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Torrents; deluge of rain; darkness; Noah of primeval times comes to mind. But I have a safe, dry albeit rather damp haven open to the sea, and a Palm Roof overhead. And opportunity to read ancient botanical texts when the internet works.
Just before the fierce storms yesterday I shot this brightly orange Beach Cordia, Cordia subcordata, branches hanging over the black volcanic sands come down from the Rinjani and ground by the surging seas. It's named for Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), a worthy German physician and botanist. That name is modern, supplanting a spate of other designations among which Cordia rumphii. The latter was the way of fey Carl Ludwig Blume (1786-1862), one-time director of Bogor's fine Kebun Raya, to honor Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702), great naturalist of Ambon, Indonesia.
Rumphius had used Novella nigra or ebbenniformis and waxes eloquent and enthusiastic about our Tree in his utterly readable Herbarium amboinense. He precisely describes it and details its various kinds of wood, among which the inner heartwood, which is ebony black; hence, of course, that 'nigra'. He notes its durability in the face of its lightness, and gives examples of its use by local people. It's quite clear from his description that Rumphius is also looking to Cordia as a possible source of timber for his masters of the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC).
In his descriptions generally and specifically in this one he also makes anthropological-linguistic notes. Thus Rumphius tells his readers that a local who had traveled widely told him that it was believed that a Cordia on one of the Kei Islands had existed from the Beginning of the World. Surely that can't be the case, writes Rumphius ironically. His informant must have meant 'from the time that this place was inhabited', because the Malays often call 'the beginning of habitation of a given place, the beginnning of the world' (Malaienses enim aliquanda initium inhabitationis certi loci initium mundi vocant.).
As I look up from my writing - in the distance my Cordia still gray - Noah leaps to mind again: darkness, deluge, torrents...
Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't.
Seen during the walk in the forest (look at previous photo) :)
Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) is a species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortleberry. It is found natively in Europe, northern Asia, Greenland, Iceland, Western Canada, and the Western United States. It occurs in the wild on heathlands and acidic soils. Its berry has been long consumed in the Old World. It is related to the widely cultivated North American blueberry. The bilberry fruit is smaller than that of the blueberry and similar in taste. Bilberries are darker in colour, and usually appear near black with a slight shade of blue. While the blueberry's fruit pulp is light green, the bilberry's is red or purple, heavily staining the fingers and lips of consumers eating the raw fruit. Vaccinium myrtillus fruits has been used for nearly 1,000 years in traditional European medicine for treatment of disorders of the gastrointestinal tract and diabetes. In cooking, the bilberry fruit is commonly used for the same purposes as the American blueberry such as pies, cakes, jams, muffins, cookies, sauces, syrups, juices, and candies.
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Jagódki w lesie już kwitną, mam nadzieję, że potem zaowocują :)
Borówka czarna (Vaccinium myrtillus) – gatunek rośliny wieloletniej z rodziny wrzosowatych. Ma wiele nazw zwyczajowych, m.in. jagoda, czarna jagoda, czernica. Roślina jest szeroko rozprzestrzeniona w Azji, Europie i Ameryce Północnej na obszarach o klimacie umiarkowanym i arktycznym. W Polsce jest pospolita zarówno na nizinach, jak i w górach. Jest wykorzystywana szeroko jako roślina jadalna i lecznicza. Znaczenie gospodarcze borówki czarnej pozostaje wysokie mimo silnej konkurencji znacznie bardziej plennych borówek północnoamerykańskich, których owoce mają uboższy skład chemiczny od czernicy. Owoce borówki czarnej były od dawna bardzo istotne dla Słowian i ludów północnej Europy. Używano jej owoców jako lekarstwa przy biegunkach i krwawej dyzenterii. Zastosowanie takie utrzymało się w lecznictwie ludowym, przy czym często zalecano je także w większych dawkach przeciw owsikom. Ponadto owoce borówki czarnej oferowane i spożywane są w postaci świeżej, suszonej, mrożonej oraz jako składnik przetworów takich jak dżemy, ciasta, soki oraz ciekłe lub sproszkowane koncentraty, będące suplementem diety. Przetwory z jagód wyróżniają się długą trwałością.
Letchworth State Park, New York State
© Igor Borisenko Photography. All Rights Reserved.
As I promised in the last uploaded image that the next shot will be from that bridge and this is it! I took this precisely a year ago. This view was heavenly and I wanted to be on this bridge in this moment for the eternity... unfortunately just shortly after I got all the shots I wanted we were chased off by park rangers for trespassing! It was illegal and dangerous to be on that bridge but it was so worth it... it would almost be worth it to get arrested for this gorgeous view. For once I was pretty proud for slightly breaking the law. This is overlooking those Upper Falls also you can almost see the Middle Falls in the top portion of the image. What a sight it was! I want to go back so bad but I have not had a chance as of yet because of lack of time or crappy weather. The light was pretty tough here with harsh shadows but I managed to pull out the dynamic range and detail in everything! It was sort of challenging just from one RAW but I accomplished it pretty well I think between a trustworthy programs such as Dynamic Photo HDR ( which extracted my desired dynamic range the lazy way from my RAW file) and CS4 for finishing touches. I tried to represent this scene exactly the way my eye saw this! This is as real as it gets :-)
Letchworth State Park is New York state park located 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Rochester and 60 miles (95 km) southeast of Buffalo in Livingston and Wyoming Counties. The park is roughly 17 miles (24 km) long,[2] covering 14,350 acres (58 km2) of land along the Genesee River.[2] Within the park there are three large waterfalls on the river and perhaps as many as fifty waterfalls found on tributaries that flow into it; the gorge formed by the river, with rock walls rising up to 550 feet (170 m) in places and which narrow to 400 feet (120 m) across above the middle of the three falls, prompted the area's reputation as the "Grand Canyon of the East".
The Upper Falls of the Genesee River is one of three major waterfalls on the Genesee River in Letchworth State Park in Western New York. What really makes this 40ft waterfall quite scenic is the rustic-looking bridge serving as a backdrop.
The Erie Railroad Company built a wooden trestle bridge over the Genesee River just above the Upper Falls. Construction started on July 1, 1852 and opened August 16, 1852. At the time, it was the longest and tallest wooden bridge in the world.[8]
The bridge is 820 feet (250 m) long and 240 feet (73 m) high.[10] It is still in use today.
In 2007, Letchworth was named one of the top 100 campgrounds in the nation.
A good two years between shoots with Randi, but nothing had really changed. Not between us, anyway. She'd gone and had a baby, so that was a wee change in her life, but other than that, everything was exactly the same!
My mom had always told me about good friends of hers, so good even if they didn't see each other for years, they could pick up precisely where they'd left off. Didn't really understand it until I got older, had those experiences for myself, with others, with Randi.
It's the difference between situational friendships, folks you meet at work, or in some activity, or online, say, and those you meet because you share interests, beliefs, values.
Fortunately for me, Randi and I fall into that second camp.
Technology image of the week looks like a giant version of a sound system, and that is precisely what it is. ESA’s Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) subjects satellites to the same noise a launcher produces as it takes off and flies through the atmosphere.
LEAF is an integral part of ESA’s test centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, a collection of spaceflight simulation facilities under a single roof. One wall of the chamber – which stands 11 m wide by 9 m deep and 16.4 m high – is embedded with a set of enormous sound horns . Nitrogen shot through the horns can produce a range of noise up to more than 154 decibels, like standing close to multiple jets taking off.
As a safety feature, LEAF can operate only once all the doors are closed. Steel-reinforced concrete walls safely contain its noise, coated with epoxy resin to reflect noise to produce a uniform sound field within the chamber. The chamber itself is supported on rubber bearing pads to isolate it from its surroundings.
Credit: ESA
The Hawker Hurricane Mk l replica US-X represents as precisely as possible the 56 Squadron aircraft in which 20-year-old Pilot Officer Geoffrey Page was shot down and terribly burned on 12 August 1940.
