras are out, nobody is going to try and take it. When I tell people outside Japan about this, they find that hard to believe, but it's actually true. Why is this? I really have no idea, but it's very utopia like in that sense. One of the big things for me is the lack of the alpha male complex here. This is kind of hard to describe, but I don't ever feel like I am being judged in a "you ain't no manly man" kind of way. You can literally dress and be just about anything you want here and nobody will make you feel as if you shouldn't.
Another thing that really stands out for me is the fact that I don't have to drive hardly anywhere in this country. Take a train no matter how you cut it beats a car in every way. Sure the trains can be packed, and you often have to stand, but it allows you a form of down time that you don't get when driving. Being able to read a book, play a game, study, or just read the internet in the middle of the day while going about your busy life makes your day all the better. Being trapped in a car and having to watch out for idiot drivers or sitting in traffic is enough to ruin anyone's day.
I guess I could go on and on about things, but really to sum it up the most important thing (like anywhere else) is to surround yourself with people that you like and to push away the things that you don't. For Japan I feel that's far easier to do than in the U.S., like everywhere else it's not the perfect utopia, but for myself I have found reasons that it comes as close for me as I think I could ever really get.
For those that are interested, you can follow me on Instagram at: @the_real_jason_combs
==The Gotham Royal Hotel==
Stairwell: Floor 13
A barbed tendril shot out from behind Jenna; pulling Gar off the railing, it caught him just as he reached the thirteenth floor and threw him at Franco's feet. The flamethrower fell out of Gar’s hand and rolled out of his reach. As he hit the ground, his forehead scraped against the concrete floor. Shocked, Jenna's eyes followed the tentacle back to the source, her mouth open, as the red tendril retracted into Ramsay Rosso's arm.
"In answer to your earlier question, Miss Duffy," Rosso spoke, tilting his head towards Franco. "That's how I healed him."
"Didn’t exactly stick the landing, did he?” Franco chuckled, kneeling beside Gar. “What’s the matter, Firefly? Did you leave your jetpack in your other suitcase? How very careless!" he remarked, clamping a hand on Gar’s chin.
In return, Gar headbutted him. Hard. Blood gushed out of Franco’s nose, and the mobster stumbled backwards, taking a moment to steady himself. "You’ve got a meta on the payroll?” Gar growled at him. “Afraid of a fair fight, you coward?"
“Not afraid, no,” Franco stated, wiping the blood off his face with a white handkerchief. “But I am practical. Why exert myself at all?”
Gar readied himself for a second lunge, eying his fallen flamethrower lying between Rosso’s legs.
"Ah-ah-ah. Think it through, Firefly. Whatever slight lover's tiff we're having is irrelevant. You kill me in cold blood and she'll never love you," Franco goaded him. “Oh, not that you could.”
As he rambled, Gar’s eyes locked with Jenna’s.
“Maybe not,” Gar replied, rising to his feet. “But if it frees her from you, then so be it.”
Franco’s smile faltered. “Shame.”
As Gar raised his fist, something peculiar happened. His arm stopped in mid-air, mere inches from Franco’s face. The rest of his body followed suit, as though he had been frozen in place. His thoughts, his feelings, were still his own, but now his body seemed to answer to an outside force.
“How-?” he gasped, struggling to push the word through his lips.
Rosso eyed the fresh wound on Gar’s forehead, smiling. “That’s a nasty cut, Mr Lynns. And one cut is all it takes.”
Franco grinned, as he nudged Gar’s arm out of the way, and struck his face with a right hook; payback for his broken nose. “What, you thought that hentai thing was the only weapon in Ramsay’s arsenal?” he tutted.
"Davey, stop it, don’t hurt him!” Jenna urged him. But try as she might, she found herself unable to intervene. Her eyes widened; her body was frozen in the same manner that Gar’s was. “Why-? Why can't I move?" she struggled.
Franco stepped away from Gar, and sauntered over to Jenna's side, running his hand through her strawberry blonde hair: "Cause, I don't want you to," he whispered, giving Rosso a nod of approval.
Rosso took a step towards Gar, his brown irises replaced with pitch black eyes. A deep sense of unease washed over Gar as the man's form shifted to that of his true self: Bloodwork. First, his slick black hair fell out; next, his clothing tore apart as his size expanded; Red muscle pushed its way through his skin and blue and black veins rose to the surface
"I can feel your blood pumping through your veins, from your head to your toes," Rosso spoke, a sick sense of pleasure taking hold of him. His throat pulsed as he taunted his paralyzed prey: “The possibilities are endless. I could burst an artery, cause a brain haemorrhage. I can create a blood clot. Give you a heart attack. Or, I could simply do this;"
And then, against Gar’s will, he brought his own right fist crashing against his mouth. His knees buckled, but he stayed upright. The next blow came from his left hand. Then his right again. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. With each punch, more blood shot out from Gar’s mouth. With each punch, his body shook but stayed standing. As the pattern repeated, Franco giggled with childlike glee, placing an overly familiar hand across Jenna’s back. And though she tried to close her eyes, save herself from the heartbreak, Rosso wouldn’t let her.
“Davey, stop him! Please, stop him!” Jenna pleaded, tears falling down her face.
But Franco didn’t care. For him, this was merely a lesson in loyalty, a way to punish Jenna for her ‘disobedience.’ "Oh, Firefly, man, why are you hitting yourself?" Franco snickered. "Why are you hitting yourself?"
"Davey, stop it! Stop it Davey! You’ve got me, let him go!” Jenna shrieked.
“I do have you, don’t I?” Franco’s smile became a bitter sneer and his grip on her back tightened.
“But I can hardly invite Ramsay on our honeymoon, can I? This, is the only way you’re gonna learn.”
At this, Rosso raised his fist and Gar involuntarily stepped forward. His movements were unnatural, haunting; his arms hung limp at his side like a ragdoll and his feet dragged along the ground. Gripping the railing, Gar was forced to clamber atop the bannister overlooking the stairwell. Rosso’s hand shook slightly and Gar’s whole body lurched forwards before regaining its precarious footing.
“Davey, for god's sake, I'll go with you, just stop it!" Jenna screamed.
Franco raised a hand, halting Rosso.
"No tricks?" his eyes narrowed.
Jenna swallowed. "No tricks."
Franco clapped his hands together in childlike delight. “Well, that’s alright, then!” he declared.
Disappointed, Rosso tossed Gar aside and relinquished his control over Jenna.
"Just keep him pinned there for now, Ramsay, then come find us at the rendezvous,” Franco ordered, grabbing Jenna by her arm. “I don't want him following us." Unnoticed by either of them, Jenna kicked Gar’s flamethrower over to his side, before departing with Franco. Though badly injured, Gar mustered all the strength he could to unscrew the fuel tank, and with his other hand, retrieved his lighter from inside his pants’ pocket. He had to fight through the control. For Drury’s blessing, for Jenna’s sacrifice to mean anything, he had to fight this. He stuck an old tissue in the bottleneck of the canister, and flicked the lighter.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Rosso chuckled. He could only see Gar’s hands fidgeting, not the weapon he was crafting. “My lifeblood is inside your veins. Your body, your will, is Bloodwork’s, to do with as I please.”
"That's the thing about blood…” Gar grimaced, and with every ounce of strength he had left, he pushed the lit projectile along the ground towards Rosso.
“It boils."
