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Tag: Asia
Adios, 2020! This year sure has sucked. Speaking of sucking, it's time to pay another visit to a monster we know and love: the venerable vampire. I do try to cover lesser-known monsters on this blog, but seriously, variations of the vampire are everywhere (see here and here and here and here and here). This Chinese iteration is well-known in the East, but less so out here, so I figured we'd give it a shot.
Also, it's hilarious. And terrifying.
You're probably wondering about all the hamfisted word plays on hopping. Thanks to good old rigor mortis, the Jiangshi (僵尸 or 殭屍, literal translation "hard corpse") wakes from its eternal slumber to find that its legs are too stiff to walk. So instead, it makes due by moving around via little, pogo-stick-like hops, arms outstretched for balance, grasping for its victim's face.
Typical Jiangshi attire, sans the mold.
Though that image is hardly intimidating, the Jiangshi's calf power is something to be feared. It can hop very quickly and be on you in a moment. And you don't want it anywhere near you. In varying states of decomposition (not unlike a Western zombie), a Jiangshi is often covered in fuzzy green or white mold. Its nails are long, curved, and black, its tongue wild and impossibly long. Its eyes bulge hungrily from its skull, serrated teeth stretching forward like that of a shark. A single breath from it will kill you dead.
Though often dressed in fancy Qing official attire,* Jiangshi have lost all humanity. They cannot speak and operate on base instinct, ravenous beasts hunting for prey.** Similar to the Edimmu and other vampires of old, the Jiangshi traditionally feed not off of blood, but qi–a person's life force. Though blind, they can sniff the living out, or jump on them by detecting their breathing. Like other vampires, they operate only in darkness, hopping out of their hiding places in caves and other abandoned places to haunt the night.
It's just a hop, skip, and a jump…to DEATH
The Jiangshi was formed independently of the Slavic vampire, first showing up in written records during the Qing Dynasty in scholar Ji Xiaolan's Yuewei Caotang Biji (閱微草堂筆記, c. 1789 – 1798). Ji Xiaolan notes that as with many undead creatures, there are multiple ways a Jiangshi can be created. These include but are not limited to:
Neglecting a corpse, especially if it is left out to absorb the yin energy of the moonlight;
Having a funeral but failing to bury the body, leaving it open for lightning to strike it or a pregnant cat to leap across its coffin;
Death by unpleasant means;
Transmission of the Jiangshi "virus" through biting;
Sorcery; and
The deceased just being kind of a dick who doesn't want to leave this earthly plane.
Quick, grab the virgin piss!
With so many paths to Jiangshidom, it's a wonder the world isn't vibrating under the force of a million hops. Fortunately, just like there are multiple ways to create Jiangshi, there are multiple ways to keep them at bay. Some of these are even incorporated into day-to-day life, like the feng shui convention of nailing a 6-inch panel of wood along the bottom of a house's threshold, preventing any Jiangshi from getting inside (I guess they don't hop very high). My other favorite countermeasures include:
Glutinous rice, which I kept seeing on Jiangshi-warding lists without elaboration. I finally found something that indicates that since sticky rice is used as a way to draw poison out of the living, it can also be used against Jiangshi (or maybe a living person turning into a Jiangshi). No word on how to encourage someone whose main diet is human lifeforce to eat a ball of carbs…fortunately, some lists have it that throwing a ball of rice at the vampire will suffice.
Tacking a piece of paper with a spell written on it to the Jiangshi's forehead. Watch your fingers!
Dropping a bunch of coins on the ground, turning the Jiangshi into Count von Count.
The urine of a virgin boy (presumably in a squirt gun).
Holding your breath.
"Broom." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Bounce, baby out the door
The Jiangshi is fun in its own right, but what I love most about this vampire myth is that it's based–just a little–in reality.
The story goes that the original Jiangshi were created by accident. Way back when, families of migrant workers who died far away from home used to pay "corpse drivers" to bring the bodies of their loved ones back for burial. It's said that for convenience's sake, the drivers would bind the hands, knees, and ankles of a batch of corpses and then animate them with magic, teaching them to hop themselves home. The driver would then shepherd them under the cover of night, synchronizing their hopping to the beat of a drum. He'd ring a bell at intervals, warning the living away from the bad luck of setting eyes on the unholy undead.
You'd think that was a wild story, but it's not far off from the truth. There really were corpse drivers who brought deceased workers the long way home under cover of night. But they didn't (to my knowledge) animate them with magic. Instead, they tied a row of corpses upright along a pole strung between two men's shoulders–one at the front, the other at the rear. The men would then ferry that load. Naturally, the pole would bounce under the weight of all that flesh, giving the corpses the appearance of hopping when viewed at a distance. It must have been almost as much of a sight to behold as would a Jiangshi itself.
These days, the Jiangshi can be found not only on dark roads, but in movies and anime and cosplay conventions around the world. The 1980's Mr. Vampire comedy-horror series ensured their place in our collective memory for generations to come.
That is, if a broom doesn't get them first.
Count yourself lucky I don't come after you with a Roomba.
With all that calf work, how does a new Jiangshi avoid shin splints? Share your theories in the comments below.
*The common depiction of Jiangshi as Qing officials may have originated with said officials' reputation (at least among the Han Chinese) for being kinda bloodthirsty.
**At least, traditionally. Most of what I'm covering here is the more traditional Jiangshi–more recent movies have taken inspiration from your Twilights and such, making Jiangshi occasionally into more romantic, blood-sucking figures. But I digress.
IMAGE CRED: Wikimedia Commons for the Qing official; Anna Toss for the impassioned attack; Steve Halama for the exuberant hop.
September 2, 2020 September 1, 2020 J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment
Content warning: spidey bois.
Let me take you back to somewhere around the year 1000 in Classical Japan. Minamoto no Raikō, legendary commander and warrior, lies suffering from a fever, preparing to die. Noh theatre performances still capture the moment to this day. From Raikō (in translation):
"Oh, life is so fragile. Looking back, it is like a bubble that disappears here and appears there. I float and reincarnate in this world. No one can understand my serious illness, just as heavy as this duvet. There is no one to be blamed for this illness, so I can hold no grudge over it. I have to remain in bed by myself and continue to agonize even while resting."
Various cures are tried, but nothing seems to help. Then, in the dead of night, a Buddhist monk appears abruptly at Raikō's door.
"Though it is a beautiful night with the clear moon, misty clouds suddenly rise in the middle of the night and hide the moon."
According to legend, the monk is strange-looking and large, almost 7 feet tall. Taken aback, still feverish, Raikō demands to know who he is and what he's doing there. In response, the monk berates him, and quotes an old poem:
"My husband will come tonight as the spider's behavior tells me so…"
It's the only clue Raikō needs.
"Did you say the spider's behavior? I see. I did not identify you and now understand that your behavior is like that of a spider, which rudely approaches me."
The monk acts fast, throwing out his hands and shooting out thousands of strands of web. Raikō would be captured and doomed, if it were not for the sword he has hidden under his pillow. He slashes at the monk, and the monster disappears, leaving puddles of blood in his wake.
Familiar foes
From here, the Noh play and the legends diverge a bit, though the core arc of the story remains. Either Raikō or his retainers follow the trail of blood to a cave deep in the mountains, where they find, to their horror, tunnels made of spider silk big enough for a man to walk through. Deep in these tunnels lies the tsuchigumo, the enormous arachnid yōkai, with the face of an oni (demon) and the body of a tiger.
Like so.
A battle ensues. The tsuchigumo offers a fearsome fight, trying to ensare its attackers with silk. When its its abdomen is finally split, an explosion of human skulls (1,990, according to one tale) precipitates thousands of baby spiders. These scurry at the humans and up the cave walls, and the warriors must kill every last one before they can finally declare victory. Once they do, Raikō's mysterious illness is cured, and everything is well again.
But this will not be the last time (and is maybe not the first) that Raikō faces down the hideous spider. The showdowns happen again and again with similar scripts, but different details. In one version, Raikō's servant boy turns out to be secretly poisoning him. When Raikō cuts him open, the illusion breaks, and he finds that the boy has covered him in spiderwebs. They follow the boy's trail of blood and discover a tsuchigumo, dead from the wound Raikō inflicted. In another version, Raikō and his retainers face down an entire yōkai army, headed by a beautiful and mysterious woman. Suspecting trickery, Raikō targets the woman, and when he cuts her the army vanishes and she flees into the mountains. They hunt her down to a cave, where she morphs into a giant spider, rearing back and ready to fight Raikō in her true form.
Less stripe-y, but you get the idea.
Hairy inspiration
So where did the tsuchigumo stories come from? There are no native tarantula species to Japan, though there are plenty of other frightening-looking spiders, and neighboring China and Vietnam have some bad boys that look like this:
…which might have provided some inspiration. These tarantulas do burrow in the ground with silk tunnels like the ones described in the stories. And "tsuchigumo" does translate roughly to "ground spider."
It's not a big leap for any anyone to look at one of those and go "hey, that's heinous. Sure glad it's not car-sized, amirite?" Humans have done just that all around the world. Giant spider monsters are, after all, not unique to Japan, nor are tsuchigumo even the only spider yōkai.
Tangled web of history
But the name "tsuchigumo" happens to have some historical context that casts these stories in a new light. It turns out that back in the day, "tsuchigumo" was used less to describe a literal tarantula monster and more as a derogatory term for the indigenous, earthen-mound-dwelling rebels who dared to fight back against the power of the Yamato court.
Who's the real monster?
One can see evidence of this still even in that Noh play I quoted above. When getting ready for the final tsuchigumo standoff, one warrior comments: "Even a handful of soil and a branch of tree in this land belong to the Emperor [emphasis mine]. So, there is no room for a demon to live." When you look into the history, a lot of the pieces start to make sense. Those that fought against royalty had to resort to underhand tactics such as guerilla warfare, just as tsuchigumo resort to trickery in order to try to best the military might of Raikō and his ilk.
Of course, that hardly makes the tsuchigumo less affecting. It's said that some human tsuchigumo were cut up and buried in separate pieces at Mount Yamato Katsuagi shrine to prevent their grudges from coming back and harming the living. To me, this sounds like precisely the recipe to encourage grudges to come back and harm the living.
So which is worse: vengeful ghosts or spiders with fangs the size of your arm? Some dilemmas are too dark for even a monster blog to decide.
Would a tarantula look better or worse with frosted tips? Share your opinions in the comments below.
IMAGE CRED: Tokyo National Museum for the OG; Utagawa Kuniyoshi for the leopard-y guy; Chris A. Hamilton, Brent E. Hendrixson, and Jason E. Bond for the very detailed tarantula; Brigham Young University for the 3-eyed guy.
April 7, 2020 April 7, 2020 J. M. Plumbley3 Comments
Hey everybody. I hope that you all are doing well out there and are practicing social distancing, washing your hands, and covering your face when you go out so as to not inadvertently kill anyone. I'm writing this in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, at the current U.S. "epicenter" in NYC, and things are getting pretty weird right now.
The news is frightening enough at the moment. So instead of digging into a pestilence monster (too real…), I wanted to share a couple of monsters I've come across on my wanderings through the internet that will hopefully make you chuckle. TO DEATH.
1. The Vampire Watermelon (and its nemesis, Vampire Pumpkin)
A real vampire watermelon with tell-tale "blood spots."
We have the Roma people to thank for this one. Basically the legend goes that if you leave watermelons or pumpkins out for 10 days under the full moon (or around Christmas? Or just leave them in a place where they are in a position to "fight one another"?), they will grow a bad temper and an insatiable thirst for blood.
Vampiric fruits look much like regular fruits, but will roll around and make growling noises ("brrrl brrrl," to be precise). Also, they may attempt to infiltrate your house and murder you. You can protect yourself by going all metal on them and boiling them alive, then scrubbing them with a broom, and then burning that broom to ash. No word on whether you can then use the carcass to make pumpkin pie or watermelon jello shots.
Depending on how long this social distancing thing goes on, I may attempt to create my own vampiric produce on my patio next month. Perhaps I can pivot my talent for making plants dead into making them undead.
2. Gulon the Pooper
Possibly the best image of all time.
Raise your hand if you've been eating more than usual lately. Keep your hand raised if your favorite snack is the flesh of your enemies. Now keep your hand raised if you like to squeeze yourself between two trees to force the poop out of your butt like a Play-Doh Fun Factory Machine in order to make room for round two.
The Gulon does all of the above. It is a cryptid hailing from Scandinavia, where I can only assume it is a national treasure. A notorious glutton, the Gulon is about the size and shape of a dog, with the head and claws of a cat and the tail of a fox. Many dismiss its legend as people from the Middle Ages getting overexcited about seeing a wolverine. I myself like to think that the Gulon is real, and probably an ancestor of my cat.
