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Weehawken/Edgewater, NJ.
This photo was almost lost forever.
I remember the day well. I was working at my desk on the day's engineering work when the mailroom called. I had just received via messenger a mysterious box from an advertising agency. This could mean only one thing--IT had arrived. I sprang up from my seat, leaving my calculations half finished. I near sprinted to pick up the package, not waiting for it for to be delivered to my desk. I returned to my seat and checked to see if anyone was watching. The coast was clear. I opened the box like a kid on Christmas morning. Inside, there was a brand spanking new, top-secret Nikon camera, code name Q340 (aka the D80) and a kit lens. It still had that new camera smell, ahhhh.
The camera was the same exact one I had used for a day shoot a few weeks beforehand, minus the electrical tape which had covered the model designation from prying eyes as I shot on the streets of the city. What a great day that was, roaming wherever I pleased with two unmarked white vans, video crew, photo techs, Nikon expert, and agency reps in tow.
Today was different. It would be weeks before the camera hit the street. My assignment was simple, or so I thought: use the camera to shoot on my own for a few weeks and upload the best of the best to Nikon Central. Having this camera at my desk made the clock slow to a near standstill. Still a few hours to log before I could get out and shoot away. This mysterious box and its contents were burning a hole in my patience.
The appointed hour arrived and I flew home at the speed of light, scarfed down some dinner, gathered my equipment, and quietly slipped out into the night. Oh what a night it would be, on the shores of the Hudson, shooting the city skyline with the Q340 under the cloak of darkness. I found a deserted patch of shoreline, stashed the car, and trekked to an abandoned pier, a hulking mess of crumbling concrete on top of the swirling black water. I could hear the current gurgle just a few feet away as I set up the tripod under the light of a full moon and the glow of the city just a mile across the murky depths. I attached the camera and shot a few frames, desperately trying to adjust the settings to get my shot. Suddenly the tripod lurched and one of the legs gave way under the weight of this humid summer night. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion as the tripod fell like a giant and the camera, which had been at eye level, crashed down to the unforgiving concrete with a crunching sound. The camera and tripod, still hanging on to each other, teetered on the very edge of the concrete pier like a seesaw, threatening to disappear forever into the jaws of the running river. I leapt without thinking and even though I could barely make out the near-catastrophic scene, I managed to snag the very foot of the tripod as it attempted to drown itself and the camera. I lay on that warm night with my back on the cold concrete, slowly reeling in the camera like a cop talking a jumper off a bridge. I had saved the camera from the drink but what damage was done by the fall? I turned the camera on and to my great astonishment it worked perfectly, mocking me for thinking it was a goner. The lens, well, that was another story. I made my way back to the car, still buzzing with adrenaline.
The next day I made the call back to Nikon Central and relayed to them the events of the previous evening. Was the mission that was to last a few weeks over after only a night? Later that day a messenger delivered another mysterious package. I was back in business!
Say NO to violence against women and girls! SPREAD THIS CAMPAIGN.
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" Violence against women stands in direct contradiction to the promise of the United Nations Charter to “promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” The consequences go beyond the visible and immediate. Death, injury, medical costs and lost employment are but the tip of an iceberg. The impact on women and girls, their families, their communities and their societies in terms of shattered lives and livelihoods is beyond calculation. Far too often, crimes go unpunished, and perpetrators walk free. No country, no culture, no woman, young or old, is immune." (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on International Women's Day 2009.)
"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia and Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India and other Asian countries. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008.
More than two-thirds of the women’s populations don’t have access to the financial system. Poor women are not considered credit worthy. “The idea of the business is only maximisation of profit. That is too narrow an interpretation of a human being. There should also be social business in the society, Every human being should have the “right to credit” because if people have money, they can change their lives. It is true for women. They have the ability, but are sitting at home. If we give them finances, their hobbies become business,” said noted economist, Nobel laureate, the Founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank Bangladesh, Professor Muhammad Yunus.
( www.hindu.com/2009/03/31/stories/2009033155752000.htm )
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Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
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Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
Doosra Dashak's ( www.doosradashak.org ) Adolescent Girls Literacy Camp, Abu Road, Rajasthan, India
8 Long years of wait: 2018/ 2025 sciomancy was a great game!
The 16th century French Seer has been widely known as the one who predicted the TRUTH. All his calculations for the world events, have until now came true. Nostradamus initially worked as a physician and dealt with healing drugs, before moving towards the occult (Knowledge of the hidden).
It seemed legitimate to us to revive the esoteric and medicinal spirit (alternative medicine) that the illustrious character Nostradamus had installed in Salon de Provence, since he lived there during the last 19 years of his life. It was during this period that Michel de Nostredame wrote all his "Centuries" in the form of quatrains. Having become extremely famous for his prophecies and his knowledge in Renaissance medicine, the whole world came to Salon-de-Provence to consult him. This is how the most illustrious figures of the Renaissance visited him, notably the great Catherine de Medicis who designated him as "doctor and king astrologer".
Scyomancy is derived from the Greek skia ('shadow, outline') and manteia ('divination'), it is the art and practice of divining the future by shadows, or by the shades or shadows of the dead, in this case a form of Necromancy. A common method was to observe the size, shapes, and changing appearance of shadows, thus drawing a prophetic conclusion. It was considered a very bad omen to project a headless shadow (or no shadow at all). According to legend, such a person will lose their life within the course of the current year. Paracelsus, in his Nine Books Of the Nature of Things (1674), states:
"The ancient Chaldeans and Grecians, if in times of War fearing to be driven away, or banished, they would hide their Treasure, would mark the place no otherwise than propose to themselves a certain day, hour and minute of the year, and did observe in what place the Sun or Moon should cast their shadow, and there did bury and hide their Treasure. This Art they call Sciomancy, i.e. the Art of Shadowing. By these Shadowings many Arts have had their ground, and many hid things have been revealed, and all Spirits and Astral bodies are known." Paracelsus call that avestrum.
Henry Cockeram in The English Dictionarie (1623), also remarks that Sciomancy is "divination by shadowes", as Randle Cotgrave also mentions it in Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues: Creating the Life You Want with Self Hypnosis: Enroll Today!
"Sciomance, divination by conference with the shadows of dead men."
