View allAll Photos Tagged nonexistent
Wearing a beautiful luxurious fleece. Alpaca not a Llama.
Alpaca (Vicugna pacos) is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in superficial appearance.
Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of Ecuador, southern Peru, northern Bolivia, and northern Chile at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,000 ft) to 5,000 m (16,000 ft) above sea-level, throughout the year. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, alpacas were not bred to be beasts of burden but were bred specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, much as wool is. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru. In the textile industry, "alpaca" primarily refers to the hair of Peruvian alpacas.
About Alpaca Fleece
Alpaca fleece is the natural fiber harvested from an alpaca. It is light weight or heavy weight, depending on how it is spun. It is soft, durable, luxurious and silky natural fiber. While similar to sheep’s wool, it is warmer, not prickly, and has no lanolin which makes it hypoallergenic. Alpaca is naturally water-repellent. Huacaya, an alpaca that grows soft spongy fiber has natural crimp, thus making a naturally elastic yarn, perfect for knits. Suri has far less crimp and thus is best suited for woven goods, but is wonderfully luxurious as well.
In physical structure, alpaca fiber is somewhat akin to hair, being very glossy. Alpaca fiber is similar to that of merino wool fiber, and alpaca yarns tend to be stronger than wool yarns. The heel hole that appears in wool socks or in elbows of wool sweaters is nonexistent in similar alpaca garments. In processing, slivers lack fiber cohesion and single alpaca rovings lack strength. Blend these together and the durability is increased several times over. More twisting is necessary, especially in Suri, and this can reduce a yarn's softness.
The alpaca has a very fine and light fleece. It does not retain water, is thermal even when wet and can resist the solar radiation effectively. These characteristics guarantee the animals a permanent and appropriate coat to fight against the extreme changes of temperature. This fiber offers the same protection to humans. Alpaca is sustainable as a fiber, and is naturally organic. Alpacas as animals are soft on the environment, making alpaca a truly green textile.
Info re Wiki and Encyclo Brit
“Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard (center) removes rock from scoop held by lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell during lunar surface extravehicular activity training exercises here today. An armadillo that came upon the scene during the training session burrows into the simulated lunar surface in the foreground. At right is the modularized equipment carrier (MEC), or ricksha, that will be pulled around the Moon’s surface by Shepard and Mitchell, carrying the equipment they will use for lunar experiments. Apollo 14 is scheduled for launch no earlier than January 31, 1971.”
A moment if I may:
“MODULARIZED EQUIPMENT CARRIER (MEC), OR RICKSHA”
Like fingernails being dragged…excruciatingly slowly...across a vast chalkboard.
To my knowledge, which is pretty respectable WRT this shit, the Modular Equipment Transporter (MET) was NEVER EVER EVER called the “MODULARIZED” equipment CARRIER (MEC), especially NOT as of December 1970!!! The imbecile(s) probably happened to see something from the previous year or two that referenced the Hand Tool Carrier (HTC), and then brainlessly bastardized it with/into this.
As if the aforementioned wasn’t enough stupidity in the span of only five words & one nonexistent acronym, it's then punctuated with “OR RICKSHA”!!! Something I’d expect a cub reporter for the Picayune Herald to use in his/her first “page 5” story, NOT in an official NAssA description.
(Additionally, per the NASM, let’s throw in “Mobile Equipment Transporter”. Why not, it’s close enough:
airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/mobile-equipment-tr...
So, consistency be damned, call it whatever the f**k you wanna. How ‘bout “Movable Extra shit Toter”?
Same for the MESA; “Modular”?, “Modularized”? Take your pick, it didn’t/don’t matter.
And finally, the total obliviousness regarding the football in the bulk sample scoop held by Shepard. Unless "removes rock" is how the dotard interpreted it. There’s probably an amusing back story to the football – which of course I wouldn’t expect to be part of the description – but it’s presence isn’t even acknowledged. Frankly, I’m surprised the armadillo is, and that it’s correctly identified as such.
Thank God for the ALSJ:
“Football-Sized Sample
history.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/ap14-football.jpg
In a lighthearted training moment, Al Shepard (right) and Ed Mitchell rehearse collection of a football-sized rock. See the discussion following [117:50:12].
history.nasa.gov/alsj/a14/a14-clsout1.html#1175012
Note the Florida native in the foreground.
Scan by J.L. Pickering.”
A radioactive fossil Transformer, though hilariously based on the (as we now know) nonexistent Dracorex. It's a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus.
1993 Suède Sweden Svezia
Escapade en train à Blåhammaren, dans le nord de la Suède, près de la frontier norvégienne.
Il est conseillé de savoir lire une carte et utiliser la boussole, car les sentiers ne sont pas bien marqués et on ne rencontre quasi personne ... le temps peut aussi changer brusquement : en qq minutes on passé de l'été à l'hiver avec de la neige (meme en plein mois de juillet).
Week-end close to the Norwegian border, in the north of Sweden, at Blåhammaren.
It is recommended to be able to read a map and use a compass because the paths are almost nonexistent ... the weather can also change within minutes going from Summer into Winter (with snow mid of July).
Camminata vicina al confine con la Norvegia, a Blåhammaren (2 giorni).
Saper leggere una mappa e utilizzare una bussola è d'obbligo perché i sentieri non si vedono bene. E non c'è molta gente da incontrare ! Subito il meteo può anche cambiare da estate a inverno con neve a metà luglio !
Thailand:
Thai immigration to America was nearly nonexistent before 1960, when U.S. armed forces began arriving in Thailand during the Vietnam war. After interacting with Americans, Thais became more aware of the possibility for immigration to the United States. By the 1970s, some 5,000 Thais had emigrated to this country, at a ratio of three women to every man. The largest concentration of Thai immigrants can be found in Los Angeles, Houston and New York City. These new immigrants consisted of professionals, especially medical doctors and nurses, business entrepreneurs, and wives of men in the U.S. Air Force who had either been stationed in Thailand or had spent their vacations there while on active duty in Southeast Asia.
According U.S. Census 2000, the greatest numbers of Thais are in California (most in Los Angeles area), some 36,525. Texas with 7,384 (primarily Houston and Dallas) and New York, with a Thai population of 6,658 (most in New York City) have the second and third largest Thai populations, respectively.
Product: Fanta Grape, Product of Thailand
Store: Battambanc Market II: 229 E Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, NY
Neighborhood: Fordham Road ( D Train, Kingsbridge Road)
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
I am drinking Imperial Beer in Washington Bar, in Limon, Costa Rica. The beer was cold, and good after walking through the city on a hot day. Imperial is the largest selling beer in the country. Draft beer seems to be almost nonexistent in Central America or the Caribbean, at last at places I have seen. Just about every day in Costa Rica is a hot day.