3. Bakezōri, the sandals that stand up on their own
A depiction of the fiends (sans eyeballs).
Truly, being shut in in a small apartment offers an olfactory cornucopia. Mostly the smells here have been good (like everyone else, we've been baking a lot of bread), but occasionally some less savory scents creep in. The Bakezōri is born of a neglected sandal–arguably the footwear (outside maybe of ballet flats) that smells the worst.
The Bakezōri is a type of Japanese Yōkai in the family of Tsukumogami–household objects that have been ignored for so long by their owners that they take on a life of their own (perhaps this is might be why Marie Kondo is so insistent about getting rid of your old crap). Basically what happens is that the much-beleaguered thong sprouts arms, legs, and an eyeball, and then runs around the house at night yelling nonsense and making mischief.
Come to think of it, this monster may also bear some relation to my cat.
That's all I have for now. Stay safe out there, and keep others safe by going "out there" as little as possible. We'll see you on the other side.
Really, which would win in a fight, though–a Vampire Pumpkin or a Vampire Watermelon? Perhaps I should cultivate both and set up a Produce Fight livestream so as to make a little cash on the side. Place your bets in the comments below.
IMAGE CRED: Ke4roh for the malevolent melon; Whatever 16th-century scholar that took the time to painstakingly paint individual poops coming out of the Gulon; Jippensha Ikku for the sandal chase.
Not someone to look up to: Mikoshi-nyūdō
This will by Monster Meet's first post on a solidly Japanese monster, and I have to say: I have no idea how I haven't written about one until now. I love old Japanese monster mythology for the same reason that I love old Fae mythology: it is both magical and deeply creepy, and makes (to me) an unnerving intuitive sense.
Take the name of this monster for example: mikoshi-nyūdō. Nyūdō (at least according to Wikipedia–if I have any readers fluent in Japanese, please help me out) translates to priest–specifically, a tonsured (read: the fancy haircut with the bald spot on top) Buddhist priest. Mikoshi means anticipation, expectation, and "looking over the top (of a fence)."
Is your skin prickling yet?
When met on a dark road (or a bridge or intersection), the mikoshi-nyūdō will at first appear to be a harmless priest or monk. If you're lucky, you might get a couple of warning signs–the "wara wara" sound of whistling bamboo, the presence of a third eye, or sudden sprouting of hair.
The priest's expression may also be somewhat of a giveaway.
After that, there a set number of ways that the situation can play out. Almost none of them are good for you.
Scenario 1: The signature move
As you come closer to the mikoshi-nyūdō, his neck will stretch so that he reaches towering heights as fast as you can look up to watch him. Typically this will result in you (the victim) craning your own neck or falling back in shock, whereupon the mikoshi-nyūdō will lunge forward and rip out your exposed throat.
Congratulations! You have just become a stereotypical mikoshi-nyūdō victim.
Scenario 2: The staring contest
Say that you're a more aggressive type (or are like me and would stupidly ooh and aah at the presence of a supernatural creature), and just stare at the mikoshi-nyūdō head-on. Unfortunately for you, the mikoshi-nyūdō is much like a Lovecraftian Old One: You can't look at him for any extended period without being struck dead with a fear. So whether you try to follow his towering eyes or just gape at his skeletal chest, you're still lunch.
Scenario 3: Fly, you fools
"I've got the bamboo right here."
Okay, so you can't really look at the mikoshi-nyūdō without dying. Wouldn't it make sense to say, walk around him? Pretend like he's not there? Wrong again. The mikoshi-nyūdō will not like being ignored, and will run you through with a bamboo spear (or two, or several), and then maybe crush you into a pulp for good measure.
Whether you determine that that is better or worse than getting your throat ripped out is a personal choice.
Scenario 4: The attempt to GTFO
See the results of scenario 3.
Scenario 5: Grovelling
There's a story about a merchant who was travelling late one night and suddenly felt unwell. He got off his horse to take a break, and then looked up and saw a figure standing a little way down the road. It was almost 13 feet tall, and its eyes shone like mirrors. The merchant hit the ground, trembling in fear, and the thing ran at him, jumped over him, and disappeared.
Badly shaken, the merchant made it to a nearby house and asked if there were strange things or ghosts around those parts.The family replied, "what, like a mikoshi-nyūdō?"
The merchant made it to his destination, but lost all appetite and fell ill with a fever. He died 13 days after the encounter.
So no, grovelling doesn't work, either.
Scenario 6: Calling the bluff (or, the only thing that might actually work)
"Womp womp."
The only real way to survive a mikoshi-nyūdō encounter is by calling the monster out. If you encounter a priest late at night and his neck starts to grow, look down, not up, and tell him "You lost! I anticipated your trick!" This is supposed to make the mikoshi-nyūdō so furious that he vanishes.
Other methods of pissing him off so much that he goes away include smoking tobacco (to show how not intimidated you are) and calculating its height by a margin (say, your thumb) before he can try to bamboozle you.
What have we learned today? Meeting a mikoshi-nyūdō in the wild is not recommended. All in all, the best policy seems to be to cover and just yell "you lost!" at any priestly passerby.
Also maybe turtlenecks. The jury's still out.
Happy new year! My resolution is to do more neck stretches. Share yours in the comments below.
And you're not going to reach my telephone: Satoru-Kun
March 1, 2018 January 18, 2019 J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment
If you know anything about millennial stereotypes, you know we hate talking on the phone. Nothing spikes anxiety like the implication of someone's choice to call rather than text. Fortunately, internet spawn Satoru-Kun has saved my generation face: thanks to him, breaking out into a cold sweat when your phone starts to buzz may no longer be an overreaction.
Satoru-Kun is one of those CreepyPasta-esque urban legends whose origin is unclear. Sources put his "birth" sometime around 2011. Supposedly he's Japanese, though a Google search reveals that most of the content about him is in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, so do with that what you will. He's not Slenderman-famous, but he's well known enough to have a piece of fan art or two, as well as to be featured by a few blogs and several Youtubers–my primary source material for this post.
Thank you kindly for the perfect image for this post, Maurits Knook of Flickr.
In brief, Satoru (whose name means "to know" or "understand) is a ghost and/or demon who looks like a 8-year-old boy but houses such a repository of knowledge that he can answer any question about the past, present, or future. Ostensibly that's why people risk calling him: to get the answer to a burning question. But because Satoru-kun is a creature of the internet, let's be real: people are calling him for with the hope that his arrival will get them views or likes.
Most content about Satoru borrows from these instructions, which detail how to summon him. The ceremony seems relatively simple, and requires only a cell phone (if you're smart, you'll make it a burner), a payphone, and any necessary change to operate it. But if Youtube has taught me anything, it's that simple in theory does not mean simple in practice.
On second thought, you might want to include a fourth requirement: hand sanitizer. (Photo courtesy of By Paul Sableman over at Wikimedia Commons.)
First, you approach the payphone. This task alone baffled several Youtubers, especially American Youtubers. (To quote one that provides a lengthy explanation of what a payphone is and why they have passed out of favor: "Like, finding a pay phone is nearly impossible, guys.") It does not matter what time you approach said payphone, but if you are a Youtuber asking viewers to "smash the like button," it might serve you to do it at night for the best effect.
Next, insert the requisite coins into the payphone. (This, too, proved difficult for for a couple intrepid Youtubers, but I digress.) Tradition says it should be 10 yen, but depending on what country you're in, yen may not get the result you're looking for. It should be coins, though, and not a calling card.
Now, dial the number of the cell phone you have reserved for this task. Once you have answered your own call, speak into the echoing abyss:
"Satoru-kun, Satoru-kun, please come here. Satoru, Satoru, please show yourself. Satoru, Satoru, please answer me if you are there."
Once that is done, you hang up and then turn off your cell phone. For many, this was a more harrowing trial than the prospect of facing a ghost.
Now the fun begins: within 24 hours, if you have done everything correctly, Satoru will call you back, even though your phone is off. He will whisper his whereabouts and hang up. A short while later, he will call you again, only this time he will be closer.
And then again, closer.
The process repeats until he is in your building, then down the hall, and then, at last, right behind you.
Let us be clear: there is no room for tomfoolery here. You do not hesitate, you do not turn around, and by god (do people really have to be told this?), you do not touch him. You ask your question quickly, listen to his answer, and then stay the hell put until you are 150% sure that he is gone. Do that, and you will survive as a wiser person; you can destroy your phone and move on with your life. Fail, and he'll take you home with him, and by "home" I mean the burning bowels of hell.
Shockingly, Saturo did not show up for any Youtubers I watched.* One (who called using his brand new I-phone…apparently he wasn't on the up-and-up so far as the "destroy your phone after it is done" part goes) did receive a call while his phone was off. It showed up in his call history as a series of red zeros with a call origin of…wait for it…Canada. There was some excitement over this mystery in the comments, though a few pointed out that red numbers simply mean that you missed a call. I did some Googling and found that a number of people have received calls from 0000000000, and when they've picked up have gotten everything from total silence to the Republican National Committee. So not sure if we can call that one a success.
Regardless, the concept of Saturo-Kun is a fun one. The next time I can't decide what to have for lunch, I might just give him a ring.
What sort of mystery caller would get you to pick up the phone? Or is that a line that you would never cross, even when faced with death? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
*One commenter wondered if that might be because they were summoning Saturo in the wrong language. That might be. It might also be because several were aggressively mispronouncing his name.
ENJOYED MAURITS'S FLAMING YOUTUBE IMAGE? FIND MORE HERE.
I do believe in monsters; I do!: "Night-mares" and SUNDS
November 5, 2017 January 18, 2019 J. M. Plumbley4 Comments
I love sleep. I love learning about sleep cycles, the sleeping habits of famous artists, my own bedtimes, and, of course, dreams. My obsession has leaked out a little in this blog: last year we talked a little about the Shadow People, dark figures who show up in people's bedrooms (among other places) when they're not quite asleep, yet not quite awake. This year we took on the Popobawa, a Zanzibarian incubus that was real enough to his community that he caused real damage. Really, I figured I probably hold off on the sleep-related terrors for a while. But then I happened upon this article entitled "Can You Really Die in Your Nightmares?", and…well, this is the result.
First, let's look closely at the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, sleep paralysis is something that is, arguably, even worse than your worst normal nightmare ("nightmare" meaning frightening dream). The scientific explanation for how sleep paralysis happens goes like this:
There are a number of different sleep cycles we go through each night, from tiny wakening periods to light sleep to deep sleep to REM sleep. In REM—that most famous of sleep cycles–our heartbeat increases, our breathing becomes more shallow, our eyes dart back and forth behind closed lids, and we start to dream.
To avoid us acting our dreams of being chased, stabbing zombies, or doing the polka with Captain Hook, our bodies shut down during REM sleep, essentially putting us in a state of temporary paralysis. As we exit REM, the paralysis releases, and we get up, rub our eyes, and try in vain to recall what in the hell just happened. At least, that's how it normally goes.
But sometimes things go wrong. The body gets out of sync, and we wake up (or think we're awake), but the paralysis is still gripping us tight and we can't move or cry out. Right around then is when we start to see things. Hear things. Feel things.
A famous depiction of sleep paralysis/night-mare/terrible time, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Remnants of dreams, surely. That's what Western science would have us believe. But if those are remnants of dreams, they are scary as f***. Because the thing with sleep paralysis—and the things we see therein—is that it feels very much like we are awake. We perceive our room as it really is, we're aware that we're in bed and have just woken up, so it can be very disconcerting to know all this and then realize that there's something standing your bedroom corner.
I've talked before about how I woke up one night to see a tall figure lurch at me from out of my closet—such a vivid experience that I remember it perfectly almost two decades later. But other people with sleep paralysis have had it worse. It's common to not only see and/or sense a figure, but to have it on top of you, too feel its weight, and have the air crushed out of your chest. All this, and you can't scream—can't even move. The experience can last for several minutes, and can be so horrific that language can't express it.
A lot of my research for this post came from looking through reviews (and reading sections of) a book called Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind Body Connection by Dr. Shelley Adler, director of the Osher Center for Integrated Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In what I've read of her book,* Adler points out that while 25-30% of people will experience an episode of sleep paralysis (what she calls a "night-mare", hearkening back to the original meaning of the word) sometime in their life, in the U.S. the phenomenon is "simultaneously very common and little known." This might be because, as she explains, our culture enforces a strict dichotomy between what we consider "real" ("visible, measurable, evidence-based") and "unreal" ("supernatural, religious, unprovable"). We take that "real" and "unreal" things are non-compatible for granted, but that's something our culture has created for us—the rest of humanity doesn't necessarily agree.
