Right energy mix elusive despite rich resources

Massive exploration was under way in both the coal and uranium industries 60 years ago as electricity demand soared after World War II. In the early 1950s, Australia embarked on a revolutionary plan to build and operate a nuclear power plant at Mt Isa in north-west Queensland.

Around the same time, state governments piled money into boosting exploration and development of coal deposits in a bid to supply the growing steel industry.

Within a decade, the industrialisation and urbanisation of Japan, and the Asian tigers in the 1970s and 1980s, provided a ready market for high-quality black coal while nuclear power was stymied by a combination of government opposition and wider community concerns.

The decisions (and dithering) made in that decade have gone a long way to shaping Australia’s resources industry. Six decades on the nuclear industry remains at a standstill, with no facilities in operation despite the country holding the second largest uranium reserves in the world.

By the 1960s, as pastoral exports began to decline, so too did Australia’s relationship with Britain. The ramping up of large-scale exports of iron ore, coal and aluminium resulted in a geographical change in our most important export markets. By 1967 Japan, previously a bit-part player in commodities, had overtaken Britain as Australia’s largest export destination. By the 1980s, it was taking a third of all exports, with China and Korea also turning into important partners.

Coal, although eclipsed by oil in the 1960s as the world’s most widely used energy source, remains a bedrock of Australia’s export sector to this day. Japan continues to import around 40 per cent of Australia’s black coal supplies, followed by South Korea, Taiwan and China.

While Japan’s industrial cartels still hold plenty of sway for both Australian and global commodity markets, China’s insatiable hunger for Australia’s high-quality iron ore has fundamentally reshaped Australia’s mining sector.

China’s metamorphosis into the world’s largest steel maker has fed an extraordinary iron ore boom for dozens of multinational and local miners.

Some 70 per cent of West Australia’s Pilbara iron ore is shipped directly to Chinese buyers.

Today, booming mining exports to Asia mean Australian miners and oil and gas firms are on the cusp of splurging a whopping $90 billion on new mines, roads and equipment, marking the biggest investment boom in the nation’s history.

Capital expenditure on minerals and energy projects that are committed to or already under construction is estimated to have reached a record $173.5 billion in April, a massive 31 per cent increase from October.

With global consumption of natural resources expected to triple to 127 billion tonnes a year by 2050, the future mix of Australia’s resources industry will be driven by coal and iron ore along with one relatively new but growing entrant to the country’s export mix: liquefied natural gas.

Australia is poised to become the world’s second largest gas exporter after Qatar, with plans to increase production fourfold to 100 million tonnes a year by 2015. The development of unconventional gas sources is also tipped for massive growth given the International Energy Agency expects global gas demand to double by 2050.

The US Department of Energy has estimated Australia has the potential to hold almost 400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale gas, with the potential to emulate the gas production boom under way in North America. The total includes about 85 trillion cubic feet in the Cooper Basin, twice as much gas as at Chevron’s huge Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia.

Renewables also have a major part to play, though much of the success of solar and wind initiatives will hinge on the federal government’s ambitious pledge to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

Treasury’s long-term modelling, released as part of the carbon tax package, predicts the renewable sector could be expected to grow 18 times its current size by 2050. Yet it is difficult to see how Australia will hit such a target without a contribution from nuclear power.

While more expensive than both gas and coal, it remains a cheaper alternative to renewables and is a reliable producer of baseload power.

Sixty years on, Australia still finds itself grappling with trying to find the right energy mix.

The Australian Financial Review


What goes up must come down, and not the other way around, right?

Wrong. Drive somewhere like Confusion Hill in California or Magnetic Mountain in Canada, put your car in neutral, and watch one of the most widely accepted laws of physics turn on its head. Your car will seem to defy gravity, slowly rolling uphill.

Science Channel Put your car in neutral at the bottom of a gravity hill, and it will appear to roll uphill.

Gravity hills, also known as magnetic hills, mystery spots, and spook hills, have been popping up by the hundreds all over the world. Visitors are flooding to these sites, even paying small fees to experience the eery, seemingly supernatural effects of what has been referred to as “antigravity.”

So what's really going on?

There are many possible explanations for what could make an object break one of the sacred laws of science:  Mysterious magnetic sources beneath the earth’s surface could be slowly pulling you towards them. A glitch in spacetime could cause the laws of physics to unravel into backwards chaos. An army of angry ghosts could be muscling your car to the top of the hill with nothing but their bare ghost hands.

Or maybe it’s just an optical illusion.

All of these sites have one thing in common (other than their apparent disregard for gravity): the horizon is either curved or obstructed from view. This is key. Horizons provide us with a very useful reference point when we're trying to judge the slope of a surface. A study published in Psychological Science in 2003 found that false horizon lines can be deceiving to observers perceiving landscapes.

Phenomenal Travel Videos A ball rolling on a gravity hill appears to stop and roll back up the hill.

Without a true horizon in sight, objects such as trees and walls — which your eyes use as visual clues to determine perpendicularilty — can play tricks on you. If these objects are leaning slightly, they might make you think you're looking at a downward slope, when in actuality you may simply be looking at a flat (or even uphill!) surface.


Rainier Christian Schools

Superintendent of Schools

Rainier Christian Schools
Renton, Washington, United States

Date Posted: 03/12/2014
Categories: Education
Job Type: Full-Time

Job Description:

Rainier Christian Schools (RCS) is accepting resumes for its Superintendent position.  RCS has three elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school located throughout South King County, Washington.  It has a vision to “develop the whole person for the glory of God” by serving 675 students and their families. The Superintendent is the spiritual, educational, financial, and administrative leader of RCS. The Superintendent's chief responsibility is to promote the continuous Christian walk and growth of students, faculty, and staff. The Superintendent is to provide visionary, pastoral, and biblically sound spiritual leadership to RCS. As the education leader, the Superintendent is responsible for improving student achievement; setting high learning expectations; and developing, communicating, and implementing a vision for comprehensive school improvement. The Superintendent is to provide leadership in the development of the financial and physical resources of RCS. Candidates need a proven ability of financial stewardship and management.  The Superintendent is to lead the administrative team to ensure unity, cooperation, and problem resolution; shepherd and support the administration and staff spiritually at RCS; provide biblical accountability and discipleship; and ensure that RCS policies are implemented at all levels.  The Superintendent's leadership enables the staff and faculty to serve the needs of the student to whom God has entrusted to RCS.

The Superintendent is accountable to the RCS Board of Directors for the continued operation of RCS in accord with Biblical principles and the policies adopted by the Board. This is a twelve month position with a salary range of $65,000 to $79,000 DOE.  Benefits include medical paid 100 percent by employer, 50 percent tuition discount, sick leave, and vacation. Resumes may be sent to the RCS Board of Directors at

Job Duties:

The Superintendent carries the full obligation of implementing the policies of the RCS Board of Directors.  In addition there are specific tasks that have been assigned by the Board to the Superintendent.  These tasks include but are not limited to:

  1. Identifying, hiring, evaluating, disciplining and/or termination of Administrators and other supervisory personnel.
  2. Develop and propose the salary schedule for the Administration, faculty, and staff.
  3. Oversee and provide guidance in the hiring, training, discipline and dismissal of faculty and staff by the Administrators.
  4. Act as the focal point for the administrative team in preparation of the annual budget.
  5. Provide leadership in the development of the educational programs, including but not limited to, curriculum enrichment and integration, accreditation, teacher skills enhancement, resource acquisition and maintenance.
  6. Provide leadership in the development and use of facilities, including acquisition, building and maintenance.
  7. Act as the lead representative of RCS in educational, governmental, civic, community, and church forums.
  8. Provide leadership in the managing of RCS finances to ensure that expenditures are in line with the approved budget.
  9. Handle serious discipline issues.


Josué Michels

Advancing Blockchain Technologies and the World’s New Banking System

Will technological advancements once again change the course of the world?

The seemingly impossible is suddenly reality: The German people have found an alternative to Merkel! What now?

Terrorist attacks on Christmas markets and New Year’s Eve celebrations once again raise the question: Where is God as humanity suffers?

With the euro crisis, the Russian threat, the refugee crisis and Brexit, many leading European politicians are expressing doubt in the continuity of the EU. Did the dream of the United States of Europe fail?

Faced with the unfathomable, Europe unites in fear.

Europe’s identity crisis as seen from its diary

Are you concerned about the present state of the world?

Bitcoin, fintech, blockchain—will it affect me?

German bishops remind politicians of their Christian obligation.