The Hurricane fighter had been designed under the control of Hawker’s Chief Designer, Sydney Camm. The first flight took place on 6 November 1935 and the first operational examples joined 111 Squadron at Northolt at the end of 1937. During the Battle of Britain the Hurricane was in service with Fighter Command in greater numbers than the Spitfire and shot down far more enemy aircraft. In the later years of the war, the Hurricane achieved further fame in its “tank buster” role and it was not until 1947 that the type left squadron service with the RAF.
Geoffrey Page developed a fascination with aircraft and flying as a child, but his ambition to attend the RAF College, Cranwell was thwarted by his father’s opposition. Instead Geoffrey went to Imperial College, London University and learned to fly at Northolt with the University Air Squadron. Called up in September 1939, Geoffrey served briefly with 66 Squadron in 1940 before moving to 56 Squadron.
The squadron was operating from North Weald on 12 August when, following a late afternoon scramble, an attack was made on a German formation reported as “70 plus”. Geoffrey’s Hurricane was hit by return fire.
In his book Shot Down in Flames (originally published as Tales of a Guinea Pig), Geoffrey described the struggle to leave the burning cockpit and then to open his parachute despite the agony of his burns.
“Realising that pain or no pain the ripcord had to be pulled, the brain overcame the reaction of the raw nerve endings and forced the mutilated fingers to grasp the ring and pull firmly,” he wrote.
Rescued from the sea by a tender, which transferred him to the Margate lifeboat. Geoffrey became a founder member of the Guinea Pig Club for RAF personnel who underwent plastic surgery at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. Geoffrey eventually returned to operations and became a wing leader before being badly injured again in 1944.
In later years Geoffrey developed a determination that the heroism of his comrades in 1940 should be marked by a National Memorial. The construction of the Memorial here, and its unveiling by Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on 9 July 1993, was largely his achievement.
Wing Commander Geoffrey Page, DSO, OBE, DFC (and bar) died on 5 August 2000, aged 80, shortly after attending the Memorial Day at Capel le Ferne, marking the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. All the info credit to The Battle of Britain Memorial website.
It is precisely this car which reached 417.4 km / h on the Bonneville Salt Flats !!
This Veyron is the only one which is registered in the area in which the Bugatti are built !
(apart from demo cars of the factory, of course :)
Molsheim - September 2011
Part of the "natural garden" part of the Japanese Garden (which is to say, precisely manicured to not look precisely manicured.)
Mona Seif, Alaa's sister, stencils a t-shirt. Alaa is a British-Egyptian political prisoner in Egypt. This photo was taken during the ongoing encampment protest by Alaa's two sisters - Sanaa and Mona Seif - outside Britain's Foreign Office.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere in the world, on account of his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
When this photo was taken Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, were staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention began to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
UPDATE AS OF WEDNESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2022
Starting from Sunday 6 November, Alaa escalated his hunger strike, and stopped taking water. His sister Sanaa Seif took a flight the same weekend to attend the COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh in a last-minute effort to save Alaa's life.
For the latest on Alaa's situation listen to his sister's Sanaa Seif's speech to journalists attending the conference on Tuesday 8 November - "They are very happy for him to die. The only thing they care about is that it doesn't happen while the world is watching."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXibJ7PUTY
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)
The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
Bouguereau, William Adolphe
Nationality: French
(France, La Rochelle, 1825 – France, La Rochelle, 1905)
DATE: 1888
ACQUISITION: Uriburu, Francisco
GENRE: biblical
SUPPORT: On canvas
DIMENSIONS: 203 x 250 cm.
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Museum's Web site offers the following commentary about this work:
During the last quarter of the 19th Century, every month of May would bring extensive accounts of the Salon de Paris that frequently appeared in the Buenos Aires press, written by Argentinean correspondents or translated from European newspapers, judging which works among the five thousand on exhibit were the most important.
In an art culture that was often literary first and only later visual, the Salon’s grandes machines (derisive label applied to academic paintings at the time) were the object of laudatory or negative reviews that could be corroborated at times once the works themselves had actually arrived in Argentina. This was precisely the case for Bouguereau’s Premier Deuil (The First Mourning).
In a public letter to his friend Manuel Láinez—the Director of El Diario newspaper—Carlos Gorostiaga spared no praise in emphasizing that this was a painting that one could not look at without “feeling the impact of a powerful sense of grief […] everything in it is natural: light and shadow. There is not one strong color; nothing, absolutely nothing. This is undoubtedly why it overflows with naturalness, and truth floods in” (1). In this way, the “photographic” skill, veracity and immediate legibility (2) that Bouguereau sought to capture were effective on this observer, who found an “expression of life” in the sorrow the painting contained.
On the opposite end of the scale, an anonymous critic from El Censor pointed out what many detractors were observing at the time with regard to academic painting, its artificial quality: “El primer luto (The First Mourning) resembles a group of mechanical figures, Adam and Eve weep over the lifeless body of Abel; they constitute a group without life, their nude bodies look more like ivory than human flesh”.
All this led Buenos Aires’ readers to prefigure the painting on the basis of the written word; its arrival took place a few years later, and it appeared before the public in a resounding exhibition in the context of a benefit show organized with works offered by the principal local collectors. In this situation, Eduardo Schiaffino, who was not particularly fond of academic art, couldn’t help pointing out the elegant manner in which the painter had resolved the theme’s presentation: “in this beautiful group there is foreshortening, torsion and detailing in which its sculptural grace is made evident”
The First Mourning was a well-loved theme during the 19th Century, since it allowed for a deployment of pained bodies in a significant drama from biblical history, and it was a long-term undertaking for Bouguereau.
Though it was signed in 1888, he had been involved in its development since 1885, as a sketch pertaining to the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France attests, and at that date the positions of the bodies that make up this Pietà had already been established, almost identical to the final result.
The grande machine he exhibited, along with a Baigneuse (Bather) at the 1888 Salon, recalled the pyramidal composition utilized during the Renaissance by both Michelangelo and Raphael; in fact, the artist was frequently called the “French Raphael”.
The group’s suffering is contained and staged. The greatest focus of the pain is the weeping mother’s face, but this is also veiled, unseen behind her hands. The handling of flesh tones also alludes to the classical tradition: the man is darker skinned, the woman, lighter, almost ivory-toned. The body of the dead boy is handsome, with an idealized beauty that omits any sign of the violence perpetrated by Cain. The drama is evoked only by the blood stain seen on the ground. It is one of the few spots of contrasting color in a painting dominated by earth tones. In the background, the altar with the smoking offering made by Abel, the cause of his brother’s anger, remits to the events recently transpired (Gen. 4:1-16). The smoke mixes in with the storm clouds that cover the sky, evidencing the episode’s origin and its tragic outcome.
Bouguereau sent this work along with a group of paintings he had produced over the past few years to the 1889 Exposition Universelle.
Through his habitually life-size figures, each work represented a different facet of his production, such as scenes of the Virgin (L’Annonciation (The Annunciation), 1888), young women surrounded by little angels (Chansons du printemps (Songs of Spring), 1889), putti (L’amour vainqueur (Cupid Vanquished), 1886), bathers (7), biblical history (Jésus-Christ rencontre sa mère (Jesus Meets His Mother), 1888) and also large, complex mythological compositions (La jeunesse de Bacchus (The Youth of Bacchus), 1884).
At this moment, Bouguereau was one of France’s most celebrated artists. He also enjoyed unprecedented commercial success, which turned his case into a veritable market “phenomenon”, above all in the United States and England (9). His career was further solidified year after year at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which was an inevitable endorsement on top of the enormous fascination his paintings produced among bourgeois buyers in both the Old and the New Worlds. These may be a few of the keys to understanding why his work became an object of desire for his Argentinean buyer, Francisco Uriburu, during the final decade of the 19th Century.
Source: www.bellasartes.gob.ar/en/the-collection-highlights/2770
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En el último cuarto del siglo XIX, era frecuente en la prensa argentina encontrar cada mes de mayo extensos récits del Salón de París, escritos por corresponsales argentinos o traducidos de periódicos europeos, que juzgaban las obras más importantes entre las más de cinco mil exhibidas. En una cultura artística que muchas veces primero fue literaria y luego visual, las grandes machines del Salón eran objeto de laudatorias o negativas reseñas que a veces podían corroborarse cuando la obra efectivamente llegaba al país. Así sucedió con El primer duelo de Bouguereau.