A slightly early Independence Day (Fourth of July) fireworks show over Lake Monona in the heart of the Wisconsin capital.
* Fireworks pictures in a sense are double exposures, at least multiple exposures.
* My ISO was set at 100. Nothing higher is needed or even desirable.
* White balance set to auto because in raw capture it does not matter.
* The technique used (and it's an old one) was to hold the shutter open for 10, 20, or 30 seconds at a time.
* The aperture is adjusted in the opposite direction to keep the exposure uniform. In this case I found that 10 seconds at f/8 worked well. 30 seconds at f/16 captured more bursts, but if the action was very heavy then too many bursts made for a busy, messy picture. I had to keep changing the settings.
* The camera was in full manual mode (otherwise it would change the exposure and focus).
* Because the display was 2 miles away the camera only needed to be focused at infinity.
* Solidly mounted on a sturdy tripod and tripped with an electronic cable release to insure there is no camera movement.
* Vibration reduction turned off (otherwise the VR would "hunt" for nonexistent movement and smear the shot). I nearly forgot this but I made a couple of test exposures early on and realized immediately that they were smeared due to the VR.
* I also turned off the Long Exposure Noise Reduction when I realized that it was doubling the time for the picture to load, and I knew I could minimize any noise in Lightroom. As it turned out little noise reduction was necessary beyond the standard.
* I worked in live view and kept the auto review on for two seconds for each shot to insure that I was getting what I thought I was getting. It’s enormously reassuring!
* With the shutter open for longer periods, more individual bursts are recorded on each frame. You have to shoot a lot of frames and hope to luck out. There is no way to plan it. You open the shutter, the stuff goes up, at the end of the time the shutter closes and you've got what you've got. I think I made about 75 exposures to get 19 that were good. The rest were trashed.
* Despite some 75 extended exposures, live view, and constant instant reviews, the battery at the end of 45 minutes of fireworks still had 60% charge. Turning off the noise reduction undoubtedly helped, plus made the shoot more efficient; no waiting.
Shared by David Greenless
The Old Motor
theoldmotor.com/?p=182834&fbclid=IwAR1nZ7Z9mJSB90lEFg...
Nancy and Vera Drive From Chicago to Denver in an Orient Buckboard
December 23, 2020
By Robert D. Cunningham
The Orient Buckboard was, according to its advertising, the cheapest automobile in the world. Just $375. It was, in essence, ash and hickory planking to comprise a set of floorboards that carried an upholstered bench; a 3-gallon fuel tank feeding a single-cylinder, air-cooled, 4 horsepower engine at the rear; a four-cell battery and a steering tiller. It was an industrial evolution of the Waltham Manufacturing Company in Waltham, Massachusetts, a bicycle manufacturing business Charles Metz had launched in 1893.
Lead photo: Nancy Teape and her daughter, Vera, piloted their new 1907 Orient Buckboard from Chicago to Denver.
The Orient Buckboard was the first dependable, low-priced automobile for the man of meager means. The company sold nearly 2,500 of them in five years. To bring a Buckboard to life, the owner first poured oil into the engine, and then bent over the rear axle to spin the crank. With little effort, the little buggy bucked and belched a thick cloud of blue smoke. The owner then plopped down on the bench and positioned his feet to operate levers that maneuvered a drive chain to engage the five forward gears. As the contraption sputtered away, its long floorboards flexed on 19-inch elliptical springs, providing unexpected comfort when rolling over rocks, ruts and roots on the primitive—and sometimes nonexistent—roads of the day.
cont:
I created this video in one night using Windows Movie Maker (which I was forced to use by the professor and hated because it kept crashing).
Not the best footage or editing, but considering my formal training on editing is pretty close to nonexistent, it's not too shabby.
Roundup of my observations reporting on Dorchester, MA.
On December 4, 1826 the Genesee County Board of Supervisors met in Bethany for the purpose of establishing a County Poorhouse. A brick building, originally a stagecoach tavern, located near the corner of the Bethany Center Road and Raymond Road was the site selected, as it represented the geographical center of the county. (Wyoming County wasn’t established until 1841.) In 1828 Genesee County constructed a stone building attached to the Poorhouse for the confinement of lunatics and a repository for paupers committed for misconduct. The insane were also housed at the County Home until 1887 when the Board of Supervisors agreed to send “persons suffering with acute insanity" elsewhere in the state.
The Genesee County Poor Farm aka The County Home, was a self sufficient working farm and woods, spanning over 200 acres, providing food and fuel, thus the actual cost to care for each person was low, about $1.08 per week per resident, back in 1871.
Residents were referred to as inmates (no matter why they were housed there) and those physically able-bodied would work the farm and many actually built and made wares to sell to help offset some of the living expenses. The raising of Holsteins, pigs, draft horses, chickens and ducks, raising vegetable and fruit crops, canning jams, jellies, meats, were all part of the chores, there was a bakery and even a wood shop where coffins were made (for use as needed and for sale to local mortuaries).
The County would bury those who had no family, and records indicate there was once a cemetery located on the property, but the particulars are almost nonexistent. An 1886 Proceeding states “The burying ground we have improved by building a fence in front and grading and leveling the ground as much as could be done without injury to the graves.”
The cemetery for the County Poorhouse has faded away as the stones crumpled, the grass grew and the forest replanted. No one was around to care for those who had so long ago been forgotten. These people, though they were poor, ill and sometime abandoned, do deserve to be remembered. An actual cemetery register or plot map has yet to be discovered.
A memorial site was created in the Genesee County Park and on June 6, 2004 when five headstones, dated from 1887 to 1888, were returned to the County. The Genesee County Historians dedicated a historical marker honoring those who died while living in the County Home from 1827 until the facility was closed in 1974 (residents were relocated to new facilities in Batavia).
This view of a "farmyard" street in the Bo-Kaap dates from 1943.Motorized traffic were obviously nonexistent. That tree is trying its best to be a tree!
Shorebird habitat is nearly nonexistent at Cardinal Marsh this spring due to high water levels. This dunlin (left) & Wilson's phalarope (right) found a tiny spot to search for food on their way to the Far North.
Plumber is coming on Friday to fix plumbing under the sink. Electrician coming one day this week to put up light above nonexistent mirror.