Remembering millions who lost their lives in World War I

The Vatican stretches forth its hand to rescue a tumbling Latin American nation.

Fintech, Blockchain, Start-ups, Banking Revolution … but what about me?

It might sound paradoxical, but there is good news despite today’s horrific headlines.

Striking Bavaria means striking the Catholic heart of a sleeping lion.

A new white paper for the German Army and a new interpretation of the Basic Law

Political shifts in the southern hemisphere are offering a major economic opportunity for Germany.

Many blame the huge influx of refugees for increased violence in Germany—but there is more to it.

Germany’s reluctance to take on more leadership has ended.


Getting the right roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn replacement for an experience roof

Figuring out how to find the most versatile roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn replacement for an fallen roof – or identifying the best choice for a new building – is no easy task. The perfect roofing solution for one building may be the worst option for another just down the street. That’s because no two buildings are precisely alike, even if they closely resemble each other. So how do you choose a new roof, given all the choices in the marketplace? You can start by asking a series of questions, before you choose the roof, the roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn or the manufacturer.

1. What is this building’s mission statement?
Before calls are made to roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn, the first item to address is the company’s mission statement as it relates to the building.

For example, as more roy henderson roofing chattanooga tnmove toward operating 24 hours daily, seven days a week to satisfy global customers, the data center must never spring a rooftop leak. Water on computer systems generally spells disaster.

A special set of concerns arise for cooling-dominated climates. Does the roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn contribute to air conditioning savings and address other key issues? Is it part of a total energy program? There is a growing concern about urban heat islands. Reflective, white roofs have become of interest in those areas for a few reasons. They keep the building cooler, reduce air conditioning costs and also minimize the heat-loading of the surrounding environment.

2. What physical and other elements influence the roy henderson roofing chattanooga tnsystem selection?

When it comes to roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn, you need to list the attributes of the roof area itself. A good roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn would detail the roof’s size, shape, slope, deck construction, edge detailing, protrusions, rooftop access and existing roofing system. Along with this basic information, you need to find out why the original roof is no longer adequate.

3. What flexible-membrane roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn options are available?

Modified bitumen membranes incorporate the formulation and prefabrication advantages of flexible-membrane roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn with some of the traditional installation techniques used in built-up roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn. Modified bitumen sheets are factory-fabricated, composed of asphalt which is modified with a rubber or plastic polymer for increased flexibility, and combined with a reinforcement for added strength and stability.

6. Does the system require a wind uplift rating?

7. How much does the completed system add to the dead load weight of the roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn structure?

In choosing any roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn option, the facility executive should be aware of the load-bearing capacity of the roof deck to make sure the right flexible-membrane option is chosen. In new roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn construction, savings in structural steel can often be achieved by installing one of the lighter flexible-membrane systems.

8. What are the expertise and financial strengths of the roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn you are considering?

roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn need to be chosen with great care. The introduction of new roofing materials and application techniques within the past 10 years has led to many changes. A professional roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn should be familiar with different types of roofing systems, to help you make the best decision for your facility, based on your budget.

The installation of different roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn systems varies considerably. roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn Education and training are the most important elements in the installation of roofing systems. Make sure the good roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn you choose has had detailed and ongoing training on the system being installed.

9. What is warranted and by whom?

There are two basic categories of roofing warranties. The roy henderson roofing chattanooga tn contractor’s warranty typically covers workmanship. The manufacturer’s warranty covers at least the materials, though many cover additional items. Even if the manufacturer’s warranty is broad, it will not completely protect you if the roof is improperly installed.

Payments Accepted: Cash, Credit Card, Paypal, Financing Available
Area Serviced: Chattanooga Metropolitan Area
Price Range: $$
Business Phone: (423) 822-6993

Business Email:

Address: 5200 Lantana ln

Chattanooga, TN 37416


Jain Flag - Jainism Flag Adinath Temple Adinath Bhagwan
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Jainism History
24 Tirthankaras | Literature | Jain Tirth | Namokar Mantra

Bhagwan Mahavir said,

Lord Mahavir's preaching was orally complied by his disciples into many texts. This knowledge was orally transferred from acharyas (gurus) to the disciples over the course of about one thousand years. In olden times, monks strictly followed the five great vows of Jainism. Even religious scriptures were considered possessions and therefore knowledge of the religion was never documented. Also, during the course of time many learned acharyas (elder monks) complied commentaries on the various subjects of the Jain religion.

Around 500 A.D., which was one thousand years after Lord Mahavir's nirvana (death), Jain acharyas realized that it was extremely difficult to keep memorizing the entire Jain literature complied by the many scholars of the past and present. In fact, significant knowledge was already lost and the rest was polluted with modifications and errors. Hence, they decided to document the Jain literature as known to them. In this time period two major sects, namely Digambar and Swetambar, were already in existence. A thousand years later (1500 A.D.), the Swetambar sect divided into three subsects known as Swetambar Murtipujak, Sthanakvasi, and Terapanthi. Differences exist among these sects in their acceptance of the validity of the documented Jain scriptures and literature.

Agam Literature

This consists of original scriptures complied by Gandharas and Srut-kevalis. They are written in the Prakrit language.

Non-agam Literature

This consists of commentary and explanation of Agam literature and independent works, complied by elder monks, nuns, and scholars. They are written in many languages such as Prakrit, Sanskrit, Old Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannad, Tamil, German, and English.

website desiging company india
Jainism History Jainism Principles Jain - Jainism - Tirth - Teerth
Every soul is divine and has the potential to achieve God-consciousness.
Any soul which has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called “jina”

There is no overarching supreme being, divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer. Every living soul is potentially divine and the Siddhas, those who have completely eliminated their karmic bonds to end their cycle of birth and death, have attained God-consciousness.

Sammed Shikharji
Mangi Tungi

24 Tirthankara - Tirthankar Jiyo Aur Jine Do..... (Mahavir Bhagwan)
Bhagwan Rishabha (Adinath) Ji
Bhagwan Ajitnath Ji
Bhagwan Sambhav Nath Ji
Bhagwan Abhinandan-Nath Ji
Bhagwan Sumatinath Ji
Bhagwan Padmaprabha Ji
Bhagwan Suparshvanath Ji
Bhagwan Chandra-Prabha Ji
Bhagwan Pushpadanta Ji
Bhagwan Shitalnath Ji
Bhagwan Shreyamsanath Ji
Bhagwan Vasupujya Ji
Bhagwan Vimalnath Ji
Bhagwan Anantanath Ji
Bhagwan Dharmanath Ji
Bhagwan Shantinath Ji
Bhagwan Kunthunath Ji
Bhagwan Aranath Ji
Bhagwan Malinath Ji
Bhagwan Munisuvrata Ji
Bhagwan Naminath Ji
Bhagwan Neminath Ji
Bhagwan Parshvanath Ji
Bhagwan Mahavira Ji


Windows/Mac/Linux: Gobby is a free, cross-platform collaboration tool that makes it easy to collaborate on text documents over the internet with anyone. Every time you start a session with Gobby, you choose a highlight color that Gobby uses to indicate which sections of the text are being edited by which users. Gobby works like a charm for any text document, but with support for syntax highlighting, it really shines for collaboratively editing source code. It's not quite as simple to get started with as something like Google Docs—for example, you'll need to be able to send other collaborators your IP address—but it's an incredible tool in its own right. In fact, it's the collaboration tool that Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth told us he uses.

Gobby [via MakeUseOf]


MetStat® has teamed with Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) to produce the Extreme Precipitation Index (EPI), which is a new product that objectively conveys the rarity of precipitation in real-time.  More often than not, extreme precipitation result in flooding – the most frequent severe weather threat and the costliest natural disaster facing the U.S. (90% of all natural disasters in the U.S. involve flooding).  The EPI is a real-time measure of the Average Recurrence Interval (ARI) of precipitation; when the EPI is high, the likelihood of flooding is high.  Often referred to as the “return period”, the ARI represents a precipitation event (amount per unit time) as the average number of years (climatologically) between equivalent events for a specific location.  An ARI of 100 years is the same as a 1% probability of an event occurring in any given year (“a 100-year event”).  The general public as well as hydrologic engineers and emergency managers often have better sense of the consequences of a 100-year storm versus an absolute amount of precipitation, therefore making the EPI a powerful way to convey the magnitude of occurring or forecast precipitation events.