Nor should they, according to Adler. It is foolhardy to assume that just because we do not currently have the tools to "prove" that something exists must mean that that something does not exist. Also, things that are "not real" can have very real effects.
A more modern depiction of the joys of sleep paralysis, courtesy of Gerard Van Der Leun on Flickr.
Across the U.S. in the late 1970's and early 1980's, almost 200 people—mostly young, healthy men at an average of 33 years of age—abruptly died in their sleep. Some were said to cry out in the night. Others just went cold. Their spouses and families were stricken; their communities terrified. All of the men were Laotian-Hmong refugees who had recently come to the U.S., but besides that shared little in common. In whispers, they named the phenomenon the Night Terror; people became afraid to go to bed.
The refugees' families often refused autopsies for religious reasons, but the few that did found no pathological evidence to explain why they died. A few showed slightly enlarged hearts, as if they had just…"shorted out."
It's easy to fill in the blanks with your imagination, knowing what we do about how intense little sleep-visitations can be. Adler claims that Laotian beliefs about demons, combined with the stress of being a refugee, might have exacerbated whatever genetic heart problems these men might have had and made their night-mares not just frightening, but deadly. That alone is bananas. But it's not just Laotians that have died.
Check out this article from the American Journey of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, wherein data collected between 2001 and 2006 in Southern China revealed a whopping 975 cases of SUNDS—Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, what scientists call this mystery death in your sleep. It, too, explores the idea that SUNDS might be associated with funky stuff going on in REM sleep, and the breathing and heart abnormalities that might result. Funky stuff like things being out of sync. Like what happens in sleep paralysis—Adler's night-mares.
Genetics, again, could play a part, as could stress, socioeconomic background, and being overworked. But that doesn't change the fact that these SUNDS victims might have faced down something terrible in the dead of night, and that thing could have been the last thing they saw.
We humans face a lot of stressful, frightening things in ordinary life. Their pedestrian nature can be exactly what makes them so scary. So let me offer you the comfort of this supernatural horror, to help you keep things in perspective: in the end, it may not matter whether that monster in your closet is "real" or a leftover dream. He can still kill you.
A nice closing image to leave you with, courtesy of Fritz Schwimbeck at Wikimedia Commons.
Have you ever had an unfriendly night time visitor? One time, while camping, I woke up to find a raccoon standing on my sleeping bag. Share your thoughts on that in the comments below.
* Sadly, I haven't had a chance to read though all of it yet thanks to moving last weekend and an exceptionally heavy workload at my day job. Apologies to Dr. Adler and everyone else.
WANT TO SEE MORE OF GERARD VAN DER LEUN? FIND HIM HERE.
I spit at thee: the Mongolian death worm
February 10, 2017 January 18, 2019 J. M. Plumbley1 Comment
Ivan Mackerle–Czech cryptozoologist extraordinaire–was well-known throughout the 1980's for his work on the Loch Ness monster. But around 1990, his eye turned east, away from wet, green Scotland to the dry sands of the Gobi desert. There was a creature there that the western world had only heard about 50 years before–a species of monster that had never been photographed, and for which physical evidence had never been found, but which the Mongolian nomadic tribes feared and swore was real. Mackerle aimed to find it.
His guide warned him that it would not be safe. Some years ago, the guide said, he had been on a team with another scientist, a geologist visiting the Gobi as part of a field trip. One night the geologist, bored and deep in thought, idly poked an iron rod into the sand. He screamed and crumpled half a second later, dead before he hit the ground. His horrified friends rushed forward to see what had happened, but stopped short when the earth beneath the corpse began to churn. Something heavy and red crested through the sand, and then out burst a fat, hideous, writhing thing: thick as a man's arm, eyeless, angry. It was the olgoi-khorkhoi, the large intestine worm, or, as it was known to the west: the Mongolian death worm.
Juicy!
Mackerle knew the score. The death worm–reported to grow to almost three feet in length–was said to so aggressive and dangerous that you'd be a fool not to flee from it, never mind look for it. It not only spat a thick yellow acid strong enough to corrode metal; it was said to be able to send electric shocks powerful enough to wipe out an entire herd of camel. Indeed, camel and other livestock were some of its main prey: after they were dead, it would lay its eggs in their intestines, baptizing its spawn blood-red for life.
In the 1920's, Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinzabar desperately asked Mackerle's predecessor Roy Chapman Andrews to bring him a specimen to study. "It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death," the minister described. "It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert."
Andrews swept all over the Western and Southern Gobi, but failed to find anything. He concluded that the creature must just be a myth.
Mackerle wasn't so sure. Contrary to Andrews' experience, he was finding that people did not want to talk so much about the worm anymore. They seemed afraid. That just made him want to find it more.
Mackerle gathered enough information to learn that the worm was active mostly in June and July–the hottest months of the year, where temperatures could hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit. He noted that the worm was said to hang out around the strange parasitic plant goyo, from which it might derive its poison. He thought it might leave marks in the sand as it passed–the only warning a traveler might get before it thrust out, bloated, and exploded acid in their face. He borrowed a page out of Dune and tried to summon the creature with vibrations, then with explosions. Nothing ever came. Still, the whispered rumors of the Mongolian nomads infected him–the creature had to be real, he thought. He couldn't stop looking.
He came back in 1992, this time with more cameras and video equipment to make a documentary. Monks at a buddhist monastery warned him to stop. The creature, they said, was supernaturally evil, and should not be pursued. His life was in danger. Mackerle didn't listen. There were too many mysterious deaths, too many second-hand stories that coincided too well. Andrews had failed, but he wouldn't. He was Mackerle, the great cryptozoologist.
Then, one night, he visited the chilly white sands of the Gobi in his dreams. There, at last, he saw the great, red, terrible beast. When he awoke, there were blood-filled boils down his back.
Mackerle never found the worm. Nor did his successors in 2005, 2007, and 2009. Perhaps the creature lived in the forbidden area along the China-Mongolia border, some said. Others claimed it might be a cover-up: conspiracy theories cited a rumor that someone had actually captured a dead specimen, only to have it stolen away by Russian scientists. Regardless of the reason, no one could argue with the result. There was (and still isn't, to my knowledge) not one shred of proof that the Mongolian death worm existed: even with all modern technology, not so much as a blurry photograph.
Biologists argue that the worm probably could not exist. There are no known land animals that can produce an electric shock–that's the domain of electric eels and other fish. They also say that the worm could not actually be a *worm*…something that large would need a vertebrae, never mind some kind of outside protection to be able to survive the arid desert. Perhaps the worm is a misidentified snake, or some kind of legless lizard. But if that's the case, why have we never seen a body? Wouldn't the desert preserve it perfectly?
Some argue that if the Mongolian death worm ever lived, the lack of recent sightings signal that it's now gone extinct. I am not so pessimistic. The Gobi desert is rapidly expanding, swallowing 1,390 square miles of grassland a year on its southern edge alone. As usual, humans are to blame. As the sands creep toward more densely populated territory, other things might creep with them. We might get our death worm picture sooner than you think.
What's the best Instagram filter to bring out the color red?
Have you ever spat into someone's face before? How about laid your eggs in their intestines? Share your story in the comments below.
ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.
Better than Tempeh: The Borametz
September 17, 2015 January 18, 2019 J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment
As the world transitions to autumn, let's take a moment to celebrate this wonderful window between the mad heat of summer and the dark desperation of winter. This week, let's give ourselves a break; let's study a monster that does not threaten grievous bodily harm! In fact, our subject might even help someone, though it is so odd it might also induce an existential crisis.
Let's begin with a poem. This piece, found in Dr. Erasmus Darwin's book The Botanic Garden (1781), describes our unwonted subject:
"E'en round the Pole the flames of love aspire,
And icy bosoms feel the secret fire,
Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle borametz, thy golden hair
Rooted in earth, each cloven foot descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
And seems to bleat – a vegetable lamb."
Take a moment to pause and re-read that last bit there, if you haven't already. Perhaps you've just skimmed the poem and are imagining a lamb frolicking in someone's (apparently chilly) garden, enjoying the odd pepper or uprooting carrots. Perhaps you've read closely, and are wondering why the poem is calling out a lamb for being vegetarian. Unfortunately, the poem is speaking to neither of these things. Take a look at the following picture:
That's one interpretation of the creature at hand. The next–perhaps more realistic–is a little more frightening:
You might ask "what in the good **** is that?"; I certainly did, and so did visitors to central Asia during the fourth through to the nineteenth century. Legend has it that there was a plant there with a bit of an odd flower–one that walks, eats, and bleats. Called variously the Borametz, the Scythian Lamb, and (my personal favorite) the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, this fellow was said to be born from the fruit produced by a particular fern, destined to live out its days munching on the flora within reach. A vine-like "umbilical cord" attached to its belly limited the lamb's range of motion; it could not be separated from its parent fern, or it would perish. Details about how long this cord could reach vary, but once the food within its circumference of it ran out, the lamb would die. Then predators–wolves or, every now and again, humans–could jump on the borametz and eat it. Rumor has it that its blood tasted like honey, and its wool was of the same or better quality than any other, more conventional sheep.
Though this might seem fanciful, tales of the borametz appeared in Jewish folklore as early as 436 A.E.. Back then it was called the Yeduah, was similarly attached to the earth by a stem, and could only be collected if said stem were severed via the use of arrows or darts. This version of the creature had bones that could be used in prophetic ceremonies, and so was valuable beyond being livestock and/or garden. Unfortunately, this version also had a counterpart–the Faduah, a human-shaped type of borametz that would strangle anyone who came within reach. You can hardly blame him for being cranky; it seems that every iteration of the borametz legend involves man taking advantage of the the creature's helplessness, whether it be slaughtering a sheep on a stem, or slicing gourds open to harvest the lambs within.
A number of people have tried to find their own borametz over the centuries, with varying degrees of success. Variations on the gourd-centered legend trickled back from Persia in the 14th and 15th centuries, with explorers trying to make sense of what seemed to be both a living animal and plant. Sir John Mandeville was the most colorful of these adventurers, and is credited with bringing the first tales of the vegetable lamb to the English public attention. Unfortunately, he is also credited with being embellisher extraordinaire. In the mid 16th century, Sigismund von Herberstein presented a more trustworthy, detailed account of the creature to Emperors Maxamillian I and Charles V. He said that it lived near the Caspian Sea, stood two and a half feet tall, and did not have normal blood and wool, but flesh more like a crab than a lamb. This incited other adventurers to look more closely for it, as well; Henry Lee would collect all the legends in his 1887 book The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which would become a sort of bible on the subject. But even with all the hubbub, did any objective observer ever actually find a Vegetable Lamb?
The short answer, alas, is no. It might very well be that the borametz is nothing more than a wildly imaginative interpretation of the Indian cotton plant, or the giant fern cibotium barometz, which also has a fuzzy rhizome that might be interpreted as wool. This makes sense, of course…if the borametz existed, why wouldn't everyone immediately try to plant it in their gardens? It would certainly be one way to get your kids to eat their vegetables.* It's possible also that the creature existed, but went extinct before anyone could get bring back proof.
Or…the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary really was the giant fern cibotium barometz all along…but that fern is not what we think it is.
Sinister.
If you're ever in the forests of central Asia, watch your back.
Have you ever encountered a plant that walked, baa-ed, or bled? What's your favorite sinister flora? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
*Or make them terrified of them for the rest of their lives. Either way, the borametz is sure to have an impact.