François Rabelais, in his La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel (a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century), also writes "if you be afraid of the Dead, as commonly all Cuckolds are, I will make use of the Faculty of Sciomancy." Sciomancy is, like most divination techniques, quite ancient, and it has been practiced since time immemorial.”
www.occultopedia.com/s/sciomancy.htm
And, one cannot simply ignore the fact that his prophecy about the 45th President of the world’s most powerful country i.e. The United States of America, which was “The great shameless, udacious bawler, He will be elected governor of the army: The boldness of his contention, The bridge broken, the city faint from fear”, might have come true in face of Donald Trump.. While some people are sceptical of these prophecies and call it a fraud act, a few others accept as true that these prophecies have all come true, if someone really takes a good look at them. For example, Nostradamu’s famous predictions about Diana’s death, Adolf Hitler’s rise, Atomic bombings, Second World War, 9/11- are few of the many predictions that have come true. At first, people didn’t believe him and thwarted his interpretations of his newfound knowledge. But, after his almanac, Les Propheties, gained success, it saw Catherine de Médicis, wife of King Henry II of France, turning into one of his greatest admirers, and after this did people started following and believing in him. Going by what he foresees for 2018, the picture doesn’t look that great ahead… The following slides carry a compilation of few of these prophecies. Nostradamus foresees that the world would go through a major paradigm change that would change the face of world, from what it is at present. He warns of some natural disasters hitting hard. He also foresees that this time the world would witness a war not between two or more countries, but two directions. We already know of the strain relations between the West and the East. It would begin with men massacring men, then nations massacring each other and only a few would be left to enjoy the peace that will prevail after the war ends. He predicts that fireballs would come down from the sky and the victim would be only the helpless and the innocent. Haven't we heard of Kim Jong Un testing his nuclear missiles? Nostradmus predicts that the East would suffer through the worst of shaking and turbulences caused by earthquake and flooding, while the West would endure the terrible results of extreme weather. He says the world would finally face the wrath of nature that it has been taking for granted. The world has no choice but to bear the brunt of global warming. There’ll be no forests to take shelter, no ice mountains to escape and no layer to protect them from sun. Don’t know how the last one would come true, but it doesn’t sound good. The fire deep within Earth would begin to come out of surface. The world would have to wait for eight long years before finally living in peace. Towards the year 2025, of whatever is left would be led to an illuminating world, which would be filled with peace and serenity. This peace would be like the phoenix, which is born from its own ashes.
www.speakingtree.in/allslides/nostradamus-predictions-for...
My calculations calculated that this service would be operated by a Harrogate Connect bus, as it was the 3rd to Scarborough of the day, the other day the 6th to Scarborough was operated by a Harrogate Connect. Sadly, it turned out to be 419.
This handdrawn image and the next one shows the calculation for my OcTrainber project. The original traincar has three sections, two car ends, a middle section and doors separating this section. The width of doors will be between 4,5 and 5 studs scaled down using 1:45 ratio, the car lenght is given as 72 studs (as my all UIC-X cars are), so I was in need to split up the remaining 62-63 studs to make sure, that the ratio of car end length and car middle length is 0,75. These lenghts also must be good to SNOT the row of windows, defined by the following sizes:
w1 - large window width
w2 - toilette window width
s1 - door-window separation width
s2 - window-window separation width
s3 - window-car end separation width.
The image above shows two possible solution, giving not satisfying results.
Title: Transparency
Name: Maddie
Personality: She more-or-less has the personality (and attitude) of a 15-year-old girl.
Powers: Becoming intangible (Intangibility?), invisibility, flight, computer-quick calculation
Weakness: She doesn't like to listen to anybody but Pip.
Origin:
When Pip first became a superhero he decided that, naturally, he should have his own artificial intelligence. That was easier said then done. He was able to complete her, but she was... Imperfect. She worked correctly, but she had an attitude and would always argue with Maddie when she joined the team. But Pip wouldn't have it any other way though did see to it that she improved.
(Edit: I forgot, but she used to just be an AI then he built the body for her, uh... I'll elaborate later.)
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Fourth wall commentary:
Here is the last bit of Flyboy lore for you guys. I always liked this character, she was really fun to write in Captain Assembly and Flyboy. :P I also like how her, Sondra and Pip are like one weird family. xP
Thanks for clickin' and keep on brickin'!
The League of LEGO heroes: "Suit up, sign up."
He reeeeeally wants to figure out how to get into the supposed "squirrel-proof" bird feeder. No luck so far, but he's persistent.
By my calculation, RHTT season starts in around 7 weeks. Brollies (and cameras of course) at the ready chaps...
Only one 37 on this RHTT shot as 97304 blasts the up main between Rhyl and Prestatyn.
12 November 2012
'The White Lotus' ex-Tip Cunane, 1955 Lotus-MG Mk VIII Aerodynamic Sports-Racing Two-Seater Chassis no. MK6/2-1
Colin Chapman's emergent Lotus series of ever-more sophisticated competition cars featured cycle mudguard or open-wheeled trials special-type design until what proved to be his landmark design for the Lotus Mark VIII series.
These sports-racing cars were the first to feature fully wheel-enveloping aerodynamic bodywork conceived and designed by De Havilland Aircraft aerodynamicist Frank Costin. His brother Michael was one of Colin Chapman's closest and most influential collaborators, and would become technical director of the growing Lotus Engineering Company before joining engineer Keith Duckworth in partnership as the 'Cos' of Cosworth.
It was during the winter of 1953 that Colin Chapman began design study for such a car, for which detail chassis design and stress calculation was completed by Peter Ross and Gilbert 'Mac' Mackintosh. The fully triangulated multi-tubular spaceframe chassis was closely based upon the design of the preceding Lotus Mark 6, to the extent that it was identified original as the Mark VI Series 2.
Manufactured by Dave Kelsey and John Teychenne's Progress Chassis Company in Edmonton, North London, the chassis frame was welded together from 1¼-inch 20-gauge tubing.
Once fitted with the Frank Costin-designed aerodynamic body, fashioned in 20-gauge aluminium sheet by specialist Williams & Pritchard, also of Edmonton, the completed chassis/body unit for the Mark VIII weighed less than a set of five wheels and tyres. The frame alone scaled barely 35lbs. But the original chassis design proved a nightmare in practical terms, for its complex triangulation prevented engine removal in less than 12 hours, and replacement a further 24! Even then the engine had to be largely dismantled in the process.
This particular Glasius Collection car is chassis No 1 but it was actually the last Mark VIII to be delivered, as late as April 1955, when it was first UK road registered 'TYC 700', dated the 4th of that month. As such it benefited from Lotus Engineering's experience with its sisters, including the famous works car 'SAR 5', and the forepart of 'TYC's chassis is square-cut like the Mark VI to facilitate engine removal and replacement. At the customer's request, Williams & Pritchard also provided a door on the passenger side, unlike earlier Mark VIIIs. At the time of its delivery to Mr Cunane the prototype Lotus Mark IX had already raced three weeks previously, in the Sebring 12-Hours...
It appears that Thomas George 'Tip' Cunane – general manager and head of the still-famous and very old-established St Cuthbert's Paper Mill at Wells in Somerset, England - had paid Colin Chapman a large deposit which was then used by Lotus Engineering to build the other Mark VIIIs, most significantly their own works car, plus those for better-known competition customers, before making delivery to Mr Cunane.
Local Wells-based haulier Eric Willmott was Mr Cunane's mechanic at the time and he recalls both late delivery of the car and that its chassis serial as today is 'MK6/2-1 - indicating that the Mark VIII was regarded upon the project's initiation as being the Lotus Mark VI Series 2 design. But when they started to take the car through Customs for Tip Cunane to drive it in Europe it was difficult to locate the chassis number on the car itself, so Mr Willmott stamped it into the bracket at the front supporting the centre of the divided front axle suspension.