En una carta pública a su amigo Manuel Láinez –director de El Diario– Carlos Gorostiaga no ahorraba elogios al destacar que este era un cuadro que no se podía mirar sin “sentir el choque de una fuerte impresión de dolor […] todo es en el natural: luz y sombra. Ni un solo tinte fuerte; nada, absolutamente nada. Es sin duda por eso que rebosa de naturalidad, que inunda de verdad” (1). De este modo, la destreza “fotográfica” y la verosimilitud y legibilidad inmediata (2) buscadas por Bouguereau habían sido efectivas en este observador que hallaba en el dolor contenido de esta pintura una “expresión de vida”.
Desde la vereda opuesta, un anónimo crítico desde El Censor señalaba lo que muchos detractores observaban entonces en la pintura académica, su artificialidad: “El primer luto, parece un conjunto de figuras mecánicas, Adán y Eva lloran sobre el cuerpo exánime de Abel; constituyen un grupo sin vida, sus cuerpos desnudos parecen de marfil más que de carne humana” (3). Todo hacía que los lectores de Buenos Aires prefiguraran esta pintura desde la letra escrita; su arribo se concretó unos años después, y tuvo una resonada exhibición pública en 1893 en el contexto de una exposición benéfica organizada en base a obras cedidas por los principales coleccionistas locales. En este medio, Eduardo Schiaffino, quien no era particularmente amante del arte académico, no pudo dejar de señalar el modo elegante en que el pintor había resuelto el tema: “hay en este hermoso grupo escorzos, flexiones y detalles en que la gracia escultural es evidente”.
El primer duelo, temática cara al siglo XIX ya que permitía el despliegue de los cuerpos dolientes en este significativo drama vinculado a la historia bíblica, fue una empresa de largo aliento para Bouguereau.
Firmado en 1888, desde fines de 1885 estuvo involucrado en su desarrollo, y tal como demuestra un croquis perteneciente a la Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, ya para esta fecha las posiciones de los tres cuerpos que forman esta Pietà estaban planteadas casi igual a su resultado final (6). La grande machine exhibida, junto a una Baigneuse, en el Salón de 1888 remitía en su composición al esquema piramidal utilizado en el Renacimiento tanto por Miguel Ángel como por Rafael, de hecho el artista fue frecuentemente llamado el “Rafael francés”.
El dolor del grupo está contenido, escenificado. El foco mayor de pesar, el rostro de la madre llorosa, está también velado, al ser cubierto por las manos. El manejo de las carnaciones alude asimismo a la tradición clásica: el hombre más moreno, la mujer más clara, casi marfileña. El cuerpo del muerto es bello, con una belleza idealizada que omite cualquier signo de la violencia perpetrada por Caín. El drama está evocado por la mancha de sangre sobre el suelo. Es uno de los pocos focos de color contrastante en una pintura dominada por los tonos tierra. En el fondo, el altar con la ofrenda humeante realizada por Abel, aquella que había causado la ira de su hermano, remite a la historia reciente (Gen. 4, 1-16). El humo se mezcla con las nubes de un cielo tormentoso dando cuenta del origen del episodio y su trágico desenlace.
Bouguereau envió esta obra, junto a un conjunto de pinturas realizadas en los últimos años, a la Exposición Universal de 1889. Cada una de ellas representaba, con sus habituales figuras de tamaño natural, las distintas vertientes de su producción como las escenas de la Virgen (L’Annonciation, 1888), las jóvenes rodeadas de angelillos (Chansons du printemps, 1889), los putti (L’amour vainqueur, 1886), las bañistas (7), la historia bíblica (Jésus-Christ rencontre sa mère, 1888) y también grandes y complejas composiciones mitológicas (La jeunesse de Bacchus, 1884).
Para este momento, Bouguereau era uno de los artistas más célebres de Francia (8). Gozaba además de un éxito de mercado sin precedentes que convirtió su caso en un verdadero “fenómeno” comercial sobre todo en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra (9). Su carrera, cimentada año tras año en la Academia, era un aval inapelable al que se sumaba la gran fascinación que despertaba su pintura entre las burguesías adquisidoras del Viejo y del Nuevo Mundo. Estas pueden ser algunas de las claves para entender por qué esta obra se transformó en un objeto de deseo para su adquisidor argentino, Francisco Uriburu, en la última década del siglo XIX.
"Longuich ([ ˈlɔŋɡɪç ]) is a local community in the Trier-Saarburg district in Rhineland-Palatinate. It belongs to the municipality of Schweich on the Roman Wine Route. The place is on the right bank of the Moselle in the Moselle-Franconian language area.
Longuich is a Gallo-Roman (more precisely: Mosel-Roman) place name (pronounced: Long_gich), which is derived from a 1st-century foundation called Longus Vicus (long village, long district). The place has been inhabited since at least Roman times, as various finds indicate, in particular the Villa Urbana, whose reconstructed bathing wing can be visited.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Prussian mayor's office of Longuich emerged from the French Mairie Longuich.
Mosel (German: [ˈmoːzl̩]) is one of 13 German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) for quality wines (Qualitätswein, formerly QbA and Prädikatswein), and takes its name from the Mosel River (French: Moselle; Luxembourgish: Musel). Before 1 August 2007 the region was called Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, but changed to a name that was considered more consumer-friendly. The wine region is Germany's third largest in terms of production but some consider it the leading region in terms of international prestige.
The region covers the valleys of the rivers Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer from near the mouth of the Mosel at Koblenz and upstream to the vicinity of Trier in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The area is known for the steep slopes of the region's vineyards overlooking the river. At 65° degrees incline, the steepest recorded vineyard in the world is the Calmont vineyard located on the Mosel and belonging to the village of Bremm, and therefore referred to as Bremmer Calmont. The Mosel is mainly famous for its wines made from the Riesling grape, but Elbling and Müller-Thurgau also contribute to the production, among others.
In the past two decades red wine production, especially from the Spätburgunder (Pinot noir), has increased in the Mosel and throughout the German vignoble and has become of increasing interest to the international wine community. Because of the northerly location of the Mosel, the Riesling wines are often light, tending to lower alcohol, crisp and high in acidity, and often exhibit "flowery" rather than or in addition to "fruity" aromas. Its most common vineyard soil is derived in the main from various kinds of slate deposits, which tend to give the wines a transparent, mineralic aspect, that often exhibit great depth of flavor. In the current era of climate change much work has been done to improve and gain acceptance for completely dry ("Trocken") Rieslings in this region, so that most of the more famous makers have found acceptance for such wines, particularly in Europe." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Gedong Songo Temple is the name of a Hindu cultural heritage temple complex located in Candi village, Bandungan District, Semarang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia precisely on the slopes of Mount Ungaran. In this temple complex there are nine temples. T
Richard Ratcliffe (husband of British-Iranian Nazanin Zhagari Ratcliffe) places painted stones on the pavement outside Britain's Foreign Office for Alaa.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere for his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, are currently staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention begins to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for a genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood were elected in 2012 - the movement had progressive elements, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented by the corruption and self-interest of the main political actors, and the army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of Egypt's generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
This image should be interpreted with caution and this caption should also be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation.
The photograph, which I took during the protest on 6 September 2025 against the proscription of Palestine Action, appears to show two caring and courageous individuals.
It seems to show on the one hand a woman, protectively holding, comforting and assisting an injured photographer who is in considerable pain, while a single police officer, without the immediate protection of his colleagues, bravely attends the scene in an attempt to help.
From my position, albeit nearby, I did not hear the words exchanged nor observe all the events that led to this moment. It therefore remains unclear precisely how the photographer came to fall, though it may have occurred amid a period when several officers were moving rapidly through the crowd - see the following linked video in which it seems he might have either been pushed or tripped as a group of police officers forced their way through.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
Whether that was out of necessity or to some degree reckless is a matter of interpretation, but it is easily understandable and entirely natural if at that moment, that both protesters and police officers may have felt some degree of concern and unease when in close proximity with "the other side."