Precipitation frequencies have been calculated in terms of amount and period (e.g., how often 10inches of rain may fall in a 24 hour period). These frequencies are provided in precipitation frequency atlases such as NOAA Atlas 2 and Technical Paper 40, but undergoing revision at the NWS Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center (HDSC) as part of NOAA Atlas 14.

In 2009, MetStat® first demonstrated a real-time operational ARI product based on observed precipitation, but now MetStat® and WDT have teamed to provided forecast EPI maps.  Using WDT’s gridded national quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF), EPI forecast maps are created for 6- and 24-hour time increments.  WDT’s Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) features an objective analysis system with the WRF Four Dimensional Data Assimilation (FDDA) scheme. The objective analysis system employed is the Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) analysis, developed and maintained by the Global Systems Division of the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory. With LAPS, WDT is able to assimilate the IR, water vapor, and visible satellite image channels from geostationary satellites as well as WDT’s quality controlled three-dimensional radar mosaics. These two data sources, combined with traditional in situ observations, provide a more accurate initialization of the initial model moisture field through a three-dimensional cloud analysis. This technique has been shown to improve forecasts of precipitation and reduced model spin-up time.

24-hour QPE for Hurricane Irene (ending Aug. 28, 2011) 24-hour Extreme Precipitation Index Forecast 24-hour Extreme Precipitation Index Observed

WDT’s WRF domain and terrain.

This domain is updated four times per day and provides a 5-day forecast on an 11.7 km grid.

The Forecast Package includes EPI maps, updated four (0300, 0900, 1500 and 2100 UTC) times a day, based on the Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs) from the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) mesoscale numerical weather prediction model.  Advances in the science of numerical weather prediction have significantly increased skill and resolution of QPF over the last decade and mesoscale models such as WRF provide excellent forecast guidance, particularly for strongly forced events typical of those that lead to widespread heavy rainfall and flooding. The maximum products make it easy to identify areas of potential flood risk for the next five days by looking at one single map.

The EPI is a color-shaded map of the average number of years between the recurrence of a similar precipitation event, otherwise known as the Average Recurrence Interval (ARI) or “return period.” The EPI allows users to quickly ascertain areas with the most unusual precipitation and potential for flooding rather than using simple precipitation amounts, since what is deemed heavy rain in one part of the U.S. may be typical in another. EPI maps provide an objective, timely and accurate depiction of the magnitude and extent of high-impact precipitation and allow users to make appropriate decisions. The conversion of precipitation to a EPI removes the distraction of heavy, but not abnormal, precipitation thereby highlighting only the high-impact, most unusual precipitation.

ARI is defined as the average, or expected, period of time between exceedances of a given rainfall amount over a given duration. For example, suppose five inches of precipitation at a location is equivalent to an ARI of 100 years. This means five inches of precipitation is only expected to occur, on average, every 100 years at this location. Since the ARI is an average, a similar or even larger precipitation amount could occur again this year, next year or any other year. It does NOT mean an event of 5 inches will not occur again for 100 years. The ARI can also be described as a probability or percent chance of occurring in any given year. The table below converts the different terminologies and provides some potential flooding consequences.

It is important to understand that the ARI of precipitation does not necessarily equate to a flood of the same ARI. Floods can be caused by heavy rain, spring snowmelt, dam/levee failure and/or limited soil absorption. The degree of flooding from heavy precipitation depends on the precipitation intensity, storm duration, topography, antecedent soil conditions, ground cover, basin size and infrastructure design. Precipitation associated with a ARIs as low as 1 to 5 years can cause significant urban flooding since most urban storm water systems are designed for 1 to 10 year ARI precipitation events, yet this may not equate to any flooding in well-drained rural areas. ARIs for the design of highway and other transportation infrastructure typically vary from 10 to 25 years. However, it is a near certainty that rainfall associated with ARIs greater than 100-year will cause major flooding, regardless of anything else. Dams and levees are generally designed for rainfall ARIs much larger than 500 years, but can be compromised during ARIs of 100-500+ year events.

Categorical description of potential flooding consequences (when EPI is rainfall)
EPI/ARI Probability of occurrence in any given year Percent chance of occurrence in any given year
Rivers at all-time peaks, potential dam/levee over-topping, catastrophic flooding possible 500 yr 1 in 500 0.2%
Rivers near all-time peaks flows, devastating flooding possible 100 yr 1 in 100 1%
Rivers above flood stage, major flooding possible 50 yr 1 in 50 2%
Rivers at/near bankful, low lying flooding 20 yr 1 in 20 5%
Streams at bankful, high river flows 10 yr 1 in 10 10%
Street flooding and small streams near bankful 5 yr 1 in 5 20%
Minor flooding 2 yr 1 in 2 50%
Little or no flooding 1 yr 1 in 1 100%

For a free demo of EPI forecast maps please contact us.


Town Hall Remodelation
THE STORY OF A CURTAIN AND A STAIRCASE. Renovation of Benavente Town Hall. Spain. The project is a complete renovation of the interior of an old neoclassic building from the middle of the nineteenth century. Only the outer shell of the building is conserved. It is a Neotuscan-style structure consisting of a façade and a portico. In the seventies renovations were carried out which completely destroyed the whole interior. After some years in disuse it recovered its function as a Town Hall. The intervention revolves around very few materials and two pieces proposed in the project: a red curtain and the new staircase. With these two pieces the guidelines were set for the intervention. The space is defined by the flows of changing views and movements which its visitors will subsequently produce i.e. the new space does not depend on the perimeter structure formed by the walls of the old building. a. The perception of both pieces depends on movement: in the case of the staircase its perception is only comprehensible while using it, going up and down it and penetrating it from the lift. Its flows vary not only in accordance with the program to which it responds but also to its obvious exposure to the changing light from the east and west. Climbing it permits perceiving the vertical component of the space. As opposed to a process of horizontal spatial sequences, in a process of continuous narration, the climb to another space permits a discontinuity which causes the space to escape vertically, to leak. The staircase ceases to be merely an element of connection to become a vertical space. b. The curtain was designed based on two memories. The most evident one is a reinterpretation of one of the least-known pieces of the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, its red curtain, which is always closed over the access wall, and has a height of 3.10m. Its current location in the Barcelona Pavilion has caused its initial function to disappear. It is placed at the beginning of all the routes. This prevents the visitor from seeing the shadows of the wall, where the curtain is protected and throws itself towards the brightness of the courtyard-lake where the statue of Geog Kolbe is. The second memory, and the one which gives the curtain meaning, makes a reference to the mythical Penelope who wove and unravelled material as a metaphor of the changing narratives of history. The curtain envelops a space for meetings and decision-making for the local governing body, a space of contradictions and of impossible attempts to achieve a coherent meaning of the life of the town. With the curtain the space becomes a place. The mobility of the curtain makes it opaque and transparent, not converting it into a box for administrative decisions but rather the box of some nightmares and a lot of dreams which come true.

15 photos

Building Activity

  • OpenBuildings
    OpenBuildings added a digital reference
    about 5 years ago via
  • added 2 digital references
    about 5 years ago via


Loneliest Young Star Seen By Spitzer And WISE

Alone on the cosmic road, far from any known celestial object, a young, independent star is going through a tremendous growth spurt.

The unusual object, called CX330, was first detected as a source of X-ray light in 2009 by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory while it was surveying the bulge in the central region of the Milky Way. Further observations indicated that this object was emitting optical light as well. With only these clues, scientists had no idea what this object was.

But when Chris Britt, postdoctoral researcher at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, and colleagues were examining infrared images of the same area taken with NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), they realized this object has a lot of warm dust around it, which must have been heated by an outburst.

Comparing WISE data from 2010 with Spitzer Space Telescope data from 2007, researchers determined that CX330 is likely a young star that had been outbursting for several years. In fact, in that three-year period its brightness had increased by a few hundred times.

Astronomers looked at data about the object from a variety of other observatories, including the ground-based SOAR, Magellan, and Gemini telescopes. They also used the large telescope surveys VVV and the OGLE-IV to measure the intensity of light emitted from CX330. By combining all of these different perspectives on the object, a clearer picture emerged.

“We tried various interpretations for it, and the only one that makes sense is that this rapidly growing young star is forming in the middle of nowhere,” said Britt, lead author of a study on CX330 recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The lone star’s behavior has similarities to FU Orionis, a young outbursting star that had an initial three-month outburst in 1936-7. But CX330 is more compact, hotter and likely more massive than the FU Orionis-like objects known. The more isolated star launches faster “jets,” or outflows of material that slam into the gas and dust around it.