The canister exploded under Rosso’s feet; bathing his body in bright orange flames. Rosso screamed in agony as his red skin burst and popped. Finally, he stumbled over the ledge, falling thirteen stories and as he hit the ground, he popped like a balloon, erupting into a puddle of hot red goop. Gar didn't linger for too long. Whether Rosso reformed or not was unimportant, not when Jenna was still at that maniac’s mercy. Pursuing Franco, Gar swung open the door to the 13th floor corridor, ducking around corner and corner until he reached the passage entrance.
Gar and Franco locked eyes from the opposite ends of the hallway. Franco gave Gar a mocking salute, and then locked the passageway behind himself and Jenna. Gar limped towards the tunnel entrance, pounding his fists against the metal door until his knuckles bled, but it was no use. They were gone.
===The East End: Six Years Ago===
Johnny LaMonica exited the apartment building, blissfully unaware that he was being watched. A huge smile on his face, he clicked his heels and counted his stack of 20 dollar bills. ‘Another successful day out,’ he smirked as he propped up the collar of his leather jacket and ran a comb through his greasy black mane of hair. What happened next was a bit of a blur for LaMonica; a strand of red web bigger than any spider’s latched itself onto his jacket and propelled him upwards into the clutches of a purple and orange figure, dangling him off the fire escape.
“Christ! Look, pal, I got money!” LaMonica panicked, waving his wad of cash in his assailant’s face.
“Drug money.”
“What? Sure, if that’s what you’re into, maybe-”
“No.” The assailant slapped the money out of LaMonica’s hands. “Every week, you hit up this block and sell your skag. It stops tonight.”
“Look, I can’t just up and leave. People… They, uh, depend on me! It’s the False Facers, really, they give me the H! I only sell it, I swear!”
"I don’t care. The East End is off limits. Don't let me catch you dealing again. If I do, I'll drop you from a taller building."
"Taller wh-?"
The Black Spider let go, and LaMonica plummeted two stories, landing on his leg.
"You broke my leg, you psycho!" LaMonica whimpered, tilting his head to his stack of twenties. They had landed in the puddle right beside him.
==Gotham Royal Hotel: Lobby==
Drury sat in the center of the room, surrounded by broken glass and pine needles. Bruce had stripped Carson down to the black undersuit he wore beneath his armour, and handed him over to the GCPD officers stationed outside. He had not yet mentioned Drury’s involvement to them, well aware that Bullock would jump at the opportunity to cuff him personally.
Bruce bent down and offered Drury his hand. Their eyes made contact and a sense of acceptance washed over them both. ‘It was time.’ Drury bit his lip and accepted Bruce’s hand.
"Where's the suit?" Batman asked.
Drury paused. It took him a few seconds to realise that Bruce had meant his Moth costume. "It's in a car around back,” he mumbled. “Was gonna grab it when things got bad, but well, they really got bad."
Batman murmured understandingly, as he escorted him to the awaiting police barricade. A group of men in white hazmat suits were moving the two large cloudburst devices onto a S.T.A.R. Labs flatbed. Drury cast his eyes over to Sharpe and Mayo outside, reluctantly giving their statements to two young officers, and smiled. Sharpe was complaining that Krill’s belt had been confiscated before he had the chance to test it.
“By the way, I won that belt in a trial by combat. I thought you bozos cared about the law!”
Drury turned his head back to Bruce. "I’ll keep my end. Confess to Ra's' murder, to helping Bane, Slabside… And do my time for the GCPD raid. But that means you gotta let Gaige go, understand? You gotta let them all go."
Drury’s lip curled as Sharpe’s echoes of “Police State! Police State!” filled the air.
"Your father in-law is still part of a major criminal conspiracy. There will be an investigation."
"Yeah, and you'll do what you have to. I know. But if Sionis knows he was involved, in any of this-”
"He'll have my protection. And The Wayne Foundation will cover any medical bills."
"Good." Drury turned his head to look at Eric, standing beside Cass at the police convoy. "Go easy on him, alright? He did good. They all did, actually."
Bruce nodded. "The Outcasts will be moved to GCPD, until Jim can arrange for them to be transferred to Blackgate. The Misfits will be kept here for now. Once they can corroborate your story, they’ll be free to go,” he addressed Drury. “Provided, Chancer doesn’t make anyone else cry.”
Drury caught Bruce’s eye and laughed.
Bruce smiled softly in turn. "Are you sure about this?" he asked.
"Well, if it's easier, I suppose I could just fake my death," Drury smirked back.
Bruce's smile vanished instantly.
Drury rolled his eyes playfully. "Yeah, maybe some other time.”
As they approached the police barricade, Drury stopped. “Wait. My kids. Please, let me say goodbye."
Bruce nodded to him, and at Gordon, positioned at the other end of the roadblock. Drury reached into his back pocket and frowned.
"Sorry, do you have your phone on you? I sorta fell on mine."
==Wist Residence: Gotham Outskirts==
David Wist was dressed in a red flannel shirt, an elegant gold watch around his wrist. Sat on the porch swing, he was watching the sun rise on his homestead, sipping a beer. There was something particularly special about a Gotham sunrise. A reassurance that you had survived the night. A promise that things were going to be ok. Silly, Wist realised, but he did used to rob art galleries dressed like an earth wire. His momentary bliss was interrupted by voices inside the house. No stranger to home invaders, he jumped to his feet and ran inside, stopping in his tracks as he caught sight of the bizarre situation. Sighing, Wist put his hand to his forehead. "Margaret, hand it over.”
“Margaret!" he repeated sternly.
"I found it!" his wife snapped at him, holding aloft a silver prosthetic limb. Axel was chasing her around the room, wearing nothing but a white towel draped around his waist.
"You stole it," Wist stated, crossing his arms. Watching from the landing upstairs, Axel’s sister, Kitten, giggled shrilly. His older brother, Simon, covered his mouth with his hands, trying to stifle a laugh of his own, while his younger brother, Cammy, was laughing so heavily that green bubbles were blowing from his nose
"It was shiny, all shiny and chrome and new, it's mine!" Pye spat back.
"Christ sake... Give me the boy's arm!"
The prosthesis, flew through the air into Wist's awaiting hand.
"Not fair! Not fair!" his wife protested.
"You want something shiny? Here;" Wist opened his coat pocket and pulled out a single silver spoon. No sooner had he waved it in front of her face, had she ripped it from his grasp and ran out the room.
"I am... sorry about her," Wist apologised, handing Axel his arm back. "She's a lovely woman, really, and I do love her. But we do have our struggles..."
"S'not worth apologising over," Axel shrugged as he sat at the dining table and screwed his arm back into place. "I get it. Mom, Miranda, used to complain to Dad about her challenges, something about her nymphomania."
"Kleptomania," Wist said sternly, sitting opposite him.
"That," Axel blushed. "Earrings that went missing and so on. Dad, thought it was funny. Used to, I mean. Never was all that self aware, I suppose. He used to say to me, 'Son, there are two types of people in this world; the tricksters, and the ones getting tricked.'"
"Hence the Trickster, I imagine. Still, we don't all get to choose our gimmicks. Mags’ with her compulsions, that poor fella Karlo, Croc… Hell, I wanted to be a Clock Villain: I used to be a watchmaker, you see. But Slugsy and Tockman swooped in first, and well, the novelty wore off."
The landline phone rang, and Kitten thundered down the stairs, snatching the phone before Axel or Wist had a chance to stand up.