In the rural village of Navala, technology is nonexistent and cameras are extremely rare. These little girls asked me to take their picture and then show it to them on the screen of my digital camera. They were so interested in the pictures that we repeated this process over and over. We giggled with delight every time and enjoyed the game immensely. These girls and their families hosted me during my stay in the village, and taught me how to appreciate every little moment. Although I may have shown them how a camera lens views their home, they truly taught me a new way in which to view the world.
Perak occupies one of the more hillier regions of Peninsula Malaysia - so it is not too difficult to enjoy mountain views in this region.
Apart from the famous mountains of the Titiwangsa Range, the northern parts of the state is dotted with isolated mountain ranges.
I noticed that visibility was quite good today, and was amazed at the well-defined peaks of Mt. Bubu that is 50km away from Kampar. On your average day such a clear view is nonexistent due to haze. I paused for a moment as I made my way down the cycling track from Prima@Kampar to Kampar Putra.
This Mt. Bubu is the one in Ulu Kenas, and not the one part of the G7 mountains.
It seems to happen that once in a great while a figure of profound depth and purity blossoms within a major religion, summarizing, expanding, and living through example its most cherished aspects. Ibn al-‘Arabī, known as al-Shaykh al-akbar, “The Greatest Master”, born in Mucia, Spain in 1165, is arguably such a figure for Sufism. An extremely prolific figure, Ibn al-‘Arabī wrote hundreds of works (estimates range from 250 to over 800!), some of which are still today widely considered to be classics. His thinking ranged from the practical to the scientific, to the metaphysical and to the sublimely spiritual, and his ability to weave together and expound upon all of these aspects is unparalleled, prompting a prominent scholar of Sufism and Ibn al-Arabī’s work, William Chittick, to declare him “the most influential thinker in the second half of Islamic history” (Chittick, 1994). Running through most of his works, in some explicitly and others only implicitly, is his “most famous idea” (Chittick, 2007): wahdat al-wujūd, or “The Oneness of Being”. Trying to come to terms with this concept is essential for an understanding of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s contribution to Sufism; this essay is an attempt to briefly explore this concept and its implications for Sufism.
Ibn al-‘Arabī never explicitly used the term wahdat al-wujūd in his writings, although he did use a variety of similar terms (Chittick, 1994), such as ‘ain al-wujūd, the essence of existence (Neusser, 2005). The word wujūd is translated both as ‘being’ or ‘existence’ and as ‘finding’ or ‘to be found’. Ibn al-‘Arabī’s use is complex enough to encompass both of these meanings, and more besides. Yet the primary aspect of wujūd, for Ibn al-‘Arabī is always its absolute unity. In this sense, Ibn al-‘Arabī seems to be in agreement with the Vedic sentiments of the Upanishads, wherein the oneness of existence takes primacy over any multiplicity.
However, whereas the working out of this concept in Hinduism finds its ultimate expression in Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism), where the world and all its seeming multiplicities are taken to be the equivalent of empty illusions, Ibn al-‘Arabī takes a different tack, affirming also the many-ness of reality along with its oneness (Chittick, 1994). So in speaking of wujūd (existence), it is possible for Ibn al-‘Arabī to see it from multiple viewpoints.
The primary aspect of wujūd, as already indicated, is its absolute oneness. This can be called wujūd mutlaq, absolute existence, in contrast to the wujūd of the manifest, contingent world, which can be called wujūd mustafad, or borrowed existence. For Ibn al-‘Arabī, in the most ultimate sense, there is only the oneness of Allah, but this does not mean that the manifest multiplicity of the created things of the universe, including human beings, is an existence-less illusion. Rather, the beingness of the manifest world is, as it were, borrowed from the only true existence – that of Allah. Thus we have, from our human perspective, the tanzih nature of God, in which Allah is absolutely unlike any particular part of manifest creation. On the other hand, we have the tashbih nature of God, in which Allah is like the manifest creation.
Self-existence and reality can only be attributed to the transcendent nature of God, which is necessary and cannot not exist. Allah is without parts, and is a singularity of nondelimited perfection – there is only a single wujūd. This transcendent nature is unknowable, for to know it would be to have a knower and a known, but no such separation can exist within wujūd, understood in this higher sense.
Ibn al-‘Arabī is not simply a transcendent mystic, content to leave the manifest world behind. Rather, he appeals strongly to reason, and takes pains to clarify as best he can the way in which the manifest world relates to the unmanifest, transcendent reality of wujūd. This is a complicated but central aspect to Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thinking; in fact the bulk of his works deal less with God’s transcendence than with his manifestation.
How then, if the only thing that has any real existence to it is the unity of God, can we explain the apparent multiplicity of the created world? What must be the nature of creation such that it can actually appear to us while not either making God dissectible into separate parts or taking the ground of being out from underneath the cosmos? Ibn al-‘Arabī answers that the things of perception have no separate existence apart from the ultimate wujūd of God. They cannot exist without ‘borrowing’ their wujūd from the only possible source: God. In this way, the wujūd of the manifest world is actually more of a metaphor than a reality; separate existent entities seem to have their own wujūd but do not – they exist by the continual creating will of Allah, and have no self-existence without Allah.
The metaphor that Ibn al-‘Arabī uses to describe this situation identifies God with Light, as stated in the Koran (24:35). The only thing that exists is Light – but this light becomes reflected and refracted into an infinite number of seemingly independent rays. Just as an individual ray of light may seem obviously separate from another: “this ray is red; that one is blue”, objects appear to us to have separate existence. But in pointing out the separateness of the objects we are not seeing their reality. In fact, the objects qua objectivity have no reality, and in this sense are described as nonexistent (‘adam). The nonexistence of the objects is precisely their nature. This is like the separate ray of red or blue light, which in fact cannot have any existence apart from the original Light itself, which is in fact the only thing which has existence in the first (and last) place. Every reflected or refracted ray is another veil through which the manifestation of God appears – but none of these manifestations themselves partake of their own existence, which is the sole domain of Allah. Ibn al’Arabī does distinguish between absolute nonexistence, which is nothingness in the most direct sense of the term, and relative nonexistence, which describes all that is approached as not God – i.e. the universe and its constituents. In this way, the manifest universe can be understood as an intermediary realm between absolute existence (wujūd mutlaq) and absolute nonexistence. It is the gray area that Ibn al-‘Arabī describes as “He/not He”, as it partakes of both ultimate existence and nonexistence simultaneously.