“The disk has probably heated to the point where the gas in the disk has become ionized, leading to a rapid increase in how fast the material falls onto the star,” said Thomas Maccarone, study co-author and associate professor at Texas Tech.

Most puzzling to astronomers, FU Orionis and the rare objects like it—there are only about 10 of them—are located in star-forming regions. Young stars usually form and feed from their surrounding gas and dust-rich regions in star-forming clouds. By contrast, the region of star formation closest to CX330 is over a thousand light-years away.

“CX330 is both more intense and more isolated than any of these young outbursting objects that we’ve ever seen,” said Joel Green, study co-author and researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “This could be the tip of the iceberg—these objects may be everywhere.”

In fact, it is possible that all stars go through this dramatic stage of development in their youth, but that the outbursts are too short in cosmological time for humans to observe many of them.

How did CX330 become so isolated? One idea is that it may have been born in a star-forming region, but was ejected into its present lonely pocket of the galaxy. But this is unlikely, astronomers say. Because CX330 is in a youthful phase of its development—likely less than 1 million years old—and is still eating its surrounding disk, it must have formed near its present location in the sky.

“If it had migrated from a star-forming region, it couldn’t get there in its lifetime without stripping its disk away entirely,” Britt said.

CX330 may also help scientists study the way stars form under different circumstances. One scenario is that stars form through turbulence. In this “hierarchical” model, a critical density of gas in a cloud causes the cloud to gravitationally collapse into a star. A different model, called “competitive accretion,” suggests that stars begin as low-mass cores that fight over the mass of material left in the cloud. CX330 more naturally fits into the first scenario, as the turbulent circumstances would theoretically allow for a lone star to form.

It is still possible that other intermediate- to low-mass stars are in the immediate vicinity of CX330, but have not been detected yet.

When CX330 was last viewed in August 2015, it was still outbursting. Astronomers plan to continue studying the object, including with future telescopes that could view it in other wavelengths of light.

Outbursts from a young star change the chemistry of the star’s disk, from which planets may eventually form. If the phenomenon is common, that means that planets, including our own, may carry the chemical signatures of an ancient disk of gas and dust scarred by stellar outbursts.

But as CX330 is continuing to devour its disk with increasing voracity, astronomers do not expect that planets are forming in its system.

“If it’s truly a massive star, its lifetime is short and violent, and I wouldn’t recommend being a planet around it,” Green said. “You could experience some pretty intense heat for a few centuries.”

Author: Mitch Battros


Materials Innovation Survey

How are leading companies enabling their teams to be more innovative? How are they taking advantage of the latest material advancements? Please share your experience. We are conducting new research on product innovation. This survey is targeted at those who either develop new materials or look to use new materials to support their innovation goals. We are


Downtown Dining.
Neighborhood Location.

La Grange’s Newest Restaurant

New. American. Craft. None of these words are defined by a single other word or action, and 1416 aspires to keep that consistent. New may mean a twist on a classic, it may be something you would have never expected. American is a melting pot of cuisine and culture, and expect nothing less here. Craft can be the art of the cuisine to the syrup to the house made shrub that finished your cocktail. 1416 is industrial, chic, and rustic all at the the same time; and so is everything that is on our menus, even when on the roof top deck.

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Mauresque (1869)
painting 9 of 36 by Frédéric Bazille

Mauresque (Woman in a Moorish Costume), 1869 by Frédéric Bazille

Information about painting

Bazille was a member of the group of painters who evolved to become the Impressionists. Here the artist displays an interest in one of the Oriental themes that fascinated nineteenth-century painters and writers. These popular themes included exotic subjects that they imagined derived from French colonies in North Africa; women in harem costumes were among the most popular. This composition is a contrast of textures, as the woman’s colorfully patterned costume stands out against the smoothness of the wall and floor. Bazille died shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday during a battle in the Franco-Prussian War.


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    How to accelerate growth in meditation practice?

    by Gurumaa-Ashram

    Q: I am practising meditation for the past few years but the coming and going of thoughts still continues. I am not able to become thoughtless. This is sure that during meditation I do not feel like breathing at all as only 25% of breath is left. After getting up from meditation, I do not feel like speaking also. As per your opinion, is this meditation or something else? What should I do? Gurumaa Answer: The first thing Sandhya, to have complete thoughtlessness in meditation, for that you must have continuous tolerance and patience and keep the process of meditation active. When the thought comes, you must act as a witness of the thought instead of starting to fight about why the thought is coming. It has come, be a witness to it and be impartial. If you remain impartial, the thoughts slowly fade out. If you would like to compare, if we say that in a normal way if in a minute one has 10 thoughts, at the time of meditation the count goes down to 5 only. You have to see whether the thoughts have become less or not. If they have become less, even this is an achievement. If you do not want thoughts to come, you have to do just one thing i.e. stop insisting that thoughts should not come. Be a witness and whatever thoughts may come, good or bad, remain impartial, unbiased, then your thoughts will definitely start to reduce. Look, when you sit in meditation, only then you come to know that these thoughts are there. For example, if we look at this stadium or the mat on the floor, it will seem to be very clean. But if we were to sweep on it with a broom, the dust will start flying. In the same way, when you sit for meditation and you see your thoughts, actually meditation is the broom which sweeps up the hidden thoughts. In this situation, you have to be content and a witness. We get attached to things in two ways through love and through hate. You remember your friends and you also remember your enemies. You are tied by the attachment of remembrance and the truth is that you remember your enemies more. Like, you have a party in your house and you invite people. Everyone came, but one nephew of yours did not come. Whom will you remember in the whole party? Hasnt he come? Miser, to save the price of a gift, he has not come. Everyone is sitting, but he cannot be seen. Ideally, you should welcome those who have come, but no, you are only concerned about the one who has not come. Your mind is running after him. Our mind remembers enemies more and friends less. The more the number of desires, expectations and wants you have, the more will be the thoughts. So if you do not want any thoughts to come, then get rid of your wants, expectations and desires. Kabir Saheb says in a bhajan of his, No taking and no giving, be concentrated. We are not going to be friendly with anybody nor are we going to have enmity with anyone. Friends and foes bind the mind and I have to keep my mind free. The body is made from five elements namely - earth, water, fire air and ether. This cage is made out of the five elements and inside it stays my myna bird that speaks. From inside it, this myna bird of my - the soul, speaks a lot. You will say, we are householders and that we have to give and take. But my brother, Kabir was also married. He did not give and take even after being married. Meet all with love and say goodbye to those who are going and do not remember them after that. But what do we do? When someone comes, we stick to him and meet him, asking details and digging a pit of his life, you do not feel content even till then. Once he leaves, we keep talking about his goodness or badness. You stick to him like a chewing gum. Worldly relations are like chewing gum, the sweetness goes fast but you still go on chewing.


Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek taxis = 'order' + 'law' or 'science'. Taxonomies, or taxonomic schemes, are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa (singular taxon), or kinds of things that are arranged frequently in a herarchial structure, typically related by subtype-supertype relationships, also called parent-child relationships.

Meristics is an area of ichthyology which relates to counting quantitive features of fish, such as the number of fins or scales. A meristic (countable trait) can be used to describe a particular species of fish, or used to identify an unknown species. Meristic traits are often described in a shorthand notation called a meristic formula.

A full description of a karyotype may include the number, type, shape and banding of the chromosomes, as well as other cytogenetic information.

DNA Research

mtDNA sequence analysis is a valuable tool for determining whether individuals are biologically related through their mothers’ side of the family. For this reason, it is commonly referred to as a maternal lineage test.

Osteology is thescientific study of bones. A subdiscipline of anthropology(US) archeology(EU), osteology is a detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, morphology, function,disease, pathology, the process of ossification (from cartilaginous molds), the resistance and hardness of bones (biophisics), etc.

The adoption of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778) who attempted to describe the entire known natural world and gave every species of mineral, plant or animal a two-part name. However, binomial nomenclature in various forms existed before Linnaeus, and was used by the Bauhins, who lived nearly two hundred years before Linnaeus. Before Linnaeus, hardly anybody used binomial nomenclature. After Linnaeus, almost everybody did.


by Ralph Brauer | 7/15/2008 11:33:00 AM
brain drain

Part One explored the impact of the brain drain from public service to private profit. However, there is one area where the brain drain thesis does not hold true--at least in part--and that is government employment. But as we shall see, there are even ominous developments there.