"Daddy!" Kitten squealed into the receiver excitedly.
Drury bowed his head. He had hoped it wouldn't be her. He always did struggle giving her bad news. "Carson and his associates are in GCPD custody. It's over, you can come home," he spoke, almost robotically, his mouth dry.
"Home? To Keystone? Or home home?" Kitten inquired. Her brothers had joined her at the phone, craning their necks so that they could overhear their father.
"If you want to go back to Keystone, that's fine, I'm sure Axel's friends can work something out. But I thought... I thought you would maybe like to come back to the manor?"
"I don't get it. They lifted your exile?" Simon stood up.
"They caught him," Axel stated.
Drury paused. "Uncle Chuck and Mr Reardon are gonna help Mr Wist move you back in. Wayne Enterprises is going to handle the finances and your Uncle Norbert is gonna help with any paperwork. But... you'll be living with Grandpa Gaige for a while."
"But I don't understand! Where will you be?" Kitten whined.
"Kitten... I did some bad things. I need to answer for them. Got to keep you safe. Grandpa Gaige-"
"We don't want Grandpa Gaige, we want you!" she protested, her voice becoming shriller still.
“I know, cupcake, I know.”
Drury moved the phone away from his ear and dropped his arm down by his side.
"They'll understand," Bruce stated.
“You don’t get it… Every missed birthday, every cancelled family dinner, the divorce, Miranda…” Drury wiped the tears from his eyes. "They shouldn't have to understand. They've been forced to their whole damn lives."
===Six Years Ago===
Johnny LaMonica finished recounting his story to his superior, a blond mobster dressed in a lilac suit. The mobster smirked, and took in a deep puff of an expensive cigar. "So, the East End has a guardian angel... I'll be damned..." he spoke, blowing white smoke into the dimly lit office. A confederate flag, hung from the rafters like a banner.
"You’ll be damned?” LaMonica hopped forwards, waving his crutches in the mobster’s face. “We’re all damned! He’s gotta go!”
The mobster swivelled his chair around, and turned to the bodyguard stood behind him, a man dressed in a set of purple and gold, high-tech armour. “You believe this shit?” he chuckled.
Lightning Bug crossed his arms, but said nothing.
“Boss-!” LaMonica protested.
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” The blond mobster nodded insincerely, rising from the leather chair. He walked over to the other end of the room, and lifted a loose floorboard; beneath it, was several bags of pure heroin. "You come back tonight, and you take these to your guys on the street. Spread the word; From now on, you only peddle this. Least, until our pest problem is dealt with."
He threw a sample at the dealer, who fumbled as he caught it.
"You think this guy's a junkie?"
"What, you think this guy's a good Samaritan, hitting smack dealers out of the goodness of his heart? In this neighbourhood?"
LaMonica shrugged.
"He's a junkie, alright. Just traded his needle for a mask. And if he ain't, he's sure to know someone who is. That's how we nail him."
===Gotham Royal: Floor 12===
Roman Sionis exited the elevator, a scowl on his skull-like face. He did not appreciate the time he’d spent trapped in his own elevator, nor did he appreciate the irony that it had been the Red Hood who had discovered him and Li, and he certainly didn’t appreciate the Hood’s muffled snickering, as he and Li shuffled past him. Sionis held his smartphone to his ear, in mid-conversation with Warren White.
“Nah, I don’t know who this Carlton guy is,” White explained, standing outside the hotel, dressed in a navy-blue overcoat. “Some Firebug wannabe. Had some kind of beef with Walker, I overheard him screaming his name. Oh, they got Walker too, by the way. Guess the cops didn’t take too kindly to him robbing their precinct.”
"And the Bats?" Sionis asked, throwing a cautious glance in Red Hood’s direction.
“C’mon,” White chuckled. "They got nothing on you. If they had, you'd be in that van alongside Day."
"Thanks, Warren. Send the word out to the capos:"
"The Doc? Already on it. He can't hide for long, we’ll get him. Oh, hey, if you hurry, you can catch the perp walk. Hell, give me a sec and I’ll get you a photo. It's like Abbey Road over here." White snapped his fingers excitedly as the quartet of Krill, Day, Drury and Carson were directed towards the police transport by a squad of SWAT officers.
As Carson was carted away, Paul Booker's eyes narrowed. "Who the hell was that?" he rasped as Big Sir draped a comfort blanket over his shoulders.
===Ground Floor: Lobby===
Joey Rigger climbed down the grand staircase. He had woken up in the hallway alone; Gaige had vanished, Drury and Carson had taken their fight elsewhere and Gar was probably with Jenna, sitting in a tree somewhere. His head still thumping, Joey vaguely remembered a black figure shushing him. Flannegan was already there, his elbows resting on the balcony.
"That's Drury!" he gasped. "What's he doing?"
Flannegan’s nose wrinkled, his thin face lined with disgust. "He cut a deal.”
~-~
Jenna and Franco walked down the passageway, their only light source being strips of luminous tape stuck to the floor. After about a mile of walking in absolute silence, Jenna spoke up:
"You were wrong, you know," she said softly.
"What's that, Jelly Bean?" Franco asked with faux-interest.
"I do hope he kills you."
Yerp, that big question.
Where DO you stand in this world?
Have any of you guys felt like you were just a person that would never be heard?
You can speak your mind all you want, but no one would listen?
Have you guys ever felt left out from something?
Because you are different, and you stand out?
We all feel that at points, it's totally okay. :)
Nothing is wrong being different.
Friendship has no:
-Color
-Age
-Gender.
-Imperfections.
I hate seeing people fearing to be friends with someone because they are different.
I hate it how like in the 60's or something, there were many racists, more racists than there are today.
I don't like it when people don't want to be someone's friend because of age.
Who cares how old there are, true friends can overlook that.
Come on, be honest, when you were younger, didn't you LOVE to tease the boys, and call them mean things?
Personally, I dislike single-sex schools, since we're all human, we belong in this world TOGETHER.
Imperfections.
True friends overlook imperfections.
Your hair, your eyes, your weight--- BASICALLY how you look, true friends overlook that.
So please remember this,
No matter how different a person could be, a true friend would accept them for who they are. Not what race they are, what age, or how they look.
Do ya'll think people would be interested in purchasing minifigs like these off ebay as I am thinking whether or not to sell them?
Three Questions
When this female grizzly made serious eye contact with me three questions popped into my mind.
Is it just curiosity?
Is she just warning me to get out of her space?
Is she considering me for dinner?
No matter. The answer to all three was the same. Get back into the car. I had been shooting over the hood of the car and as soon as I got back inside she lost interest and began to browse the nearby vegetation for goodies.
So...yeah, this is the picture in question, the one that was used by a national geographic photographer to promote a for-profit photo workshop at Burning Man. Kinda funny that it's getting all the attention, because it's a fairly crappy HDR in my opinion. Anyway, thanks for the support...you can check out my other burning man photos here:
Burning Man 2012:
www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157631392416880/
Burning Man 2011:
www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157627529205924/
Burning Man 2010:
www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157624681071111/
Burning Man 2009:
www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157622425997753/
Burning Man 2008:
www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157608718823709/
Here's the original story:
Chris and I got to Burning Man on Friday the 28th, before the event opened. Shortly after sunset I rode out to the Man. It had just rained and was fairly stormy. The only person out there was a single Ranger, on what has been called "stick duty". I took a number of exposures and ended up liking this one the best...something about that Ranger out there all alone. This is an HDR image made from three exposures (1/13, 1/25, 1/50) at f7.1 shot with my bitchin' Tokina 14-24mm wide angle lens. After I processed the source files in Photomatix I ran it through Noise Ninja to help deal with artifacts induced in the HDR manipulation process.