With a high percentage of precipitation in the forecast, today's plan was not so much to chase the sun, as to find a place with the least amount of rain.
Word has it that construction of a new trail to Dirty Harrys Balcony had been underway. Unsure of the new trail's whereabouts, we entered via the old roadbed.


A group of travelers, riding on horse drawn wagons, made their away across South Eastern Manitoba following the historic Crow Wing Trail from Emerson to St.Malo (65 km in all). The Crow Wing Trail, also part of the Transcanada Trail, and an important trading route in the1800's, could become a themed tourism package for those looking for a hands on experience of Manitoba's history in the region.
18 invited participants, mostly from the tourism sector, took part in this 3-day excursion organized by the Economic Development Council for Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities (CDEM). The goal: to work out the logistics of offering such a tour all the while looking for ways to make the experience as authentic as possible. Many of the participants were new to the Crow Wing Trail and were surprised not only by its rich history but by the beauty of its landscape.


text:
The Unquestioning Indian: We Did Not Say the Lynching Was Wrong, We Said the Meat Should Have Been Verified First
Why are we believing these rumours?
By SWARNA RAJAGOPALAN
|7 July 2018 9:45 AM GMT
When I was a little girl, my school held assembly for the primary classes on what we called 'The Platform,' an open space levelling the uneven ground between two buildings, with a narrow opening at one end to a similar unpaved space and gate.
As a tall girl with an 'R' surname, I would stand at the back of the class line, as a few lingering parents and other adults would watch us through that narrow opening. Every few weeks, a rumour would circulate about 'kidnappers.'
We would be terrified. Every adult watching kids stand solemnly at assembly—family and caregivers, probably thinking, "So sweet, so serious"—looked like an ominous kidnapper. They all looked evil, and we were ever so relieved to be out of their line of vision, in our classrooms. We were between 5 and 8 and barely understood the difference between robber and kidnapper. We knew to sense threat and we simply responded to it.
Rumours are hardly a new phenomenon. What is new is our willingness to act first on a rumour and then verify. This hearsay lynching culture may be said to have begun with the Dadri mob killing someone because he might have eaten beef (or earlier). We did not say it is wrong to lynch someone; we said it is wrong to lynch them without verifying which meat it was. Right there, we should have known things would get worse. We seem to now be in the middle of a lynching epidemic set off by wild rumour-mongering. But we are still searching for whom to blame. It is surely not us, as we choose to lynch; nor those who started the rumours. We shoot the messenger, and or at least, press for its regulation.
Even as we now debate whether WhatsApp and other platforms can be regulated meaningfully, let me ask another question: Why are we believing these rumours? When the 7-year-old went home and said seriously, "I saw one kidnapper at Assembly today," there was always an adult available to dismantle the misconception and allay the fear. What has happened to us?
Future generations will be struck by the irony that in the age when information is most accessible to more people than ever before, we chose to remain ignorant and credulous.
Take news. We now have news, Fake News, Paid News and Screaming News. It is hard to tell them apart unless that is your main business. We can play 'whodunit' endlessly, but the fact remains not just is it being purveyed, it is also being purchased. Someone is ready to believe fake news or paid news or the news of the loudest person.
Take facts. We have facts and we are told, there are alternative facts. We have now styled our age 'post-factual,' and clever as that sounds, what it implies is frightening—that in this age, in democratic politics, facts do not matter. We know that to some extent this has always been true. We are eager to believe the truths that allow us to be comfortable. For instance, believing in the liberalisation boom and the growing middle class has allowed us to ignore how many people in the new middle class live precariously and how many are still left behind. Not long ago, a strong cynicism about government and politics stopped us from believing everything uncritically. I know I learned to believe that if something was official, it was probably not reliable—datasets, speeches, reports and manifestos were all read with a large pinch of salt.
Now we want to believe. Desperately. Therefore, we appear to have become consenting denizens of a bubble of alternative reality conjured up on the fly by a strong leader who is convinced about his truth. In the story of the Emperor's new clothes, it is the Emperor's delusions you first laugh at, until you reflect on his or her willing subjects—the ones who are too apathetic or too afraid to call out the truth to him. The bubble may be pleasing to the Emperor but it is preserved by his or her public.
Therefore, we believe everything we read and nowadays, we mainly read WhatsApp. It brings the world to us every morning with a variety of cheery and pious 'Good morning' GIFs, followed by the news of the world. This is how we have learned in recent years about the UNESCO prizes for best Prime Minister, about the conspiracies behind Jayalalithaa's death, destructive tidal waves, the contents of people's kitchens and now, about kidnappers and traffickers. I have quietly laughed at people who believed and shared these stories as news; I am not laughing now.
WhatsApp's technology apparently makes it harder to track the origins of these rumours, but in searching for a way to fix that, we are likely also to lose one of its best features—encryption. And what we will still not fix is us and our willingness to believe uncritically. WhatsApp is only the messenger.
That, I believe, is a function of how we learn to learn. Of course, things are changing in small pockets but schooling for most of us has been and continues to be, a place of uncritical rote learning. Faced with large classes and syllabi to complete, teachers ride a bullet train delivering classes to students, unable to pause, linger and engage.
The result is that hundreds of thousands of us learn a great deal, store it in short-term memory so as to disgorge it into an answer paper. We ask no questions; have no discussions; never play what-if and never learn critical thinking. We are argumentative, not in the sense that we like to think through and form our own ways of reasoning about a subject, but in the sense that once we take a position, we will argue it to the point that one of us collapses. There is a great deal of difference between the two. The latter variety of argument is not a journey, it is an endpoint; and now, the endpoint is when someone dies for disagreeing with your position.
Years ago, when I began studying Sri Lankan politics, a historian lamented the fact that Social Studies had replaced History in the school curriculum. I now understand the difference it makes. Not only have Indians not studied history for more than twenty years, even before that, it would appear that we were simply mastering lists of dates. We retain nothing longer than necessary for an exam; no need to understand.
We have come full circle to regarding history as myth and myth as history. When we cannot remember the history of the last half-century, we naturally believe anything about a thousand or ten thousand years ago. Those who rule us, are of us. Naturally, it is getting hard to remember who made which policy, what action causes which crises and who resisted which injustice. No one can challenge what no one remembers any more. And the warning bells die down—you cannot remember what sort of behaviour sparked which disaster or violence; everything is new and we are always unprepared. We are especially unprepared to resist.
Add to this what we are taught to expect from authority figures—sagacity, truth, leadership and benevolence. We believe they know better. We seek their guidance and advice because it is our culture (or so we are told). We know we cannot function without instructions or the threat of punishment. Look at how we respond to any crime—we want the most severe punishment instantly meted out so that we will be deterred.
We believe that we cannot do what is right unless there is a tangible cost to doing otherwise. We do not trust ourselves and yet, we believe in the wisdom of the 'public'—who came up with 'public hai, sab janti hai'? Thus, in our infinite wisdom, like those in the state of nature, we choose for ourselves Leviathan-like leaders who are strong, confident and will lead us even if they have to control us for our own good.
Unprepared, uncritical, unquestioning and gullible. That is us—trained to obedience, discouraged from speaking our minds, untrained in reasoning, trusting no one less than ourselves or more than our governments. Except possibly, rumours and mobs. If everyone forwards something, it must be true, and if everyone is running around with sticks, it must be the thing to do.
This must be the Fifth (or Sixth) Wave of Democracy where the people become a mob and the mob cheerfully surrenders its right to think. I look forward to seeing what my political science colleagues make of it.
SWARNA RAJAGOPALAN