A study by Kenneth J McDonnell of the Employee Benefit Research Institute showed:
As of September of 2007, overall total compensation costs were 51.4 percent higher among state and local government employers ($39.50 per hour worked) than among private-sector employers ($26.09 per hour worked).

McDonnell found one major reason for this is:
Benefit participation rates are higher for state and local government employees and the costs of providing these benefits are higher.

However, McDonnell's study and others with similar findings need to be contrasted with the continuing privatization of government jobs. The centerpiece of this has been the controversy over private contractors in the Iraq War followed by the privatization of Veterans Administration hospitals, but in fact privatization has taken place from the federal to the local level and involved everything from prisons to insurance.

Curiously some of the most interesting data on privatization comes from a right wing think tank, the Reason Institute. It has released an annual privatization report for two decades. In its 2007 report it noted:
Since 2003, 12 percent of the federal workforce has faced a competition, winning 83 percent of them and generating savings
of $6.9 billion.

It doesn't take a Harvard degree to conclude that the federal employees "winning" these competitions were in part doing so because of wage or work place concessions. In essence privatization has become the new hammer to pound government employees into submission.

The one thing keeping them from doing that is that government employees have the strongest unions in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes:
Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 41.8 percent.

The Aging Federal Workforce

Still all is not well for government employees. One trend should give us pause and add to concerns about the brain drain: the age of government workers. First, the average government employee is older than the average "civilian" employee. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
About 75 percent of government employees were 35 and older, while about 60 percent of private sector workers fell into that range.

In addition the average age of federal employees has slowly been creeping upward from 44.1 in 1994 to 46.8 in 2004. Remember, this is the average age. Essentially a goodly number of the most experienced government workers are nearing retirement, a trend that could have huge systemic implications for the brain drain and keeping the playing field level.

The Impact of Aging on Other Public Sector Jobs

As someone who formerly was involved in national school reform, I used to remark in speeches that the biggest unrecognized problem in American education was our aging teacher workforce. The Statistical Abstract reports that over one third of our public school teachers are over 50 and almost 60% are over 40. The percentage of teachers under 30 is less than half that of those over 50.

Even more daunting are the figures on teacher experience. An astounding 72% of teachers with ten to 20 years of classroom experience are over 40. A quarter of those are over 50. Two-thirds of our teachers with over 20 years experience are over fifty. In essence our teaching force exhibits many of the same demographic characteristics as our federal workforce.

If we move to social work, we see a similar pattern According to the National Association of Social Work, 39% of all social workers are over 53 and 73% are over 43! Three-fourths of them were born before John Kennedy was President. More than a third of the social workers had more than 20 years experience.

In short, the public sector is facing a brain drain that will be caused by an aging workforce, a workforce that is not being replaced by younger workers.

The Brain Drain and Race

There remains one more issue to add to the brain drain equation--race. How well is the public sector performing in attracting people of color?

Federal government employment statistics are not encouraging. Employment of all people of color gained only 1.2% between 1998 and 2004, while the civilian labor force made a slightly higher gain at 1.3%. Yet after those eight years the percentage of people of color employed by the federal government still remained behind that of the civilian labor force.

The total percentage of people of color employed by the federal government in 2004 was 14.6% as compared with a national percentage of people of color of 25%. In other words, people of color are being employed by the federal government at only 58% of their total population percentage--this after decades of affirmative action!

It is interesting to compare these data with those of other public sector jobs. In education, for example, people of color make up 16% of the nation's public school teaching force which is 10% better than the federal government but still below what it should be based on population percentages.

The national social work survey shows the most dismal results, which are especially discouraging considering the disproportionate number of people of color served by these workers. According to their data, people of color compose only 13% of all social workers.

The dismal employment statistics of people of color are, of course, no secret, but that they should be so in the public sector which at least purports to support the ideals of equal opportunity is a national embarrassment. Yet, few have connected these statistics to the issue of the brain drain.

Not only is the public sector failing to employ young college graduates, it is failing in employing people of color. The bottom line of this is that people of color have less impact on public policy if they form such a small percentage of public sector workers. While much is made by politicians of both parties about high level appointments of people of color, the day-to-day operations and the decisions that come with them are made by everyday workers further down the chain of command.

If social work, education and the federal work force are all staffed by over 80% whites, what happens to the average person of color who is a client of those agencies? From a policy perspective, what kind of decisions are made by a largely white work force as opposed to one that might have more representation from people of color?

Some might argue with calling this part of the brain drain, but in fact it is a central part of it. Any management textbook will tell you that decision-making is best accomplished when managers, whether in the public or private sector, have access to a diversity of opinions. If all management hears is a white, middle class perspective, then we will get white, middle class policies.

Some might retort that aren't we a white middle class society, which may be true from a demographic point of view, but won't be for long in many states which will have a majority of people of color in the next generation. More important is the fact that we live in a diverse world. If we fail to recognize diverse perspectives, we will fall behind in that world.

A Perfect Storm?

This series started out with the example of how large corporations have a huge advantage over the private sector in terms of their use of systems thinking and system dynamics modeling. While some of that discussion may have seemed a bit dense and even out in left field or further, there was a reason for leading with that example because the best way to understand the brain drain is from a systems perspective.

First, we have the trend of increasing college loan debt which forces graduates away from public sector jobs. Then we have the increasing privatization of government and the age of government workers, particularly in the federal government. Finally, there is the issue of the racial brain drain.

All are interrelated and feed on each other. College loan debt makes it less likely young people will enter the public sector. Privatization means there are fewer jobs for them and puts pressure on those who still have the jobs to make work and policy concessions. The aging government workforce means that within the next decade we will face the retirement of a large number of our most experienced workers. The racial brain drain means our public sector lacks diversity in both people and perspective.

In systems terms, the perfect storm could emerge when fewer young people will be able to enter the public sector at a time when we will need them more than ever to replace those who are retiring and fewer people of color will be staffing a public sector work force at a time when the percentage of people of color in the United States is growing. The growing use of privatization leads to the inevitable conclusion that just like our undermanned forces in Iraq, we will turn to private contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater to do those jobs for us.

The Social and Political Implications of the Brain Drain

If America's once-vibrant public sector succumbs to privatization, fails to attract talented young people to replace an aging public sector work force, and continues to falter in its commitment to attract people of color this nation is headed for trouble. When you connect the brain drain with budget cuts imposed on the public sector because of tax cuts for high rollers, it doesn't take a conspiracy nut to ask the question as to whether the Counterrevolution is intent on forcing the public sector into becoming a corporate fiefdom.

If you think this scenario fanciful, ask the people in Richland, New Jersey. Situated on Route 40, the town serves as the headquarters for Dalponte Farms, which grows mint for Bacardi rum. Both Bacardi and Richland had mint green on their minds when they cut a deal that would rename Richland "Mojito" in honor of a cocktail being publicized by Bacardi. In exchange, the rum manufacturer offered the township $5,000 for a park gazebo, playground equipment, and a revitalization project for Route 40.

Systems people like to talk about gaps and their impact on the system and there may be no bigger gap facing America than the reality of the brain drain and the ideals of this country. The brain drain already threatens to profoundly change the lives of our children by further tilting the playing field toward the private sector.

Yet have you heard either Presidential candidate talk about this issue? Do either of them have plans that will remedy it? Or are we headed for another election in which the choice is between one candidate who promises to take us back to 1900 and another that promises business as usual?

In the end the choice is clear: do we want a United States of Mojito or a nation that fulfills the ideals of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution? Do we want a level playing field or no playing field at all?

Coda: Academia:

Since the main readers of this blog reside in academia, a special section is needed to describe the brain drain's impact on our colleges and universities. The loan crisis impacts students who want to be professors just as surely as it does those who want to be lawyers, except lawyers can at least graduate with the hope of landing a six figure job.

There may be a coming perfect storm in the public sector, but our nation's graduate schools may already be experiencing that storm as student loan costs increase while government aid to education decreases. This formula promises a severe decline in our nation's most important intellectual capital--its research colleges and universities.

Some might argue there is a tuition difference between law school and graduate school, plus grad students can apply for assistantships that are not available to law students, but typically it takes longer to get a PhD than an LL.D. Then there are the expenses of writing a dissertation which depending on the topic can involve extensive travel to research libraries or sites.

There is a certain irony in the fact that America's colleges and universities are part of the problem in that even at well-endowed institutions, large loan debts are common. My son graduated from a prestigious private college with one of the highest endowments in the nation [that's what happens when Warren Buffet is on your Board of Trustees], public or private, an endowment that according to a friend who was approached to serve on the Board of Trustees would allow the college to essentially offer each student a free ride. Currently as far as I know, of the high-prestige, high endowment schools, only Princeton has a policy that approaches this ideal.

