The Bolshoi Ballet is back at the Paramount, this time with two full-length ballets and its own orchestra.

It's in town for five days beginning Wednesday, giving two performances of its new production of "Romeo and Juliet" and four of one of its traditional pieces, "Don Quixote."

Looking for hard currency, like every other Russian institution, the Bolshoi is on the road more than it has ever been. Seattle alone has seen the company every other year in the new century.

Even though the Bolshoi has suffered from artistic turmoil at home (four artistic directors during the past decade), inadequate funding and dated productions, it can still produce dancers that personify the very name of Bolshoi, which means "big" in Russian.

The program of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Don Quixote" is exactly the same one promised for the company's 2000 season in Seattle. However, that appearance featured a traditional version of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Don Quixote" was dropped before it reached town because the performances were not selling.

In its 2002 appearances at the Paramount, the company performed "Swan Lake."

The presence of the company's orchestra is a huge plus for its 2004 tour, which includes Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Berkeley and Mexico City. The orchestra can be traced to the founding of the company in 1776, when ballets began to be staged publicly at the theater.

Until the Russian Revolution, the Bolshoi played second fiddle to the famed Maryinsky (called Kirov in the West). Then its fortunes changed. The capital of the country was moved to Moscow and the company became the showpiece of the government. It made its debut in the West (London and New York) in the mid-1950s and shook the ballet world with the boldness and sheer visceral excitement generated by its dancers.

Its newly appointed artistic director, Alexei Ratmansky, a former soloist with various Russian companies as well as the Royal Danish Ballet, said in an interview earlier this month, "I'm trying to see what I can do without doing revolutionary changes. It's such a machine, it's hard to turn.

"The quality of the dancing, I wouldn't be so brave to say it has changed. I think we have to treasure and go with the star of the Bolshoi, which is unique. I don't want them to be like all the other companies. ... Everybody is going to do that."

Since musicians must serve both ballet and opera, there are some 300 in the orchestra. The touring ensemble consists of 65 musicians.

Although Marius Petipa is most closely associated with the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, his "Don Quixote" had its premiere, in 1869, at the Bolshoi. Inevitably, the ballet has gone through various revisions, but the production stays pretty much within its old parameters.

The ballet is a group effort: Alexei Fadeyechev, a former star of the company and its artistic director for a couple of years in the late 1990s, is given the lead spot on the list of creators, after Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, who made major revisions to the ballet at the turn-of-the-century more than 100 years ago. Design elements can be traced to 1906. The score is by Ludwig Minkus.

"Romeo and Juliet" is another story. Instead of Leonid Lavrovsky's celebrated production of the ballet, which the Bolshoi brought to Seattle four years ago, the company is bringing something from this century. Thank goodness. The old production, which served as a calling card for the company in the 1950s, was tired and in desperate need of refurbishing.

The new production was choreographed to Prokofiev's music by Radu Poklitaru, with stage direction by British theater director Declan Donnellan. Poklitaru has won a number of choreographic competitions and choreographed ballets in several countries that constituted the former Soviet Union.

Donnellan was born in England of Irish parents and attended Cambridge University. He has staged plays in London and New York, as well as in Finland, France (Avignon Festival), Russia and Austria (Salzburg Festival). His musical efforts include a "Falstaff" at Salzburg, with conductor Claudio Abbado and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel.

At the end of this season, after nearly 150 years in the same theater, the Bolshoi is moving next door to a new, and smaller, space while the old, glamorous house undergoes a long overdue $350 million renovation.


Signpost is a cloud-based CRM software that gives local businesses the power to effortlessly build and manage customer relationships.

Signpost automatically builds customer profiles by capturing email, phone, social and transactional data. Our automated marketing engine uses the data to drive purchases, reviews, referrals and loyalty.

Named one of America’s Most Promising Companies by Forbes, the company is headquartered in New York City with locations in Austin and Denver.

Similar companies in Software & Services


The arts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from The Arts)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the group of creative disciplines. For the concept of art, see Art. For other uses, see Art (disambiguation).
"Arts" redirects here. For the acronym, see ARTS (disambiguation).
Hans Rottenhammer, Allegory of the Arts (second half of the 16th century). Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

The arts represent an outlet of expression, that is usually influenced by culture and which in turn helps to change culture. As such, the arts are a physical manifestation of the internal creative impulse. Major constituents of the arts include literature – including poetry, novels and short stories, and epics; performing arts – among them music, dance, and theatre; culinary arts such as baking, chocolatiering, and winemaking; media arts like photography and cinematography, and visual arts – including drawing, painting, ceramics, and sculpting. Some art forms combine a visual element with performance (e.g. film) and the written word (e.g. comics).

From prehistoric cave paintings to modern day films, art serves as a vessel for storytelling and conveying humankind's relationship with its environment.

In its most basic abstract definition, art is a documented expression of a sentient being through or on an accessible medium so that anyone can view, hear or experience it. The act itself of producing an expression can also be referred to as a certain art, or as art in general.

If this solidified expression, or the act of producing it, is 'good' or has value depends on those who access and rate it and this public rating is dependent on various subjective factors.

Collins English Dictionary defines 'the arts' as "imaginative, creative, and nonscientific branches of knowledge considered collectively, esp. as studied academically".[1] The singular term art is defined by the Irish Art Encyclopedia as follows: "Art is created when an artist creates a beautiful object, or produces a stimulating experience that is considered by his audience to have artistic merit."[2] The same source states:

Art is a global activity which encompasses a host of disciplines, as evidenced by the range of words and phrases which have been invented to describe its various forms. Examples of such phraseology include: Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Visual Arts, Decorative Arts, Applied Arts, Design, Crafts, Performing Arts, and so on.

Main article: History of art

In Ancient Greece, all art and craft were referred to by the same word, Techne. Thus, there was no distinction between the arts. Ancient Greek art brought the veneration of the animal form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty and anatomically correct proportions. Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans, shown with characteristic distinguishing features (i.e. Zeus' thunderbolt).

In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical and not material truths.

Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.

Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometry instead.