Early in his ownership Mr Cunane had a steering arm break which Lotus quickly replaced by providing forged arms that proved completely reliable. Eric Willmott recalled that Mr Cunane's Jaguar XK140 "couldn't live with the Mark VIII on the open road". They evidently had a tremendous amount of fun running the car. Mr Cunane planned to compete with it in the 1957 Alpine Rally so had Lotus fit a tall windscreen and provide a hood, only for the Suez Crisis to see the Rally cancelled. He also specified installation of a 16-gallon long-range fuel tank but when filled it proved so heavy that it broke tubes at the tail of the chassis. The frame was repaired and repainted and the fuel tank reduced to a less optimistic 8 gallon capacity. He drove the car with some success at minor level, setting class FTD at hill-climbs such as Trengwainton in the West Country and at Great Auclum, near Reading, Berkshire, and winning at club level at Silverstone during 1955-56. His car was painted overall white and it became known within club racing and sprint circles as simply 'The White Lotus'.
Tip Cunane had acquired a very special racing engine from friends working at MG, Abingdon, including their famous contemporary Chief Engineer Syd Enever. This power unit – still installed within the car today - is known as the XPEG design, as distinct from the standard production XPAG used in the MG TC/TD/TF series sports cars. This XPEG engine was an experimental unit as used in MG's illustrious series of World speed record-breaking cars. The unit has a dry-deck cylinder-block/head configuration with cooling water transfer from block to head and back via external pipes rather than internal drillings or cast waterways, obviating any need for a vulnerable head gasket. Engine serial number '3617J3' (1486cc) is noted in the original-style UK log book accompanying the car.
Tip Cunane was a perfectly capable amateur racing driver, and he accumulated some 30 awards in 'The White Lotus' through the mid-1950s. He also used it – remarkably – on touring holidays in Europe, intrepidly driving it to the French Riviera and around the Alps, into Italy.
The car went through various subsequent UK ownerships – the first ex-Cunane being Performance Cars, the well-known British sporting car dealership, in 1958, followed by Malcolm Brian Dimmick of Orsett Grange, Essex, who is listed in the car's old-style UK log book from May 4, 1959. It is noted that by August 26, 1960, the car had been repainted in British Racing Green. Subsequent ownership changes include one to Anthony Charles Simond of Banstead, Surrey, on August 17, 1961, then to Mrs Dorothy Kathleen Whittington of St Leonard's-on-Sea, Sussex. The car is also accompanied by a V5 registration document in the name of David George Whittington, of St Leonard's, who had adopted formal ownership from his mother in 1963, and marked "No other keepers since March 1984".
We understand that Mr Whittington of DW Autos in St Leonard's totally dismantled the Lotus Mark VIII, including its rare XPEG engine, with the intention of restoring it from the ground up over an extended period.
However, as is so often the case, the owner never found sufficient time to do the job and 30 years later, in 1993 –Olav Glasius was able to negotiate purchase of the dismantled car from Mr Whittington,"...as a total – but, crucially, absolutely complete - kit of parts".
Nothing was missing and the total car was restored and reassembled for Olav over a four-year restoration carried out by noted specialist Fred Fairman in Cornwall. This restoration involved some 3,000 hours work, of which 1,000 hours was devoted to restoration of the original bodywork alone.
The XPEG engine was entrusted to the Oudejans brothers, Dutch MG specialists in Badhoevedrop, two ex-Fokker aeronautical engineers, and rebuilt with new pistons, cylinder liners, everything either carefully tested and verified or replaced by new.
In recent years the car has competed in the Goodwood Revival Meeting, it runs very well and the special MG XPEG engine is as brisk today as it plainly was in period. Only nine Lotus Mark VIIIs were ever built by Colin Chapman's youthful company in the 1950s, of which only six now survive. Amongst them 'The White Lotus' offered here has survived in highly original form, immaculately restored to its discerning connoisseur owner's taste. It is a road-useable 1950s sports-racing car of enormous presence. As one of the earliest of Lotus aerodynes – built around a supremely sophisticated, lightweight spaceframe chassis which must represent a near pinnacle of that particular technology – it is in itself another Lotus landmark design...
Classic Days 2016
Schloss Dyck
Jüchen - Germany
Augustus 2016
Behold: the mathematical calculation to determine the percent to which I am done with the crap going on. Check the math all you want, but I am confident in my final numbers.
Theme: Musings And Ramblings
Year Six Of My 365 Project
9 stitched images
Canon T1i
1/4000s @f1.8
lens: 55mm
Brenizer Method Calculation:
Effective focal length: 35.22 mm
Effective Aperture: f1.15
The real truth and history of Christmas.
William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25,
Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival.
Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.
Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.
A Mistake
The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant, wished to show that the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th was one of the many “paganizations” of Christianity that the Church of the fourth century embraced, as one of many “degenerations” that transformed pure apostolic Christianity into Catholicism. Dom Jean Hardouin, a Benedictine monk, tried to show that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes without paganizing the gospel.
In the Julian calendar, created in 45 B.C. under Julius Caesar, the winter solstice fell on December 25th, and it therefore seemed obvious to Jablonski and Hardouin that the day must have had a pagan significance before it had a Christian one. But in fact, the date had no religious significance in the Roman pagan festal calendar before Aurelian’s time, nor did the cult of the sun play a prominent role in Rome before him.
There were two temples of the sun in Rome, one of which (maintained by the clan into which Aurelian was born or adopted) celebrated its dedication festival on August 9th, the other of which celebrated its dedication festival on August 28th. But both of these cults fell into neglect in the second century, when eastern cults of the sun, such as Mithraism, began to win a following in Rome. And in any case, none of these cults, old or new, had festivals associated with solstices or equinoxes.
As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun. He led an empire that appeared to be collapsing in the face of internal unrest, rebellions in the provinces, economic decay, and repeated attacks from German tribes to the north and the Persian Empire to the east.
In creating the new feast, he intended the beginning of the lengthening of the daylight, and the arresting of the lengthening of darkness, on December 25th to be a symbol of the hoped-for “rebirth,” or perpetual rejuvenation, of the Roman Empire, resulting from the maintenance of the worship of the gods whose tutelage (the Romans thought) had brought Rome to greatness and world-rule. If it co-opted the Christian celebration, so much the better.
A By-Product
It is true that the first evidence of Christians celebrating December 25th as the date of the Lord’s nativity comes from Rome some years after Aurelian, in A.D. 336, but there is evidence from both the Greek East and the Latin West that Christians attempted to figure out the date of Christ’s birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection.
How did this happen? There is a seeming contradiction between the date of the Lord’s death as given in the synoptic Gospels and in John’s Gospel. The synoptics would appear to place it on Passover Day (after the Lord had celebrated the Passover Meal on the preceding evening), and John on the Eve of Passover, just when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Jerusalem Temple for the feast that was to ensue after sunset on that day.