Yet there are very few Princetons and a lot of prestigious public universities that have been hit by both state and federal budget cuts that have them reducing hiring, freezing salaries, and cutting programs. Some of them have succumbed to the academic equivalent of privatization, hiring part-time, non-tenure-track "private contractors" who manage to cobble together jobs at several institutions in order to make ends meet.

There is also another systemic dimension to academic budget cuts: as colleges and universities fail to--or cannot afford to--enroll more graduate students, the teaching burden of regular faculty increases, or at some point departments must contract. This produces a negative reinforcing loop that can lead to what we in systems thinking call a "death spiral"--a negative loop that functions like a whirlpool.

In a desperate search for money to replace these budget cuts virtually every college and university has cut deals with corporate vendors to give them exclusive rights to everything from what goes in campus vending machines to the computers sold at the book store. The University of Minnesota even entertained an offer from none other than Victoria's Secret.

The desperate situation of America's P-12 public schools is well-known, the desperate situation of America's institutions of higher education is less publicized. But if our colleges and universities continue to suffer where will those P-12 teachers come from? or the needed public sector workers?

In a system dynamics model one of the symbols is a faucet, which stands for a flow--something that regulates the movement between two quantities called stocks. Your bank account is a stock; the interest rate for it and your withdrawals and deposits all impact the inflows and outflows from that account.

In higher education there is an increasing feeling someone has turned off the faucet.

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Kino Lorber

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A jarring contradiction lies at the heart of Josef von Sternberg's mesmeric WWII-period curio Anatahan. The setting of the film is a flagrantly artificial jungle environment photographed, as voluntarily clarified by a title screen, “in a studio constructed for this purpose in Kyoto,” while at the same time Sternberg models the film like a documentary record, going out of his way to neutralize the sensationalism of his ripped-from-the-headlines premise. To the extent that makers of narrative cinema generally fall on either side of a line separating unabashed illusionism from the willful acknowledgment of all that lies outside the screen, Sternberg plays not so much in the middle as on both margins at once, reveling in the cognitive dissonance that it entails, and Anatahan is all the more radically destabilizing as a result.

The film's starting point is the real historical incident of a Japanese squadron found stranded alive on the titular island years after the defeat of their army. What Sternberg freely imagines are the seven years of toil and hardship endured by these men while separated from their homeland, which constitutes an act of speculative empathy that puts the project squarely in the realm of storytelling. Complicating this understanding, however, is the filmmaker's decision to narrate the tale himself in a droll tone that pinballs between Job-like questioning, poetic musing, and impartial reportage, including the use of such documentary-tinged phrases as “we can only reconstruct the events” and “we can only surmise what happened.”

Sternberg the narrator uses the first person to situate himself as a member of the dramatic ensemble, though it's never addressed whose consciousness he's supposed to represent, or if indeed he even has a physical counterpart. Atop this ambiguously Jungian narrator, Sternberg then opts to leave the characters' Japanese dialogue unsubtitled, which only further impedes emotional identification with the beached soldiers. What we're left with is an implicit directive to observe as though assembling a field report, even as it's demonstrably clear that we're watching is a scenario that's been carefully staged and presented to us in a highly specific manner—namely, Sternberg's lush, overripe mise-en-scène, which tends toward theatrical lighting, painted backdrops, and stringently arranged tableaux.

All of these formal quirks make Anatahan quite the cutting-edge accomplishment for 1953, though the film hardly gives the impression of a work made for aesthetes alone. On the contrary, Sternberg's distancing maneuvers imply humility in the face of a story far outside his lived experience, and it's a vantage point that enables the director to very directly probe existential questions that long consumed him. What are the benefits and pratfalls of community? What are the perils of manhood? How is power assumed and abused? When one flirts with barbarism, can dignity and self-worth be restored? And does nature give a damn about any of this?

Joseph von Sternberg goes out of his way to neutralize the sensationalism of his ripped-from-the-headlines premise.

The last question is answered early and often in recurring cutaways to waves crashing on imposing black rocks, which throw into relief the comparatively diminutive trials of the castaways—and, as some of the only location shots in the film, call to mind the unforgiving Irish coastlines of Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran. The other thematic prompts, meanwhile, aren't so emphatically resolved. Sternberg instead funnels them through his spare dramatic scenarios, on top of which he lays inquisitive voiceover counterpoint. In spacious group framings, we see men fawn, bicker, and kill over Keiko (Akemi Negishi), the lone female of the group and the fragile soul of the film. We see them develop their homely living quarters, composed of bamboo and covered by the unwieldy overgrowth of the jungle itself. We see them weather storms, carry out prayers and songs, and gaze desperately at the sea with the kind of posed stillness that Guy Maddin would pay tribute to in The Forbidden Room.

Through it all, Anatahan's abundant foliage is exploited for myriad pictorial effects, whether to cast noirish slices of shadow across actors' faces or to conceal and reveal certain details within the frame. Other times, provocative statements are smuggled in by Sternberg through framing alone, such as when one soldier's pistol, placed at phallus level, enters the top half of a shot of Keiko kneeling on the ground, a juxtaposition that conflates sexual assault with the rise to political power (a timeless congruence indeed). Akira Ifukube's anxious, dirge-like music, a near-constant whine of tremolo violins and descending piano melodies, coats these fraught visuals in an additional layer of gloom, setting a mood best summed up by Sternberg himself: “The only real enemy most of us ever have is lonesomeness.”

Kino Lorber
92 min
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg, Tatsuo Asano
Akemi Negishi, Tadashi Suganuma, Kisaburo Sawamura, Shôji Nakayama, Jun Fujikawa, Hiroshi Kondô, Shozo Miyashita


Cha-am Jamal, Thailand

Archive for July 2010

The process of national reconciliation does not stand a chance even of getting started.

It called for a ban on the use of shackles in order to conform with the United Nations’ principle on human rights.

Home care from migrant women perfectly answers their needs.

Where will they live the last days when the hospital bills have exhausted their life long savings?

When they insist on staying underground they get arrested.

The legal wage and health welfare do not come with their legal status.

Death has to stare you in the face in order to understand her feelings.

Thailand is quickly becoming an ageing society with little support for things to come.

Most elderly women cannot dream to have this.

Cha-am Jamal

Pyongyang backhanded the United Nations.

International observers determined the events that sank the Cheonan.

The government has repeatedly slapped the UN and other diplomatic groups.

North Korea is a long-time security threat.

Pyongyang should stop its rabble-rousing threats.

North Korea denied the act.

That was a serious act of war.

The dynamics of glaciers that feed rivers are best understood in terms of a mass balance which states essentially that

input – output = accumulation.

The input term is usually the amount of precipitation in the glacial basin that flows to the glacier. The output term is the meltwater that feeds the river plus evaporation. If the accumulation is positive the glacier is growing and if it is negative it means that the glacier is shrinking.

If it is shrinking it could mean one of two things. Either the amount of precipitation is declining relative to the melt rate; or the melt rate is increasing relative to precipitation. There is a big difference between these two scenarios in terms of water flow in downstream rivers.

In the former case, the water flow in downstream rivers would remain unchanged while in the latter case, there would be an increase in flow possibly associated with rising river levels and flooding. In the absence of rising river levels downstream, it is not possible to conclude that the glacier is retreating because of an increase in the melt rate.

Yet, all instances of glacial retreat are presented by the IPCC as an effect of increased melt rate caused by global warming without providing the necessary data on changes in the flow rates of downstream rivers that the glacier feeds.

Cha-am Jamal

According to Nature News ( , melt water supplies 1.5 times other sources to the Indus and 0.25 times other sources to the Brahmaputra and glacial melt water constitutes 40% of the total melt water with the balance coming from seasonal snowfall.

The melt water percentage is 1.5/2.5 = 60% for the Indus and 0.25/1.25 = 20% for the Brahmaputra. The glacial melt water portion of the total melt water is 40% for both rivers. Therefore, the glacial melt water percentage is 0.6*0.4 = 24% for the Indus and 0.2*0.4 = 8% for the Brahmaputra.

Cha-am Jamal

Reference: Our beaker is on the boil, Bangkok Post, July 21, 2010

In its 2007 assessment of climate change, the IPCC had warned that global warming is causing Himalayan glaciers to melt and recede and that this process, unchecked by their prescribed intervention of carbon emission reduction, would dry up Asia’s great rivers including the Yellow, the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Ganges and leave more than a billion people without water (Himalayan glacier melts to hit billions of poor, Bangkok Post, December 7, 2009).