The physical and rational certainties depicted by the Enlightenment in the late 17th and 18th centuries were shattered not only by new discoveries of relativity by Albert Einstein, the development of the quantum mechanics – in the words of Richard Feynman, quantum mechanics deals with "nature as She is, absurd"[3] – and of unseen psychology by Freud, but also by unprecedented technological development. Paradoxically the expressions of new technologies were greatly influenced by the ancient tribal arts of Africa and Oceania, through the works of Paul Gauguin and the Post-Impressionists, Pablo Picasso and the Cubists, as well as the Futurists and others.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Catullus-at-Lesbia's (1865)

In the Middle Ages, the Artes Liberales (liberal arts) were taught in universities as part of the Trivium – an introductory curriculum involving grammar, rhetoric, and logic[4] – and of the Quadrivium – a curriculum involving the "mathematical arts" of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.[4] The Artes Mechanicae (mechanical arts, such as vestiaria -tailoring, weaving-, agricultura -agriculture-, architectura -architecture, masonry-, militia and venatoria -warfare and hunting, "martial arts"-, mercatura -trade, commerce-, coquinaria -cooking-, and metallaria -blacksmithing, metallurgy – division made, somewhat arbitrarily, by Johannes Scotus Eriugena, already in the 9th century) were practiced and developed in guild environments. The modern distinction between "artistic" and "non-artistic" skills did not develop until the Renaissance.

In modern academia, the arts are usually grouped with or as a subset of the Humanities. Some subjects in the Humanities are history, linguistics, literature, and philosophy. Newspapers typically include a section on the arts.

Traditionally, the arts are classified as seven: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, dance, theater/cinema, with the modern additions of photography and comics.

Visual arts[edit]

Main articles: Visual art and Fine art
Further information: Plastic arts and Work of art

Main article: Drawing

Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface. Common tools are graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools which can simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftswoman or draughtsman. Drawings are used to create comics and animation for example.

Main article: Painting

Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a vehicle (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood panel or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.

Colour is the essence of painting as sound is of music. Colour is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but elsewhere white may be. Some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, Newton, have written their own colour theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a colour equivalent. The word "red", for example, can cover a wide range of variations on the pure red of the spectrum. There is not a formalized register of different colours in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music, such as C or C#, although the Pantone system is widely used in the printing and design industry for this purpose.

Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, for example, collage. This began with Cubism and is not painting in strict sense. Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet or Anselm Kiefer.

Modern and contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft in favour of concept; this has led some to say that painting, as a serious art form, is dead, although this has not deterred the majority of artists from continuing to practise it either as whole or part of their work.

Main article: Ceramic art

Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials (including clay), which may take forms including art ware, tile, figurines, sculpture, and tableware. While some ceramic products are considered fine art, some are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artifacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery." In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery. In modern ceramic engineering usage, "ceramics" is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat. It excludes glass and mosaic made from glass tesserae

Main article: Fine art photography

Photography as an art form refers to photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer. Art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism, which provides a visual account for news events, and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to advertise products or services.

Main article: Architecture
The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. The word architecture comes from the Greek arkhitekton, "master builder, director of works," from αρχι- (arkhi) "chief" + τεκτων (tekton) "builder, carpenter".[5]

A wider definition would include the design of the built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of creating furniture. Architectural design usually must address both feasibility and cost for the builder, as well as function and aesthetics for the user.

Table of architecture, Cyclopaedia, 1728

In modern usage, architecture is the art and discipline of creating an actual, or inferring an implied or apparent plan of any complex object or system. The term can be used to connote the implied architecture of abstract things such as music or mathematics, the apparent architecture of natural things, such as geological formations or the structure of biological cells, or explicitly planned architectures of human-made things such as software, computers, enterprises, and databases, in addition to buildings. In every usage, an architecture may be seen as a subjective mapping from a human perspective (that of the user in the case of abstract or physical artifacts) to the elements or components of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.

Planned architecture manipulates space, volume, texture, light, shadow, or abstract elements in order to achieve pleasing aesthetics. This distinguishes it from applied science or engineering, which usually concentrate more on the functional and feasibility aspects of the design of constructions or structures.

In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to the apparently simpler, such as planning residential houses. Many architectural works may be seen also as cultural and political symbols, and/or works of art. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes less than successful) design and implementation of pleasingly built environments in which people live.

Main article: Sculpture

Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving (the removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material, as clay), in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since modernism, shifts in sculptural process led to an almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast.

Conceptual art[edit]

Main article: Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work that takes precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The inception of the term in the 1960s, referred to a strict and focused practice of idea-based art that often defied traditional visual criteria associated with the visual arts in its presentation as text. Through its association with the Young British Artists and the Turner Prize during the 1990s, its popular usage, particularly in the UK, developed as a synonym for all contemporary art that does not practise the traditional skills of painting and sculpture.[6]

Literary arts[edit]

Main articles: Language and Literature

Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary. The noun "literature" comes from the Latin word littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)". The term has generally come to identify a collection of writings, which in Western culture are mainly prose (both fiction and non-fiction), drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, the artistic linguistic expression can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, other forms of oral poetry, and as folktale. Literary arts and creative writing are interchangeable terms.[citation needed]

Comics, the combination of drawings or other visual arts with narrating literature, are often called the "ninth art" (le neuvième art) in Francophone scholarship.

Performing arts[edit]

Main article: Performing arts

Performing arts comprise dance, music, theatre, opera, mime, and other art forms in which a human performance is the principal product.[7] Performing arts are distinguished by this performance element, in contrast with disciplines such as visual and literary arts where the product is an object that does not require a performance to be observed and experienced.[7] Each discipline in the performing arts is temporal in nature, meaning the product is performed over a period of time.[7] Products are broadly categorized as being either repeatable (for example, by script or score) or improvised for each performance.[7] Artists who participate in these arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, magicians, comedians, dancers, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by the services of other artists or essential workers, such as songwriting and stagecraft. Performers often adapt their appearance, with costumes and stage makeup, etc.

Performance art is a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience.

Main article: Music
A musical score by Mozart. About this sound Play

Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their reproduction in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within "the arts", music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art.

Main article: Theatre

Theatre or theater (from Greek theatronθέατρον – from theasthai, "behold") is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle – indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera and mummers' plays.

A ballroom dance exhibition
Main article: Dance

Dance (from Old French dancer [verb], dance [noun], of unknown origin)[4] generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting. Dance was often referred to as a "plastic art" during the modern dance era.[citation needed]

Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.

Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer. People danced to relieve stress.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'kata' are often compared to dances.