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Colombians demand tough punishments in rape of indigenous girl
by Anastasia Moloney | @anastasiabogota | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thursday, 2 July 2020 21:09 GMT
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators wearing face masks protest in front of a military battalion, against the reported rape of an Embera Chami indigenous girl by soldiers, in Bogota, Colombia June 29, 2020. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez/File Photo
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The soldiers admitted to "abusive sexual intercourse" with the 12-year-old girl from the Embera tribe last week
By Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA, July 2(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Colombians have taken to social media and online petitioning to demand that seven soldiers charged with the sexual assault of an indigenous child receive maximum prison sentences, voicing outrage and concern that justice will not be delivered.
The soldiers admitted to "abusive sexual intercourse" with the 12-year-old girl from the Embera tribe last week and face the possibility of 16- to 30-year prison sentences, according to Colombia's Attorney General Francisco Barbosa.
They are formally charged and awaiting civilian trials.
The case has brought into focus sexual violence against indigenous women and girls that tribal leaders and human rights groups say is invisible and often ignored, especially reported crimes by the military.
Colombia's indigenous groups have long accused illegal armed groups and the armed forces of human rights violations, particularly during the long civil war and struggles over land, which they say are fueled by racism.
Seeking justice in the rape case, an online petition demanding the maximum penalties collected more than 61,000 signatures in a week.
"We must keep pushing for the maximum penalty to be applied and that under no circumstances for there to be a reduced sentence or impunity," said Cesar Augusto Rodriguez, who launched the petition.
Colombians expressed outrage on Twitter as well.
"We're tired of so much violence and so much impunity," tweeted Sara Tufano, a sociologist.
'HURTS US ALL'
The girl disappeared from her rural community reserve in the northwestern Risaralda province on June 22.
She was found later, unable to walk, and hospitalized.
She told authorities she had been sexually abused by a group of soldiers.
Maximum sentences would send a message that such crimes will not be tolerated, said Dayana Domico, an Embera leader.
"They attacked the whole Embera nation, and it hurts all of us," Domico said, adding that the girl was getting care from a traditional healer.
Cases of sexual violence by armed groups or the military are underreported, and no official tally exists, she said.
"There is impunity," Domico told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Many times people don't pay for their crimes," she said, while others are placed under house arrest or given reduced sentences.
Colombia's military leaders and president condemned the incident, and the seven soldiers and three superiors were fired.
At least 118 army members have been investigated since 2016 for alleged involvement in sexual abuse against children, of which nearly 50 involve indigenous children, according to Army General Eduardo Zapateiro.
Of those military members, 45 were fired and the rest face criminal and disciplinary investigations, Zapateiro said at a July 1 virtual news conference.
The opposition says the military fostered a culture of sexual violence.
"They are not bad apples, it's a perverse doctrine that has to change," Heidy Sanchez, a councilwoman in Bogota, wrote on Twitter.
Few cases of sexual violence are solved or punished in Colombia.
Last year, of the nearly 34,000 cases reported, about 15% resulted in a conviction, according to the attorney general's office.
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, the country's leading indigenous authority, has said the accused soldiers should also face punishment under indigenous law.
Colombia's constitution allows indigenous communities in autonomous reserves to dole out judgments and punishments in cases involving tribal members.
Out of Colombia's population of 50 million people, about two million belong to indigenous groups.
Other cases of reported sexual violence against indigenous girls by the armed forces have recently come to light.
One case involved a young girl allegedly sexually abused by soldiers at an army site in the jungle Guaviare province for several days without food or water, local media reported.
In June, Colombia's Congress passed a bill allowing life sentences for convicted sex offenders.
While it is not yet signed into law, President Ivan Duque has said he had not ruled out its use in the Embera case if the soldiers were convicted.
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U.S. protests spur calls for India to wake up to anti-Dalit discrimination
(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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U.S.—In a recent report by the federal government released Friday, the increasingly divided nation was found to have only one thing left in common: enjoying videos in which people fall off things, get hit with a ball or errant baseball bat, or attempt dangerous stunts that end in injury.
While Americans continue to argue about nearly every possible subject, people on the left and the right are still able to join together in laughing at people doing dumb things that result in bodily harm.
"Democrats and Republicans are coming together for only one remaining activity: watching people fall off bicycles, slip on treacherously icy paths, and attempt dangerous stunts while drunk," said a government representative. "The unifying power of people doing stupid stuff and suffering the consequences can't be overstated."
The nation used to at least come together over religion, baseball, and common holidays. But this report found that even those things are less unifying in this tense political atmosphere, with people breaking down into arguments over literally everything—except the pure joy that comes with watching as a kid throws a ball at his dad's crotch.
The science is settled: if you want to unite with family members and friends who disagree with you, invite them over to your house and fire up some compilations of people falling down on YouTube.