Therefore, in one sense when we see the things of the world, we are in fact seeing only the wujūd of God. Additionally, God, who “encompasses all things in knowledge” (65:12), has ‘in mind’ as it were, even all the potential objects of the cosmos. God’s knowledge of these things is immutable, fixed, and absolute; this knowledge corresponds to the object’s entire reality. But neither the manifest nor the unmanifest plurality of objects requires God Himself to be of a plural nature – just as all of the colors of light are contained in the primal Light of God as a singular unity, upon which they depend for their entire existence.
Apart from the ultimacy of wujūd, the relative nonexistence of the manifest world occurs as a continuum, stretching away from God towards ultimate nonexistence. Each “thing” is, as described by Ibn al-‘Arabī, a “locus of manifestation” of God. Each locus of manifestation is nonexistent in itself, but contains rather the properties or effects of the object, which ultimately derive from God. Thus, when we encounter the things of the universe, we are in actuality finding only God’s wujūd. Just as a single breath may contain many words, the “Breath of the All-merciful” may give rise to many objects – but some of these objects partake of a greater part of wujūd than others.
Even though God’s breath doesn’t need to contain words, He speaks in His overflowing generosity, and all the world is created. Multiplicity is real because God speaks many words – an infinite number of them, in fact, corresponding to the infinity of manifested objects. What characteristics the objects have depends upon the words God speaks. Thus there are ninety-nine different names of God (The Merciful, The Abaser, The Guarantor, etc.) which act as intermediaries between existence and nonexistence. Things of the manifest world are formed out of the conflation of any number of these names with any amount of purity. These ninety-nine names are all aspects of the one name: Allah, which encompasses all possible names in every possible way, both manifest and non-manifest.
Within this situation, the human being also exists as a relatively non-existent entity, described by a concatenation (with relative purity) of the names. In some people and at some times, one or another of the names becomes more manifested and understood than the other names. According to Ibn al-‘Arabī, the goal of a spiritual seeker is to manifest all of the ninety-nine names with equal perfection and harmony, thus becoming “the Perfect Man”. Humans are unique among beings of the world because they have the potential to comprehend and manifest allof the names, because God taught Adam all the names (2:30); all other things (minerals, plants, animals, angels) are created within known and fixed stations. If this perfection is achieved, the human would be a manifestation of what Ibn al-‘Arabī calls the “Muhammadan Reality” (Chittick, 1994), where instead of being stationed within any one or combination of names, the human stands equally within all the names at once: the “Station of No Station”. In order to achieve this state, rather than try to manifest all the divine names, which can lead to an arrogance of assuming that “I am like God”, it is better to try to get rid of all the particularly human attributes, so that what is left is the wujūd of God alone. The path of this struggle is one of surrendering oneself to God, of submission (islam) to God.
As we can see, the concept of wahdat al-wujūd is a central aspect of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thought. Although he did not initially conceive of the idea, Ibn al’Arabī’s portrayal and discussion of the oneness of being clarified and brought to new light one of the most foundational aspects of Islam. According to Chittick, wahdat al-wujūd “is the most famous single theoretical issue in Sufi works of the later period, especially in the area under Persian influence.” (Chittick 2007). The concept was not universally accepted however, and was attacked by scholars such as Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328 C.E.), who actually did much to associate the concept with Ibn al-‘Arabī (Chittick 2007).
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
Gannetgul is the second largest human kingdom. It is a land of political intrigue and religious fervor. The gulls established a theocracy centuries ago, placing church officials in positions of political power. Over time, this has lead to a xenophobic and corrupt society of social climbers and conspirators. Kings don't rule for long on the throne of Gannetgul.
To the east is the small land of Grey Fogg. A wild and dangerous land populated by the proud barbarians known as the morni. Over the years, the morni and the gulls have warred over land and religion, these battles have culled the population of the morni to the point where they are nearly nonexistent.
They Live, We Sleep
Artist Statement
“We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep. The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices ...their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others; we are focused only on our own gain. They are safe as long as they are not discovered ...that is their primary method of survival.
Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated...they are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
– They Live
This photographic body of work is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live.” The movie was also credited by Shepard Fairey “as a major source of inspiration for his own subversive brand of street art.” They Live was the basis for his use of the word ‘OBEY’ that became his main campaign and a popular clothing brand consequently.
The protagonist of the movie, an unemployed drifter named "Nada," accidentally comes across a box of sunglasses. After putting a pair on, he realizes that they are quite special. He sees the world in black and white and discovers that it's not what it seems. The series of images I have created are like those unique sunglasses that Nada stumbled upon, aim to show the world to the viewer for what it truly is. I hope they will help people to take into consideration what they sacrifice by blindly following self-serving governments and corporations’ agendas.
Through this photographic project my intent is to encourage people to be more aware of the habitual ways of living that we have been thoughtlessly following for most of human history. It seems as though the human race would have learned by now to not put their trust in the hands of the misguiding ruling class. Unfortunately most of the humanity is still in the state of mindless consumerism and simply does not realize that their decisions, their entire lives are being manipulated.
my craft mojo has been sort of nonexistent lately. I haven't been liking anything I've designed recently, so I haven't stitched anything in weeks. this was getting sort of frustrating, so I stitched up this cute little fella that I actually drew a couple of months ago.
I'm feeling a little better now. aargh.
this guy went off to brighten up Miss Ang's office after her promotion.
Taken in Picadilly Circus, the place where anyone and anything is normal, people can be who they are, and the contrasts between the tourists, the artists, the locals and the "weirdoes" is nonexistent.
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
I'm not a food blogger, and my culinary skills are so modest as to be virtually nonexistent. But I love good food. And until the chef starts her own food blog, attention must be paid. For more about this magnificent treat that T whipped up for brunch today, see Letter from Here.
Photography Note: Nikon P7000 in food scene mode. Diffuse, indirect natural light from the windows. Very lightly tweaked in Photoshop, but the original looked great straight out of the camera, thanks to the food mode's on-screen white balance slider.
Doesn't everyone in Memphis take at least one obligatory pic of Frank's? In the early '90s I lived a couple of blocks south of here and was surprised - the one time I went in - to find wine that I would drink.
One thing that I would like to point out to the nonexistent people looking at these photos is that while the buildings are old and give the impression of disrepair, look at how clean the sidewalks and curbs are. South Main is actually a vibrantly resurrected small neighborhood that is quite safe and active. It simply has a derelict charm. I also notice that the geo-tag feature says this is Beale Street. The geo-tag is wrong. Not by much geographically, but by light-years in ambiance. South Main has art galleries, haute cuisine, greasy spoons, Jim-Jarmusch-chic, WEVL, Ernestine & Hazels's, the Farmers' Market and so much more.