However, I have no evidence to suggest that the officer pictured was in any way responsible for the man's fall, and he appears to be seeking to help.
Reports from the day, including video footage shared by Novara Media’s Michael Walker, appear to criticise the conduct of some police officers during the protest as overly forceful, though these remarks were not directed at the specific officer shown here. Specifically in the above linked video, Walker claims the footage was "some evidence" of police officers "losing their cool."
Conversely, there were also accounts of officers facing hostility and violence from some protesters. My own observations were limited: beyond hearing chants such as “shame on you,” I did not personally witness acts of violence against the police.
I should emphasise that this description reflects only my impressions at the time, supplemented by limited subsequent reporting. I am not aware of nor can I find definitive evidence of all the circumstances, and this caption should therefore be understood as a partial and subjective interpretation.
The image is unedited from the standard jpg except that the exposure setting was increased marginally by +0.35. Lightroom Auto had suggested +0.56. Anyone is welcome to check and compare this with the original jpg image at the following url:
www.flickr.com/photos/alisdare/54787894347/in/dateposted/
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Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.
That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.
By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence.
Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offense for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carry a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime. The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.
The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign. By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.
Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.
The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation. Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion.
For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
Every day at PRECISELY 2.30 p.m. this 747 arrives a the Vancouver airport. Of course never late! Good old German precision. (If they were late they would get shot!). Lol Lol
Picked up in an internet auction, this precisely-dated Kodachrome image depicts US Navy VC-118B 128425 of VR-1 Squadron based at NAF Andrews, at Lisbon on 26 March 1963, with lots of naval gold braid in evidence. Note the TWA steps with "Royal Ambassador" titling.
The party was that of Admiral Robert Lee Dennison (April 13, 1901 - March 14, 1980). Admiral Dennison was the Commander in Chief of the United States Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANTFLT) and United States Atlantic Command (CINCLANT) from February 28, 1960 to April 30, 1963.
Long tongue, long antennae, long-horned bee, Eucera longicornis. A European (or more precisely Eurasian) lover of legumes and things for which a long tongue makes sense to use upon. I look at distribution maps of bees like these and wonder about exactly how many of these bees emerge each year. Photo: James Poindexter II. Collector: T. Peeters. Collected in the Netherlands
Photo license: CC-BY-SA. This photo can be reused as you wish. When doing so, please credit the creator (USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab) and the source (Naturalis Biodiversity Center) and adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
The specimen in this photo is provided by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands. For inquiries please contact: Frederique Bakker, email: frederique.bakker@naturalis.nl.
This image is part of the photo series ‘Cool bees of The Netherlands’. For more information: marten.schoonman@naturalis.nl
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information:
Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:
Art Photo Book: Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World:
www.amazon.com/Bees-Up-Close-Pollinators-Around-World/dp/...
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:
bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
Sanaa and Mona Seif, sister of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, an imprisoned Egyptian-British democracy activist on hunger strike, talk to the press outside Britain's Foreign Office.
Alaa is over 200 days into his 100 calorie a day hunger strike in prison in Egypt. A candle-light vigil is planned for this Sunday 6 November at 4 pm opposite 10 Downing Street.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere in the world, on account of his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt.
He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, are currently staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention begins to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)
The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
Today's random guest in Sofia and more precisely in trolleybus depot Nadezhda - Ikarus 250.59 from Ukraine. It is private owned by people who use it to travel around Europe. Documentarily it's production year is 1987th, but the owner told us that the bus had been in factory storage for at least 2 years (it's windows are produced in 1984th and 1985th).
Precisely assembled, very beautiful stone wall of the castle.
Obi-castle, Miyazaki, Japan.
PENTAX MX, TAMRON SP AF 90mm F2.8, Fujicolor PRO400H.
This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 07:39am), at an altitude of Five metres, at 07:47am on Thursday January 28th 2016 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.
I set off at 05:00am on a clear morning, the moon and the stars out to dazzle in temperatures around five degrees, on a pleanst hour and half long journey to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.
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Nikon D800 200mm 1/8000s f/5.6 iso1600 RAW (14Bit) Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Nikon AF Fine tune set to (+6).
Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. Power UP 95mm HD UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 19.05s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 19.41s
ALTITUDE: 5.0m
RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 18.02MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit
Location: Berlin - 1608km from home.
Spotting a Superleggera is always a nice experience, spotting one in yellow is extremely cool, I love yellow Lamborghinis, and I love the Superleggera. Spotting a yellow Superleggera with Russian plates is the icing on the cake.
And all this on a gray day in March, precisely one year ago. Unfortunately, the (female) owner has put her front plate somewhere completely invisible. Still, this was an amazing spot and I was really really happy.
777 = Moscow
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary%27s_Church,_Berlin
St. Mary's Church, known in German as the Marienkirche, is a church in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (formerly Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße) in central Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. The exact age of the original church site and structure is not precisely known, but it was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. It is presumed to date from earlier in the 13th century. The architecture of the building is now largely composed of comparatively modern restoration work which took place in the late 19th century and in the post-war period. The church was originally a Roman Catholic church, but has been a Lutheran Protestant church since the Protestant Reformation and a united Protestant church since the Prussian Union of churches in 1817.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,723,914 (2018) inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London. The city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with its capital, Potsdam. The two cities are at the center of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which is, with 6,004,857 (2015) inhabitants and an area of 30,370 square km, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions.
Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel (a tributary of the River Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel, and Dahme rivers (the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee). Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers, canals and lakes. The city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (1417–1701), the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), and the Third Reich (1933–1945). Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided; West Berlin became a de facto West German exclave, surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989) and East German territory. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany, while Bonn became the West German capital. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany.
Berlin is a world city of culture, politics, media and science. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras, museums, and entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an increasingly popular location for international film productions. The city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a very high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin
The Fernsehturm (English: Television Tower) is a television tower in central Berlin, Germany.
Close to Alexanderplatz in Berlin-Mitte, the tower was constructed between 1965-69 by the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was intended to be both a symbol of Communist power and of Berlin. It remains the latter today, as it is easily visible throughout the central and some suburban districts of Berlin. With its height of 368 metres (including antenna) it is the tallest structure in Germany, and the third-tallest structure in the European Union. Of four tallest structures in Europe, it is 2 m shorter than the Torreta de Guardamar, 0.5 m shorter than the Riga Radio and TV Tower, and 8 m taller than the Trbovlje Power Station in 2017. The structure is also more than 220 metres higher than the old Berlin Radio Tower in the western part of the city, which was built in the 1920s.
In addition to its main function as the location of several radio and television broadcasting stations, the building – internally known as "Fernmeldeturm 32" – serves as a viewing tower with observation deck including a bar at a height of 203 metres, as well as a rotating restaurant. Also, the Berlin TV Tower can be booked as a venue for events. The distinctive city landmark has undergone a radical, symbolic transformation: After German reunification, it changed from a politically charged, national symbol of the GDR into a citywide symbol of a reunited Berlin. Due to its universal and timeless design, it has increasingly been used as a trademark and is identified worldwide with Berlin and Germany. In 1979, the Berlin TV Tower received monument status by the GDR, a status which was perpetuated after the German reunification.
The tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of the country and is often in the establishing shot of films set in Berlin, alongside monuments such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Victory Column and the Reichstag building. It is also one of the ten most popular attractions in Germany with more than 1,000,000 visitors every year. Due to its location near Alexanderplatz, it is occasionally called Alex Tower.
NASA image acquired June 22, 2000
To see a detail of this image go here: www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5303254164/
It is the “Island of the Seven Mountains, ” or more precisely in Russian: “having seven hills.” This uninhabited volcanic island is also an important nesting area for maritime birds of the North Pacific.
Situated on the far end of the Aleutians, Semisopochnoi Island is simultaneously the most easterly and westerly point of the United States of America. Roughly 1,275 miles (2,050 kilometers) west-southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, Semisopochnoi lies near the 180-degree line of longitude, in the Rat Islands group in the western Aleutian Islands.
This pseudo-true color image was acquired on June 22, 2000, by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on Landsat 7. Colors are what you would expect: snow is white, bare ground is tan, water is blue, clouds are grey, and vegetation is green.