Solving this problem involves answering the question of whether the Lord’s Last Supper was a Passover Meal, or a meal celebrated a day earlier, which we cannot enter into here. Suffice it to say that the early Church followed John rather than the synoptics, and thus believed that Christ’s death would have taken place on 14 Nisan, according to the Jewish lunar calendar. (Modern scholars agree, by the way, that the death of Christ could have taken place only in A.D. 30 or 33, as those two are the only years of that time when the eve of Passover could have fallen on a Friday, the possibilities being either 7 April 30 or 3 April 33.)
However, as the early Church was forcibly separated from Judaism, it entered into a world with different calendars, and had to devise its own time to celebrate the Lord’s Passion, not least so as to be independent of the rabbinic calculations of the date of Passover. Also, since the Jewish calendar was a lunar calendar consisting of twelve months of thirty days each, every few years a thirteenth month had to be added by a decree of the Sanhedrin to keep the calendar in synchronization with the equinoxes and solstices, as well as to prevent the seasons from “straying” into inappropriate months.
Apart from the difficulty Christians would have had in following—or perhaps even being accurately informed about—the dating of Passover in any given year, to follow a lunar calendar of their own devising would have set them at odds with both Jews and pagans, and very likely embroiled them in endless disputes among themselves. (The second century saw severe disputes about whether Pascha had always to fall on a Sunday or on whatever weekday followed two days after 14 Artemision/Nisan, but to have followed a lunar calendar would have made such problems much worse.)
These difficulties played out in different ways among the Greek Christians in the eastern part of the empire and the Latin Christians in the western part of it. Greek Christians seem to have wanted to find a date equivalent to 14 Nisan in their own solar calendar, and since Nisan was the month in which the spring equinox occurred, they chose the 14th day of Artemision, the month in which the spring equinox invariably fell in their own calendar. Around A.D. 300, the Greek calendar was superseded by the Roman calendar, and since the dates of the beginnings and endings of the months in these two systems did not coincide, 14 Artemision became April 6th.
In contrast, second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa appear to have desired to establish the historical date on which the Lord Jesus died. By the time of Tertullian they had concluded that he died on Friday, 25 March 29. (As an aside, I will note that this is impossible: 25 March 29 was not a Friday, and Passover Eve in A.D. 29 did not fall on a Friday and was not on March 25th, or in March at all.)
Integral Age
So in the East we have April 6th, in the West, March 25th. At this point, we have to introduce a belief that seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ, but which, as it is nowhere taught in the Bible, has completely fallen from the awareness of Christians. The idea is that of the “integral age” of the great Jewish prophets: the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception.
This notion is a key factor in understanding how some early Christians came to believe that December 25th is the date of Christ’s birth. The early Christians applied this idea to Jesus, so that March 25th and April 6th were not only the supposed dates of Christ’s death, but of his conception or birth as well. There is some fleeting evidence that at least some first- and second-century Christians thought of March 25th or April 6th as the date of Christ’s birth, but rather quickly the assignment of March 25th as the date of Christ’s conception prevailed.
It is to this day, commemorated almost universally among Christians as the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel brought the good tidings of a savior to the Virgin Mary, upon whose acquiescence the Eternal Word of God (“Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten of the Father before all ages”) forthwith became incarnate in her womb. What is the length of pregnancy? Nine months. Add nine months to March 25th and you get December 25th; add it to April 6th and you get January 6th. December 25th is Christmas, and January 6th is Epiphany.
Christmas (December 25th) is a feast of Western Christian origin. In Constantinople it appears to have been introduced in 379 or 380. From a sermon of St. John Chrysostom, at the time a renowned ascetic and preacher in his native Antioch, it appears that the feast was first celebrated there on 25 December 386. From these centers it spread throughout the Christian East, being adopted in Alexandria around 432 and in Jerusalem a century or more later. The Armenians, alone among ancient Christian churches, have never adopted it, and to this day celebrate Christ’s birth, manifestation to the magi, and baptism on January 6th.
Western churches, in turn, gradually adopted the January 6th Epiphany feast from the East, Rome doing so sometime between 366 and 394. But in the West, the feast was generally presented as the commemoration of the visit of the magi to the infant Christ, and as such, it was an important feast, but not one of the most important ones—a striking contrast to its position in the East, where it remains the second most important festival of the church year, second only to Pascha (Easter).
In the East, Epiphany far outstrips Christmas. The reason is that the feast celebrates Christ’s baptism in the Jordan and the occasion on which the Voice of the Father and the Descent of the Spirit both manifested for the first time to mortal men the divinity of the Incarnate Christ and the Trinity of the Persons in the One Godhead.
A Christian Feast
Thus, December 25th as the date of the Christ’s birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine’s time. It is wholly unlikely to have been the actual date of Christ’s birth, but it arose entirely from the efforts of early Latin Christians to determine the historical date of Christ’s death.
And the pagan feast which the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians. The Christians, in turn, could at a later date re-appropriate the pagan “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” to refer, on the occasion of the birth of Christ, to the rising of the “Sun of Salvation” or the “Sun of Justice.”
The author refers interested readers to Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year (The Liturgical Press). A draft of this article appeared on the listserve Virtuosity.
William J. Tighe is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a faculty advisor to the Catholic Campus Ministry. He is a Member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
Copyright © 2003 the Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved.
I was deeply immersed in my calculations to take over the earth in my evil lair.
When I'm plotting to take over the world I do enjoy a little quiet.
It helps me to focus on my evil plans.
It's hard to maintain the concentration necessary when you've got three girls plotting things of their own.
From the kitchen I heard laughter... then silence... then 'where's the scotch tape...
it was obvious that there was some kind of conspiracy brewing so I grabbed my camera and quietly snuck into the kitchen.
I thought maybe the daily batch of cupcakes was being decorated or something.
What I saw was an amazing act of juvenile intrigue.
A homemade five foot long crazy straw that was made with a whole bunch of regular straws taped together.
I arrived just in time to see it used for the first time.
That was the craziest crazy straw ever I swear to gahd.
Some experiments with top speed calculations using my new BuWizz boxes. Impressed with the extra speed available in 'fast' mode, and the fine speed control available is very good. Less impressive is the faff changing control from one active unit to another. This is probably not a system to use (in its current release iteration) on a live layout with multiple locos and only one control surface/device.
Note the BR Class 08 with its new Zephyr side rods in custom red, looking very fine; really pleased with how they turned out. Modded some 32002 '1½M Connecting Bush' parts to hold them in place.
According the first calculations before 2007 the building should cost about 77 million €. By 2013 the cost for the taxpayer amounted to 789 million €. The project should have been finshed years ago, but it still is under construction.