As our favorite checkout girl rang us up at the register, I looked at our tiny $1.87 haul -- one large organic carrot, one red pepper, and a bunch of spring onions for a cashew seitan stir-fry -- and was quite happy.
Not happy that we had resisted ice cream (that evoked more of a stiff self-satisfaction). Happy that for the past two and a half years we have not had to engage in the horror that is the weekly shopping trip with the car, loading up on random things and hoping that somehow, through some alchemy, the nonexistent post-work imagination and energy you have will transform the odds and ends you bought on impulse as you wandered through the aisles into five neat, delicious, healthy meals. In the end, where did it get us? The sad liquefying cucumber in the corner. The limp broccoli. The rumbling stomachs and pizza ordered at the last minute, all willpower and vision gone.
Life is definitely better today. Cooking life, anyway.
It's finally raining in California! The first potent storm of the season finally gives the state a good soaking, including SoCal where rain was virtually nonexistent so far this season. I miss driving in the rain! Right after I was done with work, I went straight to observe the rainy weather. Due to all this rain, localized flooding was possible in flood-prone areas. Surely, we are having a weather pattern that was completely opposite of last month's epic dryness. Is it now safe to say that California's rainy season is finally here?
(Video footage taken from around San Jose, CA on Monday evening, January 8, 2018)
Weather update/forecast:
A powerful storm had battered California with heavy rain, mountain snow & gusty winds. A connection of subtropical moisture was present and had helped aid in bringing heavy rain to parts of the state. Heavy rain fell around NorCal Monday and into early Tuesday morning with approximately 3.50 inches of rain around San Francisco & Sacramento. While rainfall was forecast to be more sporadic over NorCal for the duration of the storm, heavy rain was more intense in Central/SoCal into Tuesday night. T-storms with small hail & lightning weren't out of the question as the low pressure system itself drifted inland with the added atmospheric instability. Gusty winds have continued to kick up along the coast and over the mountains as the storm drifted inland. Sporadic power outages were possible... This widespread rainfall had put a dent in the state's precipitation deficits, as well as put an end to the wildfire season at last. Looking ahead, more rain was on the horizon. Is the state's rainy season finally starting to kick in despite a slow start? Fingers crossed...
Many of the tropical butterflies have distinctive seasonal forms. This phenomenon is termed seasonal polyphenism and the seasonal forms of the butterflies are called the dry-season and wet-season forms. How the season affects the genetic expression of patterns is still a subject of research. The dry-season forms are usually more cryptic and it has been suggested that the protection offered may be an adaptation. Some also show greater dark colours in the wet-season form which may have thermoregulatory advantages by increasing ability to absorb solar radiation.
The wet-season form has large, very apparent multiple eyespots whereas the dry-season forms have very reduced, oftentimes nonexistent, eyespots. Larvae that develop in hot, wet conditions develop into wet-season adults whereas those growing in the transition from the wet to the dry season, when the temperature is declining, develop into dry-season adults. This polyphenism probably has an adaptive role. In the dry-season it is disadvantageous to have conspicuous eyespots because they blend in with the brown vegetation better without eyespots. By not developing eyespots in the dry-season they can more easily camouflage themselves in the brown brush. This minimizes the risk of visually mediated predation. In the wet-season, these brown butterflies cannot as easily rely on cryptic coloration for protection because the background vegetation is green. Thus, eyespots, which may function to decrease predation, are beneficial for Satyrine butterflies like the Bushbrown to express.
Pu'er, Yunnan, China
see comments for wet season form......
Raymond Curbello, Assistant Manager in Physical Plant, began working at USF in 2005 as an Automotive Equipment Mechanic. In 2007, Ray was promoted to Assistant Manager in recognition of his leadership abilities, superior customer service skills, and technical solutions. Raymond leads his team in providing a service to the University by maintaining and repairing vehicles and equipment campus-wide. He also oversees the operation of the campus-wide waste management program. Raymond is always coming up with better and more creative ways to service the campus with a limited budget.
Ray has built a very high performing team. His leadership abilities have resulted in an area committed to excellence in service, customer satisfaction, and quality of work. Ray has the respect of his subordinates. He has created an environment resulting in almost nonexistent turnover in his department. The nature of the department’s work is inherently dangerous. Raymond demonstrates diligence in keeping the safety of students and employees in the forefront.
In a letter of support for Ray’s nomination, Joshua Broer, Facility Manager in the College of Arts and Sciences said: “Not only has Ray shown our College that he is a top-notch manager when it comes to day-to-day vehicle maintenance tasks, he has often gone above and beyond that role in terms of finding creative ways to save our College and its respective departments from excessive costs. Ray is a model of customer service and perhaps more than any other reason deserves this award for that quality.”
I keep forgetting i have this contract on my back to lose my head (ego) and become annillated within the remembrance of the horizantal and vertical (AQAL)
all quadrants - all levels - manisfestation of our destiny thingy -- and allow for the subsistence of the REAL, of which, (alas) i am only a relative (nonexistent) thing -- AND -- can you tell me why am eye soa prickly... and forgive me for it?
HU is! NOT is?
This was my first time actually plane watching at Miami International Airport (MIA). I checked some spotter websites to find some good locations. They recommended The Holes as being an "official" site so we checked it out. I was pretty disappointed; there was a lot of construction going on and parking was nonexistent. My wife dropped me off. The area is totally exposed. Even though it was December it was pretty hot - no shade, no place to sit, no other people around. The holes are actually pretty small so it's hard to get a lens through the hole. Arrivals were almost impossible to shoot but you could see planes taxiing by for takeoff. After an hour I was cooking so we bagged it. We then went to the area close to the El Dorado furniture store. Much better. There were a bunch of spotters from around the world there. It was a great atmosphere. Nicely shaded, safe, close to some stores and a lot of good traffic to watch. I saw a bunch of planes from airlines I had not seen before, including some airlines I had not heard of. Some of the planes didn't show up on Flight Radar 24 so they were very pleasant surprises. All in all a very good day and I'd love to go back there!
I took these photos in December 2019.
Part two of a request I received to compare scans of old negatives with scans of prints produced from said negatives. See part one here: www.flickr.com/photos/itendswithtens/4255417525/
Plustek Opticfilm 7300 at 3600dpi, no sharpening or grain reduction, color untouched beyond basic histogram tweaking. Scanned to uncompressed TIFF through Silverfast, then compressed to JPEG with RIOT optimization plugin for Irfanview, quality set to 88% with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling. Full compression quality and chroma sampling produce a file too large to upload to Flickr (lots of grain means lots of random data, which makes the image that much harder to compress), so I did what I had to. The difference is effectively nonexistent.