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Guardian Angel Vehuel – also known as the angel of elevation. First of all, his name means "The Great And Exalted God". In Judaism, Guardian Angel Vehuel is a Elohim. Therefore his supervisor is the Healing Archangel Raphael. But in Christianity, Vehuel is one of the Principalities. So, his supervisor is Archangel Haniel.
Guardian Angel Vehuel is the divine angel of elevation. He improves the process of elevation towards wisdom. Just like angel Zaliel. And he also brings you closer to enlightenment. He guides you in your meditation, visualization and mantra recitation sessions (see What Is The Purpose Of Mantra During Meditation). Helping you to detach from the material world. Vehuel promotes the journeys to parallel worlds. And the communication with the inhabitants of those worlds.
Vehuel guides you to the spiritual world. And here you will be able to talk to deceased friends and family members. This beautiful angel brings generous and sensitive thoughts and ideas. He fills you with inspiration, diplomacy and altruism. Vehuel is a great ally in freeing yourself of addictions and instinctive desires. He will teach you how to glorify and exalt the true God.
The days between November 23 and November 27 represent the influential period of Guardian Angel Vehuel. Therefore, if you were born in this period, then your celestial protector is the angel of elevation. So, you will be popular due to your talents and virtues. Your aura reflects your great generosity. You inspire others by showing them example. Therefore, you will become their example of nobleness and mercy.
You glorify God every day. And you continuously try to teach others to properly glorify him too. Forgiveness is one of your most powerful abilities. But you are also full of innovative ideas, fairness, intelligence and dynamism. The beginning of your marriage is a period of changes. But the harmony will never leave your family. Your Guardian Angel Vehuel inspires you to always take the opportunities. Therefore, these opportunities will create an easy life for you. Also you are always on point. Never missing any appointment. And this reflects your maturity and nobleness.


The AVF Team travels to Angers to take part in an innovative networking platform for the future of food production.
SIVAL, the world-class trade fair for plant production in Angers, France, invited the AVF to take part in their 2019 fair and introduce vertical farming to its extensive audience. With 640 exhibitors from the material and services sectors, and 24,000 French and foreign visitors, SIVAL is France's premier business and innovation meeting point for crop production professionals.
The AVF team (Peter Lane, AVF Vice Chairman, Ramin Ebrahimnejad, Head of Science & Education, and Kyle Baldock, Head of Communications) headed to SIVAL to meet up with our members Urban Crop Solutions, with whom we shared a stand promoting vertical farming.
While Urban Crop Solutions was the only company solely dedicated to vertical farming, we met with numerous companies who presented innovative products and services for horticulture, including: varietal innovation, soilless cultivation, lighting solutions, greenhouse equipment, robotics, plant protection and more.
In the afternoon of the 15th, we introduced vertical farming to the French audience with technical and promotional speeches. Following the speeches, there was a 20-minute Q&A session featuring Peter Lane, the AVF's new Vice-Chairman. The conference room was fully packed with a diverse range of interested parties, including many students which we were pleased to see. The AVF used this public forum to engage in many discussions about the current state of vertical farming and best practices in the industry.
SIVAL truly is a forum for the future of sustainable food production. Our participation was a success; next year, we plan on returning to SIVAL with an AgriTech Pavilion with numerous start-ups and more physical showcasing of Vertical Farm solutions. Look out for an interview with Nicolas Tsurukawa from Urban Crop Solutions in the blog next week!
Merci to Destination Angers, SIVAL, and Urban Crop Solutions for a great event!


We have all experienced the pain of carrying a huge umbrella in the monsoons or on the days when we think that the weather might get out of hand. Carrying a huge umbrella to work or every time you go out to do the chores is a painstaking task. You can never predict the weather and the people who do not like getting wed sure do need an umbrella as their buddy to keep them safe and protected. However, the standard sized umbrellas need an extra bag to carry and a place to store when you do not need them. Doing this on a daily bases can be frustrating. Sometimes the umbrellas do not suit the occasion or the outfit, and you have to risk getting wet.
The only solution to this problem is the compact umbrella. The compact umbrellas are small size foldable umbrellas that can easily fit someone's palm. These are easy to carry and can fit the hands of every person. They can be carried in the handbags or even in the pockets if needed. They open just as big as the normal sized umbrellas.
However, the technology is such that they do not look as big as them. There is a variety of compact umbrella available in the market. They come in every form and color. Hence picking out the most durable and the perfect one becomes a problem. To solve this problem, we have created a list of the best compact umbrellas in 2019. For more details, read below.
Let us begin from number 10 on our list and on number 10 is the Doryum Automatic travel umbrella which is one of the most sturdy umbrellas that a person can buy. The umbrella has a unique design and is so portable that it can fit in the bag of a person easily.
The umbrella comes in a variety of colors however the black is the most preferred one. The handle has a really nice grip and is even to carry even during windy and rainy seasons.
The umbrella has an auto lock feature which helps the main axis in staying stable all throughout.
The material of the umbrella is unbreakable and also the umbrella provides superior protection from the sun and the rain.
There are eight sturdy fiberglass spokes that make it completely windproof.
On number 9 is the tiny umbrella known as the SY compact travel umbrella. This is another one of the small umbrellas that can easily fit in your hands and can be used to store easily at any place.
The umbrella is available in three colors suitable for each person. There is a handle that makes it easy to balance and hold the umbrella even during the worse conditions. The umbrella is made up of material that makes it unbreakable and long lasting.
The canopy of the umbrella is made of 210 T pongee that makes it really durable and is highly water repellent.
The umbrella is fully automatic and can open just with a button. It easily open and close even if you are sitting in a car.
The manufacturers give a satisfaction guarantee on the umbrella to all the users.
On number 8 of the list of the best compact umbrellas of 2019, we have the Vera Umbrella. This is one of the most stylish umbrellas in our list and can use by men and women.
The umbrella comes with a lot of pretty colors and designs on the canopy. The handle is also designed with silver detailing on it. The handle is also ergonomically designed to fit perfectly in the palm of the holder.
The umbrella has a really strong metal frame that keeps it sturdy even during the high windy days.
The canopy is made with a waterproof material, and even during the heavy rains, the water does not enter inside.
Number 7 on the list of the top 10 best compact umbrellas is the Benkii double canopy umbrella. This is one of the most sturdy umbrellas one can find in the market.
The umbrella comes in a lot of colors however the black is the most preferred ones. The umbrella comes with a lifetime guarantee and is really small in size when it is folded. The handle is easy to grip and stays firm in hand.
It comes with a sleeve that is thick that can be used to keep the water inside even if you keep the wet umbrella inside.
The umbrella has a push button that is used to open it, and you can easily close the umbrella.
The metal frame on the umbrella keeps it steady and sturdy even during high winds and bad weather.
Next on our list is an umbrella from Travella that is their compact black travel umbrella. The umbrella is completely waterproof and can use by adults as well as children.
The black color of the umbrella makes it suitable for all occasions, and its lightweight helps the users in carrying it around. The best part about the umbrella is that it might look really small when it is closed. However, it opens up to the full size.
The canopy of the umbrella is waterproof and can use even during the heaviest rains.
The frame is made up of metal and hence holds the umbrella really firm even during high winds.
The push button easily opens up the umbrella, and the closing can be done by giving it a gentle push.
Number 5 on our list of the top 10 compact umbrellas is the Bodyguard travel umbrella. This is the perfect umbrella for the people who want a long-lasting and strong product at an affordable price.
The umbrella is black in color and can easily fold and keep in any bag. It comes with a faux leather cover that can keep it safe and help it last for a long time. The umbrella is light in weight.
The canopy of the umbrella is Teflon coated making it really durable and long lasting.
The button closure on the umbrella makes it easy to operate with just one hand, and the auto close button also makes it really easy to handle.
The handle is rubber and ensures a sturdy grip on the umbrella.
The umbrella looks really small when closed. However, it opens up to be really big.
Number 4 on our list of the best compact umbrellas in 2019 is this travel umbrella. The umbrella is completely waterproof and does its work in the most efficient way possible.
The umbrella is black in color and is designed to give the optimum comfort to the user. The handle of the umbrella provides a superior grip to the person even during the worst weather conditions. The material used to design the umbrella is waterproof.
The body of the umbrella is made up of steel. This makes it durable as well as long-lasting.
The canopy is completely waterproof and very effective in protecting your even during the worst weather conditions.
Number 3 on the list id the Outdew compact umbrella. This is one of the extremely long lasting umbrellas that can use by all types of people. The umbrella is portable and foldable and fits into any bag compartment easily.
The Outdew umbrella is black in color and design to provides total protection from the rain and snow. The handle design to provide a firm grip to the user and hence makes the umbrella comfortable to hold.
The umbrella is unbreakable and not damage even if it drops from a considerable height.
The canopy of the umbrella has 10 fiberglass ribs that provide durability and sturdiness.
At number two is one of the best travel size umbrella that a person can ever get in their lives. This is the EEZ-Y compact umbrella that comes with a unique design and can easily fold to fit the hands of the carrier.
The umbrella comes in a variety of shades from the black, grey, to white, pink and red. There is a color to suit every need. The umbrella comes with a waterproof cover in the same color that makes it look even better.
The handle has a unique shape with a rubber that gives the holder a tight grip on it.
The umbrella with a double canopy construction so that it does not get flip or break even during heavy rain and stormy weather.
The handle is made of stainless steel and provides a strong backbone to the umbrella.
Repel travel umbrella has made to the number one on our list of the best compact umbrellas in 2019. This is the best of all the umbrellas on the list because of the variety of benefits that it gives to the user. The umbrella is long-lasting, cost-effective and amazing to look at.
It is black in color and has a black handle that gives it a classy look. The handle has a string attached that provides ease in holding the umbrella. The rubber-like material on the handle provides a strong grip and hence makes it easy for the holder to hold.
The umbrella is completely automatic and has a push button to both open and close it.
The canopy has a Teflon coating that makes it easy to dry and also water resistant.
The company also gives a lifetime replacement guarantee if the product gets broken accidentally.
All of the options of umbrellas given above are durable, and unlike the flimsy ones available in the market, they do not break easily. These umbrellas are easy to carry and are available in a variety of colors to suit each kind of personality. A compact umbrella is a must for any office goers or a person who lives in places where the weather is unpredictable.
Buying just any compact umbrella from the market can waste your money because not all of them make of sturdy and strong materials. Hence, take your pick from our list above and get yourself the best compact umbrella that will be helpful for all those sudden rainy and sunny days.