The Himalayas or Himalaya (/ˌhɪməˈleɪ.ə/ or /hɪˈmɑːləjə/; Sanskrit: हिमालय, Nepali: हिमालय, Hindi: हिमालय, Urdu: ہمالیہ; from Sanskrit hima (snow) + ālaya (dwelling), literally meaning "abode of snow") is a mountain range in South Asia which separates the Indo-Gangetic Plain from the Tibetan Plateau. This range is home to nine of the ten highest peaks on Earth, including the highest above sea level, Mount Everest. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia. Many Himalayan peaks are sacred in both Buddhism and Hinduism.
The Himalayas are bordered on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain, on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, and on the east by the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The Hindu Kush can be considered as a subrange of the Himalayas, and they are sometimes addressed together as Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH). The western anchor of the Himalayas - Nanga Parbat - lies just south of the northernmost bend of the Indus River, while the eastern anchor - Namcha Barwa - is situated just west of the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The Himalayas span five countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, China (Tibet), and Pakistan, with the first three countries having sovereignty over most of the range.
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KANCHENJUNGA
Kangchenjunga (Nepali: कञ्चनजङ्घा, Sikkimese and Tibetan: གངས་ཆེན་མཛོད་ལྔ་, Hindi: कंचनजंघा) is the third highest mountain in the world. It rises with an elevation of 8,586 m in a section of the Himalayas called Kangchenjunga Himal that is limited in the west by the Tamur River and in the east by the Teesta River. The Kangchenjunga Himal is located in eastern Nepal and Sikkim, India.
The main peak of Kangchenjunga is the second highest mountain in Nepal after Mount Everest. Three of the five peaks – Main, Central and South – are on the border between North Sikkim and Nepal. Two peaks are in the Taplejung District, Nepal. Kangchenjunga Main is the highest mountain in India, and the easternmost of the mountains higher than 8,000 m. It is called Five Treasures of Snow after its five high peaks, and has always been worshipped by the people of Darjeeling and Sikkim.
Until 1852, Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, but calculations based on various readings and measurements made by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1849 came to the conclusion that Mount Everest, known as Peak XV at the time, was the highest. Allowing for further verification of all calculations, it was officially announced in 1856 that Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain.
Kangchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. They stopped short of the summit as per the promise given to the Chogyal that the top of the mountain would remain inviolate. Every climber or climbing group that has reached the summit has followed this tradition. Other members of this expedition included John Angelo Jackson and Tom Mackinon.
NAMES
Kangchenjunga is the official spelling adopted by Douglas Freshfield, A. M. Kellas, and the Royal Geographical Society that gives the best indication of the Tibetan pronunciation.
The brothers Hermann, Adolf and Robert Schlagintweit explained the local name Kanchinjínga (Tibetan: གངས་ཆེན་མཛོད་ལྔ་, Wylie: gangs chen mdzod lnga, Sikkimese IPA: [k̀ʱɐŋt͡ɕʰẽd͡zø̃ŋɐ]) meaning “The five treasures of the high snow” as originating from the Tibetan word (following IPA given in Sikkimese) gangs /k̀ʱɐŋ/) meaning "snow, ice"; chen /t͡ɕʰẽ/ meaning "great"; mdzod /d͡zø/ meaning "treasure"; lnga /̃ŋɐ/ meaning "five". The treasures represent the five repositories of God, which are gold, silver, gems, food grain, and religious texts.
There are a number of alternative spellings which include Kangchen Dzö-nga, Khangchendzonga, Kanchenjanga, Kachendzonga, Kanchenjunga or Kangchanfanga. The final word on the use of the name Kangchenjunga came from Tashi Namgyal, Chogyal of Sikkim, who stated that "although junga had no meaning in Tibetan, it really ought to have been Zod-nga (treasure, five) Kang-chen (snow, big) to convey the meaning correctly". Following consultations with a Lieutenant-Colonel J.L.R. Weir, British agent to Sikkim, he agreed that it was best to leave it as Kangchenjunga, and thus the name remained so by acceptance and common usage.
Kangchenjunga's name in Nepali is कञ्चनजङ्घा Kanchanjaŋghā. Its name in the Limbu language and the language of the Rai people is Sewalungma, meaning "mountain to which we offer greetings". Sewalungma is considered sacred by adherents of the Kirant Mundhum faith.
PROTECTED AREAS
The Kangchenjunga landscape is a complex of three distinct ecoregions: the eastern Himalayan broad-leaved and coniferous forests, the Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows and the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands. The Kangchenjunga transboundary landscape is shared by Bhutan, China, India and Nepal, and comprises 14 protected areas with a total of 6,032 km2:
Nepal: Kanchenjunga Conservation Area.
Sikkim, India: Khangchendzonga National Park, Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary, Fambong Lho Wildlife Sanctuary, Kyongnosla Alpine Sanctuary, Maenam Wildlife Sanctuary, Shingba Rhododendron Sanctuary, Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary
Darjeeling, India: Jore Pokhri Wildlife Sanctuary, Singalila National Park, Senchal Wildlife Sanctuary, Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, Neora Valley National Park.
Bhutan: Torsa Strict Nature Reserve
These protected areas are habitats for many globally significant plant species such as rhododendrons and orchids and many endangered flagship species such as snow leopard, Asian black bear, red panda, white-bellied musk deer, blood pheasant and chestnut-breasted partridge.
GEOGRAPHY
The Kangchenjunga Himal section of the Himalayas lies both in Nepal and India, and encompasses 16 peaks over 7,000 m. In the north, it is limited by the Lhonak Chu, Goma Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. The western limit runs from the Jongsang La down the Gingsang and Kangchenjunga glaciers and the rivers of Ghunsa and Tamur. Kanchenjunga rises about 20 km south of the general alignment of the Great Himalayan range about 125 km east-south-east of Mount Everest as the crow flies. South of the southern face of Kanchenjunga runs the 3,000–3,500 m high Singalila Ridge that separates Sikkim from Nepal and north Bengal.
Four main glaciers radiate from the peak, pointing roughly to the north-east, south-east, north-west and south-west. The Zemu glacier in the north-east and the Talung glacier in the south-east drain to the Teesta River; the Yalung glacier in the south-west and the Kangchen glacier in the north-west drain to the Arun and Kosi rivers.
The glaciers spread over the area above approximately 5,000 m, and the glacialized area covers about 314 km2 in total. There are 120 glaciers in the Kanchenjunga Himal, of which 17 are debris-covered. Between 1958 and 1992, more than half of 57 examined glaciers had retreated, possibly due to rising of air temperature.
The main ridge of the massif runs from north-north-east to south-south-west and forms a watershed to several rivers. Together with ridges running roughly from east to west they form a giant cross. These ridges contain a host of peaks between 6,000 and 8,000 m. On the east ridge is Siniolchu (6,888 m). The west ridge culminates in the Jannu (7,710 m) with its imposing north face. To the south are Kabru North (7,338 m), Kabru South (7,316 m) and Rathong (6,678 m). The north ridge, after passing through the Kangchenjunga North (7,741 m), includes The Twins (7,350 m) and Tent Peak, and runs up to the Tibetan border by the Jongsang La, a 6,120 m high pass.