Skeptics were quick to point out that glacial meltwater plays a very minor role in feeding these rivers and that therefore the loss of glaciers would not affect these rivers in the way postulated by the IPCC. The IPCC was forced to make a full retraction of this assessment.

Soon thereafter they started looking for rivers in the region that do depend on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers in order to resurrect their glacial-melt agenda. They came up with the Indus and Brahmaputra rivers as possible candidates on the  basis of their dependence on glaciers (Our beaker is on the boil, Bangkok Post, July 21, 2010).

The Brahmaputra does receive a greater portion of its water from glacial melt than the Ganges, but at about 8% or so it is still too small a fraction to cause the river to “dry up” without glacial meltwater. The Indus, however, is a different story for there the complete loss of glacial meltwater would cause a 24% decline in flow and that would indeed be a catastrophic impact.

There is a small problem with geography, however. The source of these rivers is not in the region where the receding glacier is identified. In particular, the source of the Indus is in the Karakoram range where most glaciers – including the Siachen glacier that feeds the Indus – are growing and advancing and certainly not receding.

The IPCC’s case that global warming will cause the Indus and Brahmaputra to run dry is based on data from the wrong glacier and is therefore not valid. It is yet another example where the IPCC has attempted to generalize local data when such generalization is not possible. All glaciers in the Himalayas are not receding. Many are advancing and many more are at steady state – neither advancing nor retreating; but you won’t hear about them from the IPCC because they cannot be used to evoke fear and loathing of carbon dioxide.

Cha-am Jamal

Such questionable censorship seems to have gained ground.


  1. Meteopool
  2. WebcamsEuropeGermanyImbringen (L)Webcam Imbringen

The webcam is located at in the inland in a height of 379 m NHN. The ground is visible for a clear identification of precipitation. The Sky is clearly visible to see clouds and weather.

Sunrise: UTC 05:23 CEST 06:23
Sunset: UTC 17:58 CEST 18:58

Directed to

8 km

8 km

10 km

13 km

31 km

Please be as precise as possible about what is wrong:

Security question. What is 100 plus 12?


Hyponoetics - Essays
Paranoetic Knowledge
Abstract: The basic distinction between rational and Paranoetic Thinking, also called Transrational Thinking, leads to the double-aspect of knowledge: rational or acquired knowledge vs Paranoetic or Transrational Knowledge. The latter is grounded in Hyponoesis (Universal Mind) and is the product of a higher faculty of our mind: Paranoesis (Transrational Thinking). Paranoetic Knowledge needs to be destinguished from mystic experience.

The crucial distinction between rational and Paranoetic Thinking (or Transrational Thinking) is the following linguistic aspect:

Normally we declare: It is 'I' that thinks, 'I think this or that', 'I use my thinking faculty', etc. We tend to emphasize our person as the agency of thinking. Thinking as a faculty belongs to every human being, it is its specific characteristic and therefore we attribute thinking (intellectuality, rationality) to each individual. Furthermore, we recognize the fact that our thinking is distinct from the thinking of another person, not formally, but materially, that is, the knowledge I acquired and the knowledge I have at my disposal is different from the knowledge someone else possesses. Because knowledge is believed to have been acquired or learned in some way or another, it is not astonishing at all that we indubitably relate our thinking to us as individual beings.

But this very notion of our thinking being part of our individuality restricts our faculty of thinking considerably. That's why most philosophers observe that our knowledge of the world is limited by nature. This 'by nature' means either the lesser degree of perfection of the mind compared to God's mind and knowledge or in modern science the natural constraint of the brain as bodily organ. Since modern neurobiology holds that all knowledge is acquired somehow, as John Locke already asserted, the amount of knowledge a person is able to accumulate is limited, not to mention the fact that we tend to forget  acquired knowledge over time.

If we consider on the other hand the paranoetic aspect of knowledge, which is illimitable and all-encompassing, we come to realize the following: instead of 'I think', as in rational and individual thinking, there is 'IT thinks'. IT stands for a supra-rational (not irrational) and supra-individual unlimited thinking. It is not a particular person with all its natural and inner limitations (the limitations of individuality), but the 'I' becomes one with the universal 'IT', i.e. Hyponoesis (Universal Mind). It is not 'I' as a person who thinks, but it is the whole universe, the Absolute and supreme Mind. The 'I' is extended infinitely to the 'IT'. My individuality ceases to be dominant over my thinking. It is Universal Thinking. The 'I' does not exist anymore, only the 'IT'. The individual form recedes into the original form, the original Mind. Therefore, Paranoetic Knowledge is all-knowledge, omniscience in its purest form. If 'IT' thinks and not 'I', every limitation that is pertinent to my individual form as a human being and to my individual form of thinking, is cast off and my mind becomes Hyponoesis (Universal Mind, my thinking blends into the Universal Thinking and becomes one with it.

But this state of thinking should not be confused with states of mystical experience. The latter comprises empirical experience, the experience of becoming and being one with the Godhead or the Absolute. But if we extend our egocentric thinking to a cosmocentric thinking, we do not experience oneness in the sense the mystic does. Only our thinking has completely changed. We are individual by our body, but universal by our mind. In our mind we have suddenly a vast and inexhaustible repository of information and knowledge right at our fingertips. It is a different kind of knowledge, not comparable to our rational and acquired knowledge.

This knowledge is not within the frame of time and space, not impregnated and restrained with empirical and sensualistic data from our sense perceptions. Paranoetic knowledge does not think in terms of discrete parts of knowledge but rather in terms of so-called Hologemes: the whole, not the parts. The part, however, is not lost in the whole; it is contained in the whole, we possess it through the whole and not, as with rational thinking, through other parts or more complex parts. In rational thinking we never think the whole (s. Kant: The apprehension of the manifold of appearance is always successive (KrV, A189,B234)), but only parts ( analyatical thinking) or complexities (synthetical thinking). The whole, however, with all its parts is only accessible to Transrational Thinking or Paranoetic Thinking.

Mystic Experience and Paranoetic Knowledge

Both, mystic experience and Paranoetic Knowledge, transcend the realm of ordinary consciousness and rational thinking. But there are some fundamental differences between these two modes of transcendence:

1. Mystic experience, as the word already states, is an experience of a higher dimensional state of consciousness. It implies empirical data, such as emotions, feelings, sense perception, which all transcend everyday experience, especially concerning perspicuity and range of perception.

The act of Paranoesis (Transrational Thinking), however, does not imply any kind of emotions or psychical experience, but is reduced to cognition and thinking only. Paranoetic Knowledge is not an experience but a cognitional or supra-intellectual act, transcending rational and logical thinking.

2. Whereas the mystic experiences oneness physically and psychically by being one with everything and the Godhead, the Transrational Thinker knows that everything is one in its essence or substance, but she does not experience it actually. It is a mental act of understanding, but an understanding that by far surpasses the comprehension of rationally minded people. Whereas the mystic is predominantly enshrouded in an overwhelming experience and thereby does often not understand what she experiences, the Transrational Thinker always knows and understands the higher dimension without being overwhelmed by distracting emotions of experience.

3. The mystic can describe her experience only by means of symbols, metaphors and analogies, but rarely is she capable of articulating what she experienced with the necessary acuity of the mind. She experiences the oneness, but how can she explain it in rational terms, which themselves are restricted to our everyday experience and not to higher states of consciousness? The mystic has no appropriate vocabulary at her disposal. Language is too limited, too rational, too ordinary. But despite this fact, the Transrational Thinker is more able to translate her superior knowledge into rational language, although we cannot make the assumption that what she expounds in rational form will be understood by the community of philosophers or scientists. A philosopher or scientist will rather listen to a "rationalized" account than to a metaphorical and ornate one by a mystic.

4. The knowledge the mystic obtains about what she experiences is not particular, but general or universal knowledge. It does not deal with singular truths but with universal and holistic truth. She understands the truth without being able to give a systematic account of it or to describe it rationally. The Transrational Thinker, however, by virtue of his highly developed thinking faculty, is able of rendering a detailed and systematic description of the truth she has come to know by means of Paranoesis or Transrational Thinking. The Transrational Thinker is omniscient, all-knowing, because by means of Intuition he has access to the cosmic or universal repository of information, that is, to Hyponoesis (Universal Mind).