Multidisciplinary artistic works[edit]

Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute

Areas exist in which artistic works incorporate multiple artistic fields, such as Film, Opera and Performance Art. While opera is often categorized in the performing arts of music, the word itself is Italian for "works", because opera combines several artistic disciplines in a singular artistic experience. In a typical traditional opera, the entire work utilizes the following: the sets (visual arts), costumes (fashion), acting (dramatic performing arts), the libretto, or the words/story (literature), and singers and an orchestra (music). The composer Richard Wagner recognized the fusion of so many disciplines into a single work of opera, exemplified by his cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ("The Ring of the Nibelung"). He did not use the term opera for his works, but instead Gesamtkunstwerk ("synthesis of the arts"), sometimes referred to as "Music Drama" in English, emphasizing the literary and theatrical components which were as important as the music. Classical Ballet is another form which emerged in the 19th century in which orchestral music is combined with dance.

Other works in the late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries have fused other disciplines in unique and creative ways, such as Performance Art. Performance Art is a performance over time which combines any number of instruments, objects, and art within a predefined or less well-defined structure, some of which can be improvised. Performance Art may be scripted, unscripted, random or carefully organized; audience participation can even occur. John Cage is regarded by many as a performance artist rather than a composer, although he preferred the latter term. He did not compose for traditional ensembles. Cage's composition Living Room Music composed in 1940 is a "quartet" for unspecified instruments, really non-melodic objects, which can be found in a living room of a typical house, hence the title.

Video games[edit]

A debate exists in the fine arts and video game cultures over whether video games can be counted as an art form.[citation needed] Game designer Hideo Kojima, professes that video games are a type of service, not an art form, because they are meant to entertain and attempt to entertain as many people as possible, rather than being a single artistic voice (despite Kojima himself being considered a gaming auteur, and the mixed opinions his games typically receive). However, he acknowledged that since video games are made up of artistic elements (for example, the visuals), game designers could be considered museum curators - not creating artistic pieces, but arranging them in a way that displays their artistry and sells tickets.[8]

In May 2011, the National Endowment of the Arts included video games in its redefinition of what is considered a "work of art" when applying of a grant.[9] In 2012, the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented an exhibit, The Art of the Video Game.[10] Reviews of the exhibit were mixed, including questioning whether video games belong in an art museum.[11][12]

Main article: Gastronomy

Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture and food. It is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking (see Culinary art), but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook is also a gourmet. Gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis. Thus it is related to the Fine Arts and Social Sciences, and even to the Natural Sciences in terms of human nutritious activity and digestive function.

Arts criticism[edit]

See also[edit]

  1. ^ Collins English Dictionary
  2. ^ Encyclopedia of Arts Education
  3. ^ Feynman, p. 10
  4. ^ a b c New Oxford American Dictionary
  5. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
  6. ^ Tate Glossary
  7. ^ a b c d Levinson
  8. ^ Gibson
  9. ^ National Endowment for the Arts
  10. ^ Smithsonian American Art Museum
  11. ^ Barron
  12. ^ Kennicott

External links[edit]


replied to 's question.
Hello everyone. Please let me know .... Which of the following is correct? A. It's essential that everyone should be here on time. B. It's essential that everyone be here on time . C. It's essential that everyone is here on time. ?
sunny123I meant the more Ps, the better...
Should it be like the following?

A. It's essential that everyone should be here on time. PPP
B. It's essential that everyone be here on time. PPPPP
C. It's essential that everyone is here on time. P
D. It's essential for everyone to be here on

 Thank you CalifJim. Is there anyone here in this site to know how to type "check mark" here in English forum"?
sunny123how to type "check mark"
There is no true check mark that I can find. You'll have to use the "square root" symbol. (√)
Click on the Ω button in the reply box and choose the second symbol in the 4th row.
replied to 's question.
Hello, what is the difference between up to and upto? I have looked up these things in dictionaries but I couldn't find any results. Would you like to help me please?
  I think so. Actually, I'm a new member of this site. I want to get in touch with you people. I'm totally bewildered to resolve this problem. I saw this on different sites but there was no way to sort out this matter.
 Yes, I was actually confused about it. I am a new one here. So I wanted to know about this site wholly.
Maqsood AhmedI wanted to know about this site
It seems you already know how to ask a question and how to reply to a post, so that's all you need to know. You might want to explore a little on your own by reading questions and answers that are already on the site.
replied to 's question.
Does "naturalizing" in the following contexts imply "making natural and common" and can I replace it with "embodying" ? Contexts: Being forced to engage with otherness beyond our defined boundaries of selfhood in fact has a civilising effect on ...
I wouldn't use 'embody' there. To embody something means to devote most of your being to it, but the writer is describing only one feature of city life,
Your first definition - to make natural or common - is good. The simplest phrases are ...
replied to an anonymous question.
Diesen "Frieden" scheint es wohl leider nicht mehr zu geben. If there is someone who knows German, can you please translate this into English?
 Google 'translate' doesn't help a lot.
This peace" no longer seems, unfortunately, probably give. (nonsense)
asked a question.
Hello everyone. How can I type "check mark" here in English forum site?
Show more
Check out our Medical English site for doctors and nurses.

Malta Sprachreisen, Elanguest

Elanguest English School in Malta.

Learn Spanish in Chile

Estudiar Ingles en malta

Vocabulary Builder

English Courses in Malta

Amazing new site helps you find cheaper English language courses in Malta


Semiotics, Compassion and Value-Centered Design

The Dalai Lama argued in Ethics for the New Millenium that:

This may be based in mirror neurons, which respond to specific gestures in others.
Clearly, empathy and compassion are inhibited by preconceptions and prejudices.

Arguments against rule based ethics are similar to arguments against reductionism:

But rules are valuable as guidelines, as with design.

Problems arise when rules are seen as universal principles.

Human nature is sufficient for ethical behavior, if sufficiently refined.

Groundlessness is a ground for authentic behavior, including genuine ethics, and effective, creative design.

Indeed, effective behavior cannot be separated from ethical behavior.

Ethnomethodology says members apply concepts and methods to account for events in social context.

This is accountability; it expresses group values by highlighting some aspects and downplaying others.

Information emerges interactively through accountability in real situations:

Groups, values, and information are coemergent, in that each produces and sustains the others: Values are a necessary presupposition of analysis, because members' accounting, based on shared values, renders their concepts and methods visible to analysts.
But how does a working designer (or manager, or systems analyst) actually discover values?