You can view and download high-rez versions of this photo on a nice background on my website at
www.michaelholden.com/pics/v/bman09/DSC_7998_9_7_tonemapp...
(lots of other pics from Burning Man, festivals, events, parties and chihuahuas are up there too!)
Invercargill and the province of Southland.
A puzzled question is why does a city of 50,000 people exist on the southernmost tip of NZ which has the bleakest climate? Invercargill is the coolest, most bleak and cloudiest city in NZ. It averages just 1,600 hours of sunshine a year compared with 1,500 for London, 2,050 in Christchurch, 2,800 in Adelaide and 3,200 in Perth WA. It has around 200 mm of rain every month of the year and it is a very windy city. It is in fact one of the largest southern cities in the world only surpassed by Ushuaia and Punta Arenas in Argentina and Chile respectively. But because of its latitude it has long summer days. Even in mid-October when we visit the length of day will be around 13.5 hours with the sun setting around 8:20 pm. In high summer twilight ends around 10:30 pm with a 16 hour long day like in Scotland. At this time of the year one can often see the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights an atmospheric phenomena of subarctic regions. Like Dunedin Invercargill was settled by the Scots. Many of its streets and families have Scottish names. It developed as an offshoot of Scottish Otago. The Surveyor General of Otago selected the site for a new town in 1856 and laid out the streets in a grid pattern on this very flat city. The first land was sold in 1858 and by 1861 Invercargill was a very small but flourishing town. Why? Because it had three main riches, apart from some gold found in the hinterland in 1860: it had the largest most fertile plains of NZ; it had a coastline rich with oysters, lobsters, cod fish and abalone( paua); and it had heavily forested mountains with hardwoods which were in great demand throughout the world- rimu, totara, silver beech etc. These basic factors meant that the province of Southland when it separated from Otago in 1861 had a bright future. The land, rainfall, soils and seas would provide for the people as it had done for the Maoris before the whites arrived. Southland consequently has had a rich and varied agricultural past ranging from sheep pastoralism, grain growing especially oats for porridge and barley for illicit whisky making (how could the Scots survive in this cold climate without whisky?) ,linen flax growing and milling, dairying and milk processing, fish and seafood canning, timber cutting and timber mills, and meat freezing and butchering works. These rural industries necessitated railways and like Dunedin Invercargill become a major rail head with lines going north to Lumsden, Kingston and Queenstown in the Alps, across to Gore, and west towards Fjordland and the richly forested valleys adjacent to it. Timber in particular needed the railways. Invercargill established railway workshops and the manufacturing steam engines for the railways of NZ. Its first railway line was built in 1867 to the Bluff, the port for Southland. It was connected to Christchurch by 1878.
In the 20th century Southland has developed hydroelectricity which in turn has attracted industry to the region. Possums introduced from across the Tasman in 1858 have become a major pest but they have also spawned a new industry- possum textiles and woollens; red deer were introduced from Europe in 1901 to Fjordland and now with the advent of helicopters and helicopter farming they are “farmed” for venison and processed near Invercargill. The story of Southland and Invercargill is one generally of success and success based on the climate and the resources of the land. For example, dairying has been strong since the early 1880s and continues today with Fonterra Milk processing mainly for export to Asia; linen flax milling continued until 1956; flourmills have processed wheat and the oat mill in Gore produced porridge oats; and Chewings Fescue was found to thrive in Southland and has become a major industry producing lawns for houses around NZ. Southland introduced prohibition in 1905 which lasted until 1945 and the illegal moonshine or whisky making in the hills east of Invercargill near Gore continued whilst that was in place. But the really big success has been hydroelectricity which began with Lake Monowai Power station in 1925. It still powers Invercargill and feeds into the national power grid. More recently the enormous Manapouri Power Station 200 metres below the water level of Lake Manapouri near Te Anau in Fjordland was completed in 1971 after work commenced in 1964. It is the largest hydroelectric station in NZ and the second largest power station in NZ. It was developed for Comalco to erect an aluminium smelter and refinery at the Bluff near Invercargill which is now run by Rio Tinto and employs nearly 3,000 people from Invercargill but its financial viability is shaky and the plant has been threatened with closure. Another major industry of Invercargill is fertiliser production.
•Invercargill is a Scottish settlement. 40% of Invercargill’s suburbs and nearby towns have Scottish names and the first Presbyterian Church was the leading church of the province. The current church replaced an earlier 1863 church in 1915 when it was completed. It is built of brick with a domed roof, a 100 foot high tower and it is in the Italian Romanesque style. It is on the highway from Dunedin at 151 Tay St. Next on the right is St Johns Anglican Church( 108 Tay St) in red brick built in 1887; almost next door is the impressive Town Hall and Theatre ( 88 Tay St) built 1906 in classical style; next is the YMCA building of 1910 at 77 Tay St; at the roundabout (the location of the Boer War Memorial) at the end of the street is the old Bank of NSW built in 1904 on the right whilst on the left is the former Cornerstone Bank of NZ building from 1879 ; as you turn right into Dee St. you will see a plethora of brightly painted heritage buildings all in good repair – partly because the city’s young mayor from Auckland some years ago supported and encouraged this to revitalise the city. At 136 Dee St is the Blackman building with the large black swan on the roof line and further along (178 Dee St.) is the Gothic St Pauls Presbyterian Church built in 1876 and added to in 1881. In Victoria Ave is the former but now closed Information Centre and Southland Museum. Here also is Queens Park with its rhododendron dell rock garden, magnificent trees etc. Nearby is the City water Tower (a flat city needed a tower for water pressure) built in 1888 with 300,000 red, yellow and black bricks. 101 Doon St.
Other heritage buildings include:
Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is an all pervasive natural force, similar in importance to gravity or electro- magnetism. Its attributes involve the flow of what we call "time". It shows why time travel is impossible and why water only runs downhill. Entropy permeates all aspects of human existence. Entropy explains why it is easy to lose money and difficult to make money. Entropy is the force behind Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, must go wrong. Is time-travel impossible? Why does water only run downhill? Why is it easy to lose money but difficult to acquire it? The answer to these and many other puzzling questions rests in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in Entropy. The so-called Second Law relates closely to the term Entropy. An understanding of this fundamental law of nature and its ramification provides great insights in the way the world really works. Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law, is the ultimate Natural Law because it determines the flow of what we call "time". Thus, entropy deals with the very existence of the universe. The term entropy describes phenomena that have the most profound effect on all events in human existence, including our ability to achieve happiness by aligning ourselves with Objective Reality.
The Second Law holds a unique position in science because it has never evolved from a theory such as the Theory of Relativity or the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. The Second Law is empirical. There is no fully satisfactory theoretical proof for the Second Law, although there are some connections to Quantum Mechanics, Probability and Relativity. Once a Unified Field Theory, the Theory of Everything, is developed, it will and must account for Entropy. Many scientists, who claimed that this Law is paradoxical in nature, have tried to attack it. However, in all instances the alleged paradoxes were due to faulty reasoning. The Second Law has prevailed and has established itself as the most fundamental of all Natural Laws.