As intense as the grain is in this, I was surprised to find that there's noticeably more detail represented here than at 1800dpi; one even begins to see the delicate vertical lines on the outer skin of the towers here, which don't show up at lower scan resolutions. Scanning a poorly stored negative after over twenty-six years will naturally come with the danger of scratches, yes, but the detail level does go up appreciably.
Same subject matter as the Scanjet sample, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City as they appeared sometime in 1982.
It's hard to post anything today. I'm so sick of how we as a nation can't deal with issues of mental health and guns in this country in any kind of effective way. Are we willing to just accept this because nobody has the guts to stand up to the gun lobby and make some meaningful changes? Are we so callous that we can continue to ignore the problem of underfunded (or nonexistent) mental health systems in this country?
How many more will have to die before we stand up as a nation and try to do something?
My heart goes out to all of the people who have been scarred by this tragedy.
"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground..."
The original colors, shapes, and styling of my dad's locomotive shed. He built in the mid 1990's, before Bricklink using many multiples of sets bought at a toy store. He added the second track in 2003, and may have had help from Bricklink then.
The roof is non-removable and features are nonexistent except for it's simplistic beauty.
In 1943, the chief of the German Luftwaffe (Air Force), Hermann Göring, allocated half-a-million Reich Marks to the brothers Reimar and Walter Horten to build and fly several prototypes of the all-wing and jet-propelled Horten Ho 229 ('aitch-oh-two-two-nine'). Numerous technical problems beset the project and the only wing to fly with jet power crashed during its third test flight; nonetheless, the airplane remains one of the most unusual combat aircraft tested during World War II.
The idea for the Horten H IX, as designer Reimar Horten called it, grew first in the mind of Walter Horten when he was serving in the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. Horten was the technical officer for JG (Jadgeschwader or fighter squadron) 26 stationed in France. The nature of the battle and the tactics employed by the Germans spotlighted the design deficiencies of the propeller-driven Messerschmitt Bf 109, Germany's most advanced fighter airplane in service at that time. Pilots had to fly across the English Channel or the North Sea to fulfill their missions, primarily escorting German bombers and attacking British fighters, and Walter Horten watched his unit lose many men over hostile territory at the very limit of the Bf 109's range. Often after just a few minutes in combat, the Germans frequently had to turn back to their bases or run out of fuel, and this lack of endurance severely limited their effectiveness. The Messerschmitt was also vulnerable because a single, liquid-cooled engine propelled it. One bullet could puncture almost any part of the cooling system, causing the engine to overheat and fail in just a few minutes.
Walter Horten came to believe that the Luftwaffe needed a new fighter designed with performance superior to the Supermarine Spitfire, Britain's most advanced fighter. The new airplane required sufficient range to fly to England, the capability to loiter for a useful length of time and engage in combat, and then to return safely to base. He believed that a twin-engine aircraft enhanced all of these attributes.
Reimar had experimented with piloted all-wing aircraft since 1933, using his skills as designer and aerodynamicist to overcome several of the limitations that had always plagued the all-wing configuration. The new fighter needed a powerful, robust propulsion system to give the airplane the highest speed, but also to absorb damage and continue to function. The Nazis were already developing the jet turbine power plant in great secrecy, but Walter's role as JG 26 technical officer gave him access to information about the work. Walter knew that jet propulsion would appeal to Reimar because he could add it to all-wing configuration more easily, and achieve far greater performance by doing so, than was possible with reciprocating engines.
Reimar began to think seriously about the jet wing at the end of 1940. Fiercely independent and lacking the proper intellectual credentials, Reimar worked outside the mainstream German aeronautical community whenever he could. The authorities denied him access to wind tunnels to test his ideas, in part because of Reimar's youth and lack of advanced education, so he developed his designs using flying models and piloted aircraft. He had already successfully flown more than 20 aircraft by 1941 but a jet-propelled wing would be heavier and faster than any previous wing. To minimize the risk of experimenting with such an advanced aircraft, Reimar built and tested several interim designs, each one moderately faster, heavier, or more advanced in some significant way than the one before it.
Reimar built the Horten H V b and H V c to evaluate the all-wing layout when powered by twin engines driving pusher propellers. He began in 1941 to consider fitting the Dietrich-Argus pulse jet motor to the H V but this engine had drawbacks and in the first month of 1942, Walter gave his brother dimensioned drawings and graphs that charted the performance curves of the new Junkers 004 jet turbine engine (this engine is also fitted to the following NASM aircraft: Messerschmitt Me 262, Arado Ar 234, and Heinkel He 162). Later that year, Reimar flew the H VII, which was similar to the H V but larger and equipped with more powerful reciprocating engines. The H VI sailplane also figured into the preliminary aerodynamic design of the jet wing after Reimar tested the sailplane with a special center section.
Walter Horten used his personal connections with important officials to keep the idea of the jet wing alive in the early stages of its development. At the beginning of 1943, Walter heard Göring complain that Germany was fielding 17 different types of twin-engine military airplanes with similar, often mediocre, performance, but spare parts were not interchangeable between any two of these designs. He decreed that henceforth he would not approve for production another new twin-engine airplane unless it could carry 1,000 kg (2,210 lb) of bombs to a 'penetration depth' of 1,000 km (620 miles, penetration depth defined as 1/3 the range) at a speed of 1,000 km/h (620 mph). Asked to comment, Reimar announced that only a warplane equipped with jet engines had a chance to meet those requirements.
In August Reimar submitted a short proposal for an all-wing aircraft that came close to achieving Göring's specifications, who then issued the brothers a contract, and demanded the new aircraft fly in 3 months! Reimar responded that the first Horten IX prototype could fly in six months and Göring accepted this schedule after revealing his desperation to get the new fighter in the air with all possible speed.
Reimar designated each of his major wing designs with Roman numerals. When the H IX became an official Luftwaffe experimental project, it became known as the Ho 229 and each prototype received a Versuch (test or experiment) sub-designation, abbreviated V, and followed by a number, as in Ho 229 V1 for the first prototype Horten jet wing. The third prototype was designated the Ho 229 V3. In September 1944, Göring selected Gotha to mass-produce the Horten jets.