Methods include the following:

The following case studies have been done:
  1. value-based requirements analysis for small corporate recruitment firm;
  2. values in database interfaces; and
  3. values in mathematical proofs.
These confirm that the method seems promising.

   BACK       NEXT


Dots-N-Lines (Connect the dots

Also, we have many different game modes to connect the dots, and 3 difficulty settings (very easy, easy and normal)

Keywords: Kids, Educational, Child, Children, Games, Preschool, School, Kindergarten, Preschool-aged, Connect, Dots, Cognitive Skills, Visual Spatial Skills, Tactile Skills, Fine Motor Skills, ABC, 123, preschool, kindergarten, kid, unir, puntos,drawing, pastime

Tags: connecting the dots pictures for cognitive ability , lines connect the game , java script for connecting dots with lines


Bizenyaki Daily Use

Kibido Kiln Inside

The secret lies in the unique firing process. Thousands of pieces of pottery are loaded into several chambers of 'Noborigama', traditioanl style climbing kiln built on a slope.

Kibido Firing

It typically takes 8 to 20 days of nonstop firing to complete, reaching the maximum temperature of 2,350 degrees Farenheit. Up to 20,000 pounds (10 tons) or more of locally grown red pinewood are used to fuel the firing. This firing process combined with superior local clay brings out the rich, vibrant colors and unique individuality in each piece of Bizen pottery.

Bizen pottery uses no glaze, no chemicals and no arificial coloring. All colors are produced naturally inside the kiln during its firing. While the exact colors and patterns cannot be predicted, employment of different techniques and careful placement of each piece help to create the desired effects:

Bizenyaki Goma

Bizenyaki Sangiri

'桟切り (SANGIRI)' - When a piece comes in contact with burning embers and gets partially buried in the ashes, it gets only indirect fire and poor air circulation, causing reduction firing. It creates a wide array of beautiful colors on the surface.

Bizenyaki Korogashi

'転がし (KOROGASHI)' - ‘Korogashi’ is a piece that is laid on its side on the ground inside the kiln supported by a few pieces of fire clay. It often gets completely buried in the ashes, creating predominantly grayish colors and rough textures. The spots from the fire clay leave distinctive marks. Due to the close proximity to the pine wood being thrown into the kiln during firing, it is often difficult to preserve the integrity of the piece.

Bizenyaki Botamochi


This text was written by myself (Daniel Goscomb) for, and to be primarily published on www.dcode.net. All content is copyright 2003 dcode Limited. For more information on dcode's products and services please click here to go to our website.

  1. Introduction
  2. OWASP Background
  3. The List
  4. The Discussions
    1. Unvalidated Parameters
    2. Broken Access Control
    3. Broken Account and Session Management
    4. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Flaws
    5. Buffer Overflows
    6. Command Injection Flaws
    7. Error Handling Problems
    8. Insecure Use of Cryptography
    9. Remote Administration Flaws
    10. Web and Application Server Misconfiguration
  5. Conclusion

1. Introduction

This paper aims to take the OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project) Top 10 and discuss these vulnerabilities/flaws in relation to the Perl programming language.

From reading this paper people should become more aware of these flaws and also have at least a basic understanding of how they can be prevented from entering their Perl applications.

To do this each of the OWASP Top 10 list will be taken and the potential problems applicable to Perl will be discussed, and then a proposed solution to the problem will be given, using examples where appropriate.

2. OWASP Background

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is an Open Source community project staffed entirely by volunteers from across the world. The project is developing software tools and knowledge based documentation that helps people secure web applications and web services. Much of the work is driven by discussions on the Web Application Security list at SecurityFocus.com.

For further information please see http://www.owasp.org

3. The List

The following is the list taken from the OWASP website.

A1 - Unvalidated Parameters

A2 - Broken Access Control

A3 - Broken Account and Session Management

A4 - Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Flaws

A5 - Buffer Overflows

A6 - Command Injection Flaws

A7 - Error Handling Problems

A8 - Insecure Use of Cryptography

A9 - Remote Administration Flaws

A10 - Web and Application Server Misconfiguration

4. The Discussions

4.1 Unvalidated Parameters

Unvalidated parameters can cause large problems in the way an application processes data. If a parameter is not validated to see if it contains the correct amount and format of data, it means an attacker could potentially inject code in to these parameters. If the application is written incorrectly later down the line, this code could then be executed with the system privileges of the user that the application was executed with.

Parameter validation is, in theory, the primary line of defense within an application. If corrupt data cannot be inputted, it can not be used within the program. Therefore careful planning, consideration and testing should be taken when implementing this part of an application.

A number of developers will use java-script form validation functions. These are all well and good, as long as they are also backed up with validation within the application. Java-script is presented in full to the user's browser and can therefore be modified, or turned off completely. In other words, it can be by-passed and rendered completely useless.

Perl has a number of ways to collect data from HTML forms via GET or POST requests to the application. The two most commonly used are CGI.pm and the generic routine which turns the buffer in to a hash of name/value pairs. Neither of these does any parameter checking, as they are written for a wide variety of uses, and expect users to write their own validation routines in to their applications. As such, one can not be content with just using one of these methods and data must be validated using custom written routines. If thought about, the developers are the only ones who know what data should be accepted in to a specific application, how would the developers of CGI.pm know?

The best way to validate data in Perl is to use regular expressions. If not familiar with these a good book on the subject is the O'Reilly book, "Mastering Regular Expressions" (ISBN 1-56592-257-3). This is a very good resource for both beginner and accomplished coders, and provides information about a number of programming languages as well as Perl.

Below are a number of examples of how data validation with regular expressions will close some holes in applications.

Example 1 - SQL Injection

Imagine an application provides a form, to allow users to log-on to the application, that submits data to the application which looks up the user's details in an SQL database. There would most likely have a user name and a password field.

If there was no validation on the form the user could input anything he wishes in to those fields, which in turn would be sent to the application. If the application was using a badly written SQL statement to verify that the user name and password matched, such as (where $user and $password are the values of the fields inputted in to the form):

The user could potentially enter their password incorrectly to make SQL drop a table. Such a form entry would be:

If this code was executed, the entire user database would be lost. If the input was validated not to allow certain dangerous characters (such as ; in the case of SQL) then this query would not have been executed.