The profound nature of the Second Law manifests itself in every aspect of human existence. It covers questions pertaining to the obscure beginnings of the universe to the way we pour milk in our coffee. I remember my high school teacher posing the question: You have a cup of very hot coffee that you would like to drink as soon as possible, let us say, within 5 minutes. Should you first add the desired quantity of cold milk to the coffee and then let the coffee sit for 5 minutes? Alternatively, do you let the coffee sit for 5 minutes and then add the same quantity of milk?
The answer is not intuitive but it is simple, if we are familiar with the Second Law: The rate of heat exchange between the hot coffee and the ambient air depends on their temperature differential. The higher the temperature differential, the faster will be the rate of exchange. Within the 5-minute waiting period, heat transfers to the air at a higher rate if we do not add the cold milk initially to the coffee. If we add the milk at the beginning, instead of at the end of the 5 minutes, the energy transfer will slow down and the coffee will be markedly hotter at the end of 5 minutes.
This revelation does not appear to be a momentous event. It was only intended to indicate the pervasiveness of the Second Law, especially in view of the fact that most people are seemingly ignorant of it. The point is, the Second Law is not intuitive. We have to acquire the relevant knowledge by a rational thought process in order to take advantage of it. The cup of coffee is not important but the principle behind the cup permeates all of our existence: In order to optimize the effectiveness of our actions it is helpful to understand the implications of Entropy.
Entropy describes the degradation of energy to perform work. What is energy? On the high school level, we simply defined energy as the capacity to do work. However, the real question is, What factor, precisely, is doing this work? Why does energy have the capacity to perform work? The HOWs in life are easy, the WHYs are the tough ones.
Energy is the raw material of the universe. At the time of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago, there was nothing but raw energy. There was no mass with a physical attribute. It was only much later in the nascent universe that this primal energy transformed itself into physical mass, stars, nebula and black holes. Stars, and particularly supernovas, are the factories of the elements, such as iron, from which human beings are formed.
As we know from Einstein's famous formula E = m c^2, mass and energy are freely convertible into each other. The Hydrogen Bomb demonstrates this conversion in a spectacular fashion. Most of the energy it generates is due to the conversion of matter into energy. Such conversion of matter into energy, and vice-versa, is also a less spectacular event in everyday phenomena although it is usually so minuscule as to escape our attention: When we exercise vigorously, we convert chemical energy into radiated heat energy. All this radiated energy that leaves our body has mass, just as light has energy and weight, although it will not register on our bathroom scale.
In cognizance of these basic facts, we can stipulate that energy is the basic raw material that makes up the universe and all that is contained within it, including human beings. The essence of the universe is the unity of energy, time and space.
Energy is essentially a heat phenomenon. Heat and work are mechanisms by which systems exchange energy with one another. The mechanical equivalent of heat is called a Joule. 4.2 joules are the equivalent of one calorie, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
In order for energy to perform work, a difference must exist between energy at a high potential and energy at a more randomized, diluted, potential. The term entropy is a measure of the degree to which energy has lost the capacity to perform useful work. Entropy signifies the dilution, the randomization of energy. We may look at water in two lakes, connected by a canal. Unless the lakes are at a different level, unless they are at a different energy potential, there is plenty of water, but all this water has no potential energy and cannot perform any useful work because it cannot change levels. This ability or inability to perform useful work is an analogy to and is at the heart of the term entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Let us back up a little: This whole subject of Thermodynamics sounds like a very complicated affair. Indeed, it is both very simple and extremely complex. There are three Laws of Thermodynamics, but we need to concern ourselves only with the first two laws because they are closely interwoven and can actually be expressed in one sentence: The total energy content of the universe is constant and the total entropy, the non-usable energy, is constantly increasing. There you have it: The combination of the first and second law of thermodynamics.
Very interesting, but what does it mean? It means that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed into mass, chemical energy, heat energy, latent energy and work, but it cannot be created and it cannot disappear. Energy is also in a constant, inevitable and irreversible process of becoming increasingly randomized. Salt crystals may be dissolved in a beaker of water without losing its identity as salt. The salt became more randomized when it dissolved in the water. The Law of Entropy decrees that it cannot reconvert itself to the less randomized, crystalline version. The salt cannot reconstitute itself as crystals, unless we introduce external energy to evaporate the water.
The amount of energy in the universe was established at the time of the Big Bang. At that point, energy was extremely concentrated and ordered. Since then, the universe has expanded vastly and energy has become more diluted and randomized. It is inherent in the nature of the universe that this process must and will continue. If it were to stop, the universe would cease to exist.
This increasing randomization of energy, entropy, is part of the structure of the universe. The energy dilemma does not involve the amount of energy that is available; it involves the form in which the energy is available. The universe is involved in a constant process of converting one form of energy into another form and in doing so, it inevitably must convert part of the original energy into more randomized, less usable, heat energy. Potential energy is organized energy whereas heat represents randomized, disorganized energy. Heat energy is irretrievable energy. Although the energy contained in heat is not destroyed, it has become unavailable for producing work. All forms of energy are degraded incessantly and irreversibly to an inferior, lower-quality, more-randomized form of energy: Heat.
By the same principle, the solar energy that pours out of the furnace of the sun travels on and on until it eventually becomes scattered throughout the universe: It becomes so randomized that it becomes unusable for the performance of work. Therefore, we must stipulate that entropy, as a measure of the randomness of energy in the universe, is always increasing.
The question arises, what will happen when all the usable energy in the universe is converted into randomized heat energy and is no longer capable of performing such work as expanding the universe. We refer to this condition as the Heat Death of the Universe: Once all the energy in the universe is converted to and randomized as heat, then the universe will be in a state of energy equilibrium, everything will be of the same temperature and entropy will remain constant. This is where science gets more complicated and involves the microwave background radiation consisting of photons near, but not quite at, absolute Zero. Scientists have recently detected this microwave background radiation and have thus confirmed the connectivity between Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics.
Before we go on to some practical manifestations of entropy, we need to be aware of a very important characteristic of entropy: The Laws of Thermodynamics pertain only to a system that we refer to as a closed system: An entity that does not exchange energy, information or mass with anything outside the system. The universe in its totality is a closed system because no new energy is injected into it. Therefore, all laws of Thermodynamics apply to the universe. Earth is not a closed system because our sun constantly injects it with new energy. This infusion of energy into the non-closed system of the earth makes it possible to comply with the Second Law while achieving an increase in the complexity of life forms, as necessitated by the process of evolution.
The laws of thermodynamics are among the very few laws of nature that describe phenomena that are an integral part of the origin of the universe, of the Big Bang. The other laws in this category are gravity, relativity, nuclear binding forces and electromagnetism. Human beings need not concern themselves with the effects of relativity or quantum mechanics. However, the phenomena of thermodynamics constantly and profoundly affect all human beings.
If there are any laws that have truly universal applicability and that also affect ordinary human affairs, they are the Laws of Thermodynamics. The following statement contains the essence of Entropy: In any transformation of energy from one form to another, useful energy is lost irreversibly. The German physicist Clausius first used the term Entropy in 1865 to describe the nature of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Even great physicists of that period, like James Maxwell, had trouble with a concept involving only negatives and dealing with the idea of measuring a state of disorder. Today we can condense the statement of Entropy by stating: Entropy in a closed system can never decrease. There are no exceptions to this statement.