All versions of the Ho 229 resembled each other in overall layout. Reimar swept each half of the wing 32 degrees in an unbroken line from the nose to the start of each wingtip where he turned the leading edge to meet the wing trailing edge in a graceful and gradually tightening curve. There was no fuselage, no vertical or horizontal tail, and with landing gear stowed (the main landing gear was fixed but the nose wheel retracted on the first prototype Ho 229 V1), the upper and lower surface of the wing stretched smooth from wingtip to wingtip, unbroken by any control surface or other protuberance. Horten mounted elevons (control surfaces that combined the actions of elevators and ailerons) to the trailing edge and spoilers at the wingtips for controlling pitch and roll, and he installed drag rudders next to the spoilers to help control the wing about the yaw axis. He also mounted flaps and a speed brake to help slow the wing. When not in use, all control surfaces either lay concealed inside the wing or trailed from its aft edge. Parasite or form drag was virtually nonexistent. The only drag this aircraft produced was the inevitable by-product of the wing's lift. Few aircraft before or after the Ho 229 have matched the purity and simplicity of its aerodynamic form but whether this achievement would have led to a successful and practical combat aircraft remains an open question.
Building on knowledge gained by flying the Horten H V and H 'VII, Reimar designed and built the piloted glider version, the Ho 229 V1, which test pilot Heinz Schiedhauer first flew 28 February 1944. This aircraft suffered several minor accidents but a number of pilots flew the wing during the following months of testing at Oranienburg and most commented favorably on its performance and handling qualities. Reimar used the experience gained with this glider to design and build the jet-propelled Ho 229 V2.
Wood is an unorthodox material from which to construct a jet aircraft and the Horten brothers probably preferred to use aluminum but Reimar certainly was capable of designing the outer wing panels to be built with wood and the center section with welded steel tubes, having designed and built nearly all of his wings this way. Reimar's calculations showed that he would need to convert much of the wing's interior volume into space for fuel if he hoped to come close to meeting Göring's requirement for a penetration depth of 1,000 km (620 miles). Perhaps Reimar lacked either the expertise or the special sealants to manufacture such a 'wet' wing from metal. Whatever the reason, he believed that an aluminum wing was unsuitable.
As they developed the Ho 229, the Horten brothers measured the wing's performance against the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. According to Reimar and Walter, the Me 262 had a much higher wing loading than the H IX and it required such a long runway to take off that only a few airfields in Germany could accommodate it. The Ho 229 wing loading was considerably lower and this allowed it to operate from airfields with shorter runways. Reimar also believed, perhaps naively, that his wing could take off and land from a runway surfaced with grass but the Me 262 could not. If this had been true, a pilot flying the Ho 229 would have had many more airfields from which to fly than his counterpart in the Messerschmitt jet.
Successful test flights in the Ho 229 V1 led to construction of the first powered wing, the Ho 229 V2, but poor communication with the engine manufacturers led to lengthy delays in finishing this aircraft. Horten first selected the 003 jet engine manufactured by BMW but then switched to the Junkers 004 power plants. Reimar built much of the wing center section based on the engine specifications sent by Junkers but when two motors finally arrived and Reimar's team tried to install them, they found the power plants were too large in diameter to fit the space built for them. Months passed while Horten redesigned the wing and the jet finally flew in mid-December 1944.
Full of fuel and ready to fly, the Horten Ho 229 V2 weighed about nine tons and thus it resembled a medium-sized, multi-engine bomber such as the Heinkel He 111. The Horten brothers believed that a military pilot with experience flying heavy multi-engine aircraft was required to fly the jet wing and Scheidhauer lacked these skills so Walter brought in veteran Luftwaffe pilot Lt. Erwin Ziller. Sources differ between two and four on the number of flights that Ziller logged but during his final test flight, an engine failed and the Ho 229 V2 crashed, killing Ziller.
According to an eyewitness, Ziller made three passes at an altitude of about 2,000 m (6,560 ft) so that a team from the Rechlin test center could measure his speed from the ground using a special instrument called a theodolite. Ziller then approached the airfield to land, lowered his landing grear at about 1,500 m (4,920 ft), and began to fly a wide descending spiral before crashing just beyond the airfield boundary. It was clear to those who examined the wreckage that one engine had failed but the eyewitness saw no control movements or attempt to line up with the runway and he suspected that something had incapacitated Ziller, perhaps fumes from the operating engine.
Walter was convinced that the engine failure did not result in uncontrollable yaw and argued that Ziller could have shut down the functioning engine and glided to a survivable crash landing, perhaps even reached the runway and landed without damage. Walter also believed that someone might have sabotaged the airplane but whatever the cause, Walter remembered "it was an awful event. All our work was over at this moment." Ziller's test flights seemed to indicate the potential for great speed, perhaps a maximum of 977 km/h (606 mph). Although never confirmed, such performance would have helped to answer the Luftwaffe technical experts who criticized the all-wing configuration. At the time of Ziller's crash, the RLM had scheduled series production of 15-20 machines at Gotha.
Horten had planned to arm the third prototype with cannons but the war ended before this airplane was finished. Unbeknownst to him or Walter, Gotha designers substantially altered the V3 airframe as they attempted to finish it. For example, they used a massive nose wheel compared to the unit fitted to the V2, and Reimar speculated that the 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) design bomb load may have influenced them, but he believed these alterations unnecessary.
The U. S. VIII Army of General Patton's Third Army found the Ho 229 prototypes V3 through V6 at Friedrichroda, Germany, in April 1945. Horten had designed airframes V4 and V5 as single-seat night fighters and V6 would have become a two-seat night fighter trainer. The V3 was approximately half finished and nearest to completion of the four airframes. Army personnel removed it three days later and shipped it to the U.S., and the incomplete center section arrived at Silver Hill (now the Paul E. Garber Facility, Suitland, MD) about 1950. There is no evidence that any wing sections were recovered at Friedrichsroda, however members of the 9th Air Force Air Disarmament Division found a pair 121 km (75 miles) from this village, and these wings might be the same pair now included with the Ho 229 V3.
In 1983, Reimar wrote in Nurflugel: Die Geschichte der Horten-Flugzeuge 1933-1960 (Herbert Weishaupt, 1983) that he had planned to sandwich a mixture of sawdust, charcoal, and glue between the layers of wood that formed large areas of the exterior surface of the Ho 229 jet wing to shield, he said, the "whole airplane" from radar, because ""the charcoal should absorb the electrical waves. Under this shield, then also the tubular steel [airframe] and the engines [would be] "invisible" [to radar]"” (p. 136, author translation). Reimar was describing a process for reducing the radar energy reflected from the wing, lowering its radar cross-section, or RCS, so that the jet wing would be more difficult to detect by an adversary using radar, and therefore able to carry out its mission with greater stealth.