In this case, the application should have designed with the rule that the ; character should not be allowed in any user-inputted data that would interact with an SQL database. An even better thing to do is to specify what characters are available in each case, for example a-zA-Z0-9 for a password. If this was the case this attack could have easily prevented this with the following snippet of code:

Another way of patching this problem is by writing the SQL query properly using the DBI interface as its meant to be used.

Example 2 - File Handles

Another area where input validation is helpful is when working with files, more to the point the open() function, when the name of the file is taken in full or part from user input.

In the same methods as before, users could enter information to a form field which would be passed to the application. Say the entire filename was taken from a form input field and used in the code as such (where $file is from user input, and file should be opened as read-only):

Now, if the user were to enter something such as:

That file would be opened as a new file, erasing all data from the file. This, of course, is permissions permitting.

As well as validating the form input this can be avoided by ALWAYS specifying the mode you wish to open a file in. So the above code should be re-written as such:

This will make sure that no matter what is in the $file variable, it will always be opened in read-only mode.

As can be seen above, input validation is a very easy, powerful and useful technique to use. It should be written in to all applications whether they are complicated or not. This will help prevent someone exploiting an application. Beware, however, that it is not the be all and end all of application security!

4.2 Broken Access Control

Broken access control is when a user is authenticated but can then access parts of an application which they do not have the privileges to. The common fault here is when the application restricts access to certain areas through a obscurity method, e.g. only printing links to certain areas, while others are hidden unless a certain user is logged on. Unless the areas that are not shown in these links have their own access controls, a user of the application could easily access them by typing the URL in to their browser.

The best way to prevent this is by using sessions. Each time a page is loaded from the application the user's session should be checked and also their access rights to that particular area should be verified. If they are not authorised to access that area then an error message should be given and the application should terminate. This effectively means a user is authorised every time they click or load a page.

A number of considerations should be made when coding such a system. The main one of these is data security. Session information should not be easily predictable and should be tied to an IP address to reduce the possibility of session hi-jacking. Never should only one piece of information be used to authenticate the user, passing in just the user name would make it easy for someone to masquerade as another user as they only need this one piece of information, which could be readily available on some systems (such as forums).

To enable proper access control a method to track sessions will be needed. The most secure way of doing this is to hold session information on the server (in an SQL table for example) and set a session cookie with a limited amount of information contained in it, that can be matched with the information stored on the server each time it is passed back. Relying on the client to hold all session information is obviously a risk due to the fact that the data can be tampered with. To add increased security cookies should be encrypted with something like Crypt::Blowfish.

4.3 Broken Account and Session Management

This also ties in with the information above. Broken account management could be, for example when information on users stored in a database is not protected properly. For example this could be a weak password lookup function which requires little or no information to be used. In this case an attacker could easily find the information for another user and assume his identity.

There are numerous methods to protect against this. One of the obvious ones is cryptography. If passwords are hashed and encrypted then it would be hard to decode this back to its plain-text equivalent. Authentication is performed by using the same functions to process the inputted details and then matching them against those held.

Broken session management could also be caused by badly protected data. For example if pages hold information and these are cached then another user of the system or proxy server could easily read them, finding out details about users. For this reason session management tokens should never hold any account specific information and should ideally be encrypted.

Another type of attack that could be used here is a brute-force on the login fields. This can be prevented in a number of ways. One good one is an automatic lockout after a preset threshold of failed login attempts. Another is to ask for a number of letters from the password in a random fashion (i.e. different set of letter positions each time).

The main point here is data security. There should be no easy way to get to the data used to authenticate users (login or session) within an application.

4.4 Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Flaws

Cross site scripting flaws are mainly protected by input validation as discussed in section 4.1. The major problem with cross site scripting flaws is that an attacker can trick a user or a user's browser in to sending confidential information to them, or get the user's browser to display information which may lead them to believe something about the attacker which is not true.

Imagine the following scenario:

A store of some description is run on-line. When a user places an order they input their address details, etc. in to a form, so the store operators know where to send their order. When an order is complete the operator looks at all the information on a page in their own browser, which displays the address, etc. Now imagine that customer services also use this page to track customers orders and complaints.

The attacker could place an order and in one of the fields enter the following:

Now when the operator comes to process the attacker's order they will see the following:

This, if the operator thinks its a valid part of the software well may mean that the attacker gets a 20% discount... which they are not supposed to.

There are two ways to deal with these attacks. One is to remove all potential code with your input validation. However, this may be inappropriate as characters such as < and %gt; may be valid. In cases such as these, these characters should be converted to HTML safe ones, for example < should be changed to < and > should be changed to >

This is easily done with, again, regular expressions. The simplest of these are as follows:

Other characters can be made safe in the same way. Another way is to remove blocks of <script></script> from input completely. This can be done simply like so:

This will remove anything within a script block completely.

4.5 Buffer Overflows

Due to the nature of Perl's data structures Perl scripts are not generally susceptible to buffer overflow attacks. This is due to the fact that data structures are dynamically extended when needed. Perl keeps track of the allocated size and length of every string. Before a string is being written into, Perl ensures that enough space is available within the string, and extends that string if needed.

That said, however, there are some versions of Perl which are vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks. Most notably version 5.003. All versions of suidperl (now discontinued) built from versions earlier that 5.004 are also vulnerable to buffer overflows. Please see CERT Advisory CA-1997-17 available from http://www.cert.org

4.6 - Command Injection Flaws

This, again relates to section 4.1 (Unvalidated parameters). User inputted data passed directly to system calls which could invoke other commands.

As well as parameter validation there are a number of other techniques that can be used in Perl to prevent this outcome including proper use of the system calls.

Usually when calling the system() function a full path to the program to be executed would be specified and user input would be a parameter to that call. For example (where $file is from user input):

As discussed in section 4.1 this could be dangerous if a user inputted, for example, the following:

Obviously this would allow them to delete any file they wanted (permissions permitting). If system were invoked as it was meant to (i.e. with an array of parameters, the first one being the command name) then this would not be possible as system will only execute the command in the first parameter and take all others as arguments to that command. This could be done as such:

Another way to tackle this problem is to put only the commands used in a specific directory and execute Perl scripts using the apache suexec function with the SAFEPATH variable set to this directory. This way any other program anywhere on the system will not be able to be executed.