The Second Law decrees that water can only flow downhill. Objects do not run uphill by themselves. If we wish to have water run uphill, we must supply outside energy to pump it up the hill.
A clock gradually runs down because the latent energy in its spring is used to run the clock and part of this energy is converted to irretrievable heat. Because the heat cannot be reconstituted into usable energy, this energy is lost irretrievably and the clock cannot rewind itself.
Even in the most complex energy transformations, there is a forward direction to the process because only an outside energy source can reverse a heat-process within a closed system. The burning of gasoline in a car creates mechanical energy and heat. However, no process in the universe will allow the exhaust gases to re-combine with the heat energy and reconstitute the original gasoline: The heat energy of the burning gasoline has achieved a higher and irreversible state of randomization: The entropy of the system, and the universe, is irreversibly increased, as required by the Second Law.
The close relationship of entropy to the statistical laws of probability becomes clear when we hold a stack of five coins in a hand and throw them on a flat surface. Instead of retaining their previous order and proximity, they scatter and increase their randomness. The fall of the coins generated and dissipated the tiniest little bit of heat and the lack of this heat prevented the coins from reforming in the same stack as before. Entropy always drives all transformation of energy in such a way as to increase irreversible randomness.
Ice must have a tendency to melt because H2O molecules in ice crystals are more orderly than in the form of water. Ice crystals tend to become randomized by changing from orderly ice crystals to a more disorderly state as a liquid.
Water must evaporate: A gaseous structure is more randomized than a liquid state.
Time can only flow in one direction: The arrow of time can only move from the dead past to the non-existing future. The Second Law is closely interwoven with the laws of probability. Therefore, the laws of entropy are statistical laws. If we apply statistical laws applicable to entropy to future events, they provide meaningful results; if we apply them to past events, they are meaningless. Therefore, time can flow only from the dead past toward the future, which does not yet exist. Time travel will always remain impossible: It is inherently impossible to move from one state of non-existence to other states of non-existence. The Second Law decrees that the universe would have to cease to exist in order to allow for time-travel.
The laws of thermodynamics are the descriptors of the universe and do not permit perpetual motion machines. We would only waste our time and money if we were to attempt building a machine that not only can run forever, but that could even produce excess energy while doing so.
Heat flows from a hot object to a cold object, never the other way around. When we drop a hot peace of metal in a container of cold water, the metal cools and the water heats up until their temperatures have equalized. During this process the entropy, the randomness of the system consisting of the water and the metal, increases and no further useful work can be performed because there is no longer a temperature differential between the water and the metal: The system has become randomized.
This manifestation of the Second Law can be stated quite simply: Heat energy will not flow from a cooler to a warmer body. It would be foolish to try to warm our hands on a block of ice although there is considerable heat in the ice. If we compare the heat of ice with the heat of liquid hydrogen, ice would appear to be very hot, indeed. It would be easy to build a machine that runs on the heat differential between the cold block of ice and the much colder liquid hydrogen. However, since the heat in the ice is at a much lower level than the heat in our body, heat cannot flow from the ice to our hands. We cannot warm our hands by immersing them in ice. We have always known this fact. Now we know why we cannot warm our hand by touching a block of ice.
Bridges and buildings will inevitably collapse, unless entropy is counteracted by the addition of new energy, such as money, energy, power or labor, to the system. If we do not paint the bridge, it will eventually, but inevitably, collapse.
Money is not energy but it represents energy. Therefore, money becomes randomized automatically, in compliance with the Second Law. As we only know too well, money has a distinct tendency to dissipate, to randomize. On the other hand, the creation of wealth requires an infusion of energy from a source outside the system, such as a competent strategy or the contribution of additional capital or labor.
We know empirically, that things do not organize themselves into artifacts that are more complex unless new energy is inserted from outside the system. This fact is obvious because a broken window will not repair itself. Without competent management, without the energy to organize and structure transactions, a business will fail, a victim of entropy.
Without new software, without the infusion of new energy from outside the computer system, a computer will never acquire new capabilities, but its hard-drive will fill up with defects and clutter due to the degeneration of the data it holds. A well known fact.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is closely interwoven with the future of the universe and with all life on earth. Sometimes people say that the existence of life on earth violates or contradicts the Second Law. However, this is not the case; we know of nothing in the universe that violates the Second Law.
The definition of life revolves around three prerequisites: The organism must be able to replicate itself, the organism must be capable of energy conversion and the organism must be subject to evolution. The essence of evolution is an increase in complexity, as is obvious when we consider the evolution of living organisms over eons of time.
An increase in complexity entails an increase in the orderliness of the organizational character of the organism: Life represents a decrease of entropy, a decrease of randomness. Such a decrease in randomization can only come about as a result of an infusion of energy from the outside of the closed system, from the outside of the organism. Therefore, the ability to utilize energy by converting it to a usable form, is the essence of all things that we call alive or living. In the case of life on earth, the outside energy is derived from the sun. No sunlight, no life on earth.
This is the chain of life on earth: No energy, no evolution. -- No evolution, no life -- No energy, no life
The discussion of energy is significant, because nothing happens in the universe without energy. The whole universe is a cauldron of energy conversions. As far as human beings are concerned, we need to remember that the standard of living of a person or a nation is determined primarily by the availability of usable energy sources, such as oil or nuclear energy. Without sources of energy to turn our wheels and to compensate for entropy, humanity would revert to the primeval existence of hunters and gatherers.
Many people have trouble understanding the principle of entropy because it is a concept of negatives, because it is a measure of the disorder, of the randomness of a closed system. Every biochemical function requires a decrease in entropy, which can only be achieved by the infusion of energy into a life-sustaining system.
Many people erroneously believe that everything that we use up can be recycled and reused if we only develop the appropriate technology. However, the Second Law makes it inherently impossible to achieve complete reconstitution or recycling. In order to recycle a used product, we must insert additional energy in the collecting, transportation and reprocessing of used materials and this energy expenditure contributes to the overall entropy, the randomness, of the environment. Thus, discards can be recycled only by the expenditure of additional energy and at the expense of increasing the entropy of the universe as a whole. On a light note: Every time someone lights a cigarette, he increases the entropy of the universe and contributes to the energy death of the universe.
Why is this discussion of entropy and the Second Law so important to us, to ordinary human beings? After all, most of us are more concerned with living a happy life, than the heat death of the universe. The problem is that the Second Law has a tendency to interfere with our happiness because it has a pervasive, pernicious effect on our lives. It is imperative that we are aware of the impairments caused by entropy in order to counteract them effectively.
If we encounter a problem in life, it is most important to be fully cognizant of the precise nature and cause of the problem. In trying to resolve the problem, it would be counter-productive to invoke the help of imagined superior beings, instead of dealing with the problem in a realistic, purposeful manner. Unless we understand the nature of entropy, we cannot resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore, a profound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to our quest for happiness.
"Murphy's Law" is well known. After allowing for many humorous embellishments and variations on the basic theme, Mr. Murphy’s proposition states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." A corollary version claims: "Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse".
We laugh about this aspect of life because we have all experienced the effect of Mr. Murphy's Law on many occasions. Rather than recognize Murphy's Law as a humorous version of a basic law of nature, we usually look upon it as a quirk of nature. Nothing could be further from the truth: When we look at the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we realize that Mr. Murphy's law is an inescapable consequence of the principle of Entropy.