When interviewed in the mid-1980s, Reimar further claimed that he had specifically used wood to build a substantial portion of the Ho 229 because the material did not reflect radar energy. Asked to explain the background to these actions, the designer replied that "we made it of our own inspiration," without direction from the RLM, to mask the wing from detection during attacks on Allied ships equipped with air-search radar. Reimar had first written about RCS in the article, ""Ala Volante Caza "Horten IX"" (Flying Wing Fighter Horten IX), published in the May 1950 issue of Revista Nacional de Aeronautica (National magazine of Aeronautics published in Argentina).
Following the heightened interest in all-wing aircraft after the public unveiling of the USA's Northrop B-2 bomber on 22 November 1988, and fueled by Reimar's recent claims, some writers extrapolated from the similarity of the B-2 to the Ho 229 (both all-wing aircraft) to conclude that Reimar had designed the first stealth aircraft because he used an all-wing layout and purposefully reduced the Ho 229 jet wing's RCS. Examples of this writing are Stealth Bomber - Invisible Warplane (Motorbooks, 1989) by Bill Sweetman, and David Baker's article, "In Valleys of Shadow - The Black World of Stealth (Part One)."
They apparently did not believe that Reimar shaped the Ho 229 solely for aerodynamic reasons, that the jet was simply one in a long line of all-wing Horten aircraft, and that there exists no physical or documentary evidence to support Horten's claims. His story is weak for several other reasons. Allied ships were equipped with air-search radar; however, these were low-priority targets for the Luftwaffe compared to the waves of heavy bombers that had pounded Germany day and night from the beginning of summer 1943. Germany needed vast numbers of interceptors capable of penetrating the screens of Allied fighters protecting the bombers, not long-range strike aircraft with low RCS. Oddly enough, neither Reimar nor Walter Horten mentioned to Allied intelligence specialists immediately after the war the RCS techniques that Reimar claimed in 1983 he applied to the Ho 229 during the war, a peculiar omission in light of Reimar's strong interest in resuming his work with an Allied aviation firm. Finally, if the Ho 229 was as speedy as Reimar estimated, why would the aircraft need to evade radar detection when it could outrun any Allied fighter?
When Phase II at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center opened on 15 March 2011, the H IX V3 outer wing panels were on public view in the new workshop. NASM collections care specialists are working now to prepare to move the wing's center section to Phase II later in 2013.
Most evening are like this at this location. It's a really clear night... no clouds at all, and the winds are essentially nonexistent. Reflections are great, and the birds continue to arrive in increasing numbers as the darkness closes in. We're looking westward as the sun dips below the distant background.
IMG_7340; Sandhill Cranes
024
Fortune Global Forum 2018
October 16th, 2018
Toronto, Canada
3:30 PM
THE NEW GLOBAL CONSUMER: DOING BUSINESS IN A DIGITAL ECONOMY
The digital economy is no longer part of the economy. It is the economy. How can traditional brick-and-mortar firms reinvent themselves, their supply chains, and their marketplaces to avoid the fate of brands once thought of as everlasting but which are now nonexistent? And how are new platforms – from e-commerce to shared services – rewriting the rules of the game? A conversation on how businesses can manage expectations for digitally empowered customers, and how technology is being used to enhance the customer experience.
Alain Bejjani, Chief Executive Officer, Majid al Futtaim
Andrea Stairs, General Manager, Canada and Latin America, eBay
Ning Tang, Founder and CEO, CreditEase
Moderator: Phil Wahba, Senior Writer, Fortune
Photograph by Stuart Isett/Fortune
Warm and cozy knit stockings for your elfin feet! Great for those long, cold days and nights making toys in Santa's workshop! On sale for a limited time at Santa's Sale Shack!
*Legs not included.
For FGR: Ads for Nonexistent Products.
For GTWL theme Holidays!
OMG the honking.
I hope the chaos and NOISINESS of the streets in the old quarter are clear in this 30-second video. The honking just never ever ever quits. There are no lights. There are no crosswalks. You just . . . go.
The basic premise of driving in Ha Noi seems to be defensive to the extreme--no one trusts any other driver on the road, so you honk continuously to inform everyone that you're there. And then you basically just say a prayer and jump into the fray. See that guy who crosses on the diagonal at the beginning? He barely looks around.
I have a bunch more videos to share--ones where we cross the street! Also notice just how freaking CLOSE the scooters and people get to me. I'm in the street, sure (there's nowhere else to be--sidewalks are practically nonexistent or covered with scooters or vendors), but I'm against the parked scooters.
Wharfinger building area, Eureka waterfront, Humboldt County, CA. Juvenile Heermann's have been almost nonexistent in CA this year, according to Alvaro Jaramillo (see this message: digest.sialia.com/?rm=message;id=905162) so it was good to see this bird today.
Barn is located in Mendon Ponds Park, at the intersection of Clover St and Pond Rd, Mendon, NY (near Rochester)... next to the Nature Center.
Mendon Ponds Park is owned and very poorly maintained by the County of Monroe, NY.
Unfortunately, this extraordinary property is rapidly deteriorating due to an egregious lack of care. Trails are not cleared of debris... signs are useless. Park maintenance is essentially nonexistent. They do have a marketing department. Seriously, the taxpayers are paying the salaries of a county parks marketing department.
Email Mendon Ponds Park complaints to: countyexecutive@monroecounty.gov
Natalia Younan (pink), a wildlife and fish coservation major, gather the sex of the Red Eat Slider for Sidney Woodruff's research in the Arboretum on June 8, 2022.
The project involves assisting Dr. Brian Todd and Ph.D. Student Sidney Woodruff in a research study evaluating how native species respond to the removal of non-native species and waterway restoration. The research objectives are to investigate the abundance and population demography of the native Western pond turtle (Actineymys marmorata) and population response in growth and demography from the removal of non-native red-eared sliders. Natural populations of the Western pond turtle are found in the UC Davis Arboretum where red-eared sliders occupy the same ecological niche in high densities. Natural populations of Western pond turtles are found in the nearby South Fork of Putah Creek where the presence of non-native turtles is extremely low or nonexistent. This work can highlight the importance of waterway restoration in building a more resilient ecosystem while supporting the recovery and conservation of native species.
Providing this opportunity will allow undergraduate students to be involved in wildlife conservation research under the supervision of a graduate student mentor and PI while also supporting the objectives of this study and the restoration of the UC Davis Arboretum.