4.7 Error Handling Problems

It is imperative that errors are handled correctly and do not give out any unnecessary information to users of the application. A prime example of this is SQL errors. Imagine the floowing error message is generated at some point in the application:

This would give the user a lot of information about the way the system works, especially if he could cause this error all the time by inputting invalid data. He would be able to see the source of the query, therefore he would see all tables involved in that query, and some or all of the column names. For each error the user sees he will be able to collate the data to get a general idea of what the database structure is, and with that information he could possibly use SQL injection techniques to modify it, potentially raising his access rights on the system.

It is common practice to use error numbers and have these documented elsewhere, while also writing a full error message to a system log file for the administrator's use. This way the user will get an error message back giving them no information on the schematics of the application, and if he feels inclined to report this to the administrator he may still do so with a meaningful message.

Some applications will run all their code through the eval() function to trap any errors and send them to the STDOUT (i.e. the users browser). This can be dangerous as, although a small amount, some code can be presented to the user of the application. Some of this code may, for example, contain information such as database connection strings. This means that the attacker could then potentially log on to the database with full permission and modify it as they please.

There is no real need to do this. It is far safer to create an error 500 page on the web server using the "ErrorDocument 500 /path/to/file.html" directive to give a general script error. All information needed on the errors should be contained in the server's error logs. If it is desireable to add extra information to these logs simply print to STDERR in the error handling routines.

4.8 Insecure Use of Cryptography

Most applications will use cryptography at one point or another to store confidential information such as passwords. There are a number of points to take in to consideration when choosing the encryption algorithm to be used. The main one of these is will the data ever need to be read in its decrypted form? If the answer is no, one-way encryption should be used. This means that to authenticate the data the input will need to be encrypted and matched against the information held. However, if an attacker gets hold of the encrypted information they will not be able to decipher it, and therefore the only way to crack it is via the time-consuming brute-force method.

If the encrypted data does need to be read in its decrypted form then asymmetric cryptography should be used. This is the method in which different "keys" are used to encrypt and decrypt data. By keeping the keys completely separate data can be encrypted within the application which can only be deciphered with the private key held by the administrator. The private key can also be protected itself.

Many people will use weak cryptography which can be easily broken. Patterns which are easy to see or mathematically decipher from little information, for example, are not good enough. Once an attacker has a number of samples it should be easy to work out how the calculations are done and reverse them.

Another thing overlooked is the length and randomness of encryption keys. Many people will use short, easy to remember keys which are by no means random and may even be based on dictionary words, making them easy to crack using a brute-force cracker.

Perl has a number of Cryptography libraries available for use which can be downloaded from CPAN (http://www.cpan.org).

4.9 Remote Administration Flaws

Most web applications will contain certain functions to administer some aspects of the application. The discussion in 4.3 is also relevant here, due to the part on session management and authenticating on every click.

Ideally the administration portion of an application should be completely segregated from all other aspects of the system. It should be run from another area, and preferably access should be limited to certain IP addresses, or even better, from local nets only (i.e. use a VPN to tunnel to the machine). Also, login information should be held in separate tables to all other user information.

If this is not possible then heavy authentication must be used on all administrative pages. As discussed in section 4.3 every click a user makes should be authenticated against a user table.

As a further note, it is preferable to run all administration over an encrypted network. For example HTTPS or a VPN with no public access.

4.10 Web and Application Server Misconfiguration

This section is only really applicable for administrators of application servers. The information held in this section is specific to the apache web server, however it may be relevant to other server platforms.

The default configuration of most web servers is not secure, and should never be thought of as such. If the server is compiled with the default options there are a lot of modules in the finished binary that will probably never be used and are therefore only a hinderance in terms of security. For this reason any unused modules should be removed from the configuration.

There are also modules which can be added to apache which are either not in the default configuration (such as suexec) or that are not part of the apache distribution. There are many useful 3rd party apache modules such as mod_security from http://www.webkreator.com/mod_security/. This will add an extra layer of security to web applications.

As Perl is run as a CGI script via the web server it should always be run with the minimum permissions possible to perform its task. Suexec can help in this case by allowing it to be run as a user other than that of the default web server installation. Suexec will also warn of potential security issues due to incorrect file permissions.

Apache has a function which will allow users to run CGI scripts with certain extensions from anywhere in the DocumentRoot. This can be dangerous, especially with allowable directory browsing enabled on the server. People could find libraries for scripts in the same directory and read configuration directives for an application. This also brings up the point that all application configuration and any other files that need not be directly accessed by the user should NEVER be stored in the DocumentRoot but always outside it, preferably in directories not readable by other users on the system (this is especially important if operating within a shared hosting environment).

5. Conclusion

As can be seen here, most of the OWASP Top 10 list applies to Perl in one way or another. Although most of these problems can be prevented by using proper input validation, this should never be the only thing relied on to secure applications. All aspects of security that have been thought about, no matter how trivial they seem at the time.

Developers may not have permissions on servers to secure applications in the way they see fit. The only thing that can be done in this situation is to talk to the hosting provider and suggest that they secure their systems, or move to a dedicated hosting solution, in which one can do all their own administration.


Top 3 Call of Duty Game Versions

Like if this guide is helpful

Top 3 Call of Duty Game Versions

"Call of Duty" is a hugely popular video game series available on Xbox, Wii, PlayStation consoles of all generations, Mac, and PC. This long-running video game series centres on wars, from World War II to modern conflicts. These engaging and immersive console games are first person shooters that you can play alone, with a friend on a shared console, or with other players around the world through an Internet connection. Because the selection is so vast, choosing from among the top three "Call of Duty" games ensures you get the best possible gaming experience.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

"Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is widely acclaimed as the very best of the "Call of Duty" games by fans and critics, alike, becoming the best selling game in the world in 2007. This ground breaking first person shooter features an impressive multi-player suite with extensive in-game variables. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is the first game in the franchise to focus on modern conflicts, and focuses on the turmoil in the wake of the execution of the ruler of an unnamed Middle Eastern country and a civil war in Russia. Players take on the role of a US reconnaissance marine and a British SAS commando. Players do battle across the world, in a variety of locations, including the UK, Azerbaijan, and the Ukraine. The popular multi-player mode features multiple game modes, where you can do battle in co-op mode against a common enemy, play story mode together, or fight one another.