Unless we constantly insert new energy into a house by maintaining it, painting it, repairing it, the structure will eventually but inevitably be leveled to the ground. Its molecules will move from a lower level of randomization, from structure, to a higher level of randomization, towards unstructured debris.
Entropy is the reason why paint peels, why hot coffee turns cold. Furthermore, entropy is the reason why investments have a preordained inclination to go sour -- unless we enhance success by inserting into the investment system additional energy in the form of strategy, work, calculated risk or other forms of energy. Entropy ensures that sugar, which becomes more randomized when it is dissolved in water, will not reconstitute itself in the crystalline form -- unless we apply heat energy from outside the system and evaporate the water.
Wherever we look, whatever we do, we must be acutely aware of the immutable laws of thermodynamics, especially the easily overlooked Second Law: Entropy. This fundamental law of physics ranks with other fundamental manifestations of the universe such as gravity, time and electromagnetism.
Anything that can go wrong not only will go wrong, it must go wrong, as decreed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics
A question mark and an exclamation mark made from jigsaw puzzle pieces, next to each other, dissolving on the white background.
How do you Flickr Peeps feel about your images being included in Tumblr accounts?
I have an image that (for some reason) has thousands of views and notes on Tumblr which is lovely, however, they have the main image hosted there without a link back to the main file on Flickr.
25.media.tumblr.com/aa690c7206e7822a92385dc5c44f9261/tumb...
it's kinda bugging me as I recently went through lots of grief trying to get a company to remove one of my images from their website.
For some reason I thought the Tumblr community would always retain information relating to the original author / photographer.
Any Thoughts?
Chiffchaff
(definite ID, we heard him sing).
Seen in a landscape protection area in Achim near Bremen - Lower Saxony - Germany. Picture taken about one week after our first sighting of Chiffchaffs this year in Northern Germany.
This one is dedicated to Luis-Gaspar, who already misses the Chiffchaffs in Portugal :-))) I hope they will have a great summer with us and return south to him in greater numbers come autumn. Which leaves for me the question where their "real" home is, or do they just have two places of residence like some people do?
:-) Cheers, Ulrike.
Zilpzalp
(definitiv identifiziert, wir hörten ihn singen).
Gesehen im Landschaftsschutzgebiet in Achim bei Bremen. Aufgenommen etwa eine Woche nach unserer ersten Sichtung dieses Jahr bei uns in Norddeutschland.
Dieser hier ist Luis-Gaspar gewidmet, der die Zilpzalpe jetzt schon in Portugal vermißt :-))) Ich hoffe sie werden hier einen guten Sommer haben und in vergrößerter Zahl im Herbst zu ihm zurückkehren. Nun frage ich mich bloß noch wo denn nun eigentlich ihre "richtige" Heimat ist, oder haben sie einfach zwei Wohnsitze so wie manche Leute es eben haben?
:-) Herzliche Grüße, Ulrike.
tl;dr (up-front): If Burlington was to move elsewhere in Southaven, it’s no surprise that they chose South Lake Centre; Burlington photos begin this Saturday; many other local stores have made the same move; SLC is da bomb.
…Decided to go ahead and put that at the top for those of you who don’t care to stick around for the full description here, because I can already tell in advance that this is going to be a long one!
So… let’s get started. First, a shout-out is in order to both Albertsons Florida Blog and l_dawg2000 for guessing correctly this past Saturday that we’ll be headed to Burlington for my upcoming weekend photoset. (That served as our teaser for this week, so I’m sorry if you were hoping to get a guess of your own in!) In fact, this Burlington series will be my next extended feature on my photostream, and will last all the way into December, believe it or not (of course, there will be a couple of other stours interspersed in there, but at the tail end it will just be a few weeks of back-to-back-to-back Burlington due to the way the cookie crumbled as far as my scheduling goes). Before we get to their new Southaven store (the thing that spurred this set on, as you may recall), however, we’re going to poke around their now-former location first; that’s what you’ll begin seeing starting this Saturday. Plus, while I’ve been to the new store (it’s nice, bright, and shiny: three things that the old one frankly wasn’t, lol!), I actually haven’t gotten pictures there yet because I went on grand opening day and it was way too busy for that: so giving me ample time to go and take care of that is another good reason to stretch this series out some, haha!
Now, you’re probably wondering, what the heck does this graphic have to do with Burlington? Great question! What you’re looking at here is an aerial of South Lake Centre (within the red square with the rather obvious “South Lake Centre” lettering next to it :P ), which I’m no stranger to covering – see my blog posts here and here. I made this graphic all by myself, and tried to model it after similar graphics you’ll often see in commercial real estate lease listings. For example, see SLC’s developer’s own aerial here, complete with red square and obvious “South Lake Centre” lettering. But unlike Stonecrest Investment’s linked graphic, the goal of mine here is not to show you what stores surround SLC. And if that’s not it… what, then, is my goal?
Well, I’ll tell you! I’ve mentioned this (likely more than enough times) in my blog posts, but I’ll say it again here: South Lake Centre is arguably the premier shopping strip in Southaven. Sure, it has since been superseded by Southaven Towne Center to the immediate south, and more recently Tanger Outlets Southaven even further to the south of that. But South Lake Centre was first, and regardless is the only one of those three that calls the retail-iest interchange in DeSoto County – Goodman Road and I-55 – its home. Even ignoring its prominent location and its awesome architecture (again, check out my blog posts if you’re interested in more of the latter!), there’s no denying its significance. It’s a medium-range big-box power strip that has seen enviable stability in its tenant mix over the years since its opening in 2000. And in the off-chance that it does lose an anchor, that space has historically gotten filled super quickly; no lease has sat vacant here for too long.
On top of all of that, South Lake Centre has an extra bit of interestingness in that those vacancies I mentioned have all been filled not by retailers new to the area and/or opening their first Southaven/DeSoto County stores… but rather, in all cases since 2012, each and every empty storefront in the main drag of the shopping center has instead been re-leased out to stores relocating from elsewhere in the city/vicinity, aiming to take advantage of all the benefits associated with being in South Lake Centre as opposed to their previous, existing homes. Pretty cool, huh? That’s what I’m aiming to show with this graphic. Let me break it down for you…
First, let’s review the tenant mix. Rewind in time to 2000, when the center opened. From left to right on this graphic (assuming this is indeed the grand opening roster; if not, it at least was in place by the early 2000s, minus one retailer I’ll mention after the jump), you’ve got Office Depot, Waccamaw HomePlace, Petco, Dressbarn, Old Navy, Shoe Carnival, Hallmark Gold Crown, Marshalls, Fashion Bug, Sally Beauty Supply, and Hancock Fabrics. Waccamaw didn’t last long at all, and with that chain’s bankruptcy in 2001, was the first of the bunch to call it quits; Sports Authority quickly stepped in and assumed that space. Then, all was good for several years, until Hallmark decided to move out of the main row of stores and into one of the smaller bays in the parking lot of the center. A branch of the revived Dots chain picked up that lease in 2011, but disappeared a short time later, ceding the space to Rainbow. Besides those three cases, the remainder of all re-leasing here involved chains choosing to relocate from stores they already operated locally. Those are the ones pictured on the graphic, and we’ll look at them a little more closely.