The seven hills of the island are volcanic peaks, each with a summit crater, including Cerberus, Sugarloaf Peak, Lakeshore Cone, Anvil Peak, Pochnoi, Ragged Top, and Three-quarter Cone. The high point of the island is Anvil Peak at 1,221meters, a double-peaked cone. The three-peaked Mount Cerberus volcano (774 meters high) grew up within the caldera as the volcanic hot spot rose up from the sea floor. Most documented eruptions have come from Cerberus, with the most recent major eruption recorded in 1873. The most recent eruption on the island, though minor, came from Sugarloaf in 1987.
Semisopochnoi has no native land mammals, so it is a natural nesting area for sea birds. But bird populations were decimated after Arctic foxes were introduced to the island for fur farming in the 19th century. In 1997, the last fox was removed from the island to allow the birds a safe refuge again. Part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (AMNWR), the island now supports more than a million seabirds, particularly auklets, according to the National Audubon Society.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data provided by the United States Geological Survey. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
Instrument: Landsat 7 - ETM+
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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All right, so they're not precisely ordered by size, but they have kind of a "Russan Nesting Drops" kind of thing going on, here.
Count Roger decided to build a temple to Saint George, his protector, in precisely the place where he won the battle against the Saracens in 1090. This explains the unusual choice of its peripheral location in respect to the town, much unlike most urbanised settings throughout the ages where the Mother Church is centrally positioned. Archaeological investigations have however revealed the sacredness of the area in times preceding the arrival of the Normans. The Church has three naves, with a series of chapels on the left hand side. Strong cylindrical and semi-octagonal pillars, with simple capitals, support pointed arches. Inside, the church boasts two precious Madonnas with Child and a marble statue of a holy Bishop in the Gagini style. The church suffered great damages during the 1968 earthquake.
An activist takes a turn with a thought-provoking reading as, Sanaa Seif, Alaa's sister (right) and other protesters gathered in solidarity with Alaa, who is over 200 days into his hunger strike in prison in Egypt. This photo was taken on the pavement, directly opposite Britain's Foreign Office in King Charles Street. Alaa is one of Egypt's leading democracy activists and holds Egyptian-British citizenship.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah has endured much of the last twelve years in some of the worst prison conditions anywhere in the world, on account of his brave work in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was last arrested in September 2019 while attending Cairo's Dokki Police Station and in December last year was sentenced to five years imprisonment for "spreading false news undermining state security." More precisely, he had shared social media posts explaining the hell-hole reality of Egyptian prison conditions.
PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE
When this photo was taken, Alaa's two sisters, Mona and Sana'a Seif, were staging a protest in London's King Charles Street outside the British Foreign Office in the hope that the Egyptian government can be pressured to release him, as media attention began to focus on the upcoming COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt's Red Sea coast.
UPDATE AS OF WEDNESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2022
Starting from Sunday 6 November, Alaa escalated his hunger strike, and stopped taking water. His sister Sanaa Seif took a flight the same weekend to attend the COP27 conference at Sharm El Sheikh in a last-minute effort to save Alaa's life.
For the latest on Alaa's situation listen to his sister's Sanaa Seif's speech to journalists attending the conference on Tuesday 8 November - "They are very happy for him to die. The only thing they care about is that it doesn't happen while the world is watching."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXibJ7PUTY
TORA PRISON - "A DAY HERE, IS LIKE A YEAR IN BELMARSH"
In April, Alaa began his hunger strike in a cell in one of the most secure sections of Cairo's sprawling and notorious Tora Prison - a maze of grim high concrete walls and watch towers, which strike fear into even the thousands of commuters who have to pass daily.
In 2012, one young Londoner confined to one of the least uncomfortable and most survivable wings of Tora prison, contrasted it with his own previous experience at Britain's high security Belmarsh. I can never forget his exact words. "A day here, is like a year at Belmarsh!" A little over 12 months later, he died of TB - the prison authorities had refused to listen to the pleas of his aunt, who fell on her knees during a rare visit, begging that he be admitted to the prison hospital.
ALAA'S HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES AT WADI EL NATRUN PRISON
More than 200 days have passed since Alaa started his hunger strike. He has now been moved to the Wadi El Natrun prison complex in the desert north of Cairo, dubbed by inmates as the "Valley of Hell."
He may not survive much longer. However, as he holds British-Egyptian nationality, one would hope that the British government would be doing everything they could to secure his immediate release and it would be reasonable to suppose that the Foreign Office could get an immediate pledge in this regard, especially given that the British companies, including the likes of British Petroleum and BP, are the biggest investors in Egypt.
NO CONSULAR ACCESS
However, the British government have failed even to get him any consular access - think about that. That's an outrage. Even a convicted mass murderer, if British, would be entitled to consular access while in prison. That meeting would obviously not take place in his cell - but in a designated room in the prison or the highly supervised prison visiting area.
British men and women convicted of drug smuggling and other crimes in Egypt have received consular visits, so why not Alaa? The answer is because Alaa's crime is that he dared to tell the truth about Egypt, and the injustice both inside and outside its many prison walls. Nobody knows exactly how many political prisoners Egypt now has, but the number is estimated to be at least 60,000.
ALAA WAS ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN
Alaa Abd El-Fattah was one of the leaders of arguably the most inspirational democratic revolt the world has seen in the last hundred years. Although the first phase of the 2011 uprising in Egypt lasted just 18 days, and although it followed the toppling of the dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia - the streets and bridges around Tahrir Square became a deadly stage watched by the world, where protesters from every walk of life were pitted against Egypt's feared state security forces. Against all the odds, and at the cost of many lives, Egyptians refused to leave the square, sleeping in front of the tanks and fending off attacks from government militia.
The Egyptian people's initial success in toppling the dictator Mubarak led to further revolts not just across the Middle East (most notably in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria) - the highly organised Tahrir-Square sit-in provided the inspiration for strikes and workplace sit-ins against austerity across the United States and Europe and to the Occupy Movement of the same year. The people of Egypt showed that it does not matter how brutal, feared and authoritarian a government is, it can be toppled if people act collectively.
THE MILITARY BACKLASH
It's true that Egypt's flirtation with the path to greater freedom seemed to be only temporary - the Egyptian authorities deployed the usual divide and rule tactics - encouraging the less committed protesters to return home - and then rushed to elections without allowing time for genuinely democratic opposition parties to develop.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in 2012 - the Brotherhood (contrary to the perception many people have here in the West) had genuinely progressive elements within it, but the chance for any transformative radical programme was prevented partly by the corruption and self-interest of some of the main political actors and partly by opposition to its democratic mandate from the deep state (the military, the Interior Ministry, State Security, the police etc.)
The army, seeing its chance, seized power in 2013, superficially in the name of the people, but in reality, to advance the interests of the generals. The new president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, moved quickly to crush all opposition, and ordering his security forces to attack Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had gathered in eastern Cairo at Rabaa al-Adaweya Square, killing at least 800 people - the bloodiest massacre of civilians in Egypt's modern history.
DON'T ALLOW EGYPT TO USE COP27 TO GREENWASH ITS REGIME - AND PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO SAVE ALAA
Now COP27 is scheduled to take place in Sharm El-Sheikh and Sisi has been given a golden opportunity to greenwash his murderous regime, which has also seen ever increasing levels inequality and corruption. While British representatives at COP27 will be given accommodation in the most luxurious five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and fall asleep listening to the sound of the waves, another British citizen, Alaa Abdel El-Fatah is near death, on a painful hunger strike in the darkest of places - his dimly lit cell. The only thing he might hear at night is the desperate cry from some prisoner in another cell appealing for medical help which most likely never comes.
If we care for freedom, real democracy and justice, we can't allow the British Foreign Office to forget Alaa - especially if it's simply not to upset the highly profitable relationship British multinationals have with one of the world's most authoritarian and corrupt regimes - a relationship which only benefits the wealthiest of Egyptians.
If you live in London, please show your support at the protest at King Charles Street - and wherever you live please sign the petition -
www.change.org/p/help-free-my-brother-before-it-s-too-lat...