Kangchenjunga Main is the highest elevation of the Brahmaputra River basin, which forms part of the southeast Asian monsoon regime and is among the globally largest river basins. Kangchenjunga is one of six peaks above 8,000 m located in the basin of the Koshi river, which is among the largest tributaries of the Ganges. The Kangchenjunga massif forms also part of the Ganges Basin.
CLIMBING HISTORY
EARLY RECONNAISSANCES AND ATTEMPTS
Between April 1848 and February 1849, Joseph Dalton Hooker explored parts of northern Sikkim and eastern Nepal, mainly to collect plants and study the distribution of Himalayan flora. He was based in Darjeeling, and made repeated excursions in the river valleys and into the foothills of Kangchenjunga up to an altitude of 4,760 m.
In spring 1855, the German explorer Hermann Schlagintweit travelled to Darjeeling but was not allowed to proceed further north due to the Nepalese-Tibetan War. In May, he explored the Singalila Ridge up to the peak of Tonglo for a meteorological survey.
In 1879, Sarat Chandra Das and Lama Ugyen-gyatso crossed into Tibet west of “Kanchanjinga” via eastern Nepal and the Tashilhunpo Monastery en route to Lhasa. They returned along the same route in 1881.
In 1883, a party of William Woodman Graham together with two Swiss mountaineers climbed in the area of Kangchenjunga. They were the first who ascended Kabru within 9.1–12.2 m below the summit. They crossed the Kang La pass, and climbed a peak of nearly 5,800 m from which they examined Jannu. They concluded it was too late in the year for an attempt and returned once again to Darjeeling.
Between October 1885 and January 1885, Rinzin Namgyal surveyed the unexplored north and west sides of Kangchenjunga. He was the first native surveyor to map the circuit of Kangchenjunga and provided sketches of each side of the peak and the adjoining valleys. He also defined the frontiers of Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim in this area.
In 1899, British mountaineer Douglas Freshfield set out with his party comprising the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella. They were the first mountaineers to examine the lower and upper ramparts, and the great western face of Kangchenjunga, rising from the Kangchenjunga Glacier.
In 1905, a party headed by Aleister Crowley was the first attempt at climbing the mountain. Aleister Crowley had been part of the team attempting the 1902 ascent of K2. The team reached an estimated altitude of 6,500 m on the southwest side of the mountain before turning back. The exact height reached is somewhat unclear; Crowley stated that on 31 August, "We were certainly over 6,400 m and possibly over 6,700 m", when the team was forced to retreat to Camp 5 by the risk of avalanche. On 1 September, they evidently went further; some members of the team, Reymond, Pache and Salama, "got over the bad patch" that had forced them to return to Camp 5 the day before, and progressed "out of sight and hearing" before returning to Crowley and the men with packs, who could not cross the dangerous section unassisted with their burdens. It is not clear how far Reymond, Pache and Salama had ascended – but in summarizing, Crowley ventured "We had reached a height of approximately 7,600 m." Attempting a "mutinous" late-in-the-day descent from Camp 5 to Camp 4, climber Alexis Pache (who earlier that day had been one of three to ascend possibly higher than any before), and three local porters, were killed in an avalanche. Despite the insistence of one of the men that "The demon of Kangchenjunga was propitiated with the sacrifice", Crowley decided enough was enough and that it was inappropriate to continue.
In 1907, two Norwegians set about climbing Jongri via the Kabru glacier to the south, an approach apparently rejected by Graham’s party. Progress was very slow, partly because of problems with supplies and porters, and presumably also lack of fitness and acclimatisation. However, from a high camp at about 6,900 m they were eventually able to reach a point 15 or 18 m below the summit before they were turned back by strong winds.
In 1929, the German Paul Bauer led an expedition team that reached 7,400 m on the northeast spur before being turned back by a five-day storm.
In May 1929, the American E. F. Farmer left Darjeeling with native porters, crossed the Kang La into Nepal and climbed up towards the Talung Saddle. When his porters refused to go any further, he climbed alone further upwards through drifting mists but did not return.
In 1930, Günter Dyhrenfurth led an international expedition comprising the German Uli Wieland, Austrian Erwin Schneider and Englishman Frank Smythe who attempted to climb Kangchenjunga. They failed due to poor weather and snow conditions.
In 1931, Paul Bauer led a second German expedition team who attempted the northeast spur before being turned back by bad weather, illnesses, and deaths. The team retreated after climbing only a little higher than the 1929 attempt.
In 1954, John Kempe led a party comprising J. W. Tucker, S. R. Jackson, G. C. Lewis, T. H. Braham and medical officer Dr. D. S. Mathews. They explored the upper Yalung glacier with the intention to discover a practicable route to the great ice-shelf that runs across the south-west face of Kangchenjunga. This reconnaissance led to the route used by the successful 1955 expedition.
FIRST ASCENT
In 1955, Joe Brown and George Band made the first ascent on 25 May, followed by Norman Hardie and Tony Streather on 26 May. The full team also included John Clegg (team doctor), Charles Evans (team leader), John Angelo Jackson, Neil Mather, and Tom Mackinnon.
The ascent proved that Aleister Crowley's 1905 route (also investigated by the 1954 reconnaissance) was viable. The route starts on the Yalung Glacier to the southwest of the peak, and climbs the Yalung Face, which is 3,000 metres high. The main feature of this face is the "Great Shelf", a large sloping plateau at around 7,500 metres, covered by a hanging glacier. The route is almost entirely on snow, glacier, and one icefall; the summit ridge itself can involve a small amount of travel on rock. The first ascent expedition made six camps above their base camp, two below the Shelf, two on it, and two above it. They started on 18 April, and everyone was back to base camp by 28 May.
OTHER NOTABLE ASCENTS
1973 Climbers Yutaka Ageta and Takeo Matsuda of the Japanese expedition summitted Kangchenjunga West (Yalung Kang) by climbing the SW Ridge.
1977 The second ascent of Kangchenjunga, by an Indian Army team led by Colonel Narendra Kumar. They completed the northeast spur, the difficult ridge that defeated German expeditions in 1929 and 1931.
1978 Polish teams made the first successful ascents of the summits Kangchenjunga South (Wojciech Wróż and Eugeniusz Chrobak, 19 May) and Kangchenjunga Central (Wojciech Brański, Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich, Kazimierz Olech, 22 May).
1979 The third ascent, on 16 May, and the first without oxygen, by Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker establishing a new route on the North Ridge
1983 Pierre Beghin made the first solo ascent. It was accomplished without the use of supplemental oxygen.
1986 On 11 January, Krzysztof Wielicki and Jerzy Kukuczka, Polish climbers, made the first winter ascent.
1988 First successful American Expedition; led by Carlos Buhler, from the North Face. Summiting were Buhler, Peter Habeler (Austrian) and Martin Zabaleta (Spanish Bask)
1989 A Soviet expedition successfully traversed all four summits of Kangchenjunga that are higher than 8,000m. Two separate teams traversed the summits in opposite directions.