Oral History Victoria Community Innovation Award: open to all community-based oral history practitioners, including freelance workers and professional historians, and members of voluntary organisations and public institutions (excluding educational institutions).
Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award: open to students and staff working in an educational institution.
Eligibility: To be eligible, projects must have been active (in creation and / or production) in 2016 and / or 2017. Applicants must be based in Victoria, though the project may involve oral history work interstate or overseas. Applicants need not be members of OHV, though they will be added to the OHV mail list and encouraged to join. Members of the OHV committee may not apply.
Each award winner will receive a prize of $250, and all shortlisted projects will be posted on the OHV website. The judging panel may award joint prizes and / or Commendations for Excellence to outstanding runners-up. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to make a short presentation about their project at the OHV annual general meeting on Thursday 26 October 2017.
How to Apply: Applicants must email an application as a Word document or pdf attachment, to each of the three judges listed below, to reach them by the closing date, 1 September 2017.
postal address: History Program, Monash University, Clayton 3800.
postal address: OHV c/-Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A'Beckett Street, Melbourne, 3000.
postal address: 32 Macarthur Place North, Carlton VIC 3053.
Can these please be promoted on the website, facebook and among your networks?
The second "Oral History Victoria Ideas and Skills Exchange" will be held on Tuesday 15 August, 5.30-6.30 at The Moat cafe bar (176 Little Lonsdale St, near the State Library). With facilitation by OHV President Al Thomson, this is an opportunity for members to come along and share your current or prospective oral history projects and get advice about any challenges you are facing. Come and join us for an informal chat and a drink. Just turn up at the Moat on the day and ask for 'the History Group' (at our first successful gathering in May the Moat staff got a bit confused about the difference between oral history and orthodontists!).
The OHV Annual Symposium kicked off the Queen's Birthday weekend with an engaging and topical series of presentations. From websites to apps to hard drives, this year's Symposium explored the many opportunities and challenges facing oral historians in the digital age.
History House, 133 Macquarie Street, SydneyFrom community-driven and university-based projects, to the collecting initiatives of libraries, archives and museums, the oral history work being undertaken with Indigenous communities across Australia is extensive.
In this seminar, you'll hear from Associate Professor Heidi Norman, who has expertise in conducting research about Aboriginal land rights, Dr. Dino Hodge, an activist and academic renowned for his explorations of Indigenous Australian queer histories, and archivist Kirsten Thorpe, who leads the Indigenous Services team at the State Library of NSW. The session will be chaired by Kate Waters – an experienced professional historian with expertise in ethical approaches to conducting oral history interviews with Aboriginal communities.
Drawing on the speakers' diverse experiences, this seminar is for anyone interested in oral history work with members of Indigenous communities.
Oral History Victoria President Al Thomson and Oral History NSW President Anisa Puri have had a lot of fun in recent weeks launching and promoting the book they have created using the Australian Generations interviews. Australian Lives is a paperback and an ebook. The ebook is a new type of oral history book: you can listen to each interview extract through an online link that takes you directly to that interview in the National Library online audio archive. OHV kicked off a series of capital city book launches in Melbourne on 22 May. At the Melbourne launch interviewee Veronica Schwarz shared some of her extraordinary contributions to the book in a conversation with interviewer Katie Holmes, and David Astle from SBS Letters and Numbers described the life stories in the book as 'plain and pure, unabashed, confronting and confessional'. Al and Anisa, together with Veronica, have spoken about the book on several ABC radio programs, including Life Matters – click here to listen. The Age published a feature using extracts from the book: click here to read the Age article. Further details about the book available on the Monash University Publishing website, or check out the Australian Lives Facebook site.
Click HERE for Oral History Network News No. 71, June 2017. This issue, the conference lists have been moved to the final pages, but there are still plenty to consider. Good news is that registrations are now open for the September national conference in Sydney – a link to online registration is included here. As ever, there are plenty of interesting events in Sydney and elsewhere to consider, and news of a wide range of funding and learning opportunities. My highlight for last month was attending the launch of the Talking Machines project in Wagga Wagga – check out some of the 43 online videos on the Riverina's rural industry. Below is a list of contents.
Shack Life. The Story of Three Royal National Park Communities, Ingeborg Van Teeseling et. al.
This month's electronic version of Rewind can be downloaded here.


This planer does all that I ask it and more. Boards come out with smoothness and just a touch of love.
Uploaded this pic form somewhere. Really looks like my garage??? Nah, too neat.
I have one. Works well.
On my list, too. And the jointer/planer.
I've had a lot of success with mine as well, but, I'm less than thrilled with the dust/chip collection chute. I seem to have alot of waste shooting out through the entrance end.
-- Skip from Batavia, purveyor of fine and exotic sawdust & chips.
Tiger – Which Ridgid planer are you reviewing? The one in the pic doesn't look like the current model that Verna shows (R4330).
knottscott, this is the older planer that steel city reclaimed from china and added a spiral cutter head. This is the original Ridgid. The orange one in stores now is what i think a better planer 3blades vs. 2 like mine. BTW, I purchased the spiral cutter head from steel city about a year ago. i don't have the stones to take it apart and put it back together.
I am Another happy Ridgid planer customer!!
I bought mine from Home Depot in January for $399 + tax. $189 + tax for the Ridgid gravity miter saw stand.
I bought mine used at an estate sale. 200 beans.
$399 is a darn good buy for the new updated model.
I have an older model with the 2 blade cutter, have had it for years and really like it. I have some snipe but not horrible and it doesn't always happen. I probably haven't run a huge amount of material through it; I'm still on the same set of blades but I have reversed them.


text:
using System;
using LoopBack.Sdk.Xamarin.Common;
using LoopBack.Sdk.Xamarin.Remooting;

namespace LoopBack.Sdk.Xamarin.Loopback
{
    /// <summary>
    /// An extension to the vanilla <see cref="RestAdapter"/> to make working with <see cref="Model"/> s easier.
    /// </summary>
    public class RestAdapter : Remooting.Adapters.RestAdapter
    {
        public static string SHARED_PREFERENCES_NAME = "RestAdapter";
        public static string PROPERTY_ACCESS_TOKEN = "accessToken";
        private readonly IContext _context;

        public RestAdapter(IContext context, string url)
            : base(context, url)
        {
            if (context == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("context", "context must be not null");