Call of Duty 2: Black Ops

"Call of Duty 2: Black Ops" is available on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Wii U. This particular game is so popular because it is the first in the franchise to feature the use of futuristic warfare technology, and because it offers branching storylines that players influence with their choices throughout the game. Players take on two separate storylines, one set in the first Cold War between 1986 and 1989, and the second in 2025, during the second Cold War. Players take on the role of Alex Mason during the earliest storyline, then his son, David Mason, in the futuristic plot.

Call of Duty 2

"Call of Duty 2" is the second game in the "Call of Duty" franchise, set during the Second World War. During the main story, or campaign mode, you play the roles of four different soldiers; one from the Red Army, one from the US Army, and two from the British Army. The four separate campaigns make up three stories, across 27 engaging and challenging missions.

Explore more guides


A 1.5 X 10^3 kg vehicle accelerates from rest to a velocity of 15.0 m/s in 6.00 s. Determine the output of power in the car in this 6.00 s.

1 Answer | Add Yours

justaguide's profile pic

Posted on

A vehicle with a mass 1.5*10^3 kg is accelerated from rest and reaches a velocity of 15 m/s in 6 seconds. The acceleration of the vehicle during the 6 seconds that leads to this increase in speed is equal to (15 - 0)/6 = 2.5 m/s^2.

The distance traveled by the body during the 6 seconds is given by D = 0*6 + (1/2)*2.5*36 = 45 m

To accelerate a body weighing 1.5*10^3 kg by 2.5 m/s^2 a force of 3.75*10^3 N is required. The work done while the force is applied for a distance of 45 m is 45*3.75*10^3 J. As the work is done in a duration of time equal to 6 seconds, the power is equal to 28.125 kW

The output of power by the car in the 6 seconds is equal to 28.125 kW.

We’ve answered 330,385 questions. We can answer yours, too.

Ask a question


Why Rocks

November 10, 2005By: Mary Winston Nicklin
You’ve got last minute airfare specials, from your specified city of origin, delivered straight to your inbox. What could be better than this? Instead of hunting around on the internet looking for weekend deals, someone else does the work for you! Furthermore, highlights the internet’s overall best travel deals. With this week’s editor’s pick, you can hop down to the recently featured Sivory Punta Canta Hotel for a song. Dominican Republic winter sale fares on Spirit from $98 R/T. Check it out!


Wedding Experiences

beautiful-bridesmaidsWhen it comes to weddings, I have had the privilege of serving as the bridesmaid in 10 celebrations. I have been blessed with good friends from high school and college. Along with the memories of being with them as they became man and wife, come some funny stories.

One of my college friends decided to make her own veil to match her white dress. I will never forget the morning of her celebration. She had planned on the veil being long. When she showed me the veil I thought it was gorgeous. She had attached tulle to a sparkling head piece. As she was ironing the veil to take out the wrinkles in the tulle, she accidentally burned a hole in the tulle. The hole was high on the fabric, and it would have been visible around her shoulder area. She looked at me as she cut the fabric right above the hole. She nonchalantly said, Well, I guess I will be wearing a short veil instead of a long one.

yupAnother college friend was even more ambitious than the friend who made her own veil. This friend decided to make her entire dress and veil. During the rehearsal supper, much to my dismay, I shockingly learned that her dress was not finished yet. The bride calmly assured me the dress would be finished by tomorrows celebration. I was freaking out, yet she was calm as a cucumber.

Photographer-in-Action-0001The following day the photographer was taking pictures prior to the ceremony. The brides mother was frantically sewing lace on the dress while pictures were being taken. The photographer actually made it into kind of a special moment -well maybe just to look back on. They were a great vendor, the pictures were breathtaking!  The wedding videography in Phoenix was awesome and did an even better job handling all the wedding drama

Interestingly, the dress never did get completely finished. Most of it was done, and the wedding guests may not have noticed the blank spots on the dress, but I did.

Bridesmaids-3I have decided my friends are way too laid back. When a bridesmaid is more nervous about the brides dress and the veil, that means the brides are pretty mellow people.


Practical Music Theory provides the necessary tools for inspired music making, listening, and composing. Based on the holistic premise that music is both art and language, yet so much more, Practical Music Theory takes the musician on a journey through historic, yet relevant common practices of composition. Through this easy-to-read text, aspiring theorists encounter numerous examples from music literature, thought-provoking questions, and practical suggestions for implementation.

Practical Music Theory is both a textbook and a workbook, containing an array of exercises ranging in complexity from simple to difficult. Designed for the first one to two years of instruction, it is a comprehensive volume that begins with the basic materials of music and progresses through advanced concepts and techniques. Practical Music Theory expands horizons to new worlds of musical discovery, enhancing the enjoyment of an already delightful art form.
© 2010-2015 Factum Musicae
Contact us at info@practicalmusictheorybook.com
Music as Art, Language, and Life
Because music theory should be accessible, affordable, and applicable, now there's Practical Music Theory
Brian Dunbar is professor of music at Crossroads College and has also served as assistant professor in graduate studies at Hope International University. An active church musician, Dunbar is a seminar lecturer, convention worship leader, and choral festival adjudicator. He has devoted a lifetime to musical craftsmanship, and enjoys sharing the gift of music with students. His enthusiastic love of music is evident throughout Practical Music Theory.


The shrine of knowledge.

Vaibhasika is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Vaibhasika books and related discussion.

Suggested News Resources

Why Indian philosophy is incomplete without atheism
While there are many schools of Buddhism, the four schools often referred to (and refuted) by the philosophers of the classical schools are: Vaibhasika, Sautranika (which are from the Theravada tradition), Yogachara, Madhyamika (which are from the ...
UPSC IAS Main Written Exam 2014: Philosophy Paper I
(b) Explain the epistemological differences between Sautrantika and Vaibhasika schools of Buddhism. (c) Bring out the significance of the concept of adhyasa in Sankara's philosophy to develop his metaphysics. (d) Are the arguments given in favour of ...

Discussion Forum
Place for your opinion


Permaculture – Reconnecting with Nature, Supply Your Own Resources

Bonzai Tree PermaculturePhil Watt, Guest
Waking Times

But this is all by design; and the way in which we engage with our local community has been inhibited by the organisational systems that the majority of us subscribe to without question.

And for what? For a sense of security? Or a sense of community?