1989 American Expedition lead by Lou Whittaker, with six people summiting on the Northwall: George Dunn, Craig van Hoy, Ed Viesturs, Phil Ershler, Larry Nielson, Greg Wilson.
1991 Slovenian Marija Frantar and Joze Rozman attempted the first ascent by a woman. Their bodies were later found below the summit headwall.
1991 Slovenian Andrej Stremfelj and Marko Prezelj completed an alpine-style climb up the south ridge of Kangchenjunga to the south summit (8,494 m).
1992 Carlos Carsolio made the only summit that year. It was in a solo climb without supplementary oxygen.
1992 Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first woman in the world to ascend and descend K2 and a world-renowned Polish climber, died after she insisted on waiting for an incoming storm to pass, which she did not survive.
1995 Benoît Chamoux, Pierre Royer and their Sherpa guide disappeared on 6 October near the summit.
1998 Ginette Harrison became the first woman to reach the summit. Until then Kangchenjunga was the only eight-thousander that had not seen a female ascent.
2005 Alan Hinkes, a British climber, was the only person to summit in the 50th anniversary of the first ascent year.
2006 Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian mountaineer, was the second woman to reach the summit.
2009 Jon Gangdal and Mattias Karlsson reached the summit, becoming, respectively, the first Norwegian and the first Swedish mountaineer to summit this mountain.
2009 Edurne Pasaban, a Spanish mountaineer, reached the summit becoming the first woman to summit twelve eight-thousanders.
In May 2009, Kinga Baranowska was the first Polish woman to reach the summit of Kangchenjunga.
2011 Tunc Findik became the first Turkish man to reach the peak of Kangchenjunga, his seventh eight thousander, with Swiss partner Guntis Brandts via the British 1955 SW Face route.
2011 Indian mountaineers Basanta Singha Roy and Debasish Biswas of Mountaineers' Association of Krishnanagar, {MAK}, West Bengal, India, successfully scaled Kangchenjunga Main on 20 May 2011.
In May 2013, five climbers including Hungarian Zsolt Erőss and Péter Kiss reached the summit, but disappeared during the descent.
In May 2014, Bulgarian Boyan Petrov reached the peak without using oxygen. Petrov is a diabetic.
Despite improved climbing gear the fatality rate of climbers attempting to summit Kanchenjunga is high. Since the 1990s, more than 20% of people died while climbing Kanchenjunga's main peak.
TOURISM
Some of the most famous views of Kangchenjunga are from the hill station of Darjeeling and Antu Dada of Illam, Nepal. The Darjeeling War Memorial is among the most visited places from which Kangchenjunga is observed. On a clear day it presents an image not so much of a mountain but of a white wall hanging from the sky. The people of Sikkim revere Kangchenjunga as a sacred mountain. Permission to climb the mountain from the Indian side is rarely given.
Due to its remote location in Nepal and the difficulty involved in accessing it from India, the Kangchenjunga region is not much explored by trekkers. It has, therefore, retained much of its pristine beauty. In Sikkim too, trekking into the Kangchenjunga region has just recently been permitted. The Goecha La trek is gaining popularity amongst tourists. It goes to the Goecha La Pass, located right in front of the huge southeast face of Kangchenjunga. Another trek to Green Lake Basin has recently been opened for trekking. This trek goes to the Northeast side of Kangchenjunga along the famous Zemu Glacier.
IN MYTH
The area around Kangchenjunga is said to be home to a mountain deity, called Dzö-nga or "Kangchenjunga Demon", a type of yeti or rakshasa. A British geological expedition in 1925 spotted a bipedal creature which they asked the locals about, who referred to it as the "Kangchenjunga Demon".
For generations, there have been legends recounted by the inhabitants of the areas surrounding Mount Kanchenjunga, both in Sikkim and in Nepal, that there is a valley of immortality hidden on its slopes. These stories are well known to both the original inhabitants of the area, the Lepcha people, and those of the Tibetan Buddhist cultural tradition. In Tibetan, this valley is known as Beyul Demoshong. In 1962 a Tibetan Lama by the name of Tulshuk Lingpa led over 300 followers into the high snow slopes of Kanchenjunga to ‘open the way’ to Beyul Demoshong.
IN LITERATURE
In the Swallows and Amazons series of books by Arthur Ransome, a high mountain (unnamed in the book, but clearly based on the Old Man of Coniston in the English Lake District) is given the name "Kanchenjunga" by the children when they climb it in 1931.
In The Epic of Mount Everest, first published in 1926, Sir Francis Younghusband: " For natural beauty Darjiling (Darjeeling) is surely unsurpassed in the world. From all countries travellers come there to see the famous view of Kangchenjunga, 8,580 m in height, and only 64 km distant. Darjiling (Darjeeling) itself is 2,100 m above sea-level and is set in a forest of oaks, magnolia, rhododendrons, laurels and sycamores. And through these forests the observer looks down the steep mountain-sides to the Rangeet River only 300 m above sea-level, and then up and up through tier after tier of forest-clad ranges, each bathed in a haze of deeper and deeper purple, till the line of snow is reached; and then still up to the summit of Kangchenjunga, now so pure and ethereal we can scarcely believe it is part of the solid earth on which we stand; and so high it seems part of the very sky itself."
In 1999, official James Bond author Raymond Benson published High Time to Kill. In this story, a microdot containing a secret formula for aviation technology is stolen by a society called the Union. During their escape, their plane crashes on the slopes of Kangchenjunga and James Bond becomes part of a climbing expedition in order to retrieve the formula.
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is set partly in Kalimpong, a hill station situated near Kangchenjunga.
WIKIPEDIA
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. . . AND YES:
IN MY ARTICLES I REMOVE ALL THE
BRITISH-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF UNITS!
We live in the year 2015!
It´s time for you to bury this pre-historic system of units!
To whom it may concern:
Please join our metric-system with our centimeter, meter, kilometer, liter and so on . . .
Long before electronic computers existed, cartographers used mechanical slide rules such as this to perform various mathematical calculations.
HMM !
OK folks, I think that I just might be fooling many out there in Flickr Land. This is a hand held calculator (which in my opinion is the best calculator ever made). It performs all sorts of financial computations. But it is totally silent. It makes no noise and no sounds are generated by it. So for today's theme, I added the Volume Control in the top left corner. Happy Fools Day!
I think many of you didn't really know what was out of place or odd about this image. Hope this helps. HMM !
By my haphazard calculations, the Olympus OM system will be 40 years old next year.
I can honestly say Olympus film cameras have transformed my photography like no other, and I've owned quite a few now - without the OM I doubt I'd have scraped a magazine article or exhibited at the Brighton festival.
Invented by Yoshihisa Maitani you can read more about him and the OM design philosophy here : www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~rwesson/esif/om-sif/concepts.htm
I try not to take photos of "gear" but I've made an exception here - they're the best cameras I've ever used (sadly I've also broken my fair share of them) I've travelled across the world with them, and I wouldn't swap them for another camera ten times their value.