            }

            _context = context;
            AccessToken = LoadAccessToken();
        }

        public virtual string AccessToken
        {
            set
            {
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
                {
                    SaveAccessToken(value);
                    Client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", value);
                }
            }
        }

        public virtual IContext ApplicationContext
        {
            get { return _context; }
        }

        public virtual void ClearAccessToken()
        {
            Client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", string.Empty);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new <see cref="ModelRepository{T}"/> representing the named model type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="name">The model name.</param>
        /// <returns> A new repository instance.</returns>
        public virtual ModelRepository<Model> CreateRepository(string name)
        {
            return CreateRepository<Model>(name, null, null);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new <see cref="ModelRepository{T}"/>  representing the named model type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="name">The model name.</param>
        /// <param name="nameForRestUrl">The model name to use in REST URL, usually the plural form of `name`.</param>
        /// <returns>A new repository instance.</returns>
        public virtual ModelRepository<Model> CreateRepository(string name, string nameForRestUrl)
        {
            return CreateRepository<Model>(name, nameForRestUrl, null);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new <see cref="ModelRepository{T}"/> representing the named model type.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="T">The model type that inherited from <see cref="Model"/>.</typeparam>
        /// <param name="name">The model name.</param>
        /// <param name="nameForRestUrl">The model name to use in REST URL, usually the plural form of `name`.</param>
        /// <param name="modelClass">modelClass The model class. The class must have a public no-argument constructor.</param>
        /// <returns>A new repository instance.</returns>
        public virtual ModelRepository<T> CreateRepository<T>(string name, string nameForRestUrl, Type modelClass)
            where T : Model
        {
            var repository = new ModelRepository<T>(name, nameForRestUrl, modelClass);
            AttachModelRepository(repository);
            return repository;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new <see cref="ModelRepository{T}"/> from the given subclass.
        /// </summary>
        /// <typeparam name="TRepository">A subclass of <see cref="RestRepository{T}"/> to use. The class must have a public no-argument constructor.</typeparam>
        /// <typeparam name="T">The model calss that inherited from <see cref="Model"/></typeparam>
        /// <returns>A new repository instance.</returns>
        public virtual TRepository CreateRepository<TRepository, T>()
            where TRepository : RestRepository<T>, new()
            where T : RemoteClass
        {
            TRepository repository;
            try
            {
                repository = new TRepository
                {
                    Adapter = this
                };
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                var ex = new ArgumentException("", e);
                throw ex;
            }

            AttachModelRepository(repository);

            return repository;
        }

        private void AttachModelRepository<T>(RestRepository<T> repository) where T : RemoteClass
        {
            Contract.AddItemsFromContract(repository.CreateContract());
            repository.Adapter = this;
        }

        private void SaveAccessToken(string accessToken)
        {
            //TODO: SharedPreferences
        }

        private string LoadAccessToken()
        {
            //TODO: SharedPreferences
            return null;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Programming an Arduino for RF transmission I am working on a project where I am sending numbers via serial port to an RF transmitter. On the other side, the receiver is attached to an Arduino. The Visual Basic program is sending numbers and the Arduino program is meant to receive these numbers and use them to control a motor. (We need a PWM signal for the motor) However, for some reason, the Arduino program is not receiving the number right and hence the motor is not functioning as required. I have tried to send a number to the PC from the Arduino but I only receive garbage. These are the transmitter and receiver I am using:
http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/344352/KYL/KYL-210.html
Do I have a problem with the type of values the transmitter and receiver are sending? Or would it be a problem from the Arduino program?
Here is the program:
int i = 0;

int MLmosfet1_4 = 10;
int MLmosfet2_3 = 12;

int MRmosfet1_4 = 2;
int MRmosfet2_3 = 5;

void setup()
{
  pinMode(MLmosfet1_4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(MLmosfet2_3, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(MRmosfet1_4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(MRmosfet2_3, OUTPUT);

  Serial.begin(9600); // This opens serial port
                      // and sets data rate at 9600 bps
}

void loop()
{
  byte record[2] = {0};
  byte state = 0;
  byte currentState = 0;

  if (Serial.available()) // check if data has been sent from the computer
  {
    state = Serial.read(); // reads the most recent byte (from 0 - 255)

if(i % 2 == 0) // THIS PART CHECKS WERE TO FILL IN ARRAY SO AS TO HAVE MEMORY EFFECT
{
  record[0] = state;
}

else
{
  record[1] = state;
}

if (state>=0 && state <=63) //forward
{
  currentState = state * 4; //0 - 252

  analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, currentState); //steady 5V
  analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V

  analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, currentState); //steady 5V
  analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V
}

else if (state>=64 && state<=127) //reverse
{
  currentState = (state-64)*4; //0 - 252

  analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
  analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, currentState); // steady 5V

  analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
  analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, currentState); // steady 5V

}

else if(state>=128 && state <=191) //left
{
  currentState = (state - 118); //input will be 10 - 73

  if(i % 2 == 0)
  {
    if (record[1] >=0 && record[1] <=63) //previous action was move forward
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, currentState); //approx 25% duty cycle
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, record[1]); //keeps previous forward speed
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V
    }

    else //means that previous action was reverse
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, currentState); // approx 25% duty cycle

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, record[1]); // keeps previous reverse speed
     }
  }

   else // i  is odd, therefore we have to read from reord[0]

   {
    if (record[0] >=0 && record[0] <=63) //previous action was move forward
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, currentState); //approx 25% duty cycle
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, record[0]); //keeps previous forward speed
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V
    }

    else //means that previous action was reverse
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, currentState); // approx 25% duty cycle

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, record[0]); // keeps previous reverse speed
     }
   }
}

else if(state>=192 && state <=255) //right
{

  currentState = (state - 118); //input will be 10 - 73

  if(i % 2 == 0)
  {
    if (record[1] >=0 && record[1] <=63) //previous action was move forward
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, record[1]); //keeps previous forward speed
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, currentState); //approx 25% duty cycle
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V
    }

    else //means that previous action was reverse
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, record[1]); // keeps previous reverse speed

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, currentState); // approx 25% duty cycle
     }
  }

   else // i  is odd, therefore we have to read from reord[0]
   {
    if (record[0] >=0 && record[0] <=63) //previous action was move forward
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, record[0]); //keeps previous forward speed
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, currentState); //approx 25% duty cycle
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, 0); // 0V
    }

    else //means that previous action was reverse
    {
      analogWrite(MLmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MLmosfet2_3, record[0]); // keeps previous reverse speed

      analogWrite(MRmosfet1_4, 0); // 0V
      analogWrite(MRmosfet2_3, currentState); // approx 25% duty cycle
    }
   }
}

i++;
  }
}

A: You can test the transmitter and the receiver by connection one of them to the PC (using the RS232 interface) and the other one to the arduino pin 0 Rx and Tx (using the TTL interface). once you hooked it up, connect the arduino to a power supply, open the arduino IDE, and set that the arduino connected to COM port 1(the serial interface on the mother board). just try to run one of the examples and see if it work.
NOTE that the interfacing method is very impotent, the arduino using TTL and the PC works with RS232, according to the datasheet it should be set by somesort of jumper, Am i right?

A: I would first debug the connection without any code
Connect both the RF RX and RX to a pc use putty or any other terminal to connect to both come ports, type some text on the TX terminal and look what comes out in the RX terminal.
If this works connect the RX to the arduino and use a terminal to send data to it.
If now your arduino is working then its the VB that has an error, if it is not working then the arduino code has a problem.
Most often these RS232 problems are with the baud rate settings of the COM port in the software. make sure both sides are set to the same Baudrate be sure to check the VB code that the data rate is set to 9600 just as on the arduino.

A: I would use a simple program to light up LED's to see if the issue is not with the motor code.
Also shouldn't you be checking if (Serial.available() > 0)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Physio doubts Alonso set to retire
Fernando Alonso's long-time physio does not think the Spaniard is shaping up to quit formula one.
Alonso, 35, is set to begin the last season on his current McLaren-Honda contract, and has warned that unless 2017 is more enjoyable he could hang up his F1 helmet.
But Fabrizio Borra, the two-time champion's ever-present physio and co-trainer, told Spanish radio Cadena Cope: "I do not see a Fernando who thinks this may be his last season in formula one.
"He is working very hard, as he did in his early years. I see him very calm and motivated," Borra explained.
McLaren boss Zak Brown is playing down the prospect of race wins this year, but Borra said the Alonso crew always prepare for each season the same.
"We always get to the first test convinced that the year will be positive," he said. "The mental focus is the same as when fighting for the title.
"He is training for about six hours a day," Borra revealed.
"For the younger drivers, the physical preparation changes a lot, but not so much for the veterans. Fernando has a plan similar to the one he has done since he made his debut.
"The cars he started with were physically more demanding even than we will see in 2017, even if the speed in corners this year will require more from the drivers than we have seen in recent seasons," he said.
Other stories for FEBRUARY 13, 2017
ALONSO NOT BACKING BROWN'S NO WINS CLAIM
NO BLUFFING IN 2017 TEST SEASON SAYS LAUDA
MERCEDES TO CONSIDER VETTEL FOR 2018 SAYS ROSBERG
BOTTAS TARGETS BEATING HAMILTON TO 2017 TITLE
GIOVINAZZI NOT DENYING FRIDAY PRACTICE RUMOURS
MAGNUSSEN ADMITS HE VOTED AGAINST HALO FOR 2018
DALLARA HITS OUT AT F1'S RADICAL NEW RULES