Kedung Kayang is a waterfall located between Mount Merapi and Mount Merbabu, precisely in Wonolelo Village, Sawangan, Magelang. This waterfall is located at an altitude of 950 meters above sea level. The height of this waterfall is 40 m with a slope of 80 degrees. The name Kedung Kayang came from three masters namely Empu Putut, Empu Panggung, Empu Empu Khalik who held a meeting to fight strength. Tanding Balang is a throwing contest conducted by the three masters. In the Suro Month (Muharrom) the match was held. The masters throw eggs throwing goose eggs into kedung and eggs that don't break then he wins. It turned out that all the eggs were broken and the Masters went down the cliff to enter Kedung and strangely they did not find the eggshell. So from Kedung it issued a spring that did not run out for a year.
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quantum_theory_of_observation/Quant...
Quantum theory of observation - Thierry Dugnolle
Quantum physics for dummies
Fundamental principles and concepts
Examples of measurements
Entanglement
General theory of measurement
The forest of destinies
The appearance of relative classical worlds in the quantum Universe
Quantum entanglement is the fundamental concept to explain the reality of observation.
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Wave-particle duality
Is light a flow of particles or a wave phenomenon ? Light rays could be particle paths and they were regarded thus by Newton in his Optics. Light reflection in a mirror is then naturally interpreted with the hypothesis that particles of light, or photons, are like bouncing balls. Nevertheless Huygens argued that this phenomenon and others were better interpreted with the hypothesis that light rays are perpendicular lines to wave fronts.
Photography gives an evidence of the existence of particles of light, for traces left by light are always like impacts of particles.
But if light is made of particles how can we explain interference patterns such as those found by Young and Fresnel ? Interference is always interference between waves. It seems there can not be any interference with particles. An interference pattern is an experimental evidence that light is a wave phenomenon. It is confirmed by Maxwell's theory of electomagnetism, which defines light as an electromagnetic wave.
That light be made of particles is not contradicted by the existence of interference patterns. Here is what we can see if we look at how an interference pattern appears on a photographic plate (see photo - animated in original publication)
The wave phenomenon, interference, results from impacts of particles.
The superposition principle gives a very direct explanation of wave-particle duality. Any physical system is a particle or a system of particles, but these behave sometimes like waves because they can be in many places at the same time. The wave of a particle or of a system of particles determines its diffuse presence.
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/qt-entangle/
1. Quantum Entanglement
In 1935 and 1936, Schrödinger published a two-part article in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in which he discussed and extended an argument by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) argument was, in many ways, the culmination of Einstein’s critique of the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and was designed to show that the theory is incomplete. (See the entries on the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument in quantum theory and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.)
In classical mechanics the state of a system is essentially a list of the system’s properties — more precisely, it is the specification of a set of parameters from which the list of properties can be reconstructed: the positions and momenta of all the particles comprising the system (or similar parameters in the case of fields).
The dynamics of the theory specifies how properties change in terms of a law of evolution for the state. In a letter to Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli characterized this mode of description of physical systems as a ‘detached observer’ idealization (see The Born-Einstein Letters, Born, 1992; p. 218).
On the Copenhagen interpretation, such a description is not possible for quantum systems. Instead, the quantum state of a system should be understood as a catalogue of what an observer has done to the system and what has been observed, and the import of the state then lies in the probabilities that can be inferred (in terms of the theory) for the outcomes of possible future observations on the system.
Einstein rejected this view and proposed a series of arguments to show that the quantum state is simply an incomplete characterization of a quantum system. The missing parameters are sometimes referred to as ‘hidden parameters’ or ‘hidden variables.’
It should not be supposed that Einstein’s notion of a complete theory included the requirement that the theory should be deterministic. Rather, he required certain conditions of separability and locality for composite systems consisting of separated component systems: each component system separately should be characterized by its own properties (its own ‘being-thus,’ as Einstein put it — ‘So-sein’ in German), and it should be impossible to alter the properties of a distant system instantaneously (or the probabilities of these properties) by acting on a local system.
In later analyses, notably in Bell’s argument for the nonlocality of quantum correlations, it became apparent that these conditions, suitably formulated as probability constraints, are equivalent to the requirement that statistical correlations between separated systems should be reducible to probability distributions over common causes (deterministic or stochastic) in the sense of Reichenbach. (See the entries on Bell’s theorem and Reichenbach’s common cause principle.)
my take on a classic. I was watching American Pickers and saw some awesome old Posters so I made this tablescrap. I always enjoyed the old monster movies. Godzilla was another of my favorites.
The comet was drifting toward north in Ursa Major. Dust coma was faint, though bluish green ion halo was big. My rig did not work precisely at the nigh, and exposure was far shorter than usual. North is up, and east is to the left.
This small comet passes the perihelion, 1.027AU from Sun on July 1, 2023. It is near Polaris, though moon is bright at the date. It comes nearest, 0.375AU from Earth on August 18, 2023.
Earth Distance: 0.769 AU
Sun Distance: 1.255 AU
equipment: Guan Sheng Optical Ritchey–Chrétien telescope RC-CF 10" f8 with Aigrette Pattern Mask on The Vanes, TS Extension for The Baffle Tube, TS 2.5" field flattener, and Canon EOS R-SP4II, modified by Seo-san on ZWO AM5 Equatorial Mount, autoguided at a star nearby with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens. `Pentax x2 Extender. ZWO ASI 120MM-mini, and PHD2 Guiding with comet tracking on
Exposure: 6 times 60 seconds at ISO 6,400 and f/8
The exposure started at 13:14:59UTC May 17, 2023. My rig did not work precisely, and guiding was very poor time to time. I could not make exposure longer than minutes. I could not find out the cause. I selected some better frames and made this poor frame. Exposure was not enough utterly.
site: 1,250m above sea level at lat. 36 14 35 North and long. 138 36 22 East near Uchiyama Farm Saku Nagano 長野県佐久市 内山牧場
Sky looked clear, though there was slowly falling sparse mist. Ambient temperature was around 15 degrees Celsius or 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and SQM-L was up to 21.16 at the night. Wind was mild. Atmospheric turbulence was not so bad in the season, and guide error RMS was around 1".
I don't know precisely what it is that fascinates me about waterdrops. Maybe it's because that in such a simple thing lies such complexity -- the shape of the drop, the way it plays on the surface or hangs from beneath, the manner in which it serves as funhouse mirror with its mad refractions, the fact that waterdrops form differently on different surfaces (flower petal, edge of a blade, skin, the forehead of a chimpanzee, the lip of a North Korean rocket booster, the gall bladder of a 59-year-old-man).
Such a simple thing.
But so very complex.
So, today, an ode to that elegance. I give a single waterdrop! Ta-da!
(EDIT: Anybody else having Flickr problems? Slow loads, or error pages? I'm getting 'em.)
January 2020:
It’s nearly been a year since the dimensional encounter. Now that I’ve rejoined the Flickr Fighters under various circumstances, there has been the imminent threat I’ve been facing personally:
Salient. The same man I was but from another dimension, much more cruel, evil and tainted. I’ve had encounters with him since then.
Which leads me to think that I need to strengthen my team—the black ops, which I formed in the last half of 2019, June, precisely, but it never really got any team building since I was still on long vacation till Phorus and the actual Dr Gravestein showed up.
Doc: “1 missed call from Jacky. You’ve got a shipment to deliver from Anchorage.”
Multi: “Hold up on that one. Tell him to send it right now—the anti-contagion samples should be here.”
Doc: “I’m at John Hopkins. My research team is available anytime. We’re going to work on the cure for the homeless in no time. Get some break, John. Some sunshine.”
Multi: “I’m worn out from the mission. I need to head back to Advent City in two days.”
Doc: “I can’t accompany you. Ask Viva. She’s your designated AI. And remember to feed the dog. I left some food a week ago.”
Multi: “Alright, thanks man.”
Doc: “I gotta hang up now. You do you. Always welcome.”
I sigh, staring at the ceiling after doing my quick morning workout. Life is surely busy since the formation, and since my relocation to Baltimore. Doc got a nice transfer so I guess he’s got an official job for now.