Gap FactoryStore was the first to relocate into South Lake Centre. Fashion Bug announced in 2012 that it would be closing all of its stores, and as soon as the Southaven location became vacant, Gap snatched it up. Gap traveled the farthest distance to open in SLC; as you can see on the graphic, they came from a spot way out of view to the southwest, specifically the Casino Outlet Shoppes of Tunica in Robinsonville, MS. Accordingly, that store closed upon this one’s opening. I’ve noticed many shopping centers featuring both an Old Navy and a Gap FactoryStore, so it’s no surprise there that Gap would want to open in SLC considering its sister store was already here. And in fact, this may well have been more of a “de facto” relocation than a true one, since the Tunica Outlets also had an Old Navy store at the time. Gap was likely just interested in getting out of Tunica. I don’t blame them. That outlet mall has since lost every single national tenant it ever had (with one exception), and is struggling to stay alive these days with mom-and-pop retailers. However, that’s a story for another day. Specifically, for a future blog post ;)
OfficeMax was next to jump over from their existing store. This one also can’t exactly be considered a true relocation, considering that this took place in 2014 after the Office Depot/OfficeMax merger, and the OfficeMax across the interstate in Horn Lake was simply consolidating into the existing SLC Office Depot. But it nevertheless shows a conscious decision was made to keep the South Lake Centre store open instead of the DeSoto Crossing one. That would be thanks to the facts that the Office Depot in SLC is larger, owns its store (whereas the OfficeMax was leased), and enjoys all the added benefits of being part of a major power strip. So, while I chided its liquidation cover-up at the time, in this scenario I’m actually willing to take OfficeMax’s declaration that it was holding a “Moving Sale” at its face value! View my OfficeMax Closing album here, and my Office Depot album here.
The next closures and relocations all took place within the past two years. When Tanger Outlets opened in 2015, Dressbarn decided to pack everything up from South Lake Centre and move on down the road. (Indeed, if I had a counter-graphic for this, you could see that they weren’t the only ones. Rue21 similarly departed Southaven Towne Center for a space at Tanger, and Gap opened up its own FactoryStore in the complex, in addition to the one they already had at SLC literally just a mile and a half away. Both Gap stores continue to coexist for now, but time finally appears to be running out for the initial SLC location. Gap announced recently that they will soon be shutting 200 stores, and if two stores on the same block isn’t enough to make one a candidate, I don’t know what is. Plus, this new lease listing I found over the weekend [check out those sweet outdated pictures there, too – don’t be surprised if you see those in a blog post one day! :) ] has an 8,000 square foot opening for 95 Goodman Road W – Gap’s size and address – so that pretty much seals its fate, even if an official closing announcement hasn’t been confirmed yet. This isn’t unexpected, of course, but still sad because I like the SLC location better. But in all of this, I digress.)
Dressbarn’s loss became Tuesday Morning’s gain. They quickly snapped up the site, even though it was almost a good 2,000 square feet smaller than their existing space across the street at The Shops of Colonial Square. Not to worry, though: they subsequently tore out the back wall of the old Dressbarn and expanded the space! Now it’s a very respectable 11,000 square feet, which is about 2,000 square feet larger than their old store. The new and improved Southaven Tuesday Morning finally opened to the public in September 2016. View my Tuesday Morning Relocation album here.
In addition to Tuesday Morning’s grand opening, 2016 also brought two major losses to South Lake Centre. Both Hancock Fabrics and Sports Authority declared bankruptcy and closed all of their stores nationwide. Hancock gave up the ghost in April of that year. Being that its location was the prime corner space right along Airways Boulevard, I was a bit surprised to see it stay vacant for the remainder of 2016. Then, come December, I was also very surprised to see who had finally committed to moving in: none other than Books-a-Million, which chose to relocate from its existing store just a stone’s throw south! Work progressed quickly, and Southaven’s new BAM held its grand opening in February 2017. View my Hancock Fabrics Closing album here, and my Books-a-Million Relocation album here.
SLC’s last major victim of recent memory, Sports Authority, was gone by August 2016. That space, too, sat vacant for a while, but this wasn’t as surprising as duration of the Hancock vacancy; Sports Authority’s building is the largest square footage in the center, so it was expected for the real estate team to wait a little longer to find the proper new tenant. Lo and behold, that decision came soon enough – and what do you know, Burlington was the big-ticket buyer. Burlington’s existing Southaven store was located in 80,000 square feet of a former Super Kmart Center in the older, sleepier retail section of town one exit north on Stateline Road, so this new store would represent an improvement in both prototype (Burlington’s layout is now based on a 45,000 square foot design) and visibility for them. After several months of façade and interior construction, Burlington opened its doors in September 2017. View my Sports Authority Closing album here, and my Burlington Relocation album here. (Not too many pictures in that latter one just yet – again, that’s what I’ll begin adding to this Saturday and over the next couple of months!)
…Now you see why I put that tl;dr at the top, don’t you? :) Well, for those of you who did stick around and read this all, thank you. As you can tell, I really like South Lake Centre, and I enjoyed taking the time to put this graphic together as well. To come full-circle with the listing earlier in this description, here’s SLC’s current tenant mix: Office Depot, Burlington, Petco, Tuesday Morning, Old Navy, Shoe Carnival, Rainbow, Marshalls, Gap FactoryStore, Sally Beauty Supply, and Books-a-Million. But as I mentioned, that seems very likely to change again in the not-too-distant future, with Gap preparing to exit. Will we then see yet another relocation of an existing local retailer to South Lake Centre? Only time will tell…
So once again, I invite you to check out the start of my Burlington series this weekend. Until then, if you’re interested in even more information (!) as to what has taken over the stores that relocated to SLC… drop me a comment and I’ll be glad to share that, too. (I figured this description was lengthy enough not to include it here, haha!) And, to reward the patience of those of you who made it all the way to the end of this description, here are some music recommendations for you to listen to and enjoy :) (Although I will warn you: that last one’s got screaming in it, so if, like me, you’re not a big fan of that, I’d suggest skipping over approximately 1:56-2:26 in that song :P )
(c) 2017 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
A pleasant end-of-summer surprise was finding this Question Mark nectaring on the Heptacodium….along with a couple of Monarchs and Hummingbirds.
I questioned posting this photo of Liz senior portrait session. Its not the traditional senior portrait photo and its not going on the album but man this screams art.
Natural Light
Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 Planar T
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Partir à Pitchipoï...
Je me souviens qu'à Drancy, lorsqu'un convoi se formait, les naïfs posaient la question : « Et où ils vont partir, tous ceux-là ? » Et on leur répondait : « à Pitchipoï »...
« Pitchipoï », c'est du Yiddish, et ça ne veut strictement rien dire, mais dans nos bouches ce mot avait pris la signification d'un pays très lointain, d'une contrée inconnue, soit néfaste, ou peut-être miraculeuse pour certains..
Mais quand les déportés arrivaient dans un camp, à Auschwitz, ou ailleurs, immédiatement ils comprenaient qu'ils étaient arrivés dans ce fameux « Pitchipoï ».
Mais ce n'était pas encore le bon « Pitchipoï », ce n'est que quand les cendres de leurs corps s'engouffraient dans les cheminées des fours crématoires et tourbillonnaient dans le ciel qu'ils partaient vraiment à « Pitchipoï »...
De là l'expression « partir pour Pitchipoï », née à Drancy et que certains, dans leur naïveté ou les familles, entourées de tous leurs enfants, dans leur immense espoir, prenaient peut-être encore pour l'extraordinaire pays du Magicien d'Oz....
Serge Smulevic