So here's my little tribute to OM, enjoy it before I get bored and delete it again.
Digital camera manufacturers take note - when you make a camera that that looks, weighs, and operates like an OM - you can have my money, all of it.
Location: The V&A Waterfront
Description: This vertical panorama is made up of three landscape images... I took these photographs this morning... nice hey?
But now I actually want to talk about something else that’s been puzzling me for quite a few weeks already... and that is the concept of “Explore” (and the interestingness factor)!
Within a few weeks of joining Flickr last year, I was told by one of my contacts that a photo of mine had made it into Explore and was deemed to be one of the “500 most interesting” photos on Flickr that day! Wow, I was amazed... it was actually quite a crap photo! Within a few months I had 12 or 13 in the top 500 every day, which pleased me no end!! However, as soon as I started posting my vertical panoramas a few months ago, my photos suddenly became less interesting? I wasn’t really worried about the apparent non-performance of my vertoramas, because it was clear to me (by the number of comments and faves that my photos received) that my photographic skills were improving. But when one of my most recent photos received more than 140 comments, and still didn’t make it into Explore, I felt that I simply had to find out why!
My buddy AndreInAfrica suggested that I post my photos to less groups, and to avoid posting to groups with a “post one/comment five” type of policy (something he’d heard about)... I tried that for a while, but my photos were still not interesting enough for Explore? Heck, I even tried posting a few to NO groups at all, but that still didn’t help!!
Then I remembered something that Kim (the foto man) suggested a while back, something about the photo’s EXIF data, and whether they might have some rule in their interestingness calculation about photos without EXIFs? Hmm, whenever I create my vertoramas and panoramas, I always start off with a blank canvas, with no information about the camera, shutter speed and exposure (etc). I’ve known for a while that I can download free software to copy EXIF information from one image to another, but somehow I’ve never bothered to do that! Kim suggested taking one of the original images and resizing it to the same size as the finished vertorama. Then simply copy and paste the vertorama into the resized image, and save it under a different name... EXIF data in tact... Bob’s your uncle... simple as a pimple!
Okay (if you’ve bothered to read this far), you probably know exactly what I’m going to say next!? Well (even) if you don’t, here it is...
The first vertorama that I finished off according to Kim’s magic formula, hit Explore a few hours after I uploaded it!!!!!
Let that be a lesson to y’all (he said, as he stepped off his soap-box)!
Equipment: Sony Alpha 100 (11mm ultra-wide)
Date: October 2007
Now, he might look sweet like he's going to share bless, but what he's really thinking is - the shinny object in your hands looks much more exciting than what I've got in my hands. Can I reach through and grab it fast enough?
Mental calculations are easy for Beibei. Percentage of kibbles remaining for the day, time left before Papa returns home after work, number of meows before getting attention, etc. Unemployment rates, economic crisis, financial tsunami, recession, foreclosures?! BAH! And not forgetting the probabilities of going hungry or getting no hugs are zero. Those are the crucial numbers.
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit."
Minolta Rokkor-PG 58mm f/1.2
Film: Kodak Elite Chrome 200 ED-3
Cross Processed C41 - FUJI Chemistry
Fuji film chemistry seems to create more green / blue color casting on this film than Kodak processing. I usually edit away the color casts, it was very difficult with this roll.
If you were going to ask why I cross process the film if I'm not after the color shift, there are two main reasons:
1. The latitude is incredible and while there is a slight increase in grain, it does not offset the exceptional detail of slide film.
2. C41 developing is quick and available in my area, E-6 is not.
Fujica GW690,Rollei retro80 developed in Rodinal 1+50 11.5mim 30℃
Took with Fujifilm SC60 filter or IR72 filter
I don't remember reason of underexposure. Possibly wrong calculation.
Grindelwald,Switzerland
I love Harvey - he always gives me such funny expressions. I saw him lying on the floor with a Sunstones' cat toy between his paws and I thought he might be about to play with it. However, he just stayed in pretty much one position, with only his eyes moving around. (I haven't really seen him play with the catnip toys very much. He just sort of "hangs out" with them.)
boobies! Visit my blog to download free pattern myhidingplaceincyberspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/calculatio...
Saint Paisios: As long as a good calculation helps, no other exercise helps!
San Paissio of Mount Athos (1924-1994).
Of course, since people today sadly use noisy media for even small services, if you find yourself in a noisy space for a while, you should have good thoughts.
You can't say "don't use this, don't use that, because it makes noise", but give a good reason right away. For example. you hear a sprinkler and think a helicopter is passing by.
To think: “Maybe a sister was seriously ill at the time and a helicopter was coming to take her to the hospital. What pain would I have then? Thank God, we're all fine. "
Here you need the mind and intelligence, the art to bring a good reason.
Look, eg. the noise of the concrete mixer, the elevator, etc. To say: “Thank God there are no bombings, no houses are demolished. "People have peace and are building houses."
And when, elderly, are the nerves damaged?
- Damaged nerves? What will this say? Is the calculation broken? Best of all is a good reason.
A layman had built a house in a quiet place. Later on one side there was a garage, on the other a street and on the other a centuries-old center. Till midnight. The poor man couldn't sleep, he put on earplugs, started taking pills. He was about to go crazy.
He came and he found me.
-Elder, this and that, he tells me, we cannot be silent. What to do; I am thinking of building another house.
- Make a good calculation, I tell him. Think about it, if there was a war and tanks were being repaired in the garage, there was a hospital next door and ambulances would take the wounded and tell you, “Sit here. Let's secure your life, we won't hurt you. You can only leave your home freely within the radius in which they are built, because a bullet will not fall "or" Stay in your house and no one will disturb you ", would that be a trivial matter? Wouldn't that be a blessing?
So now you say, “Thank God, there is no war, the world is fine and doing its job. In the garage, people build their cars instead of tanks. Thank God, there is no hospital, no injuries, etc.
"Tanks don't go by; cars go by and people run to work." If you bring such good reasoning, praise will come later. "
The poor man realized that the whole base was adequate treatment and he let it rest.
He slowly treated them with good thoughts, threw the pills away and slept without difficulty. Do you see with a good mind how to get by?
[...]
So you must always face everything with good thoughts. Hit eg. a door; Say, “God forbid, if a sister had something of her, she hit her and broke her leg, will I sleep? "Now the door slammed; my sister would have work to do."
But if a person starts to criticize and says: “Knock on the door, he is careless! What a situation this is! ”, Where to calm down after! As soon as I put these calculations, after the tag I will upset her. Or a sister may hear alarm bells ringing at night.
Hit eg. one once, after a while it hits the same again.
If he thought, “This soul was crushed, she couldn't get up. It would be better if she rested for another half hour and then did her mental work. "He didn't worry or get upset when he woke up.
But if she thinks to herself that she is waking up from the clocks, he might say, “What's going on here? Nobody can be silent for a while! "
Therefore, as long as a good calculation helps, no other exercise helps.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmXkDbGdD4Q
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