My company split, but I still retained some of the employees, as we built a new one again here. Thankfully going to Advent City doesn’t require that long because I’ve got the teleporters working.
I wake up two days later, laying on my couch after a hard night’s work, and hanging out with my dog, Sonny and my AI, Viva.
Doc: Jon, with the last shipment we’ll be able to help out the last batch of people. Corona is in effect and this is worse than it’s supposed to be. I have no idea how you’re gonna we’re all gonna get through this though…
Multi: “Only one can hope.”
***
Late April, 2020:
Three months later, I’ve been caught up with the third season of Westworld. Our work doesn’t stop like giving cures. Bailey, Doc’s 8 year old niece, was left in my care as I was her godfather. Her mother is a technician, and her job often required last shifts like her brother. Since I was available when needed, I went over to her house for the day.
Bailey: Uncle Jon! Can I play with Sonny and video games?
Multi: “Have you finished your work yet?”
Bailey: “Yes!”
Multi: “Okay good, I’m almost done making dinner, you can play if you want.”
She starts up her PS4 as I bring the food and chips near the desk. We sit down on the floor as Viva, my AI computer, helps prepare with Sonny’s food.
Multi: “What are we playing today? A Lego game?”
Bailey: “Yeah, the complete saga. It’s my favourite!”
Multi: “I knew you liked superhero stuff. Same like me, we’re nerds but your uncle isn’t.”
Bailey: “He doesn’t like it, I know he has powers like you…but what about me?”
Multi: “Have you talked to your mom about it?”
Bailey: “Nah, she’d kill me if she finds out…the girls at school think I’m a weirdo anyways...I don’t have much friends.”
Multi: “Well that’s fair, I don’t have much as well but you gotta take steps to becoming a superhero, right?”
Bailey: “Yup. Uncle Jon, the food was pretty good, are you gonna play as Lando?”
Multi: “Yeah sure I’ll be Lando, but just play around first—I’ll be doing some dishes.”
Suddenly my comm rings as the screen shows a live feed of an explosion.
Multi: “Viva, take care of Bailey and everything else. There’s a villain in town.”
Viva: “Yes sir, that is noted.”
Bailey: “Stay safe, uncle Jon.”
Multi: “I will.”
I get through the backdoor and suit up as quick as possible, before jumping on a nearby roof. My watch scans for evidence, realizing Faceglass is in town for..a rematch?
He stands by a gas station, using his shards to blow it up and causing a big fire. I notify Doc about the situation as well as her mother to keep it handy.
Multi: “Dodds, you’re really slobbering on your appetizer like that? Why are you even here anyways?”
Faceglass: “Revenge, of course. I just took town a construction building, just for the sake of trying to get approved.”
Multi: “Oh well, that’s your etiquette anyways. I like the makeup though. Looks good on you.”
Faceglass: “I…shut up, Sharp!”
He hates the mockery about his face, that’s why. From the facial surgery to our battles, it’s quite never-ending. He came close to injuring me once when he used sand to pierce my body, and that did hella hurt.
But he can’t be here for revenge. It’s either for a bank robbery, whatever his narcissistic goals take him, or Salient’s plans. I guess I do need to ask him.
Multi: “C’mon Dodds, just explain to me why we’re doing this pointless exchange of glass and energy.”
Faceglass: “Plain old revenge. You know me.”
Multi: “I’m sorry is that every line you use in your job interviews?”
Faceglass: “I…no, no no! Of course not. I go after for handsome people like you, because stalking’s in my blood. Thos workers didn’t agree with my face.”
Multi: “Not the most plausible excuse, honestly. You’ve forgotten the therapy sessions we did a lot together as buddies…”
Faceglass: “I’m after a person who isn’t you, okay?! Not your face, it’s your friend!”
Multi: “The doctor?”
He launches a barrel of shards towards me as I generate an energy shield, managing to hold it off as turn invisible, unleashing my left hand’s energy punch and slams him across the road. A woman closely stands but I nod to her scared face as she runs away.
Amidst the flames, I walk towards his unconscious body. He seems to be knocked out from the effort but I realize a body emerging. I grab my gun from my pocket, only to see Doc kneeling over Dodds, his eyes in grey as he places his palm on his face.
What is even going on?
Multi: “Doc? What the heck are you even doing here?”
Doc: “I teleported all the way across. Rene’s back home now, so thanks for that.”
Multi: “How’d you do that anyways?”
Doc: “What do you mean?”
Multi: “Your eyes were white…it’s like you were draining him. Normally you don’t have that power and often you use gadgets or your physician skills.”
Doc: “No idea, Jon. I didn’t drain him like Rogue did, I just touched his face and he knocked out.”
Multi: “The heck?”
Doc: “We’ll talk about this when we get home. I’ve called the authorities…”
**Flickr Fighters base, Advent City, New York, 12:16: P.M**
Viva: “Sir, it shows no vital signs of Doc’s abilities have gone haywire. Though now it has turned his right arm permanently gray.”
Multi: “Right. I think we should contact Ethereal, no?”
Viva: “That would be a good idea. Perhaps, some meditation first?”
Multi: “In a bit.”
I walk down the aisles of the FF’s halls, with Doc behind me.
Recur: “Mr Sharp! You’re back! I hope quarantine has been treating you well.”
Flex: “Welcome home again!”
Rift: “We’re glad to see you here again, Multi. And Doc as well.”
I am surrounded with questions and greetings as my teammates from the black ops and the main group follow me around, which until it gets to lunchtime, I hang around at the cafeteria until deciding to attend to some…recent matters.
Viva says he’s been having an intake of food, so that’s good. Doc’s been experimenting on himself in the labs right after we landed, so I’d be checking on him.
Multi: “What’s up with you having those powers anyway?”
Doc: “I don’t know, I did my own self-diagnosis…it’s been going on for weeks.”
Multi: “And you haven’t bothered to tell me while we’re saving the world? Not even to Rene? Or Bailey?”
Doc: “I know my niece is developing something, my sister doesn’t…I thought I hadn’t been in line of passing powers on like her father.”
Multi: “Isn’t he dead? What about your parents?”
Doc: “I did a DNA sweep, there’s no genes in them. I asked Bailey to give a blood sample willingly to test for it. I don’t even know what’s that power but if I had a latent jumpstart, that’s what I’m doing.”
Multi: “So you hide these secrets behind me? I’m not taking credit alone for apprehending Dodds, but your power is unstable, we don’t know. It just looked like you took his life.”
Doc: “I didn’t mean to, okay? Jon, give me a break, I’m working on it, alright? Don’t worry…”
***
I sigh as I leave the hall and go to my room to meditate. Another session with the energy realm. Ethereal says that Doc’s power was also unknown to her as she couldn’t detect it. She says it might be a healing power, even if I could try to sense his, it won’t work because it’s a different set.
Half an hour later I receive a new alert for a mission again, in Prague. Bummer. I run to the assembly hall for the briefing. LC says it’s a black ops thing, so I assemble Sapphire, Rong0, Mystery and Milan for the mission. Doc’s staying out so I ask Viva to keep an eye on him, as well as LC.
Multi: “I hope he’s staying safe though, just don’t go building extra security cameras around, Ben.”
LC: “I value everyone’s privacy, of course. But yeah, I’ll let you know if Viva and I find anything.”
Multi: “Alright, see you later.”
(To be continued…..)
(This issue is also partially dedicated to me and my godmother’s favourite Pomeranian, Sonny, who passed away a month ago on the 10th.)
Südafrika - Kleine Karoo
Red Stone Hills
Sunset - Sonnenuntergang
The Karoo (/kəˈruː/ kə-ROO; from a Khoikhoi word, possibly garo "desert") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. There is no exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo, and therefore its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate — above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.
The Karoo is sharply divided into the Great Karoo and the Little Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain Range, which runs east-west, parallel to the southern coastline, but is separated from the sea by another east-west range called the Outeniqua –Langeberg Mountains. The Great Karoo lies to the north of the Swartberg range; the Little Karoo is to the south of it.