In reality, this way of living provides us neither. Disconnected, we have no idea where our food comes from, or where our garbage goes. Our security becomes dependent on the mechanisms of society, providing fuel to corporate and governmental power structures. Because of the State dependence nationalism and globalisation creates, our local communities no longer function as unified inter-related wholes, driving the sense of separation within communities and often leaving its members with few constructive common interactions — a crucial element in creating a sense of comm-unity.

And the result? We work to accept the unsustainable principle of perpetual economic growth, diligently accepting a life of 9 to 5 jobs we don’t even enjoy and willingly sacrifice our natural world to ensure the whole system continues, to the benefit of a small elite group of families.

Consumerism has harmed our collective and environmental wellbeing. Materialism has eroded our value systems and fuelled a cultural existential crisis. Globalization has polluted our planetary and community health. Industrial agriculture is killing our ecological systems and failing to feed the population of earth.

There has to be other ways.

Well, there are. One is called permaculture. This age-old method of living cooperatively with nature is being embraced once again, leading communities toward a self-sustaining future of chemical-free agriculture.

Permaculture – What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Developed for the modern age by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970’s, permaculture has spread wildly throughout the world. The term initially meant ‘permanent agriculture’, however it evolved to also represent ‘permanent culture’.

Permaculture is a practice which can provide most of our resources locally, yet it’s more than just an agricultural practice — it starts with ethics. What is truly right for our individual, community and environmental health? How can we provide the basic needs of humanity whilst doing it in balance with nature?

Then it becomes a design science. Designing permaculture plots includes a process of surveying the local environment, identifying its patterns, decoding the inherent wisdom that it contains, and combining that and other knowledge with technological innovation to efficiently and effectively collaborate with natural systems to provide all the food, medicine, fibre and fuelthat we need. This not only ensures that we survive, but psychologically thrive.

So in a sense, permaculture is an art. It’s an expression of human ingenuity in its most glorious form because it’s the creation of a painting that reflects the way in which humans and nature become one. The external world is the canvas, human novelty is the paint and the human heart is the paintbrush. And no matter where we live on our planet, we can create a masterpiece.

Permaculture Ethics, Food and Communities

An interview with permaculture pioneer, Geoff Lawton.

Geoff is an expert in this growing field. Since the mid-nineties he has specialised in all things permaculture, including the education, design, implementation, system establishment, administration and community development of it across the world. He is a true leader in building a sustainable and healthy future for humanity.

In the video he moves through many aspects of permaculture, including its positive environmental, practical, cultural and philosophical impacts. He talks about the patterns of nature, the diversity of foods it can offer, the values it endorses, the quality of living it offers and the meaning and hope it can give to one’s life:

“It feels like that the meaningful, interesting, intense engagement that you get involved in, that’s very relative to you and your health … expands time. Now, wow! If you could bottle that up and sell it as a product it would be a best seller! That’s what this is. I mean, it has great purpose. And with our online course I get a lot of endorsements … (such as) you’ve changed my life; this has given me total meaning; this has put so much knowledge together I’ve already got in a format I can now engage in; I feel like there’s hope.”

Simply, that’s the progressive effect that permaculture can have on a society that is increasingly suffering.

The Way Forward?

Permaculture has conclusively shown that it can produce quality and sustainable results in any region on earth. It utilizes the local energy – such as water, solar, soil and biological – in the most productive ways possible. It can generate an abundance of resources in cold, hot, wet, dry and other challenging conditions. It has conquered the mountains, the plains, the jungle and the desert, without missing a beat.

This is exactly why permaculture is a system that can easily feed the entire population of the world. Permaculture incorporates the advancements made in sustainable and renewable technologies, while also honouring ancient technologies, such as natural building materials, and works with not against variations in local ecologies. Whilst doing so, it leaves no toxic trace, as it doesn’t require the environmentally damaging oil products that industrial agriculture relies on. It uses natural remedies to deal with the imbalances local to each area, such as flora and fauna pests.

Applying the principles of permaculture also integrate communities. Instead of going to a multinational supermarket to get your food, we go to our backyard and it pick it fresh to cook in our own kitchen, or trade for ingredients that our neighbours grow. All-inclusive community gardens can also be designed as a collective effort for those with limited space, which also serves as a social meeting place and a forum to teach each other and our kids not only what we’re eating, but how to grow and nurture it.

So with a permaculture approach applied on both an individual and community level, basically no one will go hungry and everyone will be adequately housed. There will be little social isolation. Problematic behaviours from disenfranchised adults and youth would decrease. Local economies, based in quality interactions, would thrive, as would the happiness of the people. And our natural systems would diversify and flourish too.

Quite simply, permaculture is a necessary long-term solution for so many of our problems.

As Geoff summarises beautifully, permaculture isn’t just good for the earth but good for the soul of humanity. It can provide the food and other physical resources we need, as well as the psychological and philosophical health resources too. It is a grass roots tool that empowers individuals and entire communities to help overcome a long list of problems that we collectively face.

“(Permaculture is) a connecting system … that’s incredibly valuable to get us out of the problems we’re in, in so many ways. The environment, the people, the social order; we will never have good social order until we design our way out this problem ourselves. No one’s coming to help us, we’re going to have to do this ourselves, together, everybody”.

About the Author

Like Waking Times on Facebook.
Follow Waking Times on Twitter.

  • Jon

    The Geoff Lawton Video shows that Permaculture is much more than home gardening. Well worth looking in to.

Thank you for sharing. Follow us for the latest updates.


Recent improvements in positioning technology make massive moving object data widely available. One important analysis is to ﬁnd the moving objects that travel together. Existing methods put a strong constraint in deﬁning moving object cluster, that they require the moving objects to stick together for consecutive timestamps. Our key observation is that the moving objects in a cluster may actually diverge temporarily and congregate at certain timestamps.
Motivated by this, we propose the concept of swarm which captures the moving objects that move within arbitrary shape of clusters for certain timestamps that are possibly nonconsecutive. The goal of our paper is to ﬁnd all discriminative swarms, namely closed swarm. While the search space for closed swarms is prohibitively huge, we design a method, ObjectGrowth, to eﬃciently retrieve the answer. In ObjectGrowth, two eﬀective pruning strategies are proposed to greatly reduce the search space and a novel closure checking rule is developed to report closed swarms on-the-ﬂy. Empirical studies on the real data as well as large synthetic data demonstrate the eﬀectiveness and eﬃciency of our methods.