5. The mystic experiences oneness, and thereby becomes what she experiences, that is, she becomes one with everything she perceives. This is an existential experience. The Transrational Thinker does not experience the oneness existentially but only through her supreme capacity of thinking. She paranoetically grasps the oneness by understanding why everything has to be fundamentally one, why we experience and perceive duality and a plurality of things and so on.

Thus the mystic's experience is a grassroots experience, ontologically changing the world of reality. This expansion of consciousness to a higher reality, this extended spectrum of perception gives the mystic a more thorough and encompassing experience than the Transrational Thinker. For the latter, there exists only an idealistic or noetic oneness in the comprehension of her extended or higher form of thinking.

6. The mystic transcends all human limitations, those of the body as well as those of her psyche and her life as a whole. The Transrational Thinker only transcends his thinking, whereas the mystic only partially transcends thinking, because thinking is only a minor and negligible part of her comprehensive experience. More often than not, the mystic believes that thinking is only obstructing the experience of the Godhead, therefore it has to be relinquished completely so as to surrender oneself wholly to the sweeping experience of oneness. The mystic is not aware of the mind-transcending power of Paranoesis (Transrational Thinking).

7. From the above mentioned it follows that the mystic does not think or know consciously in this higher state of experience. That is however just what the Transrational Thinker does. She is fully aware of her thinking capacity and of the possibilities that are open to her by hooking up to the infinite repository of knowledge of Hyponoesis.

8. That leads me to final point of difference, maybe the most important one. If we consider the accounts of mystics concerning their experiences, we inevitably state that they cannot attain this experience by will. They describe it as a feat of God's grace that only happens a few precious times in their life. It is a supernatural gift of the heavens of inestimable value. But here the Transrational Thinker has a great advantage. Once she developed Paranoetic Thinking by applying a particular method, she can attain this state of thinking by volition, whenever she wants and needs to. Moreover, she even could think the rest of her life employing this supra-rational mode of thinking without losing the contact with rationality or other people. But the mystic, assuming she could keep up the mystic state of experience, would have problems with her life from hereafter, because the supreme bliss of this state would have her forget about the daily petty sorrows and problems, occupying the mind of normal people.


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Saturday, September 6, 2008

Admitting you made a mistake is difficult for anyone. However, refusing to face up to being wrong or causing a problem can take a toll on your reputation, relationships, and work life. As difficult as it can be, admitting the mistake can allow you and others to move on.
Let it go.
Don't pressure someone for forgiveness.
More serious conversations should be in person. Less serious issues can be handled via phone or email.

You can't control others responses. However, you can make sure YOU move on.

Have you noticed how depressed many people around you are? Well this page is to help you create a happier work environment and make everyone happier, whether it is a friend or a total stranger.

Smile, smile, smile. Whenever someone see a smiling face, it reminds them that they may have reasons to smile themselves, and it will create a happier mood.
Greet everyone you see. This will make people feel that they have been noticed and accepted in their environment.
Surprise people with small cheery gifts. Homemade cupcakes or a box of doughnuts for early morning are sure to bring a smile to someone's face.
Compliments go a long way. People like it when you notice things about them because more than likely, they put a lot of thought into it.
Promote Optimism. If something is going wrong for someone, twist it and show them the positive. Tell them how it would be worse if it went the other way.

Small things go a long way when making people happy.
Make sure the people who you are cheering up want to be in a good mood.

Make sure not to kill the mood by saying something really negative or sad.
Don't overdo it or people will think that you are up to something and get the wrong opinion.

, Humulus Lupus .

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The arts we believe in and enjoy sharing with you. Group or private instruction available.

Mantis Boxing

'Hook in', to the world of Mantis Boxing. Expose yourself to the ancient Chinese Martial Art that has survived the annals of time. Hook, Grapple, and Pluck your way through a journey of radical, highly effective techniques, and skills.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

A challenge you can be proud of. Build strength, speed, and agility. Work together in team oriented, high intensity training. Grow stronger, and bond through challenging workouts.


Scientists from Harvard Medical School claimed that they have finally found the ‘elixir of youth’ which can not only slow down the aging process, but also reverse it.

We worked on understanding the mechanisms of aging and conducted experiments on mice. For this purpose we selected mature enough animals that were older than two years, and began to introduce the experimental drug. To our surprise, just in a week the mice got younger. They became vigorous and energetic as if they were six-month old,” said Prof David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School.

The muscles of the rejuvenated mice were in tone, and their cardiac muscles were as new. It’s as if a 60-year-old man turned into a 17-year-old. The coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) has played a major role in this incredible transformation.

In a living organism, NAD serves as a conduit between the nucleus and mitochondria. The latter generates energy, and NAD delivers it to the cell nucleus. At low concentration of NAD, communication between mitochondria and the nucleus of cells weakens.

This substance is present in our body. However, with age, its concentration becomes lower and lower. We hypothesized that this might be the cause of aging, and introduced a drug to increase the level of this substance in mice,” said Prof Sinclair.

Moreover, young mice, which also were given a dose of NAD, became more alert and energetic.

At the moment, the scientists have the following tasks to be accomplished: to determine how long the rejuvenating effect will hold, to identify side effects of the drug, as well as to find out whether it may be used in humans.

The study’s authors hope to test the drug on humans this year. However, it is worth noting that the cost of a single drop of NAD – which is a daily dose for a mouse – is about $ 1,000. Therefore, in case of successful outcome of further testing, it is necessary to find a way to reduce its cost to launch the mass production of the drug.


Kate Tinworth
Founder and Principal
ExposeYourMuseum LLC

Kate Tinworth is the founder and Principal of ExposeYourMuseum LLC— a boutique consultancy delivering the tools and data required to better understand current and potential visitors, teams, communities, and audiences. Kate’s approach prioritizes making connections, facilitating conversations, elevating voices, engaging creatively, and strong, clear communication to inspire innovation, inform strategy, and drive decision-making.


What rhymes or sounds like the word
population shift?
(noun) a change in the relative numbers of the different groups of individuals making up a population

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206 synonyms found

[vˈɔ͡ɪsləs], [vˈɔ‍ɪsləs], [v_ˈɔɪ_s_l_ə_s]

Synonyms for Voiceless:

dumb (adjective)

dumb, mum, mute, silent, speechless, taciturn, tongue-tied.

Other synonyms and related words:

Operose, accented, affricate, alveolar, anaudic, aphasic, aphonic, aphonous, apical, apico-alveolar, apico-dental, arduous, articulated, aspirate, aspiration, assimilated, assonance, atonic, back, backbreaking, bad, bare, barytone, bereft, bilabial, blank despondency, blue devils, blues, breathed, breathless, broad, cacuminal, central, cerebral, checked, close, close-mouthed, concentrated, consonant, consonantal, continuant, deaf, deaf person, deafmute, dental, denuded, deprived, despondency, destitute, difficult, disconsolateness, disenfranchised, disfranchised, dismals, dissimilated, doldrums, dorsal, dumb, dumbfounded, dumbstricken, dumbstruck, dumps, empty, flat, front, glide, glossal, glottal, grueling, gruelling, guttural, hard, heavy, high, hope deferred, horrors, hypochondriasis, il penseroso, inarticulate, inaudible, incommunicative, innocent, intemperate, intonated, invalid, involving surds, irrational, knockout, labial, labiodental, labiovelar, laborious, lachrymals, lateral, lax, light, lingual, liquid, low, megrims, melancholia, melancholy, mid, monophthongal, motionless, mumps, muted, muzzled, narrow, nasal, nasalized, noiseless, null and void, occlusive, open, oxytone, palatal, palatalized, partially hearing, pessimism, pharyngeal, pharyngealized, phonemic, phonetic, phonic, pitch, pitched, placid, posttonic, punishing, quiescent, quiet, radical, reserved, reticent, retroflex, rounded, sadness, scant, semivowel, severe, sharp, short, shy, soft, sonant, soundless, spleen, stopped, stressed, stricken dumb, strong, surd, syllabic, tacit, tense, thick, throaty, tight-lipped, toilsome, tonal, toneless, tongueless, tonic, tough, twangy, unaccented, unarticulate, unarticulated, unexpressed, unhearable, unheard, unpronounced, unrounded, unsaid, unsounded, unspoken, unstated, unstressed, unsung, unuttered, unverbalised, unverbalized, unvocal, unvocalized, unvoiced, vapors, velar, vocalic, vocoid, voiced, voteless, vowel, vowellike, weak, whispered, wide, wordless, words.

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