The Little Karoo is separated from the Great Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain range. Geographically, it is a 290 km long valley, only 40–60 km wide, formed by two parallel Cape Fold Mountain ranges, the Swartberg to the north, and the continuous Langeberg-Outeniqua range to the south. The northern strip of the valley, within 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is most un-karoo-like, in that it is a well watered area both from the rain, and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Little Karoo: Montagu, Barrydale, Ladismith, Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn and De Rust, as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar, Amalienstein, and Dysselsdorp.
The southern 30–50 km wide strip, north of the Langeberg range is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains.
The Little Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. There is also the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, that crosses the mountains to the south via the Outeniqua Pass. The only exit from the Little Karoo that does not involve crossing a mountain range is through the 150 km long, narrow Langkloof valley between Uniondale and Humansdorp, near Plettenberg Bay.
(Wikipedia)
Die Karoo (auch Karroo, früher Karru; Khoisan für Halbwüste) ist eine Halbwüstenlandschaft in den Hochebenen des Landes Südafrika, nördlich der Großen Randstufe und im südlichen Namibia. Unterschieden werden Kleine Karoo, Große Karoo und Obere Karoo sowie Sukkulentenkaroo und Nama-Karoo. Mit einer Ausdehnung von 500.000 km² umfasst die Karoo fast ein Drittel des Territoriums Südafrikas. Die Sukkulentenkaroo gehört zu den Biodiversitäts-Hotspots der Erde und wird u. a. im Rahmen von BIOTA AFRICA systematisch kartiert.
Der Name Karoo kommt von kurú (trocken) aus der Sprache der San, die einst hier lebten und jagten. In Hinsicht auf die geographische Ausdehnung des Karoo-Begriffs sind die folgenden Teilaspekte zu beachten und voneinander zu unterscheiden.
Die Karoo als Landschaft im traditionellen Verständnis ist eine südafrikanische Trockenregion innerhalb der Provinzen Westkap, Ostkap und Nordkap sowie im Süden Namibias. Ihre spezifische kapländische Strauchvegetation weist sie als Halbwüste aus. Ursprünglich wird in zwei Regionen unterschieden: Große Karoo und Kleine Karoo.
Die Große Karoo besitzt eine West-Ost-Ausdehnung von über 750 Kilometern und eine Nord-Süd-Ausdehnung von etwa 110 Kilometern. Sie wird im Westen vom Massiv der Zederberge und im Osten durch die Winterberge begrenzt. Im Norden bilden die Bergketten vom Roggeveld-, Koms-, Nuweveldberge und Sneeuberg und im Süden die Höhenzüge der Witteberge, Groot Swartberge und die Groot Winterhoek die natürliche Begrenzung.
Südlich dieser Region schließt sich die Kleine Karoo an. Diese wird wiederum an ihrer südlichen Flanke von den küstennahen Langebergen und Outeniqua-Bergen begrenzt.
Anders als in dieser traditionellen Gliederung, wird die Karoo heute nach ökologischen Gesichtspunkten in einen östlichen Teil, die Nama-Karoo, und einen westlichen Teil, die Sukkulenten-Karoo, gegliedert, wobei auch die Gesamtausdehnung der Karoo nach diesem Konzept von jener der traditionellen Betrachtungsweise abweicht.
(Wikipedia)
Die Little Karoo (englisch, auf Afrikaans Klein Karoo) ist eine Region in der Western Cape Provinz in Südafrika.
Durch die Little Karoo zieht sich die Route 62.
Die Klein Karoo ist ein halbwüstenartiger Landstrich, der zwischen den Swartbergen im Norden und den Outeniqua-Bergen im Süden liegt. Die Gegend ist fruchtbar und nicht ganz so trocken wie die nördlich anschließende Große Karoo. Die Kleine Karoo ist bekannt für die Straußenzucht, allein in der Umgebung von Oudtshoorn gibt es angeblich über 400 Betriebe, landwirtschaftliche Nutztiere der Region sind auch Schafe und Angoraziegen.
Die Kleine Karoo ist das östlichste Weinbaugebiet Südafrikas. Muskatweine, Portweine und Desertweine gedeihen in dem recht trockenen Klima, ein Teil des Weines wird zu Brandy verarbeitet. Auch das hier angebaute Obst wird teilweise zu Schnaps verarbeitet, man bekommt aber auch überall recht preisgünstig getrocknete Früchte.
(wikivoyage.org)
Location: Berlin
Almost precisely 5 years after I've made this spot, Scuderias seem more valuable than ever. Special edition Ferrairs always have a certain exclusivity to them, even though I was lucky enough with 430s. This particular car could often be seen in Berlin and in addition to the matte gray wrap used also featured some Novitec head lights. Although the car was just wrapped like that, it did look quite stunning. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the car in a while now, it's probably gone or tucked away.
Karlu Karlu, also known as Karlwekarlwe or Devil's Marbles, is a holy site of Aborigines (more precisely of the Kayeteye, the Whyungu, the Anmatyerre and the Alyawarre) in the Australian desert. It is located about 100 kilometers south of Tennant Creek in Northern Territory in Central Australia (Red Center). The area includes a few thousand round granite rocks.
The meaning of the term Karlu Karlu is a round object. For the Aboriginals, however, the name includes more than a simple description of the situation. After your tradition, the rocks around the eggs of the rainbow snake are from the dreamtime. The site therefore plays a very important role in the ceremonies and legends of the indigenous people. In most associated rituals and stories, it is a secret knowledge that is not made accessible outer. It is known, however, that the indigenous people are convinced that beings live in the caves under stones from the dream time.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arlu_karlu
- - -
Karlu Karlu, auch bekannt als Karlwekarlwe oder Devil’s Marbles (engl. Murmeln des Teufels), ist eine heilige Stätte der Aborigines (genauer der Kaytetye, der Warumungu, der Anmatyerre und der Alyawarre) in der australischen Wüste. Sie liegt etwa 100 Kilometer südlich des Ortes Tennant Creek im Northern Territory in Zentralaustralien (Red Centre). Das Gebiet umfasst einige tausend runde Granitfelsen.
Die Bedeutung des Begriffs Karlu Karlu ist rundes Objekt. Für die Aborigines umfasst der Name aber mehr als eine einfache Beschreibung der Sachlage. Nach ihrer Überlieferung handelt es sich bei den Felsen um die Eier der Regenbogenschlange aus der Traumzeit. Die Stätte spielt daher in den Zeremonien und Legenden der Ureinwohner eine sehr große Rolle. Bei den meisten damit in Verbindung stehenden Ritualen und Geschichten handelt es sich um geheimes Wissen, welches Außenstehenden nicht zugänglich gemacht wird. Bekannt ist jedoch, dass die Ureinwohner davon überzeugt sind, dass Wesen aus der Traumzeit in den Höhlen unter Steinen wohnen.
Mehr lesen: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlu_Karlu
Long tongue, long antennae, long-horned bee, Eucera longicornis. A European (or more precisely Eurasian) lover of legumes and things for which a long tongue makes sense to use upon. I look at distribution maps of bees like these and wonder about exactly how many of these bees emerge each year. Photo: James Poindexter II. Collector: T. Peeters. Collected in the Netherlands
Photo license: CC-BY-SA. This photo can be reused as you wish. When doing so, please credit the creator (USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab) and the source (Naturalis Biodiversity Center) and adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
The specimen in this photo is provided by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands. For inquiries please contact: Frederique Bakker, email: frederique.bakker@naturalis.nl.
This image is part of the photo series ‘Cool bees of The Netherlands’. For more information: marten.schoonman@naturalis.nl
~~~~~~~~~~{{{{{{0}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~
All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information:
Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde
You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:
Art Photo Book: Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World:
www.amazon.com/Bees-Up-Close-Pollinators-Around-World/dp/...
Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:
bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus
www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
ENGLISH :
... and more precisely the diversity and wealth of pre-Columbian cultures that successively inhabited this continent.
Now I actually cannot say with certainty precisely which of Sam's builds inspired this - probably the Lotus-esque one, but that's good enough for me, so take that copyright police!
IRL the cow horns do not exist in trans, but conversely the solid ones should match the non-trans front nicely. Meanwhile digital gives us all the freedom which I believe we oughta use as appropriate.